it's definitely easier to wake up early this time of the year, when the weather is warmer and there's more morning daylight. i woke up a bit before 6am to use the bathroom. while i was at it, i also opened some windows to air out the house, get rid of some of the cooking smells from yesterday. doing it in the morning meant fresh cool breeze instead of the hot winds forecasted for later today. it was already light out and behind a bunch of houses in the east i could make out a colorful sunrise. i wasn't particularly sleepy by that point so i could've just stayed up instead, but decided to try and get a few more hours of sleep as i went to bed at 2am last night.

i woke up sometime around 9am, from a phone call. it was direct energy solar, finally getting back to me. the guy i spoke to wanted to set up an appointment to meet; i told him we'd already spoken with other solar energy companies and was just really looking for an estimate. he was fine with that, so later i sent him an electricity bill.

karen got in touch with me today. she said she wouldn't be back until friday morning, and would go directly to work. that was the good news. bad news was she invited her best friend to boston, where she'll be staying for 5 days (actually arriving friday midnight and leaving wednesday afternoon, so 4 days 5 nights). what can i say? i can't really say no, but this will be the 3rd guest she's invited to stay at the house. for this privilege she's not even paying the normal rent! but in 2 more weeks she'll be gone, so i have that to look forward to. these past few days living without a roommate has been a luxury. since august of 2016, i've had a roommate every single month except for october and december. hopefully her friend is cool at least, makes it more bearable.

around 11am i called concord insurance to let my agent know i wanted to adjust my coverage: increase my deductible and get rid of identity theft protection. mark (my agent) said he'd send me a revised premium invoice within the next day or two.

i motorcycled to belmont around noontime after finishing a sesame paste pastry my father brought back from flushing chinatown on monday. i found my father already home pruning some more branches and vines. i was there to plant the seedlings i brought back yesterday afternoon. it was a hot day with the temperature hitting 93°F. there were a few times when i felt light-headed and thought i'd faint from the heat. i planted 6 tomatoes, 4 habanero peppers, 4 mixed hot peppers, 4 japanese eggplants, 3 thai basils, 4 gazanias, 4 cucumbers, and all my snapdragon seedlings (in the form of plugs).

into each hole i scooped some plant-tone fertilizer (i've nearly used up the entire bag). i cut off the bottoms of the plastic cups i used as pots to make makeshift seedling protectors, since in years past we had problems with unknown backyard critters biting the seedlings in half. i also planted some seeds: 2 mounds of zucchini squash, nasturtium in every raised bed corners, and a dozen moonflowers. my father returned to the cafe before i finished planting, but i was done shortly afterwards. i returned home by 2:30pm.

i stopped by my own community garden plot first to water my plants. i was afraid the seedlings i planted yesterday would all be wilted from the tremendous heat, after seeing the seedlings at my parents' place wilting. however, my plants seemed fine, and i wonder if somebody had watered them for me earlier. anyway, i quickly watered them again before finally going home to change out of my sweat-soaked clothes and take a shower.

my sister came to my place around 4pm, along with her dog, my mother, my grandmother, and my aunt. they've been meeting at the cafe this past week and decided to visit my place for a change of scenery. my grandmother wanted to eat domino pizza again so i ordered the same hawaiian and the bacon pizzas from last week from the nearest domino's (davis square). the pizza from last time was so delicious that my grandmother wanted to order a second hawaiian. the pizza shop actually called me back after i made the second order just to confirm i didn't make a mistake. my sister and i went to go pick up the pizzas at 5pm.

the thing with domino's is their pizzas can change from one store to another, and even within a single store the pizza can be different depending on who made it. so today's pizzas had a much thicker (bready) crust, and the ingredients didn't seem so fresh. my grandmother seemed to have remembered more pineapple last time, and they were embedded in the cheese instead of just sprinkled on top. there also wasn't a lot of mushrooms, just some dried pieces. as for my sister, with her supposed gluten-allergy, she went to the nearby thai place to get some takeout instead. as there wasn't anymore room in the living room, she ate in the kitchen with her dog watching nearby.

the justice department today appointed a special prosecutor to investigate whether the trump campaign was in collusion with russia. every day there's some new drama with the trump administration. so long as he's bogged down in all this quagmire, hopefully he'll have less time to enact some of his agenda.

everyone left by 7pm. the evening's highlight was game 1 between the cleveland cavaliers and the boston celtics. despite more than a week of rest, cleveland was not the least bit rusty, dominating boston throughout the game. i think the celtics were just tired from having finished a grueling 7 games series against the wizards less than 48 hours ago. nobody expects boston to win against cleveland, but if boston can win just one game it will be a moral victory that they can hopefully use as motivation for next season.

extratorrent shut down today. good torrent sites are becoming less and less. hopefully some new site will rise from the ashes.