i woke up at 7:30am and left the house by 8am. i drove the car so i could leave it at the cafe parking lot and not have to worry about getting a ticket. but first i went to market basket to stock up on some drinks and get a few things for the cafe. heading to the cafe, it started to rain unexpectedly. i got there around 8:40am. since i was there early, i started warming up the backup batch of tea eggs before making another fresh batch. i also restocked the beverage fridge.

my sister showed up around 9:15am, my 2nd aunt showed up around 9:30am. at first i didn't notice, but my sister and my 2nd aunt were having an argument. my sister accused my aunt of talking too loudly. after my sister left to go take care of esmei, she sent me a text saying she wasn't going to come back to the cafe today because of the argument she had with my aunt. well that didn't take long. took less than a week before my sister had another episode and abandoned us. i said nothing to my aunt but swore under my breath. my best course of action was to not engage with my sister and hope maybe she would change her mind. sure enough as we approached our busy lunchtime period (11am-1pm), my sister said she would come back after all. not only that, but when she did come back, she brought gifts: donuts from linda's donuts and greek food from sophia's greek pantry.

i wasn't looking forward to it but i called doctor huang this morning. his wife answered the phone. i told her my crown was loose again and needed to come in. she sounded annoyed, but i got an appointment for monday morning at 9am.

from my market basket trip earlier, i brought some goy yuca (cassava) chips (garlic flavor) as well as a container of grillo's sweet & spicy pickle chips. i got a 5lbs. bag of california navel oranges. at least these oranges won't be affected by trump's senseless tariffs. i sliced up a few later and shared them with my 2nd aunt. besides being super fragrant, these were also very sweet. finally, i got a package of italian sausages with fennel. my mother demonstrated that these cook well in the air fryer, almost like they were grilled. i cooked them in sur la table oven. my 2nd aunt put one on a skewer and i did the same. i ended up eating two.

we were busy during lunch and briefly in the early evening. otherwise it was mostly quiet. for me, not much has changed in terms of my hours, except i work an extra day. for my 2nd aunt, she only normally works twice a week, and not a full 9 hours day, but a abbreviated schedule. so for her it must be pretty jarring, suddenly working from 12 hours a week to a full 41 hours. my sister works the least, 3-4 hours a day.

my parents were leaving for japan today. i kept track of their whereabouts on google map. they went to the airport around 3am local time, for a 6:30am flight from taipei to komatsu (about a 3 hours flight). they're due to arrive in japan around 8:30pm boston time.

in the evening a guy came in ordering 6 smoothies - 3 strawberries, 3 mangoes. i was curious why he wanted all these smoothies, but nobody bothered to ask him.

after we closed, i walked home as i was leaving the car here. it gave me a chance to break in my new merrell moab hiking shoes, which i started wearing on sunday. it took me just 21 minutes to walk home, a distance of 1.2 miles. the only thing that bothered me was i was afraid cars behind me now might see me. made me wish i brought my rojo 100 tail light, which can clip to my bag. i woke my hearing aid home tonight, the AuD yesterday told me i should wear it more often to get used to it. i turned up the sensitivity to maximum - from default 0 up to 7. it was a weird sensation, suddenly i could hear everything. a group of girls talking a few houses away, i could hear them no problem. the rustling of leaves, the grinding of gravel of a car coming behind me, like i was imbued with bionic hearing. can't wait to take the hearing aid out into the forest for some intense naturing.

after a shower, i heated up a frozen brick of lasagna in the oven. i ate while watching the blazers-celtics game. this game was unique in that mike tirico subbed in for play-by-play commentator drew carter, to get some practice for when the NBA returns to the NBC next season. celtics ended up torching the blazer behind a career-high performance by both pritchard (43 points) and white (41 points), but the game got close in the end when portland continued its hot shooting. it got as close as 8 points when the game thankfully ended, cementing the victory. it was the first time in celtics history that two players scored 41+ points in the same game.

i woke up at 6am this morning to get ready for my 7:30am hearing test appointment at mass eye and ear. it was so early the sun wasn't even out yet. i turned on the heat and stumbled into the bathroom.

i didn't leave the house until 7am. it took me a little over 20 minutes to ride down to mass eye and ear (MEE). even though it's right next to MGH (which is where i go to see my doctor), i haven't been to MEE since i was a little kid. not sure why i even came here, i remember it was for a hive reaction, and i recall a group of student doctors gathered around me while i lifted up my shirt to show them my rash. and then for some reason i got a hearing test where i found out i was partially deaf. so i've always known i have bad hearing. just in recent years it's gotten more pronounced. i mishear words or not at all, and i'm always getting surprised because i can't hear it when somebody walks up behind me.

MEE has that weird floor arrangement like at MGH where the ground floor is lobby while the second floor is the first floor. i took the elevator to the 2nd floor. i was there early enough that the hearing department wasn't even opened yet. i sat outside with two other people who were also waiting. when the receptionist finally unlocked the door, we filed inside and checked in. i was the first person to be seen.

the person who saw me wasn't a medical doctor but an AuD - doctor of audiology. i'm not sure what the difference is. she brought me inside a testing room, which reminded me of a torture chamber in a spy movie. sound proof room with a table topped with various mysterious equipments. the audiologist sat in an adjoining room with a window while i sat in the center of the room. there was a panel on the wall with various jacks for plugging in different headphones. the first test used a special microphone that transmitted sounds directly to my bone. i'd raise my hands when i heard beeps. next i was fitted with a traditional set of headphones and repeated the same procedure, raising my hand when i heard beeps. that was followed by a spoken word section. two-syllable words would be repeated at varying volumes, and i had to repeat them back. a similar test was repeated, this time with background noises to make it more difficult to hear. the audiologist then fitted me with earphones that fitted directly into my ear canal, and i raised my hand when i hear beeps.

just like that the hearing test was over. curious, i asked the AuD what if the patient couldn't understand english. she said a long time ago they did have a spanish version of the listening test, but since then they only have the english version. she told me sometimes she administers the test to non-english speakers and instead of repeating the words, they just repeat the handful of english words they know.

