i met my father at the cafe at 10am to help him clean the grease trap for the kitchen sink. the last time he cleaned it was back in april, so about every 6 months is when we do a cleaning. we were doing it this morning to take advantage of the long holiday weekend. my father had already cleared most of the shelves by the time i arrived. while he continued to do that, i was busy making a new batch of tea eggs for next week, since we already sold most of them by this past wednesday and i didn't make more due to the long thanksgiving break.

the wooden shelving directly above the grease trap is a rickety structure prone to fall apart. which was exactly what happened last time, when i found my father trapped underneath the collapsed shelvings while in the middle of cleaning out the grease trap. so he wanted to somehow secure the shelving by screwing it to the wall. unfortunately that didn't do anything as the problem had more to do with the fact that the shelving is just a glorified jenga construction than anything that can be properly secured. still he tried, before the shelving collapsed twice until he finally gave up.

my sister poked her head into the cafe when she saw our vehicles outside. she was taking esmei to belmont, even though we wouldn't be there.

my father didn't start cleaning out the grease trap until after 11am. we removed the nearly 2 dozen screws securing the lid. there's a reason why it had to be closed so tightly because the odor inside is indescribably awful, the stench of half a year of fermented cooking grease. i actually thought it smelled like stinky tofu, which made it somewhat more bearable. we collected 3 bags of what amounted to biohazardous sludge, being careful not to get any of it on the floors or on our clothes, which was pretty much impossible.

while we worked, my mother showed up. apparently she got a ride from my sister, we returned from belmont with esmei after they took her out on a walk. my mother was going to walk down to michael's to get her exercise and to buy some yarn to knit a few things for my big aunt. the smell was so bad that the little shop next door complained to my sister about raw sewage odor. if you think that's bad, trying working directly over the grease trap without vomiting!

after my father finished scooping, we cut some foam strips to serve as a gasket for the grease trap. the trap itself original had a gasket but it'd since dissolved over the years. last time my father layered some paper towels, but the towels wicked up the offensive fluids and stunk up the back kitchen for several months, the smell only now finally dissipating, only for us to reopen the hellmouth. but hopefully the foam strips will serve as a better material. with the strips in place, we finally sealed the grease trap back up, not to be revisited until another 6 months.

we started cleaning up the kitchen, putting everything back to where they belonged. it didn't smell too bad this time, partly because we didn't have everything on the shelves falling into the grease trap like last time and my father trying to escape while being enveloped by smelly grease. by then my mother had returned from michael's and my tea eggs were done simmering after 2 hours.

we didn't leave until 1:30pm, taking the 3 bags of cooking grease to throw out in belmont. i pity the sanitation workers when they get a big surprise next week.

for lunch it was more leftover turkey. my father's 7-pocket vest arrived a day early, he tried it on. it was lighter than he thought, but a good fit. he'll wear it at work at the cafe, preferring instead to wear his old fleece vest underneath a flannel shirt while at home. i talked my mother into buying a keurig k-mini single serving coffee maker, currently on sale for $50 (normally around $90). i tried talking her into getting the more expensive k-mini plus - has a strong brew option and a removable water reservoir, but she said the regular k-mini was good enough.

the day was almost over after cleaning out the grease trap this morning to the early afternoon. i surfed the web a little bit before it was close to dinner. for some reason i felt really cold and wore my jacket indoors for much of the day. i didn't bother going out into the backyard. birds had already emptied the seed feeder: at first i thought it was the work of junk birds (sparrows, starlings) until i saw it was just a mob of good birds: juncos, cardinals, song sparrows, and house finches. i'd never seen so many house finches. i'll fill up the feeder tomorrow. i've yet to see any birds visiting the suet feeder though.

i roasted some hazelnuts but baked them on the wrong layer and scorched most of them, wasting a perfectly good bag of nuts. we made more sweet potato fries, i cut up two large sweet potatoes earlier and soaked them in cold water for a few hours before coating them in corn starch. they came out good, but i still prefer regular fries, feels healthier compared to the sweet taste of the sweet potatoes. we also fried the last batch of spring rolls. by the time they were ready, i'd eaten so much sweet potato fries that i wasn't hungry anymore, and only had two spring rolls before i was full.

our mifaso wall mounted surge protector arrived this evening, a day ahead of schedule. we installed it in the kitchen, replacing our old intermatic wall mounted surge protector. the old one actually used two outlets instead of just one, so it's a lot more beefier. maybe it still protects, but the red surge led has long since gone dark, and most of the outlets have scorch marks from past dalliances with high demand kitchen appliances. the mifaso fit well as a replacement. it has 8 outlets, though 4 of them (on the sides) only have 2-prongs. it also had a few USB ports, which we'll never use.

i left belmont by 7:30pm. temperature had dropped down to 29 degrees by then. it was cold but i was prepared for the weather, felt like i was going out into the dark vacuum of outer space. i had fun exhaling smoke plumes from my mouth whenever i came to a stop light, showing those climate-controlled car drivers what a bad-ass i am for riding exposed out in the elements.

first thing i did when i got back was try repairing the old electric kettle. i brought the security screw bits this time around. the workings of an electric kettle is actually pretty simple, so in theory it'd be easy to fix. however that would not be the case tonight. the old kettle i got from my parents - the one that works but just won't shut off - has slightly different guts. for one thing, the switch is actually soldered onto the heating coil, so it can't be easily removed. fortunately i wasn't planning on it. instead i was hoping the issue had something to do with the bimetal disc that pops off the power switch. so i replaced the disc from my broken kettle with the one from my parents. i powered it up and waited for the water to boil. once it did, it failed to stop, but instead kept on boiling until the kettle was starting to vibrate violently before i finally turned it off manually. so no go on that fix. maybe i installed the bimetal disc backwards, i'll try again tomorrow. in the meantime i had enough hot water to make some tea for tonight.

nothing good on television. instead i watched some youtube videos. first learning about space rockets, then switching gear and learning how to make my own sausages, from grounding fresh meat, to mixing in the spices, then grounding the meat again into the sausage casings. i really want to make my own sausages now, bet i can make some good ones. i just need a meat grinder.