my parents went on a chinatown-market basket supply run this morning. the only thing i had to do was get up and make it to belmont. i didn't leave until 11:40am, making a brief stop at the cafe to help my parents unload their purchases, before continuing to their house. my mother made rice noodles for lunch. i helped them with some bills, from updating a credit card for the auto insurance to setting up a bank account payment for a health plan. later i also made some new formulas for the cafe accounting spreadsheet, categorizing the various credit card purchases for the accountant to see.

all day long we kept hearing sounds of demolition from a neighboring house across the street. a crew of contractor tore down the chimney, removed the old insulation, and put up new tyvek panels. all the refuse went into a big dumpster parked in the driveway. the owner also purchased another house across the street, which is currently being used as a parking lot for a fleet of jeeps.

in the afternoon my sister showed up again. she'd been pestering my mother for months to deliver her electronic keyboard which had been in storage in the basement. the thing in its case weighs so much it takes at least two people to carry it, and nobody wanted to help her move it. another reason is she has no space in her house for the keyboard, but wanted it because the tenants upstairs got an electronic keyboard recently, so maybe she wanted to show off.

anyway, it was causing a lot of tension, until my sister said if we wouldn't help her move it, she'd simply hire people to do it for her. which is what she did. not sure how much it cost, but if'll finally shut her up, it's probably worth it. the movers came today (a day early), and besides the keyboard, they also helped us take out the old washer. for some reason my father wanted to install it in the cafe basement (just a washer, no dryer), so the washer had just been sitting in the basement, taking up space. finally he decided it wasn't a good idea after all, and asked the movers to leave it out on the curb, where it could be picked up for disposal ($25/appliance removal fee for the town of belmont).

later in the afternoon my mother and i walked down to sophia's greek pantry, after my aunt gave it a glowing recommendation. that place has been there for as long as we'd lived in belmont, but it's been nearly 40 years and we'd never set foot inside. it's one of those places that looks a lot smaller on the outside until you set foot inside and discover how big it really is. for a monday afternoon, they were pretty busy, a lot of people coming in to buy fresh greek foods, whether its pastries, yogurt, or savory treats. neither my mother and i are well versed in greek foods, so we picked a few safe foods, like canned aegean anchovies and olives.

we returned home to try out some greek foods. along the way, we spotted a neighbor with a big orange temu bag on their doorstep. we got some taramasalata ($5.99), which is greek fish roe dip, along with some fresh pita bread. it was pretty good, i had to stop myself from eating the entire container. it sort of reminded me of salmon cream cheese, but made from actual fish roe.

around 4pm we grilled another bag of raw frozen buffalo wings (which my parents bought from market basket this morning). these were bigger pieces from yesterday, so we didn't cook them as crispy. by now we have our technique down. i want to up our wings game by making some crispy double-fried korean wings next time.

i went down to the basement in the early evening to apply some systemic insecticide on the jasmines that i found some mealybug infestation last weekend. for some reason i thought it'd last for 4 months, but i discovered it's only good for 8 weeks. while inspecting the plants, i noticed what appeared to be spider mite damage on the gardenia leaves. i brought it outside so i could spray it down with neem oil. only when i brought it back inside did i realize the extent of the infestation, as there were mite webs on every branch. luckily the mites only seem to be affecting the gardenia. i'm going to come back midweek to apply another treatment of neem oil, followed by some pyrethrin, which i'll be using for the very first time.

because we had the wings so late, we weren't very hungry by dinner time. it was just a mish mash of asparagus, salmon, and some curry that nobody touched. i returned home afterwards, getting back by 8pm. my upstairs neighbor weren't supposed to be back until tomorrow night, but i heard noises upstairs, so they must've come back early.