after a yogurt and a smoothie for lunch, my mother called me to go to assembly row to redeem her $20 coupon from the columbia outlet store before it expired at the end of the month. she dropped off half a watermelon while i loaded up the back of the car with rocks and bricks i had lying around in the backyard.

we tried parking right in front of the store like last time, but that was just a fluke, and there were no open spots. we ended up doing a large loop and parking in the big lot across the street from assembly row. after spending some time at the store, my mother realized when she went to pay that her coupon had already expired just yesterday. she left with a fleece vest.

after getting dropped off back at my place, i rode the bicycle to market basket to get a few things: cases of polar pomegranate seltzers, can of garbanzo beans, boxes of triscuits, bag of salad. when i came back, i swept all the fallen acorns from the backyard and threw them away. i also went to renee's alleyway and moved all her trash cans so they weren't immediately below my windows.

the tub has been slow to drain the past few weeks, i finally had to plunge it today. my technique is with a double plunger, one to block the overflow, the other to do the actual plunging. it's actually pretty fun, like unblocking a dam, and then hearing the satisfying gurgle of a cleared drain. not sure if i succeeded, won't know until i take a shower later tonight. if plunging doesn't work, i may have to resort to chemical means to eat through all that hair and soup scum.

GC got in touch with me tonight via wechat. he has an astrophysicist friend coming to cambridge to do some research for 3 months. i may actually have someone already lined up for october to december (3 months). when i asked him when his friend was coming, he said 9/9 until mid-december. that's almost 2 weeks away, and he still hasn't secured a place to stay yet? that seems a little irresponsible, and raises some warning flags about his friend. i told GC i would ask around, try to confirm the arrival of my potential fall roommate.

for dinner i ate half the salad mixed with half the can of garbanzo beans, with a thousand island dressing mixed with russian when i ran out. i cut up the watermelon half my mother gave me and ate half of that, saving the rest for tomorrow. i watched the pre-season game between the patriots and the panthers. tom brady actually played tonight, but for only a quarter. next week is game 4 of the pre-season, and then after that the regular season begins.