i caught marco this morning preparing for his week long trip to brookhaven national laboratory. "you're not wearing shorts?" i chided him, since normally he sports a pair of black denim shorts (irregardless of the weather). he told me shorts are actually forbidden at BNL because the dangers of splashing chemicals and other hazardous whatnots. good to know. he was out the door before 11:00, a large duffle bag in his hand. looks like i'm roommate free for the next week!

my mother called asking me to get her some frozen blueberries. i rode the bike to market basket where it was nearly to full capacity. just making my way to frozen food aisle took several minutes (amidst the shopping cart congestion), and then several more minutes waiting in line to pay.

since it's street cleaning tomorrow and i already have a pretty choice and safe parking spot, i decided to take the bicycle to belmont. i had my camera slung across my shoulder hoping for some worthy photo opportunities but i didn't see anything interesting.

my mother was the only person at home, knitting in the study with the computer streaming one of her asian soap operas. she came out to ask if i had lunch yet; when i told her i already ate a sandwich, she went back to her knitting. i took a shower because my t-shirt was sweat-soaked from the bike ride.

my mother is still on her diet, with just a week left. it's a weird diet, restricted to certain food and supplemented with an assortment of vitamin pills. i haven't noticed any difference and i told her whatever weight lost she'd gain right back once she goes back to eating normal foods.

my mother told me that the last jar of 5+ week old beef jerky has grown moldy. she should've told me earlier because i'd already ate a few pieces without looking. the reason why there's still jerky is because my mother was saving them for after her diet, but she waited too long. i said there was nothing to do but throw them away, but she said they're still edible, maybe wash them first. finally i decided to bake the moldy jerky, figuring a 15 minute blast of 200°F temperature should kill off anything bad. the baking jerky smelled really nice, but the end result was a very brittle jerky. but the mold was gone. my mother and i ended up finishing all the jerky, then waiting the next hour to see if we show symptoms (no ill effects).

i started a new knitting pattern, redoing the outlined check but alternating the colors: light ovals on a field of charcoal heather. i only managed to do a single row of ovals before i tired out. i'll try to finish it tomorrow. i'm trying to keep the yarn tension even this time.

there was a cowboys-patriots game this afternoon. neither team played well, and the cowboys had a good shot at winning, but with about 2 minutes left in the match, new england scored a touchdown to put them on top with just 22 seconds left for tony roma to pull out a miracle that never came. patriots ended up victorious. new england defense did an awesome job, which is surprising, because i didn't think they were that great a week or so ago. next week is a bye week.

my sister came home with hailey after dinner. the dog excitedly sniffed everyone before plopping on the couch and going to sleep, seemingly exhausted from a weekend of new hampshire hiking.

back in cambridge, i was going to watch the season premiere of the walking dead but i didn't realize it started at 9:00, which made me very confused when i tuned in at 10:00 and felt like i was missing something. only during the encore broadcast did i realize i'd already missed an hour. is it wrong for me to say i don't particularly like the walking dead? i'm fine with zombie in small doses (like in the occasional movies) but zombies in a series? why would i want to watch such bleakness?