i woke up at 9:30am, surprised that i didn't wake up earlier, as heavy rain was forecasted for this morning. looking outside, i was disappointed to see no signs of deluge. that of course would soon change. starting at 10am, a large swath of intense storms was passing through the greater boston area. it lasted for over an hour, an intense period of rain, something like 5" fell in cambridge. i watched as the rain in the street started to get higher and higher, until the water level had swallowed up the sidewalk and the sloshing of water was up to my front step. cars coming the street were creating wakes. another car turning down my street didn't realize how deep it was as it seized up, the water burying half the car. the driver got out, tried to push the car himself, but it was no use.

around 11am i went outside to move my motorcycle, which was submerged in water to the bottom of the engine. i pushed it across the street and thankfully was able to start it up. i was going to move it down the street, but saw that it was flooded on the other end as well. trash cans were floating around in the water which was up to my knees. i kept losing my flip flops while walking through the flood. i went to upright one of them but the trash bags floated out and ripped while i was trying to put them back in the trash can. i stood there surrounded by trash and probably sewage as well.

the cambridge fire department came by to inspect the damage. they asked neighbors to check their basement for flood damage. my basement was dry other than a few small seeps. one of them joked that they should've brought a canoe. they put police tape across the streets to prevent cars from driving into the deep ends. speaking of which, that seized up car finally managed to move.

i went back inside to change out of my soaked clothes and to take a shower to wash off any possible sewage contamination. the rain had mostly stopped by then, and once it did, the storm drains had time to carry all that rain out to the charles river. i had jeff's pork roast warming up in the toaster oven and i ate some of that for lunch. later on moved my motorcycle back in front of the house.

i'm supposed to go running on tuesdays but it was too rainy this morning. but by the afternoon it was pretty much dried, so i headed out by 1:30pm. bruce stopped by briefly to drop off some turkey chili he made last night. you'd think after a deluge that like the air would be refreshing, but it was still humid and warm, not very good running weather, but i powered through it despite the soupy conditions. running over the charles, i saw the runoffs from the storm drains in the form of oil slicks on the water surface. not a good time to be rowing on the river (there were none).

i got back home by 2:30pm. after a shower, i went out to the liquor store to buy a mega million ticket. the jackpot tonight is almost at $1.6 billion. i also checked out the construction site next to the liquor store. they dig a deep pit that was now a pool from all the rain.

i'm currently on a alexander the great kick, listening to a podcast about his life history, but also watching a bunch of youtube videos about the assyrian and persian empire, as well as the complex history of some balkan states like armenia and bulgaria.

for dinner, instead of having bruce's turkey chili, i finished the rest of the pork roast. that was followed by a whole of longans and some ube ice cream. later in the evening i took out the trash. i also started backing up some photos from my computer onto external hard drives. when i checked the mega million numbers, i didn't get any of the numbers, but i did get the mega ball, which earned me $2 (basically a free ticket). the most i've ever won is a mega ball plus one of the numbers, which is worth $4.