despite the fact that my father took the day off to help with the painting, we still weren't able to meet our goal. we started the day by putting the first and final finishing coat on the ceilings: i rolled while my father edged. i also painted a remaining section of the living room that was originally slated to be "colorized" but i thought it'd look better as white. everything took about 3 hours, and afterwards i stopped for a lunch break. we then started the second shift: my father worked the baseboards and moldings with semi-gloss latex, while i started on the door frames with the oil-based primer. the intense heat combined with the fumes made for some tough working conditions. by the time it got dark i'd only gotten to 4 door frames and the back of the front door (8 more door frames remain as well as 2 bedroom windows and a closet with some shelves). by then my mother had come home. we waited for our domino pizza dinner to arrive while i was out in the backyard cleaning out my brush with pungent paint thinner. i returned to cambridge with what appeared to be a full moon distracting me overhead. i got home just in time to take a quick shower before catching episode 4 of ken burns' "the war."

so that's it. the yankees are in the playoffs as well. and if fate has anything to say, the red sox will be facing them in the playoffs come second round. the magic number is down to 2 however, because the sox won again tonight. with just 4 more games left in the regular season and with automatic-win josh beckett pitching tomorrow night, our chances seem to get better and better to clinch the division as well. looks to be a crazy october!

primed the hallway of the house today, my father edged, i rolled. started at 10:30am, we finished by 2pm. painting is one of those things that seem deceptively simple. if you asked me when we started how long it'd take to paint the entire hallway, i'd say about an hour. but with two people working, it still took us nearly 4 hours to finish everything. it's easy to lose track of time when you're painting, and i can't blame the fumes. it's almost meditative, up and downs, side to sides.

afterwards i went out to run my errands. first stop was the belmont post office to mail some stuff, before heading to chinatown to get some takeout lunch and see if i could buy some mooncakes. while waiting for my food, i became self-conscious since i was pretty much covered in paint. painting is one of those things that people can immediately tell what you've been being, the intensity, and even the color used. after a stop at ming's market (no mooncakes!) i returned to cambridge.

i haven't visited the garden in a few days, and i'm not the only one: it seems every time i come, there's nobody here (at least no gardeners), that most folks have already abandoned their plots. however, today i ran into wayne, who has one of the gardens adjacent to mine. for some reason i was a lot more talkative than usual, maybe because i was dying to talk gardening with somebody. he saw that i had a helmet and asked where i ride. he meant bicycle, before i told him it was a motorcycle helmet. he then surprised me and said he used to have a suzuki 650cc cruiser, had it for 6 years before a "bad accident" made him give it up. i didn't want to be rude and ask any further, but a "bad" accident on a motorcycle can only mean it was life-threatening.

my garden looks pretty rough these days. i wonder if the weather has anything to do with it? even though i haven't picked ay red tomatoes in a while, the garden is still producing (check out how big those green tomatoes are). it just looks ugly cosmetically, because the plants are so heavy with fruits that they're all sagging. most noticeable is the single tomatillo plant, which used to be this big plant but now has sort of disappeared under its own weight of tomatillo fruits.

when i finally returned around 4pm, that's when i had lunch, my salt & pepper ribs with rice. there was so much food it became my dinner, and when it became time for dinner, i had some cereal - my breakfast.

tuesday night's lineup: 7pm red sox game, 8pm the war (PBS, first half), 9pm reaper (CW), 10pm red sox game finale, 11pm the war (second half). reaper looks to be an awesome series, a cross between buffy the vampire slayer and ghostbusters. red sox win, yankees lose, the magic numero is down to 3 now. we may win the division after all!