i rode the motorcycle to the cafe in the late morning to put away the tea eggs. i also moved the passion flower back outside, but on the metal plant stand to keep it off the ground. when i got to belmont, i found out my sister and mother had a fight, and now my sister and her godmother weren't going to the barbecue later this afternoon.

after lunch (pan-fried pancake with some pork floss washed down with fresh soy milk), my father and i went to home depot to get some supplies: 5 8ft 2x4's, 3 8ft 10x2's, a box of 3" deck screws, a can of rust-oleum 2x spray paint (in glossy hunter green, for the found wheelbarrow), and a 10ft 3/4" EMT conduit. after we loaded everything in the car, i had to in the back and hold everything to make sure nothing fell out. that left me with some motion sickness.

it started to rain so we held off on any outdoor errands for the time being. instead i made some smashed cucumbers to bring to the barbecue, while my parents had earlier cut up a watermelon to bring.

even though the barbecue wasn't until 3:30-4pm, we left around 2:30pm to go pick up my 2nd aunt from home after she came back from church. from there we headed to arlington, arriving super early - 3:10pm. i was surprised to see my sister and her godmother at the barbecue. apparently they decided to come after all.

this was supposed to be a memorial day barbecue but my aunt cancelled last week fearing it'd rain. she moved it to this sunday, but it turned out to be even rainier. we decided to have the barbecue anyway instead of postponing it to yet another weekend, taking on a gamble on the weather.

matthew gave us a tour of the yard. he showed up the clematis trellises, the magenta one flourishing with great big flowers, with his hopes of getting a purple variety to do the same. he also extended his hops trellises, reaching something like 20ft up in the air. finally we saw their new solar panel, which they got through a power purchase agreement (PPA). it's a 5.75kW system with 14 korean-german qcell-brand panels. matthew didn't know the power rating for the panels but they're probably 425-450W each. it uses a solaredge inverter (installed outside the house). the system isn't live yet, has to pass inspection first. they pay $100 monthly for their electricity, with the option to buy the system in the future, as well as install battery backup storage for off-grid power. he also hired people to trim his pine and maple trees, remove a diseased cherry, and spray fungicide on the hawthorn (which had some rust disease) and the crabapple.

weather cooperated for the first half of the barbecue until it started to rain midway through. everyone moved inside except for my myself, my mother, and my sister - who had to be outside because esmei wasn't allowed inside. we sat underneath the deck umbrella, rain dripping on our backs. matthew later joined us outside once he finished grilling (some blue fish), soaking wet. when the rain finally stopped, everyone moved back outside.

esmei stayed on the deck for much of the time. she spent time watching the birds and squirrels in the yard. the few times we let her out, she ran around the backyard and into the neighbors' yards until my sister had to call her back. my father took her on a walk where she went to the bathroom before returning.

my aunt was trying to get rid of an old window air conditioner. my father wanted to take it until we convinced him otherwise, but my sister wanted it for upstairs tenants, so we took it anyway. we also grabbed a pair of large tomato cages that barely fit inside the car. once again i had to ride in an awkward position and made myself motion sick again. we were going to drop off my 2nd aunt, but my father decided to drop off my mother and me first.

i was ready to go home until i realized i didn't have my phone anymore. using google's find your phone webpage, i was able to see my phone traveling across cambridge. so apparently i dropped it in the car. when my father finally came back, i got my phone and went home. it started to rain again. there was no point in waiting as it looked to be steady rain for a while. better to go home now, get a little wet, instead of waiting indefinitely.

i don't like riding the motorcycle in the rain. roads get slippery, combined with speed, makes for dangerous riding. it least it wasn't freezing cold rain. the wettest part of my body were my legs, which soaked up all the splashes. i was hoping my waterproof hiking shoes would stay drier at least. fortunately there was a parking spot right in front of the house so i didn't have far to walk. i stripped off my wet clothes before taking a shower.

still hungry after the barbecue, i ate an instant cup of noodles while searching for something to watch on streaming. i ended up resorting to typing random letters in the search window to bring up something unexpected. i settled on the man with on red shoe (1985), tom hank's third foray into mainstream cinema after transitioning as a tv actor. i only watched about 10 minutes (didn't even see tom hank's character yet) but i got bored and went onto youtube to watch some NBA analysis.

my mother called this morning while i was in the bathroom. she told me my father could give me a ride this morning to the cafe since it was cold and rainy and windy outside. just one of those things i could handle but all three? smarter to take the ride. after dropping off my mother, my father went to go pick up my 2nd aunt then finally come pick me up. there were leaves and tiny tree branches scattered all over the road, like what you'd see after a hurricane. it was just an awful day weatherwise, your job today was basically to stay dry.

i ended up putting both the passion flower and our hanging fern outside. the passion flower i brought indoors last night to protect it from hungry rabbits. the fern i put outside to give it a free shower. at one point fern tipped over from the strong winds (i had it on a wire plant stand) so i moved it to a corner of the deck and used the potted passion flower to brace it from toppling over again.

a woman came in as soon as we opened, asking to use our bathroom, despite the obvious "no public restroom" sign posted by the entrance. my mother told her we don't have a public bathroom. the woman insisted. "what if i just pee by the entrance?" she said. on occasions we might let someone use our bathroom, but with that kind of snide remark, there was just no way. "what if i was dying? would you try to save me?" this stranger continued. i was in the kitchen and came out to speak with her. i told her we don't let people use our bathroom because of health code reasons. the woman got back in her car and drove away.

would we be busy today, despite the awful weather? the answer turned out to be kind of. we didn't get our first customer until 12pm, someone called in a sizable order. everything the person ordered basically had to be cooked, so i told him 20 minutes. he showed up 10 minutes later. we then had a few customers come in to order drinks, but it wasn't until late 2pm we got busy again (when the finally stopped). each time a fairly big order, so even though we only had a few orders total, we made about as much as last saturday, which isn't bad considering the weather.

the next door baker came back one final time to hold a birthday party for her daughter in the old space. it's kind of bittersweet, since starting next week the new owner will move in and probably repaint the walls, covering up the murals the previous owner had painted. she came by to thank us one last time and to offer us some leftover birthday cake.

around closing time, i brought back inside the fern and the passion fruit. my father returned to give us rides home. he showed me one of the vines already had a flower bud, and later i found another one. the plant will do well on our very sunny outdoor deck, as long as we can protect it from roving rabbits.

