i managed to sleep an extra hour in the guest bedroom, waking up by 9am. i had 1-1/2 hours to kill before i needed to get to work, so i spent it taking care of my grow closet. most of the okras sprouted overnight, they seem to have a 100% germination rate. i checked all my ziploc bags. many of my bitter melon seeds have sprouted, so much so that i had to throw some away because i had way too many. of the 4 ebay seeds from 4/22 that i continued to try germinating in the ziploc bag, one more had sprouted, i removed the shell and transplanted it into a pot. i also pulled out another extra hyacinth bean with a long taproot; i planted it as well. i had so many pots that i had to leave the 4 bitter melons outside because they wouldn't fit in the closet.

it rained a little overnight but had stopped by the time i left for the cafe, though it was still overcast and slightly cool. my parents were already there, my father driving my mother to work. she harvested more garlic chives from our parking lot garden and they made some garlic chive boxes (savory pastry).

we were busy for the first 3 hours then nothing for the final 2 hours. we ended the week making almost as much as last week, which was our most profitable week this year. my father went home earlier but came back to pick up my mother. originally we planned on going to baifu and then chinatown tomorrow, but he found a container of brown sugar boba syrup so we didn't need to go. i volunteered to go down to chinatown tomorrow and get a few supplies.

my california aunt told my mother what drug my california uncle was taking for his lung cancer: zongertinib (brand name hernexeos). it's one of the new targeted therapy cancer treatment, a tyrosine kinase inhibitor, specifically HER2 mutations. it's just a pill taken daily, already it's shrunken his cancer by 30%.

when i returned home after work, i realized it was still early, and i could ride down to chinatown now and grab the supplies so i won't have to do it tomorrow morning. i switched to my ebike and headed to boston.

ming's market was relatively unbusy this time of day. the aisles weren't clogged, there wasn't any crazy long checkout lines. i got what i needed and left. since i was in the area, i headed to chinatown proper and got some spicy thai chicken feet from hong kong eatery. i then biked home, stopped briefly to admire some flowering kwanzan cherry trees on the esplanade. i didn't get back home until 6pm.

i snacked on the chicken feet before the start of the sixers-celtics game at 7pm. i saw the breaking news that jayson tatum was out for game 7 tonight. when the game finally started, it didn't seem like a game the celtics could win, but they might be able to steal a victory. unfortunately the sixers was too good for the celtics, and boston ended up losing 109-100. celtics the no.2 seed losing to the no.7 sixers. i blame all the 3-pointers boston threw up but couldn't make. their 3-point strategy is infuriating. analytics says it's the best strategy, but when they're not falling, the team should try something else instead of continuing to shoot 3's. regardless, even if the celtics did beat the sixers, thy would've had a hard time advancing. joel embiid exposed a fatal flaw in the C's roster, it's lack of an effective big man. queta is good occasionally, but seems to be in perpetual foul trouble. the same with luka garza, who's also a rookie. their 3rd option os vucevic, who's only a 6'9" center (tatum is taller than him).

during halftime i boiled some frozen dumplings for dinner.

i finished the evening watching a new saturday night live with host olivia rodrigo who was also the musical guest. but the real star of the show is ashley padilla, which recently got a new york times write-up. she was in a sketch where she pretended to be someone's girlfriend that was bonkers hilarious.

there was some drama this morning when i saw the bicycle normally parked across the street had been ran over by a vehicle along with the signpost it was locked to. the bike owner was outside seemingly incredulous over what happened. i was just going to head off to work but my conscious took over and i turned back, ready to share my webcam footage, which i'm sure caught the whole collision on video. but the owner was already gone along with his mangled bike. it's a damn shame really, that's a good bike, with disc brakes. hopefully it's just the wheel that's damaged, and the frame is okay.

when i arrived at the cafe, i opened up the webcam app to look for the bike collision footage. the accident happened yesterday at 7:07pm. a UPS van rounding the corner jumped the curb, hit the bike, and took down the signpost as well. he stopped to make his delivery, when back to check out what happened (did he also take a photo?), then left. another delivery van saw the whole thing but didn't say anything.

so much activity happening outside my house this week. there was the sidewalk repair. steve continued to harangue DPW, to the point where they agreed to come back and convert some section of the sidewalk to cement but not all of it. timeline for that work is unknown. today eversource is doing work to replace the tilting utility pole. i wonder if i'm going to lose power in the house?

my father and i talked about getting a boba tea sealing film machine. they're not very expensive, vevor sells one for just $90. it'd make our boba teas more professional looking, and more important it'd prevent spilling/leaking, something that happens occasionally because we use plastic lids that can snap off. one question we had was would it work with our current existing plastic cups? so i did some research. so the two common materials for plastic cups are PP (polypropylene) and PET (polyethylene terephthalate). PET is what we have, it's more durable, crystal clear, more expensive, but only good for cold drinks. PP is softer, slightly opaque, cheaper, and suitable for cold and hot drinks. PP is the preferred material for boba tea because of its higher heat tolerance which is required for sealing the film to the cup lid.

