the temperature today dropped into the 70's, a full 20 degrees cooler than the past 5 days, as the heatwave siege finally comes to a close. it actually got too cold, and i briefly worried i lost all that precious trapped heat by leaving so many windows opened. but thanks to the insulation in the walls, it usually takes about 3 days for the room temperature to become the same as the outdoor temperature. i ended up running the oscillating fan a little bit for relief after i took it apart and gave it a good cleaning. i promised myself the next heatwave we face, i'm installing the AC, so the days of the fans are numbered.

i woke up relatively early, by 9am. i paid a visit to my garden, figured it'd be nice for a change not to water my plot in the middle of the day when it's the hottest. i took a photo of my neighbor's fragrant bush. later after some research, i believe it's a variety of mock orange, i'm almost positive. it's different than the mock orange i saw at the arnold arboretum back in may 2018, but this one has the slightly toothed oval leaves.

lynn's friend was in the garden, helping her tend to her plants. anne marie was also there, busy doing some common garden work. after giving my plot a thorough watering, i dusted some pest-attracting plants (eggplants, bokchoi, ground cherries) with diatomaceous earth.

back at home, i finally pruned my overgrown umbrella plant and managed to get two cuttings out of it, hopefully to become additional plants. i ended up having to strip off about 50% of the leaves, but hopefully the new cuttings can quickly grow new ones. i also threw out all my overwintering lotus rhizomes. they've been soaking for over a month now, i haven't seen any activity to indicate they're still alive.

for lunch i had a matcha latte and a tea egg. the tea eggs have been soaking in their brine for so long, the eggs have expanded. when i took one out it didn't even look like i cracked it. i emptied the brine for the 3 remaining tea eggs.

with the weather so nice outside, i couldn't bear to be inside all day. around 3pm i biked down to market basket to return some cans and get some chinese red pork powder for my parents. i then went to the cafe to drop them off. my godmother was there, my mother gave her a container of yangbaechu kimchi and a container of sichuan paocai.

i left by 4pm, going to the real reason why i came out in the first place: the concord avenue burger king to try the new BK fried chicken sandwich, the ch'king. i was going to make my order in the store but they didn't have the special deal on my BK app (buy a ch'king, get a whopper for free) so i ordered and paid ($4.99) from my phone and just waited there to pick up my order. it was a very antisocial way of ordering fast food.

biking back, i cut across fresh pond. it was surreal to be suddenly in a forest canopy, next to a pond, rhododendrons blooming everywhere. at one point i came across a field and spotted a bunch of purple lupines. even though i had my panasonic camera, i forgot about it and only managed to take a far away snapshot with my phone. i'll try coming back tomorrow if i have the time.

the first thing i noticed about the ch'king is the very large piece of fried chicken in the sandwich. my first bite didn't go very well, very dry and hard, because i only bit into the crust. successive bites fared much better as i bit into the tender chicken. it was actually pretty good, but for my money, the wendy's spicy chicken is still no chicken sandwich of choice. but the ch'king isn't bad for a second place finish. i need to try the mcdonald's fried chicken sandwich one of these days.

i had more leftover pasta salad for dinner, around 9:30pm. i ate while watching game between between the nets an the bucks. milwaukee pulled ahead early, but brooklyn is like the terminator, it doesn't stop, it keeps on coming, and eventually they came back to tie and even took the lead on a few occasion. but the bucks played a near perfect game, and it ended down to the wire, on a missed 3-point from kevin durant that could've tied the game and go into overtime. bucks win, now the series is 1-2. can they win another game? or have they peaked?