by the time i made it to the kitchen, there wasn't that much to clean. it was getting late anyway, and i figured i could clean the rest tonight when i got back, or even tomorrow morning. i left my place around noontime, headed to belmont via motorcycle.
hailey was at my parents' place, soaking up some sun in the backyard, while my sister went to ikea with her korean friend. first thing i did was to check the rain barrels: it was no surprise that they were all filled to capacity given the amount of rain that fell yesterday. when i dipped my hands into a barrel that collected some rain water, it was up to the middle of my hand, which is more than 3 inches (probably not the must accurate way to measure, but we definitely experienced a deluge yesterday). it rained so hard, a rotten section of maple tree fell to the ground, exposing a hole in the canopy.
my mother made wonton soup for lunch. i set up the new android tablet while eating.
i also washed some cloth curtains i brought from home, these are the ones from my front foyer that i use as privacy screens and draft curtains. at some point i spilled either some dirty compost juice or gotten some soda stain on them, and they needed to be washed. my parents' impeller-free LG washer has a much larger capacity, and with today being a sunny today, it was basically free electricity. speaking of curtains, i brought my lightweight frosted shower curtains as well, to replace the clear shower curtain my parents currently use over the bathroom window.
my father brought up most of the houseplants from the basement grow room into the sunroom, including a massive collection of pileas (hoarder's plant) and the orchids. later i moved them outside to get some late afternoon sun, and also so i could water them easily.
i talked my father into getting a popup-style bathroom sink drain plug, after showing him one on amazon that seemed to work great, and then showing him an identical version on temu that sold for nearly 4x as less. i also got some magnetic hooks, and stainless steel zip ties, and a pair of knockoff crocs (we use them as gardening shoes).
my father and i spent most of the day in the backyard doing yard work. he erected the hop bines trellis and pruned back the overgrown honeysuckle vines. we divided up some overcrowded baby bokchoi seedlings and replanted them so they're further spaced out. not sure how well they take to be uprooted, but it had to be done, otherwise none of them would grow very big. i planted my remaining vegetable seedlings in the raised beds as well as the western bed. RB0 got two thai basils; RB1 a row of 4 eggplants and 2 goat horn peppers; RB2 a squash seedling and 2 eggplants; RB4 3 varieties of tomatoes (independence, cherry, cloudy day), 7 screw peppers, 2 eggplants, and 9 baby bokchoi; the western bed 9 tomatoes (including a wild one that self-sowed), 1 bitter melon seedling, and about a dozen bitter melon seeds. i also transplanted my fragile celery seedlings into the long planters next to the sunroom.
it was 5:30pm by the time i was finished. my father pan-grilled some mackerels for dinner. hailey was up because she knew it was dinnertime as well but my sister didn't leave any food for her dog. i finally texted my sister to tell her hailey was hungry. my sister was actually at home cleaning, and only later did she come to pick up her dog. she'll come back tomorrow because she's staying at my parents' house while her place get insulation work done as well.
my sister told us the tenant who was going to stay at my place decided he'll just stay in the apartment despite the construction work. after dinner she called back again saying the tenant changed his mind, and wanted to stay at my place again. i went from being ecstatic that i didn't have to clean anymore to quickly rushing home around 7:30pm to clean the rest of my house.
the bulk of the cleaning tonight was to take down my grow closet so i could move all the boxes back inside. that decluttered a big chunk of the house. the kitchen is still a bit messy - a lot of gardening containers and seeds all over the place. if don't clean them it's not a big deal, but i'll clean it tomorrow morning, so when the temporary tenant comes, he won't be able to say how messing my place is.
i was cleaning with the celtics-heat game on in the background. it was a painful game, boston lost every quarter except for the 4th, but that was already garbage time, as the celtics were down 30 points by then. the season is pretty much over, even though miami needs to win one more to advance, which is all but certain, given that in the history of the NBA, no team down 0-3 has ever come back to win the series. given how terrible the celtics played these past 3 games, there's no chance they'll suddenly be good for the next 4 games in order to win it. the miami heat is just a force of nature this post-season, and how they perform in the finals will solidify their legend. who are we - as celtics fans - to go against the force of destiny?
my new kick within the past 24 hours is learning about the lishi lock pick, which apparently is all the rage within the lockpicking community. they don't look like anything, and my first impression was they looked rather flimsy and cheap. they're not that expensive either (at least the chinese domestic versions), selling for around $20-25 on aliexpress.