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has it really been almost week since i've been in the garden? blame it on all this rain we've been getting. when mother nature is watering my garden for me for free, there's no reason to visit. so imagine my surprise when i saw the chain link fence covered with cucumber and morning glory vines.

when i woke up this morning, i immediately began getting ready to go out running. i've been running on an empty stomach for the past few weeks: i feel like i'm burning off more excess calories and since that means running earlier, i get it out of the way so i have the rest of the day to do other things. like the first run last week, i had a lot of stamina today, and basically ran the whole way from my house down to the river and around for a loop. at the midway point i cramped up again (left side), but i ran through the pain until it disappeared minutes later.

since i figured i'd be dirty again from watering my plants, i didn't bother showering. i put on some jeans and took the motorcycle to the garden. i spent a lot of time there today: weeding my plot, watering the vegetables, turning the compost bins, replanting the sunflower seedlings, staking the tomatoes (they're getting too big for their cages), cutting some basil and scallions (for tonight's thai dinner), and finally getting some photo documentation.

and here are some photos from my neighbors' gardens:

after i was done with my garden, i visited julie's garden. since she's away in maine all this week, she asked me to water her plants for her (naturally i received one of her infamous to-do "lists"). it's a little bit more complicated because it requires opening two combination padlocks and then getting a turnkey to open the water.

julie's garden gets a lot more sun than my garden. as a result, she gets these mutant vegetables that seem to be grown for giants. her cucumbers were obscene, more like gourds. her heirloom tomatoes were the size of softballs. i noticed they had weird scars on them; i wonder if animals had been nosing around her vegetables, or maybe they're naturally occurring.

hey! playing around with the aperture on my lens!


f2.8 1/1600 sec

f2.8 1/1600 sec

f8.0 1/200 sec

from there i went to the nearby market basket to get some groceries, before finally returning home and taking a well-deserved shower. i'd been running around all day, and finally at 3:30pm i was able to get something to eat, some cereal.

in the evening my mother+grandmother+aunt came over for dinner. i made them thai red curry. my grandmother doesn't eat basil so i could only have it on the side. she also doesn't eat very spicy and i unfortunately added the entire can of red curry paste along with a few more red hot thai chili peppers. despite all that, she said i was the first of her grandchildren to ever cook for her.

did anyone watch damages on fx tonight? another great show!