in the afternoon during a lull, i biked to market basket to get some cafe supplies. we needed bean sprouts, which whole foods occasionally sells, but not always guaranteed. so i decided to trek all the way to market basket. i didn't mind, today was a nice day, the sky a mixture of sun and clouds, temperature in the 60's. i passed by house, saw the new wooden utility pole next to the old one. i guess at some point they'll migrate all the wires to the new pole.

i returned to the cafe a bit after 3pm. the whole trip took me about 45 minutes. i brought a package of italian sausages with fennel that i cooked in the air fryer.

today was a busy day. we made double the amount of our daily average. it was busy around lunchtime and then in the evening. end of the day was capped off with a handful of relatively large orders which gave our profit a boost. we had a total of at least 36 sales, compared to last friday (a record day) of 41 sales. we sold a bit of everything, but once again the bento was the most popular, with the most popular flavor today being the salmon.

when i returned home after work, there was still time for me to inspect the grow closet before the timer switches off the lights at 7pm. all my kabocha have sprouted, healthy seedlings poking out of the soil. the bitter melons are making a push, but it's taking them so long to emerge, i wonder if some of the seeds haven't rotted underground. likewise the same with my luffas.

after a shower i watched the pistons-magic game. it didn't look good for detroit as they were facing elimination, orlando at one point had a 24 point lead. but the magic couldn't sustain the lead (sounds familiar, celtics are guilty of this all the time), and the pistons slowly chipped away until midway in the 4th quarter they regained the lead. the magic seemed shocked, which also coincided with a dry spell. pistons won 93-79, forcing a game 7 on sunday.

during halftime i heated up the last of my leftover spicy mexican chicken soup for dinner.

i played a little bit of cyberpunk. even though the game is pretty much over, i'm still finding new things roaming around the city. i visited the rollercoaster and discovered you can actually take it for a ride once you fix the controller. i also encountered a cyberpsycho in dog town named wesley hunt, a tribute to wesley snipe's blade character.

it was supposed to be raining this morning so i could check to see if any of the gutters were leaking. unfortunately the rain had stopped by the time i went outside. still, there was enough residual rain in the gutters to see which ones were dripping at least. the corner of the front porch and the middle of the long gutter facing our neighbor's alley were both leaking. the gutter facing our own alleyway was dry, the trash bins underneath dry as well. i passed my observations to my upstairs neighbors. they'll coordinate with the contractors to return and patch up the repairs. it's a good thing we didn't pay them yet, money is the ultimate motivator when it comes to getting these guys to come out and fix something.

so because it wasn't raining, i didn't have to wear my rain gear today. i did wear my rain jacket with the fleece hooded sweatshirt underneath, but mostly to keep warm.

this week of restocking continues. i made a batch of tea eggs while my father fried a batch of chicken. i also parboiled some potato strips to make french fries once the chicken was done. my mother roasted a batch of chinese sausages. in the early afternoon my parents made a batch of vegetarian buns. tomorrow we need to roast another batch of charsiu pork.

maybe it was the weather but it wasn't as busy today as it was the past two days. we had a spike around lunchtime, but easy the rest of the day. the rain stopped by early afternoon. we were supposed to get an inch of rain but we only got less than half a centimeter at best. or next chance of rain is sunday. i went to trader joe's around 2pm to get some baby cucumbers and bananas. i looked for the banana ice cream but they didn't have it.

when i came back i reheated some leftover spicy mexican chicken soup for my parents. i didn't eat any myself because i was going to have it for dinner. both my parents complained how spicy it was but they still managed to eat the whole thing.

approaching evening, my parents made some garlic chive dumplings which they boiled and had for dinner before we actually closed.

first thing i did when i got back home was inspect the grow closet. i'm beginning to see a few fungus gnats, hopefully my gnatrol watering will end their life cycle. the warmer closet is inducing a lot of seeds to finally start breaking out of the ground. the one new thing i saw tonight was one of the corkscrew hot peppers finally germinated, after 11 days. still waiting for the rest to sprout.

i used the bathroom, took a shower, then reheated some leftover mexican soup just in time for the celtics-sixers game. the game was awful. other than a brief period midway between the 1st and 2nd quarter, philly dominated the game. boston shooting woes continue. jayson tatum left the game in the second half. things only got interesting when mazzulla sat down the starters and put in all bench players. celtics managed to reduce sixer's lead by a dozen, but it was too little too late. sixers win 93-106. now there will be a game 7 saturday. let's just hope tatum is okay. also hoping celtics will be angry enough that they put in more of an effort on saturday to win the series. tonight was downright embarrassing.

cambridge DPW came as scheduled, around 7am. how do i know this? because i heard the pounding that as they removed the old cement sidewalk with heavy machinery. remarkably, was able to fall back asleep despite the house shaking on occasion.

