i only went out once today, to star market to return the unused vanilla extract. i thought it'd be a hassle but the worker there took it back, didn't even bother to see if i used it or not. i passed by petsi's pie, they set up a tent outside to take people's orders, and even then there was a long of folks waiting for pies. not going to lie, they're good pies, maybe me want to get a pecan one next week when all the hubbub has died down.
returning home, i noticed somebody had let their dog poop right outside my house but didn't clean it up. worse yet, people had already walked in it and there was crap everywhere. normally i could just rinse off the sidewalk with the hose, but we already put the hose away for the season. i could get on my hands and knees and scrub clean the sidewalk, but we're due for some steady rain on thanksgiving day, hopefully it can wash away the mess.
i was going to have some chocolate milk today (since i have a lot of leftover milk) but when i opened my container of nesquik, there were some pantry moth larvae living inside. i tossed out the whole container and later inspected some additional items in my cupboard, especially the boxes of grains. turns out moths had been living in my risotto rice, as well as my israeli couscous. at least one moth had also gotten into my large container of jasmine rice, not sure how that's even possible but because it has a sealed lid (maybe it can somehow crawl in through the seams). at some point i'm going to clean out that whole cupboard, there's a lot of expired stuff i should throw away like cookie mix.
i spent some time trying to fill in the backlog of web posts that are missing photos. i managed to get through a week in november, but i still have to go back all the way to june. only after i filled in these missing entries can i then erase the photos that are clogging up my macbook pro (they've already been safely backed up to two separate hard drives).
my mother wants a new phone and i've had my eyes on the google pixel 4A 5G. i was hoping there'd be a black friday discount from it's $499 retail price, but the phone just came out, i doubt there'd be any sort of sale. there are however a bunch of carrier deals, but those are a fool's bargain at best, you're either paying for retail via installments, or they make you sign up for a new 2-year contract that you'll end up paying more for despite receiving a discounted (or sometimes even free) phone upfront. i prefer to buy the phone outright. there's also the pixel 4A ($349), but the screen may be too small for comfort. i made paper cutouts of the dimensions so i could hold them in my hand and get a sense of just how small or big they're going to be.
thing is my mother said she wanted a small phone, but i doubt that's what she really wants, because a smaller screen means more eye strain. i've also looked at samsung phones, from the galaxy A51 ($325) to the A71 5G ($500). i have no doubt those phones are good, but they suffer from screen size creep, with the A51 at 6.5" and the A71 at a whopping 6.7", a total phablet if i ever saw one. from the reviews i've read about the A51, it also seems very slow.