in the late morning i removed the cover from my motorcycle and rode to belmont. today's weather was an ideal 70's with a strong sea breeze. i stopped to watch a group of people flying kites in the park and took some photos. made me want to get out my own kite, which was back in cambridge. i can't remember the last time i flew a kite, or ever.
i found my father outside stripping the weeds and crabgrass from our sidewalk lawn that the town repaired after they removed our diseased maple tree. "repaired" is a stretch since they basically added some new top soil and scattered some seeds, 
but never came back to properly take care of the grass and soon it was overgrown with weeds. it's kind of an eyesore so we didn't to redo everything. when i got there my father was almost done weeding. afterwards we dumped two bags of supplemental garden soil before sprinkling the grass seeds then raking them into the soil before watering. i also added some grass seeds to some bare spots on the lawn.
the woodchuck didn't come back into our backyard but there was a suspicious area that looked dug up from our side of the fence that neither of us noticed before. it could've been there from before, when the groundhog might've been trapped inside and tried desperately to dig itself out. but the fact that we haven't any noticed any new squash foliage damage today means that we managed to keep the woodchuck out, at least for today.
i had some canned clam chowder for lunch, the ones my father found at bin bin's place yesterday and decided to bring them home since they were all expired. we didn't have any milk in the house so my mother used milk powder, which made the chowder taste bland.
i watched game 1 of the playoff game between the celtics and the raptors. other than very early in the game, toronto never led in the game, as the celtics were always up by double digits. if the rest of the series continues like this, it will make boston fans very happy.
i did a taste test between the sour plum drink we made and the sour plum drink i bought in the store. the commercial version is more mellow, not as tart, with an added flavor of osmanthus flower (which isn't listed in the ingredients, but it's very obvious if you ever smelled osmanthus before). our version is more tart (which is balanced out by the sweetness) but there's also a smokiness imparted from the smoked plums that i didn't taste in the commercial brand. i prefer ours the best, but in a pinch i'd also drink the commercial version.
since this was tax free weekend, i helped my mother order a few things from the body shop. my sister had ordered an ipad mini yesterday and she stopped by to show us her new tablet. i helped her manually set up her personal e-mail accounts.
the capacitor for the broken oscillating fan i found a few weeks ago finally arrived. the mailing label said it came from kyrgyzstan. we hooked it up to the broken fan and plugged it in and was surprised it didn't work. it remained dead. there wasn't even the whirl of a motor trying to get started. at this point we have no idea what's broken. the fan capacitor didn't cost all that much - just $3 - for a spare part that may or may not have been able to bring a dead fan back to life. i'll look it up some more online to see if there are any other ways to fix the fan, otherwise we'll probably just throw it out after stripping it for parts.
in the late afternoon my father and i were back outside, this time sprinkling some foxglove and lunaria seeds around the perimeter of the yard. foxglove seeds are so tiny, it felt like i was sprinkling ground pepper onto the soil. we also pruned any surviving foxgloves we found with the hopes that they might survive into next season. i cut back all the daisies while my father pruned some of the grape vines. we also trimmed the hydrangeas. even though it's still august, it felt like fall cleanup.
after dinner i returned home. it was just 7:30pm but it was already gettin dark. there were no clouds in the sky so there was no spectacular sunset. i have to appreciate days like these, because once the weather turns out, it won't be as fun riding the motorcycle.
i watched black panther on ABC, which was broadcasting the movie without commercial interrupts in honor of chadwick boseman who passed away yesterday. i'd never seen the movie before so it gave me a chance to watch it. afterwards there was a special tribute in honor of boseman, with many actors from the MCU offering their respects and sharing their thoughts.
with tax free weekend coming to a close, i went onto amazon looking for things to buy. i got a new bike light ($19.99, one that has warning indicators that can tell me when the light is close to running out of power), a 3-tier spice pantry organizer ($6.99, like a set of spice stairs), and a bottle of garden safe concentrated neem oil (16 oz. $14.99).
as the evening draws to a close, i nervously wait and see if i'm getting any cases from the census for tomorrow. i had some work on friday but only 6 addresses, so hardly any. our supervisor warned us we might be expecting to see some zero cases days, so maybe monday might be one of them. either way i'm fine with it, i just wish they can tell us earlier instead of having us just be on standby. i should be able to find out before i go to bed, since new case list typically show up around 1am.