while looking out into the backyard i was surprised to find my father rummaging around in the back. he'd range my doorbell but i didn't hear it. he was on his way to market basket and delivered a few large basins, one plastic, one metal. i'd wanted one for storing kimchi cabbage while it reduced. the plastic basin was a good size, but it looked a little used. "you can use it to soak your feet," my father told me, which made me question how sanitary it was as i'd be using it to make food. i found a good one at 88 supermarket ($5) earlier in the week, but my parents said they had a bunch at the cafe. now i'm wondering if i shouldn't have just bought a new one.
i ended up going to market basket with my father. i had a small list of things i wanted to buy, but they were all condiments, no real food. i ended up grabbing a few ingredients to make grilled cheese sandwiches (ham, cheese, bread), the food staple of the disenfranchised.
back at home, i formatted my spare external drive and started backing up again, this time through apple's time machine. i'm only played with time machine before, never used it to actually back up. i'm sure it works great, but it's designed to be simple, so it backs up everything, the only option is to exclude certain folders. it said there was 600GB worth of data to copy, so i figured i'd be waiting until tonight before i could regain control of my computer again (even though time machine slowly backs up in the background), but it finished copying by the afternoon.
i made another half dozen blueberry muffins before lunch. unhappy with the ones i made on monday, i wanted to go back to frozen blueberries so i could get a lumpier batter. i used one cup of frozen regular blueberries, and one cup of frozen wild blueberries. i also didn't leave out the stick of butter as long, just overnight, and it was cold last night, so the butter wasn't as soft as before. i whipped everything up in less than 20 minutes; i think it took me much longer on monday was because i was a bit rusty; second time around i knew all the steps. the batter was lumpy just the way i liked, and i thought everything was going great until i looked into the oven after the 10 minute mark and saw that they were completely flat, zero rise. in fact, they looked like they'd sunk a little bit too. when they finally finished baking 40 minutes later, they did rise after all, but not as much as i'd like. was it the baking powder? the flour? couldn't have been the temperature, it wasn't that warm. it wasn't humid either.
i packed up 4 muffins and rode my fuji bike down to the cafe. my mother was excited about the fresh muffin delivery, still warm from the oven. she still had a muffin i made from monday, but because i put them in the same plastic container that i used to store my korean kimchi, she said it had a garlicky taste. these new muffins were in a pristine container so they were untainted. but the old muffin looked nothing like the new ones. because the old batter was so soupy, the muffins came out smoother, without lumps. the ones i made today were more rustic, more country-style. i also came with the 2 santoku knives i found on the streets a few weeks ago. i made cardboard sheaths for them so i could transport them safely. i took them to my sister, who had a set of knife sharpening tools. she also gave me some professional plastic sheaths, even though i was fine with the ones i made.
but the real reason why i was at the cafe was to help my father install the radio antenna onto the chimney, since all the parts had already arrived on tuesday. one person could've done it, but it's a lot easier with two.
when we finally finished, that antenna was super secure. my father had wanted to extend the antenna even higher (even went to home depot earlier to get another length of 1" pvc pipe) but decided that 10ft was good enough. yesterday he'd already laid out the wires indoors. all we had to do was connect it to the radio and check the SWR meter. on both VHF and UHF the reading was near 1.0. when i returned home, my father had me test the range of the new antenna with my baofeng radio. it was hit-or-miss depending on where i was. because he was transmitting at 25W, i could receive him loud and clear, but he had trouble hearing me because i was only transmitting at 5W with the stock radio antenna. VHF worked better from the front of the house (in the living room) while UHF worked better from the back deck.
for dinner i reheated some rice in chicken broth my mother had gave me. i sliced some blood oranges with the newly sharpened knife, it went through the citrus like butter, i don't have to saw at it like i would typically. i watched daybreakers through amazon prime, that 2009 vampire dystopia movie starring ethan hawke. it's actually a very smart film, imagining a world populated by civilized vampires and were humans are hunted for their blood. if i was to make a 10 top list of best vampire movies, this would definitely be on it. the movie was written/directed by the spierig brothers, who also made predestination (2014), another smart scifi film starring ethan hawke.