first stop: my parents' place, to check up on the house. my biggest worry was it might get too cold because i turned off the furnace when my parents left on sunday. i was about to turn on the space heater to add a little heat in the house, until i realized the sunroom was cooking. even though it was relatively cold outside, today was a sunny day for a change, and the sunroom was like a sauna. i opened the door to let some of that hot air into the house and i watched as the room temperature began to slowly increase. the other thing i did was to cut a piece of chicken wire to put over RB0, to protect my garlic cloves.

next i drove the car to the watertown home depot to pick up the miter box i ordered online last night. i couldn't find it in the store when i was there, but i could order from their website and have it guaranteed to be ready for store pick-up the next day. i also returned some wire staples, but didn't have the original credit card, so i got store credit instead. i used the credit to partially pay for an extra large cardboard box ($2.38) i bought for frances' packages. they have so many different boxes of various sizes, i should never have to be stressed out about fitting a big enough shipment box ever again.

returning to belmont, i was ready to leave for cambridge, with the plan of coming back later in the afternoon to get my motorcycle after i was done with paint prep work at my sister's place. but i realized i could just store my motorcycle in the garage so i could borrow the car the rest of the week and not have to worry about two vehicles.

i finally made it to the cafe by 1:40pm. i went to my sister's place to chisel out the rotted wood on her deck columns, then sawed off pieces of wood to fill the gaps. the only problem was the corners are rounded, and i didn't know how to do that. earlier i did some research and it involves using a handheld router, but i'm hoping home depot sells pre-rounded planks i can just cut and fill the gaps. i also patched up a few holes with wood filler. we had some plastic molding, but when i went to go cut it using the miter box, i discovered the molding was simply too hard to cut, and tomorrow i will also get a strip of wood molding.

my sister made me some lunch around 3pm, with some of the hen of the woods mushroom, a medley of potato fries and bacon and eggs and toast washed down with some apple flavored seltzer. not sure what my sister did with the mushrooms, but they tasted pretty good, a lot of flavor. i ate quickly and went back out to work. my sister also told me that my mother had lost her iphone.

the weather today was actually very pleasant, and downright hot in the sun despite temperature being only in the upper 50's. i took off my jacket and worked in a long-sleeved henley pullover. i heard tomorrow will be even warmer, then thursday it's going to be brutally cold, with frost advisory north of boston, wind chills in the 20's. if it's going to be that cold i'm not sure i'll be working, i'll have to check to see what's the lowest operating temperature for the paints. even worse, next week there's going to be a cold snap as well. it may be our days of warm weather are already over, and we'll have just a brief fall before transitioning fully into winter weather.

i finished my 4pm, driving back to my place in the car. i assembled the extra large cardboard box and moved some of frances' stuff into it. volume wise and perhaps weight wise as well, this has got to be the largest and heaviest shipment i've ever made for her. it will have to be broken up into two parts, and i'm not even sure i can get the extra large box to the post office without getting some help. there's still enough room for some more items, i'm waiting to get the all clear from her before shipping.

my weight is down to 145 lbs. now! it seems without the subsidized free dinners my parents provide and left to feed my own self, i don't eat very much. i've also been busy the past few days, and have gone almost entire days without eating until very late in the afternoon. i'm also trying to keep a healthy diet, working in more salads, and sensible snacks like a banana or an apple or baby carrots with humus or candied pecan nuts. my dream is to get it down into the 30's, which i haven't done in many years. summertime was supposed to be the time to do it, but i wasn't that active this summer (maybe because it was so damn hot).

since i haven't made a grocery run this week (i went to market basket on sunday but only to pick up a few things for the cafe), i didn't make anything for dinner. instead, i heated up some pasta sauce and boiled a bag of frozen cheese and spinach ravioli. i love raviolis so much, i should really learn to make my own, with my own fillings, but $1 for a bag of frozen packaged raviolis is just too easy to pass up. i added some leftover maitake mushrooms to the pasta sauce. the end result was pretty delicious, the mushrooms have a meat-like texture but tastes all mushroom. i washed it down with some limited edition harpoon dunkin' coffee porter, a beer my sister got my a week ago knowing that i don't drink beer (just hard cider). it'd be at my parents' house but i brought home to try. for some reason i was expecting it to be sweet, because when i hear dunkin' i immediately think donuts. so i was surprised when i took a sip and it tasted like beer and coffee, two things i don't usually drink, and would never in a million years think to combine the two. it made my mouth taste like an ashtray afterwards.

i ate while watching game 3 between the red sox and astros, which started in the late afternoon. boston had the lead so it was easier to watch, but only by a few points, and houston did manage to tie the game, but boston came right back to regain the lead. then in the 8th inning, astros loaded the bases, hit a batter to knock in a run, then jackie bradley jr. hit a grand slam homerun to take the red sox 8-2, which pretty much demoralized houston, as fans left for the exit and the astros didn't score after all.

i watched the new ABC drama rookie starring nathan fillion as a 40something LAPD rookie cop. i'm not a big dan of fillion, and i only liked him in castle, which i watched more for stana katic. when ABC didn't renew her contract and was going to continue the show without her, fillion didn't handle it very well and i left feeling that he was kind of a douchebag for throwing his partner of 8 seasons under the bus. why ABC would develop a new drama starring fillion and not katic is beyond me (though i wouldn't blame her for not wanting to come back even if ABC did make her an offer). anyway, i ended up liking rookie even though i was very much ready to hate it.