after watering my yard i headed to the community garden. an old white-haired chinese lady - whom i didn't recognize - wearing pajamas and big sunglasses called my name. it was liting's mother. how so managed to recognize me after all these years (20 years?) is a mystery. she came to check up on liting's garden. "where's your garden?" she asked me. when i showed her she couldn't hide her disappointment. "your plants are so tall!" she said. before she left, she told me she had a bunch of used kitchen tools they're trying to get rid of, and maybe the cafe might want them. i told her she could just drop them off at the store. "you have to come pick them up," she told me, "some of them are very heavy." i told her i didn't have a car but i'd come check out what she had when i had time.

i had a busy morning. on top of making a new batch of tea eggs and cooking up a new batch of black soy noodles, i was also keeping an eye on the ice machine that i remotely turned on early this morning. when there was a lull by 10:15am, i took the chance and raced to my parents' house via bike to grab the 3 jars of fermenting long beans and bring them back to the cafe. the whole trip took half an hour. while i was there, i saw the jar of water that i dropped 3 butterfly pea flowers into last night. it was only faintly blue last night, but after steeping overnight, the water was now deep blue.

i got the jars of beans because i wanted to add more salt. i based my salt ratio to the amount of water when i should've based it on water + beans. each jar (minus the jar) weighed around 850g. to make a 2% brine solution, i needed to add 17g of salt total, which is about 1 tbsp. luckily i wrote down how much water is in each jar. from that number i could figure out how much salt was already in the mix and how much more i needed to add. the jar with the most amount of water - meaning the least amount of beans - was 600g. i'd already added 20g of salt, so already over the 17g. the remaining two jars - 400g and 300g of water respectively, i needed to add 5g and 8g to reach 17g.

i was just going to pour the extra salt on top, but my father suggested i pour out the water and mix in the salt to dissolve it, before pouring the brine back into the jar. now we just have to wait for the long beans to turn sour before we can eat them.

since this was the last week of august and sort of the official last week of the summer, we figured it'd be a slow week as customers leave for one last vacation. so we were caught off guard when we got super busy between 12-2pm. just non-stop order after order. today was also a good day in that these weren't single item orders, but multiple-item orders. even though those are more work, we get paid more per customer. after 2pm though, the customers dried up. we got a few more orders, but nothing like during lunchtime. we sold a good amount of bento boxes but noodles were the most popular items. i ended up having to make 3 batches of noodles, and even though by day's end i was thinking about making another batch since we wouldn't have enough for tomorrow.

a pair of salespeople came to the cafe in the afternoon, talked up a storm with my father. the kind of salespeople that do most of the talking and you're too polite to tell them to go away. but father ended up giving them his credit card number to sign up for amazon prime business for $10 for one year (special promotion). we typically don't get cafe supplies from amazon, since we buy in bulk. the only time we ever bought supplies from amazon was during the pandemic and the supply chain shortage. we paid 2-3x more than normal, but we had no choice. who knows, if my father can make back the $10 in savings it won't be a total loss. things like office supplies or kitchen equipment might have special prime business discounts.

in the afternoon i heard the news: dolly parton passed away age 80. i first became aware of dolly parton in the 80's, when there was a resurgence of country music. artists like dolly, as well as kenny rogers and barbara mandrell were mainstream and very popular. i remember watching an HBO special concert featuring dolly parton with my maternal grandparents. i remember vividly my grandmother remarking, "her breasts are so big!" you will be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn't love dolly parton.

we finished petsi's blueberry pie. i read fruit pies taste better when warm, so i told my mother to heat her slice in the microwave. petsi's instruction said 1 minute but my mother went with 30 seconds. her pie basically melted when she took it out of the oven. so warming it up might not be the best idea. i brought some häagen-dazs vanilla bean ice cream to scoop on top of the pie. it tasted better this time - not so much the pie, but rather the ice cream.

i got some disposable gloves for the cafe. we have a box of TPE gloves which are really good. so i ordered some more, but in a small size. they arrived today. they fit well except they're a little tight across the palm. next time order the medium.

i went home with leftovers again: minced beef with flat beans and a good amount of pickled mustard. when i got home the first thing i did was to inspect the backyard demolition. they cleared out more of the basement space and emptied the dumpster. the other thing i did was i got some triflow oil and i greased the joints on my rear folding bike baskets. they haven't been used in a long time, so the hinges don't open as smoothly anymore. after i oiled them though, the baskets fold like butter now.

i ate dinner while watching the red sox marlins game. the game went into extra innings. just when it looked like the red sox were going to win, the marlins tie the game in the 10th inning. there would be no comeback for the marlins in the 11th, when jarren duran hit a grand slam to put the red sox 7-3. nevertheless, marlins continued to press, even loading the based at the bottom of the 11th. they didn't score, red sox won the game. a good night for boston as both the rays and yankees lose. red sox is now list 1-1/2 games behind the yankees, and 5 games behind first place rays. red sox have 32 more games left in the regular season. can they potentially reach first place?