the AuD told me i had moderate-to-severe hearing loss, and she recommends getting a hearing aid. she said MEE has a hearing aid department that she could refer me to. she asked if i had any questions. i was seeing the otologist afterwards, and i thought maybe he would fit me for a hearing aid. but the AuD told me that wasn't the case, and if i had any hearing aid questions, i could ask her. i told her about the sony hearing aid i bought, and how it works great in amplifying sounds, but when i hear myself speaking it sounds muffled. she said that's actually normal with hearing aids (unfortunately), and that's just something you just get used to eventually.

with that i left the hearing test room. my next appointment wasn't until 8:30am, and i still had half an hour to kill. like before, otology wasn't opened yet, so i sat outside waiting for them to unlock the door. a pretty receptionist eventually did open up otology. after i checked in, i waited in the waiting room.

i was the second person to be called in. a nurse brought me to an exam room. she asked a bunch of questions - basically all questions the AuD had already asked me. then she left and said the doctor would be in shortly. instead of the doctor, an asian med school student came in and asked me all the questions the nurse and AuD had asked me previously. are they not allowed to compared notes? he left, and came back with the actual doctor (the otologist). for the fourth time the doctor asked me all the questions everyone else had been asking me. i wasn't even sure why i was seeing a hearing doctor, and he seemed a little baffled as well. people using see him first with hearing related issues before they get their hearing test. i for some reason did it backwards. i didn't find out that the hearing test is good for 6 months, in case i wanted to use the results to get a custom hearing aid. the doctor said i had mild-to-moderate hearing loss though. looking to get my money's worth, he quickly checked my ears with a probe, and removed some earwax from my right ear. he said besides the hearing loss, he could saw nothing wrong with them.

with that i was done. it was just 8:50am. i headed directly to the cafe, arriving around 9:20am. at first i thought maybe my sister flaked out and didn't show up, but was relieved when i saw she was already at the cafe, making preparations: cooked the rice, made a batch of black soy noodles, reheated the tea eggs, pickled some cucumbers. my 2nd aunt showed up a few minutes before we opened the store.

last week was just a trial run; this week is the real challenge as we open the cafe for a full week. can we work 5 days without drama? that's the real question.

my sister left soon after my 2nd aunt showed up, said she had to take esmei to the dog park. she didn't come back until an hour later, right when we started to get busy. she left again around 1pm, she said was taking esmei to fresh pond. but we got a little busy again and she ended up staying to help out until 2pm, when she left. fortunately it didn't get too crazy, and my 2nd aunt and i were able to hold down the fort. my sister came back around 4:30pm, and stayed until we closed. 5pm is usually when we get busy again, and today was no exception. besides a large online order, we got an even bigger order on ubereats. i like it when we get busy, so far we've been able to work as a team, not too much squabbling, although my sister will occasionally pick on my 2nd aunt. like how she scolded her for not knowing that there are two sizes of smaller cups and one of them don't have lids.

i was hungry when i arrived at the cafe today and ate an oui yogurt that i bought for my 2nd aunt last week. she brought some leftovers from home that she was willing to share with me but i wasn't interested. when it comes to food, it's every person for themselves. i heated up a can of baked beans i found rummaging in the supply room but took my eyes off the induction stove and managed to scorch the pot of beans. in the very late afternoon - still hungry - i made myself some spicy indomie mi goreng with a poached egg.

even though my sister said she wanted to leave early, she still stayed until we closed. we filed out the back entrance. i got a chance to use the rojo 100 tail light for the very first time. i had it on superflash mode with its 100 lumens. i couldn't see behind me but the light seemed plenty bright. i wasn't the least bit worried that somebody behind me wouldn't be able to see me.

for dinner i made another pita rotisserie chicken sandwich. tomorrow night i'll make some chicken broth with the leftover rotisserie, along with some leftover smoked ham bones i have the freezer.

state of the union address was tonight, but i made it a point not to watch it. i am not a masochist, i don't need to watch a pointless trump spectacle. reading the lowlights tomorrow morning is plenty enough for me.

even though i woke up as soon as the sun came up around 6:30am, i forced myself to sleep until 9am. i won't be able to sleep late again until the weekend. while i was using the bathroom, my parents called me from taiwan. apparently the reason why they tried to get in touch with me yesterday is because my china visa photo was acceptable because i was wearing glasses. so i had to take a new one without glasses. i set up a makeshift photo studio in the living room again. this time i used my telephoto lens set to 100mm. i went through about 60 photos, but ended up using the very last photo i took. because of the softboxes, there are two noticeable white dots reflected in my eyes. i sent the photo via line to my travel agent cousin eric and a backup copy to my parents.

i tried out the new planet bike tail lights on my bike. because of a raised tail guard on my rear baskets, i have an obstructed access to my tail light bracket. the previous superflash will fit but i kind of have to press it in to make the clearance. that why the much taller superflash 65 would have an even more difficult time fitting. i didn't even try it for fear of scratching up the light's exterior. the smaller rojo 100 fits without any issues. for something that tiny, it has a lot of sophisticated circuitry. besides the memory option i mentioned yesterday, it also flashes blue when recharging. i can't wait to use it tomorrow night.

i finally left the house a bit after 11am. i moved the car to a spot closer to my house, and to adhere to the 24 hour visitor's permit parking rule. i thought today would be warmer, but temperature was still in the mid-20's. i biked into chinatown to get some supplies, went to ming's market. i managed to pick up pretty much everything so i didn't need to visit trader joe's afterwards. i noticed ming has a few cases of apple sidra and heysong soda. i couldn't buy them today since i was already carry so much, but i'm definitely coming back this weekend to get them.

originally i planned on getting some takeout from nearby chinatown cafe. but i forgot to bring my insulated bag and given the frigid temperature, my food would be cold by the time i made it home, so i figured another time. instead i rode straight to cafe, stopping to take some ice photos along the charles river, before crossing the longfellow bridge and cutting harvard square. approaching the cafe, i stopped on observatory hill when i noticed something on the ground. it was the crushed pieces of my superflash tail light: parts of the casing, the gasket, circuit. what i didn't see were the two AAA rechargeable batteries. it's a total loss, no way to salvage it, but at least i know what happened.

