then catch the last game of the weekend series between the red sox and the yankees later tonight. however this would not be the case as i received a call from my fairy godmother of "let's go do something": renata would be in my neighborhood looking at an apartment, 
and wondered what i was doing, which was pretty much nothing until she called. this gave me about an hour to clean up the house a bit, take a shower, and eat some lunch in the form of leftover cupcakes and a smoothie. when she arrived we talked about a few off the record things and i tried to alleviate some of her stress. whether it worked or not, only time can tell. i showed her the hoberman sphere, which brought great mirth on friday night with julie, but hardly registered any interest with renata. she chastised me for going to the forest hills lantern festival without telling her about it, and i tried to get back into her good grace by inviting her to the jamaica pond lantern festival this fall. without even being asked to, she starting sharing her new chinese vocabulary with me. renata asked if i had lunch yet ("no," i lied, those cupcakes were technically my lunch), and suggested going down to central square, where the world's fair was being held.
it took us a while to find parking around central square. after much searching, we came across a spot several blocks away. "you're going to have to help me," renata said, referring to her parallel parking skills, those same skills in which i have none of. out the window i saw a familiar face walking down the street. 
"chris chang, chris chang!" i shouted. renata suggested i get out of the car so i could talk better while she maneuvered into our parking spot. chris, whom i first met through squid a while back, already knew about the company closing its doors. i filled him in on some more details. it was fortunate i ran into him because he had just relocated to new hampshire. "i work at the farm now," he said. "you're a farmer?" apparently he meant a design firm. recently, whenever i'm with renata, i keep on bumping into people i know. she probably has the false impression that i'm very well connected throughout boston, which is entirely wrong, i have very little friends because of my reclusive nature. before chris left i told him the URL of my weblog. "iamtonyang.com, all one word, one Y, not two," i explained. renata, for the next few minutes, couldn't stop laughing about my shameless self-publicity plug. i almost pushed her into traffic. while we walked into central square, she was also like a parrot, reciting all the new chinese phrases she had learned over the week.
the july world's fair in central square is very much like the river fest that happens here during june. all of central square is closed down as the streets and sidewalks become congested with people walking around and vendors selling jewelry, clothing, artworks, and food. with the DNC in town and being how it's an election year, there was a plethora of political merchandise, from t-shirts to books, all of them with a liberal slant and a lot of bush hate (which i think is a bad thing, when you're so wrapped up in extremism, you fail to see the faults within your own group, in this case the democrats, who are no saviours themselves). we walked from one end to the other, then turned back to get some food. we picked a tibetan stand called rangzen, got a styrofoam box full of food for $5. we went down a side street and camped behind a performance stage where people were doing interpretive dancing. we ate sitting on the curb, before noticing that right across from us was the rangzen restaurant.
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renata had to be out in western MA by 6pm, so we decided to head back. while driving me back to my place, renata accused me of taking unflattering photos of her with her driving glasses (i denied those charges). i also took some candles she didn't want, which turned out to be a mistake as these strongly scented wax products was saturating my house with its aroma (and i didn't even light it yet).
i went out running (postponed from friday), felt stronger than normal on a weekend run, maybe because this was the first weekend in a while where i haven't been trekking miles of wilderness. i got hot enough that by the time i reached the river, i pulled off my t-shirt and placed it on my usual spot (a large boulder by the side of the road). memorial drive was closed (because its sunday) so i didn't have to brave the gauntlet of speeding cars like i normally do. 
on the opposite side of the charles river a couple on a bike rode passed me. a blonde woman and a man behind her who looked like alex rodriguez and who in fact was alex rodriguez. i looked back, didn't know whether i should've said something, or perhaps chase them down. a-rod saw me running topless along the charles river! what was he doing riding his bike 2 hours before game time? how come he doesn't have body guards? when i came back home, i went online, searching for photos of the couple, to confirm it was them.
the "dunch" i had earlier was all the dinner i needed, and i spent the rest of the evening watching the heavily anticipated red sox yankees match-up. the red sox ended up winning the game, 9-6, now they're 7.5 games behind the yankees.