when laura eventually woke up, she told me her friend ana would be coming over today to see the place. laura told me she was going to make some breakfast, but i know for a fact that all she has for groceries is a loaf of bread, some chocolate chip cookies, and a container of orange juice. i asked her if she's ever tried apple chicken sausages before and proceded to make my typical chicken sausage oatmeal breakfast meal for her to try.
we got to talking about cooking, after laura remarked how many cooking equipment i have in the kitchen. she likes to cook herself, and back in barcelona she participates in special cooking classes where you cook and speak in the cuisine of a particular language (e.g. speaking in english, cooking american-british-indian food).
ana finally arrived in the early afternoon. just the fact that she's in the US studying english makes me think that she's kind of a party girl, because for most of those international students, english is just a small part of their daily schedule, while partying and shopping plays a bigger role. i can't quite figure out her celebrity doppleganger, with her shock of curly brown hair, i'll have to work on that some more. her english was fine, even better than laura's, but she said she still needs to work on her prepositions ("prepositions are not important," i told her).
ana really liked the place, but it was all for show, since she really didn't have many other options. she seemed to think the guest bedroom was a good size, even though it's the second smallest room in the house after the bathroom. she was also impressed by the in-unit washer/dryer and the large backyard deck. she seems like a nice person though, asking about household choirs ("i take care of all that," i told her) and whether or not i have any special rules ("none," i told her, "i'm pretty easy."). she will move in not the wednesday after laura leaves tuesday afternoon, but maybe thursday or friday. she also has a storage space full of her furniture which she will sell within the next 3 months.
i found out ana's never lived in somerville, but rather the brookside condo complex in arlington. back in may there was a large fire that damaged many units and even killed somebody. turns out that was her place. the fire started at 4:00 in the morning, but she was at a party (of course) and didn't come home until 5:00, where she saw her neighbors outside in their pajamas. her own apartment didn't get burned, but it did suffer so smoke damage, so she moved to her brother's place in arlington heights for the next 2 months, before returning to her previous place after they repaired the damages. however, the landlord now wants to sell, so when her lease expired at the end of july, the owner didn't renew so she was back to living with her brother. unfortunately they plan on doing some renovations starting in september, so she has to move again. actually she's been searching for a new place since april, but short-term lease apartments are hard to find, especially when there are so many returning students looking for longer-term leases. she did see a place in harvard square, but it was a shared apartment with a total of 8 tenants, kind of like an ivy league flop house if that's even a thing.
afterwards laura and ana left for the prudential center, where ana was introducing her to the cheesecake factory, followed by the samuel adams brewery.
i fixed my rear bike rack with a stainless steel hose fitting. one of the metal frames was coming loose, which in turn loosen the rear light bracket. i tried fixing it with some twist ties earlier, and even managed to cut my lip when i tried to tighten the tie with my teeth. i didn't know i was injured until i saw blood on my fingers. the hose fitting is a better solution and that thing has no chance of loosening again.
i rode to belmont with the unused toilet cover (to be returned) strapped to the rear rack. i spent the rest of the afternoon looking over some old china photos before dinner. i'm beginning to notice it's getting darker a lot sooner nowadays, with the sky already dusky by 7:30pm. i didn't leave until 9:00 though. laura was back at home but she kept to herself in her room so i didn't see her the rest of the evening. i cut up a quarter of my watermelon and watched the gory penultimate episode of hannibal while i ate (needed a strong stomach for that).
got in touch with john earlier tonight, our little hike trip to upper new york before he starts his new job next month will unfortunately not be happening. we still might be able to do a weekend trip in the fall, depending on our schedules.