New job developments.

So, it’s been interesting, to adjust to the one (Irish-y) burger joint in the first floor of a historic hotel that I now work at.

There’s no more free meals, although we do get a 50% discount off of 2 drinks and 1 app and 1 meal every time that we work, so long as we order it just for ourselves and not for friends or anything like that, with some exceptions like with seafood since I started working there since seafood prices have gone up so much, so if we want that we have to pay full menu price.

The menu is also huge, which means that it’s going to take me a while to eat through it and try everything, with the coffee cocktails being an especial challenge since I work mostly nights and there’s no way I’m going to have shit with espresso in it at 9 or 10pm at night, I’ll have to wait and try those on days when I work lunch shifts and can hang around after work and I have time to sip a cocktail and let the caffeine course through me at a reasonable time of day when it will have worked itself out of me by nightfall.

Quite oddly at first, they insist that you never leave a tip on anything you order there whether after-shift or when you’re just there with people you know, since they split tips and it would just go back into the pool anyways.

(I did that on the rare occasions that I was at the [Thai] restaurant outside of work hours and bought something there.) 

Also, I’m starting to get my banter together. Like, if people say it looks nice, I praise the lighting and say it’s awesome, it covers up my wrinkles and takes 5 years off me, and I also offer to show them around the different rooms that we have…  Different rooms are better suited for cocktails or for big groups or for receptions, so why not show people around if they’re interested? You’ll never know what will turn into business, down the road… 

Like, one (mid-50s) (tastefully-dressed) (white) lady perked up at the reception room, since she turned out to be a realtor and she said that this group that she’s part of the leadership for is always looking for new places to hold networking events, while this (young) (black) (female) and (cleancut) (white) (guy) who come in and order Sprite and hold hands looked at each other meaningfully, when I showed them that same room and listed how among other events people have held wedding rehearsal dinners there.

I also make sure to point out the room with the couches by the window, and say that people sometimes just get drinks and that’s nice for that, and at that point I remind them that our specialty coffee station is always open and does decaf stuff, too, like if they’re out and about and want to pop by for drinks or a coffee after a movie or event downtown or something.

I’ve also discovered that people don’t look through all of the (lengthy) drink menu that we give them, usually they just look at just the obvious parts at best, so I have now made sure to show people the pages where the dessert cocktails and coffee cocktails and specialty coffees are listed, so they know that those are options for them if they want them.

I mean, if people get 2 dessert cocktails, that’s like $25 more of sales right there, plus it bumps up the total that people will tip off of, too.

So, why not take a minute and point that out. 

New job.

So, the new job that I work at is a(n Irish-y) burger joint in the first floor of a historic hotel, and it really is something.

Because they had to retrofit the business into the available space, it has all these twisty corridors and rooms upon rooms of dining spaces, and there’s oddities, too, like different storage areas being in the basement next to our locker room and the several additional bathrooms that are there, too, although a basement social area is also down there for the elderly residents who live up on the upper floors of the building.

“This is the boom-boom room,” my one (eccentric) (blonde) (semi-manger) coworker was like, as she gave me the tour and gestured to one of the bathrooms down there.

Then, she spelled it out, that you can use the customer restrooms upstairs in the burger joint if you need to take like a pee, but anything heavier or more extended than that, you should really take the time and come downstairs and use the restrooms down there, because you don’t want to do anything upstairs that would bother the customers.

Overall, the burger joint is really a nice place, with split tips and a premium on a healthy respectful work culture, and plus they have specialty coffee and cocktails that I could maybe train into, to get like serious bartending and barista stuff on my resume in the long-term.

Plus, I have to take a bus to get there, and at night there’s like all this soft lighting that does wonders for me and takes like 5 years off of my face, and it feels like I’m somehow going into the big city to work.

The (big personality) (redheaded) (Irish-American) owner told me that she gets that a lot, that people come in there at night and they say that they feel like they just walked into somewhere in [one city] or [another city] or [a third city] (i.e., one of the 3 major cities that are a few hours drive from us).

