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SEP

03

2021

while fixing my glasses this morning i accidentally snapped the left end piece. it was totally stupid, i should've known better, i was trying to tighten a screw and applying too much pressure. it wasn't completely broken off, so i squeezed some super glue gel into the crack. a while later it broke again, this time i squeezed glue into the screw hole and screwed it back into place. it'll be a matter of time before it breaks again. these were old frames anyway, close to a decade old, but the lenses are new as of last november. i wonder if i can move the lenses onto a new pair of frames? the other thing i can do is completely break off the left arm and glue it back using special plastic epoxy glue.

i was waiting for a good time to call my mother and ask if she needed anything from the supermarkets (like if we were throwing a barbecue) but the cafe kept being busy and people kept showing up so i never got a chance. friday is when i traditionally go into boston, but there was nothing i really needed, either chinatown or haymarket, as i still have plenty of fruit in the house. so after one last cream cheese bagel for lunch, i decided to visit the community garden, with the hopes that afterwards my mother would be free and i could ask if she needed me to do a super market supply run.

anne was standing in front of the garden and i was chatting with her until she told me she was actually on the phone with her doctor. after picking off all the ripe cherry tomatoes i watered my garden. afterwards anne came back to chat.

while explaining to her the life cycle of the bitter melon, i looked on my vines and saw something that looked like either a brown leaf or twig. it took me a few seconds to register what it actually was, a brown mantis. it was big, about 3-4" long. i'd heard there were mantises in the garden but this is my first time seeing one, and in my plot no less. anne was saying there might be more, and sure enough, when i looked on my hyacinth bean vines, there was another mantis. these were chinese mantises, the one on the bitter melons seems to be female, while the one on the hyacinth beans is a male. too bad i didn't have my dSLR camera, maybe i'll come back tomorrow with it and try to get some better quality photos.

anne showed me her plot at the back of the garden, she had several different types of herbs growing in pots. one of them was stevia, which i know about but never tried eating one of their leaves. when i did i was amazed, incredibly sweet, totally unexpected. anne also had a bunch of purple-green shiso growing but when i tried one of the leaves i didn't really taste anything. later she showed me the children's garden next to the elementary school. i saw green pumpkins which i've never seen before (all the pumpkins i've ever seen are already orange). they were also growing cucamelons.

i ended up staying in the garden for 1-1/2 hours. by the time i got back home it was already 3pm.

my mother was still busy so i decided to get a few things anyway, regardless if we have a barbecue or not this weekend. there was a sale on corn at star market for 17¢ per ear (a maximum of a dozen). i also picked up some black plums for 97¢/lbs. there was a new display of hanging houseplants for sale, many of which were already sold seeing how little plants were left. in the sky i could see and hear a helicopter. it seemed like it was hovering in east cambridge, so when i got home i looked it up. judging from it's flight path, it looks to be a state police helicopter in training.

now that we're in september, a host of new people have moved into the neigborhood. some i've already recognize, having seen them more than once.

lacking any food creativity in the evening, i opted for the simplest and quickest solution, which was to have a bowl of instant tonkotsu ramen for dinner. afterwards i had a leftover pluot from trader joe's followed by some cantaloupes. i watched the indians-red sox game, boston won 8-5. i followed that up with the rangers-angels game, ohtani was pitching, los angeles won 3-2.