i finally got out of bed a bit before 9am. i took a peek out the window to see what was going on. they didn't remove all the sidewalk - left us a bit so we could get out of the house at least. i never knew that underneath the cement sidewalk was just dirt. i thought maybe it might be crushed gravel, or simply more cement. before they could start pouring in the new cement, i went out briefly to move my bicycle out of the alleyway and lock it outside.

i inspected the wet napkin seeds in my ziploc bags. i started with the one labeled "4-22". it contained 8 bitter melon seeds from the 2025 season and 6 luffa seeds i recently purchased off of ebay. only two of the luffa seeds sprouted after a week. only two of the bitter melon seeds sprouted. i removed them from the wet napkin for transplanting and put the napkin back in the ziploc bag. the second ziploc was just 2025 hyacinth beans and bitter melons. none of them sprouted yet, but it's only been 4 days so it's still early. i put them back. a ziploc with just 2024 bitter melon seeds i started on 4/19 had 8 seeds germinated. finally the ziploc with 3 2024 kabocha squash started on 4/19 had one seed sprouting.

i planted all the newly sprouted seeds except for the bitter melons, i only planted a few of those. the rest i put on a wet napkin inside of a plastic bag for possible near future planting. the thing is, my grow closet is currently close to full capacity. i might plant these bitter melons and leave them near the back kitchen so they get some natural sunlight. i'm just afraid it won't be as warm inside the grow closet.

while i was doing all this indoor gardening activity, i was also baking a chicken cordon bleu in the oven. i finally stopped to eat. it took over 35 minutes to bake but i ate it in just under a minute. i was hungry soon afterwards.

i looked outside. they were filling back the sidewalks. not with cement however, but with black asphalt. it doesn't really match the rest of the sidewalk. maybe they pour cement on top of that?

i went back to the grow closet. i needed to plant some butterfly peas, just 6. i also thinned out the sprouting hyacinth beans and transplanted the extra seedlings. i ended up with 4 more hyacinth beans. something i've noticed about these seeds - beans, gourds, melons - is that the root grows in a u-shape and then lifts the seed head out of the soil. when i planted those pre-sprouted seeds, i naturally planted them with the root pointing down, but that's actually a mistake, because when i dug in the soil, i discovered the roots were twisting underground using the seed head as orientation. basically, it's better to grow them on the side than having the root pointing downwards.

i also started another batch of luffa seeds using the wet napkin technique. some of the pre-sprouted luffas i planted aren't in the best shape and might be rotting underground. so i'm hedging my bet and sprouting some more. i'm only sprouting 4 ebay luffas, and 8 2025 luffas. these are the same 2025 luffa seeds i already tried germinating twice before but nothing happened. but i think maybe it wasn't warm enough, and luffa seeds need heat to germinate. the seeds themselves look perfectly healthy, so i still think they'll sprout with the right conditions.

around 1pm they came back and filled the sidewalk so it was flush. once more it was black asphalt. once they finished, they took all their equipment, leaving behind some cones.

this was my cue to go out and run some errands. i biked to market basket to get some groceries and a few things for the cafe. i came home to drop off some stuff before continuing to the cafe. i was still busy when i arrived around 2:30pm so i stuck around to help. i asked my father if he did want watering from the remaining rain barrels this morning. he said the barrels were completely drained. not only that, but the portable battery was completely used up as well. i didn't leave the cafe until 40 minutes later.

i went to the community garden to put in my work hour. i didn't know what to do so i ended up watering the common bed even though rainstorms are arriving overnight and all of tomorrow morning. there just was one other person there, a woman who has a garden plot in cambridgeport. she told me her name, but the only thing i remembered was "gardener" was her last name. unlike here, all other cambridge community garden plots do not allow perennial plants. this was something this woman was a firm proponent of, because she said growing perennials give people a sense of plot ownership when it fact the city owns the gardens. i also remember in those other community gardens you have to give up your plot after a number of years.

i continued watering after she left. once that i was done, i went around the community garden digging up any dandelions in the common paths.

i got a chance to check out my own community garden plot (CGP). it doesn't look to be in too bad a shape. i was worried that many other gardeners had already started planting things, but most plots were just like mine, barren for the time being. i might come back on saturday to do some weeding, tidy up the plot a bit. there's a lot of grass that needs pulling. i also have to bring in my milk crates for the grow bags. a better idea would be to construct a few simple wooden tables using 2x4 so i can elevate the grow bags. problem with milk crates is slugs hide inside of them.

i left around 4:15pm after an hour in the garden.

steve wrote a letter to the city complaining about the terrible job they did in repairing the sidewalk. not only does it not match now, but it might threaten to lower the property value he argued. honestly, i don't think the city will do anything about it. it was actually steve who originally contacted the city and asked them to repair the sidewalk, which i thought was fine, just had a crack in it where the tree buckled the cement. careful what you wish for, sometimes you might actually get it.

