Two recent misfires:

1) As a study routine for that one notoriously difficult language that I’ve been studying intensively lately, I was doing DuoLingo at home and then flashcards on the bus on the way to work, but all too often I just wouldn’t get through all the flashcards in time, and I’d want to look at them on-shift or have a lot of work to do after work when I was tired.

2) I get a special letter from my bank with a check that was returned as already cashed, and I realize that I had decided to try remote deposit at my national bank using this app that I’d recently downloaded, and then I’d kept the check that I'd deposited that way out by my records to check against my statement when it came in, only I’d forgotten that I’d cashed it that way and so I discovered it later and I went to deposit it at my local bank along with my paycheck from that week.

(Oops.)

(I’m just glad that there wasn’t a fee.)

A game you can play:

When you turn on classical music on the radio and it’s in the middle of a piece, you try to guess the composer and you try to articulate to yourself what’s the reasoning behind your guesses, so you become more in-tune with what you hear.

A few months ago, I got Prokofiev, and it made me so happy…

The piece had odd harmonies but it was obviously popular music-influenced with a bit of saxophone, so it reminded me of the Soviets trying to incorporate jazz, only it didn’t quite sound as angular and intellectual and self-distanced as Shostakovich, so I was thinking Prokofiev, by process of elimination.

And, I was right!

More Saint Patrick’s Day…

…at the one (Irish-y) burger joint in the first floor of a historic hotel, that I now work at:

1) For work, my one (eccentric) (blonde) (semi-manger) coworker wears a short black skirt and fishnets over dark emerald green tights.

2) When I go to dress a pan cheesecake for some people, I try to make the chocolate sauce into a clover on top, but you can’t really tell that it’s that, so I make sure to point it out to them when I serve it.

3) When the food starts coming out to a big table in one of the lounges – this table of like 6 or 7 people, with a(n elderly) (white) grandmother next to a “cool” (trans man) who talks of bringing leftovers home for “the boys” (cats?) – the (Irish) specials happen to be up first and I’m sent out with them, so when I deliver them to the appropriate people at the table, I’m like, “Luck of the Irish! You get served first.”

4) This (quiet) (heavyset) (late 50s) (moustachioed) (black) federal employer sits at the end of the bar and wants to know if we have Jameson and Guinness.

Saint Patrick’s Day or thereabouts:

1) I make sure to get like four heads of cabbage to keep in my fridge for soup and for sauerkraut later, since why let a good sale go to waste.

2) At the one (Irish-y) burger joint in the first floor of a historic hotel where I now work, we have shepherd’s pie and corned beef and cabbage as our specials, and my one (skinny) (balded and bearding) (pun-loving) coworker says the shepherd’s pie is really good because he worked lunch and they had samples out for staff, and we discuss getting one each to-go at the end of the night and splitting them half-and-half so we each get some of each, but the shepherd’s pie sells out really quickly and so I just get corned beef and cabbage for myself to eat at the restaurant, when the night ends.

3) Also at work, a big table of (well-dressed) business-people request the lounge table by the front window, and so I compliment them on how “swanky” they look and I also remind them that they’re advertisements for us and so they should smile widely and rub and pat their bellies when they eat so that anyone going by outside can see that, and that if they do that well enough, they’ll get a 10% discount off their bill.

And, one lady there thinks that’s hilarious, whereas the others seem neutral, or even mildly confused.

4) Also also at work, there’s a state-level high school sports tournament in town, and one group of 40 from the south part of the state that’s in at the restaurant ends up winning their division – I had wished them good luck, saying that they ate with us and so I’d be rooting for them – and also the one (big personality) (redheaded) (Irish-American) owner has to turn down another, even bigger reservation for a hundred people since it’s contingent on a game outcome, and they can let her know by noon whether it will be for that evening or for the next day, but she says that’s just too short notice to get staff and all of the extra food together necessary for such a big group like that, so what can you do, but no.

Some other randoms tidbits…

…of late:

1) One night after work as I’m getting off the bus I thank the bus driver as I always do as I pass by them, and I see it’s a (late middle-aged) (done-up) (Latina) woman, and I recognize her from a local human-interest newspaper story about her and her family’s immigration story from (Latin Amercia), and so I do a double-take and am like, “Are you the celebrity?”, and I add, “From the newspaper?”, and she’s like, “Exactly!”, and she seems a bit happy to be recognized, probably since it’s a late night and it's a repetitive job and it’s something different and fun that happened, to be recognized, when she sits practically all day long every workday (something also mentioned in the newspaper story).

2) My one (middle-aged) (white) (remarried mom) coworker says that her and her boyfriend’s cat is out-of-control, and he’ll not only get outside, but actually go into other people’s houses.

3) Besides the typical homelessness set-up on the front porch of the township building, there’s now a tent pitched alongside the left wall, when you look at it from the street.

New job tidbits…

…at the one (Irish-y) burger joint in the first floor of a historic hotel, where I now work at:

1) When my one (skinny) (balded and bearding) (pun-loving) coworker is mentioning how he didn’t file taxes for like five years straight because of something with medical insurance and repeat care needed for a chronic medical condition – something that I didn’t really understand – I then am like, casually, “So, what do you think about Luigi?”.

And, he immediately lights up and a bit enthusiastically is like, “Man, don’t even get my started, we’ll be here all day!”.

2) At a larger table of like five or six (white) (thirty-somethings), two (fat) (nerded-out) (black-wearing) (FTMs) one of which is (balding) are sitting beside each other, and in between courses they just hold each other’s hands.

. . .

(Two women on testosterone who found each other, but now with odd body hair and probably permanently swollen clitori and possibly long-term heart conditions or whatnot too from being constantly pumped full of those hormones.)

A dream:

The other month I dreamnt –

It’s late evening or even night and I’m in a car being driven by my one (Chinese from China) ex-coworker from the (Thai) restaurant that I used to work at, and we’re passing up the street by the historic hotel where I now work at and a lot of my (new) coworkers are outside on the sidewalk and I turn my head away from them and I try not to look at them as I hope that none of them can see me and that if they do he doesn’t notice or they don’t call out to me or anything like that since the car-window is open, and also because no-one from my old job knows where my new one is at and it's a contest and I don’t want him to find out that way and win, it’s so sloppy of me.

. . .

(. . .)