my velotric once again gave me an E9E error this morning. i left for haymarket by 8:40am. i mounted the gopro on my helmet to take a timewarp video.

i went to haymarket in search of figs. several vendors had them, the going price seems to be 2 boxes for $5. there was even one vendor selling 6 boxes for $12, but that seemed too many figs. i ended up just buying 2 boxes. my other haul: 10 mandarin oranges ($2), 2 bunches of cilantro ($3), 2 lbs. of longhorn peppers ($2), 3 guavas ($3).

my next stop was chinatown, to hong kong eatery, to get some pipa duck for my mother and some thai-style chicken feet for myself. even this early in the morning the place was pretty busy. i brought my own bag, placed my orders inside before leaving.

i headed directly to the cafe. i arrived at the same time as my mother who walked from home. i looked at my ebike display and was surprised to see i only had 16% battery left. it was just 68% this morning, a drop of 50% after riding 6 miles roundtrip? makes me think there's some validity to that E9E error. i removed the battery because i didn't want it to be sitting out in the sun.

the caribbean festival was happening in boston today. this is the first time i've missed it, other than rain outs. in recent years the spectacle has become less and less, to the point where it's not worth going anymore. besides, in a few more weeks cambridge has its own carnival parade (which is equally as sad), so i can always go to that one.

today was a slow day. because the previous two days were pretty busy, we prepared accordingly, when in actuality it was the exact opposite. today was also the last work day of august. we weren't able to beat last year's august profit. two asian girls came in with a large bernese mountain dog. his head alone is larger than a basketball. thankfully he was friendly, would've been a real menace if he was an aggressive dog, considering his owner couldn't hardly restrain him. we tried to get esmei to stand next to the mountain dog, since both are black & tan dogs.

the most important thing we had to do today was wait until closing time so my father and i can go to liting's mother's house and pick up all their unwanted kitchen equipment. my father took my 2nd aunt home first while i was to wait for him outside the apartment. because i barely had enough juice left in my ebike battery, i rode on the lowest setting, trying to conserve power. my father actually got there before me because i got a little lost trying to find the address. i didn't realize it was in the same building where i spent countless hours as a census worker trying to get info on missing tenants.

we went inside and chatted a bit before finally carrying all the stuff to the car. my mother was still waiting at the cafe for my father to return. while my father went to the cafe, i rode home.

late saturday afternoon is when i have a little bit of time to work on my personal projects. today it was replacing the handlebar on my marin bike. i started my removing everything from the old handlebars: grips, shifters, brake levers, bike bell, and a broken mount that i later learned was part of a rearview mirror attachment. the hardest part was loosening the bolt holding the handlebar in place, which used an 8mm hex wrench. it wouldn't budge, i had to drip some triflow oil to loosen it a bit, before i finally got the wrench to budge. the new handlebar fit perfectly. because the way the stem projects forward, the handlebar feels a little distant, like i wish it was slightly closer. i reinstalled everything onto the new handlebar. the old bell - which i thought was broken - started working again after i cleared out all the cobwebs from inside the housing. the grips are actually marin-brand grips which are easier to remove and install and secure by a hex bolt. the cabling housings were long enough that i didn't have to redo them which saved me some work. once everything was fully assembled, i took the modified marin out for a test ride.

i went to the community garden to water my plants. i noticed a difference right away with these new handlebars. the grip positions - closer side to side instead of far apart - made the bike more maneuverable. i can use the handlebars to rock the bike side to side when i want to pump the bike to go faster.

i watered quickly, didn't want to feed any mosquitoes. two girls were in the garden admiring the plants, i showed them the blue butterfly pea flowers i harvested. i also picked a plastic bag full of cherry tomatoes.

the swept-back handlebars also makes it easier to park my bike against the wall underneath the tarp. the straight horizontal handlebars from before really took up a lot of space.

i took a quick shower and settled in with some thai-style chicken feet along with some hard cider. i watched some news, then soon after the 2nd of the double header red sox yankees game started at 7pm. red sox won the afternoon game 6-0. in the 2nd game red sox got the lead in the 3rd inning, only to have the yankees come back with 3 runs of their own. boston never led after that, and in the 8th inning, the wheels came off for the red sox, allowing the yankees to score 5 runs. game 4 is tomorrow. the best the red sox can hope for is to win that game and finish the series 2-2, with no change in the standings. i haven't really been following baseball. i'm still trying to familiarize myself with the red sox lineup, but all the pitchers they used tonight, i'd never seen them before. even worse with the yankees, the only person i recognized was aaron judge and he wasn't even playing. everyone on the yankees roster is a complete stranger to me. is he good, is he bad, who knows?

for dinner i microwaved some korean sushi - gimbap - that i got from trader joe's.

this morning i only watered my yard before leaving for the cafe. there was a chance it might rain later. when i got to the store, my father was getting ready to fry a small batch of salt & pepper chicken, just enough to get us by this week. after he finished, i fermented two more jars of long beans.

in the late morning i took a supply run to fresh pond. it was hot and humid, like walking into an oven. first stop was whole foods to search for bean sprouts. they had some but they didn't look fresh, sitting on the shelf too long. i then went across the street to trader joe's to get some baby cucumbers and edamame beans. i waited in the wrong line, behind a guy who looked like he was restocking his refrigerator. i waited in line longer than it took me to shop.

i tried the sugar-free A&W rootbeer powder my sister got my from the dollar store. it tasted like root beer, but very sweet, and had that artificial sugar aftertaste. i kept adding water to dilute it but it remained sweet. it tastes best over ice.

