as part of my 2nd uncle's health insurance coverage, he gets a monthly stipend of $90 to buy OTC drugs. recently however they made a change where so he can use his card to buy healthy groceries participating supermarkets. the key word is "healthy" as i'd find out for himself, since i have still have his card while my 2nd aunt was away in taiwan. the amount expires at the end of the month, so today was the last day to use it. there was still about $40 left on the card.
so i ended up going to star market a total of 3 times today. first time i bought a bunch of stuff that totalled nearly $40. when i went to the pay, the cashier couldn't figure out how to enter the card into their register, so the manager had to come out and punch in her code. unfortunately i only used up $16 on the card, and i had to pay for everything else ($22), as those items weren't deemed healthy. so my 4x 12-pack of solar seltzer, those didn't qualify. nor did the boxes of triscuit crackers.
i still had $22 left on the card, so i went back to star market again, trying to use up all that money: a jar of sumac spice ($8), a bottle of olive oil ($6), a bottle of hot sauce ($3). i thought i used up everything but i still had items that didn't qualify and there was $3 left on the card while i ended up paying $8.
finally in the late afternoon i returned to star market for the 3rd and last time to use up that $3 on a can of anchovies.
i moved out all my seedlings this morning and shut down the grow closet. it's going to be june tomorrow, i can't still be running the closet. if the seedlings can't handle the outdoor weather, that's their problem. at some point i'm also going to move out all houseplants. if nothing else, just to get rid of the fungus gnat problem which seems to be getting worse ever since i stopped being diligent with mosquito bit watering.
i vacuumed the house today. in hindsight it wasn't the best time, as it was 78 degrees inside the house and all that work made me warm up even more. i ended up opening a few windows to let the cool air inside, and it lowered the room temperature to 74 degrees. a fly also got inside the house somehow. i watched it on my living room window, thinking it was outside, but then was surprised when i saw it flying inside the house. i tried to kill it 4 times with a rolled up newspaper, thinking i got it every single time, only to have it come back a bit later. i finally did manage to kill it.
for lunch i ate a leftover drumstick and a piece of corn from the barbecue two weekends ago. i was afraid the food might've gone bad but i didn't notice any weird smells or taste and i had no side effects.
in the afternoon i went outside and replaced the flexible downspout extension that i got a few weeks ago. the one we had before had cracks in it that allowed water to pool inside and mosquitoes to breed.
afterwards i went down to the community garden to water my plot. something is slowly eating one of my eggplants. i may have to dust some diatomaceous earth on it to keep whatever it is away. i also trimmed all my goldenrod plants as i'm afraid they're blocking the sunlight from EJ's plot, but also because i like to have shorter goldenrods. i put a spare tomato cage between the eggplant and my row of tall perennials, hoping it might keep pests away.
i finally got around to cleaning my aquarium. it's been over 2 months. the water level is down to nearly 3 inches. i did it pretty quick this time, about 40 minutes, normally it takes about an hour. the next time i clean i'm going to take out the driftwood and give the anubias roots a good trimming. the hair algae seem to love developing on the roots, and root trimming doesn't hurt the anubias. i have enough vegetation in my tank that it's kept the glass algae level down. i still scrub the glass when i clean, it's not nothing as bad as when i only had a few tiny plants. i unplugged the water heater, figured i didn't need it now that the room temperature is around 70's.
after watching the evening news at 6pm, i fell asleep on the couch and didn't wake up until 8:20pm. my automatic light already turned on but the shades were still up, so i wonder if any neighbors saw me sleeping on the couch from outside. i didn't know what to eat and i didn't do any substantial grocery shopping today (despite going to star market 3 times, but that was just to collect pantry supplies mostly). i ended up just having an instant bowl of tonkotsu ramen.
end of the month means the end of the month solar production tally. we made 1.248MWh of electricity this month. that's the 4th highest of all times. no.1 still goes to may 2020, where we made 1.32MWh, and the no.2 and no.3 all happened in august 2018 and 2019, with 1.29 and 1.287MWh. high production typically coincides with dry weather and we're currently experiencing a mild drought in the boston area. the best kind of weather is sunny during the day, and rainy at nights.
i was looking at photos of celtics players boarding their plane to go to san francisco for the NBA finals. jaylen brown was holding a cooler that i instantly recognized as one of those electric coolers (using the peltier effect). those two things that look like speakers - one of them is a cooling fan, the other is a storage compartment for the built-in AC and DC power cords. that red one that he has looks like a 34-qt knox brand cooler that used to sell at walmart but now they only have it in blue ($130). are electric coolers the next hot trend?