despite working non-stop to exhaustion at the cafe since mid-february, i haven't really lost any weight. the lack of proper exercise (remember when i used to going?) and poor diet (when i get home often time i'm too tired to cook so i eat a lot of quick & easy processed foods) is a bad combination for health.

my father was at home recuperating from his hernia operation a second day while my mother, my 2nd aunt, and myself worked the cafe today. my sister would stop by with esmei, trying to see if we're busy, but my mother always told her we weren't busy even if we were.

i sprayed the potted jasmines with alcohol for a second day in a row after seeing some surviving mealybugs. i then put them into milk crates and moved them to the trunk of the car so my mother can bring them to belmont after work.

for breakfast i had some turkey sausage along with a fried egg and some guacamole.

a strange day in terms of what was selling. a lot of dumplings, vegetable buns, and black soy noodles. it got to the point where every hour or so seems like we'd be making a new batch of dumplings and noodles. also a lot macha green tea latte. makes me wonder if it was featured in some show somewhere so there's a sudden surge in popularity. we used up all the rice we cooked today (5 cups) plus a container of leftover rice from yesterday.

my 2nd aunt's new tatung 6-cups rice cooker arrived today from yun hai in brooklyn. we were following its shipping progress via the UPS tracker. i was the one who noticed it had been delivered and my aunt called my uncle to tell him to go pick up the package from downstairs. the cooker costs $180 - which is pretty expensive (at that price you can get a fancy zojirushi rice cooker with fuzzy logic) - but there seems to be a tatung rice cooker shortage or something because even on amazon that's how much it costs.

we ran out of salt & pepper chicken so i had to fry more. i waited until close to the end of the day (4pm) because everything would smell like fry oil afterwards. i first breaded the marinated chicken in a combination of coarse and fine potato starch powder. after about 50 minutes i ended up frying 3 boxes worth of chicken. i propped the fan on a barstool and had it facing a different angle in the kitchen to more efficiently blow out the smoke. next time i should bread the chicken immediately before frying, otherwise breading all the chicken will leave some chicken soggy by the time i get to frying them.

we got busy again in the final hour. one of the orders had a salmon bento, another one was 3 beef noodle soups. my sister just happened to show up with esmei; she took over making her signature salmon bento while i brought esmei back home. i came back to help them finish assembling the orders. it was a little tense as we basically ran out a lot of staples, but my mother said to hold off on making new batches and that was the right call, as we didn't get any more orders after that. not only did we use up the rice, but most of the black noodles, and the tea eggs as well. today ended up being the third busiest day this month.

i got back home around 7pm. i brought home a 16 oz. container of leftover rice to make some rice porridge by adding 32 oz. of water. i boiled the rice until it turned into a porridge consistency. i ate it with pickled radish, gluten, and braised eel.

game 5 between the cavaliers and celtics was tonight. cleveland without donovan mitchell (i heard a rumor they were resting their star player so he doesn't get seriously injured so they can trade him in the off season), caris levert, and jarrett allen. boston was without porzingis, still covering from his calf sprain. the first half was a mess. cavaliers had the lead for much of the 2nd quarter, before the celtics started chipping away. in the second half boston finally broke open the game, leading at one point by 17. the celtics were trying to get horford going by repeatedly feeding him the ball. he failed some 3-pointers at first before he started making them, finishing 6-13 from beyond the arc. horford ended the game with 22 points, 15 rebounds, and 5 assists. 6 celtics player reached double digit points. celtics win 98-113 and advance into the eastern conference final for the 3rd consecutive year.

my father was at home recuperating from his hernia surgery yesterday, so it was just my mother and myself working at the cafe today, with an assist from my sister. temperature in cambridge today reached 79 degrees. i went down to the basement to turn off the furnace then rewired the nest thermostat for cooling mode.

while making a new batch of tea eggs this morning, i gathered up all the jasmine plants after discovering they all carry some amount of mealybugs. i put them outside and sprayed with 70% alcohol before rinsing everything with water (i attached the hose with a quick release adapter and turned on the water). i also did the same thing with the jade plant. the one large pilea i restaked with a length of rigid wiring i found in the basement, to straight the crooked stem. keeping live plants inside the cafe is a challenge. our specialty is making food, not taking care of plants. we'll probably take this jasmines back to belmont to let them recover from the mealybugs before reintroducing them back to the cafe.

it got busy starting at 11am - an ubereats order and 5 customers - that i texted my sister while she was still walking esmei. when she finally came by the cafe we weren't busy anymore so she went home and didn't come back until close to noontime. it got busy again - so much so that we ran out of room on the check rack for anymore tickets. my sister worked the front taking orders and making drinks while my mother and i worked the back kitchen.

my godmother showed up briefly, followed by my 2nd aunt, who ended up staying until we closed. my 2nd aunt doesn't work until wednesday but she showed up today anyway to help out. that allowed my sister to go home in the afternoon to take care of esmei. i went over to her place briefly to play with esmei while my sister was in the backyard gardening. esmei saw me from across the yard and actually ran up to me, showed some emotion for a dog that typically seems rather emotionless.

i had a croissant for breakfast then later in the afternoon my mother heated up some leftover lamb pilaf which i ate with a large helping of homemade hot chili oil sauce and some sprinkled trader joe furikake.

we were about to close when we suddenly got busy again in the final 30 minutes, a bunch of customers arriving to eat. most of them left by closing time, with the except of two guys chatting loudly. close to 7pm we finally told them we were closing and they quickly left so we could go home.

