i drove the car to belmont in the early afternoon, stopping briefly at the cafe to deliver a propane tank. my mother was making some more zongzi, this time packed with pork (she made some a few days ago, but they were sweet zongzi filled with dates).

nothing new in the garden, except some still-opened blue morning glory flowers due to the overcast weather. there are some allium buds which don't look like any of the new bulbs i planted last fall. i did plant a bunch of tiny bulbs that i dug up and thought were crocuses, but i wonder if they might be these "new" alliums. if that's the case, they may in fact be some magenta flowering alliums i planted in the garden close to 2 decades ago. i thought they'd all died out, but maybe they've just been dormant until now.

i didn't have lunch yet, so when my mother came back home, she made some noodle soup with beef broth, chinese chives, and bean sprouts. for dinner, two varieties of zongzi: "salty" version with pork filling, and "sweet" version with a specially prepared glutinous rice treated with lye eaten with sugar.

i biked back to cambridge before 8:00 to watch game 5.

i was nervous. if series history is any indicator, celtics-lakers have traded victories. that means los angeles is due for a win in game 5. i keep on thinking this is a pivotal game, but i've said that about every game. game 1 winners would set the tone of the series. lakers won that one. game 2 was a must-win because the celtics want to be in a 2-0 hole. celtics won. with the series tied, game 3 would determine which team would be ahead. lakers won. game 4 was another must-win for the celtics, in order to avoid being in a 3-1 hole. celtics won. now with the series tied at 2-2, the winners of this game would need just one more victory to win it all. 

and then it happened. celtics won game 5 tonight versus the lakers. good news is that boston is up 3-2 now, they only need to win one more. bad news is the last 2 games are in los angeles. it might not matter to the celtics though, since during the regular season they had a better road record than playing at home. game 5 was intense. pierce was on fire, garnett was dependable too, ray allen still can't get his 3-pointers but makes intangible plays to help the team, and rondo was good too. the celtics played game 5 close to their potential. the lakers were the kobe bryant show. if pierce was on fire, bryant was self-exploding nitroglycerin. it wasn't just that he made shots after shots, but the level of difficulty through the tough celtics defense. i hate the guy, but i absolutely respect and am in awe of his basketball offensive skills. just too bad the rest of his team couldn't support him for a victory (but good for the celtics). i almost stopped watching, because the celtics had maintained the lead for much of the game, and i was just too nervous to see how'd end, hopeful they'd win (in the end, i did watch the whole game).

so now it's back to los angeles for game 6 on tuesday. the celtics must win tuesday night. should the series extend into game 7, i don't think my weak heart could handle the anxiety. plus, should game 7 happen and celtics win, the parade would be on saturday, and that would conflict with the mermaid parade. i'd hate to choose between the two events, but i'm getting ahead of myself.

finally, i caught the season finale of breaking bad. i thought it was game over for walter white but in an ending i couldn't have predicted, he seems to postpone his own execution, at the expense of his partner jesse pinkman. an absolutely amazing ending, and can't wait until next season.