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i thought i'd wake up early and find the time to do some naturing but after a week's worth of hard work i decided to sleep in late and didn't get out of bed until close to noon. john (in new york) and i exchanged cheesy christmas songs over instant messaging. with half a dozen leftover eggs from the flan recipe, i decided to make another chipotle omelette for lunch. when i had the chance, i'd steal some time to read a few more pages of "the world is flat". it's a great book, a bestseller, i can't believe it's taken me this long to discover it. i actually had it on my amazon wish list for a while, but then laurie out in oregon recommended it to me as well, so i was more compelled to read it. the title of this non-fiction book refers to the fact that globalization has leveled the playing field in the modern world for better or worse. the new unit of power is no longer country or corporation (although they still play a part) but rather individuals. right now i'm reading about outsourcing.

when my sister came to pick up the hand mixer to make her cake, i got a ride to porter exchange to deposit a few checks. i went to the train station and bought some flowers from the asian flower vendor who's usually there. there was an older man with her as well who looked like her boss, and he tried to talk me into the 5 for $10 deal, but in the end i just went with a single bouquet of flowers for $3. coming out of the station i noticed a girl in a mini-skirt reading a book while waiting for the bus. the temperature today reached 50 degrees, which for new englanders is warm enough to tap into some spring wardrobe. along the way home i stopped off at joie de vivre to buy another rainbow maker. back at my place, i finally got a chance to use the reshapeable vases. they look like heavy duty plastic bags, and when i run them under warm water they feel very soft. once they're exposed to cold water however, the plastic sets and hardens. what ends up happening is it looks like i have bags of water around the house with flowers in them.

i thought about it long and hard, and finally decided i'd go running, couldn't let this good weather and window of opportunity go to waste. i filled my old-school rio 500 mp3 player with songs (all 128mb worth of memory, about 30 songs), got dressed (running shorts and a turtleneck), and headed outside. some of the sidewalks still had some melting ice on them and occasionally i got to splash in some puddles. although i hate to carry anything in my hands when i go running, having music makes the whole routine less boring. the tunes also drown out the sounds of my incessant wheezing when i'm running. i went out an hour before sunset, so the setting sun bathed everything in a warmish glow. by the time i went home there was a bit of color in the sky.

in the evening my parents arrived with suhan, carrying with them dinner in the form of kentucky fried chicken. the first thing suhan said when he saw me (it's been a few weeks) was that i'd gotten fat. while it's true i've put on 10 pounds since returning from my trip back at the start of june, i'm the same weight as i was last year. it's hard to stay trim during the winter, and with my recent string of work that's forced me to maintain a sedentary life style, it's even harder. sometimes i wonder why i'm not 200 pounds, i feel like a fat person trapped in a skinny person's body. before they left, i let suhan have my old pc and monitor, an 800mhz machine with only a 4gb hard drive (although actually faster than his current hand-me-down computer).

once they left, i started working on my rainbow jello. the layers were blue raspberry, green lime, orange peach, and red strawberry. to make 4 layers (with 3 intermediate white layers of sweetened condensed milk) takes 2 hours: 30 minutes for the first layer to solidify, and 15 minutes for each additional layer. i had to remove some items from my fridge so there'd be enough room to fit the large glass lasagna dish i was using to make the jello. i basically sat in the kitchen on a bar stool, listening to christmas music, reading my book, and waiting for the timer to go off to let me when to add the next layer. sometimes (when the white layer was solidifying) i'd prepare the next color ahead of time so it'd be ready. i wish they'd make more colors for the jellos. actually, just purple, since every other color of the rainbow is represented. you'd think there'd be a purple grape flavor but for some reason there isn't. i can probably combine red and blue jello mixes to make purple though...

i took a hot bath before settling in with the 24 hour christmas story marathon. i could watch that movie 12 times and still wouldn't be bored.