Odd-for-me grocery habits.

Lately I've been occasionally buying the occasional (organic) gallon of (2%) milk, and a few weeks ago I used a coupon to get some (locally-made) cheddar at the local co-op, too.

I did that years ago with (locally-made) cheese in another city that I was temporarily living in for the summer, but I can't remember the last time I bought milk even semi-regularly, if I've ever even done that.

It really goes to show what a tight budget I lived on, for so long...  I really don't have the living space or habits of a "normal" person.

New neighbor update.

Since I met him, I've seen my new neighbor a few more times, the small streaked-fur brown-and-light-brown bunny who is very small, and who doesn't know how to behave yet.

One afternoon I look out my window because a small movement catches my eye, and there he is by the firepit in the backyard.

Then, suddenly, he bolts, as a large-ish grey squirrel languidly hops towards him and gets like four feet away from where he is, like reaching right by where he was, like twenty seconds after he's gone.

Another time, too, I go outside one afternoon as I'm talking on the phone, and there he is, and he looks at me and he just stays there, even though I came out to like within six feet of where he is.

Then, suddenly, like a minute later as I'm still standing there in the same position as where I had stopped right when I came out, he bolts, since I guess something freaked him out at that point, though damned if I know what it was.

Somehow I feel that it's animals like him who got close to humans to the point where it led to domestication, if they survived.

Update on my tennis shoes that I bought around the turn of the year:

The bottom is starting to wear through, on the sole and the heel, I do that much walking every shift at work.

I really don't wear them anywhere else, either.

Addendum.

I forgot --

When I was talking to my one (longer haired) and (less jumpy) front neighbor about employment stuff, too, I mentioned the pessimism on undergraduate career prospects, from some local guy who teaches at the local business school.

"Fuck those people," he was like, automatically, without even listening to what I was saying.

So, I let that pass by, and I explained what I was saying, again, that even the business school didn't seem to be a good return, and the people who taught there recognized it.

Then, he seemed to realize he was reacting to something else, and mumbled something about how he thought I was talking about computer sci people, and though he didn't quite say it, you could tell he just took glee that even the computer sci people were running into trouble with employment, more.

On college and employment (2 of 2): A path forward?

At the one (Thai) restaurant where I work now, there's this (mildly lower class) (white) couple who I recognize from them being in a few times, a (bigger) guy with a beard that shoots out all over his face in big tufts, and this (smaller) (thinner) (drawn face) (younger-mom-with-kids-at-home-looking) lady.

And, we were chit-chatting, and it turns out that the guy had worked in restaurants as a chef for years, and then someone he knew had gotten out of it and into industrial solar, and he basically could go through training and start right away, and now he's making like $65 an hour doing multiple jobs, primarily surveying and staking out the postholes where they put in the stands for the panels.

And, it was all around the area, so you don't have to commute far, and they didn't work you to death with overtime, and training was like one town over in some conference center in a (notoriously rundown) (nearby) town.

So, I got his email for my neighbor, who had also been telling me that he was looking for something more outside that might be good.

"And do they drugtest?", I was like, mentioning that that was important to my neighbor, since he was a recreational marijuana user.

"No," the guy was like, and he said he smoked too.

"No way," I was like.

So, like the next day or maybe the day after, I handed that information off to my neighbor, and he was impressed that it seemed quick and that training was nearby, and he said that he had been thinking of looking into trades classes at the nearby community college.

I also said that the guy had said that some people he knows do windmill tech, and that that supposedly pays like $80 an hour after you get your thousand hours in at like $25 an hour during your apprenticeship.

. . .

(Just think of this, by the way, that here you have a kid going to a top-tier nationally-known school with everything paid for, and he's still so dispirited about the economy, and couldn't figure out a path forward in college over the span of multiple years as things were falling apart, and he has now been looking to bus driving and air traffic control and now maybe trades... Just not good.)

On college and employment (1 of 2): A backstory.

The other week I had been reading out on the porch of the fronthouse in the one (college) town where I live now, and I ended up chit-chatting some with one of the upstairs neighbors, the (longer-haired) and (less jumpy) one.

Basically, he did end up graduating, and he had quit his job at a local national retailer a few months ago so he could take a short international vacation for a few weeks, and now he's back to looking for a job again.

He had gotten into retail through warehouse work during the pandemic, and then entered a managerial role where he was making $23 an hour, but he was saying that all his friends he had worked with had left, and there was no reason to keep on.

"You always have to quit and go somewhere else to make more money," he was like, and he was telling me that he had seen a few long-term employees who had managed to rack up like $3 more an hour from multiple raises, only to have wage inflation mean that new hires were suddenly making as much as them, but their wages never changed, despite that.

He was also saying that city bus drivers can make it good -- his dad is one and has put his years in and can now pull in over $120K with overtime -- and that maybe he would be an air traffic controller for a few years, and grab that money and then get out.

"So did you graduate?", I was like, and he said that yes, he had, the last semester, finally.

(A while ago he had told me that his degree really didn't do anything, but he was committed to getting around to graduating, so his grandmother could see him.)

I also asked just a little bit, and it turns out that he did bio because he thought it might get him somewhere but he didn't really like it that much, and then he kept applying for internships and kept getting turned down and so he could never get a lab job, and then after a while he just stopped applying by like his second or third year, and a bio degree like he has is pretty useless without lab experience, but he finished to finish, especially since he had this "college prepayment" thing from his dad where back in the late 1990s his dad had paid like ten thousand dollars down, and that meant all his college was paid for now, even for his degree that doesn't really do anything.

"It's just so freeing to give up," he was like.

And, I had to agree.

And, I told him the multiple professions where I had had leads or had made inroads or had tried to configure and reconfigure to maybe get somewhere, and how it was just endless frustration, and then wage compression and short staffing in eldercare was just horrible to find yourself in the middle of, especially realizing that it wasn't coming back on any timescale where you could salvage a decent job like you had anticipated when you had gotten into it going on 5-6 years ago, now.

And, when I listed the different type of jobs where I had had leads or had made inroads into over the course of like twelve years, he just gave this sharp dark laugh and was like, "Those are all the areas where they don't need anyone."

. . .

(I did agree with his sentiment, though I mildly corrected him, saying that you could walk out the door right now and get jobs there, they just worked you to death for no money and no real sure advancement, and so weren't worth having.)

A dream of something slightly off.

The other week I dreamnt -

I'm somewhere reclining on my side a bit like a (Roman) would eat on a triclinium, and my mouth is half open and my orange-flavored fish oil capsules that I take pretty regularly for health reasons are starting to melt in my mouth, and I can taste this oily and somewhat orange flavor start to pervade my mouth...

And then, I wake up.

. . .

(My fish oil capsules really are orange flavored, but I've never actually kept the gel cap in my mouth long enough for it to dissolve through so I can discover what's inside and what it tastes like.)