my parents dropped off my 2nd aunt first before dropping me off. my father seemed to have forgotten about me and started to drive home to belmont when i told him i still had to get home.

the big news today besides the windy rainy weather was a loud boom that happened in the afternoon. apparently a large meteorite entered the atmosphere over massachusetts at 2:11pm, causing a loud sonic boom. i actually heard it, a boom followed by the building shaking. i thought maybe a car had slammed into the cafe building, but when i looked outside there was nothing. when i told my mother, she said it was just my 2nd aunt slamming the door to the bathroom. i thought it was strange but figured that was the most likely explanation. however, when i poured over our various webcams to 2:11pm, each one recorded a boom sound. too bad nobody could see it here in MA because of the cloudy weather.

somehow i managed to stay awake. a lot of times on saturdays when i get home, there's nothing to do, and i find myself lounging on the couch and falling asleep. i spent the time watching youtube videos while connected to my anker wireless speaker (the speakers on my old macbook pro are broken for the nth time and make a loud buzzing sound). i was looking for videos explaining if paul atreides is truly a fremen messiah or a false prophet piggybacking on bene gesserit's religious exploitation of the local population though false prophecies planting. the fact that he's capable of amazing feats primary comes from his bungled kwisatz haderach genetics like the ability to transmutate the poisonous water of life.

i took a shower in the evening before making a trio of hot dogs for tonight's main event, game 7 between the spurs and thunder. san antonio got off with a quick start, pushing their lead to 14 by the middle of the first quarter. but the thunder fought back and led by 4 points close to the end of the second quarter but san antonio managed to get back the lead by one point before halftime. in the second half, the spurs led the game most of the time, but only by single digits, the thunder always within striking distance. even in the final minutes, final seconds, the thunder still had chances to win the game. alas, the spurs survived, winning 111-103. they will face the knicks on wednesday, in an NBA final that most people seem to think the spurs will win. in fact, the western conference championship was essentially the NBA finals, we probably already saw our best basketball of this year's playoffs.

i went to haymarket again this morning. got a chance to use the fitness tracking feature of my new xiaomi smart band 10. i also enabled tracking on my velotric bike app, as a secondary set of data. unfortunately with the mi fitness app stuck in metric km unit, it was hard to decipher what i was reading.

it seems 9am on a friday morning is too early for haymarket, as many vendors were still setting up shop. the better time to come would be the afternoon, but i'm working both fridays and saturdays (although i might be able to get there saturday after work if i hustle and take the ebike, maybe i'll try that next time). pickings were a little slim today. no swiss chards, no gold nugget oranges. the overweight panhandler in a wheelchair was already there, i try to hide my cash whenever he's within eyesight. my haul: sleeve of garlic ($2), pineapple ($3), 14 plums ($4), 4 trays of baby cucumbers ($6), bag of clementines ($3), 1lb bag of cherries ($3). that's pretty much it. i left around 9:20am, got to the cafe in about 25 minutes.

my father had brought the potted passion flower to the cafe, putting it on the deck. it's a good idea, but i'm just worried rabbits will snip at the stem bottoms and basically kill the entire plant. we need to protect it with a wire cage.

i made a new batch of tea eggs with the leftover eggs from the bakery. they look like organic brown eggs, and seem like a waste using them to make tea eggs. one egg in particular had a waxing covering that disappeared when wet and reappeared once dried. it looked suspicious so i took it out of circulation once the eggs finished stemming. when we cut it over, it was a perfectly normal egg on the inside. later i learned it was probably some natural bloom, something that happens to eggs to protect them from bacteria.

another day where it didn't see that busy yet we managed to make slightly above our daily average. my aunt showed up, said the barbecue she cancelled last week will be rescheduled for this sunday, rain or shine. in the late afternoon it looked like it might rain so i went out and put away all the deck furniture and closed the umbrella, only for the rain to bypass us. my father pan-seared some breaded pork cutlets. i had a piece, although i think it'd be better if we deep fried them. with pan-searing it's easy to scorch, which happened with a few pieces.

i moved the passion flower back inside when we closed. there was a very light, not even enough to soak my clothes, but i did have to wipe the rain off my bike seat with my t-shirt. when i went to go put away my ebike in the basement, i noticed a bike locked to the deck in the garden. i thought maybe jeff got a new bike, but why not put in the basement? later i discovered he has some coworkers over, and one of them locked the bike there. at this point i try not to dwell too much on trampled plants. i brought back the door sweep, it tested it briefly, seems to be the perfect, i just need to cut it to length.

after a shower, i warmed up the last of the italian sausages but two hot dogs for dinner. nothing good was on television so i rewatched crimes of the future (2022), david cronenberg's body horror film. i don't think i understood it the first time i saw it; this my second viewing things made more sense.

i was watching the youtube live steam of harvard's commencement this morning, waiting for conan o'brien to show up. i also helped my mother take out some more supplies from the next door bakery. they never paid their last month's rent nor any of their utility bills, which we'll probably end up having to cover. that's why whatever we can take to recoup the cost, we took. it was mostly just food ingredients, a bunch of korean stuff we'd never used before. inside the fridge were gallons of milk that were 2 months old. they didn't smell bad, and seems like a waste to dump it all, but who'd dare drink it? the one useful thing we grabbed was a wireless bose speaker. even for something that tiny, it was awfully loud. i suggested we pipe some taiwanese music for the cafe.

would today even be busy? we had a spike around lunchtime, and that was pretty much it. my godmother decided to pay a visit during our busiest stretch. afterwards it wasn't so busy anymore. that gave me time to ride the bike to belmont to pick up my xiaomi fitness band 10 that arrived earlier today. i stopped when i bumped into my sister, taking esmei to fresh pond. i stopped a second time just blocks away from my parents' house when i spotted two plastic garden cloches somebody that tossed out. these look like the one we have in our backyard that i tried to fix by replacing the plastic sheet but it was too soft and didn't really work. these were old as well, with cracks in the plastic, but still much better shape that ours. getting them home was a challenge. originally i thought i could just both to the back of the bike, but they were too large. i ended up strapping one and then hand carrying the other, slowing walking the bike to the house.

