sistawendy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sistawendy) wrote2023-02-25 08:13 am
sistawendy) wrote2023-02-25 08:13 am
Entry tags:
weirdness in Wallingford
I'd heard that COVID boosters last about six months, so since my last one was in September I looked into scheduling another one at my nearest drugstore, Walgreen's in Wallingford. I looked at their web site on Thursday. Not only did they have appointments available late yesterday; they were cool with as little as two months since the previous shot. Groovy! So I made the appointment Thursday and had perfect bus mojo for the trip there yesterday.
The dude there, who I'm pretty sure was the same one who refused to give me a shot before I bopped over to London, once again refused when I gave him my vax card and told him my last one was a bivalent booster. He said something like, "You don't need another one."
"Until when?"
"They haven't said."
Well. We'll see what Dr. Funnyname has to say about that. As luck would have it, it'll be time for a second shingles shot at the end of next month, if I remember correctly.
I left disgruntled and hungry, so I bopped up the street to Issian*, which is one of my favorite Japanese places in the city. Unfortunately, the whole north end knows it's good: the wait for a bar seat was 45 minutes, so I bailed.
Molly Moon's is next door. I hadn't gotten ice cream there in a while because I'd heard their labor practices weren't so good, but I was intrigued when I saw a help-wanted sign painted on the front window extolling their benefits and working conditions. I ordered a single scoop of Yeti**, and tried to tip the young man behind the counter. No prompt at the register, no jar. I asked him what was up. "We've gone tipless," he said.
Which I'm more than a-OK with as long as that doesn't mean he's getting screwed. "I hope that's working out for you," I said quietly as I looked into his eyes. He gave no indication that it wasn't.
Dare I hope that sanity is breaking out in America?
But my father's voice inside my head said I needed real dinner, so I tried Kozue, the more sedate, old school Japanese place next to Issian. (Yeah, Wallingford has an unusual density of Japanese restaurants.) I'd never been there. Everything tasted... kind of strange: the otokoyama sake, which is my favorite, and the nabeyaki soba, which was a little low on the promised chicken. Yeah, Kozue is OK, but my advice is to make a reservation at Issian.
I bugged out before things could get any weirder. My Metro mojo deserted me on the way home, but luckily Wallingford is adjacent to Fremont and I was dressed warmly enough.
*"Issian" is pronounced ees-SHEE-ahn, but the stress is mobile in Japanese. The owners decided to use the same Romanization scheme that the Japanese government prefers. This is bad marketing, in my view, because even though it mimics the Japanese kana syllabaries, Westerners who haven't studied Japanese will find it misleading. Come to think of it, though, there are always tons of Japanese eating at Issian.
**Sweet cream, granola, chocolate chips. I should have picked a different flavor. The texture was so weird dude had to serve it to me in a cup with the cone on top.
The dude there, who I'm pretty sure was the same one who refused to give me a shot before I bopped over to London, once again refused when I gave him my vax card and told him my last one was a bivalent booster. He said something like, "You don't need another one."
"Until when?"
"They haven't said."
Well. We'll see what Dr. Funnyname has to say about that. As luck would have it, it'll be time for a second shingles shot at the end of next month, if I remember correctly.
I left disgruntled and hungry, so I bopped up the street to Issian*, which is one of my favorite Japanese places in the city. Unfortunately, the whole north end knows it's good: the wait for a bar seat was 45 minutes, so I bailed.
Molly Moon's is next door. I hadn't gotten ice cream there in a while because I'd heard their labor practices weren't so good, but I was intrigued when I saw a help-wanted sign painted on the front window extolling their benefits and working conditions. I ordered a single scoop of Yeti**, and tried to tip the young man behind the counter. No prompt at the register, no jar. I asked him what was up. "We've gone tipless," he said.
Which I'm more than a-OK with as long as that doesn't mean he's getting screwed. "I hope that's working out for you," I said quietly as I looked into his eyes. He gave no indication that it wasn't.
Dare I hope that sanity is breaking out in America?
But my father's voice inside my head said I needed real dinner, so I tried Kozue, the more sedate, old school Japanese place next to Issian. (Yeah, Wallingford has an unusual density of Japanese restaurants.) I'd never been there. Everything tasted... kind of strange: the otokoyama sake, which is my favorite, and the nabeyaki soba, which was a little low on the promised chicken. Yeah, Kozue is OK, but my advice is to make a reservation at Issian.
I bugged out before things could get any weirder. My Metro mojo deserted me on the way home, but luckily Wallingford is adjacent to Fremont and I was dressed warmly enough.
*"Issian" is pronounced ees-SHEE-ahn, but the stress is mobile in Japanese. The owners decided to use the same Romanization scheme that the Japanese government prefers. This is bad marketing, in my view, because even though it mimics the Japanese kana syllabaries, Westerners who haven't studied Japanese will find it misleading. Come to think of it, though, there are always tons of Japanese eating at Issian.
**Sweet cream, granola, chocolate chips. I should have picked a different flavor. The texture was so weird dude had to serve it to me in a cup with the cone on top.