i went to bed last night at 1am and woke up at 9am, got almost 8 hours of sleep. my plan today was to mosey down to chinatown to buy a few things, maybe take the motorcycle to belmont to do an overdue oil change, do some work in the community garden, maybe have time to get some bike maintenance done.

i didn't dally too much as i wanted to maximize my time so i left by 9:30am via ebike. there were other bike commuters. i purposely rode slow but whenever i got the chance, i'd overtake them (by riding out in the middle of the road) and speed along ahead.

my first stop in chinatown was sun wing LLC, a very much hidden asian market that sells mostly dried goods. i've been here once before when they first opened, out of curiosity; since then they'd greatly increased their stock. i came here to get the qu feng huo luo dan joint pain pills for my mother, who ate the last of her supply yesterday. here they sell them for $15 a bottle, which is probably as cheap as it gets. i bought two bottles. i searched for zongzi string and leaves but they didn't seem to carry them.

next i went to hong kong eatery just a block down the street. i got two boxes of thai-style chicken feet ($6/each) and half a braised duck ($20) for my mother. they packaged everything in a very fancy red customized hong kong eatery bag. i thought it was for free but later when i looked at my receipt they charged me an extra 25¢. had i known i would've used my own bag.

i went next door to top bread to get some pastries. next to that there used to be a chinese medicine store that went out of business during the pandemic. looks like it's going to be a hey tea store, i'm guessing a boba chain. out on the sidewalk was a vendor selling produce, haymarket style. i bought 4 long japanese eggplants for $2.

my final stop was ming's market, where i was buying the remaining items on my grocery list. unfortunately i seemed to have lost the list during transit, so i had to do everything by memory. i called my mother to see if she could give me some hints. she told me my father had terrible pain in his right hand and was all swollen and couldn't work.

later after i finished i found the list. i ended up getting pretty much everything (yellow daikon, squash seeds, bean sprouts, pad thai noodles, bokchoi, zongzi string, zongzi leaves) except for pickled ginger slices.

the phone call with my mother basically meant i needed to get to the cafe and help out since my father was out of commission. i then proceded to ride the nearly 6 miles to the cafe. at one point i was following a cyclist who cut into the bike lane in front of me. he was riding pretty fast - i was doing 20mph and he was still ahead of me. we must've traveled for 2 miles before he pulled over and started swearing. i sped past him, but i think he was angry that i was able to follow him no matter how fast he was going. when it comes to raw speed, a manual bike can't challenge an ebike.

i got to the cafe by 11:30am. i ended up working for nearly 4 hours. my father could hardly use his right hand. he took the orders, my 2nd aunt made the drinks, while my mother and i worked the kitchen. my mother was also making more zongzi so that used up a lot of her time. once more, we were exactly super busy, but just a slow and steady steam of customers. by day's end we made the daily average, not counting a big cash order that came in the morning before i arrived. my godmother showed up during our busiest stretch. she had time to pretend to make some zongzi before leaving with 2 dozen zongzi. every year i only eat about 2-3 zongzi since my mother gives the rest away so we never have enough for ourselves.

i finally made it back home by 3:15pm. i took a quick shower before eating some pastries for a late lunch. i went out to move my motorcycle and noticed somebody had left a note on the dash, "this is not a parking spot". i've lived in this neighborhood for 24 years, i've always parked there. i could very easily take up a whole parking spot, but out of consideration, i only take up a small space. i don't know who put the note there, but i know a few neighbors i can ask around.

at 4:30pm i headed to the community garden to water my plants. david was there, selfishly using two hoses to water his plot. my plants seemed fine for the most part, except the two grow bags with striped mallows seem a little wilty. my tomatoes have grown big enough that i can start pruning the suckers. my one kabocha squash has also flowered, though i think it's better to remove the flowers so it spends more of its energy growing leaves. i ended up staying in the garden and chatting with david for over an hour. we toured some of the the other plots. he told me molly left town for a month to take care of her sick father. he told me anne has back pains so won't be gardening for the second season in a row. we admired the one gardener who grows nothing but garlic in his plot. we admired another plot that seems to have a bunch of jungle plants. we went to the surplus garden material area and grabbed some tomato cages and plastic mesh. i didn't get back home until 5:50pm.

