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i fell asleep last night at 4am. i woke up around 7am, but forced myself to sleep until 9am. i used the bathroom and took a shower, and when i got out, DC got up to use the bathroom. by 9:30am he had already dressed and was heading to the office. "are you in a hurry?" i asked him, and told him i was going to go vote and wondered if he wanted to check out american democracy in action. he said sure, so we walked down to the nearby elementary school which was also the local voting station.

set in the basement gym, i pointed out the table where election workers check off your name, the voting booths, and the vote tabulation machine. i thought he'd leave afterwards, but insisted on staying while i went off to get my vote on. i already knew who i wanted (democratic candidates down the board), plus all the ballot questions. once we were back outside, he even took a photo of the school, i liked that he really appreciated seeing all the apparatus of our voting system. after DC left, i bumped into steve and paul, who had come to vote as well. we had a brief cordial chitchat about their previous tenants before i returned home.

i grabbed my things and left soon afterwards to run errands via motorcycle. first stop was the harvard vanguard office, to pick up my mother's high blood pressure medication. the masked pharmacist saw my mother's name and asked if she ever watched avatar. "why, is there a character by that name?" the pharmacist said yes, that she'd been watching it recently with her niece. i told her i haven't watched avatar in a long time and didn't remember that character. "what power does she have?" i asked. the pharmacist said she can bend her chi, which i totally don't remember. she was then telling me how she was watching the animation, but there was also a live action version. i never heard of an animated series for avatar. i told the pharmacist i'd go home and check it out. only later did i realize what happened: i was talking about james cameron's avatar, she was talking about avatar the last airbender. i hope she also made that realization later like i did.

next i went to market basket to get some chicken legs for my father, as well as a few grocery items for myself. i only had the saddlebags, which were filled by the chicken legs. i also had my messenger bag carrying my laptop, and had to stuff a few items in there to make everything fit.

i went to the cafe to drop off the supplies. that's when i told my parents about cancelling the washer dryer order last night, and that i wanted to upgrade to the bigger washer to better pair with the dryer. i ended up making the order for a saturday delivery. that's actually better, because my parents will be home on saturday.

i then headed to belmont. while i was pulling out onto the road, i heard someone shouting my name. i looked inside a parked car waiting for the light to change, and it was lisa! in the span of 48 hours, two different former SRM employees have spotted me off the streets, something i couldn't do myself, as i think i have a pretty plain face that sort of just blends into the background where ever i go. lisa had to talk fast, and asked me when i was going to upload photos of my renovated bathroom before the light changed and she had to go.

i was set to work on repainting the eastern-facing sunroom window frame at my parents' house. i don't think it was properly primed, there only seemed to be one coat of paint, and most of it was peeling off. my original plan was just to scrape off the peeling paint and then paint over everything with zinsser 123 primer. but the bottom frame was too badly rotted from water damage and needed to be replaced before painting. the only problem was there are only so many warm days left for the paint to dry. another option would be to scrape off the peeling paint and then prime the window frame anyway as a preventative measure, and replace the rotten section in the spring. after i scraped the paint (catching the pieces so the lawn won't be littered with paint chips), i decided to do some caulking, as there were gaps (that's what probably led to the water damage in the first place). after that i left it to dry, come back in a day or two to either paint or do some frame molding replacement.

i also checked the width of the basement door, to make sure the new washer and dryer can fit through. 29 inches is wide enough, but we may need to take the door off its hinges in order fit the appliances.

i returned home by 2:15pm. even though according to the clock it was still relatively early, the angle of the sun made it seem it was much later, which is my internal clock still making sense of the weekend time change. earlier at the cafe my parents thought it was noontime and still no customers until i told them it was just 11am, because they hadn't adjusted the analog cafe clocks yet.

i hadn't had lunch yet but decided to ride to whole foods first to return a pair of underarmour running pants before returning home for good. i made a delicious everything bagel with avocado slices, egg, sriracha, and cooked bacon. i ate by 3pm while watching early election coverage on MSNBC.

i started making dinner around 7pm, decided to have some korean rice cakes. normally i add some fried tofu, but because they longer sell them at whole foods (i checked earlier), i decided to make them myself with extra firm tofu i bought from market basket this morning. after slicing them into squares, i fried them using leftover tonkatsu cooking oil that i'd purified with gelatine. the oil was cloudy but after i heated it up, it cleared. an online recipe said to fry the tofu in cold oil and let it warm up, to avoid splattering. once one side was cooked, i flipped them over with chopsticks to cook the other side.

DC came home around 7:30pm right when i was frying my tofu. i was prepared to share some korean rice cakes with him, but before i could offer, he told me he had dinner at the vietnamese-thai restaurant across the street. he ordered the pho which he thought was pretty good. he asked if i'd seen any election results yet, i said the first batch of winners won't be announced until 8pm at the earliest. when 8pm came around i yelled at his bedroom door to come watch the results on tv, but he was either sleeping or had earphones on, and i didn't bother asking again.

as for the rice cakes, it was a success. i was going to open a new package, but remembered i had a single serving portion left over from the last time i made rice cakes (back in january). i didn't think the tofu would work, but they were pretty delicious, had the crispiness from being fried, but the tofu itself had a savory sweetness that paired well with the spicy korean broth. my only complaint is the tofu squares were too small; next time cut them into larger squares/triangles and fry the whole batch (i only used half this time).

i ate while watching the election coverage. there was no surprise in MA, democrats won across the board. healey became the first woman elected to be MA governor, and the first openly out governor as well. i watched all night, there was no red wave, and democrats made slight in-roads in races that were supposed to go republican. either way, there was no big surprises. heading off the bed, but have a good feeling that at the very least, democrats will keep the senate.