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was it any better sleeping in a non-dusty room? it definitely felt better, but who knows if that was a placebo effect. my throat still tickled a little bit, so i know the ragweed is still out there. dust, however, is no longer a factor.

after eating a pair of microwaved glazed donuts, i headed over to belmont. i got there just in time to catch the patriots-jets matchup. it was a low scoring game with points consisting entirely of field goals. new england had a slim lead going into the break but the jets scored just enough points in the 2nd half to eventually win (something they haven't done against the pats at the meadowlands in 9 years). it didn't help that the patriots kept racking up fouls that put them in bad field position for much of the game.

afterwards i went to the cafe to help my father move some furniture. we brought a large dresser table to belmont in exchange for a standing cabinet (part of a trio) that we put into the cafe basement for storage. the dresser will live in the living room and will function as a television stand. there's plenty of room for the eventual HDTV upgrade, which my mother talks about every weekend. besides picking the tv we want, we just can't decide whether to buy it locally, order it online (from a place that has free shipping), or drive up to new hampshire and but it tax free (now that the MA sales tax is 6.25%).

no more surprises in the garden. it's a matter of time before the killing frost arrives. night time temperatures are already pretty chilly. i wonder if the bottle gourds can remain on the vine even if the plant itself has frozen to death? i need to dig up my gladiolus corms and the caladium tubers. we also planted some ginger, sweet potatoes, and regular potatoes, that will all need to be unearthed as well.

my sister and i definitely heard chickens clucking coming from the neighbor's backyard a few weeks ago. today i was casually peering through the slits between the fence while keeping an eye on the dog. although too far to see anything clearly from where i was standing, i could still make out some moving objects. what i thought were two small terrier-sized dogs i immediately recognized as the shapes of chickens! hailey had her nose to the fence, barking a few times. i told my mother, who put her eye to the crack and verified that they were in fact chickens, 2 fat hens, possibly a plymouth rock and a orpington. so our backyard neighbors - the ones we don't really like because of their noisy kids and how they occasionally trespass into our backyard to collect stray balls and other toys and the fact that their recently renovated house is uncomfortably close to our property line - those neighbors are raising chickens! in belmont! just when i've been sort of musing over the idea, they've gone ahead and got the jump on me. if they can do it with their small backyard though, my parents should be able to keep chickens as well with their much bigger property. the only problem is hailey, who might want to harass the birds (although at times hailey can be surprisingly cowardly). my interest in raising chickens is not because of any health benefits, or animal welfare concerns. i decided i wanted chickens when i discovered that certain breeds lay multi-colored eggs, like blue and green.

for dinner we finally cooked up the smelly tofu jack got me more than a week ago. it was pretty good, although probably fried a little bit too long because they were a bit hard. combined with some sichuan kimchee and a sriracha + soy sauce dip, it almost felt like eating smelly tofu in taiwan.

i can tell when there's street cleaning the next day because one side of my street will be packed with cars and the other side will be virtually empty. i ended up parking on a private way a little bit farther, even though it made me a bit leery because i can't keep an eye on my motorcycle.

watched the emmys tonight, hosted by neil patrick harris. the show had me so distracted i missed my mad men! which i will have to catch either later tonight or download it online. fashion-wise, there's more variety this year, compared to years past where things were very somber (for one reason or another, like coming back from the writer's strike). there was also a lot of cleavage to be had, if that's your thing (kristin chenoweth, blake lively, anne tarv). ugliest dress? leighton meester's knotted shoulder pads, bar none. i'm happy brian cranston won again for breaking bad, one of the best shows on tv that not that many people are watching.