today was the last day of lunch delivery to my grand uncle, as my parents were returning home tonight. afterwards i was prepared to spend the day in belmont, then drive to the airport in the evening to pick up my parents. when i left my house, besides packing the usual equipment, i also brought with me some snacks. earlier my sister had dropped off hailey at my parents' house, and i turned up the heat remotely, from 50° to 60°. while at the cafe, i installed a spare wall clock in had in my basement (formerly my kitchen clock), to replace the one my aunt damaged.

afterwards i biked to belmont. since my parents went on vacation 3 weeks ago, i never once biked to their house, but instead always drove there with the borrowed car. out of practice, i found myself struggling a little bit. they're tearing up huron avenue again, it seems the construction on that stretch of road is neverending. of course it sucks when you're biking, because lanes get compacted and i'm forced to ride in the open road, which a line of cars waiting behind me, urging me to pedal faster.

once in belmont i let out hailey in the backyard. surveying the landscape for spring signs (the only thing were fuzzy pussy willow catkins), i found a rabbit on the western side of the yard. it tried to make a quick getaway but got itself stuck by a mesh screen i'd placed there years ago to prevent rabbits from getting in. trapped, it stayed motionless. i called hailey to come chase the rabbit, but the rabbit bolted across the yard to escape. by then hailey saw what was going on and ran after the rabbit but it fled through a fence crack in the southwestern corner. i also added a new suet cake to the cage.

i baked 2 frozen trader joe's aloo chaat kati pouches (from my godmother) in the toaster oven for 20 minutes. it was pretty tasty, despite having my doubts since they're vegetarian. despite not having any meat filling, i liked it because it was spicy. halfway through my lunch my 2nd aunt called me, said my grand uncle was having some problems, something to do with his tv. so i raced down to the cafe, taking the car this time. turns out the batteries were dead in his tv remote control; after i replaced them everything was back to normal. i returned to belmont.

my sister showed up around 3:30pm, got off early from her catering job. she took hailey for a walk in the woods around 4pm. around 4:30pm i got a little hungry again and decided to have a korean instant cup of noodles for a late lunch early dinner.

my sister called me at 7pm. said my grand uncle was having problems going to the bathroom and he specifically asked me to come help him. and by help he means to unplug the obstruction in his rectum so he can defecate. this is something that my father has to occasionally help my grand uncle with. it's so gross that i was instructed that should this happen, i'd have no choice but to send my grand uncle to the hospital. but my sister said she could do it, just that my grand uncle didn't want a girl poking around his posterior region. he could wait until my parents got back, which wouldn't be another 4 hours at the earliest. i told my sister i wasn't going to come and to tell my grand uncle to either wait or have my sister do it for him.

i tried calling my sister back half an hour later but she didn't answer, but i saw from the webcam that my grand uncle was going back to bed, so obviously he was able to go to the bathroom in the end. my sister finally did call me, she said she had to pick away the fecal plug, and once that was done, the rest of the poop came out. just hearing her talk about it almost made me vomit. the number of people required to take care of him, and the things we each have to do it. the worst i've ever had to deal with was to replace and clean his urine bag when he had that urinary tract infection a while back. i don't think i'd have the stomach to remove a fecal plug.

around 8:30pm i ate again, the last package of xi'an yangruo paomo.

i kept monitoring google flight check, it said the plane would be delayed by 30 minutes, wouldn't arrive until 10:24pm. so i left the house around 9:50pm, since it'd take about 20 minutes to get to the airport. everything was smooth sailing until i got to leverett circle. something was wrong with the traffic lights and state police had to direct traffic. i finally arrived at the logan airport cell phone lot at 10:30pm. my mother called me once at 10:36pm to tell me they were getting their luggage but would take a while. since you're not allowed to let the engine run while waiting in the cell phone lot, i had it turned off. after a few minutes it got kind of cold inside the car, and i sat with my jacket fulling zipped, cold hands clutching my phone, reading an e-book (leviathan wakes). my father called at 11:17pm, said they were already waiting outside terminal E. instead of taking a circuitous route, i took a shortcut since terminal E was right next to the cell phone lot. logan airport is like a maze and i accidentally went down the bus lane when i should've gone down the car/taxi lane. the terminal also has two levels, and i wasn't sure which one my parents where at, so i pulled over by the left side of the road and called them. while we were trying to figure out where we were, my father poked his head out from the island they were waiting on and saw me. i only had to pull up a few yards. we quickly loaded the suitcases into the car and sped off back to belmont.

my parents brought back from taiwan suitcases stuffed with food. you'd be surprised, add up enough packages and they can start getting a bit heavy. one interesting thing i noticed about taiwanese food packaging is that there are no english, all chinese. i don't know if that was the case in china as well. these were taiwanese food for taiwanese people, not for any international markets.

i finally left belmont by 1am. the streets were empty, like a ghost town. it was pleasantly peaceful, although i was afraid of running into a coyote scavenging for food in the middle of the night.