i woke up around 4am to use the bathroom again. by this morning, i was still irregular, but the tides were turning. if all my overseas travels has taught me one thing, it's that i have a strong stomach, able to eat the worst kinds of food without getting too sick.
because i said i wouldn't work past 6pm (based on the weather forecast, that's when the worst of the tropical storm would hit us), the census only assigned me 43 cases today and told me to start at 12:45pm. they were all located northwest of my location, with the exception of a few all the way close to davis square. they were also located in cambridge too, giving me a break from somerville where i predominantly work.
based on my what my supervisor told me, i didn't have to follow the prescribed start time, so i left at 12:30pm. i would've left earlier (12pm) but i wanted to watch the noontime news broadcast to hear the latest weather forecast before leaving.
the first few cases are always far for some strange reason, so i had to take the bike. temperature was in the 80's, overcast by the time i went out, progressively windier as the day wore on. i didn't mind the wind, better than the rain, and it kept things cool.
i returned home at 2:45pm primarily to dump the bike and go about on foot, as all the remaining cases were within walking distance, and i felt a few raindrops so i could carry the umbrella if necessary. it was just going to be a short break, but i ended up taking my 30 minute break instead.
highlights today include enumerating an elderly couple who just happened to be outside gardening. one of them told me they'd have opened the door otherwise. the wife was amazed that i knew the names of all her flowers. they had a weird situation where they used to have more apartment units in their home before they consolidated the addresses to just two, with one of them being vacant. i also enumerated an 95-year-old elderly man living by himself in a mansion (with a nurse) which insisted we speak face to face even though i was happy to do the interview from between the glass pane of his storm door; he got a chair to sit down and propped the door open with his foot as i asked him questions. i'm naturally biased because i live in cambridge, but cambridge folks seem nicer compared to somerville folks, i didn't get any angry respondents, and all of them were very helpful, even the proxy neighbors.
starting at 4pm it began to get very windy, to a point where i was a little concerned about my safety. around 5pm it started to rain, a little drizzle as first, followed by very brief periods of downpours. my supervisor sent everyone a text advising folks to go home. the rain only last half an hour at most, afterwards the sun came out and the clouds dissipated. i was going to stop working at 4pm, but pushed myself, and at 5pm i was going to stop working when it started to rain, but i kept pushing, and ended up stopping when i said i'd stop, by 6pm. truth to told, the weather was pretty calm by that point, i could've kept going to 8pm. there was a lot of small branches all over the roads, and occasionally i'd see a larger branch here and there, but no toppled trees. so much for tropical storm isaias.
i managed to do something i haven't been able to do since starting field work: finishing all my cases. granted, i started 15 minutes early, and i finished 15 minutes late past 6pm, but it was nice seeing zero. of the 43 cases i was assigned today, 24 were still inactive, meaning nobody was home or i wasn't able to get confirmation. that's more than half the cases but a lot better than my usual "batting record" which is feel is something like 75%+ inactives. so even though i could've worked more, i had no cases left, unless i wanted to revisit all the inactive cases. it was better to call it a day.
it seemed weird to be eating dinner so early, so i snacked on some nachos with guacamole as an appetizer. i didn't dig into my pasta salad until 8pm, watching a ronald reagan documentary on american experience. the salad was still good, but not as good as yesterday. i was also a little worried i'd be experiencing diarrhea again later tonight.