i used up the rest of my leftover avocado to make some avocado toast for lunch. afterwards i oiled my chain and pumped my tires before biking down to chinatown (1:20pm). the temperature by that point had increased into the lower 40's on an otherwise sunny day. earlier in the morning i called my mother asking if she wanted anything from chinatown, she said no, that my parents were planning on taking a trip to baifu restaurant suppliers anyway this weekend to get supplies.

i went to two supermarkets: c-mart first then ming's market. i got $30 worth of groceries, including another 5 lbs. bag of red plum brand glutinous rice ($7.99) and two 6-pack of heysong sarsaparilla soda ($6.98). i only bought enough to carry in a single grocery bag, because i needed the other bag for ming's market. here i bought nearly as much groceries ($26), including all the vegetable ingredients i needed to make sichuan paocai next week.

there is no good bike route for me to return home from chinatown. usually i just go back to the public garden then cross the pedestrian bridge to get onto the charles river bike path. although it's a lot safer (no cars), it's a much longer route. instead today i improvised a new way home, cutting through downtown crossing, to government center, then getting on cambridge street to take me across the longfellow bridge. i cut through chinatown, which looked bleak. surprisingly, a new asian supermarket seemed to have sprung up during the pandemic, sun wing llc (27 harrison ave), maybe i'll come check it out next time.

my outbound trip ended up taking me 7 minutes longer than my inbound trip, but it was interesting going through downtown crossing. to say it's desolate would be an understatement. any other time (by that i mean non-pandemic) the place would be a sea of pedestrians. but it was mostly empty. that's partly coronavirus, but also partly rising rent cost, which already drove out a lot of businesses.

my thighs were killing me as i trudged 4.8 miles back to my house. i was getting hot, beginning to swelter underneath my wool sweater, but didn't want to bother stopping to take it off (i had no place to put it away, my grocery bags were stuffed as well as my everyday carry bag). when i finally got home (3pm), i stripped out of my sweaty clothes and jumped in the shower.

once again i didn't have dinner until late, around 9:30pm. i made another meatball sub. this time i steamed the meatballs in the microwave first, before transferring them to a small pot with some tomato sauce and heating up the sauce. i popped my circuit breaker when i accidentally used my microwave and electric water kettle at the same time, and had to run quickly down into the basement to flip it back on. steaming seems to be a good way to reheat frozen meatballs, prevents them from drying up. i also topped the meatballs with some hot pepper rings for some additional flavor. i ate while watching the end of the celtics-wizards game, boston ended up beating washington. later i watched some national geographic documentary on the mafia.