i reheated the hot and sour soup for lunch, had two large bowls of it, finished the whole pot. i watched the yankees-red sox spring training exhibition game. i could tell the people who produced the show weren't red sox fans because the intro was totally anti-red sox, 
featuring footage of pedro tossing zimmer to the ground, of grady little leaving pedro on the mound in game 7, and finally ending with the red sox logo tattered in the dugout. the red sox came out swinging during the first few innings, putting some quick runs on the board, so naturing i took that as a sign that the red sox would be dominating their new york rivals this season. as the game wore on though, the yankees came back to take the lead, so immediately i started thinking, "okay, it's only an exhibition game, it has zero bearing on the regular season."
after i took a shower, i did some laundry, first the darks, then the whites. mountain spring is my favorite scent by the way, 
smell me next time to see why. i watched the horrible movie on cable called "dawg" (2002) starring dennis leary and elizabeth hurley, a straight to video affair about a dead grandmother leaving a $1 million inheritance on the condition that habitual womanizer dennis leary gets 12 randomly selected former girlfriends to say "i forgive you." i couldn't stop watching though, elizabeth hurley plays the lawyer who has to witness all 12 acts of forgiveness, and i'm such a big fan of hers, i couldn't turn away.
i was folding my clothes in my bedroom when i got a call from my parents to pick me up for dinner at 5pm. since it was still daylight out, i quickly went into the backyard when i arrived in belmont to look for spring signs, my new obsession. the bulbs for the most part are still below ground except for a few crocuses. the lawn looked like it'd seen better days, a carpet of yellow grass mixed with some weeds and pockmarked with squirrel holes. i personally feel it needs to be resodded, just start the whole thing over, or maybe get rid of the lawn altogether, turn the backyard into a perennial garden or expand the vegetable garden.
 dried ferns |
 bamboo roots |
 dead iris leaves |
 crocus |
i had some lamb steaks for dinner with some thin noodles. just for kicks i wanted to see if the digital camcorder was compatible with ichat and i was surprised to see it worked flawlessly, a poor man's firewire webcam, something apple doesn't advertise very much. since my father got his internal "superdrive" dvd burner earlier this week and got it to work with idvd, he no longer needed the external "superdrive" so i got to take it back with me. since we had dinner so early, i made it back to cambridge around 7:30pm.
renata called to ask if she could come over and watch the season premiere of the sopranos. she arrived just as soon as the show started (which startled me, i was already engrossed in last season's quick synopsis), bearing a container of lentil soup she had made and a box of thin mints girl scout cookies. 
nestled on the couch we watched the continuing drama of tony and carmela and the rest of the gang. a black bear in the backyard? wasn't it a family of ducks in the pool that started the whole series in the first place? the bear is an easy metaphor for tony soprano himself, lumbering in and out of the house, this lurking danger. the bear also gives him an excuse to get back with his family, the final scene with him sitting outside with the assault rifle smoking a cigar guarding his estranged wife and son inside the house was a memorable image. i'm glad to see christopher and pauly getting back on good terms again, nothing like the "accidental" death of a waiter over a crappy tip to bring two mobsters closer together! oh, and doctor melfi having an erotic dream about riding tony soprano? were those stunt breasts? because lorraine bracco looks fantastic!
renata tried to impress me in the foyer with her knowledge of chinese numbers before she left. "yi er san shi..." she started, "wou liuo chi ba jiou shi..." "very good!" i exclaimed as she counted to 10, but there was no stopping her yet as she continued onwards, "shiyi, shier, shisan, shishi..." i stood with a grimace on my face as i imagined her counting nonstop in chinese with her beginner's grasp of the subtle nuances of proper chinese intonation (i.e. basically a monotone), at least to 99 anyway, since she doesn't know 100 yet. she's like a little kid, just learning how to count and wanting to impress everyone she meets with her newfound skills.
after she left, i popped in my tape of alias (which i was recording, same time as sopranos). vaughn's wife and sark are doing it, lauren totally knows that sydney and vaughn still have the hots for each other, the CIA psychiatrist was supersexy tonight in her "i'm only here on professional reasons" lowcut dinner dress when she met sloane who revealed to her that he may in fact be sydney's father (HELLO!), and i love that little nerd girl outfit sydney wore tonight when she and vaughn broke into the datacrypt. i think that sloane as sydney's father thing is just a red herring, i don't believe it's true. what next, vaughn and syndey are really brother and sister? it seems a little farfetched, and besides, i love the whole father-daughter dynamic between jack bristow and sydney, hate to see it get ruined.