t
o
n
y
a
n
g
'
s
 
w
e
b
l
o
g


i woke up to watch the world cup final between argentina and france beginning at 10am. i left by halftime, with argentina up 2-0 and in a good position to win. i got to belmont a bit after 11am, surprised to find hailey in the house sleeping in her round dog bed. she got up as soon as she saw me and i let her out into the backyard so she could use the bathroom. my mother whipped up some thin noodle soup with the leftover bamboo & pork stew from last night.

i ate it with two generous teaspoons of my hot chili oil sauce. eating while continuing to watch the game, france seemed to be doing better in the second half, and all the action looked to be happening on the argentinian side of the field. everything looked good for argentina, until the final 10 minutes, when france's mbappe scored 2 goals (one penalty, one field goal) to tie the game and send it into extra time. when messi scored a goal with just 12 minutes left in extra time, people were already celebrating for argentina. but mbappe scored a goal as well with just 2 minutes left in the game, to tie it once more and send the match into penalty kicks.

i hate penalty kick decisions, there's something unfair about, and a lot depends on luck, on the goalie making the right guess as to where the kicker is going to place the ball. argentinian goalie martinez managed to block one kick and another hit the goal post, while the argentinian players made all their goals. after their 4th successful goal, it finally happened: argentina won the world cup. my mother was watching the game as well in the living room, which finished watching the award ceremony, even when messi donned a see-through robe that looked like fancy lingerie and grabbed hold of trophy with the official announcement of their championship. for some reason french president macron was there, presenting the world cup medallions, consoling the french players, almost as if he'd personally responsible for the team.

that was the only good sports news of the day. later there was a celtics game against the magic (second since friday) which they lost in a close match, and a patriots-raiders game in which new england lost in overtime.

in the late afternoon i went down to the basement grow room and watered all the plants (Bti-infused water naturally, to control the fungus gnats). it's been 2 weeks, and i don't know if my father had done any watering. since there was still water in the rain barrels, i went outside and collected 2 large barrels worth of rain water, which i personally believe is better than tap water. i spotted a few mealybugs on some orchids and sprayed them with neem oil. i added another led strip light, above the cactus plants on the folding table.

for dinner my parents made garlic chive dumplings. i ate them with some weichuan dumpling sauce mixed with more of my homemade chili oil. the chili oil has a sweet taste, which could've either come from the cinnamon stick, the coriander seeds, or the fried onions. i kind of don't like it despite the additional fragrance, next time i don't think i'll add it.

after dinner i returned home, got back by 7:30pm. there was a giants-commanders game which i had turned on, but i was all sported out, and turned off the tv before the game was over. i spent the rest of the evening surfing temu to see what else we could buy.