Happenings at my new job…

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

1) We’re encouraged to wear gear from the local university if we’re working the night of this big tournament game, and I don’t have it and I don’t feel like running out and getting it, but they win that game and the same thing is set for the next shift overlapping with their next game, and since I’m scheduled again then, I find the time to go get some t-shirts, and I stop by this campus store and there’s a buy-one-get-one-free sale and I go through all of the shirts that are a good color for me only they’re a b*tch to refold if they fall open, so after I find a good one and see how they’re sized and know that large is my size, I look at one more with a cool home-y kind of gingham pattern saying the school’s name and then some small, faint type underneath that with the team name, and it’s only when I get it home and go to start taking tags off that I realize that the far far edge of the small, faint type had been folded in underneath, and the very bottom of the T-shirt design didn’t just say [LONG TEAM NAME]”, but rather “[LONG TEAM NAME] MOM,” like it was a shirt for mothers whose kids go to that school.

And, I tell this story to everyone since I think it’s funny, and the one (big personality) (redheaded) (Irish-American) owner says I should just go ahead and wear it anyways to work, it’s hysterical.

2) Wiping off menus is tough unless the sun is shining in the front window onto the host stand or it’s darker and the lightbulbs hit them just right; otherwise, you can't see where they’re smudged, you need a light coming in at just the right angle to do that.

App stupidity.

The campus grocery store that’s kind of on my way home from work that I stop through now a lot for like fresh lettuce and stuff has this strange multi-tiered sale system, where like some are sales for everyone, but others are if you are in their rewards system where you have to punch in your phone number when you go through checkout -- some kind of data-sale thing going on, probably? -- but there's also still others where they're only if you’ve downloaded their app, although I find out that there’s also a touchscreen nearby where you enter the store and you can log in and punch in the deals you want there, if you don’t want to or can’t get the app.

I discover this when I bring up a couple bags of tangerines that were on sale and they ring up as more expensive, but when I go to use the touchscreen, it’s frozen and broken, and although the cashier says they’ve never seen that before, they also say that there’s nothing that they can do for me, and there’s no way that I can get the lower price, then.

More new job happenings…

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

1) My one (affable) coworker who was in the (military) is talking with the one (bearded) (bleary-eyed) (goateed) bartender with (mental health problems), and they're both commiserating about how the direct deposit program that the restaurant is using is malfunctioning, since paper checks take longer to clear through their “get your cash now” banking app that both of them use.

2) The one (younger) (blonde) (bespectacled) (art school grad) dishwasher tells me how he was in the movie business and felt a recession was coming, so he got out of LA and moved home and then COVID hit, and now he feels all art is local and he bought a big printing press and he’s working as a dishwasher so he can pay that off, although he’s also looking into substitute teaching.

3) The one (young) (taller) (macho) (Guatemalan) cook has a hard time remembering the fight cheer for the local university when everyone is going around saying it because of their getting far in a big tournament, so I try to teach it to him.

4) When a five- or six-top of (younger graduate school age?) (South Asians) come in, I ask them if they’re paying separately or together because if it’s separately we need to keep their tabs in order, and they’re like, “We’ll let you know.”

A day at my new job…

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

1) A (late 30s) (brusque but pleasant) (Russian) couple and their (fatter) (kind of nerdy) (female) (American) friend are in, and when I go to the table and the (Russian) guy goes to re-order his beer from me, he makes a remark that he would like “a well-dressed Jesus,” perhaps, riffing off of the “Casual Jesus” name of the beer that the brewery must have given it in one of those shallow sacrilegious gestures that people who think they’re cool often make whenever they’re trying to be cool, and then I respond that there’s also a “Casual John the Baptist,” and when I return with the actual beer, I make a more-elaborate joke that we should really have an expensive John the Baptist cocktail, where it’s served out of a large cup that’s shaped like his head and a woman dances out and gives it to you.

And, their (American) friend was quite amused at this, and I was like, “If you’re going to be sacrilegious, at least go in-depth and be a little more creative.”

At the end of the meal, too, I said that we could serve a Buddha drink, where it’s like $80 and it’s never served and you must remain in a state of perfect indifference to that fact when you start to realize that it will never be served.

2) These (older) (well-dressed) (kind of boozy) customers who I recognize are in with another couple, and when it comes time for last call, they each order one more drink, and then decide to get a second one as well, and they have the drinks lined up on the table in front of them besides their food that they’re finishing.

3) My one (short) (young) (bearded) (vaguely Jewish) (local) coworker with a stud earring in each ear says that he’s only been on a plane once in his life.

He was also in a children’s choir where he grew up, and they once sang in the governor’s mansion.

A new habit of my mother:

After she realized that there was one, checking the webcam of the local university, to see what’s happening there on the main quad.

After recent storms, she said there were big puddles, and then the next time she checked, they had disappeared.

. . .

(. . .)

A recent-ish dream:

A number of months ago, I dreamnt –

I’m at a production of the rarely-produced L’Arlesienne, and as the play ends it's night-time and two women advance back up stage left between small buildings raked to make them look larger, as they proceed to the background and talk and then turn to the right to go down the street there, as the music plays.

. . .

(. . .) 

Animals around my house:

1) Across the street at the house of the old (hippie) who passed, with its green siding and green lawn where the bushes were taken out by the new owners, a bright red cardinal flits and sometimes sits, including on this small tree in the front yard that has purple flowers in spring, so it’s this backdrop of green and grey and grey-ish green, and bright purple, and a spot of red.

2) On the front house’s back lawn by my cottage in the late afternoon, in the mid-spring grass that’s getting tall, a fat brown rabbit that’s on the young side, calmly eating and not seeming all too bothered, even as I go to my front door and then stop and watch him.