a busy day, just like every day this week. less windy today, i was able to open the cantilever patio umbrella. when i went to go take down the market umbrella, i noticed the pole was bent from yesterday's wind collision. luckily you can buy replacement umbrella poles online, but that umbrella looks to be out of commission for the time being.

karen read's second trial closing statements were on all the local channels this morning. totally overshadowing the bigger new of israel's attack on iran and iran's subsequent retaliation.

less than a dozen bento were sold today. instead, there was an uptick in fried rice and chicken curry sales. vegetable stirfry noodles were also surprisingly popular. all items that take extra efforts to make. despite requiring more time to assemble, these are actually some of the more inexpensive items on the menu. my mother suggested we should increase the price after the 4th of july break.

we were busy around lunchtime then busy again in the afternoon when someone phoned in a large order. we always get nervous with phone orders because we make the food not knowing for sure if the caller will show up or if we'll get paid. fortunately in all the times we've taken phone orders, we've never once had a prank call. callers show up sooner or later. but that little afternoon push put us above last friday's profit.

my father made a new batch of beef noodle soup as well as pad thai sauce. he toasted some sichuan peppercorn while i used the grinder to turn them into powder. i used the pot-in-pot method to quickly cool down the beef noodle soup broth before my parents divided them into single serving portions.

i took home some leftover beef noodle soup for dinner. as soon as i got back home, i went to go move my motorcycle. thank dennis for warning me that a moving truck was taking over that side of the street tomorrow.

i made dinner just in time for the thunder-pacers game at 8:30pm. it looked like indiana was going to take game 4 and go up 3-1 in the series, but OKC started chipping away at the pacer's 10 point lead in the 4th quarter and ended up with the lead with just minutes to spare. the thunder won 111-104 in a must-win for them if they were to have any chance of winning the final. series is now tied 2-2, as it becomes a best out of 3 series. next game is monday night.

i went to my nearby star market one last time for some more boneless chicken thighs on sale before heading to the cafe this morning. once more, my mother was already there, having walked, while my father would come a short time later after tending to the backyard first.

it was a windy day, but i opened our cantilevered umbrella anyway. that was a mistake, when i saw it collapsing in the strong winds, i ended up closing it. instead i set up my sister's purple market umbrella with the wind vents. i wanted to see - as an experiment - if it'd be able to handle the winds. it seemed stable enough, mostly because it didn't have as large an area as the cantilevered umbrella. but in the afternoon - while two customers were sitting outside - a strong gust of wind actually managed to not only knock the umbrella over on its base, but then blow the umbrella into the street. thankfully the two customers risked their lives to run into the road to retrieve the umbrella. we didn't know what happened until i saw the footage later in the afternoon. so even that umbrella is not windproof. basically if its very windy, you can't use any of the umbrellas.

in the late morning i made a quick run to trader joe's to get some baby cucumbers and some eggs. i noticed TJ no longer has an egg limit, or maybe i just didn't see the sign. a dozen large white eggs were $3.99, or 33¢/egg, not exactly cheap.

today was a busy day, with at least 37 sales. so busy in fact that i made 4 batches of black soy noodles, and nearly had to make a 5th batch if it got any busier. my father was busy rendering all the boneless chicken thighs, marinating them, and finally storing them in containers to be frozen. i made another batch of tea eggs in the afternoon, that's 3 consecutive days, 90 eggs used. that means for sure we need to replenish our egg supply.

the baker next door was busy all day, and we saw employees going in and out. i heard from my sister that the baker has 5 employees. my mother spoke with the baker who told her she hopes to open by next friday. she also brought some sample brownies for us to try. these were made with glutinous rice flour. the brownies were jet black and very dense yet soft. it had a complicated taste, dark chocolate, molasses, and a hint of chili pepper. honestly, i very rarely taste brownies as good as this. i'm very excited to see what they offer when they eventually open.

i've been sleeping late (watching star trek: lower deck episodes to 1-2am), so i was tired today at the cafe. i've got one more day of work friday and then i have saturday off to catch the pride parade. i've been following the forecast on multiple news broadcast and unfortunately it looks to be rainy. i don't remember going to pride in the rain. i must've, just can't recall. it's not a big deal, but depending on how badly it's raining, i'll either have to take the subway, or ride my bike. it'll probably be a gametime decision.

after work, i went to the community garden to water my plants. molly was there, sitting on the pathway, sorting through dozens of zinnia seedlings she purchased. she told me she got some pretty zinnia seeds a few seasons ago, but never got around to growing them indoors because she said it was a lot of work setting up the proper grow lights. another gardener in a plot further back (whom i've never seen before) came up to us and asked about a seedling she found in her garden. i told her it was an elm seedling. before i left, i also noticed david planted the two bitter melon seedlings i gave him.

i came home with a chicken stirfry bento my mother had prepared for me. i wasn't very hungry, and didn't eat until after 8:30pm. afterwards i had some more salted watermelon. they were leftover from yesterday, so the sea salt made the watermelon soggy. that's okay, because i still have two large containers of watermelon left.

last night i made a quick stop at my star market to see if they had any boneless chicken thighs on sale. they only had one package, so i decided to wait until this morning and check out the porter square star market. they had the boneless chicken thighs i was looking for. i grabbed two packages (the limit) and went to go pay.

i made it to the cafe earlier than usual, but was surprised to see my mother was already there. she'd walked again, left the house around 8am. she cooked 7 cups of rice and was roasting some charsiu pork. i made a new batch of tea eggs. once the tea eggs were simmering, i brought up the deep fryer in preparation to fry some salt & pepper chicken. that was also the time when my father showed up. he said he took some gout pills which cured his leg pain, but he still has trouble bending his knee, and said i should go to belmont to plant our bitter melons while he comes in to work today.