besides the fitness band, my rubber door sweep for the basement door also arrived. i brought in all the empty garden refuse bins before finally leaving. what should've been just a quick 30-minute trip ended up taking me over 45 minutes before i got back to the cafe. fortunately they didn't seem too busy while i was gone.

by day's end we still managed to make above our daily average, which was a surprise, since it didn't seem all that busy today. my parents took home some marinated porkchops for dinner, while i went home. i decided not to bring the door sweep because i'd have to strap it horizontal onto my rear baskets, making it hard to ride; i'll take it home tomorrow, when i can stuff it vertically inside a backpack.

i set up the xiaomi fitness band when i got back home. it wouldn't accept my xiaomi account because i made it back in china and the chinese phone number associated with the account no longer works. i tried to reset the phone number but it's going to take 2-3 days before it goes through. it was easier just to set up a new account using my gmail address. after that i managed to pair the phone to the mi fitness app. mi band 10 is a lot like mi band 6, just a slightly wider screen. i also feels brighter, more responsive as well. one thing i noticed immediately was the units were all in metric: km, kg, celsius. i looked for a setting to toggle to imperial but couldn't find it. so i searched online and discovered to my dismay that new versions of the mi band are metric only. this is such an easier fix, they could get a summer intern to update the code for free. the fact that even after so many iterations and requests they still haven't made the change makes me think this is deliberate, that xiaomi is doing this out of spite, since only really two countries still use imperial - the US and the UK. it's a bit of a deal breaker, since now the weather and distance tracking don't make sense. it sucks, and looking at the xiaomi fitness band lineup, it seems like quality is getting worse with each version update. xiaomi probably doesn't make too much money on fitness bands anymore anyway, now they've started branching out to electric vehicles.

after a shower i had dinner, tried to finish up all the leftover barbecue from monday before they spoil. one final piece of corn, one final piece of lamb loin chop, and 2 italian sausages. i also had some sweet heat pickle slices.

a big draw of the mi fitness band is the ability to change the face. i downloaded a watch face app specifically for the mi band 10 and found a face that i liked. but trying to change it turned out to be super complicated. first, i had to turn off the mi fitness app because it interfered with the face changing app. i needed a xiaomi authorization key to make the change, but the face app couldn't connect to the server and couldn't complete the request. after some more researching, i discovered that installing the notify for xiaomi app would reveal the authorization key. once i got that, i went back to the face changing app. once again i had to turn off any apps paired to the fitness band before the change could happen. small victories. still hoping xiaomi will add the ability to toggle the units, but i've seen people on reddit asking for this change for the past 4 years, falling on death ears. anyway, i picked a monochrome watch face that had the most amount of info: time, date, steps, heartbeat, battery, sunrise, sunset, temperature, humidity.

i watched the thunder-spurs game. spurs dominated throughout. at no time did OKC have the lead. san antonio at one point lead by 28 points. in the third quarter thunder kept on missing for over a dozen possessions, which the spurs increased their lead. it seems like OKC just wasn't in the game, hoping to go back home for a game 7 and a home crowd. spurs won 91-118. game 7 is saturday night.

fiddling around with the mi band, i did find a setting to chance the temperature unit from celsius to fahrenheit. so at least i have that. distances are still in kilometer, weight in kilogram.

i woke up at 9am this morning with a list of errands to run. but i took my time, made a grocery list, and didn't leave until 11am for market basket. most of items were for the cafe, i decided to make some hot dogs for dinner. while i was there, michael called me with some computer issue. i told him i could swing by his work place around noontime.

i went home to drop off the groceries before heading down to harvard square. the place was packed with friends and family attending the graduation ceremony tomorrow. there are so many schools at harvard, every single open space was utilized as venues for individual schools. you could tell which people were here on graduation business because those were all the people dressed up. there was tight security inside harvard yard and you had to pass a security check to get through.

it's unfortunate then most of the time when i see michael, it's because there's some computer issue, so it's always a little tense. the problem today was all his contacts disappearing. i poked around but didn't see anything out of the ordinary. his laptop was a little low on space, i so erased a bunch of old defunct outlook data files (PST) that we no longer used, freeing up 40GB worth of space. that still didn't fix the issue. i noticed he had 4 remaining PST files in his out outlook directory, but only 3 mailboxes in the application window itself. michael said he was cleaning some files yesterday and might've erased something crucial. that's when it clicked: he erased one of the original mailboxes that for some reason contained all the contacts. it was a simple matter of exporting the missing PST and suddenly all the contacts came back.

michael told me he's planning on starting a website that would allow customers to order new lenses for their old frames. nowadays not many glasses companies make custom lenses, you basically take what they have in stock. i think that's a great idea and he got the guy who originally built their outlook database. also while i was there, he gave me the last pair of frames that i currently wear, so that the next time i wanted new glasses, i can use those frames because i like them so much. he showed me that the frames that i have are made with a virtually indestructible material, and demonstrated by bending the temple arms before they simply snapped back in place. he also adjusted my glasses while i was there, i didn't even realize the nose pad arms were crooked.

problem fixed, i left michael's store a little after 1pm. when i got back home i had just enough time to grab a leftover italian sausage from the fridge and eat it for lunch before i went out again.

i was meeting bruce for a tree walk to show him the hidden paulownias around the neighborhood. there used a grove of giant paulownia trees on beacon street. i first discovered them back in 2007, nearly 2 decades ago. they were easily the tallest trees on the street, but not many people noticed them despite having pretty fragrant flowers. beacon street used to be a lot different. i remember these used to be a gas station with a sign for the S&H green stamps loyalty program. unfortunately all those paulownias were chopped down to make way for new apartments, the cost of gentrification. nevertheless, its offsprings continue to survive, in hidden spots around beacon street. i've slowly discovered a few - up to three - and wanted to show them to bruce.

bruce was walking with a cane. a few months ago he started getting a mysterious knee pain that wouldn't go away. it wasn't just walking, even standing would hurt his knee. he got an x-ray but they didn't see anything. his doctor gave him a cortisone shot which fixed the problem until it came back 4 weeks later. just recently he got an MRI, and still waiting for the doctor to contact him with a diagnosis.

we also saw some black locusts with pretty white flowers that resemble wisteria. we saw the paulownia on the corner of park and morgan street. the second paulownia was behind the garage in the parking lot of the wine & cheese cask. the third tree was across the street (washington), poking out through a gazebo.

