i was finally done by 10am. i attached the insta360 camera to my bike and filmed my route back to cambridge. since it was already so late, i decided to head straight to the cafe, which ended up taking 40 minutes.
it didn't seem like it'd be busy today, but i knew better. my parents usually don't work saturdays so they've never experienced the weekend rush of customers. even though we're opened less hours, often times we busier than the weekdays. at 12:45pm it happened. for the next hour it was non-stop busy. order tickets after order tickets, out check rack ran out of room to hold them all. once it was all over, things went back to being quiet again. once again we've weathered the storm and survived.
we made a new batch of boba pearls. i cleaned the deep fryer. my father sorted two packages of chinese noodles. i ran the ice machine and collected 5 boxes of rice. my parents portioned out the container of thawed zhajiang noodle sauce.
when my mother tested yesterday, her second line was starting to get faint. we thought that was a sign she was finally starting to recover from covid. but when she tested again this morning, the second line was strong as ever. at the cafe she took a different test, hoping for better results. that too showed 2 lines.
weichen showed up at the cafe close to 4pm, getting an early dinner of dumplings and miso soup. he said he was leaving for the airport afterwards to pick up my roommate, arriving from arizona at 4:30pm. how was he expecting to get to logan in just half an hour? knowing him though, he'll probably take an uber. i raced home after work, figuring i had less than 1-1/2 hours to continue cleaning up the house.
first, i put away all the winter coats into the closet. i then took down all my light stands. i made another pass at the coffee table, then incrementally started to chip away at the clutter on the dining table. i was still in the middle of cleaning when i got a tex message around 5:15pm from weichen saying they were already outside.
the new roommate seemed normal enough. she and weichen know each other from college back in china. just her 3rd year working her way to a PhD at arizona, she was in town giving a talk both at the harvard-smithsonian and MIT. with that kind of clout, surely her institute would've given her a large stipend to stay at a fancier accommodation than my guest bedroom. i didn't question it though, she's only here for a week, be gone by next saturday, and i heard she'll even be gone for a day or two to visit amherst. weichen had never been to my place before. he though the whole house belonged to me, before i told him i only owned the first floor. he asked why annie was moving out from their place, a news my sister only told him yesterday. i said she wanted to live with a friend, but he seemed a little hurt that this happened so unexpectedly.
after dropping off her suitcase, weichen invited the roommate out to dinner. that was also my cue to eat the self-prepared bento i made for myself with some leftover fried chicken. it was still early, but i hadn't eaten all day, and since nobody was home, now was the time to eat before they came back.
weichen and the roommate came back an hour later after having visited the supermarket. the only thing the roommate bought was a small container of low-fat milk. they went out again, don't know where.
i got a chance to review the insta360 footage i shot earlier this morning. originally i mounted it onto my handlebar extension, but it kept dropping down due to the weight of the camera & clamp. i ended up just clamping the camera to the side of my handlebar. i feel like the camera needs to be farther away when mounted on a bicycle. because it's so close to me, my body actually eclipsed a good portion of the 360 image. as for the footage, it was mostly boring riding stuff. i wish there was a button on the camera like on the gopro that allows you to shoot in timewarp/timelapse but then switch to regular speed when you spot something interesting.
there was a celtics game that started at 5pm, against the pelicans. i missed the first quarter, but it looked like the celtics might lose their 3rd game in a row. they never led in the first half, until derrick white made a shot to go into halftime which finally gave boston the lead. the celtics would not relinquish that lead in the second half, pushed the game to a 22-point lead. this was a game the celtics should've won, and nice to see them live up to expectations. final score 104-92.
i took a shower after the game. i sat around watching youtube on my laptop and nearly fell asleep. i decided tonight would be the night where i finally sow my plant seeds.
i didn't start until 9pm. i broke down what i wanted to plant, and how much of each. the final breakdown: 18 blue beans, 18 long beans, 6 ground cherries, 6 ping tung eggplants, 3 cherry tomatoes, 3 independence day tomatoes, 6 cloudy day tomatoes, 12 luffa gourd, 6 kabocha squash, 6 buttercup squash, 12 hyacinth beans, and 12 bitter melons.
the roommate came back around 9:30pm, disappeared into her room. she was completely silent, the only noise i heard was a sneeze. i guess she's not one for socializing.
back to my seeds: next i sort the pots. i decided to break them down by colors, easier to differentiate the different seeds. i then started filling up the pots with miracle-gro potting soil. that stuff smells so good, i almost want to eat it. probably the most fragrant potting soil you'll ever use.
with the pots filled, then came the messy task of watering them. i water from the bottom (dunking in a bucket of water in the sink), letting the soil soak completely (transparent cups helps to see the water level rise), before spritzing the dry top with a sprayer. i also shook the pots to make sure they were properly draining. each cup has 4 drainage holes but it's easy for the wet soil to block them. 108 pots took nearly an hour to water.
finally it came time to planting the seeds. i first made labels with blue sticky tape: the name, the date, and the number of pots. in the past i'd write directly onto the cups with a white paint pen. that's an okay strategy, but sometimes it can be hard to find the writing. the only advantage of writing directly onto the cups is when i reuse them there's a historical record of what i planted in the past.
the taiwanese seeds my father brought back had very limited quantities: 13 luffa gourd seeds (白籽菜瓜), just 6 kabocha seeds (黑皮栗子南瓜). i was expecting the kabocha seeds to look like buttercup squash seeds, but they're actually very different. the kabocha seeds also have a shiny coat, not sure if that was added. some seeds are difficult to germinate, like hyacinth beans. they have a high susceptibility to rot, so i planted two per pot (i have plenty left over). whenever i can i plant more than one seed as an insurance in case the first seed doesn't germinate. for the blue beans they were so big i only planted one seed per pot, but i chose the best ones.
i put pieces of syran wrap over the potted trays to keep them from drying up. it wasn't until midnight that i was finally done. i left the pots on my kitchen tables for the time being. usually i keep them in a dark warm room because i heard most seeds don't require light to germinate. in years past i've also put them in my grow closet, but i haven't set that up yet.
that was also the time my roommate came out of her room to get ready for bed. one of the things she asked when she first arrived was if she could use a cup for brushing her teeth. it's a weird chinese custom, teethbrushing without a cup feels unnatural to them. after using the bathroom, she left the door open with the light on. that's a no-no, but since she's only here for a week, it's not worth it trying to get her to change. but leaving the lights on is a major pet peeve of mine.
i installed a wifi contact sensor on my front door. i got the sensor last year but didn't have a good reason to install it until now. it'll help me to figure out if my roommate has gone out and whether or not i should turn on or off the heat. i've turned up the heat to 68 degrees for the time being.