my mother wanted me to get a few things: napa cabbage, black sesame seeds, enokitoki mushrooms. i got a few packages of my usual sea salt sunflower seeds, some candied tamarinds, some dried ginger. napa cabbage was down to 50¢/lbs. so i got two big head of cabbage myself to made korean kimchi. i also grabbed a daikon radish and a carrot. the cashier told me i could save more if i bought another bag of sunflower seeds so i took her advice. before i left, i also bought some more face masks (non-surgical disposable 3-layer), 3 boxes for just $10.
i made my way home by 2pm, from the charles river bike path, across the mass ave bridge, through MIT, then inman square. instead of going home, i kept going to the cafe so i could drop off the supplies, got there by 2:45pm. both my sister and my 2nd aunt were there. i got a piece of ginger (for the kimchi). i finally returned home by 3:15pm.
as soon as i got back i was out the door, this time to my community garden to water my plants and to collect some garlic chives. they sold them at ming's market, but at $3.99/lbs. i thought they were too expensive. i had garlic chives in my garlic, but they're late season plants, so more stems than chives. i cut a few bunches to sort out back at home. i saw a girl taking photos of flowers with her phone and gave her a quick tour of my own plot. i was particularly proud of my poisonous monkshood which were finally blooming.
i got back home by 4pm. i soaked the garlic chives in a big bowl of water and started sorting them out. it took half an hour but i finally managed to separate out the tender chive leaves from the tough stems. i rinsed the garlic chives a few times to get rid of any residual dirt before letting them soak for a few hours before putting them in the fridge. now i have to see how many jars i have available and what recipe to use. chopped up kimchi or whole leaf kimchi? i also forgot to get an asian pear, but they sell those at market basket so i'll grab one tomorrow.
up until that i point i purposely stayed away from the news. there's been so much breaking news recently, i wanted to take a break. when i finally checked the news by 5pm, here's what i saw: trump halts stimulus talks, 600 points swing in the dow jones, and the death of eddie van halen. van halen is known as one of the greatest guitarist of all times, but not being a guitar guy myself, his supposed genius escaped me. so i did what anybody might do: go online and do a deep dive on the life of eddie van halen. i learned that van halen revolutionized tapping as a viable guitar playing technique. i discovered he's actually of biracial dutch-indonesian ethnicity, and immigrated to the US when he was 7 so still speaks dutch. even though i didn't understand van halen and follow the band's career, i knew their music. 2020 has been such a dumpster fire, i'm almost desensitized now when i hear bad news.
from the late afternoon into the early evening, i had a mini shopping spree. my father told me earlier that the bearing on the vitamix blender blade finally gave out. when we were using it yesterday we already heard an abnormal grinding sound. he said the friction from the bad bearings had melted the plastic shield. so i ordered a set of new bearings online (8x22x7 double shielded ABEC-9 pack of 8 $5.99). normally you'd just replace the blade assembly, but we learned that the assembly can be fixed by simply replacing the 2 bearings inside, which are standard 806 skateboard bearings. i also ordered a knockoff vitamix container off of ebay, which included a lid and its own set of blades for just $36. finally, i decided what replacement battery to get for my macbook pro, a ninjabatt brand A1494 replacement for $45. there was only 1 review, but i liked their ads, which weren't just recycled images like all the other knockoff batteries. it's due to arrive on thursday. once i've successfully replaced my macbook pro battery, i'm going to do the same for michael; his is a little more delicate, with the bulging battery.
i had a simple dinner of a bag of frozen tortellini heated over the stove along with half a jar of pasta sauce, sprinkled with some parmesan cheese and fresh ground pepper. i timed it so it'd coincide with the lakers-heats game. los angeles ended up winning, now the series is 3-1, the lakers need just one more game to win. the next game is friday night 9pm. my question is this: should the lakers win, will los angeles hold a victory parade during a pandemic?