this morning i was excited to try the new found citrus juicer. however i soon realized that the slightest amount of downward force on the juicing cone will immediately jam up the motor; apparently there was a reason why somebody would throw it away. that's the risk one takes with street appliances: there are no guarantees it'll work. fortunately it's free but it's kind of a shame, the juicer itself looks brand new. the juicing cone even auto-reverses, so it would've extracted a good amount of juice if it wasn't broken. i ended up going back to my old braun juicer. however for some reason it's now having a little stuck motor problem as well when i apply too much downward pressure, making a horrible grinding sound. but i still managed to squeeze 5 sunkist navel oranges to get half a water bottle's worth of fresh juice. i could buy a new juicer, but these are the sort of appliances that people get rid of soon after they buy it once they lose interest or find out it simply taking up too much space. i'll keep an eye open on craig's list for a good quality used one.

i biked to belmont a bit before noontime. it gave me a chance to try runtastic road bike pro, an app i downloaded for my iphone a while back but never remember to use it. it gave me some interesting biking data, but i doubt its accuracies, especially when it relates to the elevation, which was the info i was most curious about.

today was another intermittent day, more clouds than sun, but when the sun did break, there were brief periods of intense sunlight (amplified by the surrounding clouds). production for the day was 30.8kWh.

my mother fixed me some noodles with the beef soup my sister created with the pressure cooker on thursday that i never got to try. my mother said the soup wasn't that good initially, but after a day or so and some reheating, the flavors really came out. she tried the orange juice i squeezed; it was very sweet, almost too sweet, and i could taste some fermentation flavors already, sign of overripe fruits.

my sister came home briefly to drop off hailey, who was behaving strangely. she was pawing at everyone like she wanted something, but when i let her outside, she just stood at the bottom of the stairs then came right back inside. she also wouldn't sleep, just sat on the couch, as if waiting for my sister to return.

my parents were watching some chinese crime drama on netflix, "day and night". unable to sleep, my mother woke up at 3am and began binge watching all 32 half-hour-long episodes. what i really wanted to do was some backyard gardening work, but it was a bit cold, temperature in the 40's, better to wait for a nicer day. some trees need pruning before they flower and leaf out. later everyone took a nap, including me, simply because i got bored and there was nothing to do in the house.

after dinner i biked back to cambridge, temperature at 39°F, the sky beginning to clear up, the weather tonight plunging into the 20's. we have to endure just a few more days of unseasonably cold weather before the temperature warms up (possibly for good) later in the week, with the potential of hitting the 70's. i look forward to shutting down my furnace!