t
o
n
y
a
n
g
'
s
 
w
e
b
l
o
g


today was my last free day before cristina arrives tomorrow evening and lives here for the next 2 months. i'm hoping she's a good roommate, but compared to mary, anybody else is good. cristina is a spanish doctor, so doctors at least have to be fairly normal, right?

i didn't do too much cleaning, but spent the bulk of my time recaulking the bathtub after i paid a visit to the community garden in the early afternoon to water the plants then a stop at rite aid to pick up some prescriptions. i bumped into artist dave at the garden, haven't seen him all season, wanted to let him know about my recent china adventures since he's also been to china before.

i didn't get back to house until around 2:30pm. i was already sweaty from the heat (it was 96°F today), but i couldn't clean up with a shower because i was caulking the bathtub. i'd already pulled out a bit of the previous caulk along the vertical edge of the tub, but went ahead and removed the old caulk up against the wall tiles. as this was silicone, it took a little extra elbow grease to remove it, and even afterwards i had to scrape away with a razor to clean the bits of silicone still clinging onto the porcelain and ceramic.

when i went to go use the caulk gun, the caulk was stuck in the tube again. i had to unwrap the tape from the nozzle and dig out the caulk that had dried overnight. once i did that, the caulk was flowing smoothly again. it actually didn't take very long, i was done by 3pm. i tried smoothly the caulk with pieces of wet paper towels but i ended up using the finger of my latex glove, which was the best smoothing tool. silicone caulk is hard to work with because it's very sticky (unlike latex caulk) but it's the best for water. i was also going to caulk some gaps in the wall but i think i will get a latex caulk for that, easier to work it (also i don't need waterproof protection for those areas).

i watered my parents's garden in the late afternoon. my father thought it wasn't necessary given the amount of rain we got yesterday, but it's always better to water more than less when it comes to the garden, especially given how dry it's been. it also gave me an opportunity to check the status of the plants. there was only long and slender eggplant, ready to be harvested. i'm surprised it hasn't been taken by rabbits; not that they haven't been curious because early on there were a few bite marks on the stem but nothing that prevented the eggplant to grow to maturity. unfortunately a single eggplant is not enough to feed everyone, especially how eggplants shrink when cooked.

after dinner at my parents' place, i motorcycled back to cambridge. i took a shower even though the caulk needed at least 8 hours to dry, but it said it was able to be exposed to water after only 30 minutes. i alternated between the first patriots preseason football game and the olympics swimming coverage. jimmy garoppolo did well, but it's no indication of how he'll do in the 4 regular season games while tom brady serves out his suspension. the game was won more by the defense than the offense.