we tried something new where we got the folding table and deep fried the chicken outside, so the cafe won't smell like cooking oil the rest of the day. it actually worked out pretty well. later my father fried some battered tofu so i could once again make my imitation taiwanese stinky tofu with hot sauce and paocai. my 2nd aunt showed up for work around 11am, giving me further incentive to leave, but there was so much to do, i ended up staying until 1:30pm, until after our busy lunch period.

biking to my parents' house, i made a detour to the mt.auburn star market, to grab some more boneless chicken breasts on sale. i didn't get to the house until 2pm.

i told my mother it'd take me 2 hours to plant the bitter melons, even though in my mind i figured it'd take less than half an hour. my father and i already weeded the bed on monday, but i still needed to till the soil then add a combination of chicken manure and slow release osmocote fertilizer. i had a dozen chicken-wire column cages so i could only plant a dozen bitter melons. i picked the best ones - those already with long vines - and planted them. i then watered not only the new bitter melon patch but the rest of the raised beds as well.

i noticed some of my orchid flowers have dark spots on them. this is botrytis, a fungal disease that's common to phalaenopsis orchids when they get water on their flowers and the weather is cool and damp. it doesn't hurt the orchids, just damage the flowers. treatment is mostly not watering from above and provide good air circulation. i also noticed one of the smaller jasmines had a few mealybugs. since last fall when i sprayed with bifenthrin, i haven't seen a single mealybug in all of our houseplants. i wasn't worried, i just sprayed them with some insecticidal soap. if anything, it means the bifenthrin has finally worn off, and the plants are safe for pollinator. i'll spray them again in the fall before putting them back into the grow room.

i left for the cafe, didn't get there until almost 4pm. i went home, passing a man on the street marking the road with spray paint and holding a futuristic device. i went home and looked it up: radiodetection RD7200, sells for $3000.

i left soon afterwards to return a bunch of stuff: clear plastic bins that were too small to whole foods (amazon purchase), used nespresso pods at the UPS store, and a pair of oversized kipling bags my mother no longer wanted at a fedex dropoff (walgreens). coming back, i stopped by dollar tree to get a few snacks.

my day wasn't done yet, as i walked to the community garden. i dropped off a pilea plant for anne marie (placed in a paper bag to protect it from the sun), and two bitter melons for david. i also planted a foxglove i dug up from belmont (won't flower this season, just a seedling). i watered my plot before leaving.

it was almost 6pm. i took a shower and did some snacking while waiting for the start of the thunder-pacers game at 8:30pm. i put a frozen chicken alfredo meal in the oven an hour before gametime. when the cafe closed, i saw they sold at least 23 bento boxes (i can't see delivery orders). i don't think we've ever sold that much that wasn't a part of a big order. of course that means tomorrow morning i have to make yet another batch of tea eggs. that's 3 days in a row.

winner of game 3 when teams have split the previous 2 end up winning the NBA finals 79% of the time. OKC won the first quarter, but the pacers got the lead going into halftime, after numerous back and forth. no team ever lead by more than single digits. 3rd quarter going into the 4th was more of the same, like two evenly matched opponents. midway in the 4th quarter the pacers finally broke the thunder, got a multi-possession lead. it was a hard-fought game, but indiana wins 107-116. there's no denying OKC is a very good team. but their weakness seems to be road games. as a young team they can get flustered in hostile territory. so here's hoping the pacers can take advantage of this in game 4. teams up 3-1 in the NBA finals go on to win nearly 96% of the time.

somebody left a vape cartridge on my doorstep this morning. i didn't have time to examine it, just tossed it inside my foyer as i left for the cafe. it rained a little bit earlier, but was dry for the time being. more rain - a quick downpour - was expected around noontime.

despite the rain, it was actually busy today. not all at once, but a gradual build-up so by the end of the day we made a pretty good profit, beating last tuesday's numbers. my mother also sold a crochet bag and a hat, which added to the total.

we sold at least 15 bentos, 8 of which were salt & pepper chicken, of which we only had a total of 10 servings. that means we have no choice but to deep fry some more tomorrow. because i'm taking saturday off to go to the pride parade, i'm forgoing my day off tomorrow (wednesday), letting my father have it off instead. that means i'll be in charge of the deep fryer tomorrow. because we sold so many bentos, we nearly used up our batch of tea eggs, so i'll need to make more tomorrow (after just having made a new batch this morning). it's going to be busy day tomorrow, made more so by the nice weather, which will probably bring out even more customers.

once i got back home, i examined the vape cartridge. it's actually a disposable vape pen but with a usb-c port for charging. there didn't seem to be any buttons so i went online searching for how it works, but found very little info. it can't be too hard to operate if even stoners can use it. there's a little window where you can see some liquid inside that looks to be almost gone, so i'm guessing it's nearly empty. i did some more research, apparently that liquid is live resin, whatever that is. it sells for $40 (for 0.5g). i decided to charge it to see if that'd make any difference. i checked my webcam footage to see who could've dropped it on my doorstep. it must've originally fallen onto the sidewalk, because i noticed some people this morning looking down off camera at something. then my neighbor margot picked it up and put it on my doorstep. so mystery partially solved. as for the owner, i still don't know.

i cooked the last of my frozen chinese dumplings for dinner. my mother told me if left in the freezer for too long it'll go bad. while the dumplings were boiling, i also cut up the large watermelon i got from star market over the weekend. it was quite a mess, watermelon juice all over the countertop. i ended up with 4 large containers of cubed watermelon.

