my sister gave me a ride to belmont. for the first time hailey was there since i got the gopro pet harness mount and i was eager to try it out. i had a camera mount harness a while back but i couldn't find it anymore, so i just bought a new one off of ebay ($9). we just haphazardly put the harness on hailey and let her run out into the backyard. i had the gopro camera set to shoot a timewarp video. unfortunately the camera was set to far back and wasn't tilted forward enough. plus she was sniffing in the snow, so we rarely saw her head. i want to try with her in the forest, but my sister said they don't go to the reservation as much these days, since hailey has gone deaf and doesn't hear commands very well.

i had some cold leftover squash porridge for lunch along with leftover ham and bread. my parents also put in some tofu skin in the porridge, so it also tasted like soy milk.

my mother's 12 oz. zojirushi insulated travel mug arrived last night. she didn't like it at first, but after seeing some youtube videos with glowing reviews of the zojirushi mug, she loves it now and wants to keep it. i bought some of my own insulated mug collection, including the 40 oz. takeya and the 16 oz. contigo. neither of them will keep a hot beverage as hot as the zojirushi. i know from personal experience the contigo only keeps something hot for about 4 hours, and the takeya i've only ever used it for ice water during the winter, and usually after 24 hours i still have ice in the container.

not much happened today. the weather outside was cloudy, so i wasn't in the mood to fly the drone. it was the final sunday before the playoffs, so there was a bunch of important football games on tv. pittsburgh won their won, and they'll make it to the playoffs (7th seed) if the chargers-raiders sunday night football game doesn't end in a tie. new england had the late afternoon game against the dolphins in miami; patriots back luck season finale games in florida continues, as they manage to lose. it didn't matter in the grand scheme of things since the pats were guaranteed a playoff spot, and buffalo beat the jets anyway, so we couldn't have won the AFC east conference anyway. dolphins scored 14 points in what seemed like the first minute of the game, so it was an uphill battle after that, one that the team couldn't surmount.

a few birds came to the feeder today, as evidenced by the cracked sunflower seeds littering the snow below. i saw a male downy woodpecker, and a flock of juncos that included a song sparrow, i think they're all in the same bird game. there was also a hungry squirrel feeding from the suet feeder. i was looking up the possibility of getting a double-caged suet feeder, but from the reviews i read occasionally birds also get trapped in the cage and die.

for dinner we had some japanese sesame dressing (kewpie brand) salad (iceberg lettuce and cucumbers) along with a christmas ham stirfry my mother made. instead of rice we had noodles, but i was the only person to finish. afterwards i had a brown sugar boba taiyaki ice cream sandwich.

my father gave me a ride back to cambridge. i watched the chargers-raiders game. i was rooting for the chargers, since if they won that means the patriots would face off against the cincinnati bengals. a raiders win means a patriots-bills matchup. i don't think new england wants to face buffalo in the first round, and neither does buffalo. it was a crazy game, the chargers came back to tie it and send it into overtime. it looked like the game might end in a tie - meaning both chargers and raiders would go into the playoffs, eliminating the steelers. however the raiders won the game, which means a patriots-bills game.