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this morning i pitched the idea that my parents should have our family dinner at my place. this would include everyone, including hailey, which has never happened before. the dog has only been here once before, when my sister stopped by one time unannounced. and it's been years since my family was together over at my place.

my parents were going on a weekend supply run and decided to go early, around 10:30. i tagged along because i wanted to go to home depot to buy some sweet basil seeds to start indoors. we went to the one in everett, before continuing onwards to the restaurant depot. i tried taking some 3D photos from the back of the honda element but there isn't great visibility from the rear seat. besides, 3D photos work best when there aren't things moving around.

coming back, we also went to ocean state job lot, spending probably an hour there. i picked up some more fencing for my little front yard.

back at my place, my parents were figuring out what to eat for a late lunch. my mother suggested going across the street for thai/vietnamese, but decided to just have ramen instead, while i finished the leftover meat buns from yesterday. afterwards i impressed my mother with some 3D HDTV. her attention span was limited since she was also preoccupied with her knitting and her streaming asian soap opera on her ipad.

my sister didn't show up at my place until almost 4:00. hailey the dog didn't care much for niceties and barged right in, sniffing around the whole house. my sister said hailey hadn't gone to the bathroom yet and wanted me to let her out in my backyard. i told her that wasn't possible since there are flowers growing from every inch and i didn't want the dog to trapple through my garden. nobody could understand why i objected to letting the dog use my backyard as a toilet. i told my sister to just walk hailey outside but she said her dog isn't the kind of dog that goes to the bathroom on the sidewalk. my sister said she wouldn't have come if she knew i wasn't going to let her dog go to the bathroom in my backyard.

my sister finally did take hailey around the neighbor and she finally did go to the bathroom. but hailey still seemed antsy when she got back, probably from being in an unfamiliar environment. so the way my sister deals with problems is by ignoring them or running away, so she told us she was taking the dog back to belmont because we weren't being nice to them. i was able to talk to my sister out from her insanity by reasoning with her that if hailey doesn't learn to handle going to other people's houses then she'll never be properly socialized. she my sister ended up taking the dog out for another walk.

for dinner we were just going to get some subway sandwiches from a store a few blocks away. but my sister was spitballing other suggestions, everyone one of them much more expensive. we finally went with the original plan, with my mother and i going out to get food while my sister taking hailey out for walk number 3.

ordering 4 different sandwiches took a while; fortunately there was no other customers at the store. when we left, the cashier said good bye to us in chinese. my mother asked if he spoke mandarin, he said he took a year of it.

since my parents and i had a late lunch, we all managed to only finish half our sandwiches. my sister was the only one who ate all of hers. after everyone went home, i was left with a living room with bits and pieces of sandwiches all over the floor and a kitchen sink full of dishes i'll have a hard time washing since i still can't lift my left arm.

steve and paul had some late dinner guests (8:30) but apparently they weren't home so their guests were stranded outside. it started to get awkward, especially after they were still here when i came back from a quick supermarket run to stock up on some pistachio ice cream. i told them i could let them in with the spare key of the upstairs condo, but they said steve and paul were almost home. right on cue, they got back, flashing their headlights to signal us.