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the mushroom buttons growing in my pilea pot yesterday? they flowered today, growing as tall as the pilea. they were already at the end stage, the caps curling up and disintegrating. instead of letting them rot, i ended up pulling and throwing them away. one thing i noticed was how wet they were. the caps were practically dripping water.

after changing out the fungus gnat covered yellow sticky traps, i noticed some black spots on my pilea. i went online and searched for "pilea black leaves" but none of the diseases i saw online looked like what i had. besides the black that looked like rot, the pilea seemed fine otherwise. whatever it is happened quick, because i looked at a photo of the pilea i took yesterday and all the leaves were still green. one of the smaller lower leaves was completely black and i tried to remove it but it still held firmly to the plant. that's when i noticed green underneath the black. i took the pilea to the sink and gently washed the leaves and stalks with my fingers. turns out the black was just mushroom spores. it washed off easily, revealing healthy green underneath.

i wonder what kind of mushrooms they were? at first i thought they were just common brown hay mushrooms, but the jet black spores is a trait of some psychedelic mushrooms. but more likely they were just glistening inky cap mushrooms, which are also quite common.

i went down to the community garden in the late morning to check on my plot. i haven't visited in more than a week, it'd been so rainy i haven't had to water. i wore jeans because i didn't want to get mosquito bites. it was warm but wasn't uncomfortably so, although i wouldn't want to be working outside in pants. i had to run back to the house after a quarter way there when i realized i forgot my phone.

all my garlic chive borders were blooming, buzzing with bees. i saw the perfect trifecta of bitter melons: green, white, and orange, splitting open to reveal red seeds which i collected and washed. i harvested the 2 green tomatoes from the southeastern corner and pulled up the rest of the plant, it's too far gone to produce anymore fruits. i also picked a bunch of cherry tomatoes and a few cloudy day tomatoes. some of my chinese asters have flowered, they're a slightly pinkish violet color. likewise, my hyacinth beans have flowered too , but hard to see them from the tangle of rampant bean leaves.

after watering, i went around the rest of the garden, admiring the other plots. all of dave's cucumbers are dead, but he does have a large buttercup squash growing and 2 kabocha. lynn has an amazing collection of garlic chives, the tallest in the garden, since her plot gets full sun all day, no shadows. she also has a few sunflowers, which i never even noticed. one of the gardeners in the back was growing some squash but the trellis toppled; they look like luffas. renee asked me to water her plot over labor day weekend; i took a look at her garden, mostly weeds, hard to make out any real plants. but if she wants me to water her weeds, i can do that.

for lunch i made an english muffin sandwich: egg, peppered ham, everything bagel seasoning, american cheese, sriracha sauce, basil pesto. i washed it down with some half & half ice tea while watching the latest episode of marvel's what if.

in the afternoon i contacted eyemed to get the membership number for my father so i can create an account and file a out-of-network reimbursement claim for the new glasses he got at michael's. they make it especially hard to file a claim. but in the end i managed to do it, hopefully he'll get some money back.

i spent the rest of the day trying to find a suitable 6x4 ft rug for my kitchen. it has to be red, and dark enough so that if i drop something and cause a stain, it won't be noticeable. it also had to be able to withstand high foot traffic since i'm in the kitchen a lot.

i made another cranberry walnut chicken salad sandwich. i drizzled some sriracha onto the chicken this time, it made more tasty.

at midnight i checked the power usage of my new fridge after it's had a full 24-hours to work. according to the usage monitor, it used 1.4kWh of power, which is less than the 2kWh daily summer average of my old fridge.