later in the evening i picked up the vape pen again. just for kicks, i tried inhaling. that seemed to activate some kind of sensor because the led light started to glow green and i was breathing in THC smoke. i was actually more surprised than anything that it was still working, so i only took a small puff, but it was enough to make me feel a little light-headed. later i tried a longer inhale. not sure if i felt any buzz, but i could feel the smoke stinging the inside of my nose after i exhaled. to further continue the experiment, i took a blood pressure measurement a short time later. even though i was definitely feeling a buzz, my BP wasn't any lower than usual (in fact, it was actually high), so THC (at least in this case) didn't seem to lower my blood pressure.

as part of my new nightly ritual, i've been watching a few episodes of star trek: lower deck from bed before going to sleep. i think i read somewhere that out of all the new star trek universe shows, this one is the most fun and adheres to the star trek ethos more than any of the others.

i packed up my things and went to walgreens first to pick up my amlodipine prescription. then i fueled up the motorcycle (i believe this is the first time this season that i'm getting gas for the bike) before heading to belmont. my mother made me some fried eggs with uncured sausages and sweet peppers.

i brought over my blender because we planned on making some yeolmu kimchi (young summer radish kimchi). but we didn't have a large enough container to mix all the radish leaves we had, so we decided to do it tomorrow at the cafe instead.

i spent the rest of the day outside gardening. today was the big day where we plant all our raised beds. some difficult choices had to be made, like pulling up preexisting plants already in the bed (mustards, cilantro, scallions) to make room for new plants. here is a breakdown:

raised bed 0 (rb0): this bed has 3 bean trellises, including our tallest 6ft tellis. into that trellis we planted blue beans, while the two others were for long beans. in between the two long bean trellises we have a preexisting patch of cilantro. between the blue bean and long bean trellis i planted 4 thai basils. there's some space in front of the 5ft trellises (long beans), so i planted a large overwintering longhorn pepper and two more longhorn peppers i grew from seeds this season. since there's some space inside of the trellises, my father planted more cilantro in two of them while i planted dill seeds in the middle trellis. finally my father transplanted some scallions along the perimeter. rb0 is more accessible because it doesn't have a back trellis like the other raised beds. seeing how it performs this season, we may remove the wire back trellis for the remaining raised beds in favor of wooden bean trellises.

raised bed 1 (rb1): this bed has a single bean trellis where i planted long beans. my father said he prefers long beans over blue beans, but we have the hardest time growing long beans, they just didn't do well in our back-of-raised-bed wire trellises (not enough sun). so of the 6 bean trellis we made this year, 4 of them are for long beans. along the back trellis there are some fragrant peas i planted in april that never really took off. i added blue beans to the back row, and planted two hyacinth bean seedlings. the front of the bed has a row of scallions. one either ends of the bed are columns of red mustard; these are not for eating but rather for harvesting seeds. because rb1 gets a good amount of sun, i planted another large overwintering pepper right in the center. and then all around the pepper i planted 6 kabocha squash seedlings. our strategy this year is to produce squashes as quickly as possible. last year we were trying to grow them up onto the top trellis, but we squandered a lot of precious growing time, only for all the squash to succumb to pests (squash vine borer, squash bugs, potato beetles). this year, we're going to make sure we get some squashes first. only then, if the squashes want to grow up, we'll let them.

raised bed 2 (rb2): rb2 is very similar to rb1. red mustards on the ends, a row of scallions in the front, a back row of peas against the trellis (mostly gone because a rabbit had gotten into the raised bed a few weeks ago, eating a bunch of seedlings), planted new blue beans, planted two hyacinth beans. it also has a bean trellis, but this one is all blue beans. coincidentally an overwintering blue bean has already sprouted. this bed doesn't have any peppers but just 6 kabocha squashes. rb2 doesn't get as much sun and half of the bed gets shady by mid-afternoon because of the maple tree. there's also a daikon radish plant we're letting grow to harvest seeds.

raised bed 3 (rb3): half of this bed is a perennial plot for rudbeckias, foxgloves, and hollyhocks. that's the half that's mostly in the shade so the fact that we've never grown an vegetables there isn't a problem. the only half - the half that does get sun - my father planted 3 luffa seedlings yesterday. the back row also had some fragrant peas that never took off. i planted 4 moonflower seeds like i did last year; i think the seeds are bad because none of them germinated last season. there's still enough space in the sunny half that i might try plant some zucchinis.

raised bed 4 (rb4): this bed features the last of our bean trellis planted with long beans. the back trellis has some sugar snap peas - the only peas i planted this year that actually did well, but we probably can't harvest until maybe another week or two. to the peas i planted more blue beans, along with two hyacinth beans. my father planted 3 luffas yesterday, positioned at one end so when they start climbing they'll go above the basement staircase and onto some wire trellises. actually on either side of the staircase are additional luffas (3 on each sides, for a total of 6). this bed has some large red mustards we decided to keep for seeds. what available space there was i planted 4 tomatoes, a large overwinter pepper, and a smaller pepper seedling.

the raised beds are all planted, but work still needs to be done on the western bed AKA the bitter melon bed. originally we were going to leave it until next weekend, that would be the 15th at the earliest, which is pretty late for growing bitter melons. so we ended up clearing the bed at the very least, overgrown with weeds, violets, and a surprising amount of foxglove seedlings. i replaced some rabbit-eaten violets with new ones, and the rest i planted in the shady spot formerly the garlic chive bed. i also planted the foxgloves there as well, simply because we have too many and i didn't know what to do with them. if i get the day off on wednesday, i'll come back and plant the bitter melons. we have a dozen chicken wire columns that can be used to protect the seedlings from rabbits.