the ride to the cafe took 40 minutes. after i unloaded the supplies, i moved the foods from the freezer into the refrigerator. i also vacuumed the floors. i spent a total of 20 minutes at the cafe before i left.

i went home briefly to drop off a few things, before i was out again around 2pm, this time to market basket, after i made a grocery list. maybe because i was hungry, but i had a hankering for everything. i got a package of spicy grilled salmon roll sushi ($7.79) and a rotisserie chicken ($4.69) for later. i needed to pick up some drinks but i might do that wednesday morning with the car (gives me a good reason to move). i couldn't wait to get home and eat, having not eaten or drank anything all day.

the sushi really hit the spot, i could've easily eaten 5-6 more packages. i also tried some grillo's sweet & spicy pickle chips. there a little pricey for pickles at $4.49 a container, but i've never had them before. they were pretty good, really crispy and fresh, but my poison is the nathan's half sours. in the late afternoon i had a snack of truffle cheese with peppered ham on table crackers.

i walked down to star market to get some ice cream on sale. i checked out their egg racks, they finally had some to sell (expensive), though the shelves were still mostly empty.

some bad news: my new crown is loose again! good news is that it no longer pressed against my other teeth, so my jaw doesn't hurt anymore. i'll need to call doctor huang again to make an appointment to retighten the crown. i'm also wondering if i can go back to my old crown. yes it's broken, yes it might trap food, but it was working fine. i can still eat soft food with that side of the mouth, but anything hard will cause the crown to move.

i watched my upstairs neighbors leave yesterday. they moved their car into storage and came by via uber. they finally left in the afternoon. however i heard noises today from upstairs. turns out it was the cleaning people.

i felt sleepy and briefly dozed off on the couch in the early evening while watching youtube on the laptop. for dinner i carved up some rotisserie chicken and made a wrap with it with pita bread, leftover tzatziki, sliced onions, shredded lettuce, and some spicy banana pepper rings. it was okay, but the chicken was a little bland. most of that chicken will be saved to make a broth for rice noodle soup later this week.

i finished watching anora, best picture winner from last night's oscars. you have to go into the movie knowing it's a comedy. the moment i heard it was about sex workers and russian oligarchs, i immediately thought it was one of those stark human trafficking dramas, or there'd be lots of rapes and violence. this movie has none of those things. yes, there is some violence, but mostly inflicted by ani onto other people. the language also takes some getting used to. i don't mean the russian, but rather all the f-bombs. in the end i liked it. it's a fun little indie movie, though i'm not quite sure how it won over movies like conclave, which is a more formal academy-level drama, the sort of movie that typically wins the oscars.

i woke up a bit after 9am this morning. i didn't have much going on, needed to run to the cafe to check supplies, then go to my parents' place to set up the timers and water the plants. after that, i was going over to john's natick apartment to watch the oscars.

i had a relaxing morning, ate a leftover blueberry muffin for lunch. in the early afternoon i drove to the cafe. i picked up the two planet bike tail lights i bought and sent to my sister's place. i checked the beverage fridge to see what needed replenishing. i looked over our spices to see which ones i needed to get for making new tea egg spice packets.

after that i drove to belmont. the trees in the backyard needed pruning, but it was very cold (20's) and windy, and if i branch fell on me and knocked me unconscious, there would be nobody to call me an ambulance so i decided to at least wait until it was warmer (next weekend) before i take out the electric pole saw.

i went to the garage to take some measurements. i bought a package of 50 12mm spring clips for installing a shutoff valve on the fuel line. that turned out to be the wrong size, as the original clips are 7/16" size which is closer to 11mm. so i'll need to return these and get the right size from aliexpress. i'm in no hurry and i don't think we'll see anymore big snowstorms this season.

i went to water the plants in the basement. i mixed a batch of orchid fertilizer water and accidentally watered the orchids with it when i didn't need to. as a rule, orchids don't need fertilizer while they're blooming. i mixed the fertilizer actually for the gardenia, which uses the same acid-loving fertilizer. since i did a soil drench last weekend, i was going to let the plants dry out a bit, but ended up watering most of the plants when i noticed they were a little dry already. whatever i'm doing doesn't seem to be reducing the fungus gnats, at least not from what i've seen on the yellow sticky traps. i'm not too worried, in 2 months most of these plants will be going back outside anyway. i just may have to change my Bti-infused watering technique in the future.

i got a chance to check out the two planet bike tail lights. just as i feared, the 2AAA superflash 65 is pretty big, and i'm kind of sure it won't fit on my rear rack bracket. the rechargeable rojo 100 is smaller and has a better chance of fitting. both seem equally bright. the rojo 100 is a newer light, and as such, it features a memory setting where the light remembers the last mode i was in. the superflash 65 doesn't have that function, and you have to cycle through the modes to get to the one you want.

it was cold in my parents' house and i wasn't prepared to turn on the heat with just me in the house. in hindsight, with so much sun today, i couldn't turned on one of the electric space heaters. instead i just wore my jacket while i was indoors. i watched the nuggets-celtics game - boston won after a recent 2-game losing streak to the pistons and the cavs. after that i downloaded a copy of anora and watched about half, figuring i wanted to see what all the hype was about, with this film potentially win best picture at the oscars.

i left around 6pm. google maps told me it'd take 35 minutes to drive to natick. basically it was the same route i'd go to get to wellesley, cutting through watertown and newton. what made it a challenge was that it was dark, so there wasn't much landmarks to see. i basically just blindly followed wherever google maps was telling me to go.

i arrived right on time. in the eastern sky was the crescent moon and what appeared to be venus, sign that ramadan has begun.

i accidentally pressed the wrong doorbell, first floor instead of second floor. a neighbor came out and informed me that john actually lives upstairs. the apartment was nice, with a little breakfast nook that john was using for his office. they got the apartment so will could stay here, practically next door to his private school. they've been here since january, and has the place until the end of may. john was baking some frozen pizzas in the oven. i brought petsi's brown butter pecan pie.

in the living room john has set up a projector streaming the hulu live broadcast of the oscars onto a 60"+ projection screen. it worked great, exception the screen would go black on occasions when either a hand or a body would move across the projector. i was impressed with the number of movies will had seen on his own. john was texting deanna, who was watching from home back in pelham. during a break, we got some pecan pie, including some vanilla ice cream they had in the freezer.

