On coworkers.

Now that I work with my one (chubby) (Thai) coworker a lot, I'm realizing that my one (Thai) (newlywed) coworker who I used to work lunch shifts with a lot could be a real bitch.

Only, I didn't notice it so much at the time.

I think that academics are such arbitrary and unpleasant f*ckwads on the whole, that it's reset my perspective and I don't notice things like that as much as I used to, or should.

That might have also been why I gave so much slack to my one (Ethiopian) coworker at the resthome, when I shouldn't have.

I mean, compared to academics these people are nice, but they really weren't super good, and I should have been on my guard a bit more.

Three (Thai) restaurant happenings:

1) I walk up to a table to refill water and this (middle-aged) (not unclassy) (white) (female) customer is mimicking a voice like she's repeating a conversation and is like, "...I'll fix your shoes if you have sex with me...", and I have to stand there and pour water and ignore their conversation, and the people don't acknowledge my presence, but just go on talking as before without shame.

2) After a serious three-top from some applied arts department at the local university orders crab rangoons and eggplant tempura for their appetizers, I'm like, "Okay, I'll go throw that in right now, some deep-fried goodness coming right up...", and they all seem deeply amused by my use of the phrase "deep-fried goodness."

3) When I recommend this one stir-fry made with deep-fried breaded chicken and say that one of my old (Thai) coworkers who's gone now used to love it and ate a ton before he went back to Thailand and I'm like "it's not real Thai food, but it's good," the one (middle-aged) (white) lady to whom I'm recommending the dish is like, "No, you don't say that, it's fusion, everything is fusion now!"

And, they order it, only they want no green bell peppers in the stir fry, only red ones, so I have to run in the back and see if it's okay to do that and the (Guatemalan) kitchen guys make me go to the back office and ask the boss (and he asks what dish and I tell him and he says okay, and then the kitchen guys give me a look since they have to go and pick out peppers from the standard red-and-green mix that they have chopped up and ready to go for frying).

Thai food preferences.

My one (chubby) (Thai) coworker **hates** spicy food, and doesn't like it in her staff meals, usually.

"I'm not very Thai," she's like.

The other day, then, when our one (Chinese-American) (college student) coworker was asking us what we all wanted to order and we were negotiating what we were all getting for the staff meal, he raised the issue of spice level, which the restaurant does on a scale of zero to four.

"Three?", he was like, "Or maybe two?".

"Oh, I don't like spicy," she was like. "Maybe zero?"

"Yeah, I'd like zero too," I was like.

"Okay, we'll do zero," he was like.

And, suddenly she seemed very happy that we weren't going to be having much spice on our food, so I was like, "Team Zero, go Team Zero!", and I went to go fist-bump our elbows, and she was all smiles and was like, "Yes, Team Zero!", and did that gesture where you go "Yessss!" and clench your fists and bring your elbows down in jubilation.

Thai music (2 of 2): Repeat.

After that day with the experiment of putting on Thai music at the (Thai) restaurant where I work now, I was telling my one (chubby) (Thai) coworker about that Spotify channel when we were both working an evening shift, and she was interested to play that one channel or maybe this other all-instrumental Thai music channel, but we both agreed that we shouldn't do it during dinner, but rather during a slow period around lunchtime sometime.

Then, the next day we were both working lunch, and she pulled up a list and was like, "Oh, this is popular hip-hop in Thailand right now," and she went to go to play the song over Spotify, but a note came up that the account holder was blocking all objectionable song material from being played, and to change the terms of the account if you wanted to play that song.

My one (chubby) (Thai) coworker was also telling me that day that her one friend who was coming soon had to cancel her trip to the U.S.; she sent her a picture from the hospital, where she had gone because she was expelling black mucus, from breathing in all the air pollution in Bangkok right now.

Thai music (1 of 2): Experiment.

The other week at the (Thai) restaurant where I work now, it was very, very slow after the lunch rush, so me and the (young) (white) (skinny) (soundguy) dude were playing around with the Spotify and decided to cue up Thailand's current Top 50.

"I bet it's going to be some hip-hop with nasty nasty lyrics in Thai," I was like, "And the owner is going to come in here and hear it and gasp and drop something on the floor and then start yelling at us."

And, he didn't have much to say about that.

A little bit later, then, the one lady owner with the tired face came in, and as she was doing something at the register, suddenly her face perked up and she looked a little confused, and then she tipped her head back a little bit to listen.

"This is Thai music," she was like.

And, we explained to her that it was slow and we were bored, and so we cued up Thai music on the Spotify.

"Ohhhhh," she was like, "I was confused, this is on my playlist!".

"Really?", I was like. "What's the song about?"

And, she said it was a woman in her lover's arms, but she's singing about how much she misses her last boyfriend.

"So, a break-up song," my one (young) (white) (skinny) (soundguy) dude coworker was like, observationally.

Health department visit at the restaurant.

The other week at the (Thai) restaurant where I now work, this (chubby-cheeked) (young-looking) (six foot-ish) (blonde) guy with a (splotchily grown-in) (short) (fluffy) beard and vaguely home remodelling-like equipment thrown over his shoulders came in through the door a bit after the lunch rush, and he said he was from the health department and had come in for a surprise check, and was the owner there.

And, he proceeded to go in back and get something like a thermometer out of his equipment, and he started checking the temperatures of all of the various bins of chopped food that were waiting for the food assemblage, before it was fried.

("Looks good!", he kept saying, as he drew the thermometer out of one bin and went to go put it in another one.)

Right away while he was busy in the kitchen, then, I took a bit of water from the coffee pot where we keep warm water for tea, and dumped it all over the residual ice in the hand-washing sink from us dumping drinks in it after we bus them.

I also didn't bring back my washed-out reused takeout container from home for my staff meal, but rather had the cook just plate it fresh into new styrofoam directly off the stove.

By the time that was ready, I just grabbed it and clocked out and quietly exited, as he was coming out front to where we are, to check how things are done out there.

A sight the other day in my neighborhood...

 ...as I was walking home by the busy street that runs up and becomes the main business strip on campus:

A really fat woodchuck hustled out from behind the one church by my house, and ran across the street and by the bushes of one side of an apartment building there, eventually just becoming this big fat woodchuck bottom that I could see trotting away from me, into the distance.