for dinner we grilled half a dozen corn, some sweet peppers, and two new york strip steaks. i salted them this morning, put them on a wire rack in the fridge. the t-bone steaks from saturday were cooked a little too much (medium to well-done), so i reduced the cooking time: 1-1/2 minutes then rotate, another 1-1/2 minutes before flipping, repeating the same steps, for a total of 6 minutes. we took a temperature reading, it was already 120 degrees, but we decided to put the steaks on the top shelf and heat it indirectly for another minutes. the temperature at that point read 135 degrees. in hindsight, we should've stopped at 120 degrees, since the steaks continue cooking even after taking off the grill. at 120 degrees, it would've cooked a bit more, to a rare doneness. the steaks we had tonight had a medium-rare to medium doneness, which is what i prefer.

the steaks were cooked well, not too salty like last time, but it was missing something. maybe because the steaks were old - i bought them on wednesday, we're only cooking them now monday. fresh steaks probably taste better. next time i'm also going to try montreal steak seasoning. the corn were okay, we ran out of korean barbecue sauce so on one of the corn i used nashville hot sauce. that turned out to a little too hot.

it was misting by the time i went home. nothing showed up on the doppler, but there wa a fog outside. i didn't bother waiting even though it meant getting a little damp. i rode gingerly, very much aware how slippery the roads can be when wet. there was a perfect motorcycle parking spot waiting for me. after dropping off my stuff, i came back out with a towel to wipe down the bike before putting the cover on it because there's going to be a noontime downpour tomorrow.

i finished watching predator: killer of killers. i like cgi animated movies. i thought it was pretty good, and the ending left open the possibility of a sequel.

i walked down to the community garden this morning to plant my snapdragon and nigella seedlings. today was also some kind of art day at the garden, where artists are encouraged to visit to take inspiration from the plants. i saw two people there who seemed to be painting but other than that there weren't any other visitors.

jen was tending to her garden, but was more preoccupied talking on the phone or speaking with maureen. "this is the first time i'm seeing you," maureen told me. "david and i were wondering where you were." i told her i only started planting a few weeks ago. "i know," she informed me, like she's been secretly tracking my garden activities.

i planted the snapdragons in the same grow bag as the striped mallows, with a few on the nearby ground when i ran out of room. as for the nigella, i planted them in the southeastern corner, the corner i recently dug up and replanted the garlic chives. after i watered them, i sprinkled some slug bait. i noticed the slug bait in some of my grow bags seemed to be gone. did slugs eat them overnight? i hope they all die! i also trimmed down my goldenrods, it's something i do every season to keep them from growing too tall.

once again maureen complained that my plants were encroaching into my neighbor's molly's garden. molly has never said anything when i see her, but if she does have a problem, she should tell me directly, and not send one of her surrogates. jen later told me that she was on the phone with her father. he's going on his first date, after her mother passed away a year ago. honestly, all i want to do when i come to the garden is tend to my plants. i could care less about the drama. maybe that's why ann decided to take a break this year.

while taking the cover off of my motorcycle, i noticed a caterpillar disguised as a piece of bark/lichen. it was so effective it had me fooled at first, but i used a stick to test it, and it recoiled to life. it dropped to the ground before crawling away. it probably fell off the locust tree during the rainstorm, it probably won't survive without its host food.

i left for belmont around 11:30am, one of the watermelons i bought last night strapped to the back of the motorcycle with bungie netting. when i got to the house, nobody seemed to be home. my parents were actually in the backyard. my mother was pulling out and sorting all the radishes from RB0, while my father's knee was okay enough that he could hobble to the picnic table and finish stringing up the last of our bean trellis. i helped him feed the string through the top beam while he tied the strings at the bottom.

my sister showed up unexpectedly, bringing with her breakfast from dunkin donuts and iggy's. i wish she'd ask if she was going to bring food, so we can order food we actually like and not random leftovers. esmei ran into the backyard. she seems to understand the word for "rabbit" and searched diligently for them. when a bunny did show up, esmei chased after it. dogs are no match for rabbits, especially one that's never caught prey before. i don't even think she knows what to do with a rabbit if she caught one, she just instinctively gave chase when she saw something running.

my sister forced my mother to go with them to winchester fells, while my father and i remained at home to do garden work. i mowed the lawn, when has already gone to seed in some places. the grass clippings - still slightly damp from yesterday's soaking - occasionally fell out of the mower, but nothing that a second pass can't pick up. we continued to clear our raised beds. my father pulled up a bunch of japanese giant red mustard leaves. our kitchen looks like we went on a vegetarian shopping spree, bundles of leafy greens on the countertops and in the sink.

while doing some weeding in the raised beds, i saw some weeds that looked uncommon but familiar. it took me a while to realize these were young milkweed seedlings. these need to be pulled before they can get established, wouldn't want to have rampant milkweed growing in the garden. i always thought their seedpods were fun to play with, but i inadvertently broadcasted them all over the backyard.

my father planted the dozen luffa seedlings. we grew them last year to tremendous success, so they're one of his prime concerns this season, getting some choice locations close to trellises they can climb. while he was doing that, i was pulling up rhizome irises from the southwestern corner of the house. we used to have so many irises, but they haven't ben divided in years, and that patch as grown weedy. i threw out the weeds (mostly grass) and replanted about half of the irises, saving the rest for elsewhere. the remaining area i transplanted carpets of first-year rudbeckia seedlings that'd been growing in RB3. they've sort of taken over that raised bed, i needed to get rid of them to make more space, but i didn't want to just throw them out. moving some of them to the southwestern corner of the house will be good for them as there's more sun. their original spot in RB3 sits underneath the canopy of the backyard maple tree, so they only get morning sun before the bed becomes shady.

