this morning i saw that cattwo had just molted into its 4th instar, its old skin still intact. the first thing it will do is turn around and eat its dead skin, sometimes also the leaf surrounding it. catone (5th instar) was busy feeding.

my father, in a rush to submit loan documentation, came by my place to pick up a copy of the technical confirmation letter so he could drop off a packet at the naveo credit union nearby. he ended up talking with the loan officer who surprised him with financial details they'd already been able to retrieve through a credit check. my father had a good feeling about naveo.

with 3 more hours before i was set to go pick up li to help him move to my house, i finally did a thorough cleaning. i swifted the dust from underneath the sofas and bed, then vacuumed the whole house, including crevasses. particularly dusty spots i wiped down with a wet paper towel. i finished by about 11:30am, eating some granola and yogurt for lunch.

i biked back to the ECSB branch around 12:30pm, on my way to go pick up the car. i figured it'd be a short visit, get some info from the loan officer regarding the mass solar loan. i should've gone by motorcycle because i seemed to have pulled out my neck muscle this morning and had trouble moving my head. it made for an awkward bike ride as i kept my head down most of the time since it hurt to raise it or to turn around to see behind me. at the branch i spoke with jessica, and explained to her that i was able to get online yesterday but there was no category for mass solar loan. she revealed they've yet to give out a loan through the MSL program, though a faulty online application might be one reason why. she called the main branch and was on the phone for a while explaining the situation. the solution was to use the mass HEAT saving loan application, but in the comment field make a note that this is for the MSL program.

i pedaled to the cafe which was less than a mile away, keeping an eye on my watch, knowing i was going to be late to pick up li. once i got the car, i drove to li's apartment in somerville (18 school street), arriving a few minutes late. this is the infamous chinese graduate student flophouse, where a lot of visiting chinese scholars have stayed, including crazy mary. it actually seemed like a decent place to live (right across the street from market basket), although there was a mess of debris on the front porch. li had the room facing the main street, which is great for people watching from the 2nd floor, but can be a little noisy (though li said he's never at home anyway, which i take to be a sign of a good future roommate). li was the only person home, 2 of his roommates returning to china yesterday, and 1 other moving to a different place. li had 3 suitcases, along with a few trash bags full of kitchenware and other miscellaneous items. once we filled up the car, i left for the house on my own while li followed behind on his bike.

once li moved in he began unpacking his stuff. inside the largest suitcase he had was actually just a thick winter blanket his girlfriend's mother gave him. he also had his own bedsheets and pillowcases, which he asked if he could wash first, taking advantage of the in-unit washer/dryer. i told him the password to our wifi network and showed him how to use the front door key before returning the car to my parents at the cafe and riding the bike to belmont, stiff neck and all.

instead of watching all the foreign police drama that seems to have crowded netflix (a lot of israeli shows), i forced my mother to finally watch season 7 of game of thrones through on-demand now that it's over. she seemed reluctant at first, but after the first episode she was hooked again.

since today was the big annual moving day (leases expire, people moving out), we listened to the cambridge police radio on the baofeng scanner. we also tried belmont but it was nothing as exciting as cambridge, and during the entire day only heard a single belmont transmission. in cambridge, there were cars blocking roads and driveways, a confused nonagenarian outside her house, an unconscious man in a park who was just taking a nap, and a bicycle accident somewhere in cambridgeport. every transmission ended up a brief moment of loud static. i learned this was called squelch tail and the baofeng has a setting that's designed to eliminate it (called STE - squelch tail elimination) but it didn't seem to work when we turned it on. later we also tried the NOAA weather radio and some taxi dispatch frequencies (didn't hear anything).

we tried filling out the online loan application again for ECSB, choosing HEAT 3 as the loan type even though it was for mass solar loan. but immediately we hit another hurdle: the largest amount eligible for HEAT 3 is $25k, but we needed a loan of $27k, so it wouldn't let us proceed further. later we tried again after i came up with a solution: just say $25k, but in the note mention this is for a mass solar loan in the amount of $27k. hopefully the loan department will know what to do with this information.

my mother made real thai red curry tonight, with the eggplants and thai basil from my community garden plot, along with chicken, bamboo shoots, and baby corn, and some leftover red curry in the fridge. i biked back to cambridge around 7pm, hoping to get back before it got dark as i forgot to bring my lights (though the fuji bike itself has ample of lighting features).

li was in the living room, with the ceiling light on and the blinds still open, working on his macbook from a portable folding desk. he made dinner but there was no smell (i'm still traumatized by all the times i came home and the house reeked of seafood from the 2 months GC was here), i didn't ask what he ate, but whatever it was must've been simple. li told me he's actually going to hawaii from september 10th to 17th, to station one of the mauna kea observatories. he also told me he usually goes to bed around 11pm-12am, waking up at 7-8am. so different from GC, who went to bed around midnight but woke up between 9-10am, which conflicts with my wakeup time. as advertised, li went to bed around 11pm.

earlier i showed li my monarch caterpillars, which grossed him out. catone (5th instar) was working on the piece of new milkweed leaf i added to the new this morning. i tossed out the old leaf though there was still a good half left, the leaf was just getting a old and dried. i noticed that catone spun some silk to the top of the leaf where it was hanging, which ended up on the glass. i thought caterpillars only did this when they were ready to turn into a chrysalis, but in looking at some of my photos, i noticed that they do this whenever they're hanging for an extended period of time, sort of like a safety harness.