my 2nd aunt called me via line while i was in the shower this morning. i tried calling her back but her phone was busy. i checked the map and saw she was on terceira island in the azores, a brief stopover from her departure point in lisbon before returning to boston. my parents and i decided yesterday that i would go with my father to the airport in the late afternoon, so i could swap out google fi service from my aunt's phone to my father's phone, before dropping her off at home.

i wanted to make a ham sandwich for lunch, but i forgot to defrost my smoked ham last night. instead i just had some pita bread with homemade tzatziki.

i finally decided to throw away my broken used microwave, which had been sitting on my dining table in a box. i should've tossed it out months ago, but for some reason i thought i could somehow fix it by some miracle, even though i already got a new microwave. before throwing it out though, i decided to open it up one last time and strip out all usable parts: microswitches, wires, thermal sensors, light bulb, power cord.

i played around with the quansheng UV-K5 a little more today. i added a few airband channels to memory, logan airport approach and logan airport tower. i figured since i was going to the airport with my father later, it'd be the perfect chance to see if we can receive logan tower transmissions (normally we can't from cambridge/belmont).

it was actually pretty rainy today, with intermittent periods of darkness and bands of moderate rain. the forecast said the weather would get better in the afternoon. by 3pm the sun started to come out a bit, so i decided to make a market basket supply run, figured i wouldn't be able to do it the rest of the week since i'll be working at the cafe while my parents are gone.

i called the cafe asking if they needed anything, my father asked me to pick up his prescription at harvard vanguard. even though it was sunny, there was patches of dark clouds and was actually still raining. the pharmacist was the same one from thursday, she recognized me and made some bitcoin jokes when i asked her if cash co-pay was okay.

i bumped into my 2nd uncle at market basket. i actually recognized him from behind, he was "god bless you" everyone he passed as he slowly pushed his shopping cart through the aisles. i told him i was going to the airport later to pick up my 2nd aunt, she mustn't have told him because he didn't even know she was coming back today. i stocked up on a bunch of frozen meals, figured i'd be too busy to do any cooking for the next 1-1/2 weeks.

i returned home to drop off my groceries as i monitored the doppler radar. it looked like some serious rain was heading our way, so i decided to wait it out before going to the cafe. but then it got sunny again, so i decided to risk it and make a quick dash. it was already starting to rain again a little bit. soon after i arrived at the cafe around 4:30pm, it suddenly started to pour, a torrential downburst that last several intense minutes.

my mother told me i wouldn't be able to go to the airport with my father. the reason? my sister was having dinner with her friend, so i needed to be at the cafe with my mother. she said my father could go to the airport on his own, and then bring my 2nd aunt back to the cafe so i could make the google fi sim card switch.

my 2nd aunt was originally scheduled to arrive at 5pm, but her flight to the azores islands was delayed by an hour. her new boston arrival time was 5:30pm. either way it was a terrible time, for some all our most recent trips to the airport to pick someone up have been around weekday rush hour. i was monitoring my 2nd aunt's flight via multiple sources: flight tracking, live air traffic broadcasting, and doppler radar. all the arriving planes were in a line coming in from the north. unfortunately there was a strong burst of strongs coming up from the south, and the air traffic controller diverted everyone at the last minute to avoid wind shears. all the planes then reorganized again, lining up, approaching from the east now. i watched virtually as my 2nd aunt's plane touched down at logan airport.

my father didn't leave until 5:45pm, figured it'd take my 2nd aunt a while to get her luggage and go through customs. my father called around 6:30pm, said he just picked up my aunt and was on their way back to the cafe. they didn't get here until 7pm.

first thing i did was to put back my 2nd aunt's verizon sim card and take out the google fi one. originally i was going to put it in my father's phone, but his pixel 6 can also use esims, so i was able to install it without using the physical sim card. that allowed his phone to have two sim cards with two diffrent numbers, one for verizon, one for google fi. it was kind of trippy, seeing two data bars on the top of his phone screen, as well the indicator for wifi.

when i went back into the kitchen to hand my 2nd aunt her phone, they were already eating chinese dumplings for dinner, standing around the kitchen counter. i ate some dumplings as well, my stomach already grumbling for the past few hours (tzatziki and pita does not make a very filling lunch).

my aunt had brought back some portuguese egg tarts. i didn't even think of it, but of course that'd be something one brings back from lisbon. she said they were sold everywhere. my parents toasted them in the air fryer and i tried one. very surprised, especially since they were from portugual (inventor of eggs tarts), but it wasn't that good. first thing i noticed was how oily it was. the crust was crispy, but also very salty. the filling on the other hand was very sweet, and didn't taste like eggs, more like artificially-sweetened gelatin. it was very disappointing. any egg tarts from chinatown is better than these portuguese ones.

my parents still had a late night. breaded chicken needed to be fried, curry and minced pork needed to be sorted. originally i thought my parents would be here tomorrow, even though their flight leaves in the late afternoon. but my mother surprised me when she said she wasn't planning on coming, and just assumed i'd open the cafe, which was the first time i was hearing of this. by that point my sister already came back from her dinner, and agreed she'd open up the cafe tomorrow, and i'd come in during my usual time in the late morning.

i finally left the cafe by 8:15pm. i got home and watched the second half of the heat-knicks game. miami seemed like they were on their way to another win, despite jimmy butler sitting out tonight's game, nursing his twisted ankle. but the same thing happened to the heat that happened to the celtics: they lifted their foot of the pedal and their opponent managed to get the best of them to win. knicks won 111-105. but miami is definitely legit, even without butler, they were this close to take the series 2-0. the second game of the night was between the lakers-warriors. i found myself rooting for LA and they managed to win 117-112, stealing home court advantage away from golden state.