it was 11:30am as i raced down to boston for my 12:00pm dental implant follow-up appointment. i fixed myself a sandwich earlier for breakfast before i left. i made it with 2 minutes to spare, but i was sweat-soaked. fortunately dr.chan seemed to be busy and i was left in the waiting room for more than 20 minutes. the place was crowded for a change: a statuesque black woman filling out some forms, a mother tending to a grown daughter who seemed to just had an implant put in, and a young man talking with a friend on the phone discussing if they were going to get drunk tonight and whether they should hit one of those swanky clubs in the north end.

my own appointment was quick once they called me in, took another panoramic x-ray (not sure how many it's been within a span of a month), no complications. the doctor did warn me about better brushing since i had some food stuck in the empty space of the dental implant, warned me not to use an electric toothbrush in the first month (it's already been more than that), and to come back in august for another follow-up appointment before one last visit in october to install the abutment.

while scheduling my august appointment, the pretty receptionist asked me what i was doing this weekend. i told her about the pride parade happening tomorrow. she told me about the fun things happening in the seaport district, something about the lawn on D and swings.

i went across the street to the chinese supermarket to get a jar of sesame paste, some canned braised eels (for my grand uncle), and a daikon radish.

from there i followed atlantic avenue all the way down to haymarket. the traffic was harrowing, and on the opposite side of the road was the greenway, full of people eating lunch outside. it would've made for good people watching, but i was too focused on staying alive and dodging the periodic cars making right turns.

it was the usual produce at haymarket. i did learn that the boston RMV recently relocated to here. a woman looking up her bike on the same lightpost complained how there wasn't any bike stands. i ended up getting: a bag of clementines ($2), 2 lbs. of seedless grapes ($2), 4 bunches of scallions ($1), a lbs of jalapeno peppers ($1.50), a stick of garlic ($1, 5 cloves), a lbs of ginger ($2), and a dozen large lemons ($6). i distributed everything between my rear bike baskets and my backpack (for the delicate items). i then came home via longfellow, too hot to think about taking a leisurely ride along the charles river.

i came home exhausted, showered, filled up with fluids, rested, then went to star market to pick up a few bags of red cherries (on sale again, $2/lbs.). added to my total haul, i went down to the cafe to drop off the supplies. my mother was making batches of zongzi and gave me a small jianshui (lye treated) zongzi to eat. it's not my favorite, i prefer the savory salty zongzi. i also taste tested an ice cream cone (blackberry yogurt), but deemed the sugar cone too old and needed to be replaced.

returning home, i took a quick detour to the community garden to do some watering. helen stopped by to check out my plot and said there was a lot going on. here is a list of all the things i have growing: 3 kinds of tomatoes, hot peppers, eggplants, zucchini, cucumber (not yet germinated), golden raspberries, garlic chives, garlic, snapdragons, wild parsley, thai basil, sweet basil, chinese lanterns, zinnias, hollyhocks, delphiniums, lupines, columbines, milkweed, asiatic day flowers, cucamelons, moonflower, wild morning glory, spearmint, nasturtiums, rosemary, sunflowers, violets, and daylilies. a total of 29 different species! i still need to plant some cilantro.

i came home and took another shower, this time doing a load of laundry as well (which turned out to be a bad idea, as the dryer made the house even warmer on an already hot day). i fell asleep around 7:20, waking up 20 minutes later to heat up a can of chicken/sausage gumbo sprinkled with a fistful of frozen kale, before watching the start of the women's world cup match at 8:00 between the USA and sweden. it turned out to be a letdown, with a final score of 0-0.