my mother asked me last night to get a few things from the supermarket, and before i went out i called her just to confirm the grocery list (cilantro, garlic, bean sprouts). it was a good thing that i did, because she reminded me that i also had to pick up my father's prescription from the harvard vanguard office on cambridge street.
i set out to get the drugs first. like most hospitals, they require everyone to be masked, and i was lucky i had one in my jacket. i paid the co-payment ($12) with cash and left for market basket. it was my first time going to MB in more than 2 weeks, and the first time this month. half the things i got were for the cafe, the other half for myself. i decided i was going to make some pasta tonight, paired with a simple salad, trying to eat healthy again after last week's new york city feeding debauchery.
i noticed it when i set off this morning: the rock wall along the american academy property on beacon street had crumbled a few weeks ago, a large boulder having rolled onto the sidewalk, exposing a gaping hole. some jokester decided it'd be funny to add some tentacles coming from the hole. on my way home i stopped to get some photos, before the academy takes it down.
after dropping off my own groceries at home, i headed to the cafe by around 11am. yesterday business was slow, we hadn't had a less busy day since the start of september (only just 7 customers), during the labor day long weekend. today was much busier, a combination of my sister's catered meals (which accounted for 60% of today's business) with an overall pickup in sales. 
just a few online orders, but many phone orders for some reason. despite the warm autumn weather, only one person sat in the back deck, a pregnant woman who asked if food could be delivered to her outside because she didn't have a mask. my mother successfully made oil rice from a youtube recipe. in the afternoon i went outside and did some yard waste cleanup, pulling up weeds from around the few sidewalk trees along the property, removing the dying cypress vines clinging to the wooden deck railing, and pulling up all the cherry tomatoes and trimming the hyacinth bean vines from the parking lot corner. most of the hyacinth beans were too old and tough to eat, a few pods had dried up completely, and those were the ones i cracked open to collect the black & white seeds.
since it wasn't so busy in the late afternoon, i was told i could leave. i thought about visiting the community garden (it's been weeks since my last visit), but decided to return home instead so i could watch the latest episode of andor that i downloaded this morning.
andor episode 6 was awesome, the heist finally happens with casualties. to think, we are only at the halfway point, there are still 6 more episodes left in the season. andor is the gift that keeps on giving, and i look for to new episodes more than rings of power or house of the dragon.
i slept well last night, but lounging on the couch, surfing the web using my stomach as a table, i struggled to stay awake, as i drifted in and out of sleep. i finally forced myself to get off the couch before 8pm, to take a shower before starting to make dinner.
pasta with meat sauce is a dish i don't need to consult any recipes, i've made it so many times. i bought a pound of lean ground beef this time. after cooking the chopped onion and garlic, i added the beef. i discovered i only had half a jar of leftover tomato sauce, so i added a can of chopped tomatoes i had in my cupboard. i then left the sauce to simmer for half an hour before i came back to the kitchen to cook the pasta and make the salad (by making the salad i mean filling a bowl with some ready made greens). i only cooked a cup of cellentani, but that expanded enough that i had to go with a larger bowl. to that i added 2 scoops of meat sauce.
the sauce was a little bland but i didn't mind. i accidentally poured too much thousand island dressing, so the salad wasn't exactly healthy. after finishing dinner, i felt a soothing warmth take over my body, that combination of pasta carbs and ground beef proteins, it was a good feeling.
did you know it was amazon prime early access sales yesterday and today? i took advantage by buying some socks ($15 for a dozen pairs), a 7 lbs. bag of grass seeds ($20), and a pair of under armour sweat pants ($23, got it in a boys XL, men's sizes are often times too long in the inseam).
while taking out the garbage tonight, i was also boiling some water to refill my stanley thermos. not sure what happened, but i managed to knock over the thermos, which in turn knocked over a glass of hot green tea, pouring all of it onto my kitchen carpet. fortunately it was just green tea, and all i basically had to do was blot-dry the carpet with some towels.