having mary in the house all day makes me anxious, and being anxious makes me irregular, in that whenever i use the bathroom, i'm always worried that mary might need to use it as well, so i go as quickly as possible, even when i'm not 100% done with all my business. it doesn't help that on a few occasions, she's tried to get into the bathroom despite it being occupied (by me). it's these little things that i take for granted when living alone that when living with other people throws me off my game.

i was hoping the overnight rain would've melted the bit of snow that fell last evening, but there were still spots of ice on the sidewalk. don was already outside scraping clean his walk and i decided to join him. it was easy to clear, and even if i didn't, the rain forecasted to arrive later today would definitely melt away the rest. while shoveling away a pile of slush, the head of the shovel hit something on the ground and i managed to bash one of my knuckles into a bloody mess.

i went down to harvard square to cash some checks and pick up a 2TB seagate backup plus slim portable hard drive ($70). i didn't know this to be a banking rule, but if a check is endorsed to you but you don't have enough fund in your account to match the amount of the check, the bank won't accept it. this is because they're afraid the endorsed check might bounce, which puts them on the hook for money you don't already have in your account. if the check is in your name however, that's okay.

i then went to staples to pick up the drive i ordered last night. it was really a spur of the moment purchase, but if i'm anticipating on doing any sort of travel, i need a backup drive for all my photos (ideally, i'd want another drive: one for primary storage, one as the actual backup). what i didn't realize was people buy these external seagate slim storages to harvest the low-profile 2TB hard drives within, which is perfectly sized to fit inside a laptop (like a macbook). it's actually cheaper to buy one of these and extract the hard drive than it is to buy a 2.5" 2TB internal hard drive separately, one of the strange quirks of product pricing.

i tried looking for blue mounting putty downstairs but staples was all sold out. so i walked back home. temperature was in the 50's today, so warm that just wearing my hoodie felt excessive after a while. i think my body is now properly acclimated to the new england weather. i remember the first winter i spent after returning from living a year abroad, i couldn't quite figure out what to wear depending on the temperature, and would go out wearing too much. everywhere were signs of melting, and if you closed your eyes you might imagine yourself out in the wilderness, surrounded by babbling brooks which are actually the runoffs from melted snow going down into the storm drain. the sky was overcast but bright. it wasn't raining but the sidewalks were dotted with melting piles of snow and puddles of various sizes. i ended up soaking the back of my pant legs just from walking around.

i made another kielbasa sauerkraut english muffin sandwich, washed down with a smoothie (trying to use up the last two of my overripe bananas). after mary finished her lunch and went back to her room, i took the opportunity to use the bathroom once more, continuing the hard work i started earlier this morning. i spent the rest of the afternoon installing office 2010 onto michael's macbook pro.

the mailman delivered a gift from china: my usb meter. it took 13 days to arrive, which is about average for a package from asia. it didn't come with instructions so it was left up to me to figure out how to use it. using a 5V 2A wall charger (from my oneplus one phone), i measured a bunch of USB charging cables. the average cable charged at 0.46A, including the 6ft cheap monoprice cables and one red 6ft braided cable. 2 of the braided cables (3ft and 6ft) only had a 0.14A charge. a thick 3ft coolpad charging cable had a 0.88A current. the red flat USB cable that came with the OPO had the highest current rating of 1.20A. finally, the apple lighting cable was 0.8A, while a 6ft green lighting cable that can't transmit data but can charge at 1.0A. i can't wait to receive my premium cables and see what currents those get.

mary made some sort of fishhead stew for dinner, mixed with some black rice porridge. she overheard me making a phone call to general awning and was impressed with my english fluency. i told her english is the only language i'm proficient at, and even though i can speak fluent mandarin, i'm actually illiterate in chinese. for dinner i heated up a brick of frozen lasagna. i spent the evening watching agent carter episodes.

i took out the trash tonight, forgetting that monday was a holiday (president's day) so trash pickup is delayed by a day.