my allergies were so bad yesterday i used some nasal spray before going to sleep. i also ran the air purifier on low setting in my bedroom to filter out the pollen. i got less than 6 hours of sleep. it was cold but i covered myself up with some pillows (i don't use the comforter during the summer).

every morning i hope for rain so i don't have to spend precious minutes of my wakeup routine (20+ minutes) on watering the yard and the garden. alas, there was no rain this morning. after dousing my back and front yard, i headed to the community garden. i was laden with stuff: giant watermelon in my backpack, empty food containers in one rear basket, items i found on my trip yesterday in the other basket (including a glass lid and a small pan). i was not expecting to see so many blue butterfly pea flowers. after i finished watering (i wore my gardening gloves to prevent any dermatitis), picked the blue flowers. i also harvested some more cherry tomatoes and picked a single green serrano pepper to try it out.

at the cafe i saw the 3D-printed anker F3800 connector housing my father went to go pick up yesterday from the belmont public library. it cost $2.60 and took well over 3 weeks to print. i know we had no choice in the color, but i was expecting something generic like white or biege. i wasn't expecting it to be a sage green color. there were still fine filament strands inside the openings that haven't been cleaned off yet. it feels sort of futuristic to be holding something 3D printed. if we have enough need for one, maybe we can get one during black friday. we wouldn't have to wait weeks to have something printed. now we need to print a second file, the special connector locks. those are much smaller so hopefully won't take as long.

we were busy today from 11am to 3pm. it goes without saying today was the most profitable day this week. it was a little stressful, because we were nearly out of salt & pepper chicken and charsiu pork, our two most popular items. fortunately a lot of customers today got the chinese sausage. we defrosted 4 boxes of frozen unmarinated chicken thighs. towards the end of the day i managed to roast a new batch of charsiu. if we fry some chicken tomorrow morning, we should be in good shape.

for breakfast i had a minced beef pastry my godmother made. there was some melted cheese in the stuffing. in the afternoon my mother made some rice noodle soup.

i didn't check the passion vine until later in the afternoon. there were 4 flowers today. earlier this morning when i first arrived, i spent some time cleaning up the parking lot. i pulled up all the swallow worts i saw and any other weeds. by the time i finished i was soaked in sweat.

my father called liting's mother today. we're scheduled to go pick up the kitchen appliances saturday at 4pm after we close. we could've also done it today after work but saturday is a better time.

i didn't take anything home for dinner when we closed. i told my mother i would have some frozen dumplings, but i ended up eating a bowl of macaroni and cheese.

the ants have returned. i began noticing them a few days ago. i opened a new terro ant bait station and put it by the baseboard as i wasn't sure where they were coming in. after a short while i saw a trail of ants coming out from a small gap in the molding of my living room window. i wanted to move the ant bait closer but decided not to muck around with something that was already working. i thought ants go to sleep but apparently that's not the case. or maybe these are a different type of ants than the ones i had last season. i might move the bait station some other time. it's kind of disconcerting see a trail of ants inside the house and not want to destroy them all immediately. but getting rid of ants require patient. they will take the poisonous bait back to the nest, and after a few days the whole colony will be dead. it works pretty fast, i think i'll be ant free by the end of the weekend.

red sox have the night off. yankees lose to the astros, so boston is now 2 games behind new york, and 6 games behind the ray. i don't know if the red sox can catch up to tampa bay, but beating the yankees for second place is a real possibility. the 4-games series between the red sox and yankees begin tomorrow night.

my mi fitness band said i got 8 hours of sleep last night. all i know is i got up at one point to use the bathroom (i have a bad habit of drinking tons of water before bed) and my throat was scratchy from the ragweed pollen. i woke up at 8:45am, used the bathroom, took a shower, watered the yard, then left for belmont by 9:25am via ebike.

when i arrived i removed the battery from the ebike to charge it up 100%. i did some weeding of the front yard first, pulling up spotted spurge, yellow wood sorrel, sedges, and purslanes. large clumps of low-growing ragweed choked the strip of sidewalk grass; i pulled them up in clumps. afterwards i took the EGO mower out of the garage to mow the front lawn before mowing the backyard.

