A disquieting text about weekend urban safety...

...from my one professor friend who studies (modern) (Czech) literature (she later clarified that this occurred at around 11am):

[...] Was downtown yesterday waiting for the [bus line] at [major, typically safe intersection right in the heart of downtown]. It's scary there. Homeless and mentally ill living in park, drug sales, young scaries on [bike share bikes]. So weird and post apocalyptic. I stood almost in the street with back to traffic.  On guard.

 - and -

[...] Lots of tourists sort of find themselves there because of the [major street] hotels. [...] Everyone is sizing tourists up for how easily they can accost them.

. . . 

Four resthome happenings:

1) The other week at the resthome they made these lentil fritters for dinner, which were a little dry, but really good when you dipped them in the chicken gravy that had been made up for the other entree.

2) The one resthome resident with a lot of family pointed out to me that on her little section of hallway, there's been 3 deaths over the past couple of months, and now hers is the only occupied room left there, which I told her that I hadn't noticed, but since deaths always come in threes, she could rest assured that she was safe.

3) After the one resthome resident who's a retired psychotherapist interested in killing wanted to read a draft of one of my articles that has a lot of edgy material in it and I warned her about that but she wanted to read it anyways, she liked it, gave me some good editing advice, and suggested that when it's published, that they include it in the weekly discussion group readings. Which, I said I really couldn't do, because the edgy material like was in it made me uncomfortable to share it broadly. Later I told that to the one (Mexican-American) activities guy, too, and he was like, "Oh, you would be surprised, some of the articles they read are about blowjobs."

4) Last month when I was on this one floor, I saw the one resident who always gives me candy from her candy dish standing in the crack of her door which she had open, looking down the hallways, which I'd never seen her do before, so I stopped by to say hello and to check that everything was okay and if she needed assistance. It turns out that her nephew was visiting from out of town, and she was waiting for him to show up.

Language apps and the foreignness of (Romanian).

There's this one language app that I've always seen on TV that I thought would be just horrible since it focuses on implicitly teaching you grammar, which I hate as a language learning method since it's a very inefficient way to learn basic stuff. You're better off just being taught it explicitly and memorizing it!

But, I was talking with this one resthome resident's daughter and I was saying that I needed to find good resources to help me with (Romanian) pronunciation and listening comprehension, and she brought up the app, which is free, so I thought, "Why not?".

And, it turns out that I love it!

Because they have native speakers record short-to-medium-length sentences that use a limited vocabulary but vary forms, and because you can easily replay a recording as many times as you want, it turns out that it's *great* for listening comprehension.

And, it was interesting for me to figure out part of why (Romanian) sounds so foreign. I think a big part of it is that their word for "and" (a very common word!) has a palatalized "sh" sound that's different from the way a(n English) speaker would usually pronounce "sh," and so that particular sound not only just leaps out in conversation, but it's a very foreign sound that does, as well.

Also, a very common word ending meaning "the" for masculine nouns is "-ul," but the "L" is a "light l" like in "lemon" and not a "dark l" like in "pool," so again there the sound pattern of something very common is hard for a native speaker of (English) to catch on to or produce, since they'll always want to produce a "dark l" in that particular sequence of sounds.

A new magazine phenomenon?

In one of the national magazines that I have a subscription for, I noticed that some of the ads are for local stuff like a local retirement home, and that one of the articles about a bartender might have been regional content, too.

At least with the ads, it's clear that the magazine must be selling different space and printing different regional copies.

I wonder how long this has been going on. Could it be connected with the rise of computers and the internet, and the ease of graphic design and coordinating sales across different regions?

Incredible behavior of a resthome coworker.

At the resthome, it's interesting how other coworkers think I'm odd because I don't run myself ragged to work a lot of hour at low wages.

"I don't want money," I'm always like, "I want time."

And, I explain that I have enough to live on, so I'd rather have time off.

Then, the other week me and my one (Tibetan) coworker who was born in Nepal were talking about money and the pandemic, and how there was extra hours, hazard pay, and then multiple federal stimulus checks, not to mention how there's now a local minimum wage increase and an increase to Affordable Care Act subsidies.

"It's nice," I was like, "I saved a lot and I can take more time off."

"I gave money to charity," she was like.

"I did too," I was like, and I said that I gave money to foodbanks and for the homeless and stuff, since I was concerned about that growing problem.

And, she said that she sent like one or two thousand dollars back to Nepal, to help people who didn't have enough food and also street dogs who all of a sudden weren't getting enough to eat because people don't have any food to give them.

"Dogs and monkeys," she was like, "They're going hungry too."

Resthome exchange: Women's sleeveless tops.

This month at the resthome, my one (skeptical) (Mexican) coworker was getting  ready to clock out, and she had already changed out of her uniform and was in this black sleeveless top thing, that was a bit skin-tight.

"You look like Michelle Obama in that," I was like, just as she was clocking out.

And, she stepped out the door with our one (Filipina) coworker who was there with us, and as it was sliding shut, she flexed and pointed to her muscles to the both of us and was like, "Don't f*ck with me."

And, the door slid shut and she left.

Resthome reminscence: Broadway musicals.

As it turns out, the one retired school nurse at the resthome is a big fan of Broadway musicals, and has seen tons of them on stage, including "The Sound of Music" in the first or second year it ran, with its original cast!

But, she said that one of the biggest disappointments of her life, though, was "A Chorus Line."

"I got to the theater and it started," she was like, "And I thought to myself, 'Oh no, I paid all this money, and there's no set.'"