leaving the house enroute to belmont for sunday, i ran into one of my neighbors. she asked me if i knew anything about the block party, which i thought happened yesterday, but they must've rescheduled it for today. i was carrying not only 2 bottles of baijiu in my backpack, but a bag of lizhi and a bag of zongzi in my messenger bag, which dangled near my legs and made it hard to pedal. i ended up slinging the bag over my backpack, which must've looked ridiculous but it got the job done.

in belmont my mother and i tried the zongzi i bought on a chinatown street corner, one taiwanese style, one cantonese style. each one was wrapped in 4 pieces of thin bamboo leaves. the taiwanese zongzi was tetrahedral in shape and stuffed with boiled peanuts, mushrooms, and some pork. my mother complained that there wasn't enough meat, given how cheap the price of pork is. the cantonese zongzi was rectangular, stuffed with just pork and yellow bean paste. it wasn't as flavorful as the taiwanese zongzi.

i also ate some lizhi, which were sweet, but a bad variety because the pits inside were so huge there was hardly any fruit flesh. later i ate a cinnabon my mother had bought from ikea yesterday.

my mother was watching bosch on amazon prime via the roku 3. she uses the roku so much now that she hasn't touched the mango tv box in a while, so long ago that she doesn't know where the box remote is anymore. i heard about bosch but never watched an episode. i think the series itself is so-so, but what's fascinating is the number of wire actors in the show, either as full-time cast members or cameos.

my sister came home in the late afternoon, insistent that we have some sort of barbecue. she did most of the food preparation. i like my barbecue traditional, so i wasn't thrilled with her curry burgers or mint-flavored chicken.

while i was casually pulling out wild jerusalem artichokes from the western perennial bed, i felt a sharp pain on my hand. at first i thought it was a thorn, but i was wearing gardening gloves. even when i took them off, i couldn't figure out where the pain came from. i deduced that something had stung me, but i couldn't find the insect that did it. i was worried it might be a spider bite, but i'd been wearing the gloves for a while, so if it was a spider hiding inside, it would've stung me much earlier. whatever it was, it hurt like hell. i stopped everything i was doing and ran to the bathroom to wash off my hand. there was a little prick mark on my right ring finger. later there was some swelling on my knuckle and the pain stayed with me for the rest of the night, although the worst was in the first few hours.

my grand uncle called while we were eating, something about his tv not working anymore. after we finished, i biked down to his place to see what the problem was. turns out the remote's battery was out of juice. i took out a pair of AA batteries from my external flash as a temporary fix. i turned to ABC because i knew he wanted to watch game 7 of the NBA finals which was happening in less than 30 minutes. i asked him which team he wanted to win - the warriors or the cavaliers - but i didn't understand his answer.

i took a quick shower when i got home and settled down to watch the game by 8pm. it 9pm i had the difficult choice of continuing watching the NBA or turn the channel to watch the penultimate episode of game of thrones on HBO. i decided to stick with basketball, since the episode would replay again later in the evening. it was a a close game, with multiple lead changes and neither team up by more than single digits. in the final few minutes, both teams looked hesitant, neither could score, as the tension mounted and time ticked off the clock. once cleveland gained the lead however, there was no turning back, as the clock finally wound down to zero and the cavaliers were NBA champions for the first time, and a cleveland sports team finally wins it all in more than half a century of trying. i spend some time watching the post-game coverage on streaming ESPN before switching over to HBO at 11:30pm to watch the GoT rebroadcast. watching game of thrones was like watching another battle, just like game 7. after the episode was over, i turned back to ESPN to catch more game coverage.

i tried out the 99¢ ikea väckis alarm clock my mother got me yesterday. it sits in the space where my frog clock used to be (before mary smashed it and tried to flush it down the toilet). the clock is very minimalistic, but does the job. i don't even need it for the alarm feature. the lack of a second hand sort of bothers me, but my old clock didn't have one either. the only problem i have with the väckis is how loud it is. when i first heard it, i thought it was the sound of a leaking tub faucet dripping on the shower curtain. the ticking isn't really a deal breaker, but i will be on the lookout for a better replacement clock.