in the morning, i went to market basket to stock up on polar seltzers which were on sale (4 for $10). coming back, i saw somebody had thrown out a baby seat for a bike; turns out it wasn't as good as the one i have in my basement so i didn't bother adding it to my collection of "thing i have but will never use because i enjoy some hoarding."

since it might rain later in the afternoon, i bicycled to belmont. i was visiting my mother who was recovering from her rubber band ligation procedure she had yesterday. she was in the darkened living room with the blinds closed, air conditioning on, watching videos on the ipad.

when we first thought to put the squash plant in a tomato cage we figured it was a good idea because it all the stems neatly organized, making it easier to see the growing zucchinis. now we know that's actually a bad idea. eventually the stems get so heavy that they break from being constricted by the wires of the cage. my father saw this and removed the cage from our 2nd squash plant so it won't succumb to the same fate.

ah, the SVB's have returned: i found 5 eggs, my father earlier found 2. when will they stop laying eggs? by this time last year the eggs had already hatched and inside the vining stems of my gourds. so far we've been pretty vigilante, no telltale bore holes (yet).

another calendula has bloomed, this one with a red center, which makes it look more like a daisy.

feeling hungry, my mother suggested we order some pizza for a late lunch. domino's has a special deal for monday through wednesday: any large 3 topping pizza for $7.99 if you pick it up yourself. we ordered a hand tossed white sauce pepperoni mushrooms banana peppers and a brooklyn style white sauce bacon garlic banana peppers. it was ready in about 10 minutes.

i volunteered to go pick up the order with my bicycle. in hindsight this was a crazy idea: not only was it hot, but the way to domino's is mostly uphill. but it wasn't that far, 1.2 miles, and i wanted to see if i could do it. so i huffed and puffed my way to domino's, strapped the pizzas to the back of my bicycle with bungie cords, then huffed and puffed my way back home. i'm not sure how long it took me but my parents were impressed by my speed. i had to take a shower before eating because i was covered in sweat.

domino's pizza is not that good. a simple pizza from any normal pizza joint would be far superior. what it lacks in quality though, it makes up for in price and convenience (interactive online ordering). fortunately my family isn't too picky about our pizzas. i never had brooklyn style pizza before but i don't think what i had today could be classified as brooklyn style. the crust seemed like the standard domino's crust, flat and hard. bacon+garlic+banana peppers triple combination is a winner though.

earlier we watched the US versus france semifinal women's world cup match. i thought it was on later so we only catch the tail end of it, when the US was already up 3-1. next came the japan versus sweden semifinal game. i caught the beginning, when japan came back to tie it 1-1. when i watched it again i was surprised japan was up 3-1. the shortest swedish player towers over the tallest japanese player it seems. yet japan won! now it's the US versus japan for all the marbles come sunday. i'm actually sort of rooting for japan because they're the underdog. i didn't realize the US women's team is ranked number 1, so it'd be no surprise if they won.

in the late afternoon the sky darkened and it suddenly started to rain. not a calm drizzle but a torrential downpour. it only lasted for 10 minutes at the most, but i ran outside into the backyard to re-align the downspout for the triple rain barrels. it was raining so hard that the first rain barrel - the catch barrel - was completely full, while the 2nd and 3rd barrels were only half full. the connecting hoses just wasn't filling enough. it got so bad that the catch barrel actually overflowed, the outflow hose wasn't pumping out the rain fast enough. i would've ran inside to get the camera to take a photo but the rain stopped shortly afterwards.

i left around 6:00, taking with me a few slices of leftover pizza. i was going to bring home some marsh grass mulch, but my father said he'd deliver it to my place tomorrow so i wouldn't have to carry a big bundle of "hay" back to cambridge on the back of my bicycle.

after the rain, the temperature dropped. at one point it went down into the 60's (from a high today of the 80's) before stabilizing into the 70's. of course the humidity was totally gone; the next few days look to be pretty good.