Dramatic beard statement.

Since I've been growing a short beard, people have occasionally been commenting on it.

If I know them and the set-up's right, I act all dramatically when they say that and am like, "You know, it's just time, I'm not some young kid anymore, the best I can hope for is to be some young kid's daddy."

A providential encounter.

The other week I had a mandatory training session for my one assisted living job helping the one woman with disabilities, and then afterwards I headed down to the campus where I did my Ph.D. in order to catch a lecture for an ongoing research project of mine and to use the library there as well.

Then, I had dinner at a place I like, and I popped into a few neighborhood bars that I hadn't been to in a while.

At the (black) neighborhood bar, I just missed the one bartender that I usually see, but I got re-acquainted with another one who I had met before.

When I mentioned that I was working in assisted living, she started opening up about how her son had disabilities and had started living in a home, and then she started saying about how she suspected that a nurse was stealing money from him.

"You know, I just went to a training on this today," I was like.

Then, I turned around and bent down and picked up my backpack from the floor and put it on the barstool next to me, and I opened it up and pulled out my packet of training handouts.

Oddly enough, my stapled packet was open to the very page listing all the numbers that you can call, if you suspect abuse.

Then, she got me a cocktail napkin and a black marker and I wrote those numbers down for her, and I also went over the list of abusive behaviors with her.

She felt that our meeting like that again was providential and set up by G-d.

A dream of chicken salad.

The other week I dreamnt-

I open my fridge and I see a tupperware in the back full of chicken salad left over from a resthome staff meal that I had forgotten about.

I'm in a rush and I need a meal, so I decide to see if it went bad.

I open the top and gingerly sample a largish piece of chicken from the chicken salad, but it doesn't taste like anything, so I decide it must be bad, and I slowly start putting the lid back on the tupperware...

And then I wake up.

. . .

Rest home stories (3 of 3): A reminder, and its aftermath.

The other week I had to go in to my one resthome job early to accompany a resident to an appointment at a hospital, and my one (Tibetan) coworker with a good sense of humor called me up early to remind me to come into work early, and her call actually woke me up like a half hour before my alarm went off.

Next time I saw her at work, then, I told her all dramatically, "Most mornings, I sit at home and hear birds sing, but yesterday was very special, because I heard birds sing, and I also heard your voice."

"Awwwwwwww," she was like, and she was smiling a bit sarcastically because she knew I was full of shit.

Then, she was like, "Now I will call you every day," and she laughed.

Rest home stories (2 of 3): A treat and its aftermath.

At the resthome the other week, it was a big meeting with refreshments afterwards, so I grabbed a few rugelach to take to residents who hadn't come down, like for this one guy who was in his apartment playing cards with his daughter who was visiting, and for the one resident who wants to die.

Later that night when I was back visiting the one resident who wants to die, she said it was good, and it turns out that she ate the whole thing.

After that, I was assisting her and she slipped and I had to hold her up and guide her into her wheelchair so that she didn't fall onto the floor, and after she was safe, she turned to me and looked stricken and was like, "I am so sorry."

"You're sorry?!", I was like, "I'm sorry!!".

I then said that I had given her that desert, and I made my own job harder by making her heavier and making more work for me.

"No good deed goes unpunished," I was like, and I winked at her.

She got a kick out of that; sometimes her humor is dark.

Rest home stories (1 of 3): Night shift.

The other week I worked a double from afternoon through the night, to cover for a coworker who's out on maternity leave through this summer.

When I left in the morning, I saw the same (Tibetan) coworkers who I'd seen when I got on shift 16 hours earlier, and I was all punchy and was like, "Good night," and then I laughed since I realized that to them this was the next day.

As I waited for the elevated train to go home, too, not only was the horizon brightening, but like a minute or two before the train came, the lights on the platform went out.

The night shift was super chill and I had a lot of time to read, and I hung out with my one (older) (Tibetan) coworker too.

She showed me some smartphone videos of her four year-old granddaughter in California's preschool birthday party and of her on a small merry-go-round, and she told me about her townhome she has in the far north of the city; her daughter and son-in-law live with her, and the neighborhood is getting better since there's fewer black people.

On generational change.

I think one of the things that's striking about my generation and especially those under me, is that the paths simply aren't there.

Someone can go to law school or grad school or get into this or get into that or whatever, and it's an outside chance of success, versus the surer chance that used to be there.

For example, I think of so many people I know who went to law school.

They have a hard time even finding full-time work, let alone a public service job - there's so much federal turmoil! - or a path upwards - how can you move up, when you can't start out like people used to?.

With that, too, you can see how family wealth matters, where someone can spot in a young relative or a friend's kid into a firm that they run, so that the kid gets a good salary right away and is on the path to partner.

If you focus on individuals, you can still see upward mobility, but if you focus on paths as a whole, all you see is a smaller and smaller horizon of possibility.