i was up by 8:20am, disturbed by the loud banging coming from upstairs. i'm grown used to the noises, but these were especially loud and especially violent, enough to shake the house. i texted both steve and paul, asking them politely if everything was okay, which is the indirect way of saying, "you're being too loud, please be quiet." steve said he wasn't home, so i rang their doorbell and saw paul coming down the stairs. he told me a crew were removing the carpet from their house. it would've been nice if they started later, or at least told me in advance. "how long will it take?" i asked. "at least a few hours," he answered, without a hint of awareness the amount of noise it was making downstairs. i didn't say anything after that, no use reasoning with asshole neighbors. fortunately the sounds soon stopped as the work continued onto the 3rd floor.

every night i adjust the thermostat schedule, trying to figure out when kevin will wake up. this morning it was set to 8am to 9am, but kevin didn't get out of bed until after 9am. i of course wanted to use the bathroom and take a shower, but figured i'd wait until he left. when he didn't seem to be any hurry to go to the office, i decided to pay a quick visit to market basket around 9:40am, where i needed boxes of kleenex (kevin seemed to have exhausted the one in the kitchen around) and heavy duty aluminum foil (to wrap the stove top surface which are now entirely burnt from the drips and leaks of kevin's amateur cooking). even though it was supposed to warm up slightly today, it was still cold this morning (24°F) as i arrived at the supermarket with my face covered in tears, a natural eye reaction from riding in the frigid temperature. i came back half an hour later at 10:10am, where i ran into kevin in the foyer, finally leaving for work.

i went back to belmont, because i'd forgotten that monday was martin luther king jr. day, so pick-up would be delayed a day. however when i got there, i saw all the other neighbors along the street had their garbage out as well. either they all forgot that monday was a holiday, got tricked into putting out their garbage when they saw i'd already done the same, or perhaps trash pick-up was in fact today. either way, nobody came to collect the trash by the time i left so i wheeled the bin back to the side of the house.

putting away the trash bin was the main reason why i was there. i also started the car and drove it around the block just to make sure it was still working. i then checked the bird feeder (saw some house finches feeding), the solar panels, the furnace (there was already water in the catch bin, after so many weeks where there was just nothing), and the grow room.

i sprayed the thai basil but wiped clean with insecticidal soap-soaked napkins the pepper and ficus leaves. i think the pepper can be salvaged if someone manually clean the aphids off the leaves every day. the ficus, i'm not so sure. there's sticky residue on the leaves, but i didn't see any aphids, not sure where it's coming from. i also watered the terracotta-potted jasmine with Bti-infused water because it looked dry, along with the hot pepper plant (because it seems to have the most gnats) and rosemary (planted in a mostly dry peat moss blend). i'm only a week since the last soil drench, i'll give it until this weekend before i do a 3rd round.

i left belmont by 11:45am. instead of going home i went to the cafe instead, where i've decided to give my 2nd aunt the mi band 4. originally i bought it for my father, but my aunt would use it more. besides, it'd replace her current mi band 2, which has a faulty screen so dim you pretty much can't see anything even though it still works. i tried to set it up but discovered the mi band 4 had discharged completely, so i needed to charge it up first. i told my aunt i'd come back tomorrow. she gave me a container of curry rice noodles for lunch.

i'd already missed my usual 12pm WCVB channel 5 news broadcast, so instead i turned to the news on WHDH channel 7 while i ate. ever since they lost their NBC affiliation, WHDH has been a shell of its former self. it has nothing to offer but a few syndicated shows and its news broadcast. taking a page from fox news, it seems to hire most young and attractive women.

i watched a bit of the impeachment trial around 1pm. it works better if you just listen to it on radio since there really isn't much to watch on tv. it's also kind of boring, reiterating everything i already knew. today was actually the first day of the trial itself, yesterday was just debates to hash out the senate rules. i think most people have already made up their mind whether trump is guilty or not. this is all for show, though one for the sake of posterity. the moment a democrat administration takes office, they'll open up the secret servers and all of trump's wrongdoings will be exposed. when that moment comes, history will judge those who sided with a criminal president instead of voting with their conscience.

so it finally happened: the chinese government has decided to quarantine the city of wuhan. you can't exactly form a blockade around a population of 11 million, but the government has temporarily stopped all bus/train/subway services as well as planes and ferries. i was texting WWY about it last night, she seemed to be freaking out over this new coronavirus, while i was making light of it, said she should try to get the virus so she can build up an immunity against it. she told me there was 5 cases in chongqing city, and 1 case in our old town of changshou.

i thought we'd have a new production record for 2020 given how clear and sunny the sky was today, so i was surprised when we didn't even manage to break 6kW. so maybe it wasn't that clear after all, maybe a touch of milkiness to an otherwise cloudless sky. nevertheless, we still managed to break 30kWh+ with a final production of 31.61kWh. jan.17th's record production still stands. out of curiosity, i pulled the highest production we made from last year (jun.32019 55.19kWh) and superimposed it onto the graph, just to see potentially how much more electricity we can expect to generate.

kevin came home at 5:15pm, early by his usual schedule. he rushed in and said he was going out. i thought maybe to have dinner with friends, but he went he was just going out to star market (i wouldn't consider that going out). he bought two large bag of groceries along with a gallon of 1% milk. i didn't see him making dinner, later i found half a mini pot pie in the fridge, he must've ate that.

kevin took a shower today, his schedule seems to be every 3 days or so. for some strange reason whenever he showers, i can actually smell whatever body wash/shampoo he's using through the bathroom door even though i'm in the living room. i think he just uses a lot of it. i think he made a mistake and bought conditioner instead of body wash, but he uses like an inch of conditioner with every wash, leaving the bathtub a slippery mess afterwards.

at 8:45pm i heard the washer running. today's wednesday, it was just last friday that he already did a load of laundry. i asked him if he washes his clothes everyday back in china, he said it depends: as soon as his hamper is a third full, that's when does his laundry. granted, he doesn't have a lot of clothes, but doing a wash every 5 days is a bit excessive. i can't wait to see my electricity and water bill for this month.

for dinner i heated up two slices of quiche, even though one slice would've been plenty. i'm picking up my parents from the airport tomorrow right during rush hour (5:10pm), i'm bringing the rest of my meatball sub ingredients to their place in case they're hungry afterwards.

finally, several passengers from wuhan onboard a hong kong flight to logan airport were evaluated for possible coronavirus exposure. could boston be the next US city to have a case of the wuhan coronavirus?