after my loop, i visited the community garden to water my plants. i managed to harvest a single red tomato and ate a few cherry ones. i hurried home as i was set to meet lisa at 11am, and it was already 10:45am. in my haste i forgot to water jen's and renee's plots, i'll have to do that tomorrow morning.
i weighed myself when i got home. normally i use a few pounds, but today i actually seemed to have gained weight if that's even possible. made me question if my smart scale was broken. i took a quick shower and texted lisa that i was ready. she texted me back, said she'd be here around noontime.
lisa showed up with the rain barrel and a slightly-broken vornado fan. i hadn't seen her since december 2014, when i helped her assemble a standing desk. she said she'd be willing to drive them to belmont (where the rain barrel would be set up eventually), so i hopped in the car and took a ride.
when we got to belmont i was able to inspect the goods. the rain barrel was a blue barrel with two spigots (one on top, one on the bottom). it had been painted black at one point, but some of the paint was flaking off. it had the two bungholes but a big circular cutout for capturing the rain was missing the cover (just need to get a replacement louvers vent cover from home depot). as for the fans, there were two. one a big boxy number from lisa's college days, and other an adjustable vornado fan with a few broken clips so the fan grill might fall off.
i gave lisa a tour of the backyard, which she'd seen in photos from my blog posts. i also gave her a potted ground cherry and a potted pilea.
we drove back to cambridge, where lisa took me on a tour of her new house (1-1/2 years new). although just a single floor, it belies its true size with a furnished basement and a backyard that's bigger than the size of her house. most of the backyard was paved in bricks, essentially a very large driveway that could easily fit 10 cars including the 2 car garage. i didn't even think such properties existed in cambridge. did i mention solar panels? and solar water heating? ductless heating/cooling? and on-demand hot water? and water softener and purification? there was a strip of nature, some hedges, some clover field, a bit of lawn, and space for a few raised beds.
not having eaten lunch yet, lisa drove us out to greek corner on mass ave. this was a popular spot for her but one that i'd never been to before. we both got the gyro ($10) which was pretty good: soft pita bread, loads of meat, fresh lettuce and vegetables, tzatziki spread. it's the kind of the gyro i'd definitely come back for. i treated, because one time we met for lunch and i'd forgotten my wallet.
after that lisa gave me a ride back to my place. by then it was already 3:45pm. i went across the street to star market to get some boneless chicken thighs on sale and some chips. i ended up getting charged full price, so before i left the store, i went to return the chicken. apparently this had happened already today, that somehow all the on-sale chicken were marked with the wrong pricing. they gave me a partial refund and i didn't have to return the chicken.
my softbox lighting kit arrived today, but i didn't have time to check it out until later. the material looks a little cheap, but i won't have time to really play with it until thursday.
lauryn came home relatively early, around 5:45pm. she had a greek yogurt for dinner. i did the same, too lazy and too hot to heat up something in the oven. instead, i had some icelandic yogurt, along with some cherries and a nectarine. later in the evening i took out the trash.