my mother called me after work. they had another crazy busy day today. tea eggs - which i wanted to make another batch while i was at the cafe but didn't - had been reduced to just half the amount due to all the bento boxes sales. honestly have no idea why it's been so busy the past few days. can't be the weather because it's still cold.

i started making dinner around 7pm. i decided to make my spicy mexican chicken soup recipe. last time i made this was october 2024. i used hominy that time, which is what the original recipe calls for, but i've found i don't really like the taste/texture of hominy, at least the ones i got in a can. they tasted too rubbery. so this time i'm going back to israeli couscous.

the recipe itself is not that hard. most difficult part is boiling the chicken and shredding it. everything else just goes into a big pot and you simmer all the ingredients for half an hour. what makes it even remotely mexican is because i added a whole can of chipotle peppers. original recipe calls for just a few, but i use the whole can. original recipe also had homemade fried tortilla chips, but i've never eaten it with the chips before.

it was actually pretty hardy, and the weather is still cold enough (today's high was just 55 degrees) for eating stew-type meals like this. it was spicy enough that i kept blowing my nose while i ate. afterwards i was in food coma, just wanted to sit on the couch and let my body digest.

pistons beat the magic tonight, staving off elimination, pushing that series to a game 6, much like what the sixers did to the celtics yesterday. i'm rooting for detroit, they don't deserve to be knocked out by the 8th seed. pistons are a good team, they just haven't been playing well in the playoffs.

i had a peek in my grow closet this morning before leaving for work. some luffas have emerged from the soil, i counted 4 seedlings. hopefully more will emerge within the next few days. i think the warm grow closet is inducing them to grow fast. the hyacinth beans i directly sowed into the soil have started to emerge. of the 6 pots, 4 have sprouted. i planted 2 seeds per pot but they're so viable i think most of them will germinate, so i'll need to thin and transplant some of the extra seedlings. i watered everything with gnatrol water.

after arriving at the cafe, i went down to fresh pond trek bike store to pick up my second bontrager kickstand. they seemed to have lost my package amidst all their delivery boxes but eventually found it. i asked about the stuffed sheep in front of the store. "oh, that's herman, our mascot," said the clerk.

though not as busy as last friday and saturday, today was still a busy day, after so many slow weeks due to all the school vacations. at least 30 sales, including 15 bento boxes. the most popular bento today was minced pork, followed by char siu pork. chicken only had a single sale.

today was all about restocking supplies. while i made a new batch of tea eggs, my father made a new batch of curry chicken, marinated a whole case of chicken thighs we bought yesterday (some of which will be deep fried on thursday), and a new batch of beef noodle soup. we made more ice and my mother divided up a container of defrosted minced pork as well as marinated some salmon.

because we made a new batch of beef noodle soup, that meant we had leftovers to take home. so after we closed i went home with a container of beef noodle soup for dinner.

sidewalk repairs will begin tomorrow and thursday. there was more spray paint markings: besides the yellow and blue, today we had hot pink. i'm genuinely curious what they're going to do. a major problem is the tree roots from the sidewalk locust is buckling the pavement. how are they going to fix that without cutting up the roots?

i checked on my grow closet before the lights turn off at 7pm. seems like all the hyacinth beans are emerging. one kabocha was peeking out from the soil. no additional progress on the luffas.

my father called me soon after i got home. he asked if it was going to rain tomorrow. he tried to water the garden this morning with the rain barrels using the 12v on-demand pump. but he couldn't get the portable power station to work so he gave up. soon after he left though, the connection started working again and he never shut off the watering wand so the pump ran all day, draining most of our rain barrels. i checked the backyard webcam. i couldn't see where the water was spraying, but at one point around 9am the sun came out and i saw a rainbow near one of the raised beds from the water spray. fortunately it's going to rain a lot on thursday so the barrels will be refilled by then.

i came home and started watching the sixers-celtics game. boston could advance with a win, sixers face elimination with a loss. celtics was the lead for the second and third quarter, but they held it tenuously. it wasn't a surprise when the sixers made a push in the fourth quarter to regain the lead. celtics then went ice cold. boston loses, 113-97. i'm not that disappointed, celtics still have two chances to finish off the sixers. not much you can do when you get on a cold streak, especially since the celtics live and die by the three pointers.

i reheated the beef noodle soup during halftime.

it's 10pm on a monday night and i've been nodding off in front of the computer for the past 30 minutes. last night i managed to get about 7 hours of sleep but that's not enough. i'm going to write a quick blog entry and go straight to bed.

i woke up early, afraid the gutter contractors would arrive early. i wanted to move my ebike just in case. they in fact did now show up this morning, maybe they're cancelling again. i left a bit before 10am, heading to belmont for a needham-waltham supply run.