It’s really crazy, too, because I first came in there during the afternoon to drop off my resume, and I simply didn’t expect that change in environment to occur from daytime-into-evening hours, in terms of how elegant and cool the space looks.

Joke of a friend…

…when I accidentally texted them the 4 digit code that gives you geotracked bus arrival info for the bus-stop near my cottage, instead of the transportation agency’s designated number (I was in such a rush that I didn’t realize that I had brought up the wrong contact info when I tapped on my text messages on my smartphone to open up what I thought was the transportation agency's contact info):

Incorrect PIN. Please try again.

. . .

(. . .)

A dream from like half a year ago –

Like half a year ago, I dreamnt –

I am sitting and eating from a large glass bowl of Dum-Dums, and I keep biting through them and chewing them, just eating Dum-Dum after Dum-Dum after Dum-Dum, although they are almost like Tootsie Roll pops with a chewable center, too, with the texture when you bite into them.

. . .

(. . .)

Potential dual citizenship.

I’m gathering docs again for my second dual citizenship attempt in a different (European Union) country – the first one got derailed since standards changed when I had already applied, and I didn’t get grandfathered in and it’d be a long and nightmarish and uncertain process to reapply, to the point where my lawyer for the first country said that it'd be better to try the other route, and he doesn't even take cases like mine anymore – and anyhow, what is striking to me is that the issuance dates of a lot of my vital records for submission are from FIVE YEARS AGO.

That’s how long it’s taken, and I haven’t even submitted for my second attempt yet since I’m still learning that other language well enough to pass a speaking interview at the consulate...

If only I had known about my eligibility during the 2010s when the requirements were less and the process was quicker... Like so much of my life, mistimed, and bad luck.

Moments from a (Brazilian) party.

The one (worked-out) (STEM) (Brazilian) who I know through people invited me to come along to a party some other (older) (Brazilians) were throwing for a visiting scholar, so I met him at his place, and right away when he saw me, he picked a little bit of citrus-cell out of my hair, from my squeezing out lemons and limes into my left hand and rubbing it into my hair like I always do for highlights on most days, only I must have accidentally not combed that bit out that morning when I had done it.

“Shared location with [his dead partner’s name],” he suddenly said in the Uber, pursing his lips and gloomily looking down at the app, and then not saying anything more at all.

The (vivacious) and (warm) (Brazilian) wife of the couple who hosted the party had someone bring over a karaoke machine and we all did that at the end of the night, too, and my selection of “Mandy” was very popular, with everyone who was like over forty singing along, loudly, including all of the (Brazilians) there.

Only, the (worked-out) (STEM) (Brazilian) had never heard it – he’s like thirty – and so I had to explain to him who Barry Manilow is, including how he got his start playing piano in gay bathhouses for Bette Midler.

And, he thought that singing at bathhouses was just the greatest thing ever.

“I want to do that,” he was like.

(He sings and runs a samba band in his spare time.)

Mall excursion.

When I bussed up to the local mall to go get some workclothes for my new job – I needed black pants, and not the khaki pants like I had been wearing at the one (Thai) restaurant that I used to work at – I had gotten them and was back on the bus on the ride back, and when we were just leaving the mall and going to a bus stop by one parking lot facing the back of some endless mini-malls and some people were boarding there, off like thirty-to-forty feet away off into the parking lot was a (taller) (thin) (black) (homeless) man with a presumably stolen shopping cart, stacked up with stuff and from he which he removed several bundles and ran over to the bus to board, entering all out of breath from running over so hard so that he could just get there in time so that it wouldn’t leave without him.

And, when he sat in a seat over by me, then, I leaned over and said something about how he was leaving his shopping cart back behind there.

“Oh, that?”, he was like, “That’s just odds and ends. Maybe they can help out somebody else.”