with my parents back, i had the day off today, my first since the end of february. i was still concerned about the cafe and woke up to check the webcams to make sure my parents were there. i also called them with reminders: the black soy noodles are old, we need to cook more dumplings, and there are some leftover tea eggs in the fridge. i also asked how many cups of rice they cooked this morning (6).

not use to having the day off, i didn't know what to do with myself. but something i've been thinking about ever since the weather started getting warmer was to get back into running. so after i had my morning bathroom break, i got dressed for running. i was set to leave before 10am when i discovered my spotify app wasn't working correctly. i used a modified version of spotify that i side-loaded that removes commercial breaks. it took me two tries before i finally found a newer version of hacked spotify to load onto my phone. once i did that everything was working again. i didn't leave until 10:20am.

temperature was in the 40's. i wore long jogging pants and a long-sleeved turtleneck pullover. i didn't have a hat but i did have gloves. dressed like that, i wasn't cold at all, but i knew i'd warm up once i started running. i walked down to the river before jogging. first thing to go were the gloves, followed by the pullover at the midway mark (i wrapped it around my waist). i didn't run continuous, i walked over the two bridges. i figured since this was my first run of the season, no reason to push myself too hard. there weren't too many other runners, i only saw a handful. i did see people training on crew boats in the river.

walking back home, i stopped by the community garden to check on my plot. my stacks of grow bags had toppled over, i stacked them back up again. some sedges had started growing in my garden, along with early chives. elsewhere in the overall garden, nothing much was growing except for crocuses and emerging daffodil leaves.

the run took a little over an hour. after a shower, i warmed up a frozen burrito in the microwave. i cooked it for too long and it burst open on one end.

i had nothing to do today except maybe ride down to market basket to get some groceries for myself. i tried calling my mother to ask if they needed anything, but she didn't answer her phone (probably on plane mode), and i figured it wasn't that important. i finally headed out by 2pm, but i wanted to use the new 17oz. can of finish line 1-step cleaner and lubricant i got recently. more importantly, i wanted to spray it inside my shifter housing to try and loosen the stuck shifter. it gave me a reason to take out my bike repair stand from the basement. i noticed with horror that the basement door was open. nothing was stolen, i think my upstairs neighbors left it open when they left but i didn't see it until now more than 2 weeks later. i just hope rats didn't get into the basement.

anyway, i brought out the stand and set it up in the backyard. i them lifted up the bike and clamped it to the rubber locking mechanism. i sprayed finish line onto the rear flywheel and then sprayed the chain before wiping it clean with a rag. i sprayed inside the right shifter housing (that controls the rear flywheel). it worked better than WD-40, and i could shift the gears better when the bike's on a stand, but it's still not 100%. i think i need to recalibrate the shifting, which is more involved, but i'll save that for another day. i checked the brakes which will slow me down but won't stop me. they seemed okay for now, front pads are in better shape, the rear pads could use some replacing. the last thing i did was to adjust the right p-clamp for the rear baskets. it slid down to the bottom and the rubber housing was rubbing up against the rain in the smallest gear. i couldn't get a good adjustment, will need to remove the rear wheel to do that, so i did the best i could before locking up the clamp again.

i didn't finish until well after 3pm. the newly lubricated chain and gear ride so much smoother now, but in hindsight i should've fixed the brakes as they weren't that good. the shifting was better, but wasn't engaging smoothly and would jump gears (so a thorough gear shifting adjustment will be needed for the future). i picked up a dozen things from market basket. originally i was going to make gyudon tonight, but decided to make risotto instead, as i had some leftover arborio rice.

back at home, i snacked on some manischewitz coconut macaroons while watching the celtics city documentary. i also found the mrs. davis official playlist on spotify and listened to some tunes. the more i listened, the more i fell in love in with the show, which i believe to be one of the most perfect series ever made. i worked on my retroactive blog updates, but mostly for march 2025, which didn't make a dent on all the backlog photos from 2023 and 2024 currently taking up precious storage space on my macbook pro.

my mother called me back in the late afternoon, after noticing i tried to call her in the morning. it seemed really busy today based on the profit (and my 2nd aunt agreed as well), but my mother said it was nothing.

around 7pm i started making my risotto. the bottle of white wine i got weeks ago when i went by the allston trader joe's. i do have a used bottle from 2022 but the yellow sauvignon blanc has since turned orange and probably not good for either drinking or cooking.

i watched the pistons-heat game on my phone as i sat on a barstool in front of the stove stirring the risotto so it wouldn't scorch. i imagined returning to chongqing and cooking this risotto recipe at the homes of the few china friends i still keep in touch with. arborio rice would be hard to come by, but could i substitute in glutinous rice instead? everything else could be locally sourced. italian sausages with fennel? they wouldn't have it, but i'm sure i could find some fresh local sausages i could use instead. parmesan cheese is a tough one, but i could always bring some dried parmesan cheese.

i ate my risotto around 8:30pm. i continued watching the basketball game, but since it wasn't the celtics playing, i wasn't paying too much attention. i had a rice pudding afterwards and snuck another coconut macaroon. after washing the dishes, i poured out the remaining risotto into leftover containers. the most smelled deliciously of white wine risotto.