i finished watching they cloned tyrone on netflix before falling asleep. don't know what movies it reminded me of, but i was hooked the moment i started watching. horror, scifi, mystery, blaxploitation, social commentary, it defied genres. i only know teyonah parris from her portrayal of monica rambeau in the marvel universe, but she was pretty captivating as yo-yo. movie also stars john boyega and jamie foxx.
i woke up this morning actually feeling pretty good. the teeth weren't hurting anymore, but i'll definitely contact my dentist on monday for an evaluation at the very least. i checked the dental portion of my health insurance and apparently root canal coverage was added to the policy this year, so i'll definitely take advantage of that.
i got to my parents' place early around 10:30am. apparently that wasn't early enough because my mother was already out on her walk, and my father going with her. they came back while i was watching sme youtube videos about how to open up a circa 2015 macbook pro 15" retina to replace the speakers. i totally forgot i was supposed to stop by the cafe and put some items in the fridge. so my parents ended up going to the cafe themselves, bringing back some ingredients along the way.
i started taking apart my father's macbook pro. i'd already replaced the right speaker back in august 2020; it's quite the operation, basically have to tear the whole computer down to the motherboard before you can remove the speaker. but then the left speaker stopped working one day (made a crackling noise), so my father solved the problem by only using the right speaker. then the right speaker stopped working, sounds came out muffled and buzzy. i'd already ordered a used left speaker, but instead of ordering yet another used right speaker, i just ordered two new speakers ($12). these new ones weren't apple originals, so we weren't sure how well they worked, but as long as sounds come out of them normally, that'd be fine.
having down the teardown once already definitely made it easier the second time around. i think if i ever needed to do it a third time, i could do the whole thing without having to consult a video. by the time my parents came back from the cafe a bit before noontime, i'd already removed the motherboard and installed the two new speakers. my father helped me (shining with flashlight) as i reassembled everything. the speakers also came with new rubber feet, so i replaced those as well.
when my father restarted the macbook, it was now producing normal sounds. the speakers however were just okay, even with my poor hearing i could tell it didn't have a wide dynamic range. compared to my circa 2013 macbook pro, my speakers were slightly louder, and more dynamic. but regardless, two subpar speakers were still better than what my father had before, which was two broken speakers. should these speakers fail again one day, we'll definitely try to get a pair of used apple original speakers.
my mother was going to make some wonton soup for lunch but she forgot we didn't have any wontons left in the freezer. instead she boiled some chinese dumplings. feeling lucky, i decided to test out my teeth by chewing on my right side. it felt fine at first, but then a shooting bolt of nerve pain flashed across the right side of my face, to the point where i was wincing and couldn't eat anymore until the pain subsided. so now not only was it sensitive to cold temperature, it was also sensitive to warm temperature too. and the pain was many magnitudes worse than what it was last night. a root canal is definitely happening.
after i finished the rest of my dumplings, i went out into the backyard to do my garden inspection while my father was taking a nap and my mother was watching some chinese-subtitled drama on the imac. i continued to remove squash bug eggs with duct tape, must've gone through 4 strips today. i even saw some batches that had already hatched, and i managed to stick the nymphs onto the duct tape as well. my mother came out briefly to see if there was any vegetables to harvest (none except some cherry tomatoes).
later my father came out and pruned the squash vines to allow more light into the raised bed interior. powdery mildew had started to grow on some the leaves in the darker areas. i treated them with some neem oil. i also harvested my garlics, long overdue. a bad harvest this season, because the squash vines had eclipsed the raised beds so the garlics didn't get any light. this is probably my last season growing garlic. they were a fun little experiment, but they use up too much of our precious garden real estate and they require too much patience for so little reward. honestly, it's just easier to buy garlics than trying to grow them, and i couldn't taste the different between a korean red garlic versus a regular garlic you'd buy at the supermarket.
my father replaced the rusty and cracked parts from the barbecue with new replacement parts. the kit came with washers and screws but seemed to be only for the cross tubes. even then, the screws didn't fit in the provided holes on the burners. we tried everything, using an impact driver, using a drill to widen the screw holes, none of them worked. we finally found some alternative screws in the garage that had a more aggressive taper: we forced the screws with the impact driver, but still they'd only go down halfway, so the burners and the cross tubes are basically just balanced on the barbecue, not actually screwed down in place. after placing the heat shields, my father fired up the grill. we were greeted by gentle blue flames, like having a brand new barbecue.
the primary takeaway from my parents' physical last week was they both needed to go on a diet. which was why my mother made not one but three stir fry dishes for dinner: tofu with chinese celery, eggs with garden tomatoes, and chicken with garden thai basil and long horn hot peppers. afraid to eat on my right side, i wasn't much in the mood for food.
after dinner i helped my father toss out a few unused garden equipment from the garage: a rusty drop spreader, a manual push mower, and a broken sausage compressor. we threw them into our neighbor's open dumpster while they're undergoing major renovations. my father also wanted to throw out a broken (but maybe fixable) motorcycle jack, but i told him the contractors would then know with 100% certainty it was us throwing things into their dumpster because we're the only house in the area that owns a motorcycle.
i got back home by 8pm. i bumped into renee, who was coming back from spending a week up in acadia. she thanked me for watering her garden. we chatted briefly, she said her current tenant (the one with psychological issues from belmont) will only be there until the end of august, before a new tenant moves in september, a costa rican mother working at the high school with a high school aged daughter.
i smelled nothing inside the house, which thankfully meant my roommate didn't cook tonight. maybe she went out with friends in the afternoon, who knows. you'd think a roommate that i almost never see would be a great roommate, compared to one that i see all the time, but i think that's actually worse, because it adds an unnecessary level of awkwardness. it makes me think she hates it here, that's why she never leaves her room.