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by the time i woke up this morning, my parents were already in korea. they were staying overnight at the airport hotel before catching their connecting flight in the morning direct to boston, about a 13 hours flight. i sent my father a few recorded audio messages.

i left the house around 10am to make my supply run. first stop was to the medford ALDI, where i got some baby cucumbers and scallions. i then made a detour to ocean state job lot to pick up some flower and vegetable seeds. i got some millet for my sister.

next i went to the super 88 market in malden. originally all i was going to get was some bokchoi, but i also picked up some black soy milk and some pickled daikon radishes. they also had boba ice tea flavor powder but they didn't have taro.

the final stop was to the chelsea market basket. instead of getting on the highway, i got there via everett main street. it's more direct, but slower since it goes through some commercial and residential areas.

the main thing i needed to get from market basket was some diet stewart root beer, which is a favorite for one of our cafe regulars. the somerville market basket never carries it, so once a month we need to come out to the chelsea flagship store to stock up (the waltham store will occasionally carry it, but not always). i also got half an italian sub for lunch.

i left chelsea around 12:30pm, took half an hour to drive back to the cafe to drop off the supplies. not only that but i was also taking stuff out from the freezer and defrosting them in the fridge so they'll be ready for when we open tomorrow. i ended up spending half an hour there before finally getting home by 1:30pm.

my sister said she was coming over my place with esmei around 2pm after a vet appointment (2nd lyme disease vaccine and some blood work). i quickly did some cleaning and vacuumed the house so it'd be somewhat dog ready. my sister dropped off esmei and left to get lunch from the crepe store. i ended up dogsitting in my own house for the next 20 minutes, following esmei where ever she went to make sure she wasn't getting into any mischief. she tried a few times - rummaging through the living room trash can, sniffing at the bag of organic manure i had near the back of the house, and pulling out a half-eaten bag of potato chips. she just really likes to explore. eventually she got bored and i found her on the guest bedroom bed. fortunately my sister came back and took esmei with her.

only then - close to 3pm - did i finally eat lunch. the italian sub was okay, i added some banana peppers to give it more kick.

later i went to star market to get a few things. that corned beef and cabbage sale? only the weekend! so i missed it by a day. fortunately i already got some corned beef the previous weekend. instead i got some carrots and some clementine oranges.

i stayed home the rest of the day.

around 6:30pm - just when i was about to make dinner - my parents finally got in touch with me via videochat. they were less than 2 hours away from leaving korea, still in their hotel room. so my mother didn't contract covid for a second time but instead got the flu. my father didn't get covid again, but he tested this morning and finally got a negative result. what is going on in taiwan? is it just a cesspool of communicable diseases?

mujaddara (lentil rice)
(3-6 serving)

3 onions, sliced thin
1/4 cup olive oil

275g (1-1/4 cups) lentils
700g (3 cups) water
1 tsp cumin

200g (1 cup) rice
2 tbsp fried onion oil
handful fried onion
1-1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper

tzatziki
bean salad


fry onion in olive oil until golden brown, stirring constantly (20+ minutes). dry caramelized onion on wire rack, saving fried onion oil. cook lentil in water, high heat, add cumin, once boiling, reduce to medium-high and cook covered for 8 minutes. add/mix rice, onion oil, fried onion, salt & pepper. level off, add water if necessary to submerge everything. cook covered high 2 minutes. cook covered low 20 minutes. serve with fried onion topping, tzatziki, and bean salad.

i started making dinner after 7pm. i was making lentil & rice again. i used the black lentil i got from market basket, which looked exactly like the high end black beluga lentils i had previously. the hardest part of the recipe is caramelizing the onion slices, which takes a long time and there are no shortcuts. today it took me half an hour. i added more olive oil this time so i'd get more leftover onion oil. i then went ahead with the rest of the recipe.

i didn't eat until 9:30pm. originally i planned on finishing the mujaddara by the time the pistons-celtics game started at 7:30pm. it was already the 4th quarter by the time i ate. tonight was a special night, where all the hosts and commentators were women. it was also a great game, celtics won 94-119. brown, porzingis, and white were back in the lineup, while tatum, horford, holiday, and hauser all sat out. derrick white scored his first career triple double, stat i thought he would've had a long time ago given his production. next game is wednesday night at home against the bucks. that should be a good game.

i went to be around 1am last night and woke up this morning at 9:30am. today was my one free day and i spent it pretty much doing nothing. cleaning up the kitchen, vacuuming the carpet, setting up my grow closet, i didn't do any of that. for lunch i had an aldi's instant asian salad. around 12:30pm i drove to the UPS store on somerville avenue to return the microwave. afterwards i went to belmont to water the house plants. i passed by the place that was having the secret alcohol sale and noticed the sign was gone. either they sold everything (quite possible, with today being st.patrick's day) or somebody reported them and they had to shut down. here and there i saw groups of green-clad young people hopping from bar to bar.

the flowering japanese apricot my parents' opposite door neighbors have started to bloom, with their deep pink colors. they're very pretty, i think we should get a few of our own for next season. with the climate in new england getting warmer, one positive is now we are zoned for prunus mume. although given the choice, i'd rather be growing some fragrant wintersweets instead.

for some reason the heat was on. i specifically turned it off the moment my parents left. checking the history, seems like it's been on for the past week. i promptly turned it back off (down to 55 degrees). this could happen if somebody checked the temperature on the thermostat and accidentally turned it back on.

i swapped out the last blurple led grow light with the new spider farmer light that arrived on tuesday. i sort of miss the blurple light now that it's gone, it gave a very distinctive magenta grow room vibe that's now missing since the lights are just white. the led strip lights however still have a bit of a purplish hue.