i finished by 11am. i made a stop at the mt.auburn star market to get some cool blue gatorade. they also had lime cucumber which i almost got but decided nobody was going to drink that weird flavor. i stopped at the cafe to drop off the gatorade. i then went to the community garden to water my plants before getting back home by noontime.

i ate a zantac tablet this morning before i left, but it wasn't effective. my eyes were itchy and my nose was runny, with occasional sneezing. i took a quick shower to hopefully rinse off the ragweed pollen.

i left around 12:30pm, to take a tour around the mystic river. i went up central street to broadway, then continued on temple street, crossing below interstate 93, continuing until i was supposed to hit a dedicate bike trail. that area (with the native pollinator garden) is currently under construction, so i had to do some creative road riding to get onto the path. i followed the boardwalk path underneath the fellsway until i was going northbound. once i was over the bridge (across the mystic), i swung a right turn onto wellington greenway.

the wellington greenway trail basically follows the shoreline, onto a peninsula that goes below the orange line tracks. eventually the trail takes you out to the wellington station parking lot. i kept going until i got to the river beach parkway for a distance, turning off after i crossed the malden river. the trail loops underneath the parkway onto the eastern shore of the malden river, when i should be on the western side. i backtracked and discovered there was a similar bike trail that loops underneath the parkway, but this one goes on the western side of the river.

this was the river trail west. kind of a hidden gem, i followed it until i got to nazar market where we visited last weekend. the trail basically ends at that point, and throw you back out onto rivers edge drive. by that point it was time for lunch. i had options, but wendy's was my first choice. i turned left onto medford street and went down a few side streets to get to wendy's.

i basically had to ride my bike 6-1/2 miles out of town to find a wendy's, that's how much camberville is starved of fast food options (that's not entirely true, we have mcdonald's and burger king's but they're not wendy's). of course there were no bike stand but any street sign is a parking spot so i locked my ebike to a signpost.

they didn't some renovating since the last time i was here. instead of ordering at the cash register, i used one of the kiosk machines to make my order. i got the number 6 spicy chicken combo, $11 after taxes. that turned out to be the right decision, as the cashier was in a heated argument with a young white lady who didn't get the right order. "i ordered a BLT but you confused me with your options so i got the wrong order." the manager came out and basically told the woman to leave. her own mother came up to see what the commotion was about. but this woman wasn't having it. "i told you my order in english," she said, making a dig on the fact that most of the workers there were hispanic. i think the cashier eventually gave her a BLT and the difference. that woman didn't care she was making a sense, as long as she got her way.

when i got my order i found a cozy spot near a window so i could keep an eye on my ebike. that cold root beer really hit the spot after i've been riding for the past hour. i nearly finished my fries before eating my spicy chicken sandwich. so good! maybe it's for the best that there are no wendy's nearby, otherwise i would eat it every week.

i went to the strip mall across the street. the most prominent thing i saw was a big "h-mart coming soon" sign outside an empty storefront. this medford h-mart has been "coming soon" for the past 3 years now. maybe the wait is almost over, because i heard construction noises inside and there were active building permit taped to the window.

on the opposite side of the mall was foodland, a halal supermarket. i was expecting to find a tiny thing, but it was actually pretty large on the inside. i thought halal meant food adhering to islamic customs, but i saw a lot of indian food, made me think it was an indian supermarket instead. further back there's a butcher shop and all the beef cuts showed it wasn't india. they also carried lamb and goat. next to the butcher department was a little cafeteria, serving foods that once again seemed indian in nature. a white woman was getting some takeout. i didn't want to leave empty-handed, so i bought a box of instant chai tea.

i went to the dollar tree next door. it was so dark inside, they must dim the lights to save money, not surprising for a dollar store. i was so depressing, i took a quick look and left.

turning on my ebike i got an E90E error message. i looked it up online, it said battery malfunction, replace battery. yet the battery still worked, the error disappeared as soon as i started riding.

