Our regular baker, affectionately nicknamed “the Rock Star,” finally acknowledged me as a human being this fall. I really didn’t think it would take so long; she began to recognize me and predict my order after just a couple of months of regular patronage, and I saw her chatting happily with any number of other customers…I assumed that it would just be a matter of time. And so, when the moment seemed right, I struck up a light banter about a new sign in her window.”Oh no,” Kristina would gasp at this point in the story. “She’s so mean.”
She was pretty mean. Not “I’m just going to be nasty” mean, but more of an “I have absolutely no interest in even faking interest to be polite. And you’re really not especially funny.”
August was a relief after that; the Rock Star was away on vacation, and I got to know the sweet women at the powerhouse bakery around the corner–a branch of the one that you may recall from a previous post, that won third-best baguette in France last year. Not too shabby, right?
Pretty soon I had resolved only to go to the Rock Star on Tuesdays, when the other place was closed. So imagine my surprise on one such Tuesday when the Rock Star saw me, smiled, grabbed a baguette, and chirped, “Ça va bien?”
I think that Kristina suspected that I was lying about it, just to look cool.
Once again I was a devotee of the Rock Star, only going to around-the-corner bakery on weekends, when she was closed. Until that Sunday, when one of the pleasant, apple-cheeked workers noticed me, smiled, and asked, “Ça va bien?”
If you do the math, I’d gotten hundreds of more baguettes from the Rock Star, and yet we get to the same point, pleasantry-wise, in the same week? “It just feels so much less meaningful coming from them–I didn’t have to work nearly as hard for it,” I whined to Nick.
“You have the absolute worst relationship instincts,” he sighed.
And while I looked forward to agonizing indefinitely over the tough decisions ahead of me, breadwise, it occurred to me this week that the wedding is…soon. And that this is the point at which I might want to make the occasional sacrifice in order to get past my comfortable little fitness plateau. Predictably (what with how it’s me and all), it may be too late to make much of a difference, but skipping my daily half-baguette at least gives me the illusion of trying to be healthy, which allows me to pretend that the dull joint pain from the increased yoga is all part of a wonderful master plan.
Hey–in January, when I can let myself go again? Which baker do you think will welcome me back first?