i had a morning scare while using the bathroom. no polite way to say this, but i was shocked to see that my stool was black. that's one of the signs of internal bleeding, but i didn't feel particularly unusual. then i tried to think what i ate last night. some zongzi, but that wouldn't cause this. finally i realized i also had a big bowl of cherries. mystery solved!
i did some housecleaning today, because for some reason i had this idea of inviting my upstairs neighbors over so they can hear how loud their television is. there's still about 30% clutter in various rooms. what i really need is to clear out more basement space and invest in some plastic bins so i stow more items downstairs.
i got set to ride out to belmont, pulling the rain cover from my motorcycle parked a block away and riding it to the front of my house. i forgot to take out the key so the lights were on for the 2 minutes i was collecting my things inside the house. when i went to go turn on the engine, it hissed instead of starting up. the battery was dead. bad news was i wouldn't be able to ride today. good news was i found out the battery couldn't hold a charge while i was at home instead of stranded outside somewhere. i changed into my shorts and took the bicycle instead.
as is customary, i went out in my parents' backyard to inspect the garden and water the plants. ever since we put plastic cup collars around our vegetables we haven't suffered any additional die-offs from rabbits. the thing we noticed last week was apparently now birds have started pecking at the peapods. both my father and i noticed it but thought it was the other person who snipped off the ends of a few peapods. some scar marks make me think it was the work of bluejays with their sharp beaks. maybe our recent DIY bird baths have had an unintended consequence of attracting hungry birds to the garden.
i bought a new motorcycle battery online (model YTZ14S), prices range from $70-200, but batterysharks.com had the cheapest ($38.50, although $10 for shipping). my father recommended i go with the least expensive one since there's nothing too fancy about batteries, and eventually i'll have to replace it again after a few years. ebay actually had a few sellers even cheaper than that, but i was leary about their return policy and none had any sort of warranty (batterysharks.com has a 6 month warranty).
after dinner i biked home before 7:00. i was eager to get back because my motorcycle was parked in front of my house, and i have a few neighbors who are particularly awful at parallel parking (bumper bumping style) and i wanted to be there in case they dinged my ride. 
fortunately all was well, my bike gently wedged between 2 cars with just enough clearance. i fished out the battery and brought it inside to recharge with the trickle charger. it went to solid red, which is a good sign, means that there's enough residual power to charge it (when i first got the bike out of the garage, the charger flashed red, which meant the battery couldn't be charged. i had to zap it for a few hours with a car charger before it could charge again).
all was quiet until paul came home around 8:30 and then i started hearing loud muffled sounds from their television. it's been like this for a while now, and today i finally reached my breaking point and sent them an e-mail. i kept it on the light side and tried to contain any passive aggressive tone. i sent it kind of late so i didn't notice any improvements but steve wrote back saying that they recently got a new sound system (i know) and because of the deafness in his left ear, they might've inadvertently turned up the volume too loud, but they'll try to keep it down in the future.
i continued watching jonathan strange and mister norrell, now on episode 4. it was slow going trying to get into the first episode but once i reached the end i was hooked (the resurrection of a dead person!).
by the time i went to bed, the trickle charger was already at solid green, meaning it had finished charging. it seems a little suspect though that it'd charge so fast, so it makes me even more suspicious that the battery can't hold a charge anymore. which is a good reminder to recharge all my batteries.
sunmeng told me she got nominated to be a union representative. her name recognition comes from her stint hosting the company's chinese new year gala event this past winter. from the 10 nominees there is another vote tomorrow for union president. it'd be ironic for someone who hates the company so much to become their union president.
