the replacement 24ft extension pole had already arrived when i got to my parents' place in the late morning. my father had inspected the old pole and determined it was indeed broken and not fixable. i took it outside to bash in the stuck segment and then rewrapped it up using the packaging from the new pole. the little bit of snow that fell overnight was covering up the solar panels and i wanted to go outside and clear the roof with the new extension pole, but lunch was almost ready so i waited. my mother made some wonton soup.

after i finished eating, we got ready to do a supply run. monday is the traditional supply run day, but because my father needs to be at the cafe early tomorrow to supervise the electrician coming in to upgrade the electric panel, tomorrow is a no-go. we ended up going to baifu (foodpak) in the south end to get some asian restaurant supplies in bulk.

the trip there was without incident, we made it in 22 minutes via storrow drive to kenmore square back bay then straight down mass ave. it wasn't busy today, plenty of parking.

we were at baifu for about 40 minutes. seems like the supply chain issue for tonkatsu sauce is over, as they had both the regular kikkoman and the japanese imported. $12.90 for a 2.1kg bottle of the sauce is cheap considering i was buying it off of amazon for $20 a bottle. i also saw kewpie mayo, at only $5.50 a bottle (cheap, in chinatown they sell for $6-8).

we left by 1:30pm, driving through the crowd of homeless drug users who suddenly started congregating outside because some non-profit was delivery free supplies. instead of making a pitstop at the nearby chinatown supermarkets, we went to the cafe to drop everything off. we didn't get back to the house until 2:20pm.

the inspection sticker for the toyota is set to expire at the end of the month, so i was outside cleaning the ice off the car since it sat in the driveway undriven. had i known the car needed to be moved, i would've cleaned it on friday, instead of waiting until now, when basically the car was wrapped in an icy shell. i had to chisel off the ice bit by bit, slowly dig out the frozen windshield wipers. when i finally finished, i looked at the inspection sticker: 10-2023. turns out it wasn't the toyota that needed the inspection, and i dug out the car for nothing.

when i went back inside my parents had prepared some jiuniang with tangyuan (glutinous rice balls).

afterwards i went back outside again, to clear the snow off of the solar panels. however the bit of afternoon sun heated up the dark panels enough to completely melt away the thin layer of snow. instead i went around the backyard looking at the rabbit tracks and trying to figure out how they got inside the backyard. i think they just hopped over the fence, which i wouldn't believe they could do except i've seen it for myself. rabbits must be hungry, because they chewed up the rose bush on the western side of the yard. they also snipped off a few thin quince branches. seeing rabbit signs just reminds me that we need to protect the raised beds this year, to prevent rabbits from eating our tender seedlings.

my parents finally decided to cook the harrington cob-smoked ham. it'd take 2 hours. since we rarely use the big oven, my mother took the occasion to make some muffins in a brownie pan. the two items baked at different temperatures (325 for the ham, 350 for the muffin), so the muffin ended up cooking for almost an hour before my mother finally took it out of the oven.

the ham was finally ready to eat by 5pm. the pieces on the very top were rather dry and had a freezer burn taste, but the lower and inner sections tasted pretty good. we left it to cool, until my father trimmed off a few pieces for dinner. my mother made fried rice.

i returned home after dinner, around 7:30pm. doing a supply run on a sunday got me confused, and i kept thinking it was monday.