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is everyone painting this sunday? a crew of brazilians have begun prep work in painting the house across the street: tarps on top of cars, tall ladders leaning up against the house. don't know they it might rain at anytime? then while i was biking across observatory hill, i noticed a row of cones blocking the lane preventing car traffic. i went through anyway, until i came across a man sitting on something that looked like a small tractor yelling and pointing at me frantically to get out. i thought maybe he was trying to say he might hit me with his slow-moving tractor, but then he screamed, "i'm painting!" and i noticed he was redrawing the yellow lines in the parking lot. i looked back to make sure i didn't ride over any lines and then made a detour, giving him the okay sign to let him know i finally understood what he was shouting. a harvard grounds crew working on the weekend? but i guess you do that because nobody is around; harder to do on a weekday when the parking lot gets more use.

now that football season has started, my sundays are at the mercy of the patriots schedule. today's game was at 1pm, against the miami dolphins in foxborough. in a quarter and a half, jimmy garoppolo led the team to 24-0. it looked like it was going to be a blowout, patriots nation was in heaven, until it all went horribly wrong when garoppolo was tackled and hurt his right shoulder. the way he was grimacing in agony on the ground and drooping his shoulder, it looked like a broken collarbone. it was serious enough that the normally stoic coach belichick even came on the field to see for himself the extent of the injury.

as garoppolo slowly walked off the field to get examined, jacoby brissett the rookie backup quarterback to the backup quarterback stepped in. the game wasn't the same after that. brissett didn't have the quickness of garoppolo, and the dolphins defense began to have an impact on the patriots offense. on the other side, miami offense began clicking as they slowly chipped away the score to come within a touchdown of tying new england. it wasn't brissett's fault, it's just what happens when you put a rookie qb with limited experience into the fire. for his part, he held on long enough for us to finally win the game (despite a missed 39-yard field goal attempt in the final minute by kicker gostkowski).

now comes the hard part: garoppolo is definitely out for the next game. unfortunately it's this thursday against the texans (at home though), so brissett only has just a few days of practice to ramp up his offense. later in the evening we finally got a report on garoppolo's status: no broken bones, a sprained AC joint, possibility of returning for game 4.

for dinner, we recooked the lamb chops we received from the family friend's barbecue yesterday (they were a bit undercooked the first time). afterwards i biked back home. at the intersection of huron and fresh pond parkway i was passed by two cyclists while waiting for the light to change. i immediately disliked them. not that they passed me, but the fact that they didn't have any lights on their bikes. i don't care if you don't wear a helmet (i often don't wear one myself for short local trips), but if you're riding at night and you don't have lights, that's dangerous because it's hard for cars to see you. i mean, even with lights sometimes cars have a hard time spotting cyclists! i also hated them because even though they passed me, they were actually sort of slow riders, so i rode behind them the whole time, almost close enough to touching. finally at walden i managed to pass them.

cristina wasn't home, but the fuji was parked outside so i knew she'd been home earlier. she also put the rent money on the coffee table. she left to go to the hospital early this morning to shadow a doctor. now she was at the airport, waiting for her boyfriend kiki to arrive (7pm). they didn't get home until around 9pm. kiki seemed like a very nice guy; i was kind of worried he'd be an asshole and we'd be cooped up together in the house all next week. they fixed themselves some dinner (sandwiches) and we chatted in the living room while the emmy awards was playing in the background on tv. when kiki was taking a shower, i checked to make sure they were okay with the sleeping arrangements. they were going to squeeze onto the twin size bed in the guest bedroom, but i told her if she wanted i could also lay out the living room couch so he could crash with more space. she said they were okay.