i stayed around to chat with cristina this sunday morning, turning on the AC in the living room. some roommates are skittish about being in the living room but not cristina, who lounged on the couch as if it was her own place. when she decided in the afternoon to go out to harvard square to get some money from the bank, that was my cue to head to belmont. despite temperature in the 90's, i decided to take the bicycle because it might rain later in the evening and i'd already covered the motorcycle.

despite the potential for some evening rain, i still went out to water the garden, since they can never get enough water on these drought days. we ended up picking one of the long chinese cucumbers and finally picked the one long asian eggplant, the first of the season. these chinese cucumbers do much better than the traditional cucumbers, some of which we have in the garden, but they have already succumbed to diseases for the most part. these asian variety are still going strong, although i did see one or two lower leaves with some browning, but that could be just from old age. it produces so many yellow flowers, if all of them bear cucumbers and we have a long hot season (as seems to be the case), we will have cucumbers for a long time to come.

i returned home to find cristina lounging on the couch, brushing up on some english vocabulary words on her ipad. she also figured out the best route to get to longwood in the morning, which was to take the subway to central square and catch the 47 bus. she paid me this month's rent, all in $20 bills, and had to hit the ATM three times due to cash withdrawal limits. she made dinner (pasta salad combination), which must've been excruciating for her to be eating so early (around 8pm). she went to bed around 11pm, for her first day of research work tomorrow.