i patched up some missed areas on the ceiling with the wrong paint: semi-gloss latex supposedly for the trims instead of the correct flat ceiling paint. i wiped off as much as i could and started over. after i was done with that it was time to put on the first semi-gloss coat of oil paint on the windows and fireplace. my father took an hour to finish the fireplace before he left for work. i had the two windows which seem like an easy task but i didn't finish until well past 3pm (4 hours later).

the semi-gloss topcoat was even more pungent than the oil primer we used yesterday. the whole room smelled like a heavily-trafficked gas station. oils are far messier than latex and even though i was careful, i ended up getting white paint all over my hands, on the bottom of my bare feet, and even in my hair. it made me wish windows had never been invented, so i'd never need to paint them with oils. however, by the time i finished, looking at the job my father did on the fireplace, i think oil paints are definitely worth it: when it eventually dries, it forms a hard, shiny shell, the difference in quality is obvious.

i've not seen a single other gardener all this week. have people just given up on their plants? or am i the crazy one for watering my garden on a daily basis? there's definitely a lot of neglected vegetables all over the place. i'm tempted to take them myself since the owners obviously don't seem to want them but that's a no-no.

i went over to dan and cymara's place to watch game 1 of the last red sox vs. yankees series for the regular season on their ginormous flat screen HDTV. bundled in my backpack, wrapped with towels, were two glass vases containing male and female guppies, a present for dan. i could feel the water sloshing around while i motorcycled to malden and i was afraid some guppies would be dead but they all arrived safe and sound, about 15 guppies. they were coming back from the nearby wendy's and got me some food. with daisuke pitching against yankees ace andy pettitte, i figured this would be the game we'd lose, but going into the 7th inning the red sox were up 7-2 and a victory seemed assured. too bad nobody told the yankees because in the 8th inning they exploded (like a nuclear detonation), trouncing the red sox for 6 runs and the lead to win the game. not only a come-from-behind win, but done with such breathtakingly devastating offense, i'm really afraid now. maybe they will catch up to boston. the first half of the season the yankees seemed like a joke, but in the second half they've become this unstoppable juggernaut, itching ever closer to the red sox, until now it seems they just might be able to catch up. true, this is all just a single game, but why is it so hard for the red sox to manufacture runs when the yankees seem to put numbers up so effortlessly?

during a commercial break dan put the guppies in his 20 gallon tank, which included an overweight danio, a pair of glowlight tetras, and an unusual-looking goldfish (maybe it's a baby koi). at one point i found a dead guppy on the floor. it must've been there for probably an hour. dan picked it up but quickly threw it back on the ground when he realized it was still alive. he put it in the tank and through some underwater miracle the fish revived and appeared to be okay.

clarissa bounced around the living room, occasionally clutching a piece of food in her tiny fist, or maybe a toy ready to be hurled. she was climbing, walking, kicking, dancing, and occasionally yammering about in baby talk (which sounds like english or portuguese, depending on who you ask). i was waiting for her to tire out but she seemed inexhaustible. when punam showed up (raving about youtube and talking sports) clarissa calmed down a bit, before catching a second wind and ran around dousing the area with milk from her bottle. if only baby energy can be collected and sold, people wouldn't need caffeine anymore to stay awake and active.