had a good night sleep because my next door neighbor renee wasn't running her heat pump so the compressor was off. that allowed me to open the window, for a peaceful evening of cool quiet. i didn't wake up until almost 10am.

i left the house around 11:30am, took the motorcycle. haven't ridden it in a while, besides there's street cleaning tomorrow so i had to move it anyway. i went to the community garden to water my plants. i bumped into lynn for the first time this season. we chatted, i didn't end up leaving until 12:10pm.

i went to the cafe to put away the tea eggs and leftover rice. i also watered the hanging fern. the potted plants around the parking lot deck looked a little dry too so i watered them as well, including the passion flower vine.

i didn't get to belmont until 12:30pm. my mother made some hunter sausage with fried egg for lunch. my sister showed up with esmei, who watched me as i finished eating. my sister left esmei behind while she went out to have lunch with a friend. esmei could care less, quickly finding a spot to sleep on the carpet.

we had both air conditioners running: the floor unit in the living room and the inverter window unit in the bedroom. the midea in the bedroom was so quiet, i didn't think it was even on, but it kept the room properly dry and cool (70 degrees). compared to the one in the living room, which was very noisy and didn't seem to be cooling very much. it makes me contemplate getting an inverter air conditioner even more now: uses less electricity, keeps the house cooler, and ultra quiet to boot.

it was too hot to do any gardening - temperature in the upper 80's - so we decided to wait until later in the afternoon. we watched some world cup action: germany demolished curacao (7-1) followed by japan tying with netherlands (2-2).

we finally went out into the backyard around 4pm. it was a little too late to build bean trellises or to plant beans - those will have to wait until tomorrow. i did take some measurements. we decided to make the taller trellises, which will use all dozen 8ft furring strips just to build 2 bean trellises.

we secured 8ft long wire cages on top of our two EMT conduit trellises using heavy duty zip ties (120 lbs. strength) before driving 2ft long 3/4" metal stakes into the ground to anchor the trellises.

my sister returned and took home esmei.

for dinner my parents made some juecaihezi (garlic chive box pastries) with the garlic chive my godmother gave them. we also tried the store-bought makgeolli left behind by the korean baker, gyeongju beopju ssal makkoli. the label said 6% alcohol. maybe because it's more than a year old and expired, but it wasn't that good. barely any sweetness or sourness, tasted like bland carbonated rice water mixed with some alcohol. i thought i tasted a hint of malt but could just be my imagination. the makgeolli we make on our own tastes way better with much better flavor. my father noticed the bottle was soft, which makes sense, any live yeast bacteria was killed during the bottling process. otherwise you couldn't the level of alcohol. compared to our own makgeolli, which continues to ferment, causing our plastic bottles to get very stiff from CO2 build-up.

i went home afterwards. because of street cleaning, there was no more parking spots in front of my house so i had to park in one of the side streets. supposedly it's going to rain overnight, but i didn't bother putting on the bike cover because it's a bit dirty and i'm hoping to get a free bike wash.

i watched the end of the ivory coast-ecuador match, ivory coast won 1-0. that was followed by sweden-tunisia. i watched it initially but found it kind of boring so turned off the tv. as of now the score is 3-1 in sweden's favor.

i spent last night waiting for the trump name to come down the kennedy center. instead i watched construction workers build a boondongle of a scaffolding. when i woke up this morning, i learned they put a tarp around the scaffolding so you couldn't watch them take down the letters (if they even actually did that).

i woke up at 8am this morning and headed down to haymarket by 8:50am. on the ebike it took 17 minutes to get there. as i got close to boston, i started seeing scottish members of the tartan army, here in town to see the world cup match between scotland and haiti later this evening. i came to haymarket to get mainly baby cucumbers, but none of the vendors carried them anymore. my haul: golden pineapple ($2), 3 boxes of strawberries ($2), 2 bags of rainier cherries ($5), and 2 sleeves of garlic ($4).

i returned to cambridge via longfellow bridge. i got to the cafe an hour early. after i cooked the rice, i went to trader joe's to get some baby cucumbers. when i got back, my parents were already there. since my ebike was parked outside, i removed the battery so it wouldn't get cooked in the heat.

my mother made a batch of brownies then later roasted some teriyaki salmon. i helped my father move the white metal shelves into the car; he plans on putting it in our sunroom for storage. my parents also made another scallion bread. this time my mother used less salt so it wasn't as tasty.

we got two big orders around 12pm. just in that hour alone we made enough to equal a single day's profit. after that it wasn't too busy. my father went home to install the shelving unit, came back around closing time to my 2nd aunt and my mother rides home. highlight of the day was when a scotsman wearing full on kilt came in with his lady wearing matching outfits. they didn't eat, they just got a drink and left.

i bought some trader joe's passion fruit sorbet. it smelled really delicious but i forgot that passion fruit is naturally very sour, and likewise the sorbet, despite adding a lot of sugar. trader joe's calamansi & mango sorbet is better by comparison, a better blend of sour and sweet. my 2nd aunt bought some likernye alcohol-infused chocolate candy from the russian supermarket. i translated the label, they're actually imported from leningrad.

today was hot but dry, so it didn't feel as gross as yesterday. i took the long way to get home. i stopped by the community garden first to water my plants.

