my father sent me a photo of the solar panel conditions, after some early morning pre-dawn snow followed by rain that would last until the late afternoon. more than half of the panels were exposed, but there was still some snow coverage. i decided later in the afternoon - after the rain stops - to ride down to belmont and quickly clean off the snow.

the biggest problem with kevin is i tell him something but he never listens. like the peeing on the bathroom situation, i must've spoken to him 5-6 times before he finally got it, and even now there are occasional accidents. so it's with that in mind that this morning i discovered more shit-stained toilet paper in the trash. they were folded discreetly, but when i looked inside, they were toilet-paper wrapped pieces of turd. it's already gotten to the point where every morning i'm afraid to go into the bathroom for fear of what i might find. i had to fish the toilet paper out of the trash and flush them. i ended up moving the garbage bin to the other side of the bathroom, to make it harder for him to literally throw his shit into the trash.

while i was at it, i also rebleached the toilet area (starting to smell of urine again) and scrubbed the tub with some expired baking soda.

i had an english muffin sandwich for lunch. checking the solar panel production timeline, i could still see that certain panels had low production, meaning they were still partially snow-covered. once the rain started to look like it might be stopping, i left the house around 2:45pm for my parents' place to clean the panels.

first thing i did was to check that the bird feeder wasn't clogged. i also refilled it. after a storm, birds are always hungry for food, and i could see chickadees flitting around in the evergreens, waiting for me to leave so they can eat.

4 panels on the main room were partially covered in slush, while nearly all the panels on the sunroom roof were partially covered. compared that to our opposite door neighbors with their more angled roof and perfectly clear panels. i made quick work of the cleanup, first starting with the main roof panels on the left side of the house, then from there pushing off whatever amount of slush i could reach on the sunroom panels. i then moved the ladder and cleared the remaining slush off of the sunroom panels. in all it took about 20 minutes.

afterwards i did an inspection of the backyard, trying to see if there was anything worth photographing. i was shooting photos of the emerging flower buds on our redbud/cherry/plum trees, when i noticed the strings tying the protective trunk cloth was girdling the cherry and plum trees. i quickly ran inside to get a pair of pruning shearers to snip the strings. there was no damage on the plum, but the flowering cherry - because it's a fast grower - had some girdling marks on the trunk. hopefully when the tree grows it'll fill those out. glad i was able to catch the girdling in time, otherwise the trees would've been strangled to death.

i left around 4pm. back at the house, i made a quick stop to star market to stock up on some movie theater popcorn, the last day it was on sale (BOGO deal).

kevin came home by 5:40pm. another package came for him, heavy, and sounded like sifting. i figured it was another exercise equipment (sand-filled weights was one of my theories) but turns out it was a large bag of brown rice he bought online. just like yesterday and the day before, he microwaved something for dinner and went to his bedroom to eat. unlike the previous days however, he didn't come out to make a 2nd dinner, his lunch for tomorrow. that makes me think that maybe he's going out to lunch tomorrow, so he doesn't have to prepare it tonight.

production was garbage today, the least amount this month. it wasn't because of the snow-covered panels; i think even if we'd managed to clear them early this morning, it was so overcast today due to the rain that we wouldn't have made very much anyway. tomorrow looks to be a good day: cold and clear, looking to hit at least 30kWh.

as for my own dinner, i had some really old small pita bread that i bought from haymarket that time i took kevin, so more than a month ago. i wanted to use them up before they went bad (though they were already hardened on one side where i accidentally left the bag open). last week i thought about making my own gyros, but i found a simple recipe for making oven-baked pizza using pita bread. the only other ingredients were tomato sauce and pizza cheese, both of which i had. i also opened up a can of anchovies; for somebody who doesn't like seafood very much, i love anchovies on my pizza. i made 3 small pizzas and put them in the oven on broil. they only needed to be in the oven for 2-3 minutes. the sound of the cheap cooking sheet bending from the intense heat caught my attention. when i opened the oven, the smell of burnt bread filled the kitchen, as i quickly turned off the oven. half the crusts on each pizza were charred to black, but the pizza themselves look edible otherwise. the heat seemed to have softened the pita breads, and i ate my homemade mini pizzas by folding them in half. it was actually really good, i seemed to have stumbled across a new pizza recipe (the only other pizza recipe i know of is the french bread pizza recipe and i haven't made that in ages). if i used a large pita bread and better toppings (bacon, fancy cheeses, hot pepper rings, onions), i could have a really nice pizza.

i watched an amazing clippers-celtics game tonight, the last game before all-star weekend. it felt more like a playoff game than a regular season game. both teams were equally matched, and the game went into double overtime, with boston finally winning.