i had a few hours monday morning to run some errands. i watered my back and front yard before fertilizing some plants with basic miracle-gro water soluble fertilizer. i also fertilized the hot pepper growing on the top deck, but i used balanced garden vegetable fertilizer instead.

next i went to the community garden to water my plants and fertilize as well. here i used the balanced fertilizer. i collected a bunch of cherry tomatoes, a few eggplants, and my one kabocha squash. coming back i came across a food scale somebody had thrown out.

when i got home i tried turning on the food scale but it didn't work. the CR2025 battery was dead. fortunately i had a spare. however when i popped it in, it gave me a low battery error then turned off. maybe the scale got waterlogged from the rain yesterday and needs some time to dry out. later i learned it actually uses a CR2032 battery. i ordered a pair from amazon, due to arrive wednesday.

i oiled the chain on my marin and ebike using wax lube. i then took the marin out on more errands. i went to whole foods to return a few things (small combination chain lock and 100ft of 1/4" green irrigation tubing). i came back and stopped at star market to look for some blue and purple gatorade on sale. they didn't have what i wanted. i stopped by petsi's pies and bought a medium blueberry pie. i asked the cashier if these were wild blueberries, she didn't some to know, but did say they were tiny (so wild).

i left my house via ebike. i was trying something new with the gopro camera, mounted it on a bike helmet i found. i took a time warp video of my ride. i really like the result, a lot more immersive, shows what i see when i ride a lot better than handlebar mounted. it did catch the front of the helmet visor, but i just had to tip up the camera. i stopped at the cafe to defrost the foods we'll need for tomorrow. i watered the outdoor plants by pitcher since i figured they were still wet from the rain yesterday. my mother also asked me to grab a few frozen sesame pastries. there were 3 passion flowers today, maybe a 4th that didn't quite open yet.

i got to my parents' place around noontime. i rode pretty slow because i didn't want to jostle the blueberry pie in my rear basket. i was also carrying several 1L bottles of seltzer and a few 32 oz. mason jars for fermenting our long beans.

when i got to belmont my mother frantically told me my father invited my aunt and matthew over to check out the backyard garden and pick up some vegetables while she was busy cleaning the house. when i went outside, the rotting squirrel smell was gone. when they arrived, we gave them some broad beans (blue beans), some bitter melons, and one more luffa. unfortunately we didn't have anymore long beans to spare (they taste better after fermenting first anyway). my aunt left because she had a doctor's appointment, but matthew stuck around a few minutes more to see what we were growing. matthew also told us he figured out how to fix those expanding hoses (my replacing the inner tubing) and could help us fix ours.

we finally had some lunch around 1pm. i had a bowl of leftover sauerkraut soup with a sesame pastry. it was one of the sweet sesame paste filling variety, i prefer the savory type.

i realized i left my laptop at home. no wonder my backpack felt so light today.

my sister came by to washing her blankets and to drop off esmei while she went to have dinner with a friend around 4pm. we thought she'd come back around 6pm - esmei's feeding time - but she didn't get back until after 7:30pm. i felt bad for esmei since my sister didn't prepare any food for her. but esmei didn't complain, she basically slept for most of the time she was here.

we tried petsi's blueberry pie. it looked good, but tasted a little bland. they probably wanted to keep it natural by not adding any extra sugar and preserving the wild blueberries natural flavors, but it wasn't what my mother had in mind, not like the wild blueberry pie she had up in maine which she said was the best she's ever had. we had some whip cream but it was old so the cream came out as a sludge instead of something puffy. later i learned that you're supposed to heat the pie. maybe it'll taste better when warmed up.

my mother finally pan-fried the package of stinky tofu my sister bought from h-mart. it was a little dry - not like freshly fried stinky tofu - but it had the proper amount of stink and tasted pretty good. we paired it up with some vietnamese garlic chili hot sauce and my homemade taiwanese paocai.

in the early evening i finally got around to fermenting a bunch of long beans. a 32 oz. jar can hold 25 strands of long beans. i did what i did last year, which was to fill the jar with water (along the the beans), pour out the water to measure it's weight, then add 3% of that weight as salt. e.g. 300g of water i would add 9g of salt. to each jar i also added a few rock sugar, some sichuan peppercorn, and a dash of chinese baijiu. i had a problem wrapping my head around figuring out the salt ratio by water weight alone. wouldn't that mean the more beans in a jar would have less water, and less water means less salt, even though more means require more salt? it just doesn't make sense. later i learned that you can also figure out the salt ratio from total weight: beans + water. that gives a more consistent result. so i'll probably need to add more salt to the jars. that makes more sense, because in the past my fermented long beans have been too bland. the reason i now know is because i got the salt ratio wrong, based it on water weight instead of total weight.

my mother made fried rice for dinner with more leftover cafe rice. my sister still didn't come back for esmei by the time i left.

after a shower i watched the red sox marlins game in miami. this one wasn't as exciting as friday night's game, but the game was tied going into the 9th inning and once again boston managed to score and win, 4-2. are the marlins any good? i had to look up their record, totally forgot they won the 2003 world series against the yankees. this was after the yankees beat the red sox in 7 games, which was the fire boston needed to come back and beat the yankees in 7 games the following year, to finally win the world series and break the curse. but seems like 2003 was the last time the marlins were relevant.

