with rain not expected to arrive until later tonight, i decided to bike into boston and visit haymarket again. i could also get a vietnamese sandwich from chinatown and check out some flowering cherries along the charles river on my way back.

instead of savory oatmeal, i opted for a prosciutto egg cheese english muffin sandwich with some coffee. i didn't have enough grounds, so i filled the aeropress with half regular and half decaf hazelnut coffee. even at half the dosage, i still felt a little edgy after breakfast. i didn't leave until 1pm though, as the coffee made me want to use the bathroom and i didn't leave until i was sure it cleared my system.

it was an unusually warm 77 degrees april spring day. it was downright balmy, with a touch of humidity. i wore a pullover shirt which i immediately took off once i realized just how warm it was outside. i took the cargo bike as i expected to bring back some haymarket produce.

once i arrived in boston, i decided to make a stop at the public garden to check out some of the flowering cherry trees there. there were a lot of people, a combination of school vacation week and marathon tourists still in town. most trees in the public garden aren't tagged so i could only guess what varieties they were. i also accidentally left my fuji 3D camera at home, though i wasn't sure, and was afraid i might've lost it in transit. that meant no 3D photos of the cherry blossoms.

the light pink flowering tree i first encountered was probably a sargent cherry AKA hill cherry, a large cold hardy and long-living cherry from the japanese northern region. the white/pale pink blossoms were most likely yoshino cherries, the way the flowers are arranged in puffy sleeves are very characteristic of this variety. the nearby pink flower variety i couldn't identity.

there were also a few flowering trees by the entrance facing commonwealth avenue, they also looked like flowering plums because the flowers seemed kind of purply and the leaves were also purplish red, but they were definitely cherries. and down commonwealth avenue were a boulevard of sidewalk magnolias.

i went to chinatown cutting across boston common towards emerson college. i was here just last friday, getting some produce at the lincoln street c-mart. this time i went down lagrange street to the vietnamese sandwich shop on washington. i got a barbecue beef sandwich for $4.75, my dinner.

from there i went down essex to atlantic avenue, following the greenway until i arrived at the north end to haymarket. i didn't buy much, a lot more oranges were on sale but i didn't see any of the blood oranges i got last week. i did buy 4 bags of gold nugget mandarin oranges again ($2/bag). i also bought 2 dragon fruits ($1/each) and a bundle of asparagus ($1).

from new chardon i arrived at cambridge street. instead of crossing the longfellow bridge, i made a detour across the new pedestrian overpass onto the esplanade and the charles river bike path. there was plenty of cherries in bloom, though none were kwanzan, which i now realize bloom the latest of the flowering cherries. many of the white blooms along the charles river lagoon i believe are probably yoshino cherries. i saw a few pinks, which i'm guessing could be autumnalis. i even saw a few flowering plums near the hatch shell, though these seems to be recently planted. as i made my way to cambridge along the bike path, i'd stop frequently to take photos of some cherries i didn't recognize. it was windy though and my bike toppled half a dozen times. i gave advice to a latina girl taking selfies, told her to stand in such a way that she could get both cherries and the hancock tower in her photo; i don't think she understood english.

at the tot lot near the mass ave bridge there was a grove of okame cherries. they bloomed early so now they're getting close to post-peak bloom, though their stems are reddish so even after the petals fall they still remain colorful until the leaves come out. though none of the trees i saw had tags, here was the first one that did. unfortunately the label was pretty much useless, "japanese flowering cherry, prunus serrulata" with no variety name. the esplanade association really need to up their tree game and tag their plants with useful labels.

beyond the mass ave bridge, across from boston university, were even more flowering cherries. here students were out enjoying the overcast but warm day, taking selfies underneath the cherries. here i saw my first kwanzans, spectacular pink canopies of blossoms. i also saw cherries i hadn't seen before, like a deep pink okamesque tree (long slender petals) and smaller white cherry flowers with either pale yellow or deep pink centers. some of these trees weren't in good shape, pruned haphazardly, but even those still flower in the spring.

i purposely crossed storrow drive via a pedestrian overpass. i biked through BU's campus, then crossed the BU bridge so i could be on the memorial drive side of the river, across from microcenter, on magazine beach, where a week ago i already saw some flowering kwanzans. there were more flowers, but they were at peak yet, as there were plenty of buds yet to blossom. i tried taking some photos but it was very windy and the kept on swaying in the wind.

i finally made it home after 4pm. as rain was in the forecast for tomorrow, i stashed my bike in the basement. when evening came i had my barbecued beef vietnamese sandwich. though good, the bread cut the roof of my mouth. next time i'm going to try the barbecued pork, which seems to be their specialty.

there's a 9 day supply gap between my valsartan and my thiazide/amlodipine prescriptions. since my health insurance won't pay for a 90-day supply (only 30-days), i need to visit the pharmacy a dozen times a year to pick up my high blood pressure medications. with the introduction of valsartan, i need to visit an additional 12 times. i am not going to rite aid twice a month just to pick up my drugs. so i'm going to bridge the gap by not taking my thiazide/amlodipine for 9 days, until i can renew and pick up all 3 prescriptions at the same time.

fortunately i have a surplus of thiazide, so the only medication i will go without is the amlodipine. i won't even have to go the full 9 days, i can renew in about a week. of course if my doctor knew what i was doing he'd go crazy. i will monitor my blood pressure next week, if it seems excessively elevated, i will go get my prescriptions immediately. but i'm hoping a week without amlodipine won't affect my BP too much. if anything, if my BP doesn't change, i may be able to ask my doctor if i can stop taking amlodipine all together. that was a drug i added back in china when i took my blood pressure reading and found it abnormally high.