bakerygirlworld

The Affair of the Necklace

2005-03-22T20:08:00.000-05:00

This is the Necklace

This necklace is one of the only things I have ever seen in a display case and instinctively felt ought to belong to me. No- I felt that somehow, it DID belong to me. Have you ever felt that way about something, Gentle Readers?

This is old history- I saw the Necklace about five years ago and kept looking to see if it had been sold. It was prohibitively expensive, and although I mentioned it to my at the time husband, I didn't really expect to ever recieve it. So imagine my surprise on Christmas morning five years ago, when I found it hanging on a little bag on the tree at my family's house! My son is a year old, and this is my combined Christmas and baby anniversary gift.

It's nice,Dear Readers, after things fall apart, to find that you can pick through the memories of your old relationship and pull out the good ones. I'm not particularly materialistic, but I was so happy to put on this exotic beautiful piece of jewelry that I just really knew was supposed to be mine.

Later, J told me how he had gone to look for it, with only my description and that the sales girls had looked all over the cases and couldnt find it. Everyone assumed it had been sold, although no one remembered selling it.Then someone found it draped around a mannaquin's neck in the front window. I stopped wearing my wedding and engagement rings even before left my marriage- but I could still wear the Necklace with perfect happiness; a talisman picture postcard of a happy moment before anything went wrong.

Fast forward...It is a few months ago and I am starting my new job. Unlike at the bakery, I can wear my nice clothes, although our office is very very casual. On the first day, I wear a new skirt, and on the second day I wear the Necklace. I wear it over a heavy sweater, as it is very cold outside and chilly even in the office.

When I get home that night, I realize the Necklace is GONE. I drive back over to work, retrace my steps even though it is dark.No necklace to be found. Later,I send out an email asking my new co-workers to please keep an eye open for it and let me know if anyone finds it. People send general good luck wishes, but that's all.

When I am out at the copier that afternoon, one of the reporters from upstairs says 'Are you the one who lost a necklace?' He thinks he saw pieces of something out in the alley behind the building and leads me out.My heart is pounding, because I remember now that I had cut through the alley yesterday to move my car.

He kneels down in the dirty frozen slush. He is strong and muscular looking, compactly built with dark hair and keen eyes and a clever expression- like you might expect a reporter to look. Like someone who might see the crushed pieces of mosiac of a colorful necklace pressed into the grit and icy mud of an alley.

I can hardly breath and the only thing that keeps me from crying is how very cold it is. I kneel beside him and scrape the pieces into my hand as he walks in a circle around me and pickes up a small row of beads, a triangle of color, a scrap of chain. It has obviously been run over. The only parts we can still find are flattened and scarred, and those are only visible because the snow must have cushioned them a little.

I dont remember what else was said. I think he said it was too bad and maybe I could get it fixed and I think I thanked him. I remember thanking him later on, when the shock of losing this and then finding it again had worn off. I remember thinking that it was, after all, only a necklace. With so many other more precious things one could lose, it just shouldn't be so important. I tried to convince myself that this was just the universe moving me on; that now my old life was really and truly done with and that this loss was just a symbol of that. But none of that really made me feel any better.

I took the pieces in a baggie into the shop where it came from. As I let them fall out onto the counter, everyone gathered around to look with dismay, and the manager gathered up the bits and said that she would send them to the studio that had made it. The artist lives in Israel and who knew if it would do any good, but she would send it and see what happened.

Fast forward again to a few weeks ago. There is a message on my answering machine, saying that they have some news about my necklace, and can I please stop by the shop this week. The next day, I take an early break before lunch and walk over, wondering if they can somehow get another one made and how on earth I would pay for it, even if they could. Would it still be the same?

When I go in, they ask me to wait. Very excited, someone runs to the back for the manager,who comes out and reveals with a flourish- MY NECKLACE!!!

The colors are exactly the same. The mosaics,the beading, every tiny detail.The manager tells me that she wrote a long sad letter about what had happened and how much it had meant to me. The agent in the States forwarded the letter and the necklace to Ayala Bar's studio in Israel.They had one necklace left from this particular design.It had been a limited editon, and not many had been made in the first place. They fastened it around my neck and I couldn't help it- I started to cry.

When I asked them what I owed them for it, they told me I didnt owe them anything. I had my necklace back free of charge.I walked back to the office feeling bouyant and light. The weight of the talisman heart settled against my collarbones and I felt as if anything might be possible.

The moral of this story, Dear Readers, is that although necklaces, even precious ones are not important in the grand scheme of things, small gestures are. People still do good deeds with no benefit to themselves.

Not even good deeds to save someone else, or cure illness or feed hungy people.But they can do something nice just to make someone else feel BETTER. I have been trying very hard to remember that. You can do something-anything-for someone else and it may not ever be enough. But you can at least do something. Maybe such a small gesture can mean more than we think.

The other moral of this story, Dear Readers, is of course to always CHECK the clasp of your Necklace. Make sure that it is tight and in good repair. It will save you a lot of heartache in the end. xxxooo, Necklacegirl

2005-03-01T23:15:00.000-05:00

tying up my hair- and I got new earrings, too! :)

the Girl Goes Out

2005-03-01T22:01:00.000-05:00

Ok, since becoming NOT a bakerygirl, I haven't gone out a lot. Well, ok, I wasn't going out then either. At least not where there were drinks and music involved and all that.

When my dear friend Cyn very sensiblely pointed out that I wasn't going to meet people curled up on the sofa in my apartment watching DVDs of Buffy th Vampire Slayer, I decided she had a point and went with her to see a band called the Fabulous Janes, which she assured me would totally cheer me up.

Let me say that for pure uadulterated fun, the Janes *were* Fabulous. They do covers of all the songs you remember the words to- some whether you wanted to or not- with a punk spin and are just generally a great entertaining time, as well as being good musicians.

They were playing at some place in the burbs which neither of us had ever been to. I am completely lost once you get past the city and don't know the west suburbs at all, but with Mapquest we made it out there with plenty of time to spare.

Turns out they were playing at a North Beach Club, which is this sort of bar/dance floor/bowling alley/ volleyball club, with two giant rooms filled with sand and volleyballers in addition to the more bar-like areas. They also- for the record- served the tiniest mixed drinks known to man. Since I don't drink beer, it was a good thing I drove, because otherwise I might have been disappointed at how little actual alcohol there was in my so-called drink.

