though it didn't look good, i went to bed last night with at least a shred of hope that maybe harris would pull off a miracle. but my sleep was interrupted at 6:30am by a whatsapp message from my old spanish roommate cristina who stayed here back in 2016 and witnessed the whole clinton-trump fiasco. i knew right away it wasn't good news. a short time later WWY from chonqging texted me to confirm that trump had won. i was telling her my thoughts and she said she could feel the anger coming through her phone. i wasn't just angry; i was also confused, sad, and scared.

there wasn't any point in sleeping after that so i woke up at 7am. i watched the news to confirm that indeed trump had won. he won 5 battleground states including pennsylvania, with the two remaining battleground states out west still haven't finished counting but there's a good chance they will also go to trump. he also won the popular vote for the first time in his 3 presidential campaign. i turned off the tv after that.

wednesdays i go running in the morning, and today was perfect for it, with temperature already at 68 degrees. but i decided not to run - or maybe run later in the afternoon - so i could do errands instead. i went to walgreens to pick up one prescription that was actually two. next i went to whole foods to return the arris surfboard cablemodem after i decided to keep the netgear one. finally i went to market basket to get some groceries. i returned home before packing up my things and heading to the cafe to drop off a few supplies around 11am.

i then continued to belmont. the big project was spraying all the houseplants with bifenthrin insecticide. that involved moving all the plants back outside after we just moved them indoors a few weeks ago. i decided some plants didn't need spraying - like pileas - which never gets any pests. but jasmines definitely, the gardenia, and the orchids. i also moved out the osmanthus that my father keeps in his bedroom because of the winter fragrance.

the bifenthrin instructions were confusing. although advertised for both indoors and outdoors, the instructions seem more for outdoors, where you're making several gallons for spraying thousands of square feet. for indoor houseplants, i couldn't figure out how much to use. so i went online to search for answers. i found a video where a guy said to use 1/2 ounce of concentrated bifenthrin per gallon of water. i was using a 1/2 gallon sprayer, so i ended up using 1/4 ounce. the bifenthrin concentrate came out thick like yellowish-white elmer's glue. it had barely any odor. once mixed, i started spraying. 1/2 gallon is way too much, and i could've sprayed all my pileas as well but i didn't want the hassle of moving them outside. instead i sprayed each plants multiple times. because the spray came out like water, it was hard to tell if it was even working. you're not supposed to be in contact with the chemical, which can leave a tingling sensation on your skin. i didn't get that because i wore gloves, but at one point i felt a slight tingle in my mouth (might've breathed in some bifenthrin fumes). at one point i saw a honeybee and a drone fly visiting the osmanthus flowers, before shooing them away. those flowers are poisonous now, you dummies! after spraying i left everything to dry, which was pretty quick in the warm dry weather. supposedly bifenthrin can last up to 3 months.

while the pesticide was drying, i finished some errands around the house. i did a load of laundry for my mother, washing a blanket and some pillowcases. i checked all the electronic mousetraps, made sure the batteries were still working, and refilled them with fresh peanut butters. i also went to home depot to return a faucet packing material i didn't need anymore, and to buy some spray foam to block the garage door entrance and the hole around the under-sink pipes. i thought spray foam would be in paints but turns out they were in insulation at the far end of the store. i checked out some houseplants. the pink tradescantia i have (that squirrels kept trying to destroy when i left it outside) might be a bubblegum tradescantia, which HD sells for $8. a potted pilea? $10. we have so many, we can't even give them away.

back at the house, i took the laundry out of the dryer. i moved all the houseplants back inside. while moving one of the orchids with the long flower spike, i accidentally hit a door with it, shearing off a section from the tip. orchids are delicate! i disconnected the on-demand water pump and disconnected all the rain barrel connections. i then drained the connections, to preven them from freezing and cracking (like what happened to our watering wand).

i left belmont by 3pm. it already felt very late, and the morning blue sky had turned surprisingly cloudy, like it might rain. the temperature however stayed high.

when i got home i ate an instant cup of hot korean noodles for lunch followed by some soft pretzels i heated in the toaster oven. they were still cold, better to use the oven next time (i just didn't want to heat up the house).

i spent the whole day reflecting on the election. it seemed like the world should stop, but everything was still business as usual. like can i totally ignore politics for the next 4 years? wake me up in 2028 when we elect a new president. later frances contacted me as well about the election. seems like the only people who chatted with me about the loss were foreigners: i didn't have one single chat with an american about what happened overnight.

in the early evening i started making another batch of hot sauce. i bought a pound of red anaheim peppers from haymarket 2 weeks ago for $1. i wanted to use them up before they all spoiled. originally i was going to make a simple fermented pepper hot sauce, but my mother asked for a chili oil hot sauce, so that's what i made.

anaheim peppers are not very hot, so i didn't bother wearing gloves when i chopped them into smaller bits for the food processor. i had to dig out the inside of some the peppers because they'd gone bad. as for the thai chili pepper, i bought fresh ones last week. i was cutting off the stems before i realized you can just easily pull them off. i learned from my mistake last time and didn't add any citric acid. i also used chinese baijiu instead of chinese cooking wine. my mother wanted a saltier sauce but i thought 2 tbsp was already salty enough, and when i tasted it, it seemed very salty. the final hot sauce fit perfectly inside a medium 8 oz. mason jar.

i was preheating the oven while making the hot sauce so afterwards i could bake a frozen pizza. it was done just in time for the warriors-celtics game. this was supposed to be jayson tatum's revenge game, since steve kerr - the coach for team US basketball and also the warriors head coach - benched tatum for a few games during the paris olympics over the summer. celtics lead for the first 1-1/2 quarters, before the warriors lead the rest of the 2nd and 3rd quarter. celtics regained the lead in the 4th, but in the final minutes warriors got the lead and never gave it back, winning 118-112. normally i'd be upset, but boston was without porzingis and brown. plus after the harris loss, i don't think anything could be worse than that.

because i didn't wear gloves when cutting the peppers, my fingers started hurting, a painful burning sensation. i kept washing them and running them under cold water. it was super painful and could've easily been avoided had i just worn gloves. this isn't the first time it's happened, i guess i never learn my lesson. i just have to remember not to rub my eyes, that's all.