i went across the street to zoe's to get some chinese food for lunch. i ordered the general gao's chicken with hot and sour soup. i went home and waited for 10 minutes before going back to pick up my food. once i got home i realized i got the wrong order, and quickly returned to zoe's to let them know about the mistake. the bags were mixed up and the waitress handed me my real order. once i opened the bag i noticed a few things were different: they gave me a fortune cookie and included napkins, none of which were included with the wrong order. could the folks at zoe's be playing favorites, giving me a little bit more because of i'm of the asian persuasian?

earlier, around noontime, i went out for a run during the hottest time of the day. slightly dehydrated, i think i nearly passed out, but managed to get myself home intact. my mother came over in the afternoon to help me clean up my place in preparation for the exchange student arriving sometime tomorrow. later we went to market basket to buy some groceries for this weekend's family barbecue.

in the early evening i was going with renata to a harvard natural history museum lecture on the problem of eating apes as bushmeat (that word, "bushmeat," sounds so obscene for some reason). i wrote her about it last week but never heard back (turns out she never got my e-mail). when i called her this morning to ask her if she was still coming to the weekend barbecue, she asked what i was doing later and i told her about the lecture, which she said she'd be interested in attending. she called around 5pm to let me know she was stuck in traffic somewhere in newton. i told her no rush, but as 6pm approached, i left for the lecture, calling to tell renata to just meet me at the museum. "i'm right near fresh pond," she said, and asked for me to wait. so i stood on the street corner until she arrived a few minutes later, and together we drove to the lecture. we were a little late but didn't miss much. the speaker was an author who's written a book about the bushmeat crisis, the same book that i saw renata reading a few years ago (borrowed from her father). the bulk of the presentation was a series of slides featuring grisly photos of dismembered simians. after the lecture renata and i walked back to my place for dinner, leaving her car by the museum. while renata went into the house, i made a quick trip to the supermarket to buy some eggs.

not sure if renata felt it, but up to that point the evening had a tense feeling to it. why? last friday morning i got an angry call from renata to pull the previous night's posting; i felt maybe she was over-reacting and decided not to do it, but in the back of my mind i had decided i would never see her again. so when i swallowed my pride and decided to call her this morning, i was surprised that she seemed happy to hear from me and wanted to hang out, because i thought we were in some kind of feud. while we were making dinner (ramen, i'm ashamed to say), she apologized for last week (she felt the title of the posting was in reference to her when in fact it was a self-deprecating reference to my sorry-assed self). later i revealed to her how i had decided never to hang out with her ever again. so this was our own version of the cuban missile crisis, how a little miscommunication can turn friendly people into enemies. later we made fruit elixirs (to patch things up), before renata had to leave. we walked back to her car where she then gave me a ride back to my place.