conan o'brien was hosting, surprisingly for the very first time. he was a serviceable host for a thankless post. all night long anora and the brutalist seemed to be duking it out. anora was favored to win in most categories it was nominated, but the brutalist was gaining. big drag of the night was when adrien brody won his second best actor. the orchestra tried to play him off twice, as he kept on talking non-stop. that little gambit ended up making the show run into overtime, which made hulu live stopped streaming before the ceremony was over. john tried to rig up an OTA antenna on a smaller HDTV, but we ended up watching the final minutes - best actress and best film - on my phone via youtube tv. john remarked it was ironic going from a big projection screen to a small phone screen. mikey madison won best actress (beating out sentimental favorite demi moore) and anora won best picture.

i left after the oscars was over, close to 11pm. will needed to go to bed (had to wake up by 7am) and john had work to do overseeing a support team in india. farther away from city lights, i noticed it was much darker in natick, i could see more stars. it was brisk, with temperature dropping down into the 20's again. it took another 35 minutes to drive back to cambridge. i had to disable google maps at one point because it was instructing me to get onto the turnpike when i could simply get home via local routes. i was lucking to find a big parking spot just a few houses down.

my father tried to videochat me three times while i was at john's place. i tried getting in touch with him when i got home but he didn't answer.

i have a casual day tomorrow but i need to hit a few spots to get cafe supplies, including making a trip to chinatown.

i woke up at 9am this saturday morning. i got to sleep an extra hour. i texted john to ask if his oscar watch invite was still happening. i didn't get a reply back but decided to go to petsi's pie and buy a large brown butter pecan pie. petsi's pie are expensive! the one i got cost $38.

i came back home and decided to go to the cafe early to do some prep work. the weather today was warm but overcast. temperature in the 50's but supposedly will drop into the teens overnight for a frigid sunday and monday (just my luck my two days off). i got to the car, relieved that i didn't get a ticket for parking in the same spot since thursday night (visitor's permit parking requires you move your car every 24 hours). i got to the cafe by 10am, an hour before we open.

here are all the things i did: cook 5 cups of rice; consolidate our egg collection into 30-count trays for more efficient stacking (i think we have enough eggs to last us until my parents come home in a little over 2 weeks); cook a new batch of dumplings (3 servings); heat up the backup 30-count batch of tea eggs before moving them into the slow cooker; cook a new batch of 30-count tea eggs; cook a new batch of boba pearls (4 containers); turn on all the ordering tablets; synchronize our 2 analog wall clocks (they were a few minutes slow); and roast a new batch of charsiu pork (9 servings). the only thing i didn't do was cook a new batch of black soy noodles (we still had a box) nor did i have to mop the floors (all that rain we got this past week has washed away most of the salt deposits). both my 2nd aunt and my sister finally showed up a few minutes before we opened.

everyday i try to predict if we'll be busy or not. given that we've had a busy week, i figured today would be a continuation. that turned out to be a mistake. we were opened for almost 2 hours before we started getting a stream of customers. when they left, it took another hour before more customers started showing up (right when i was making some cheese and macaroni for lunch). after 3pm it slowed down again. we made an okay amount given the bleak outlook early on.

john did get in touch with me, oscar watch still happening tomorrow night. i also got in touch with alex, gave him the bad news that microsoft will pull the plug on skype in may. that's the app we use to chat with. now i'm not sure what the alternative is, maybe zoom? line?

around 3pm i went to go check on esmei. my sister had already taken her to fresh pond this morning, where she said esmei had a sensory overload from seeing so many other dogs and owners. i played with her in the backyard briefly before getting her back inside the house.

we started cleaning up around 3:30pm, putting stuff away in the freezer, packing up the trash. when 4pm came around we were able to close immediately. my sister went home to take her dog out again with about 1-1/2 hours left of daylight while i drove my 2nd aunt home before going home myself.

i brought back some leftover black soy noodles which i ate with some japanese sesame dressing and chopped scallions. i ate while watching the latest episode of severance, the gemma episode. so much of it reminded me of dollhouse, a show which coincidentally also started dichen lachman. in the early evening i had some truffle cheese and king oscar sardines on crackers as a snack. the sardines were disappointing, i appreciate the spicy jalapeno kick, but was otherwise kind of bland (i still prefer liga sprats). up until a few years ago i didn't know what truffles taste like, but ever since i discovered kettle truffle oil & sea salt potato chips, i love truffles. truffler cheese definitely has a strong truffle flavor.

my little snack was so filling, i wasn't hungry afterwards and called it dinner. there wasn't anything good on television and i was started to nod off even though i did get 7 hours of sleep, so i decided to go to bed early after taking a shower.

i started watching strange darling (2023) which i'd heard some good things. classified as a horror/suspense film, i knew it had a lot of plot twists so i purposely went in without reading too much more about it. the only things i knew was it starred willa fitzgerald - whom i know from the amazon reacher series - and that serial killer(s) are/were somehow involved. the movie is told in nonchronological order, similar to a tarantino film. it begins with a woman off camera asking a man if he's a serial killer, then a quick cut of him topless seemingly choking someone. that's followed by a long tracking shot of a bloodied battered woman running through the field, whom we quickly discover is being chased by the same man now with a hunting rifle. it all seems very sinister and bodes badly for the woman (whom the movie refers to as "the lady" while the man is "the demon"). i finished watching it from bed. without spoiling it, i would definitely say there were many plot twists.

i woke up at 7:30am this morning to get ready so i could bike down to market basket at 8am to pick up some supplies before heading to the cafe by 9am. that early in the morning, the parking lot was mostly empty. there were only a handful of checkout lanes opened. i grabbed 2 18-pack of eggs ($6.49/each), enough to make one 30-count batch of tea eggs. i also got some soft foods for my 2nd aunt, who had a dental procedure on tuesday and her jaw was swollen enough that she can't put on her lower dentures to eat. even like this she's still coming in to work! the rest of the purchase were produce (cilantro, bananas, bean sprouts, frozen strawberries).