i wheeled the raleigh bicycle into the basement. i did some research, raleigh handlebars are not interchangeable with free spirit bikes. the only component that is cross-compatible are the sturmey archer 3-speed hubs. this raleigh has a front basket that has a handle so it looks like you could go shopping with it and then clip it onto the bicycle. unfortunately i couldn't figure out how to remove the basket.

the one big thing i wanted to take care of today was installing the new hisense inverter air conditioner. it was a little late so i figured i'd do it over the weekend, but i had a sudden burst of inspirational energy, and decided to go ahead and install the new AC.

i first uninstalled the old AC. i then took the new AC out of the box. comparing the AC's, they both have similar "back ends" but the hisense is way longer "front end" that sticks out. i adjusted the metal mounting plate so it was pitched slightly outwards, so when the AC accumulates water it can drain properly. once the mounting plate was installed, i put on the AC. it didn't have a satisfying click on when my father and i installed the midea inverter AC. the hisense AC basically just sits on top of the mount, and can still be moved around to make adjustments. i moved the AC so i could close the window at its midsection. i thought maybe you could still use the window with the AC installed: that's partially true in that since the AC sits on a mounting plate, you could open the window if you wanted, but there's not enough gap space for the screen window, only the main window. finally i installed the side curtains. the curtains are hollow, and they require thick foam boards to be cut to size in order to give them some volume. there were a few gaps where i could see outside, so i covered them up with blue tape.

i plugged in the hisense AC and turned it on. it gave out that fresh AC smell. today wasn't a hot day - temperature outside was 76 degrees - so i set the AC to 70 degrees. i tried to connect to the app - connectlife - it took a few tries before i got it to connect. it kept trying to sign me up for matter which was unsuccessful. when i returned to the app though, the air conditioner was already detected and connected. the usability isn't as polished as midea. i already knew about how there's only 3 buttons and a numbers display on the AC unit itself. you either have to use the remote to change the settings or the phone app. the remote has an LCD screen but it's unlit and hard to see. the buttons also aren't very responsive, occasionally i have to press more than once to register. you can also make changes with the app but the changes won't reflect on the remote LCD screen, which is disconcerting.

so one of the main reasons why i got this inverter AC is it uses less electricity. according to the app i only used 0.40kWh today. however my smart plug - which also has energy monitoring - said i used 0.52kWh. it could just be because the AC was already running before i established connection with the hisense app. i'll run it again over the next few days and check the app usage numbers with the smart plug numbers.

a second reason why i got the inverter AC is it can function as a dehumidifier. normal AC's naturally dehumidify when they're cooling. but a problem i have is sometimes it's not about the temperature; occasionally it gets a little soupy inside my house. if i can just lower the humidity, it'd feel a lot more comfortable. so that's what i did; instead of cooling (it was already cool inside the house), i set the AC to dry mode. it gently blew air around, and before too long, it started feeling comfortable as the humidity decreased. i also noticed the temperature dropped a few degrees as well, not sure if it's because of the fan circulating the air, or dehumidify function also lowers the temperature as a side effect.

the third reason i got the inverter AC is it's quiet. running on dry mode, i barely notice it. hard to say which unit is quieter - this hisense or my father's midea. i feel like we're only first at the forefront of the AC revolution. i predict all future AC's will be inverter models: uses less electricity, more functions, quieter.

one thing i worry about is the AC makes an easy entry point for home invading thieves, especially since i live on the first floor. i'm elevated, but a thief could simply climb on top of a garbage bin. the manual instructs you to screw the mounting bracket into place, but i don't know if you can safely drill into vinyl windows. i did find a window locking bracket i bought a while back and screwed it onto the window side. it kind of works, but if a thief simply pushed the window up with force, they could easily break the lock. in the past i've used thin pieces of wood jammed between the panes. i'll probably do that again, though it's going to be two long pieces of wood. i could also get a window alarm that plays a siren noise if the window gets opened.

another cool thing: eversource will give me a $40 rebate for installing an energy star air conditioner. that brings the price down from $240 to just $200. i don't think you can buy a regular 8000 BTU AC for that price, much less an inverter AC.