it got busy around lunchtime. today wasn't as scary, since we had two boxes of newly fried salt & pepper chicken. that was crucial because chicken ended up being the most popular bento box choice today, to the point where we started to wonder if we'd have enough chicken left for tomorrow. once again i had to cook 3 batches of black soy noodles. there seems to be a black soy noodles bottleneck. each batch is 3 servings, but there has to be some way where i can cook a larger batch, instead of one at a time.

my aunt showed up in the afternoon. she didn't eat anything today, but left with some pickled bitter melon slices.

i went on a second supply run in the late afternoon. this time to market basket, to get bean sprouts. out of all the supermarkets, market basket has them all the time in the freshest condition and the cheapest price, even compared to chinatown supermarkets. i also got some milk since we were almost out. i grabbed a chicken parmigiana sandwich as well, for a late lunch. coming back, i felt some rain drops despite the sunny but cloudy day. that was the extent of the rain for the day. i stopped to check out some unwanted sidewalk caches. i picked up a large 32oz. stainless steel milk frothing pitcher and a bottom dripping honey dispenser.

when i got back to the cafe, my father was in the process of marinating 4 boxes of defrosted raw boneless chicken thighs. i split the chicken parmigiana sandwich with my mother. it's been a while since i had one of these, kind of reminds me of a meatball sub, but with breaded chicken instead.

esmei showed up again for her egg. she's learned not to go beyond a certain point at the cafe, patiently standing there, listening, waiting for her prize. my mother finally came out with a hard-boiled egg.

after work i went to the community garden to finally water my plants. i made an effort to water everything except the hot peppers, since i read a bit of drought-stress causes the peppers to turn red. i also harvested a few more butterfly pea flowers. i bumped into renee, who asked me to water her garden while she's out all next week. i said yes but i have no intention of helping her water. i barely have time to water my own plot.

my took home the new handlebars my parents brought to the cafe. i ordered them off of aliexpress for $12. they seem to be in a northroad style but hard to tell from the photos. the material is a black-painted aluminum. it's light but sturdy. i kind of wish they were more swept-back, so my hands are almost near my waist when i ride. didn't have time to install them tonight, i'll do it tomorrow after work.

the terro liquid ant bait i put out last night was leaking when i checked this morning. there were still some ants, but not as much as last night. the poison must be working. i tossed out the old bait and replaced it with a new one, now placed on the windowsill to make it easier for the ants to get. the ants are pretty much gone though, makes me wonder if i haven't already killed them off.

for dinner i ate a large soft pretzel my sister got me along with an old leftover tea egg and some hard cider. i took a quick shower before settling down to watch the red sox yankees game. boring game, new york won with the score 1-0. hopefully boston regains its offense tomorrow.

i'm hoping to get to bed early. past 2 nights i've slept for less than 6 hours each and it's taking a toll. i felt sleepy at work and sitting here now in front of the computer i nearly nodded off a few times.

my allergies were so bad yesterday i used some nasal spray before going to sleep. i also ran the air purifier on low setting in my bedroom to filter out the pollen. i got less than 6 hours of sleep. it was cold but i covered myself up with some pillows (i don't use the comforter during the summer).

every morning i hope for rain so i don't have to spend precious minutes of my wakeup routine (20+ minutes) on watering the yard and the garden. alas, there was no rain this morning. after dousing my back and front yard, i headed to the community garden. i was laden with stuff: giant watermelon in my backpack, empty food containers in one rear basket, items i found on my trip yesterday in the other basket (including a glass lid and a small pan). i was not expecting to see so many blue butterfly pea flowers. after i finished watering (i wore my gardening gloves to prevent any dermatitis), picked the blue flowers. i also harvested some more cherry tomatoes and picked a single green serrano pepper to try it out.

at the cafe i saw the 3D-printed anker F3800 connector housing my father went to go pick up yesterday from the belmont public library. it cost $2.60 and took well over 3 weeks to print. i know we had no choice in the color, but i was expecting something generic like white or biege. i wasn't expecting it to be a sage green color. there were still fine filament strands inside the openings that haven't been cleaned off yet. it feels sort of futuristic to be holding something 3D printed. if we have enough need for one, maybe we can get one during black friday. we wouldn't have to wait weeks to have something printed. now we need to print a second file, the special connector locks. those are much smaller so hopefully won't take as long.

we were busy today from 11am to 3pm. it goes without saying today was the most profitable day this week. it was a little stressful, because we were nearly out of salt & pepper chicken and charsiu pork, our two most popular items. fortunately a lot of customers today got the chinese sausage. we defrosted 4 boxes of frozen unmarinated chicken thighs. towards the end of the day i managed to roast a new batch of charsiu. if we fry some chicken tomorrow morning, we should be in good shape.

for breakfast i had a minced beef pastry my godmother made. there was some melted cheese in the stuffing. in the afternoon my mother made some rice noodle soup.

i didn't check the passion vine until later in the afternoon. there were 4 flowers today. earlier this morning when i first arrived, i spent some time cleaning up the parking lot. i pulled up all the swallow worts i saw and any other weeds. by the time i finished i was soaked in sweat.

my father called liting's mother today. we're scheduled to go pick up the kitchen appliances saturday at 4pm after we close. we could've also done it today after work but saturday is a better time.

i didn't take anything home for dinner when we closed. i told my mother i would have some frozen dumplings, but i ended up eating a bowl of macaroni and cheese.

