it was street cleaning on the other side of the street this morning, that unholy apocalypse of criminal car towing enterprise, where policemen and thieves work in unison to swindle citizens of their money and vehicles. my motorcycle was parked on the safe side of the street so i had nothing to worry about but it pained me to watch unsuspecting neighbors getting their car towed. after it was over, i relocated my bike in anticipation of the 2nd half of street cleaning tomorrow.

the torrential thunderstorms we were supposed to get never did arrive. at most a brief shower around noontime, not even enough to wet the dirt. i was at my belmont retreat, enjoying the nice air conditioning.

this is the first season where we've grown snapdragons (from seeds no less). despite the fierce sounding name, i don't think they're especially pretty. i guess if you wanted some vertical colors in your garden, they might be a good idea. they have no fragrance, and don't seem to have any medical uses (western/chinese/ayurvedic/otherwise). apparently they make good cut flowers but the ones we're growing are dwarf varieties which would drown in a vase. i guess i should appreciate them for contributing to the overall biodiversity in the garden beds.

found a few more SVB seeds, not enough to be of any consequence. i think the larger zucchini plant is slowly dying anyway. besides the bent stems, a lot of the leaves are succumbing to some sort of wilting. the only way the plant is to survive is if it keeps on producing more new leaves before the old ones die off. one of the zucchinis was showing some rot so i broke it off. the tip of it was growing up against the metal tomato cage, which might've scalded/bruised the delicate squash and accelerated the rotting.

i found a bunch of women's world cup games on the verizon FIOS on demand. for some reason they didn't have the final game between USA and japan (maybe the programming hasn't been updated yet). also none of the games were in HD. my mother watched the quarter-finals match between japan and germany, a grueling 1-0 victory in extra time. it's interesting seeing the japanese team after their world cup victory. had i watched the game earlier, i wouldn't have recognized any of the players, but now they're all familiar faces.

i fell asleep in the afternoon, in probably one of the only area of the house that didn't get air conditioning. i woke up 2 hours later feeling dehydrated and sticky with sweat.

i biked home after dinner, dry but humid. i could feel it because the sweat would just cling to my skin. nobody was home when i got back and i took a quick shower.