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new england weather has a great sense of humor. yesterday it felt like the 30's; today's temperature soared into the upper 60's. yesterday was wet and miserable; today was dry and warm. i believe we've finally broken the bonds of wintertime oppression and this warm spell is here to last. i mean, it's almost may! spring was supposed to be here back in march!

i moved my tomato plants (18) outside today, since they've outgrown the grow closet and could do with some actual sunshine for a change. once evening rolled around, i moved them back inside. i will be doing this for the next few weeks, until it's warm enough to plant them in the gardens. i feel like i've started my tomatoes too early again; next season i should wait a few more weeks.

i spent the late morning into the early afternoon putting down the bags of manure/compost and mulch steve had purchased a few weeks ago. i wasn't doing it to be nice; i figured if steve and paul did it, they wouldn't be as careful and would probably trample all the new perennials emerging in the backyard. i didn't think we needed to mulch because it needlessly covered up a lot of smaller plants. i had to tie up my hair at one point because it kept getting in my face. paul came back home around noontime, wheeling his bicycle into the backyard. he thanked me for my gardening work but didn't volunteer to help out. i was finally done by 1:00, sweaty and tired.

i took a quick shower (changing back into my dirty clothes because i was going out again soon) and made myself a sandwich. warm enough that i was wearing only a t-shirt, i went to my community garden at 2:00 armed with my gardening tools.

i probably could've spent a few hours there, clearing out my plot, but my mother called me to let me know she was coming by my place after work (2:30) so my sister could pick her up to go to the medford ocean state job lot. so i quickly collected a bunch of golden raspberries, took some 3D flower photos in some of the other plots, then came home.

both my parents came by around 3:00. we were waiting for my sister, who was meeting somebody at the cafe first before coming by. when she finally left around 4:00, there was a fire across the street and the fire trucks blocked the parking lot so she couldn't leave. when they finally left around 5:00, it was already kind of late so my sister decided not to come.

my parents ended up staying until 6:00, when we went to get dinner at pho 'n' rice. my mother thought our thai waiter was vietnamese, but i told her he wasn't since he asked her if she was vietnamese (even though we were speaking chinese). i think he was confused as to why chinese people would be eating in a thai/vietnamese restaurant when there's a chinese restaurant across the street.

back at home, i finally took a shower. wednesday night could only mean one thing: another new episode of the americans! i ended up watching several episode of best ink on the oxygen channel. i'd heard of oxygen (one of the many new channels once i upgraded to HD) but never seen anything on it before. best ink is just like ink master, except a lot less testosterone. tattoo recipients are called skins (human canvases on ink master), the weekly eliminated artist is chosen by the judges from the bottom three selected by the top three, losers are simply told to pack up their stuff and leave (ink master tells them they don't have what it takes to be an ink master), and the eventual winner has a feature in tattoo magazine (ink master has a partnership with ink magazine).