my mother called me this morning, said my father was at home waiting for another roofer to come and give an estimate, and while he was there he had also mowed and watered the lawn, saving me a trip, as that was my project for the day.

i chatted with WWY and wangyan, asked them what they were doing for the chinese independence day holiday, which typically is a week long celebration. WWY was just going to stay in chongqing, but wangyan was going to macao and hong kong. she also said later in october she'd be going to munich again, something that was beginning to lose its novelty after the 3rd time as she had a lot of work back at the home office.

with my morning cleared, i decided to visit the everett gateway center to check if the petsmart there carried any neon tetras, so i wouldn't have to wait until tomorrow for the fresh pond store to get new stock. i was just in the neighborhood 2 days ago when i went to the malden 99 supermarket in search of tapioca pearls. it was another hot and humid day, i could feel my skin cooking under the sun. temperature was in the 80's which isn't that bad (could be worse), but for those of us in the northeast that's considered hot.

first i went to michael's to get some yarn for my mother. unfortunately most of the yarns were on sale, which you'd think was a good thing, but that meant i couldn't use my 50% off coupon. i left empty-handed. next i went to total wine & more, a relatively new wine supermarket that sprung up a while back. i've been meaning to visit out of curiosity and today was my chance. i didn't realize it was a chain store and was awe-struck when i stepped inside. i haven't seen this much alcoholic beverage since the last time i went to a NH tax-free liquor warehouse. and while those NH depots are essentially just characterless warehouses, this was a fancy store, with dressed up employees.

i always feel out of place in liquor stores, as i don't consider myself an alcohol drinker, and i always think they'll find out i'm an imposter and thrown me out. what little i know about alcohol, that's where my interest lies. so i visited the dessert wine selection, saw all their moscato wines. i picked a barefoot pink moscato ($4.67). i then went to the whiskey department, just to see what they had. somehow i was hoping to find chinese baijiu but the only place i've ever seen that sold is in chinatowns. they did however have several brands of moonshine, including ole smokey from gatlinburg tennessee. i bought a bottle of captain morgan spiced rum ($10.99) for my mother, figured what she didn't drink i could use to make rum cakes. i wanted to get a different brand of rum other than the much-publicized captain morgan, but a lack of imagination made me pick the familiar. i also checked out the hard cider selection, only about a third of a display shelf length, not too much, but the price for a 6-pack of woodchuck ($7.99) was cheaper than in most other places.

i ordered a surecom SW-102 digital power & SWR meter for my father, along with a SMA female to UFH male adapter. in the late afternoon (around 4pm) i biked to market basket to pick up a few things, including some powdered parmesan cheese for a baked potato fries recipe i'm thinking about trying tomorrow. for dinner i heated up the last remaining bit of my mexican chicken soup from more than a week ago. li didn't get home until late, around 9pm, i'd forgotten that on wednesday nights he plays badminton with his coworkers. my mother called me asking if i had some cash on hand as they needed to pay the parking lot pavers tomorrow but didn't have enough money in the business account. i'd be paid back immediately, but through a check coming from a different account.