no matter how much hot pot base i put in, it'll never come close to the spicy hot pot i had in china. imagine a cauldron of red hot pepper oil mixed with handfuls of spicy sichuan peppercorns (1 2). it's so hot you're sweating and your nose is running throughout the whole meal. i added almost the entire packet of chongqing hot sauce into the pot along with several spoonfuls of sichuan peppercorns and still that only barely scratched the surface. we were having hot pot tonight because my aunt had a sudden craving and only my parents have the necessary skills and equipment to pull it off.

after matthew and my aunt left, my mother gave my father a haircut. my sister, standing nearby, didn't think she was doing a good enough job so she took over. later she gave my mother a trim as well. my mother asked if i needed a haircut; i told her i'd wait until after the winter.

back at home, i rearranged my plants again. now that i'm finished with my fluorescent light experiment (the verdict: grow lights in a blue-red combination is still better than using just all yellow warm fluorescents), i was thinking about moving all the tall plants to the upper shelf and the lower plants down below. the only problem is the bottom shelf is using yellow fluorescents, which i've found to be not as effective as blue-red fluorescents. nevertheless, i moved some anyway, in anticipation of some new light source arriving tomorrow. the nasturtiums are exploding in growth: long white roots snake out of the holes at the bottom of the plastic cups, growing into the gravel trays. i'm at a point where maybe i can harvest some leaves to eat, otherwise they'll outgrow the shelf.