i went with my parents on an everett costco supply this morning at 10:15am. it was warm enough that i didn't even bother bringing my jacket though windy. it was such a sunny day, my mother couldn't believe it would rain by the afternoon and initially told me to bike to belmont instead.

my sister was supposed to come with us but said she'd meet us there because she was taking too long to get ready. she had to be there because my father was signing up for a corporate credit card for him and her so they could use it to buy some cafe appliance upgrades. while my mother and i went shopping, my father was dealing with customer service. my sister had yet to arrive. moments later my father showed up and said he couldn't get the corporate card because he didn't have the cafe's federal tax id number (FTID). so my father called me sister to find it in the cafe, but she was already halfway to costco, so she had to turn back.

it was only afterwards that i volunteered to check the files on my laptop which was in the car, maybe i wrote it down somewhere. sure enough, after a brief search, i found it. i called and texted my sister to come back but she never responded. i gave the FTID to my father who successfully applied for the card even without my sister present; the card would be sent in the mail and afterwards my father can add whoever additional account to the card.

my mother stayed with my sister to finish our costco shopping while i went with my father to the home depot next to get some peat moss. before leaving costco however, we decided to get 5 55-quart bags of potting soil.

outside the weather had changed. the wind had picked up and the sky was a overcast swirl of angry grey clouds. it looked like a hurricane was about to hit us. at home depot we saw they finally had some trees for sale in the parking lot, something they didn't have at the watertown home depot yesterday. we checked them out, a collection of fruiting and flowering trees, nothing special, just the most common. they had some kwanzan cherries for $70 a pot, with about a 3/4" diameter. they also had some cherry plum "krauter vesuvius" for $100 each which was a surprise because we though they were a unique tree. nobody seemed to be taking good care of these plants, as we saw a bunch of apple sapling all chewed up by rabbits, as well as numerous trees toppled by the strong winds. inside the gardening department we got a bag of composted manure as well a bundle of peat moss.

we went into the store to look for replacement blinds. the blinds department was very much hidden and we couldn't find anyone to ask where it was until we finally found it ourselves. nothing special, just vinyl presized, but they all seem more expensive than what we remembered. finally a women whom i thought was a customer but turned out to be a worker asked us if she could help us with anything. what followed was a crash course in blinds. i thought we needed light filtering blinds, but turned out the normal ones are called room darkening. one step higher are the light blocking blinds. since the last time we bought blinds, all blinds have become cordless now for safety reasons. they sold them in various sizes but they also will trim them to length for free for fix whatever size they don't have. we recorded some prices but decided to check them online to see if we could find a better deal. besides the manure and peat moss, we also left with a large plastic rake to clean the debris in our southern perennial beds.

we finally returned home by 1pm. with the winds so strong, we were worried that the trees we purchased yesterday had toppled over. i checked the backyard webcam with my father's phone and was relieved to find them still standing. i called my mother to ask if they were still at costco but they were already in cambridge to drop off the supplies. minutes later she called to ask us to come pick her up from the cafe. when we arrived in cambridge we noticed that the wind had diminished; either it had passed or cambridge just escaped the brunt of it.

we were at my parents' place by 1:40pm. my father and i unloaded the bags of soil from the car and wheeled them into the backyard. we racked the perennial beds, making sure to collect as much as the black rot clumps in the ground as possible, so they don't affect the cherry and plum trees. it wasn't until 2pm when i finally had lunch, a costco ham & pesto sandwich and some sweet potato rice porridge.

i played my mother the 2019 ISU world figure skating championships gala, which i'd already watched last night from bed. i found a streaming source on the canadian broadcast channel (CBC) but it's geo-restricted. using my VPN, i was able to log into a toronto server which then unlocked the stream. i noticed there was an option to chromecast but when i tried it it didn't work, so my mother could only watch it from my laptop.

after dinner my father gave me a ride back to cambridge. i came back with some frozen chinese dumplings, a pair of replacement pillows for the guest bedroom, and some korean cup of noodles. sandy was cooking some beef stew over the stove, it smelled nice, unlike last night when i was welcomed with an acrid odor. i asked her about her dim sum experience. i thought it was just her and her officemate, but turns out it was a group of 5 people, one of which was the girl currently staying at my grand uncle's apartment. they went to a smaller dim sum restaurant which turned out okay but the selection was limited and everything was made to order instead of the traditional cart. afterwards she ate dinner while chatting with kelvin while i went to go take a shower.

unlike last night, she came out into the living room tonight. we watched passengers on FX (streaming through youtube tv). she went to bed around 12:30am, told me she'll be waking up early tomorrow and hope she won't disturb me.