my father called me asking if i knew (from watching the weather forecast) when the rain would stop. i told him until monday night, an additional 2" on top of the 4" we already received over the weekend. i asked him why he was asking and discovered the bad news. it's actually at least the 3rd time their basement has flooded, so it's not entirely unexpected (the first time destroyed most of my college textbooks, but not like i was ever going to read them anyway). my father got a pump from the cafe but it's too weak and too slow to draw more water than what was coming in. i called them a few times asking for updates, but everyone sounded too preoccupied to talk, too busy bailing out the water. it'd be a losing battle. it's too late to buy a new pump, and even if stores were opened, i wouldn't be surprised if they were all sold out (i can't imagine my parents are the only ones with a flooded basement).
the one good news is after monday, the weather looks to be very nice, with several days of temperatures in the 60's and above. we'll need all those days to properly dry out the basement.
i managed to drive myself to belmont in the early afternoon. i was waiting for the rain to subside but it came down unabated. maybe all my time spent as a pedestrian 
(or a bicyclist or a motorcyclist) made me more aware of hidden road dangers, but i drove pretty slow on this rainy day. visibility was pretty bad anyway, 
better safe than sorry. everyone was parked in front of a tv: my sister in the living room, my mother in study in front of a computer screen streaming some chinese soap opera, and me in the bedroom. the start of daylight saving time meant it was still light out when usually it'd be dark. nobody told the dog so she was still on her old, and now waited to be fed at 7am and 7pm. when my father came home from the cafe my mother gave him a haircut and helped him dye his hair.
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after dinner i helped my parents order some more memory and batteries for their china trip next month. we used an old verizon fios gift certificate. my father really wanted to get a cheap standard definition digital camcorder, but i told him it wasn't worth the price, and they should really consider getting one that captured in HD since they have all the playback equipment at home. later my father gave me a ride back to belmont.
it was still raining.
came home to this weird spider trapped in my bathroom sink. i chased it around with my camera and a tethered flash. i've seen a lot of spiders in my days, and this one is new to me. i looked through my arachnid field guides and haven't been able to find a match. i'm going to call it a tiger spider because of the stripes.