i left the house a bit before 11am, first to return a keurig coffee maker at whole foods, then go to harvard vanguard to pick up some prescriptions for my mother. temperature was in the upper 40's. it rained all last night but the clouds were clearing and sunshine was peeking through. i chatted with the indian pharmacist again. she told me she spent thanksgiving with her boyfriend, his brother, and his mom. they ordered a set meal from whole foods, 4 servings of beef wellington. unfortunately she doesn't eat beef and the mother's vegetarian, so the brothers had the main course all to themselves. she told me she has to work this sunday. i asked if it's because of the pharmacist shortage. she told me the shortage is because a lot of places overwork their pharmacists. nowadays more people are studying medical law than learning to become pharmacists.
i passed through the outskirts of harvard square to get to belmont by around 11:30am. my sister's car was outside. walking up to the house, i saw esmei sitting behind the glass storm window looking outside. she saw me but showed zero canine emotions as i came into the house. i took her outside and we played a version of fetch with a squeaker ball when she wasn't trying to dig in a hole in the dirt of biting my pant legs (she managed to rip a hole in my jeans). she got the zoomies and at one point seemed to be tiring out, suddenly completely disinterested in everything before going back inside.
my sister bought some burger king breakfast sandwiches, i ate an egg & sausage croissant sandwich. esmei's playpen won't arrive until next saturday so in the meantime we have to be vigilant and follow her around the house to keep an eye on her. she was better behaved today, spending a lot of time looking outside the front door storm window. at one point i noticed a pool of water in the plastic boot tray. turns out esmei peed in there, so we let her outside again in case she still needed to go to the bathroom.
esmei also slept on the floor before my sister moved her onto the couch. even when we were talking loudly she didn't wake up. we weren't paying attention when she finally got up and started rummaging through the house again. i saw her trying to poke her nose against the backyard door before suddenly squatting down and peeing on the rug. thankfully it was one of those rubber bottom entrance rugs, so the pee didn't seep down to the hardwood. we let her out again, but whenever she got outside, she forgot about going to the bathroom but instead wanted to explore and play.
my sister finally took esmei home around 2pm, since she hadn't had lunch yet.
i was presenting a case for why my mother should upgrade her phone. she ended up choosing the samsung S21 over the S21+ because she didn't like the larger size. we were ready to order and i had the phone in my shopping cart but i wanted to wait and think about it a little more. when i finally decided to make the purchase, the phone was sold out. amazon presented me with the next available option which was a few dollars more. that one sold out of as well. at the same time my mother decided she didn't need a new phone after all, instead sticking with her 5-6 year old samsung S9+.
i was also hoping to go to home depot to pick up a ryobi impact driver kit on sale ($90). but instead my father and i went down to the auto mechanic to pick up our toyota. after something like 2 weeks, the car still wasn't fixed. the mechanic said he didn't want my father to spend anymore money, but the engine was making an annoying whirling sound that my father said was worth fixing, even if it cost a few hundred dollars more. so we returned home. by then it was nearly 4pm. instead of visiting home depot, we ended up just buying the impact driver online and having it shipped to the house. it won't arrive until next monday, but we're in no hurry.
instead i moved all the holiday cactuses back from the sunroom into the living room. it won't be too cold tonight, but tuesday and wednesday nights temperature will dip back into the 20's again. i also watered them before going down to the basement to water all the plants in the grow room. i made a new batch of mosquito-bit infused water. i first started with the orchids, which require a few soaks in the water to completely wet their wood chip growing media. next i watered all the potted pileas and spiderworts and prayer plants, before moving onto the gardenia and jasmines. later i moved a few holiday cactuses down into the basement after i cleared out some room.
my mother didn't want to make dinner so around 5pm we ordered takeout from what da chick again. my father and i left to go pick up our order, stopping by the gas station on belmont street to fuel up before returning home with the food. my mother was disappointed again that the fried chicken bones were not freshly fried.
after dinner my father showed me an e-mail he got from AOlithium batteries. they were having a black friday cyber monday sale, and one of things on sale was a 12V 100Ah LiFePO4 battery with high and low temperature protection, bluetooth, and a 200A BMS for just $250. even better, first time customers get a $20 off coupon, for a final price of $230. i never heard of AOlithium before so went onto youtube to see if anyone's ever done a review. none other than will prowse did a teardown of the exact same battery a year ago. his verdict was this was a great battery with all the features you could want: low temperature protection (which is something he's obsessed with), UL-rated, commercial/medical-grade JBD BMS (with lots of copper), easy to open battery box (for easy future services if necessary), 200A discharge (enough juice to run a 2400W appliance like a microwave). at the time this battery cost $650 - now it was more than $400 less. seems like across the board, 12V 100Ah LiFePO4 batteries are going on sale for around $200, though the AOlithium battery has way more features. so we ended up getting one after consulting with my mother (she said no at first, until we told her it cost $400 more a year ago). not only was there free shipping, but no taxes either, so a final cost of $230. however as soon as we made the purchase, i was browsing on ebay and saw the exact same battery for just $199. free shipping included but there was taxes, so the final cost was $211, less than $20 cheaper. i thought about contacting AOlithium directly to cancel the order, but my father said it wasn't a big deal. the AOlithium battery is due to arrive by the end of this week.
i didn't get back home until almost 7:50pm. once again i couldn't find parking and had to park 2 blocks away in another one of my grey zone parking spots. i texted bruce as soon asi got back. he wanted to return some ramekins and to offer me some leftover thanksgiving short ribs.
despite the big shopping weekend, i didn't really get anything for myself other than some rechargeable NiMH AA and AAA's batteries, not the most exciting purchase. what i really want is an insta360 camera, but i haven't done enough research to figure out which one i should get, or if i should even get one at all. but i spent the rest of the night trawling amazon for things to buy. i got a pair of novelty socks for my sister's birthday on saturday (socks printed with the same paw patterns as esmei). i got a remote control outlet switch for our cafe basement light. remembering the promise i made this morning, i bought myself a heavyweight feather & down winter comforter for $52 (cyber monday deal). i saw winter comforters that cost more, but i'm not very picky, i just need something that will keep my warm in bed during the winter. i noticed its eligible for return, but who would want to buy a return used comforter?
finally, with about an hour left before cyber monday was officially over (west coast time), i bought a new grow light - spider farm SF1000D for $70. every year i buy a new grow light for the grow room. i've been slowly trying to phase out our blurple lights - they used to be all the rage but indoor growers have been gravitating away from them for white full spectrum led lights instead, after realizing plants also use wavelengths other than red and blue. white lights are also easier on the eyes, blurple led's made the leaves look purplish black so it was hard to spot diseases and pests. the SF1000D is a new 2023 edition featuring samsung LM301B diodes, offering one of the most amount of lumens per watt. spider farm also has a more advanced version of this light using even more efficient samsung led's. that one has a dimming option, but the only time i'd ever need to dim these lights is if i was germinating seeds and growing seedlings. i have different lights for those, so i figured i'd save the $25 and go with the cheaper option.
while doing more research on these samsung diode grow lights, i saw some specs that said the spider farm SF1000D has an energy efficiency of 2.5 umol/J, which seems less than what is typically attributed to LM301B diodes, which is 2.92 umol/J. figuring i was buying an inferior product, i ended up cancelling the SF1000D. however, after more research (approaching 3am), it looked like the SF1000D is still a good performer, so i ended up buying it again.