i woke up today feeling tired for some reason. maybe the past few days of active lifestyling was finally taking a toll, or maybe it had something to do with all this heat and humidity. all i know was i felt lethargic, like i could actually feel the forces of gravity pulling me down to the ground. running, naturing, all out the window: all i wanted to do was stay indoors and keep cool.

in the afternoon i finally ventured outside to run some errands. i went to my garden to do some watering and bumped into that guy who called me early last saturday morning. i realized we actually met before, at my neighbor renee's 64th birthday party, one of her cambridge hippy friends. he asked me to do some watering for him while he went on vacation for a few weeks; in return, i could help myself to his cherry tomatoes and string beans.

my plot actually sits next to a residential property, separated by a chain-linked fence. the owner of the house have been doing some recent landscaping, and i noticed they pulled (and killed) some of my cucumbers and morning glory vines that'd been making their way down the fence. i don't really mind but the fence doesn't really belong to anyone, and they could've at least asked before killing some of my plants. in other gardening news, almost all the sunflower seedlings i transplanted have died. maybe they don't do so well transplanted, or maybe it was the shock from recent slew of hot weather we've been experiencing. i still have about half a dozen sunflower plants, hopefully i'll see some flowers before the season's over. my tomatoes have been growing like crazy. i don't want to brag, but i believe i have the biggest tomato plant in the entire garden. sure, my tomatoes aren't red yet, but the plant is so huge, i think it might implode under its own weight, and tomorrow i have to tie up some "branches" before they break off.

after i was done with my own garden, i went to julie's garden. the cucumbers weren't climbing the strings as i'd hoped, so i moved a few vines, hoping to train them to grow vertically instead of on the ground.

sensor swab on burmese lacquered coaster with elephant motif

i've been noticing some dust on the CCD sensor chip of my camera and wanted to get something to clean it up (it's only really noticeable when i have the lens aperture turned down, which unfortunately is most of the time when i'm trying to do macro work). i went to zeff's photo in belmont and got a box of lint-free sensor swabs (from photographic solutions) for $40 a box and another $10 for the special cleaning solution. why these things should be incredibly expensive i don't know. they also wanted me to get a rubber squeeze bulb to blow away the dust but i didn't want to pay an additional $12. when i got home and opened up the carton, the swabs were nothing more than glorified pieces of lint-free tissues tied to tips of tiny plastic spatula with rubberbands. so this is the high-tech fancy cleansing solution that cost me $50? i gave a try, and two swabs later, my CCD chip is pretty free of dust.

for dinner, due to the lack of inspiration, i made an omelette with some leftover (that's codeword for possibly bad) ham, eggs, and homegrown basil. before the night is over, i may just have to take another shower or a soak in the tub to stay cool (sounds counter-intuitive, but it works for me).