Dear Readers... is there anything like a night out? I felt weirdly out of place, but in my current insecure emotional state, I couldnt tell if it was just because it wasn't my sort of place and I *was* out of place, or if it was just me feeling like Donald Sutherland in 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' where the pod people all start wailing and pointing their arms at him, denouncing him as 'NOT ONE OF US!'

Cynthia pretty much made me get over that though. Thank God for our friends, huh? And, oddly enough, thank god for the big bachlorette party next to us, which came complete with little plastic penises to fit on all their straws so that everytime someone took a drink it looked like- you get it, right? Aunt Susie must have LOVED that!

But the penises were not even the real entertainment of the bachlorette party. It also included the one tremendously drunken woman everyone DOESN'T want attending their festivities. She was in her forties, with long blonde 20-something hair, and she got herself so incredibly plowed - on those tiny drinks, I might add-that it was, well... incredible.

Just when Cyn and I would think someone HAD to wade in and cut her off, she would knock over another giant glass of beer, or go up to some random guys and chat with them until they convinced her to reach inside her pants for...? not sure, didn't want to find out.

As for the guys themselves... let's just say that the tribe of young white men in plaid button-down shirts drinking lots of beer and behaving stupidly as if this is 'Girls Gone Wild Cancun XI' is alive and well. I am sure during normal daytime hours these guys are perfectly ordinary men. But there was something about the ambiance, the drunken bachlorette party, the sand, maybe? It drove them all in strange and unatractive ways.

The sand was kind of interesting. For the club floor, they took the vollyball area not in use and rolled carpeting over it. I had worn jeans and high heeled boots, nothing outragous. But I spent a large portion of the night trying not to turn an ankle, since the pitted surface of the carpeting made everyone lurch like a pegleged sailor, and dancing could be accomplished only by planting my heels firmly and sort of swaying around without moving my feet. Pumas for sure, next time.

The opening band were actually a tribute band to- the BoDeans, of all things. Now, ok, I can't say I don't like the BoDeans, because I can't even actually name one BoDeans song, except someone told me they did the theme song to 'Friends' which I didn't really watch, but hey, could anyone have lived in the US in the past, say, five years, and NOT have heard *that* at least once or twice?

That said, I think the BoDeans do a lot of sort of tuneful guitar-y kind of songs with guys singing in harmony and um, they weren't bad, but really maybe the BoDeans just sort of have ONE song and rearrange it around a lot? I couldn't honestly tell, with apologies to any BoDeans fans reading this. Maybe the sand just really played hell with the acoustics?

Anyway, this band was actually not *bad* or anything. They were all competent musicians and at least one guy had a really powerful voice. And I wondered, at what point do you decide you are just not going to make it as a *band* band, and instead decide to go for the steady gig of tribute band? And how do you pick who to trbute? Do you just admire the BoDeans profusely? Or do people keep coming up to you and saying ' Man, you guys sound just LIKE the BoDeans!'?

Cyn feels that neither of these views are correct and that in fact only a deep deep love and idolizaton and desire to emulate their idols would produce a BoDeans tribute band. She may be right, and at any rate, we did pass a relatively painless 40 minutes or so with them, which even involved some scattered applause and singing along, particularly from the bachlorette party.

Next came the girl who sat with us and got to the 'sloppy love of strangers' phase of drunkenness and kept hugging Cyn and I- also grabbing Cynthia's boob, which was pretty funny- and saying ' I LOVE you guys. I just LOVE YOU. I never like girls, but I love you!'

We patted her back and smiled at her and when she got to passing out point, we told her boyfriend to take her home. Turns out they had rented a room at a hotel across the street with the plan of getting 'totally shit-faced!' so they left somewhere in the second set. By this time we were up near the front of the stage dancing- well, ok, SWAYING- and after a while someone tapped me on the back, and it was the boyfriend back alone.

"Is she passed out?" I asked him, thinking he was kind of a jerk for coming back- but hey, if she is passed out, she isn't going to care, I guess.
"I don't know!" he yelled back over the music.
*blank look from me
"What do you mean 'you don't know'? Where is she? Not still here?"
"Nah, she's not here! She's fuckin' drunnk! I don' wanna deal with that shit- she's fucking drunk!"
*more blank look
"Well, yeah, but where IS she? Did you take her to the hotel?"
"Well, yeah, but she got out of the car!"
"What do you mean, 'got out of the car'? Where? On the highway? Is she passed out in a ditch somewhere??"

After a few hoarse shouted minutes of this, he managed to convey that he had gotten her to the parking lot of the hotel, she had gotten out of the car, and, pissed off, he revved up and drove back over to the club alone.

Ok, and here, is where I in my little glass house should not be casting stones. Because I did not leave the club to go and walk the nearby stretch of freeway or drive around hotel parking lots and see if I could find this girl.

I admit to being somewhat concerned, but decided if they had made it to the outside of the hotel, she must be ok, right? Ok, it is sad what fun cover music and cold weather will make us convince ourselves of sometimes, I admit it. But I was relieved the next day NOT to find any mention of women in their 20s dead in the ditch in Downers Grove. The boyfriend, sensing my disapproval, wandered off and I kept dancing and singing along with punk-flavored covers of things like 'Jack and Diane' and 'Don't Stop Believing'.

Come on, Dear Reader. Don't give me that look. *You* have all the words embedded in your brains too, and if you were there, you would have been singing and swaying staggeringly right beside me, I promise you.

Anyway, the band was great and I danced- without moving my feet, granted- and had one guy hit on me, telling me I looked 'amazingly hot' over and over and asking me what my favorite teams were-(um,hmmm?) neither of which was a huge turn on, but hey, it's nice to be noticed.

More confusing was his reaction to my age, which was to say 'no way!' several times, followed by the oh so flattering, ' But you sooo don't look that old!' After a certain point, even my female vanity finds that a tad offensive. After some of that 'dancing very close to someone else who is not actually dancing *with* you', he moved on to someone else. I was sort of glad- I'm sure he was basically a decent guy, but just not what the no-longer-a-bakerygirl needs.

Hands down, my favorite person of the evening - other than the oh so fabulous Janes and the always amazing Cynthia- was the ladies' room attendent. Surrouned by drunk girls with low rise jeans and stressed out hair tracking sand in all night long, she remained a bastion of calm, despensing paper towels, chewing gum, hair spray and tampax to the tipping and non- tipping alike.

Cracking jokes the entire time, making little comments- when I tied my hair up in the back to cool down, she said

"Oh now, girl! Dont TELL me you are gonna put up all that pretty hair!?"

