i went to market basket in the late morning to get some groceries, including some drumsticks for this weekend. the only food i got for this week was to replenish my milk supply. returning home, i made a matcha latte for lunch.

while inspecting my grow closet, i found the beginning of a fungus gnat infestation. i doused all the pots with mosquito-bit infused water and put a yellow sticky tape trap. i'm not too concerned about fungus gnats, they're more nuisance than anything that can harm the seedlings. besides, with Bti, i have a surefire way to kill them all, it'll just take a few weeks. by that time, most of these seedlings will be transplanted outdoors anyway.

i left for greater boston motorsports in arlington shortly after 1pm. i called them earlier, asking if i needed to make an appointment for a sticker inspection, they said no, as long as i got there before 4pm. i arrived by 1:45pm, a little longer than expected, because i had to return home when i realized i didn't have my driver license. not that they needed it for the inspection, but in case i got pulled over.

they relocated the service department, now it's on the other side of the building. i went and left my registration while i moved the motorcycle closer to their garage. one of the guys came out and did the cursory inspection, worked the lights, the brakes, the horn. he wheeled the bike closer to the entrance and asked me when was the last time i maintained the bike. my hesitancy was all the answer he needed. "probably never, right?" he said he'd pass me because there's nothing wrong with the bike, but there were a lot of little maintenance issues. like the rear brake pedal, you had to press it all the way down before it'd come to a full stop. or the front brake lever, how it makes a popping sound, which makes the brake fluids is running on empty, and the brake lines need to be disassembled and cleaned out. the rear brake issue was too much for him and he fixed it for me for free, but not never making me promise to maintain the bike. "it's a great bike, it's in good shape, just needs some maintenance."

i tried paying with my credit card but it wouldn't read my chip. i ended up going upstairs and paying with cash, before coming back downstairs to retrieve the bike. another mechanic came out with the sticker while i was checking to see where it was.

i decided to continue a little bit more up mass ave to maruichi, a japanese market. i feel like it's got a better selection that ebisuya in medford square, but only because this shop just recently opened up back in january, so it's still brand new, while ebisuya has been here for a while, a continuation of the japanese market that used to be in the porter exchange mall. there's a huge free parking lot in the back of the store, you never have to worry about finding parking here. i was in search of onigiri ($2.50-$3.50) and kewpie mayo ($5.69), both i found. they also had readymade amazake, i'll get that next time.

i made my way to my parents' place, got there by 2:30pm. i was picking up the fertilizer granules, which i'll need tomorrow when i transplant some of my seedlings in the community garden. while i was there i made an inspection of the yard: dug up some dandelions, transplanted a cypress vine seedling, hug up the 2nd solar lantern, and finally watered the plants. long range 2-week forecast doesn't show any significant rain the rest of the month, but that's no reason to be stingy with the rain water, since a single long duration rainstorm can quickly fill the barrels right up again. my sister showed up unexpectedly right before i was about to leave, enough time for hailey to pee in the backyard and eat some grass.

before i left, i checked on the status of the heat pad hyacinth beans. when i lifted up the condensation-covered plastic wrap, i saw a single pot with two germinated seeds. i planted them on saturday, just 4 days later i have germination! i'm still not entirely sold on heat pad germination though, until most of the seeds have germinated. in another pot i see faint sign of a seed hump, so there might be more sprouts to come.

i went to the cafe (3:45pm) to drop off some onigiri. i gave my mother the spicy tuna and one of the eel. i returned home a bit after 4pm. i actually saw the old japanese woman (the hot granny) while i was getting off my bike. i've lived here for nearly 20 years, we've never once even spoke to one another, but she actually said, "hi!" which caught me by surprise. maybe she's into bikers.

first thing i did was to try the eel onigiri. i didn't even know how to open the package, which made me felt a little stupid. when i finally ate it, it was 90% rice, with just a tiny amount of eel, wasn't worth the $3.50 i paid for it, i felt a little ripped off. hopefully the other one - spicy pollack roe - will be better.

my sister still hasn't done her taxes yet. she was asking me a bunch of questions today, to the point where i was asking myself, "has she ever done taxes before?" i ended up asking her to send me her 1099-NEC form so i could quickly do them and see if i got the same numbers, because when she did hers she owed the IRS $700. i ran the numbers and i got the same results. when i pulled up her godmother's taxes (which i did a month ago), i realized i made a mistake; she would've still gotten a refund, but only half the amount. hopefully she doesn't get audited but she made so little in 2020, i'd be surprised if she did.

for dinner i fired up the smokeless foreman grill one more time and heated the last of my frozen burgers. once again, i overcooked it, turned it super well done, almost dehydrated it to ground beef jerky. but i had enough condiments and vegetables to build an okay burger even if the burger meat itself was pretty much tasteless. i also made a mango lassi. i saw a recipe that said to add milk (1/2 cup milk with 1 cup yogurt), which i think is a mistake, because it dilutes the lassi, doesn't have that sour kick i'm used to.