Levity at my parents's house.

When I was visiting my parents, I took a daily walk around the lake, for exercise.

The first day that I did this, I told my parents that if I got hit by a car, that they should know that I love them.

"Okay," my mom was like. "In that case I won't make dinner."

Later that week after it had snowed, I told them that I was going to be taking my phone with me, so if I had some kind of emergency like I slipped and fell, I could call them and they could come and help me.

"Good," my mom was like. "I don't want to wash the dishes, anyways."

New running joke at the (Thai) restaurant:

I call the one (very round-faced) (young) (Guatemalan) back-of-the-house worker "el diablo," since one time he was working at the stove and adjusted the pan and all of these huge flames came out.

"!Tu eres el diablo de la cocina!", I was like ('You are the devil of the kitchen!').

For some reason he thought that that was very funny and was telling everyone about it, and now whenever we talk we always talk about el diablo.

Like, he'll say I'm el diablo, and I say no, it's him, or he'll say someone else is el diablo, and I'll be like, no, it's him.

For some reason he finds this very, very entertaining.

I really have no idea why.

Gas fireplace.

In my childhood home, my parents installed a gas fireplace where the old wood fireplace was, since it's getting too hard for them to maintain a woodpile and start fires, but they still like having the extra heat in the living room, especially because they get so cold now.

And, it's super realistic, where the flames flare up and it looks like a real pile of wood and everything, even though it's just gas flames and what looks like the logs isn't wood and doesn't burn up at all and never changes.

It reminded me a lot of how ancient Greek temples would carry over details of wooden pegs from wooden temple construction into temples made of stone, or how the Egyptians would replicate woven mat wall structure details on the walls of their temples now made of stone.

It's like you want your current shit to look like your last shit, even if it technically doesn't have to look that way anymore.

A story of my mother's (2 of 2): Collegiate phys ed classes.

So on my trip to see my parents last month, my mother was reminiscing about her two phys ed classes that she had to take in college.

The one was tapdancing and your final was to create a routine and do it in front of everyone in the gym as they sat on the gym bleachers, and midway through her routine, she forgot what she was doing.

So, she ended up getting a B.

With her other class, it was badminton, and the first day of class they timed you as you banged the birdie up against the wall as fast as you could and kept it going in the air for as long as you could.

Then, the last day of class, they timed you again, and your improvement was your grade.

Only, she was really good at it the first day of class and was like right up at the top of the class, and so her time didn't really improve by the end of the class.

"So, I got a B again," she was like.

And, she said that if she had known the way they would grade, she would have been better off pretending not to know what she was doing on the first day of class, so then she would have seemed like she had room to improve, and then she could have done just what she had done on her final, only it would have come off better in comparison and she would have gotten a better grade.

"Sounds about right," my dad was like.

A story of my mother's (1 of 2): St. Patrick's Day.

On my visit to my parents last month, my mother was reminiscing about how back when she worked at the local library, people would pressure her to wear green on St. Patrick's Day.

"No," she'd be like, "I'm Polish, and it's just an excuse to get drunk, anyways."

And then on St. Patrick's Day, when all of her coworkers would be wearing green, she'd wear red to work.

I guess she did this every year.

Thai coworker story and backstory.

So, my one (chubby) (Thai) coworker was telling me about her visit to the city that I used to live in.

Besides the sites, she did try the subway, once, and this very very strange (black) guy once stood very close behind her on the platform while she was waiting for the train, and she felt super uncomfortable and had to move away from him and keep a lookout for him, and so for the rest of her trip she took Uber everywhere.

I was also telling her about my trip, and how I had stopped through a couple of university towns on the way to my parents's and back to see some friends who lived in those places, and she told me that she had actually been thinking about going back to one of the towns that I had visited to visit an old professor of hers, since she had studied there five years ago on an exchange program back when she had been studying disease transmission stuff.

She also began reminiscing about her work in that area back in Thailand.

Like, she had worked as part of a project funded by France, and before the summer vacation, she had to work a ton since her (French) colleagues were in overdrive to get a ton of stuff done before they left for the last half of the summer, and then when they were leaving, her boss said not to email him at all, but also to come into the office everyday, since (Thai) culture expected that, and so she came in and did nothing all day, for the rest of the summer.

She also said that one time her boss took everyone out to this (French) restaurant in Bangkok, and it was super expensive and waiters had towels on their arms, and it was "soooooo good."

She also said that another time, they were working in the field, and her coworkers cooked a simple chicken dish, like chicken on crushed tomatoes.

"So was it good?", I was like.

"No," she was like.

Sausage present.

After my recent mini-vacation to my homestate, I brought back a bunch of garlicky cured pork sausages that don't need refrigeration, and left them out on the restaurant counter and told everyone that they were there as snacks for whoever wanted it, just to make sure that everyone gets to try some before you go and eat a lot.

And, reviews were mixed but largely positive. The restaurant owners said that they don't like sausages too much but that they were better than the (Thai) sausage on the menu, while my one (Chinese-American) (college student) coworker liked them a lot and had like three, and almost all of the (Guatemalans) loved them.

"Two hundred percent good," said one guy, I can't remember who.

"Ten out of ten," said the one guy who sometimes waits tables and sometimes works in the kitchen.

As for me, I had some on an empty stomach, and then I kept burping all shift.

And, since I was wearing a KN95 mask, that meant I had like garlicky pork sausage burp trapped in my mask all night, and I had to keep breathing in that same air over and over.

It was disgusting.