woke up early this morning to get my polyurethane on. i first taped a plastic tarp over the door; to prevent direct sun exposure and to keep things dry since there was a report of some possible rain. next it was time to protect and seal the wood. applying the polyurethane with a brush was pretty easy but it still took about an hour to do. since i couldn't close the door all the way (otherwise it'd stick together), i left it slighting ajar, waiting for the whole thing to dry. it was a good thing i had the tarp on because it started raining soon afterwards. i just wish it was a bit warmer (i could see my breath), the instructions said the air temperature has to be above 50°F (it was in the mid-40's at best). when the polyurethane did dry a few hours later, it felt pretty nice, a smooth satin finish. i noticed a few minor drip spots; i'll do a better job on the second and third coat.

while i was waiting for the door to dry, i drove to the supermarket to pick up some supplies for my aunt at the cafe. the day after thanksgiving market basket wasn't busy at all; it was still early enough that they didn't even have time to put up the christmas decorations yet. since i had the car i was trying to think of things i wouldn't normally buy because i can't carry it home on the motorcycle (anything big, anything heavy). i ended up getting a big bundle of kitchen paper towels. at the cafe i watered the plants and then went to the bank to deposit some money for my parents.

back at home, because of the tarp, my kitchen took on this blue underwater color. that inspired me to do water changes on my two aquariums. the guppy tank is the worse of the two, because it actually gets some daytime sunlight exposure, which increase algae growth. there was a lot of scrubbing and i may have to do another water change in a few more days just to keep up the remaining debris i couldn't siphon off. the water was so murky that there was a dead guppy in the tank and i didn't even know about it. the tetra tank was a lot easier to clean, just a 2 gallon water change and replace the activated carbon insert for the filter. as a treat, i gave all the fish some crushed brine shrimp later.

with the door finally dry, i packed up my things and left for belmont, where nobody was home yet, my sister having taken hailey out. they came back about half an hour later. my sister spent the rest of the evening sitting by her blackberry waiting for a call/message, before taking off again. hailey already had her dinner and was sleepy on the couch while i heated up some more beef noodle soup for dinner.

this being black friday, wanton consumption was on my mind like many other consumers. not courageous enough to brave the retail stores, i did however spend some quality time surfing the web, looking for hot internet deals. i ended up buying some stuff, all for myself naturally: a 320gb hitachi laptop hard drive ($50, to replace the fuji 120gb that i currently have), a pair of 8gb usb flash memories ($13/each), and a tv tuner card (that one is actually for my father, it costs $0 after rebate).

i can't seem to shake this feeling that today feels like another saturday. tomorrow would be a great day to do the second coat of polyurethane but i can't because i have to dogsit. i considered bringing hailey over to my place but i keep having this image of her knocking over the can of polyurethane or getting varnish all over her fur.