doctor huang's wife wasn't in the office today, but another dentist woman was there, who might be sharing an office with them. doctor huang seemed interested in the fact that i biked here. they live nearby, and he's noticed more and more biking infrastructure over the years. he has younger patients who also bike, as well as scootering.
the refilling procedure took just a few minutes. doctor huang thinks the reason the last filling fell out was because he didn't dry the fill hole well enough. he said this new filling should hold, and i could eat with it right away.
i was done by 10am. i'd researched it yesterday, but there seems to be an easy route to chinatown via brighton avenue then commonwealth ave. so i took a scenic ride through mostly dedicated bike lanes. the route was 4 miles and took 29 minutes. i got a chance to admire the new BU building that looks like a zigzagging stack of books, first as a shape on the horizon, before passing by it. the route brought me through kenmore square, and i saw some boston marathon signage. the route wasn't difficult, with the occasional delivery truck or car double-parked in the bike lane. once i reached commonwealth mall, the bike lane abruptly shifts to the left side of the road. once i reached arlington street, it was my old familiar route i used to take to get to chinatown.
i went to c-mart first, to pick up some watermelon seeds, some 5-spice tofu squares, and some oranges. they had the sweet oranges i've bought a bunch of times before (6 for $2), as well as israeli orri oranges ($3/lbs, i got 3 just to try). i made a mental note of some vegetable prices, so i could do a bit of comparison shopping. i then went to ming's market to pick up the bulk of my produce purchases, including vegetables i needed for my cabbage kimchi recipe (daikon, carrot, garlic chives). i got some mustard green for my mother, as well as cilantro. for some reason their prices on shanghai bokchoi was higher ($2.49/lbs), so after paying for the rest of my purchases, i went back to c-mart to buy bokchoi from there ($1.79/lbs).
i left the chinatown area a bit after 11am and headed towards haymarket. here and there i spotted people dressed in green, because of st.patrick's day. if you didn't know, st.patrick's day is a holiday in boston, some made reason honoring revolutionary war history, when it fact it's just an excuse for people to get drunk. and yes, i did see groups of young people shambling through the city, start their day drinking early.
when i got to haymarket, the irish bars there were blaring old irish songs from speakers in an attempt to attract customers, whom probably needed no coaxing to drink. i went to boston public market first to pick up some spices for my sister. somehow in the process of carrying all my chinatown purchases, i managed to drop a canvas shopping bag, which promptly disappeared when i went back searching for it.
at haymarket itself, i didn't see anything special. i picked up a pound of ginger ($1), a sleeve of garlic ($2), and a bag of old scallions ($2, i'm guessing a dozen bunches). i was already carrying a lot of items from chinatown, and without my 2nd grocery bag, it was hard to carry any more items. but honestly, there wasn't too much else to be had, maybe if i had more space i would've picked up some berries on sale.
i was nearly noon by the time i left haymarket. i had an eye on the clock because i wasn't sure if my sister would be helping out at the cafe today, so i wanted to be there if it got busy around lunchtime. it took me 20 minutes to ride home, drop off some stuff, take some stuff (corned beef), then ride to the cafe.
while leaving the house, i saw my neighbor jennifer pulling up to the curb. i waved to her casually without looking, but then i heard this awful crunching sound as she sideswiped a parked car. did i accidentally distract her with my waving? i quickly left so she could deal with the fender bender on her own.
i got to the cafe by 12:30pm. i asked my mother if me sister was helping today. she was reluctant to answer, then revealed my sister went on a rampage earlier, throwing all the cooked noodles onto the floor, tried to attack my father with a stapler, before storming off. i didn't have time to get more details, as it was busy and i fulfilling orders.
i gave my father the milwaukee fastback 6-in-1 utility knife. not sure if he'll be using it on a regular basis, but he did try it out by cutting some cardboard boxes into delivery bag inserts. he said it was easier to use compared to his usual cardboard cutting tool which is a serrate bread knife. my mother tried one of the orri oranges (technically a tangerine): she said it was okay but wasn't too sweet, but when my 2nd aunt (who showed up while i was there) and i both tried it, it was both juicy and sweet.
i ended up cooking a new batch of tea eggs, as we only had single digits left in the crockpot. i just made 30 on wednesday and already we're nearly sold out from that batch. i didn't leave until 3:30pm. back at the house, i saw the car my neighbor hit; all the paint on the driver side front bumper had been scratched off. on jennifer's white care, there was hardly any damage. i wonder if she notified the neighbor about the damage. i probably captured the whole thing on video anyway since it was right outside my house.
it was nearly 4pm before i finally had lunch, the ham & cheese sub i bought from market basket yesterday but wasn't able to eat. i only ate half, saving the rest for dinner. i also made another batch of homemade tzatziki, to bring to my parents tomorrow.
i had a chance to try out the multiview function on youtube tv from my mi box. it didn't work on the computer nor my android phone however. it's the least they could do, after notify customers yesterday that they're once again increasing the price, from $65/month to $72/month.
after a shower, i ate the other half of my ham & cheese sub. i watched some fringe which is on the HLN channel for some reason. isn't this CNN's headline news channel? but now it's all investigative journalism and crime series. 
at 10pm there was a celtics-blazers game. celtics won, but like all their recent games, the final few minutes was a little tense, as the blazers mounted a comeback behind damian lillard's light out shooting. he had 41 points, which seemed to all happen in the 2nd half, when he couldn't miss a shot. i heard there's only something like 19 games left in the regular season. celtics are still 1.5 games behind the first place bucks, with the resurging 76ers (with a 7 game winning streak) just a game back behind boston.