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MAY

16

2010

rolled out of bed this morning and headed straight to the garden to plant my vegetables. the lady with the ugly wood chip mulch garden next to mine was there with her husband and son. they managed to ignore me for much of the time we were there, finally asking if i was new to the garden. "i've been here 4 years," i told her. "oh, i must not have seen you," she said, even though we'd met once before. i didn't like her then and sure didn't like her now. we made some idle gardening chit chat but right away i got the feeling that she was the kind of person who always had to be right and have the last say. gardening is a great way to save money on vegetables. "really? i already spent over $100 buying supplies." yeah, i grew my plants from seeds - although the ones in stores are so much bigger. "that's not true, the ones i got are small." i use tomato cages. "i prefer these iron rods, they're so much better." eavesdropping on the conversation she had with her henpecked husband, it was obvious who wore the pants in that household. i was relieved when they finally left.

i planted a row of 4 hot peppers on the southern edge of my garden plot. behind that, a row of basil, followed by interspersed spots of tomatoes and cucumbers.

i had some more gardening work to do in belmont: i collected the unused drip hose around the perimeter of the backyard; figured out where to plants my gourds and cucumbers; and dug up the mint carpet. any grubs i uncovered during my digging i'd subsequently dispatch with the help of a rock. at one point some beetle guts squirted on my face. times like this i wished i had a pet skunk that i could feed the grubs to.

i made sure i finished up before 3:00 so i could watch game 1 between the celtics and the magic. i haven't been following orlando so parts of the 2009-2010 roster was new to me. i knew they got rid of turkoglu and got vince carter, who in his prime was hailed as the second coming of michael jordan. but they also got jason williams? i remember watching him play, he used to be good. they didn't use him much during the game however. i'm not a fan of dwight howard. i put him in the same category as shaq: player who's only good because he's big but doesn't have a lot of skills. today's game just reinforced my theory. one more thing: how come they don't show free throw shooting percentages anymore? is it because these numbers are embarrassing to some all star players with horrible free throw numbers? i stopped watching in the 3rd when the celtics were up by 16 points. i was surprised to see orlando had come back to almost tie the game in the final minute, but thankfully boston held them off for the victory.

when my father came home we planted the gourds. the cucumbers still have to wait one more day, until we can assemble trellises for them (not even sure if that's necessary now, because the cucumbers don't even look like they're the climbing variety). we also planted the morning glories and the moon flowers.

i'm still not used to returning home while it's still daylight out. i had my rear light blinking anyway, it case it started to get dusky. it was warm enough that i just had my t-shirt on.

those cypress vines i planted indoors a few weeks ago, i finally decided to figure out why they weren't sprouting. i poked around beneath the dirt and found moldy seeds. i started a new batch, this time soaking the seeds in warm water to help jump start the germination process. the seeds may just be bad. but i'm still a little surprised that not even a single one sprouted.

another great breaking bad episode. skyler is just as devious as walt when it comes to lying. looks like jesse is scheming again, which probably won't end well, and just when walt got some job security as a meth cook. just 4 more episodes left! but by then the new season of mad men will have begun so there's still always something to watch sunday night.