driving out, i took a quick detour to nearby kappy's. this was only my second visit, my first time was back in december 2011. i got some vermont-made hard cider for my returning upstairs tenants as a welcome present (they move in tomorrow, not to be confused with the upstairs neighbors, who left for their summer home). i also got some woodchuck hard cider for myself. finally i looked for plum wine and chinese baijiu. they carried the choya umeshu wine, but they were sold out of the baijiu i saw on their website.
from there i went to the wellington circle plaza, to harbor freight to get two things: square bit set ($2.79) and a 10" inner tube ($4.99). on a whim i also grabbed a 5-gallon bucket ($4.98) but while i was paying i discovered the lid cost extra ($2.48); i may return the bucket if i can buy a cheaper one from market basket. the same cashier who hates me was working again today, but he seemed to be in better spirits today, and actually told me there was a different (better) lid.
next stop was aldi's, where the only thing i got was some baby cucumbers. i was nearly 10am before i started heading back, i called my sister to let her know.
when i arrived at the cafe at 10:20am, my sister's godmother was already there. one of the induction cooktops was propped up on the table, another one was missing, and my sister and her godmother seemed busy cleaning the floor. my sister told me she was chatting with customers and forgot she was boiling some chicken stock on the induction cooker, when it overflowed without her knowing, spilling chicken soup everywhere. it soaked one of the cookers, to the point where it couldn't turn off anymore. accidents happen, but i was more shocked that she didn't even cook any rice yet, even though she'd been at the cafe for nearly 1-1/2 hours. making rice is the first and most important thing to do at the cafe, especially since we only had 2 frozen servings of rice in the freezer. it'd take 30 minutes to cook a fresh batch of rice, so there wouldn't be any rice ready until 11am. to make matters worse, my sister also didn't turn on the online ordering tablets, so we had a grubhub order we didn't even realize, until the driver came to the store to pick up the delivery that wasn't even made yet. of course my sister got really angry when we brought any of this up, she can't take any kind of criticism.
i honestly think that if i wasn't working at the cafe, my sister would be totally clueless. yes, she knows how to make all the drinks and foods, and knows the customers, but in terms of the day-to-day running of the cafe, i have a clearer idea of what needs to get done. for example, nobody volunteered to pick up more sausages when we ran out, but that responsibility fell to me. and even though i was told i could get saturdays off, i still have to come in tomorrow because when it gets busy, my sister can't be relied upon to manage all the orders without having a mental breakdown.
my 2nd aunt arrived at the cafe around her usual time which is after 11am. it was just as busy compared to the other days this week, with about at least 2 dozen customers, but today we made the most this week, even surpassing wednesday with catered meals profit. my gut feeling is tomorrow will get pretty crazy, because the weather is going to be really nice, sunny and 70's. even though my sister's godmother didn't know how to make the individual food items, she still helped out with things like washing the dishes or cutting up the vegetables. i spent the day baking the 2 boxes of chinese sausages. later i discovered we still had sausages in the basement freezer, but good that we're now all set for sausages for at last a few weeks.
other things i did today: make black noodles. cook several batches of chinese dumplings. make a batch of boba. make a new batch of tea eggs. tomorrow i need to make some ice, something that only my father and i know how to do. i was so busy, i didn't eat or drink anything all day, while my 2nd aunt and my sister's godmother all figured out ways of making lunch for themselves. i did finally in the late afternoon bake some frozen spanakopita. i also replaced the malfunctioning memory card on the parking lot webcam and set up another webcam at my sister's place so she can watch hailey at home (dog nanny cam) while she's at work.
my sister's godmother left sometime around 4pm. the rest of us stuck around until closing time. earlier i'd loaded up my bike (which had been parked outside since wednesday) into the car so i could bring it home. i left the cafe by 6:40pm. there was plenty of free parking that didn't involved parallel parking. stowing my bike in the alleyway, i saw a large air conditioner box just casually tossed there. apparently my upstairs neighbors had a new AC installed before their tenants arrived. would've been nice if they told me, and for the installers to take away their trash instead of just tossing it. i left the bag of hard cider on the upstairs deck for jeff and michelle to find.
there were some letters on the foyer, and some weekly circular. i was surprised to see one from market basket. even though i'm a market basket regular, and it's one of the closest super markets to where i live, i don't receive their weekly circular. i just get the star market one, and for some reason roche bros. even though that's all the way in watertown. fortunately market basket has an online version, but still, it'd be nice to have, to see what's on sale this week. could i now be receiving their circular? it'd be great if it's true, instead of just a postal service fluke.
i'm always so spaced when i get back from working at the cafe, i just want to watch tv and snack. today i worked on a tube of hot pringles, washed it down with some chai milk. the main event of the night was game 3 between the celtics and 76ers. philly only lead in the first quarter, while the boston lead in the other quarters. jayson tatum had more points (27) but the MVP for the celtics has to be jaylen brown, who's aggressive attacks at the basket kept the celtics in the game. celtics used multiple double teams on embiid, who still managed to score 30 points. at one point 300 lbs. embiid was falling and curb-stomped grant william's head face-first into the floor. i thought he'd need serious reconstructive surgery after that, and initially it looked pretty serious as he was bleeding from his mouth and his whole face was swollen, but minutes later, he came right back into the game. harden was a no-show, his 16 points wasn't enough given how much more he'd missed. final score 114-102, celtics winning on the night embiid got his MVP award.
i made dinner on the second half, which was basically reheating the ham bone soup i made last night. there was a layer of congealed fat that i scooped off from the top of the soup. the soup itself even liquid, more of a gelatin matrix, but melted as soon i heated it. it still tasted pretty good, and was pretty filling.