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i made indonesian rice for lunch today, the instant kind that comes frozen and all i have to do is heat it up in a frying pan. tasted okay, but i like my biryani more. i got dressed and went out to cash some checks at the porter exchange. i dropped by bruce's place on my way back, the latest news on the butterfly front is that junior was showing signs of maturing into a butterfly, its chrysalis beginning to clear up. i went home and saw that my own monarch (still in its caterpillar stage) had eaten more of the milkweed leaf, still weeks away before it matures into a butterfly.


chrysalis
junior

chrysalis
junior jr

late last night

the newbury street company that i saw on wednesday had an additional small project that they floated my way. after spending 30 minutes to ramp up to understand the kind of work involved, i realized the files they sent me were already done. i wrote them e-mail confirming this surprising piece of information, and got a reply back essentially saying "woops! sorry, never mind." so let me ask you this: in the 30 minutes it took me to decipher their demands, did that count as work?

by 2pm i was ready for my end-of-the-week run. i called julie since we made tentative plans to go together. we decided it'd be more fun to bike than to run, so i got my bicycle out of the basement and went over to julie's place. when i got there, she was still dressed in her work clothes, still fielding phone calls and e-mails and instant messages. she showed me her new driver's license photo, which i believe was a savvy tactic to remind me that her brithday was this sunday (i already knew). i hope she doesn't kill me when i say this isn't just any birthday, but rather the big 3-0, one of those milestone ages that people are so fixated on. after finally finishing off her residual work, julie went downstairs to get changed. before we left, she proudly showed me her balcony garden, lush tomatoes (with those heirloom variety that keep on cracking), basil, and jalapeño peppers.

we biked down to the charles river, me showing julie a route she's never been on (my usual running route). we went underneath the eliot bridge (flooded with water, hope it's not sewage), then followed the charles river to the arsenal mall then to watertown center, where we rode the charles river reservation to the very end.

julie kept the lead most of the time, i followed, keeping an eye on her water bottle held dubiously from the metal rack on the back of her bike. conversation included more analysis of queer eye, things to see at blue hill, whether greenough drive is a haven for illicit pick-ups, where about on your body can poison ivy strike, and her crazy landlord. the bike trail along the watertown section of the charles river included an impressive waterfall and numerous boardwalked paths and observation platforms. we saw the coolest office space along the charles river for an architectural firm called sasaki, each of us fantasizing about working there. once we reached the end of the path, we turned back around and returned to watertown center.

feeling hungry (despite the fact that i had a dinner party to go to when i returned home), julie and i searched for a place to eat in watertown center. after she got some money, we went to this little sub shop across the street from the fire station. the guy working behind the counter could've been a male model, julie confirmed this after we left the place and told me, "that guy was hot!" i ordered a steak and cheese combo, julie had some sort of barbecue chicken sandwich.

we returned home talking more about queer eye, like who's the hottest guy out of the fab five, and whether or not they can help women as well as men (i say no, the show would lose the straight male-gay male tension, maybe girls can have a fab five composed of lesbians, but who would watch that?). going back under the eliot bridge once we approached harvard square, julie forgot about the flood beneath the bridge and splattered dirty water all over the back of her t-shirt. we stopped off at a water fountain so julie could wash off the mud. i suggested that she should soak her entire t-shirt and give the people commuting home something to see. riding some more, julie said something about how she knows she's getting old because she's getting house envy everytime she passes a beautiful house, especially in cambridge, where beautiful houses are everywhere. we made it back to my place, where i bumped into my next door neighbor renee. even though it's been more than a year, i introduced myself to her for the very first time. little did i realize she was quite talkative, and for the next 15 minutes julie and i were trapped in the conversation, neither of us rude enough to break it off. after it was over though, julie biked back to her place (where she might potentially crash an indian wedding later tonight), while i stashed away my two-wheeler and hopped into my father's car, which i didn't realize was already parked outside my house. we picked up my mother and sister at the cafe and drove to lincoln, where we were having dinner with some old family friends.

the lee family used to live in belmont but moved to lincoln within the last decade. i haven't seen them in just as long a time. it was just a nice evening of two families reuniting, my parents my sister and myself, along with the lee's and their two sons (20 and 25 years old). we stayed late, close to midnight, before leaving, which would mean a late night for me as i try to finish my weblog entry.

bruce dropped by with his junior jar, eager to share with me the near final stage of metamorphosis, junior's chrysalis now almost completely transparent, the full grown adult monarch butterfly tightly encased in that chitinous shell, the unmistakable characteristic orange-black patterns of the wings clearly visible now. i took two rounds of photo that we reviewed on the television after i finished taking them. after bruce left, i checked up on the progress of my own monarch progeny, which looked to be in a state of molting (motionless, rigid), which bruce informed me the caterpillar will eat its own shell after it's done shedding.