the ants have returned. i began noticing them a few days ago. i opened a new terro ant bait station and put it by the baseboard as i wasn't sure where they were coming in. after a short while i saw a trail of ants coming out from a small gap in the molding of my living room window. i wanted to move the ant bait closer but decided not to muck around with something that was already working. i thought ants go to sleep but apparently that's not the case. or maybe these are a different type of ants than the ones i had last season. i might move the bait station some other time. it's kind of disconcerting see a trail of ants inside the house and not want to destroy them all immediately. but getting rid of ants require patient. they will take the poisonous bait back to the nest, and after a few days the whole colony will be dead. it works pretty fast, i think i'll be ant free by the end of the weekend.

red sox have the night off. yankees lose to the astros, so boston is now 2 games behind new york, and 6 games behind the ray. i don't know if the red sox can catch up to tampa bay, but beating the yankees for second place is a real possibility. the 4-games series between the red sox and yankees begin tomorrow night.

around 11:40pm i grabbed my pixel phones and my camera, along with the thermacell mosquito repellent, and climbed to the landing of the backyard deck. i was trying to see the lunar eclipse. boston was supposed to get something like 93% coverage, climaxing at 12:12am. it gave me a chance to play around with the pixel 9 pro camera. it actually did a pretty good job capturing the eclipse. of course it couldn't compete with the telephoto reach of the dSLR, with a maximum focal length of 250mm. it was actually kind of relaxing, sitting there out on the deck, watching the eclipsing moon on our light polluted city sky. i even smelled something fragrant, like somebody was growing jasmine.

my mi fitness band said i got 8 hours of sleep last night. all i know is i got up at one point to use the bathroom (i have a bad habit of drinking tons of water before bed) and my throat was scratchy from the ragweed pollen. i woke up at 8:45am, used the bathroom, took a shower, watered the yard, then left for belmont by 9:25am via ebike.

when i arrived i removed the battery from the ebike to charge it up 100%. i did some weeding of the front yard first, pulling up spotted spurge, yellow wood sorrel, sedges, and purslanes. large clumps of low-growing ragweed choked the strip of sidewalk grass; i pulled them up in clumps. afterwards i took the EGO mower out of the garage to mow the front lawn before mowing the backyard.

i finished by 11am. i made a stop at the mt.auburn star market to get some cool blue gatorade. they also had lime cucumber which i almost got but decided nobody was going to drink that weird flavor. i stopped at the cafe to drop off the gatorade. i then went to the community garden to water my plants before getting back home by noontime.

i ate a zantac tablet this morning before i left, but it wasn't effective. my eyes were itchy and my nose was runny, with occasional sneezing. i took a quick shower to hopefully rinse off the ragweed pollen.

i left around 12:30pm, to take a tour around the mystic river. i went up central street to broadway, then continued on temple street, crossing below interstate 93, continuing until i was supposed to hit a dedicate bike trail. that area (with the native pollinator garden) is currently under construction, so i had to do some creative road riding to get onto the path. i followed the boardwalk path underneath the fellsway until i was going northbound. once i was over the bridge (across the mystic), i swung a right turn onto wellington greenway.

the wellington greenway trail basically follows the shoreline, onto a peninsula that goes below the orange line tracks. eventually the trail takes you out to the wellington station parking lot. i kept going until i got to the river beach parkway for a distance, turning off after i crossed the malden river. the trail loops underneath the parkway onto the eastern shore of the malden river, when i should be on the western side. i backtracked and discovered there was a similar bike trail that loops underneath the parkway, but this one goes on the western side of the river.

this was the river trail west. kind of a hidden gem, i followed it until i got to nazar market where we visited last weekend. the trail basically ends at that point, and throw you back out onto rivers edge drive. by that point it was time for lunch. i had options, but wendy's was my first choice. i turned left onto medford street and went down a few side streets to get to wendy's.

i basically had to ride my bike 6-1/2 miles out of town to find a wendy's, that's how much camberville is starved of fast food options (that's not entirely true, we have mcdonald's and burger king's but they're not wendy's). of course there were no bike stand but any street sign is a parking spot so i locked my ebike to a signpost.

they didn't some renovating since the last time i was here. instead of ordering at the cash register, i used one of the kiosk machines to make my order. i got the number 6 spicy chicken combo, $11 after taxes. that turned out to be the right decision, as the cashier was in a heated argument with a young white lady who didn't get the right order. "i ordered a BLT but you confused me with your options so i got the wrong order." the manager came out and basically told the woman to leave. her own mother came up to see what the commotion was about. but this woman wasn't having it. "i told you my order in english," she said, making a dig on the fact that most of the workers there were hispanic. i think the cashier eventually gave her a BLT and the difference. that woman didn't care she was making a sense, as long as she got her way.

when i got my order i found a cozy spot near a window so i could keep an eye on my ebike. that cold root beer really hit the spot after i've been riding for the past hour. i nearly finished my fries before eating my spicy chicken sandwich. so good! maybe it's for the best that there are no wendy's nearby, otherwise i would eat it every week.

i went to the strip mall across the street. the most prominent thing i saw was a big "h-mart coming soon" sign outside an empty storefront. this medford h-mart has been "coming soon" for the past 3 years now. maybe the wait is almost over, because i heard construction noises inside and there were active building permit taped to the window.

on the opposite side of the mall was foodland, a halal supermarket. i was expecting to find a tiny thing, but it was actually pretty large on the inside. i thought halal meant food adhering to islamic customs, but i saw a lot of indian food, made me think it was an indian supermarket instead. further back there's a butcher shop and all the beef cuts showed it wasn't india. they also carried lamb and goat. next to the butcher department was a little cafeteria, serving foods that once again seemed indian in nature. a white woman was getting some takeout. i didn't want to leave empty-handed, so i bought a box of instant chai tea.

