A feat of envrionmental neuroticism:

After late spring ants start coming into my cupboard and crawling all over the (folded over and binder-clipped down) bag of brown sugar there, I pull out this damaged Glad plasticware bowl where I had accidentally put a knife through the side in a big slash since I had used it to freeze some broth and then was cutting portions off from the frozen ice-chunk inside that plastic bowl there and the knife slipped, only, now I just slapped duct tape over that part of the bowl, and I could use it to seal the sugar inside and keep it ant-proof, since the ants couldn't smell it anymore once it was inside the repaired container.

An advantage of my new job:

I can walk or bus to this one grocery store near campus, and then walk and catch another bus route home, and that store usually has *great* sales on Greek yogurt, not to mention avocados.

For me, Greek yogurt is like the perfect treat, especially when it’s non-fat, since it’s all savory and protein-rich and relatively low calorie – 1 gram of protein per every 10 calories is a good ratio, I’ve heard – and plus you can dress it up with like oats and brown sugar and stuff if you want to, as some sort of dessert/sweet thing that’s not too horrendously bad for you.

The only downside is all if the plastic containers that are left over afterwards, even if you buy it in bulk and not in the little individually-packaged thingies… Just so wasteful.

I wish they had some sort of more environmentally-friendly bulk yogurt containers that wasn’t plastic, to tell you the truth…  Right now I’m just washing them out and saving them in my cupboard so I can use them to store bulk beans and grains and whatnot when I buy that kind of thing down at the local co-op, although there’s only so much of that that you can do, to re-use containers.

A (Brazilian) surprise.

As I’m in bed sleeping until late like I always do because of my later work schedule, I hear my phone ringing with some calls like twice in 2 minutes, and when I get up later, I see that it’s WhatsApp calls from the one (worked out) (STEM) (Brazilian), who I had sent a message to there a day or 2 earlier to see how he was settling back down after his return home.

He was calling me to do Facetime-type stuff like I’ve seen (Brazilians) do incessantly with each other, like I was one of them!

It’s funny, because once when I was hanging out with him and the one (young) (heavyset) (blonde) artist who lives in the college town that I now live in, he got a call like that, and it was the (short) (elderly) (always elegantly-dressed) mother of the (vivacious) and (warm) (Brazilian) wife of the (older) couple who’ve lived around town for years…  She had talked with him a lot at their parties, and she was online and saw that he was on, and so she called him up to see how he was doing, even though she’s like decades and decades older than him!

It’s really funny how (Brazilians) use social media and technology so differently from us…  Just a lot of different norms and ways that they use things, like the way that they are always present with each other socially through them.

New routines at my new job..

…at the one (Irish-y) burger joint in the first floor of a historic hotel:

1) Whenever no-one’s around and I'm dumping drinks into the bar’s sink, I not only set dirty glasses up in the rack there next to the small dishwasher for glassware like we’re supposed to do, but I reach into the sink and collect any straws garnishes etc. to throw out, and I also palm any unsqueezed lemons or limes, then after throwing the other stuff out, I furtively slip them into my back pocket as I walk away, so I can take them home and use the juice for that haircare highlighting thing that I've been doing for years now, where I squeeze the citrus into my hand and rub it in my hair before going outside into the sun.

If no-one's around or looking, I kind of do the same in the dishroom off the kitchen when I return plates with fish sandwiches or the cod platter and people didn’t use their giant lemon wedges.

2) When I get cut at the end of the night but a big basketball game is on TV for the local university, I stay around 4 or 5 minutes to watch, as do like 3-4 other staff people who are on or off shift, in the closing later-night restaurant with a handful of tables still in it.

Dissertation committees.

A bit ago on social media I saw a post from one scholar who I follow there about being on a dissertation committee, and then a few months later I saw another post like that from him again.

And, it made me just so glad that I don’t have to do that.

What a huge time commitment, and besides you have to be involved in recommendation letters, the advisee’s drama around the complete and utter collapse of traditional worthwhile careers paths, etc.

Just better not to be involved.

Events of a day…

…when I go to stay with the one (elderly) aunt of the one (lesbian) sister of my one (former) (assisted living client) with (disabilities), since the aunt had had surgery and needed someone there with her during the day every day for like 2-4 weeks afterwards, and her (lesbian) niece was getting burned out from doing that for so long:

2) My to-do list in the mudroom foyer off the garage include an item “SHRED” since she needed some paper-shredding done, and so I took a pen and drew a “rock on!” hand next to it alongside the words, “Yeah, man!”

2) Two (Latina) cleaning ladies come over and it turns out that one is from (Venezuela) and the other is from (Mexico), and when I remark in (Spanish) that I’m surprised that they’re not (Guatemalan), the latter says something about how there’s already bastantes (“enough”) around here.

3) When the aunt hobbles over to the fridge to get some cream for her coffee and then comes back and starts pouring it out, it like pours out in these great chunks, and I worry that the milk is spoiled until I look closer and I see that it’s a box of whipping cream, since she uses whipping cream in her coffee.

4) Twice I take her dog out to exercise and I keep playing fetch with her where I throw the balls far down the yard for her for her to pick up and bring back, and I do that until she gets so tired that she starts walking back instead of running. And, like at that point she’s so tired, that she forgets to drop the ball from her mouth like she usually does when she brings it back, but instead she just keeps strolling around the yard with it by me, just in a daze from all the exercise that she’s getting.

New approach to jigsaw puzzle donation.

From here on out, I’m going to put every jigsaw puzzle that I’m done with on the library’s “take one, leave one” jigsaw puzzle exchange table, and not take the better ones to the local resale shop.

I had been doing that so they could make some money and so shoppers would find “finds” there, but the last few times that I’ve been through there to donate other non-jigsaw puzzle stuff, I’ve seen pretty much the same jigsaw puzzles just sitting out there on their shelf, including two of the ones that I had singled out to donate there because they seemed better or more interesting than your other, standard jigsaw puzzles.

So, it seems like they’ve been starting to get low turnover there, and maybe also my taste in jigsaw puzzles doesn’t mesh with their shoppers’ tastes, too!

So, to the library they go.