but my favorite pharmacist - a young blonde woman with glasses - was also working today, and she was the one who gave me my flu shot. i first had to wait 15 minutes, and i kept looking at the time because i needed to get to the cafe. the good pharmacist told me that most people who get the flu shot also get the covid booster at the same time (i got my booster in october).
once i got my shot i headed to the cafe by 11:35am. i could hear helicopters again, which i assumed where for princess kate visiting harvard university today. the reason i had to work today was my sister said she wasn't going to work on her birthday. that meant i worked at the cafe every day this week other than yesterday. as far as i was concerned, this was my birthday present to my sister, that i would work for her so she could do whatever stupid birthday thing she had planned.
it was busy up until the afternoon, where we hardly saw any customers. by the end of the day we sold at least 13 bento boxes. we ran out of chicken and i had to make a supply run at the porter square star market to get some boneless chicken thighs. my father late filleted the chicken and fried them with breading.
my bamboo corner plate organizer arrived and i assembled it when i first got in. now instead of the different plates stacked haphazardly on top of each other, there's a 3-tiered organized shelf. 
my father and i thought it was pretty useful, but my mother said she might knock over the shelf and bring all the plates crashing to the floor. my mother's always against change, it takes her a while to come around. like she was against us getting the working table, or the magnetic knife holder, or upgrading the tea egg slow cooker to a larger size, but all those things turned out to be good ideas that made working at the cafe a lot easier.
in the late afternoon i roasted the 2 lbs. of italian chestnuts i got from market basket yesterday. we first cut crosses into them before soaking in a salt water bath for 2 hours. i then roasted them in the oven for 25 minutes at 425°F. these were better quality than the chestnuts i bought from haymarket a few weeks ago, 
but we still managed to find a few that had some rot on the inside. some of them were difficult to open despite the precut slits. as far as taste, they tasted just like the shelled chestnuts i occasionally get from the supermarkets. i actually prefer those packaged chestnuts better, because peeling whole chestnuts can be tough at times. they weren't any sweeter, nor could i taste any enhanced roasting flavors. honestly, i prefer hazelnuts, which are easier to roast (no precut or soaking) and have a much better flavor.
i left the cafe by 5:45pm, clamping my night lights onto the bike and riding home. my mother planned on having a birthday dinner for my sister at my place, but called later to let me know it was no longer happening because my sister didn't want it. so i was all ready to have my traditional friday dinner of ramen, when my mother called me back and said they were all coming after all, that my sister changed her mind.
my sister had a birthday dinner at my place last year, where we just got takeouts from the nearby chinese and thai/vietnamese restaurants, so we basically did the same thing, nearly ordering the same dishes as well. my parents arrived first, followed by my sister and her dog. hailey wasn't able to get up the steps on her own so my sister had to carry her. my mother called zoe's to order some chinese dishes, they said there was a 30 minute wait. my father and i then walked down to pho & rice and ordered and paid in person (15-20 minute wait), before going to star market to pick up some more boneless chicken thighs on sale. my father ended up waiting for our orders as i returned home with the raw chicken. i went out later to help him carry the food back. the vietnamese/thai place had our food ready first, followed by our chinese food.
we ate in the living room, even though in hindsight there was no reason why we wouldn't have eaten in the kitchen instead, on a normal table with normal chairs like respectable people, instead of huddling around the coffee table. hailey watched us the whole time as we ate, my sister having fed her before they arrived.
afterwards we had a strawberry shortcake that my sister bought from whole foods as soon as she decided she was coming to dinner after all. while waiting for my mother to come out of the bathroom before we had dessert, i tested the tribit maxsound plus and the anker soundcore motion+ with my father and sister. both of them said the maxsound didn't sound as good as the soundcore, but hard to say the reason why. the soundcore just sounded clearer to me, not as muffled, and i could make out lyrics and the different sound arrangements.
after dessert, everyone left. i got out my vacuum and vacuumed the living room, making sure i cleaned up as much of hailey's pet hair. i then used the bathroom and took a shower. there was the second of the heats-celtics game tonight, miami beat boston in overtime. nothing else was good on television, so i started watching bullet train with audio coming from the soundcore speaker. i'll return the maxsound next week.