it wasn't so much raining today as it was misting. my roommate had already left for work by the time i woke up. while opening the freezer for my frozen fruits (to blender a smoothie) i saw my roommate's stacks of neatly packaged meats. should this be cause for concern? i didn't realize he was a meat hoarder. even devote carnivorous past roommates never had this much raw animal flesh saved in the fridge.

i've been eyeballing my roommate's borrowed bicycle currently living in my backyard. it might be a little tall for me, but i'm sort of itching to take it out for a spin anyway (i could always adjust the seat, i do have the proper tools). he told me his friend roberto's previous roommate left it behind when he moved out. i really should get another spare bicycle. not really for me, but for future roommates who might appreciate the convenience.

a strange thing is happening to the recently painted bathroom door: the oil paint drips have started to wrinkle, like hands that've been soaking too long in the bathtub. not really sure what's causing it. is it just a natural process of drying? or maybe it means the paint isn't quite sticking onto the door (maybe that'd be more of a bubbling).

received an update about that chinese astrophysicist who was supposed to stay at my place before i offered it to pau: he wasn't successful in getting his US visa so he's delayed indefinitely. so it was a good decision not to have gone with the chinese guy, otherwise i'd still be waiting for a roommate. and my freezer wouldn't be stocked with meats.

since it wasn't really raining, i managed to bicycle to belmont. raindrops always make for dramatic garden photos:

my father seems to be on a personal crusade to lower my laptop temperature. as if the pluggable CPU fan wasn't enough, he was in the garage today hammering out a flat metal heatsink for the bottom of my macbook pro. i tried it out but didn't think it made that much difference. in fact, i actually thought the computer got hotter for some strange reason. i'm happy with my laptop as is: ever since i blasted out all the dust over the weekend, the fan speed has remained at 2000rpm, the default setting. the computer has been super quiet, although occasionally a little warm (but not hot).

in the late afternoon my father and i went to the mt.auburn shaws supermarket to pick up a few grocery items. there was a sale on mussels ($1.99/lbs) as well as red seedless grapes (99¢/lbs). i also got a box of sleepytime throat tamer wellness tea. what caught my attention was licorice root was one of the main ingredients. i tried it when we got back home. it actually tasted pretty good, the licorice gives the tea a subtle sweet flavor (the same way rooibos does to my other favorite teas). the slippery elm and chamomile worked to stop my occasional coughing. celestial seasonings also make a sinus soother wellness tea i'd like to try someday (mentholated!).

the past few weekends of family dinners has been sort of lackluster. tonight might be the rebound. the mussels combined with several cuts of meat from chinatown (parents went this morning) made for a most satisfying meal. this batch of PEI farm-raised mussels contained half large and half small (normally farm-raised are pretty big throughout). from chinatown there were chinese fried chicken wings, big tripe, and chashao. we also had a seaweed salad and some garlic croissants (a little burnt, but still okay). for dessert, crisp sweet red seedless grapes (remind me to get more this week) and some guava with plum powder.

returning home via bicycle, i came across a tossed out chrome mesh fan on the curb. i grabbed it and put it in my milk crate. only when i got home did i realize the cord had been dragging for the past few miles (that rasping sound turned out not to be my bicycle).

the plug still worked though (despite some cosmetic damage). it was a 12" hampton bay high velocity air circulator model HBF12. maybe they weren't allowed to call it a "fan" for legal reasons. i couldn't tell how old it was and a search online came up empty. hampton bay still makes ceiling fans for home depot, but no floor models. the fan still works although the settings on the dial are in the wrong order. i'm hoping to give it to my father so he can clean it up; he repairs fans in his spare time.

pau came home later in the evening. he brought out his laptop for the very first time. the rest of the night was just two guys with laptops surfing the web in the living room with the television on.