for the past several years i've lived my life where everyday was the weekend. so it's somewhat of a novelty to experience a weekend where it actually mattered. but like most people, the weekends are spent running errands. it was a while after i woke up that i remembered i needed to wash my clothes. today was the day to do it because it was both sunny and dry, two important criteria if i want to hang dry my laundry outside. i didn't have as much dirty clothes as last time, which prevented my laundry from bunching up and not drying properly. i also washed some bath towels and pillowcases.

i left the house at noon, getting some gas for my motorcycle before arriving in belmont. my parents were at my mother's acupuncture appointment in framingham. hailey was home alone, i let her outside to sit in the sun while i toured the backyard. my mother made some wontons for lunch when she returned home.

while inspecting the climbing buttercup squash plants on the western side of the yard, i detected some vine borer holes near the root stem of one of the squash vines. this is most likely a death sentence but there's one potential solution: injecting Btk solution in the hollow squash stems. i've done it in the past (as far back as a decade ago), though it's hard to confirm whether i was successful or not. i bought a fresh supply last month, so this was my best chance to retest Btk applied intravenously.

unfortunately i couldn't find the syringe i normally use to inject Btk. i've used the same syringe all these years, as it was sort of an ordeal getting it in the first place. so in the late afternoon i rode down to the new watertown CVS to see if i can buy a syringe from the pharmacy. luckily they weren't busy and the pharmacist looked chinese, so he didn't hassle me as much after i told him what i needed a syringe. unfortunately they had to be sold in packs, but it was just $4 for a package of 10. i got small (1cc) insulin needles since i'd only be injecting small amounts into the squash stems.

today being the first of august, a lot of people were moving and there were piles of discarded stuff everywhere. on my way to CVS i saw a free standing oscillating fan somebody had tossed out. when i got back i told my mother about it and my sister gave me a ride back to the site so i could retrieve the fan. it looked practically brand new, i was surprised the owner didn't manage to sell it.

when i plugged in the fan back at the house, it was obviously why it was tossed out as trash: it didn't work. completely dead, not even the faint sounds of the motor trying to work. but my father has a passion for bringing dead fans back to life (usually they just need some lubricating oil) so we took it apart to see if we could fix it. at first we thought it was the 4-way switch. a similar problem happened to a ceramic heater we managed to fix once we replaced the broken switch. but we tested the continuity on the switch and everything was working. the only other thing it could be was a mysterious small black rectangular box. turns out that's the motor starting capacitor, it functions in a similar way that a car battery is necessary to start the engine. i was tasked to look for a replacement part on ebay so we could try bringing this dead fan back to life.

* losing housekeys