assembling the big order was fairly routine at this point. my sister showed up to help, fielding incoming customers as my parents and i were putting everything together. she also helped with packing the orders into takeout bags. the delivery driver arrived early - around 11:30am - and took all the bags.
despite all the activity this morning, it was still early, as we headed into the noontime rush of customers. by day's end we made as much as that single large order.
i saw esmei a few times, as my sister brought her to the cafe. i even went to my sister's place to pick up some temu order items. there was a notice from UPS posted to the front door, li's ipad order. i didn't realize it but it required a signature. had i known i would've shipped it to the cafe instead. hopefully UPS will try delivering it again tomorrow. my sister and esmei were in the backyard. esmei found a piece of bamboo stick and was gnawing away at it. she didn't care for the new potty training astroturf, carrying them around as if they were toys.
my aunt showed up before noontime. alex showed up to clean the basement. my 2nd aunt showed up in the late afternoon. casey and her grandsons came around 3pm.
the internet went down for about 15 minutes in the afternoon. it was a long 15 minutes as the phone didn't work and we couldn't see any incoming online orders or accept credit card payments. what tipped me off was the fact that the voip phone wasn't working. it seemed like some services were still online before everything just went down. i called comcast business, and as soon as i got an agent to talk to, the internet went back online. not sure what happened. we haven't had a service outage in a while, hopefully it was a random glitch and not something that's going to happen regularly.
i left the cafe around 4:30pm. i went to star market to see if they had any boneless chicken thighs on sale but somebody had cleaned everything out.
from last night i noticed the bathtub drain was clogged. so i poured some draino gel, waited about half an hour, before pouring down a kettle of boiling water. i then jumped into the tub to take a shower, using a combination of two plungers to unclog the obstruction, as the tub started to drain normally again.
li came home around 6:30pm, after having had burrito dinner with a fellow astrophysicist in harvard square. i didn't eat until almost 9pm, finished the last of my rice porridge leftover.
i helped li buy a stanley thermos from amazon. i had thought about gifting him one after he expressed his amazement by how long it could keep hot water hot. it's due to arrive on monday. as for his ipad, UPS said the next delivery won't be until monday. chances are my sister won't be home, so the package will be relegated to a UPS facility for pickup on tuesday at the earliest. that's getting awfully close to when li is scheduled to return to germany wednesday night. so i decided to buy the ipad again, but schedule to pick it up this weekend from the nearest apple store instead of having to wait next week. most likely sunday afternoon when we return from having dimsum in chinatown.