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OCT

03

2011

this morning the groin pain came back again. it was a throbbing sensation, like the aftermath of getting kicked in the balls. strangely enough, it'd only hurt if i was on my back; when i rolled over onto my right side, the pain would go away. what the hell could it be? is it a result of all that biking on saturday? but why wait a few days for the pain to come back? could it also actually be a hernia? i went back to sleep, too early to be so curious.

in the mornings i wake up to an empty house and the smell of freshly brewed espresso coffee. this might be a great way to start the day, but the smell of coffee doesn't really do it for me. in fact, really strong coffee reminds me a skunk smell. marco told me he doesn't eat anything salty in the mornings, preferring some coffee plus a serving of yogurt mixed with cereal and chocolates.

i started my day rather slow, until i remembered i still had frances' package to mail off to norway. i had the last of the tea eggs for breakfast as well as some of my godmother's boiled peanuts. before i left my 2nd aunt called to ask me to pick up some cabbage at the supermarket. i couldn't decide which post office to visit, but went to the one in porter square just because it was closer. although it was almost noontime, the place was empty. after i filled out a customs form i went to the counter without waiting.

my mother called me before i could head down somerville avenue. she added a few more items to my buying list, including bean sprouts, scallions, and cucumbers. unfortunately they were all out of sprouts at market basket. i figured i'd check the nearby star market on my way back, but decided to try the korean grocery store in union square instead. they had the bean sprouts in stock for $1.29/bag.

after dropping off the supplies for my 2nd aunt at the cafe, i continued onwards to belmont.

"he loves it," my mother told me concerning my father. i thought she meant the fingerless gloves she knitted him, but she was referring to the ipod touch, which i found him playing around with in the bedroom. originally he was going to give it to my sister to replaced her own ipod which was stolen by a parking valet, but now he wants to keep it for himself. hailey was busy sleeping (when she wasn't looking out the window waiting for my sister to come back) while my mother was busy knitting another pair of fingerless gloves.

in the late afternoon with the sky looking like it might rain, my father went outside to mow the lawn. i put on my gardening gloves and went into the backyard with a shovel and some pruning shearers to do some weeding. the cool night time temperatures have killed off the squash plants and most of the tomatoes. the peppers still seem to be alive. my father pulled off all the reddish tomatoes, hoping that the still-greens will ripen if the weather warms up. he found a mutato - a tomato with a horn. i'm almost tempted to save some seeds and grow a batch of mutated tomatoes for next season. all the sunflowers are dead too and i went ahead and uprooted them. the birds and the squirrels have already made meals out of the flower heads. the picnic table is scattered with sunflower husks and yesterday i saw some chickadees and goldfinches eating the last of the seeds right off the plants.

i returned home after dinner, managing to beat the large swath of rain clouds approaching the boston area. it looked pretty bad on the doppler but it was a quick drizzle at best. renee came knocking on my door again while i was watching the prohibition documentary on PBS. i wanted to tell her to go away, but she's persistant and i figured better to get it over with now than have her come back tomorrow. she found a printer but couldn't get it to turn on. i took a quick look: the power supply on the epson 740 was dead. i told her to just buy a new printer for $20 (since she obviously does a lot of printing) but she said she wanted to continue looking for a freebie.

marco didn't get back until 11:00, stuck in the lab gathering data from some machine. he told me he had to go in early tomorrow since that's the only time available for him to use some special piece of data measuring equipment.

my tailbone pain seems to be better today, no more frankenstein walks. it should be all healed up by mid-week.