the large bucket of Bti-infused water i prepared last weekend was all cloudy because i added way too much mosquito bits last night so there was a bacterial bloom. this is actually a good thing because it means instant death for fungus gnat larvae. i haven't seen any adult fungus gnats in a while, i think over the course of the winter i've managed to completely eradicate them at this point with my weekly watering.

i started with some orchid-fertilizer spiked water, soaking the orchids for a bit before putting them back on the shelves. the amount i use is so minute i wonder if it's even doing anything, but the smallest orchid with the flower spike has managed to increase the flower buds and haven't aborted any buds.

my sister came home while i was in the middle of watering. she brought esmei, who tried to come down to the basement (she's never been downstairs before), but we stopped her because there were too many things for her to chew.

outside in the backyard i got a chance to use the insta360 X3 camera. mounted on a long selfie stick, of course it attracted esmei's attention, who will go for anything stick-like. i shot at 5.7K at 30fps. it was weird, i didn't exactly have to aim the camera, just basically held it within the general vicinity, regardless if it was sideways, upside down, or right side up; none of that mattered because it was shooting a sphere so it'd capture everything. i found out with a regular 5.7K or 4K video that i'm actually able to review it on the camera. only the 3K high framerate option do you need to download the video to a phone/computer.

my sister left, taking esmei with her to the decordova museum, even though esmei looked pretty tired and was repeatedly yawning. i went back to watering my plants. a few jasmines and on gardenia i took outside (temperature was in the 50's) to spray with alcohol. on the gardenia particularly i found a light mealybug infestation on one of the lower leaves.

i finally left belmont by 3pm.

back at the house i copied the 360 videos i shot today and loaded them onto my computer. i then used the macos version of the insta360 studio app to play around with the video. i let the app use smart tracking to center esmei in the frame no matter where she was. it's a really weird way of shooting a video, making you sort of relearn everything you knew about videography, so that instead of aim, you're just put the camera where you'd imagine an invisible floating camera to be. it also takes great car driving videos, not only can you get footage of yourself driving, but you can also change the direction and have the camera looking out the windshield. like i said yesterday, it's kind of like magic.

there was a few NBA games on ABC: phoenix versus the bucks, nuggets versus mavericks. i didn't realize milwaukee didn't have giannis, but they didn't need him because bobby portis turned red hot scoring 31 points, while damian lilliard scored 31 as well. the game was pretty much over after the end of the first half. suns tried to make it competitive but they never regained the insurmountable lead. the second game was a closer one, with the mavericks beating the nuggets on a kyrie irving buzzer beater shooting one handed with his left while he was flying across the court.

i didn't realize the celtics-wizards game was on right afterwards, so i missed the first quarter. this was a game that boston was almost guaranteed to win, with this washington team last place in the league. boston was without porzingis, white, and brown. the game might've been more competitive were it not for sam hauser catching fire and shooting 10-13 from the three-point line. it got to the point where the wizards had no choice but to double him. hauser was on course to set a new NBA record in total 3-points scored by a single player, until he sprained his ankle in the 3rd quarter and would leave the game. hopefully it's not serious and he can come back after missing a few games. celtics won 130-104.

i didn't start making dinner until almost 9pm. i reheated the final batch of frozen chinese dumplings my parents made.

my sister texted me early this morning, saying she was still "very very sick." i wasn't sure what she wanted me to say. if she stayed home, we'd have no choice not to close the cafe today.

saturdays are the easiest cafe work days because we open at 11am and close at 4pm. i got a chance to sleep late, didn't get out of bed until almost 10am. i left for the cafe before 10:30am.

i got a chance to try out the insta360 X3 camera. i tested it briefly last night, shot a quick video inside the house. so one really weird thing is you can't watch the videos on the camera itself; you either view it through a bluetooth connected phone or download the video onto a computer. viewing it on the phone wasn't very good because the connection was slow, like a very slow video stream. there was an option to download the entire video onto my phone (1 minute worth of videos around 480MB) but the download speed was so slow i cancelled it. so anyway, this morning i clamped the camera onto my bicycle handlebar. i wasn't able to see the video itself until much later, when i got back from the cafe (more on that later).

i cooked 5 cups of rice today. also a new batch of black soy noodles, as well as roasted a box of marinated charsiu pork. to my surprise, my sister showed up for work (and early as well). turns out the reason was she called her godmother again to come help out at the cafe. her godmother's appearance always makes me resentful, it's like saying my 2nd aunt and i aren't being helpful enough so my sister needs to get an additional helper. i wasn't going to argue with her about it, just wanted to make it through the day. besides, i was way too busy, non-stop working from the moment i got to the cafe until about the afternoon, while my sister and her godmother was just casually chatting up front.

by the time we had a break in the afternoon, i took the opportunity to go over to my sister's place and check up on esmei. i fed her the fat end of a carrot, she crunched away happily on it, eating the whole thing in about 15 minutes.

i returned to the cafe just as my sister's godmother was leaving. we had just one more hour to whittle away before we could finally close. we got a few customers but they were mostly drink orders. i started putting things away in the freezer and emptying out the rice cooker. i ended up having to cook 3 extra cups of rice, but we hardly had any orders that needed rice after that, so we had a lot left over.

my parents will return tuesday morning (i have to go pick them up at the airport). there's probably a good chance they'll want to work instead of rest, especially since we've been covering for them for the past month. however my 2nd aunt told me there's a chance my parents won't made it back next week because somehow they managed to contract covid again, this time both nursing a fever. unless they check body temperature at the airport (i don't think they do that anymore, not since the pandemic), i think my parents will still get on that flight and return home.