i did two things when i got back home: i installed the plastic-rubber threshold on the basement door, and i installed the AC. the threshold was simply a matter of measuring the correct distance and "sliding" the threshold to the bottom of the door. it was tight fit, so i whacked it a few times with the back of a shovel, and it fit the door bottom like a glove. now there's zero gap underneath the door. as for the AC, it was getting too hot inside my house. with next week in the 80's, there doesn't seem to be any cool down so i finally broke down and put in my AC. i did something different this time: i sealed the gap in between the two window panes. for some reason bugs always seem to get inside (moths and mosquitoes). i couldn't quite figure out how they were getting in, but now i see the unsealed gap as a major point of entry. i didn't have any sealing foam strip so i used some rolled up newspaper instead.

having the AC felt so nice, but it made me wonder about getting an inverter AC, which seems to be the latest trend. besides 30-50% more energy efficient (saves money on electricity) it's also quieter because all the noisy (and hot) components sit outside the window. my father has one in his room - the midea - that he got from costco. he paid $300 at the time but now it's $400+. costco has a new sale on a 800 BTU hisense smart inverter air conditioner for $259. the only thing that worries me is it weighs 50 lbs. feels like a two person job to install it. however, when i looked up the specs for my sharp AF-S85PX air conditioner, i was surprised it weighs more - 56 lbs.

i watched the world cup match between brazil and morocco. i was rooting for morocco because of my moroccan mailman. morocco scored at the 21 minute mark, when the goal was empty and the ball slowly bounced in. brazil scored at 32 minutes, a serious kick from the corner. that was pretty much it for scores, the game ended up a draw.

for dinner i made two more wraps with the last of my buffalo chicken.

engrossed in world cup fever, i totally forgot there was an NBA game tonight. knicks vs spurs game 5 in san antonio. the game seemed to follow the same script so far in this series: spurs get an early lead, looks like they're going to win, but in the 4th quarter knicks kick it up a notch and steal the game. their victory almost seems anticlimactic. knicks win the NBA championship and jalen brunson wins the finals MVP. i kept switching back and forth between the basketball game and the world cup match between scotland and haiti. scotland ended up winning 1-0.

cambridge city crew finally came and took away the sidewalk cones. felt like our streets have been under siege for weeks, unable to park regularly on either side, due to sidewalk construction, moving, eversource utility work, or something else random. once more i was back at star market this morning, this time getting some cherries ($2.99/lbs) and cookies on sale. i then went directly to the cafe.

i made a batch of tea eggs when i got to the cafe, before my parents took the steamers to make 3 large batches of veggy buns. my mother made some scallion bread using the bulk package of costco scallions we bought on monday. i ate 4 pieces, my father giving the rest away to my aunt when she showed up in the late afternoon.

the weather outside felt like a cauldron. temperature hit 88 degrees, but felt much hotter due to the high humidity. good thing we have strong AC at the cafe, where we keep the temperature between 74-77 degrees.

we were starting to run out of pickled cucumbers so i was going to make a new batch. unfortunately those cheap baby cucumbers we bought from malden 88 last monday (3 for just $3) were starting to get moldy. we tossed away a third, and i chopped much of the remainders to make smashed cucumbers.

we got busy today, but half of today's profit all happened during lunch hour. most popular item? salmon bento. we must've sold 6-8 of them. since they're slightly more expensive than a regular bento, it quickly stacked up. today ended up being the busiest day this week despite some awful weather that i wouldn't want to be caught outside. tomorrow might be a few degrees hotter but dry at least.

i was watching a live stream from the kennedy center this afternoon where they were taking down trump's name from the building after a court order. unfortunately it seemed to take forever. the construction guys seemed to be on a lunch break when i tuned in. when they came back, they only work briefly before a thunderstorm swept through washington DC and they had to climb down due to safety. as of midnight, the contractors are still just building the scaffolding. i wonder if they're slowfooting it on order of trump. or maybe these construction guys are trying to squeeze in some easy overtime.

xiaojun came to the cafe today in the early evening. with a smile, she told us she has bed bugs, and the ordeal she has to endure as she got rid of her furniture and threw out a bunch of clothes. the whole time i was thinking, "why are you even here? is there a chance you could give use bed bugs?" she didn't seem very concerned about it, said the apartment superintendent was spraying her place, and that it'd take 2 months to completely rid herself of bed bugs. my mother saw bite marks on her leg, a line of red dots. xioajun didn't even know they were from bed bugs. she stayed for almost an hour, even using our bathroom. now every time i have an itch, i wonder if it's bed bugs.

after we closed, i biked directly to the community garden to water my plants. of my seedlings, the 4th of july tomato and the butterfly pea are the only two plants that seem to be actively growing, while all the others remain stunted. i'm confident they'll all catch up eventually. eggplants, peppers, tomatoes, they all love the heat. next week there'll be more of it, as we seem to be trapped in the 80's (typical average this time of the year is supposed to be 75 degrees).

i came home and swept the sidewalk. i also used a scraping tool to see if i could remove the cement on the bottom of our front steps. i managed to remove some but there's still a bunch that's stuck. i think if i use an orbital sander i could probably clean up the mess. there's also a pool of stagnant water in front of my house. i thought maybe the storm drain was clogged so i tried to open it with a shovel, but the problem is the road kind of dips near my side of the street. the only way to get rid of that water is if we get a heavy shower that will rinse everything into the storm drain. maybe street cleaning next week will clear it up as well.

i didn't eat until almost 9pm, made some more buffalo chicken wrap. i timed it so i could watch the US-paraguay world cup match. US won 4-1, including an own goal by a paraguay player in the first few minutes of the game.

the halogen bulb in my bathroom sink light fixture died tonight. fortunately i have a spare. this is the only remaining light in my house that i haven't converted to LED. i bought a few silicone-coated LED bulbs a few years back but they were way too dim. i see home depot sells a feit-brand 50-watt equivalent GY6.35 bi-pin LED bulb (3000K) for $9. i'm curious to try it out. only problem is it's too long for the frosted glass enclosure.

