around 3:40pm my sister brought over esmei. she's learned how to paw and lie down for food, but she's still a pretty disobedient dog, chewing whatever she can get her mouth on outside, and on several occasions trying to chew through cables indoors. she also peed on the carpet again, so quickly that nobody had time to react.
i left around 4:30pm, returning home so i could do some more cleaning before li arrived. that included scrubbing the toilet, vacuuming one more time, and taking down my softbox lights (i'll set them up again once li leaves).
li finally showed up around 6:30pm. the last time i saw him was january 2019, when i dropped him off at the airport. he still looked the same, though a lot more white hairs than the last time i saw him. i immediately asked about his wife, who was supposed to come with him, but cancelled at the last minute due to an illness. turns out she wasn't sick, but pregnant instead (only 6 weeks). it was her doctor who advised her not to travel.
i found out li's a researcher at the max planck institute for astronomy in heidelberg, germany. he had only been there a year, after spending 2 years during the pandemic in south korea. his wife came to visit him in june (an astrophysicist herself, she was working remotely from her nanjing institute), leaving in december. his contract in heidelberg is for 3 years, though he can leave at anytime, provided he finds another job. he'd like to return to china, working as an astrophysicist researcher in the handful of astrophysics institutes (shanghai, nanjing, chongqing), or worst case scenario, as a teacher somewhere.
astrophysics is a small world, and he knew a lot of the past roommates who've stayed at my place. he told me kevin - my peculiar roommate during the start of the pandemic - had some kind of depressive episode and ended up leaving the field of astrophysics altogether, which doesn't surprise me.
around 7pm i started making dinner - instant pot pork bone and century egg congee. i should've started earlier, as the rice porridge wouldn't be ready until 8:30pm. but li was willing to wait, drinking some hot water and eating some pretzels. he doesn't have much in terms of plans besides attending his conference, but would like to get some dim sum in chinatown this weekend if possible.
li was impressed with my CO2 injection aquarium setup, said it looked very professional. he was shocked i didn't have any fish left, since he was here when i first bought my 11 tetras. i told him the final tetra died last year, and that not having any fish allows me to do CO2 experimental on my aquatic plants without worrying about harming any fish.
the congee was finally ready by 8:30pm, which is actually early for me, as i don't normally have dinner until 9-10pm. li only wanted a medium serving, while i went with my usual large serving. he liked the congee enough (high praise, considering he's cantonese, a people who are experts at making the best congee) that he went back and got a second serving.
since he had to be at the conference by 8:30am tomorrow morning, li took a shower and went to bed around 9:30pm. it was cold in the house, temperature in the low 60's, i could feel the chill in my nose. i won't do it tonight, but i'm turning on the heat tomorrow, no need to suffer needlessly, and having a house guest is the perfect excuse to start on the furnace.