we went inside the wine & cheese cask to get something cold to drink then sat on a bench on the corner of beacon and washington/kirkland and watched the traffic while we chatted. bruce believes trump won't make it to the end of his term and will probably die due to health reasons. walking back, we saw a tree that had maple wings but the leaves didn't a maple leaf shape. later we learned it was a boxelder, a female one at that.

i got back by 2:30pm. i packed up the groceries and took the bike to the cafe to drop off the supplies. only my father was at the cafe; my mother and 2nd aunt went next door to the empty bakery to see what leftover supplies they can take back. the transfer sale finally went through last week, the new owners will move in next month (next week). i'd never been in the bakery before after they finished renovations. i've always thought it was tiny but it's surprisingly big (long). there were murals on the wall that the new owners will probably paint over which is a shame. the previous cafe was a real labor of love, too bad they couldn't make it work out.

i continued to belmont, where i planned on mowing the lawn. i mow it now so that over the weekend i can apply sedgehammer herbicide to the lawn to kill all the sedges. my father and i noticed that we cut too short so i raised the mow height to setting 4 (it was at 3 before). i scattered a trio of bunnies and an adult rabbit that simply hopped the low fence like it was nothing. after i finished mowing, i moved out all the garden refuse bins to the curb. before i left, my heavy duty zip ties arrived. i put some on the hop bine trellis top.

i got back home by 4:30pm. today was warm - mid-80's - but it wasn't bad, a pleasant late spring day. it was warm enough to cook the sewer juices and there was a stink in my bathroom. i fixed it by simply not closing the bathroom door and opening the window just a crack.

i took a shower to rinse off the stink i've accumulated over the course of the day. afterwards i had some pita bread with roasted eggplant ajvar dip and the sponge cake my sister bought over the weekend. i washed a load of laundry before throwing it into the dryer. i watched some youtube videos and vegged out the rest of the day.

after the evening news, i got sleepy and decided to take a nap around 6:30pm. i didn't wake up until 2 hours later at 8:30pm, feeling groggy. i forced myself up so i could make some hot sauce. it's been on my to-do list for a while, and i was afraid if i waited any longer, the peppers i bought last week will go bad.

the whole process took 2-1/2 hours. i didn't finish until 11pm. i use anaheim peppers and thai chili peppers, the two red-color types i can get from market basket. i used to think anaheim peppers weren't that spicy (almost like a sweet pepper), but they can range. still, i treat them as bulk filler for the hot sauce, while the real spiciness comes from the thai chili peppers. i'm used to working with 2 lbs. worth of anaheim peppers, but got a bit less this time (1.74 lbs). i removed the stems by slicing it off, while the thai peppers i can just rip off the stems. peeling the garlic took the longest, i'm tempted to get buy pre-peeled garlic next time.

the weight ratio of anaheim to thai to garlic is 3:1:1. however in this case i didn't have enough thai chili or garlic: it should be 225g of each, but i only had 172g of thai chili and about 208g of garlic (the entire sleeve peeled, 5 heads). the oil component is 3/4 the weight of the anaheim peppers, but i used 2/3 instead, which also worked.

i used my small food processor to chop up the ingredients, forgot that i used my large processor last time. results are the same, it just takes a bit more time using the smaller machine. i discovered chopping mixed ingredients work in the best in getting everything properly pulverized. i add chopped anaheim at the bottom, thai chili in the middle, and peeled garlic on top. i process once, press everything down, then processed a second time for a more minced sauce.

once the ingredients were all processed, it was time to add to the oil. i use canola oil. i had two opened jars that smelled rancid so i tossed them out, using an unopened jar instead. i was going to heat up the oil first, but then i realized it was going to make a huge mess when i dump in the wet pepper mash, so i simply added everything together. the sauce will sputter when it simmers, that's natural. i wish i had a deeper wide pan to catch the sprays so it doesn't make a mess of my countertop area.

i simmered for 20 minutes on medium-high heat before adding the remaining ingredients. this turned out to be a mistake. since i had less peppers, i should've reduced the portions, but instead i used the same amount as last time: 4 tbsp of sugar, 4 tbsp of salt, 4 tbsp of baijiu, and 6 tbsp of sichuan peppercorn oil. the correct amount should be 3 tbsp of salt/sugar/baijiu and 5 tbsp of peppercorn oil. when i tasted the sauce, it wasn't very spicy. instead, i tasted mostly salty and sweet, with some fragrant peppercorn. the sauce may actually be too salty/sweet. the ultimate judge will be my mother. i think she'll like it because it's not as spicy, but maybe she'll think it's too salty.

i scooped the sauce into empty clean sesame paste jars using a stainless steel canning funnel.

for dinner i ate another italian sausage, a piece of corn, and a lamb chop. it felt wrong eating so close to bedtime. i wasn't even that hungry, but figured i should eat something at least before going to sleep.

i took the ebike to work this morning, as i planned on returning to belmont with my parents afterwards so my father and i can install the new 90 degrees brackets (arriving today) on our EMT conduit trellis. i ended up arriving earlier than expected, ebike shaved off a few minutes.

other than a batch of salt & pepper chicken my father deep fried this morning, there was no additional supply replenishment. we did most of that last week. this week we just needed to sell what stock we had on hand. i was still busy making batches: dumplings, dark soy noodles (twice), tea eggs, ice cubes, and boba pearls. i noticed the ice machine was getting particularly dirty and spent some time cleaning it with alcohol spray. it doesn't seem to be designed for easy cleaning. it has a cleaning cycle but all it does is continuously fill up the water tub then drain.

there was a small spike in business around lunchtime. that korean guy with the long hair showed up today after disappearing for a year. he used to live just a few houses down and come eat at the cafe often. but following late last spring he was gone and we figured he graduated. so kind of a surprise he showed up today, maybe he was just visiting.

from the early afternoon to mid-afternoon we barely had any customers. was it too hot today? temperate was in the 80's today, but nice and cool inside the cafe with the air conditioner on. we had a few more regulars come in: the guy who never says thank you and always orders the bento, or the family of three who comes to eat every week in the early evening - the father gets curry, the son gets chicken, and the mother likes to try different things.

