so i spent most of the day just waiting around with my roommate. he was wearing one of his many new harvard sweatshirts. he completely cleared out his room, even going as far as washing the bedsheets. he left a bag of presents and told me they were for katarina, who would come pick them up when she returns to boston from germany beginning of next month. he briefly video chatted with some coworkers back home, still trying to find an apartment to live for next year.
the flight was to paris, then to barcelona, and finally a flight to majorca. with the recent snowstorms in europe and a slew of cancelled flights, pau was worried his flight to paris would be cancelled as well. in fact, he knew a spanish couple returning home who had their flight cancelled and had a rescheduled flight the day after christmas. a check on the airport website showed at least an hour departure delay (6:00 instead of 5:00).
as if the potential risk of flight cancellation wasn't enough, pau had another problem: his luggage was too heavy. 50 lbs. is the maximum weight, but when he weighed his suitcase with my bathroom scale, it consistently showed that his bag was 56 lbs. his luggage was so full that it was bulging, and he actually had to jettison a few presents (a carton of oatmeal, a can of bread crumbs, weird presents yes, but somebody back at home asked for them) because he just didn't have enough room.
around noontime pau went back to his office one last time, to return his keys and to drop off roberto's bicycle. he borrowed my bicycle camera mount so he could shoot a video his trip to work now with the addition of some winter snow (today being the official first day of winter).
i went outside and shoveled the sidewalk a second time, once i noticed the temperature was slightly above the freezing point. i shoveled down to the bare ground, or as much as i could, figuring the rest of the snow would quickly melt soon afterwards (that's exactly what happened).
he came back home around 1:00 and ate some leftover pasta for lunch. by 2:00 he called for a taxi, which came roughly 30 minutes later. it was just a large black SUV parked outside, so at first we didn't even recognize what it was, until the driver actually called. pau and i said our good byes, he lugged all his bags into the car, and just like that, my roommate goes home.
the first thing i did was to go through the house looking for anything pau might've left behind. no matter how careful they are, roommates always forget something. pau actually did a pretty good job taking all his stuff though, including his shampoo and conditioner, which roommates normally abandon. besides the bag of presents in his room, there were a few empty boxes (which he told me about before he left) and a stack of technical documents for the recycle bin. what he did leave behind were a bunch of food in the refrigerator and the cupboard. i took them out one by one and photographed them for posterity.
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i didn't do any work today, still waiting for the client to send me some graphics and layout directions. taking advantage of this temporary break, i watched another cult film, ms. 45 (1981), your typical rape-revenge film. directed by abel ferrera, 
who directed one of my favorite crime movies, king of new york (1990) with christopher walken and laurence fishburne (also david caruso, wesley snipes, and steve buscemi - that movie had everybody!). ms. 45 takes place in new york city and is the story of a young mute seamstress who gets raped twice in a single day, forcing her to snap and seek revenge on any men she meets. the "45" is in reference to the gun she uses. the lead actress is zoë tamerlis, a woman of striking beauty (remind me of jeanne tripplehorn) whom i'd never seen before; turns out she died in 1999 from complications due to drug abuse.
my now former roommate wrote me an e-mail 2 hours after he left for the airport, thanking me once again and letting me know that he made it through customs and security without any problems. he also told me he forgot to return my house key (this isn't the first roommate to take my key with them; i should learn to put guest keys on keychains that don't have any sentimental value in case i lose them).
i had dinner in the early evening, reheated a leftover box of pasta my roommate had left behind. i actually told him i'd eat it for dinner; he told me it wasn't very good and not to judge his cooking from that one dish. actually, it wasn't all that bad. sprinkled with some crushed peppers and hot chili flakes, it was pretty taste, with bits of green peppers and grounded sausages.
unfortunately the leftover pasta wasn't enough to sustain my hunger and a few hours later i cooked up some dan dan noodles.
i may sleep in the guest bedroom tonight, as part of my reclamation ritual. besides, it's much warmer in there anyway, compared to my own bedroom, which can get quite chilly during the winter due to lackluster insulation.