i went to the dollar tree next door. it was so dark inside, they must dim the lights to save money, not surprising for a dollar store. i was so depressing, i took a quick look and left.

turning on my ebike i got an E90E error message. i looked it up online, it said battery malfunction, replace battery. yet the battery still worked, the error disappeared as soon as i started riding.

i went back onto medford street to get to the northern strand community trail. now i was on the eastern side of malden river, heading south. once again another hidden gem. some stretches of the trail were pretty secluded and felt a little unsafe. i had the same reaction on the previous trails. yet i see neighbors casually strolling by. i passed by the park-9 dog bar. i was trying to find the night shift brewery. i was hoping to get some double IPA to quench my thirst, but i discovered when i was eating at wendy's that the brewery doesn't open until 4pm. i guess they don't get a lot of day drinking customers. i found the offshoot that led me to norman street, where the brewery was. right across the street was the teddie peanut butter factory. i followed the road until i was out onto the revere beach parkway rotary. i could follow route 16 west back home, but i had a different way back in mind. i retraced my steps and got back onto the northern strand community trail.

if you follow the northern strand community trail south enough, eventually it to the gateway center, behind michael's and home depot and costco. i made a stop at total wine & more. it was so quiet inside, like a library. but instead of books they have booze. i picked out another double IPA for my parents, and a hard cider for myself. starting up the ebike, i got the E90E error again, but once more the error disappeared once i started riding the bike.

i continued south on the northern stand community trail. it wasn't long before it becomes the encore riverwalk. i've never been this close to encore casino before. the bronze architecture looks like CGI. i never realized just how close the casino is to costco. just a short 1000ft walk from costco's parking lot and you'd standing in the manicured opulence of the casino ground.

i left the casino and got onto alford street. here i was more familiar with. there was a dedicated bike lane but it wasn't protected. luckily MA-99 wasn't very busy yet. i followed it south to sullivan square, and it was a simple matter of cutting through union square, behind market basket, to get back home.

i got back around 3:30pm. velotric bike app said i traveled 8 miles on my return trip. my allergy seemed to be getting worse. i should've used some nasal spray as well before heading out. jeff texted me earlier today, worried about some leftover cheese in the fridge, asked me to go upstairs with the spare key and toss it out for him. i haven't been upstairs in a while, and not since the backyard tree came down. the second floor was okay, but the third floor was like a sauna. it'll b great in the winter, but not so much in the summer.

i called liting's mother asking if she had time for me to come over and check out her unwanted kitchen appliances. she kept insisting i drive i car so i could take everything, but i told her i wanted to see it first, figure out if we need it. i didn't think she was tech savvy, but she said she could take some photos and send it to me.

i looked up the warranty service for my velotric. i thought it was only for a year, but the battery is under warranty for 2 years. so if that weird E90E error keeps on coming back, i can have the battery replaced.

i went to my nearby star market to get some corn chips for my spicy salsa and some vanilla ice cream. i have a hankering for a brown cow (basically a root beer float smoothie) but their prices on root beer was too expensive, so i'll it from market basket instead. i did however grab a tub of baskin robbins vanilla bean ice cream.

i finally took a shower. my eyes were super itchy, the rinse helped a little bit. but the rest of the day my nose was running non-stop.

i called my mother at the cafe after seeing my father drive off from the parking lot webcam. she said the belmont public library finally contacted him, our 3D print was ready for pick-up. i didn't call my father but i wonder how much it cost. i'm also curious if it printed out the right size. now we need to print 2 more pieces before we can build a high capacity charging plug for our anker power station.

a flash flood resulting from a massive chunk of glacial ice crashing into a river caused a flood on the nepal-tibet border that killed hundreds of people. i saw the raw footage this morning on reddit, it was like watching a snuff film, as people were just completely overwhelmed by the wall of mud and ice. i heard the torrent was as tall as 160 feet.

another famous 80 year old passed away today: tim curry. it didn't come as a surprise, he was in bad shape after suffering a stroke a few years ago. his iconic role as dr. frank-n-furter will forever cement him in cinematic lore.

i ate around 9pm, some lousifen i found in my ramen drawer. i threw in a tea egg for extra protein. i tried the hard cider i bought - blake's hard cider co. american apple imperial hard cider 8% alcohol. from the first sip i found it surprisingly sweet, even sweeter than woodchuck hard cider. it didn't have a complex apple flavor. if anything, it kind of tasted like cough medicine, maybe all that alcohol. the fact that it advertised its high alcohol content and all the hokey patriotic design should've warned me this wasn't a very serious hard cider. a novelty cider at best. i like that it's sweet, but it tastes too artificial.

rays and yankees both lost last night but today was the other way around: red sox lost to the marlins 0-4, while tampa bay and new york both won their games. red sox will face the yankees in a 4-game series starting on friday. i don't know the math, i just know it'd be in boston's best interest if they can win as many games as possible against new york.

after watering my yard i headed to the community garden. an old white-haired chinese lady - whom i didn't recognize - wearing pajamas and big sunglasses called my name. it was liting's mother. how so managed to recognize me after all these years (20 years?) is a mystery. she came to check up on liting's garden. "where's your garden?" she asked me. when i showed her she couldn't hide her disappointment. "your plants are so tall!" she said. before she left, she told me she had a bunch of used kitchen tools they're trying to get rid of, and maybe the cafe might want them. i told her she could just drop them off at the store. "you have to come pick them up," she told me, "some of them are very heavy." i told her i didn't have a car but i'd come check out what she had when i had time.