we didn't plant anything else today, saving that for tomorrow. i did put down where the bean trellises will be, and strategize where certain plants will grow in what raised beds. one difficulty is there are still things growing in the raised beds, like mustard and scallions. we pulled up a big patch of daikon radish leaves from RB2 before they could go to seed. as for the other plants, the longer we wait before we pull them, the bigger they can grow (plus we can't eat everything, we already have enough as it is).

the big news in the garden is the honeysuckles have bloomed. of course i could smell them before even seeing them. these will bloom for about a month before they stop. i know there are some fragrant varieties that can bloom from spring to fall.

i watered the garden before going inside.

my mother came home while i was still outside gardening. esmei didn't even come to the backpack to see me; she was so tired, my sister took her directly home.

for dinner my mother decided to get takeout from cafe vanak. we all got the beef koobideh dinner ($21/each). the last time i ordered they missed the order and didn't start preparing it until after i got there, so i had to wait another 15 minutes. this time they did fulfill the order, but they only made one when i ordered three. so we had to wait 15 more minutes. my father parked in the back lot and we went browsing in super vanak (persian grocery store) to pass the time. one snobby rich couple brought in their dog, a big white samoyed. the owner was probably too polite to say anything, but i saw the dog digging its nose in the bread pile. another couple seemed to be buying bags and bags of persian spices. the owner noticed and gave them a shopping basket to carry everything. my father and i were just tourists. i saw bags of flixweed - is that like sumac? there were also packets of strange looking seeds with no english, just farsi. cubed sugar seems to be a very popular item, they had multiple varieties. i haven't seem cubed sugar in a while. they sold loquats! what my 2nd aunt brought with her from california. cost? $11.99/lbs.! they also had jasmine ice cream that i really wanted to try but they're $11.99/pint, a little too expensive for me.

i went back to cafe vanak where our food was ready and we drove back home.

the beef koobideh was more charred this time, but my mother said that's what she wants. i keep on thinking it's one of the things we can make ourselves, using the meat grinder. there was something new this time, what looked to be a flat piece of fried bread. both my parents couldn't finish their portion, while i was able to completely finish mine.

i raced home after dinner, hoping to catch the start of game 2 between the pacers and thunders starting at 8pm. i did a load of laundry, as i was running out of clean pants. i had to take a shower beforehand, so i put my phone on the soap shelf and watched the start of the game via youtube tv while washing off the garden grimes.

the game was only competitive in the first quarter, before OKC went on a hot streak to give themselves a 20 point lead going int halftime. learning their lesson from game 1, the thunders never let up in the second half, maintained their 20 point lead for two more quarters. pacers were battling, but there was no miracle tonight, as they couldn't mount another comeback. final score 107-123. game 3 is wednesday night in indiana. i feel like whoever wins game 3 will probably end up winning the whole series.

my mother came to work today on her one day off because my father completely couldn't move. it wasn't raining yet, but the forecast said rain by mid-afternoon. i brought all my rain gear again so i could test just how waterproof they were.

it ended up being a pretty busy day despite the impending bad weather. even when it eventually started raining, people still put in their online orders and even showed up to the cafe to eat. i made a new batch of boba pearls. i also made a bean sprout banchan, after making a radish leaf banchan yesterday. i brought korean hot pepper powder and added it to the bean sprouts. it made it spicier than usual, but my 2nd aunt still managed to eat it (she ended up bringing it home with her).

by the end of the day, we used up all our tea eggs as well as our rice. i'd never seen that happen before. it was pouring rain by that point. because my mother rarely drives, she was afraid of taking my 2nd aunt home. i volunteered to drive, but my aunt decided to walk home on her own. my mother thought i was going home after work, so she got confused when i told her i was going to belmont. i was going to grill some steaks for dinner despite the rainy weather. she thought i was going to ride with her in the car, until she realized i was planning on riding the bicycle in the rain.

my icreek waterproof rain pants passed the rain test. water did not seep through the pockets, i stayed completely dry. actually, because it's not very breathable, it was hot inside my pants and i got sweaty legs. the same thing happend with my rain jacket, i started sweating through my t-shirt. i really should get a new jacket with armpit vents. yes it does keep me dry, but because the material is not very breathable, i end up overheating and sweating.

i went out into the backyard with a large umbrella to do a survey. i saw the two stringed bean trellises my father made before he was incapacitated. each trellis can accomodate 16 bean plants. my flowering plants table is doing very well. the orchids love this rainy cool weather, similar to their natural jungle habitat. our hanging tradescantia are doing well, but i'll need to repot them at some point. the plant that has more morning sun exposure shows more magenta compared to the one in the shade that has more greens. i can't believe how much we have from just a little cutting from my sister's korean friend. the basil seedlings are doing very well. they're producing new leaves like crazy, soon we'll have enough for another caprese salad. we have a few ripening strawberries from the hanging plants. they seem to keep the squirrels and chipmunks away. they're not jumbo-sized like the ones you get in the supermarket, but hopefully they taste good, and they'll reproduce by rhizomes so we can get more hanging strawberry plants. finally, my rain drum wasn't making any noises despite the downpour. the only way to make it play music is to put it underneath a gutter downspout.

my father couldn't even go out into the backyard so i was in charge of grilling the steaks. the weather forecast said the rain would start to end after 6pm. i went around 6:20pm to preheat the weber grill, rain drops sizzling and evaporating whenever they hit the grill cover. about an hour beforehand i salted and peppered two t-bone steaks. i didn't think i added enough salt so 10 minutes beforehand i added another layer of kosher salt. as for the grilling, i used a technique where i turned on all three burners to high. once it reached 550 degrees, i turned off one of the burners and positioned the steaks for searing with the tenderloin half on the off burner side, so it wouldn't cook as fast as the strip steak half. i cooked each side 4 minutes, turning the steaks at the midway point for crisscross grill marks, then flipping the steaks over to sear the other side. afterwards i was supposed to put the steaks on the off burner section so it could slowly come to temperature. however, when i measured it with a temperature probe, it was already showing me 160+ degrees, so i quickly pulled the steaks off the grill.