we left as soon as i arrived. first stop was the needham restaurant depot, where we needed to get boneless chicken thighs. they were very low on stock, one of the employees told me their chicken vendor took 2 weeks off, so it depleted their supply.

next we went to the waltham market basket. my mother went to marshall next door to return a jacket she bought my father before their vacation but he didn't want it anymore.

after that we went to the waltham costco. the place was crowded for a monday, makes you wonder just how crazy it must be on the weekends. we got our eggs here, they only have 2 dozen packs (not the 5 dozens we normally get). i got some hot dogs while my parents were paying, but it was so crowded, there was a long wait before i got my order. there was just a single woman working the counter, i felt bad for her, i could never work in such a crazy busy environment. we ate in the car before leaving.

approaching the cafe, we made one last stop at the fresh pond trader joe's. we picked up some salmon. i wanted to get the banana ice cream i saw on my last visit, but they were all sold out. apparently that's the new hot flavor.

we finally arrived at the cafe a bit after 2pm. we took some time to unload the supplies before leaving. we had so much stuff we needed to turn on the backup mini fridge. my sister also showed up around that time and we saw esmei.

we made it back to belmont by 3pm. my father immediately started mowing the lawn. because i'd applied crabgrass preventer just 2 weeks ago, we can't keep the grass clippings. it takes 3-4 weeks before the herbicide works it way into the soil and the grass clippings become safe for composting. it's going to rain on thursday the freshly mowed lawn will get a nice watering.

while my father was doing that, i took a quick drive to the nearby hillside ace hardware store to look for a dramm rain select 9 pattern watering wand. they had 4 in stock, 3 orange, 1 blue. i grabbed the blue. we buy watering wands every season because they have a tendency to fail after just one year. the dramm is more expensive at $30 but i'm hoping it's all aluminum construction means it'll last a little longer.

back at the house, we finally got around to setting up the 12v on-demand water pump. my father wanted to use the portable aolithium power station to power the pump. unfortunately the pump only has ring terminal connections, and the power station doesn't have any terminals to attach - just a 12v cigarette lighter and two 12v jacks. my father had to disassemble a cigarette lighter connector and attach it to the ring terminals to make it work. i told my father to use as much rain barrel water as possible since it's all going to fill up back come thursday.

while he was watering the outdoor garden, i was inside watering the plants in the basement grow room. i added 2 tsp of gnatrol powder to 5 gallons of water this time. i didn't see any fungus gnats today, but i can't stop the gnatrol treatment just yet, i learned that the hard way last month when i skipped a watering and the gnats came back.

for dinner my mother made some steamed ground pork with eggs and zucchini stirfry while my father braised some red snappers. i thought the fish tasted like muddy river water.

i returned home via ebike afterwards. travel time was just 11 minutes, just as fast as a car. i took advantage of the throttle on smooth stretches of road, speeding home at 25mph.

cambridge DPW will be coming on wednesday and thursday to repair the sidewalk. there was no parking signs posted outside. i'm kind of surprised this is happening after steve made a phone call yesterday. maybe steve has some pull with city hall. paul also told me that the gutter guys actually came today. as per my advice, they won't get paid until after the first rainstorm so we can check there are no leaks. that's going to be thursday.

i started rewatching mrs.davis last night. it's one of the greatest series of all times, easily on my top 10 list. knowing how the story will enfold gives me better appreciation watching it a second time, pick out details i missed the first time because i had no idea what was going on.

i woke up this morning at 9am. felt like a victory for sleep, but i forgot i didn't go to bed last night until 3am, so i only got 6 hours, still sleep deficient. at least it was quiet, my upstairs neighbors don't return from NH until later this afternoon. i moved all their packages upstairs onto the backyard deck.

there was a wet smell in the house this morning. that's because i fully set up my grow closet yesterday and now all 9 grow lights are heating up the moist potting soil. i went ahead and planted 9 okra seeds. i then transplanted 10 stevia seedlings from the starter cells into full pots. not a bad germination rate, a little over 80% success. i scooped out the seedlings and soil from each individual cells then moved them into pots.

i left for belmont in the late morning, stopping briefly at the cafe to put away the tea eggs and leftover rice. we forgot to water the hanging fern so i brought that down and gave it some water and left it to drip dry.

i made it to belmont around noontime. the grass looks especially green and lush after i applied crabgrass preventer and fertilizer 2 weeks ago. however there was something new: reliable fencing had placed a sign on the lawn without asking first. plus, the replacement fence is in the backyard, so nobody can see it from the front. the only fencing you see from the front are the old DIY fences my father and i put up over the years. i removed the sign as soon as i could.

i saw my father was already using the free wheel barrow i picked up on wednesday. it looks like a more commercial-grade 6 gallon capacity. our old wheel barrow is a residential shallower 4-5 gallons. i'd watched a bunch of videos on how to restore an old wheel barrow, and i thought we could do the same to our old one, but i checked it out again today, and not only has it rusted through the bolt holes, but the tip of the wheel barrow has corroded and rusted away as well. it's probably easier just to replace the tray.

