i got to the cafe by 10:30am to start my work day. it's a lot easier working at the cafe when my parents are there, versus just my sister and my 2nd aunt. there's still stress, but it's mostly caused by my sister, and once you learn to ignore her, the makes the day go by a little quicker. i made a batch of tea eggs. i really ought to look into making my own tea egg spices. it'd save some money, and mixing my own might even taste better.
my sister offered her clients tonkatsu today, which was awfully ambitious, considering she'd never made it before, and it was up to my father to help her deep fry over a dozen pork cutlets. they were fried to perfection, exception my sister didn't marinate them so they tasted bland. nevertheless, a thick application of tonkatsu sauce made it palatable.
while cutting some crispy pork with the cleaver, my mother yelled and grabbed her finger. she said she cut through her fingertip, and was applying pressure to stop the bleeding. while my sister went home to get her coagulant powder, we quickly wrapped up my mother's finger with a bandage. weird thing was there was no blood, but my mother said that's because she applied pressure on the finger immediately. it hurt at first, and then the pain disappeared. hours later we removed the bandage to check the damage. there was no cut on the finger! other than a small scratch on a fingernail. it was all in her imagination. the fact that there was no blood for a finger cut should've been a giveaway.
right when we were about to close, my mother surprised me with this news: one of their tenants will be living at my place on monday for 2-3 days while their apartment gets insulation put inside the walls. to make matters worse, i also learned that i have a surprise housemate for the entire summer starting in less than 2 weeks.
after work i went with my parents back to belmont. i adjusted the sprinkler, because my father had tinkered with the setting so that it also watered the other half of the lawn. but the timer is set to water just the reseeded portion, and by watering elsewhere, it deprived the reseeded lawn from getting enough water to stay moist throughout the day.
after that we started covering up any tender backyard seedlings. temperature tonight will drop down into the 30's tonight, with frost advisory in western MA. in fact, the temperature was in the 50's all day, the lower 50's by the time we left the cafe. we covered squashes and bitter melons mostly, but i also covered up two blue beans, just because we only have a limited amount of those seedlings. we used plastic pots at first, before i used paper bags as well. we also moved in all the unplanted seedlings (tomatoes, peppers, eggplants), the lemon verbenas and the spanish lavender. the only plants left outside were the jasmines. i didn't water the garden because it'd would only lower the temperature.
my parents were eating instant noodles for dinner. they made none for me as i was leaving. i left by 7:22pm. instead of going home, i went directly to the community garden, to cover up my tender seedlings. ann was there doing the same, and judging by all the bags and pots and bedsheets strewn all about the garden, a lot of people had already done the same. i used quart-sized yogurt containers, and for the bigger plants i had plastic bags and a few paper bags. i held them all down with rocks so the winds don't take them. i'll come back tomorrow morning to remove the covers so the plants don't get cooked underneath.
back at home, originally i was going to make a bagel sandwich, but decided to throw a frozen brick of lasagna into the oven instead, a lot easier even though i had to wait an hour before eating.
the main event of the evening was the heat-celtics game. celtics were rocking in the first half, 66-57 going into the break. but in the 3rd quarter the wheels came off for boston, as miami outscored them 46-25. that deficit was just too big to surmount despite the celtics winning the 4th quarter as well. the final score was 123-116, celtics losing.
i was surprised to see payton pritchard in the game, even though he mostly sat on the bend during the playoffs, only showing up during garbage time. grant williams didn't play at all. and celtics never called a timeout in the 3rd quarter, even though they were getting their asses kicked. all these coaching decisions makes me seriously question joe mazzulla's competency, but hopefully he can learn from them.
fingers crossed boston can rebound friday night, game 2. something else that happened in the game: in the 4th quarter with minutes left to go, youtube tv started glitching, got stuck on a live action little mermaid commercial. i ended up watching the final minutes of the game on the TNT website livestream using my YTTV credentials.
to be honest, if the celtics weren't in the playoffs, i'd be rooting for the miami heat. they're the ultimate underdog, rising through the ranks from the play-in round, losing two of their key players (tyler herro being their 2nd highest scoring player), and jimmy butler going beast mode. but until that happens, it's celtics all the way.