my sister came to pick me up in the early afternoon for a hot pot dinner with my family including my aunt and uncle. she brought hailey in the car, who was excited to see me initially but later calmed down and sat back in her seat until we made it to belmont. i played with my mother's new 4th generation ipod nano. i'm not so much interested it for the music as i am in its ability to function as a very small portable slideshow viewer. reduced to a 320x240 pixel thumbnail, i wonder if i could upload an entire year's worth of snapshots into its 8gb memory? i could spin the thumbwheel and relive an entire year of life though photos.

not pictured are fried taro wedges, which place a close second place to book tripe, my favorite hot pot thing to eat. a lot of hot pot (AKA shabu shabu) restaurants are popping up these days (i saw a new one in harvard square a few weeks ago); restauranteurs are finally getting wise to the culinary scam of charging patrons inflated sums just for the pleasure of cooking their own food. but if you don't have access to the technology (e.g. conduction plate, meat slicing machine) or know people who can invite you to a homemade hot pot dinner, i suppose that's the only way to go.

hailey was well behaved, placated further with a bribe of a cow hoof. she'd alternate between chewing on her hoof and going around the table investigating what people were eating. later she fell asleep underneath the dinner table. the cow hoof is a terrible treat because of its incredibly awful smell. fortunately by then everyone had finished eating.

it was weird returning home to an empty house. i went straight to my bedroom where i unpacked and spent the rest of the night in bed listening to music, watching movies, and writing up a weblog posting.