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JUN

20

2017

there was quite the commotion this morning. road crew armed with a wood chipper were finally clearing the pile of dead branches taking up two parking spots. then due to street cleaning, a few cars got ticketed then towed. in the past i would've been sympathetic, but felt indifferent now. i didn't recognize the cars as belonging to my neighbors. maybe it belonged to the people who work around the corner, who always take up our spots in the mornings, it'd serve them right. i was however still disgusted with this cambridge racket of ticketing and towing cars. how much does the city make every year? and i never met a tow truck that wasn't beneath taking a bribe to look the other way when it comes to towing. the whole lot of them - from the police to the tow companies - are all criminals in this matter as far as i'm concerned.

GC woke up at 9am and left for work by 9:30am. i went to the gardens to check on the refuse bins but somebody had already brought them in. i planted 4 zucchinis (park seeds 'northern states' variety), the last of my squash seeds. i'd already tried twice before, and both times the seedlings were eaten by possibly slugs. this time i bought a large clear container with the bottom cut off to use as a shield. once the seedlings are large enough they should be safe from predation. zucchinis grow fast anyway, if i get lucky i can expect to have some squash by the end of july, definitely by august.

today was the last of the humid days before a stretch of warm but dry weather the rest of the week. there was a strong breeze however so it didn't feel very humid. i opened some windows to allow the cooler air to circulate through the house. only by the afternoon did i finally shut the windows as it was starting to get hotter outside than my indoor room temperature.

i had a pastry cake for breakfast then later made another italian sub for lunch. i forgot to add the cider vinegar, that's why the sandwich tasted a little off.

i contacted direct energy solar, this time going with a referral agent instead. jon wrote me back that he was in a meeting and asked if he could call me an hour later. about 3 hours went by before he called me back. i explained the situation, he said he'd have his engineer draft up a report, which would take 1-2 days. the weird thing was he didn't ask for a recent electricity bill, that was something i bought up myself. later he wrote me an e-mail, said from his records it looked like i already have an agent named wayne. that name didn't sound familiar to me, but i could've spoken to a wayne on the phone at some point, i just didn't remember. what i do know the last communique i had with direct energy solar was back in 5/15, when i sent them an energy bill, and in more than a month's time i never heard back from them, neither e-mail nor phone call. jon told me it was nothing to worry about.

a short time later i received a phone call from of all people this supposed wayne. he acted like he knew me, said he heard i'm interested in getting solar, asked when it'd be a good time to schedule a consultation. a good time would've been a month ago. i told him the situation, that i reached out to them back in may but nobody got back to me, and now i was going through a referral agent. wayne didn't have a lot to say after that. he said something about being on leave for a while, but that still doesn't change the fact that he never got in touch with me in the first place. he also said belmont is his territory, meaning he knew the area well, but i took it as he was trying to say i had to work with him. the only reason he was reaching out to me now was he alerted to the fact that somebody else would be taking one of his customers. in the end he murmured something to the effect of, "well, okay, we'll get you taken care of," and then we hung up.

GC came home around 5:20pm. it'd appear he's the kind of person who leaves work exactly at 5pm, not the sort of person who stays late. i ended up taking him to market basket. we walked the 15 minutes via somerville avenue. i was warning him how crazy busy it gets, but it was actually kind of subdued, which is rare for that place. apparently tuesday after 5pm is a relaxing time to go grocery shopping at market basket. he bought more than he did at star market. i was silently counting his purchase, hoping he'd only take less than 12 items so we could use the express line. he bought a bunch of seafood items, which left me worried, but it wasn't a surprise considering he said he loved seafood (which i tolerate at best, but typically abhor especially when it comes to cooking in my kitchen). some fresh packaged fish and a bag of frozen shrimps. GC ended up buying more than 12 items so we could only use a regular checkout line, but we didn't have to wait very long. i walked us back via my usual shortcut, going through numerous small side streets, which probably confused GC (i discovered that my shortcut is actually longer - 0.9 miles versus 0.7 miles going via somerville avenue; it's only a good shortcut if i bike, not if i walk).

when we got home, GC cooked his fish. he rigged up a system for steaming, which left the kitchen smelling of fish but it was within my tolerance threshold. he also used my rice cooker to cook up some rice. as for me, i was somehow not prepared for making dinner, but i had a lot of breakfast ingredients so i made myself a prosciutto egg english muffin sandwich, ate a chobani yogurt, and whipped up a yogurt fruit smoothie, part of which i shared with GC. he ate dinner in the kitchen, which wasn't necessary, but i'm sort of glad that he did on account of the fish.

yesterday i learned he has a used car back in alabama, but today i discovered he was actually just driving it around with a learner's permit. his rationalization was he knew some other people who were doing the same thing and said alabama is fairly lax when it comes to enforcing driving laws. still, it's a risky thing to do and could get him into trouble if caught. he tried getting his real license once before but failed the road test because he lurched his vehicle and bumped the car behind him before the driving even began.

by late evening i saw the news: georgia democrat jon ossoff failed to win his bid for a US house seat. this is the 4th special selection that the democrats have lost, despite high disapproval rating for donald trump. each loss gives republicans more confidence to stay the course than trying to challenge the current administration on certain things like health care or muslim ban.