next stop was the chelsea market basket. no surprise that it'd be crowd on a sunday. once again, a lot of people didn't have masks, but a lot more did have them compared to restaurant depot. most of the cashiers and baggers wore masks. we've been to the chelsea store enough times that we have a basic idea of the layout, but we still had to do some searching for some of the things we wanted.
we left by 1:30pm, taking the parkway to the cafe to drop off the supplies. we got there by 2pm. we put the takeout boxes and drink cups in the basement and my father cut up some pork and marinated them in charsiu sauce. we finally left around 2:30pm.
arriving in belmont, we saw my sister walking hailey around the block, before they left. we had some fried chicken tender for a late lunch, coated with sweet chili sauce and garlic parmesan sauce. my father also toasted some garlic bread.
i brought my organic choice miracle-gro potting soil from home, so we can repot our fudingzhu osmanthus for the third time. it's nearly defoliated at this point, though the plant is still alive, based on the new leaf sprouts emerging from the stems. the problem is most definitely a drainage issue, as the pot is often heavy after a watering, unlike the other osmanthus, where the water drains almost immediately. here's hoping the lighter potting soil mixture will allow the osmanthus roots to grow.
we also repotted some baby bokchoi seedlings into a long planter, and put all the seedlings underneath the cracked mini greenhouse cloche. i brought out the mealybug infested jasmine and sprayed it with neem oil. my father used his stair-climbing hand truck to bring the pot back down into the basement.
around 5pm i prepared the chuck pot roast my father bought: doused them with oil them covered them with fresh ground pepper and salt. that's also when the sunny weather we've had all day turned cloudy and it started to rain a bit. around 5:30pm we went out with our roast and grilled them on the barbecue. though they looked mostly beef in the package, they were in fact hiding bits of bones. there's a reason people don't barbecue beef roast, because they're too thick to cook correctly. we went about 10 minutes on each sides, and although they looked cooked, a few pieces had some raw bits in the interior.
also for some reason there seems to be a non-stop convoy of airplanes in the sky. when did belmont become the preferred take-off route for all logan airport traffic?
besides the roast steaks, my father also cooked up some whole grain thin spaghetti with some tomato sauce and meatballs. he also prepared some taro which i didn't have, already too full from everything else i ate. afterwards i got a ride back to cambridge.
my upstairs neighbors have started oiling their upstairs deck. i know this because they put tarps all over my deck to catch any drips.