by the time i woke up this morning to take that iconic "snow on pumpkin" photo to memorialize this october nor'easter, most of it had already melted. a winter wonderland it wasn't, more like a slushy afterthought. there wasn't even any snow on the sidewalk to shovel, just a little on the roads and on the cars. this is for cambridge; i'm sure towns further out west didn't fare as well.

i bicycled to belmont, running through the occasional slush puddle. besides the small amount of snow left on the ground, there was also very few broken branches, and small ones at that. i tried to go as slow as possible so i wouldn't work up a sweat but it was impossible and i arrived slightly soaked with perspiration once again. my mother made me some eggs-potatoes-sausages for lunch.

the weight of the snow partially collapsed the 2 row cover frames in the backyard garden. once we cleared the snow off though, they popped back into shape.

before i left cambridge i took 2 dayquil liquigels even though my cold symptoms were mostly gone. by afternoon i began to feel drowsy. not as bad as nyquil, but enough so my reflexes were all slowed down. i even fell asleep for a few seconds while sitting and watching the football game.

the patriots were soundly defeated today by the pittsburgh steelers. the score (25-17) was closer than it ought to be, because the steelers pretty much controlled the tempo of the entire game. new england defense had a hard time covering the pittsburgh receivers and offense could never get any rhythm because the steelers had the ball for much of the time. how this game fits into the big picture i'm not too concerned, but it does show that the pats have weaknesses, ones which they can fix in time of the playoffs.

a few of the recent hats my mother has knitted:

instead of going to new york city tomorrow, my mother said she'd use that money to go out for dinner, which also coincided with the end of her diet regimen. we left soon after the football game, around 7:00, for mulan in waltham. informally we call it mulan 2 since it's the sister restaurant of mulan in cambridge (close to kendall square). i never thought the food was that good (advertised as authentic taiwanese food, but they don't even have smelly tofu) but my parents seem to like it. we tried going a few months ago but didn't realize the restaurant was closed on mondays. when we got there around 8:00 the place was packed with mostly chinese customers. we were lucky enough to arrive right when a table was about to leave. unfortunately the table was right next to a support beam (the obstructed table) and i had to sit close to the corner with the beam taking up the bulk of my space.

temperature was in the 30's by the time i biked back to cambridge. relatively speaking, it wasn't that cold, but the temperature drop came unexpectedly and i wasn't ready for it mentally. i felt cold almost the entire way despite the furious pedaling. i think the melting snow contributed to this feeling of a wet bitterness in the air.