i left for belmont around 10:40am, dressed warmly as the highs for the day was only in the 40's and would drop into the 30's and 20's by evening. when i got to my parents' place my mother was just about on her way out for a walk so i ended up going with her. we did half of fresh pond. despite the temperature, the sun was out which made it feel much warmer. the day after thanksgiving, there were a lot of people out strolling around the pond: dogwalkers, joggers, cyclists, and simple walking pedestrians. my sister called soon after we got to fresh pond to let us know she was at the house with esmei. my mother kept track of the number of people she saw wearing either brooks or hoka running shoes (she herself was wearing a pair of wool allbirds without socks). the only bit of interesting wildlife we saw were some migrating scaups diving into the water.
we didn't get back home until 12pm. naturally we had leftover turkey for lunch. esmei watched us eat and at one point barked and jumped on my mother when she thought we were going to give her food but didn't. after a scolding, she plopped down on the ground on all fours.
after lunch i went outside to rake the leaves from the backyard maple. normally i'd just mow it over and collect the shredded leaves, but our compost bin was already full, and there was so many leaves it would definitely clog up the mower. esmei attacked the rake while i worked, until she got bored of it and chewed on some leaves she caught. she had a case of the zoomies in the backyard which seemed to have tired her out as she laid down to rest before being called back inside. i ended up collecting 4 bins of leaves. i think next week is the last garden refuse collection for belmont, so it's good to get all the raking down by this weekend.
when i came back inside my sister and esmei were still home but just about to leave. i had some white ear fungus soup. being that today was black friday i figured we'd do some online shopping but we only bought a few things. we got a wall surge protector ($10) to replace the intermatic one in the kitchen that seemed to have burned out. my father bought a 7-pocket fleece vest ($34 sale, formerly $42). later when i went back home, i ordered some NiMH batteries (both AA and AAA). i also researched meat grinders and keurig coffee makers, but didn't buying either. my COMFEE electric kettle ($20) and 8-pack of solar mason jar string lights ($16) both arrived today. i'll only need the new electric kettle if i can't fix my broke one first (though it may not be worth it trying to save a 13-year out kitchen appliance).
there was a celtics game at 2pm. celtics had a double digit lead at one point but got outplayed by the orlando magic in the 2nd half. boston couldn't score at all while the magic rebounded everything and made all their shots. orlando ended up winning by double digits, now they're just a single game behind the celtics for best record in the NBA. to make matters worse, both porzingis and white looked injured (holiday didn't play today). celtics face the hawks on sunday, hopefully they can bounce back.
in the late afternoon early evening my father cooked up the second bag of mussels (otherwise it was going bad). the ones we had last night didn't have enough salt, so he added some salt this time, which made for better mussels. my father also tried the zero gravity buck buck juice double IPA (9% alcohol). i tried a sip, it tasted very good, strong hop flavor. my father said he could really feel the alcohol after a few sips.
for dinner we had more leftover turkey. i only had 2 rollups this time before i was pretty much full. we also each had a flan, my mother eating it directly from the ramekin. i noticed the ones i made using the porcelain ramekins had a lot more air bubbles compared to the glass pyrex ones.
i left around 7:15pm with the temperature in the upper 30's. i had my handlebar mitts and dressed warmly, but the cold still stung my face as my eyes watered up and there was a brief initial stretch where i could hardly breathe. i also dreamed about a heated vest, something i plan on investigating some more when i got back home.
i tried to further take apart my old electric kettle but couldn't. i also brought back a near identical broken aroma kettle from my parents' place. their old kettle wouldn't stop boiling. i tried to open it but it actually had security screws and i didn't have the necessary screw bits. i think i could replace the bimetal switch (from my broken kettle) to get it to turn off. but i won't know for sure until i can open the kettle.
in the meantime i went ahead and used the new COMFEE electric kettle to make some tea. i like its bigger 1.7L capacity. my old kettle was only 1.5L, which is the same capacity as my insulated stanley bottle, so it'd never be full since i always make a glass of tea after boiling some water. the new kettle has a brushed stainless steel finish which i don't like. my old kettle had a shiny mirror-like metal finish which made for some interesting kitchen photography. the brushed look does match my fridge though. there's a button on the handle that will automatically flip open the lid; there is no button for closing. i like the bigger opening, i can fit my whole hand in to clean; i could do that with my old kettle but if you have larger hands that might be a challenge. the on/off switch at the base of the handle is also the on/off indicator light. this is an improvement over the old kettle, where the light was on the left side of the kettle, the side i don't see. the indicator light on the new kettle is blue for some reason, which bothers me, as i associate blue with cold and red with hot. surprisingly nearly all the other electric kettles i saw online use a blue indicator led, so maybe there's some other reason they don't use red. i wonder if that's something i can swap out with a red led but it's probably more hassle than its worth. the new kettle has its water level gauge on the left side. this orientation makes sense if you're a right-hand user, but because i fill the kettle with my left hand, i can't easily see the gauge. it would've been more ergonomical to have the gauge on the back of the kettle, which was the way on my old kettle. this also wouldn't be an issue if i got a glass kettle.
i spent the rest of the evening watching rocket engine videos on youtube.