i had no reason to stay so i packed up my things and left early for belmont. it was rainy and windy, my umbrella threatened to invert on a few occasions, and the spring mechanism seems to be broken as i can't get the umbrella to collapse into the handle. to make matters worse, when i arrived at the station the 73 bus had just left. luckily i was able to take the 75. instead of getting off at my usual stop, i got off early near 700 huron avenue, figuring it'd be a shorter and more direct walk, and maybe more scenic since it bordered the fresh pond golf course. but that turned out not to be the case, as i had to avoid getting splashed by speeding cars and crossing a busy road. there's a reason why i never get off here and today was a reminder.
after a lunch of porridge with zhajiang noodle sauce, i went with my parents on a supply run. that's when my father discovered he'd lost his wallet containing his driver license, credit cards, and more importantly the costco membership card. he looked everywhere but couldn't find it in the house. he hadn't made any supply runs recently, so he couldn't have lost it outside. the only other place it could be was at the cafe, but it was a longshot. so we drove to the cafe in search of his wallet, which turned out not to be there. maybe he lost it when we went to costco nearly 2 weeks, but certainly he would've noticed if his wallet was missing for that long. he also had a physical since that time, maybe he lost it at the doctor's office. but we decided to return home to check his pants. i was the one to finally find his wallet in the back pocket of one his jeans. my father said he didn't check those pair because he didn't think he wore them.
we finally left for the waltham costco by 11:45am. it was busy but expected for a sunday. afterwards we went to the waltham costco, which was even busier. my mother forgot her grocery list and had to find everything from memory.
coming back into town, we stopped by my godmother's place to drop off a few things we got for her at costco. she wasn't home at the time, she my mother just left it on her front door, but we ran into her while we were leaving.
it goes without saying that there wasn't a lot of production due to the rain, but even under those conditions, we still managed to eke out 3.56kWh. though it was overcast throughout the day, the clouds were just bright enough to produce a trickle of electricity on the panels.
we watched the oscars red carpet coverage while having dinner, alternating between ABC and E!. ABC had maria menounos while E! had giuliana rancic (whom i always thought looked ghastly thin). ryan seacrest performed double duty, hosting both the red carpet show for E! then ABC. on the E! red carpet show, giuliana was standing next to the reporters for japanese channel WOWOW, one of which was a statuesque woman outshining rancic in her glamorous. after some internet search i found out the woman was sumire matsubara, japanese actress-singer-model.
my father drove me back home before 7pm, first stopping at the cafe to unload some supplies from the trunk of the car. i'm always afraid of coming on the weekends, not knowing what kind of weird smells i'll encounter from my roommate's cooking. this time it was the scent of fried noodles, a little annoying but not too bad. she was in the living room, sitting on the floor, working off of her laptop, videochatting with her boyfriend. i turned on the tv to the oscars red carpet broadcast and went to go take a shower before the show started. when i got out of the bathroom she was already off the phone with kelvin.
we watched the oscars, each of us with our laptop opened. the winners were refreshing and i agreed with all the choices. mahershala ali won his 2nd best supporting actor award, ironically happening at the same time as his true detective finale was airing on HBO. spike lee won for best adapted screenplay of BlacKkKlansman, i was amazed that it was his first oscar win; despite a career that spanned nearly 3 decades, lee was only nominated for best director just this year. i was rooting for isle of dogs to win best animated feature film but the spider-man film won. i was however happy that free solo won best documentary, as it was also the only nominated documentary i watched.
roma won a bunch of awards, including cinematography, director (2nd win for caurón), and foreign picture. i was hoping it'd win for best picture as well, but that honor surprisingly went to green book. green book is a good movie with a feel good ending but troubling in its white hero narrative, which is catnip for white academy voters. i still think the best picture award has been cheapened ever since the academy expanded the category (2011) to be between five to ten nominees. they did it as a ploy to include more blockbuster hits that have no chance of winning (like black panther) but would attract a wider audience hoping to see an unlikely upset.
i was surprised that rami malek won best actor (i was kind of hoping viggo would win, even though he hasn't really captured very many awards elsewhere), but malek had already won so many other awards, so i wasn't too shocked. olivia colman won best actress in a weak field where the only other real challenger was glenn close.
sandy went to bed by midnight, while i stayed up to watching the sneak preview first episode of whiskey cavalier, their new moonlightingesque spy show that the network has been heavily promoting for weeks with various commercials. it was actually pretty good, i can't wait to see some more episodes once the show actually premieres this wednesday night. i'm nonplussed about scott foley (a serviceable leading man) but i really like lauren cohan ever since her days of walking dead.