so i spent my morning impatiently waiting for 12pm. i went out for a walk, partly to leave a few pokemon in gyms, partly to see what my neighbors have thrown out when they've moved out at the end of the month. i grabbed an oscillating fan this morning and coming back from my walk i found a new condition free standing ironing board.
my 5Rcom universal swivel tv stand ($28) also arrived, waiting for me on the doorstep. i spent the rest of the morning putting it together. it looks pretty good, not only is my HDTV taller now, but it can also swivel. i should've gotten a stand a long time ago, it seems like a no-brainer, not sure why i waited so long.
when noontime came around i sync'ed my phone and saw i still had an empty case list. that meant i was free for the rest of the day. i grabbed my things and rode the motorcycle to belmont.
i had to talk my mother into going to 99 ranch market, after convincing her we can get some takeout from the taiwanese restaurant nearby. it took us nearly half an hour to drive onto the turnpike then onto route 93 to get to quincy.
i realized the 99 ranch market was at the former big y supermarket that my father and i visited before a few years back when my mother was in quincy doing a one day training course for home care service for my grand uncle. i remember that supermarket distinctively because i've never heard of it before. we went there in search of special apple gel drinks for my grand uncle and even spent some time applying for a loyalty card so we could get a discount.
manny's sister maureen first told me of 99 ranch market; they have them in jersey city and she looked it up and discovered there was one in quincy as well. i'd been to 99 ranch market before, the last time i went to california, where it's a fairly common asian supermarket chain.
there produce department seemed a little lacking, maybe simply because they had too much space and didn't know what to do with it so everything was very spread out which made it look empty. the rest of the store however, the selection was fairly extensive. we found stuff we never seen in other supermarkets, including ground sichuan peppercorn and sour plum powder. my parents thought the prices on thing were a little bit more expensive that chinatown supermarkets, but it made it up for it in terms of choices. there were also a lot of things on sale, apart from what was advertised in their weekly circular. it doesn't have the polish of an h-mart but h-mart prices are also a bit more pricier. i can't say we'll be coming here to shop regularly, but it's good to have choices, and quincy itself boasts at least 4 asian supermarkets.
we left with $200 worth of groceries. my parents also discovered that on weekdays they have senior discounts of 5% off.
we were so spent from touring 99 ranch market that we didn't have the energy to go to the taiwanese restaurant. besides frozen items in the car, we also bought so much food it made more sense to go home and make our own meals.
we ate dinner early, around 5pm. i went home by 6pm, so i could get back in time for my 6:30pm census conference call. at the very least i could get paid for 1/2 hour worth of work. our supervisor delivered a series of sad news. no longer would we be enumerating like before; in phase 2, enumerators would be grouped into teams to concentrate on select areas. people will be shuffled around including supervisors, so it's entirely possible to be assigned to a new team. enumerators will also be invited to work outside of our home zone, maybe in a different county, maybe in a different state. they could also be asked to make remote trips where they live at that location for a few days. phase 2 work seems harder, and a part of me feels like quitting, especially if it feels like we're just on call, with no plan, and could be suddenly called up to work at a moment's notice. our supervisor told us that either her or a new supervisor would contact us tomorrow morning with further details of our work assignment.
afterwards when i went to log in my 30 minutes conference call, i discovered that the time and expense tile was missing from my census app, which meant i couldn't do my timesheet. i contacted my supervisor and also called the census IT department. no one knew what was going on, but my supervisor and i both agreed that it seemed to do with this phase 2 work and how supervisors and managers were getting re-assigned. about an hour later everything was working again.
i like my new tv stand. now the tv is finally at eye level, and i can rotate it 30° in either direction. there were also more expensive stands that can pivot 80° but 30° is more than enough; pivot any more and you're liable to yank out cords in the back of the tv.