as much as i love having my parents in town, having everyone squeeze onto the king-sized bed still takes some getting used to. i slept on the edge of the mattress with just half a blanket for cover. they leave early thursday morning so there's just 2 more nights of cramped sleeping. i woke up at 6:30, turned on the heat (which my mother hates because she feels suffocated by all that hot air), snoozed for 10 more minutes, before finally got up to use the bathroom and shower. my parents woke up as well, turning on the lights.

i waited outside the bus for XL but ZF was fanning me onboard so i followed and ended up sitting next to her, which made me feel a little guilty given last night we had dinner with XL for the second consecutive night. when XL got on the bus i tried to get her attention but she pretended not to see me. arriving at work i went to XL's desk to sign the timesheet and to make sure there was no hard feelings. she looked like she was reading a handwritten letter, folded it, put it into an etam weekend bag, then passed everything to me. "for your parents," she said. last night she made some pickled radishes for them to bring back home. "they're a little bland," she said, and asked me to try one. spicy, yes, but maybe could use a bit more salt. not bad otherwise. she also included a package of dried radishes. i asked XL what was the correct procedure if i wanted to take the day off tomorrow. she got close and whispered, "just call in sick." but since i don't have a department head (neither chinese or korean at the moment), i can pretty much do whatever i want.

my parents were going to chongqing today for the day to visit the sanxia museum. i called them on several occasions. at 9:00 they were just getting onboard the bus into chongqing. at 10:40 they were changing subway train at nuijiuotuo. at 12:30 they'd just been in the museum for only 20 minutes. i also let my father borrow my smartphone so he could post photo updates of their chongqing adventures onto his own qq zone.

xiangmin moved to our area today. at some point she switched from the document control department to turnover, and relocated her work area for the 4th time since i've worked here, sitting in the seat opposite our newest department member ellen fu. coincidentally, they're both also housemates. the head of E&I - who moved into loren's old space soon after he left - was asked to leave my mrs.gu several times but he said he's staying, even though the rest of his department is on the other side of the office. he said the air here is better, but we need the space for people who are actually in our department, not squatters.

i downloaded the last episode of true detective from work via torrent. i actually grabbed it last night (had the computer turned on while i slept) but i forgot to put the episode on a thumb drive when i left the apartment this morning. after walking with XL and LXL outside (it was another sunny and warm day, summer is coming, i noticed all the weeds, some of which have pretty flowers) until 12:30 (LXL wore blue, XL wore red, i wore white, very american patriotic), i came back in to watch the episode. i stopped right at the most exciting part, can't wait until tonight so i can finally finish watching it.

the jd.com courier called me around 1:30 to let me know my packages had arrived: a 10" tablet pc (for matthew), a 7" tablet pc (for my mother), and a wrist blood pressure monitor (for myself). neither of the tablet pc's have bluetooth or gps, but what they lack in features they make up for in price (US$147 and US$82 respectively). the 10" tablet pc seems especially promising given it's IPS retina display. the 10" tablet pc i bought 2 weeks ago for my 2nd aunt also has a retina display, and looking at slideshows on that thing is pretty incredible.

* afternoon chuckle - mrs.gu found a necklace - xianglian