lauryn did not go to work this morning. don't know why, but my guess is because the weather was bad. in terms of roommate score, this is a point deduction. luckily it didn't affect me all that much because i was leaving soon anyway. my parents were scheduled to arrive at 10am for another supply run, but they came early, around 9:40am. i wasn't even ready yet and quickly grabbed my things before shouting at lauryn through her bedroom door that i wouldn't be back until tonight.

first stop was costco. for some reason there were a lot of koreans there.

next we went to the nearby dollar tree so i could get some super glue for our spray wand handle repair. my father stayed in the car while my came with me so she could pick up some more cheap yarn. we then went to bath & body works a few stores down for their annual summer sale. i used to be able to score a myriad of scented hand soaps for just $2.50; now even with the sale they're $4, and only a selection, not all the scents. but smelling things is one of my greatest joys, and between my mother and i we bought a dozen different hand soaps that should last year for the rest of the year.

we went to restaurant depot to pick up takeout boxes, clear 16 oz. cups, and coffee beans. i took a peek at the price of bulk eggs, made me regret buying them from costco, as the eggs here were much cheaper: costco eggs were $15 for 5 dozens, while at restaurant depot they were $18 for 15 dozens. next time we'll come here for eggs.

then we went to the chelsea market basket. they had tables of seedlings outside for sale, i picked up a rosemary for $3. after costco and restaurant depot, we barely had room in the car for our market basket purchases. i was disappointed that they seem to no longer carry the tyson frozen raw flavored buffalo wings, those were pretty good the few times we grilled them on the barbecue. we still have a bag of unflavored frozen wings that i'm going to use to make double-fried korean fried chicken one of these days.

our last stop was bianco & sons on our way back for chinese sausages.

we returned to cambridge via the same route we "discovered" last week, which was to cut through davis square. we made to the cafe by 1pm where we spent 20 minutes unloading the supplies before we left for belmont.

while my mother was making wonton soup for lunch, i was outside spraying the basement gardenia with neem oil after noticing some mealybugs on some of the flower buds. basically i need to spray with neem oil every weekend if i want to keep the gardenia pest free. i also fertilized with some acid-loving fertilizer. later i'd come out and spray the flower buds with water to rinse off any remaining mealybugs.

after lunch my father and i applied super glue to the cracked old spray wand handle. this was step one.

we then went outside to inspect the garden. we pulled up more bokchoi from raised bed 1, just to keep it less cluttered, fewer places for slugs and snails to hide. we discovered aphids on a few bitter melons which we sprayed with both water and neem oil. i put some duct tape around the kwanzan and cherry plum trunks to keep ants from climbing the trees and protecting the aphids. we went inside once it started raining.

overall today the weather was grey, with brief intermittent periods of very light rain. the weather forecast reported that not even a 1/10th of rain fell in the boston area, but was still moist enough that i kept the automatic sprinklers off for the time being.

for dinner my father made some panko-breaded pork cutlets. what would they taste like if they were cooked in a wok? i wouldn't know, because these were cooked indoors, just like the shrimps this past weekend.

after dinner we continued to the second phase of our watering wand handle repair: JB weld epoxy application. ever since we glued back a broken cafe pot handle, my father has been looking for an excuse to use our leftover JB weld epoxy. we ended up applying a later of epoxy over the handle crack. we'll have to wait 24 hours for the JB weld to set and cure, and then we'll know if we fixed the crack. if it still leaks, there's still plenty of epoxy left over for additional patches.

i got a ride back to cambridge by 8pm. lauryn had just finished making dinner from the oily odor i smelled when i came inside. she retreated to her bedroom and i didn't see her the rest of the night. while boiling some water to make tea, i wiped the splatter of oil around the kitchen range. she's definitely doing stirfry, which is the style of chinese cooking i hate the most for my house because i don't have a ventilation hood so the smoke seeps into everything afterwards. but it seems to be gentle stirfry, so the verdict is still out if it's going to be a problem. having lived with about 2 dozen different roommates over the years, i've grown pretty mellow when it comes to cooking smells.