back inside, my parents couldn't wait and started eating the steaks right away. depending on where you cut into the steak, it was either medium, to medium-rare, to rare right around the bone. not only did i overcook the steaks, but i also added too much salt. my parents shared one t-bone, but they couldn't finish it, maybe because it was too salty. i finished my steak, had some radish leaf banchan as well, finished it off with some watermelon.

when i finally returned home around 7:30pm it'd stopped rainy. i wore my rain pants and rain boots anyway because the bike seat was wet and the roads were dotted with puddles. it was warm enough that i just had a t-shirt on. instead of going home, i made a detour to the community garden so i could sprinkle some slug bait (arrived at my sister's place yesterday). the instruction said the best time to apply was close to the evening, when slugs and snails are most active. also the soil should be wetted beforehand (the downpours took care of that). the preferred "dosage" is 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of bait per square yard. i just sprinkled the bait from the container, looked like white rabbit feed pellets. i saw some baby slugs and a few sowbugs, i hope the bait kills them good.

my MA-2600 bike light was flashing red in the battery indicator light. the patterns are not very intuitive, but i assume flashing red is a bad thing and the light needs to be recharged. i haven't recharged it since when i first got it, so it lasts a good while given my limited usage. while i was at it i also recharged the rear tail light.

after a shower, i put on my sweatpants and went down to star market to get some snacks. watermelon was on sale - got two big ones for $3.99 each. they grow watermelons in the US, right? maybe because of the tariffs and how countries are no longer importing american goods, watermelon prices are very low. i also got some klondike bars, i've a renewed fondness for them. finally i got some triscuit crackers. i love the gouda cheese one but there was only one box left.

back at home, i hunkered down to finish splicing the remaining clips of andrew's daughter's lacrosse footage. filmora motion tracking does work, but the resolution and the target are so small, it has trouble isolating the subject. the field lines will also occasionally cause it confusion. after 2 hours i finally finished, uploading the new video to a google album and an online directory where they can download the original uncompressed videos.

i was the first to arrive at the cafe today. i didn't bother watering my garden because it was supposed to rain later today. in fact, i brought all my rain gear with me in preparation for a wet ride home after work. i was riding on good front and back tires today, thought it'd make me go faster, but i felt slow as ever.

once again my mother walked to the cafe today. she said my father couldn't even get out of bed this morning because of leg pains, so he may or may not come to work today, depending on how he felt. but around 10am my father did show up anyway, barely managing to hobble around with the use of a cane. he said the back of his knee hurt, like some kind of tendon inflammation. i was hoping my sister might step in and help out at the cafe today, but she was lost in dog world and could care less about the plight of her human family.

nothing special to report about work today. we made about as much as yesterday, not as much as last friday. still, it's been a good week overall, despite a few days of unusually hot weather. as for the rain that was supposed to call today, it never came, and i was disappointed i didn't get a chance to use my new rain pants. mid-morning i went down to trader joe's to get a few supplies. my mother salted some radish leaves my father had picked and we made a korean-style banchan. we have even more radishes that need to be picked back in belmont, we might try turning those into bonafide korean radish kimchi.

it was sweltering inside my house once i got back, compared to the temperature outside. i cracked open one of my living room windows for the very first time to release some of that hot air. after i used the bathroom, i took a shower, then prepared the last of my leftover pasta for dinner.

once that i was done, i started on andrew's project. originally i thought the quicktime player would allow me to easily trim videos into shorter clips. quicktime does have a trim feature, but it's not accurate. i ended up just cutting the videos in filmora. a video of 8 spliced clips was just over 2 minutes. at this rate, the final video with 19 clips could reach 4-5 minutes. the toughest part was getting motion tracking to work on a tiny subject. i frequently had to manually guide the tracking frame by frame in order to make it work. i think there was only one time when auto tracking actually worked as intended. i uploaded what i had to andrew. he seemed to agree that the video should be too long, and said what i gave him was enough to show their recruiting coach sunday afternoon. i ended up splicing a few more clips and adding some test music.

i went to go water my garden before heading off to work. first i had to go through the gauntlet of parents dropping off their kids at school. there was only one other person in the garden, a first year gardener who purposely had his back towards me so he wouldn't have to say hello. it was noisy in the garden: not because of children, but rather all the dogs and their owners using the adjoining playground as a dog park. i was happy to see my seedlings survived the night (of course they'd already been in the garden since the end of may, just not planted yet).

my mother was already at the cafe when i arrived. she walked to work today, and told my father he didn't need to come in until 11am. temperature today would hit the 90's and already it felt pretty humid. i opened up all the tables and chairs on the patio deck, as well as the circular umbrella. i didn't like how it only managed to shade one table, so i took down that umbrella and opened up our old rectangular umbrella. it wasn't able to shade all three tables but it at least covered two. i thought my sister would flip out again when she saw i'd taken down her circular umbrella, but she either didn't notice or wasn't in a complaining mood. i saw esmei in my sister's car, sprawled over the center console, air conditioner on high blast.

