t
o
n
y
a
n
g
'
s
 
w
e
b
l
o
g


i biked to market basket this sunday morning to get a few things (bacon, whipped cream, strawberries $4/2 lbs.). i was worried it'd be crowded, but it was still early enough that it wasn't crazy yet, until i left and saw that the bike parking was already near capacity. i stopped by star market to get some asparagus ($3 for a thick bunch, i looked for them at haymarket on friday but they were all dried up) before returning home to gather my things and leaving for belmont.

my sister has a semi-tradition of taking my mother to IHOP on mother's day, but more often than not it always ends in drama. i told my sister as much when we went on a dirt supply run. so when my mother called her last night, my sister had no intention of doing anything special today (mother's day), actually blamed me, but i think she had other social plans, and celebrating mother's day was at the bottom of her to-do list. i was the one who suggested we just make some breakfast items at home, save some money, and not have to deal with the mother's day brunch crowd and waiting for a table.

so we made bacon and belgian waffles for lunch. unexpectedly, my sister showed up as well, bringing with her some flowers, some fancy bacon, and some gluten-free waffle mix (for herself, though she did let us try some and said how delicious it was, but gluten-free anything tastes awful). my sister also made an egg-onion-potato dish.

while my mother went with my sister to take hailey for a walk at the winchester fells, my father and i stayed home to do some yard work. the overcast from yesterday finally broke by midday as it became sunny in the afternoon. we finally planted the pine tree that's been sitting in a porcelain pot in the backyard for a few years. i personally preferred we plant something else as it's a pretty good location, and the pine tree itself was something the florist wanted to throw away but my father salvaged it from the trash heap. i patched a few bare spots on the lawn with grass seed paper mulch mix. we also wanted to dump out the jerusalem artichokes but got sidetracked into digging out the wisteria roots, which turned out to be more extensive that we thought, as we dug into the dirt, cutting through the fibrous root tentacles with a combination of pruning saw and a chainsaw. we were so tired afterwards we called it quits, never got around to replanting the artichokes or the ornamental grass patches.

back inside, i watched game 1 of the eastern conference finals between the cavaliers and the celtics. boston played very well and easily beat cleveland, 108-83. the cavs seemed lethargic, maybe sweeping the toronto raptors and having a few extra days of rest made them complacent. cleveland probably also underestimated boston, since in their 3 regular season games this year they won 2-1. i expect the cavs to do much better in game 2, but this is a good start for the celtics.

for dinner we cooked up some more steaks. the thick asparagus i bought from star market tasted very good, juicy yet tender.

i noticed before i left on my bike today that the front wheel air pressure seemed a little low so i pumped it up. but returning home, i noticed once again the tire felt a little soft. it could just be my imagination, or the front tire has a small leak. i was going to fix it when i got home (check the tube at least), but decided to just inflate the tire and leave the bike in the basement for a day to see if it goes flat or not.

this past week i discovered syfy was cancelling the expanse after 3 seasons. today, i found out ABC has decided not to renew deception. that's a shame, because i really liked that show, a fitting replacement for castle, with strong elements of mission impossible. had they given it another season, or a better timeslot, it could've really found an audience. ABC are however renewing for the people, another favorite that i was sure would get cancelled due to poor ratings, so i wonder if that's just to keep shonda rhimes happy (she's an executive producer) since she's a golden goose for the network. i think american shows should be written so that an entire story can be told in a season (like a mini-series), instead of the way it works now, where shows are written to run indefinitely, so a season always end in a cliffhanger, which sucks for viewers when the show isn't renewed and the story is left unfinished forever.