while my sister finished cleaning after we closed up, my 2nd aunt and i paid a visit to the new thai chicken rice place on mass ave, chicken & co. i wasn't sure there was going to be parking, but we lucked out and found a metered spot right in front of the restaurant. inside was a couple eating, while we placed two orders for the combo set ($13.95 each) of crispy chicken (gai tod) and grilled chickn (gai yang). we were going to wait outside but the cashier said we could hang out inside at one of the tables. this is a legit thai place, with the cashier and cook playfully chatting in thai in the back kitchen. our order took a little bit over 10 minutes to prepare. i nervously eyed the car parked out front, making sure i wasn't getting ticketed for not putting any money in the meter.

i dropped my 2nd aunt at her place before heading home. all the parking close to my house were taken so i had to park 2 blocks away.

so one big surprise was daikon soup was included with the order, just like at what da chick in watertown. there was also some cilantro garnish, and bigger slices of cucumber. the crispy chicken and grilled chicken were cooked well, especially the crispy chicken. crispy chicken came with the standard thai sweet chili sauce, while the grilled chicken came with a tamarind fish sauce. that sauce was okay, but nothing like the special hot sauce that comes with the grilled chicken from what da chick, that sauce is to die for.

i downloaded the insta360 X3 video onto my phone, 7 minutes of footage was 6GB. the video played back really slow - not sure if i recorded on the wrong setting - i had it set to the smallest video size possible which i thought was at 3K but the only frame rate option was 100fps. i had to speed it up 4x before it'd play back normal. watching the video playback felt like seeing a magic trick. it's always been a dream of mine to be able to capture instant 360° photos and videos. one disadvantage of the gopro is you can only shoot in one direction, it can never capture both front and back.

not so with the X3, which captures everything. it's especially great for scenic rides, when you want to turn the camera to see something you passed by. with the X3 you can do that. i mounted the camera a bit too close to my body, so i appeared slightly distorted. also because the handlebar was on its "stitching axis", i could see stitching errors on handlebar. next video i shoot will be using the selfie stick so the camera is mounted further to the front of the bike. i wasn't sure about the X3 but after seeing the first real test footage, i'm sold. it's not a camera i'd use for everyday captures, but it has its purposes, and can do things no other cameras can do. there are a lot of settings in the phone app so i'm sure i'll be playing with the camera for the next few months, trying to familiarize myself with all its features. one cool function i discovered today was the ability to save snapshots; not only that but you have a variety of aspect ratio, from portrait to panorama, since you can pull any ratio you want from the spherical video.

i didn't eat the rest of the evening, though i snacked a little bit. i tried the 3 lbs. of double salt licorice i bought online. i was craving cold drinks so i ended up taking out my 40 oz. insulated bottle and filling it with ice water.

i got in touch with my father, on the eve of their departure from taiwan set for monday evening local time. he said - through coughs - that he retested positive for covid, while my mother was once again negative. he doesn't know how they got covid for the second time.

i woke up at 8am so i could bike down to market basket before heading to the cafe. i went there in search of cocktail shrimps and got some shirataki noodles for my 2nd aunt. it had rained earlier, the streets were still damp, but looked like it'd stopped.

i didn't get to the cafe until 9:15am. today i cooked 5 cups of noodles, figuring we had plenty of backup leftover rice in the freezer in case we needed it. i also started the ice machine, boiled some water, cooked some dumplings, watered the plants, and started a new batch of tea eggs. i did all that before my sister even showed up for work after 9:30am.

my sister was all flustered, said she was in the bathroom with diarrhea all morning and couldn't walk esmei so she was going to go back home after my 2nd aunt comes to the cafe so she could walk her dog. i didn't say much, on this probably my last full weekday cafe work. i just wanted to get through the day with as little drama as possible.

so when my 2nd aunt finally showed up, my sister disappeared. not sure how long, at least half an hour. she came back right when we started to get busy during the lunch period. as we started to taper off, my sister disappeared again, because she said she not only needed to use the bathroom, but vomit as well. she thinks it's because she ate some spoiled undercooked shumai last night.

i personally thought it was just another one of her ploys to get out of work. for someone looking to one day inherit the cafe, my sister has no business sense. if she owned a business, it'd be closed at random times of the day because the owner had personal issues to take care of. with my sister gone i was very nervous. between my 2nd aunt and i we could do most of the stuff, but they were items neither of us knew how to prepare. which was exactly what happened when two kids came asking for a specialty boba drink. i saw my 2nd aunt making it and i asked her if she knew what she was doing. "no," she laughed, as i saw what she was making, looked nothing like what the kid had ordered. earlier she overcharged a customer, punching in latte instead of tea bag, and i had to change the order after the customer complained. before that, a young man came in to order a latte but got the smallest cup without a lid. i ended up calling my sister while my 2nd aunt was telling me it wasn't necessary, that she had everything figured out.

my sister came, helped out for about an hour, before she ran back home for more diarrhea. not sure how long she was gone this time, maybe an hour, before she returned for the final 2 hours, though kept saying she might need to go home at a moment's notice. luckily she was there because it did get busy for a little bit, the last hurrah before friday's work day finally came to a close.

my sister returned home early with just a few minutes left, leaving my 2nd aunt and me to close up the cafe. so i'm not sure quite how much my sister worked today. seems like half the time she wasn't there. luckily she was here during our few busy periods, so i guess everything worked out in the end. we ended up making more than last friday, so that was another positive.

