i ran some errands in the late morning. first stop was rite aid to pick up my prescriptions, but the pharmacist hadn't even filled it out yet. she said i could wait but i told her i'd come back tomorrow. next i went to market basket to pick up some groceries. i made a list but when i looked for it in my pockets it was missing. my grocery list goes missing about half the time, i don't know why. fortunately i was able to remember, the most important thing being the dairy creamer for my morning coffee.

when i returned home i was excited to try the creamer, but it didn't really improve the flavor, just saved me the step of having to heat up (and curdle) the milk. i even tried adding some additional creamer but no improvement. for lunch i also had some ribs.

i took the motorcycle to the cafe in the afternoon to start prepping the front porch of my sister's place. the first step was to scrape off any loose paint. i got a chance to use the multi-ladder, suddenly much heavier than i remembered from yesterday. it was a good day for outdoor manual labor, cool enough that i wore a shirt and a jacket when riding, but i stripped down to a t-shirt while i was working. both my parents came out to see what i was doing, as if they couldn't believe it, after my mother's been asking me all summer on behalf of my sister (i still don't understand why my sister can't do it herself). i spent 2 hours scraping before i had most of it done. the next time i'll be sanding any raised paints that i wasn't able to remove. i returned home by 3:30pm.

i made a detour and went back to masket basket to buy some half and half, which my mother told me would improve the flavor of my coffee. the same cashier was there, i'm not sure if she recognized me, i was wearing a different outfit.

i was going to make some guacamole dip with the 4 avocados that've been ripening on my kitchen counter, but the mess on my stove top distracted me and i ended up spending more than an hour to give it a thorough cleaning. since GC left almost a month ago, i haven't cleaned even though i should've since he really made a mess of it. i knew i had to replace the tinfoil cover but i wasn't prepared to find all this dried liquid underneath. i ended up stripping the entire stove top, washing the burners and the range cover. i was using some brillo pads and would occasionally stab myself in the finger from a stray steel wool fiber. i had some industrial oil removal spray, but that thing is seriously toxic and should only be used outside.

i finally finished by 6:30pm. by then it was too late for guacamole. however, i didn't start making dinner until almost 9pm. i heated up some tomato sauce and boiled a package of chicken raviolis for dinner.

i downloaded all 10 episodes of the alienist along with chinese/english subtitle files. however when i went to watch, i noticed the subtitles were out of sync. that was an easy fix (using an online subtitle shifting tool), but i later realized the captioning was out of sync in multiple places. the problem was i downloaded the blu-ray version of the episodes and the subtitle files were originally created for the televised edition, which have different length of gaps within the episode that were originally intended for commercials. i tried fixing it manually but barely got through the 2nd episode before i decided to download the original broadcast versions, saving me the trouble of adjusting the srt files.

when there's nothing else to watch, i will sometimes put football in the background if it's playing. tonight's thursday night game was between the jets and the browns. i imagined not many people were watching, neither team managing to score in the first quarter. new york however scored 2 touchdowns in the 2nd quarter, and i figured they would probably win, especially after cleveland's quarterback tyrod taylor left the game with a concussion. but then something happened: baker mayfield, this season's number one draft pick, got his chance to play in his first NFL game. cleveland's pick was somewhat controversial as mayfield had a few hiccups in college, and there were questions about his character, especially after cleveland went bust with another no.1 pick QB johnny manziel. the thing i noticed about mayfield was how quick he released. he also wasn't afraid to sling it, which looks fabulous when successful, and he was successful for much of the time. the browns managed to score a field goal at the end of the first half, but there was already an electricity in the air, as the cleveland fans finally had some hope. however i didn't bother watching the second half, figuring the jets would end up winning regardless. only later when i went to bed and checked my phone did i realize the browns actually won the game, 21-17. it was significant for many reasons, one of which was cleveland hadn't won a football game since december 2016. now i'm actually excited to see if rookie mayfield can carry the team, perhaps the dawn of a new winning era for the browns.