debating whether i should go to haymarket tomorrow morning. i don't really need anything besides maybe some more baby cucumbers and maybe some cherries. i'll probably go, it's easy on the ebike, and early saturday morning there's not too much traffic.

i went to star market this morning to get a few things on sale: polar seltzer (1L bottles), häagen-dazs ice cream, sweet onions, and russet potatoes. i came home to drop off a few things before continuing to the cafe.

the nearby office share was throwing out a few things. my father and i picked up a large white-colored metal shelving unit and a small collapsible shelving unit. the collapsible unit i might be able to use as a porch plant stand if i can make sure it won't rust exposed to the elements.

today was a slow and steady trickle of business that put us above the daily average by day's end. it still doesn't compare to last week's profit, but we're on course to hit our weekly average.

in the afternoon during a lull period i went to belmont to do some gardening (2:40pm). had i known i was going to do that, i would've taken the ebike this morning. instead i was on my regular bike. on a normal day it might've been okay, but the temperature today was in the 90's and humid, which made for an exhausting ride.

i started by clearing out the raised beds, saving some uprooted crops in buckets of water. next i planned on where and what i wanted to plant. finally i planted. in RB1 i have 9 okras, a back row of 5 hyacinth beans, and a single surviving corkscrew pepper plant. RB2 has 5 eggplants and an assortment (6) of pepper seedlings (corkscrew, cayenne, serrano). finally in RB4 i have 2 cherry tomatoes, 2 4th of july tomatoes, and 2 peppers (most likely serrano). the work was pretty tedious, especially in the heat. i was drenched in sweat, keeping an eye on the clock because i still needed to return to work.

i didn't leave until almost 5pm. perfect timing, because it started to get busy again at the cafe. after riding in the heat, i could feel the blood throbbing in my temples. my father made another batch of beef noodle soup, my parents divided out the portions before we closed. i ended up leaving with some leftover beef noodle soup for dinner.

as soon as i got home, i grabbed another milk crate from the basement and took my potted cayenne pepper back to the community garden. i watered my plants which isn't ideal - wet plants at night makes them more attractive to slugs/snails - but it's the only time i can get to the garden.

back at home, after a shower, i heated up the beef noodle soup. there was nothing good on television so i watched the godfather for the millionth time on pluto.tv. i always learn something new with every rewatch. when michael corleone is wiping his face with a napkin while hiding out in sicily, i thought he was just wiping away the sweat. actually because of his broken jaw, he drools constantly and has to wipe it away. this isn't something specifically mentioned in the movie, but in the book he gets surgery to repair his jaw once he returns to the states.

i spent the rest of the night watching the korea-czech match. south korea wins 2-1.

on my way out to run errands this morning, i ran across a cache of string lights left out on the curb. i returned home to drop them off. 2 strands of G40 LED globe lights, 2 strands of color LED christmas lights, 1 strand of amber LED lights, and 2 3ft outdoor extension cord. they all work except for the amber lights. since they're not solar-powered and require a 120v power source, they're hard to use. i'm more interested in the globe lights, with each bulb featuring a clip for easy hanging.

i went back out. i dropped off the used nespresso coffee pods at the UPS store before picking up my prescription at walgreens. somebody had parked their fancy trek bike across the bike stand so nobody else could park there. i pushed the bike out of the way so i could have some space to lock up my bike. i was tempted to lock the other bike as well, to teach the owner a lesson, but i didn't have time for retribution.

i then went to market basket to get some groceries. i decided to make buffalo chicken wraps for dinner tonight as there was a sale on chicken breast. i got back before noontime, took a quick shower (temperature today was in the 80's), before settling down to eat some spicy tuna sushi while watching the news.

i left around 1:20pm via ebike, heading to belmont to do some gardening. i stopped at the cafe to drop off some supplies. i got to my parents' place by 1:40pm.

the big thing i wanted to do today was to plant most of the remaining seedlings. unfortunately there are still plants growing in the raised beds, and i wasn't sure if i should pull them out. giant red japanese mustard and some cilantro. in hindsight i should've just pulled them, but i was thinking my father my harvest them instead so my parents can use them up right away. it was also a very hot day, and mid-afternoon was the hottest. so hot in fact that two of my pepper seedlings dried up and died, their stems withering away. i ended up watering all the seedlings and moving them to a sawhorse table i set up on the east side of the sunroom above the foxgloves, where it gets morning sun but protected from the scorching afternoon sun. at this rate the next chance i'll get to plant will be saturday late afternoon after work.

besides watering the plants, i also repotted the last remaining jasmine that my father brought back from the cafe. i used miracle-gro potting soil with coco coir. it had the same problem that all our jasmines have: soggy soil. hopefully repotting will bring back it's vigor.

i repotted one of the orchids. it was one that fell to the ground so it already lost most of its growing medium (bark chips). it didn't have any flower spikes but seems to be producing a new leaf, so it's alive at least. i was going to repotted some of the other orchids, but they all have flower spikes, so i'll wait until they finish flowering.

i found one 10-gallon grow bag. i filled it up with a bottom layer of course compost, a middle layer of refined compost (cambridge city sourced), then a top layer of reconstituted soil using old soil mixed with peat moss and slow-release fertilizer pellets. i ended up planting another kabocha squash.

it was so hot, i went inside twice to hydrate with some sarsaparilla soda.