i got back home by 6:40pm, which is probably the earliest i can get home. one thing i miss because i have to work practically every day is watching the news. the big news i read from cnn.com and the NY times app, but it's all the small local news items that i miss. turns out, a lot of that stuff isn't really that important. accidents, crimes, lawsuits, not following up on any of that isn't a big loss.

i lounged around on the couch, surfing the web, narrowly fell asleep, before finally getting up around 8:30pm to fix dinner. i reheated the last of my leftover beef noodle soup. afterwards i tried the new häagen-dazs vanila caramel pecan. it was okay, but nothing to write home about.

i finally opened up my insta360 X3 camera. it's actually a lot smaller than i'd imagined, about the size of my old nokia candybar phone. and yes, the two lenses protrude out, making them extremely fragile and liable to crack or scratched. it arrived with a dead battery so i had to connect it to an usb-c power supply just to turn it on. it came with a 64GB memory card, but i used a brand new 256GB samsung memory card i had lying around. the kit included a spare battery, a rubber lens cover, and a selfie stick.

in order to use the camera, i first had to sign in by creating an insta360 account using the insta360 app i downloaded. just playing with the camera briefly, i was astonished by the 360° preview mode. because the protective stickers were still on the lenses, there was some stitching issues, but otherwise the spherical panaroma looked pretty seamless.

i immediately when online in search of lens protectors. but a lot of people say the protectors add glare to the videos, and could potentially introduce stitching errors (though apparently there are ways to correct for that using the calibration mode). insta360 does offer a year of damage insurance for $45. it includes one free repair or replacement (along with free shipping). the caveat is you either have to sign up for insta360 care before you activate the camera or sign up for the insurance within 15 days. i think i might do that instead of resorting to lens protectors. i did the same thing when i got my DJI drone, it's not to have that peace of mind in case your new fancy (and expensive) gadget gets damaged.

i didn't get to the cafe until 9:20am this morning, the latest i've ever gone. thursday is traditionally our slowest day, so i was hoping that'd hold true.

this morning my sister was dividing up the beef noodle soup and ramen broths she made yesterday and left overnight to cool. our biggest problem was finding enough containers to hold everything.

i went to my sister's place to get some bananas and a bag of bean sprouts. i also spent a little time playing with esmei. that little blip i thought i saw yesterday? turns out it really was a tick, and a dead one at that. my sister managed to remove it last night, looked like it fed but not completely.

back at the cafe i decided to take a supply run to trader joe's to get more bananas, as the ones from my sister would only last us a day if we got busy. TJ was selling little containers of pileas for $5 each.

we only had a handful of customers even into the lunch period which normally is our busiest time even on less busy days. around 1pm i thought i'd be able to leave and take esmei out for a walk, but that's when it got busy for the next hour. i didn't leave until after 2pm even though i still had a few things to do.

i took esmei on a 30 minute walk around the neighborhood. it was a warm day, temperature in the 50's on a sunny day. i only wore a dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, no jacket needed. esmei peed but didn't poop. the only time she gets excited is when she sees other dogs or the occasional human. otherwise she walks slow, seemingly smelling everything she comes across.

it got busy again around 4pm, right when my aunt unexpectedly showed up. it was so busy we didn't have time to talk with her. before she left, i took her dagugu in taiwan passed away over the weekend. my parents had visited her when they first got to taipei, but she suddenly took a turn for the worse, and my parents couldn't go see her a second time because my father had managed to contract covid. she died when they were in vietnam. my aunt left soon afterwards. only reason she showed up today is because she's leaving for montreal tomorrow.

so on a day that seemed like we weren't going to be getting any customers ended up being pretty busy. at the very least it beat our profit from last week. it's the second time this week when we did better than same day last week.

we were counting down the minutes to 6:30pm. as soon as closing time came around, i immediately turn off the lights. everything in the kitchen had already been cleaned up, i already had my jacket on, was ready to leave the second we closed.

i brought home two containers of leftover beef noodle soup along with come chinese noodles and baby bokchoi. the leftover soup contained leftover tidbits of beef, mostly tendon that we don't sell to customers, but perfectly good to eat. i ended up having one serving for dinner, really hits the spot.

i ate while watching the celtics dismantle the visiting suns. once again porzingis didn't play because of a supposed hamstring injury. the fact that the celtics can still manage to win without porzingis is scary because they're even more formidable when he's playing. i'm just worried that with him sitting out so much, he won't be able to build up team chemistry with the other players once the celtics reach the playoffs. this was a game the celtics might've very well lost, with devin booker returning for the suns (he didn't play when boston beat phoenix a few nights ago), but that wasn't the case. final score was 112-127.

i still haven't opened by insta360 X3 camera yet! kind of makes me wonder if i even want it in the first place. just haven't had a good excuse to use it, and honestly, i'm sort of worried about damaging the fragile lenses.

my parents tried to contact me while i was using the bathroom then taking a shower. i called them back afterwards. my father finally tested negative for covid on their last day in vietnam. my big aunt is still positive, though she's going to test again today to see if there's any changes. my mother tested negative two days after he first positive test. they called because i asked them about going to foodpak/baifu this weekend to buy a case of frozen beef shank for the beef noodle soup. they said we still have plenty of frozen shank in the basement chest freezer.

i woke up at 8am this morning so i could ride down to the beacon street whole foods to return the broken neewer SL90 RGB light then get a few things from market basket before heading off to work at the cafe.

this early in the morning there's a convoy of bikers riding into boston. i was the anchor as i kept getting passed by other cyclists. heading back in the opposite direction there was no bikes, as i then made my way to market basket. for those who don't like the crowded condition at MB, i suggest coming very early in the morning, when the parking lot is nearly empty. i bought a tray of black bean salad for $2.99; the exact same thing was $4.99 at star market last night. that's why i never buy anything at star market unless it's on sale or an emergency. i also found some charsiu pork spices, hidden behind packages of satay spices.

