last night when the CO2 turned off, i already started noticing the smaller (newer) CO2 checker had changed color from yellow to a light green. that's a good sign, means the CO2 levels were dropping after i accidentally saturated the tank. this morning the smaller CO2 checker was a dark green, a good sign that the CO2 level has dropped to a safer level. of course since i don't have any fish at the moment and just plants, it doesn't matter, but i like to maintain a good balance of CO2. the larger CO2 checker on the other hand turned a light green color last night and hasn't changed since then. that checker if you reminder contains my own DIY CO2 checker solution, and may not be accurate since i used 6dKH water instead of 4dKH.

i've spotted this for a while, but my plants seem to have a lot of air bubbles trapped underneath the leaves. however now i think it may actually be this magical "pearling" that i keep hearing about in aquarium gardening circles. pearling is when plants produce an over abundance of oxygen (O2) in response to rapid growth due to CO2 saturation. it's a good sign that the plants are happy and growing at maximum speed.

this morning i slept as late as possible, before waking up at 9:30am to get ready for work. it wasn't raining which meant i could take the bike, but it would be raining later (possible downpours), so i opted to walk, leaving the house at 10am. it's been an active week, with running, cycling, mowing, and now walking.

i got to the cafe by 10:30am, the first to arrive. my father showed up a few minutes later. my mother decided to stay home after i told her yesterday we didn't need so many people working on saturday since my 2nd aunt will also be here as well. my mother also thought it'd be a slow day due to the rain, which gave her more reason not to come.

it's really hard to say whether a day at the cafe will be slow or busy. sometimes when it seems like we wouldn't get any customers, we end up getting a lot. today was just such a day. we should've suspected something was up when it was already busy in the first hour. then it stayed busy until 3pm. we had customers even sitting outside despite the fact that it started to rain around 1pm. i cooked new rice a total of 3 times today. we nearly ran out of salt & pepper chicken and charsiu pork, until someone found some frozen pre-cooked pork in one of the freezers. this was after i'd already taken down all charsiu dishes from the websites, before putting it back on. as for the chicken, my father ended up frying a few pieces in the small tempura deep fryer pot, just so we'd have a few more to sell the rest of the day. normally when we get busy the day goes by faster, but for some the hours really seemed to stretch today, and i kept looking at the clock thinking it was running slow.

we had zero customers in the final hour the cafe was opened. that gave us time to start cleaning up early, so by the time the clock struck 4pm, we immediately closed shop and left. we gave my 2nd aunt a ride back to her place before heading to belmont.

the big news today was the coordinated surprise attack of israel by hamas. thousands of makeshift missiles rained down on israel, as gaza militants stormed across the border (via land, sea and even air), supposedly taking hostages and prisoners of war. israel retaliated by demolishing buildings with smart missiles and declared war on hamas. hundreds are dead on both sides, and the crisis seems to only escalate from this point.

my mother asked my father if he told me that my sister had gotten a new dog. he said no. i was initially angry, until they showed me photos of the puppy which my sister brought to their place last night. it looks like either a rotweiler-labrador mix or a doberman-labrador mix. hopefully my sister will bring the dog over to my parents' place tomorrow so i can see her. that would also explain why my sister called my father right after work, after not showing up at the cafe for nearly 2 months.

for dinner my mother made beef noodle soup using thin korean noodles. i'm normally not a fan of thin noodles as they tend to absorb the soup much faster than regular noodles (to the point where the noodles become a starchy mess), but my mother gave me a lot of broth this time, so that didn't happen. afterwards my father gave me a ride back to cambridge, even though it wasn't raining anymore. it only really rained in the afternoon. had i known, i could've taken either the bicycle or the motorcycle.

there was a package on my doorstep. it was the free government-issued covid tests i ordered on monday. they were binaxNOW brands which i've had before but find them a little difficult to use compare to some other brands. but free is free!

i took some time to examine my aquarium. i've been running my CO2 injection for almost a month now (started september 12th). during that time i haven't really noticed any real growth in my plants. i've got a bunch of legacy anubias from my old setup. anubias are naturally slow growing, and i don't think they like very strong light, that's why most of the leaves have turned yellow. plus when i rearranged the plants, i discovered an extensive established root system that i purposely cut off, thinking it'd make the anubias grow better.

the one new plant i bought - the cardinal plants (Lobelia cardinalis) - at first i didn't look like they were growing, but they have gotten taller since i first got them. plus they're making a lot of new "aerial" roots, which i take as a good sign. in fact, the anubias have also grown a lot of new roots - which are white.

finally there's the few stalks of pennywort i transplanted, on the hunch that they might be aquatic plants. they're doing well - none of died so far - though they haven't produced any new plants either. i think because they're rhizomatous, they'll produce new stalks once they've properly established more roots. their umbrella leaves are good at trapping bubbles - or as i'm starting to now thinking - signs of pearling.

i have also noticed some algae starting to form on the plants. i'm going to need to clean my tank someday soon, and finger scrub off the algae growth. my hope is once the plants are thriving, it will kill the algae growth.

i went out briefly to the liquor store to buy a powerball ticket. the jackpot is now at $1.4 billion.

surfing the web on my computer sitting in the armchair, i found myself dozing off. is feeling tired all the time just a sign of aging? or some vitamin or hormonal deficiency? maybe it's potassium. i need to bring it up with my doctor the next time i see him, which won't be until january for my annual physical.