my mother made wonton soup for lunch. afterwards my father and i went outside to do yardwork.

the most important thing we had to do today was to prune the rest of the maple tree. it's already kind of late in the season, and maple flowers have already bloomed and some imamture leaves have emerged. but we need to remove the accumulation of years old suckers on the top of the tree that would block much needed sunlight from reaching our raised beds. there was a time when this backyard norwegian maple was majestic and grand. but then it got too big and we started pruning it down to size. we didn't do a good job, and over the decades the tree had gotten diseased with unsightly surge of new sucker branches. i sometimes fantasize about chopping the tree down completely and growing something else in its place. but this maple has allowed us to hone our pruning techniques, get a chance to use an assortment of tools (pole saw, chainsaw, pruning saw, and pruning loppers). it also sheds a lot of leaves in the fall, and all that biomass goes back into the garden as compost.

i was up on the platform ladder with the EGO pole saw. that part was easy. the hard part came later, when in order to gain access to the higher branches, i had to climb the tree and contort my body like a pretzel while holding the pole saw to cut those branches. we have no real strategy when it comes to pruning, and every time a large tree branch falls to the ground, i basically close my eyes and say a prayer, hoping one of the side branches doesn't hit me in the face. we got lucky today, the only damage was a small bit of japanese maple branch that got sheared off.

my sister came home around that time. i was up in the tree when i saw a dog run into the backyard. my father tried to get esmei's attention but she ran off in search of rabbits. esmei will play fetch for a little bit before getting bored. she likes sitting underneath some shade, and will even dig a small hole to find a cooler patch of ground. i played tug with her with a stick, she wins everything time, she doesn't give up. i let her have the stick because i'm afraid she'll break her teeth.

after those branches got cut came the more tedious task of cutting them all into smaller pieces and bundling them up for the next garden refuse pickup. my father did most of that while i did smaller side jobs, like piling all the cut branches into one place, or throwing away some misshapen branches into the trash.

i learned recently that hops spreading like bamboos and you have to periodically dig up the ones that've escaped otherwise the hops will take over. i thought they'd be in discreet clumps, the escaping hops. what i didn't expect was just how thick the underground rhizomes were, like tree roots. they were also difficult to cut, the rhizomes soft and spongy. i dug all the escaping hops except for one (the central one). i put them in a ziploc bag and threw it in the fridge for the time being.

we finally finished by 5pm. had a hour to relax before dinner.

my mother made dinner, a potato thread stirfry and a salted pork with peppers stirfry. she finished first and told us to eat the rest while she went to her room to watch her dramas.

i was hoping to make it back home before 7pm, before the start of the celtics-sixers game. this was game 4 in philly, with boston up 2-1 in the series. the surprise announcement tonight was the return of joel embiid after his emergency appendectomy surgery.

other than the first half of the first quarter, sixers never led. nor did they really threaten after that, never could shave boston's lead to less than double digits. boston continued to add to the point difference, and the team was firing on all cylinders tonight, with demoralizing 3-pointers dropping like crazy. celtics' strategy was to let embiid get his points, at the expense of his own teammates, who were playing fine without him, but with his return things slowed down to his pace, at the detriment to the rest of the team. when the game finally ended and both teams emptied the bench, boston was up 30+ points. the final score was 128-96. game 5 is tuesday night, boston is looking to end the series. the only way the sixers have a chance of winning the series is if they bench embiid.

i took a shower after the game. my body hurt all over from the tree climbing and pruning i did today. i also have cuts across my forearm from when i got raked by falling tree branches. hopefully a good night's sleep will soothe these aches.

i made another aliexpress order tonight, $30. my father needs a new replacement band for his xiaomi fitness band 8. i already had a bunch of screw and nuts and washers on standby. i also ordered a north korean fridge magnet on a whim. i have no interest in visiting that country, but a fridge magnet is an interesting piece of faux souvenir.

i woke up at 8am to head down to haymarket. my last haymarket trip was more than 6 weeks ago. i left around 8:50am, which i thought was late. i wore my winter jacket and had gloves on. it took 20 minutes to go up cambridge street across the west end to haymarket via ebike. there was a rattling sound in front of the bike but i couldn't figure out what it was. it wasn't the fender, it was very secure. maybe components inside the wheel light were rattling loose?

it was slim pickings today. i was hoping to find gold nuggets but didn't see any. i did score some cara cara oranges (10 for $2) and some mandarins (15 for $3). my mother asked me to get her tomatoes, the only ones i saw were plum tomatoes, which aren't really good for eating raw, they're better for making sauce. i got some anyway, a pound's worth for $3 which was kind of pricey and i could find better deals at market basket. my mother also told me to get her long horn peppers. i told her a few times i've only seen them on rare occasions, but she insisted i could find them. i ended up getting 4 varieties of peppers - not of which were long horn, and none of which seem the least bit spicy. i also got some baby cucumbers (2 packs, $2 each). that was pretty much it for my haul. i actually went back and forth 3 times, searching for peppers and tomatoes.

