thus began my wednesday. in the morning the temperature was still in the 30's, as i biked to market basket to get some groceries: eggs, milk, tofu, corn starch, and some more nacho ingredients. to my credit, i didn't get any junk food, just stuck to the basics. when i got back home, i did a load of laundry and made lunch: garlic avocado spread on toasted everything bagel, along with a matcha latte and some snow chrysanthemum tea.
in the afternoon - with the temperature finally in the 40's - i gave my bicycle a tune-up. i re-aligned the front wheel and tried to figure out what was causing the chain skip. i ended up cleaning the clumps of grease from the derailleur sprockets, that probably prevented the chain was catching properly. afterwards i oiled the chain.
i went to star market to get some more boneless chicken thighs on sale before taking the bike on a test ride to the cafe to drop off the chicken. the chain still skipped but not as bad as yesterday. the skipping is happening on the rear sprockets and i can't see what's happening. i was thinking i could mount my gopro on the rear seat stay and have it record so i could playback and diagnose the problem. having a working bike is important since it's my only mode of transportation during the winter.
once again back at home, i watched ghostbusters: afterlife (2021). the movie is well made but the story isn't that good - about egon spengler's grandchildren finding his old ghostbuster equipment and retaking the mantle. the big surprise is the original surviving ghostbusters (murray, aykroyd, hudson) make a cameo at the end, joining forces for the kids to fight gozer. carrie coon is completely wasted as the clueless mom, and even more so is paul rudd, the hapless summer school teacher and coon's love interest, who sort of plays the role of rick moranis.
i did some renovation work of my own today, caulking some gaps in the ceiling molding of the living room. the tube of caulk i was using isn't so good anymore, and i had to squeeze so hard that i almost fainted to get the caulk to come out.
maureen sent me an early birthday gift, told me it was arriving today with instructions to open immediately. i thought maybe she sent me a live plant, but in this weather, anything alive would most definitely freeze to death. when the package finally arrived in the early evening, i opened it up as instructed. the label on the box already gave away the content: licorice international. it was an assortment of licorice: licorice chalk, zout, dubbel zout, salmiak rocks, and turkish peber. i couldn't wait and tried the salmiak rocks. it had the shape and consistency of a snausage dog treat. soft licorice on the outside, slightly salty caramel interior. the taste reminded me a lot of good & plenty, without the pill shape and hard shell.
for dinner i warmed up a bowl of sweet earth cauliflower mac. it sounded delicious but the serving size was so small, it was more like a snack. the only thing i could recognize was a bit of pasta and cheese. it also had cauliflower and sweet potatoes but they sort of melted after getting zapped in the microwave. despite it's small size though and the feeling that i got ripped off, i wasn't hungry afterwards, must be that 9 grams of protein. i had some orange slices afterwards.
i'm attempting to grow my own mung bean sprouts. after looking over a bunch of youtube videos, i came across one that looked the most promising and had the most concise directions. her sprouts were also the plumpest of all the ones i saw. i decided to use my small stainless steel steamer pot. i filled it up 2/3 with beans then left the beans to soak overnight.