hailey slept by the foot of the bed, curled up into a ball. as soon as she sensed i was awake, she climbed on top of my head, compelling me to get out of bed. that, plus the sunshine streaming in through the southern facing window of my parents room, began my day.

free from the distractions at my place, i worked a lot diligently, writing code for clients. every now and then i'd call hailey to come back inside, or go out into the backyard and throw the ball with her before it got too cold for me to stay outside. she was happy to be out in the backyard all day despite the freezing temperature (i saw ice in a bucket of rain water), and when she wasn't chasing squirrels, she was dotting the yard with craters from her digging.

i managed to persuade her to return home around noontime for her lunch, a cup of dry pellets with a small tablespoon of wet pâté. she finished that in less than a minute. she doesn't seem to eat a lot yet her body stays warm throughout (other than her floppy ears, which are often just room temperature). i at some lunch as well, heated up a can of chicken noodle soup i brought over from my house. it's weird to be doing any sort of cooking at my parents place. granted, heating up a can of soup doesn't really constitute cooking, but when i lived at home, the extent of my cooking was either making a bowl of ramen or heating up a toaster oven pizza.

later hailey took her nap, curled up on the dark leather couch. from across the room i could hardly see her. finally i had a few uninterrupted hours to concentrate on work and i managed to get a lot of bugs fixed.

my sister came home in the late afternoon from her nanny duty. i wasn't expecting her to be back until the early evening, but that allowed me an earlier return to cambridge. by then it was already dark, with temperature at 28°F. i tuck another pair of small knitted gloves into my leather riding gloves, but that did nothing for the cold. within several minutes my fingers were throbbing from pin-pricks of pain, i was sure there'd be permanent damage. on my front doorstep i could barely fish the house key out of my pocket.

julie showed up in the evening. i made clam chowder for dinner. after she left i felt a rumbling in my stomach as my digestive system reacted to all that heavy cream in the chowder. my roommate came home later shaking his head over how unbelievably cold it was (22°F by that point). "is it like this all winter?" he asked. actually this week has been unusually cold; normally around november it's a bit warmer. but it gave him a sense of the possibilities of new england winters.