i had a busy morning. on top of making a new batch of tea eggs and cooking up a new batch of black soy noodles, i was also keeping an eye on the ice machine that i remotely turned on early this morning. when there was a lull by 10:15am, i took the chance and raced to my parents' house via bike to grab the 3 jars of fermenting long beans and bring them back to the cafe. the whole trip took half an hour. while i was there, i saw the jar of water that i dropped 3 butterfly pea flowers into last night. it was only faintly blue last night, but after steeping overnight, the water was now deep blue.

i got the jars of beans because i wanted to add more salt. i based my salt ratio to the amount of water when i should've based it on water + beans. each jar (minus the jar) weighed around 850g. to make a 2% brine solution, i needed to add 17g of salt total, which is about 1 tbsp. luckily i wrote down how much water is in each jar. from that number i could figure out how much salt was already in the mix and how much more i needed to add. the jar with the most amount of water - meaning the least amount of beans - was 600g. i'd already added 20g of salt, so already over the 17g. the remaining two jars - 400g and 300g of water respectively, i needed to add 5g and 8g to reach 17g.

i was just going to pour the extra salt on top, but my father suggested i pour out the water and mix in the salt to dissolve it, before pouring the brine back into the jar. now we just have to wait for the long beans to turn sour before we can eat them.

since this was the last week of august and sort of the official last week of the summer, we figured it'd be a slow week as customers leave for one last vacation. so we were caught off guard when we got super busy between 12-2pm. just non-stop order after order. today was also a good day in that these weren't single item orders, but multiple-item orders. even though those are more work, we get paid more per customer. after 2pm though, the customers dried up. we got a few more orders, but nothing like during lunchtime. we sold a good amount of bento boxes but noodles were the most popular items. i ended up having to make 3 batches of noodles, and even though by day's end i was thinking about making another batch since we wouldn't have enough for tomorrow.

a pair of salespeople came to the cafe in the afternoon, talked up a storm with my father. the kind of salespeople that do most of the talking and you're too polite to tell them to go away. but father ended up giving them his credit card number to sign up for amazon prime business for $10 for one year (special promotion). we typically don't get cafe supplies from amazon, since we buy in bulk. the only time we ever bought supplies from amazon was during the pandemic and the supply chain shortage. we paid 2-3x more than normal, but we had no choice. who knows, if my father can make back the $10 in savings it won't be a total loss. things like office supplies or kitchen equipment might have special prime business discounts.

in the afternoon i heard the news: dolly parton passed away age 80. i first became aware of dolly parton in the 80's, when there was a resurgence of country music. artists like dolly, as well as kenny rogers and barbara mandrell were mainstream and very popular. i remember watching an HBO special concert featuring dolly parton with my maternal grandparents. i remember vividly my grandmother remarking, "her breasts are so big!" you will be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn't love dolly parton.

we finished petsi's blueberry pie. i read fruit pies taste better when warm, so i told my mother to heat her slice in the microwave. petsi's instruction said 1 minute but my mother went with 30 seconds. her pie basically melted when she took it out of the oven. so warming it up might not be the best idea. i brought some häagen-dazs vanilla bean ice cream to scoop on top of the pie. it tasted better this time - not so much the pie, but rather the ice cream.

i got some disposable gloves for the cafe. we have a box of TPE gloves which are really good. so i ordered some more, but in a small size. they arrived today. they fit well except they're a little tight across the palm. next time order the medium.

i went home with leftovers again: minced beef with flat beans and a good amount of pickled mustard. when i got home the first thing i did was to inspect the backyard demolition. they cleared out more of the basement space and emptied the dumpster. the other thing i did was i got some triflow oil and i greased the joints on my rear folding bike baskets. they haven't been used in a long time, so the hinges don't open as smoothly anymore. after i oiled them though, the baskets fold like butter now.

i ate dinner while watching the red sox marlins game. the game went into extra innings. just when it looked like the red sox were going to win, the marlins tie the game in the 10th inning. there would be no comeback for the marlins in the 11th, when jarren duran hit a grand slam to put the red sox 7-3. nevertheless, marlins continued to press, even loading the based at the bottom of the 11th. they didn't score, red sox won the game. a good night for boston as both the rays and yankees lose. red sox is now list 1-1/2 games behind the yankees, and 5 games behind first place rays. red sox have 32 more games left in the regular season. can they potentially reach first place?

i had a few hours monday morning to run some errands. i watered my back and front yard before fertilizing some plants with basic miracle-gro water soluble fertilizer. i also fertilized the hot pepper growing on the top deck, but i used balanced garden vegetable fertilizer instead.

next i went to the community garden to water my plants and fertilize as well. here i used the balanced fertilizer. i collected a bunch of cherry tomatoes, a few eggplants, and my one kabocha squash. coming back i came across a food scale somebody had thrown out.

when i got home i tried turning on the food scale but it didn't work. the CR2025 battery was dead. fortunately i had a spare. however when i popped it in, it gave me a low battery error then turned off. maybe the scale got waterlogged from the rain yesterday and needs some time to dry out. later i learned it actually uses a CR2032 battery. i ordered a pair from amazon, due to arrive wednesday.

i oiled the chain on my marin and ebike using wax lube. i then took the marin out on more errands. i went to whole foods to return a few things (small combination chain lock and 100ft of 1/4" green irrigation tubing). i came back and stopped at star market to look for some blue and purple gatorade on sale. they didn't have what i wanted. i stopped by petsi's pies and bought a medium blueberry pie. i asked the cashier if these were wild blueberries, she didn't some to know, but did say they were tiny (so wild).

