my legs felt just as stiff and as painful as yesterday as i rocked myself out of bed, unable to bend below the waist without hurting. i frankenstein monsterwalk out of the bedroom and waited for my roommate to leave for work. john was sending me text and photos from his last day in the white mountains; he decided to climb the hi cannon trail, which features ladders. it sounded like fun, but i wouldn't have been able to tackle the rock scrambles, not with my legs in such poor shape.

i took two ibuprofens which gave me some limited mobility but the pain was still there. i weighed myself, thinking i'd lost some weight from all that hiking, but i actually gained weight. after a bowl of chicken sausage oatmeal for lunch, i went out to return my parents' car, stopping by the gas station first to fill up the tank. there was a promise of rain later in the afternoon and evening, so i didn't bother watering the garden, though i did inspect some of the cucumber flowers for beetles.

my return trip was on a bike, which felt like deja vu because i must've done this before. i couldn't bend my knees without hurt, and here i was pedaling my way home. i rode gently, overcoming not only the aches but also the intense heat and humidity. i stopped by the cafe briefly to give my parents a report of my hiking trip, then continued home. by that point i felt a few raindrops and decided to put the bike away in the basement.

it was just too hot to do anything. my plans of getting some groceries and cleaning the fish tank were all postponed. the only thing i did was to wash my hiking shoes as they smelled something terrible after 2 days of hiking.

somerville road crew were digging up the end of my street, in the neverending construction that is the beacon street bike path. ever since the cycle track was installed, there's been a bunch of drainage issues. i noticed it last week after a rainstorm that it'd stopped draining. they blocked the road, which caused a congestion in front of my house as confused drivers tried to make sense of the detour. by the late afternoon the repair was finished, a large new rectangular layer of mismatched asphalt the only sign that something happened.

GC returned home around 6:45pm. his dinner was thankfully odor free, just a simple stirfry of beef, eggs, and tomatoes. for my own dinner i heated up a frozen box of stouffer's stuffed bell peppers in the microwave. i finished watching avengers infinity war, which was well-made but super depressing, but i already knew the ending so it didn't come as a shock. afterwards i started watching disobedience (2017), that rachel weisz and rachel mcadams film, inspired after seeing so many orthodox jews vacationing in the white mountains.