i woke up this morning just to watch jeff bezos and his team go up into space on a penis-shaped rocket. a small part of me wanted to see the mission fail (like explode), just so it'd be this great story about the hubris of the richest man in the world. alas that was not the case. the whole trip seemed very fast, and they didn't show any footage inside the spacecraft until well after they landed (in case there was an emergency). apparently they were in space long enough to unstrapped their seatbelts and float around a bit. i watched as an 18-year old boy rotate himself in zero gravity to show jeff bezos his taint while the richest man in the world fed him skittles, like some kind of really specific fetish.

in the early afternoon i biked down to the community garden to inspect my plot. a few of my tomatoes had ripened, but they all had critter damage, and i ended up throwing them away. not rabbits, i think it was more rats. my nigellas putting on a shower even though i just have a few plants. the cypress vine has a single red flower. i need to come back at some point with the pruners and cut back some of the rampant garden growth.

afterwards i bumped into my upstairs neighbor david walking by the garden and we chatted briefly. he told me his brother got married back in late june and went to the wedding party which was at least 100 people in the north shore.

from there i continued on my way to market basket for some groceries. for the most part i already have the ingredients for making dinners the rest of the week (korean rice cakes, crispy orange chicken, and ramen), i was just there to stock on some supplies, like pork ribs (for making my bone broth congee), and i also bought a package of parsnips.

when i returned home i tried some parsnips since i read you can eat it raw. they look like white carrots and they taste a lot like carrots as well, though slightly softer but with a tougher center. the taste though, like a perfumy carrot or celery or even licorice, a flavor that just lingers in the mouth and ends with a slightly bitter and sweet aftertaste. the preferred way to cook them is roasting, i'll do this week on a night that isn't too hot.

i went out again briefly to whole foods to pick up a package of fried tofu wedges.

my sister returned binbin's leased car today even though she said she'd do it tomorrow. she used her AAA membership to tow it to danvers, back to the dealership. i called my sister to make sure there were no penalties, she said the dealership were fine with getting the car back a few weeks early.

despite it being warm and humid, today wasn't all that bad. there was a distinct haze in the air that obscured the sun on what would've otherwise been a high solar production day. later when i watched the news i learned the haze isn't because of the humidity, but rather it's all that wildfire smoke from the west coast.

when evening came around i made a bowl of smashed cucumbers. after smashing and chopping up the baby cucumbers into smaller pieces, i sugared and salted them and put them in a colander in the fridge to let them drain. 30 minutes later i took them out again and mixed them with a sauce: rice vinegar, soy sauce, minced garlic, sesame oil, korean pepper flakes. i then put them back in the fridge to chill some more. i actually used mirin because i didn't have rice vinegar.

while the cucumbers were chilling, i started on the rice cake recipe. i ate the rice cakes while watching game 6 between the suns-bucks. only after i finished the rice cakes (always good) did i remember i had smashed cucumbers in the fridge. because i used mirin, the cucumbers were a little too sweet, didn't have that tang that vinegar would've provided. i'll need to get some from market basket before i prepare the remaining baby cucumbers.

game 6 was close throughout, but you could just feel that the bucks were in the driver's seat, and it was their game to lose. milwaukee ended up winning tonight, making the bucks the new NBA champions. after the game giannis looked like he was frantically searching for someone (his brother maybe?) and was even seen talking on the phone angrily. but i'm happy the bucks won, though i would've been fine with a phoenix championship as well, just to see chris paul finally win the trophy.