the only seedlings i ended up planting were all the bitter melons. they went on the western bed. this year we sunk 3 more fence posts to form a more stable above-lawn trellis. this was before we discovered EMT conduits. depending on how well the conduit trellises work, we might replace these with a conduit trellis in the future. the area was overgrown with foxgloves, violets, money plants, and some weeds (oxalis, creeping charlie). there was also spent daffodil leaves which i cut to the ground. the leaves weren't brown yet - just partially yellow - but they were taking up space. the soil itself is in good shape, mostly because we never walk there so there's no compaction. i found enough chickenwire cylinders to protect the seedlings (10). i then dug the holes, added some fertilizer pellets, before putting in the bitter melons. that area will need to be supplemented with additional fertilizer during the growing season so we get a good harvest. we sell fresh bitter melon smoothies in the late summer, it's surprisingly popular with people in the know or folks who are just adventurous.

the one plant we will probably have a surplus of are luffa gourds. besides the half dozen my father planted on the ground using elevated rice bags, we also probably have at least half a dozen more in grow bags and pots in our elevated sawhorse stands. not to mention another half dozen unplanted luffa seedlings. i don't remember how many gourds per plant, i think 2-3 at least.

i didn't leave belmont until 5:45pm. if i stayed another hour my parents would be home already. i raced back to cambridge.

my gardening day wasn't over yet. i went directly to the community garden to water my plants. i brought a 3-4 gallon plastic pot i was going to use for one of my two peppers. one pepper would get the grow bag, one pepper the smaller pot. but which one? i ended up planting the purple cup pepper in the grow bag - which turned out to be a serrano pepper. the other one is a cayenne pepper. i scooped some compost from the community composter. when i got back home i filled up the rest of the pot with potting soil before planting the cayenne seedling. at some point i'll take the pot back to the community garden.

one of my grow bag striped mallow has already flowered.

i finally got home by 6:30pm. i noticed one of the neighborhood kids had written their name in the wet sidewalk concrete.

after another shower, i ate some thai-flavored chicken feet i bought on saturday and drank some stormalong farm stand hard cider jeff gave me. it's actually pretty good - unfiltered - so it tastes very sweet and a lot like carbonated apple juice mixed with some alcohol.

around 8pm i cut up the watermelon i got from star market on saturday. it took nearly half an hour to cut up into cubes and store them away in the fridge. it made a mess of the kitchen counter, watermelon juice everywhere.

i didn't make dinner until 9:30pm. after i came home from the supermarket today, i cut up my chicken breasts and marinated them in some frank's hot sauce. i cooked the chicken in a large flat-bottom pan. they're didn't really sear since they're too juicy, i was basically just cooking them in their own juices and marinade. i then made my wraps using blue cheese dressing, leftover salad mix, some cucumbers, and cooked chicken. they were pretty good but i have to learn how to properly fold a wrap because mine always fall apart.

tonight was game 4 between the spurs and knicks. it looked like a game san antonio was going to win resoundingly, since they were up by 29 at one point. but new york staged the most impressive comeback in NBA finals history - coming back to win the game with just a second left. spurs continued shooting 3-pointers in the second half when they lost their mojo. by the time they made the change to attack the basket more, the momentum was already in the knicks favor as they cut the lead to just single digits. new york is the team of destiny. after tonight's miracle win, there is no doubt they will win the championship. whether it be saturday night in san antonio, or tuesday night back in new york, it doesn't matter. the knicks will be the next NBA champions.

i had to wake up a little earlier so i could get to the cafe and started making a new batch of boba. last week a teacher from a nearby school asked us if it'd okay she brought her students - all 25 - to the cafe to get some treats. she asked when was the best time, didn't want to inconvenience us with a sudden influx of young customers. i told her mornings and afternoons, she said she'd be here with her kids tuesday morning.

so i got to the cafe by 8:30am. unfortunately it took a long time to boil a large pot of water to cook the boba, so i didn't get started until 8:50am. it takes a total of 60 minutes to cook the boba and have it be ready to eat. that would put us around 9:50am. what if the kids come early?

my parents showed up before 9am but left again to get some supplies from trader joe's, which doesn't open until 9am. they got back in time to open the cafe.

unfortunately the kids showed up shortly after we opened. these were students from the nearby catholic school. my mother don't recall seeing any of them before. the new bobas weren't ready yet, so we had to use some boba we made last week. they came with their teachers, who thankfully are adept at coralling kids. every child made an order and paid, my parents wrote everything down. the kids waited outside while the two teachers waited inside. my parents would make a batch of a particular flavor of boba tea, the teachers would call the kids to come in to get their order. by the end we started using the fresh bobas, as they were finally ready. it wasn't as crazy as i thought, thanks to the teachers' help.

so right off the bat we made a chunk of change. we don't make a whole lot off of boba tea, but it does make a difference when we suddenly have 25 sales.

the rest of the day was pretty quiet. maybe it'd be a slow day, but learning from what happened last week, sometimes we get an uptick in the evening that tips the profit balance. and sure enough today was such a day. we made as much in an hour as all the hours combined (not counting the big boba sale in the morning). fortunately we had everything in stock and waiting, from noodles to dumplings to rice. if the of june is going to be like this, it's going to be a busy month.

my father cut up most of the boneless chicken thighs we got yesterday. afterwards he fried two marinated boxes of chicken for a fresh batch. i made a new batch of tea eggs, a fresh supply of ice cubes, multiple batches of dumplings, and a batch of black soy noodles.