i returned the same way i came, through the west end, across the museum of science, cambridge crossing, and lechmere. i could've gone home but decided to head directly to the cafe, where i arrived a bit after 10am. i'd already cooked 7 cups of rice by the time my mother showed up. she walked from home and thought she'd be early, wasn't expecting to see me at the cafe before her.

around 10:30am we got a big order, nearly $200. we don't open until 11am. my mother was panicked, said we needed to call my father and have him come to help with the order. i looked at the items and said it wasn't necessary. we had 45 minutes before they'd come to pick up, plenty of time. 6 bentos, 2 curry, a fried rice, assortment of noodles, a bun, and a handful of drinks. this single order would practically use up most of the rice we cooked today, so i cooked 4 more cups of rice on our backup rice cooker. we started assembling the order. my 2nd aunt showed up at 11am, my mother hurriedly asked her to make the drinks while she and i finished the orders in the kitchen. we had everything ready by 11:15am, but the customer didn't come pick up until after 11:30am. he came by car, but the vehicle was already packed with people and other items, barely anymore room for the food. but they managed.

once we opened officially, it started to get busy. it was like for most of the day, the only time it let up was after 3pm, when we were about to close. we made so much today, it nearly equaled yesterday's total, which already was a record day for 2026. once again, over 20+ bento orders. not as many bubble tea though, that probably kept us from overtaking yesterday's profit. we also had half the customers compared to yesterday, but thanks to that one big order, it skewed the average.

my 2nd aunt lost her xiaomi fitness band again. this is her third time losing it. in the past it would've been easy to get order a new on from aliexpress, but due to the tariff situation, all the xiaomi vendors have disappeared. those who are selling the fitness bands are pricing it at $50+, which is the same price you'd pay on amazon. in the past, a previous generation xiaomi fitness band would only cost $20. the market has also been flooded with counterfeits (i bought one myself, usable, but doesn't use the xiaomi app). my mother told my 2nd aunt she can use her phone to track her fitness.

my father showed up around closing time to get my mother a ride home and drop off my 2nd aunt as well. next week is going to be busy as we restock practically all our supplies.

instead of going home, i went to walgreens to pick up my prescription. i thought it was only one thing, but turns out it was three. i then returned home and investigated the weird rattling sound come from my front ebike wheel. it wasn't the fender, and it wasn't the wheel light. i took the opportunity to replace the wheel lights with something smaller. the front fender wasn't loose, but it was rubbing up against the fork, maybe that had something to do with it. i readjusted the fender just in case.

i came back inside the house by 5pm. so typically late saturday afternoon early evening is when i do all the errands i wasn't able to do during the week. besides the ebike fix, i had some grow closet upkeep. i had to add grow lights to the top and bottom shelves, install my new adjustable fan system, check to see if any of my bagged seedlings have germinated, and finally thin out my existing seedlings and seeing if i can salvage any.

i checked the bagged seedlings first. most of them were started on april 19th - 6 days ago. the only exception was the new packet of luffa seeds, which i started 6 seeds on april 21st. of the seeds i started on the 19th - luffa, bitter melon, kabocha (all from the 2024 season)- some of them did germinate. the least amount were the luffas, but those seeds were in bad shape to begin with, i didn't have much hope. but 6 luffa seeds sprouted. the shells were covered in mold. 9 bitter melon seeds sprouted. like the luffas, the shells were quite moldy. i ended up peeling them off to save the seedlings inside. the kabocha had the best germinate: i started 12 seeds, all but 2 sprouted. i only selected 9 to transplant because the math works out better. i grew kabocha/buttercup squash every year, but it's diminishing returns as they require a lot of space to grow, a lot of care, and they get targeted by several pests (squash bugs, squash vine borers). the new luffa seeds i started april 21st have yet to germinate. i think they're close though, probably in a few more days.

before i could plant the seedlings, i had to set up the grow closet. grow lights wasn't anything complicated. i discovered one of the grow lights on the middle shelf wasn't evn connected. maybe that's why the seedlings don't look as robust. the adjustable fan switch is a new addition i'm incorporating this season. in the past, i've used cheap computer fans attached to a gutted computer power supply unit (PSU). it works but it's clunking, and the PSU takes up a lot of space. looking around on aliexpress, i found a little control board for computer fans. best part it's adjustable, something i've never been able to do in the past. i have three computer fans hooked up, one for each shelf. the control board uses a 12v plug and has an adjustable knob to control the fan speed. it does change the speed, but when i turn it to zero, the fans are still running.

