i left for the cafe by 10am, a crate of eggs carefully packaged in my messenger bag. i got too many pre-thanksgiving so i'm returning some to the cafe. when i arrived my mother said there was a big order at 11am (10 bento boxes). casey's daughter came to pick up the order, told my parents the order was actually for 11 bento boxes, so my parents quickly fulfilled one more. i was outside at that point, playing with esmei who was waiting in the car for my sister. esmei was pretty well-behaved, didn't get any more excited when she saw me through the car window, went back to her dog bed after getting some pets.

the big order used up most of our tea eggs so i made two batches today. afterwards i grounded 10 more tea egg spice packets. i got to sniff all the fresh ground dry spices.

i helped my father order a 5 layer stainless steel steamer he found on temu for only $35. it has a diameter of nearly 12 inches, and just enough layers to cook a whole batch of vegetarian buns. it seems too good to be true, and we've had problems with temu in the past regarding the sizes of items ordered (they tend to arrive much smaller than expected). however temu has a good free return policy, so if this steamer does turn out to be a dud, we can always return it. i also padded the order with a few personal items, like 5mm shelf pins, bicycle bell, replacement mi band watchband, avocado dog plushie, and a dog frisbee.

a chinese salesman from toast POS has been trying to get us to switch from our square POS for the past 2 weeks. it's caused a lot of conflict, as my sister really wants to go with them. toast is really designed for large restaurants, not so much for a small family-run cafe. the salesman came back again today and chatted with my father for over an hour, pushing him to sign a 2-year contract at a minimum cost of $300/month.

with square POS everything is free other than some equipment purchase; they make money per credit card transaction and fees. one thing my sister really wants is self-ordering kiosks, something that toast offers but at additional costs besides equipment purchase (their equipment is also several magnitudes more expensive). square POS has self-ordering kiosks as well but through 3rd party providers. one company - kyoo - offers free kiosk service but 25¢ per customer. another company - kioskbuddy - has monthly plans for their kiosk service (cheapest option $50/month, up to 500 sales free per month, 25¢ each additional transaction).

my sister brought esmei to the cafe in the early evening. she was wearing her fleece dog cape but i could feel she was burning up underneath. she's no husky but probably not a dog that's afraid of the cold. i noticed more fur around the back of her neck turning silver, probably from her supposed blue heeler genetics, though i still don't think the DNA is all that accurate.

i finally left the cafe around 6pm, my mother packed me a leftover rice bowl. it was cold outside - lower 30's - but once i stepped out and prepared myself mentally for cold weather outdoor mode, it wasn't all that bad. i heard it's going to be 48 degrees tomorrow, might be a good day to ride down to chinatown to get some supplies (baby bokchoi, tofu squares).

i ate my dinner as soon as i got back since i didn't eat all day. that's one of the greatest ironies, that i work all day preparing food yet i don't yet anything. stranger yet, i didn't feel all that hungry. strangest of them all is despite this work fasting, i don't seem to be losing any weight. maybe i absorb vital nutrients through osmosis, like a bacteria.

there were a few basketball games tonight but the celtics don't play until friday (76ers). i scoured youtube for celtics-related analysis videos. i tried looking for snacks around the house but there was nothing but leftover potato chips and some pretzel crisps. i even dug out an old bar of dark chocolate and i hate dark chocolate. i drank my hot black tea but also my insulated container of ice water. later i went online and bought some soap and replacement oral-b electric toothbrush heads (the essentials).

i cancelled my torguard VPN subscription. i think it would've expired on its own as tomorrow's the last day, but i contacted the company as a formality and courtesy, plus also to make sure they weren't going to say i owe them money. then after midnight i signed up for a year of windscribe VPN at $29/year (black friday sale). i managed to connect to a nearby server (harvard in this case) but i still can't get wireguard to work. it's not a big deal, IKEv2 works just as well. i was able to use netflix/youtube tv/amazon prime despite going through the VPN, which i was never able to do before; so it's tempting to just run the VPN 24/7 if that's the case. i see that split tunneling still only works at the IP/hostname level on the mac, and i can't set exclusions for apps (unlike on the PC). in speedtest i got 370/16 Mbps which is plenty fast enough.