so i finally made it to my parents' place this morning. i was expecting to see the mess that the burglar made but the place seemed exactly like the way i remembered it. outside i could see the upside down trash that the burglar used as a stepladder to break into a sunroom window. everything was left the way it was for the police detective to come by and dust for fingerprints. my mother was retracing the burglar's steps for me and pointing to where he looked for jewelry.

the only renovation work i did was to help my father put back the curtain rails on the living room ceiling and to clean a bit more of the kitchen walls. i was using this oxiclean powder without gloves and after 15 minutes i could feel it eating away the skin on my hands so i quickly stopped doing that.

a detective came by the house around noon; my sister and father retold the events of sunday night. by the time the detective left, he had black smudges all over his face from the fingerprint dusts. "couldn't get any prints," he said, "the burglar was probably wearing gloves." then he told us the best way to remove volcanic ash, which i thought was a little weird, until we went out back and saw he'd dusted the whole broken window and there was this black soot everywhere. later an agent from a home security company dropped by. even though the house has a preexisting alarm system, because it's so old, he said it'd be easier to start from scratch. the price he was asking seemed a little high though: $2000 for the initial setup and then a $20/month subscription. while he was talking with my father and sister, i was searching online for DIY home security systems that're just a few hundred and seem just as good. for such a small house, we don't need a fancy security system; besides, there's really nothing worth stealing anymore - it's more for peace of mind.

the more i think about it, the more i've come to believe that the theft that occurred at my parents' place was the work of a professional cat burglar. not your ordinary criminal that just breaks in and steals indiscriminately. this particular criminal was only searching for jewelry (silver and gold jewelry at that), and knew the difference between fake and genuine. my mother was showing me all the stuff the burglar didn't take, and if it was me, i would've just taken everything. the burglar also didn't steal anything else. things like an ipod, digital cameras, they were all left behind. if it was me i would've taken those as well.

i stopped by the cafe for some lunch before returning home.

i didn't think i had anything else to do today (other than watch all the tv episodes i downloaded from last night), but i suddenly remembered i still had to assemble that metal shelf for the basement. so i slowly moved all the pieces from my kitchen floor down below. if you've ever seen my basement, you know it's just a mess of boxes stacked on top of each other. i've always wanted to get everything better organized, and a shelf is definitely a step in the right direction. thing is, the area is so dirty, it required a lot of cleaning first. half my time was spent vacuuming up all the dust and cobwebs with a shopvac. afterwards i started putting together the metal shelf, sort of like a giant erector set, but with beams that can slip and crack my skull. after it was all done i started putting all the various boxes onto the shelves, dramatically reducing the clutter in my basement storage area. if i got another shelving unit, i could reduce a lot of clutter upstairs and give me additional space for even more junk! i also managed to throw away 3 ancient printers.

this is what my kitchen/dining area looks like at night. you can see my two *heated* guppy tanks. on the table is another aquarium but i'm using that to grow duckweed. because it's a translucent tank, it acts like a lamp and gives the whole room a fluorescent glow.

is anyone else catching the 2nd season of dexter on showtime? so good! i'd already seen the two preair episodes during the summer, and finally downloaded a new episode last night. doakes is finally off dexter's back now that he thinks dexter's "addiction" is just drugs! and with doakes off his back, dexter can go back to killing again! hooray!

and so happy jaime murray has now joined the cast as dexter's hot AA sponsor. i know her from hustle, one of the best short series from england in recent years.

everything seems to be coming together in this 3rd episode. dexter and rita are back together again. dexter is starting to feel more human and normal now, even buying a minivan. debra seemed to have cracked the pattern of the "bay harbor butcher" (unbeknownst to her, it's her brother dexter). and laguerta might get her old job back.

it's almost too painful to even write about, but the red sox lost again tonight, and now the indians are up 3-1 with just one more game away from the world series. what went wrong? everything. the only highlight was the back-to-back-to-back homeruns of youkilis, ortiz, and ramirez. are the indians really the better team or do the red sox just suck right now? or is it a combination of both? but any team that can beat the yankees has to be somewhat special. mommy, is there not going to be a red sox world series championship parade this year? bad news: thursday's game is still in cleveland. good news: beckett is pitching. but we need some offense!