I found myself much more flattered by that than by the 'amazingly hot' comments earlier. When a toilet stall got plugged up in a NASTY way, she was a drill sargeant, getting everyone in a line against the wall and going to the door and yelling out *basso profundo*

"WE DOWN TO TWO STALLS HERE, LADIES! THAT'S TWO STALLS FOR ALL OF US, SO LETS KEEP THE LINE MOVIN, AND *NO* TAMPONS IN THE BOWL! AND YOU-" this to another employee hurrying by-

"GET ME A MAN! I NEED A MAN WITH A PLUNGER AND I NEED HIM NOW, UH-HUH!"

When she came back in, we all clapped and she nodded and said,

"Ladies, you got that right! They got to be good for SOMETHING, right?!?"

I tipped her lavishly both times I was in and took a Cherry Blow-Pop to dip into my watery margarita. Getting home at 3, I took a shower to wash the smoke out of my hair, hung my smokey jeans by the back door, took some advil and went to bed.

By noon the next morning at the bookstore with Cynthia- my other very part time gig, have I told you all about that, Gentle Readers?- it all seemed but a passing dream.

So my little foray out into the world again went pretty well, even if I did feel like I was visiting someone else's nightlife world. But it did make me feel like I *could* go out to a nightclub again. Just that next time I am going to shoot for less sand- but be prepared for anything.
xxxooobakerygirl-no-longer

2005-02-18T00:42:00.000-05:00

5 AM bakerygirl

2005-02-18T00:10:00.000-05:00

and here she is now

Riddle: When is a bakerygirl NOT a bakerygirl?

2005-02-17T23:24:00.000-05:00

Answer: When she has become something else. Yes, Dear Readers.

Firstly, I owe you all an apology for disappearing. I didnt mean to, but I came back from Christmas and had a job interview and- got it! Which has been very very good in most ways, but I've been learning the ropes, and havent had much time. A lame excuse, I know, but there it is.

But now comes the question- if a blog is called bakerygirlworld and I am no longer a bakerygirl, then will all of you out there still want to read it? I can't promise any more Dakotafreaks- although I do have a funny anecdote about that- but every job has its quirks and characters and this one will not be any different.

But is the blog about the bakery or the girl? I cant decide. I never wanted this to be some kind of sad-sack rant about poor little me. But it seems like if one writes about oneself, that sooner or later some of that must creep in, and Im sure Im no exception.

But Gentle Readers, please weigh in and let me know- do you still want to read about the girl, even without a bakery to her name?

And, for those of you needing a Dakotafreak update- I stopped in last Sunday at the bakery. It was a gloomy, chilly, miserable day out, and it was totally empty, so I was talking to the girl who had taken my place. I asked her how it was going, etc. and she said she couldnt BELIEVE some of the people. She said it was really sweet how nice some of the regulars were- and then said,
"But some of those people- like the ones who come in for Dakota! I mean, lady, it's just BREAD!"

And so, the torch is passed on to a new generation of bakerygirls... Let me know if I ought to keep going with this, dear Readers? Perhaps you can all wait a few days and then meet...

ADGIRL

Christmas Eve in Ohio

2004-12-24T14:23:00.000-05:00

'High on the ends and round in the middle.'
Yes, sometimes people from Ohio actually say that, at least where I am from. I am back from my drive out into amish country to get a ham from Sugar Valley Meats. My dad went with me and we took my car which has four wheel drive.

Has anyone ever seen the movie 'The Ice Storm' by Ang Lee? That is what it looks like out there, only with trees and fields and barns and fences. The roads there are always bad; very twisty and hilly, except in the really touristy parts, where the main county road was expanded and straightened out for tour buses to get through. Droves of elderly people come out to eat at authentic amish resturants ( basic meat and potatoes, but always with the obligitory salad bar that seems to be a part of any tourist destination) and to buy handmade furniture and quilts. I have a lovely one from the 30s that was restored by a group of amish women who work together in a little shop behind their house. It is off the beaten path though- my dad drills water wells and has been working and driving out here for years and so the touristy areas are not really our thing. Its nice enough, but REALLY commercialized now.

But if you go way 'out in the county' the roads are still narrow and none of the farms have electricity- although the ice was so bad last night that the entire county lost power. My dad's partner who is now retired and housebound lives out there and we had to drive out last night at 2 am and hook up a generator for him.

But the view was more than worth the drive out and the icy roads. As we came around a hairpin curve, the huge masses of grey clouds parted and solid rays of sunlight that looked like sticks of butter came through and struck on a grove of icebound trees on the crest of the hillside. It was as if someone had lit up a thousand spears of ice from inside, gleaming and sharp and lovely. It was so beautiful it didn't even look real- one of nature's better homemade special effects. :)

Some of the trees were so weighted at their crowns with ice that they were bent nearly over to the ground with it, the trunks curved like bows with glittering bouquets of ice at their ends, touching the crusted snow on the fields.

Despite all of this, we actually have very little snow here in the Tuscaruwus River Valley. Unlike the area just to the south of us, the main block of the storms seems to have missed us, although we do have flurries going on.

The house is warm and the tree is lit and the presents are almost all wrapped. Soon I am starting dinner, which is going to be: pork roast with cranberry fool marinade and sauce, crusted with crushed pecans, red pepper fettucini with a little cream and some herbs, spinach salad with goat cheese and walnuts and bacon dressing, caluflower and broccoli baked with some toasted bread crumbs and for dessert, baked apples with vanilla bean ice cream. Yum.

While I'm cooking I think I will watch a christmas movie. My mother is addicted to Turner Classics and has a small tv in the kitchen, which I have to admit is convenient for long projects. I will watch 'Christmas in Conneticuit' with Barbara Stanwyck or maybe 'The Bishop's Wife' with Irene Dunn and Cary Grant.

Heh, this is getting all domestic and Women's Day- like, isnt it? Next thing you know I will be giving you all an esy recipie for gilding plastic cups with edible sugar and making them into angels for your kids to eat, all totally LO FAT, or something like that. ;)
Nawww.... I wouldnt do that to you.

Its just that I seldom have an oppurtunity to exercise my fearsomely capable domestic talents of late, so I am actually having FUN doing all this and driving my mom around with her broken arm etc. I have always liked the holidays and seldom stress about them specifically.

In case I dont talk to you all for a day or so, have a merry Christmas or whatever you celebrate. If you are not at all religious, then simply have a happy ANYTHING anyway. Go outside and look at the wonderful beauty of the cold and ice and think northernly thoughts. There is a tremendous clarity in the ice and cold- I think it is good for us to be exposed to it once in a while.

xxxooo, bakerygirl

Here we are in Ohio-NOT at the bakery!

