miguel was leaving at 6am, so i set my alarm for 5:30am. as he and karen were making final preparations and getting ready, i crept into the living room and waited while watching some morning news. approaching 6am he came into the living room to say good bye. he thanked me for my hospitality and welcomed me to his house in merida should i ever visit mexico. he also gave me back my key, along with a complimentary hand-crafted beaded figurine keychain of a quetzal. a few minutes later their uber car arrived and they left. i gave them a final wave from the door.
after using the bathroom and taking a quick shower, i climbed back into bed to continue sleeping. miguel texted me from the airport, thanking me once again. at one point i heard karen coming back to the house. i couldn't quite be sure because i was already semi-conscious. i fell into a deep sleep and did wake up until 11:20am. i got up and realized karen was still sleep as the door to her bedroom was closed. i puttered around a bit, left karen a note, then headed to my parents' place via bike around noontime.
it was a grey and slightly cold day (temperature in the lower 40's), looked like it might rain at any point, but the rain clouds were confided south of boston. the average temperature this time of year is supposed to be in the upper 50's. i had some rice porridge for lunch, then snacked intermittently as i surfed aimlessly online. my mother has been thinking about updating her ipad 2 to either the new apple ipad ($329) or an android tablet. the only thing comparable is the ASUS ZenPad 3S 10 (Z500M) ($299). same screen resolution with a higher memory spec. the only thing i don't like about the zenpad 3s 10 is it uses the cheaper mediatek chip, which don't seem to be compatible with a lot of 3rd party rom's. but if we're not going to tweaking the OS anytime soon, the zenpad is a perfectly fine tablet.
my sister and her dog showed up briefly in the late afternoon before leaving. after dinner i biked back to cambridge. the house was empty, not sure where karen went, but it gave me enough time to use the bathroom and take a shower. she came back around 8:30pm, having gone with her friend paula to a mexican grocery store in lynn, where she got me a ball of authentic oaxaca ("wa-HA-ka") cheese. i've had the cheese before but this time i could really savor it. it's chewy and stringy like mozzarella, but has a distinctive mild milk or butter flavor. when torn into slices, it resembles chicken. karen said you can just eat it raw as a snack, or melted on a sandwich, and that it also goes along well with grapes.
karen went to bed very early, around 9:30pm. i kept at it until midnight, then decided to sleep early as well.