I went grocery shopping. Why I wait until everyone and their brother is hitting Trader Joes, when I can just as well go there at 11 am on a Wednesday, remains a mystery. Among other things, I picked up the ingredients for baking bread. I've never quite gotten the chewy crust I like, but even failures in that area are still decent homemade bread.

I also stupidly went grocery shopping when everyone and their brother was doing the same thing. But now I have strawberries and asparagus and kale and sharp cheddar and French bread.

We were all mourning that we'd never have an excuse to shop at Pat's Farms and get Regina cookies for less than four bucks. It is now my mission to find a comparable recipe. My first one over the holidays had too much lemon, and I definitely need to bake it longer.

I had to get someone from my landlord's maintenance staff to alter a governor setting on my bathroom's hot water a couple of years ago. Such a relief to not be covered in lukewarm water on freezing winter mornings. (Of course I realize I keep an uncomfortably low heat setting to save money and have that snuggled under warm blankets feeling, but I prefer hot showers to hot apartment in general.)

I wish I could make out with my electric blanket, just to let it know how much I appreciate it.

More than his mom, I felt like we were mourning Long Island. No more need for crappy hotels. No more excuse to hit the delis, bakeries, and pizzerias and bring back baked goods to New England. No more excuse to hit the boardwalk at Jones Beach. If we ever go back, we're not visiting anybody. All of my dad's new tricks and familiarity about the best crap motel to stay in closest to his mom and the backway to get a McDonalds coffee is all moot.

I should have gone to the supermarket on my way home, since I want to do this [link] but I guess realistically I wouldn't start it until Monday anyway, so that's fine.

What I did do was go to a clothing swap that was super successful! A lot of my stuff went, and I came home with good stuff as well.

Also saw my father this morning, and he's sick. Poor thing. And because of how my mother has things set up with the nursing home, we have to decide every time if he should get antibiotics and etc. The answer today was yes. He was mostly out of it, but perked up a little when we got there, and I swear when I said "Hi, pop," he tried to say "Hi kiddo," so that's something.

In an attempt to de-clutter a little, I took half a dozen paperbacks to my local used book store.

I came back with fourteen.

oh no.

Jesse, that program looks great.

Hil, do you pay for your own heat, or is it the landlord's responsibility? If so, there may be regulations as to a reasonable temperature the heat/hot water should be at.

I pay for heat, and the landlord pays for water. I don't really want to start anything, though -- I'm moving at the end of this semester, and my landlord will sometimes react to requests in a totally reasonable way, and sometimes just freak out at me, so I'm trying to stay on good terms.