i woke up this morning to the sound of a low temperature sensor alarm going off on my phone. it told me cafe basement freezer sensor 1 had detected a low temperature, which meant the freezer door was opened. i checked the webcams and saw that my parents were already at the cafe, so i called my father to let him know. turns out he was the one who caused the sensor to go off, had the freezer door opened for too long, false alarm.

i left the house around 10am to go running. it'd rained a little overnight, so there was some dampness. temperature was in the upper 50's and climbing. i went to the nearby school first to vote in the cambridge elections. supporters of various candidates were picketing outside with their signs and folding tables were set up with various baked foods by parents to raise money for the school. i was voting for city council and school committee members. i had a little post-it notes with the candidates i wanted. cambridge does rank choice voting, so you rank the candidates you want from most to least. i'd received a lot of mailers about voting for pro bike lane candidates. however what they don't know is i'm actually somewhat against bike lanes. some of them are okay, but others (like on mass ave or garden street) i'm very much against. so i voted a combination of candidates who were for bike lanes and some against them. this way there'd be a balance. as for school committee members, i could care less as i don't have children, so i voted randomly, some hispanic guy because i recognized his name, another person because i recognized the street they lived on.

i listened to the final (12) episode of strike force five on my run. as i approached the river, i felt a queasy sensation in my stomach. i figured it'd would. but halfway through my run, i started getting a strong urge to use the bathroom. not number 1, but number 2 big time. the sensation would come and go, and i was already too far out, so i figured i would just hold it, finish the run, and hurry home. by that point i was already trying to figure out a plan B. what if i don't make it? i started looking for portapotties. i'd normally avoid them because i think they're disgusting, but this was an emergency. i saw one at a construction site next to the river, but it was fenced off. i could hop the fence, but who knows if the portable toilet was locked.

the urges got worse, and i started to get cold sweats. instead of walking, i mostly ran back home, as the quicker i got back the better. but running seemed to jostle my intestines, which made me want to go to the bathroom even more. with 2 blocks away from home, i basically sprinted. by then it was already too late, i could feel the poop already coming out. as long as it didn't run down my legs i was okay with pooping with running shorts.

i fumbled with the key as i quickly ran to the bathroom. what followed was an explosive bout of diarrhea, along with some existential cramping and cold sweats. i honestly thought i was going to pass out. after a minute i finally felt relieve. my shorts were still around my ankles as i stared at the mess i made. later i took them off and rinsed them in the tub. it's been a bad year for either peeing or pooping on myself. no clearer sign of aging then formally reliable institutions starting to crumble.

to think, i actually flirted with the idea of riding the motorcycle up to lynn this morning to buy an onn streaming box from walmart. i would've never made. at least i didn't poop my pants on the motorcycle. but pooping my pants while out on a run? i'm checking that one off my bucket list.

for lunch i warmed up a spicy jamaican patty. there was still a bunch of things i needed to do today: pick up my prescription, return the shelf pin jig, get groceries from market basket, and a slew of gardening tasks in belmont. of the local tasks, i only had time to do a grocery run, get some food for this week as well as a few supplies for the cafe. i then stopped by the cafe briefly to drop off the supplies. that's when the internet went down again, and i spent nearly 20 minutes at the cafe waiting for the lights on the cablemodem to go steady before finally leaving for belmont around 2pm.

with about 2-1/2 hours left before sunset, i couldn't do all the things i wanted to do. like spraying the houseplants with pesticide and moving them to the basement (instead of the sunroom where they currently are, where the temperature can get pretty cold at nights). nor did i have time to divide the pileas. i watered the raised beds with rain barrel water before taking them all apart again to prevent the hoses and manifolds from freezing up and getting damaged. i then washed the motorcycle. i might've washed the motorcycle one time during the summer, but another wash was long overdue. with the leftover washing solution i washed the honda as well.

with bike (and car) washed, and the front yard hoses all put away into the garage, i started fertilizing the lawn with fall fertilizer. the strategy is to fertilize today and have the rain forecasted for thursday melt the granules into the soil so the grass can use the nutrients come springtime. i set the drop spreader to 6 (the recommended setting). the particles were pretty small, and i still had a leftover bag from last season, which was just enough to cover most of the front lawn. i had to do some raking beforehand, to clean up the new leaves that'd blown onto the grass since my father mowed the lawn on sunday. i noticed some weeds in the grass that i'll need to dig up by hand this weekend. by the time i was done fertilizing it was already 4pm, the sky turning cloudy and dark. i got back onto my shiny clean motorcycle and returned to cambridge.

i was so tired in the early evening, between 5pm to 8pm. i was surfing the web on my computer but found myself repeatedly nodding off. there was no basketball tonight: the NBA suspended games to allow people to go out and vote. instead i watched no way out on pluto.tv. around 9pm i finally made dinner in the form of a meatball sub. the meatballs were frozen which i heated in the microwave. next time i might try baking them in the oven, but that takes longer (20+ minutes) though they might taste better. not the best sandwich i've ever made, but edible and easy to make.

i read a really great graphic novel today, spectators by brian k. vaughan and niko henrichon. about the lives of ghosts who wander the planet after their death with nothing to do but watch the lives of the living. the art is great with a lot of american violence and european sex. it's an ongoing series and new pages are released weekly for free online.