2004-12-23T09:28:00.000-05:00

Yes, yes, I have returned to my roots for the holidays. I came home and became an aunt again- a girl this time, which seems promising since I never get to buy girly stuff for anyone but myself.

My cousin died yesterday morning. She did not want us to come to Florida for a memorial now- she told my mother to stay home and enjoy the new baby and the holidays so that is what we will do. In my heart at least, I had already said goodbye. It is hard going- everything reminds us of her- and my mother is very sad on top of having a badly broken arm, so I am rushing around like a crazy person trying to be full of holiday-ness and cheer!

heh...

The drive here went well, but we have had sleet all night and now everything is covered in ice. I have to drive out the twisty county roads later into amish country and pick up a ham at Sugar Valley Meats for christmas morning and I am not looking forward to it at all. Hopefully I can avoid skidding into a buggy or running some freezing little kids off the side of the road. But the ham will be good.

My father cornered me yesterday and asked me if I had gotten my mom anything when she and I were out the other day. Since she had been WITH me, I told him no and he informed me he hasnt gotten her a gift yet and thinks she got HIM something even though they werent going to do gifts for each other, etc... ah, the intrigue and drama that surrounds family christmas!! I have no idea what to get her from him- I wish he had asked me before I left Chicago, and I could have found something cool, but here the choices at the local mall are, ahem!, rather limited. Maybe I'll check her Amazon wishlist...

Yes, this is now deteriorating into standard blogger musing aloud to one's self ;)

But something a bit interesting about the bakery: For the past several days our afternoons have revolved around making up gift boxes of fresh bread to be mailed out for people at exhorbitant prices. Some are corporate gifts, some family, and I have been getting a kick out of reading the little private messages we have to write on a gift card when we pack them.

For example, why did ONE aunt get the Extravaganza gift box and 'all our love' , while another got the much cheaper Basic box and just a 'love, so and so'? Has it always been that way? Was there a falling out of some sort? Or the recipients of a box- a couple? sisters?- named 'Fern and Laverrne' I mean, were their parents just cruelly attracted to rhyme or did they meet someplace and hit it off? Try saying Fern and Laverrne fast five times...

But other than the call of the Rat Lady, another Gift Box best was the fact that UPS brought back six of them the other day. One had a sticker on it that said ' could not find address, directions needed'.

??? Come on! You are UPS, for gods sake! Don't you have GPS or something? The box looked pretty clearly addressed to someplace in central Florida- maybe it has sunk into the Okeefanokee swamps or something.
But the others had huge red stamps on them saying 'REFUSED DELIVERY!RETURN TO SENDER!' This also sends my over active brain/imagination into hyperdrive. WHY did you return it? Did you think you had to pay for it, even though the box is clearly marked ' A Gift For You!' all over it? Was there some massive familial issue that we- and perhaps the sender- were unaware of? ( "If Uncle Jim thinks a lousy box of free bread is going to make up for this, he has another thing coming! Send it back!That'll show him!") ??

Actually, Maddy's idea was the best. She said they must all have been on the Lo-Carb diet and the mere sight of a box of bread started to give them the cold shakes as they returned it safely back with the UPS guy so they wouldnt be tempted. Knowing how some of our lo-carb people can be, that is a sadly plausible theory.

Well, gentle readers, there are presents to be wrapped, dishes to do, and I have to take my mother to get her hair cut since she cannot drive anywhere. W is feeling stir crazy and so am I. We will go down to the basement soon and dig out the old little village of houses and nativity that go under the tree. But...

I look out of my icy window and it is snowing. Big heavy flakes that look like they will stick to the ice and coat it and at least make it LOOK like Christmas. Pretty soon it will FEEL like it too.

I promise.
xxxooo bakerygirl

wow

2004-12-19T19:24:00.000-05:00

First off I would like to really thank everyone for the terrific and supportive emails and messages they sent after reading my last entry. I have been too busy/depressed to write for a few days, but just knowing that people out there pay attention to random things in this world and are willing to actually take the time to write something nice to someone they dont even know is a heartning thing. Thank you all so much for being kind.

It's funny. I definitely crossed a line with my last post. When I began this blog only a few posts ago, I had sort of decided it would remain strictly about the bakery. I also decided that although I would mention my coworkers, boss, etc, that I wouldnt get too personal or hurtful about them, just on the unlikely but off chance they read this.

But mainly I had decided to not talk too much about myself and turn this into some sort of sad little personal journal of lost hopes or whatever. But its really hard to seperate personal from bakery. And sometimes the only things you can think about or write about are the important ones on your mind. So maybe it isnt such a bad thing to get them out there and to write about them.

People have been pretty mellow at the bakery lately. I think they are all so focused on the holidays and such that they mostly just want to get in and get out. But we did have one lady who called about a gift box she had recieved and claimed it had been chewed on and eaten away by RATS!!!!

According to her, she was not home when UPS delivered the package. Thus it sat on her porch for a day or two.Her daughter had sent her the same thing last year and she 'didn't really like it then and didnt want another one', and she claimed that the bread inside the box had been chewed on and obviously eaten by rats and we must have mailed it out of our 'warehouse' that way!

Yes, dear lady. We looked at the fifty or so giftboxes freshly put together and ready to be mailed that afternoon and saw one with holes chewed in it and rats swarming over it and said to one another, "Ah, yes! She didnt like the gift box last year? Well, just WAIT until she sees this one!"

I almost wish that were true. ;)

xxxooo bakerygirl

sad

2004-12-15T01:42:00.000-05:00

It is so late and I ought to be in bed, but I have to make cupcakes for W’s preschool tomorrow and I just got off the phone with my mother and I am so sad and I wish there was someone here to hold me or just to talk to, but there isn’t.
My cousin Robyn in Florida is finally dying. They are bringing her home from the hospital tomorrow, and it could be hours or maybe a couple of weeks at the most. She is only in her fifties, but the cancer came on so fast and was so bad that there wasn’t much they could do about it. The really terrible irony is that she was always a very healthy person, a massage therapist. The last time I saw her was about six months ago and she was already very sick from the chemo, but she was still beautiful and ethereal looking.

She has always had the most beautiful hands- small but with long smooth fingers that looked delicate but were very strong. And she has lovely clear grey eyes and she laughed and laughed and loves animals and children and art and is very kind and funny and clever. We have all had such good times together, she and my mother and her daughter Gretchen and I. Isnt it funny how things that make you so happy and are such GOOD memories can become so painful to you for just those reasons in the blink of an eye?

