i went down in my community garden in the late morning planting 2 thai basil seedlings. will they make it? hard to say. if there were no pests in my plot i'd say they'd have a good chance, but i've come to realize that my garden is crawling with all sorts of critters that would love to feed on some young tender seedlings. like the two baby bokchoi lynn gave me yesterday? there are already holes in the leaves, despite me spraying them with diatomaceous earth (DE). i didn't water my plot because i didn't want to get the DE wet; besides, it's going to be rainy for much of the weekend, so watering my plants will not be an issue for the next few days.
i returned home by noontime to catch the news. i noticed there were a bunch of helicopters flying overhead while i was in the garden; turns out there was a report of a gunman hiding in carmichael hall at tufts university. later it was reported to be a false report. the news was also preempted by governor's baker announcement to rescind covid restrictions for massachusetts beginning tomorrow. it was a signing ceremony so after his speech, he sat down and signed the executive order.
i headed out to boston around 1:30pm. it was too cold for shorts, so i changed into some jeans and a jacket. i was collecting kimchi-making ingredients. i decided to empty out my paocai jar and refill it with fresh vegetables. my mother has also asked me to make "green cabbage" kimchi, the same one i made with regular cabbage (st.patrick's day sale) back in late march. people really love it because it's crunchy and not very spicy, but i don't like it because the flavor isn't as strong as traditional kimchi made with napa cabbage. first stop was c-mart, before visiting ming's market at the other end of the street.
around 2:30pm i headed towards downtown crossing to visit haymarket. seems like there's a big sale on gold nugget oranges as several vendors were selling them, not just one like last week. my usual italian citrus dealer surprisingly didn't have any. not only gold nuggets but cutie mandarins as well, $1 a bag for both types.
i left boston by 3pm. i stopped briefly at the foot of the longfellow bridge to check out lynn's favorite tree. it looks to be an elm but i'm not 100% sure even after examining the leaves, which seem smaller than the typical elm. i also saw some elm seedpods in the grass, but the rain and mowing had gotten rid of much of them, and i couldn't be sure they were just blown there. i didn't see any seed pods on the branches though.
i got back home by 3:30pm. after putting away everything in the fridge, i went out again, this time to whole foods, to get a package of tofu wedges. i left my keys back at the house, which also included my bike lock key, so i couldn't lock my bike and just simply left it on the rack with the lock draped across the handlebars.
back at home again, i took a shower to rinse off the sweat. my mother called me at 5pm and told me to come to the cafe to help my father move all the furniture back into the former florist shop now that the floors have been sanded and polished. it was also imperative we get this done before the long weekend of rain heading our way.
it was a lot easier moving in the furniture than taking them out for some reason. we put them in the middle of the room so they can still paint the walls.
i returned home by 6pm, could swear i felt a few raindrops.
i filmed a food reaction video for maureen as i tried buldak ramen for the very first time. it's not a broth-based ramen but rather a dry-noodle ramen. i poached an egg and chopped some scallions to class it up a bit. the noodle was spicy but also a bit sweet, very strong flavors. actually, it was too spicy, i wasn't prepared for just how hot it was. the black version of this noodle is the default, the red version is twice as hot. they also sell the sauce on its own. it wasn't bad, but not sure i'd eat it very often just because how hot it is. after recording the footage, i pieced it together in filmora X, my goto video editor. nothing fancy, trimmed the videos, added some transitions, some sound effects. i used the 18-55mm STM stabilized kit lens that came with the canon 80D. i normally never use that lens, but STM has silent focusing.
when evening came across, it finally began to rain. i knew this because i could hear it beating on the tops of the trash cans like drums and the incessant tapping on my windowpanes. this is not a little rain shower, it's a serious long-term soaker. the plants will be happy though, but it means no yard work this weekend. not that we have too much anyway, we planted most of our seedlings already, now it's mostly maintenance.
game 3 of the nets-celtics playoff series started at 8:30pm. during halftime i reheated the leftover curry noodles and chinese dumplings my mother gave me while i was at the cafe earlier. boston won on the back of jayson tatum who scored 50 points. it was a battle, and the celtics basically had to play a near perfect game with accurate shooting, low turnovers, and stifling defense in order to beat the nets. kevin durant had 39 points, james harden 41 points, and kyrie irving 16. normally when their all-stars put up points like that, we'd lose, but we held on, even though it got close in the end. kemba walker only had 6 points, but did all the little things besides scoring that helped the team to win. marcus smart was the 2nd leading scoring celtics with 23 points. tristan thompson had 19, evan fournier had 17. we didn't even have robert williams, who played in the 1st quarter before spraining his ankle. game 4 will be on sunday, and it's going to be crazy, the first full capacity celtics game at the garden since the pandemic started. expect the stadium to get loud.
the longest lotus seed has a 6" stalk. the 3rd seed sprouted, but i think something happened and the stalk broke. the part that's stick out is just the nub, the top half of the stalk is still inside the seed. whether it'll continue to grow or not i don't know. so out of 5 lotus seeds, i've got 2 viable seedlings. i'm find with that, i would've been happy with just one seedling.