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SEP

02

2011

for a day that i didn't have anything planned, it sure went by fast. i was thinking about another bike tour of boston like i did last friday, but by the time i was free, it was already the afternoon.

i went to the cafe in the morning to drop off the latest jerky batch and to get a resupply on my soy sauce. my 2nd aunt was there and she said the jerky i made on wednesday was better because it was easier to chew even though it was too dry. she sampled the better jerky i brought over today and said it was bit soft, although she did agree there was more flavor (courtesy of some sichuan peppercorns). my mother was knitting a beanie for a customer but couldn't remember the pattern. i volunteered to go to belmont to retrieve a sample.

i was riding my road bike and wanted to see just how fast i could get to my parents' place from the cafe. i clocked in about 7 minutes, which is just a few minutes slower than getting there by car. riding my bike at a normal pace would be around 12 minutes. naturally i didn't stop for red lights and was purposely going fast, so by the time i got there i was sweating and panting. my sister and the hailey weren't home.

after returning to the cafe i went back home to have lunch, some oatmeal with an egg. around this time i checked the clock to see if i had time for a boston field trip, but it was already close to 2:00. i decided to do some grocery shopping instead.

for the first time ever, i've been saving up my soda cans instead of just tossing them into the recycle bin like i normally do. i used to think it was too much of a hassle to take them back to the supermarket to get back the deposit, but being sufficiently underemployed, free time is all i have, and if it means saving a few bucks, in my frugal mind it was worth it. the way they do it at market basket is they give you a ticket worth how ever much cans and bottles you managed to return. i return $2.25 worth of cans this time.1 i ended up buying 2 more rump roasts (they were on sale, $1.99/lbs) to make a super batch of jerky for next week.

i was disappointed to see the leaning willow tree on properzi way had been chopped down to a stump before i could get a good photo of it. once i got back home i realized i forgot to pick up some cilantro for my mother. so i went back to market basket one more time (it's not the first time i've had to do a double trip because i forgot something).

i put the rump roasts in the freezer (close to 7 lbs. worth), so i can later cut them into slabs.

i biked to the cafe where bin bin and her boyfriend were there talking to my parents. they were asking about the bike i said i'd give her to ride. after they left my mother told me bin bin was going to give the bike to her boyfriend so he can more easily go back and forth between his place in allston and her place in cambridge. i'm not sure how i feel about that. i'm giving the bike to her, not the boyfriend. hopefully they'll pick up another bike so they can ride together. the bike in question is the magna mountain bike. it's a pretty good bike, in almost new condition, but it's kind of a cheap bike. when i get rid of it that means i'll have more space in the basement for another bike!

i returned home, bringing back some leftover rice/tofu/pork for dinner. half of my shipment from amazon arrived, the half i really didn't care about: a garmin gps mount and a bungie netting (this was the package i ended up paying shipment on because i partially cancelled my order). hopefully the rest of my stuff will arrive early next week, including a pair of toeclips/straps for the bike. reading on the couch in the early evening, i fell asleep briefly.

around 11:00 i realized i forgot to take out the roasts from the freezer. by that point they'd frozen solid. i let them thaw in the kitchen sink. they mustn't have been entirely frozen because an hour later they were soft enough to cut. i reduced them to sizable slabs and placed them onto cookie sheets bound for the freezer. my father will help me cut these frozen blocks of beef with his meat slicing machine later this weekend, saving me the trouble of having to do it by hand.


1 based on that figure, i probably then toss out about $10 worth of cans and bottles in a year. that's not a big number, but in this era of belt-tightening, that's $10 more than i care to just give away.