i left my house via ebike. i was trying something new with the gopro camera, mounted it on a bike helmet i found. i took a time warp video of my ride. i really like the result, a lot more immersive, shows what i see when i ride a lot better than handlebar mounted. it did catch the front of the helmet visor, but i just had to tip up the camera. i stopped at the cafe to defrost the foods we'll need for tomorrow. i watered the outdoor plants by pitcher since i figured they were still wet from the rain yesterday. my mother also asked me to grab a few frozen sesame pastries. there were 3 passion flowers today, maybe a 4th that didn't quite open yet.

i got to my parents' place around noontime. i rode pretty slow because i didn't want to jostle the blueberry pie in my rear basket. i was also carrying several 1L bottles of seltzer and a few 32 oz. mason jars for fermenting our long beans.

when i got to belmont my mother frantically told me my father invited my aunt and matthew over to check out the backyard garden and pick up some vegetables while she was busy cleaning the house. when i went outside, the rotting squirrel smell was gone. when they arrived, we gave them some broad beans (blue beans), some bitter melons, and one more luffa. unfortunately we didn't have anymore long beans to spare (they taste better after fermenting first anyway). my aunt left because she had a doctor's appointment, but matthew stuck around a few minutes more to see what we were growing. matthew also told us he figured out how to fix those expanding hoses (my replacing the inner tubing) and could help us fix ours.

we finally had some lunch around 1pm. i had a bowl of leftover sauerkraut soup with a sesame pastry. it was one of the sweet sesame paste filling variety, i prefer the savory type.

i realized i left my laptop at home. no wonder my backpack felt so light today.

my sister came by to washing her blankets and to drop off esmei while she went to have dinner with a friend around 4pm. we thought she'd come back around 6pm - esmei's feeding time - but she didn't get back until after 7:30pm. i felt bad for esmei since my sister didn't prepare any food for her. but esmei didn't complain, she basically slept for most of the time she was here.

we tried petsi's blueberry pie. it looked good, but tasted a little bland. they probably wanted to keep it natural by not adding any extra sugar and preserving the wild blueberries natural flavors, but it wasn't what my mother had in mind, not like the wild blueberry pie she had up in maine which she said was the best she's ever had. we had some whip cream but it was old so the cream came out as a sludge instead of something puffy. later i learned that you're supposed to heat the pie. maybe it'll taste better when warmed up.

my mother finally pan-fried the package of stinky tofu my sister bought from h-mart. it was a little dry - not like freshly fried stinky tofu - but it had the proper amount of stink and tasted pretty good. we paired it up with some vietnamese garlic chili hot sauce and my homemade taiwanese paocai.

in the early evening i finally got around to fermenting a bunch of long beans. a 32 oz. jar can hold 25 strands of long beans. i did what i did last year, which was to fill the jar with water (along the the beans), pour out the water to measure it's weight, then add 3% of that weight as salt. e.g. 300g of water i would add 9g of salt. to each jar i also added a few rock sugar, some sichuan peppercorn, and a dash of chinese baijiu. i had a problem wrapping my head around figuring out the salt ratio by water weight alone. wouldn't that mean the more beans in a jar would have less water, and less water means less salt, even though more means require more salt? it just doesn't make sense. later i learned that you can also figure out the salt ratio from total weight: beans + water. that gives a more consistent result. so i'll probably need to add more salt to the jars. that makes more sense, because in the past my fermented long beans have been too bland. the reason i now know is because i got the salt ratio wrong, based it on water weight instead of total weight.

my mother made fried rice for dinner with more leftover cafe rice. my sister still didn't come back for esmei by the time i left.

after a shower i watched the red sox marlins game in miami. this one wasn't as exciting as friday night's game, but the game was tied going into the 9th inning and once again boston managed to score and win, 4-2. are the marlins any good? i had to look up their record, totally forgot they won the 2003 world series against the yankees. this was after the yankees beat the red sox in 7 games, which was the fire boston needed to come back and beat the yankees in 7 games the following year, to finally win the world series and break the curse. but seems like 2003 was the last time the marlins were relevant.

i typically don't get to my parents' place on sundays until around noontime, but the weather forecast said there might be a good chance of rain starting at 11am, so i quickly packed up my things. i saw margot in her backyard and she introduced me to dede, her new blue roan cocker spaniel. her previous dog beau died from cancer age 10. this one was just a puppy and chews on everything and isn't house trained yet. i had to hose off some residual dog poop from the front entrance of our alleyway. i took the ebike and headed to the cafe.

i put the tea eggs away in a container, there were just 5. i then watered the outdoor plants. yes it might rain, but it might also stay dry, better safe than sorry. there were 3 passion flowers today.

i made it to belmont before 11am. the rain that was forecasted to fall all but disappeared. judging from the doppler radar though, there was still a solid wall of rain heading our way, just delayed. my mother was busy outside harvesting a bunch of long beans. my father was inspecting the luffas, making sure they grow down from the trellis instead of resting on it. all the bokchoi i planted on wednesday had already sprouted, but the cilantro was still a no show. there was a strong rotting odor in the backyard, but we couldn't figure out where it came from. there weren't any mosquitoes at first, but once they found us, we went back inside.

for lunch my mother made a sauerkraut soup with tofu puffs and fish balls. she also made korean kimchi pancakes.

the rain didn't fall until 12:30pm, and lasted for about 90 minutes. roughly 0.40 inches of rain fell, courtesy of our neighbor's weather station which we can access the data via the public tempest weather map. that was enough to fill all our empty rain barrels to the midway mark (12 barrels total). my father said that's enough for 4 waterings, at the rate we're currently using our water daily.