I emailed Gretchen and told her if she needs me to come down to help her either practically or for moral support,that I will be there, and I will. I HATE not being able to just drop everything and go now, but I cant. My mother is in Ohio with her broken arm and she cannot go either. My brother’s second baby is due to be born any day and Robyn told my mother to stay to be there when the baby is born. She said that if she passes it, she will give it a hug along the way. My mother told me that and we both started to cry on opposite ends of the phone.

I am crying now and trying to be quiet so I don’t wake W up. Some things in this life are just sad and wrong and it is hard to find any good in them, and this is one of them. I am one of the practical ones in the family. We are good at funerals and things like that; we bring homemade bread and food and quietly organize and clear up after everyone leaves and make cups of tea and look at old pictures. But I feel bereft, and it makes me realize that somehow throughout this past year of her being so ill, I have been pushing it away so that I didn’t have to be sad about it, because there have been so many other things to worry about. Now it is coming down to my not being able to do that, and I have to just BE sad and get that aside, so that I can be useful when the time comes and try to find some comfort in that because I don’t feel ANY otherwise.

And selfishly I hate being alone right now. I just want someone to hold me and to curl up around me and smooth my hair back while I cry and tell me it will be all right, even if it really isn’t. I cant think of anyone to call on the phone at this time of night who is close enough to come over and just… be here with me. And I hate that. I wish that I was not on my own tonight. I almost want to wake W up just for the company, I am feeling so down, but that would only scare him and make me regret it at a quarter to six tomorrow morning.

Its funny, I was reading earlier and I came across a quote from William Blake that reminded me of Robyn perfectly. I have to remember to send it to Gretchen:

‘He whose face gives no light will never become a star.’

Some night soon I will look up at the sky, and my cousin will be shining there. She has given so much light already.

Ok, very tired, very down, still have cupcakes to make before bed…

Things the bakerygirl likes

2004-12-09T23:39:00.000-05:00

I really love Found magazine. I believe they also have a wewbsite. This guy just started collecting found notes and scraps of paper and now people mail them in to him and he publishes them and its amazing what he comes up with.

I thought about this because I opened the basement door in the bakery for the first time tonight. There is this tall good looking guy with pierced ears who works up the street and it turns out he used to be a manager here at the bakery, which I hadnt known.

We always smile and say hows it going when he stops in for juice or sodas, but he also had a cd in his hand once and I asked him what it was, he said condescendingly,

"Oh, you wouldn't know them."

Having once booked bands for a living I was a little insulted and said,

"How on earth would you know if I would or not?"

He looked surprised and showed it to me; it was an early album by the Jam. I told him who that were and that they played ska music and his eyebrows shot up and he mumbled something about how not many people were into ska music.

Weird. It later occured to me thhat maybe I ought to be flattered and he hadnt thought I was OLD enough to know who the Jam were or something? Anyway... to return to the subject at hand...

He showed up and asked if I would open up the basement door and let them store a table for the popcorn shop in our back storeroom, since it was too wide to go through their door. He went around to meet me down there and I went and opened the door. I found him convulsed with laughter at a lavender piece of paper taped to the outer side of the bakery basement door. It read:

Julio- There is no money in the bakery. There is no reason for you to break in again and try to steal anything. We know it is you! If you want to try and break in and test our NEW SECURITY SYSTEM, be my guest!

It seems a former employee had been breaking in a while back and the owner had left up this note. But the earring guy just kept cracking up and finally shook his head and said,

"Like anyone would BELIEVE that the owner would spring for A SECURITY SYSTEM!"

I am considering copying this note and sending it to Found. It was just so vehement - and so pointless.

I also really like Gingerbread Lattes. I am so very broke that I do not allow myself to enter any coffee exstablishments- thank god all my ordinary caffinated needs are being met by the bakery just now- but, mmmmm, crave...

I like Daisy Goodwin's collection of 101 Poems to get you through the Day and Night. Normally I dont care much for random poetry collections with pithy titles, but this one is not at all mawkish and has some particularly good stuff in it.

I like spinach salad with walnuts and dried cranberries and bleu cheese and that weird sweet bacon dressing that SHOULDN'T taste good, but somehow does with spinach. In fact, I just ate one.

I like my bed. It actually isnt mine- a lovely friend donated it to me when I moved, but it is SUCH a terrific bed with wrought iron and wicker panels and really sturdy with lovely firm mattresses. I sleep so well in it when I do fall asleep that I am still appreciating it.

I am reading the novel 'The Time Traveller's Wife' and I really like it. It is so well written and poignant, and all of it takes place in Chicago right during the time from when I moved here to now, so I feel a certain kindred spirit with it. Everyone go read it!

I like my piano, which I have not been able to play now for about four months. * sadness from the bakerygirl* The piano tuner only takes cash and I do not have the extra money to get it done and it is really so out of tune from being moved that playing it just now is out of the question. It sits here in the dining room and I have a bowl of apples on the bench, but I feel as if it is becoming quietly resentful of its inactivity. I want to start teaching W as well, so everyone cross your fingers for piano-tuning money in the new year.

I like lots of other things as well, but I need to do some reading before bed and so I must bid you all adieu, dear readers. Everyone go look for Found 's website and read The Time Traveller's Wife. Appreciate your comfy beds and the friends who gave them to you- ok, unlikely, but you never know- and if you have a piano or other musical insturment, play it for me!

xxxooo bakerygirl

In Case I've Been Too Bitchy...

2004-12-09T01:49:00.000-05:00

In case I've been too bitchy a bakerygirl and given the impression that everyone who comes into the bakery is a nasty idiot, I would like to take a moment to give some recognition to all the NICE people who come in so often and make my day a little more pleasant. I know I wont name you all here, but this is a sampling...

The lady who turns 75 this week with the lovely white hair. You used to work for the FBI and you come in every week for two bottles of juice and two cinnamon rolls that you take to a friend who is housebound. You are always charming and interesting to talk to, and today you said that you didnt want to live too long- just as long as you could get around and be the way you were, although you felt old today. M'am- you are the kind of old we should all hope to get.

The nice Indian man who wears the black fedora hat. You are always pleasant to me and ask how I am as if you are really interested. You are going home to India for the holidays and seem so happy about it- I really want you to have a great trip and tell me about it when you return.

Spirit from Texas. You are just so friendly and cool and charming. You have a son only a little older than mine and I think I could really be friends with you. Seeing you always makes everyone in the bakery have a better morning. I also dig it that your hair is so short.

