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i took the 11:14am bus to belmont this morning since rain was expected later today. unlike yesterday when we were in the 80's, temperature today was in the 50's. i wore a light jacket but if it got any colder it probably wouldn't be enough. after some cold porridge for lunch, i went with my parents on a supply run to the waltham costco, followed by the waltham market basket, via a shortcut through a newly created waltham industrial park that seemed to have been carved through a granite hill. costco was very crowded - something about the bad weekend weather brings people shopping. and while masket basket is always crowded, it seemed light in comparison.

back at home, i ate several pieces of fried chicken. a few hours later i felt a little queasy from all that grease. the promise of rain never did come, at most there were brief periods of very light drizzle. nevertheless, i never set foot in the backyard, figuring i'd continue the yard work tomorrow.

i showed my father information i found on wintersweet (Chimonanthus praecox), the fragrant winter blooming shrub. he immediately recognized it as a traditional flower of chinese winters, 腊梅. i first came across these yellow bowl-shaped blossoms when i lived in changshou, and saw people selling them on the streets. the scent is so indescribably lovely that it's almost magical. it'd would be a welcomed addition to our backyard. unfortunately boston is sort of on the edge of its hardiness zone (6-9), though a specimen lives in the arnold arboretum (i was supposed to visit it this winter but forgot), so it can survive here with some protection. but the bigger problem is very few nurseries in the US carry this plant; it's more common in england, and even more so in china. there are also two main variety - 'grandflorus' yellow flowers with red centers and 'luteus' all-yellow (these are the ones i saw in chongqing). there's also a red variety which seems more mythical than real since no online nurseries carry it, the most i could find were seeds (but in china a 10 year old bonsai of a red wintersweet can be had for ¥580 or less than $100).

for dinner my mother made some noodles. my father gave me a ride home afterwards, stopping at the cafe to drop off some supplies. solar production was negligible today at 10.11 kWh, the second worse production this month. with 4 more days left in may i still expect to break 1000kWh (we're currently at 958kWh), but my earlier estimates of 1100kWh might not be within reach this month.

tonight was game 7 between the cavaliers and celtics. boston really had nothing to lose, nobody expected them to get this far, pressure was all on cleveland. despite not having kevin love, lebron james and company beat the celtics (horford, tatum, brown, smart, scary terry rozier, morris). it was a close game, and had things gone differently, boston would be celebrating tonight instead of cleveland. but i don't feel too bad, the celtics are guaranteed to be better next year when their all-stars return, a great team becoming even greater.

i've been researching bluetooth headphones all last week and i finally ordered a pair of taotronics active noise cancelling bluetooth headphones (BH22). typically they sell for $70, but they were on sale for $60, and i had a promotion code for an additional $22.50 off, along with $20.47 worth of reward points, bringing the price to just $19. i think a lot of these cheap bluetooth headphones have the same functionality and performance, but i like these because they don't attract too much attention. i read some online reviews which rated them better than average. i then saw a blog posting where this girl bought 8 different sub-$70 headphones and rated them; she rated taotronics the best, which convinced me to get it. the worst that could happen is i return them if i don't like them.