my father showed up at the cafe around 10am. he was at home stringing one of the bean trellises. each trellis has 8 strings, 5ft on one side, 5ft on the other, for a total of 80ft of string per trellis. he also brought in some more radishes he pulled from RB0. some of them had chew marks. i went online looking for answers, there was no consensus, most people said either slugs or snails, possibly sowbugs. that inspired me to get some slug poison. sluggo was a name that kept coming up. it contains iron phosphate, which disrupts their digestive systems and they stop eating and die after a few days. it's safe for pets and wildlife, last for 4 weeks (even after rainfall), and OMRI listed so organic gardening kosher. sluggo also makes a sluggo plus, which contains spinosad, a natural bacteria-derived pesticide.

sluggo plus is so popular that prices have gone up because of scarcity and demand. a 2.5lbs. container of sluggo plus retails for $29, but on amazon it sells for $36. i ended up getting a 1.5lbs. container of bonide bug and slug bait for $20. it contains the exact same chemicals as sluggo plus (iron phosphate and spinosad). beside the raised beds at my parents' place, i also need slug bait for my own garden, as i have a serious slug/snail/sowbug problem.

the hot weather seemed to have kept some customers away. still, be made above our daily average, and about the same as last thursday. we only had a handful of bento sales today, and even less beef noodle soup. zhajiang noodles was a surprisingly popular item.

in the early afternoon we made some reuben sandwiches for lunch using the leftover corned beef. we still had some left over but my sister ended up taking the rest.

my sister took my father to the car mechanic in the late afternoon, to pick up the honda element. it was getting close to 5pm and they still weren't back yet so i called to let them know we were getting busy again. by the time they made it back though, it wasn't busy anymore, and my my mother chastised me for being so panicky.

i rode home after work. the weather was downright soupy, felt more like july or august instead of early june. my front tire felt squishy even though i inflated it this morning. it's definitely a slow leak. i wheeled the bike into the backyard when i got home, so i could replace the front tire along with the tube. i lit a mosquito coil to keep the bugs away, but i still got bit, one on each arm, didn't even see them even though i was very careful. once enough smoke filled up the air though, the mosquitoes backed off. it was a bear removing the old tire, and hard getting the new one back on. once i did though, i took the opportunity to oil my chain and gears, and give the bike frame a wipe down with some furniture polish. can't wait to ride it tomorrow, new front and back tires. i saved the old tire, i want to track down the leak and hopefully patch up the tube for future backup.

i finally brought home my cafe apron. i wear the same one whenever i work at the cafe, but i've never washed it, something like 2+ years. i started noticing the front was discolored from the grease accumulation, and finally brought it home to give it a good soak and a wash. i used a combination of detergent and oxiclean, and left the apron soaking for 1-1/2 hours. the water was all grey from the grime. afterwards i washed it by hand, the dirty water wouldn't stop running. it took a few passes before the water was finally clear and i hug up the apron in the bathtub to dry.

tonight was the start of the NBA finals between the OKC thunders and the indiana pacers. game 1 was in oklahoma. i reheated some leftover pasta for dinner close to halftime. OKC lead for most of the game, usually by 10 points give or take. but 10 points is nothing for indiana, known for their incredible rallys in the playoffs. in the 4th quarter pacers went on a hot streak while the thunders went cold. and then the incredible happened, as haliburton made the final shot that gave the pacers the lead for the very first and last time. indiana wins 111-110. are the pacers the team of destiny? what an amazing win.

andrew sent me the video clips of his daughter isabel's lacrosse games. he wanted me to splice together 19 clips by this weekend (for college recruitment). at first it seemed daunting - especially given the tight deadline - but i cleared up 50GB worth of space on my computer (tossing out backed up photos that i hadn't processed in the blog yet) and played around with the first clip in filmora. it looks doable. some motion tracking, some captioning, it's pretty serviceable.

my day off are never days off. the moment i woke up i was working. i was out on the back porch trimming a new batch of garlic chives for possible planting in my garden plot. next i went to whole foods to return a pair of shoes i bought for my father that was too small. then i went to market basket to get some ingredients for tonight's dinner.

i got to the cafe via motorcycle around 10am to trade for the car so i could run additional errands. my 2nd aunt hadn't arrived yet so i ended up working a bit until she showed up. i made a new batch of black soy noodles.

i went over to my sister's place and got the clear plastic storage bins i ordered. we've been using an 8x11" cardboard box to hold 4 quart containers holding 4 different pickled bento ingredients. unfortunately the box will eventually deteriorate and we need to replace it. that's why i've been searching for a suitable clear plastic bin as a replacement. i've had my eyes on a set of bins for a while, but they're slightly smaller, measuring 7.9x10.8x3.4". i finally ended up buying a set (4 for $26.99) to try them out. the bins are will made seem very durable and easy to clean, but unfortunately they can't fit 4 quart containers without them squeezing sideways to fit. so they will have to be returned and my search continues.

when my 2nd aunt finally showed up, i borrowed the car and left. first stop was the mt.auburn star market to get some steaks and corn on sale. steaks (porterhouse t-bone and new york strips) were $7.97/lbs. with digital coupon, while the corns were just on sale for 3/$1.

next i went to the watertown home depot. i checked out their outdoor plant selection, i wasn't impressed. a pot of vegetable seedling was anywhere from $4.98 to $6.48. are the prices this high because of the tariff? now more than ever, it pays to start your own vegetable seedlings from seeds. i got a new watering can, a pair of M6-1.0x12mm hex socket cap screws (black, $3.75), and two melnor 8-pattern 33in. watering wands ($15/each). these watering wands seem to be designed to only last a single season. they're very prone to freeze damage, and if left outside during a frost in late fall, they're guaranteed to break (which is what happened to us every season). hopefully we finally learned our lesson and these wands can last a little longer than a single summer.

