i didn't leave until noontime. it was dry outside. being in a car afforded me the luxury of climate control and radio. i arrived in belmont in about 10 minutes.
i was in the backyard setting up the decoy owl my sister left on the front steps. a bluejay was squawking, not sure if it had anything to do with the owl. it came on a long string with i thought was weird, but apparently people sometimes hang a decoy owl so it'll rotate, giving the false impression that it's moving. i saw a chipmunk hiding behind the corner catch barrel near the bedroom. my mother came out briefly to collect some broad beans and bitter melons. when i inspected the rain barrels, i was shocked to discover they were all empty. they were already near capacity from last weekend, and must've overfilled from the downpours yesterday. so to see them empty was disheartening. my father came out and together we checked for leaks. nothing seemed obvious, so i figured maybe a critter had chewed a hole in one of the connecting hoses. because the barrels by the living room/garage still had some water, we figured the leak happened near the basement entrance, on the opposite side of the house. we were about to test one of the connecting hoses (by running faucet water through it) when my father spotted the leak: the rain barrel water gauge had fallen to the ground, slowly trickling out a few hundred gallons of rain water. not sure how it could've happened, but it might've been something my mother did when she used the ladder to collect some bitter melons climbing the RB3 trellis.
i came back inside to eat: some buttercup squash rice porridge, salted duck eggs, and a piece of toasted artisanal raisin bread. there was a jets-patriots game that started at 1pm, i had it in the background. new england ended up winning, but the game was closer than it should be (15-10), considering the jets are a shell of what they were supposed to be this season before aaron rodgers got injured.
my father and i pulled out the presto profry digital deep fryer from the basement, a gift from jack. my father wants to get an electric deep fryer (t-fal ultimate EZ clean 3.5L deep fryer) to more easily cook the breaded chicken we serve at the cafe, but i suggested we use our old deep fryer machine to try one out first. so two issues with the presto: the frying cage is too small (too narrow and long, can only cook one piece of chicken, maybe two), and there's no automatic oil filtration. the presto takes about 3L of cooking oil to reach the minimum oil line, we figured this out by filling it up with water.
it started raining again in the afternoon. wasn't any downpours, but a slow steady drizzle. when i went out around 4:30pm to check the rain barrels, most of them were nearly full again after just a few hours of rain.
my father grilled some salted mackerel in the kitchen for dinner, along with a smoked ham & broad bean stirfry. we ate leftover cafe rice from yesterday.
after dinner i drove the honda back to cambridge again, so i could drive back tomorrow morning (looks to be rainy again). once again i lucked out and found parking.
after a shower i turned on the sunday night football game between pittsburgh and las vegas. the raiders are a fun team to watch with so many former patriots players and coaches: josh mcdaniels, jimmy garoppolo, brian hoyer, jakobi meyers, phillip dorsett, adam butler, and many others. so naturally i was rooting for the raiders. they kept it interesting, but lost in the end (23-18), which seems all too common these days for the patriots - east and west. elsewhere in the NFL, the dolphins scored 70-20 against the broncos. an NFL team hasn't scored 70 points since the 60's.