tengo hambre! soy cansado! amo mi vida!

One thing I love about my job is shifts with Judith, oh, and Yola; preferably night shifts. We've learned to nonverbally communicate, or at least not in real language, where i've learned from her animation and dynamism to grunt and laugh and swing your arms, and stare blankly when you don't understand. She does things like grab you by the neck with a smile as big as a jack-o-latern, after rude customers make unreasonable demands, she laughs uncontrollably and almost violently. Tonight, she came over by the sink, as I washed dish after dish, filling up rack after rack, saying in my horrible spanish: "Necesito limpiar y limpiar para mucho tiempo! Quiero parar! Soy cansado!" She grabbed her calves and stuck out her lips, grunting about her sore legs, she then pulled up the pant legs to her black slacks to reveal beautiful purple bruises on her shins. "caí un tazón grande en mi pierna - i, uh.... dropped a bowl on my leg," she laughs as she points over to the stack of porcelain bowls over by the grill.

Kristen told me when I first started working there, that Judith just recently started working here because Alberto gave her a job after her husband kicked her out of the house. I like that our relationship is simple and surface and happy....sometimes. But some days I want to tell her, in my worst accent, "Judith, pienso que eres muy bonita y divertido y simpatico y compasivo y maravilloso! no se porque tu esposo te dejaría! Pienso que el esta loco!"

Kristin left Jack Johnson in the cd player, and I like when Margie plays Fleetwood Mac, so I tried to put those on when we were closing (which I left at 10:45pm, and her and Yola were still there, and I have to open in the morning) but I accidently put on the cd before which was Mariachi, and the second it turned on, Judith did a little bull fighting chant of "aahh eeh eeeaaahh! arrrrrriba!" -- "te gusta el musica? ---- really?" her face lit up once again and I left it. She makes me happy, because the joy she inhabits, which surfaces from the littest of things, seeps out of her, and she shares just enough of it with me.