I can't get any real froth out of the remaining sliver of this "shave bar" that I have, that I use for the shaving cream for my shaving.
I keep it on top of my replacement full bar and I try to use that at first, but I fail every time and then I have to resort to the full bar.
I hope it gets used up soon, so I can be done with it.
A few weeks ago at the (Thai) restaurant, I came in to cover a night shift, since they needed someone to come in and cover it for them.
From force of habit, it was hard not to bring out free little side salads like we do at lunch.
And, like right before close, I pop back into the back kitchen, and suddenly all you can see everywhere is like 6 (Guatemalans) crawling around everywhere on the counters and by the stoves and up on the stoves by the stove hoods, and there's soap suds everywhere and they're scrubbing, and there's water all over the floor, and that's them cleaning for the night like they do every night, I see and I'm guessing right away when I walk in and see them like that.
Like, there were (Guatemalans) everywhere, all over my field of vision at different levels, like one over here and then one over there and then one way up there, not like normal people standing around a room in different places, it was like they were all at different heights and were just visually everywhere, overpowering you, among all this metal and soap suds, just glistening, and then them with their dark brown skin and black bristly hair and bright blue polo shirts and beat-up worn blue jeans, just scrubbing in these busy little motions, all five-and-a-half feet of each of them, everywhere.
Like last week at the (Thai) restaurant it's 11am on a Monday, and I'm opening the front door with the key and the push-handle on the front door pops out, and just as it does that, the (older) (black) homeless guy with sunglasses and a light grey coat walks by on the sidewalk outside and he hears that, and he swings towards the door and starts shouting, "Why are you locking the door on me? Are you locking the door on me?", and he seems very angry, and he starts grabbing at the door, and I try to fiddle with it and actually lock it again, but that doesn't happen, so I back off normally like I'm just doing stuff normally, and he yanks the door open and comes in the front of the restaurant and is shouting at me that he is a "United States veteran" and knows "Senator John Kerry from the United States Marine Corps," and that I shouldn't lock the door on him, and several times he takes paces towards me, and I back up and speak firmly and loudly like I had learned at a self defense training years ago, and I'm like, "Sir, I was opening the restaurant for the day," and I was like again, "Sir, I wasn't locking the door, I was opening the front door of the restaurant for the day," and although there was a ton of people in the back and they were busy with a large catering order, no-one was coming out, and I kept speaking firmly and keeping distance with my one hand stretched out at him to establish my space, and finally, he whipped around and left.
And, wouldn't you know it, just that day I was thinking of taking pepper spray to work and keeping it in my back pocket in case something like that should ever happen, but I hadn't, since I thought that would be paranoid of me.
My one (older) (Thai) coworker who's a whiz at phones did end up coming in and seeing the end of that, and she said that every once in a while a homeless person comes in, and like 4 years ago she called the police about it, and they said that they could come in and give a warning, but there's nothing really that they can do about it, and so she's never tried calling them again.
"I think I'm going to start taking pepper spray to work," I was like, and she just nodded.
And, I have.
That weekend when I was at the one brewery that I go to, the one (younger) (white woman) (local student) with (pulled-back) (brown) hair who's a new bartender was bartending, and she said that people at the one local hospital ER where she's doing her internship were remarking recently that they've never seen so many homeless people coming in when it got cold out.
"Were these new employees, or people who'd been there a while?", I was like.
"They'd been there a while," she was like. "And they said there'd always been some, it makes sense that you're cold and you need somewhere to go and so you go to the ER, but they've never seen so many, it's, like, a noticeable jump up."
We also were talking more about the recent midterm elections, and she said that she had a lot of faith in Generation Z, and she pays attention and votes but tries not to obsess about politics since her boyfriend does and gets all worked up by it and that doesn't do anyone any good, and she thinks that crime being up everywhere right now isn't just the pandemic, but it's also due to "the political climate."
"What is your internship in, by the way?", I was like.
"Dietetics," she was like.
"Like L. Ron Hubbard?", I was like.
And, she didn't laugh, and from the way that she stared at me blankly, I don't think she got the joke, either.
The day before Thanksgiving, there was this (older) (well-dressed) (slightly churchy) (black) man who came in by himself and sat in the window of the (Thai) restaurant, and he seemed to be on the phone a lot, and then at one point a(n older) (black) guy in sunglasses and a light grey winter coat saw him as he was walking by and popped in and came up to him, and only when the customer pulled out his wallet to give him a dollar, did I realize that the passerby was just some random (homeless) person, and not someone who knew him from earlier somewhere and had saw him somewhere randomly.
And, as the passerby went to go out, he stopped by the front register and was lingering there, so I kind of walked halfway up the restaurant from the back, to keep my eye on what he was doing.
And, he saw me and shouted something about how he was "a United States veteran" and he served in the "U.S. Marine Corps with Senator John Kerry," and I said something deferential to defuse the situation, and he shouted a few more things, and then he stormed out.
Later, it turned out that the customer up front had lost his wife this past year and it was his first Thankgiving without her, and he was going to his mother's with the kids this year.
He also asked what music we were playing since "it's not what you'd typically hear at a Thai restaurant," and it turned out to be contemporary R&B, since Spotify or Pandora or whatever had played this nice song by a (young) (black) artist that my one (Thai) (newlywed) coworker had liked and she'd hit the "play more of stuff like that" button, and it had.
"You never know where people are coming from when you talk to them," the man said thankfully, as he left.
...at the (Thai) restaurant where I now work at:
"You trying to keep me here?", says a (fatter) (older middle-aged) (white) woman with glasses and an artistic scarf sitting by herself at a back corner table, as I refill her just-emptied water glass after she had already paid her bill and I'd bussed away her empty plate, and when I look confused, she explains that she'd promised herself she'd that when she finished that glass of water all the way, that's when she'd go back to work.
It's surprising how many little kitchen ants I'm getting around my sink this winter; many days, I easily kill somewhere around 10, and that's even after I soap down the counter around there with Dawn and even sometimes spray peppermint oil extract around everywhere, to destroy their little paths and keep them away.
It seems to be worse when it's colder out; I wonder if they come inside since it's warmer, then.
The perils of a back alley cottage!