The Carabou Coffee people who sneak over to buy themselves muffins- solidarity brothers and sisters! We like Holiday Lattes over here too, so its a fair deal.

All the women who work for SBC up the street. On the day your managers made you wear the horribly unattractive, ill-fitting marroon, white and green striped golf shirts, I felt your pain. It was weird seeing all of you coming in all morning in the same clothes though. But you are all always polite, pleasant and tidy, even when you are in a hurry.

The tall black guy from the office next door. You are hands down the Best Dressed Man who visits the bakery. Seriously, every day you just look really great and really comfortable no matter what you have on. You are our fashion guru at the bakery.

The Raspberry Muffin Guy. You are just always SO cheerful and funny and you LOVE the raspberry muffins so much without being a freak about them. Thank you for that.

The very petite blonde woman with the stylish coats. You always want a certain coffee and are never mean to me if we run out of it when you come in. Thank you.

The construction workers from the building crew across the street. You all flirt with us and call me honey and are just generally sweet and fun to joke around with.

The two mexican guys who do maitenance at the condos on the other side of us and come in to heat up your lunches in our microwave. You are both always so polite and always ask if you can use the microwave, even though you must know by now that its cool with us. And what you bring always smells SO good.

The lady with the skin disease on her face. The first time I saw you, I forced my features and voice to stay normal as I helped you and tried not to LOOK like I was looking at you too closely. The next time you came in, I didnt notice so much and now I dont notice it at all. I grew protective of you because of your niceness and polite ways and hoped no one was mean to you. We have wondered if this condition is something you developed as an adult or had to live with as a child- it would have been very difficult either way. When you got your bread one day and I offered to help you carry it, you told me your husband was waiting to help you in the car, and I felt a sense of relief and of satisfaction that you had someone to take care of you and love you and help with your bags. You are a kind and courageous lady. Thank you for allowing me to help you in your day.

All of the moms and nannies who pick up after their kids and take a break in the corner. Thank you for that- we really do notice who does and who doesnt and your politeness makes a difference.

i know there are lots more people I might thank, but for now, its bedtime for a bakerygirl.

sleep well, xxxooo bakerygirl

Solidarity

2004-12-04T20:18:00.001-05:00

Its funny how the bakery can be like a little disfunctional family. Like most jobs, there are people there whom I like, people whom I take little notice of and sometimes we all drive one another buggy. Usually its over small things, but we do get on each others' nerves. Sometimes this evolves into outright hostility, but usually it is confined to rolled eyes and under the breath bitching about other people.

But no matter what your feelings towards a fellow bakeryperson, there is an unspoken code of conduct involving customers. If someone is nasty to you without good reason, your co-workers will not only step up to the counter and take one for the team, sparing you the pain of waiting on them, they will subtly make the interloper pay for mistreating you.

Case in point:

We have a small group of teenage friends who come in from the high school for lunch almost every day. We refer to them as 'the nice teenagers'. They are all pleasant, not too loud, say hi to us and clean up after themselves before they leave and vacate the childrens' corner if little kids come in.

But sometimes other kids come in at lunch and are in a hurry and push and shove and are generally annoying. A bunch of them were in one day and as I was waiting for a girl to choose the PERFECT cinnamon roll from the tray, this kid shoves in beside her and starts loudly demanding a cup of water from me.

I ignored him and then looked at him and said slowly,

"I'm waiting on her right now. If you hang on, I'll be right with you." in my best blank voice.

The kid gave me a LOOK and then said in a whiney voice,

"I KNOW her. She's a friend of mine."

I look at him again and say,

"And as soon as I'm done waiting on your FRIEND, I'll be free to take care of you."

He looks slightly stunned, then asks again for a cup of water. Normally we dont give them out, but for some reason I decide to just give him one to get rid of him.

Critical bakerygirl error there.

I hand him a paper cup of tap water and he looks at it, then at me and says witheringly,

"Dont you have any ICE?"

At this point a wall of massive I-Have-Had-It-With-You slams down over my brain, and I look him in the eye and say slowly and carefully as if to a person reading lips,

"No, in fact, we do NOT have any ice. Because this is a bakery and we BAKE things. We dont freeze them. In fact, I dont think we have a freezer in the entire place. There is a cooler over there with cold bottles of water that you can BUY, if that's what you want."

His face goes white- not sure if its from shock at being reprimanded by a mere bakerygirl or from rage/embarassment at it happening in front of his friends- and he slouchs back from the counter.

A few minutes later the gang is about to depart and he comes up to the counter again and says to me huffily,

"You know, your customer service SUCKS! You have a really bad attitude problem." in a so-there! kind of way.

I am livid. I must stop myself from leaping over the counter and throttling this dumb kid. Instead I give him my very best narrow-eyed look and say,

"Oh really? YOU are telling ME that I have a bad attitude while you drink your free cup of water and eat your free slice of bread? Give me a break, kid."

He suddenly looks as if he might cry, he is so angry. If I weren't so angry myself, I might be upset at the ludicrisnous of the situation and how he has pushed my buttons. But then he runs to the door and yells back at me,

"SHUT UP! JUST SHUT UP!" as he runs out onto the sidewalk.

I am furious. My hands are shaking, my co-workers concern falls on deaf ears. It takes me more than a day to get over being upset about this snotty kid- and worse, I am really upset at my own reaction, at my own buying into the imaginary importance of this little scenario in either of our lives as a whole. I mean, what the hell??!! I was ready to strangle some spoiled kid for being nasty to me- why did it even bother me?

But it did, dear readers, it did.

However life moves on and new people come in and we all get over things eventually. Then last week I was behind the shelf by the coffee racks when I saw this dark haired kid come in and - it was him! No way in hell I was waiting on him, so I stayed behind the shelf while he stood there aimlessly at the counter.

Then he looked over and met my eyes and I gave him a really dirty look. His eyes narrowed as I walked out from behind the shelf and towards the back, totally ignoring him. Katie glanced at me, then at him and walked up to the counter, planting herself sqaurely in front of the kid.

He sideled around, trying to look past her at me and she took a step to the side, blocking his view. He craned his neck the other way and did it again and once more she gave him a direct glare and blocked his line of sight again. Stone-faced she cut him a piece of bread and then he high tailed it out of the bakery and Katie came back to the table with me and we shared a moment of sisterhood. We may all get on each other's nerves, but even in dysfunctional families, if you pick a fight with one kid, you usually end up fighting them all. Thank you, Katie ;)

xxxooo, bakerygirl

Dakotafreaks

2004-12-04T20:18:00.000-05:00

Dakotafreak One

Some people get more worked up over bread than others. Some people get more particularly worked up over certain TYPES of bread than others. We make a bread called 'Dakota'. It is a wheat bread with seeds and although it is fairly tasty, I just dont get the weird loyalty it inspires.

