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32 degrees this morning - freezing temperature - and i had trouble starting my motorcycle but eventually it did start (just had to press the start button a bit longer than usual). i got to the cafe by 10:30am to start my saturday shift. i hadn't worked on a saturday since before thanksgiving, so it's been 3 weeks. i don't like working with my sister: she's fine when we're not very busy, but goes crazy when we have too many customers. i was afraid today would be a bad day with her judging from the business we've had this week.

we had a big order in the late morning, a group of asians with a baby. they ate in-shop, and overstayed their welcome, not leaving until 1pm, taking up most of the available tables and chairs (for their coats, their bags), despite it being super crowded around lunchtime. i'd never seen them before and i hope to never see them again, or at least do takeout. it's weird where all these customers are coming from. only a handful are repeats, while the rest are new customers. how are they even finding out about our place? because we certainly don't advertise.

just as i feared, my sister turned into a terrible boss once we got really busy. she doesn't do well under pressure, and takes it out on my 2nd aunt and myself. luckily my parents made a cameo appearance towards the tail end of the really busy stretch. it was unplanned, they were coming back from a market basket supply run. they left soon afterwards, but the bulk of saturday's business was already over by then.

there were also 2 world cup quarter-final games today. morocco faced off against portugal this morning. i was so busy i didn't have time to check the score until the afternoon, and was shocked to learn morocco had beaten portugal 1-0. i hope morocco goes all the way and wins the whole thing. they eliminated spain and portugal (heavy favorites), they're definitely legit. later in the afternoon there was the england-france game. i don't know which country was favored to win, i got the feeling they were closely matched. france ended up winning 2-1. so now the stage is set for a semi-final between argentina-croatia (tuesday) and france-morocco (wednesday).

in other news: the owner of our restaurant neighbors came by today with a box of free sweet potatoes. my father finally presented the levoit humidifier to my 2nd aunt. i bought two - one for my father, one for my 2nd aunt - but i think my parents were thinking maybe i'd take the second unit, as it's pretty fancy with its bluetooth and wifi capabilities, but i don't use the humidifier all that much, and my 2nd aunt deserves a good humidifier, even if she won't use all its features. xiaojuan showed up at the cafe today, returning a power drill her father had borrowed (it actually belonged to him originally before he gave it to my father).

after work i went to belmont and got there around 4:30pm. i got a chance to see some of the other temu items that'd arrived a few days ago, including a cheap headlamp. we left it on to see how long it'd run on its rechargeable battery (2 hours at least it seems). i also sync'ed up the levoit humidifier to the levoit app on my father's phone.

for dinner my parents made chinese dumplings with a dill-pork filling. when it comes to chinese dumplings i have no ceiling and after my parents finished i kept eating and finished the rest of the dumplings.

i got back home by 7:15pm. i brought the handlebar mitts, temperature was still around freezing. i also wore my fleece neck warmer with helmet liner, makes me feeling like i'm an astronaut about to go off into space whenever i wear that thing. that's really designed for super cold weather and we're not there yet, but it's better to be warm on the motorcycle then find out mid-ride that i should've worn more layers. with all the winter riding gear i had on, it actually felt pretty toasty. the only part on my body that felt a little cold were my feet, despite wearing wool socks. some snow is forecasted for tomorrow night, but it may just be a dusting, not even for the road crew to even bother salting the roads, so my riding season continues. i don't stop riding until the first snowstorm of the season.

i was looking forward to the celtics-warriors game tonight, a rematch of last season's NBA final in which boston lost to golden state. steph curry and the gang were shooting lights out, their performance doesn't warrant their 13-13 record. first quarter the two teams basically swapped leads, until the warrior managed to pull away and the celtics could never catch up, even though they did get close a few times. warriors ended up winning. the game left a bad taste in my mouth. boston still hasn't figured out golden state yet. hopefully the team can beat the next 2 remaining teams on their road trip before returning to boston.

my mother called me around 10pm. i thought something was wrong, but she said somebody had rang their doorbell and when my father went out to check they were gone. she wanted me to check the webcam to see who it was. i find the footage, a pair of neighborhood boys. for some reason they've been pranking my parents for the past 2 years (september 2021, march 2022). because of the webcam, i can clearly see who it is, it's no mystery. calling the cops on them won't do any good. i'm splicing the videos together and posting it on next door, asking the neighbors' help to identity the boys, leveraging the power of social media to our aid.