when i got home i split another hot pepper plant that had two seedlings in one pot. out of all the vegetable plants in the nightshade family (including tomatoes and eggplants), peppers grow the slowest. makes me regret not starting these earlier. good news is by the time they're big enough to transplant outside, it'll already be warm which is what peppers like. i also have way more bitter melon seedlings than i know what to do with.

i had the same problem the end of last week: there's nothing to eat at home. so i ended up having an instant bowl of luosifen noodles. it was very sour and spicy. i ate while watching the pacers-knicks game. the series' tied 2-2 and so far the home team has always won, which was the case tonight, as new york overpowered indiana.

i was taking my father to chelmsford to get his laparoscopic inguinal hernia surgery. he'd been suffering from this hernia for about 8 months, and finally managed to schedule a repair.

i arrived in belmont around 10am. my father had eaten anything since midnight. he already showered and was wearing some loose comfortable clothes for his surgery. we had to be at the merrimack valley surgery center at 11:45am, so we left by 11am.

my father drove while i navigated from the backseat using google maps. my mother came as well for moral support. the surgery place was located in chelmsford, a town that i had to look up because i didn't know where it was. situated next to lowell, there was a lot of food and shopping opportunities, so my mother and i had plenty of places to explore while my father was in surgery.

my father signed some forms when we got to the surgery center. there was a complimentary coffee machine which my mother couldn't resist using. it was a little nonintuitive and there were no instructions, so one of the receptionists came out to show her how to use it. there was a tv in the waiting room and an lcd screen showing the status of patients, their surgeon, and surgery progress (pre-op, operating room, recovery). after a few minutes of waiting, a nurse came out to take my father inside. she told us the whole procedure would take about 3 hours and they'd call me when my father was ready to leave.

with that my mother and i left the surgery center. since it was lunchtime, my mother wanted to get something to eat first. the closest place that seemed good was a vietnamese restaurant called pho 88. it was hidden in a strip mall, flanked by an indian restaurant, brazilian jiu-jitsu school, boba teashop, and a mochi donuts bakery.

the place wasn't busy at first - the waitress sat us at a 4-person table by the window - but soon filled up with lunchtime customers. being a semi-fulltime "restaurateur" (a name used by lisa which i kind of like) gave me better appreciation of the restaurant business. they must be doing something right to attract so many customers, many of whom looked like they walked there, so they must all work nearby. my mother and i both got the beef pho ($15/each) as well as a chicken teriyaki appetizer ($9). there was only a hostess and 2 waitresses, my mother kept saying that wasn't enough people. the waitresses (one asian, one caucasian) were very skilled though, memorized the orders without writing it down.

we seemed to be the last people to get our orders, while those who arrived after us were already eating. the chicken teriyaki was underwhelming, just two skewers of bland chicken on a bed of shredded lettuce and other vegetables. there was no sauce other than what was already on the table - sriracha, hoisin, two fresh house blend hot sauce. the pho was better, including beef shank, tripe, and tendon. i can't remember the last time i had pho - could it have been 9 years ago when i took a trip to fields corner?

we finished eating by 12:45pm. i used the bathroom before we left. we explored the strip mall area a little bit. there were signs for an indian grocery store (maruti) but it looked like it went out of business. olive tree - a mediterranean & middle eastern restaurant - was also gone (my mother thought it was an olive garden and originally wanted to go eat there).

we finally left and drove next door to a larger shopping plaza that had walmart. my mother initially wasn't interested in visiting, but decided to go anyway, and left with $100 worth of merchandise, including several t-shirts, some yarn, and a heavy duty aluminum frying pan. out of the nearby walmarts i've visited, this one seemed to be on the smaller side. it didn't even have a dedicated gardening department, just a few carts of plants outside. something unique i'd never seen before, but inside the walmart was a subway sandwich shop. you could smell it before you even saw it. my mother was thirsty and ended up buying a bottle of water from subway which cost $3. later she realized her mistake, and could've easily bought a whole case of water from walmart with that amount. it was at walmart that i received a text letting me know they were moving my father to the operating room. i wanted to pick up another onn 4K streaming box ($20) but looked like they were all sold out.

we left walmart by 2pm and went next door to the hannaford supermarket. i know there's a hannaford in waltham and i vaguely remember going inside before. it's similar to star market, great selection but not so great prices. we were there to get some carrots for the cafe. my mother wanted to leave because the surgeon had called me to let me know my father was out of the OR and would be recovering soon in 45-60 minutes. i wanted to check out hannaford some more, even though i didn't plan on buying anything else. we ended up taking a very quick tour, where my mother picked up some chicken salad sandwich for my father (figuring he might be hungry after surgery, having not eaten all day).

outside in the parking lot a nurse called me, told me my father was in the recovery room, said we could return to the surgery center soon. i told him we'd be there in 10 minutes.

when we got there, a nurse came out to take us inside. my mother was once again fiddling with the coffee machine but couldn't get it to work, before the nurse helped her. once she got her coffee we both went inside. we found my father in a recovery room, wearing a hospital gown lying on a hospital bed attached to an ECG machine (something i've very familiar with having spent a whole day at the mt.auburn hospital emergency room). he was already awake, seemed back to normal. he said the last thing he remembered was the surgeon telling him they were putting him to sleep. when he woke up he was here. a nurse came in and went through the discharge procedure, what to expect after the surgery, precautions, recovery, follow-up. he asked my father if he felt awake enough to get dressed and go use the bathroom, as they wanted to make sure he can urinate and that they didn't accidentally damage anything during the hernia operation.

my mother and i went back outside in the waiting room to wait. that gave my mother a third and final chance to use the coffee machine. i tried it myself, made an english breakfast tea with sugar and oat milk. after a few minutes, the nurse came out and said we can pull the car up to the entrance and he'd escort my father out. so that's what we did. i thought maybe they'd bring him out in a wheelchair, but my father was walking on his own. he got in the passenger seat and we headed back to belmont.

