this is week 8 of the quarantine, week 8 that kevin has been working from home (since march 16), so nearly 2 months. but we're in the final stretch now, word on the street is those upstairs tenants will finally be leaving mid-june. i can't believe i spent the coronavirus quarantine all this time with kevin. we've reached a sort of detente. i've become more zen-like regarding his many little annoyances, and he's finally learned enough about living here to curb some of his irritating habits. yes it's true he still piles up the dishes whenever he cooks, and every once in a while there's pee on the bathroom floor, but that's the price to pay for earning a little rental income.

i also scaled back my animosity when i realized we needed kevin for the foreseeable future, as most likely my parents won't be seeing any new tenants living in my grand uncle's upstairs apartment due to the coronavirus. honestly, what chinese graduate student would want to come to the US right now when america leads the way in covid-19 cases and deaths? plus trump is stoking anti-chinese sentiments, it's not a good time to be chinese in the US right now.

i wouldn't know what to do with myself once kevin leaves, it'll probably take a while to gets used to living solo again. i never lived with anyone for this long (by june it will be half a year), especially not someone who's always here 24/7. i look forward to having some privacy again.

as of this morning, one of the lotus seeds has sprouted on day 3 since i soaked the seeds. i'm a little concerned that only a single seed has sprouted, makes me wonder if all the other seeds are duds. a few of the seeds were even covered in a milky film and bubbling, a sure sign they've gone rotten. even if i just get a single lotus plant, it's still better than what i have now, which are some overwintering lotus stems from last season which may or may not be viable.

approaching lunchtime, i biked down to the charles river by MIT to watch the F-15 flyover of massachusetts hospitals in honor of frontline doctors and nurses. what military fighters flying over civilian landmarks have anything to do honoring hospital workers is something i don't understand. it also seems like a waste of money, although i heard it's using training mission budget so no extra cost to taxpayers. despite my misgivings about the misguided nature of a military flyover, i could resist a spectacle, not since every public event has shut down due to the coronavirus.

there were already people gathered by the river, but still plenty of space to find a spot far away from everyone else. everyone was wearing a mask on this first day of mandatory mask wearing for massachusetts. at least one helicopter was hovering in the sky to film the F-15's as they approach boston. shortly after 12:15pm, i saw people pointing to the horizon and in a matter of seconds dots in the sky became fighter jets. it wasn't flying as low as i'd thought it would, and it wasn't as loud either. it did a loop around MGH then headed towards the fenway area. the whole thing took less than 2 minutes, and its closest approach to the people observing from the river bank only lasted a few seconds at most.

afterwards i biked back home. kevin texted me, said he saw the jets from the house. later when i got back, i discovered he actually went out for a walk, first to star market then a loop around harvard square. why did he wait until i wasn't home? it could've been a rare opportunity for some kevin-free time had i known he was going out.

it was nearly 1pm. instead of making lunch, i went to star market to get a bag of salad mix. they were all sold out, so instead i got some romaine lettuce hearts and a jar of pepperoncini and made my own salad instead. i also made an egg-ham-avocado bagel sandwich. trying to use up the last of my ham before it went bad, which it probably already was because there was a bit of mold and the meat felt a little slimy. but it didn't smell bad, so i trimmed the mold, washed the ham, then grilled it in some butter, with the thinking that the high heat will destroy whatever pathogens might be living on the ham. it was a good sandwich and a good salad, but all that deliciousness was tempered by the fact that the ham could've been a ticking time bomb while i waited the rest of the afternoon for food poisoning to take effect. thankfully that didn't happen, but a few hours later i did have a little diarrhea, not sure if that was related.

instead of waiting until tonight to change the lotus water, i decided to do it this afternoon. it'd also give me a change to inspect each seeds individually. on seed sprouted, but at least 4 more seeds look like they're still viable and may sprout sometime soon. a few seeds are definitely rotten, oozing out a white milky liquid. maybe they still might germinate, but changes are i'll probably throw them out sometime soon so they don't contaminate the other healthy seeds.

* kevin ultrasound & hypertension