i typically don't get to my parents' place on sundays until around noontime, but the weather forecast said there might be a good chance of rain starting at 11am, so i quickly packed up my things. i saw margot in her backyard and she introduced me to dede, her new blue roan cocker spaniel. her previous dog beau died from cancer age 10. this one was just a puppy and chews on everything and isn't house trained yet. i had to hose off some residual dog poop from the front entrance of our alleyway. i took the ebike and headed to the cafe.

i put the tea eggs away in a container, there were just 5. i then watered the outdoor plants. yes it might rain, but it might also stay dry, better safe than sorry. there were 3 passion flowers today.

i made it to belmont before 11am. the rain that was forecasted to fall all but disappeared. judging from the doppler radar though, there was still a solid wall of rain heading our way, just delayed. my mother was busy outside harvesting a bunch of long beans. my father was inspecting the luffas, making sure they grow down from the trellis instead of resting on it. all the bokchoi i planted on wednesday had already sprouted, but the cilantro was still a no show. there was a strong rotting odor in the backyard, but we couldn't figure out where it came from. there weren't any mosquitoes at first, but once they found us, we went back inside.

for lunch my mother made a sauerkraut soup with tofu puffs and fish balls. she also made korean kimchi pancakes.

the rain didn't fall until 12:30pm, and lasted for about 90 minutes. roughly 0.40 inches of rain fell, courtesy of our neighbor's weather station which we can access the data via the public tempest weather map. that was enough to fill all our empty rain barrels to the midway mark (12 barrels total). my father said that's enough for 4 waterings, at the rate we're currently using our water daily.

once the rain stopped and the sun came out i went outside to look for rainbows. the rain clouds had already moved off by then so there was nothing interesting in the sky. i think maybe if i had my drone i could probably spot some rainbows on the distant horizon.

my father found the source of rotting smell: a dead square in the ivy batch below the cypress tree. it must've been dead for a while, swarming with flies, its stomach bloated, a hole into its body cavity filled with swarming maggots. when you see something like that, its best to not look at it directly, don't want to be scarred with that image. i scooped it up with a shovel while my father used another shovel to clear away the ivy vines. we then buried it underneath the hawthorn tree.

my father and i did a bit of rain barrel maintenance in the late afternoon. our open-mesh-top red catch barrel by the sunroom corner fills up with rain very quickly. however, it's only connected to one other rain barrel (black). it should be connected to multiple barrels to quickly divert the water before the catch barrel overflows and runs off the water. so that's what we did. we had to make a new 9ft length of garden hose to reach the catch barrel to one of our black barrels. we trimmed off a 9ft length from the spool of used garden hose i found a few months ago. that old hose was a little stiff, so my father dipped the ends in boiling water to soften them up before he attached the brass female hose ends. it took some fiddling - like changing out the rubber washers - to get everything to finally work and not leak. the next time it rains the water will be split to two different barrels.

i watched the second half of the third red sox giants game, broadcasting on NBC this time. red sox won 4-5. unfortunately both the rays and yankees also won their games, so no change in the standings. red sox have a 3 game series against the florida marlins starting tomorrow. i fell asleep on the zero gravity chair at one point, waking up to numb arms.

for dinner my mother made a chicken and basil stirfry and more of that leftover sauerkraut soup from earlier. i left soon after i finished eating, around 6:30pm. it was a little chilly riding back but i didn't mind.

my father came to pick me up this morning at 8:30am for a baifu/chinatown supply run. my mother opted not to join us. we went to baifu first, where we bought $600 worth of supplies. their dumpling freezer was completely broken (taped shut with do not open signs and encased in melted ice) so we asked the freezer warehouse himself to get what we wanted. my father had a shopping list while i just relied on memory. our cart attendant was the chubby short guy. he seemed a bit lazy, not packing up our stuff until the cashier had to remind him.

now that the summer is close to over, mass & cass is slowly reverting back to its old ways. yes there was still police presence, yes there was needle sweeps, but here and there i saw some outdoor drug users.

next stop was ming's market in chinatown's outskirts. being the only existing supermarket in chinatown (i'm not counting jaihe because it's so tiny), it's super busy on the weekends. we came here primarily to get taiwanese cabbages for making taiwanese paocai. at first we thought they didn't have any in stock - only regular cabbage and napa cabbage. but then i stopped them on the end of the aisle, on sale for 59¢/lbs. i grabbed 6 heavy ones and one smaller one for my mother. there was also a sale on bitter melons, $1.49/lbs. we didn't need any, just admired their size, about the shape of an adult's forearm. all 12 cash registers were opened today. they also had some taiwanese fishnacks on sale, i grabbed 6 packages.

