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anxious about not waking up on time made me wake up even earlier, as i kept on checking the time every 30 minutes or so. i was awake by 7am, but didn't finally get out of bed until 9am. immediately i began packaging up frances' latest shipment. taping up the box, weighing it, figuring out the postage, filling out the customs form, and finally printing the shipping label. the whole process took about 30 minutes. i debated whether to go to the post office first or visit yulia first. in the end i decided to bike to the store first, as i promised to be there by 10am.

i dropped off the fixed macbook pro. everything work as it should, even the printing, which i wasn't able to test last night. after that i biked to the harvard square post office to drop off frances' package. i returned home by 10:30am. i chatted with paul briefly, who was outside gardening. he asked me how i find my roommates, whether it was through airbnb, because it was something they thought about doing, to make some money should they ever decide to do some extended travel, or just during summer weekends when they're not home. he said they sort of entertained the idea of selling the house and moving to providence (rhode island).

both miguel and karen were still asleep. i went about gathering my things. i haven't had time to unpack since thursday and i finally got a chance to empty my backpack. i left 20 minutes later. today's temperature hit the low 70's. there was a trump tax release protest in cambridge common but i had a feeling there was going to be a low turnout as the original protest was supposed to be in boston (i assume there was a conflict with the marathon race security preparations for monday). my mother prepared some rice porridge breakfast for me when i arrived in belmont. i brought along the produce i got in haymarket yesterday morning, including the yellow nectarines, asparagus, and sweet orange peppers. i also brought the portuguese pastel de nata i got yesterday from chinatown.

karen contacted me around noontime, asked if they could borrow the bikes. had they spoken with me about it yesterday, i could've prepared the bikes for them. nevertheless, i had a suspicion they'd ask, so there were a few available bikes in the basement. but i get annoyed with people who don't plan ahead. it doesn't matter if their plan ends up being crap, but please have some foresight, especially if your plan involves me somehow.

later my father and i went to home depot to get some manure for the raised beds and some mouse sticky traps. last night my mother saw a mouse scurrying across the living room floor. it's one thing if they're hidden, but another thing when they're out when people are around. i'd read that the victor electronic mouse trap ($19.98) was a pretty good trap and they were interested in getting one of those, as a more humane alternative to snap or sticky traps. so i was pleasantly surprised to see that home depot had them in stock as well for a few dollars more. we decided to get one to try it out.

i was hoping we'd chop down the diseased plum trees, but instead we made some preliminary preparations and did some weeding in the backyard instead.

after dinner i was in a hurry to get home as i saw there was some rain in the forecast later in the evening beginning around 8pm. the bikes were in the backyard, chained together. paul had taken out his bike, which he parked underneath a tarp by the recycle bins. he did this last year and i never saw him ride the bike and i was the one who ended up putting it away in the basement for winter storage with 2 flat tires. hope he doesn't plan on doing the same thing this season. karen and miguel got back around 9pm. they'd just gotten back from dinner at red bones in davis square. i hadn't been there in a while, not since march 2006. miguel was raving about the ribs. they had brunch at some random place in union square, then biked to haymarket to buy some cheap produce (two bunches of asparagus were sitting in the sink). we watched a little bit of the ten commandments before they got drowsy and retired for the night.