t
o
n
y
a
n
g
'
s
 
w
e
b
l
o
g


for the most part, my roommate LJ and i have now reached a sort of détente. she goes to work early, comes home at a reasonable hour (6-7), rarely seen, keeps to herself, finally learned how to properly lock the front door, and hasn't messed up the kitchen too much (just the occasional unwiped spillage on the stovetop). not much to complain about.

however there's still one thing that annoys me: her bathroom habits. it's all little things but they add up. like not turning the shower knob to the off position when finished (so when i turn on the faucet to take a shower, water is raining down on my head). or how she drips toothpaste everywhere (blowdryer, mirror, and the rug which i've now taken out). but the worst is her hair. she seems to have a daily habit of brushing it, and there's always a ball of hair in the trash. but a lot of it still gets left in the sink and on the floor. just last week i had to unclog the tub and i suspect it's hair blockage. she's also a hairy girl, and i find those kind of hair everywhere as well. it makes me wonder what her own bathroom in china is like (she shares it with another female roommate whom i heard is an entertainment reporter for television).

maybe i should just live at the assembly square mall because i seem to go there everyday. think of what would happen when they finally finish building that outlet mall? i would never leave! too bad we'll never see an ikea (it was just too good to be true). anyway, i returned again late this morning to buy some more yarn for my godmother at ac moore. she wanted sugar'n cream's soft ecru (100% cotton) but that looked too pinkish so i picked 5 balls (70g each at $1.89) of regular ecru instead. that's where i saw sugar'n cream's big ball 100% cotton yarn. at 400g it was about the size of a cardboard oatmeal container. it only came in a few colors but their off white closely matched ecru. and with a 40% off coupon, that $8.99 price would be chopped to $5.40, a much better bargain than buying 5 balls of yarn. unfortunately i forgot my coupon, so after consulting with my mother over the phone, i decided to come back tomorrow (4th day in a row!).

next i visited k-mart to get some rust-oleum's painter's touch ultra cover 2x spray paint that were on sale ($4.19 per can, 2nd can 50% off; the cheapest i could find was at home depot which sold for $3.89 a can). i wanted to try painting a few old plastic lawn chairs in my parents' backyard. what i really wanted was some krylon fusion paint designed for plastics, but i couldn't find them anywhere; besides, even if i did, if they were too expensive (say, more than $5 a can) it wouldn't be economical to buy them. rust-oleum has a specialty paint for plastics as well, but at more than $5 a can and only a few colors, it wasn't an option. i ended up going with 4 colors: hunter green, meadow green, sun yellow, and apple red. hunter green might actually be for the aluminum spikes my father wants to hammer into our victory garden to keep the raised beds in place.

returning home, i made a quick stop at market basket to get some drinks and onion rolls.

back in cambridge, i changed into some shorts, grabbed my gloves, and went to the community garden to do some weeding and watering. stacy in plot 20 was there but she didn't say hello until she left. she did check out my plot and said i had a nice garden (nobody has ever said that before in the 7 years i've been there). stacy told me that christie in plot 19 (behind the mulberry tree) had given up on trying to grow anything. i didn't have to do too much weeding; what little i did was easy because the weeds were easy to see on the salt marsh grass mulch.

the biggest surprise in the garden was the size of the squash plants. i hadn't been there in 9 days and already they looked like jungle plants. the zucchini even had a flower that was about to bloom, and the fast-growing squash nearby would have flowers as well any day now. naturally the emerging flowers worry me because they attract squash vine borers, but with so many other gardeners growing squashes as well, there might be safety in numbers.

many other plants were bearing fruits. the golden raspberries had so many ripen berries they were already falling to the ground. i ate more than a few dozen berries until i couldn't eat anymore. there were also an assortment of hot peppers, from cayenne to something that looked like a small green bell pepper. i also ate a few red cherry tomatoes, and there were a few green regular-sized tomatoes (maybe they'll be ready in 2 weeks?).

the delphiniums are also doing, planted at the southern edge of my garden with the maximum amount of sun exposure. when i saw them last they were flat looking with drooping leaves; now they're tall but still not a lot of leaves. maybe i'll see some flowers this season?

i have snapdragons everywhere in my garden but they do seem delicate and require some support in the form of unused tomato cages otherwise they have a tendency to droop over. i have some reds, some whites, and some yellows. no reds though, not like at my parents' place. i really do hope they'll be able to survive through the winter so i can have them again next year, although they're not very difficult to grow from seeds (high germination rate).

i'm surprised the daisies haven't bloomed yet; they're growing slow but hopefully that means they're producing more buds for more flowers.

i wasn't planning on stay so long at the community garden but i didn't come back until 2 hours later around 4:00. after a shower i vegged out for the rest of the day. temperature was only in the upper 70's but as the day wore on, the temperature actually increased into the 80's. only until after midnight did it drop back down into the 70's again. for dinner i had some pulled pork sandwiches.