this morning i was waiting for marco to leave. he rode his bike one last time to MIT to pick up some souvenir boston bottle opener keychains. he came back with a fresh loaf of bread and some deli meat so he could make some sandwiches for his plane trip. he finally left around 12:45 after sending out a postcard to his family.

with one last wave good bye he was gone, walking down to harvard square to take the subway to the airport. with some roommates i can't wait for them to leave; but in marco's case i was genuinely sad to see him go. he's one of my easiest roommates, almost no complaints on my part.

next i went through the house looking for things marco left behind. some things he told me about, like the hair clipper set (wahl 79900-1901 clip 'n trim) which he said wouldn't work with european voltage.

marco forgot his cookie mixes! i don't think it was intentional, i think he just forgot to check the cupboard before he left. he was going to make cookies for his coworkers once he returned to the institute monday morning. fortunately baking cookies entirely from scratch isn't too difficult, it shouldn't be hard to find the necessary ingredients if he does decide to go the cookie route.

i discovered marco's a body spray kind of guy - axe no less! at some point he ran out and bought a new can. how do i know this? because the one he purchased in europe doesn't have english instructions! he also left his toothbrush (it's kind of beat up, i'm not surprised).

marco also threw away a pair of old jeans ruined by greasy bike chains and an old bathrobe that he didn't have enough room in his suitcase.

all in all he didn't leave a mess and i hardly had to do any cleaning in his bedroom once he left. however, while washing the sheets, i discovered the pillowcases were stained beyond saving. for a guy with short hair, he seems to have an abnormally oil scalp! even after washing them the stains wouldn't come out. and these were new pillowcases too, purchased before he came! likewise, the 2 new firm pillows have been reduced to soft at best, and maybe need to be tossed as well. i basically want to get brand new sheets before my next roommate, keep my eyes open for linen sales. and if a fairly new twin-size mattress deal appears on craig's list, i might want to score that as well.

my mother called me with a yarn emergency, said she promised to knit something for a customer but didn't have the right yarn, so she asked me to do a yarn run. ac moore was all out of bernat roving color she wanted (flint). there was an old lady also shopping for yarn and volunteered to help me find what i was looking for. she told me to ask one of the clerks because "they have plenty more yarn in the back, more than what they keep out in the front." she also gave me a 50%-off-one-item-coupon (i forgot to print out a few before i left the house). she gave me one final piece of advice - this knitting samaritan - that ac moore coupons were good at michael's and supposedly vice versa.

i headed down to michael's where they did have flint but only one skein. the selection of bernat roving was also a lot more, but maybe because they weren't on sale ($7.99 here, only $4.99 at ac moore). i tried finding a clerk to see if they could check the back for more flint, but everyone was manning the registers so i finally just gave up and paid. sure enough, that ac moore 50%-off-one-item-coupon worked.

i made my way across somerville via a different route, up the hills of school street. that turned out to be a terrible mistake and i probably added an additional 10 minutes to my travel time. next time: broadway-cedar. at the cafe i had a shao-bing sandwich - actually my first meal of the day (if you don't count a cup of egg nog) even though it was already late afternoon.

i came home with 2 more shao-bing sandwiches, one of them i ate soon after i got back. watching another episode of revenge from the couch, i soon fell asleep, keeping myself warm with the fleece throw strategically hidden behind of the couch pillows. i think drinking another bottle of woodchuck hard cider probably didn't help to keep me awake. when i woke up around 9:00 i ate the other sandwich and continued my revenge marathon (currently on episode 9).