i left by 8:30am. temperature was in the 40's, i wore my layered hooded sweatshirt with the windbreaker, figured i'd warm up eventually and need to unzip. i also wore my gloves to keep my hands warm. the commute wasn't that bad, yes there was a convoy of bikes, but i didn't mind if people passed me, i pedaled at my own speed. i cut through boston common to reach park street station, locked my bike to one of the bike stands.
i got there right on time. while putting on my mask, a woman shoved ahead of me to get into the building, holding a scarf over her face, i suppose so she wouldn't get my cooties. i recognized her as the receptionist so i followed her inside. there was a box on the floor for the dentist, i asked her if she needed my help carry it, she said nothing as she pushed the box into the elevator with her foot. i remember i came here once for an early morning dental visit, and the same receptionist was a real sullen bitch, didn't say anything to me that time either. she's definitely not a morning person.
i sat in the waiting room for 15 minutes, nobody saying anything to me. finally a dental assistant came to bring me inside to one of the exam rooms. i didn't know she was the assistant at the time, i thought she was the dentist, so when i asked her what exactly is deep cleaning, she gave me a vague answer.
minutes later the actual dentist showed up to do the deep cleaning. so deep cleaning is not scaling, which i've had done before. scaling involved opening up the gum and cleaning down to the roots. maybe they don't do that anymore, it's been more than 2 decades since i had it done, dental practices have evolved since then. deep cleaning seems like a routine cleaning, except they clean a few millimeters deeper, and there's no fluoride. i asked if she could do my right side this visit, which was the side they were already planning on doing.
the dentist worked my gumline with something that looked like a giant needle. when i asked her what it was after she finished, i already knew the answer: some kind of topical analgesic, i could already feeling the right side of my jaw going numb. i'd never seen that before. then the deep cleaning started. there was a lot of scraping. i didn't feel the pain on my gums, but occasionally i felt the echo of nerve pain. the whole session felt like a mouth massage, with occasional pinprick of pain, which was kind of pleasant in a masochistic sort of way. i closed my eyes because the dentist had her hand all over my face as she angled them to get to my teeth. i was kind of sad when the cleaning was over. it felt like a more thorough cleaning, and i could've easily had the other side of my mouth done instead of waiting next week.
i also told the dentist about a hole in one of my upper left molar. she said it wasn't a hole but rather a crack, and she could polish it smooth for me so i wouldn't feel it. i went to a different room - much larger but filled with cardboard boxes of patient files. it took just a few minutes to polish, she did it free of charge, since she said that particular molar might need to be converted into a dental crown. she also said my rightmost upper molar will need to become as crown as well, which would explain my sensitivity issues.
i was done before 10am. there were 2 other patients in 2 separate exam rooms, with another patient outside in the waiting area. a busy morning! i confirmed my appointment for next tuesday with the cranky receptionist before leaving.
from park street it was an easy straight shot down tremont to get to ming's market. i saw a long line of people waiting outside the tufts clinic to either get a covid test or a covid vaccine. my mother wanted me to get her another bottle of kewpie-brand deep-roasted sesame dressing. they didn't have any in stock, so i got the kewpie-brand wafu dressing instead. my mother told me my godmother also needed raw shelled peanuts, but i could only find roasted flavored peanuts, so she said never mind and told me to return home.
i visited c-mart next, which did have the kewpie sesame dressing. they also carried various brands of raw shelled peanuts, and i even found the black soy beans my mother wanted as well.
i left chinatown by around 11am. i brought my gopro and clamped it to the handlebar to shoot a timewarp video as i rode home. the clamp held on pretty well, but the gopro attachment would sometimes slip if i rode over something bumpy, and i kept leveling the camera by hand.
i got home by 11:40am. i rested a bit, watched the noontime news, before riding the motorcycle to the cafe to drop off some supplies. i got my sister to give me her macbook pro to work on for one more day. she told me if it still doesn't work, i could return the 1TB SSD since there's a good chance she'll retire her decade old laptop next year and get a new one instead.
