i thought i could wait out my roommate this morning but i ended up leaving before her, around 9:50am. i was biking down to chinatown to buy some plum drinks on sale, which i forgot to do yesterday. someone had ordered 50 sweet zongzi from my mother, and she needed some additional ingredients. weather was nice, upper 60's, a mix of wispy clouds and sunshine. i got there in under 30 minutes.
first stop was c-mart to a few things: jujubes, sweet rice, garlic, chili garlic sauce, and five spice tofu. i then went to ming's market to get the plum drinks. these were selling for 50¢ a bottle, so i bought a case of 酸梅湯 (8 bottles) and a case of 烏梅汁 (8 bottles). each bottle was 2 liters, so 16 bottles weighed 70 lbs. i carried the two cases by hand to the check out aisle. the cashier asked if i needed a shopping cart as i struggling to carry the cases, but i said no. she seemed curious why anyone would buy so much, and asked if the plum drinks were any good.
i had to figure out how to carry 16 bottles of plum drink back to cambridge. i had my backpack, and managed to carry 6 bottles. 2 bottles in put in my rear baskets, along with the other grocery items. finally i tied the other case of plum drink to the rear rack using bungie netting. it was a little unwieldy, and the extra weight made the bike wobble. think of how much worse it would've been if i didn't secure my rear baskets yesterday. i pedaled home gingerly, careful about any bumps in the road that would toss my cargo onto the street, or worse, pop the rear tire.
i came back via the esplanade, over the MIT bridge. under normal conditions i could make it back in under half an hour, but it took me 48 minutes of slow riding to finally get to the cafe by 11:45am. my reward was quenching my thirst with some plum drink on ice. my mother found out why they were selling so cheaply: the whole lot of plum drinks are set to expire on 7/7.
being lunchtime, it got busy, and i got caught up and stayed for an hour helping out. plus the internet went down for about 15 minutes, and i was on the phone with comcast asking if there was an outage before services went back online. instead of going home, i decided to go back to chinatown. the reason was because when i opened up the second case of plum drink - even though the box said 烏梅汁 - it was actually another case of 酸梅湯. 酸梅湯 in that it's sweeter, but 烏梅汁 has a more smoky flavor and slightly bitter, which for a plum drink aficionado like myself, i think tastes better. so i wanted to go back and get more 烏梅汁. also my mother wanted me to get some zongzi sauce, along with a few additional grocery items. strangely enough i wasn't tired, maybe because i was slow pedaling. after getting some to drink and using the bathroom, i was ready for a chinatown encore.
i left by 12:45pm. i told my mother i wouldn't be back until 3pm. riding without 70+ lbs. of extra weight in the bike baskets was a tremendous relief. from the cafe google maps recommended a route that took me from brattle street through harvard square, down mass ave cutting across central square and MIT, then onto commonwealth avenue in boston to arlington street to finally get to the chinese supermarkets. it took me just 30 minutes, and i was riding mostly on newly created bath lanes, which made the trip so much faster (and safer) than before.
i figured i could get everything from ming's market. learning from my mistake, i used a shopping cart this time. i grabbed the plum drinks first. i brought a utility knife and when i opened up one of the boxes, it was filled with 酸梅湯 not 烏梅汁. so i ended up handpicking the 烏梅汁 that were already out, fortunately there was enough for me to assemble 16 bottles, or two cases. i collected the remaining items my mother had asked for: tangerines, small cucumbers, scallions. they had everything except for the zongzi sauce. so i left my shopping cart (full of groceries) and ran down the street to c-mart to get the zongzi sauce. then i ran back to ming's market to get my shopping cart and pay for those items. i did this because once i load the plum drinks onto the bike, i wasn't going anywhere but home. the cashier at ming's market was the same woman who rang me up this morning. "what, you finished all the drinks already?" she joked. i told her i bought the wrong ones this morning, and came back to get more. another cashier said they used to also carry passion fruit drinks but they're all sold out. originally they sold at $1.99/bottle, but now just 50¢.
i loaded the rear bike baskets differently this time, putting 4 bottles of plum drink per basket (a total of 8), putting 6 in my packpack, and putting 2 more in the plum drink box, along with the remaining groceries, all tied up with bungie netting. the whole assembly looked for rickety, and like this morning, had a tendency to wobble.
i got home in 38 minutes. i stopped to get some long glutinous rice i had in the house (which my mother needed for making savory zongzi), plus to use the bathroom. i went onto the backyard deck to check on my hiking shoes which i set out this morning after i stuffed them last night with newspaper to help them dry faster. to my surprise, the shoes were already dried, but i turned on the fan to dry up any remaining wet spots. i then went to the cafe.
my parents were in disbelief that i'd subject myself to two trips to chinatown in order to buy 140 lbs. worth of soon-to-expire plum drinks. even though i didn't have anything to eat today, i wasn't hungry. i went home by 3:30pm.
after taking a hot shower, i did eat a yogurt, not because i was hungry, but because i needed to eat it before it spoiled. i also snacked on some chips and drank some lemonade. i checked my activity log, it says i biked 23 miles today. funny thing is i don't feel tired at all, but ask me again tomorrow.
that submarine that went under the sea to tour the titanic wreckage? besides the fact that the oxygen supply has already expired, the coast guard today also found pieces of debris that were confirmed to be pieces of the titan capsule. the official likely cause of death is "catastrophic implosion" which i guess isn't that bad a way to die because it happened so quickly. a far more terrible fate would've been if they were alive, only to slowly suffocate to death.
lauryn came home at exactly 6pm. she started making dinner. when i heard sizzling noises in the kitchen i went to investigate. she was sauteeing some vegetables but using a small pan while made oil splatter everywhere. i told her she could use a larger pan in the future, to keep it from splattering so much. she also didn't open the window, but as long as she wasn't frying, i was too concerned.
the NBA draft was tonight. this year's draft class featured some weird-looking athletes, from the number one wembanyama who's so tall it looks like he's on stilts, to a pair of creepy looking home-schooled twins, and at least two players named kobe. i watched it before i made dinner at 9:30pm - reheated some zongzi i got from my mother yesterday. i watched jennifer lawrence on hot ones while eating.
finally i downloaded the latest episode (9) of silo. just as i suspected, the view screen is a fake and it's actually nice outside of the silo! i also figured julia jumped to a different level when she went over the railing, not pull some magic trick where she just disappeared into thin air. next week is the season finale. i can't wait, not because i think the story will conclude (it won't), but because after that i can start reading the books, so i can find out what really happens next.