once the rain stopped and the sun came out i went outside to look for rainbows. the rain clouds had already moved off by then so there was nothing interesting in the sky. i think maybe if i had my drone i could probably spot some rainbows on the distant horizon.

my father found the source of rotting smell: a dead square in the ivy batch below the cypress tree. it must've been dead for a while, swarming with flies, its stomach bloated, a hole into its body cavity filled with swarming maggots. when you see something like that, its best to not look at it directly, don't want to be scarred with that image. i scooped it up with a shovel while my father used another shovel to clear away the ivy vines. we then buried it underneath the hawthorn tree.

my father and i did a bit of rain barrel maintenance in the late afternoon. our open-mesh-top red catch barrel by the sunroom corner fills up with rain very quickly. however, it's only connected to one other rain barrel (black). it should be connected to multiple barrels to quickly divert the water before the catch barrel overflows and runs off the water. so that's what we did. we had to make a new 9ft length of garden hose to reach the catch barrel to one of our black barrels. we trimmed off a 9ft length from the spool of used garden hose i found a few months ago. that old hose was a little stiff, so my father dipped the ends in boiling water to soften them up before he attached the brass female hose ends. it took some fiddling - like changing out the rubber washers - to get everything to finally work and not leak. the next time it rains the water will be split to two different barrels.

i watched the second half of the third red sox giants game, broadcasting on NBC this time. red sox won 4-5. unfortunately both the rays and yankees also won their games, so no change in the standings. red sox have a 3 game series against the florida marlins starting tomorrow. i fell asleep on the zero gravity chair at one point, waking up to numb arms.

for dinner my mother made a chicken and basil stirfry and more of that leftover sauerkraut soup from earlier. i left soon after i finished eating, around 6:30pm. it was a little chilly riding back but i didn't mind.

my father came to pick me up this morning at 8:30am for a baifu/chinatown supply run. my mother opted not to join us. we went to baifu first, where we bought $600 worth of supplies. their dumpling freezer was completely broken (taped shut with do not open signs and encased in melted ice) so we asked the freezer warehouse himself to get what we wanted. my father had a shopping list while i just relied on memory. our cart attendant was the chubby short guy. he seemed a bit lazy, not packing up our stuff until the cashier had to remind him.

now that the summer is close to over, mass & cass is slowly reverting back to its old ways. yes there was still police presence, yes there was needle sweeps, but here and there i saw some outdoor drug users.

next stop was ming's market in chinatown's outskirts. being the only existing supermarket in chinatown (i'm not counting jaihe because it's so tiny), it's super busy on the weekends. we came here primarily to get taiwanese cabbages for making taiwanese paocai. at first we thought they didn't have any in stock - only regular cabbage and napa cabbage. but then i stopped them on the end of the aisle, on sale for 59¢/lbs. i grabbed 6 heavy ones and one smaller one for my mother. there was also a sale on bitter melons, $1.49/lbs. we didn't need any, just admired their size, about the shape of an adult's forearm. all 12 cash registers were opened today. they also had some taiwanese fishnacks on sale, i grabbed 6 packages.

we arrived at the cafe by 10:30am. my mother was already there, having walked from home. before we even opened, there was already two pending online takeout orders waiting for us. that was a sign it was going to be a busy day. that first hour was insane. on top of the online orders, we had a bunch of walk-in customers. it fooled us into thinking it'd be busy all day, so we cooked an additional 4 cups of rice and two batches of dumplings. however it never got that busy again. there was a slight uptick between 1-2pm, but otherwise it was a quiet day. nevertheless, this was our second busiest day this week, and put us into a pretty profitable week total. this is good because i don't expect is to be too busy next week, the final week of august.

on top of working today, i was also in charge of making a new batch of paocai. my father helped me at 1pm by quartering all the cabbages. my mother then helped me shredded the cabbage by hand. close to closing time i drained the cabbage. i waited until we closed before i added the sugar and vinegar and mixed the cabbage. the next step was to put everything into containers. because we came to the cafe directly from boston, i wasn't able to go home first and get my bike. my father wanted to offer me a ride, but i told them to leave first and i would just walk home afterwards. after dropping off my 2nd aunt, my parents came back to make some chinese dumplings. by the time they left i was almost done with the paocai, already moved them into containers. i ended up with 13 containers today, from 23 lbs. of cabbage. i didn't leave the cafe until 5:20pm, and didn't get home until 5:50pm.

i came home with a bunch of leftovers: grilled chicken wings, tea eggs, leek soup. i seem to be the only one drinking the leek soup. it's really good, not sure if it's the leek or the smoked ham or a combination of both. if i see leek for sale again at haymarket, i'm going to buy again. the tea eggs were old ones from last week that are still good, but not entirely fresh. since eggs are so cheap now, it's better to offer customers freshly made eggs.

i ate dinner while watching the second red sox giants game starting at 7pm (another rare time when the game was broadcasted on the local fox channel). what a great game! boston trailed throughout, down 0-2, though they had multiple chances to score. likewise san francisco, but boston's defense kept the game close. red sox in glorious fashion managed to then score 3 runs in the 9th inning including a forced run to homeplate that was called safe to end the game.

while watching the game i was finally able to distill what baseball is all about: hope. each inning, each at bat, you're hoping your team will score. most times they don't, but when it happens, that kind of fulfillment is addictive, almost makes you want to believe in a higher power. overall a good night for the red sox, as the yankees lose to the blue jays and the orioles beat tampa bay rays. red sox are currently 3 games behind the yankees, while the yankees are just 3 games behind the first place AL east rays.

