Surprise at my one job the other week: Cinnamon rolls.

The other week I came in to work at my one client with disabilities's, and her sister had made a pan of cinnamon rolls that was sitting out on the stove.

There were like three or four left in there, and they both were like, "We left a couple for you, take them!".

So, I took my thermos of coffee out of my backpack, and I ate those 2 cinnamon rolls right then and there.

Isn't that sweet of them?

Later, after I put away the remaining ones into tupperware, I gave the pan and a spoon to my one client with disabilities, so she could dig out the crust and frosting that had stuck to the bottom of the pan and eat it.

Cat progress.

The last week of this past year, I was at my last shift of the year at my one client with disabilites's house, and like I always do, I went to go give her cat a treat soon after I had arrived, but since it was the end of the year, I realized as I was going to her bedroom and shaking the treat jar, that I probably should have gone and given her some of the catnip-flavored treats that she really goes nuts over, so I stopped shaking the jar and turned around and went back to the pantry and got the plastic cat treat packet with the catnip-flavored treats in it.

I started shaking that, too, and though her cat usually stays under the bed and only comes out after I leave to go eat the treat, this time she hurried out and stopped like a few feet in front of me, and sat down and started meowing.

I knelt slowly so as not to spook her, and she didn't spook, and I pulled out a treat and held it in my hand in front of her.

She sniffed it but didn't eat it off of my hand like she's done once before, so I lowered my hand and rested it on the floor, and that got her to put her head down and eat the treat off of my hand.

And, since she was such a good girl for doing all of that, I asked my client if I could give her another treat, and she said I could, so I gave her a second treat like that, too, in the same way as I had done with the first treat.

Afterwards, I tried to slowly reach up and pet her, but she kind of avoided my hand and padded over back under the bed, and I realized that that last bit might have been too much for her, and maybe I shouldn't have tried it.

Overall, all of that got me thinking that next time I go to give her one of those treats, I'll stand in the kitchen and shake the packet out there, to see if she'll hear it and come out of the bedroom to come meet me.  She doesn't like being in the kitchen or the living room when I'm in the apartment, but who knows, maybe the treat will make her break her habit and get her out of that particular rut that she's been in.

A person on the subway the other day:

A (younger middle-aged) (very tall) (black) guy leaning over and holding his head in one hand and a self-rolled unlit marijuana cigarette in the other, listening to some loud music off his phone on his lap in a half-empty car that smells like pot.

What is the subway system in my city coming to?

People's behavior is really getting out of hand.

The other afternoon, I get on the car to go to work, and a(n older) (black) guy just inside the door had just lit up a cigarette and was blithely smoking it, at like one in the afternoon on a weekday.

First off, who even smokes anymore, and second off, who would do that at that time of day so easily, when so many people are around and the cars are relatively packed?

I quickly hopped back off and got to the other car before the doors closed, and like a few minutes later the conductor announced that there is no smoking on the subway cars, so someone must have complained, but still.

Like a month or two ago, someone told me that because of budget cuts, they don't have staffers anymore who walk the cars and stop shit like that from happening.

It just really surprises me that stuff like this is happening.  Although the city is pretty wealthy, and is probably wealthier than ever, it almost has the lawless feel of New York in the 70's about it, like you see about in movies and read about in books.

Two freaky jibing incidents at the resthome the other day:

1) While I'm helping a resident, I move their walker and its handle hits the bathroom door and makes a small knock, and the resident hears it and is like, "Who's there?".

2) Several hours later, I open up the bathroom door of another resident a little bit, and a hard plastic clothes hanger hanging on the doorhook there wobbles back and forth a bit and its end hits the door once and makes a small knock, and the resident in that room hears it and also is like, "Who's there?".

An odd person the other day on the subway as I was going into work on a weekday afternoon:

A shrivelled (old) (white) lady in a clean coat, looking at her phone and rapping out loud to herself, and as she gets into it and moves around some in her seat, I can see a large light-pink-and-blue tattoo on the back of her right hand.

Banter with this one resthome resident who had been a professor.

The other week I was chit-chatting with this one (Jewish) resthome resident who had been a professor and who had gotten her doctorate from a Jesuit university.

"You know what they say about the Jesuits, don't you?", I was like.  "Si itis cum Iesuitis, non cum Iesu itis."

And, since she doesn't know Latin, I translated it for her:

"If you walk with the Jesuits, you don't walk with Jesus."

(It's punchier in Latin.)

"But I'm not Christian," she was like, "So I'm very happy to walk with the Jesuits."