i wasn't able to throw away the guest bedroom mattress yesterday because i wasn't sure if my parents would want it. but after seeing it in te light of day (stained on both sides and sagging in the middle), there was no doubt that it was time for it to go to mattress heaven (and by that i mean the town dump, not some store). this was the mattress that came with the bed that i got from dan who inherited from john who himself got it from who knows where. this mattress has gone through a long series of owners not to mention all the astrophysicists who've slept on it as well. anyway, since i missed trash day, i had to keep the mattress for another week. i stuffed it inside my already crowded bedroom since there wasn't room anywhere else.

so then last night when i was in bed, i woke up to this unpleasant musty smell. i didn't know what it was at first until i realized it was the old mattress. maybe after having existed for so long it became sentient, and realizing what i was going to do to it, tried to suffocate me in my sleep with noxious fumes. i just want to apologize to all those former roommates who've have slept on it in the past, i didn't realize it was so stinky (it's probably better with a bedsheet). normally i'd open the door for some circulation, but with a roommate in the house, that wasn't an option. neither did i want to open a window because it was cold outside. so i just buried my nose in the pillow, trying to filter out the odor. it got to a point where my throat began to feel scratchy but i persevered. human 1, mattress 0.

i ended up getting out of bedroom around 8:20, which for me is early. partially because of the smelly mattress, but also because my upstairs neighbor had returned home and was making the usual noises in his kitchen. i found LJ already up and dressed, in the bathroom brushing her hair. she left for work around 9:00, a promising start in my ongoing roommate evaluation. however, she left the door unlocked after fumbling with the key a few times.

i started some programming work for client N. it's been a while since i coded in lingo and my head was dizzy from the sudden influx of unused knowledge.

i rode my former roommate's giant boulder to the cafe to drop it off for him. even though it's a mountain bike, the seat was high but the handlebar was low so i was leaning forward. the 26" wheels are not the best for city riding, with their fat 2" knobby tires. also it could use some new brake pads as it was difficult to come to a complete stop. who knows, with his disposable income, maybe he can buy a brand new bike, one that rides better. but now that he's living practically next to his work place, he doesn't really need a good bike anymore.

i ended up walking back home, taking some leftover lunch my mother packed for me. after i finished eating, i biked to pemberton to buy a rosemary plant ($4.69) for my community garden. they used to have a lot of different rosemary varieties but this season they just had the generic.

after returning home, i soon left for the garden to plant the rosemary. my garden snapdragons are doing well, and one plant near the back has already begun to show some pink flowers. of all the squash seeds i planted, only one has germinated per mound. it wouldn't be that difficult to plant a few more seeds, it's still early in the season. my daisies are okay but they seem flat, glowing close to the ground instead of growing tall. none of my chinese garlic chives are thriving; they look more like thin strips of grass. i also did some hand weeding (wore gloves this time) before watering all the plants.

some garden flowers:

i walked down to the dollar store to buy a 8'x10' tarp for just $3.50. i also bought some red grapes that were on sale from star market. the tarp was for covering up the used mattress that i intended to leave out on my back porch until the next trash day. you get what you pay for i suppose because this tarp was surprisingly thin to the point of semi-transparent, definitely not heavy duty. but as long as it kept the rain off the mattress, that's all i cared about.

my blood work results came back from my doctor:

238! that's borderline high cholesterol. not that last year's 216 was any better. i managed to add 30 more points of LDL within the past year. the weird thing is (and never explained by my doctor) is how come my triglycerides level got cut in half?

in the late afternoon i went out again. this time it was raining despite the sunshine. i thought the rain would soon stop but i ended up getting a little soaked. i talked briefly with my neighbor nick, who asked if i'd be watching the celtics game. "oh yeah. you'll hear me screaming," i told him.

first stop was the bike store, to look for some replacement 1/2" all-metal pedals for the schwinn super sport. all they had were 1/2" plastic pedals ($20). finally i went to the bank in union square to deposit some rent money. even though it was only 4:30 and there were still workers inside the bank, the door was locked; i ended up just using the ATM (which i prefer not to do for large cash deposits).

LJ came home around 7:30 carrying more groceries. i heard her struggling with the front door lock so i came to help. i also finally asked her if she wouldn't mind taking off her dirty shoes inside the house. later, while she was making dinner (microwave steamed lettuce with eggs, i've never seen that before), i asked how her first day was. she said they gave her her own office with a window (maybe because of her post-doc status).

besides astrophysics, i inquired if she had any other interests. she answered that she watches a few shows like friends and the big bang theory (using the chinese names for the shows, so it took me a second to make the connection), and she likes reading (chinese novels, she admits her english isn't very good). i pushed a little more, trying to find some common ground but came up with very little to work with. she said she likes museums, and during her first visit to the US (virginia) she even took a couple of days off to go visit some of the smithsonian institutes in washington dc, although her most memorable recollection seemed to be that they were free.

with the weekend coming up, i asked her if she was interested in taking a tour of boston on saturday (to introduce her to the city and give us a chance to chat some more), but she said she wanted to stay home and rest, still not recovered from her jet lag despite having already been in the US for more than 10 days. in this particular roommate evaluation i found her sort of distant, which is fine, but we're definitely not going to be friends, and i don't expect to do her any favors during the 2 months that she's here.

LJ spent a good part of the rest of the evening skyping loudly with friends and family back home, sometimes in chinese, sometimes in her native shandong dialect.

oh the celtics! how come i'm not surprised they lost? what surprises me is they managed to win 3 in a row in the first place. i couldn't even watch the final minutes of the game. now everything hinges on game 7 saturday night. miami seems to have the advantage, but if boston can beat them in game 5, maybe they can do it again. i know it's kind of irrational, but sports fans are a superstitious lot, so i actually blame maria menounos. yeah, the entertainment reporter from medford. why? let me first say i love the menounos, but she made this crazy ranting video online cheering the celtics, and the celtics lost. and during the superbowl back in february, she made an on-air bet she'd wear a giants bikini in frigid time square should the patriots lose (so certain they'd win), and the patriots lost. basically, she's kind of a jinx. i'm just hoping for game 7 she keeps her distance. use your witchy powers on miami, menounos!