my sister asked me if i wanted to go to the medford aldi in the early afternoon. she said she was arriving via rental car (toyota RAV 4). i knew she was in a fender bender on monday, but didn't ask her anything about it at the time. in the car i asked if the accident was her fault, which she said yes. i kind of suspected it was because otherwise she would've called my parents immediately to report. i asked her how much was the repair cost, but she said her insurance was paying. yeah, they pay for it now, but you'll be paying for it in the future when your premium goes up.
i thought my sister had been to the medford aldi before but when she didn't even know how to drive there, i asked if she'd ever been, and she answered no. before we went inside we first checked out the pet supplies plus store next door. for some reason most of the things they carried were for dogs, including two full aisles of dog food. they had the specialty food hailey eats but about the same price as petsmart. my sister ended up getting some treats for her dog.
i almost wasn't going to get anything at aldi's, but left with a few frozen cordon bleu; they're good, they just take an insane amount of time to cook for the amount of food you get. by the time we left, it was already pouring rain outside. my sister kept talking about her shoes getting wet, and i thought she meant maybe she was drying some shoes outside at home, but she meant the shoes she was currently wearing. she ended up taking them off before running barefoot across the parking lot.
coming back, we stopped at market basket. because my sister couldn't get her shoes wet, i went instead to grab some leek stalks for her soup.
it got even darker by the time i came home. it was the perfect opportunity to do another water change, get a chance to scrub off some more algae from the fish tank glass. it gave my arm a real workout as i contorted my muscles to get to the algae. i just need to keep this up for a few weeks, hopefully it'll keep the algae bloom in check. next water change will be even easier, as i won't have to scrub the glass anymore, just a preventative measure.
the iplantop led grow light arrived at the cafe today according to amazon package tracking. i called my father to ask him what he thought. he said this one was even brighter than our previous led light (not surprising, this one uses 180W, the other just 100W). it was also quieter, despite having 2 fans instead of 1. finally, the accompanying accessories seemed to be better quality as well. i won't know until i see it for myself, but if that's the case, then we might return the XECCON grow light, and either get another iplantop or a different brand altogether, just to sample a third grow light option.
i heated up some frozen mini raviolis and mixed it up with half a jar of pasta sauce for dinner. my mother called me later in the evening. she never calls this late, i thought something was wrong, 
but she wanted to tell me that the girl astrophysicist who was planning on staying at my place for 2 months starting in a week wouldn't be able to stay because the guy astrophysicist whom they promised 2 years worth of lodging managed to get his visa after all and was now planning on coming at the end of november. once my sister's godmother moves out (when and if she can get her affordable housing), he will move to her vacated apartment room. otherwise, he's here until the end of april, which is like half the year, although my mother kept underestimating it to less than 5 months. even that is a long time. the longest anyone has ever lived here is 4 months. this astrophysicist might turn out to be a nice guy, in which case great, but he could also be an asshole, in which case it will be a nightmare for me. whatever it makes to a make some money i suppose, especially now the MA taxes all online purchases, regardless of point of origin.