my mother had called earlier, said my father was getting ready to visit rosev, and would come and pick me up at 10am. he needed me to go to act as navigator, since he'd never been to the newly-relocated building in chelsea yet.
but first we stopped at the 88 supermarket, to pick up a box of frozen chinese dumplings. any chinese family with an ounce of cooking know-how knows how to make dumplings, but using frozen store-bought is more convenient and customers seem to prefer the taste. my parents are particular about the brand, and when i suggested we could try the new 99 supermarket instead, but mother insisted on 88 because it was one of the few places that carried that particular brand of dumplings. it was weird being in 88 and only buying one thing; usually when we go we fill up a shopping cart; but having already made an asian supermarket supply run last saturday in quincy, there wasn't much we needed.
next we went to the chelsea market basket, which we already visited yesterday. my father was confused at first, because my mother didn't tell him we needed to stop here, only me. we were in search of pork skins, which my mother heard was on sale but forgot to pick up yesterday afternoon. unfortunately they didn't have it (wouldn't be in stock until later in the day) so we left empty-handed. i also checked to see if they had the special sugar-free jones soda one of the customers like to drink, but they didn't.
final stop was rosev dairy, which involved getting onto william street and following the perimeter of chelsea from marginal to eastern. it wasn't hard to get to once we found the place. we told the woman working behind the service desk that we were looking for ice cream. she said we could either wait for somebody to get it or we could go get it ourselves. so we went inside the freezer warehouse. it was of course freezing on the inside. a man who worked there wearing a large parka told us where to find the ice creams we wanted. they had everything except for french vanilla. we picked up a mint chocolate chip and a container of rainbow sherbet. my father fast walked out of the freezer which i took my time. in the car we had coolers waiting for the ice cream, to prevent them from melting on the trip back. the way back was much easier now that we knew where we were going.
we stopped at the somerville market basket before my father dropped me off. here they had pork skins, and my father also picked up two small containers of golden vanilla until rosev can resupply their ice cream stock.
i got home before noontime. i made myself an italian sub and watched the news. in the afternoon i packed up my things and went to the garden first to water my plot. joel was there, i chatted with him briefly, before leaving as my motorcycle was blocking the exit of an excavator truck doing work on the garden fence. i went to belmont where i had grand plans to do some bamboo weeding or tree pruning, but ended up just watering the garden. i ate some leftover fried chicken and sweet potato fries.
my mother asked me to dogsit in late august, as both my sister and parents won't be in town that week. that's also when GC is scheduled to go back to alabama.
i took a benadryl on my mother's advice, to see if it'd help with the itchy blisters on my hands. not sure if it was the drug, but i felt sleepy and took an hour long nap in my parents' bedroom at 5pm. i woke up with a thin film of sweat and feeling still very tired that it was a struggle to get up. i was fine after dinner though, although it took me a while to finish my noodles.
i was afraid to go home for fear of finding some awful smell. as soon as i came into the house i smelled it again, the stink of shellfish. at least this time GC turned on the box fan, but it'd take a while for the stench to leave the house. unlike the previous days however, he was in his bedroom this evening. only later, around 10pm, did he venture out to the living room to chat. i showed him all the shows he can find on netflix using the roku. around 11:30pm he finally decided to take a shower and go to bed. i stayed awake for as long as i could, but also finally retired after 2 hours.