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the first order of business this morning was to ride my bike down to the comcast office and return the gateway box. i will get a prorated charge on my next internet bill, which means i only pay how ever many days i used the gateway for, which was less than 48 hours (comcast will charge me 67¢).

a tree in my neighborhood toppled over during tuesday's snowstorm. there was no casualties, except for an unfortunate car that was smashed. i first saw the report on the news, about a downed tree in cambridge. the footage seemed familiar, then they said it was on prentiss street, which is very close to where i live. just so happens my action camera was recording when i drove by that very street tuesday morning, before the tree fell. from the looks of it, the way the tree was leaning, it was only a matter of time. that's actually the second tree to have toppled on this street. back in october 2012, another tree fell during a hurricane, and it too smashed into a car.

cambridge road crew came out and quickly disposed of the tree that fell during the snowstorm. blinding white out condition and chainsaw doesn't seem like a safe combination but when i revisited prentiss street today, there was no sign of the tree besides a hollowed diseased tree stump and some wood dust.

my sister wasn't home, left earlier to take hailey out for a walk, when i arrived at my grand uncle's place to deliver his lunch. afterwards i went to the side entrance with the hoe and broke up as much ice as possible on the sloped walkway. my sister told me yesterday she slipped and hit her head.

i biked back home. maybe i didn't get enough ice breaking action (despite hurting my palms from all that pounding), but soon afterwards i was back outside, breaking the layer of ice that'd formed on empty parking spots. when cars park there they can't get any traction on their tires due to the ice so i have to listen to them dangerously spinning their wheels, trying to free themselves. it's a thankless job since nobody is there to see me do it, but i do it for the exercise, and i do it because i love breaking things (in this case ice with the ice chisel). after that i cleaned out a parking spot on H street. i felt obligated because i'd parked there up until tuesday morning, and i knew the moment i left that spot that it'd be covered in snow and nobody else could park there anymore.

karen came home early, like 3pm, from her central massachusetts conference. i sort of had a hunch this might happen, so i didn't make a mess of the house like i typically would when i'm not expecting anyone else to be home in a while. she brought back a large container of pasta salad, said i was free to have some, told me she couldn't it anymore after having that all of yesterday and today. she went out for a walk while i was outside chiseling ice from the pavement.

a few more seedlings have emerged, i actually noticed them yesterday, but today i set them under the fluorescent lights: a few lupines and almost all of the gazanias. of the gazanias, there was one cup where the seedlings looked deformed and shriveled. i ended up splitting a pair of healthy gazania seedlings and replanting the second seedling in that one cup. when i felt the dirt i realized what the problem was: the soil was too soggy. that might mean my habanero plants won't germinate well either because when i prepared the soil for those seeds the dirt was particularly soggy. only time will tell. i have plenty of habanero seeds anyway, if none of them germinate, i still have time to replant them again.

for dinner i finished the last of my godmother's spaghetti sauce with rotini pasta. i also had some of karen's pasta salad, which was really good, super healthy, with a rainbow mix of vegetables, from cherry tomatoes to spinach to asparagus. i might have some more tomorrow.

paul's kids and grandchildren are visiting this weekend. i knew this from the non-stop stomping coming from upstairs beginning at 6:30pm. steve wrote me an e-mail apologizing for any noises, said there were 3 toddlers, and they'd be here until monday. the noise was non-stop, i nearly fired off an angry complaint. they finally stopped by 10pm.