i didn't get out of bed until 10:30am this morning, on this dark and dreary day. i wasn't expecting it to be so rainy, much more so than yesterday. i finally set out by 11:30am, riding down to market basket to get a few things to make clam linguine (olive oil, italian parsley, shallots). it was only a few drops when i got there, but became a drizzle as a got out. i thought about returning home and sheltering until the rain stopped, but opted to go to the cafe instead where i was picking up a few more ingredients. here i waited nearly 40 minutes before the rain finally stopped. i hung up the fern, vacuumed the floor, restocked the drink fridge, and brought out all the frozen ingredients to thaw.
i didn't get to my parents' place until 1pm. my mother told me earlier my sister had stopped by to drop off her esmei, but they got in a big fight over the lease situation with the new tenant (my sister won't stop complaining about it even though my parents didn't want to hear) so she stormed off with her dog. my mother made me some wonton for lunch. in my haste to leave the cafe, i forgot to bring the most important ingredient which were the clams. so clam linguine will have to wait until tomorrow at the cafe.
i got my mother to gave me a haircut. it's gotten long enough that my hair has started to curl up on the back of my neck. i've sort of been reluctant to get it cut however, ever since i noticed my hair has started to really thin out this year. whenever i shower, clumps of hair go down the drain, and it's even worse if i wash it. i basically have to empty the shower trap every week otherwise the tub won't drain. so in my mind i felt like i had an expanding bald spot that was getting worse everyday. one benefit of having long hair is i can sort of cover it up to some extent. the last time i had a haircut was back in february. i always seem to get it at the worst possible time, either when the weather is still cold or turning cold, the times when you could most benefit from having long hair. so i had my haircut and it wasn't that bad. yes my hair is thinning, but it's not that noticeable since it's thinning everywhere, not just in one spot. now i'm going to let it grow out over the winter, and won't cut it until late spring, just in time for summer.
my mother's been on an on brand kick, after seeing my godmother sporting a few pairs. she bought a pair of cloud 5 and cloudultra back in late september: the cloudultra was out of stock, so only the cloud 5 arrived. it was a good looking pair of sneakers, but they were a little small. so she ordered another pair, this time cloudgo wide. they arrived today, and she wore them all day to break them in. they're just as small as the cloud 5, but wider in the toes. this week another pair of cloud 5 will arrive, this time in a slightly bigger size. my mother will compare the two and return one of them.
in the afternoon i started making preparations to move our remaining outdoor houseplants into the basement grow room. but first we had to clean the grow room, which hasn't been touched since late spring, when me moved everything out. having spent so much time in the grow room all autumn-winter-spring, we didn't want anything to do with it once the plants "graduated" and went to go live outside. besides cleaning the clutter, i also vacuumed the dead leaves all over the floor. my father came downstairs to help.
while he was cleaning, i went into the backyard to spray the jasmines and osmanthus with neem oil. i'm sort of on the fence on how effective neem oil spray really is, but i had two old bottles that i mixed a while back and wanted to use them up. i ended up using the new mist sprayer, which gives a wider and finer spray. i didn't see any pests on the plants, but that's always the case in the beginning. i'm more of a fan of isopropyl alcohol (70%) spray, that seems to kill more on contact. maybe during the warm stretch this upcoming weekend, i'll bring out the plants into the backyard and spray them with alcohol. i'm also going to be using a combination of leftover systemic insecticide granules (imidacloprid, recently banned in massachusetts) and azapro drench (azadirachtin, the active ingredient in neem oil). if none of those things work, i'm willing to try bifenthrin, a manmade pyrethroid-derived insecticide (though briefly banned in the EU as possible carcinogenic).
we also moved the dragonfruit cactus and the water reed plant. we wallpapered the grow room in reflective mylar sheets for better light reflection. when the two spiderfarmer LED lights are turned on, that side of the grow room becomes super bright. my father also wanted to try out a new configuration for the rolling utility shelves, by lowering the top shelf; but i found it interfered with the placement of our hanging grow lights, so we ended up moving it back. i think this would only work if we replaced the two spiderfarmer lights with long 4ft T8 grow lights. my mother dislikes our grow room because she thinks it's a waste of electricity. but the lights are only on during the daytime, and if it's a sunny day, we generate enough kilowatts to cover the cost of keeping the lights on for most of the day. i also try to use the most efficient led lights whenever possible, like recently upgrading the heavy duty grow lights from beefy box units to flat aluminum heatsink units (i'm always in search of better grow light LED technology).
my mother made chicken noodle soup for dinner. noodles are my favorite, and even though i started eating well after my parents began, i still managed to finish before them.
afterwards i went back down to the basement to water the plants. most of the ones from the sunroom have been transferred downstairs, with the exception of the holiday cactuses (which require cooler temperature to get them to produce flower buds) and a large batch of pilea plants. i made sure to use Bti-infused rain water, to get a head start on any potential fungus gnat outbreak.
i helped my parents fill in their mail-in voting ballot for the november general election. i myself will go to the voting station that day because i live so close by. just 21 more days! i'm cautiously optimistic. even if harris does win the presidency, there's a good chance the senate will flip to republican, so the federal logjam will continue.
i was hoping to see the comet again tonight, but it started to rain again right around evening time and the sky was totally overcast to not be able to see a thing. fortunately i still have the rest of the week, but each day the comet grows dimmer. it was actually raining a good amount, and i waited until almost 8pm before it finally stopped and i could go home. it wasn't a fun ride. even though it stopped raining, there were puddles in the streets, and every time i went over one, water would splash my shoes and pant legs. i also rode home carefully, as i didn't want to risk slipping on the wet roads.
i showered when i got home. a great thing about short hair is washing it is so much easier. i watched the monday night football game between the bills and jets. i was rooting for the jets because they seemed to be the underdog despite having aaron rodgers. it was a fun game to watch, seeing two great quarterbacks in their elements. it was evenly matched, and the game came down to the wire. i thought the jets should've won though, but they couldn't convert twice in the red zone, and their kicker missed failed to score a field goal both times. aaron rodgers can only do so much with a garbage team.
i downloaded a copy of alien: romulus. i only watched the first 20 minutes but it's definitely a scifi right up my alley, oozing with well crafted world building and high production value. besides, cailee spaeny is in it, and she alone is worth watching. i do think the film is essentially a slasher pic, just set in space. i can already see the cast of young actors dying off one by one. it is an alien franchise after all.