my mother started eating some qu feng huo luo dan - chinese medicine for arthritic pains - and said it really worked. her knee which had been hurting last week suddenly stopped aching. i'm not a big believer in chinese medicine, i mainly think it's a placebo effect, but if my mother feels better, who am i doubt its efficacy?

i picked up a large plastic planter on my way home. it looks porcelain but it's made from some light resin material. there a plug at the bottom for a drainage hole. i'm trying to think what i can plant in this pot. it's not too deep but has a very wide (14") diameter.

i was surprised the city already fixed the sidewalk when i got back home in the evening. i had the webcam set up pointing outside and i kept checking it all day but saw no activity. it looked like wet cement and they roped off the entire area, so i wasn't sure how i'd even get inside the house. when i tried stepping on the pavement though, it solid, so it'd already dried. they made a mess of the repair though, spraying cement all over the bottom of our front steps. i'm going to see if i can rinse that off tomorrow. if not, maybe i can sand it and have it repainted.

i came home with some leftover bento. after a shower, i ate dinner after 8pm. i was watching some political coverage, a few primaries were happening across the US. platner wins the maine democratic primary for senate, despite his recent scandals (sexting, abusive boyfriend). nancy mace only got about 12% in the south carolina gubernatorial primary. i wish her the best in the private sector, a woman who used to be a conservative voice of reason before becoming fully brainwashed in MAGA.

last night we didn't make specific plans for our monday supply run so my mother called me this morning at 9am, said they'd come pick me up in half an hour, for an everett-malden supply run. first stop was costco, where there were surprisingly few people on a monday morning. not even the tipico van showed up. we got eggs, bulk scallions, cooking oil, and a few other things.

next was restaurant depot (RD). my father got two cases of boneless chicken thighs on sale for another week. we already bought eggs, but i did notice RD had large white eggs for sale at $16.99 for 15 dozen (comes out to 9.4¢/egg).

our final stop was the super 88 asian supermarket in malden. my mother came here primarily to get some chinese medicine for her bad knee, but we ended up doing some more shopping. they did some renovations since the last time we were here, updated the display bins, rearranged some departments. there was a sale on baby cucumbers, 3 for $3. they expanded the fresh seafood department as well, probably one of the biggest hidden gems for finding seafood ingredients.

my parents dropped me off by my house around noontime. some city contractors were there, leveling the dirt for the eventual cement sidewalk slabs. i don't know if they do a press pour or have ready made slabs waiting to go. i pointed to my house so the workers could let me get by. i grabbed my things then took the ebike to the cafe, to help my parents unload.

after we finished unloading, we left for belmont. my mother made wonton soup. my sister stopped by unexpectedly, had some wontons, complained it was too salty, before leaving with esmei.

my father and i spent the rest of the afternoon working in the backyard. today should've been the day where we plant the rest of our seedlings, but we spent it repotting most of our potted plants - jasmines, lantana, gardenia. new leaves on the jasmines were starting to yellow, i figured it was a soil issue. we used miracle-gro potting soil mix (which includes compost and coco coir) but when that ran out, we started using our own premix, which was a combination of old soil mixed with peat moss (to increase acidity, better water retention, and volume) and osmocote slow release fertilizer pellets. the problem with the jasmines was the soil was too soggy. after spending nearly half the year indoors and getting watered every week had left the bottom soil wet and dense, preventing the roots from growing further down. can't remember the last time we repotted, but mustn't have been last season since the soil was in pretty bad shape. when we uprooted the plants, there was usually still half the amount of soggy soil stuck to the pot. we broken apart the root ball and replanted all the jasmines. we did the same for the lantana and gardenia. gardenia had special treatment: it was growing too big so we broke off a few pieces and repotted them. the remaining gardenia we moved to a slightly smaller pot. our mistake last time was giving the gardenia a bigger pot: when you do that, the gardenia spends all its energy growing bigger to fill the pot instead of focusing on flowers. afterwards we pruned the plant to make it smaller. new growth this summer will hopefully produce fresh flower buds for next year.

after we did that we planted some more luffas, squashes, and bitter melons onto grow bags/large containers. my father planted a few more luffas in bottomless homemade grow bags. i also planted a few stevia plants into larger 12" diameter pots since i read they can grow pretty large and woody.

i tried the jones brand sunset sarsaparilla soda made in conjunction with fallout the game. it was on sale at costco, a case of sarsaparilla for just $5. it even came with extra bottle caps (in the game, bottle bags are future post-apocalypse currency) and a bottle opener. they did not taste like sarsaparilla (which is what taiwanese hey-song soda tastes like) but instead your basic root beer.

there was no time for us to plant the other seedlings (already close to 5pm), so i'm going to do that wednesday on my one day off. chipmunk killed one of my tomato plants (took a pepper and eggplant yesterday), so instead of putting the potted seedlings directly into the raised beds, i set up a sawhorse table and put them on top of that instead. chipmunks can climb, but at least it makes it slightly harder now for them. for some reason they've left the swiss chards alone.

for dinner my mother made a garlic eggplant stirfry as well as steaming some ground pork with eggs. i returned home after eating.

i stopped by the community garden to water my plants and to sprinkle some slug bait. i saw maureen as well as molly. molly was doing some serious transplanting, repeatedly going out and getting more plants from her car.

i was expecting the sidewalk to be finished, but seems like they left shortly after when i came home earlier. there was no additional work and they sealed off the entire area so i could barely get back into my own house. hopefully they come back tomorrow and finish, when i'm not home.

