shocking news this morning of anthony bourdain's suicide death. i thought his early work was very pretentious so thought him of an asshole. but his recent food travel work has been more humble, and i've watched a few of his destination shows, especially when he was visiting parts of asia (most recent one was his layover trip to taiwan). who will take his place as one of the premier food travelogue personality? there's andrew zimmern, but his bizarre food series can be construed as condescending (although his more recent tv work has been more focused just on food culture). and let's face it: anthony bourdain, hate him or love him, had this sort of rockstar cool vibe, while zimmern just comes off as a genial foodie. definitely one of a kind original. it's been a week of bad news. tuesday was the death of kate spade. yesterday was the announcement that julian edelman would be suspended 4 games for using a banned substance.
i went down to the community garden in the late morning to water my plants. it was a warm day, temperature in the lower 80's, i wore a polo shirt and shorts. i had a clear bottle top that i used to form a protective greenhouse around my 2 zucchini squash seedlings. at some point i need to pull one of the seedlings since only one squash plant can grow there. i gave the garden a good soak, so i don't have to come back tomorrow.
when i returned home i watered the front and back yard. besides nasturtium seedlings, the front yard area also contains some larkspurs. i've never seen any slug damage there, the biggest danger are people who walk their dogs through that area, but that hasn't happened in a while, especially since we put up a little wire fence. i used to have spiderworts in my house garden but it disappeared when paul decided to put a planter in the spot where the spiderworts used to grow. but i noticed he must've relocated them because there are patches of spiderworts both in the front and back yard. for lunch i heated up a blueberry muffin.
i decided to mail out frances' stuff today. one problem was finding a big enough box to fit everything. i was going to go down to the cafe and search for a large box in the basement, but with some creative packing, i managed to get everything to fit in the box that i already had. i realized i didn't have anymore packaging tape so walked down to the dollar store to get some. while the sky this morning and in the early afternoon was clear, by mid-afternoon it began to cloud up, and i even felt a few raindrops.
the bug zapper i ordered a few days ago arrived today at the cafe. from the internet webcam i could see my father had already hung it up. i called him to ask if they zapped any insects yet, so far not yet.
bruce stopped by briefly to drop off some pasta meat sauce he made. it's not from ground beef, but actually from a pot roast rendered in a slow cooker. after i taped up the box and printed out the custom forms, i strapped the shipment to the back of my utility bike and rode to the post office around 4pm. surprisingly, there was no customers when i arrived, but the clerk (the fat one with the beard and the autism) was a stickler for details and was taking a long time processing the paperwork.
production-wise, we hit 40kWh+ for just the second time this month with 41.38kWh. compare that to last month, when more than half the time we made 40kWh+.
i turned my porch light pink in honor of pride weekend. i couldn't really get pink on the color wheel interface, so the closest i got was magenta.
for dinner i fried up the leftover steak my mother gave me yesterday. i'm a stickler when it comes to sauces, and i only eat steaks with A1. but because i didn't have any, i tried a combination of barbecue sauces instead.
i watched game 4 of the warriors-cavaliers final. the game was boring, especially when golden state got a big lead and there was no way cleveland was coming back from the deficit. it was just a sad game, with the warriors so dominant, it's like that team has sucked out the spirit of competition. it was also sad because all signs point to this being the last game lebron james will play as a cavalier, since everyone expects him to leave for another team.