i had enough time to return home briefly before continuing to the cafe. i was the only one there opening the store. my sister was MIA, my 2nd aunt was slowly walking to the cafe from her house. she asked me last night if i could come pick her up, but what she didn't realize is i need to be at the cafe early to make preparations. i cooked 7 cups of rice before i did some vacuuming and mopped the salt from the front of the cafe. i turned on our ordering tablets. i windexed the windows of the front entrance. i checked inventory and added any missing food items from our basement freezers. finally i opened the cafe, not knowing if anyone would show up. my 2nd aunt arrived a few minutes after i opened.

i did see my sister but she showed up not to work but rather to take esmei to the local dog park. i told her she needed to be back by 11am, which in hindsight was a bad idea, because she figured she had from now until then to do whatever she wanted, when she should be at the cafe helping out.

i could see on google map my parents were already at my taiwanese aunt's house. so i videochatted with them via line. it was almost 11pm, but my taiwanese aunt and cousin had prepared a big feast for my parents' arrival.

my upstairs neighbors sent me an e-mail this morning. they're leaving for a 6-week vacation to rome on sunday (!). their house will be empty but they left their keys to our other neighbors. they also told me that jeff and michelle will be coming back for a 3rd season this summer, so i can look forward to that.

when my sister finally did show up around 11am, it wasn't very busy yet, and i could sense she wanted to go back home. call me when it gets busy i could imagine her say. the truth is, when it does get busy, we won't have time to contact her. luckily it did start to get busy, and everyone focused on the incoming customers.

for the next 2 hours it got busy. my aunt even showed up. i think she was curious to see how we were all working out. after 1pm things slowed down a bit. my sister started asking me to go visit esmei. i'm here to work, not to babysit her dog. she kept asking until she started threatening to leave. this was all deja vu from working with her last year. my 2nd aunt could sense a fight coming on and told my sister to leave. my sister ended up taking esmei for a hike, wouldn't be back until 5pm.

i finished the leftover ham sandwich i made last night. i made some white cheddar pasta shells for my 2nd aunt. even though i thought i cooked it very tender, my 2nd aunt was still haven't a hard time eating it. she ended up reconstituting the pasta, cooked it for an additional 20 minutes until the noodles were almost paste, before she finally eat it. even then, she still had some leftovers.

as the afternoon wore on, it got progressively busier each hour. fortunately there weren't too many drinks, which is something i know nothing about, but my 2nd aunt knows something, but prone to listening mistakes. like she thought someone wanted a mango bubble tea when they wanted a mango smoothie. so i was always on standby, waiting to catch any potential mistakes. since i was the only one working the kitchen, i was forced to do all the things normally my mother might do. things like make the miso soup (i've done it before) or cut the meats for the bentos.

briefly reading the news, i saw zelensky visiting the white house, only for trump and vance to double team berating the ukrainian president for not being serious about peace. the reasons given by trump were just nonsense. he basically invited zelensky just so he could embarrass him live on televison. i can't even fathom what just happened. i always thought the US were the good buys, but we're the evil empire now. plus i feel not only helpless but hopeless as well. the world has turned upside down. the american empire as we know it may soon be over.

my sister returned home early, came back to the cafe around 4:30pm. she made some mashed potatoes for my 2nd aunt after my aunt requested it.

in our final 2 hours it started to get busy again, as busy as our lunch period. the day was capped off with the arrival of a chinese family around 6pm. they've been here before, always close to closing time, causing everyone to stay and wait for them to finish eating. they did order a lot of food though, and they also bought 50-count of frozen dumplings. that didn't stop me from cursing them from the kitchen.

biking home, i realized my tail light was gone when i got back. it was pointless to retrace my steps and try to find it, i'm sure it'd already been crushed by car traffic. it was a planet bike superflash stealth back in november 2011. back then it costs $16; now it was $25. it gave me an excuse to get a new tail light. almost a decade and a half later, led light technology has come a long way. the superflash was innovative at the time, with a brightness of 7 lumens. but bicycle tail light output nowadays can easily reach hundreds of lumens.

i spent a long time doing comparison research. i couldn't decide so in the end i got two lights: planet bike superflash 65 (battery operated 2AAA) and plant bike rojo 100 (USB-C rechargeable). i like the superflash better because it seems like a successor to the original superflash (the name gives it away). it can also last up to 130 hours (in superflash mode at 65 lumens). what i don't like is it may be too tall to fit on my tail light rack bracket. i got it just to test it out, since i couldn't find enough info online to give me a good sense of its dimensions. the rojo 100 is much smaller. i like that it's rechargeable (USB-C no less), but because of its smaller battery, the longest it can operate is 15 hours in superflash turbo mode (100 lumens). i'll never do a night ride that lasts for that many hours, but i prefer the convenience of a tail light that can go a long time without needing recharging/batteries. but the rojo 100 may be the only light that will fit. my third option is to just get another superflash light like the one i lost, even if it's old technology. planet bike actually still sells them, it's a design that works, no need to reinvent the wheel.

for dinner i made another ham sandwich with the last of my sourdough bread. i ate while watching the cavaliers-celtics game. it started amazing, the celtics were up something like 22-3 right now. but cleveland clawed their way back, got their first lead in the first quarter, never relinquished it after that. celtics lose 123-116. my only solace is we were without holiday or porzingis. things could've ended differently with our full lineup. but that doesn't excuse the fact that we dominated cleveland early on, just couldn't apply that pressure all 4 quarters.

just how deep is my anxiety level with my parents gone for 2-1/2 weeks on vacation and i have to work the cafe with my 2nd aunt and maybe my sister? i had a nightmare where i was the only one working and two orders came in that i didn't know how to make, and i tried calling both my 2nd aunt and my sister, neither of which were picking up the phone. my parents were probably dealing with their own anxiety. the night before a trip i can't sleep, and i'm sure my parents were probably the same. you're worried if you've packed everything, and the little things you need to take care of before leaving.

