we were still in the outer bands of hurricane lee, as waves after waves of rain washed the new england coast, boston included. it was raining earlier but had stopped. had it been raining, i would've had to walk to the cafe, and would have to leave by 10am. but the doppler radar showed a sliver of a window, so i decided to risk it and run a few more errands by bike before riding to the cafe.
i went to the UPS store to drop off 2 sealed bags of used nespresso pods for recycling. then i went across the street to pick up two prescriptions. i had a long wait, a couple with three kids were trying to get vaccinated (the new covid booster?). i returned home briefly to grab my things before biking to the cafe. i felt a few rain drops but didn't get caught in the rain. at the corner of huron and rc kelley was an apple tree shedding some apples. i picked up two to sample, painfully twisting my torso and i bend down from the bike to pick up the fruits. i got to the cafe by 10:30am. my parents were already there, with casey making another surprise cameo, this time by herself. i don't mind her visits, but the woman has no inside voice, every with her is at full volume. she left a bit after 11am after getting two bento boxes to go.
today was a weird day. at first it didn't look like we'd get any customers due to the hurricane that was already starting to leave the area. but during that 2 hour block between 12-2pm we started getting customers. not many, but everyone bought a lot, so sales were good.
i tried one of the street apples. because they fell out of the tree onto the pavement, each one had an impact crack, but they were still edible. i didn't know what to expect but the apple was very sweet. i let my mother have a bite, she raved about how good it was and wanted to know where the tree was so she and my 2nd aunt could go and pick more apples. i told her it was actually on private property, and she could only pick the ones that'd fallen onto the street.
my mother made some rice noodle salad for lunch. i had some around 1pm. casey came back in the late afternoon, bringing some treats she bought when she got her haircut in quincy.
with so many people working today, the day went by fast, didn't even realize it was 4pm. we left around 4:30pm, i put my things in the car so i could bicycle to belmont. my 2nd aunt left her purse behind so my parents had to chase her down in the car and return it to her first.
it was my first time riding the redesigned fresh pond section of huron avenue. the new dual bike lanes have been installed but not yet paved, so i had no choice but to ride in narrow street, making the ride slightly more dangerous than before they changed up the traffic pattern. i think once the bike lanes are paved, it's going to be nice.
our replacement HQST MPPT solar controller arrived today. my father hooked it up and it started working immediately. we could also see it via bluetooth without any problems. the plan is to return our old MPPT controller. i tried contacting HQST twice but never heard back from them so this is our only recourse. the controller supposedly has a 3-year warranty as well, though not sure if that's legit if the company won't respond to my e-mails. the only thing i'm worried about is the old controller had historical data. i don't want the old controller going back to HQST and they check it and question why there's already 2 year's worth of data on a brand new controller. the data can be erase, but only via bluetooth, and the bluetooth doesn't work on the old controller anymore. still, we'll try connecting to the controller one last time before returning it, in an attempt to erase our tracks.
my parents went out for a walk after they got home. i checked out my complimentary ZRDR 2L aquarium CO2 generator kit. i still can't believe they gave me a second set for free, all because i made the mistake of thinking i had a missing part. it does give me wishful ideas of setting up a second planted CO2 injected tank. but that's something in the future, once i can be sure the CO2 is actually working. i also checked out the ultrapro daysmart 7-day in-wall timer. it's designed just like a light switch, wires can either be looped to screws or simply inserts. later i learned that it figures out the dusk and dawn times not from your GPS coordinates but rather using your horizontal timezone.
for dinner we had fishball soup and some meat bun pastries. i left around 7:15pm, tried to get home early before it got too cold. you wouldn't even know that a hurricane passed by the area this morning.