while my father and i waited at home, my mother went out for a walk on this rather chilly (40's) and intermittently cloudy day. i ended up calling fireman's fuel around 11:30am just to check i didn't get the date wrong. they were still coming but running late due to a few no heat house calls.
just when i was finishing eating some homemade dumplings, the heating oil guy showed up around 12:30pm. only my father dealt with him in the basement, i just heard them talking. the technician removed a decade's worth of soot from inside the furnace and replaced the oil filter on the storage tank. the visit cost $189, which we already paid for via credit card. after he left, the faint smell of heating oil still lingered in the air.
originally i had a bunch of errands planned for today: go to home depot to buy wood for assembling the cafe spice rack, build some more raised bed fencing, fertilize the lawn for the winter. we ended up doing none of those things. the weather was so gloomy and cold, i decided to put everything off until tomorrow, when the temperature might hit 70 degrees.
instead we waited for my sister to show up with esmei. we saw her leave the cafe parking lot around 2pm, so figured she'd be coming over soon. but after 30 minutes and still no show, i texted her asking if she was coming. she said she took esmei to the vet to get her distemper vaccination as well as to get microchipped. if esmei wasn't feeling too well afterwards, they'd go home instead.
my sister did eventually show up at 3:30pm. esmei seemed completely unfazed from her vet visit. my sister said the vet estimates esmei will grow up to be a 40 lbs. medium-sized dog (smaller than hailey, who was a large-sized dog at 60 lbs.). we let her outside so she could go to the bathroom before letting her inside the house, but as soon as she was in the backyard she just wanted to play and totally forgot about peeing. i chased her around the yard, she seemed to like that, and could showcase how fast she can run. like yesterday, at one point she got tired of being outside and climbed the stairs to go back inside the house, completely unprompted. we all went in eventually just because it was too cold outside.
all that running seemed to tire esmei out. i picked up her and put her on the couch. being on soft pillows and blankets naturally made her drowsy and she quickly fell asleep. my sister decided to take her home.
on saturday we had luosifen; yesterday sunday we had gyudon; and today monday it was korean rice cake. i started preparing dinner around 5:30pm. i followed a recipe from last december, which seems like the last time i made rice cake for my parents. my mother got angry that i kept asking her for ingredients i couldn't find in the cupboard: dried red pepper flakes, dark corn syrup. she found some pepper flakes for me but there was no corn syrup, so i used some fancy greek honey instead. i also brought my pickled daikon cubes, my mother seemed to really like it even though i thought the flavor was a little diluted.
i left around 7pm, hurried home to catch the celtics-timberwolves game at 8pm. it was an exciting game, seemed more like a playoff game than just the 6th game of the season. minnesota ended up beating undefeated boston in overtime. i wasn't even mad, anthony edwards - a player i'd never even heard of - became a superstar tonight when he shot lights out in overtime to give the timberwolves the win. nothing you can do but tip your hat to them. celtics face off against the 76ers wednesday night. that has the makings of a great game, both teams with 5-1 records. boston beat philly twice in the preseason, but you can't judge a team from what happens in the preseason. celtics didn't have derrick white tonight, still out on paternity leave. maybe he'll play on wednesday, but the c's have enough firepower that even with one or two guys missing, there can still beat any team in the NBA.