in the early afternoon i biked to the wellington circle plaza shopping center in medford. this is probably at least the 4th time i've biked there so it's not so familiar that i didn't need to check the directions first. at a distance of 3.8 miles, it'd take about 25 minutes to ride there, and involves crossing over the mystic valley parkway bridge.

along the way i passed by the meadow glen mall and decided to stop by the marshalls to look for some pruning shearers. i couldn't find them at first and thought they might not carry anyway, but then i came across the cache of gardening tools. i bought a fiskars rear pivot bypass pruner ($7.99, model 9900, 0.5" cutting capacity) and a fiskars 7" folding pruner saw ($9.99).

i went to harbor freight to return the box of hose clamps and next door to ocean state job lot to look for some more garden stuff. they had burpees seeds on sale at 40% off, but i noticed the price per packet were actually more than similar ones i bought from home depot last week, so they come out to about the same price. i ended up buying some sweat pea and nasturtium seeds. i also wanted to get some small hedge fences for the garden in front of the house but i didn't want to be carrying them because i might be doing some more shopping (i'll come back for them later in the week).

coming back along the mystic river reservation, i climbed up the wooden observation tower to check out the view. even though the highway is nearby, the place is sufficiently sketchy that i probably wouldn't have done it if i saw anybody else nearby. but since the place was empty, i checked it out. at this time of the year there's not much to see. i wonder if it'd be a nice place to see the 4th of july fireworks? since it has a nice view of the boston skyline across the mystic river. peering into the marshland, i was almost half expecting see a dead body; it's the sort of place one would expect to find disposed human remains. i quickly climbed down and hurried home.

i biked back using a different route than the one i came from because some of those original streets were one ways. i ended up tackling some tough somerville hills, cutting across in a southeasterly direction to arrive at market basket, where i picked up some items (frozen mango, yogurt, clorox cleaner with bleach).

i took a quick shower when i got back home before heading out to the cafe to drop off a check. i then went straight to belmont, with my parents returning a few minutes later by car.

i was outside cleaning up the backyard in anticipation of the small snowstorm arriving later tonight: picked up all the pruned bamboos, moved the trash bins, covered up the bikes with tarps, and turned the compost. i also pruned a bit of the small japanese maple tree and the quince bush.

i helped my parents toss out some old broken dehumidifiers from the basement. even after tossing out 3, there must still be 4 more in the basement. soon afterwards a truck pulled up in front of our house and a man came to take the dehumidifiers for scrap metal. he also took a steel wheeled food tray along with several bags of metal coat hangers. my father was outside and asked him if he wanted some used motorcycle batteries, which he gladly took as well.

dishonored progress: i'm getting pretty good at choking out guards and then hiding their unconscious bodies (so the rat swarms don't eat them). i don't like having any standing guards left once i've cleared an area, so i'll go back, sneak up on each and every one of them, and choke them out. it's quite fun. they should call the game secret choke.

i spent the evening back at home swearing at the television while watching the heat-celtics game. miami is currently on a 22 game winning streak, and it was up to boston to ruin their parade. the heat has lost 10 consecutive regular season games here at the boston garden, but tonight kevin garnett would sit out the game due to an injury (not to mention the celtics are already depleted without rondo and barbossa). but the celtics played amazing, dominated single-handedly by jeff green, the heir-apparent as the next offensive celtics star (he finished the game with 43 points). celtics ended up losing though, just didn't have enough firepower to contain the heat, who slowly chipped away at the 17 point lead to finally win the game by a 2 points.