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with steve and paul back since wednesday, i was expecting it to be much noisier around the house, but i've been amazed by how quiet it's been the past 2 days. if this is a new routine for them, i'm all for it. there was a stillness in the air this morning when my heat kicked off according to schedule at 9am for an hour of heating. i didn't get out of bed until 10:30am, not because i was still sleeping, but because it was warmer under the blankets. when i finally got up, i was surprised by how warm it still was in the house. when you've been living under 57°F conditions, 65°F feels downright balmy.

i heated up a burrito in the microwave for lunch. typically fridays i ride down to chinatown and haymarket, but there was nothing there i really needed. i want to make a gochujang stew this weekend but whatever ingredients i was missing i could get from market basket. also it looked cold with the temperature in the upper 40's and a crystal clear blue sky.

the only constructive thing i did today was go down into the basement and put insulation in the spaces around the fixed pipes. i had my gloves and mask on. i'm not sure if i did it right, but i covered everything. afterwards i swept the area underneath. there was a bucket of what looked to be wet insulation that i decided to flush down the toilet. later i discovered there was actually bits of rusted cast iron and solder, so i scooped them out and threw them into the trash.

while tossing out some stuff, i saw a dead bird in the backyard - a robin. it didn't look like it died of natural causes, as there was feathers pulled out, like something was trying to eat it. i've seen this before in my backyard, birds of prey like to use it as a killing ground. i moved the dead bird off to the side so it wouldn't be in the pathway. if it's still there tomorrow, i'll throw it in the trash.

in the late afternoon i biked down to huron veterinary hospital to pick up ear medication for hailey. it actually wasn't that cold, and with the sun out, it felt warmer than what the thermometer said. i regret not going down into boston. afterwards i went to market basket to pick up some ingredients for gochujang stew.

my replacement orchid pots came today. instead of going to my parents' place, they were delivered to my address instead, not sure why. these ones did come with the bottom dishes, not sure why those other ones were missing them. i'll check tomorrow, maybe the dishes are at the bottom of the box.

while using the bathroom in the evening, i noticed some rust stains inside the toilet bowl. what probably happened was all the rust chips i flushed, some of them didn't flush completely and stayed in the bowl, staining the porcelain. i spent a good amount of time on my hands and knees, nearly elbow deep in the toilet bowl, scrubbing off the rust stain with various chemicals. thankfully i wore dishwashing gloves. i used two types of plastic brush, a magic eraser, soft scrub, rust remover, and the toilet bowl brush. i found the best method was to force as much water out of the toilet bowl, squirt some heavy duty rust remover liquid, then grind away the stain with the toilet brush. i'm learning the hard way how damage rust dust can be.

i baked another on-cor chicken alfredo in the oven while i used the bathroom and took a shower. the food was ready by the time i got out. i ate while watching the wire. i finished season 2, now moving on to season 3. i spoke too soon regarding how quiet it was: the obscenely loud tv noises from upstairs were back this evening. the only positive i can see is my upstairs neighbors only watch 2 hours of television per evening maximum, after that they're back to being quiet again.