I flew into Boston last night. Now I'm in Connecticut, but I spent the night in my old Freeman Street apartment in Brookline. It was a surreal experience. There's my old room. There's my old bathroom. Hey, there's my old thing of Victoria's Secret hand lotion!

Katie and Heather and I had Indian food in Coolidge Corner. I was sorry to see that the Daily Bread Bakery is gone, replaced by a Quizno's. But the Brookline Booksmith is still there.

There's an action-packed week ahead, with visits with Jen, Debbie and her baby, girl time with Heather et al and helping Todd move into and assemble his new Salem condo on the agenda. Akhil flies in Saturday for the long weekend, and we'll be dining chez Kendra and John in Framingham Saturday night.

Actually we went to Saladang Song for Thai food which had better ambience and outdoor seating. Here is Akhil with his cake, though we didn't eat it last night because we had sweet sticky rice and mango for dessert instead.


Saladang is great because the food is sort of funky and authentic yet you don't have to worry about the safety of the raw vegetables. We got our usual spicy asparagus & chicken salad and the duck noodles. Akhil felt compelled to tell our Thai waitress about his weird experiences in Thailand like the time he almost got conned into buying "sapphires" on the way to a Thai boxing match. But he didn't.

Gotta go, as I'm busily trying to get some freelance work done by Friday!

Happy Happy 36th Birthday to Akhil! To celebrate I am taking him to Cafe Bizou tonight even though he says he already ate too much cake at work today. Next Monday I am flying to Boston for a week to help Todd move into his new place and visit some friends before Akhil joins me there on Memorial Day weekend. Todd asked me to think about window treatments. I have never purchased a window treatment but I think we're about to do so next week. If I can't furnish my own place, at least I can help furnish my brother's! Also hoping to meet the Mini-Deb - Samantha looks exactly like her. Maybe we'll post some photos from the NE.

After I got my Civic fixed at the dealer today (Honda issued a recall for headlight wiring), I drove out to Santa Monica, enjoyed the view as I walked amid the homeless lying in the sun on Ocean Blvd., and browsed the shops at 3rd St. Promenade. Then I did what no jobless person should do in good conscience - I bought a three-dollar latte at Starbucks. Bad me! Trying to find a balance between being responsibile and not killing yourself for boredom when you've been out of work four months is harder than it looks. My punishment was the hour and forty-minute drive home on the 10 freeway.

But let's put things in perspective. The news I listened to on NPR en route to Glendale was, in typical form, horrifying. It is really pretty incredible that for me and for most of the people I know, things are as good as they are. So I am going to try to stop complaining so much.

CONGRATULATIONS are in order for Debbie and Justin on the arrival of Samantha Jean Harris!!! She was born April 22, weighing in at a healthy 8 pounds. Nice work, Deb! Can't wait to meet her!

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY Meena, Mom, MariCris, Debbie, Annemarie, Pam, and Regina! List gets longer every year... Sorry we're not close enough to take you to brunch.

I am serving as somewhat of a discouraging example to my numerous friends who are so fed up with their jobs that they want to just quit and worry about new opportunities later. Happy to do so! I truly think it is a bad idea at this time in history -- not so much because of the quality of your resume or anything like that but because of the extremely intense competition for jobs out there. If you have contacts who can help you, that is your key to success. But if yours is going to be one of 1000 resumes on a prospective employers desk, you need some luck -- which is hard to come by. Someone suggested I get some criticism on my resume - so if you get a second, can you look and let me know of any improvements I should consider? Thanks folks! Here's the URL:

http://my.hotjobs.yahoo.com/display/myhj?ct_hft=myhj/res-center-detail&resid=r055352785

Akhil and I spent the afternoon at Manhattan Beach yesterday and it made me realize my standard of living was leaps and bounds better when I was a kid and I didn't even know it. It takes us about an hour to get out to the beach now - which is why we rarely go - but I grew up 8 miles, or a 20-minute bike ride, from the sea and took full advantage. Wonder how and where we went wrong. Akhil rode 48 miles on his bike Saturday - his longest ride yet - and followed with a nap before we headed to Pasadena to the free movies in the park they're putting on Saturday nights this month. We saw "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and even though I've seen it numerous times, I learned a few more things about the plot, realized that guy who accompanies Indy in the cave in the first sequence is Alfred Molina, and am pretty convinced that it is genuinely a good movie -- much better than all the Star Wars prequels. George Lucas should've stuck with Speilberg! It's May now and still no job. A story on NPR yesterday said 85% of jobs are not advertised and that the key is using your contacts. I am not sure I have many contacts, but if you are reading this and are a contact, expect my call...