my first night with those new bedsheet was a tremendous success. they felt cool, the fabric smooth, and the deep pockets (15") meant the bedsheet would stay flat (unlike some of my other fitted bedsheets). i'm tempted to get some more in different colors (utopia bedding is the brand on amazon).

blame the bedsheets since i slept so well i woke up on the late side this morning. i didn't leave my house until noontime, also figuring there was no rush since i had the car. but i'd forgotten that the century egg pork bone rice porridge i wanted to make for lunch for my parents would take 1-1/2 hours to make. that'd mean we wouldn't be able to eat until almost 2pm.

fortunately when i arrived in belmont, my parents had already made lunch, and had decided to have the rice porridge for dinner instead. i ate fried eggs, bacon, chinese fried niangao, and squash & dates rice porridge.

i returned the mustard green and chinese celery seedlings to the aeroponics tub, since the sunroom was back to being warm again (65 degrees). the way we had it set up now, there was very little chance of growing robust vegetables. one of the biggest issues is not enough sunlight. so we rigged up a simple light stand using a broken bar stool on one end, a plant stand on the other, two planks of wood, and a pair of 2ft-long led grow lights. the lights are on a timer and only turn on during the daytime, as a supplement to the small amount of natural sunlight that shines on the plants. doing it like this will also not attract too much attention from neighbors, though on cloudy days they might be able to see our plant experiment through the windows. hopefully with this new light setup we can start seeing some real aeroponic progress.

an interesting note about the aeroponics tub: last night i noticed there was a layer of ice inside. today i saw the water in the clear tube sight gauge was completely frozen. even by late afternoon, with the sunroom so warm, there were still relatively large chunks of ice floating inside the tub. i opened the lid and broken them up by hand. by evening when i checked again, at least the sight gauge was now back to being liquid, and i assume with the timer running, the tub ice will soon melt as well.

something else i noticed: the smart plug i grabbed from the living room had melted from overheating. it still works, but it looks kind of unsafe now. the thing was previously connected to the heating mat, and this is the third smart plug that's melted like this, which makes me wonder if they're either defective, or they can't be connected to certain devices, like heaters and germination mats. something to keep an eye on. that's why i put the surge protector in a pyrex dish, in case of potential fires coming from the melted smart plug.

i streamed episodes 4 and 5 of poker face for my mother. while that was going on, i went outside and replaced the broken rear windshield wiper (12") on the honda element. i also washed the squirrel buster bird feeder and refilled it with fresh sunflowers. my mother went out for a walk in the afternoon, when temperature was at 49 degrees. i baked a mixed bag of nuts in the toaster oven. walnuts, pecans, almonds, hazelnuts, and brazil nuts. i like hazelnuts the best, walnuts the least.

i started making the century egg pork bone congee a bit after 4pm. my mother wanted to observe, because apparently my sister will be making it for her catered meal this week. i thought that was rather presumptuous of my sister to try a recipe she'd never made before. but this is a recipe that i'd made many times before, and it's pretty easy and basically fail proof, using the ubiquitous instant pot (6qt). i went with a slightly larger portion this time: 1 cup of rice (instead of 3/4 cup) and 8 cups of water (instead of 6-1/2 cups). i also added 2 tsp of salt on the advice of my father, who said it needed more (normally i just use 1 tsp). and i didn't add the sesame oil until the end.

while the instant pot was pressurizing and cooking, i streamed something else for my mother: the new plane movie. i hadn't seen it, and i probably wouldn't have, but i heard some good things about the film, and figured it'd be something my parents might like, especially after i procured some chinese subtitles. they did like it, but i had to stop the movie with 30 minutes left so i could finish making my rice porridge.

after releasing the pressure, it was just a simple matter of removing the pork, taking out the bones, shredding the meat, and returning to the instant pot, along with a few additional ingredients. when my father went to serve the congee, everyone just had a medium bowl, which i didn't think was enough, usually i have a large 40 oz. bowl serving. but that turned out to be the ideal size, since it allowed me to savor more of the individual flavors, an issue of quality over quantity.

my mother thought i added too much pork, and would've liked to see more century egg, which kind of disappeared in the porridge, even though the recipe is eponymously named after this ingredient. she wasn't going to added any pickled mustard greens but i insisted, they're a key part of the recipe. they add some additional crunch and saltiness to the meal. speaking of saltiness, i did find the congee slightly salty; next time 1 tsp is more than enough.

after dinner i played the rest of plane. it's good enough that i'd watch a sequel (a la die hard), but i don't know how they'd make it work.

i left for cambridge by 8pm, wheeling out my bike parked in the backyard. temperature was down to 38 degrees, by that felt balmy considering the subzero temperature we experienced over the past 2 days. my upstairs neighbors are gone for the next 3 days, steve sent me an e-mail about it. i thought that was unusual, since normally they wouldn't tell me. maybe he wanted to remind me to take out the trash, which i haven't done for 2 weeks now as a silent protest.