game 3 was tonight between the spurs and knicks. trump decided to attend the game, causing all sorts of security headaches for spectators and commuters. his visit caused outdoor watch parties to be cancelled, the mayor moving one event half a mile uptown. i wanted to see how new yorkers treated trump, and he smirked while the garden crowd loudly booed him when they showed him on the jumbotron. later someone caught him dozing off in the luxury suite box. i had a feeling trump was going to jinx the home team, and sure enough, the knicks lost tonight. it was close though, the game wasn't decided until the final seconds. now the pressure is on the knicks to win game 4, otherwise they return to san antonio tied up 2-2 and anything could happen. does the trump curse extend through the rest of the playoff? if knicks do lose game 4, consider me a believer.

for some reason i went to bed very late last night, 3:40am. to make matters worse, i woke up early as well, 8:40am, having slept for just 5 hours. i got up early so i could go down to the community garden and finally plant something. in years past, if you didn't have something planted by the end of may, you could lose your plot due to neglect. under new committee management, the rules aren't as strict, or maybe they identify me as one of the veteran gardeners and allowed to have a pass.

i ended up walking down to the garden because i had to carry a box of seedlings. i also brought some old espoma organic fertilizer, not sure how effective it is now, the beneficial bacterias long since died, though the chemicals still remain. my plot wasn't in too bad a shape. a cursory glance might make you think i'd spent some time there, but a closer look reveals weeds and overgrown plants hanging into the paths.

the last time i was in the garden was more than 3 weeks ago, when i dropped off a bag of raised bed soil and some milk crates. my strategy was to mixed in some espoma fertilizer into the old soil of the grow bags, before adding in some new soil. one bag was enough to top off all the grow bags. i then planted my seedlings. there was enough grow bags for all the seedlings, with the exception of the two peppers (cayenne and serrano), which had to share a bag. i didn't plant them, will wait until i can get another pot. two of my grow bags were already filled with striped mallows; i didn't have the heart to pull them out, so i left them as is, added some fertilizer before refilling with new soil.

i ended up planting two tomatoes (cherry and a regular), one eggplant, 4 hyacinth beans (two per grow bag), a kabocha melon, and a butterfly pea. i probably have the smallest tomatoes/peppers/eggplants in the entire garden. dave already has flowers on his tomatoes with stalks the diameter of a dime. his eggplants are equally as impressive.

i did some weeding as well, pulling up mostly errant grasses. i got some clippers and trimmed the overgrown daylily leaves. i also transplanted a money plant and a striped mallow. my monkshood and asters are doing particularly well. once again i forgot to relocate my asters, don't know if it's already too late, or i'll just wait until next spring.

i finally finished by 11:30am. there was no one else in the garden. a topless boy sat at a bench listening to headphones when i first arrived. by the time i left, a gardener i didn't recognize came in to do some work, but she made no effort to greet me, so i reciprocated by ignoring her. must be one of the new gardeners.

i used the bathroom when i got home before taking a shower. i left the house by noontime via ebike, making a stop at the cafe to put away the tea eggs and leftover rice. my mother also asked me to locate the package of long grain rice i got her but she couldn't find anymore.

my parents made korean kimchi pancakes using store-bought kimchi and some korean pancake mix. every time i try commercial kimchi i think about making my own batch which always tastes so much better. this kimchi was mostly sour without a complexity of flavor. maybe i'll swing down to chinatown on wednesday to get some kimchi ingredients. anyway, there was a lot of kimchi pancakes. we ate without dipping sauce, so the pancake was a little bland.

out of curiosity, i went down to the basement to check on the hybrid hot water heater. there was already two buckets of condensation water. my father and i will need to install the condensate pump at some point soon. that will require upgrading the nearby switch to turn on the furnace to a switch/outlet combo. it should be fairly routine, but i don't know what the wiring conditions are like inside the junction box. that the heater is generating a lot of condensate is a good sign that it's also dehumidifying the basement, which is something we want.

my father and i went outside to do some planting. we set up the second sawhorse table with 3 boards underneath the second EMT conduit trellis. we filled large 10 gallon grow bags as well as 7 gallon plastic pots with compost and garden soil. a few of the grow bags my father added a plastic liner (upcycle some rice bags); he thinks the grow bags dry out too fast, some we're experimenting with plastic liner to see if that'll help. we also reused some old soil, revitalizing it by mixing in some osmocote slow release fertilizer pellets. we planted a single luffa gourd per container, but also planted 2 bitter melons and one kabocha squash.

it looked like it was going to rain in the afternoon, so i mowed the lawn (didn't mow last weekend because i was apply sedgehammer). while i did that, my father pruned the quince bush and planted a few luffas into the ground using a technique where he made bottomless pots using rice bags (he saw it online). this elevation gives the luffas more space to grow healthy roots. as soon as we finished, the darkening sky cleared up and it didn't look like it was going to rain anymore.

my sister showed up briefly with esmei. her dog made no effort to greet us, but instead walked to the backyard before bolting after seeing a rabbit. she spent the rest of the time hunting for rabbits (which she never found). earlier my father and i noticed a stink around the compost bin. we thought it was just fermenting grass, but there was a strange fishy smell which turned out to be a rotting squirrel. we dug a hole underneath the quince bush and buried it, nature's fertilizer. we were afraid esmei might dig up the dead body, but she was more preoccupied with rabbit scent.

we went inside around 4:30pm. we need to plant more seedlings tomorrow (into the raised beds), possible plant our bean seeds, and repotted a lot of the jasmines which have started to turn yellow from too much compact and soggy soil.

my mother made xinjing-style lamb rice for dinner. we never found the package of long-grain rice, but she had some old leftover rice she ended up using. the rice needed more salt to bring out the lamb flavor. i finally finished my bowl after my mother had already ate and left.

