sitting in the cold bathroom this morning i turned up the heat on my nest thermostat using my phone. the power to order up some warmth from anywhere in the house, oh what an age we live in! then for breakfast i had a tea egg, a greek yogurt, and some orange juice. ana woke up around 11:30a, doing a load of laundry as her first bit of business. i biked to market basket to gather up some last minute thanksgiving ingredients. surprisingly, it wasn't as crowded as this past sunday, but still crowded since it's always crowded there. i smiled when i saw they now carried those extra large sized frozen turkeys, but nobody would buy one now since a bird that size won't defrost in time for tomorrow.

when i got back home, city tree services were outside pruning the locust and a few other neighboring trees. i told one of the workers about the broken branch dangling from a crook in one of the main branches; he assured me they'd remove it. i went out again to grab some asparagus from star market. when i got back, the broken branch was gone.

ana asked me about the definition of "fringe." when i asked her why, she said the guy she's been sort of dating described their relationship as "fringe." she ended up telling me it was one of her teachers from her school. they couldn't go out while she was still in class, but now that she's graduated, he asked her out. their age difference isn't that great, she's 28, he's just 32. yesterday returned to washington dc for thanksgiving. she said he's planning on visiting her in spain. in other news: ana also told me that her father is coming to boston on friday. partly to see her (even though she's returning to spain next tuesday), but also partly to see her brother who's celebrating his 40th birthday. so the next few days she'll probably be out, which means 1) she won't be at home a lot, and 2) she won't be cooking.

i left for belmont around 1:30pm, taking the bicycle instead of the motorcycle because i'd be returning home via car (so i can transport my flan to belmont tomorrow). i was bringing back a lot of things and not everything could fit in my backpack so i tied a box to the back of the bike. once i was in belmont, i did some cleaning, both indoors and outdoors. i vacuumed the living room, moved the old roller shades into the garage, put a squirrel guard on the suet feeder (still no action), moved the sodas outside (nature's refrigerator with temperature hovering around the upper 30's lower 40's), dusted the kale and radishes, and moved some boxes into the basement. i didn't overdo, and i took numerous breaks to watch NFL news and eat snacks.

my parents didn't get home until around 6pm, my mother getting her mammogram appointment, my father seeing a doctor about his hurt knee. since they had two cars, my mother came home first, and made some noodles for dinner. i wasn't very hungry, already steading myself for the food onslaught happening tomorrow.

when my father returned from visiting my grand uncle at the physical therapy rehab center, we expanded the dining room table, using all but 1 leaves since there was only 10 people for thanksgiving this year (my grand uncle is still attached to a urinary bag so he's sitting it out this year, and anderson has his own baby seat).

when my mother called binbin to ask them to bring their baby high chair, binbin told her that they have another thanksgiving dinner to go to at 6:30pm, so they can only stay for a little bit. that meant we have to move thanksgiving 1-2 hours in advance in order to accomodate them. if it was up to me, i'd just tell them not to come. if you're planning on spending thanksgiving with your friends instead of your family, maybe you need to reassess your priorities.

the other piece of bad new was when my mother called my godmother to asked what time we can drop off the flan tomorrow. she's gone for the whole day, so we have to be at her place by 8:30am, which means i have to wake up at 7:30am, despite the fact that my godmother and her sons aren't celebrating thanksgiving this year. so much for sleeping late on thanksgiving day! and i was so much looking forward to it, with my upstairs neighbors steve and paul leaving this morning.

finally, when i left to go home, i was confused by the car keys. the one that i had in my hand was the original, but didn't i remember using the spare yesterday? could i have accidentally not returned the car key yesterday? it just left me super confused as i drove home, looking for the spare key in vain when i got back.

the final piece of business of the night was to visit the liquor store and buy some beer for tomorrow (hard cider and an IPA). a trio of noisy thai girls came into the store. they seemed to know the manager, who gave them a free cherry pie for some strange reason. outside of thai restaurants, i have never met thai people here before.