It's a lovely Saturday morning, and things are going well.

A little over a week ago, we had a fairly busy Friday. It was filled with appointments, including a business one for me. In the evening, we got together with my father and his wife for a long-overdue dinner. It was at a lovely place in Long Beach, along the shore - Parker's Lighthouse, and my father and his wife graciously picked up the tab.

We hadn't seen his wife since our wedding, which had been about 14 months prior, and my wife had seen very little of my father. This was because there had been a bunch of hurt feelings that were not addressed soon enough.

[Life lesson: Even if you think that someone's reaction to your actions is ridiculous or unwarranted, don't ignore it or think it will go away. Someone's feelings are real, even if they are based on misunderstandings. By addressing it, you just may learn how you could have handled the situation better, gain insight, or at least show that you care.]

The dinner ended well, and we exchanged overdue Christmas and birthday presents.

It wasn't until a couple of days later that I realized that the situation with our wedding was inevitable, given that it was the first big whole-family event since my parents ten years before. Not since then had my entire biological family - my three siblings, my mother, and my father - been together with my father's wife and her three adult children. There had been no deaths, births, or wedding that had drawn the entire lot together, and my father and his wife married about six years before our wedding.

It stinks that Kori was subjected to the outcome of this reality. If I would have figured this out sooner I would have tried to set something up (besides a wedding-related function) months before the wedding. Not that it would have been possible to get everyone together.

The rest of that weekend went well, and we had some people over for the Big Game.

The week was pleasant enough. Some things may come out of it that we can discuss later.

Heard good news about our friend Carlo, who has been showing amazing endurance against a medical problem, so that was good news.

Kori and I are looking forward to our second "First Date" anniversary. It is close enough to Valentine's Day that we combine the two. We switch off on who is responsible for the special occassion planning. I'd be happy staying right where I wake up in the morning, as long as she was going to stay there, too. But I think she needs a little more creativity than that.

My advice to any unmarried men is to find a gal who's birthday is either on Christmas Day or Valentine's Day, and then get married on the other day. Cut those four occasions down to two. Okay, so I'm kidding. Sort of.

That's all for now.

Ken