i took the t down to fenway park to get some authentic mlb red sox t-shirts for my cousin eric in taipei. it was fun riding the t, i miss public transportation so much, i miss the kaleidoscope of people i see on the buses and trains. the mundane to the exotic, the ugly and the beautiful, the working and the unemployed. despite my nostalgic pleasure of getting in touch with my public transportation roots, things felt a little bit somber. maybe it was because i was watching some 9/11 coverage earlier, but everything seemed muted and grey. tv's everywhere were turned on to 9/11 coverage (like the impressive wide aspect ratio flat screen monitors at the newly renovated harvard fleet). 
down at yawkey way, there was only one major store open, the souvenir store, and they had the t-shirts he wanted (manny, nomar, no barry bond though) but just not the size, so i opted for the medium, the smallest size they had available. like a lot of other places, there was a tv on broadcasting something about 9/11. i returned to cambridge. on the train i was flanked by two women both wearing red pants, one with a black top (she was spacing out, a frown on her face), the other a white top (she was reading a book, an american flag design scrunchy in her hair). at charles/mgh, lip gloss girl got on the train. lip gloss girl? yes, the same girl i use to see all the time when i took the 73 to work. i was so excited but all i could do was just to admire her helplessly from afar, she oblivious to how much a positive impact she had on my morning commutes. she had on an all black outfit (pants, tank top), with an opened white oxford shirt, and a pair of black mules. she got off at central square, i rode the remaining stops to porter square, broken hearted.
leaving porter square i bought a small clutch of yellow chrysanthemums from the flower vendor, and walked happily 
(funny how flowers have a way of mending a broken heart) to my house, cutting through the porter exchange and passing a bevy of lesley girls climbing aboard a shuttle bus. i've often wondered what people think when they see a guy with a bouquet of flowers. do they think, "oh, his girlfriend must be so lucky." 
because that's what i think when i see a guy with flowers. i don't think, "oh, he doesn't have a girlfriend, those are for his house because he feels fresh flowers bring a touch of life into an otherwise dead living space." at the house i assembled the four chairs that went along with the dining table, an antenna television tuned in to some more 9/11 coverage, some pizza rolls slowly burnt to a crisp in the defective toaster oven. tom brokaw was hosting some sort of town meeting, the topic of a heated discussion was how much the families of the victims of the terrorist attacks should be reimbursed for the death of their loved ones. right now the policy is kind of skewed, where a stock broker who made more would be worth more reimbursement money versus a janitor who made less, which says something about how rich people are worth more money even though poor people might need the money more than the rich. in my opinion, there should be no reimbursement. if there is, people should just be thankful that we have a kind government willing to take my tax money and offer it to the families of the victims. now if the families want to get greedy and demand more money, i don't think that's right. at the same time, i don't think it's right that rich deceased should be worth more money as well. the US didn't attack the world trade center. if anyone needs to pay up, it's hide-and-seek OBL.
later in the afternoon my father brought my grandmother, who arrived here in boston last night from california, to see the new house (she came here to help my aunt at the cafe, she didn't just come here to see the house). i gave her the tour, which i've done so many times already that i've got it down to perfection, cueing the recessed lights at the right moment, walking her through the correct sequence of rooms, revealing the in-unit washer/dryer, and finally bringing her out back to see the expansive view of the backyard from the deck. 
she was very impressed with the place despite the fact that most of the wooden floors are covered with rosen paper from the past few days. my father and i then got down to business, first moving the refridgerator out of the hallway and back into the kitchen, making sure not to scratch the floor in the process. next, we cut the guest bedroom's closet door so it can finally swing open entirely without scraping the floor. when that was all done, i locked up the place and we left.
today was very windy, with windspeed in the 50's here in boston. it's all because of an innocuous offshore hurricane pulling the wind from the mainland. i went with my father to costco to get some cafe supplies and coming back, we were waved to slow down by a group of pedestrians warning us of a downed powerline draped across the road. we slowly drove underneath it, like some electrified vehicular limbo, but this impatient woman behind us talking on the cellphone and with a dog sitting in the passenger side seat sped right past us, narrowly missed being zapped. she sort of realized something wasn't quite right because i was staring at her with the look of utter horror and disbelief, my faced pressed against the window.
it's too cold for the bee to fly!