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i went to bed last night at 2am but didn't wake up until after 11am, must've been that post-thanksgiving turkey coma. my mother called me soon afterwards asking me if i was coming to belmont sometime soon as they were all about to head out: my mother and sister were taking tangtang out shopping (she needed a new iphone) while my father was taking pansusu to bestbuy to get a chromecast. the only shopping i was going to do was online, so i was interested in going. my mother told me there was leftover turkey in the kitchen for me whenever i did show up at their place.

my mother also told me she lost her iphone and asked if i had any way of tracking it for her. they tried calling but didn't hear it ringing. i used apple's online tracker to see all the devices registered to my mother's account. at the cafe were her 2 ipads, but it said her iphone was offline. calling the number went straight to voicemail.

i left at 11:30am. temperature was in the upper 30's so i had a feeling the battery wouldn't start but the motorcycle surprised me by roaring to life on the first try. the engine did die on me at a traffic light when it went green, but i hit the ignition button and brought it back to life. it was cold but the sky was sunny and there weren't too many cars out.

the house was empty when i arrived. empty and warm, perhaps leftover residual heat from the fireplace yesterday. i could still smell the wood smoke. hailey was supposed to be home but my sister left her back at her place she tangtang wouldn't freak out again over the dog. i felt bad though, hailey by herself at home, where she could be in belmont, sleeping on the sofa, or chasing squirrels in the backyard. tangtang is here for one more day, leaving sunday morning, she hailey can come back to the house again.

there were two pieces of scallion pancake bread on the dining table which i ate. the table had been shrunken down so now it sits just 6 people. later i had 2 turkey rollups, but for most of the day i was snacking on hazelnuts while watching the celtics-nets game. boston played brooklyn just wednesday, but now there was a rematch. i was surprised to see kyrie irving on the bench in street clothes, word on the street was he was going to skip the game because he didn't want to deal with his former team. celtics ended up losing but it was close. the nets would go on a hot streak only for the celtics to come right back and tie it. boston seemed to struggle against brooklyn, even in the win on wednesday. there's just something about that team, maybe how all the nets players are much taller, and they all seem capable of shooting 3's.

later in the afternoon my father and pansusu returned home. i thought they'd be back sooner, but they came across a dimsum restaurant and decided to have lunch. i installed google home on pansusu's LG phone so he can pair it with his new chromecast when he returned to houston. i tried to install the same app on his iphone but i couldn't find it in the app store until i realized he bought the phone in china which put restrictions on certain apps.

watching the news all day i saw there was a forecast of a snow mix starting sunday afternoon. but the more forecast i saw, the more it seemed like it was a little more serious than i first thought, as much as 6 inches in boston, certainly enough to shovel. this had the makings of our first significant snowstorm, and as a rule, that's usually when i put my bike away. but who knows if this isn't a false alarm, and then we'll have another month of snowless weather. but my plan is to leave the motorcycle at my parents' garage on sunday, see how the weather plays out, either continue the riding season, or prepare to put the bike away for the winter.

in the late afternoon my mother came home with tangtang. pansusu said he'd treat us all to dinner. we decided on the spring shabu hot pot restaurant in brighton. we couldn't gauge if it'd be busy or not (should've called first), my mother figured a lot of people would be at home eating thanksgiving leftovers. pansusu went to his room to take a nap first. my mother was still searching for her phone, but we managed to jog her memory and she went to the car and found it there, phone crisis averted.

when we arrived at spring shabu after leaving around 6pm, the place was fairly busy. not so busy that there was a long line out the door, and there still seemed to be some empty tables inside, but the server who took my name and number said there'd be 1 hour 45 minutes wait to 2 hours. that number was so ridiculous i went back in line just to make sure i heard him correctly. apparently 2-person tables was just a 45 minute wait, still daunting, but not 2-hours like it was for a 5-person table. we decided to go elsewhere.

we ended up going back to the same restaurant my father and pansusu had dimsum earlier today inside the watertown mall. at nights it becomes a normal chinese restaurant. it was also busy but not so much that we couldn't get a table after a few minutes of waiting for them to clean up.

this location used to be a country buffet. why they closed i'll never know, it seemed like they did some good business, but i only ate there once or twice, each time feeling i was really slumming it, even though my mother and sister seem to really love the place. anyway, after some simple renovations it's now called joyful garden. we ordered the set meal for 6 people even though we were 5. it included twin lobsters, which was one of the things tangtang wanted to eat on her visit to boston. my parents and pansusu seemed to really enjoy the food, i thought it was okay. while we were eating, spring shabu sent me a text telling me my table was ready. wait time: just 41 minutes.

after we finished eating we returned home. i got ready to leave, to ride my motorcycle in 34 degrees temperature, something pansusu thought was incredulous that anyone could still be riding a motorcycle when it was so cold outside. i think i've even riden when the temperature was in the 20's. feeling confident that the bike started this morning, i thought i wouldn't have any problems, but the first time i pressed the ignition and heard the sound, i knew the battery was already dead. so as like i practiced it in my head, i pulled out the jump starter from my backpack and pulled off the toolset compartment where the positive jumper cable from the battery terminal was located. i attachment the red to that wire, then the black clamp to the metal frame, and turned on the jump starter. as soon as it went green after a second, i pressed the ignition button on the bike which purred to life. so it worked! the positive terminal extension cable combined with using the metal bike frame as ground works for jumping the battery. this is good to know because i'm positive i won't be able to restart the battery tomorrow morning since the temperature tonight will drop down into the 20's.

i was well aware that today was black friday. i spent the day scouring amazon for deals. the only thing that piqued my interest were some cheap action cams, but i couldn't tell if they were any good. my father said the watertown mall was busy this morning, while my mother said burlington mall was unusually quiet, maybe a lot of people doing what i was doing and deciding to shop at home instead of brave the black friday mall frenzy. but by the end of the evening i still ordered a few things. i got the dbpower EX7000 pro 4K action camera for just $20. it features a 2.45" touchscreen LCD and a 16MP sensor. compare that to my first action camera that i bought in 2015, the SJCAM SJ4000 that had a 12MP sensor and a 1.5" non-touch screen. i paid $62 for that camera, although only after using $27 worth of reward points (actual price $89). 4 years later, i was due for an upgrade. gopro's are still the gold standard of action cams, but i can't bear to pay a few hundred dollars for a gopro that i will only use infrequently. i got the EX7000 PRO with an 128GB samsung EVO microSDXC memory card ($16.99, though just $13 because i had some credit). i also ordered a SUAOKI U3 400A 8000mAh 2.5L jump starter. it was a lightning deal (as was the EX7000 PRO), originally priced $38, with lightning deal down to $30, but i had $10 reward points so the final price was $20. i already have a jump starter (SUAKO U10), but that one is way oversized for what i need (800A 20000mAh 6.0L gas). the U3 is smaller, about the same dimension as a smartphone, which makes it easier to carry. the U3 has easily enough juice to crank up my motorcycle battery.