i dropped off my sister's laptop at my house before riding the motorcycle to market basket to get a few grocery items. i don't often take the motorcycle to MB, it's actually faster if i went via bicycle.
i finally returned home by 1:20pm. i made myself a ham & egg & avocado bagel sandwich for lunch.
i initiated another data migration on my sister's laptop. this time i put the machine in safe mode before transferring, and i also used her original password, not sure if that'd make a difference. what that was running, 
i went out by 2:20pm, to the harvard square post office to pick up alex's package. a postal worker actually knocked on my door this morning, said he tried to deliver a package yesterday, but because i wasn't home, he didn't leave it on my doorstep. even came back again to give me the note he was supposed to leave here yesterday, but he should've brought the package since i was home. anyway, i went down to the harvard post office, and after a lengthy search, the clerk told me the package wasn't there because according to my address it should've gone to the porter square post office.
so i ended up biking to the porter square post office. there was a long line inside, nearly a dozen deep. i didn't have the patience to wait, so i turned right away and marched back out. figured i could either come back again tomorrow, or try to find the mailman who gave me the notice this morning.
back at the house, i did find the mailman, but it wasn't the same person from this morning. i showed him the notice, he said it was a mistake, and that i should go back to the porter square post office tomorrow. he ended up taking the notice and said he'd have it delivered it again.
coming back from porter square, i noticed a funny noise coming from the back of my bicycle. i stopped to see what it was, and there was a metal pin sticking out of the rear tire. i tried pulling it out but it was deeply embedded. i ended up having to push the bike the rest of the way home. is it just me, or am i getting a flat tire every month for the past few months? what's going on?
my sister's computer had finished migrating. it displayed a few errors, that it couldn't copy a certain extension file, but it didn't crash, which was a good sign. i rebooted the machine and noticed a few things had migrated over successfully: safari bookmarks, and a single e-mail account. when i tried to open up the time machine sparsebundle image file however, it wouldn't allow me, even after i changed the privilege settings. i think if i fiddled with the files and settings enough, i could probably migrate over all of my sister's file. but i've already worked on this problem for several days, and wasn't worth pursuing any further. the truth is, my sister's machine is old, and could definitely use a replacement. she's fine with 128GB, doesn't really need the 1TB of space. so i decided to replace her old SSD, but first i needed to erase the 1TB drive and reinstall a new macos.
while that was going on, i went out back and removed the rear tire from the bike and went to work patching the flat. the metal pin turned out to be a lot larger than i realized. because it was obvious where the tire and tube was punctured, it was an easy matter of identifying where the hole was. i patched it up and then mounted it back onto the bike. i'll have to wait and see tomorrow if the tire goes flat or not to know if it was a successful patch.
with the 1TB erased and system reinstalled, i was time to swap out the SSD. having done it once before, it was easier the second time around. i put in a request on ebay to return the SSD. it's so small, it won't cost too much to ship it back, but i think there might be free returns (which could just mean no restocking fee). when i restarted the macbook pro i was holding my breath, afraid maybe the old SSD wouldn't reboot anymore. after what felt like forever waiting for the black screen to do something, it finally showed the apple logo and the progress bar, and the machine booted back to the way it was before, as if nothing had happened.
i finally got around to finish watching only murders in this building. so good! definitely one of my top 10 series of 2021. i'd forgotten just how funny steve martin and martin short can be. and selena gomez, i'd never seen acting before, but she's perfectly cast as well. i heard there's going to a season 2, can't wait.
for dinner i reheated the cabbage-lentil-bean soup bruce gave me sunday morning. it looked like soupy rice porridge or oatmeal, and the orange color made me think it was squash. it was sweeter than expected (the cabbage), but very filling (all that lentil and bean produce) and it warmed up right up after i finished eating. bruce recommended some cheese and bread, i had some shredded parmesan and pita bread. i ate while watching some earlier cheers reruns on pluto.tv.