friday. last day of the work week. i went running with alex during lunch, our longest run yet, down to the charles river, over the mass ave bridge, up memorial drive, all the way to the science museum, and then back. after it was over, i could feel it in my legs. i stopped off to get an italian sausage sub from a street vendor in downtown crossing while alex went back to the office.

by day's end, we had an unexpected visitor in the form of amanda rawson, our old friend. it was through squid that i first met amanda, that fateful day many years ago. she's a hard one to track down, and we've tried unsuccessfully many times to meet, and here she was at squid, in the flesh, like a ghost coming to life. the thing was she wasn't there to see me, and was actually surprised that i was there, since she doesn't know that i sort of work at squid now. i was just sort of speechless, of all the things that could happen on friday, seeing amanda was not one of them, and the frail machine known as my brain just couldn't compute what was happening. she left with katrinka and brian to go see their new place, i gave her an unenthusiastic good bye although inside i felt differently.

back at home, my two costa rica books from amazon arrived unexpectedly, i wasn't expecting them until next week. i took the opportunity to deliver mandy's package, the address farther than i anticipated, i forgot i had access to a car, foolishly walking the distance after a day of hard running. poor feet! when i came back, i went to the star market to get some ingredients for what i decided to make for tonight, spicy clam sauce linguine, one of my usuals.

i made dinner after about an hour of baseball watching. i had the opportunity to use the extra large frying pan i recently inherited from my parents. i made a big bowl of spicy clam sauce linguine, and was surprised when i ate most of it, several servings' worth. i think people and sometimes even i am amazed about my appetite. where does all this food go? the way i go about with my eating business, i should be ginormous.

towards the end of the evening, with another satisfying red sox victory and not much else to see on television, i took a bath, the perfect ending to a week's worth of work (well, a week's worth of work punctuated by one single day of reckless hooky playing to go to la playa). read about the dutch elm disease in this week's weekly dig.

i also did some more travel research. after looking over those costa rica books, there seems to be logistical problems with a trip to that country. most of the good ecotourist sites are far away from the capital city san jose, and would require additional method of transportation to get there. it'd be kind of troublesome to make those arrangements for myself, i'd have to go with a package, and since it's a specialized tour, it'll be more expensive. maybe i could settle for belize, which also has it's fair share of tropical wildlife. a lot of the natural parks in costa rica are so huge they demand serious hiking. traveling alone, i'm not sure how smart it'd be to wander around in a rain forest (did i mention the snakes? the alligators? the jaguars?), plus the fact that i have no hiking/camping skills whatsoever. i was looking online for last minute vacation packages, and there's some cheap weeklong getaways to morocco, shanghai, and bangkok, all possible destinations. all i know is i'm going somewhere, just don't know where.