while my father was with my mother at her endoscopy appointment, i was in belmont trying to water the front lawn with 2 pulsating sprinkler heads i found in the garage. there really is no excuse why the front lawn can't look absolutely amazing since nobody ever walks on it. the only thing is it never gets any watering other than rain so it gets dry enough that it crunches when i walk over it. both sprinklers failed; what i need is a nice oscillating sprinkler. i ended up just watering the lawn by hand using a sprayer on a hose.

when my father brought my mother home, she was still groggy from the drugs. i figured she'd sleep it off but she was in her bedroom knitting. i pushed her to finally see the first season of breaking bad, one of the best shows on television. she'd seen an episode or two but wasn't that impressed; i watched it with her this time so i could explain any details she might have missed.

my father returned from the cafe in the afternoon. after we had some rice porridge for a late lunch, my parents and i went to the victory garden.

there weren't any new visible signs of damage in the middle zucchini bed, but something had snipped one of the squash seedlings on the western bed. the suspiciously low germination rate on this side makes me think that something had already ate all the seedlings. i ended up planting my one last zucchini seed, and then filled the remaining empty spots with either acorn squash or silver lined melon. while my father was busy hammering a few more wooden stakes and patching some holes in the plastic fencing, my mother was collecting rocks from the garden beds and adding them to the perimeter. i was busy weeding and then watering the beds. i made sure to give the soil a thorough soaking, letting the hose just run free along the side until the soil grew dark.

only one zucchini has survived. i wanted to build a fence around it to save it from getting eaten, but we didn't bring any wire fencing with us. so far the melons seemed to have escaped the scrutiny of hungry critters; the biggest danger for them is the heat, and i saw at least one partially dried seedling. even then, there were 2 locations where none of the original seeds sprouted.

at one point my mother went wandering around the rest of the garden. my father and i heard her talking with someone, which turned out to be a family of chinese: a grandmother, her adult son, and her grandson. they lived in waltham and were just spending a day exploring rock meadow before checking out the community garden out of curiosity. they were from northeastern china, which is where my paternal grandparents are from.

before we left, my father applied a coat of australian timber oil on his wooden platform. he also trimmed the ends with a portable circular saw so they wouldn't protrude as much.

instead of going home, we went to moody street in waltham, where the closest verizon fios office was, to exchange a broken remote. "we don't do exchanges," the girl told me, "but you can buy a new one for $10." but later she added they would replace it if it wasn't working anymore. she put in fresh batteries and the remote started working again (i noticed the old batteries were leaking).

later we did some shopping at patel brothers, the indian market next door. they have a surprisingly good (and cheap) produce section, with some vegetables i'd never seen before. they also carried a lot of bitter melon, which i thought only chinese people were crazy enough to eat it. i got a small packet of sugar-coated fennel seeds and a jar of vindaloo paste.

my newly ordered diamond tv tuner was waiting for me when i returned home. since i already used it before, the novelty has worn off. i did fill out the $10 rebate form in case i forgot.