My new (Spanish) greeting at work...

...at the one (Thai) restaurant where I work now, to greet any (male) (Guatemalan) coworker:

"Hola, Senor Amigo!"

. . .

They seem to be quite amused by that, particularly the (younger) (good-natured) (Guatemalan) coworker, who whenever I'm around seems to perk up in a good-natured way that is completely evident on his face, like he's just waiting there and wondering, "What the f*ck is this guy going to say and do next."

Really, it would be like some (Spanish-speaker) coming up to me and saying in (English), "Hello, Mr. Friend!".

The restaurant seems legit with its hiring and payment practices, but still, you wonder if some of them have used stolen social security numbers to gain employment, and it's like they traveled north by foot and on train and crossed the border with coyotes and got left in the desert, and then they finally get to the area where they have friends and family and connections, and suddenly there's this (middle-aged) (white) guy with (crazy) (non-existent) (Spanish) who always insists on trying to talk to them in his (crazy) (Spanish), and he's always like, "Hello, Mr. Friend!".

That must be crazy as f*ck for them.

Northern lights.

A while ago when the northern lights were visible across much of the country, me and my coworkers at the one (Thai) restaurant where I work now were discussing them, and whether and how much they'd be visible from where we live, when we got out of the restaurant that night and tried to look at the night-sky.

And, I told my one (older) (Thai) coworker who's a whiz at the phones that she should probably run home right away and throw her body over her garden-patch that she started as part of her new gardening hobby, to protect her plants from the solar radiation.

"Sure," she was like.

Though, later she also said that she couldn't throw herself on top of her garden, because of "thorn."

"Yes you could," I was like, "You just don't love your garden enough."

Later, too, I told my one (chubby) (Thai) coworker that a good place to see the northern lights might be from the miniature bluff in the lake park that's a decently short walk away from the restaurant, but as soon as I said that, I corrected myself and said not to go, because recently I've been seeing homeless people hanging out there to like charge their phones at an outlet, and also just hanging out there generally, and who knows what you'd find there if you went deep into the park alone by yourself late at night.

"Homelessness around town seems like it's getting worse again," I then was like, and my one (older) (Thai) coworker who's a whiz at the phones agreed with that sentiment, as well as with the recommendation not to go up to the park late at night, now, although she wouldn't have necessarily disagreed with the initial recommendation to try going up there in the past, she said.

Winter workout clothes.

Since my clothes that worked in fall weren't cutting it, I went to the local mall back in December and got a bunch of winter workout clothes, for jogging in the afternoon when the weather is in the 30s.

That was like a white turtleneck t-shirt to keep my throat warm, and tight thermal tights and a looser thermal top, and then like jogging pants, all of which I could combine with my regular socks and sneakers and sweatshirt and cap and thin gloves.

The first time I used them, I was pretty shocked how warm it kept me, all through the jog.

Rather amazing, in fact.

No wonder people buy that sh*t.

Reflections on butternut squash...

...after I bought one to start cooking with, as an experiment in autumnal soups:

1) The name "butternut" is kind of endearing.

2) Everyone says online that it's so hard to cut and peel them, and it is a little harder than normal, but it's not really all that bad, the knife went through no problem, and my standard home potato peeler worked just fine.

3) The smell when you cut it open is a bit like watermelon, and the look and texture is very much like super unripe cantaloupe.

. . .

(You can totally see the genetic relationship, of melons and squashes.)

White Lotus, Season Three.

My one (chubby) (Thai) coworker is very excited for the third season of the White Lotus, because her favorite K-pop star Lisa is going to have her first acting role in it.

She is adamant that Lisa earned it, and even though the person Lisa is dating is somehow related to the show, she said that she had to work for it and go through casting, just like everyone else, and people just don't want to believe in her talent.

After binge-watching the first two seasons, too, she said she's also interested to see what happens with the setting in (Thailand)...  The second season was set in (Italy), she said, and there were a lot of local actors and people speaking (Italian) in the background, and there was even (Italian) music used as part of the show's soundtrack, so she's wondering what equivalent stuff will happen with (Thailand).

COVID booster side effects.

When I got the COVID booster this season, I ended up having some side effects at night, again.

Like, I woke up at 4am and I was chilled to the bone, especially in my hands and feet and extremities, and I couldn't get them warm, even by placing my hands underneath my armpits or anything.

And, it wasn't like the temp had majorly dropped that night or anything; my covers should have been sufficient to keep me warm as I slept.

So, I decided to get up and put on a sweatshirt and shorts and socks to wear underneath the covers, but it took me a minute to be able to decide to finally go and do that, because for one I was groggy, and because for another I kept thinking that I would warm up, so I kept delaying getting up to do that.

Anyhow, when I finally got out of bed and went to walk to get the stuff out of my closet, my entire lower body from the waist down was just crazily intensely sore, like nothing in recent memory, like not even after jogging or a high intensity workout, my muscles were just that achy.

The next day, however, everything was gone, and I was back to normal again, apart from feeling off because of disrupted sleep.

I think I had chills last year, as well, or was that two years ago?

You still want the booster, of course; better those side effects as a consequence of gaining immunity than getting the actual sickness, especially since the sickness can bring on long COVID in some.

Still, though, it's interesting. I wonder if my body is particularly sensitive to this?

Three (younger) (female) (undergraduate-age) (South Asian-American) customers...

...who came into the one (Thai) restaurant where I work at, last year:

1) It's very very busy with an almost-full restaurant and we are running around helping tables in the order seated, and when we get to them, actually relatively quickly, they order one pad kee mao beef, which incidentally reveals them to be (Pakistani-American) or perhaps (Bangladeshi-American), but which they also insist is enough for the three of them, when I ask if perhaps they'd like another dish or two, too, for their meals.

2) Their food gets delivered, and as they're sitting there eating it and talking vivaciously and laughing and I'm still running around helping all the other tables, they energetically call me over as I'm walking by and interrupt what I'm doing, and  they tell me they'd like a second pad kee mao beef, and so I squeeze that in right then and there and go send their order to the kitchen right away.

3) Like twenty minutes later, they call me over and say they changed their minds and don't want it, and I say that that's probably no longer possible, and as I go back in the kitchen to check, there it is coming off the stove, and so I ferry it out and deliver it.

4) Out of the corner of my eye like two minutes later, I see them call over my one (chubby) (Thai) coworker and say something to her, and she immediately goes and brings them takeout stuff, presumably for the second pad kee mao beef that they decided they didn't want, since that's like the only food on the table, they hadn't ordered anything else.

5) They then sit there and eat all of the 2nd pad kee mao beef, not even using the takeout containers that they had specifically called someone over for, to have that brought out to them.

. . 

(That's a lot of immediate demands and course-changes -- an urgent second order, then an attempted cancellation, then a demand for takeout boxes, and then not using the takeout boxes and deciding to continue to eat there. That's actually like 4 different demands and course-changes, many of them doubling back on what they just demanded minutes earlier, and that's also a lot of energy for a single table that's buying just 2 dishes for 3 people and doesn't even care about wasting overhead for the restaurant by demanding unnecessary takeout boxes that they don't end up using. When I pointed out the full set of interactions to my one [chubby] [Thai] coworker, she just shook her head, since she had only brought them over the takeout boxes, and wasn't fully aware of what was going on.)