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first thing i did this morning was call fireman's fuel and order 100 gallons of heating oil for my parents. my father thought he might be able to hold up on heating the house and just use the electric spaceheaters instead, but we're heading into a weeklong stretch of 50's weather next week, and he won't make it. current price at fireman's fuel is $4.450/gallon.

the weather radar showed it'd rain in the late morning, so i quickly got ready and left for the cafe via bike by 10:30am. too bad it was already raining and i got a little wet during the 8-minute journey. honestly, i need to do something about that bike, it's pretty awful. the only gear that it'll ride in without skipping is the 7th gear, and even then it will make a horrible grinding sound. the bike needs a total overall, i have to see what parts need replacing, and what parts i can try fixing.

when i arrived at the cafe my father was cooking up some charsiu in the air fryer. i made myself a glass of tea, while waiting for customers to come. i use the weather as a prognosticator of whether it'll be busy or not: bad weather not busy, good weather very busy. since it was rainy in the morning but sunny by the afternoon, i figured we'd be busy later in the day, but there was a slow and steady stream of customers.

i made a new batch of tea eggs, using the cheaper medium-sized eggs we got from market basket on sunday. i guess we're contributing to the shrinkflation phenomenon, but the prie of eggs have really skyrocketed, especially since MA passed a law this year saying all eggs have to come from cage free chickens.

i set up another smart plug, this one for the cafe plant light. that's when i noticed that the supposedly new plug had been tampered with. it doesn't really matter as long as the plug still works, but it makes me a little angry that they'd sell these as new when it looks like they've been refurbished or previously owned. i could complain to the company, but bn-link smart plugs with energy monitoring function are hard to come by these days, so i'm good for now.

i left the cafe around 3pm. by then the weather was sunny and temperature near 70's. i cut through harvard square on my way to the city hall annex, where i was dropping off the signed grant contract. i also picked up some free composting bags.

i came home to drop off my things and tried to figure out what i wanted to make for dinner this week before heading to the super market. from the alleyway i could smell the strong odor of australian timber oil, and i went into the backyard to see the progress. i found paul oiling the steps. we chatted, i got some more info about their covid condition. they still don't know how they got it, but i got the feeling they weren't socially distancing and keeping their masks on. paul thinks maybe he contracted it from a trip to the gym. besides a sore throat, he also had a headache and a few other symptoms, so he definitely knew something was off, though steve thought it was allergies until he tested positive himself. paul was disappointed that they had to cancel plans with their final few weeks in boston before they take their summer leave on the cape. he missed a birthday party and today was the friend's funeral he had to cancel. they also gave covid to two friends: a female couple in their 60's where only one person tested positive, and a 70-80's couple where the 70's wife got it but the 80's husband didn't.

i biked to market basket, decided i'd make sandwiches this week. i stopped briefly at properzi way to admire some flowering plum blossoms. neglected by their owners and pruned haphazardly, they're planted in a very sunny spot and seem to thrive despite the mistreatment.

while i was at the supermarket, i couldn't resist getting a container of greek salad. do the salads come with dressing? i don't know, but it's easy to make my own, which is what i did when i got back home. unlike my last visit (where i forgot to bring my mask), most of the employees today had their masks on, in light of the increasing covid case numbers. i would've left there early but there was a line at the deli department, despite the fact that it was too busy in the rest of the store.

by the end of the day, i checked the square report, and we made the third most amount at the cafe for the month. now that the weather is warming up, i expect to be even busier.

that late afternoon salad really filled me up, and i wasn't hungry at all came evening. i did however warm up a jamaica beef patty after 10pm, just so i can say i had something for dinner. there was a cavalier-nets game where everyone expected brooklyn to win and they did. now they face off against the celtics in the first round of the playoffs (2 vs 7).

i watched the outfit (2022) today, starring mark rylance and zoey deutch. rylance plays a tailor for the mob, and gets caught up in some turf war business. it's pretty good, though i kept thinking it was a play because the whole movie takes place in the tailor shop.