i went to market basket this morning to get a few supplies (linguine noodles, baby spinach, charsiu powder) before arriving at the cafe. i saw a customer with a recreational motorized scooter (not one of those for the mobility impaired) riding his vehicle inside the store, which is a collision accident waiting to happen inside of the cramped aisles.

there's still no definite day on when the new marble countertop will be delivered and installed, but my sister thinks maybe saturday, in which case the plumber has to be here as well (on the more expensive weekend plumbing rate). my father had brought our ground cherry seedlings and set them outside so customers can take them. he also bought along some pileas which are too valuable to be given away for free so i brought them inside before making some signs for our free seedlings.

the most dramatic thing that happened today involved a pair of chinese customers who were eating outside on the parking lot deck. after they finished, they took with them a whole tray of ground cherry seedlings, about 18 plants. luckily my sister caught this and came inside to let me know, in which case i went out into the parking lot to confirm what happened. the plant stealing couple happened to be leaving in their car and i managed to intercept them. "did you take some plants?" i asked. "you were supposed to take one or two, not the whole thing," i told them. they sheepishly said they were confused by the sign, but even then, that seemed like a rather selfish thing to do. afterwards my mother said we'll probably never see them again, too embarrassed to be repeat customers.

not that we need the business: yesterday was super busy, and today was busier still, even though it didn't quite feel like it. orders came in spurts, followed by lengthy periods of nothingness while we prepared for the next onslaught by prepping the ingredients.

speaking of plant theft, i recorded someone on the webcam monday night going through our potted patio plants and stealing flowers for a bouquet. it was a little old lady with white hair, she was armed with scissors and knew what she was doing was wrong because she looked around to make sure the coast was clear before stealing the flowers. she took some jasmines and a foxglove. anyway, my mother told me today she actually saw her walking the street this morning, catching the bus. my sister wanted to confront her, but i saw not to bother, until she does it again.

in the early afternoon i raced to my parents' house via motorcycle to gather some waterproof plant trays, so we could have a set of ground cherries for outside, and another one inside (on top of the waterproof trays). my thinking is that it's easier to get rid of the seedlings indoors, less risk of some greedy passerby taking the whole things. never underestimate the power of free. last year we gave away free cherry tomatoes, this year we have free ground cherries. it took me a total of 20 minutes round trip, would've been even faster i didn't spend some time bringing in the empty trash cans and picking up the doorstep package (jug of tonkatsu sauce).

for lunch i ate some leftover rice mixed with some leftover minced pork. i was busy with other things (boiling tea eggs, washing the dishes, cutting the pickled daikon radishes) that by the time i finally ate, it was already cold. also later in the afternoon my mother made a bowl of chinese meatball soup. the meatballs are okay, but it's the soup i really like, which is just water, fried shallots, salt, and some chopped chinese celery.

i watched my parents mix drinks without having a front cafe sink in the soon-to-be-replaced countertop. it's slightly inconvenient but it's doable. make one better appreciate the simplicity of having a sink.

the internet went down around 3pm for something like 10 minutes. when that happens, nobody can call the cafe (as the phone is an internet phone), the cash register doesn't work (though i think there's an offline mode), and no online orders can come in. fortunately it was during a lull in the business, and the internet came back online while i was desperately trying to call comcast xfinity to get it fixed. it doesn't happen a lot, but when it does, it can be a real headache.

i helped my sister toss out a few more things from the basement - including some dirty rugs and a heavy metal pillar that looks like a CD rack - one this very last day we have the dumpster. i heard it costs just $200/week $500/week to rent a dumpster. where does all this junk go? i'd like to understand this dumpster economy. how do people make money from supplying dumpsters?

i almost forgot: last night around 3am i got an e-mail alert from camelcamelcamel letting me know that the price of the levoit cordless vacuum had dropped from $200 to now $180. i got out of bed and onto my computer to 1) cancel the first order, and 2) reorder the vacuum with the new lower price. i wasn't sure if i'd be able to cancel the first order but a few minutes later amazon sent me e-mail that it was cancelled successfully. now instead of the vacuum arriving thursday, it won't get here until friday.

on this 2nd day of amazon prime day, my mother got a renpho R3 massage gun for $70, after my father mentioned seeing one at the acupuncturist office. like the cordless vacuums, there were a hundred different brands and models, hard to figure out which one is the best, you almost have to become a massage gun expert. they basically fall into 3 groups: the $35 range, which is a small gun, the medium $70-90 range, which is a more substantial massager, and finally the hundreds of dollars model, for those who want to splurge, and those usually have weird shapes that look less like guns and more like pretzels. my mother also got two plush bathroom rugs ($13 each) and some drain strainers for the one cafe kitchen sink.

when i returned home (around 6pm), i bought two pairs of running shorts, and ended the evening reordering some more eufy 2k webcams: 2 stationary cameras ($60) and 1 pan & tilt camera ($40, a first).

i walked to the community garden shortly after getting back, to water my plants and to apply some plant-tone fertilizer into the soil. my yellowing from the bottom tomatoes are definitely suffering from blight, as one of the ripe red tomatoes has started to rot from the bottom as well.

for dinner i heated up the 3 leftover slices of pizza from last night, washed it down with some cold chai milk. did i watch the red sox game? yes. did i turn it off after tampa bay scored a bunch of runs? yes. there are much better things to watch than seeing a high salary baseball team flounder in mediocrity.