we left around 2:45pm. the drive back took 42 minutes. there wasn't too much traffic going inbound, but outbound we saw bumper to bumper congestion. i don't often drive on the highway so i was pretty nervous. my parents were talking but i was barely listening, instead concentrating on the directions and making sure i wasn't driving headfirst into the car ahead of me.

we finally made it to belmont by 3:30pm. up until now my father still hadn't seen his operation scars but showed my mother and me. they shaved the lower half of his torso. from his bellybutton down were 3 laparoscopic scars in a vertical row; for some reason i thought they'd be more horizontal. he said he felt some discomfort but wasn't too bad, and that the pain from the hernia was now completely gone. the doctor prescribed some oxycontin but my father said he didn't need it, nor any aspirins the nurse told him he could take after 8pm.

while my father was recuperating, i was outside and inside watering the plants. i decided to move the orchids to the sunroom. i noticed some mealybugs so i took them outside to spray with 70% alcohol before watering them with orchid fertilizer. i quickly watered the grow room plants as well. soon they'll all be living outside again. i also finally planted the hellebore, between the two peonies, underneath the redbud and kwanzan cherry canopy.

my sister came by with esmei. esmei was playful but also tired from being out all day. she actually went back inside the house on her own and jumped onto my father's bed where she laid down to sleep. eventually my sister took her back home.

my mother made lamb rice pilaf again for dinner. i left afterwards around 7pm. i ran into the next door neighbor who was mowing his lawn with what looked to be a ryobi electric mower. i asked him how he liked it, he said just got it and this was his first time using it. he mentioned something about mowing the lawn before watching the celtics game. that's when he told me he's a season ticket holder; only reason why he wasn't at the game tonight was because celtics were playing in cleveland. he also told me the first saturday of every month he performs at the lizard lounge and that i can go check him out if interested.

i stopped by the cafe to bring out the trash and to move some foods from the freezer to the fridge so they can be properly thawed by tomorrow. i finally made it back home by 7:30pm.

inside my grow closet: a few more bitter melon seeds have germinated; two hot pepper seedlings have emerged in the same pot, i'll need to move one of them; i saw a fungus gnat and decided to put up some yellow sticky traps.

cavaliers were without jarrett allen and donovan mitchell, so you'd expect the celtics to easily win the game. but celtics have a bad habit of playing down to their competition. yes, boston lead for most of the game, but it was much closer than what it should be (single digit lead), given how depleted cleveland was. still, a win is a win. hopefully the celtics can close out the series on wednesday.

i woke up at 9am this sunday morning. after a shower, i checked on my grow closet. i moved my tomatoes outside so they can begin hardening. i changed the water on my cuttings. i noticed another extra hot pepper seedlings had sprouted. i don't remember, but i must've planted two seeds per pot. i left by 10am.

i stopped by the cafe to put the tea eggs in the fridge before continuing to belmont. no sooner did i arrive then we left for a supply run. typically we do it on mondays but because my father's getting his hernia operation in chelmsford tomorrow, we won't have time. we ended up making a quick trip to the waltham costco, primarily to get eggs (which we ran out), but also whatever else we'd come across. costcos on weekends is crazy, parking lot to near capacity, crowds of people inside. however the checkout lines weren't very long and we were in and out only after 30 minutes, and that's including time we spend eating hot dogs.

it took half an hour to drive to the cafe to drop off the supplies before we returned to belmont by around 12:30pm. since we ate hot dogs at costco, my mother didn't make lunch, and retreated to her room to watch her stories. we bought a box of ube butter shortbread cookies from costco. i will basically try anything that contains ube, in a personal quest to learn about this delicious purple flavor. it tasted like any old basic cookie, nothing too special. if it had an ube taste it was faint. though it said there's no artificial coloring, it's natural coloring most likely comes from "black or purple" carrot juice as listed in the ingredients.

my father and i were busy outside doing garden work. the biggest project we had was to repot all 6 large-potted jasmines. some of them have yellowed - especially the two belle of india jasmines - while others are super heavy meaning the soil is very saturated and compacted. repotting involved removing the root ball, taking off as much of the old dirt, then replanting them with a bottom layer of drainage rocks, new potting soil, some compost, and a sprinkle of slow-release fertilizer. the potting soil was a 50qt bag from last season left outside. as such, it was heavily saturated with water (soggy), so we didn't bother watering afterwards. we also removed the attached saucer: it's great for indoor use, but taking it off allows for better outdoor drainage.

after that my father did some watering before tending to the hops trellis. i wanted to restring but he said the jute twine i got wasn't very strong. there's preexisting string but it's heavily coiled with dead bines from last year. i wanted to remove the old bines but my father said to keep them so the new bines will have something to climb on. while he was doing that, i was planting small snowdrops bulbs in the perennial bed underneath the grapevines. they won't flower this year but hopefully a few will pop up late winter of next year. i also planted the two strawberry rhizomes in a hanging basket. i had three plants but i left them soaking in water for too long and one of them rotted and another is close to dying if not already dead. we have wild strawberries growing underneath the grapevines but their berries are miniscule and it's mostly an invasive weed. strawberry plants are an easy get from home depot though, so if i really want to grow strawberries as a novelty, i can always buy them.

