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i woke up early to work on the front steps. yesterday i gave it a wash with the cabot problem solver wood cleaner. i was in a hurry to get it done because the oil treatment needs at least 24 hours to dry. in retrospect, with the weather today so humid, it probably wasn't a good drying day, but if i didn't do it today, i would probably have to wait until next weekend. i swept the front steps one last time before starting with the australian timber oil. it looks (and smells) like a stain but goes on clear, although the wood immediately darkened when i put it on with a foam brush; that's a good thing, because it'd gone light after i washed it yesterday. there wasn't a lot of work, just 4 steps and a landing, but it still took me about 2 hours to finish. midway i chatted with my neighbor jeff, who told me he was selling his condo.

afterwards i went to the backyard deck and did a few railings on the eastern side of the house. i could've treated more areas, but the entire deck still needs to be washed first, so i thought it'd be better to wait until after i did that.

foot progress: i can put more pressure on it now but the arch is still a bit swollen so when i walk it feels like i'm stepping on something. nevertheless, i think i'm still going to revisit MGH tomorrow morning, get another x-ray, this time on my foot, just to make absolutely sure nothing's broken.

in the evening i went over to my parents' place for dinner (got a ride from my father, my foot's still not 100% to be riding the motorcycle).

i haven't seen the dog since monday when i was dogsitting. it's been just under a week but already she seems bigger than before. my parents got two new swinging dog doors (to replace the old-fashion expandable gate) for either end of the kitchen. hailey still doesn't know her own strength or have much agility as she's prone to smashing into people head first when called upon. it doesn't seem to faze her though, she gets right back up like nothing happened. she likes to nibble but occasionally bites too hard. sometimes it's just for fun, sometimes she needs to go to the bathroom, everyone is still trying to read her signals.

finally, there was the celtics lakers game 2. it started to look like a magnificent blowout, with the celtics up 25 at one point, on the back of leon powe no less. kobe got into foul trouble early (to be honest, some questionable calls) so wasn't a factor in the first half. i hope rondo will learn to score at some point; he penetrates all the way to the basket but then just throws it back out. so far it's worked, but if he can be an offensive threat, that'd be awesome. then something happened in the 4th quarter: lakers kept on chipping away until they were just 4 points from tying. it started to look like a lakers upset but boston made some key free throws to finally win it. celtics go to los angeles for game 3 on tuesday.