last night it snowed. when i woke up this morning, most of that snow was already gone. not that it was warm outside today. it was the exact opposite, perhaps the coldest day of the season. after logging on, i saw that two of my projects had returned with some bugs. i'm having the worst time trying to close them out. and one thing i've learned is that it doesn't matter how much work you put into something, clients usually just remember the end of a project, how you closed it. these bugs are all unforeseen, if anything came be blamed, it'd be the lack of testing. i even got my pc mainly for testing purposes, but even i can't test every platform on every operating system.

for lunch i cooked up some ready-made alu chole, curried garbanzos & potatoes served over brown rice. it essentially involves boiling packets of food in water and then serve. for something so seemingly processed (although the box touts all natural vegetarian ingredients), it actually tasted pretty good. easy to make and tastes good, that's my kind of good.

in the afternoon i saw some tufted titmice in the backyard. for a thickly settled small suburban yard in cambridge, i do get a good share of birds. i think that's because of the relative abundance of trees in the backyard (mostly belonging to my backyard neighbors). i've seen titmice before, but always in the woods, never as close as my own backyard. it made me yearn for a birdfeeder, and i strategized in my head as to where i could hang one so the squirrels won't get to it (pretty much nowhere). while looking out from the kitchen window door, i also saw a chickadee clinging to the eaves of the porch.

i made a grocery run today, buying ingredients to make tonight's dinner. i had two recipes, wild mushroom soup and gingered pork cutlets. i couldn't find the right mushrooms (and the ones i did find were expensive, probably $20 worth of mushrooms at least), so it was easy to decide to make the cutlets instead. i only like going to the supermarket in the afternoons, when there's no one there and i can browse at my leisure. i just wish they carried more asian ingredients (they have a half aisle of brazilian/portuguese foods though). i dream for a super 88 supermarket close enough that i can easily get to.

so for dinner i made gingered pork cutlets. it was my first time working with meats, or the first time in a long while anyway. i enjoy eating meat, but i find the process of preparing it to be wholeheartedly disgusting. it's all slimy and soft, definitely not appetizing when raw. it took me an hour to make (even though the instructions said 25 minutes), and i don't think i got it exactly right. i also made too much, but finished it all anyway because i hate eating leftovers. the rice cooker was broken as well, and i ended up having to pot cook it, which left the rice dry and crusty at the bottom. it was an okay meal, but sort of off the mark.

while finishing dinner, i got a distressed call from julie asking for some urgent help with her dead at&t cablemodem connection. she brought me back to her new apartment along with my cablemodem and ibook to test her non-functioning ethernet connection. after a round of tech support calling, she discovered that her account was actually deactivated for some reason, and it'd take another 24 hours before they could hook her back up. she came back to my place to try out her powerbook and make sure it wasn't broken, at the same time checking her e-mail.

after she left, i went to go wash the pile of dishes in the kitchen sink (just making the pork cutlets i probably used 7 dishes). feeling lazy yet adventurous at the same time, i loaded up the washing machine, pour in the cascade, and set it on normal cycle. i've never used a washing machine before! i hope this doesn't spoil me.