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i had a good night's rest last night, fell asleep in my bedroom watching some espn classic program on the special bond between a star nba basketball player and his coach. since it was a friday night transitioning into a saturday morning, i wouldn't feel guilty if i purposely slept late, which is what i did, although i woke up before noon anyway. the whole day was filled with the sounds of my opposite door neighbor demolishing the inside of his 2nd story house. through my venetian blinds i could see heavily bundled deconstruction workers throwing bits and pieces of the house into a disposal truck.

lunch, my father dropped by briefly to deliver some rice noodles, saving me the trouble of making my own food. we watched the continuing iraq coverage, tony blair's new position that the weapons inspectors be given more time to work (pulling away from the US position), and the international peace protests that were being held throughout the world this saturday. someone said something profound, which was the peace protest wasn't exactly a call for iraq to disarm nor a plea to help the repressed iraqis, but rather motivated by selfish reasons, that people don't want a war because they don't want their own people dying or having this war escalate into something more serious, like future retaliatory terrorist attacks or a more destabilized middle east. for the most part, the protesters aren't motivated by altruism.

i spent the afternoon camped out on the couch underneath a warm blanket, eating mocha coffee ice cream from a carton and watching continuous episodes of spongebob squarepants. that's when i got a call from john telling me he was coming for a visit, already in the boston area from new york city along with deanna. the house was pretty clean from the tidying up i gave it on my birthday, all i had left to do was to fold the ball of laundered clothes on the guest bedroom bed. when they arrived (deanna's very first visit, john's nth visit since last november), we watched some television (including the entertaining will wheaton/kylie bax X3D infomercial) before driving out to the north end for some dinner.

after a significant search for an empty parking space, we went to l'osteria, which was no surprise, since it's john's favorite restaurant in the north end. although the place was crowded, we were able to get seated right away. deanna and i ordered the same thing, pasta with white clam sauce, while john had some chicken affair with a glass of wine. having made linguine with clam sauce on my own, i found l'osteria's version to be on the dry side, i prefer my own take on the dish. john and deanna briefly engaged in a heated argument about whether or not scientology books belong in the public libraries; john wanted to destroy them because of the danger they might pose in recruiting new members into the scientology cult, while deanna was all about preserving first amendment rights (i sided with deanna). after dinner we tried getting some dessert at mike's pastries, but the place was so crowded we quickly left the store, going to caffe vittoria nearby for some coffee. the blonde waitress wore red velour pants (i thought it was important to mention this detail), i ordered a cup of mocha coffee.

we came back to my place, where we watched the new guy (we all agreed that the girl nerd was way too cool to be hanging out with those other nerds) followed by the rebroadcast of the infamous michael jackson interview on VH1 while waiting for dan to get out of his dinner party and to come over. i did the dishes and went across the street to grab some drinks and chips. i like playing host, trying to anticipate the needs of my guests before they can tell me, making their stay at my place a pleasureable and memorable one. dan finally arrived at 10:30pm, bringing with him a backpack full of board games. after the MJ interview came the behind the scenes look at the movie top gun. though we were set up to play moods, dan packed it away soon afterwards. we ended up watching saturday night live hosted by jennifer garner (i didn't think it was a very funny episode, despite the fact that i waited all week to see it), before john and deanna gave dan a ride back to his place in allston.

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