i went to go water my community garden plot this morning. i don't want to brag, but despite the mess that is my plot, i want to say it's one of the best in the community garden. it's dense with vegetation and quite the variety of blooming flowers: garlic chives, hyacinth beans, nasturtiums, cypress vines, striped mallows, (yellow) bitter melon blossoms, and even some volunteer asters. photos don't do it just, i need to capture it with my 3D camera. that isn't all the flowers! goldenrods and monkshoods have yet to bloom.

ever since school started, cafe business has been slow for some strange reason. it doesn't make any sense, you figured with the influx of students, there'd be more people coming to eat at the cafe. nevertheless, we made 3x the amount of business compared to last saturday during the labor day long weekend.

i learned something very useful today: how to open a sewn bag. large sacks of rice always seem to come in sewn bags. there seems to be a trick to opening it up without cutting the bag, but we always end up cutting the bag, unable to figure out how to undo the stitching. but today i looked up a video. i couldn't quite follow what the person was doing, but the trick seems to be pulling the threads from one end of the bag. i did that, and sure enough, i managed to undo the stitches, earning myself a free rice sack.

i also learned that chilling hot tea in a cold water bath doesn't work as well when the tea is in a plastic pitcher. the plastic acts as a mild insulation. when i chill freshly-made tea eggs (so they can be refrigerated), the eggs are in a tall metal pot, so the heat transfer is much better. next time i'll chill the hot tea first before transferring them into pitchers.

today was also my 2nd aunt's birthday. i didn't wish her a happy birthday because she actually has two birthdays and i only believe the one that's in december. the birthday she was celebrating today falls on the chinese mid-autumn festival on the lunar calendar, which is a day she picked herself.

after we closed the cafe, i left for my parents' place. first thing i did was to go down to the basement and check on my hydroponic mustards. they're growing, but i don't like the colors, pale green, with yellow and pale edges and veins. looks like fertilizer burn. i wonder how well the mustards would grow outdoors, so i'm going to plant some outside so i can compare the difference.

my father was pan-frying some salted mackerels out on the grill burner. my parents also stir fried some chicken with thai basil.

back at home, i started rewatching the fargo series. i'd forgotten just how good the first season was. allison tolman, billy bob thornton, colin hanks, martin freeman, bob odenkirk, keith carradine. actually, all the seasons are really good, with the exception of the 4th season, which was the weakest, but still wasn't bad.

around 1:35am fedex sent me an e-mail with a delivery update: the new scheduled delivery date will be tomorrow (sunday). this after nothing from them all day, just a "pending" for the status. the problem with a sunday delivery is the cafe is not open on sundays. so i came up with a plan. i rode the motorcycle to the cafe to write some notes to tape to the door, requesting the fedex delivery person to call my sister, who would then come and receive the delivery. riding that late at night, there was hardly any traffic. not sure if it'll work, but still worth a shot.