we finished by 3pm. not that we could've worked any later than that, since we needed to leave by 4pm. my aunt was treating my mother to a mother's day dinner at the alewife summer shack. i remember going there before, but i'd never ate there. i thought it was a self-serve establishment, but it's a real seafood restaurant with table service. of course i know that place as the aku aku polynesian restaurant, and the large fisherman statue outside was originally an easter island head. my 2nd aunt was also invited, she walked there from her house. my sister came on her own. while we waited outside, we admired a bicycle that was retrofitted with a gas engine. it was pretty cool but i could see burning your thighs on the hot motor. my aunt and matthew were already inside, told us they were sitting next to the lobster tank. i imagined a large glass aquarium like the kind they have at chinese restaurants, but this tank is more like a tub with constantly circulating water to provide aeration for the live lobsters.

my aunt ended up ordering for everyone and we shared everything. matthew told me that jasper white - the chef of summer shack - passed away yesterday at the age of 70. we had raw oysters, mussels, fried clams, fish & chips, corn bread, crinkle cut sweet potato fries, and a few variety of fish.

we finished eating by around 5:30pm. everyone disbanded, my 2nd aunt electing to walking back home as it was still daylight. i returned to belmont with my parents where i had some watermelon before finally leaving by 6:30pm.

pacers smoked the knicks in game 4, at one point leading by 43 points. new york made a run in the final quarter so they could lose by 30+ points instead of 40+. series tied 2-2. nuggets beat the timberwolves 115-107. the score makes it look like it was close but denver controlled the floor for much of the game. how could a team that lost 2 games at home be this dominant on the road? that series is also tied 2-2, heading back to denver. celtics play tomorrow night, hoping to push the series to a 3-1 lead.

last night there was no aurora because it was too cloudy. tonight i was hoping to see it but the sun flare that was predicted to erupt didn't show up so the northern light can only be seen from northern canada and alaska. still, around 11pm i went outside to take a photo of the sky. no aurora. bummer.

i woke up around 8:30am this morning so i could go pick up my prescriptions at walgreens which opens at 9am. i also originally planned to visit harvard vanguard and get my mother's prescription until i found out their pharmacy isn't opened on weekends. i ended up taking the motorcycle because it'd be quicker. there was just pharmacist working today (the vietnamese lady), and she was busy answering a phone call from a customer so i waited a few minutes before she came to help me.

i wasn't home for very long before i set out again, this time to the community garden to work on my plot. i went via bicycle so i could also bring one of two bags of miracle-gro raised bed soil. they'd been sitting in my alleyway for over a month now, and since that time have gotten wet so that one bag must've easily weighed 60 lbs. i rode gingerly, afraid the extra weight would burst my rear tire.

once again i was the only person in the garden, when i was expecting there to be more people on a nice saturday morning. maybe it was a little cold with temperature in the 50's, but the sun was shining and i got warm enough to strip down to just a t-shirt. my plot looked naturally manicured even though i didn't do anything to it. there was even a lovely groundcover of live sedum, and some forget-me-nots and pink chive flowers about to bloom. the only thing i did today was to top off my 8 grow bags with fresh soil. just one 40qt bag of new soil was enough to top off all the grow bags. in these bags i'll be growing my tomatoes, my eggplants, my peppers.

a couple with a baby came into the garden at one point. i think they have a plot on the western side of the garden. they were not friendly at all, the husband walking around the garden with the baby, but never made eye-contact nor saying anything even though i stood there and watched him. they left after a short while. when i was about to be finished, a woman came in to work on her plot. i didn't recognize her, but she'd been here at least since last season, because she asked if i was going to grow my hyacinth beans again.

i got back home a bit after 10am. i took a quick shower and left for the cafe by 10:20am. my parents were already there when i arrived. one of them was supposed to have the day off but they both showed up. my father ended up leaving soon afterwards, as my parents decided he should stay home because he's having hernia surgery on monday.

my 2nd aunt showed up around 11am. for some reason my sister was there today as well. nobody asked her to work, and we were afraid of bringing it up for fear of causing her to have another episode and storm off again. we were just glad for the additional help, even if it meant bearing some of her harsh disparagements when we did something that she didn't like. i forgot what exactly, but the smallest thing could potentially upset her. she ended up staying until the early afternoon. to be honest though, we didn't really need her help today but we barely had any customers. my personal theory is the porchfest in neighboring somerville stole most of our customers with their hundreds of live musical performances. my mother said it was karma because we had such a good thursday and friday. even a bad saturday we still managed to beat last week's profit.

the big news online was the aurora last night. i knew about it but figured i wouldn't be able to see it from the city. turns out i was wrong! i saw a bunch of photos taken in urban areas with the aurora clearly visible. even my former roommate was able to see it all the way down in new mexico. i regret not going out last night and checking it out myself. i did however use the eclipse filter and tried to get a few shots of the sun with the large sunspots. they weren't clear photos, i could barely make out a blurry batch on the sun.

andrew called me at one point out of the blue, i haven't heard from him in ages. he asked if i was belmont because he was at the neighboring park attending his daughter's soccer game against belmont. i couldn't leave but he said he might stop by the cafe one of these saturdays. i also wanted to go check out buster at the porchfest: not to hear the music (i don't know any of their songs) but rather to fly my drone so i could get an aerial view of just how many people came to see them. but in the end i thought against it, didn't want to have a drone malfunction and have it land on top of bunch of unsuspecting music lovers.

we were down to our second batch of tea eggs. normally when that happens i start preparing the next batch, but we were all out of eggs. luckily (or unluckily) it wasn't busy today and we hardly had any bento box orders so the tea eggs went mostly unused. we did however make a new batch of beef noodle soup broth. my parents started making the broth yesterday, reheated it again today, before letting the beef shank chunks marinate before removing them from the broth and then using the ice paddle to cool it down before packaging into 16 oz. containers for freezing/storage.

