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51 degrees, the same as the temperature yesterday. yet somehow it felt colder, and that's all it took for me to forgo running today. so instead i finally got around to cleaning out my two aquariums, starting with the 10 gallon guppy tank. because it gets a good dose of indirect sunlight, this aquarium tends to get a lot of algae on the glass that needs to be scrubbed off. i only ever get the siphoning right without incident 70% of the time. today was a mishap day, as i tried to prevent the fluorescent strip light from crashing to the floor while at the same time filling the bucket with dirty fish tank water. i ended up spray some water all over the kitchen.

the 7 gallon minibow where i keep my tetras and one cherry barb has a different problem. it's further away from any source of natural sunlight, so i don't get as much algae on the glass, but what i do get is a lot of strands of hair-like algae growing near the surface from the aquatic vegetation, mainly the elodeas. it also has a tendency to accumulate a thin film of cooking grease on the water surface, which over time becomes this bubbly pond scum.

having never worked with dried chickpeas before, nobody told me that they take forever to cook. an hour of soaking followed by another hour of actual cooking, i didn't eat dinner until 10:30. but now i have enough chickpeas and pasta to last me for a few days. i washed a plate of pasta down with a can of root beer i found in the back of the fridge.