i went directly from market basket to the cafe. along the way i saw a pile of kitchenware piled outside an apartment building on linnaean street. i ending up scoring a pair of wine keys, some tongs, two pyrex dishes, and a stainless steel pot with a glass lid.

after cooking 5 cups of rice, i had some time to inspect my latest haul. the pot was the same diameter as our daily use 3-quart pots, just taller. that means it can interchangeably use all the other lids. one of the pyrex dish was a loaf dish (1.5 quart), the other a 11 cups dish (7212). the 7212 isn't too expensive, just $10 with a lid. the cost for a replacement 7212 lid costs as much as buying the dish-lid brand new if not more. one of the wine key seems to be missing a part.

i roasted a box of marinated charsiu pork today as it looked like we were running low. i also put the three boxes of of raw marinated charsiu pork we packaged yesterday into the basement freezer. my sister and 2nd aunt divided up the curry chicken my sister made last night. she also made a new batch of ramen soup followed by a batch of beef noodle soup. i'm actually kind of surprised how productive she is and without drama; i would've sworn she would've thrown a fit at some point and decided to abandon everything again. tomorrow morning we'll divide up the ramen and beef noodle soup. i also made 5 boxes of ice boxes.

i was so overworked today, seems like i'm always twice as busy as everyone else. for one thing i made sure the kitchen is clean, otherwise dishes will pile up and there won't be any place to work. my 2nd aunt and sister will made some food and then leaves all the used utensils and dishes and ingredients just lying around. it's then my unofficial job to clean up everything before the next order. it's non-stop, and i'm doing this while i'm doing other stuff, like fulfilling orders and answering phones. plus in the afternoon i took esmei to belmont so she can get her exercise, then in the late afternoon i quickly biked down to star market to get some onions (and potatoes) for the beef noodle soup. i could barely open my eyes and just wanted to lie down on the ground and rest.

part of the reason why i took esmei to belmont was my replacement neewer SL90 RGB light arrived a day early, delivered to my parents' place. it was supposed to be there when i arrived but at the last minute there was a delivery delay, so i waited and kept my eye on the gps location of the delivery van. esmei was in the backyard looking for things to chew. at one point she rolled around in the ivy patch. giving her pets, i thought i felt something that might be a tick but i lost track of it in her dense fur. our overwintering greens are doing nicely in the raised beds, now that the temperature is warming up. i also refilled the birdfeeder with sunflower seeds. we left close to 3pm after the RGB light was finally delivered.

also arriving today was the insta360 X3 camera that i ordered off of costco. i'm so busy i didn't even have time to open the box.

we used the new pot i found today to stew some leftover bones that we discarded after making the ramen soup. my 2nd aunt really seemed impressed with how well it works.

today we must just half of what we made last wednesday, but that was one of those recording setting days. even at half, it was still close to what we made yesterday, maybe slightly less. i don't mind it being less busy at all. with the students gone, this week is sort of like a vacation for us, allow us to catch up on replenishing some cafe staples.

the new kitchen clock i bought also arrived today. i didn't get a chance to use it because it arrived late, but i did have time to hang it up the wall, replacing the old clock. can't wait to see it in action tomorrow. 10" seems to be a good size. the clock in the front of the cafe is only 8" and that seems a little small.

like yesterday, we were surprised when it was already 6:30pm, time to go home.

i tried out the replacement neewer SL90 RGB light. unlike the previous light, i was able to turn it on right away, didn't require charging first. like the other light though, the adjustable metal arm is also slightly slanted, i think it's just a design flaw. i left it to recharge and after about 2 hours i saw it fully recharged, no blinking charge icon like the broken light.

i was going to make lentil & rice for dinner, but i got lazy, saw the disgusting box of leftover fried chicken on the kitchen counter, and decided to eat that instead even though it'd make me feel repulsive afterwards. i had a drumstick, a wing, and a thigh; i'm going to avoid the breast, too dense, no flavor.

the absolute latest i can get up in the morning for work is 8:30am. that gives me 20 minutes to get ready, then 10 minutes to ride to the cafe so i can get there around 9am. which is exactly what i did this morning, the 4th and final week of cafe coverage.

everything went relatively smoothly today. it wasn't too crazy busy, my sister was well behaved, and the day went by fast, partly because it was our first time working daylight saving time so by closing time it was was light outside. kitchen duty was easy because nobody ordered any specials. my sister worked the front, my 2nd aunt and i worked the back. i upgraded the memory on the kitchen webcam from 64GB to 128GB (that old memory was about to fail anyway, could only capture a week's worth of footage).

my sister made a new batch of chicken curry (we'll divide to tomorrow morning) as well as cut the 5 packages of pork butt i bought yesterday, most for charsiu (even though we still have plenty left of the raw marinated variety), some for her pulled pork. meat cutting went quicker this time because there was a lot less fat trimming.

around 2pm i took esmei out for a walk. i had on my thick winter coat but it was sunny and warm enough to just be outside in a t-shirt. even esmei was well behaved, peeing and pooping both. when i brought her back to the house she immediately drank a bunch of water from her bowl.

so that microwave i tried to cancel but ended up returning before it was even delivered? amazon told me it was being rerouted back to the warehouse but that turned out to be a lie, or somebody got confused and rerouted the item back to my sister's place. it arrived today, this huge box that i'll now need to return at the nearest UPS store. the spider farmer grow light i ordered last night also arrived today. i didn't have to open it, i'll bring it to my parents' place sometime this week and set it up in the grow room.