while installing the new AC, i must've let a mosquito inside the house. i couldn't see it, but it kept biting my legs. later on when i went to the bedroom, i saw it following me. i tried to kill it a few times, but each time i missed, like it has the ability to magically teleport away. this mosquito seemed to be very hungry as it was super persistent in trying to bite me. that ended up being it's downfall, as i waited in the kitchen with the lights on so i could see it. once i spotted it, i was finally able to smash it to death. i only grazed it though, never found the body, but there was a smeared mosquito leg on my palm.

after soaking my dirty cafe apron for about 2 hours in oxi-clean (the water was filthy brown), i did a load of laundry.

i wasn't too hungry tonight, so i just had some thai-flavored chicken feet for dinner, followed by a saturnine peach.

after making a batch of dumplings and black soy noodles this morning, i drove the car back to my place to drop off the hisense inverter air conditioner i bought yesterday. thankfully there was street cleaning, so i simply parked right in front of my house. i'll install it sometime tomorrow.

we were busy around noontime but not much profit since it was a lot of single orders. i made a total of 3 batches of black soy noodles. most popular items today were the salmon bento and pad thai. slow and steady was the order of the day, with pleasant 70's weather. we had customers throughout the whole day, and by day's end, we made more than our daily average, which is a win.

my mother made some zongzi today, to coincide with the duanwu festival which is this friday. she made a batch of sweet zongzi (with jujubes) and will make some savory zongzi tomorrow. she used to make a whole lot more that we well at the cafe but this year she's only making enough for us to eat.

at 3pm there was a france-senegal game. france dominated, with 2 goals from mbappe. senegal did score a goal in extra time, but france still won 3-1.

the passion flower is making a lot of new flower buds on new growth, but will they blossom? if not, we may seriously have to move the plant to a new sunnier location, since it only gets about half a day's worth of sunshine.

i came home with a leftover market basket sub for dinner. i was outside briefly chatting with my neighbor don (he's still a red sox watcher). when i finally came inside, i had three mosquito bites on my arms. i used my heated mosquito bite pen on the welts, it seemed to stop the itching.

i watched the argentina-algeria game that started at 9pm. argentina won 3-0, with messi scoring all three goals.

i showed up to belmont at 10am this morning for a waltham supply run. easiest trip in a while, just costco and market basket before returning to the cafe to drop off the supplies. costco wasn't too busy, neither was market basket. i got a new hisense inverter window conditioner. online it was $260 after an $80 instant rebate, but it was $20 cheaper in store, so i got it for $240. that's still pretty heavy, but not as heavy as the midea smart inverter air conditioner ($400) which weighs 57 lbs. they still have stocks of both models, but not as much a few weeks ago, before the heat wave, when there was a stack of air conditioners right when you came into the warehouse. checking out, a woman spilled a box of blueberries all over the floor.

after we finished with market basket, my mother and i went to the MB liquor store next door while my father went to load up the car. she was in search of zero gravity buck buck juice double IPA. they didn't have it. instead we got a case of modelo negra (munich dunkel-style lager). my father came in to join us. we also got a case of market basket branded zero gravity produced "more for your dollar" lager as well as a bottle of chinese baijiu.

coming back via route 95/2, we decided to stop at the fresh pond mall so my parents could deposit some money while i went to trader joe's to get some baby cucumbers and bananas. just as i walked in, a man dropped a container of blueberries all over the floor. one of the workers turned around to see the mess and let out a big sigh.

after dropping off the supplies at the cafe, we returned to belmont. i had some leftover jiucaihezi for lunch.

today wasn't as hot as yesterday, so we started our yard work earlier. we built 2 large bean trellis with the dozen wooden furring strips i bought a few months ago. they're not the best quality, half of them were warped. we used one to repair a broken trellis from last season, replaced the top beam. to build 2 trellises we needed 11 strips. the four legs are each 70 inches long, the top beam is 42 inches, while two leg braces are 44 inches. we used 3 inch deck screws to secure the top beam to the legs (the screws act as a hinge), and 1-1/4" screws to attach the leg braces at the bottom. it was a quick and dirty built, made more challenging by the fact that some of the strips don't line up properly due to warping.

we had enough bean trellises minus one, which my father will built using bamboo poles and some rope tying tricks he learned from tiktok videos. this bamboo trellis will be in RB4.

