while i continued coding in the living room this morning, my roommate was packing up his things, figuring out if he needed to buy another suitcase or possibly ship some of his stuff home. he managed to fill his only suitcase, but still had a bed full of presents that needed to be packed.

i rode the bike to market basket to pick up a few grocery items for the cafe. along the way, i stopped off at the dollar store and rite aid in search of suitcases (no luck). when i came back, i told pau i was leaving for my parents' place and would try to find a few unwanted bags if i could.

i stopped off the cafe to drop of a few things. my father was working today, and my aunt lili and uncle matthew were there as well. i sat and chatted for a while, before continuing my way to belmont.

the first thing my mother told me when i got there was there was another mouse stuck to a glue trap and wanted me take care of it. it was supposed to be in a below-counter kitchen cabinet. for some reason there was no back wall but instead went directly into the basement, a very convenience access point for mice. i couldn't see the glue trap or the mouse anywhere, so it must've dragged itself away, most likely into the basement, or worse, trapped within the crawl space between the two floors.

now it may sound like i'm this macho guy who normally deals with these sort of things, but that's entirely not the case when i screamed like a little girl when i accidently brushed against some clothes hanging in the basement. i couldn't find anything and came back upstairs, ready to poke my head into the cabinet and peer into the crawl space with a flash light.

that's when my mother noticed little bits of plastic in the nearly empty cabinet after she'd previously swept it. i took out a container of tool and once again screamed like a girl when i noticed something wiggly. the mouse did indeed drag itself away along with the trap, but now the trap was stuck to the container. i pried the trap off, fearful that the mouse will bite my hand. we put it in a paper bag and put it outside.

i went with my mother to target because she wanted to pick up a few things. it was supposed to be a quick trip on perhaps the busiest shopping day with today being the last weekend before christmas next week. i'd never seen so many people at target. the security guards had their hands full, making sure patrons don't get unruly.

everything was fine until we got into the car and it wouldn't start. my mother noticed that the headlights were on and turned them off. the car still wouldn't start. in hindsight, when we got out of the car earlier, i did notice an unusual chime noise, but i didn't pay anymore attention to it. the car battery was dead. we called my sister first, who was getting paid to help somebody wrap christmas presents, and wouldn't be home until after 6:00. we called my father, who was at work, but managed to get my 2nd aunt to cover his shift while he came to jump start the car.

my mother wanted to go back and do some more shopping while we waited for my father to arrive, but decided against it because she didn't have her cellphone and we wouldn't get in touch with her. my father didn't have his cellphone either, but fortunately our car was parked facing the street so we could honk the horn as soon as we saw him. ironically, the portable emergency battery generator was actually in the car, but we didn't have the proper proprietary jumper cables. so we had no choice but to wait as it slowly got darker.

when i finally saw my father i honked the horn and he managed to see us. we were parked in a really tight spot, a one way lane barely wide enough for one car let alone two. my father wedged his car as close to ours, had to come down the one-way lane in order to get closer, repositioned a few times, before finally closing the distance so that we could connect a pair of jumper cables. the car started immediately, and we quickly closed the hoods as my father drove backwards to let the holiday shoppers through. he returned to the cafe to close up shop while my mother and i finally managed to get home.

i found out later that if we tried giving the car some gas when we turned on the engine, there might've been a chance we could've started the car.

i went home soon after dinner. i found some unwanted luggage bags for my roommate, who wasn't home but left me a note saying he went to the movies and wouldn't be back until after 10:00. i also came home earlier so i could watch sunday night football between the packers and the patriots (new england won, naturally). when my roommate finally came home, he decided he wouldn't need any additional bags, and managed to fit almost all of his stuff into his suitcase, minus a record and a hawaiian ukulele.

in between commercial breaks i would code some more, and after the game i relocated to my bedroom where i continued working a little bit before deciding to conserve my energy so i could work a full day tomorrow.