One of the baristas at josé's local coffee shop always greets him by name and usually notices his mood. once when he was upset about something at school, he confided in her. she now asks how school is going and seems to care about his answer. how would we characterize her relationship with josé

The appropriate answer would be Consequential strangers. These are people or individual connections excluding family and close friends. This is otherwise known as "peripheral" or "weak" connections, they lie in the comprehensive social space who is stuck between strangers and relatives.

loess contribute to the flooding of rivers by providing the silt that is washed into rivers and constantly raises the bed of the rivers. this elevation above the surrounding flood plains and dams allow the river to overwhelm the dams and flood thousand of square miles of neighboring flood plains.