i set my alarm to 7am for an 8am pickup from my parents. the only things i brought were my visa photos and the visitor's parking permit. after they picked me up, we headed to the airport via kendall square. it was raining lightly, but not snow potential that was in the forecast. with 4 suitcases in the trunk, the camry was making a disconcerting grinding noise. their japan airline flight wasn't until 12:20pm, but they opted to go to the airport early so i could drive the car back and still make it to work before 9:30am. we got to the airport by 8:30am, terminal E. we were there early enough that there was hardly any cars at the terminal. after we unloaded the suitcases, my parents set off while i drove the car back to cambridge.

bad time to be driving in boston, right during rush hour. going through the sumner tunnel added an additional 13 minutes to the trip. it wasn't until i was on storrow drive did the traffic finally let up. i could see bumper-to-bumper traffic on the inbound lanes while i sped away in the opposite direction.

i made it to the cafe by 9:06am. surprisingly my sister was already there opening up the store. my 2nd aunt showed up before 9:30am as well. there were two people at the door when we opened, and 3 more customers showed up all before 10am. my sister disappeared for an hour to take care of esmei. during that time we got an ubereaets delivery order. when she came back at 11am, it started to get busy.

for the most part things went smoothly at work. i haven't worked with my sister for about a year now, and i suddenly remembered all the little things she did that would eventually drive me crazy. like constantly asking me to go check up on her dog. or not helping my 2nd aunt when she's dealing with a customer and can't understand what they're saying. i just know at least for today we were about to coexist peaceful, but who knows how long that'll last. i just know that after today, we still have 13 more days of working together.

my sister's godmother even called in the afternoon, telling me she was available two days next week if we needed help, and asked if my sister came to work today. everyone is walking on eggshells when it comes to dealing with my sister and her terrible temper. at a snap of a finger she could go from helpful to adversarial. i told her godmother we were good and didn't need her help.

i could track my parents' flight online. for some reason i thought they'd fly across america and then over the pacific ocean to reach japan. what i forgot was the shortest path is actually over the arctic, across canada, across alaska, over korea, then to japan. according to schedule, they should be in tokyo around 1:30am EST. it's just a transit, their final destination is taipei.

i haven't seen my bulbs since tuesday. i'm still not sure why hyacinth A has very long roots while hyacinth B has shallow roots. both bulbs look equally healthy. the shorter roots of hyacinth B are coated with fuzzy bits at the root tips. is this a bug or a feature? the south facing windows are the perfect place for these bulbs. i also finally brought up the sun disc daffodils from the basement. i sprayed the tops with some 70% alcohol because i notice some mold, i hope i didn't accidentally kill the bulbs in the process. the red eye daffodils still appear to be dormant.

around 3pm i did go and check up on esmei. i knew if i didn't go, my sister would get pissed and might storm off again like last year. esmei was asleep in her tent. she sleeps like the dead, you can try pushing her around all you want, but she won't wake up until she wants to wake up. she finally got up with a yawning stretch then headed straight to the back door. i thought maybe she wanted to use the bathroom but she just wanted to play. a piece of wind-blown birch bark made its way to the yard. that was enough to kep esmei happy, as she tore the bark to shreds and made me play tug with it.

by day's end we sold 13 bentos and 5 taiwanese beef noodle soup. a final hour ubereats delivery order came in that bought one of each variety of bento on top of 4 tea eggs. that order alone used up 8 tea eggs. of the new batch of 30 eggs i heated this morning plus the 8 leftover from yesterday, we had just 13 left by day's end. that means to assuage my egg worries, i'm going down to market basket tomorrow morning to pick up 2 cases.

my sister left before we closed. since i had the car, i drove my 2nd aunt home before heading home myself. i don't like having the car because i hate looking for a parking spot. the good news is with the little bit of warm rain we received today, even more ice and snow melted to there point where they're practically gone, opening up unavailable parking spots. i only had to circle the block once before i 1) found a parking spot, and 2) was able to parallel parking without snarling any traffic behind me.

i came home with a leftover muffin, a chinatown sponge cake my 2nd aunt got for me, and a package of luosifen noodles. i wasn't sure what i was going to have for dinner before i remembered i bought all those sandwich ingredients yesterday. so after i showered, i made two ham sandwiches on sourdough bread. on one slice there was kewpie mayo, on the other slice either spicy brown mustard or honey mustard. i had peppered ham, chopped lettuce, sliced onions, and some sharp cheddar cheese. i ate half of each, saving the rest for tomorrow's lunch.

i looked up "implant crown teeth tightness" and apparently it's a very common condition after a new dental crown installation. it usually goes away after a few days, once the other teeth adjust to the new crown. it gives me a little hope that not everything is awry. i'll give it a week, maybe two, and see what happens.

i spent the morning setting up a photo studio in my living room so i could take one good photo for my taiwanese china visa. i had my two soft box lights set up (usually they live in my kitchen) and had my camera on tripod which i controlled using the canon phone app via in-camera wifi. after over 50 attempts, i picked the last photo i took, even though i was sort of hunched over, which made my already fat face look even fatter. i used an old visa photo template and created a 6x4" photo with 6 individual visa photos. finally i uploaded it to walgreens where the photo would be printed in my nearby store. the cost? 41¢. walgreens does have a passport photo service for $2, but the specifications for a visa photo isn't the same as a passport photo.

for lunch i tried the canned trader joe's sardines with some sour dough bread. they're not genuinely smoked, just with smoked flavor added. i found them to be a little flavorless, wish they added a bit more salt. i also sure how to eat it with bread. i initially placed the sardines on the bread, but it wasn't like i could spread it, so i just took bites of fish along with bites of bread.

i went to walgreens to pick up my photo. it was actually ready a few minutes after i sent in the order earlier. i gave the cashier 41¢ in coins.

i went to market basket afterwards. i brought two bags of seltzer cans to deposit, got back about $2.50. i've made a big dent in my deposit cache back at home. all i have left are plastic bottles, which i'll try to deposit next time, though when i did it last week, the market basket machine only accepted half. the most important thing i had to get was toilet paper. i ended up getting a 30-pack for $20. honestly, that'll last me at least a year if not longer. i also got some cheese and cured ham for making some sandwiches.