i went back onto medford street to get to the northern strand community trail. now i was on the eastern side of malden river, heading south. once again another hidden gem. some stretches of the trail were pretty secluded and felt a little unsafe. i had the same reaction on the previous trails. yet i see neighbors casually strolling by. i passed by the park-9 dog bar. i was trying to find the night shift brewery. i was hoping to get some double IPA to quench my thirst, but i discovered when i was eating at wendy's that the brewery doesn't open until 4pm. i guess they don't get a lot of day drinking customers. i found the offshoot that led me to norman street, where the brewery was. right across the street was the teddie peanut butter factory. i followed the road until i was out onto the revere beach parkway rotary. i could follow route 16 west back home, but i had a different way back in mind. i retraced my steps and got back onto the northern strand community trail.

if you follow the northern strand community trail south enough, eventually it to the gateway center, behind michael's and home depot and costco. i made a stop at total wine & more. it was so quiet inside, like a library. but instead of books they have booze. i picked out another double IPA for my parents, and a hard cider for myself. starting up the ebike, i got the E90E error again, but once more the error disappeared once i started riding the bike.

i continued south on the northern stand community trail. it wasn't long before it becomes the encore riverwalk. i've never been this close to encore casino before. the bronze architecture looks like CGI. i never realized just how close the casino is to costco. just a short 1000ft walk from costco's parking lot and you'd standing in the manicured opulence of the casino ground.

i left the casino and got onto alford street. here i was more familiar with. there was a dedicated bike lane but it wasn't protected. luckily MA-99 wasn't very busy yet. i followed it south to sullivan square, and it was a simple matter of cutting through union square, behind market basket, to get back home.

i got back around 3:30pm. velotric bike app said i traveled 8 miles on my return trip. my allergy seemed to be getting worse. i should've used some nasal spray as well before heading out. jeff texted me earlier today, worried about some leftover cheese in the fridge, asked me to go upstairs with the spare key and toss it out for him. i haven't been upstairs in a while, and not since the backyard tree came down. the second floor was okay, but the third floor was like a sauna. it'll b great in the winter, but not so much in the summer.

i called liting's mother asking if she had time for me to come over and check out her unwanted kitchen appliances. she kept insisting i drive i car so i could take everything, but i told her i wanted to see it first, figure out if we need it. i didn't think she was tech savvy, but she said she could take some photos and send it to me.

i looked up the warranty service for my velotric. i thought it was only for a year, but the battery is under warranty for 2 years. so if that weird E90E error keeps on coming back, i can have the battery replaced.

i went to my nearby star market to get some corn chips for my spicy salsa and some vanilla ice cream. i have a hankering for a brown cow (basically a root beer float smoothie) but their prices on root beer was too expensive, so i'll it from market basket instead. i did however grab a tub of baskin robbins vanilla bean ice cream.

i finally took a shower. my eyes were super itchy, the rinse helped a little bit. but the rest of the day my nose was running non-stop.

i called my mother at the cafe after seeing my father drive off from the parking lot webcam. she said the belmont public library finally contacted him, our 3D print was ready for pick-up. i didn't call my father but i wonder how much it cost. i'm also curious if it printed out the right size. now we need to print 2 more pieces before we can build a high capacity charging plug for our anker power station.

a flash flood resulting from a massive chunk of glacial ice crashing into a river caused a flood on the nepal-tibet border that killed hundreds of people. i saw the raw footage this morning on reddit, it was like watching a snuff film, as people were just completely overwhelmed by the wall of mud and ice. i heard the torrent was as tall as 160 feet.

another famous 80 year old passed away today: tim curry. it didn't come as a surprise, he was in bad shape after suffering a stroke a few years ago. his iconic role as dr. frank-n-furter will forever cement him in cinematic lore.

i ate around 9pm, some lousifen i found in my ramen drawer. i threw in a tea egg for extra protein. i tried the hard cider i bought - blake's hard cider co. american apple imperial hard cider 8% alcohol. from the first sip i found it surprisingly sweet, even sweeter than woodchuck hard cider. it didn't have a complex apple flavor. if anything, it kind of tasted like cough medicine, maybe all that alcohol. the fact that it advertised its high alcohol content and all the hokey patriotic design should've warned me this wasn't a very serious hard cider. a novelty cider at best. i like that it's sweet, but it tastes too artificial.

rays and yankees both lost last night but today was the other way around: red sox lost to the marlins 0-4, while tampa bay and new york both won their games. red sox will face the yankees in a 4-game series starting on friday. i don't know the math, i just know it'd be in boston's best interest if they can win as many games as possible against new york.

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.