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all you really need to know is that today was a rainy cold monday. it wasn't raining the whole day. i think the term is "spotted showers." occasionally however there'd be torrential downpours, enough to create rivers in the streets. i observed it all from the dryness of the living room.

the outside temperature was in the 50's, causing the inside temperature of the house to slowly drop. note that i turned off my heat the end of april. it's the principle of it, i wasn't going to have the heat on for 9 months out of the year. if i was living alone i wouldn't care, but since i have a roommate i have to take his climate needs into consideration. that still doesn't mean i was going to turn up the heat. i toyed with the idea of baking something, so the hot oven could warm up the house somewhat. the temperature never dropped below 61°F, which is actually a single degree higher than what i normally keep the house during the winter. it just feels colder because of the moisture. once we get past the next few days, the daily outdoor temperature will be back in the upper 60's again.

i went out in the afternoon on a grocery run. i saw bruce down the street. i don't think he recognized me at first, we waved to each other, but he seemed preoccupied, so we didn't chat. whenever i'm at the supermarket i almost always get less than 12 items. since i live so close, i can always come back the next day. shopping without a cart is much easier anyway when it comes to navigating the congested aisles. the only time it's inconvenient is when i have to buy something heavy (like a case of soda or a gallon of milk), but i take that as an opportunity to work on my arm muscles.

soon after i came back it began to rain hard, the sort of deluge that sounds like an incessant hissing. i was tempted to go outside and take photos but the idea of being cold and wet turned me off to the idea.

i'm about to make some no-knead bread for the very first time. every since i had some at my aunt and uncle's house last year, this was something i wanted to do. the fact that i recently got a cast iron dutch oven was primarily so i could make this bread. although there aren't too many steps, it does require a long planning time for the dough to "ferment" (is that even the right word?). the ingredients were simple: 3 cups of generic flour (i used the cheapest kind i could find), 1/4 tsp of yeast (expired in 2009, but i think it's still okay), 1-1/4 tsp of salt, and 1-1/2 cups of warm water. i mixed everything up in a large pyrex bowl, covered it with plastic wrap, and then set it on top of the fridge, the warmest place in the house, where earlier i took a temperature reading and know that it's 70°F.

now i have to wait 20 hours, then fold the dough, then wait another 2 hours before i can bake it. i haven't even made the bread yet and i'm already thinking about what i want to do next. maybe add some rosemary to the mix, or coat the outside with an egg wash for a glaze. i'm not entirely new to the bread making experience, having dabbled with the bread machine for a short time. i've made wheat bread (more like carbohydrate brick), raisin and orange bread, spicy jalapeño bread, maybe a few more i don't remember. i've always wanted to make sourdough bread but the starter colony i made became a toxic mold factory sitting neglected in the back of the fridge.

victor is one of my least predictable roommates when it comes to work schedule, so i wasn't sure if he was going to be home early or late. by 5:00 i was already anxious that he'd be walking through the front door any minute. i was on the couch and doze off briefly, the toasty laptop warming my stomach like a hot water bottle.

for dinner i made a big bowl of chicken caesar salad. i got chicken thighs instead of breasts, which in hindsight was not a good idea because thigh meat contains little pieces of gristle and has more dark meat (i prefer white). i chopped up half an iceberg lettuce, which was way too much lettuce. i think i prefer romaine over iceberg.

victor came home close to 8:00, which i was eating my big bowl of salad in the living room.