my sister texted me, said "they" (her godmother and my aunt) were doing clean-up at the cafe, said i could come help if i wanted. i don't like it when people ask me to do stuff out of the blue, particularly if it involves work. had she told me yesterday i would've considered it, but i decided to ignore her message out of principle. i'd already been doing paint work for her for weeks, and now she expects me to do more free work over the weekend on short notice? earlier last week she said she wanted to close the cafe for 9 days for renovations. when i asked her why so long and what sort of work she was doing, she couldn't give me a straight answer. even if the cafe closed for a whole month, with my sister in change, very little work would get done. i managed to talk her out of it, but she still threatened to close the cafe at anytime while my parents are away.
i made a fluffy omelette for lunch, 2 eggs, some milk, a handful of chopped scallions, and some goat cheese spread. cooked in butter, i drizzled some sriracha sauce to give it more flavor. because i didn't have any other coffee, i made a cup of café bustelo. even with plenty of half & half and sugar added it was still bitter like a dark roast, with a flavor somewhat reminiscent of licorice. it wasn't good, i'll try to pick up some better coffee tomorrow.
by early afternoon the sky began to clear up and the sun came out. i would be able to bike to boston after all. getting my ride from the basement, i noticed some gaps in the brick wall that could use some mortar repair, another home maintenance project on my list. temperature was in the 40's but warmer in the sun, though uncomfortably strong winds that blew leaves all over the streets.
my original plan was to go to chinatown first and get some vietnamese takeout before go to haymarket for some cheap produce. but i already have so much food at home, i opted to skip chinatown and go straight to haymarket and back. there was very little selection at haymarket. none of the vendors had yellow dragon fruits or figs. i left with: 9 plums ($2), 4 fuyu persimmons ($1), bag of clementines ($1), and bag of mini sweet peppers ($2, price increase). it was so windy it threatened to tear the roofs off of the vendor tents so some vendors opted not to set up their tents today.
returning home, i noticed some brilliant fall foliage in the late afternoon sun with boston as a backdrop. i had to make a detour to take some photos. i finally made it home a bit after 3pm.
one of the persimmons had some freeze damage so i decided to eat it first. fuyu persimmons are edible right away (unlike hachiya persimmons), don't need additional ripening to get rid of the astringent taste. this particular fuyu was supersweet.
for dinner i made an italian sub. to be honest, i've been waiting the whole day to eat a sub. i added everything from yesterday plus some pepper rings, for another level of flavor.
korean-subtitled the predator became available via torrent a few days ago. i watched it overnight. written and directed by shane black, it's actually pretty good. i read some online discussions and fans of the old predator films seem to hate this latest sequel. i think the problem is they're hoping to see a serious scifi/action. i went into the movie looking to find a shane black flick and it delivered. action, yes, but there were also plenty of laughs and witty banter between the actors. i would gladly watch a series following the "loonies" as they go off on different missions and adventures (kind of like the A-team). olivia munn plays the token female, and normally i'm so-so about her performances, but i really like her in this film. her role was that of a real character, not eye candy. the movie is refreshingly sexist-free despite so much testosterone being tossed around.
