i'm giving netflix's stranger things another try. i'd watched the first season, and as much i love 80's nostalgia, i just didn't like the show. i thought the kids were annoying - particularly millie bobby brown, whom i've seen on some talk shows and she seems pretty insufferable. plus they stranded barb (one of my favorite characters) in the dark place and never explained what happened to her. when the second season began, i didn't bother watching. but just recently i started watching it again, sort of fast-forward watched to get to the good stuff. what i really wanted was to see season 3, where maya hawke joins the cast (i'm a big maya fan). i basically just fast-forwarded to all the maya hawke scenes. and when did steve harrington - the bully of season 1 - become a "good guy" and friends with the stranger things bunch? i almost wished stranger things wasn't a horror series, i think i'd enjoy it more as a coming of age tale about a group of young kids. i find myself skipping all the supernatural stuff so i could watch scenes between joyce and jim, or jim trying to set boundaries for his daughter eleven.

my plan was to go running this morning but i could barely wake up. i think the colder weather and now that we have less daylight makes me want to stay in bed as long as possible. i didn't get up until 9:40am. i figured it was too late to go running but i went anyway, felt obligated after putting it off for so long. it's been 1-1/2 weeks since my last run. an additional incentive to go running was so i could listen to episode 2 of the 99% invisible power broker podcast. i left by 10:10am and got back an hour later. i even stopped by the community garden to water my plants (the last visit happens to be the last time i went running).

after a shower, i headed to belmont. my parents weren't home, went to the doctor for a followup appointment, routine blood pressure check and some lab tests. it was supposed to be a quick visit, but they weren't finished until 12:30pm.

once my parents returned, we left for a waltham costco supply run. we didn't really need anything other than eggs. the place was crowded for a monday afternoon, we parked at the far end of the lot. we didn't need to go to market basket, but instead headed back to the cafe to drop off the supplies. we stopped at the fresh pond trader joe's to get a few things. at the cafe parking lot we saw my sister walking esmei who had a slight limp. my sister didn't know what happened, things get pretty rough in the dog park, most likely esmei got hurt there.

back in belmont, i ate one of the hot dogs my mother had bought from costco. at 3pm the wifi sprinkler timer kicked and started watering the front lawn.

i helped my father make an appointment to see a urologist, after his doctor called and told him his high PSA levels needed consultation with a specialist. i thought maybe it meant he might have prostate cancer, but we looked at his numbers and his last test was 6 ng/mL. that's considered borderline, though a strong indicator of cancer would be in the 50+ range.

in the late afternoon we went to my godmother's place so my mother could drop off a crochet shaw she'd made. my godmother leaves for taiwan tomorrow for 6 months. jack actually came back to boston from chicago for a surprise visit to see his mother before she left.

coming back, we stopped by the heat pump store (trapelo road). my mother sat in the car and crocheted while my father and i went inside to talk with an agent. my father's been wanting to get heat pumps for many years now, almost as long as he wanted to get solar panels. we made an appointment for an at-home consultation next monday, so they can give us a price to how much it'd cost to install. unfortunately belmont is probably the worst town in MA to go green energy, as it has municipal electricity so it doesn't qualify any of the masssave rebates and incentives. the agent told us belmont will give us a $500 rebate if we install a heat pump system and disconnect our oil-burning furnace. compare that to the masssave program, which offers as much as $10K in rebates.

back at home, it was my mother's turn to get good news. after seeing my godmother's three pairs of on sneakers, she wanted a pair herself. so i helped her go onto the website and buy two pairs. the fact that there was free shipping and free return sold her on the idea.

i went out back and manually watered the back lawn and the garden. yes a mosquito bit me but i smashed it before it could fly away. i'll need to return on wednesday to do some cleaning, maybe plant some cold weather seeds like bokchoi or daikon.

for dinner my mother made some egg omelettes with the garlic chive my godmother gave her, as well as a beef & hot pepper stirfry. afterwards i washed the dishes with the DIY powerwash and returned home.

on the front steps was the free covid tests i ordered from the USPS a few days ago. i used the bathroom and took a shower. once again, there were two monday night football games. i'm not sure why the NFL does this, because the two games air at the same time, so you can only really watch one. i wanted to snack on something but i didn't have anything in the house. after reading about flavacol - the artificial movie theater salt and butter flavoring agent - i was craving some movie theater popcorn. so i walked down to star market to get some sugar bee apples and some microwave movie theater popcorn.