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knowing it was cold, i wasn't motivated to go out today, and spent the entire day indoors. first order of business this morning was water my mung beans. maangchi recommends watering every 2 3 hours for the next 5 days, but that's way too much. just watering twice a day - morning and night - is enough, as long as the beans are wet. i made another serving of egg-sauerkraut-kielbasa for lunch.

in the afternoon i did some household errands. i started by performing a water change in the aquarium. this was a full change, including replacing the activated carbon. i used a toothbrush to spin hidden clumps of hair algae off of the driftwood and anubias roots. i'm still trying to do weekly water changes to reduce the algae population. if i can truly stick to a weekly schedule, i'll definitely have the algae under total control.

i sprinkled some mosquito bits into the dirty aquarium water and watered my plants, all except the thanksgiving cactus. come spring i need to repot that thing into a medium that isn't dirt, like half sand half perlite. feeling a draft by the kitchen door, i noticed cool air was seeping into the house from a crack between 2 floorboards. i sealed it up with some squeezable silicone caulk. finally i replaced the heavy duty aluminum foil on my stovetop; can't remember the last time i did it, must've been a year ago (maybe longer? 1-12/2 year?), the old aluminum was pretty stained and dirty. back when kevin was still living here, i replaced it more often, as he seemed to drip onto the stovetop whenever he cooked, so it was a daily problem.

i was finally done by 4pm. i sat on the couch with some hot tea, enjoying the final minutes of daylight.

tteokbokki (떡볶이)
(1 serving)

2 cups water
1/4 tsp hondashi powder
1 clump of dried seaweed

2-1/2 tbsp gochujang paste
1/2 tbsp hot pepper flakes
1/2 tbsp karo dark corn syrup

10 oz. frozen rice cakes
(1/3 2 lbs. package)

7 oz. fried tofu wedges
(half package)

2 scallions, chopped


make broth over medium heat 15 minutes combining water with hondashi and dried seaweed. discard seaweed, add hot pepper paste mixture, along with rice cakes. stir constantly to keep rice cakes from sticking to pan. midway through add tofu wedges. done when liquid reduced to shiny sauce (about 7 minutes). add scallions.

for dinner i made korean rice cake, my food reward for eating a week's worth of frozen semi-vegetarian meals. but this is semi-vegetarian as well! the combination of rice cake starch, tofu protein, and korean spiciness warmed me up the rest of the night.

later in the evening close to midnight i watered my mung beans one last time. actually, i'd been watering them several times throughout the day, even though i said i only needed to water twice a day. i did it more to check on the germination progress. there's definitely more sprouts now, so we are on course.

i watched benedetta (2021), the paul verhoeven french nunsploitation film. there were some shocking bits, but it wasn't as crazy as i thought it'd be. it mostly comes off highlighting the hypocrisy of 17th-century catholic church. the story takes place in italy, but all the characters speak french (it is a french studio movie after all). charlotte rampling plays the head nun; how a classy actress like her ended up in this movie is a mystery, maybe a chance to work with legendary verhoeven. maybe it's not too strange, she as in zardoz (1974) after all.