i ate some leftover barbecue from yesterday. for reason i was super thirsty, must've drank half a dozen glass of ice cold strawberry lemonade (4C-brand sugarfree liquid water enhancer). my mother and i went to go see the newly renovated upstairs apartment, as a new tenant will move it starting tomorrow. the kitchen isn't even done yet, the only thing work is the fridge, which has an awkward lean because the floor is sloped. while my mother returned to the cafe, i gathered up some discarded boards the contractors threw out, including some 2x4's. somewhere in the neighborhood is a very mature female cottonwood tree that releases a mass of cotton-like frass along with its seeds. from a distance it looks like foam.

business started picking up in the late afternoon into the early evening. there was a guy who camped out here with his laptop making loud conference calls. never have i been more grateful to see a bunch of noisy teenagers come in to order their daily fix of bubble tea. the conference call guy left immediately. it got so busy that what looked like a bleak low-profit day ended up being pretty profitable, same as last tuesday, above our daily average. honestly, you'd think with harvard graduation this thursday, and an influx of friends and family attending the commencement, that we'd get an uptick in business, but that hasn't been the case in our experience.

when we finally closed, my parents and i left at the same time, but i got to their house first because i could travel much faster via ebike.

my father and i went into the backyard and started replacing the t-connectors on the EMT conduit trellis with 90 degrees corner connectors. it was a little tricky, because it involves joining 3 conduits together, holding them in place, making sure they don't drop and bend the connector on the opposite end (like i did last time). the final result was pretty rigid. it was also very easy to move the trellis (with two people), it's surprisingly light. this weekend we'll build the second trellis and figure out where we want to put them.

i left around 7:30pm, while my mother was making tomato & egg noodle soup for dinner. i had leftover barbecue to eat once i got back home. too lazy to roll the ebike back into the basement, i stashed it in the alleyway underneath a tarp with the u-lock securing the rear wheel to the frame. if someone was to steal the ebike, they'd need to carry it away.

i took a shower first. i managed to get a splitter in my finger when i was folding up the deck furniture.¹ using a pick from a dental tool kit, i managed to scrap away enough skin to expose the splinter head and pull it out with tweezers.

i ate some barbecue while watching the spurs-thunder game. OKC won 114-127. when they win, it's always so convincingly, you can't believe they could ever lose. the wheels basically came off for san antonio beginning of the 2nd quarter. game 6 goes back to texas, it's a must-win for the spurs if they want to stay alive.

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¹ i remember getting wood splinters all the time as a kid. not so much now as an adult, probably because i learned how to avoid handling wood in such a way to get them. having a sliver of wood embedded inside your body is one thing, but the extraction was even worse. what do you mean you have to cut open my skin? or use a needle to dig out the splinter? so yeah, this splinter brought back some memories.

i woke up at 8:30am and quickly got ready to head down to the cafe to make a new batch of taiwanese paocai with the taiwanese cabbage we bought from chinatown yesterday morning. it takes 3 hours to make, and if i want to have any time to do yardwork in belmont, i needed to get started by 9am. there was the additional challenge of a morning rainstorm pulling into town, and the doppler radar showed it was already nearby. i didn't even use the bathroom or take a shower, i was so rushed for time.

before i could do all that though, i walked down to star market to get a few sale items. i was surprised they still have lamb loin chops, i bought the last two packages. they also had drumsticks on sale for 99¢/lbs. the thing they didn't have was corn (15¢/ear). i returned home, packed up my things, and took the ebike to the porter square star market just to buy the corn. only then did i make it to the cafe by 9:20am. i locked the ebike to the deck and found some plastic sheet in the basement to put over the bike to keep it dry once it starts raining.

i spent the next 3 hours making the paocai. the first hour is to cut everything up and rip the leaves my hand into smaller pieces. the second hour is to reduce the cabbage with salt, tossing it every 15 minutes to mix it properly. the third and final hour is to drain the cabbage, hand rinse as much water from the vegetable, before mixing with vinegar and sugar and storing in quart-size containers.

i had about 20.7 lbs. of cabbage after coring, but i rounded it down to an even 20 lbs. for easier math. i reduced it with 20 tbsp of salt, then mixed it with 10 cups of sugar and 10 cups of white vinegar. i ended up with a dozen containers of paocai, and 1 container of leftover vinegar sugar solution that my mother will use to pickle the cucumbers.

by the time i finished around 12:30pm, it'd stopped raining. my sister even showed up, out walking esmei after the rain and saw my bike outside.

i continued to belmont. for lunch i had a pastry my sister bought from an allston chinese bakery along with some homemade soy milk.

afterwards i was outside for the rest of the day doing yard work with my father. i wanted to make a hops trellis using the EMT conduit, but my father suggested with use leftover PVC pipes instead. it managed to fit inside the existing 10ft 1-1/4" conduit that made up our old hops trellis. we rigged up a cross-shaped top that resembled a marionette controller with 4 strings coming down to about 10ft. we then unwound the growing hop bines and twisted them back onto our strings so they don't grow all bunched together.

next i set up a sawhorse table underneath our 10x4ft conduit trellis to see how viable an elevated growing platform in the middle of our lawn might look like. we've always known that the sunniest part of the lawn is right in the middle. that's why the past few years we've used sawhorse tables as stands for our potted plants. but what if we can build a trellis around the table and raise vining plants like luffas from grow bags? that's something new we're experimenting with this season. plus the fact that we don't have enough raised bed space for all the luffa seedlings.

finally we moved out all the plants from the grow room, shutting it down for the season. memorial day - the unofficial start of the summer - is the perfect time to do it. i had to clean up some more leftover tree branches to make room for three raised bed tables underneath the maple tree. one table with dappled sunlight houses all our potted foxgloves. another table the jasmines, gardenia, and passion flower. we'll relocate them to someplace sunnier once they've adjusted to the outdoor conditions. finally one table just for shady plants, like orchids and holiday cactuses. all our cascading tradescantia i hung up from tree branches. it feels like our own little private backyard arboretum.

my father harvested some radishes from RB0. there's still plenty more. we need to harvest all of them before we can reuse RB0 for planting our beans, which we haven't even started yet. i did see a chimpmunk scampering in the backyard today. when i checked some of my seedlings, i saw chipmunks had eaten two of my pepper plants. fortunately i grew a lot this year, but now i want to get revenge on the chipmunk.

