the fact that it's raining in january in new england should tell you something about how warm it is right now. temperature today was in mid-40's. if the weather was just 10 degrees colder, we'd be seeing snow right now. instead, just a whole day of rain. i heard from one of the television meteorologists today that we are no longer in a drought, and whatever rain deficit we had during the summer has now been fully replenished. at least that's some good news.

i didn't go outside today, was happy to stay indoors in my comfy sweat pants and sweat shirt. i've always avoided wearing sweat wear because it feels like the uniform of the very lazy. but they're comfortable and only just recently did a buy a pair of sweat pants. i didn't like them at first, felt a little tight in the butt, but i've grown used to them, and i like they have pockets, i don't ever remember having sweat pants pockets when i wore them in my youth.

for lunch i made an abomination bagel sandwich composing of guacamole, egg, and cranberry goat cheese. the goat cheese came courtesy of my taiwanese cousin, who had a hankering for some sweet cheeses so my parents bought her an assortment when we went to star market. they tasted awful and she barely ate anything, happily leaving the rest for us as a favor. that was more than 2 months ago and i saw have some of that cheese in the fridge. goat cheese on its own isn't bad - i've been known to make spinach omelettes with some crumbled goat cheese. but infused with orange peels and cranberries? sort of awful. i was actually waiting to see if i got sick after eating that sandwich, but once again, my digestive system seems to be impervious to food poisoning. i'm tempted to toss out the rest of the goat cheese.

the big event today was the vote in the house chamber for a new speaker of the house. republican kevin mccarthy didn't have the votes he needed to win but let the vote procede anyway. the first vote was just to see where people in his party stood. mccarthy could only afford to lose 4 votes. he ended up losing 19, which was the worst case scenario, as the extreme right-wing members of his party openly rebelled against him. the democrats on the other hand were unified behind hakeem jeffries, and he had more votes than mccarthy (though not enough to win more than 50% of the entire house votes). mccarthy then decided to vote a second and third time, not sure what his strategy was, maybe he thought the first vote was just to protest, but the subsequent votes would be more pragmatic. by the third vote, he ended up losing by 20, so things got even worse for him. thankfully by late afternoon house held a vote to reconvene tomorrow at noon, sparing the representatives from having to stay even longer, voting for something that obviously wasn't going to happen, no matter how much wishful thinking. mccarthy vowed to keep on voting until he won, even threatening to surpass the 105 ballots that it look to elect a speaker of the house in 1855, amidst the slavery debate that ultimately led to the american civil war. only problem is these votes are done manually, names read off one by one in alphabetical order, with a clerk recording the vote and them tallying them up. you'd think they'd have modernized their voting system by the 21st century, but i don't think anyone imagined the majority party unable to successfully choose a new speaker. a really intriguing possibility that some of the political pundits were talking about was the possibility of a coalition party, where some democrats join republicans (or vice versa), in order to elect a more moderate speaker, thereby nullifying what the ultraconservative minorities are currently doing, which is holding the house of representatives hostage.

i tried the new bigelows cold water infusion botanicals tea i got from market basket yesterday. only after i dipped the tea bag in hot water did i realize it was for cold water. i tried a sip of the hot botanicals tea and it was awful (today seemed like a tryout for awful foods). only after it cooled did i try drinking again, it was better, but still not that good. i regret getting it. maybe save it for the summer, use it to make an infusion sweet tea.

i continued updating 2022 blog posts. i also downloaded photos and videos from my two phones as well as my camera and drone.

for dinner i made a simple tortellini using frozen pasta and readymade sauce. i ate while watching the celtics game against the thunders, but switched to MSNBC when they started losing. later i checked the score online - they were done 30-40 points - so there was reason to turn back to the game. i watched will trent, the new ABC detective drama. the first episode was pretty good, i'll definitely be following the series.