i had a feeling my phone wasn't going to charge last night, so it didn't surprise me when i woke up this morning and saw the battery was still less than 20%. i think there's too many kinks in my USB cable, i need to replace it. while i quick charged my phone, i also took off my mi fit band and charged that as well (down to 10%).

with my gadgets charging at home, i left this morning for market basket to get some groceries. i felt a little naked without my phone, likewise not having my fitness tracker - just a white untanned band where it'd normally be. this early in the morning (before 10am), there was hardly any crowd. i decided to eat tortellini for the rest of the week. i thought about getting some items for the cafe, but without my phone i couldn't call them.

after unloading my groceries back at the house, i left for the cafe shortly afterwards. originally i was going to visit the community garden, but with rain expected for later today, i decided it wasn't necessary. besides, it was an overcast and cold day, so it wasn't like my plants were going to dry up in the heat.

when i arrived at the cafe my mother told me that the network was having issues again: only the free guest network was available, our private secured network was missing. it was an easy fix, i just rebooted the router and a few minutes later all the networks were back again.

something else that happened overnight: apparently my father didn't properly close one of the basement freezers so this morning everything inside the fridge had melted. it wasn't a big deal - all the ice cubes turned to water - but that was the fridge that had all the frozen dumplings, and once they thaw and refreeze, they'll stick together, so my parents ended up having to cook all the dumplings to keep them from spoiling.

it was starting to look like it'd be a slow day again, especially given the weather, but we got a huge order around 12:15pm, and then it got really busy for the next hour. at one point my father was beckoning me to see a customer who said she knew me. turns out it was EJ and her husband tom, sitting out on the back patio. they ordered a zhajiang noodle and a minced pork bento, but we accidentally switched the order, poured zhajiang pork onto the bento instead. as a way of apologizing, my father gave them an extra order of minced pork with some rice. tom thought maybe i'd left the garden because my plot looked so different than in years past (that's only because i moved around some grow bags).

in the mid-afternoon it started raining. so customers sitting outside suddenly came back inside to finish their lunch. we brought in all the chairs and tables (we didn't open the umbrella today because it was overcast). i thought it was going to a light shower at most, but the rain evolved into a period of torrential downpours. all i could think about was how happy the plants were going to be, a nice green lawn, and rain barrels filled to capacity.

also happening in the mid-afternoon: square's payment system went down. i went online looking for the phone number to call tech support, and before i could do that, i read their posted message saying they know about the problem and was in the process of fixing it (there's actually a website that lets you know if any service online services are down). it took about an hour before it got fixed, thankfully there was just two credit card transactions during that time. one unlucky girl got charged twice, but it seemed to have been resolved by the time she left the cafe.

in the afternoon i also went to my sister's place to let hailey outside so she could use the bathroom. hailey doesn't like the rain, and after she peed, she quickly ran back inside the house. i also moved all the gift seedlings to my sister's backyard. later my father and i moved a desk from the backyard toolshed into one of the upstairs bedrooms; a new astrophysicist from hong kong will be arriving tomorrow (i think she's only here for 6 months). still later, we moved a queen size mattress and box spring to my sister's place, set it out on the curb for mattress pickup tomorrow.

my father heard the freezer alarm downstairs around 4pm. we went down to check, the freezer that had thawed out this morning issued the alarm. my father reset it and checked the temperature: 28 degrees. normally it's set to 6 degrees. it basically could've issued the alarm at anytime, but there's probably a timer that goes off before it issues another alarm. i kept checking it the rest of the day, the upright freezer seems to be working, as the temperature continued to drop 2 degrees every 15 minutes or so. it must've been up around 50-60's degrees this morning to have it still not at the set temperature.

finally i replace one of the UV fluorescent tube in the bug zapper. i bought it online a few days ago, it arrived yesterday. it comes in a pair, but since the other pair is still working, i only replaced one of them.

i left the cafe by 5:45pm. it didn't look like we'd get a lot of business when i first arrived at the cafe, but by the end of the day we made some good profit. a lot of noodle orders today, especially beef noodle soup, maybe the cold weather made people want to eat some comfort food. the rain had stopped by then, and even though there was traffic, it wasn't a big deal on the bicycle. i put the rain cover on the seat when it started to rain, so i didn't have to ride home with a wet bottom.

because the gutters were still wet, i could see if they were leaking. that handyman we hired was utterly terrible, both gutters are still dripping. not as bad as before, but how hard can it be to caulk a gutter seam? it's not a big deal but we spent all that money for basically for him to not really fix anything.

i didn't have dinner until 9pm, boiled a bag of frozen "meat" tortellini and simmered half a jar of tomato sauce. not the most elegant of dinners, but quick and dirty and really fills me up. there was nothing good on television, i ended up watching the three's company channel on pluto tv.