a bit after 5pm we started our barbecue. we started with the corn and italian sausages. that was followed by the wings, pineapple slices, finally lamb loin chops. because the lamb was bland last time, i made sure to really salt it good this time (all sides). after 6 minutes on each side i took a temperature measurement. at first it only said 90-100 degrees (we're looking for 130), but i measured again and it jumped up to 150-160 degrees.

we made way too much food, enough for a few days at least. my father cut up the pineapple into long strips instead of cubes. they didn't taste as sweet, don't know whether that's because there was less surface area for caramelization, or the pineapple itself wasn't very sweet. it was very juicy on the inside though, the high temperature dried up the outside but preserved the interior. it'd be interesting to do a side-by-side taste test: pineapple strips versus cubed pineapples on skewers.

my 3/8" eye bolts came today. i got them for my EMT conduit hops trellis idea, but now that we're reusing PVC pipes, i don't need the eye bolts anymore. i didn't realize just how large they were. i did see they were advertised as 4" but failed to register that meant they were jumbo size. my father seemed to want to keep them, but i don't know what we'd use them for.

i returned home by 7:30pm, wanted to get back to watch game 4 of the knicks-cavs series. much like yesterday game, the first quarter was competitive, but by the second quarter the knicks just destroyed the cavs. i turned off the game by the third quarter. at one point new york was up by 45 points. i can't imagine there won't be some firing and trades in the cavs organization.

my CR1216 watch battery arrived today. using the watch back press, i managed to install the new battery and close the backing. i'm happy to report i have a watch now! my xiaomi fitness band won't arrive until next week.

it was still dry this morning when it just started to lightly sprinkle by the time my parents came to pick me up at 10am for a baifu/chinatown supply run. this is actually my parents' first baifu/chinatown supply run since coming back from their turkey vacation. as for me, i made the trip more than a month ago with my 2nd aunt while they were still away to get some supplies for the reopening.

we drove down beacon/hampshire street to kendall square, over the longfellow bridge to charles/MGH and connect onto I-93 south. baifu/foodpak is located in the heart of mass & cass. you wouldn't know it though, because boston has basically whitewashed the area, driving away all the homeless and drug encampments, planted pretty shrubs and flowers where people used to shoot up in broad daylight, with a heavy police presence to prevent any "unwanted" from coming back. and why is that exactly? because there's going to be a major influx of tourists this summer, from the 250th anniversary of the american revolution to world cup games. can't have them seeing boston's rotten underbelly.

we ended up buying around $1000 worth of supplies. half of that was boba tea ingredients. there was a month-long 5% off sale on all possmei products. i was looking for the boba tea cup sealing machine as well as PP (polypropylene) cups, but didn't see them. maybe i'll have more time to search next time. meanwhile we'll continue to use our crystal clear PET (polyethylene terephthalate) cups with removable lids.

carlos was our "cart attendant" today, helped us pack our things then push the cart to the car. i noticed the key fob remote wasn't working so manually opened the back hatch with the key. i had a bad feeling about it. after we were set to leave, i casually told my father, "i think the car battery is dead," but didn't think it was true. but sure enough, when my father went to start up the car, it wouldn't start. fortunately we had the battery pack jump starter. we simply popped the hood and clamped the alligator clips onto the dead battery. i gave my father the thumbs up and he started the car, nice and easy.

ming's market in chinatown outskirt was our next stop. being the last remaining chinatown supermarket with parking (free on weekends), the place was packed. my father ended up sitting in the car to keep the battery running, while my mother and i went shopping. there were no shopping carts left, so i waited for someone to finish loading their car before taking their cart.

ming's market was so crowded, our shopping strategy was to leave our cart in some inconspicuous area of the suparmarket, while we scurried through the aisles grabbing what we needed and bringing it back. there was no realistic way to push a cart through some of those crowded aisles without causing a traffic jam. ming's market doesn't bag for you, so you basically have to fend for yourself. too slow, and the cashier and all the people waiting behind you in line give you dirty looks while you haphazardly throw all your purchases in grocery bags to vacate as quickly as possible.

while my father waited in the car, he also had time to consolidate all the frozen foods from baifu so they wouldn't thaw out. later he said he might've left the lights on when we were at baifu, that's why the battery died. we returned to cambridge by cutting through copley square and getting onto storrow drive.

we got to the cafe around noontime. my sister was going out to lunch with a friend and wanted us to dogsit esmei. she loaded her dog into our car while we unloaded supplies. we then drove to belmont. as soon as we opened the car door, esmei jumped out and ran into the house. later i let her out into the backyard where she chased away some rabbits as well as some poor birds that got caught in the crossfire. i had to wipe dry her paws before she could come back inside.

my order from makerpipe arrived today, a few days early. i ordered a 3/4" EMT structural coupling for the hops trellis. there was no problem fitting a 3/4" conduit, but it was too small to fit a 3/4" PVC pipe. so it looks like the only solution is for a metal-on-metal top. also in the package was a 3D modeling kit. typically it costs $5 (which also includes a $5 off coupon on a future purchase), but i found a code that gave me the kit for free. i ended up modeling our conduit trellis.

my father baked some sweet and savory sesame pastries for lunch. there was also a plate of green stirfry with red juices. esmei sat nearby watching us eat, but after about a minute, she laid down and went to sleep when it looked like she wasn't any getting treats. after lunch my parents took her outside for a walk so she could go to the bathroom. when she came back i played a taped recording of the purina national dog show. she immediately stopped to watch the other dogs on tv, seemingly mesmerized.

my sister came back in the afternoon to take esmei home. she went to meetfresh to get some chinese shaved ice, but forgot about it when she later went shopping at the russian supermarket. she came back with a bowl of melted shaved ice for us to eat.

in the late afternoon i helped my father installed the midea u-shaped window air conditioner in his bedroom. he bought it yesterday when he went to costco by himself to get supplies, with an instant $100 rebate. he tried to install it himself but it takes two people to do it. the midea is quieter than a traditional AC because the compressor sits outside the window. it's also more efficient, because all the hot components are outside as well, leaving just the cool air inside. my father used to have a samsung air conditioner on the bedroom window in the summertime, but he said that unit was too noisy. the midea not only has a remote control but can also be controlled by a phone app via wifi.

