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a campaign worker rang my doorbell late this morning to remind me to vote, preferably for ed markey, the congressman for my district who's running for john kerry's vacant senate seat. he also asked me to remind my friends and family to vote as well and was delighted when i told him my whole family would be voting today, all casting votes for markey (my sister even called me early asking me who to vote for).

my father came by my house around noontime to drop off a 5 gallon bucket of potting soil (in a stinky container he'd used previously to carry some homemade liquid fertilizer) as well as an old corded landline telephone. i plugged the phone into my new fancy cablemodem and used a landline phone in my house for the first time in over a decade.

i didn't make it to the polling station until 1:00, but not before chatting briefly with ed, who was hanging around outside his house completely topless, enjoying the warm weather, potbelly and all, surfing the web on his ipad, trying to buy a sleeping bag for just $8. in an age where people are so concerned about their body image, i'm impressed with somebody who seems to be so completely unselfconscious about his appearance.

after i came back from voting, i shipped off frances' latest package at the post office. my collarbone is good enough that i was able to lift the box without any problems. afterwards i biked down somerville avenue to get some scallions and a bag of valencia oranges.

i discovered the netflix series house of cards this past weekend. i'm not a big kevin spacey fan and a drama about political intrigue in washington didn't sound very appealing. but after watching the first episode and realizing it was about a slow-burn tale of retribution, that peaked my interest. the series also features kristen connolly, whom i am a fan of, from her work in the cabin in the woods. so i started binge watching it, i'll probably be finished with all 13 episodes by tomorrow.

i didn't start my plant work until after 6:00. i first had to clear out some space in my grow closet, relocating some more tomatoes and zinnias into boxes which i'll move outside onto my backyard deck for some sun. i then divided some seedlings: tomatoes, hot peppers, and basils. normally i'd just thin them out, but i don't have time to germinate new seedlings, so it's easier to try and salvage them. sometimes it doesn't work, and the newly relocated seedlings will die, but it's worth a try. finally, i planted some melon seeds: 9 korean melons and 9 cucamelons. i have 8 more cucamelon seeds but i ran out of plastic cups so i'll need to get more tomorrow. the new soil i'm using is just miraclo-gro potting soil, not their special moisture control potting soil. the only difference is the moisture control probably has a blend of peat moss. the normal potting soil is darker, but the consistency is about the same. i did notice it shrinks a bit more when wet, but not a big deal.

polls closed at 8:00. the democratic primary candidate for senator is ed markey with 57%, versus stephen lynch with 43%. here in cambridge where markey is the district representative, markey scored 88% of the vote. the general vote is sometime in june, against republican candidate gabriel gomez, a hispanic war veteran who works in the private financial business. whoever wins will have to campaign again next year when the seat once again opens up in the 2014 election.

for dinner i finally finished my leftover pasta sauce from nearly 2 weeks ago.