i watched steve and paul leaving in the late morning, for where ever they go to spend their thanksgiving (marblehead?). i didn't really care other than the fact that hopefully they'll be gone for the whole weekend so i can have some peace and quiet in the house.
after eating my final slice of ricotta pie, i biked down to the community garden to collect some more rocks and bricks. same as last time, my bike managed to topple over from the weight while i was loading it. that bike is a tank though, so there was no damage. i put the rocks back in the baskets and rode home.
i went to the liquor store around the corner to pick up a six-pack of woodchuck hard cider ($10). i showed the owner my id without him asking, but i'm sure he's seen me enough times to recognize me by this point. there was a line outside petsi pies about 20 customers deep.
i started up the motorcycle and it actually backfired from the exhaust with a loud explosion, which startled me. but otherwise the bike was fine as i rode to belmont. 
nobody was home yet, so i raked the front lawn again, collecting 3 containers of dead leaves. i grew increasingly hotter as i worked, removing layers in the process, until i was just in a t-shirt despite the temperature being in the upper 40's. in the backyard, i put up the second birdfeeder, the globe with the seeds. i could hear chickadees chirping excitingly over an additional source of food. in the sunroom, i rearranged the split wire shelving units so they sat up against the wall, taking up less space.
with thanksgiving just tomorrow, we barely made a dent in cleaning up the house. my mother made use of the plastic bins i got her to organize some kitchen stuff, and we also made use of the wire shelvings in the sunroom to store their collection of pots and pans. my father and i also expanded the dining table, using all the leaves to fit a total of 12 guests. more cleaning will be done tomorrow morning. worst case scenario, we take all the junk in the living/dining room and throw it into one of the other rooms.
 |
 |
 |
 |
returning home, i couldn't start the motorcycle despite pulling out the choke. i was afraid the battery was dead, but i finally managed to start the engine (with the choke off surprisingly, despite it being so cold). when i got home i was expecting to see freddy and catalina (because i noticed both their phones were online while i was eating dinner, so i actually turned up the heat for them), but they were gone. they came home a short time later, after having gone to market basket to do some grocery shopping. they didn't know the supermarkets would be closed tomorrow. they also didn't know that wednesday night with just an hour left before the store closed, market basket would be the worst place to be. i couldn't even imagine what it was like, freddy told me it was crowded, but the lines weren't that bad. anyway, catalina didn't stay long, just a few minutes, before she returned home. she'll be back tomorrow though, when freddy makes dinner.
my tailbone's been hurting for the last few days from sitting on it wrong in the living room. i've been taking some aleve, but it doesn't seem to be doing anyway. then i noticed the expiration date: expired 6 years ago! maybe that's the reason why it doesn't work. so i went in search of some chinese ibuprofen i brought from a china trip. 
i couldn't be sure if it was actually ibuprofen or cold medication, and even then, it would be 2 years old. i took a capsule and felt a little weird a bit later, sort of regretting that i mixed my medication. but that didn't seem to alleviate the pain either. so i went in search of an empty pill bottle so i could get some ibuprofen from my parents tomorrow, but that's when i found a packet of generic CVS ibuprofen that gave me a while back. it wasn't that long ago (year?) so i knew it wasn't expired yet. so i took a tablet. and waited. and the pain didn't go away. maybe the pain is related to something else and can't be fixed with painkillers. i'll just have to power through it.