we arrived at the cafe by 10:30am. my mother was already there, having walked from home. before we even opened, there was already two pending online takeout orders waiting for us. that was a sign it was going to be a busy day. that first hour was insane. on top of the online orders, we had a bunch of walk-in customers. it fooled us into thinking it'd be busy all day, so we cooked an additional 4 cups of rice and two batches of dumplings. however it never got that busy again. there was a slight uptick between 1-2pm, but otherwise it was a quiet day. nevertheless, this was our second busiest day this week, and put us into a pretty profitable week total. this is good because i don't expect is to be too busy next week, the final week of august.

on top of working today, i was also in charge of making a new batch of paocai. my father helped me at 1pm by quartering all the cabbages. my mother then helped me shredded the cabbage by hand. close to closing time i drained the cabbage. i waited until we closed before i added the sugar and vinegar and mixed the cabbage. the next step was to put everything into containers. because we came to the cafe directly from boston, i wasn't able to go home first and get my bike. my father wanted to offer me a ride, but i told them to leave first and i would just walk home afterwards. after dropping off my 2nd aunt, my parents came back to make some chinese dumplings. by the time they left i was almost done with the paocai, already moved them into containers. i ended up with 13 containers today, from 23 lbs. of cabbage. i didn't leave the cafe until 5:20pm, and didn't get home until 5:50pm.

i came home with a bunch of leftovers: grilled chicken wings, tea eggs, leek soup. i seem to be the only one drinking the leek soup. it's really good, not sure if it's the leek or the smoked ham or a combination of both. if i see leek for sale again at haymarket, i'm going to buy again. the tea eggs were old ones from last week that are still good, but not entirely fresh. since eggs are so cheap now, it's better to offer customers freshly made eggs.

i ate dinner while watching the second red sox giants game starting at 7pm (another rare time when the game was broadcasted on the local fox channel). what a great game! boston trailed throughout, down 0-2, though they had multiple chances to score. likewise san francisco, but boston's defense kept the game close. red sox in glorious fashion managed to then score 3 runs in the 9th inning including a forced run to homeplate that was called safe to end the game.

while watching the game i was finally able to distill what baseball is all about: hope. each inning, each at bat, you're hoping your team will score. most times they don't, but when it happens, that kind of fulfillment is addictive, almost makes you want to believe in a higher power. overall a good night for the red sox, as the yankees lose to the blue jays and the orioles beat tampa bay rays. red sox are currently 3 games behind the yankees, while the yankees are just 3 games behind the first place AL east rays.

it rained overnight and there was still a slight sprinkle this morning. i climbed the porch to see the demolition house: the kitchen area has been completely razed. i left for the cafe wearing my rain jacket, a watermelon in my backpack. when i arrived at the cafe i asked my father how much we managed to collect in the barrels. he said only 2 days worth. hopefully we get more rain over the weekend.

the batch of tea eggs i made yesterday we already started using this morning. i ended up making another batch. this one i only simmered for an hour, since it's going to steep over the weekend and won't be using it until the middle of next week. i also made a lot of black soy noodles today, 3 additional batches on top of the two we had in the fridge.

my eyes started itching yesterday and my throat felt weird overnight. i took a generic CVS zertec which made me feel better. seems like the fall allergy season is upon us. i haven't seen any ragweed but obviously they're out already.

i got a scam call at the cafe, said they were from eversource, letting me know they're going to shut down the electricity in an hour. i wasn't sure if it was legit or not. the guy i spoke with gave me a case number. before he could continue, i asked him if there was a number i could call. so i became unwittingly entrapped in his scam. he gave me a 617 number. before i could call though, i looked up the number online, and the first thing that came up said it was a scam number, used for phishing. i almost fell for it! but it just seemed too fishy. any kind of utility work, eversource always notifies us in writing weeks in advance. they don't just randomly call an hour before they cut the power. this is going to make me even more vigilant. if i have the slightly hint it's a scam call, i'll hang up immediately.

we were busy between 11am to 3pm. nothing too crazy, just a steady stream of customers. today ended up being the busiest day this week. if we continue this trend tomorrow, it'll end the week on a good note. my father and i will make a baifu/chinatown run tomorrow morning before we open the cafe at 11am. i went down to the basement to make a mental inventory of the things we need. my aunt showed up in the late morning. she'd already ate, but left with an assortment of goodies including scallion bread my mother made this morning and some pickled bitter melon.

i've been repeatedly refreshing the amazon listing for "pixel 9 pro 256gb unlocked". inventory disappears and then comes back, prices fluctuates depending on which models are available. i ended up buying a renewed excellent condition obsidian phone for $555, or $590 after taxes. the weird thing is won't arrive until september 9th to october 9th. i'll keep on checking the listing for something with a quicker delivery or a lower price.

some commotion in the early evening, as several police cars were parked outside the cafe. they seemed to be speaking with an older man riding a cruiser motorcycle (honda magna). the commotion took a long time to resolve, ending in a tow truck coming to take the motorcycle away. i went outside to ask one of the cops what happened. he told me the biker went down the wrong way on a one way street, which is cause for a ticket. when they pulled him over though, they discovered he didn't have a license. that's why they towed the bike.