i'm hoping over time the discomfort in my teeth will go away. so far it hasn't. have you ever had something stuck between your teeth? and even though it doesn't hurt per se, it just feels weird? that's what it feels like for me. i can eat with the new crown, but that side of my mouth feels strange, uncomfortable. i'll give it a week or two, at which point if it doesn't get any better i'll need to make yet another appointment to see doctor huang to see if he can fix it. he'll probably need to file down the crown or the adjacent tooth so there's a gap. the fact that he told me this was normal is probably the first time i didn't trust his dental advice. when i saw him yesterday he was basically making excuses not to do any more additional work on the crown.

i love the show so much i started rewatching mrs.davis. i picked up some more details on my rewatch. it's so good, i'm temped to watch it again for a third rewatch.

there was a square outage for about 2 hours today in the late afternoon. not only could we not take any payments, but nobody could order online as well. i'd love to switch to a different POS other than square, but the few we've checked out all seem to be more expensive. might have to just stick with square, warts and all. when it works there's no complaints, but the few times it's gone down, it's caused havoc and square never makes any reimbursement efforts. i also heard they're increasing fees too, despite this latest outage.

for dinner i reheated the leftover mujaddara. it was just a small bowl, but combined with the bean salad, tzatziki, and caramelized onions, but it was still pretty filling. i ate while watching the celtics-pistons game. it was the second game of a back-to-back road trip. boston managed to tie twice, but the bulk of the game was dominated by detroit, which lead by 23 at one point. this victory (98-117) marks an 8-game win streak for the pistons.

going to get some early sleep tonight. my parents are coming by tomorrow at 8am so i can take them to the airport. afterwards i have to rush back to the cafe to open up the store.

even though i had to wake up early, i didn't go to sleep until after 2am last night so i could finish the last two episodes of mrs.davis. what a great show! i'm just sad it came out in 2023 and i'm only now finding out about it. peacock doesn't do a good job advertising its shows. for one thing, i don't know anyone who has peacock. isn't it the streaming service you get for free as a perk when you renew your xfinity comcast cable service? the only other peacock shows i've seen is poker face and ted. i wish peacock would just die already and license its shows to other streaming platforms. set mrs.davis free!

so my original plan this morning was the same as yesterday's plan: wake up before 8am, call doctor huang to see if he was available, then ride to allston to get my crown reexamined. but i decided i'd ride down to allston first before making the call. this way if he could see me right away, i'd already be there, saving me some time.

i left the house by 7:30am, rode to allston in 25 minutes. i went inside the office but there didn't seem to be anyone there. finally i knocked on the counter. doctor huang peeked out from behind the divider. he was surprised to see me, but just as i'd hoped, he was free and could see me right away. i was hoping he'd loosen the crown and reseat it, but that's not what he did. instead he used a little tool that had a thin metal strip to see if he could pass it through between the gaps in my teeth. even then, it was a struggle to get the strip between the gaps. as for the floss, he used waxed tape, which started to fray as he slid it between the tight gaps. the way he figured, as long as i could floss between the teeth, the fact that they were now tight wasn't a big deal. so a no go on the reseating. hopefully eventually i'll just get used to the new tension in my teeth. it still feels weird though.

i left by 8:25am. there wasn't time to go back home, so instead i headed straight to the cafe. i got there a bit earlier than my usual time, as i started my day. this was my one and only day i'd work with my parents before they leave for taiwan/japan thursday morning.

we started getting orders before 10am, as two ubereats delivery orders came in. before we knew it we had a bunch of bento sales, enough so tha we had to cook another batch of rice. but that's the curse of cooking extra rice: whenever we do, suddenly it stops being so busy, and we never use any of the extra rice we cooked. not sure what it was - the weather? temperature today hit 50's for the first time since december, so you think the warmer temperature would bring in more customers, but it was also overcast, so maybe that put them off? we still made some profit, but it was below our daily average.

there was a lot of prep work today. besides a new batch of tea eggs, i also cooked a new batch of chinese sausages and charsiu pork, and made 5 boxes of ice cubes. my father made a large batch of beef noodle soup, took the entire day before finally cooling down the soup and dividing them into single serving containers to be frozen.

my sister's godmother showed up this morning. she was probably surprised to see us so busy. after she left, my godmother's son alex showed up to give my parents a bunch of stuff his mother wanted in taipei.

was it the lack of sleep? the fact i went for an early morning bike ride to allston and back? because i felt really tired today. this seemed unusual because i sleep late all the time, and wake up the next day without any ill effects. later in the day i started getting body aches. that made me start thinking maybe i contracted something. besides a tired feeling and body aches, i don't have any other symptoms. maybe if did catch something, hopefully my body is fighting it off, and after a good night's sleep i'll be back to normal. i just hope whatever i have isn't contagious. i don't want to make my parents sick right before their vacation.

because we made a new batch of beef noodle soup, that meant leftovers. i took home a large portion. before we closed for the day, i made some annie's white cheddar shells for my mother to take home for dinner.

since there was a celtics game at 7pm, i started preparing my beef noodle soup as soon as i got home, so i could eat and watch the game at the same time. other than a very brief period where the raptors led by 1 point in the 2nd quarter, the celtics led throughout the entire game. boston won 111-101. toronto is a bad team (currently 13th in the eastern conference) but for some reason whenever they play the celtics, they bring their A game. but there was little doubt boston would win tonight, given their performance.

i called doctor huang's office at 7:50am this morning. i wasn't sure if he'd be there, figured at the very least i could leave a message, tell him my crown was lose, hopefully he'd call me back so i could book an appointment to get it fixed. the phone rang a few times before someone picked up. "hello? tony?" doctor huang answered. i said some brief pleasantries before i cut to the chase. he said if i had time i can come in right now. i told him i could be there in 30 minutes. he told me to take my time, no rush.

i was still in bed, had to suddenly get up and get ready. i went to use the bathroom but was too harried to poop. i got dressed and left the house by 8:10am via bike. the temperature was in the upper 30's but warming up quick, as snowpacks continue to melt. i didn't get to allston until 8:35am. given i was still asleep less than an hour ago, i said i made pretty good time.

