my father and i erected the patio umbrella today because it'd just been sitting on its side in the parking lot ever since the handyman came and pieced together the deck yesterday. when my sister saw it in the early evening she went crazy, said how ugly it looked, how we never consult her in anything we do, that she wanted to use her two smaller purple umbrellas she bought last year, and finally said she was going to take down the current patio umbrella and throw it out. all the while we were busy fulfilling orders with customers out front. my sister said she didn't care if the customers heard her yelling in the kitchen and them stormed off.
today was busy during lunchtime and not so much the rest of the time. we made our daily average.
i thought my day was done when i got back home. however i read something about a drone show in boston to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the US revolution and i knew i just had to see it. i left the house by 7:30pm which gave me enough time for the 8:30pm show.
i went through union square towards the direction of charlestown to get onto the somerville community path by the east somerville MBTA green line station. i've only been on the bike path a few times and almost missed the entrance (in my defense, it's a little bit hidden). once i was on the path it was an easy straight shot to the north end. that first stretch is a daunting elevation, but then it flattens out. there was hardly any traffic, and most of it was going outbound, not inbound like me. going through cambridge crossing was a little confusing, because the path sort of meanders. i followed signs when i could see them, and occasionally a cyclist in front of me would point me in the right direction. riding the north bank pedestrian bridge at night was kind of cool, all lit up, underneath the zakim bridge, with boston near on the horizon.
i made it to langone park around 7:50pm, where the drone show was happening. there was already a bunch of people waiting. some were carrying battery-operated lanterns in honor of paul revere's ride. i stood against the railing overlooking the harbor (actually the mouth of the charles river). across the water was constitution wharf, where my old boss drake used to live. several state police boats were patrolling the water, their blue lights shining in the harbor.
as we got closer to 8:30pm, the park began to fill up. i made space for some teenage boys on my right (they had the look of suburban kids) and a couple with two kids on my left. the festivity kicked off with an reenactment of paul revere crossing the river by boat as part of his ride to warn the locals of the impending red coats incursion. people were waving and cheering as a rowboat with several people dressed in revolutionary garb moved across the water. behind them was another boat with a similarly dressed crew, probably to document the journey or maybe safety coordination if something went wrong.
after that the drone show started. it appeared behind and to the right of me. apparently it was launched from a nearby baseball field, which makes sense. instead of flying over the water though, it just flew up in the air and started performing. that also makes sense, if a drone fell in the water it'd be lost forever, but if it fell on land it could be salvaged. unfortunately there were many lights along the park which kind of drowned out the drones. somehow i expected the "canvas" to be bigger, but it was as big as a movie theater screen. there was no music or narration, the only noises coming from the cheering crowd. i'd say there was about 400 drones total. watching it was weird, but it didn't make my brain explode. i just wish it was bigger, and flying over the water so you could get a nice reflection from below. the whole just last about 10 minutes. it also seems like watching fireworks, but without the load explosions, and more tangible images instead of abstract star bursts.
i started heading back around 9pm via the longfellow bridge. i got home in just 25 minutes.
out of curiosity i wandered into the guest bedroom to check up on my seeds. i hadn't looked in a few days so i didn't realize some seeds had already germinated. the tomatoes and the hyacinth beans. it must've been a few days already because they were poking against the plastic wrap and especially the tomato seedlings looked particularly leggy. i quickly emptied a shelf in my closet so i could set up some grow lights. fans will have to wait until later.
not only my planted seeds, but some of my wet-napkin-ziploc bag seeds had also germinated. of the 9 luffa seeds i had leftover from my ebay purchase last year, 5 sprouted. of the 10 late 2024 season luffa seeds we harvested from the garden, 3 germinated. finally, seems like all 16 bitter melons sprouted, but only a few looked viable, while the rest seemed like they'd dried up. i planted the bitter melon seedlings that looked good, and decided to soak the rest in water with the hopes of restituting the dried seedlings. i filled up some pots with dirt and planted those luffa and bitter melon seeds. i resoaked a few more luffa and bitter melon seeds. the bitter melons seem to get especially moldy, so i rinsed the seeds in a diluted (1:1) solution of hydrogen peroxide with the hopes of killing off any mold spores, before i put them into a wet-napkin-ziploc bag.
only then - about an hour after i got back home from boston - was i able to have dinner. nothing exciting, just reheated the final two leftover slices of quiche. i washed it down with some amber woodchuck hard cider.