i came home with a bento of stirfried blue beans with leftover zongzi pork and another leftover stirfry of tofu and peppers. it wasn't anything special, feel like my dinners have all been a series of leftovers. i can't remember the last time i cooked anything! i didn't eat dinner until 8:30pm, while watching a stream of the red sox game against the giants in fenway. it was the return of rafael devers, who hit a solo homerun. but the giants lost anyway, 4-6.

i noticed this morning the contractors had already removed all the solar panels from the demolishing house. i'm curious what they did with it? i watered my own yard then the community garden plot before continuing to the cafe. passing through observatory hill, i saw groups of harvard freshmen going on their camping trip. half a dozen yellow school buses were waiting for them.

my sister wasn't home this morning but told us to walk esmei. my mother volunteered. she got esmei as far as the cafe before she wouldn't go any farther. my father had to take over. once they came back, my mother fed esmei an egg before my father took her back home.

two passion flowers bloomed in the late morning. it gave me a chance to try out the camera on the pixel 9 pro, particularly its macro capabilities. i decided to return the phone and get another one, hopefully without a scratched screen. it'll probably set me back an extra $80 but i know looking at the scratch everyday will drive me crazy.

i cooked a new batch of tea eggs, a new batch of boba pearls, and 2 batches of black soy noodles. we were busy around lunchtime, then no business in the afternoon. that also happened to be the time when my godmother showed up. she left with a bunch of gifts: luffas, blue beans, pickled onions. we picked up a few more customers before the day ended, including our weekly regular crystal, meeting a friend but got her days wrong. they stayed until we closed. we made above our daily average, but more importantly, we beat last thursday's earning.

my 2.6 ft 4mm bike combination chain lock (NDakter brand) arrived at the end of the day. i went to my siter's place to pick it up. 4mm links is too flimsy (feels really light), i'm going to upgrade to the 6mm chain. i'm just going to use it to lock up my front wheel so it doesn't get stolen. i could also replace the quick release with a security skewer.

i left at 6:30pm why my parents waited for crystal and her friend to finish up. i was also eager to get home before it started raining. the forecast kept getting pushed back, but looking at the clouds outside it seemed like it might rain at any moment. i got home without getting wet. it didn't rain until after 7pm.

i came home with a bento of stir-fried tofu and long beans my father made. this was our first harvest of long beans. in the past we'd ferment them first for a crispy sour taste, but this was one of the rare times where we used them fresh. chopped into segments, they sort of look like garlic scapes, without any of the garlic flavor.

i ordered the $12 handlebar from aliexpress. if it's no good i can always put it on one of my lesser bicycles. if it does turn out to be a bargain, i might order another one. it should arrive by month's end.

i'm looking forward to tomorrow, one of the rare mornings where i don't have to water since it'll rain overnight.

i've had itchy blisters on my hands for the past few weeks. mostly on my left hand on the meaty part below my thumb, but new blisters have formed on the side of my hand as well. i think the culprit is the watering spray gun, i'm allergic to the cheap chinese plastic/rubber. so starting today i'm wearing gloves before i water. i watered the back and front yard before taking the marin bike to the community garden to water there. i also brought a solution of calcium chloride to spray on my tomatoes, which still continue to get blossom end rot. by the time i was in the garden it was already 10am and getting hot. i wasn't sure if i should spray, but did it anyway.

next i went to market basket to get some supplies. i took the ebike because i figured i'd go to the cafe afterwards then to belmont to do some gardening. i stopped by whole foods first to return a 100 amp solar panel disconnect switch. i forgot i can't lock my ebike to the market basket bike stand with a u-lock because i can only lock it from the center post. fortunately there wasn't anyone else parked there at the time so i parked leaning against the bike stand, taking up 3 spots. i got milks and orange juice, salt, sugar, corn starch and a large jug of vinegar. i was carrying so much in my basket i wished i pushed a cart instead.

i stopped by the house to drop off a jar of salsa before continuing to the cafe. i got there a bit after 11am. i drop off the supplies. my pixel 9 pro arrived last night, my father brought it to the cafe. i took one look at it and realized there was a deep scratch on the screen. for a refurbished in excellent condition, there shouldn't be any screen scratches. so already i was thinking about i returning it.

i took the new phone and continued to belmont. at my parents' place was my latest aliexpress order. just little bits and pieces, like bolts, a helmet gopro strap, a vegetable peeler, a mi fitness band charging adapter. i also bought a pair of replacement wrist straps for the mi band but i ordered black and got purple instead. i contacted aliexpress to return them.

i set the new pixel phone as an unregistered user just to test it out. it's not too different from my pixel 7, with the exception of the cameras. it has wide angle, 1x, 2x, 5x, and macro. it can also do 30x zoom through cropping. i went outside to take some test photos. i like the macro, made me realize how much i miss taking macro photos. the 5x optical zoom is also useful, gives me better reach. the colors on the pixel 9 pro seem better than on my pixel 7, but could just be because of the screen, which is brighter on the new phone.

