t
o
n
y
a
n
g
'
s
 
w
e
b
l
o
g


because it wasn't raining, i was able to bike to the cafe in the late morning. i filled a mug with fresh-brewed coffee when i got there, since we don't sell enough coffee anymore these days so all that coffee will end up getting poured out at the end of the day. basically working at the cafe i can drink as much free coffee as i want. my father pan-fried some old dumplings for lunch.

my aunt came to the cafe today. she had a bowl of beef noodle soup. my sister's godmother also stopped by expectedly in the early afternoon, despite the fact that she's coming back tomorrow to help my sister on saturday.

i left a bit before 3pm. i found a spot at the intersection of rc kelley and donnell street to fly my drone for 15 minutes. what i really wanted was to get a good view of the massive elm tree growing there, but i ended up flying over the harvard-smithsonian observatory and over radcliffe. my signal was pretty strong, but it lost a bar when i started flying closer to harvard yard so i decided to bring it back.

when i got back home there was a small package waiting on doorstep: it was the 3 bicycle seat rain cover i'd ordered. they're basically glorified shower caps, black on one side (default), silver on the other (to prevent your seat from getting hot in the sun). i went out to put the cover on my bike seat but it didn't fit because i have an irregularly large bike saddle (double wide). so i have no choice but to continue using plastic bags to cover my wet seat. i walked to star market briefly to buy some chicken drumsticks and cantaloupes on sale.

i finally got around to cleaning my aquarium. once again, i promised myself i would do weekly water changes, but it's been more than a month since the last time i cleaned the fish tank. i know it's been a long time because about an inch of water had already evaporated from the top of the tank. after cleaning out the hair algae, i removed the smaller driftwood with the anubias plant and trimmed off a lot of the roots. i also used the dirty aquarium water - mixed with some mosquito bits - to water my houseplants. the whole process - cleaning, watering - took more than an hour and i finally finished by 5:15pm.

i've started watching star trek's picard, it's not bad. it's a little jarring hearing f-bombs in the star trek universe, but the series has some high production value, more like watching a long-format movie than a television series.

my mother tried calling me via line around 7:30pm. i called her back but she continues to have weird audio issues with her phone, to the point that she wanted to buy a new xiaomi phone in taiwan. we figured out she can call using her ipad instead, but her tablet isn't logged into her line account, and she couldn't figure out how to do it. we were successful in doing a video chat though, no audio issues when we do it that way. it was the first time they had to do an at-home covid-19 test and they were nervous. she said my california aunt and uncle were going to call them and teach them how to do it, since they've been in day a few days earlier and already did their first test.

for dinner i just had a simple salad: spinach, onion, balsamic dressing, feta cheese, fresh ground pepper.