A new feat of environmental neuroticism:

With all those bubble-wrap envelopes I've been saving from used books and CDs that I've ordered, I finally figured out a use for all of them -- I used them as packing material in place of bubble-wrap, to put around something fragile that I was mailing!

As they say, it "worked like a charm."

My new-ish schtick...

...from a few months ago at the one (Thai) restaurant where I work now:

When I deliver or ask about this one certain food, I call the rice paper-wrapped vegetable appetizer thingies "early autumn rolls."

. . .

(They're usually called "spring rolls.")

Two endearing aspects of my mother:

1) She cuts out word searches with themes that remind her of me or that she thinks I'd think are fun, and mails them to me in big batches so that I have something to do in spare moments around the house or at the one (Thai) restaurant where I work now.

2) She calls "kombucha" "kombuchi".

Interesting trivia...

...about the one (Thai) restaurant where I work now:

With that one (old time-y) (semi-secret) fraternal organization that has the second story storefront above the restaurant, they have a big neon sign in their window up there, and they also have a colorful painted logo on the glass door of the staircase going upstairs, that's right by our entrance.

Like this summer, some customers on the patio were asking me if the group was still active, and I told them yes, and that often on Wednesday nights you can smell the cigar smoke from upstairs.

And then I was like, "And a lot of times you can hear babies crying, but they sacrifice them pretty quickly, so it doesn't bother us too much."

. . .

Fun workplace encounter...

...last month at the one (Thai) restaurant where I work now:

I'm opening a bottle of wine just as the one (older) (Thai) cook comes out from in back and strolls by with his water bottle to go fill it, and when he sees what I'm doing, he all deadpan non-chalantly puts it down and holds it over like I should go fill it with the wine.

A slightly unfortunate coincidence...

...last month at the one (Thai) restaurant where I work now, after I bought a chocolate babka at the farmer's market and brought it in for everyone to share:

The day that I brought it in happened to be the first day of like a 9-day (Thai) feast where you go vegan, and so the one (older) (Thai) cook turned it down, and my one (chubby) (Thai) coworker said she'd turn it down because it might have eggs in it, except she had eggs that morning and so she'd try some anyways.

. . .

(In explaining the feast to me, my one [chubby] [Thai] coworker brought up a Wikipedia entry and showed me about the festival, only the information wasn't available in [English], so she had to bring it up in [Thai] and hit the translate button.)

Four restaurant happenings...

 ...the other week at the (Thai) restaurant where I work now:

1) My one (Pentecostal) (Guatemalan) coworker was wearing a hat from the local (state) university and a shirt that had something about (California) on it, and so I pointed out to him that he seemed confused, since he was wearing clothing from two different states in the same outfit.

2) A table of four (forgettable) (South Asians) leave $4 on a $67 bill, but a (lackadaisical) (froofy Farrah Fawcett-haired) (black eyeglassed) (late 20s) (South Asian) woman who was very very quiet leaves $5 on her small takeout order. 

Also, on another day, a (younger) (South Asian) couple with a small baby with a(n incredibly blocky wedge-shaped head almost exactly like the husband's) comes in and we have to get a high chair out, and the (slim) (ashy-skinned) wife gets soup and says her husband will try some and then maybe he'll get some soup then, which he doesn't but we have to go check about, which then makes me joke that if she gets up, she should be careful because he'll eat all her soup, and their meals have chicken in them which makes me think that they're maybe (Pakistani) or (Bangladeshi), and at one point their baby pokes a hole through his styrofoam cup and so we have to go get a new one for him.

(They left $20 on their modest bill.)

(Not all [South Asians]!)

3) The one (younger) (female) (Guatemalan) coworker reappears and starts working again after I had gotten told it was her last day and she was moving to her uncle's in California, no explanation given for her reappearance.

So, I told her several times "!La perdida ha volvido! ('the lost one has returned!') and "!Nuestra favorida volvio!" ('our favorite returned'), which she liked, especially the latter.

I also told her that the one (Guatemalan) guy who we started the diablo joke about had cried every day after she left, and she was like, really?, like she thought what I was saying was true and I wasn't just kidding.

4) The one (Guatemalan) guy who we started the diablo guy about has been trying to teach me a limited range of greetings in his (native) language, and when I said that I needed to find a grammar book of it, he said that he could get me one, but he'd have to call his friend in (Guatemala), and when I asked him more about it, he said that it was basically what they use to teach it in local schools there, and you could only get it there.

(I told him that that would be awesome, and I'd get it if it wasn't too much, and I'd pay him back for the book and for shipping. I mean, why not get it and d*ck around with the language, if I see native speakers every day!)