i was supposed to be down at the mary baker eddy library in boston at 10am for a meeting. it was 9:40 when i left the house. believe it or not, i made it down there in 20 minutes (weaving and dodging berklee music school students along the way). i saw dana and our client already waiting inside the building. the meeting was for a small project involving a webcam; dana would do the design, i'd write the code. before we left, i got a chance to visit the mapparium for the very first time, like being inside a stain-glassed globe (sort of a time machine as well, since the geographic boundaries are from the 1930's). not only is it breathtakingly beautiful, but the acoustic is something special as well, the sound bouncing off as if somebody was whispering behind you. i wanted to take a photo but was told i couldn't do it due to copyright issues. it's a shame though, perhaps one of the most amazing places you'll ever find in boston.

during the meeting i got a call from renata's brother marsian, who was thinking about coming into town so we could go digital video camera shopping. i stopped briefly at the cafe to get some beef noodle soup before going back home to called marsian back. he ended up not coming because he found a good camera deal back in rhode island. i went out again to run errands, sending out some invoices, getting some prescriptions refilled, and going to target to buy some detergent (returning home to do some laundry). i also thought about what i was going to make for tuesday dinner since it was my turn to cook. jawei came home in the late afternoon, and i invited him to go grocery shopping with me. i showed him how americans love cheese, and pasta, and tomato sauce, devoting whole aisles to said food products.

after going through back issues of everyday food magazines to find some recipes, i ended up deciding to make some instant spanish rice pilaf, string beans salad, and chicken cutlets with an olive relish. jawei and i started cooking before julie arrived; i was gathering up the ingredients while jawei cut the beans. by the time julie arrived, the pilaf was almost done and the only thing left to do was to fry the chicken cutlets in olive oil. the final dinner medley didn't turn out too bad (which is rare, i'm very critical of my own cooking), and the extra piece of cutlet back in the kitchen mysteriously disappeared which i take to be a good sign that the food was somewhat delicious.

jawei ended up falling asleep on the couch while julie and i watched baseball from the armchairs. incensed by the lack of reception on her old cell phone, julie went online to cingular and upgraded her phone. later we turned to SVU (next week: season premiere!), which eventually put julie to sleep as well. she eventually left during it's always sunny in philadelphia, the episode where charlie gets molested. i threw out the trash, washed all the dishes (next time: washing machine), and called it an evening.

i've got an easy today tomorrow. if no clients contact me, i'm going naturing.