Early September hornet bite.

On one of my last beach days in early September, I was down by the waterside and I bumped into a vague acquaintance, and while I was talking, all of a sudden I felt a pain on my arm and I went to go slap it, thinking it was a small black fly, but then the slap felt crunchy, and I look and this like kind of hornet kind of falls off and halfheartedly flies away, like it had gotten all crippled or something.

And, that bite wasn't too bad, but it kept flaring up, and a few days afterwards it was like the small area of skin on my arm got all swollen and rubbery on just that small little section where the hornet must have bitten, and the hardness wouldn't go down or go away, it just remained there like that for a while, and it kind of surprised me.

Egg spoilage.

Though I usually keep eggs for up to 6 weeks, the other week I boiled the last egg in the carton to go along with my black beans and rice that I was eating, but when I broke it open, it was definitely hard-boiled, but the white was slimy, and the yolk was crumbly but a dark bluish-black around the edges near where it met the white, and the whole thing just smelled funny.

So, I chucked it, making a note to myself to make myself go and take the trash out the next morning before work or wherever I was going or whatever.

But then, after chucking it, I got to wondering, so I went and I looked at the box, and its "sell by" was like July 18th, and the day that I did all of that was like Sept. 13th.

So, my egg had gone bad, since it had been like 8 weeks after the expiration date.

A subway rider...

 ...who sits down 2 seats away from me on my weekday afternoon commute into work last month:

This (slimmer) (young) (bushily bearded) (young) (black) guy, who sits down and this huge wave of BO waves my way, even smellable through my mask, and I glance out of the corner of my eye, and though he has black jogging pants on, he doesn't seem (homeless), just (gay), and he has this like khaki-colored floppy brimmed hat on and some silver rings on all of his different fingers, and these long, long fingernails, too.

Desired book coincidence.

So, last month I found out about the existence of this book from a few years ago about the lives of gay gang members, and when I went to go request that my city's public library purchase it, I found out that they had like 8 copies already on the shelves, including one at the main library that I patronize, so I put it on my to-do list to go and pick it up when I was by that library in a few days.

And, I show up on that day, and there's this blank space on the shelf right where the book was supposed to be, and I had to wonder to myself, did someone steal it because it was forbidden, or maybe destroy it because it wasn't the image that they wanted out there for gangs?

But then, the next day when I hopped onto the online library catalog to go and request that book from a branch library, I saw that the main library's copy was something like "Requested" and "In Transit."

Someone else must have found out about that book right when I did, and requested it like right then and there and then some librarian had gone and plucked it off the shelves to go to send it to them, right when I had wanted it!

Isn't that funny?

Child's play.

So, last month my one (half-Sudanese) (half-British) friend (the sister of the brother-sister pair) and her husband took their two young children on a trip to go visit her family, and she sent me pictures afterwards of parts of the trip.

As it turns out, one of her brothers set up this activity where they took big cardboard box pieces that he had pre-assembled, and they painted them and put together a playhouse for her 4 year-old.

So, I texted her something like that because she's a lawyer in that type of area, she should have fined her brother for zoning violations.

And, she texted me back that they made her daughter get building permits, as well as permission to do food service and sell coffee out of her playhouse.

Resthome anecdotes (2 of 2): Surprise.

Also last month at the resthome, this one resident got back from the hospital, and so she temporarily had some (new) private aide there in her room 24/7 to help her.

And, the next time that I worked after she got back, that resident was on my list, and her aide called for assistance.

When I knocked and opened the door, the aide was (Filipina), and she saw me and was like, "You're a white guy."

. . .

(It was interesting; I told this to coworkers who were [Tibetan], [Nigerian], [Mexican], and [Filipino], and none got that she had said that because of how female and non-white the profession is, but the one [Mexican-American] frontdesk worker got what she meant right away, as did the one resident who's a retired school nurse... Maybe it's a race and sex perception thing that you have to be [native-born] [American] to get.)

Resthome anecdotes (1 of 2): Elevator.

Last month at the resthome, I overheard the one (older) (white) (gruff) (townie) overnight desk worker talking with someone who was getting off of shift, and for some reason she was talking about the last time that they had crossed paths like that.

And, she was like, "Yeah, last time after you left [the names of two nightshift workers] called me and said they were stuck on the elevator! And, I thought they were joking, but then ten minutes later, they call back, and they're really stuck on the elevator!"