Addendum.

Like right after I wrote that blogpost, I was chit-chatting with a (late 50s) (hippie-ish) (upper south) (white) couple who are teachers who just retired, and who had come in through the one (Thai) restaurant where I work now on their way home from a camping trip at a wilderness area nearby.

And, they were saying that they were thinking of moving to the college town that I now live in, so we talked for a while, and I mentioned that I had moved three years ago from the city that I used to live in, and when I mentioned the three recent safety incidents -- I said that I was just talking about them "to friends," rather than saying something about a blogpost -- you would not believe the looks on their faces, that so much disturbing crime could happen near where your regular life occurs.

It's really like the frog-in-boiling-water thing -- which, incidentally, a (middle-aged) (Latina) friend brought up when I was thinking of moving -- that is, that you get normalized to stuff like that, but you better snap out of it and get out before it gets even worse.

Interestingly, too, they were saying that their niece was in college now, and they were interested to see where she ends up, a comment I've heard many older people say lately, since they just don't know where young people can go for decent jobs nowadays.

Three safety-related incidents in the city that I used to live in...

...like in the span of 3 weeks:

1) Someone shot (and I think killed) right at the corner of the block where my one assisted living client with (disabilities) used to live.

2) A mid-evening spray-shooting like a block from the resthome where I used to work.

3) A rush-hour shooting on public transportation right by where my one (half Sudanese) (half British) friend lives (the sister of the brother-sister pair).

. . .

(This density of incidents is really astounding... Years ago a drunk homeless guy tried to mug me on the subway, and I can think of three targeted gang-shootings near 2 different apartments and 1 workplace, but that was all very rare and mostly all gang-focused within known boundaries and at known 'trouble places,' whereas now it seems like it's always something happening pretty randomly and you'd be tempting fate just to live your everyday life there and chance being around stuff like that so much... I really can't imagine my having continued to live in the city and my having kept coming across stuff like that so much, not to mention having to face the continued public transportation problems. Having to be "on alert" all the time really puts a person on edge.)

Two check-ins on the state of the economy:

1) An acquaintance of the husband of a friend who I made through my one (lawyer) friend from Missouri was unemployed for a year, I think from something in business, and she sent out around 20 applications a week -- that is, something like a thousand applications overall. Reportedly, that whole situation was very tough on her.

2) My one friend who delivers singing telegrams has had health problems and is in a Medicare-accepting place down in a GOP-led state where she's originally from, and she recently fell in the shower there and broke her hip... When I remarked surprise that she didn't have someone there to assist her for safety's sake when she was showering, she said she didn't think she needed it before she fell, and anyways, the place is short-staffed and if you wanted to take a shower you would probably be calling someone forever and they wouldn't necessarily come.

Addendum.

I've heard that kids who spent their teen years during the pandemic have all sorts of misfires with basic socialization, and that shows up in all sorts of weird ways when they make the transition to college.

I wonder if that turning up the music at like three-thirty in the morning during a Halloween party was something like that, where beyond basic late-night drunkenness with friends they weren't even processing basic social expectations from neighbors, even far below the basic perception gaps that can occur at that age.

Poor sleep.

On Halloween night this year -- a Thursday night into Friday morning! -- there were some local (student) parties in my neighborhood in the (college town) that I now live in, and they petered out after midnight or maybe one like usual, but then like three-forty that morning, the music was up from somewhere close by my cottage and I could feel the bass when lying in bed, so I tried to ignore it, and then it just continued, so I got up and stuck my head out of my cottage-door and yeah, there was music that would be loud for any time of day happening somewhere in my neighborhood, and so I called the cops and gave them my address and the intersection they should go to, and made a noise complaint.

Like four-oh-five or four-ten the music suddenly cut down, and so I assume that that's when the cops showed up at the party-door.

Like two days later, too, when the subject of daylight savings time came up at work at the one (Thai) restaurant where I work now, the (Thai) (wife) owner with the tired face was (in retrospect wrongly) saying that we'd lose an hour's sleep, and so I told her and my one (chubby) (Thai) coworker and my one (older) (Thai) coworker who's a whiz at the phones that that was bad, since I just had bad sleep the other night.

And, I told them about the party, and they said someone was probably drunk, and I agreed, and I said that I had bad sleep for a while until I could get to sleep again, because "I called the cops."

And at that, the (Thai) (wife) owner with the tired face seemed surprised.

"You called the cops?!", she was like.

And, at that point, my one (chubby) (Thai) coworker leapt into the conversation with some tonal interjection that probably means something in (Thai) like you're explaining something, and she was like, "Ahhhhhhhh, old people."

Lower back danger zone.

The other week at the one (Thai) restaurant where I work now, I was finishing my end-of-dinner-shift task of cleaning the restrooms and taking out the trash, and I felt a twinge in my lower back.

It wasn't until the next time that I did those tasks that I figured out what was "the danger zone" -- when I go to change the bag in the tall plastic trash-bin behind the counter and it's exceptionally heavy, I lean over the bin as I pull it vertically out, and that posture and that weight combine to do something with my lower back.

In the future I must guard against that.

Jigsaw cheating.

My one jigsaw puzzle of a canyon is so miserable -- the pieces look so much alike, and the fits can be so poor -- that I've started to use the printed alphabet grid on the back to properly orient the pieces and sometimes figure out roughly what section of the image they go in, to go try them out there.

At first I thought it was cheating, and then I justified it to myself, that it was merely using an atypical source of information.

It's such a miserable puzzle, that I really want it to be over already, "by any means necessary."