i tilled the soil in the raised beds, as well as pulling up any remaining plants, to make room for the beans. i then planted beans in RB0, RB1, RB2, and RB4. each raised beds had a combination of long beans and blue beans. the two tent trellises in RB4 will both have long beans, while the entire back trellis will just be blue beans.

for RB4, i used beans from an unknown vintage, most likely 2025. i don't think we collected too many beans last season because the year before (2024) we collected way too much. also we removed the protective cage fencing around the raised beds thinking it was now safe from rabbits, but they came and ate up all the bean stalks, so all the pods we were hoping to collect withered on the vines. i can't vouch for the viability of this unknown vintage seeds, so that's why i only planted them in RB4. all the other raised beds i used 2024 blue beans (excellent quality, just 2 seasons old) and 2022 long beans (also good quality, but 6 seasons old).

is it late to be planting beans mid-june? yes, but compared to last season, we're only a week behind (last summer (2025) we didn't fully plant everything until june 9th). the year before that (2024), our big planting day was may 27th. there's no definite date. some seasons - like this year - we had a really cold spring and i didn't want to plant anything until it warmed up (that's my excuse at least). it also depends on when my indoor seedlings reach maturity. this year and last year i started them too late, so even if i wanted to plant early, i didn't have anything yet.

my father watered after i planted. a few of the other seedlings i planted on thursday have died. one of the eggplants, a handful of peppers, including the only surviving corkscrew pepper seedling i had this season. it was a combination of searing heat plus chipmunks. too late this season, but next year i want to get some squirrel mace, which i read is also effective on chipmunks. i'm not too sad about it, i grew extra seedlings exactly for this reason, knowing that some of them will die from either weather or critters.

all my okras (9) have survived. okra leaves are weird, they remind me of maple leaves. the swiss chards are also doing very well. chimpunks/squirrels don't seem to bother with them, despite the big juicy leaves. some of leaves are ready for harvesting.

my sister showed up with esmei again. she said esmei got a piece of glass in her tail. it took forever to wrangle her dog, who didn't want anyone touching her tail. not sure what my sister will decided to do. she took esmei to the emergency room last time for an ear infection that turned out to be nothing. i think the visit alone was a few hundred dollars.

a bunch of world cups game today. cape verde drew spain to a standstill, the game ending with 0-0. it's not an upset, but definitely shocking for a spanish team that's favored to win this year along with france. in their same group saudi arabia and uruguay had a match. that game also ended up in a draw, 1-1. basically all the games today ended up draws: iran-new zealand 2-2, belgium-egypt 1-1. some marquee games happening tomorrow: france-senegal (3pm), iraq-norway (6pm), and argentina-algeria (9pm).

for dinner my made kimchi fried rice. i had a huge bowl that i couldn't really eat but managed to finish it all eventually. i tried the modelo negra which had a roasted taste that's not my style. the market basket lager tasted like a light beer. we also opened up a vintage brand soda i bought from a chinese supermarket. it tasted like a quirky root beer. my father liked it so much he finished it after i just had one sip.

i got back home around 8:30pm. i attached my smart plug to my window AC and ran it for 2 hours. it was much cooler outside and i probably could've just opened a few windows to ventilate the house, but i wanted to see how much electricity the AC uses, so i can compare it with the new inverter AC. in just 2 hours, it used 0.5kWh. i set it to 75 degrees but i've never ran it long enough to see it reach that temperature. i got it down as far as 77 degrees before i turned it off. after a short while, the room temperature went up to 79 degrees.

while the AC was running in my house, i walked a few blocks down the street to check out a bike i saw somebody had left out on the curb. it was an old raleigh 3-speed. it was in fair condition, very dusty, with flat creaky wheels. i pushed it home. i don't plan on restoring the bike, i'm going to strip it for parts. i could use the 3-speed gearing on my red raleigh 3-speed, as well as the handlebar, which is still in pretty good condition. this bike also came with a front basket and a plushy saddle i might use to replacement my current trek utility bike saddle. something else to put on my long list of to-do items for wednesday.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

my sister returned and took home esmei.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

one of my grow bag striped mallow has already flowered.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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