i had some homemade chinese dumplings for lunch. my 2nd aunt made them. it took me a while to eat them before i was busy turning the ice paddle to cool down the beef noodle soup. when i finally ate, i made a spicy dipping sauce with the hot chili oil sauce i created 1-1/2 weeks ago.

my father showed up by 4pm to give my mother a ride home. but she decided to walk home instead because the weather was so nice (though a little windy). so while my father drove the car back to belmont, i rode the motorcycle. i had on my fleece jacket but it didn't stop the wind from seeping through so i felt a little cold.

my father and i did a quick inspection of the backyard. we tentatively decided to add 2-1/2 more raised beds in the backyard. as much as i like the idea of having more space to grow things, i also like the idea of having a lawn to mow and walk on even though it's kind of a waste of good growing space.

for dinner my mother made beef noodle soup with the leftover beef noodle broth and leftover beef tendons that we don't sell to customers. tendons actually taste better, has more flavor, my father said you could really taste the beef compared to the lean cuts. this is beef shank we bought from restaurant depot. their price is cheaper, but the cut is less lean compared to the shank we get from foodpak. my mother didn't have any regular noodles so instead used thin noodles, which isn't my favorite because it soaks up the broth really quickly and i'm left with a starchy sludgy mess. but i ate quick this time, so the thin noodles didn't have time to dissolve.

i got back home around 7pm. i checked my grow closet. more bitter melon seedlings continue to emerge from the soil. i also checked my remaining seeds in wet paper towels: 6 seeds have started to develop roots, while 2 seeds appear mushy and fully dead. the cotyledon also appeared green, i think because it's developing some chlorophyl. i filled 6 pots with soil then planted these final half dozen rooting bitter melon seeds. while i was at it i also checked my 4 luffa seeds in wet paper towels: none of those have germinated yet. one of my potted hot peppers has sprouted a second seedlings. i carefully dug it out with a spoon and gave it its own pot to grow. i currently have 4 long horn pepper plants. finally i checked my cuttings. the monstera has developed a single root, the spider plants several roots, and the tradescantia show signs of rooting. i'm most excited about the monstera, never had one before but i hear about it all the time.

i had time before the celtics game to use the bathroom and take a shower. the game didn't start until well after 8:30pm. the first quarter was harrowing, multiple lead changes. in the second quarter celtics managed to get the lead and keep it even though it was just by single digits. starting in the second half, boston built the lead up to 23 points. cavaliers kept chipping away, got the lead down to single digits again, but in the 4th quarter boston ratcheted up their defense and cleveland couldn't make anymore headway. celtics won 106-93. i think this is a solid win. we regain the lead in the series count (2-1), won on the road, and won despite not playing well initially. these more challenging games (instead of a blowout early on) give the team valuable experience for when they face tougher teams should they advance into the next round (which everyone says they will).

i woke up at 7:30am to get ready to ride into boston. i was about to head out when the timer in my grow closet kicked in and i took a peek to see if there were any more new seedlings. i spotted one bitter melon about to emerge from the soil.

i finally left a bit after 8am. it took me 25 minutes to ride to haymarket via cambridge through lechmere and the science museum. i had an empty box strapped to the back of my rear bike baskets.

this early in the morning, a lot of haymarket vendors were still setting up their stalls. there was nothing noteworthy, i left with some cherry tomatoes ($1), 3 bunches of scallions ($2), a bag of baby cucumbers ($2), and two boxes of blueberries ($5).

i then got onto tremont street, riding by park street station, to ming's market on the outskirts of chinatown. i made a beeline to the produce and filled up my basket: napa cabbage, small cucumbers, bok choi, chinese celery, chinese cabbage, long horn pepper, carrot, garlic chives, and scallions (4 for $1). i also grabbed two bags of dried soy beans to make soy milk. i brought along my 2nd aunt's insurance card: every month they give her $80 to buy healthy food. apparently you can use it at ming's market so i gave it a try. the card paid for $50 worth of produce.

it took me about 40 minutes to ride to the cafe. about to exit off of the appleton pedestrian bridge to cross the longfellow, i spotted a tree with the most amazing fuchsia-colored flowers. at first i thought it was some variety of peach (rather unlikely as peach flowering season has been over for a few weeks now) but when i got closer, i was shocked to discover it was in fact a redbud. this must be a special variety because redbud flowers are normally pinkish purple, not brilliant pink like this one.

i got to the cafe a bit after 10am. my parents were restocking our inventory, making minced pork, beef noodle soup, curry chicken, roasted pork, and chinese sausages. later in the day my sister made a guest cameo to make her 5-spice pork and to marinate some chicken. i made a new batch of taiwanese paocai, but i didn't start until the early afternoon. i was working with 21 lbs. of chinese cabbage this time.

my aunt showed up around noontime. normally not a good time to visit because that's our busiest time, today it wasn't too bad, as the busy stretch happened in the late morning, and tapered off after that. rest of the day was a slow and steady stream of business. we didn't beat last friday's earnings but came close, but had already made enough this week that we nearly tied last week's total, with still one more day tomorrow.

as for my taiwanese paocai, i had to divide up the portions into 3 separate stainless steel mixing bowl, as i didn't have a single container that could hold 21 lbs. worth of cabbage. i told my father i wanted to get a jumbo sized mixing bowl, and i found out restaurant depot sells 30qt (!) stainless steel mixing bowls (winco-brand) for $22.50 (much cheaper than amazon). throughout the afternoon i'd put on my gloves and mixing the cabbage and salt to speed up the reduction. i didn't start mixing the paocai until 6pm. i used 10 cups of vinegar plus 10 cups of sugar. the amount seemed excessive. it was already closing time and i wasn't close to finishing. i told my parents to leave. i didn't finish until 7:30pm. i ended up with 10 quart containers of paocai and 1 quart of leftover sugar vinegar juice (which we can use to pickle our cucumbers).