another reason why i came to belmont was to recharge the battery on my ebike. i wanted to take a ride to everett-malden-medford, and needed a fully charged battery. i estimate it'd take 2 hours to fully charge from 60%, so i had some time to kill.

i decided to fly the drone to check out some neighboring constructions. i also checked out the large oak tree in our neighborhood. it's easily the largest tree in the area, but we were always curious as to how tall it actually was. one way to estimate is to fly the drone so i was horizontal with the top of the tree. the drone told me it was about 85 feet. a tree that tall is typically 80-150 years old. i also checked out our backyard garden from above. the trellis takes up a good portion of the lawn.

i used two grow bags to plant some seeds. these were grow bags that used to support kabocha squashes before all they died. i sifted the soil to loosen it, added some osmocote slow release fertilizer pellets, then added a new top layer of potting soil. in one grow bag i planted some cilantro seeds (slow bolt variety), in another grow bag i had some bokchoi.

with my ebike battery fully charged, it was time to go. i left by 2pm. it was a little late and i wasn't sure if i still had time to go on my little biking adventure. besides, today was a hot day, not a good idea to be out in the sun for hours.

i got back home. i packed up my things ready to go back out again, but decided i wasn't in the mood for a long bike ride. maybe saturday after work, or maybe next wednesday. instead i grabbed the marin and went down to harvard square to visit michael. the nose pad on my glasses went missing and i was hoping he could replace it. i replaced it with a smaller pad from an older pair of glasses, but that one didn't pivot as well. michael replaced it right away, glasses good as new. he also gave me a few spare nose pads for future fixes. i would've stayed longer to chat, but a customer came in, so i told him i'd come back another time. i saw his gazelle dutch-style bicycle sitting outside.

coming home, decided to take a detour to market basket again. my mother forgot to ask me to get some carrots, so i went back. i didn't have my grocery bags, but market basket has free paper bags. it gave me a chance to test out the new folding baskets on my marin bicycle (wasn't able to test them out this morning because i took my ebike). i grabbed some sushi for lunch. the baskets are big enough to fit a single paper grocery bag each. fit them better than my wald dual rear baskets; yes those things can fit more, but they're tapered at the bottom so sometimes i have to readjust my groceries. not the case for these folding baskets, they fit a grocery bag perfectly.

it was almost 4pm by the time i got home. the contractors were still working, chatting loudly, but it seemed like they were winding down for the day. after a quick shower to wash off my sweat stink, i had the spicy tuna roll for a late lunch.

i continued testing the pixel 9 pro camera. it's pretty good for snapping photos of neighbors from my living room window. the pixel 7 with it's 2x zoom barely has any reach. the 5x on the pixel 9 pro offers more opportunities, and the 30x digital zoom isn't bad either if you don't push it to its maximum and there's good lighting.

i'm closer to buying a new handlebar for my marin bike. amazon carries the sunlite northroad touring handlebar which i really like. they come in two materials - chrome plated steel ($31) or aluminum ($39). the chrome is more durable but heavier and might potentially rust. the aluminum is lighter and rustproof but not as durable and cost more. while i continued searching, i came across a generic brand stainless steel handlebar for $17. it looks very similar to northroad handlebars. it had no reviews and would take about 10 days to arrive, meaning it's probably a direct shipment from china. as if it couldn't get any cheaper, i came across a black-painted aluminum northroad-style handlebar on aliexpress for just $12. later i went down to the basement and took measurements of all the handlebars to make sure i could actually use them. 25.4mm seems like a pretty standard size.

for dinner i ate the other leftover piece of steak. i ate it cold with some mango kefir drink.

i switched from my trek allant to my marin kentfield CS2. i grabbed the kryptonite kryptolok. because it's so thin, i can lock it between the two bars on my rear rack, a perfect storage place, no need to get a frame mount.

after watering, i added miracle-gro tomato plant food water soluble fertilizer, both in the lone pepper plant in my backyard as well as all my grow bag plants in the community garden. i used a rubber tub to mix the pink powder, with the garden hose in high blast to quickly dissolve everything.

i set the timer for the ice machine to start at 7:30am so we can already get some ice made before we even opened the cafe. i'm going to do this from now on, no reason why we have to be there for the ice machine to run. the only catch is sometimes the ice will get stuck in the tray, causing the machine to stop making ice until the obstruction is removed. that only happens when the ice machine is nearly full. i could probably start the ice machine at 6:30am and still be safe.

my father cooked two of the haymarket leeks. they had enough sugar that if he didn't stir them often enough in the pot, they'll scorch to the bottom. he also added some smoked ham. when the soup was finally done, nobody seemed interested in tasting it. i filled a small bowl for myself. it tasted like corn chowder, that rich and savory combined with a buttery sweetness. the ham added some salty flavor. is this what french onion soup tastes like?

