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my sister asked me last night to buy a teacake for my grand uncle, who hasn't been eating very much recently. so this morning (after a breakfast of chicken sausage oatmeal) i went to petsi's to pick up a small teacake slice (grapefruit) for $3.21 (for that price i could buy a whole loaf of pound cake).

i took the motorcycle to the cafe a bit before noon to deliver lunch to my grand uncle. my 2nd aunt blended a fruit smoothie, cut some avocado slices mixed with honey, and cubed half the teacake. i brought it to my grand uncle. while he was eating, i let hailey out into the backyard so she can use the bathroom. i hid in the kitchen while my grand uncle ate his lunch, coming out right when he finished.

i noticed he hardly touched his teacake, i wasted my time getting it for him. but the good news was i ended up having the teacake for myself. it was quite delicious but i wonder if i can create something similar on my own? i have all autumn and winter to go on baking adventures (make me wonder if i should invest in a dedicated mixer? also makes me wonder how much weight i'll put on this winter).

i motorcycled to belmont to water the garden and prep the window some more. in the hot glare of the afternoon sun, the garden seems like it could still eke out a few more fruits. hot peppers were still waiting to turn orange/red and there were some japanese eggplants. i always want to grow an autumn/winter harvest but can never get the timing right. i wonder if it's not too late to grow a few things? but the autumn warmth is but an illusion: once the frost sets in, most everything will die in the garden.

as for the window, no dusty sanding today. instead i patched up some uneven areas on the wall around the window frame. there will be sandy tomorrow and it will be messy. i'll have the vacuum cleaner and fan ready. afterwards, if i haven't made too much of a mess, i'll be ready to paint a first coat on the window frame.

once i returned home, i went back out soon afterwards, to dig up some perennials from the community garden plot i wanted saving. there was a columbine (i had a few this season, this was the only one that survived and thrived) and 2 milkweeds. the milkweed certainly lived up to its name, as i discovered long snaking rhizomes growing underground. i didn't know what to do with all that root so i just coiled it in the pot and covered everything up with dirt. i have a few more milkweeds in the garden but they're mixed in with larkspur seedlings so i don't want to dig them up just yet. finally, i noticed a small-medium zucchini growing in the garden. i'm surprised, given how cold it's been these past few nights, that a zucchini can still be growing. i'll see how big it can get before the leaves succumb to the low temperature.

my next roommate is scheduled to arrive at the end of october, cristina confirmed it to me last night. he is a young (born 1992) colombian (the country) medical student named freddy and he will be here in boston for one month working at the same research center. i thought he passed on my place, opting for one closer to longwood, but either it was too expensive (i heard $1200/month) or wasn't available.

i actually wrote him an e-mail last night, which was a little strange, since usually it's potential roommates who contact me first. he wrote back this morning, asking me for photos of my place. though lighting wasn't optimal (late afternoon, very little sun), i took some time to snap a few house photos using the 180° fisheye lens on my classic nikon 4500 camera.

later in the evening he wrote back again after having seen the photos, said the place was perfect, and agreed to stay. my place fills a particular housing niche, which is short term last minute rentals, as these sort of places aren't typically available (landlords make more renting out an apartment for a whole year). i was actually kind of looking forward to having the place to myself again, but i think i can bear another roommate for 4 more weeks. at the very least it'll put some money in my pocket for holiday shopping. these doctors are also pretty hard working and i'll probably won't even see freddy very much.

i fired up the pi zero today to check how much power it consumed. running in the background, it uses less than a watt of power (0.8-0.9). with that low level of consumption, there's no reason not to just leave it on all the time, running scripts and whatnot. and that's exactly what i did, just to test the stability of the wifi connection. maybe yesterday's drop and failed attempts at connecting was just a fluke. so i had the pi zero running all day long, periodically nmap to the ip address to see if it was still online. as of tonight, it was still connected. who knows if it dropped the connection during that time, but the important thing is it managed to reconnect if that's the case, unlike yesterday. i also learned how to establish a sftp connect to the pi zero using the transmit app (what i normally use to ftp photos to the website) to more easily transfer files. tomorrow i need to test the wifi dongle on its own connected directly to the pi zero to see if the wifi connection will hold up.

my replacement OTG cable arrived today. i plugged it in and just like the one before, this one also didn't work. i wrote the seller on ebay saying that i'd given up at this point, and said i'd give them a good seller rating but for good customer service only. a short time later they wrote me back and gave me a complete refund. it was just $2, but nice to find a seller who wasn't out to rip me off. i don't know why the 2 OTG cables they sent me didn't work.

for dinner i made myself a bowl of salad because i wanted to use up a head of lettuce i had in the crisper: iceberg lettuce, purple green pepper, baby carrots, red onions, and a nice robust italian dressing.

cristina came home with paula after work, it was my first time seeing her coworker friend whom i heard so much about. they went out to attend a book lecture. cristina came back a short time afterwards, ate some leftover empanada for dinner, saved me some for tomorrow.