i made some korean banchan with some leftover bean sprouts that was due for the compost bin. my 2nd aunt and i both had some. she said it was good at first, before she realized just how spicy it was because i put in a lot of gochujang.

today was more above quantity than quality. we had a lot of customers but many just bought some small items, like a cup of coffee. all of that still added up though, and we narrowly beat last tuesday's profit. nevertheless, it felt like a slow day. college kids and private schools are all on their spring break. kathy even called today to let me know they wouldn't be coming in for the next two weeks as her grandsons went on vacation in taiwan (they were just there during the new year); she totally forgot that she already told me last wednesday.

when we finally closed at 6:30pm, it felt early because there was still daylight outside. i made it home without the use of my bike lights, my sister took esmei to the dog park.

i went to star market looking for bean salads for my rice and lentil dish. i couldn't find it, so i ended up getting a box of leftover fried chicken for just $6. that's when i saw the bean salads but it seemed too expensive, i'll get it early tomorrow morning from market basket after i return the defective SL90 RGB light at whole foods.

the fried chicken was terrible. the small drumstick and wing wasn't too bad, but the big piece of thigh - about the size of a large mango - was cold and watery on the inside, most likely because the chicken was frozen at one point. it was pretty gross, i have to promise myself to never get the cheap leftover star market fried chicken ever again.

i watched the celtics-jazz game which started at 9pm. boston was without porzingis, horford, and brown, yet they still managed to beat utah, 123-107. after tonight the celtics will be 6 games ahead of any western conference teams, and possibly 9.5 games ahead of the nearest eastern conference team (the bucks).

i managed to force myself to sleep until 10am, even though i kept wanting to wake up, like a fishing float bobbing in the water. i just had one thing to do today which was to go on a supply run, hitting a few locations. my original plan was to visit the chelsea market basket, but then i realized i could get almost all the things i wanted just at the nearby somerville market basket, so i didn't have to drive so far, saving me some time so that i can still salvage this monday as an off day.

i left the house around 11:20am, the last time i'd have the car until the weekend. i loaded the trunk with two bags of cans and bottles i deposited first before i went shopping. temperature was in the lower 40's but the wind was so strong it felt colder. a heavy gust nearly tore my paper bags apart.

i only had a few things to get as i went down my grocery list. a few specialty items i still needed to either go to the waltham or chelsea store, but otherwise i got most of things i needed.

from there i drove 15 minutes to medford (cutting through union square), to pick up some chinese sausages from bianco & sons. my final stop was to nearby aldi's to get some baby cucumbers. the wind was so strong it almost blew the door open when i got out of the car.

i finally got to the cafe a little bit before 1pm. after unloading all the supplies, i brought out food from the freezer so they could defrost in the fridge for tomorrow. i then went over to my sister's place to get my bike from the shed and go home around 1:20pm.

the bicycle felt a little off so i oiled the rusty chains then readjusted both the front and rear brakes.

two amazon packages arrived today: two TCELL brand high endurance 128GB microSDXC memory cards; and a pair of rechargeable batteries for my panasonic lumix camera plus a charger. i seem to be on a bit of a spending spree recently. today i ordered another spider farmer SF1000D led grow light ($70, $65 after amazon reward points), to replace the last remaining blurple light in the belmont grow room. with that i've completely transferred over to white grow leds, which i find are just as good as blurple lights, and have the added advantage of being easier to see and use slightly less electricity. i also bought a new wall clock for the cafe; the one we used in the kitchen is missing the second hand, and i've never liked it, always wanted to replace it. both items will arrive on wednesday, delivered to my sister's place.

i made myself a chicken salad bagel sandwich for lunch before heading out the door again. i went back to walgreens to get my prescription, the one i tried to get yesterday but failed. along the way i stopped by the dollar tree again to see if they had restocked their isopropyl alcohol, which they did. i bought 3 bottles (i wanted to get more but didn't want to get too greedy). i noticed a bunch of new rules at the pharmacy. for one thing, they're only opened from 9-6, closed on sundays. if you need to work, you basically can only come pick up your medication around lunchtime. the pharmacists also go on a 30 minute lunch break at 1pm. none of the other walgreens workers have these conditions.

i returned home for good by 2:30pm. one other thing i had to do was call verizon fios to renegotiate a contract for my parents' internet connection, since their previous 2-year contract was set to expire tomorrow. i was happy to learn that their low discount price of just $20/month was still ongoing. the only thing i had to do was remove the disney package, which for some reason verizon was trying to add without my permission. i'll need to renegotiate my own internet contract as it's set to expire soon as well.

for dinner i boiled another package of frozen homemade chinese dumplings (15). this week i'm either going to be making lentil & rice or gyudon for dinner. i actually should've made it today as i had the time, since i'll probably be too tired the rest of the week to make food when i get back from work. cooking allowed me to use my two RGB video lights. i had one light set to magenta while the other was a shade of blue. the contrasting colors made for a stylish look, but then i noticed the larger SL90 had turned off. i couldn't turn it back on until i recharged it again, and then it'd only last a few minutes. i had a feeling there was something wonky about that light. for one thing i could never get it to charge completely full, even after leaving it plugged in overnight. i think it's defective and i'm going to return and exchange it for a new unit. my experiment in dual color lighting was fun while it lasted.