there was storm clouds approaching boston. it didn't look like it at the time, as it was still overcast but bright outside. i was going to wait it out, but decided i had enough time to get back home without getting soaked, so i packed up my things and left. there was a very faint drizzle, not even enough to wet my clothes, as i raced home on the ebike (i fully charged the battery earlier). google maps tracking said it took me just 10 minutes to get home. there was signs posted on signposts reserving a handful of parking spots in front of the house for sidewalk work all next week starting tomorrow.

it didn't actually start raining until 7pm. i know this because suddenly it got really dark. i looked out the living room window and saw some heavy showers. not sure if it'll make a dent in our local drought. rain isn't expected all next week, maybe a 40% chance of showers on thursday.

i woke up at 8am this morning to go pick up 2 watermelons on sale at star market before taking the ebike to belmont. i dropped off one watermelon and collected a box of seedlings to take back with me and plant in my own community garden. my mother was still asleep but my father was outside watering the plants. i didn't get back home until 9:30am, with just half an hour left to use the bathroom and take a shower before heading into boston for the annual pride parade.

today was my first time wearing shorts, with the temperature expected to peak in the 90's. i made sure to apply sunblock on my arms, legs, and my head. i left around 10am. this was my first time traveling with the ebike to the pride parade. i parked at my usual spot, on the corner of clarendon and columbus avenue.

i brought all my cameras - canon 80D dSLR, fuji 3D, gopro, insta360 - but the only one i used was my canon and occasionally some snapshots with the google pixel phone if i needed something wide angle. having had a lot of experience photographing parades, i only came with the 55-250mm lens. i also brought a container of ice water in my contigo travel tumbler.

the weather was perfect. because it was going to rain later (late afternoon to early evening), the sky was bright but overcast. that made for perfect exposure, and i could shoot on manual 1/1600 sec shutter with f/8 aperture. that setting offers maximum clarity with very fast shutter speed, the best for action. it only works when it's bright outside, like today.

i stood at my usual spot with half an hour to spare, on top of clarendon hill next to the mail box. it's a prime location and other photographers were crowding around me. across the street was the NBC boston broadcast truck with a camera live streaming the parade. i probably got on camera a few times, i'll be sure to check when i get the chance.

i didn't bother going down to the procession line by copley square to get a sneak peek of what to expect. i figured i'd be surprised today. pride is the one parade that always start on time (i blame the lesbians). motorcycle cops, followed by the lesbian bikers, then the gay bikers. right away i knew the chinese man standing next to me was going to be a problem. from his size and his thick accent, he was probably from northeast china. it was probably his first pride parade, because he photographed everything. he had an annoying habit of jumping out to the middle of the street then retreating back, blocking my shot multiple times, until he was basically just standing in front of me. i almost yelled at him a few times, and decided if he was going to speak with me i'd pretend i couldn't speak chinese. it looked like he had a canon RF 14-35mm L lens on a beefy mirrorless body. that's actually the wrong lens to use, since it's wide angle and you can't pick people out of the crowd and capture details like a telephoto lens. fortunately after about 30 minutes, he moved elsewhere. he was with his chinese wife (who was snapping away on her phone) and what appeared to be his caucasian son-in-law who spoke chinese to him.

the pride parade features all the usual groups: politicians, churches, schools, corporations, LGBT organizations, you name it. with so many gay couples getting married and having families, pride has become more family-friendly in recent years. maybe that's why this year some of the more risque elements - gogo boys, stripper poles - have disappeared, relegated to 21+ after parties.

there's also the free stuff. beads of course, but also sunglasses, bubble bottles, pencils, fans, flags, stickers, candy, and literature. there was a time where you could collect a year's worth of condoms and lubes but those are rare giveaways nowadays. i myself tried to collect beads of every color (i cheated when i got a rainbow colored one).

mayor michelle wu was there. i've seen her a bunch of parades over the years, and she always has the same few outfits she wears every time. i know mayors probably don't get a wardrobe budget, and seeing her in the same few outfits give her a "common man" appeal, but maybe try a few new accessories. lieutenant governor kim driscoll was there, i even shook her hand when she went into politician mode. governor healey was there too but she was in the other side of the street mobbed with people and i only caught a fleeting glimpse, not enough to photograph. senator ed markey was there. it's an election year for him so he basically had to be there, plus congressman seth moulton is challenging him in the primary. moulton's reason for challenging markey is because he's too old and should let someone else (younger) take the helm. let the voters decide then. i'm voting for markey because he has the experience. moulton showed up later in the procession, a much smaller group compared to markey. elizabeth warren was surprisingly absent. honestly, i haven't seen much of her, not even on the political news channels.

my little hilltop perch was starting to get crowded so i decided to meander downhill, see what else was coming, change the scenery. i fast walked back uphill when i saw the tj maxx procession arriving. they were handing out plastic tote bags, i managed to grab one.

the procession finished by 1:20pm, continuing down to the south end and looping back up berkeley street. in years past i'd catch the end of the procession a second time on berkeley, but i didn't think year because the ebike was too much of a hassle to lock up. i continued down columbus avenue, and swung to ming's market via arlington street. (next time i'll try a shortcut, i actually went the long way which i didn't mind).

ming's market was too busy on a saturday afternoon. i had all my beads on, nobody said anything. chinese people are notorious for keeping to themselves and minding their own business. they might gossip, but they'd never actually confront me, ask why i had all those beads. i was here to collect a few cafe supplies: pickled daikon radish, raw daikon radish, eggplants.