i stopped at my parents' place. my father came to work late today because he was in the backyard building another bean trellis. this one is just 5x3ft, and only requires 4 8ft furring strips to build. it's a nice size and fits perfectly in our raised beds, even the ones with the wire mesh tops. i tried out the new watering wand before leaving with a 50qt bag of organic raised bed soil (purchased from costco a month ago).

i drove to my community garden, prepared to do some serious work. temperature today was in the mid-80's. it didn't feel too bad given how cold it's been this spring, but the slight humidity uptick was noticeable. the raised bed soil was too heavy for me to carry, so i got the garden wagon (remembered the combination) and used that to move the soil. i topped off all the grow bags with new soil. i planned to have some left over but ended up using all 50qt on 10 grow bags. i then planted my seedlings into the grow bags: 2 tomatoes, 2 longhorn peppers, one kabocha squash, 2 hyacinth beans (i had a 3rd that i didn't plant yet), 2 bitter melons. i had another bitter melon that had a bent stem i ended up planting on the ground, not sure if it'll survive. i planted a thai basil in a terracotta pot. the 10th grow bag - the one not on a milk crate - already has some striped mallow seedlings, so i left it alone. i plan on planting some nigellas or snapdragons in the same grow bag.

i dug up a bit more of the southeastern corner of my plot, pulling up a few more clumps of garlic chives to be sorted out back at home. i wanted to try digging out whatever obstruction seems to be underground preventing me from sinking my eastern-facing u-posts completely into the ground. whatever it is was too big to dig out so i gave up. i did however further secure my western-facing u-posts, those are solidly staked into the soil. i planted a new perimeter of garlic chives in the southeastern corner.

lynn was there today working on her own plot. she's one of the few gardeners i still know, as more and more old gardeners retire and new gardeners take their place. she's been having a lot of bad luck with her plot, from dogs pooping in her garden, to wild turkeys trampling her plants. she told me her father's been in hospice care since this winter (her mother was in hospice last year), and she herself has bad osteoporosis on her feet. she said it comes from a lifetime of working on feet.

as i was leaving, david showed up. he's the other gardener i regularly chat with. unfortunately i was leaving and had to cut our conversation short.

i didn't make it back to the cafe until 3pm. originally i planned on being there by 2pm so my father and i could go back to belmont and do some gardening. we left for belmont.

we continued making bean trellises. we had enough furring strips to make 4 more, on top of the one my father made on his own this morning and the 6x4ft trellis we made on monday. the more we make, the easier they become. first step is to secure two long vertical pieces with a 2in deck screw. we then made pilot holes on the top piece, so the two pairs of legs can be held together with the top piece while the bottom two horizontal pieces are screws in place using 1-1/4in deck screws. once one horizontal bottom piece is secured, we then secure the top piece, before finally securing the other horizontal bottom piece.

my father's original 5x3ft trellis design had another horizontal piece across the middle as a brace, but i told him it was necessary, and might interfere with the trellis lines. the trellises still seemed flimsy, but not as flimsy as the 6x4ft trellis. my father improved the design by using 3in deck screws to secure the top of the vertical legs to the top horizontal piece. it gives the trellis some additional rigidity, and because more of the smooth shank is in the leg pieces, the trellis opens up a lot easier.

we have a total of 6 bean trellises now, but that doesn't seem to be enough. if we buy another bundle of furring strips (15 strips per bundle, around $25), we could make 4 more 5x3ft trellises. the trellises were finished yet, we still need to tie the strings. we decided a spacing of 3 inches between strings, so drilled 8 holes on all the horizontal pieces. that means we can grow at least 16 bean plants per trellis, each with its own string to climb. these trellises can also be used for other climbing plants, like bitter melons. not good for kabocha squash though, they're too heavy.

we finally finished by 5pm and returned to the cafe. we got there right when multiple late orders came in. if we hadn't arrived, i don't think my mother and my 2nd aunt could've fulfilled all the orders. they also missed one order that was 4 chicken bentos, not just one. we ran out of rice but luckily had two frozen containers in the freezer that was just barely enough. it was pretty hectic, but once it was over, we set a record for the busiest day this year so far. even though it was my day off, i still worked in the morning and then in the early evening.

i motorcycled home. i soaked the garlic chives on my back porch. this morning i left a time machine backup running (haven't backed up since december), was happy to see it just finished moments after i got back.

i took out the M6-1.0x12mm cap screws i bought earlier and tried them out on the recent bike rack i found. they fit perfectly (the black screws matching the black rack), but i was missing a washer, so will need to revisit home depot to get that too. i should take an inventory of all my screws and bolts, so i can also get the proper ones to mount this rack onto the bicycle.

i was tempted to just throw a frozen brick of lasagna in the oven for a quick and easy dinner, but ended up doing some cooking, made a simple bolognese sauce: chopped garlic, chopped onions, sauteed in olive oil, add the 85% lean ground beef, cook until done, add a 24oz. jar of newman's sokarooni tomato sauce, added some sugar, some salt to balance the flavors, left it simmering on the stove for 45 minutes while i went to go use the bathroom and take a shower.

i cooked a bowl of barilla whole grain rotini. i read pasta can be healthy and less fattening if using whole grain ingredients. i'm fine with whole grain pasta, since normally the flavor comes from the sauce instead. not sure how healthy it was in the end, because i had a hearty serving of meat sauce. while waiting for everything to finish cooking, i ate a can of whole kernel sweet corn. as a latchkey kid growing up, canned corn was one of my favorite foods.

the pasta was pretty good. i left the sauce simmering long enough that some parts of it caramelized for a richer flavor. there was nothing good on television, so i ended up watching youtube, some analysis on why knicks head coach tom thibodeau was fired, followed by some seth meyers interviews (shane gillis & steve gerben, maria reva).