around 10:30am i went with my parents on a weekend supply run. first stop was the everett costco. the place was busy, and an unusually large amount of chinese shoppers. as a chinese person myself, and having spent considerable time in china, maybe it might seem strange to hear me say that i hate seeing other chinese people. a few is okay, but when i see a crowd of them, it feels like an invasion. i don't consider myself like them at all in that they're recent immigrants, and i've been here in the US a long time (almost 4 decades now), and i actually look down on them.

then came the restaurant depot, which surprisingly wasn't as crowded today given the amount of people at nearby costco. finally, we turned back and went to super 88 in malden. my mother only wanted to go there to score a free chinese calendar (traditionally chinese supermarkets give them away around new year as a promotion when you buy over a certain amount), but discovered they weren't giving out calendars. we ended up still buying a lot from there.

we stopped off at the cafe to drop off the supplies before returning to belmont.

when i walked into the backyard from the side entrance with the propane tank, i saw a squirrel jumping away into the bushes; it must've been snacking on the suet feeder just seconds ago. there was another brief flurry of bird activities: sparrows, downies, juncos. chickadees also came back today, but no nuthatch sightings.

we bought 2 slabs of costco barbecue ribs which we put on the grill soon after returning home. after crisping up all sides with grilling temperature, we let it slow cook on barbecue heat.

i don't know how many pieces of ribs i ate (4-5) but i felt sick afterwards because i had too much. since we ate so early i ended up not having dinner in belmont. when my father to go make dinner for my grand uncle around 6pm, i got a ride back to cambridge, taking home some leftover ribs in case i got hungrier later in the evening.

as it was still early, i walked down to the dollar tree to look for slinkies. i knew they carried plastic ones from their website, but it could've just been an online only deal, so i wasn't 100% sure. i needed a slinky as a squirrel deterrent on the shepherd's pole i have the suet feeder hanging from. when i got to the store, i saw they carried the plastic slinkies, but they also had the traditional metal ones, though smaller in size (slinky juniors). i ended up getting a slinky junior, just because i figured it'd last longer than the cheaper plastic slinky (though they were all $1).

i spent the rest of the evening watching season 2 of the wire. later i did finish the leftover ribs when i got a bit hungry.