tightening a loose crown is fairly routine. doctor huang didn't even need to remove he crown first. he first drilled out the enamel from the access hole so he could get to the retaining screw. he then used a special ratcheting tool to tighten the screw. i felt no pain, but i didn't count the number of times he turned the ratchet, which was 4. that seemed like a lot. was the crown that loose? he said when there's slight mismatch between the top and bottom teeth, the bit force from chewing can cause the crown to shift. he sealed back the access hole with fresh enamel that he cured with an UV tool. afterwards he took an x-ray to check how far the screw was seated in the post. as a bonus, he shaved off some filling from my far back molar because he noticed it was liable to catch food particles. with that i was done. i didn't think it took that long, but i didn't leave until 9:20am.

as soon as i left the office though, i could feel something wasn't right with the fixed crown. it wasn't hurting like before, where it seemed to be pressing up against the back molar. this time the crown seemed to have shifted in the other direction, and was pressing up against those other teeth, to the point where i could feel the teeth tightening. i've never had braces as a kid, but i imagine this must be what they feel like. i was hoping the discomfort was only temporary, and i'd get used to it after a day or two.

i decided to go to the allston 88 supermarket to see if they had any bokchoi. we're scheduled for a burlington supply run later today to pick up some bokchoi, but if they had it here, we could be spared a supply run. other than the cashiers who were all asian, everyone else working there was hispanic. they were all out of bokchoi, which is surprising, it's an asian grocery staple. they didn't have baby bokchoi at $2.99/lbs., which is on the expensive side. looking around, everything here seemed pricier. it must be there proximity to boston university, rich college student markup.

i called my mother asking her if she needed me to ride to chinatown to get some bokchoi. honestly, i didn't want to do it. yes technically i was already in boston (allston), but chinatown was all the way on the other side of town, and google maps told me it'd take 24 minutes just to ride there. my mother said we'd go to burlington after all, since my father also needed to visit the market basket next door to get some pork. so i was free to just go home.

on the way back i stopped by the allston trader joe's. i want to pick up a hyacinth bulb, but all the ones they had the bulbs were already mature, and i was pretty sure i'd snap the stem transporting it home on the bicycle. instead i grabbed some frozen edamame beans and a bottle of cheap white wine for cooking. i also got some smoked sardines. i'm on a smoked fish kick right now, i want to try as many cans and jars of smoked fish as i can. checking out, i showed the cashier my driver license (TJ makes all customers do that if they're buying alcohol). the woman laughed, said i was much younger than i look, she would've guessed 30's. i thanked her, said i've reached an age where i people thinking i'm still young enough to check my id.

i got back home by 10am. i finally got to use the bathroom in peace (not rushed), before taking a shower.

i headed back out an hour later. i stopped by the cafe to put all the frozen foods into the refrigerator. i noticed my 2nd aunt brought all the eggs she brought from costco yesterday. a friend of hers has a costco card and a car took her. my 2nd aunt bought 3 24-packs of eggs. that's enough to make 2 batches of tea eggs. right now we have enough eggs to last us for the 3 weeks my parents will be gone. that's at least one thing i won't need to worry about.

i continued to belmont. did i mention i was using my new north face backpack? i discovered last night that the logo is embroidered in reflective fabric, so it's actually functional. the packpack is a little stiff, but that's just because it's new. it doesn't sag like my eddie bauer bag, but that's also because that bag is old.

when i got to my parents' place, they weren't sure if my sister was going to drop off esmei. if that's the case, then my mother has to stay home and watch the dog and can't go on the supply run with us. sure enough, my sister showed up with her dog. she was going to physical therapy nearby, and said she'd be back in an hour. so we decided to wait for her to come back before going out. in the meantime my parents made some chicken noodle soup for lunch with ramen noodles.

esmei likes being out in the backyard, exploring, chewing on sticks, smelling things. she chased after some birds at the birdfeeder, one of them got caught underneath the wire fencing before finally flying free. the birds didn't come back after that. i wish she'd focus her energy on rabbits instead. we didn't see any, but there were signs everywhere, like rabbit poop in the snow, and how they shredded the bark on the quince bush.

yesterday i helped my parents install airalo esim cards on their phones. today i adjusted their google photos setting so it wouldn't backup on data, only wifi. i also downloaded a 50 song playlist for my mother, a bunch of old taiwanese songs. i used audkey spotify music converter, which supposedly transcribed music 5x faster, but it still took a few hours.

when my sister finally came back around 1:30pm to pick up esmei, it seemed already too late for a supply run. besides, if it's bokchoi we need, i can just get some from the new h-mart in davis square, no need to go to burlington or chinatown. so that's what we decided to do. my father did go out briefly to get the car inspected.

i watered the plants in the basement. last weekend i purposely didn't water all of the plants (with the exception of the orchids), hoping to dry out the soil to make it less hospitable for the fungus gnats. today i was doing a total soil drench for all the plants. it's almost march and i still haven't seen any signs of pests on any of the plants besides the fungus gnats. no mealybugs, no spider mites. so bifenthrin really works. a little goes a long enough, just one application in late fall seems to be enough to keep the plants pest-free. however the gardenia is starting to show signs of severe leaf yellowing. it's some kind of nutrient deficiency. i think i might give it a little acid fertilizer next weekend. it may not have the necessary nutrients to produce flower buds. typically now is when they start forming, so it may be related to the sudden yellowing leaves.

for dinner, my father made some chinese celery with chinese smoked pork and some crispy orange chicken. eating allows me to test my newly repaired crown. it's definitely better than the fix last week, but still takes some getting used to.

i returned home by 7pm. the streets were wet from melting snow, which made me nervous because it looked like black ice. there was so much melting today that i splashed through a handful of puddles. for the first time in weeks it's going to stay above freezing overnight, allowing the snow to melt even more. at this rate we might be snow free by the weekend.

i finished watching companion (2025), which i started yesterday. i thought it was really good movie. i already knew the main female character was a robot, but there were still plenty of surprises. i'd just seen sophie thatcher recently in heretic.

i tried flossing tonight and discovered a few of my teeth are pressed together so tightly i can't pass the floss through the teeth. i ended up ripping the floss in half. this is definitely a real problem and i'll need to call doctor huang again tomorrow morning to make another appointment.