t
o
n
y
a
n
g
'
s
 
w
e
b
l
o
g


i underestimated the severity of the first snowstorm of the season. perhaps i was influenced by all the recent warm weather we've been having, but i thought the snow would only be a dusting then washed away by the subsequent rain. the snow turned out to be more than a dusting, the rain that followed was freezing, and then overnight everything froze solid. it was, quite simply, a mess. in hindsight i wish i put away my motorcycle. even though it won't be snowing tomorrow, there's now so much ice on the road that it'll be dangerous to ride my honda to belmont for storage. i will have to wait until there's more melting, but the pattern for the rest of the week looks like 40's during the daytime but freezing at night. i'm done with motorcycling though for the season. the first chance i can get, i'm putting it away. riding in january is a possibility, but the temperature will be so cold it won't be any fun.

the hours of time lapse i shot last night in the backyard? it wasn't very exciting, i'll just have to wait for a bigger snowstorm. despite the freezing rain, i went outside twice, once to shovel the sidewalk and backyard pathway, another time to clear the storm drain. during the winter i am the unspoken hero of the neighborhood, digging out spare parking spots, making sure the street drainage aren't clogged up.

other than the two times i went out shoveling, i didn't leave the house at all today. when i woke up this morning i turned up the heat until 68° then turned it back down to 60°. throughout the day the room temperature would slowly decrease, until by 6pm i couldn't stand it anymore (61°) and cranked the heat up to 68° again. for lunch i fixed myself a peppered ham & egg english muffin sandwich.

around 7pm i started making my risotto for dinner, a chance for me to use up the chicken sausages before they went bad. as delicious as this recipe is, i sort of want to change it up for next time. what about some fresh ingredients, like mushrooms? there are a lot of possibilities. the chicken turned out just fine, very similar to regular italian sausages, although they don't hold as well when rolling into small meatballs. if i had to choose though, i'd still go with regular sausages for next time. doing some cooking also gave me the opportunity to run the dishwasher. alfonso had left some dirty dishes (without telling me) which had dripped inside the washer and i needed to do a cycle not to wash the dishes but more to rinse out the washer itself. ana had used up my dishwashing powder but she left behind these fancy washing pellets.