We only make this bread a couple of times a week, so people whose lives depend on having it need to make sure they pick it up on that day or call us to reserve some loaves. I am always surprised at people's unwillingness to do this. They KNOW they want the bread, they must KNOW they will be pissed off if they come in and it is all gone- so why not save themselves the worry and stress and general uncertainty of life and just ORDER it so it will be here waiting for them?

But mostly, they don't. This leads to all sorts of frantic scanning of the racks for dakota and veiled threats thinly disguised as humor - 'Now you DO have some dakota for me THIS week, dont you? You know how upset I get if you dont have it, ha ha'- and also craned necks into the back kitchen and saying in faintly confused tones, ' but are you SURE you dont have any anywhere else? Maybe in the back?'

Our stock sotto voce reply to that one at the back worktable is ' just one moment sir/m'am, while I pull a loaf of dakota out of my ass. For you know that is where all bread comes from'. We often roll our eyes at one another while we say this as well.

Dakotafreaks are a suspicious lot, even more so than people looking for raspberry muffins or the last Cinnamon Swirl. They doubt not only you and everything you tell them, but also the proof of their own senses as well; although there is no dakota to be SEEN, and no sign up for it and you have told them you are sold out or that it wont be made until Saturday (usually to the SAME PEOPLE every week, sigh) they keep looking for it and making confused noises like kittens being weaned.

Last week the dough for the dakota sat too long and overproofed and we had to just dump it. It was too late in the bake to start any more at that point, so we just didnt have any. It was a sad damn day in Mudville that day, I can tell you. I felt like I was telling kids on Christmas morning that there wasnt any Santa when the faces fell and then turned to glares as they either settled for some other bread or stalked out.

Then a woman called the other day and wanted to know if we were still making dakota on Saturday and I told her yes. The conversation then went something like this:

"Well, I know you USUALLY do, but last week you told me it went bad and you DIDNT have any. I just wanted to make sure that wasnt going to be a regular occurence, because I NEED to be sure I'll have it."

"No, m'am, we're still on the same schedule. It was just a freak thing with the dough; it almost never happens."

"So you're GUARENTEEING me that it wont happen again this week? If I place an order, you guarentee nothing will go wrong with the dough?"

*brief blank pause from Bakerygirl while I ask silently for strength*

"M'am, I can't guarentee that nothing will go wrong; things go wrong sometimes, it was sort of like an Act of God, you know? But it happens very VERY rarely and it's REALLY unlikely that there will be any problem with it this week."

*note of pained triumph in customer's voice*

"So what you're saying then is that you CANT guarentee that it will be there! If I call first thing in the morning can you tell me if its ready?"

"It wont be ready until about 10 am, m'am. But if you would like to call in the morning you're certainly welcome to."

"Ten am?!" *shocked surprise* "Isn't that awfully late? It's such a GOOD bread, I would think you'd make it the very first thing!"

(customers not only assume that their favorite bread is EVERYONE'S favorite- they also don't seem to understand that the entire concept of fresh bread means that it requires mixing and actual, you know, BAKING. When told it will not be immediately available any time of day or night for their personal convienence, they often get wiggy)

*suspicious final note in customer's voice*

"are you sure this bread is fresh?"

She placed an order for that Saturday for ten loaves which your Bakerygirl dutifully recorded and filed on the proper day. When I came in at noon on Saturday, one of the other girls told me she had called in the morning after it was made and cancelled the entire order.

***

Dakotafreak II

This was really weird. I was closing on a Saturday with Liz, one of the high school girls and at EXACTLY five thirty I locked first the side door and then the front. Just as I was leaving the front door, a girl came up and tried the door and I said, ' sorry, we're closing' and she turned and left.

About five minutes later I was washing out the coffee stuff and I hear this pounding on the glass side door. Liz was mopping the floor nearby and went to investigate and I saw her leaning into the glass to see or hear what the person on the other side was saying. She backed carefully away from the door, as if it held back a tiger or something, not turning her face from it until she was closer to me and said with wide eyes,

"Bakerygirl, this woman says we closed up early and when she sent her daughter for bread we wouldnt let her in. She's ... freaking out."

And boy was she. She was tapping her fingers on the glass door, which was an improvement over the Graduate-like pounding from earlier, but still. So I walked over and unlocked the door and let her in. She immediately got up in my face, so my impression of her was very clear and is still somewhat imprinted upon my brain:

She was bony and thin, possibly early forties with that unnaturally tight skin around her eyes and jaw that you get from a few nip and tucks too many. She had an orangish out of season tan, and was wearing what was an obviously expensive camel cashmere wrap with a giant and very ugly fake flower jewel/fabric thing on the shoulder. Low waist jeans in sized super skinny sort of hung from her hips and made her look sort of like an aging soon to be mummified Brittney Spears' mother wanna be. The overall effect was so UN-sexy looking it was creepy.

Thrusting a bony wrist under my nose as if she were going to shove her diamond and silver watch up my nostril, the customer starting ranting, I mean REALLY ranting about how it had NOT been five thirty yet when we locked the doors, it COULD not have been, see this watch, and how DARE we lock her daughter out of the bakery so that she had to PARK up the street and get OUT OF THE CAR and WALK down here and she wasnt going to stand for it.

wow.

I ask you, what is a Bakerygirl to do at such a moment? Please believe me, kind readers that a huge part of my brain was furiously saying 'Are you a freaking nut job, lady? And poor baby you had to actually get out of your car and drag your bony fad diet ass down here to scream at me about BREAD??'

But my mother would have been proud. For I remembered my girl scout/junior lifeguard/babysitter training and remained calm- although I did step back out of watch waving range. I said calmly that I had locked the doors at exactly five thirty and that I was sorry about her daughter but if she had told me what she had wanted instead of leaving immediately, I would have been glad to get it for her, as I hadnt closed out the registers yet.

She kept up with the watch and how it had taken her under a minute to walk from her car, blah, blah,blah, and I told her again in my 'infuriatingly calm and disconnected polite voice' (c'mon, you all KNOW you have one too) that unfortunately I did not have her watch and that I had to go by the clock on the bakery wall.

