i wasn't quite sure if my roommate went to work today but i assumed she was still at home since i didn't hear any commotion this morning. i called my mother asking her if she still needed me to go down to chinatown and pick up 50 lbs. worth of raw carrots. i figured i could get my biggest backpack and haul it back. she told me my father was going down to chinatown instead so i went with him. we managed to bring in my new air conditioner before we left. while he was buying the carrots, i went across the street to the chinatown cafe to get my favorite salt & pepper pork chops, along with a few other takeout items for my mother and aunt. i'm sort of not used to eating a big breakfast (any meal before noontime i consider breakfast) so i didn't have much of an appetite. i ate some tofu puffs and a piece of pork chop and was pretty much full, so i put the rest away for dinner.

i finally had confirmation that my roommate decided to take another sick day when i heard her cough and later she came out to use the bathroom. the normal modus operandi for any roommate is to leave for work during the day so i can have at least 8 hours worth of quality me time. the fact that she's been in the house for 4 consecutive days is starting to make me antsy. in the less than one week she's lived here, i've had no complaints, she's been a near perfect roommate, but i'm so used to living alone that and even if she keeps to her room (which is what she basically does), just the fact that there's somebody else in the house with me makes me restless. we chatted briefly in the early afternoon, she told she was afraid to come out because she didn't want to disturb me while i was working, but when she saw me playing my playstation (katamari!) she knew otherwise.

after my breakfast-lunch, i went to the cafe to check up on my plants. today i had the painful task of thinning out the seedlings. i remember i went out of my way last year to try and save everything single seedling, but with less time and space this season, i had no choice but to pull out the extras to make room for a single healthy plant in each container. i also watered them for the first time since i planted them a few weeks ago. the planting mixture is pretty good and retains moisture well apparently. before i left, i planted 2 more tomatoes and 2 nasturtiums in 4 containers that never did germinate anything.

back at home, i finished up some work obligations. i fixed some code for client B (i'm pretty sure it's unpaid, i'm not even going to bother asking) and posted it onto the server. i burned half a dozen project discs for client N and delivered it to her house (which i discovered is just a few blocks from my place) instead of the office.

i went to visit the garden. there was only one other person there, an unfriendly woman who was tending to her plants with a watering can. i noticed a lot of recent activities in some nearby plots, including one gardener who already put down his tomatoes. another gardener had seedlings growing underneath protective plastic containers. i did some weeding with a garden hoe, uprooting all the new morning glory sprouts. later when i went to go water my plants with the gardening hose, i discovered the water main had been turned off. i fetched a watering can from the tool shed and used the only working spigot in the back of the community garden.

my lettuce experiment was basically a failure. besides the poor dirt, there's definitely something eating the seedlings that do manage to germinate. next time i may try an elevated bed with finer soil.

on the other hand, my peas are doing well. since this weekend, a few have managed to send out tendrils to the wires of the tomato cage. even the one pea plant that was slightly chewed up has managed to come back looking healthy and looks to recover. i have a tomato of 5 pea plants in the garden.

afterwards i took a tour of the community garden, looking for pretty flowers to photograph.

back at home, it was a long wait for the start of tonight's game 5 between the celtics and the magic. i even took a short nap, waking up at exactly 8:00. the celtics came out strong but was quickly outplayed by the magic, who took the lead for much of the game. by the second half i was so disappointed by the celtics performance that i switched channel to watch the season finale of fringe instead. i came back to the game in the 4th quarter, preparing myself for a celtics lost, hoping they can recover in game 6. the two teams were basically trading shots, with nobody gaining or losing points, a basketball version of chicken. stephon marbury stepped up for the team, basically keeping the celtics alive until such time they can mount a comeback. i wasn't a big marbury fan, figured he'd be a disruptive force with his massive ego, but he proved himself tonight, showed everyone he still has some skills. then in the final few minutes the comeback started, and the celtics were suddenly scoring while the magic were missing. and then off of a ray allen 3-pointer, boston was all of a sudden in the lead! that seemed to have shocked orlando, because they weren't the same team after that. in the final remaining seconds it was a free throw contest, but with celtics shooting 100% of their free throws tonight, boston ended up winning this game when they should've lost.