i planted the germinated seeds. next i thinned out some already germinated seedlings. these are the peppers, tomatoes, and eggplants. i managed to transplant 4 additional eggplants and 5 serrano peppers. not sure how many of these thinned transplants will survive, but if they do, they'll be some bonus plants. i also found out my cayenne peppers had also sprouted after almost a whole month had gone by (started on march 31st).

i wet-napkin seeded a new batch of bitter melon and hyacinth bean seeds. these are from the 2025 season, and looks to be in better shape. i already have 6 potted hyacinth beans i started on april 19th, but so far i haven't seen any activity. i'm wet-napkin starting some seeds just to see if they're viable.

i finally finished by 7pm. i'm not entirely done yet. i'm going to need to transplant my stevia seedlings. i'm also going to start some okra seeds. i know instructions say to sow directly into the ground once the temperature turns hot, but i'd like to get a few started so i can get a headstart.

a bunch of NBA games today. the magic beat the pistons, now leads the series 2-1. detroit is in a dangerous spot, they need to win their next game otherwise they're in a 3-1 hole and very few teams come back from that deficit. knicks had a crucial game 4 tonight, being down 1-2 in the series against the hawks. new york managed to win, now the series tied 2-2.

for dinner i finished the last of my gyudon. thank goodness, because i don't think i can take anymore of it.

i played cyberpunk for about an hour. i found an iconic shotgun - guts - in corpo plaza. it does a lot of damage but the recoil makes the weapon barely usable.

i went to go take a shower around 10pm.

today was so busy, it nearly matched the combined profit of the past three days. there just seemed to be a relentless stream of customers all day. we sold over 20+ bento boxes, and just as many bubble tea. it was the busiest day this year, and you had to go back to december (5th to be exact) to find another day that was more profitable. not sure what was happening, but all those customers that'd been missing for weeks all decided today they would come and eat at the cafe.

we exhausted our supply of charsiu pork and had to emergency defrost a box of raw frozen marinated charsiu so we could roast a new batch. i also cooked a new batch of boba pearls.

we had customers all the way to closing time. i left at 6:30pm, needed to get back home by 6:45pm to get some salmon and potato stew from bruce. i tried it a bit later, it was kind of like a chowder but with big chunks of salmon and potato. it was pretty hearty and i could've had just that for dinner, but i also brought home a bento my mother had prepared and ate that a bit later while watching the end of the celtics-sixers game.

celtics led for much of the game, but at most 10 points. sixers were always within striking distance, and there was a total of 8 lead chances as they kept coming back. boston always found a way to respond in kind to maintain the lead. jaylen brown and jayson tatum are the two stars of the team. so far they've managed to work together in harmony, sometimes it's the jaylen show, other times it's the jayson show. it was a close game, but if you were an impartial observer, you'd say the celtics were the more dominant team, while the sixers were the scrappy underdog. final score was 108-100, boston leads the series 2-1. next game is sunday.

it was back to work this morning. temperature would reach the 60's today, but the morning was still cold, in the 40's, so i wore my winter jacket with gloves. i guess i haven't really been riding long distance very much because my left calf was aching.

after making a new batch of tea eggs and black soy noodles, i left for trader joe's around 10am to get some baby cucumbers and scallions. i go to TJ's pretty often, but i've never gotten the same cashier twice. how many people do they have on staff?

my sister alerted my father to a pan a neighbor had left out on the curb. it was a 10.5" ceramic our place always pan in sage. it included the stainless steel steaming basket and lid, but missing the wooden spatula. we were surprised to discover it retails for $135 on amazon. it's heavy like cast iron and works on our induction stoves.

it was another slow day. not that we mind, we didn't want it to be too crazy on our first week back from vacation. blame it on school vacation week, seems like every week there's something going on to steal our customers. we had a slight uptick of customers around lunchtime then in the early evening.

i continue to snack on the turkish delights my parents brought back from istanbul. it's got me thinking i could try making them again. i've attempted to make it twice before, each time ending in failure. first time the sugar came out lumpy due to poor corn starch management. the second time seemed successful but my delights started to sweat, which essentially was the start of a slow melt and they eventually congealed into a solid blob. this time around i have access to citric acid, which might be the secret ingredient i'm missing (although i've used both lemon juice and cream of tartar in the past).

i ate some of the spicy braised chicken my 2nd aunt bought on wee. they have a really nice flavor but they're also super spicy! i have a pretty high heat tolerance but even i was reaching for a glass of water. just like the turkish delights, i wonder if i can make them at home.

it did get warm in the afternoon in the sun, but going home it started to get cold again. cold enough that i put on my hat this time.

for dinner i ate some leftover gyudon. i have one more serving reserved for tomorrow night. there was another knicks-hawks game. once again, atlanta beat new york by one point, but this was more of a failure on the hawks for giving up a big lead as well as knicks scrappiness to come back and almost steal a game they shouldn't have won to begin with. game 3 of the celtics-sixers series is tomorrow night.