i went down to the community garden in the late morning to drop off my soil sample after it had a chance to dry overnight. there was a box in the tool shed with ziploc bags and a solo cup with a helpful line indicating how much was a cup. i thought i had a lot of soil but turns out i just barely collected a little bit over a cup of soil.

even though it was windy, it was a sunny day and i had my drone with me, looking for an opportunity to fly. there was a guy sitting on one of the benches talking on his phone and staring at me the whole time. that wouldn't have stopped me, but then later a bunch of people came into the garden. two young women were surveying the different plots. when they came near my garden, i started telling them about my miraculously surviving tomato seedlings, whether they wanted to hear it or not. i found out one of them was named inga, and she'd inherited a sabbatical plot for this one season. she'd already planted some strawberries and nasturtiums.

returning home, i decided to fix my front brakes. one of the arms wouldn't spring back into place. i tried removing it so i could give it a good cleaning but it was stuck on pretty tightly, even after i lightly banged at it with a hammer. i sprayed it with some WD40 which seemed to have lubricated the joints to the point where it snapped back again. after adjusting the front brakes, i did the same to the back. side-pull brakes are essentially crap. the brake pads never pull evenly, it's usually one side first than the other. that makes for uneven wear on brake pads. maybe it just means i have to get new brake arms.

i moved some plants outside to get some sun, including the two muffin trays of flower seedlings and my potted umbrella plant.

i left for boston around 1:30pm. first to chinatown, where i visited c-mart followed by ming's market. at c-mart i found boba ($4.50 a package), i bought 4 of them. i bought enough stuff for the cafe that i paid with the company debit card at c-mart. at ming's market it was mostly my own stuff so i paid with my own credit card.

i left chinatown by 3pm and headed up to haymarket. not all the vendors were there, and those that were present had slim pickings. only one of them was selling gold nugget oranges at $2 for 5 but they looked small and dried. i ended up leaving with 18 navel oranges ($4), 2 boxes of strawberries ($4), 2 boxes of blueberries ($2), and 2 rotten yellow dragon fruits ($3, rotten just on the outside, inside is still very sweet).

it was sunny and temperature was in the upper 50's, but it was also very windy and surprisingly cold. a few times i took off my sweater because i started to get warm, only to put it back on minutes later because i immediately started feeling cold again. on the trip into the city and back home, i admired the many white flowering pear trees.

i didn't have the energy to drop off the supplies at the cafe and came straight home. i went out again soon after that, to the dollar store. i needed more manila envelopes and i was also looking for spray bottles. last time i was there they had a whole box, this time they had none. i circled the store at least 4 times, looking for sprayers, but also waiting for the checkout line to get smaller. i also left with some soaps and a solar-powered hula dancer that i put in my grow closet.

i finished watching the season 2 finale of for all mankind. i accidentally spoiled some of it because i browsed the subreddit. even though there's not supposed to be spoilers, some of the titles gave away key plot points. like i knew at least one of the major characters was going to die. SPOILERS i thought it was going to be either dani or ed, so imagine my surprise when it was gordo. even more shocking was tracy dying with him as well.

even though i should've been hungry, i wasn't, even though i only had a matcha latte for lunch and nothing else. i finally ate around 10:30pm, made a luxurious bowl of spicy korean ramen. this time i left an egg out so it came to room temperature. along with a tbsp of mayonnaise and some minced garlic, i also added a tbsp of gojuchang. i garnished with some chopped scallions and added about a tbsp of spicy pickled radish. it was pretty good, next time i want to add some fried tofu. the broth was so delicious, i drank it all after finishing the noodles.