it rained overnight and there was still a slight sprinkle this morning. i climbed the porch to see the demolition house: the kitchen area has been completely razed. i left for the cafe wearing my rain jacket, a watermelon in my backpack. when i arrived at the cafe i asked my father how much we managed to collect in the barrels. he said only 2 days worth. hopefully we get more rain over the weekend.

the batch of tea eggs i made yesterday we already started using this morning. i ended up making another batch. this one i only simmered for an hour, since it's going to steep over the weekend and won't be using it until the middle of next week. i also made a lot of black soy noodles today, 3 additional batches on top of the two we had in the fridge.

my eyes started itching yesterday and my throat felt weird overnight. i took a generic CVS zertec which made me feel better. seems like the fall allergy season is upon us. i haven't seen any ragweed but obviously they're out already.

i got a scam call at the cafe, said they were from eversource, letting me know they're going to shut down the electricity in an hour. i wasn't sure if it was legit or not. the guy i spoke with gave me a case number. before he could continue, i asked him if there was a number i could call. so i became unwittingly entrapped in his scam. he gave me a 617 number. before i could call though, i looked up the number online, and the first thing that came up said it was a scam number, used for phishing. i almost fell for it! but it just seemed too fishy. any kind of utility work, eversource always notifies us in writing weeks in advance. they don't just randomly call an hour before they cut the power. this is going to make me even more vigilant. if i have the slightly hint it's a scam call, i'll hang up immediately.

we were busy between 11am to 3pm. nothing too crazy, just a steady stream of customers. today ended up being the busiest day this week. if we continue this trend tomorrow, it'll end the week on a good note. my father and i will make a baifu/chinatown run tomorrow morning before we open the cafe at 11am. i went down to the basement to make a mental inventory of the things we need. my aunt showed up in the late morning. she'd already ate, but left with an assortment of goodies including scallion bread my mother made this morning and some pickled bitter melon.

i've been repeatedly refreshing the amazon listing for "pixel 9 pro 256gb unlocked". inventory disappears and then comes back, prices fluctuates depending on which models are available. i ended up buying a renewed excellent condition obsidian phone for $555, or $590 after taxes. the weird thing is won't arrive until september 9th to october 9th. i'll keep on checking the listing for something with a quicker delivery or a lower price.

some commotion in the early evening, as several police cars were parked outside the cafe. they seemed to be speaking with an older man riding a cruiser motorcycle (honda magna). the commotion took a long time to resolve, ending in a tow truck coming to take the motorcycle away. i went outside to ask one of the cops what happened. he told me the biker went down the wrong way on a one way street, which is cause for a ticket. when they pulled him over though, they discovered he didn't have a license. that's why they towed the bike.

i came home with a bento of stirfried blue beans with leftover zongzi pork and another leftover stirfry of tofu and peppers. it wasn't anything special, feel like my dinners have all been a series of leftovers. i can't remember the last time i cooked anything! i didn't eat dinner until 8:30pm, while watching a stream of the red sox game against the giants in fenway. it was the return of rafael devers, who hit a solo homerun. but the giants lost anyway, 4-6.

i noticed this morning the contractors had already removed all the solar panels from the demolishing house. i'm curious what they did with it? i watered my own yard then the community garden plot before continuing to the cafe. passing through observatory hill, i saw groups of harvard freshmen going on their camping trip. half a dozen yellow school buses were waiting for them.

my sister wasn't home this morning but told us to walk esmei. my mother volunteered. she got esmei as far as the cafe before she wouldn't go any farther. my father had to take over. once they came back, my mother fed esmei an egg before my father took her back home.

two passion flowers bloomed in the late morning. it gave me a chance to try out the camera on the pixel 9 pro, particularly its macro capabilities. i decided to return the phone and get another one, hopefully without a scratched screen. it'll probably set me back an extra $80 but i know looking at the scratch everyday will drive me crazy.

i cooked a new batch of tea eggs, a new batch of boba pearls, and 2 batches of black soy noodles. we were busy around lunchtime, then no business in the afternoon. that also happened to be the time when my godmother showed up. she left with a bunch of gifts: luffas, blue beans, pickled onions. we picked up a few more customers before the day ended, including our weekly regular crystal, meeting a friend but got her days wrong. they stayed until we closed. we made above our daily average, but more importantly, we beat last thursday's earning.

my 2.6 ft 4mm bike combination chain lock (NDakter brand) arrived at the end of the day. i went to my siter's place to pick it up. 4mm links is too flimsy (feels really light), i'm going to upgrade to the 6mm chain. i'm just going to use it to lock up my front wheel so it doesn't get stolen. i could also replace the quick release with a security skewer.

i left at 6:30pm why my parents waited for crystal and her friend to finish up. i was also eager to get home before it started raining. the forecast kept getting pushed back, but looking at the clouds outside it seemed like it might rain at any moment. i got home without getting wet. it didn't rain until after 7pm.

i came home with a bento of stir-fried tofu and long beans my father made. this was our first harvest of long beans. in the past we'd ferment them first for a crispy sour taste, but this was one of the rare times where we used them fresh. chopped into segments, they sort of look like garlic scapes, without any of the garlic flavor.

i ordered the $12 handlebar from aliexpress. if it's no good i can always put it on one of my lesser bicycles. if it does turn out to be a bargain, i might order another one. it should arrive by month's end.

i'm looking forward to tomorrow, one of the rare mornings where i don't have to water since it'll rain overnight.