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i woke up rather late this morning, 10:20am, although i didn't go to sleep until 3:20am so that might've had something to do with it. i found kevin in his bedroom with the lights on, business as usual. in the bathroom there was nothing left of his, just a clean counter, like the way it used to be. i left at 11am, right when his meeting was supposed to start, to borrow the car from my parents' place. i went via motorcycle, as i'd be returning the car later today. my father was in the garage cutting wooden sneeze guard braces with the naked table saw. i checked the rain barrel water level gauge, i'd never seen it all the way to the top before, all our barrels at full capacity (8 barrels x 55 gallons each = 440 gallons of rain water). my mother made me some lunch - avocado toast - and i left after finishing eating. there was no parking outside my house so i parked across the street, miraculously managing to parallel park into a tight spot without once bumping into the car in front or behind me.

kevin had just finished with his meeting and said we could leave after he ate his lunch (leftover from yesterday). at 12:30pm i started moving some of his stuff into the living room. he seemed worried that not everything would fit, even though last night i showed him the car i'd be driving and pointed it out to him parked across the street. once we started loading did he finally realize just how much room we had.

my original plan was to move kevin into his new place, he could check it out, see what he was missing, and then i'd take him to the supermarket so he could load up on groceries. earlier this week that planned involved going to the malden 88 super market, but kevin didn't seem interested and said the porter square star market was good enough. while we were driving, he suggested we go to the supermarket first, that way we wouldn't have to make 2 trips. i'd thought of that as well, but i spoke with his roommate a few days ago and told him we'd take him to the supermarket too, so i felt i was keeping my word. but it made so much more sense, i decided we'd go to the supermarket first then.

i knew going in this would take an hour at least, because whenever kevin went to the smaller beacon street star market near where we live, it always took him an hour. a typical star market trip for me takes just a few minutes. likewise, i the first few minutes i was already done with my grocery shopping: 2 boxes of green mountain hazelnut coffee for my mother, a bag of grapes, some pizzaz apples, and 4 cases of schweppes flavored seltzer (no pomegranate). kevin was still slowly browsing the produce department. i've never seen anyone so indecisive with his food choices, like watching a turtle eating. i decided to tour the whole store, looking to see what else i could buy. at one point he asked for tofu, and when we found them, i discovered he was in contact with his future roommate, who asked him to get some tofu. he too was indecisive, between the two of them taking at least 5 minutes to decide whether he wanted firm, extra firm, or silky, texting, sending photos, the works. i spent that time people watching. the porter square star market has more customers than the beacon street one, but it's not crazy like market basket, where it feels like running a gauntlet every time i shop there. the demographics also seem different, catering to young, attractive, college educated.

an hour and 20 minutes later kevin was finally finished with his shopping. most of the cart was his stuff, he was definitely taking advantage of the fact that he didn't have to haul everything back on his own because we had the car. when we got there it seemed like there was a lot of room in the car; after trying to fill it with groceries, i wasn't so sure, but he managed to fit everything in the end.

we got to the apartment by 2:20pm, thankfully there was plenty of street parking. we started moving everything upstairs. his roommate came out of his room to greet us but made my effort to help with the move. my sarah came out to greet kevin, giving him a quick tour of the apartment and going over some rules. my work was done and i finally left 20 minutes later, with a handshake and some good byes.

i drove to belmont to return the car, arriving by 3pm. my mother was inside knitting and watching television, while my father was in the backyard oiling his wooden sneeze guard braces. i'd planned to go to chinatown and haymarket today, but it was already kind of late, and today was a hot (80's) but dry day. i decided to go tomorrow morning when it was cooler, maybe bust out some shorts from my summer clothes bins in the guest room closet. that made my day a little easier, didn't have to rush as much, but i would've done, pushed myself to near exhaustion to lose more weight.

so instead i did some light gardening. primarily emptying out and cleaning one of the rubber lotus barrel (side back) because it seemed to have more algae than the others; i think the reason is because i buried all the leftover lotus roots from last year into this pot, and none of them seemed to have survived, so they all rotted, causing the algae bloom and cloudy water. nothing went to waste though: i dredged out the water and used it to water our garden, then used the water collected in our temporary rain barrel runoff barrels to fill back the lotus barrel.

around 4pm i finally went home. there was a package for kevin on my doorstep, i figured i'd drop it off at his place tomorrow on my way to belmont. you'd think i'd take the opportunity to relax and savor single living again, but i went to the beacon street star market to look for hägen-dazs bourbon praline pecan. i saw it at the porter square star market and wanted to get some but decided to wait since it'd probably all melt in this heat before i could it them into a freezer. unfortunately the beacon street store didn't have any, so i got back on my bicycle and went down to porter square store.

all that took about an hour. i wasn't able to get back home until 5pm. only then was i able to let out a proverbial sigh of relief. my work was done. as a bonus, kevin texted me while i was at the beacon street star market, thanking me for helping him move. i told him about his package, but he told me it was actually a gift for me. i finally got a chance to open it up, a pair of led gloves, i guess for night running or cycling use. i thanked him for the gift.

so the first thing i did was to put back the toilet paper pedestal. i'd taken it apart because kevin kept urinating on it, and i was tired of having to clean it so often. then i used the bathroom. i was surfing the web on my phone when i realized i didn't need to turn the volume down. i also don't need to close the bathroom door. afterwards i took a shower, changing out of my sweat-soaked clothes.

apart from the few things i noted earlier, there wasn't that much difference now that my house is empty. i've lived with kevin for so long (half a year) that even though he's not here anymore, i forget and think he's still in his room, and at any moment i'll hear him come out to the bathroom, or jumping in his room doing his exercises. it's going to take me some time to get used to living solo again.

all that good feeling about kevin soon went away when i made dinner tonight. i was going to microwave heat some meatballs and went to grab the syran wrap when i noticed the box was empty. that kevin's classic move (besides peeing on the floor), finish something of mine, put it back empty, don't tell me about it. my sichuan peppercorns, my korean chili powder, my hot pepper flakes, my packaging tape. i mean, if he told me, i would've gotten some at the super market earlier. instead i used a plastic bag to cover my microwave meatballs.