first thing i did when i got home was to check the grow closet again. many more bitter melon seeds are emerging from the soil, as well as 3 hot peppers. watching seeds sprout never gets old. it's a kind of natural magic, a sort of faith that you plant these seeds in soil and after a certain amount of time, they will seem to suddenly come alive as they peek out from the dirt.

there was nothing to eat in the house, other than ramen or a frozen brick of readymade lasagna, which i already had this week. i could've gone out and bought something (steak & cheese sub, burrito, poke) but i was too tired to leave the house. in the freezer i found a leftover square of homemade lasagna wrapped in tinfoil (from november) that i decided to reheat and eat. i let the oven preheat at 350°F for about 15 minutes before throwing the lasagna in for 30 minutes. half an hour wasn't enough time, but i was too hungry to put it back in the oven. the outer edges were warm, but the inside was cold (but not frozen).

i watched a pair of NBA games tonight: pacers beat the knicks 106-111, and the nuggets beat the timberwolves 107-75 (score so far). both pacers and nuggets were down 2-0 facing the possibility of an insurmountable 3-0 deficit. the knicks-pacers game was close, the nuggets-timberwolves not so much. celtics play tomorrow night in cleveland.

we had a large grubhub order come in today at 11am. 25 items, 15 of which were bento boxes. the customer gave us just an hour to prepare everything. my sister happened to be outside, about to take esmei out. i flagged her down and told her what was happening. she said she'd come back after 20 minutes. we had a big order a few weeks ago, so we knew the drill. i went downstairs to grab the folding table. unlike last time though, this order was bigger, and even more customized, like asking us to put names on each items, or each item with different selection of hot sauces. to make matters worse, we entered our lunchtime busy period, so new orders were coming in, whether it be online, via phone, or walk-in customers. it was insane.

when my sister finally showed up, it didn't make it better, as she started criticizing the way we were fulfilling the orders, to the point where it would've been better if she wasn't there at all. the delivery driver showed up 15 minutes early, but it took us until 12:30pm before we finally got everything ready. customers have to realize we can't just magically prepare their order in a matter of minutes, and that they have to give us plenty of time. like we have a harvard customer who occasionally makes a large order: they would call us days in advance to let us know, so we could prepare ahead of time. unfortunately that customer hasn't ordered in a while, not since late february when we mucked up their order.

today was the 3rd most profitable day so far this year, even without the big order. finally by 2pm business started to taper off. the change was so abrupt, we didn't have a single customer for nearly an hour after being crazy busy earlier. i ended up making 2 batches of tea eggs, as we ended up going through something like 3 dozen eggs. i also prepared some fresh boba pearls, made 8 boxes of ice cubes, and cooked several batches of black soy noodles.

i saw esmei in the morning. the vet shaved the base of her tail because it was infected so removing the fur made it easier to apply ointment and to keep an eye on the infection.

besides eating a ruined tea egg, i also air fried some readymade spanakopita. i feel like these would be easy to make, i'd like to make them one of these days. i just need to get some phyllo dough (i've never seen it sold at market basket, but maybe because i wasn't looking hard enough).

i rode home after work, bringing a box with me for when i go to haymarket and chinatown tomorrow morning. i thought it was warm enough that i wore just a t-shirt but with the fading sun it felt a little cool in the shadows.

i checked on my grow closet. one of the hot peppers has finally germinated. another bitter melon has germinated as well, from my 3rd batch of 6 that i planted may 3rd. i've sort of lost track. i just know it's not one of the new batches that i sprouted using the wet paper towel trick. or is it? honestly, i've started so many unsuccessful iterations of bitter melons, i'm just happy to see any germinating. i inspected the paper towel bitter melon seeds. 9 seeds remaining, 6 show sign of sprouting, 2 are still waiting, and one seed was all mushy so i tossed it. i didn't plant them just yet, will wait until they sprout a bit more before putting them in soil. using the wet paper towel technique, i managed to germinate more than 90% of my bitter melon seeds, even though i thought most of them were non-viable.

for dinner i made luxury ramen. i haven't made this since december, so it's the first time this year i'm having it.

i ate while watching the cavaliers-celtics game. celtics lost badly, 118-94. feels like deja vu, the same thing happened in the miami series, boston won the first game, miami won the second one. hopefully history will repeat itself and boston can win the next 3 games to end the series. it was frustrating to watch as celtics seemed to be overly reliant on the 3-pointers even when they weren't going in, or when they had chances for a layup but purposely kicked out to a player on the 3-point line only to brick it and have cleveland grab the rebound. i know analytics say a 3-pointer is more valuable than a 2-pointer even if you miss, but as someone who grew up watching 90's basketball, it just doesn't seem right.

it rained for much of the day, the one day this week i had off. it made my decisions much easier i couldn't do anything until the rain stopped. if it was raining during the summer i might go out for a run, but temperature was in the 60's, wasn't worth it going for a soaking run.

for lunch i heated up a jamaican beef patty in the microwave. as it was starting to look like the rain might be stopping (temporarily at least), i started making preparations to run my errands. i packaged up my 2nd aunt's passport renewal documents as well as my 2nd uncle's permanent resident card typographical error fix request. i taped up a jacket my mother wanted to return to macy's, along with a pair of pants i wanted to return to amazon.

