today was a low stress day in terms of morning clean up. LJ left the house relatively unscathed: just some hairs on a dry bathroom floor and a few droplets of grease on the kitchen stove and countertop. she has but 5 more days (actually 4 if you don't count the morning of her departure) before she leaves.

i've been reading a lot about the women's olympic badminton disqualifications. and now one of the chinese woman says she's retiring from the sport altogether. most of the articles i've read said the motive was to secure a more favorable position in the next round. i don't think that's the main reason. the real purpose - at least for china - is so the 2 chinese teams won't face each in the knockout round, thereby ensuring china would have a chance of winning two medals instead of just one. this decision probably came from high up, and the players themselves had little choice in the matter when told to tank the game. if anything, we should sympathize with them for being asked to lose on purpose, which probably didn't sit well with star athletes used to winning, because they did such a poor job of hiding their subterfuge. i mean, even when they were warned about it and almost disqualified the first time, they still kept at it. in the aftermath, they're also the ones who take the fall, going on camera and apologizing to their fans and the sport.

with my computer still transferring files, i left the house just once today to visit the community garden. it was a hot sunny day with temperature in the 80's and very humid.

the main purpose was to harvest zucchini squash number 6 before it grew too big. unfortunately in 3 days time it managed to become a monster as well, measuring 16" long with a circumference at its base of over 11". i didn't see anymore baby zucchinis on the vine; however, there might be a few on the cozozelle, provided they manage to mature.

a lot more red cherry tomatoes but i forgot my container so didn't pick them. no red regular sized tomatoes, not even a hint of color change as they remain firm and green. i actually have tremendous success with pepper plants. they don't take up a lot of space (grow to about 2' high) and insects don't seem to feed on them. they're not big producers, but it depends on the type of pepper; bigger varieties are only 1-2 per plant, while smaller ones can grow a dozen or more.

i have flowers of every color of the rainbow growing in my garden. the only problem is they're not spaced very efficiently, so they're kind of everywhere, with taller plants eclipsing shorter ones. they're all perennials (if you believe snapdragons can overwinter in new england) so i may need to relocate some of them for next season.

the caladiums are starting to fill out in the two wine casks in the front and back of the house. some of the ones in the backyard seemed to have been damaged by a squirrel. one interesting thing is these were supposed to be 'white queen' variety but they're coming out all mixed. i actually don't mind, because i wanted to get an assorted variety in the first place but they were more expensive.

i had some chicken sausage oatmeal for breakfast, then a late lunch of granola yogurt. i opted not to make more risotto for dinner, but instead heated up some french bread pizza in the toaster oven.

LJ came home late, around 11:30. i figured maybe she went out to dinner with her coworkers, but turns out that's tomorrow. she asked if they were treating her or would she be expected to pay. i said she'd find out once the check arrives. she seemed disappointed and the look on her face showed that she didn't want to go if it wasn't free.