the hardest part of the installation was figuring out how to insulate the sides of the midea AC. there are also multiple safety features to prevent the midea from tipping out the window, or to prevent a thief from opening the window from outside. AC technology as come a long way. once properly installed, we lowered the window down so it sat in between the front of the AC and the back. it was like a magic trick, like seeing an AC pass through the window. it also felt like there wasn't an AC because it didn't block the window like a traditional AC, you can still see out thesides. at its lowest setting it was strangely quiet, to the point where you wonder if it was even on. set to flashcool it was very loud, but that's only a option to quickly cool down the room. the AC is rated 12,000 BTU/h, which is way over spec'ed for the bedroom (it should really go in the living room).

later i downloaded the app and set up an account for my father before connecting to the midea AC. we though the app would simply mirror the remote controller but it's more than that. it also tells us the power consumption and gives us energy usage reports, just like our hybrid hot water heater. i welcome all these smart appliances.

we were supposed to go to my aunt's place tomorrow for a memorial day barbecue, but she postponed it until next sunday because she thought tomorrow's weather would be rainy. my father was going to bring some braised beef but we ended up eating it for dinner ourselves. i was still a little motion sick from the supply run this morning. i wore my motion sickness wristband but it was only slightly effective, even though i turned it up until my hand was numb from the micro shocks.

my father gave me a ride home after dinner. i gave him a container of squash seedlings to take back to belmont. by then there was a steady rain. that was perfect, because it allowed me to inspect the gutters which the contractors came back last tuesday to repair. the front porch gutter wasn't leaking anymore, but the gutter by renee's alleyway was still dripping. did they even try to fix it? i think the problem is it was raining last tuesday, so the caulk didn't have time to properly cure. what a bunch of amateurs. we still own them $800, but honestly we should refuse payment due to gross incompetence. how many times do they need to come out before the gutter is fixed? i send a report to steve and paul.

no time to take a shower, as game 4 between the thunder and spurs was about to start. i parked myself in the living room and watched. i was also backing up my photos, copying them off of my dSLR as well as my pixel phone. i discovered i didn't change the clock on my dSLR, since all the timestamp since march are off by an hour. as for my phone, there's so many photos on there i barely have any more space to take more, so i needed to clear the photos.

as for the game, i almost didn't need to watch it. after midway in the first quarter, it just seemed like the spurs were going to win tonight, even the series. they came out crisper, more aggressive, while the thunder seemed lethargic, bored. i saw SGA laughing on the sideline even though their team was down 25 points. it felt like OKC was ready to go home, where they fell they have the advantage and can regain the upper hand in the series.

my 2016 watch battery arrived today. i set up my watch back press, even consulted some notes from the last time i changed the battery (2023). i was all ready to change the battery when i suddenly realized i got the wrong size. i needed 1216 but i got 2016 instead. how could i be so stupid? so i will be without a watch for at least one more day as i went back onto amazon to order the right size battery this time. when i went to return the wrong batteries though, amazon said i could keep it and offered me a refund anyway. ironically, i actually already have a bunch of 2016 batteries. not sure why, don't know what i used them for. i think maybe wheel lights? judging by the large size of the battery.

i went to market basket this morning, bought another watermelon and got the butcher department to grind a package of pork butts. when i got back, i saw neil outside his house, seemingly planting something around the sidewalk tree. turns out he wasn't planting, but rather putting out some unwanted kid's toys. we chatted a bit, and he revealed that he's never been to market basket before, which i couldn't believe.

i put the rain cover on my motorcycle and went in the back to bring some furniture inside that i didn't want to get wet. that's when i discovered i had a box of seedlings that i forgot to move to belmont. these were 10 kabocha squash seedlings and 1 hyacinth bean. they've sufficiently hardened off after being outside for about a week now. the only thing they lack is more sunshine, as a few of the squash seedlings are starting to get leggy.

i had half an hour left before i needed to leave for work. it was enough time for me to make two ham & cheese wraps, used up all the ingredients. i wrapped them up in tinfoil and took them with me along with some of the groceries i got earlier.

i was the first person to arrive at the cafe. my mother showed up minutes later, walked from home. shortly after we opened, my father showed up after a needham restaurant depot supply run. he got a case of boneless skinless chicken thighs. they didn't have any premium packages but just the slightly inferior brand, which meant a lot of skin and fat needed to be trimmed off. my father left after starting a batch of chicken curry.

i brought the M7 smart band for my 2nd aunt, the knockoff i accidentally purchased last year when i thought it was an authentic xiaomi fitness band. i set it up for my 2nd aunt but quickly realized it was a piece of crap. it doesn't have a touchscreen, but instead just a button. quick press advances to the next option, long press selects. it was difficult to change the watch face, and the default one provided had an analog clockface with the number date and heart rate that didn't seem to work. for some reason there was no steps counter, you had to use the fitpro app. you can use the app to change the watch face, but all the options were just basically different backgrounds, and some of them even cost money. speaking of which, the app itself is heavily monetized with ads. just to get into the app itself required watched an ad. the device itself felt cheaply made, much lighter than an authentic xiaomi. i ended up erasing the app from my 2nd aunt's phone before even letting her try out the smart band because it was so awful.

instead i convinced her to get a xiaomi smart band 9 active. all the features of a genuine xiaomi, just a more rectangular shape compared to the more traditional mi fitness tracker which is a thin lozenge shaped. it was only $20 (open box).

we had a slow but steady trickle of customers today, until after 3pm when not a single person showed up. everyone sampled my wraps. i ended up eating a dried up donuts with some leftover chicken feet. we portioned out the curry and i put them into the basement freezer. they were still warm - 80 degrees - but we didn't have time to let them cool down properly.

i repotted the orchid i found last sunday. i knew there were two plants because there were 2 flower spikes. what i didn't realize was each orchid was already packed in its own flimsy plastic pot, crammed sphagnum moss. i cut off the spent flower spikes and started removing the sphagnum moss so i could untangle the roots. some of the roots were green, while others were yellow. i trimmed off any rotting or dead roots. i then repacked the orchids into specialized orchid pots (with drainage holes) with orchid potting mix (wood bark chips mixed with some fertilizer pellets). they'll live in my house for now, although i'm not sure if my place had enough indirect bright light for the orchids to thrive. i could put them outside if i could find a large translucent box i can put them in so they won't get any direct sunlight (which will burn the leaves).

