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every weekday morning i wake up and think: will she or won't she? in regards to if sandy will go to the office. thinking back now, even when kelvin was here, most weeks she'd spend at least one day at home for whatever reason. usually it's weather-related, but one time it was because she woke up early to conference call with some collaborators, and a few times was because of ceiling leaks in her office. i had gone reason to believe she'd go to work today because she told me last week that friday is when they have all the seminars and occasionally free lunch.

i woke up today at 8:30am but didn't leave bed until 9am, when the scheduled heating kicked in. instead i surfed reddit for half an hour. naturally sandy was still asleep by then. the scheduled heating used to start at 7:30am, but sandy has gotten up later and later every week, so now the heat doesn't turn on until 9am, and i think i could push it even later, because she finally woke up by 10am. she turned on the electric kettle while she used the bathroom (no shower) and was out the door in 8 minutes.

i noticed that manoa poke shop around the corner had been closed for the entire month of february. at first i thought maybe they were on vacation, or closed the shop for renovations, but there was no signs on the door. every once in a while i'd see an employee outside but when i go by it's always closed. i started thinking maybe they were closed for good, so i finally did some research online and discovered they've been closed since january 26. that's sad news and a surprise because business looked good and they always seem to have customers. apparently they weren't making a profit, which i can see with their myriad of fresh ingredients including fish. i only ate there once but really liked it, and always wanted to revisit. but poke is still new to me and one thing that prevented me from going again is i felt stupid ordering, not really knowing what or how to eat everything. there's another poke shop nearby on garfield-mass ave, never tried them, but now they're the only poke in the area.

i ate one of my remaining triple baking powder blueberry muffin for lunch. texture wise it was perfect, flawlessly fluffy, but i noticed an off taste that i didn't notice the first time. my mother said it tasted bitter but i didn't notice. i did find there was a sour aftertaste and a faint hint of something metallic. later in the afternoon i finished the pineapple cake.

i made a new batch of cake flour blueberry muffins, this time vowing to get the ingredient portions correct. i set up the butter and eggs the night before, i mashed the sugar and butter by hand, everything was going according to plan. the batter was not as stiff as last night (with triple the baking powder). i did notice the frozen blueberries were "bleeding" into the matter, so much so that the batter turned purple. i think the problem is i set out the blueberries beforehand in porcelain bowls that slightly defrosted the berries while i was assembling the other ingredients. next time, i'll just throw in the frozen berries directly, so there's less chance of the juices coloring the batter.

into the oven went the muffins. cleaning up afterwards, i suddenly noticed something was off: did i put in the baking powder? turns out i completely forgot. i went from putting in 3x baking powder to none at all. as the muffins had only been in the oven for a few minutes, i figured i could still salvage it. so i took them out, scooped out the batter, and reconstituted everything with a tablespoon of baking powder. by that point the batter was already the consistency of half-melted ice cream, more liquid than solid. i put everything back into the oven. when i reduced the temperature and checked the muffins after 10 minutes, i was relieved to see there was rising.

50 minutes later when the muffins had finished baking, i took them out of the oven. instead of having a crumbly loose texture, these muffins had a more compact texture. they were also smaller, so despite rising, they didn't rise nearly enough. my father actually stopped by to pick up some muffins because my mother (and my 2nd aunt) wanted some. when he arrived i cut open one of the muffins to taste. it was still very moist and fluffy on the inside, just in a more condensed package, more aesthetics than anything else. my father ending up taking 4 while i saved one for sandy.

since it'd be snowing tomorrow morning, i put away my bike figuring i won't be riding it anytime soon. while i was at it i built a tiny snowman with the snow from yesterday.

they said it'd be cloudy today but our production number for the first day of march showed otherwise, at 38.23kWh, just a couple of kWh shy of this year's record. a good start for the month.

sandy came home by 5:30pm and went in her room to chat with kelvin. i began making my spiced potato wedges with the bag of idaho potatoes i bought a while back. i cut 3 medium potatoes into wedges. at one point the knife slipped and cut into my fingernail. sandy actually came out of her room because she'd thought i cut myself. there was just enough potatoes to fit onto a single baking sheet lined with parchment paper. this time around i soaked the wedges in hot tap water (30 minutes, supposedly it makes them crispier) before drying them off and tossing them with some olive oil and spices. i made too much spices, i can cut back a little next time. i baked for 25 minutes before turning them and baking for another 20 minutes.

when sandy was finally done chatting, she took a shower first (as her routine) before she began making dinner, some korean pancakes with frozen mussels. while the wedges were baking, i reheated some leftover risotto in the microwave for dinner. the potatoes were more of a snack.

the potato wedges turned out pretty good. a little salty, i'll reduce the salt portion for next time. i just used a ketchup dipping sauce but sandy mixed a mayonnaise-ketchup sauce which i suddenly realized was simply thousand island dressing.