antonio sent me an e-mail about his situation: while he's still waiting for his US visa, his girlfriend told him she wants to come to boston too (taking a few months off from work). of course my guest bedroom would be too small for the both of them, so they're going to search for a new place. he was being considerate and said he was willing to pay a month's rent because i was holding the room for him. i told him there was nobody else waiting to stay here, so everything was cool. in some ways i'm relieved antonio isn't coming: since lauryn left back in august, i've become accustomed to solo living again. the only downside (besides the loss of a few month's rental income) is now with no upcoming roommate, the house can quickly deteriorate into a cluttered bachelor mess. it already is to some extent, with softbox lights in the kitchen and a half-assembled bike waiting to be repaired. but without the spectre of guests arriving, the place can go downhill in a hurry.

instead of running this tuesday morning, i decided to run in the afternoon instead after i finish with the cafe. not only would it be warmer, but i wouldn't be fighting off the achiness of just having woken up. instead i went to the post office to mail out alex's flipper devices. he asked me if i sent them out over the weekend, when i said no, he just said, "okay." never mind the past few days have been really busy, from going to haymarket and chinatown, to pen exploding in the dryer, to new refrigerator delivery, to having to work at the cafe now everyday because my sister has decided to quit working. some appreciation would be nice.

the clerk at the porter square post office was kind of an asshole. i'd never seen him before, probably filling in. he seemed annoyed that i'd already pre-paid for everything, and all he had to do was just scan my UPC code. "what's inside?" he asked. "circuit boards," i replied (the halfest of half-truths), glad he didn't ask anymore questions, because they were in fact not circuit boards, and i'm not good at lying. he told me because i was sending it first-class international parcel, there would be no tracking or insurance. when i asked if i could add them, he said no in a condescending way, that i'd have to start all over again if i did. he also questioned why i only had one customs slip when usually there are a few in duplicates (i kind of wondered the same thing). i basically just printed out whatever usps.com gave me, and they only gave me one customs form. the delivery cost was $30, and that was the cheapest i could find. priority international - the next higher up - would cost $65 to ship out. of course that one has tracking and insurance, but twice as much? doesn't make sense.

next i went to market basket to get some bean sprouts for the cafe. i also got a frozen pizza, already decided that would be my dinner for tonight.

i came home to drop off the pizza before heading to the cafe by 11:30am. first thing i did was to start a new batch of tea eggs. i should've looked at the time because it was getting close to lunchtime and making tea eggs would take up two induction cookers. fortunately the other two cookers were enough, until i could combine the boiling eggs with the tea egg brine.

we had a lot of customers today but most of them were small orders, so not much in terms of profit. but it's a good way to ease into the work week, though a slow start maybe foreshadow a slow week, except these things are hard to predict despite my many efforts at business prognostication. my 2nd aunt showed up in the afternoon, bringing with her some cilanto-pork chinese dumplings she'd made. my godmother stopped as well, with her newly-arrived friend in tow. the friend looked familiar, but i couldn't remember where i saw her from (photos), until she said she remembered me from one time she came to boston in the fall to see the leaf colors up north. i left a bit after 2pm: with my 2nd aunt there to help i could safely leave, though it was no longer busy anyway.

i came home and rested, but left the house around 3pm to go out on my run as promised. the weather was very nice, though a bit sunny, so i wore my transition lenses. i was out for nearly an hour before coming back home.

i brought home my pH meter last night. either the pH meter is faulty, i'm not using it correctly, or the pH in the tank does change despite my CO2 injection. no matter what time i take a reading, the pH always seem to hover round 7.4pH. ideally there should be a drop of 1.0 when CO2 is on, so around 6.4pH. that means i'm not adding enough CO2, and need to up the bubble count. if i had a CO2 indicator i could check it visually, but my CO2 checker won't get here until the end of the week, and that's without any indicator drops (though i think i can make my own). i just have to keep reminding myself that there's no hurry, i'll get it right eventually. right now i'm still figuring stuff out and trying different things to see what works. worst case scenario all my plants die and i get new plants, which wouldn't be a bad thing.

i fell asleep on the couch around 7pm, didn't wake up until after 8pm. laziness i surfed reddit from my phone, until it was almost 9pm, when i finally got up to make dinner in the form of baking a frozen pizza in the oven. originally i thought i'd only eat half, but i ate the whole thing, portion control be damned.

later in the evening i ordered a few more things off of temu: a turkey baster (actually advertised as an aquarium vacuum cleaner), an alarm clock (the same one i have in the bathroom that keeps on stopping, this one would be a replacement, temu already refunded me the cost of the original alarm clock), silicone bumper pads, oui yogurt jar lids, cargo bungie netting, and most importantly another CO2 checker but with indicator solution. i earned some coupons which are all pretty much useless: i need to buy $70+ worth of items, and the coupons all expire in 48 hours (thursday).