nearly every morning i wake up to condensation on the windows of my house. this is because li has a habit of steaming his breakfast while using the bathroom, which in turn transforms the house into a sauna. perhaps it won't matter in a few days when i finally decide to turn on the heat. the forced air will nullify the condensation, or maybe the morning steaming will make the house less dry.

i went to go vote this morning. it was just a local election, choosing the 9 city council members and 6 school committee members. within the past few weeks election signs have dotted the area, and canvassers have been ringing doorbells throughout the neighborhood (though they never ring mine for some reason). i had no idea who any of the candidates were, with the exception of nadya okamoto, who came to visit me back in september. cambridge uss a ranked choice voting system, where candidates are ranked by voter preference, and then counted in a complex way afterwards, where votes from previous leading candidates cascade down to the runner ups, until all seats are filled. as for me, i use my own personal voting system, which is basically voting for people with interesting names and candidates will live close to me.

with the temperature in the low 50's and dropping into the 40's tonight (and weather getting even colder the rest of the week), my father finally turned on the heat in their house. it involved going down to the basement and flipping on the power switch to the furnace. a few seconds later, the oil furnace kicked in. we went upstairs to adjust the temperature on the nest thermostat.

my mother contacted us tonight while we were having dinner (she could actually see us from the house webcam), secretly skyping from the hospital room bathroom so my grandmother couldn't hear. she was complaining about her sister-in-law whom she says doesn't care very much about her mother, and complaining about her taiwan siblings who also don't make frequent enough trips to the hospital to visit their mother. she told us that my grandmother had asked her to keep her company until she gets better (whenever that is) so there was a possibility she wouldn't be back for thanksgiving. i personally think my grandmother is keeping my mother as an emotional hostage, pretending to be sicker than she really is. she also put my mother on a guilt trip when my mother stepped out of the hospital for a few hours to visit a dentist (while my grandmother was sleeping), and when she came back my grandmother told her she was looking for her for hours, so now my mother is even more afraid to leave my grandmother's bedside.

i turned on the heat tonight in my own house as well when i got back. i didn't even have to touch the thermostat, just turned it on remotely with the nest app. i was afraid it'd kick up a lot of dust in the vents, but i didn't notice any. i was also afraid of smells. ever since i upgraded the furnace a few years back, it doesn't smell like burning oil like my old furnace (which is unusual because i use natural gas heating). but there was a faint odor of the basement, which i think will clear up after a little while. the last time the heat was on was back in late april, so a little bit over 6 months ago. so it looks like half the year i have the heat on, and half the year i have the heat off.