it was raining this morning and throughout the day. i thought the rain would create all sorts of problems, but the temperature stayed above freezing and the rain actually helped in melting a lot of the snow, including the icicles that formed on the clogged gutters of my condo building.

work was steady, methodical. got the serial box to successfully capture alternating videos with audio, but when that didn't seem like a viable solution, i whipped something up that involved swapping videos on the stage. it was one of those rare occasions when adam and i went out to lunch together. we went to wendy's and got soaked in the process, the rain a lot heavier than we anticipated. it was so wet outside that my bag of biggie sized spicy chicken sandwich and fries almost tore through the bag. the to and back was littered with less fortunate meals, a soggy slice of pizza, a trail of orphaned mcnuggets, a carton of unwanted french fries. for the rest of the day i worked in my wet clothes, particularly my jeans, which were stuck to my legs.

after work i met julie in kendall square again, she waited outside the marriott hotel in her car, together we were going to the galleria mall. she parked at petco, which i thought was wrong since we left the car there and went to the galleria mall after we went to the pet store, but julie had a bagful of rationalization as to why it was okay to do that. she needed cat food, i was there on a mission to see if there's anything good for the diorama (which got postponed until next week, we're too busy this week to take the photos). i bought a plastic olmec head about the size of a large apple, one of those kitschy aquarium ornaments, more for myself, but it might look cool in the photoshoot. julie ended up not finding the particular cat food she wanted, and we finished off the pet store with a browse of the fish tanks before leaving.

the mall was surprisingly uncrowded, or not the insane crowd we thought it'd be. first to the bookstore, where we checked out their discounted cookbooks and julie bought a few things. next we parted ways, i went to the toystore to look for doll clothes and miniature furnitures, julie went around picking up some remaining items on her christmas list. it was weird hanging out in the doll aisle, surrounded by barbies and dolls that look like real babies. i waded through a sea of little girls, i totally felt like a pedophile, i was very careful not to make any sudden or shifty movements that might be misconstrued as anything inappropriate. children scare me. i found some tiny doll clothes, but no good furniture, although there was a really cool doll house that had no price on it and i thought about just buying and for the photoshoot then returning it afterwards, but it was the wrong setting for the diorama.

after some more casual browsing, julie and i left the mall, the car still parked in the petco parking lot. we came back to my place, where i gave her my copy of OS 10.2. she was having some system problems today and need to reinstall OS X, except you can't do a clean install once you've upgraded to 10.3.1, you have to step down and install 10.2 first, followed by the 10.3 upgrade, then the 10.3.1 upgrade. apple i hate you! julie left soon afterwards. i was amazed how much snow had melted on my street due to the rain. the snow was doing that thing where it was actually "smoking" because of the serious evaporation (which i told julie was "sublimation" but not sure if i'm right on that one).

mike was at home, studying in the kitchen for his second take-home exam tomorrow morning. taking advantage of the space, i like it! we had possibly our most animated and insightful conversation to date. i asked him about how the studying was going, his strategy to staying awake, whether he liked the flan i made 3 nights ago, his job prospects, when he was going back home to sacramento and when he would be coming back, about my upstairs neighbor being an editor, the book that he's writing, and what his fellow english major classmates from college are doing these days (most of them went to law school as well). i made smoothies for the both of us, and while i cooked my marinated chicken in the oven, he ordered chinese food. we watched an episode of "the simple life", then he went back to his studies while i logged in several more hours of television with the volume turned down so as to not disturb him.