there was loud knocking and ringing of my front door this morning, like someone was desperately trying to get inside. normally i wouldn't even have heard it because my bedroom is on the other side of the house and i'm a sound sleeper, but i was just about to wake up and suddenly noticed the faint commotion. i got out of bed, near-sighted, in my underwear, and went back to the bedroom to put on some pants, then went back again to put on a shirt (which i had on backwards), before opening the door. it was my mother, on her way to market basket, stopping by to grab an umbrella because of the ongoing rainstorm. still without my glasses, i squinted for some clarity.

today was an unusual convergence of work drama as 3 separate clients got in touch with me all of sudden after many weeks of inactivity (in some cases months). i heard from client S that there was a round of layoffs this morning. apparently june isn't a very good month for them because back when i was an employee of company S i was laid off in june as well. client P was the next to get in touch with me. their company was undergoing some restructuring as well and the owner called to let me know what was happening and to inquire about my availability for 2 possible projects. the last to call me was client N with some graphic design questions about an ongoing project i'm doing for them.

as i mentioned before, today was a rainy day. i didn't set foot outside, but instead feasted on my supply of leftover barbecued corn and pound cake while watching a backlog of downloaded movies on my laptop. i saw paul blart: mall cop. i know a lot of critics gave it low marks but i was entertained and the surprisingly good showing at the box office justified this movie as a surprise hit. in the evening i heated up a brick of frozen stouffer's lasagna in the microwave. it wasn't as good as i remembered it to be, but i couldn't deny the convenience. i watched half-heartedly watched game 3 of the NBA finals. i expected the magic to win to take the series to 1-2 so i wasn't too surprised when they in fact won, although the lakers did make it interesting and almost forced the game into overtime when they kept getting the offense rebound in the final few seconds of the game.

i spent the rest of the evening doing some online shopping. i bought some camera batteries to replace the ones that seemed to have gone missing (i'm down to 2; i should have 6). i purchased an 8gb CF card through amazon.com and then spent 2 hours searching for something more than $1.31 so it'd put me over $25 to qualify for free shipping. i ended up buying some biodegradable kitty litter bags (even though i don't own a cat, i figured i could use it for the dog instead). i also bought some miracle gro series gardening books from an online discount book seller.