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i discovered that my bicycle had toppled over yesterday during the rain and was coated in mud. took me a few minutes to clean enough off so i could ride down to the cafe for my saturday shift. i tried getting to the cafe early because there was a bunch of things that needed to be done before we open: cooked some dumplings, make 6 cups of rice, make some black noodles, make 20 tea eggs, stirfry the suancai, pickle the baby cucumbers, and cook the chinese sausages. some of these i knew how to do, but others i didn't, and needed my sister to do, but wasn't feeling the same sense of urgency that i was.

fortunately it wasn't very busy today, just a trickle of business. i tried something new with the chinese sausages, placing them on a raised rack and using convection heating (40 minutes 325°F, turning over halfway). they came out slightly crispier.

somebody had rearranged the knives on the magnetic knife holder so they were all pointing down. not sure why we never thought it before, that seemed like the preferred way to attach them with having the knives sliding.

there was a world cup game for 3rd place today between morocco and croatia at 10am. i tuned in before i left the house, the score was already tied 1-1. i only got to check the score again in the afternoon after the game was over: croatia ended up winning, 2-1. of course the big game is tomorrow morning, between argentina and france. my gut reaction is argentina is the sentimental favorite, with most of the world cheering on hoping to see messi win an elusive world cup title to cap a career that already defied all records.

6 bento boxes were sold today, but none of the black noodles. for some reason there was no online orders, all in-store or phone orders. i packed up the leftover rice when i left for belmont after we closed. it was already dark by then, but i had my bike lights.

i saw that some more temu stuff had arrived when i got to my parents' place. my mother was knitting and watching netflix in the living room for a change (normally she'd be in the bedroom watching from her imac). earlier, she and my father went to CVS to get their flu shot, after my mother kept trying to get out of it, even saying last night she thought she had a fever (from the covid booster they got on thursday) and wouldn't be able to get the flu vaccine. but in the end she did the right thing and got it anyway.

for dinner my mother made some tripe with fuqifeipian sauce we had in the fridge. she also had some leftover bamboo pork tofu stew.

afterwards i biked back to cambridge. it wasn't too cold - 38 degrees - and i was wearing my winter jacket. i didn't like that my rear bike baskets were kind of loose and banging around. i enjoy coming home and hearing the furnace coming to life, like my house is welcoming me back with some force air heating. a letter from eversource was in the foyer, apparently it was the $50 rebate gift card for the LG dryer that i submitted back in mid-november. pretty fast turnaround, i wasn't expecting to see it until months later.