6 passion flowers bloomed today. 3 of them were bunched together by the lantana.

today wasn't too hot - 70's - with a early day overcast that finally cleared up towards the later half of the day. i figured it might be a busy day so i set up the patio deck. the only person who used it was a hairdresser from next door who sat there during lunch surfing on her phone and drinking a miso soup.

we were busy during lunchtime, but business tapered off around 2pm. each hour afterwards business started to pick up again. we always had something to do so the day went by quick. during a brief period where my father was at my sister's place and my mother in the back calling my california aunt, i was in the charge of the cafe. a woman cafe in ordering some zhajiang noodles. she also wanted it to be spicy, "more than sriracha," she told me. that gave me the green light to show her my collection of homemade hot sauces. i gave her the chili oil sauce with sichuan peppercorn oil. she - martha - was also an architect and gave us some advice on how we could better display our cafe signs.

today wasn't our best day this month, but it ranked 4th, so not bad. here's hoping it's the start of a profitable week. it's probably the last week in august where we can expect to get good business. the final week of august everyone will be away on their last summer vacation week and i expect that week to be slow.

my parents stayed behind to eat some steamed red snappers for dinner. i left with leftover leek soup and two leftover steaks. the marin was effortless to ride, but the wide handlebars felt a little awkward; i should change them out the first chance i get. returning home, i picked up two wooden boxes somebody had tossed out. they were heavy, not wooden wine crates. if i wanted to convert them to bike baskets they might be a little too rugged. i could fill them with soil and turn them into plant boxes.

after a shower, i reheated the soup on the stove. i ate a piece of steak cold, too lazy to try and warm it up (afraid it might get too tough). i watched a streaming broadcast of the red sox diamondback game before i realized it was playing on our local channel 38. red sox won 9-4.

it rained overnight. not sure how much, but the sun shade over the backyard was sagging from rain drops and there were a few puddles in the streets. my parents came to pick me up at 10am for a supply run. my mother had to stop inside to use the bathroom.

first stop was the everett costco, not too many people on a monday morning. we came here for eggs, all 15 dozen. paying took a long time because my father got in a line behind two guys with platform trucks full of supplies.

next to went to nazar, the turkish supermarket in medford hidden off of river's edge drive. my parents were excited to see some of the foods they saw back in turkey, but the selection was underwhelming. things we were hoping to find - pomegranate tea, squash seeds, turkish delights, turkish pepper (nordic salty licorice) - they didn't have. the place wasn't entirely dead, about half a dozen customers came in while we were there. nazar also has a butcher deli and an adjoining cafeteria that sells homemade sweets like balkava. we bought a few things so we didn't leave empty handed, but the middle eastern-armenia-greek markets in belmont-watertown have better selection and closer to where we live. we parked in the parking garage (free) but found out later there were plenty of parking in front of the supermarket. there was also an adjoining park that looked promising.

from nazar it was just a short ride to malden 88 asian supermarket. there was a bunch of mini electric folding bikes parked outside. that seems to be a very popular mode of transportation for little asian ladies. i've always scoffed at the idea of these tiny folding ebikes, but i was examining one and it has a lot of features: disc brakes, front fork shocks and seatpost suspension. if it's cheap and functional, who cares if it looks dorky or like a child's toy? we bought a few things but i was in no mood for shopping as i needed to use the bathroom. seems like i wasn't the only one, as a white guy (looked like a tweaker) came up to me and asked if this place had a bathroom ("i was thinking the same thing," i told him). i told him to try the social security office next door.

our last stop was bianco & sons for chinese sausages. they only had a single box left. while coming down the stairs, my mother and i watched as my father nearly toppled over and smashed his head. fortunately he was holding on to the handrail.

we cut through davis square to get to the cafe. while my parents unloaded (we didn't really buy all that much), i had a chance to finally use the bathroom. we returned to belmont after we finished unloading.

my mother fried some slavic hunter sausages and eggs, as well as pan-frying some frozen gyozas we got from costco. the dumplings weren't anything special. we ate while watching a recording of the noontime channel 5 news broadcast.

my father didn't bother watering this morning, and turned off the drip irrigation as well, thinking that last night's rain was enough to satiate the plants. but when we looked outside, some of the luffa leaves were drooping, so we ran the drip irrigation for half an hour. last night's rain apparently wasn't quite enough. for next season, we either continue using these solar-powered drip irrigation system or figure out something more substantial if we want to continue planting in grow bags.

my sister briefly came home with esmei. i think she just comes to bitch about something, even though my parents would rather not listen to her complaining on their day off. i saw them coming and quickly lifted up the thawing chicken wings and steaks to higher grounds, so esmei wouldn't get to them like last time. she did something interesting today. there was a rabbit outside so i lifted her up so she could see. she didn't seem interested. later the rabbit came back, and esmei could smell it outside, so she hopped up to the window my herself so she could look at the rabbit. she didn't bark, showed me sign of emotion, but when i let her out into the backyard, she quickly chased after the rabbit.

my mother gave me a haircut. the last time i had it cut was back in january, 7 months ago. enough hair was cut that i could probably make a nice toupee out of it. my father said he also needed a haircut so she gave him a buzzcut afterwards.