i played some cyberpunk. i've been playing with the alternate endings. i picked the option where i ask the aldecaldos for help in infiltrating arasaka. it still ending with a boss battle against adam smasher. instead of rogue getting killed, it was saul. after exercising silverhand's engram, i left night city with the aldecaldos, destination tucson. i was surprised judy came with us as well, i totally forgot about her. another ending i haven't tried is working with hanako to kill her brother so she could take over the company. i think in that ending, arasaka actually has a cure for V's affliction.

i almost drifted off to sleep watching dune 2 before getting off the sofa, taking a shower, then warming up a can of soup. watched the knicks-cavs game. it was a boring game mainly because new york led throughout the game. the best cleveland could do was tie the game a few times. download 0-3, it's pretty much game over for the cavs. look to see them get eliminated sunday night in game 4. the knicks are on a 10-game playoff win streak. they seem a team of destiny now. whether that means they can beat one of the western conference teams is still iffy, but i'd like to see them try.

i left the house around 8:30am this morning and took the ebike to haymarket in boston to get some cheap produce. i tried to go slow, not to needlessly overtake anyone in the bike lane, but my ebike is so much faster, it seemed i had no choice but to pass everyone.

a lot of vendors seemed to be still setting up on a friday morning. compared to last saturday, there seemed to be less variety for some reason. for example, last week a bunch of people were selling long horn peppers; this week, not a single vendor had them. my haul: 6 gold nugget oranges ($4), 3 packages of baby cucumbers ($4.50), 1 box of cherry tomatoes ($1.50), 2 lbs. of regular tomatoes ($4), 10 cara cara oranges ($4), 2 sleeves of garlic ($4), 1 pineapple ($3), 1 pomegranate ($3), 10 miniature anjou pears ($2).

i headed back to cambridge by 9:30am, returning the same way i came via the west end, museum of science, cambridge crossing, cambridge street, harvard square, and cutting through cambridge common. i learned my lesson from last time, i brought a towel to line bottom of my rear basket. i also had my backpack, which not only can carry more stuff compared to my messenger bag, but less tendency to bounce around against my body when i ride.

i made it to the cafe before 10am. i was confused because my parents were unloading items from the car, including cases of water. did they go to costco before coming to the cafe? then when did they open the store? so what happened was my mother walked to the cafe this morning while my father went by himself to costco to get some supplies, sparing us from having to do it this weekend. the big supply run this weekend will be on sunday, when we to go baifu then chinatown. that means monday morning i'll be at the cafe making a new batch of taiwanese paocai. i've been making smaller batches to preserve their freshness, as older batches begin turning darker yellow. unfortunately that means i have to make the paocai more often - monthly - which is a pain. it takes about 3 hours to make a new batch.

my father cooked some more chicken feet today. he found a recipe online that involves boiling the feet, airfrying, soaking in an ice bath, sauteeing with seasoning, then steaming for an hour. he started the recipe in the morning but it wasn't ready until the early afternoon. texture-wise it was very good, also the right amount of salt. however, there just wasn't enough flavor. it wasn't bland, but i added a tablespoon of spicy fuqifeipian sauce it wasn't enough. next time, we should use readymade spicy sauce.

with the memorial day long weekend this weekend, it wasn't very busy today. we thought we wouldn't have any customers, but slow and steady we managed to make slightly above our daily average by day's end, not bad. pretty much every day this week we made about the same amount. unlike last friday when we had a spike - two day's profit in one day. i imagine tomorrow will be similar to today. i'd be surprised if it get crazy busy.

my xiaomi fitness band 6 finally died today. even though i couldn't see the screen anymore, it was still working, because i could still sync it with the phone app. it still works, tracking my steps, my heart rate, my sleep duration. but today it suddenly wouldn't stop vibrating. i tried shutting it down via the app but it didn't work. sometimes connecting it to the chargeer will make it regain normalcy but that didn't work. i ended up unpairing the fitness band, which finally fixed it. but with the touchscreen not working anymore, it's impossible to resync it with any future devices, so the band is basically dead. i did however buy a new one off of ebay, mi band 10. even for an open box unit it still cost $40. it won't arrive until a week later.

that means until the new mi band arrives, i might go back to wearing a regular watch. i haven't worn one in more than 8 years. not since i got a mi band 2. i then graduated to a mi band 4, followed by the mi band 6.

big news today was the resignation of tulsi gabbard as director of national intelligence. her reason was so she could take care of her husband who has bone cancer, but she's been relegated to insignificance within the trump circle for a while now. it's weird that it's mostly women leaving trump's cabinet, as his administration gets even more testosterone heavy.

my aunt came in the late afternoon. she invited us to her house on monday late afternoon for a memorial day barbecue. she also got a chance to ride my ebike.

my sister was chatting with the korean baker who came back to town to get some stuff from her store. the baker gave my sister some communion wafers (leftover from some previous baking project) and an unopened bottle of korean makgeolli. having made our own, i'm curious to know what authentic korean makgeolli tastes like.

after i got home, i wrote a report of what i heard at the developers meeting last night, after steve "suggested" i could share some info. others went to the meeting as well, but somehow i'm the designated transcriber, despite coming into the meeting when they were already wrapping up. luckily i do a lot of writing anyway, so sending out an e-mail was pretty easy. nobody responded back though.

i found my own timex weekender watch. it was working the last time i checked, but the battery is clearly dead now. i ordered a new battery (CR2016) off of amazon, due to arrive sunday. replacing the watch battery isn't difficult, unfortunately this watch needs a special watch back press tool to close it back up. fortunately i bought one back in 2017, the very first time i needed to replace the battery. there's probably a hack to press the watch back, but since i already have this tool, might as well use it.

after a shower i made another ham and cheese wrap. they're not bad, i can probably eat this a few more times before i absolutely get sick of it. my favorite part is the sweet & spicy pickle chips drizzles with sriracha and sprinkled with everything bagel seasoning. it's a weird fusion that seems to work.

i ate while watching game 3 between the thunder and spurs. san antonio started off with an early 15 point lead while OKC couldn't score a single bucket to save. maybe that made the spurs over confidence, but the thunder started systemically chipping away at the lead until midway in the 2nd quarter they had the lead for good and never gave it back. the whole second half was just a showcase of just how good they are. they played faster, they were more accurate, i gave them credit. let's see how the spurs respond in game 4.