this morning i went down to the community garden to water my plants. it's been more than 2 weeks since my last visit. i also got a change to pick all the ripened tomatoes. when i returned home i also watered my own front and backyard, before leaving for belmont. along the way i saw a census worker walking his beat. up until this point i'd never seen another census worker with the exception of yesterday, but that was a group meeting. i'd just never seen an enumerator out in the field before until today. i waved to him from my motorcycle as i passed by, which must've confused him.

i brought the gochujang to make korean tteokbokki. my mother suggested we have that for lunch, since she already had a lot of dishes prepared for dinner. i first made the umami broth using 1/2 tsp of hondashi powder and a few sprinkles of dried seaweed that i washed first to get rid of the sand. after 15 minutes, i removed the seaweed and added the remaining ingredients: hot sauce, frozen rice cake, tofu wedges, scallions. i was going to cook them until the sauce reduced but my parents said it was already ready to eat and my mother tastes one of the rice cakes and said it was good to go. i added way to much gochujang, so it was pretty spicy. the recipe called for 1/3 cup, which is about 5 tbsp, but i probably scooped 7-8 tbsp easily. it was pretty good, easy to make. my father had a small bowl because he can't eat spicy like my mother and i can.

it was another hot day, too hot for gardening, so i stayed indoors for most of the day. i really ought to be retroactively updating old blog posts, but i seem to never be able to do that when i'm at my parents' house. i received another census message today, clarifying that the enumeration bonus is actually $800: $100 if you work 25+ hours and make your quota, and an additional $500 if you keep it up for 3 weeks continuous.

ever since my parents tried a zero gravity chair at the acupuncture office yesterday, they've been raving about it and wanted to buy one online. we found the make and model - lafuma futura zero gravity chair - which sells for $200-225 ($300 for the padded version). seems kind of expensive for a glorified lawn chair. amazon also sells off-brand zero gravity chairs for just $100 a pair. the spendthrift in me couldn't bare to pay $200 for something i can buy for $50. of course there are built quality and material considerations. i told my parents to sleep on it, but my mother was pushing me to buy one online today. i discovered that no company has a patent on zero gravity chairs, that the concept was originally created by NASA for their astronauts. so regardless if you went with lafuma (a french company) or an off-brand, they both work the same way. so i pushed for the cheaper option. we could always return it if we didn't like it (though i'd have to pay for the return shipping), but most likely we just use them as fancy outdoor chairs. i even told my mother i'd pay for it, which was an additional incentive to try the cheaper option.

returning home after dinner, i saw another census enumerator crossing huron avenue. twice in one day! i recognized her as one of the woman from yesterday's meeting in the park. i wanted to get her attention, but i forgot her name, and didn't want to scare her by honking from the motorcycle. it was almost 8pm on a sunday on a hot day, i commend her for her dedication to the job.

i finally started watching warrior nun on netflix. the main actress looks like a clone of ellen page. the tone is a little jumpy, from the serious life-or-death good-vs-evil war against hell to a young woman coming of age story after being brought back from the dead through the use of an angel's halo. at times it feels like a WB show. it transitioned from gossip girl to buffy the vampire slayer. it also feels like it has a little bit of everything, which is netflix's forte when it comes to series development: give the people what they want. after the first episode i wasn't so sure, by but the second episode i was intrigued enough to want to see how it all plays out.