after ming's market i went into chinatown proper, to hong kong eatery, to pick up some thai-style chicken feet for myself ($6/box) and some duck for my mother ($20 half a duck). i could see some pride parade goers in chinatown, but nobody was crowding hong kong eatery. i picked up my order and continue to my next destination.

from chinatown to haymarket i relied on my past experience of working in boston. i skirted by downtown crossing, then cut through post office square to get to faneuil hall and haymarket. i was thinking coming on saturday afternoon would showcase some last minute deals, but the prices and selection were mostly the same compared to my early friday morning visits. my haul: 2 lbs. ginger ($3), 2 lbs. of cherry ($5), 2 pineapples ($5), 3 bags of cherries ($3), 4 packages of baby cucumbers ($6), 2 bunches of cilantro ($1), 10 clementines oranges ($2). fitting everything into the back of my ebike and my messenger bag took a while. i put the cucumbers, cherries, and eggplants into my bag because those were most delicate. everything else i crammed into the rear basket, securing a bungie netting to make sure nothing popped out.

i made my way back through the west end. i was almost to lechmere when i realized the neoprene cover for my dSLR camera that i was wearing (because no more room in my bag) was gone. it must've fallen off. so i traced my steps, went all the way back to haymarket, didn't find the cover. i continued home.

since it was almost 4pm, i decided to stop by the cafe. i presented my haul to my parents and 2nd aunt. looking in one of the grocery bags, i saw my missing camera pouch. i must've put it inside thinking i still might take some photos on the way home. so i backtracked for nothing! it was another busy day. my 2nd aunt ended up taking home a bag of cherries and some oranges. my mother gave me some frozen dumplings for dinner.

my mother told me esmei was home alone and asked me to go check up on her. i found her sleeping in her spot in the living room where her tent used to be. she perked up and immediately went to the back door, assuming i was there to play with her. we played fetch and tug with a rubber ball. we only played a few times before she got bored and didn't bother chasing after the ball. i coaxed her back inside and gave her some treats before leaving. my sister happened to be coming back right when i was about to leave.

first thing i did when i got home was to take a shower. not only to wash off the sweat, but the oily layer of sunscreen. i scrubbed thoroughly, but i could still feel some oily patches on my skin (will probably need a second shower).

i had some leftover ajvar with pita bread as a snack. actually more like lunch since i didn't eat anything all day. afterwards i had some thai chicken feet. the rain that was supposed to fall by late afternoon didn't show up, even though i felt a few drops riding back from boston. lounging on the couch i felt like taking a nap but didn't. i ended up downloading the photos i took today, around 2700 - all on one single brand new battery.

i saw on the webcam my father building the second set of sawhorses using the brackets i bought from the newton hardware store on wednesday. i'm starting to think brackets are the way to go because they're lighter and can be adjusted for height and width. if we don't like our I-beam sawhorses we can always take them apart and reuse them with sawhorse brackets.

i wasn't very hungry in the evening even though i still didn't really eat anything substantial all day. instead of dumplings, i ended up just having some simple instant noodle with an egg.

it did rain a little bit later in the evening, but nothing significant, just a shower to wet the landscape. it lowered the outdoor temperature by 10 degrees (68) while it remains 78 inside my house.

i finished the evening by watching to live and die in LA on pluto.tv. that's such a weird movie, i learn something new with every viewing.

i went to the harvard vanguard pharmacy this morning to pick up a few prescriptions for my parents before arriving at the cafe. every day this week has been busy and today was no different. it started slow, and by afternoon it looked average at best, but after 5pm we got really busy again.

my sister was out all day shopping. she came back with some food she bought (lychees, rambutans) but i wanted no part of it. first because i was so busy i couldn't even think about eating, but second i resented her for not working while we slave away all day. she kept talking about the renovations but i could care less and basically ignored her whenever she brought it up. i'm here to work, not to listen to her bullshit, or eat the crap she buys because she feels guilty seeing us working while she's out having fun.

it was so busy i made 4 batches of black soy noodles. the final batch was actually for tomorrow since i won't be here (i'll be at the pride parade). while my parents went home, i stayed behind for an extra 15 minutes to wait for the noodles to cool before putting them in the fridge. i also made 10 boxes of ice cubes, 2 batches of dumplings, and a new batch of tea eggs.

i found some hard cider waiting for me on my backyard porch, courtesy of my upstairs neighbor jeff. i thought he was going home (california) today because i saw him leave this morning with a suitcase, but he texted me that he's leaving tomorrow, coming back wednesday.

for dinner i cooked the last 3 of my mini burgers. still 475 degrees on the smokeless foreman grill, but only 2 minutes this time. even that was still too much, the meat thermometer read 175+ degrees when 140 degrees was the done temperature.

tonight's main event was game 2 between the knicks and spurs. first half was mostly spurs, but they started to wane by halftime, and the knicks took the lead in the second half. spurs had the perfect opportunity to win the game with just 9 seconds left and the score tied, but wembanyama carelessly through a pass to castle who wasn't looking, and brunson got the ball back. not sure if i said this the last time, but the way spurs play reminds me of the celtics, relying too much on three's (which they weren't making). in the second half the spurs started attacking the basket more, while new york went on a cold streak, which allowed them to get back into the game (only to lose yet again). that, plus inexperience, has put san antonio in a tough spot, down 0-2, and heading to new york on monday for game 3. in NBA playoff history, 5 teams have come back to win the series after being down 0-2 at home. unfortunately a 0-2 home loss team has never won the final. maybe the spurs might make some history, but these past 2 games have been so awful, i starting to doubt their chances.