i was waiting for thee celtics-blazers game which didn't start until 10:30pm. other than the first few minutes, the celtics lead throughout the game. even with both porzingis and holiday sitting out tonight, boston was able to easily win against a portland team that's second to last in the western conference. the final score was 121-99. celtics play again tomorrow night against the utah jazz, who are 4th to last in the western conference. boston doesn't have too many meaningful games left in the remaining season. a game against the suns on thursday, two more games against the bucks, maybe a game against OKC. all their other games are against teams with losing records.

this morning i heard a loud pinging sound in my bedroom. immediately my mind though maybe a basemen pipe had burst. but the bedroom is nowhere near any basement plumbing. then i realized what it was: empty canning jars. lacking space, i store them in an empty bookcase in the guest bedroom. the sound i heard is the lid of the canning jar either expanding or compressing from the heat. a bit later i heard another canning jar go off. what a strange beginning to sunday.

the first day after the start of day saving time can be jarring. i woke up too early. even though i knew what time it was, my body was still adjusting, used to waking up at the old time. even though it was my one day off, i couldn't just stay home and do nothing. the most important thing was waiting for the arrival of the microwave, so i then deliver it to my sister's tenants. amazon didn't give me an estimate until late morning, said the microwave would arrive between 2:30-5:30pm. it meant i was basically forced to wait. another thing i wanted to do today was get to belmont to water the plants and maybe do some pruning. however if i drove the car, it'd be hard to find another parking spot, so i didn't want to leave until the microwave arrived.

instead i did a load of laundry this morning. while the dryer was running, i walked out to run some errands. i went to dollar tree to pick up some 70% isopropyl alcohol, but they were all sold out. my personal theory is junkies use it to clean their needles, amongst other uses. next i went to walgreens to pick up my prescriptions. they've been calling and texting all week to remind me. due to a pharmacists shortage though, the pharmacy is closed on sundays, something i didn't know. i didn't leave empty-handed though: there was a sale on pistachios and chocolates, so i bought some. the cashier girl had a star sticker on her cheek. "is that star for a special occasion?" i asked her. "no, it's a pimple cover," she told me. didn't know they had those things!

coming back i noticed a sign for a garage sale. i followed the arrows and discovered it was in a warehouse behind city slickers cafe. here used to be a company that did cocktail catering. after 10 years they were switching their business model to remote work and teaching instead of actual catering. so they had a lot of equipment to sell, from drink making paraphernalia, to lighting equipment. and in the back room was a warehouse of liquor, some opened, but mostly brand new bottles. unopened bottles sell for 25% of wholesale price, while opened bottles are cheaper.

i left with a nearly full opened bottle of wild turkey 101 ($15) and an opened bottle of old grand-dad whiskey ($10). i also bought two pairs of tongs ($2 each) and an apple trackpad i found in a box of used computer equipment. the woman there let me have the trackpad for $1, so i could just give her $30 in cash. what she didn't realize is even a used apple trackpad 1 sells for $50 on ebay.

so what started as a fail outing ended up being quite fruitful. i also texted bruce and my sister with photos of all the booze and details about the garage sale. the ad itself mentions nothing about alcohol because there are probably laws regarding the sales of booze without a permit, so it's a totally secret sale.

my sister said she couldn't go because she invited her godmother out to dimsum, leaving esmei alone at home. she turned on the webcam but it wasn't working because her entire wifi was done and needed to be fixed with a router reset. it was something she knew about last night but just never fixed. she asked me to go fix it because she wouldn't be home until 3pm. i basically ignored her. she was abusive to me all week long at work, and now she acts like we're buddy buddy. unlike her i have a long memory. too bad esmei will once again suffer needlessly. at home alone all week now, and now again on the weekends.

the trackpad came with some dead eneloop rechargeable batteries (so i also get some free NiMH batteries out of it as well). i put in a pair of new AA duracells. the trackpad worked fine, connected to my macbook pro.

for lunch i fixed myself a chicken salad everything bagel sandwich.

the rest of the afternoon felt early even though the clock said it was late. sunset today wouldn't be until 6:45pm. around 3pm amazon give me a new estimate, said the delivery van was 10 stops away. i started to get ready. when it arrived by 3:15pm, i carried it to the trunk of the car and drove to my sister's place to deliver the microwave. i didn't realize how big it was, it must've looked funny seeing me carrying this huge box. my sister happened to be home, with esmei in the car. she got my some leftover dimsum but i was too busy trying to carrying the box of microwave up to the second floor. when i finally got it upstairs, it took a little while to get the microwave out of the box. in fact, it was 3 boxes nested together. fortunately there was no one home at the time. i then went downstairs to fix my sister's wifi by resetting the router. i took the empty boxes to the cafe, heard a loud crunch as a car rear-ended another car.

i then drove to my parents' place. it was already 4pm by the time i arrived, even though there was still plenty of daylight left. i watered the plants. for the orchids, i dosed the water with some special orchid fertilizer to help the flower spikes grow better. the two jasmines that were formerly upstairs and heavily infested with mealybugs i took outside again and sprayed with alcohol. i didn't really see any mealybugs, but i did it out of precaution.

i left belmont around 4:45pm. instead of going home, i made a quick stop at the concord avenue burger king to cash in a chicken sandwich coupon. it's BK's answer to wendy's spicy chicken just without the spice. i got a bit after 5pm and ate the sandwich, along with the fries and a medium drink (i chose orange fanta).

the oscars was tonight, with an earlier start time of 7pm. i began watching the red carpet coverage around 6pm. oppenheimer won a bunch of awards, but the biggest surprise was emma stone winning for poor things, making her a 2 time winner for best actress (she'd previously won in 2017 for la la land).

