i woke up before 7am but stayed in bed until 8:30am. after using the bathroom and taking a shower, i started researching for local dentists, particularly endodontists, which specialize in root canals. the caveat was they had to take my health insurance, which limited the selection. the portal gave me about 8 choices, i found 3 that were promising. one was in davis square, one was close to lechmere, and last one was a chinese dentist in chinatown. i called the davis square practice first, they were the closest ones to me. i got an answering machine message that said they were on vacation and wouldn't be back until next monday. next i was going to try the lechmere one, but they weren't opened until 10am. so i ended up calling the chinese dentist i've been seeing off and on located at park street. i don't like them because it feels like they're always trying to bilk my insurance by performing unnecessary procedures. like how they wanted me to get 5 crowns done. i called them almost as a backup. i knew they don't do root canals, so i asked them for a referral. the receptionist - who's always rude - said i still had to come in anyway and get a cleaning so they can take x-rays and figure out what needs to be done. i can tell you what needs to be done - i need a root canal as soon as possible! but they were able to book me for a 9am appointment tomorrow morning, so i didn't have to wait that long. later i called the other chinese dentist; the receptionist in the office said they don't do root canals (i think they do, just not for new patients).

with my dentist appointment made, i headed off to my parents' place around 9:15am. lauryn hadn't even gotten up to get ready for work yet. i left early, because my mother said they were leaving for a foodpak supply run at 10am. riding down huron avenue near fresh pond, road crews were erasing the double yellow lines and repainting them.

my father was in the backpack mowing the lawn. i had just enough time to apply the window screen repair tape onto a ripped screen window. it looks a little cheap, but thankfully the window is hidden behind some bushes, so it's not easily visible from the street. i also made a podiatry appointment for my mother and signed my 2nd aunt for cambridge community electricity program as her electricity supplier (10¢/kWh instead of 26¢/kWh eversource currently charges her).

we left by 10am. my father drove down storrow drive until we reached 93, instead of his usual way, which is to exit storrow drive at kenmore and drive down mass ave, which is much slower. it was busier than usual at foodpak, judging from the number of cars in the parking lot, as monday is traditionally an off day for asian restaurants. we bought nearly $1000 worth of supplies. the most expensive item wasn't the big box of frozen beef shank, but rather the 2 dozen jars of sesame paste ($160) that we use to make our universal noodle sauce.

we left around 11:15am, catching glimpses of the modern day sodom and gomorrah that is methadone mile. i caught at least half a dozen people openly injecting themselves in broad daylight. we returned to cambridge via mass ave., then turning onto beacon street and connecting onto storrow drive westbound.

after unloading our supplies at the cafe, we returned to belmont. by that point the road crew had repainted the double yellow lines: they expanded the westbound lane at the expense of the eastbound. i think they're doing this because they've installed a wide bike lane on the westbound side, intended for both west and east bike traffic. i'm not a fan but i'll hold off judgement until they finish.

my mother made some wonton soup for lunch. i ate them carefully, making sure not to get any hot food on the right side of my mouth. i guess i wasn't careful enough, because just the residual heat managed to carry over, causing a momentary lapse of intense nerve pain. after that experience, i ate with my head slightly tilted to the left, to make sure food doesn't get to the right side.

it was a hot day, we spent it inside with the AC turned on. in the late afternoon i went outside to finish mowing the front lawn. my father came out to prune the grapevines, the squash vines, and the belle-of-india potted jasmine. we have two of these varieties. they weren't doing very well, barely any flowers, yellowing leaves, so we decided to prune one to see if that'd jumpstart some better growth. that turned out to be a success, as it seemed to have rejuvenated that jasmine. so we decided to do it to the other belle-of-india jasmine. afterwards my father also pruned the gardenia, severely cutting it back to just a dozen bare stalks. i did some weeding, pulling up crabgrass, yellow woodsorrel, greater celandine, and creeping bellflowers. i also removed more squash bug eggs, easily 200, as well as half a dozen adult squash bugs. if i didn't remove the eggs, there would be 1000 squash bugs crawling all over the squash vines in a matter of weeks.

my mother made chinese dumplings for dinner. like the wontons i had for lunch, i ate them gingerly, like walking on eggshells, chewing my food only on the left side.

my father has been playing with his 12v fridges all weekend. today he ran the igloo thermoelectric cooler as well. over the course of 8 hours, it used up 30Ah of a 100Ah lithium iron-phosphate DIY battery. our euhomy fridge with an actual compressor (like a home fridge) uses 30Ah in a day, but its temperature can be set as low as -4°F while the igloo thermoelectric cooler can only ever lower the temperature 36° below ambient temperature. as today was 74 degrees inside the house, the cooler was 38 degrees inside. the euhomy fridge on the other hand, my father has it set to 20 degrees. it's enough to keep the main compartment below freezing, while the smaller compartment stays above freezing, hovering around 40 degrees. the igloo is still useful though. it's much lighter than the euhomy, and even though it's not as efficient and can't reach freezing temperatures, it's still good as a normal fridge. it also has a bonus feature of keeping the cooler warm if you reverse the polarity of the power plug (a feature missing from the latest models, maybe safety issue).

i returned home by 7:45pm. from smell alone i knew lauryn had cooked today. the door to the spice cupboard was left open, and my santoku knife was left on the dish rank instead of the knife block. and yes, it goes without saying, oil splatter all over the stove top. i keep telling myself she's leaving next week.

having not learned my lesson, i tempted fate by drinking some icy water. nerve pain emanated from my right molar. i brought home some oral analgesic (benzocaine 20%). i dipped a q-tip and then bit down on it with my teeth. it numbed my gums (tasted of cloves for some reason), but didn't really do anything for the toothache. after a while the pain subsided on its own.