when i first arrived at the house, my father helped me install a test blind in the guest bedroom, to see if it would be a nice fit. everything seemed fine, so now i have the okay to buy the rest of the blinds. after he left, i decided to fire up the thermostat because it was getting kind of cold. when nothing happened, i went downstairs to discover that the pilot light had gone out. 
it had actually gone out a few days ago without me realizing it. what i thought was working heat was actually just figments of my imagination. if i had any qualms about sticking my hand into the dark furnace with a lighter in order to light the pilot, they're all gone. 
the first time was scary, i didn't know where to hold the lighter, didn't know where the gas flames would shoot out once exposed to the open fire source. i did it a whole bunch of times, and quickly lost my fear. the flame would light, but as soon as i let go off the safety pilot button, the flame would go out again. finally i had to call my father, who came by and recognized the problem as a broken thermocouple sensor, which he promptly went out and got a replacement part from watertown supplies, and now i have heat again.
late afternoon i drove to teele square to have lunch with julie and her man friend sajid. the restaurant would be that tibet place (my first and last time there was almost 7 months ago). i arrived late, getting caught up talking with my neighbor jeff about the possibility of painting vinyl windows (he thinks it can't be done). 
seconds before i arrived, i got a call from julie on my cellphone telling me that the tibetan restaurant isn't opened for lunch anymore. 
so instead we went across the street to a tex-mex restaurant called rudy's. vividly decorated in a southwestern motif, there were but only a handful of people enjoying a late lunch. our waitress was immensely helpful, dazzling us with her memorization of the restaurant's unlisted beverage choices, the kind of girl you'd want to tip 100% if you could afford to do something like that. 
i had the california burger, which had pepperjack cheese, guacamole, and sprouts. our conversation focused heavily on current events, from the sniper shootings, to george bushisms. both sajid and julie, no strangers to spices, got the waitress to bring us a cage of hot sauces to sample. after lunch, we made plans to meet across town at the kendall cinema for a movie.
after a little bit more of detaping, i went to kendall cinema, where i meet julie and sajid for bowling for columbine, that new michael moore movie about gun control in america. it was a good sized crowd for a late afternoon movie, there definitely seems to be a lot of interest in this docuemntary. when the movie was over sometime after six, the theatre was even more packed with moviegoers, neatly dressed moviegoers who work the 9-5, people with jobs who can afford to go to the movies after work guilt-free. i hissed at them and left.
i went to belmont, where after dinner, my father and i went to home depot where i returned some unused supplies (for cash or for store credit the items i no longer had the receipts for) and bought the rest of my blinds. next we went to target, to check out some bathroom cabinets. some potential candidates, nothing definite yet. we returned to belmont, where despite the fact that the temperature was in the 40's, i saw a solitary moth huddled close to the porch light, one of the last few insects i'll see before the harsh new england winter sets in.