for dinner we grilled some wings and new york strip boneless steaks. we started with the wings first, which i salted earlier. 350 degrees on each side, brushed with sweet thai chili sauce afterwards and grilled again until desired crispiness. for the steaks, we increased the temperature to 550 degrees. 3 minutes per side, rotating them at the halfway mark for crosshatching. afterwards we measured until we reached an internal temperature of 130 degrees (medium-rare).

i was happy to see the steaks weren't that salty. yes there was a salty crust (i salted and peppered them earlier, before seasoning again with montreal steak seasoning before they went on the grill) but it kind of works in this case because the cuts were already pretty thick, so it balanced out the unseasoned interior. i had a whole piece myself while my parents shared a piece.

my father gave me a ride back to cambridge. i could've been dropped off at home after our supply run (and gotten to belmont on my own steam), but i wanted to bring two bags of leftover black mulch back to my place so i could spread it in the garden. he helped me unload the mulch into my backyard before leaving.

since there's even side street cleaning tomorrow morning, i had to move my motorcycle. i stashed it on the private way, will move it again either tomorrow or wednesday once my preferred spot opens up again.

after a shower, i watched the end of the red sox diamondbacks game from a streaming website. boston won tonight, 11-1. hopefully this is the beginning of a new winning streak. i spent the rest of the evening watching political videos on youtube. even since trump's 2nd term, i've stayed away from political news for my own sanity. but with the midterm election almost upon us and with the democrats in a good position to take back the house if not the senate, my interest in politics has been renewed.

jeff and michelle left this morning at 4am, an uber came to take them to the airport. i heard nothing, only saw it when i later reviewed the webcam footage.

after watering my back and front yard, i hopped onto my motorcycle and went to the community garden to water. my hyacinth beans have started to flower. my kabocha miraculously has developed two mini squashes. i'm going to need to fertilize if i want to see them grow to maturity. i watered with the broken sprayer off, it was much faster. i picked some more tomatoes and butterfly pea flowers.

i dropped off my vegetables at home before i continued to somerville armory via motorcycle, where there was a fermentation festival happening at 11am. it's pretty much a summer farmer's market, but who fermented food vendors. there was also activities, a raffle, a make-your-own-sauerkraut station, and a live band. it was pretty crowded, i made my way through the dealers, sampled a few items, then went upstairs to get an overhead view of the whole festival. i wanted to buy something, but everything seemed too pricey (farmer's market prices). i didn't see any fermented alcohol drinks (like makgeolli, though to get proper licensing to sell is probably difficult).

i was about to leave empty-handed when i decided to make my own sauerkraut outside. i had to sign a liability waiver first, which i thought was weird, until i realized it's because i'd be cutting up my own cabbage with a very large and sharp knife. the attendants were helpful, but to be honest, this wasn't my first rodeo. i could be giving demonstrations. but i played dumb, let them have something to do. like i asked them the difference between sauerkraut and kimchi, even though i knew answer.

after i shredded the cabbage super fine, they added about 1/2 a tablespoon of salt into a metal bowl. i then massaged the cabbage with dirty hands until they reduced enough to fit inside a 16 oz. mason jar. i also added some spices, included korean pepper flakes, caraway, mustard seeds, dill seeds, and a fresh bay leaf. i left with a small jar of sauerkraut, ready to eat in a few days.

i returned home, grabbed my things, then stopped by the cafe to put away the tea eggs & rice and water the plants. while i was leaving i saw my sister with esmei. esmei seemed excited to see me but when she got close enough to confirm who i was, she totally lost interest. today we had 6 passion flowers.

i didn't get to my parents' place until 12:30pm. while my mother was making me some ham bone broth noodle soup, i went outside to see what my father was up to. he'd elevated all the grow bags and large pots with the plastic plant coasters. he told me in just the few days he's been fertilizing with the new miracle-gro tomato food (it arrived last wednesday night), he could see a stark difference. new vines are thicker, the leaves are bigger, and the fruits don't abort. the addition of a balanced water-soluble fertilizer for vegetables along with our new midday drip irrigation system has given our garden setup a tremendous boost. he only regrets we didn't do this sooner, as there was mid-summer lull when everything had fruited and nothing new was growing.

i went inside to eat lunch.

today wasn't too hot. the worst thing about being outside wasn't the heat, it was the mosquitoes. they bit me in the small bare spots between my shoes and jean cuffs. i ran back inside to grab the thermacells. my father collected a bunch of giant japanese red mustard seeds. i shredded the pile of egg cartons into our rotating compost drum. all the vegetables that my father had thrown inside weeks ago had now turned into a dark smelly sludge. the egg cartons will hopefully balance it out (compost should be 2/3 dry ingredients and only 1/3 wet ingredients).

i watched drive on pluto.tv and fell asleep on the zero gravity chair. i woke up with my arms completely numb from pressing my elbows into the armrests.

for dinner my mother made a basil & eggplant dish using vegetables harvested from the backyard. she also made a smoked ham stirfry with long horn peppers. the peppers were mostly innocuous, out of the 5 she used, only one was hot.

i took the motorcycle today because street cleaning is tomorrow so i needed to move my bike anyway. i was lucky when i came back home there was a small spot already waiting for me in front of the house.