taking a peek of my grow closet, i noticed another luffa had germinated. that was the one i noticed a few days ago when i was digging in the soil, before i turned off the heating pad. i now have 3 luffa seedlings, and still waiting for 3 more to sprout. did i mention luffa need 200 growing days to reach maturity? at least rate they won't be ready until november, though if we're growing them to eat, maybe we might harvest them earlier. i remember we grew some luffa a long time ago, but it's been so long, it feels like we're growing them for the very first time. i checked my paper towel bitter melon seeds: two more have sprouted, i planted them in some soil. so far i only have a single bitter melon seedlings, but have 19 paper towel sprouted seeds that i'm still waiting for them to emerge from the soil.

at 1pm i set out to run errands. first stop was the porter square post office. the clerk - an indian man - was giving me a hard time. instead of letting me choose how i wanted to send it, he always picked the most expensive option. when i complained and asked him if there was a cheaper option with tracking, he got angry and wouldn't process one of my packages, told me to go to fedex, said they're cheaper. exasperated, he pulled out a priority mail envelope, which was $10 but cheaper than the $16 option he offered me previously just for sending some paper forms and a green card. i filled out the envelope and went back to him. "where are you from?" he asked me. like now he was curious about my life after previously chastising him for wasting his time? i could've played the asshole but i answered him, "taiwanese. how about you?" he said he was lebanese. i know very little about lebanon so i had no witty retort. "you don't look chinese," he told me. "i don't like taiwanese?" i corrected him, "then what do i look like? hispanic?" he paused, unsure how to answer without offending me. "just not chinese," he said. i told him i've lived in the US for a long time. "45 years," i told him. "you've been here longer than me, i've only been here 35 years," he replied.

next stop was the UPS store on somerville avenue. i was returning the package from macy's as well as some used nespresso pods. i saw a trio of walgreens pharmacist heading into dunkin' donuts for their lunch break.

from the UPS store i went down park street then scott-holden to roberts road, to harvard vanguard, to pick up a prescription for my mother. she hadn't received any notification messages and the pharmacist told me the prescription wasn't ready yet.

i then went cambridge-hovey-magnolia-line-cooney to whole foods, to return those pants to amazon.

harold-dimick-calvin-dane brought me to market basket. i wasn't prepared to get anything, just some bean sprouts for the cafe, maybe some snacks for myself. with that i came home.

at 2pm i rode to belmont. originally i planned on taking the motorcycle to get it inspected in arlington, but i didn't want to ride that far not knowing if it's going to rain again. instead i went to my parents' place to pick up some luffa seeds and to inspect the backyard. my tomato and squash seedlings were outside hardening, but all the rain had flooded their trays. i emptied the water from the trays then brought the seedlings inside, as the next few nights will be a little cold (temperature possibly in the 40's).

i got back to cambridge around 3pm, walked to star market to get some more snacks. i didn't go out the rest of the day. not that i wanted to anyway, as the rain returned, turning the sky ominously dark for a brief period in the late afternoon. i actually closed the blinds and turned on the lights, that's how dark it got.

so i didn't go running, didn't get my motorcycle inspected, nor did i do any work in my community garden plot. hopefully the weather on saturday morning will be nice, that's my next available free window.

i soaked 4 luffa seeds. tomorrow i'll wrap them in wet paper towel and leave them in my grow closet to germinate, like what i did with the bitter melon seeds. i'm also wondering if i should do that with the pepper seeds as well, none of which have germinated yet even though it's been 12 days already, including 10 days on the heating pad. pepper seeds seem to be notorious for slow germination.

today would've been a nice day to do some retroactive blog posting but instead i finished watching onibaba (1964), a horror film about two feudal japanese peasant women who murder wayward samurais and sell their armor for money. the movie is a bit slow, and the horror element doesn't show up until the final third of the movie. they could've easily made it into a half-hour short film. it reminded me of the morality tales of nathaniel hawthorne or the gothic horror of edgar allan poe.

i made korean rice cake for dinner, wanted to use up my expired fried tofu wedges. it helped that i made it less than 2 weeks ago, so the recipe was still fresh in my mind.

i watched game 2 between the pacers-knicks. indiana had the momentum after jaylen brunson left the game after the first quarter, building a 10-12 point lead going into halftime. but when brunson returned in the second half, pacers quickly lost the lead in less than half a quarter and never regained it. knicks won 121-130.

i arrived at the cafe the same time as my parents. in the back cargo area was esmei, like a stowaway. i brought her to my sister's place then returned to the cafe. my sister returned by 12:30pm.

today wasn't too busy at the cafe, a lot of drink orders. we didn't sell any noodles until the end of the day when somebody came in to buy a beef noodle soup. a lot of rice orders and there was a bit of morning drama when i realized after an hour that nobody pressed the button to cook the rice yet. fortunately we had leftover. we cooked 7 cups of rice and i cooked an additional 3 cups in the afternoon. the curse of the rice cooker continues, since as soon as we cooked more rice, none of it got sold.

for lunch my mother made a pork bone broth with daikon radishes and smoked jujubes. we had it with some rice noodles, one of our family comfort food.

i didn't make any tea eggs today. i did make a new batch of sesame peanut sauce. i added too much water and had to add an additional 3 scoops of peanut butter to thicken the sauce.

during a lull in the afternoon, i went out to do some mulching around the parking lot bed. that was before i discovered my sister had used up most of the mulch we bought last weekend, only a single bag remained. i did some cleaning anyway, raked some dead leaves and picked up some detritus around the edges of the parking lot.

by day's end we made more than last tuesday, including two online orders that came in close to closing time.

today was a warm day. i biked back home in just a t-shirt, temperature was in the 70's.

