a leaking bathtub faucet consumed most of my day. it leaks intermittently but this morning was especially bad; i plugged up the bathroom and watched as it slowly started to collect water. i tried to fix it myself but i didn't know what i was doing so i had to call my father who came over with his tools. we ended up disassembling the hot and cold water knobs and driving out to a plumbing supply warehouse in watertown to get some replacement rubber gaskets. once we returned and put everything back together, the bathtub was as good as new. i then spent the rest of the day doing a little bit of coding.
in the evening i went to a community council meeting in the basement of the local elementary school. i was surprised to see how many people were in attendance (of the few neighbors i know, none of them were present however). the main agenda was for a representative of lesley university to speak to the neighbors about its plans to expand and development its campus. there was some unspoken tension as a few people applauded and cheered sarcastically when the presentation was over. it didn't taken long before the meeting escalated into a shouting match. lesley university recently purchased the north prospect church, the one right next to the porter exchange. the school plans to convert the church into one of its departmental building (i heard something about making it into an art school). there's currently a preschool that shares space with the church. lesley university has made an agreement with the preschool to let it stay for a year with no guarantee of what would happen after that year pending lesley's development plans. apparently most of people at the meeting were opponents of lesley's plan to "take away" their preschool and were very passionate against this happening. somebody would get up, say something bad about lesley, and the crowd would cheer. i sat through 15 minutes before i had enough and quickly left the meeting. my personal opinion? since i don't have any toddlers, having one less preschool means nothing to me. however, i do know that what lesley is trying to do will revitalize the porter square area and will be great for businesses. we might even see some new stores and restaurants once the school finishes with its expansion.
i ate some porkchop with rice for dinner before going to the meeting. coming back, there was a box of unwanted books left out on the sidewalk. i picked up a david sedaris novel. back at home i watched as the red sox lose to the indians.