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neighbors down the street are moving, there's been a lot of that going on this month. there was the israeli couple, and now them. they too have children, 2 daughters. the husband does a lot of biking, the wife i see her taking her children here and there. they've never been friendly to me, i don't remember them ever saying hi to me. with children, their days in cambridge were numbered. this town is a nice place to live, but not so much when you have kids, doesn't have the same peace and tranquility you'd find in the suburbs. if it was up to me, the moment you have children, you must leave the city.

i went to market basket in the afternoon to pick up a few chicken pot pie ingredients (chicken breast, potato, frozen vegetables, chicken broth), which i'm going to remake within the next few days (my last attempt was the start of spring 2015).

my MB102 breadboard power supply module arrived in the mail today. true to its name, it fits onto a breadboard perfectly, unlike the ULN2003 stepper motor driver board module that arrived yesterday. it didn't come with instructions but i'm sure there are online guides. it looks pretty self-explanatory anyway, other than the pin settings. i heard some stories about defective power supply modules that could potentially fry breadboard components but hopefully that won't happen here.

i plowed through the final 6 episodes of search party, the TBS dramedy about a group of millennials searching for a missing girl. i didn't get it at first, all the characters were so annoying and self-centered. i forced myself to watch another episode but the show slowly grew on me, however cringeworthy it might still be. at the very least it has some catchy music. spoiler alert the ending seemed like the ultimate comeuppance, the girl they were trying to save, with all sorts of theories like escaping from a baby cult or a weird sometimes violent boyfriend, she ended up being okay, and was actually sort of annoying just like them, and didn't seem worthy of saving.

i left my house by 6:50pm, figuring it'd take me an hour to get to jamaica plain to rendezvous with eliza and carl and hillary. if it wasn't for them, i would probably never come down to JP on my own. the only person i know who lives here is julie, and that last time i visited her was january 2015. the last time i was in JP was in august 2015, meeting up with eliza et al. i look forward to these semi-annual JP visits, since we gather at a different venue each time. this time it was tres gatos. while waiting for the subway to arrive at downtown crossing, i read an e-mail from eliza saying she was there early and asking if anyone else was likewise early.

i arrived at tres gatos at 6:45pm, after getting off at stony brook (orange line) and adding $20 to my charlie card. none of the other dinner party members had arrived yet, but from the crowded look of the restaurant, we would not be eating here tonight. temperature was in 30's (hat and gloves weather), but i was dressed for the occasion so i wasn't too cold. when carl/hllary/eliza finally showed up, they were of the same opinion. maybe out of curiosity we went inside and asked: the waitress very matter-of-factly said the wait time would be over an hour.

so we left, and decided instead to go to canary square across the street. they weren't as crowded and the place was big enough that it didn't feel claustrophobic, although the table they gave us forced us to sit on high chairs. i'd actually been here before, with this same gang for dinner, back in june 2011.

eliza was back in town with theo, spending time with her family for the holiday. she said this was her first outing with friends since she's been back. the three of them ordered cocktails while i got a dry hard cider ($6). we shared an order of poutine ($8 hard cut fries, beeacher's cheese curds, poultry gravy). i don't think i ever had poutine before, but carl said the way they made here it wasn't authentic to french-canadian poutine. i especially like the gravy, which looked sort of green and was spicy. i got the vegetable mac 'n' cheese ($16 broccolini, cremini, red pepper, four cheese) for my entree. it was very delicious, but i wished the serving was larger, because i could've easily ate 4x the amount that was on my plate.

we left canary square at 10:40pm and walked down to jp licks for some dessert. i was looking forward to drinking something hot (like white hot chocolate) but was intrigued by the swedish glogg ice cream (hot spice wine), so went with a scoop of ice cream instead ($4.50). i didn't realize a scoop was going to be so much, almost like eating a second dinner. the guy gave me an extra cup to catch any falling ice cream.

we left jp licks by 11:30pm. while they walked to their cars, i said my good bye and headed down green street to the subway station that would take me back to cambridge. i was a little worried that i might be taking the last train out, but that wasn't to be the case and i made it back in a reasonable amount of time.

my stomach was gurgling the entire evening, which should've alerted me to the fact that there might be something wrong. i didn't really feel it until walking back home from porter square. i started to get really gassy and then suddenly an overwhelming sensation of having to use the bathroom. it'd come and go, and i actually had to run to my house from a block away when i started feeling that sensation again. safely inside, i felt fine again, and went about throwing out the trash, but then that feeling came back with a vengeance, and i dropped everything and ran to the bathroom. say hello to my little lactose-intolerance friend! with the amount of cheese i ate tonight (poutin plus macaroni & cheese) plus the ice cream, i'm kind of surprised i made it all the way home without incident. still, i wouldn't give up cheese or ice cream anytime soon. lactose-intolerance be damned!

while scanning the news on the internet, i was shocked to discover that debbie reynolds - carrie fisher's mother - died today, a day after her own daughter passed away.