my neewer RGB62 RGB video light arrived tonight around 7:30pm. i bought it last night for $21.50 after coupons (not including taxes). i needed it to pair up with my neewer SL90 RGB video light ($77) so i could do contrasting color lighting effects. at only 6W, the RGB62 has a maximum illumination rating of 800 lux/0.5m, compared to the 12W SL90 which is 1700 lux/0.5m. the RGB62 has a 2000mAh battery while the SL90 is 4300mAh. so basically i was expecting the RGB62 is to an underpowered plastic light. but after using it for a bit, it feels pretty substantial for something that just costs around $20. even though the body is plastic, it still has a pretty solid weight to it, courtesy of a magnetic backing. there's no articulation like there is on the SL90, but attached to a ball-head mount or a camera clamp would allow it to be adjustable. what also surprised me was how bright it was for just 6W. the SL90 is 12W but i rarely use it at full power, so 6W is plenty bright. the RGB62 comes with a diffuser, but i don't think it makes that much of a difference. the one thing i don't like are the controls. on the SL90 there are dials that also function as buttons. with the RGB62 it's just buttons, and most of the settings are continuous, so when you adjust the brightness or saturation, it stops after 100%, and you have to go back in the opposite direction to get it down to 0% (the hue adjustment however will cycle continuously). it's something i could probably learn to use after a while, but i ended up installing the neewer light app to make adjusting the colors a lot faster on the RGB62. another thing the RGB62 doesn't have is a microphone. that means it's missing the music sync effect that's on the SL90, although neewer app has the ability to monitor sounds and strobe the light accordingly via bluetooth.

later in the evening i ate the dimsum chicken feet my sister got me, as well as a few custard tarts. i also had a nongshim instant cup of noodles.

my parents videochatted me from vietnam. they arrived last night, hadn't had time to explore the country yet, basically stayed in the hotel since their arrival. they said the food so far was terrible (hotel food?) but hopefully the tour guide will take them out to get better meals. i told them they could go outside and find places to eat but they seemed reluctant, not knowing the language and only having enough vietnamese cash for tips. they also confessed that my father contracted covid a few days ago. not only that, but he ended up giving it to my mother and my big aunt as well. none of them had serious symptoms, though my father went to the emergency room to get a prescription of paxlovid, as well as my mother. my mother tested negative only after 2 days of positive testing, while my father is still testing positive. he's been wearing a mask whenever he goes outside, so as to not spread covid to other people.

i woke up at 7:30am and left the house at 8am. i biked into chinatown to get some supplies. first stop was c-mart, followed by ming's market. it was all fairly routine. coming back, i stopped on the esplanade briefly to check out some flowering cherry trees. at first i thought they were okame cherries - usually one of the first cherries to blossom. but when i got back home (9:40am) i saw some flowering autumnalis cherries that looked the same.

i didn't need to go to the cafe until 10:30am, so i had a little bit of time to kill. i used the bathroom and took a quick shower before leaving for work. i also contacted amazon about the microwave i wanted to return. because it hadn't been delivered yet but i already filed for a return, i couldn't track the package anymore. turns out because the package hadn't been delivered yet, it was automatically diverted back to the warehouse. i didn't have to do anything other than just wait for the refund to show up.

i stashed my bicycle in the toolshed as i was going to take the car home today. i was surprised to find my sister already at the cafe cooking some rice. when i told her about the microwave snafu, she got angry, said her tenants needed their microwave, that had she known she would've gone to best buy and bought one. this was the opposite what she said to me on thursday, that her tenants could wait, and i could just order one online. all these mixed messages are confusing, and i forgot i should never engage with my siter in the first place, no telling what will set her off, even the most seemingly innocuous thing. you can reason with crazy.

today was just as busy as all the other days, with the only saving grace that we only had to work 5 hours instead of 9 hours. salmon bento was a the most popular item, partly because my sister was pushing her creation on all the customers, but a few selected it on their own. i prepared a new batch of tea eggs and made 4 boxes of ice cubes.

i went to check up on esmei around 3pm but i kept my eyes on any new cafe transactions, in case i needed to get back and help. i remember the end of last saturday was very busy as well. i was in the backyard keeping an eye on esmei when suddenly 4 new transactions showed up. i quickly ushered esmei inside the house before hurrying to the cafe. the final 30 minutes was a little crazy as we fulfilled all the orders.

at 4pm we turned off the lights and locked the front door. the work week was finally over.

i gave my 2nd aunt a ride while on my way home. i was lucky enough to find a parking spot close to my house that didn't require parallel parking. it was weird being home so early. i didn't know what to do with my free time other than lounging on the couch surfing the web from my laptop. by evening time it started to rain. the forecast is for rain throughout the rest of the night.

i started making dinner around 8pm. originally i was just going to have some luosifen. but i remember my mother gave me 3 packages of homemade frozen chinese dumplings, so i had that instead.

i ate while watching the celtics-suns game. boston was without porzingis (hamstring sprain), phoenix was missing devin booker. kevin durant was an unstoppable force with 45 points tonight. bradley beal also contributed with 25 of his own. but besides those two stars, the rest of the suns weren't that good. celtics was more rounded, with five players in double figures. JB had 27, tatum had 29. suns had the lead in the first quarter, but the rest of the game was dominated by the celtics. suns made several runs but never regained the lead. final score was 117-107, celtics victory.

i was looking at my parents' google photos on the eve of them leaving for vietnam for a few days. that's when i saw a photo of an at-home covid test with positive marks and both my parents wearing face masks as they made their way to the airport. so apparently one or maybe both of them got covid? but they're still carrying on with their vacation.

tonight we move forward the clock one hour for daylight saving time. before i go to bed i need to go through the house and change all my analog clocks. plus all the clocks in my cameras.