there was a foul smell coming from the living room last night, kind of this oily fishy odor. this morning i finally figured out where it was coming from: the little plastic stool i have underneath the coffee table. i never had a problem with it before, but i must've put a hot laptop on it recently and it sort of cooked the plastic a little bit, giving off that awful smell. i ended up washing the sofa covers, as well as doing a load of laundry. the smell was still on the rug from where i sat on it (after sitting on the stinky stool), so i left the house in search of some carpet deodorizer.

the motorcycle started on my second attempt, after i gave it a bit of gas. i went to the cafe first, where my mother insisted i have some lunch. i sat down for some noodles and a can of dr pepper.

when i left, i was able to start up the bike without turning the throttle. i did it twice, just to make first it was a fluke the first time. the more often i ride the bike, the easier it is to start up.

i went to belmont, where nobody was home. my sister had a big fight with my mother and had been hiding out at a friend's house, taking the dog with her in some kind of weird pet-related custody battle. her friend will get sick of her eventually and then she'll be forced to come back in no time. actually, we rather have the dog back and she can keep on staying at her friend's.

i checked out the rotting windowsill on the eastern side of the sun room, which i first pointed out to my father last weekend. it's sort of a dry crumble, weather damage as opposed to insect damage. it definitely needs to be repaired before winter though. my father's already been talking with some window people to get it replaced and fixed. all three andersen windows have to be taken down since they came as a set.

the concord grapes looked so promising a month ago, before my father decided to prune off a bunch of branches in order to divert resources into maturing the grapes. now instead of maturing, the grapes are drying out on the vine. we haven't had a good crop of grapes in many years now.

it's taking a while for the moonflowers to mature. it'll still be a few more days before the first blooms of the season. likewise with the cypress vines, only foliage so far, not even the hint of flower buds.

each summer a few tomatoes succumb to fruitworm damage. badly damaged tomatoes i pick off and throw away, but a few with holes in them seem solid enough to make me believe that they might've escaped further worm damage. i guess i'll find out once they fully ripen.

the golden raspberries also on their way to producing their second crop of berries for the year. these are the best plants: low maintenance, perennial, bountiful.

i staked 2 more squash vine borers. sometimes i just want to uproot all the squash plants and destroy them, to make sure no SVB can reach adulthood. i'm not sure how i can continue growing squash for next season if the SVB problem returns.

i hung the spider plant out on the shepherd's pole but it looks to be another plant that doesn't seem to do well in full direct sunlight. i'll have to relocate it again to someplace less sunny tomorrow.

the korean cucumbers seem to be in a lull for the time being, although this week we should be able to harvest at least 2 more yellow cucumbers. there's a bunch of small emerging cucumbers located at the end of the vine that should develop into some more cucumbers, should no new flowers appear on the rest of the vines.

i couldn't find the box of carpet deodorizer in belmont so i ended up buying some at the watertown target (arm & hammer carpet & room deodorizer, pet fresh, $1.99) before returning home.

carpet deodorizers don't really get rid of an offensive odor as they just mask it with a stronger "fragrant" odor of their own. but at this point i was willing to try anything. i sprinkled it all over my living room carpet, waited the 15 minutes, then vacuumed. pro: the bad smell is gone. con: it now smells like somebody spilled perfume in the living room.

washing my clothes didn't get rid of the oily fishy smell from a pair of shorts and some boxers. i presoaked them again with detergent and washed them a second time. the smell was still there, maybe a bit fainter. i'll have to do another presoak for a longer period of time to hopefully get rid of the smell completely.