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10:16am. that was the time renata called me this morning, asking if i wanted to go out for a walk since she needed to take a break from her homework. "huh?" i replied, when she asked if she had woke me up. "hmm, no, hmm, yes," i said. "how about we meet at 10:30?" i told her. perhaps a little bit over ambitious on my part, not to mention my math skills are pretty bad when i just wake up, we decided it was more feasible to make it 11am instead.

i happened to have my parents' car so i was able to drive down to renata's place. from there we walked to fresh pond where we did the 2.5 miles loop. it was sunday, so a lot of pedestrian traffic, bikers, joggers, people with dogs, parents with kids. renata continued to ask me about costa rica, and i felt a little bit embarassed, since i'm not really used to talking about myself a whole lot (although i'm not shy when it comes to writing about it on the weblog). i personally think fresh pond itself is not particularly photogenic during the warmer seasons, so it's even less so now that it's fall, nothing to see but dead leaves. it was a little bit cold when we left renata's place (i was surprised she even wanted to go out walking, knowing how much she dislikes the cold), but once we started walking, it got warmer and warmer.

less than two hours later we were back at renata's place, where a next door neighbor brought over some homemade potato soup and i taught renata how to send e-mails with attachments. i left soon afterwards, drove to the home depot in watertown (ah, nostalgia! when i was working on my place, i came here a few times a time). i bought a pair of gardening shears after taking my time comparing which one was the best. i ended up getting the fiskars bypass pruner with the carbon steel blades, 5/8" cutting capacity, and a lifetime warranty. it cost twice as much ($17) as the next set of pruning scissors, but i felt like my garden deserved the best. i paid at the self check-out station, my very first self check-out ever, it felt very wave-of-the-future.

i briefly stopped by my parents' cafe on my way home to cambridge and picked up some lunch, a box of fried rice with pickled cucumbers. my mother asked for photos of herself next to the large pot of flowers a family friend gave them, the sleeves of my shirt stained with their fragrance when i moved them.

after i finished eating when i got home, i pruned the tree in front of my house a littl bit, some of its branches growing too long, tapping the windows whenever it gets windy. i then went into the backyard and trained the ivy growing on the wooden fence, snipping any vines that grew too long during this summer of neglect.

i came back in and realized i was missing the patriots game on television. they were playing the texans in houston, an exciting game that the patriots eventually won in overtime. it's so weird to watch these guys every week beating team after team, it's starting to shape up like another story book season, but if you look at the standings across the leagues, there are a few teams with the same win-loss record as the patriots, so there are still some battles to be fought. one other note: i think commentators who say so-and-so is going to lose should be whipped live on national television when said team ends up winning. i think the patriots still don't get the same kind of respect as some other teams. i don't know why, since just 2 years ago they won the super bowl, but i feel like the team still has something to prove every sunday. a lot of people thought the texans would win, just because the patriots have a winning streak and the texans are the kind of team that opposing teams don't take too seriously so they come in and they lose, which was almost what happened to the patriots, but they stuck it out and ended up with a win.

not enough domestic excitement? how about dusting then? with the swifter wand i wiped down the bookshelves, the television, the lamp tables, windowsills, and underneath the sofa, pretty much anywhere that's dusty. where does all this dust come from? the age old question. but i definitely feel a lot better now my place is dust free - for now.

in the evening, i went to belmont to have dinner with my family. after dinner, i tried to help my sister troubleshoot her PC, which wasn't allowing her to connect to her microsoft e-mail accounts. i thought maybe it had something to do with the amount of spyware she had cluttering her system, but after getting rid of all that, it still wasn't working (although she can log in just fine with another computer). not quite sure what it is, i'll try reinstalling internet explorer next time. i then got a ride back home with an armload of the usual exports: magazines, mails, and clothes.

and alias? brilliant, just brilliant. i mean, there's so many plot twists, i couldn't even begin to explain what's happening in the story, but it all makes sense. vaughn, his wife lauren, sydney, jack, sloane, even marshall and dixon, one big happy dysfunctional spy family. my FAVORITE scene from tonight's episode: jack bristow slow motion walk across the road glaring at NSC director robert lindsey. it's only a matter of time before daddy kills another man who hurts his little girl! j.j.abrams, you own me!