Psychology (2 of 2): Recreated memories.

When my last phone had died, I lost all of these photos from a trip from 2 falls ago, including one where I visited this small town in the cornfields that was the historic site of a quite important fringe religious event, and I was so hyped to visit it that I actually pulled off the road to take a picture of the town’s name on a carved wooden board on the way in, since it was just so small town-y and perfect on this slight rise banking in on a curving road between these just huge cornfields, and in front of it was a sign for like an American legion fishfry, too.

When I got back a copy of the picture from a friend who I had texted it to, though, the fishfry sign wasn’t in front of the larger town sign like I had remembered it to be, but rather it was several feet away from it to the side, with a clear separation in between them.

A recreated memory, where I assembled bits of recollections into verisimilitude that was later disproven!

Psychology (1 of 2): On the human ability to see images in random patterns.

This summer when I was catching up with the one (lesbian) sister of my one (former) (assisted living client) with (disabilities), we started talking about miracles and stuff like where people start to see images of the Virgin Mary in various random patterns of things.

And, she said it’s a very real and interesting psychological phenomenon, but these things do also happen in nature and in life, and that once she cut open a bell-pepper and in the center was a small goddess or divinity, just this perfect little figure made up of smaller peppers trapped inside the larger pepper like they sometimes are, and they were quite clearly peppers, but it was quite clearly a woman or some type of goddess manifesting, and with an enormous vulva.

“So what did you do with it?”, I was like.

“What do you think I did?”, she was like. “I ate it.”

Another endearing text from the one (gay) (Colombian) graduate student who I know from around town…

…when I texted him towards the end of summer in (Spanish), to see if he wanted to go out for drinks that night (i.e., vamos a beber esta noche “let’s go drink tonight”):

Mujer is Tuesday!!

. . .

(. . .)

Reappearance of a large group of (younger) (Iranian) customers.

A few times at the one (Thai) restaurant where I work now, there’s been a huge group of (younger) (like 30s-ish) (Iranian) customers who come in, including one time when they came in in a group of 10-12 on a busy night and expected to be seated right away and were getting upset because we weren’t clearing and assembling some tables fast enough, and we had to tell them that it helps if they call ahead so we can prepare for a table that big.

(Again, people would never do that sort of thing with a [non-Asian] restaurant, but with a[n Asian] restaurant, it’s like anything goes.)

So, like a few months after that, we get a call from them, and they say that like 14 or so of them are coming in in like 20 minutes.

(Better than nothing.)

It was fine, but one (slim) (beautiful) (female) from them looked very prim and mannered and a bit emotionally fragile, and you could just tell she was very particular about everything, and before the meal had even started and anything had arrived and I was running around, she stopped me to request a napkin, and I pointed out that hers was rolled around her silverware, since it was sitting off to her left, unrolled.

And, like ten minutes later, silverware still unrolled, she requested more napkins again (?), which I then dutifully brought out, because okay.

(When we cleaned the table at the end of the night, those two napkins were still sitting there by where had she satten, unused except for a ring of water on one from where she had rested her water-glass upon it.)

Also, when you have a table that big, they can run you ragged where you bring something out and then someone needs something else and you bring that out and then someone has another request, etc., so, like I always do, I affirm each request, and then I ask loudly to the table at large, “Does anyone have anything else they need right now, while I’m making this trip?”.

And, this one (bespectacled) (bearded) (somewhat frog-faced) (Iranian) guy just kind of looked up at me, and he seemed confused by my asking that and also a little uncomfortable, like somehow it wasn’t appropriate for me to ask something like that of the larger table.

(That didn’t sit well with me, so I kind of avoided the table after that.)

Towards the end of their meal, too, someone wanted more rice, and when I asked them if they wanted a full bowl of it or a bit to finish their meal, they said full, but when I gave them the spiel that we charge for a full bowl but not a bit to finish their meal, they quickly corrected themselves, and they said that they wanted just a bit to finish their meal.

(Okay.)

Accusation, and denouement.

A few months ago I was on the phone with my mother, and she was like, “What is that beeping?”, and I told her that it was probably a problem with the phone company or it was something that she was doing on her end, but she kept insisting that it was something that I was doing.

Then, after the conversation ended and I went to hang up, I looked at the face of my smartphone, and there was a long line of 1s on the screen where you dial, probably since my cheek had been pressing against that button-image there a lot when I was resting my phone on my shoulder and talking with her.

So, she was right. 

A WhatsApp message from the one (gay) (Colombian) grad student who I know…

…about the last of the set of Colombian sudoku puzzles that I had copied for him, to see how far he could get on it (it’s a variant of sudoku invented by a couple of Colombian guys, and it’s started to make regular appearances in a puzzle magazine that I subscribe to):

its impossible I am stucked

. . .

(. . .)

Some events at the one (Thai) restaurant where I work now…

…towards end of summer:

1) I turn on the water pitcher-filling slender small moveable faucet, and it’s misdirected and part of it squirts out past the sink and hits my one (chuibby) (Thai) coworker on her pants-leg.

“Why you do that?”, she’s like.

“Because I’m flirting with you,” I’m like.

2) My one (smily) (Guatemalan) coworker who always gets new styles with his haircuts comes in, and he has a fresh fade with this small neat stripe following his hairline in broad curves.

“Ay senor” (“Aiaiai, Mister”), I’m like, when I see that. “Que buena onda” (“What a sexy wave,” but also “What good vibes/fun”).

(Or at least I think that it translates to something like that.)

3) There’s a new sign board advertising a dinner special on slow nights, with pictures of various entrees beneath.

Only, I don’t pay attention too much, and then my one (Chinese from China) coworker points out that they’re all made by AI, and I look and they’re all weird, like what’s a pad thai also morphs into a portion of rice and like red soup on the side of the plate, and shit like that.

And, my one (Chinese from China) coworker keeps harping on it, saying things like he hoped that not that many customer noticed it, “Since if I saw that sign, I wouldn’t go into that restaurant,” and, “I don’t understand why he used AI, we have pictures of all of the food” (i.e. like the pictures they had used earlier in the year for the menu re-design).

(Thankfully, only table ever asks what one of the AI entrees is the entire time the sign is up, although I don’t handle it the best and I say that that picture was taken from online and it’s not something we have… I should have just said we’re out of it, although I suppose that response would have caused trouble if they had come back in the future and tried to order that dish.)