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sandy was already gone by the time i woke up this morning at 10am. it gave me a chance to use the bathroom without interruptions then afterwards take a shower. i left for belmont by 11:30am. i ate a dried pastry when i arrived before we left for the waltham costco. it was surprisingly crowded when we first arrived for a monday afternoon, but by the time we left the parking lot was pretty empty. we had some hot dogs before leaving, the soda machine was broken so they gave us canned pepsis. we were back in belmont by 2:45pm.

with both my parents still coughing non-stop, my father got some robitussin DM from costco. he took a 20ml dosage the first chance he got, and said it felt like it was working right away. but soon after he said that, he was back to coughing again. likewise, it didn't do much for my mother either, but she was looking forward to trying the night time 'tussin because apparently it's supposed to make you drowsy.

we received a mysterious bill from the boston university oral surgery group for my 2nd aunt. when my mother asked her about it, she said she never had any such appointments. we were just going to ignore it figuring it was a clerical error, but the bill looked legitimate enough that i made some phone calls. there was actually 2 appointments back in december in the amount of $300.

i spoke with a receptionist from the boson medical center (where the appointments were made) with told me my aunt came in to get her dentures adjusted. true, she does wear dentures, but has a different dentist. the receptionist told me my aunt came in with all the proper credentials. by that point my suspicion that my aunt had been the victim of identity theft grew even stronger. there was nothing more the receptionist could do for me - she was basically saying that my aunt probably forgot about the appointments, which is impossible - but she took my name and number and said she'd give it to her manager, who would contact me. the one thing that made it especially suspicious is that the bill was sent to my parents' address. my aunt hasn't lived there in over 2 decades. had my aunt actually made those appointments, she would've never used that address.

we didn't quite reach 30kWh+ today, and tomorrow doesn't look to be a good production day with snow arriving as early as noontime. that reminds me: steve sent me an e-mail today, said they were going to the bahamas for 2 weeks. the only reason he let me know was because 1) some friends might stay at their place for a day or two, and 2) he wanted to make sure i knew they were gone so i'd shovel the snow that's coming tomorrow.

my father soldered one of the led light strip controller that arrived on saturday to a short length of led light strip he had cut. he'd wired it backwards the first time and the led's lit up but he couldn't control them. only when he resoldered the wires did the controller finally work, with 8 levels of brightness and some programmed flashing which is pretty much useless. the controller is good in that it seems to keep the settings "in memory."

i noticed sandy was back at home by 5:20pm so i turned up the heat for her. i wonder if she's ever curious that the house seems to know when she's home and adjusts the heating accordingly.

my mother went to take a nap on the sofa in the early evening so my father made dinner tonight. i returned to cambridge by 7:30pm. sandy was in her room with the light on. i didn't see her the rest of the night, she must've fallen asleep, waking up just once to use the bathroom around midnight them going right back to her bedroom. she wasn't videochatting with kelvin, which has been her routine ever since he left. i think the reason is on tuesdays he works the late shift, so he was probably still asleep back in the UK before waking up to work. it was a rare night where i wasn't subjected to cantonese chatter.

i tried the robitussin (my parents gave me a bottle), it tasted awful, like super artificially-sweetened cherry-flavored cough syrup. when i get a cold, i usually resort to taking some pills, as i find cough syrups to be disgusting, but liquids seem to be more effective against cough symptoms. maybe it was just the placebo effect, but i didn't cough once after that sip of robitussin. out of curiosity, i took a blood pressure reading afterwards: 145/95. not sure if that's the 'tussin talking, or my HBP has increased since i last measured it, which was about a year ago (i'm only taking readings now because i have a physical in 2 weeks).