Bug Story (2 of 2): Evening Cooking.

The other night I was having a relaxing evening at home listening to Top 40 on the radio and doing some cooking (homemade hummus, a succotash-inspired stew, homemade tomato sauce for pasta).

As I was stirring pots, I saw something dart across the wood flooring, out of the corner of my eye to the left.

I turned, and it had encountered where the tiles meets the floor, and started running alongside that, so I stepped out and squashed the quickly-moving indistinct black spot.

On the bottom of my house sandal was a bug torso with an yellow inner middle that looked like banana pulp, and several thin legs broken in a few places.

I suspect the bug was a silverfish, but I'm not sure.

Bug Story (1 of 2): Spring Cleaning.

A few weekends ago I did a lot of cleaning, including reorganizing the area under my sink.

As I was cleaning, a larger brown bug slowly moved out of a bag of rags that had spilled out, and I took off my house sandal and killed it.

The bug was a roach-colored brown, but shaped more like a beetle.

I really have no idea what it was doing under the sink; I had cleaned the thing out with soap and water before, and there's no foodstuffs there except for a tin of olive oil and a bottle of vinegar, both sealed.

Mysterious Backpack / Virgil.

Yesterday when I was at the university library, I sat down at a computer, and noticed a large black backpack next to me.  I moved it to pull my chair out, then realized that it was very odd, since it was oversize and no-one was around...

I figured it wasn't that dangerous since it hadn't blown up after I dragged it a few inches, but I went to my locker and got my nec. stuff and then started asking a few people around there if they had seen anyone by the unattended backpack...  I was in the middle of a conversation with a guy who said he had seen someone there about 5 minutes earlier (couldn't figure out if he saw me sitting down, initially, before I got freaked and went to get my stuff from my locker, in case they evacuated the building), when some wide-eyed tall lanky nerdish (white) (male) undergrad walks up and sits down.

I went up and nicely told him I had been kind of freaked out by his oversized unattended backpack, and was about to alert library staff and that they might have actually evacuated the building, and he kind of nodded, and said it was just full of books, but blew it off. 

How odd.

I did get freaked, though.

. . .

On another note, me and my one Latin student who's a faculty assistant at school began reading Virgil's 4th eclogue yesterday, too.

The night before he had texted me to let me know not to bring in my Frontinus book since he spent so much time reading Virgil, and I texted him back to see if he liked it, to which he responded -

Dude the virg was awesome & ended up not being too hard.  I rly enjoyed it.  I made it thru line 10.

In other texts I think he's also said "man" in previous texts - what a great combination of bro-ness and love of Latin!

Closed bars.

I'm shocked how many businesses and bars have closed in the late winter.

Several have closed in the Polish neighborhood alone, and also gone is this lovely pan-Slavic bar with a patio and a sullen waitress who got this genuine look of surprise and shock on her face when I pointed out that there was a fly in my water, and then picked it up with her nails and flicked it away.

I wonder how much of it is just the life of the city, and how much of it is the bad economy.

I was talking with the (Mexican) owner of a Mexican-Italian restaurant, and he thinks the government's lying about economic numbers.

I do too.

Another Night of Barhopping: Polish dance club for middle-aged and older people.

So the other weekend when it was nice weather out, I took a long bike ride and went to a lot of bars, including a Polish restaurant-bar that had its doors open and music pouring out at like 9:30pm on a Sunday night.

I go in, and it's full of Polish people in their 50s and up, a good number in their 70s, and there's some to the bar in the left, and a lot at white tableclothed tables on the right, and everyone's facing a dance floor, where married couples are dancing to the music of a trio in the corner, a guy with a sax and a guy on a synthesizer and a guy on something else I couldn't see since he was tucked away behind them (maybe another synthesizer?).

One of 2 favorite people was this older blonde (Polish) woman with a giant smile, who was just a little on the fat side, but in a sheer black long-sleeved top that showed her black halter bra underneath, and had long strips of leather the length of her forearm attached all the way around bracelets around each of her arms at the elbow.  I watched her as she led her husband up to dance, and danced happily with him.

My other favorite person was the bartender, this older brunette (Polish) woman with a short brown haircut and also this large carefree smile.

She asked me (in English) what I wanted, and I asked what the cheapest beer was, and she couldn't catch it over the music.

"Dai mi nai-tane pivo," I then said ("Give me the cheapest beer").

"Okay," she was like, still smiling, so I added, "Chladnie mowie po-polsku," with an enthusiastic but slightly apologetic look ("I barely speak Polish").

"Like my kids!", she said laughingly, but not in a mean way, and joyfully whirled around to get me a beer out of the knee-high cooler tucked under the bar.

Later, I watched this older man walk in slowly with a cane, ask me (in Polish) something about a seat, (to which I gestured to him to take the seat next to me), and order a glass of rose wine, and then a couple of ice cubes to chill it.

He downed that mofo in like ten minutes while watching the music, then picked up his cane, slowly got up, turned around, and hobbled out.

New Orleans story (2 of 2): Bible school.

The guy also added that some Catholic parents let their kids go to his dad's Bible school, since it was free babysitting.

"One day he held up a photo of Martin Luther," he was like, "And he asked, 'Do you know who this is?'.  Many kids said, 'I know I know I know!', and when he asked, they said, 'The devil!', because that's what they had been taught.  And I'm serious."

New Orleans story (1 of 2): Catholic parish hall.

So at the one weekly lunch function at my school, I met a local (older) (white) (male) community member, and it turns out that he grew up in New Orleans, and so I was talking with him about the neighborhood, since I got to know the city a bit on my trip there in December.

It turns out that he was the son of a pastor in the Garden District.

"Protestant, I hope," I was like.

"Yes," he said, and then he added that there was "three-way segregation" when he was growing up in the 1950s: black-white, male-female, Catholic-Protestant.

 (Interestingly, he made no mention of Jews, though I've heard awful things about how longstanding Jewish families have been treated there!)

"The Catholic kids were instructed to cross over to the other side of the street if there was a Protestant church there," he was like.  "And I'm serious."

He also said that Protestants used to make fun of Catholics, for instance how the parish hall near his house had slot machines.

"You'll never guess what the grand prize was."

"A Bible?", I was like, though I was wondering if it gushed holy water or something.

"No," he was like, waving his hand jerkily while he tried to gather his thoughts, "Not what it gave out, but what appeared, on the dial, to win."

"Crosses?", I was like.

"No!", he was like.  "The holy family!  Jesus Mary Joseph, and you've got a winner!".

Then he was like, "You'll never guess what the second prize was."

I was thinking the trinity, but I wasn't sure, so I was like, "I have no idea."

"The trinity!", he was like.  "Father Son and Holy Spirit, and you've got a winner!".

He then said that 3rd prize was Matthew Mark and Luke.

"No John?", I was like.

"No," he said, "There's only 3 dials on a slot machine."