there is a great joy knowing i didn't have to wake up this morning and go do census work. but weeks and weeks of enumeration have turned me into a morning person, and by 8am i was ready to get out of bed, had to force myself to sleep another hour.

i took the motorcycle to my parents' place in the late evening. people were flying kites again in the park, i stopped to chat with some of them and take photos. a woman even let me fly her kite though i did a terrible job and crashed it a few times before handing it back to her. several of the kites were flying on their own, the kites themselves dots in the sky. hanging from their lines were colorful windsocks that seemed to be undulating in the air like magic.

the new grass on the strip of sidewalk lawn is coming out nicely, the blades are about an inch tall now. my father told me he accidentally left a hose to the rain barrel open for 24 hours and had drained all the rain that'd accumulated during the storm on thursday. with no forecast of rain for the next 10 days, it's going to be a while before we can use our rain barrels again. we did a quick backyard inspection but i didn't go back out after that. it was a cool day away, temperature in the 60's, felt more like the start of fall than the end of summer.

i had some stewed pork and tofu for lunch, along with a small sweet potato that tasted a little bitter. i ordered a few things off of amazon for my parents, including hibiscus flower (for the sour plum drink), toners for the cafe's samsung printer, and some underwear for my father.

we also spent some time researching soy milk makers. my father had been asking for one for a while, ever since my parents came back from taiwan earlier this year. he asked me to look up the joyoung DJ12U which amazon was selling for $98. the capacity seemed a little small (1.2L, about 1/3 gallon), so while searching for a larger sized model, we came across the joyoung DJ13U-G91 (chinese language version). at 1.3L it's only slightly larger than the previous model we looked at, but it featured a 4-leaf blade (as opposed to just 3-leaf on the DJ12U) and a grinding skirt for even smoother blending of the soy beans. it retails for $288, but huarenstore.com was selling it for $145. even better, if you visit the chinese language version of the website, there's a $10 off labor day coupon that's good until 9/15, for a final price of $135 including free shipping. so we ended up ordering one, supposed to arrived here in 2-7 days from flushing, NY of all places. turns out the joyoung DJ13U-G91 was the model my father wanted to get when he was in taiwan; the taiwanese version is known as DJ13M-G1, exactly the same except the buttons are in traditional chinese. these soy milk makers besides making soy milk seem to be able to make other foods as well: rice paste, porridge, nut milk, and juice. they're essentially just heated blenders, like an electric kettle with a built-in immersion blender. from some of the videos i saw online for the joyoung, it seems like it can do everything, which is a common claim for all these new fancy home appliances, from instant pots to air fryers. how did we ever cook without them?

i did some vacuuming later in the afternoon. it not only keeps the house clean, but also good exercise. i love it when the brush head is pulling itself on the rug, like the vacuum is on automatic. simply vacuuming the living room rugs generated another cupful of dust. the house does smell cleaner now, which could just be a placebo effect. my mother said we have to wait for a humid day to see if the pet odor is still remaining.

after dinner i returned home. it was a little bit chilly but i wore a long-sleeved shirt which kept me warm. there was plenty of parking as neighbors scramble to find more long-term parking for their cars away from our street since it's going to be repaved all next week.

there was a lakers-rockets game, but i wasn't interested, waiting for the celtics-heat game on tuesday night instead. i did watch the final half though, when i suddenly remembered playoff rondo was playing (for the lakers no less), which is fun to watch. there were a few former celtics players on both teams. los angeles ended up winning the series, 4-1.