i checked my bitter melon seeds. today was day 4 and i had 17 germinations, which is most of the seeds. so those seeds weren't bad, it's just that bitter melon seeds are difficult to germinate and require presoaking and warm temperature if possible. when the seeds germinate the outer shell comes off. the root tip also has a weird shape, like a plug: maybe that's to anchor the seedling. i planted all the seeds that sprouted, and put back the rest (7) in a wet paper towel for further germination. i also finally turned off my heat pad which uses a good amount of electricity (20W, but that's 24/7 for the past 2 weeks). i'm still trying to germinate the peppers and luffa seeds, but i'm not bothering with the heat pad. the grow closet has enough heat (though only when the lights are on).

i heated a brick of lasagna in the microwave and settled in for the cavaliers-celtics game starting at 7:30pm. other than a brief period when cleveland had a small lead, boston dominated most of the game. by the end it was all bench guys playing as the celtics won by 25 points 95-120.

i seem to be incapable of waking up late anymore. nowadays i wake up before 9am most mornings. this after going to bed last night around 3am, watching 3 episodes of sugar. i couldn't stop thinking about the broken internet at my sister's place. i realized it was down late last night when i couldn't see the webcam anymore. i thought about running to her place to reset the router, but it rainy and cold.

i rechecked my bitter melon seeds, day 3. i saw one seed had germinated yesterday; today there were 3 more. i noticed the outer coat comes off when the seeds sprout. they also sprout from the "pointy" end of the seeds, which makes me think i should've clipped that end instead. i'll check again tomorrow. i removed the germinated seeds and planted them into cups. assuming these seeds will successfully turn into seedlings, i now have a total of 5 bitter melons. i also checked my heat mat seeds, another luffa has sprouted. i moved it into the grow closet. i now have a total of 2 luffa seedlings.

around 9:30am i left the house and went to my 2nd aunt's place. she'd been having problems with the iyf.tv app on her google tv ever since she returned from taiwan (more than 2 weeks ago). i suspected it's an outdated apk. sure enough, the version she has is 2.2.8 (installed back in december). the latest is 2.3.4. the old apk will try to install the latest version, but security measures prevent an apk from installing other apks. even when i disabled it, it still didn't work. fortunately i brought a copy of the latest iyf.tv apk on a thumb drive and installed it that way. it started working after that.

next i headed to the cafe. i brought out food from the freezer so they can thaw in the fridge for tomorrow. i then went to my sister's place to reset the router. because she changed the front door code, i had to go through the back door which was a real hassle, involving accessing 2 keyless entry. i made sure it wasn't a modem issue - all 4 lights were steady. i reset the router and the internet was back online. both my father and sister called me while i was there, asking me to reset the router. the upstairs tenants must've complained. later i heard from my mother that one of them even asked for a discount in rent because of the outage. the router has been acting up lately. i decided to upgrade the firmware while i was there, 3.0.0.4.386_20632 to 3.0.0.4.386_51685.

i left by 10:30am and headed to belmont. esmei had spent the night. she didn't greet me when i came in, just gave me a dismissive look. last night she slept on her dog bed in her play pen. my parents didn't lock the cage, but it left my mother so anxious she didn't have a good night's sleep and ended up sleeping in the living room to keep an eye on esmei. earlier this morning my father took esmei out for a walk so she could go to the bathroom, as she doesn't like to go in the backyard for some reason.

i pretty much spent the whole day doing garden work in the backyard. i came in briefly to eat an egg pancake with some pork floss, but otherwise i was outside the whole time. it was an ideal day for gardening with temperature in the 70's. my father and i made two more fencing for raised bed 3, so now it can be completely protected from rabbits. we also erected the wire trellis for RB3. i mixed a solution of fungicide spray for the grapes: 1.2 tbsp (18ml) of immunox liquid + 0.75 tbsp (2.25 tsp) of captan powder + 1/2 gallon of rain water. immunox (1.55% myclobutanil) is for blackrot while captan is for phomopsis. i planted a bunch of perennials from the plant swap: wild ginger next to the old wild ginger underneath the japanese maple; columbine root near the peonies and hydrangea; purple-leaved fringed loosestrife in the same pot as the wisteria; repotted the peony seedling and bleeding heart seedling; purple asters near the basement entrance; solomon's seal next to the hostas. i planted a row of blue beans in RB4, as well as a single hyacinth bean. i started my beans way too early and many of them already have long tendrils with nowhere to climb. i spent some time untangling the tendrils, and ended up breaking a few in the process. next season, i shouldn't plant them indoors until the end of april. dug up some foxgloves from the western bed and transplanted them underneath the grapevines and the perennial bed behind the garage. finally watering the plants in the basement grow room.

at one point my parents took esmei to the watertown dog park near arsenal yard. while we were planting we had to keep her inside otherwise she'll dig in the dirt as well. she kept trying to get into the basement (even crying) until i let her downstairs so she could explore for a few minutes before i called her back outside. around dinnertime she slept on the kitchen floor, waiting for someone to feed her. after dinner she went inside her playpen and slept on her dog bed.

my father grilled some t-bone steaks on the barbecue. even after about an hour of thawing they were still a little hard because they'd been previously frozen. i coated them with oil then sprinkled salt and ground pepper. we grilled on high 5 minutes each side. the final steaks looked pretty good, but the meat near the bone was still a bit rare, while the rest of the steaks ranged from medium-rare to medium.

i got back home by 7:30pm. two NBA playoff games tonight, pacers-knicks, timberwolves-nuggets. i was rooting for the pacers but they lost 117-121. as of right now, minnesota looks to beat denver, taking their series to 2-0. the defending champions nuggets look seriously vulnerable and could very realistically lose the series.