A spring update...

...on the one (Thai) restaurant that I used to work at, when me and my one (chubby) (Thai) ex-coworker got together for a walk in a nice big park on the south edge of town, only for it to be the only fifteen minute period all day when rain threatened because like this single solitary black cloud came up in the sky, and so we chalked that up and went to an ice cream parlor instead and talked over ice cream:

Although other people have noticed my workout, she can't, and graduation this year was bad, there were like 4-5 (South Asian) families of like 8-12 people but they only ordered 4-5 dishes between them and then they sat there forever talking and taking up the tables, and her one new coworker is great but he always cues up the music to Harry Styles and so they listen to "Same As It Was" a few times each shift whenever he's working, and she feels like the U.S. is like it was 20 years ago with everything going on politically, like it's a "step back," and she misses me whenever they make special (Thai) food for the workers to eat as their free shift meal, and the new people have more-rigid schedules, so there have been some lunch shifts when she's the only person working front-of-house all shift instead of the normal two people who work, and the one (white) couple who look like the "lovers" skit from Saturday Night Live noticed me gone and asked if I no longer worked there, and she told them that I "moved," only, none of us know their names, so she just called them the people who add in green beans to their pad see you, and I immediately knew who she was talking about.

She also had bought herself an electric bike, and she had to take out its heavy battery and put it in her handbag when she parked it on the sidewalk and chained it up, so that no-one would steal it and try to sell it, because that can happen with bike batteries.

Old colors.

Cleaning out old clothes, it's hard not to notice how dated certain colors become.

A teal plaid tie, a darker grey-and-black power tie, an evergreen and purple paisley tie with gold accents, a tie of small boxes of black and light grey and light gold -- once all of these all looked so NOW, and now, they don't.

It's like unearthing how old you've become. 

A recent Saturday shift at work...

...at the one (Irish-y) burger joint in the historic hotel where I now work, on a day when I'm still recovering from my lingering sinus infection:

 1) Right at the start of the shift, three (white) (old) people are in, and when the husband pulls out his phone to check the score of the football game and watch it a little, I ask him how it's going, and I mention that my mother has started watching the big sporting events of the local university when they're on TV, even though she lives in another state, and she was just telling me about the state of the game when I touched base with my parents and called them right before I clocked in for work.

"Good!", the one (very thin) (90 year old) (white) lady with tight short curls and glasses exclaims. "Convert her!" 

2) I have an early table of a (white) mom and a toddler and her (high school age) son in a t-shirt featuring his high school's team -- "Go rockets!", I'm like when I see it, then asking them if they're coming in after a game -- and when I'm in the middle of taking their order, I get an allergic reaction and my eyes start watering and I get serious post-nasal drip and I have to cough into my sleeve, and I apologize profusely and exit to go drink something before coming back to help them.

And, I mention my allergies again to them -- I let people know that at the start of each table, to preempt any perception of my being sick -- and I apologize, and I say that we should have a leaf blower at the door to blow ragweed pollen off people as they come in.

3) As the shift is winding down, my one (affable) coworker who's in the (military) says that next week everyone at the restaurant will probably be sick, since someone at a local bar that he goes to gave him a bug, and now he's probably passed it on to all the other people in the restaurant.

Addendum.

A few times now, I've noticed that the one (gay) (Brazilian) (STEM) (post-doc) says "easy peasy."

Like, I was telling him that I would like to learn (Portuguese) and he encouraged me, saying that I should do it and that for me it would be "easy peasy."

He must have come across that slang in (English) once and chosen to adopt it for some reason, not realizing how rarely it's used. 

"She."

A few weeks ago, I ran into this one (squat) (gay) (STEM) (Brazilian) who once tried the dangly earring look, and I said hello, and then when we talked briefly about how we were doing, I was like, "I miss [first name of the one (gay) (STEM) (post-doc) (Brazilian)]."

"Yeeeessss," he was like, and then, "Did you hear she's a professor now?".

(Gay) (male) (Brazilians) do that a lot with each other in (English), I have noticed, probably carrying over slang in (Portuguese).

As my one former (art school) colleague who wears (women's) clothes once noted to me, it's a lot like how some (gay) (native English speakers) say "girlfriend" to each other a lot.

An early October day at work, and afterwards...

...when I'm not infectious anymore but am still recovering from a sinus infection and come in since my energy is rebounding and also since it's a Friday and it'd be bad to skip:

1) I ask people if I look like shit, and 1 out of 5 says yes, and they say that my eyes are sunken, but the (redheaded) (big personality) owner of the one (Irish-y) burger joint on the first floor of a historic hotel where I now work says I look fine, when I check in with her before I clock in, after my saying that there's nothing grosser than a sick waiter

With a lot of tables, too, I apologize in advance if I'm spacy, and I tell them that my fall allergies have been hitting me hard, with one table even agreeing, and the guy saying that his have been flaring up the past week because of all the ragweed.

2) Fortunately like two-and-a-half hours in right as my allergy meds start wearing off and my post-nasal drip starts acting up and I begin to cough occasionally, the dinner shift slows down and I get cut, and after tidying up a few loose ends in my section, I get sent to polish silverware in the back with my one (young) (white) (Southern-ish) (gay-ish) coworker with the (80s style), and when we begin talking of allergies, he says that he had strong allergies in his youth, to the point where his lips would get hard.

3) At night I wake up and I think that my coughdrop is gone and I go to the bathroom, but then when I get back in bed and readjust my pillow, I put my hand kind of under it and it brushes across these sticky patches on the sheets there and I move it again and it like kind of bumps into the small hard remnant of my cough drop, like the size of half a pea, just sitting out there on my bed kind of beneath where my pillow was.

Early- to mid-October farmer's market hoarding:

1) I buy like 4 pounds of large and well-shaped but not yet ripe tomatoes at a good price ($3 a pound!), but then after paying I stand there and think more and I go and buy 5 pounds more, since they're the type that keeps well on the counter as they ripen and rarely go bad unexpectedly, so why not, when they're right there in front of me.

The (darker-skinned) (moustachioed) (Mexican) grandfather guy who's there selling them with his family tells me that they're good for salsa, too, as I say that I mostly keep them for use raw in salads, but I could also use them in soups. 

He also says even if they get a little spot on them, you just cut it off and use the rest, adding that some people throw those out, with a disbelieving shake of his head.

2) The specialty tomato stand has no more watermelons for that day or for the rest of the season, and the (soft-spoken) (taller) (older) (black) man there says that one guy came in early that day and bought up all of their last 6 watermelons, and that was that for the year.