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colleagues questioned at Cancun
Monday, June 10 2019
Some weeks ago, my colleague Joe told me about witnessing the aftermath of a fatal motorcycle crash on US 209 as it gently arcs through Hurley. According to an article Joe sent to me via Slack, a Department of Corrections van had been involved in the motorcycle's crash. Joe said that he had seen the deceased covered by a sheet. Some days later, a shrine appeared on the east shoulder of US 209, directly across from Wynkoop intersection. The dead biker's name had evidently been Timmy, and he'd been both a Christian and a New York Yankees fan. A cross forms the skeleton of the shrine, and its arms are engraved with sports logos. The base of the cross is surrounded with flowers. I notice it every time I drive out onto 209 on my way to work.
There's a new developer in the workplace named Richard and today (amidst many setup tasks), Marc invited some of the others on the team (including me, but otherwise mostly the younger people working on the newest constellation of products) to come have lunch with the new guy. We all ended up going to Cancun, the festive Mexican restaurant in the center of Red Hook. You might expect a Mexican restaurant in the center of one of the area's WASPier villages to be a big douchebag hangout, where dudebros sneak knockout pills into the margaritas of women they meet at the bar. But, surprisingly, most of the people having lunch there today looked to be Hispanic families, some with kids. There were a couple gringos at the bar drinking noon margaritas, but there's always going to be some of that.
There were six of us, and we all sat together at a cobbled-together six top. Everybody ordered chicken dishes except me (I went for the veggie green burrito with no cheese or sour cream). Richard ordered in Spanish, and it later turned out that he was from Ecuador. To this I would say, "I've been to Ecuador. I've been to the Galapagos... twice!" But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Though Marc had organized the lunch, it was Richard who provided the framework for what we discussed. Initially he asked us to go around and give our respective professional stories. Among the young developers, the stories were pretty short, although Victoria's was interesting because she had started out at SUNY New Paltz majoring in art (and not even knowing how to use a thumb drive) and then switched to computer science when she realized she'd need a way to make a living. Marc, who was the oldest of us, told us of how his interest in computers began with programming a PDP-11 in high school. Then Richard asked a few questions one normally doesn't ask with a random mix of people, perhaps suggesting these wouldn't be odd questions in a similar situation in Ecuador. He asked about our politics, saying he was definitely a Democrat. I said I was a socialist, while all the young folks expressed disturbing levels of political apathy and know-nothingism. Richard also asked us our ages, which is something that just wouldn't be asked if everyone there had been American. I didn't give a fuck so I said "51," and when Richard expressed amazement that I looked so young, I said "maybe it's my vegan diet." All the other people at our table were in their early-to-mid 20s except for Marc, who seemed very reluctant to admit his age before saying "55." Richard then wanted to know what hobbies we did and what teevee shows, movies, and books we liked. I'm not much of a reader, but I was the only one to offer a book, the latest one by Jarded Diamond (whose title I couldn't remember). Nobody had much in the way of interesting hobbies, saying mostly that they like to play videogames. Victoria offered that she likes rock climbing. Marc said he was into some sort of nebulous religious and spiritual stuff (he was referring to some sort of online community he has told me about). As for me, I didn't know where to begin, so I said that I'm into wildlife photography and then making paintings based on some of the photography. I'd already mentioned my woodpecker cam after Richard brought up his interest in the Raspberry Pi (which I also know Victoria is into). When Andrew failed to bring up his carpentry interest (which I knew from seeing things on his screens), I reminded him and added that I'm into carpentry too. After I'd brought up the Galapagos and told everyone about how tame the animals there are, Victoria talked about the tameness of the deer at her house. This led to me telling the recent story of Neville and the fawn he'd dragged through the pet door and made himself miserable guarding. I didn't think it an especially good story, that it was mostly just on-topic, but based on my colleagues' reaction, it belongs in my rotation.
After I got home tonight, Gretchen and I both worked to remove staples from the stairs down to the basement, a miserable job that seemed destined to last for days. Gretchen estimated there were 100 staples in each of the 13 steps, so, yeah, do the math. Normally I would've been listening to a YouTube clip or podcasts, but tonight Gretchen was playing Calle 13, one of the Spanish-language music groups she'd started listening to in an effort to improve her facility with Spanish..
Just as Gretchen was about to start preparing dinner, Eva arrived with several plastic containers full of noodles in a cream sauce. This was as a token of our sympathy for the recent loss of Clarence the Cat. She stayed awhile and talked, mostly about the death of an adopted brother and the age-related decline of an inlaw. This led to a wide-ranging conversation about mortality, which reminded me of what my Dad used to say about the conversations of old people back before he himself became truly old: that the topics were restricted mostly to those related to illness and death.
After Eva left, Gretchen and I watched Jeopardy and at the noodles. They were rich and full of nutritional yeast, but their flavor profile was rather different from anything Gretchen would've done. They featured Indian spices, reminding me a bit of the body odor of a Pakistani cab driver, but in a good way. Once I'd tuned into the flavor, I found myself really liking it.
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?190610 feedback
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