i woke up at 9:10am with GC still sleeping. figuring he'd follow yesterday's schedule and not wake up until 9:30am, i went to go use the bathroom. but the moment i sat down, i heard his bedroom door open, so i immediately finished up to give him the right of way. as always, he spends almost exactly 20 minutes in the bathroom, no more, no less. what could he be doing that's taking so long? i figured he'd soon be on his way to work, but he didn't leave until 10:30am. astrophysicists for the most part are pretty hard working, but he's one of the rare lazy ones. at this point i don't really care. he's been going to work later and later, not even using his alarm clock anymore. i'm just going to wake up at my usual time of 9am and disregard any concerns for his bathroom usage. i figured if getting to the bathroom is so important, he'll learn to either wake up earlier or use it later.

i finished writing a letter and packaged up my documents for my state tax audit. they're not really auditing me as they are just verifying my numbers so i can get my $100 refund. i went down to the post office in the late morning to mail off my manila envelope. i then went to michael's to look for yarn for my mother. i tried to call her, but she went out without her phone. she wanted to get a particular caron cake yarn, but she didn't tell me the color, or i'd simply forgot. they have a new stock of caron baby cakes, which is a smaller size skein of pastel cotton. in one of the aisles i did find some remainder regular caron cake yarn. i grabbed a purple skein and paid for it with my 40% off coupon.

i then biked to the community garden to water my plot. it hardly needed any watering, as it was the most water saturated plot compared to nearby neighbors. the original malva zebrina flower had already wilted in just 2-3 days. i was under the impression they last for a while, but i'm not too worried since there are plenty more flower buds to replace it. more flower means more seeds and i hopefully i can grow a whole patch of it next season.

i returned home before noontime, just in time to catch the news. for lunch i had a vanilla chobani greek yogurt followed by a bowl of baby carrots.

every year the tall locust tree outside my house sends out new branches from the middle of the trunk. and every year i cut them off because they prevent me from getting a clear view of my street. in the small strip of front yard the larkspurs have been blooming for over a week now. the trick is to get them to sow in the dirt and have new seedlings growing in the fall and overwinter into next season. larkspurs look best when they're in a dense clump. having them survive in the shady front yard means they can definitely grow there. i then went into the backyard and adjusted the large transplanted hosta i planted weeks ago. it went into the soil lopsided, so all the leaves were leaning in one direction. i readjusted the rootball so now the plant has a more natural spread.

after a week of using the exquis 40 oz. insulated bottle, here are some observations. as mentioned earlier, it's large enough to fit an entire tray of standard ice cubes. though advertised as keeping cold for 24 hours, it easily excedes that limit since i've seen ice cubes still inside the bottle a day later. as with any insulated bottle, it doesn't sweat, which is different when i have a glass of ice water or a cold drink. it's big enough that i wouldn't want to carry it around but it's perfect for sitting around the house. i've never heard of exquis before but amazon sells these bottles at $15.89 and in different colors (i got mine for $10 at marshalls). the only negative i've found is the plastic lid leaves a faint smell when you open the bottle to drink, but the smell eventually disappears after using the bottle for a little while. a search on amazon of 40 oz. insulated bottles show a bunch of selection that all look alike just with different brands. i think it's probably just one manufacturer in china that makes this bottle and then rebrands it for different companies to sell as their own.

the belmont backyard hollyhocks are about to bloom. for some reason they also seem to attract a certain type of weevil which only seems to feed on these hollyhocks. i killed a few but they're tiny and good at hiding and escaping (by dropping off the flower).

the belmont backyard malva zebrinas are about to bloom as well. the ones planted here only get half the amount of sun since they sit on the western side of the house. it's no surprise that these plants are thinner and taller compared to the ones in my community garden.

columbines continue to blossom. they've been blooming since the end of may, so more than a month, and there still seems to be a few more weeks of flowering, if not more. thought i love the shape of their flowers, they seem too delicate (although a perennial, though i heard short-lived, 3-4 years typical lifespan), and the flowers aren't as abundant as some other flowering perennials.

the only larkspurs in the belmont backyard are purple and white, no pinks. i'd like to grow more in future seasons. being poisonous, their seedlings don't get too many pests.

the eggplant leaves aren't particularly green. one eggplant has new leaves that are yellow, another plant has new leaves that are purple. is there something wrong with the soil? besides the strange colors, the leaves seem to be doing well. hopefully they'll turn green eventually.

rabbits have been foraging in the raised beds. i know this because they ate some zucchini flowers and one of them even chopped a bit too much and took off the tip of an immature zucchini fruit. i thought rabbits were done with attacking the garden, but i've seen a lot of bunnies on the lawn in the early evenings so i'm not surprised. the only way to stop them is to keep them from getting into the backyard, which is not so easy.

my father and i managed to clean up most of the debris we cut from the dead plum trees on monday. we're waiting until the next garden refuse pickup on tuesday (or later in the week, depending on when's the new trash day due to the 4th of july holiday weekend) before chopping down the rest of the trees since we don't have anymore empty bins left. twigs and branches we threw into the bins but the wisteria vines we tied up into 4 neat bundles. now that the dead trees are mostly gone, it's quite jarring to be able to see our backyard neighbors so clearly now.

i returned to cambridge around 6:30pm. i found GC in the living room watching breaking bad. i thought he already ate but around 7:30pm he stopped to make dinner. that made me anxious as the somerville fireworks was at 9:15pm, but i wanted to get there a bit early to take photos. besides, i didn't want to bike and it'd take us probably 30 minutes to walk up to trum field. i waited anxiously in the living room for GC to finish eating. finally i had enough and went into the kitchen to check, where i found him already finished with dinner and was simply watching some show on his tablet. "are you done? let's go then," i told him, as we finally left the house by 8:20pm. i had my wide angle lens on the camera body and my 28mm f/1.8 in case i wanted to do some low light night photography.

the western sky was a splash of magenta from the setting sun. that would've made a great backdrop if i was already at trum field. in the end it took us only 20 minutes to walk to trum field. there was still a bit of setting sun that i managed to grab a few choice snapshots. we walked through the crowd and finally settled on a spot to watch the fireworks.

the fireworks didn't begin until 9:25pm, after a few words from mayor curtatone. i read it was supposed to last half an hour but the fireworks were over in about 20 minutes. it took us a little bit longer to get back home - 25 minutes - as we had to make our way out of the crowd of people. when we got back we watched 2 more episodes of breaking bad before GC took his ritual shower around midnight before bed.