zengfei initiated an audio chat with my last night around 3:00. i didn't know what was happening, i was just hitting buttons. she didn't have her video on, but she couldn't see my either because my room was dark. she asked what i was doing, i said i was sleeping because it was in the middle of the night, she said she forgot and apologized and said i should go back to sleep. i could hear office noises in the backyard, or maybe she was outside. she said how come i don't turn off my phone, i said i leave my qq on in case of emergencies.

my right groin still hurt when i woke up. it was a little better than last night (when i could hardly move), but after hobbling around a bit, the pain came right back this morning. i was afraid it might be a hernia, but i looked up symptoms online (bulging, pinching, pulling pain) and it didn't seem to match. the pain seemed more towards the inner right thigh and sometimes travels down my leg, like a nerve pain. i decided to take an expired (12/12) advil (200mg ibuprofen) to see if it'd be better. after some yogurt and granola for breakfast, my groin pain did improve. it still hurt, but many degrees magnitude less than before and at least i had some mobility.

i also decided to take a mucinex-d decongestant tablet (600mb gualfenesin, 60mg pseudoephedrine). i'd had problems smelling the past few months, felt like something blocking my nasal cavity. my smell has improved recently (so maybe it was allergy-related blockage), but i wanted to try some decongestant to see if i can make it even better. the problem with mucinex is it makes me edgy. but like i said, it's only an experiment to see if it can clear my blockage. besides, being antsy might make me more productive than usual.

even though i covered up my motorcycle thinking it might rain today, i still went to the garden to water in case it doesn't. this way i won't have to water tomorrow saturday and the expected rain showers for all of sunday will take care of the rest of the weekend. i decided to leave my garden tools (a trowel and a cultivator) because i'm always bringing it back and forth (don't think anyone will steal them, i got them from the dollar store). i did a little bit of weeding (pulling up mostly crabgrass and some morning glory seedlings), but also garden maintenance like removing mulberries from my plants. after that i watered. i like looking at the delphiniums. there's a total of 6 plants but one of them is a later transplant and doesn't look to survive as its smaller, yellowing, and eclipsed by the taller plants now. 2 purples, 1 pink, 1 pale violet, and 1 more that hasn't bloomed yet (i hope it's a blue!).

bruce made a cameo appearance. i showed him my garden, he told me he and jack are going down to provincetown tonight until tuesday. i told him about the conjunction between venus, jupiter, and the crescent moon tomorrow night after sunset. i asked him what brought him outside and he sheepishly answered it was to get cigarettes (he rationalized his 4 cigarettes a day habit as the equivalent of living in smog-infested los angeles). he also told me that he was suffering another season of chronic fatigue, but after he got better maybe we could do some naturing. i also learned that chez henri closed last year when i was away; not that i would've eaten at that fancy (i.e. expensive) french restaurant anyway, but bruce said service there had been on a downward spiral for years.

i've begun a new hollow book project. these normally take a few days to make, depending how in mood i am to slice hundreds of book pages with an x-acto knife. as long as the people of cambridge keep throwing out perfectly good hardcover books onto the streets, i will always have a source of raw material.

drug update: the ibuprofen really seemed to get rid of the pain. i didn't even need to take another capsule, the pain got less and less as the day wore on. as for the mucinex-d, i was a little hyper at the start of the day, and i could really feel my sinus cavities clearing up, to the point where it felt like i was having a bloody nose.

the delta kitchen faucet? apparently my father was successful in loosening the handle, but unfortunately the set screw seems to be stripped at this point, so it's impossible to take off the handle now. if i want to fix that leaking issue, i have no choice but to replace the faucet fixture entirely. the cheapest price i found for a delta faucet classic series (400LF-WF) is $88.

i ordered a pair of skechers from 6pm.com. i've never had skechers before. i think more than a decade ago i ordered a pair online but they were too big so i sent them back. the bigger question is: are they cool or should i be embarrassed to wear them? somewhere in the back of my mind i vaguely remember celebrity endorsements, but i don't really follow fashion. i just hope they fit.

in the evening i had 3 zongzi for dinner. i wetted them under the sink before heating them up in the microwave, that seemed to help with the stickiness situation.

i video chatted briefly with sunmeng in the late evening. she went out with some coworkers for fish for lunch and came back with a stomach virus. fortunately it's a rare 3-day weekend in china so she has plenty of time to rest.