I have a small confession, dear readers: I was really irritated about this, but she was so over the top wacky with it, that I was almost enjoying seeing how calm I could stay and how much more pissed she was getting.

Finally she gave it up and hissed at me through her blindingly professionally whitened teeth,

"Can I just get a loaf of dakota? That is ALL I came here for, can you at LEAST just do that for me??!?"

I could tell she was expecting to get it for free, since she had been so mortally wronged by the big bad world of bakery, so I smiled sweetly and said "Certainly. Let me ring one right up for you- luckily the registers havent been cashed out yet!" all with a big cheery smile.

She paid me and then came in for one last strike, hissing,

"You havent heard the last of this! I'm going to be calling the owner or your manager- you dont understand what you've gotten into!"

***

Well.

Dear readers, this left me with a few thoughts. First off, how sad, really sad, that someone can obviously have spent so much time and money and effort on body and clothing and attempting to be attractive and have such incredibly UNATTRACTIVE results. I mean, ok, she was yelling at me, so granted I am a tad biased here. But even just on her own, this woman looked almost like the mother in the film Brazil; a caricature of what she was supposed to look like.

But worst of all was her dreadful personality. It wouldnt have mattered how she looked with that kind of crazed self-centeredness.

I just thought, ' how really MEAN that the last thing you can think of to do is to THREATEN me. To imply that you will complain so that I lose this pathetic low-paying job. I could be out on the streets because of your complaint and you dont even give a damn- it does not OCCUR to you to give a damn- all because you had to get out of your car and walk to the bakery because you got here late. You just want to scare me with your percieved power and make me worry for my job.'
What a sad mean way to be...

Incidentally, she never did call.

She did however come in one other time. It was an afternoon and she was hanging back near the door in another weirdly designer outfit meant to look casual, but not looking that way at all. She was with another woman who bought something, went to the door and they walked out. Then the other woman returned and said "My friend wants a piece of bread from the breadboard."

I cut it for her and smiled as she walked outside and gave it to the bitch. Even if I dont always want to be here- I am still here. The bakery is mine and on some weird level you were AFRAID to confront me even enough to ask for a slice of free bread. Eat it and enjoy- you obviously don't get much other enjoyment out of your life, dakotafreak.

Stay sane, xxxooo Bakerygirl

2004-12-02T12:44:00.000-05:00

bakerygirl life

Munchies

2004-11-28T21:42:00.000-05:00

Although the free bread is an attraction to everyone, it is particularly beloved by the kids and occasional 20-something who like to hang out in the park across the street and get stoned. I dont mind any of these people much, since they are EXTREMELY focused on getting their bread and getting out with it- ok, well, as focused as they get on anything.

There is this one kid I like to call Hair Boy. He is your typical 19 year old skinny male, who still looks more like a kid than a man. He has semi long stringy black hair that always hangs curtain-like on either side of his pale face, and he usually wears a black hat that says 'Sex Pistols' on it.

When he first came in he was a 'grunt and point and maybe mumble' sort of breadboard user, but we seem to have come to an understanding after I made him wait several times for a slice while I looked at him in a puzzled way and then forced him to interact with society by asking slowly and clearly,

"What kind of bread do you want? I couldn't hear/understand what you said?" and then making a comment about the weather or the bread or whatever.

Im not quite sure WHY I bothered with this effort, but I think it just bothered me that I saw him almost every afternoon six days a week and he couldnt even speak audibly to me. At any rate, we seem to be past that because he now enunciates clearly for me and has even met my eyes a couple of times and said please and thank you to me. I dont count on this being a lasting relationship or anything- just when I expected him to speak to me last week, he was back to mumbling and dashing off with the slice. But he looked pissed off about something (so punk rock of him!) so I let it slide and just gave him his bread.

The other day he came in with a blonde kid who looked JUST like Spinelli in 'Fast Times at Ridgemont High' right down to the vacuous look in his eyes and the goofy smile. Hair Boy asked for his slice and then his pal pointed to the white bread and asked,

"What kinda bread is that?"

To which Hair Boy replied in an irritated voice,

"It's WHITE, moron." And since that was pretty much what I was thinking I stifled a smile. The pal looked at me and giggled, saying confidentially,

"Sorry, I'm um,m, not really all here right now, ya know?

And immediately Hair Boy gives him a sharp elbow to the ribs and HISSES,

"Shut UP, man!" cutting his eyes away from me as if disassociating himself from his uncouth companion before heading for the door with the pal trailing after him.

It was so funny, I was laughing out loud after they left. I mean, I just wanted to lean forward and whisper in an exaggerated voice,

"It's OK. I KNOW YOU ARE STONED. I will just give you your free munchie bread and I will not nark you out."

It was that sort of classic stoned person thing where they assume NO ONE would ever guess what they do on the park benches by the War Memorial every day for hours. In fact, Officer P, our local beat cop knows this kid by name. He knows what he does, where he lives, and even that he was supposed to be getting a job at a Ben and Jerry's but it seems to have fallen through.

One of Officer P's best qualities though is a tremendous sense of descretion about what is actually important to pursue and prosecute and what things in life you just cant do much but keep an eye on. He can name every juvinile delinquient in the area going back about thirty years to when HE was in high school and he has a calm and easy attitude about dealing with them that I really admire.

At the same time, he is a big guy, maybe six foot three or so, and I would not want to mess with him- if I had to call the cops for anything at the bakery, he would be my preferred respondant.

I was telling Bridget about the incident with Hair Boy and his pal and she snorted and said,

"Yeah, he couldnt manage to make it to class on time so he dropped out of school, but he can show up at the Tasty Dog parking lot everyday at exactly three PM to hang out with his friends and sell weed and get people to buy him food."

so I suppose that is Hair Boy's gig and I always wonder when I see him around in the park or outside of the library or whatever if he even recognizes me outside of my bread-handing out capacity, or if we are all just random blurs to him.

But then again, I wonder that about most of my customers. So maybe they have more in common with Hair Boy than they would like to think.

Providing A Public Service

2004-11-28T01:33:00.000-05:00

We give out free slices at the bakery. There is a large wooden bread board on the front counter with loaves- whatever we have a lot of or are featuring or just feel like putting out there- along with a bowl with butter and two butter spreaders and a glass 'sneeze guard' like you get at a salad bar over the top of it.

We used to have honey out as well, but it was proven through trial and massive error that the public at large cannot be trusted with honey, so thankfully the owner decided we didnt have to do THAT anymore. We tell people it is gone because it attracted insects, but some of them still get pouty about it and request it repeatedly everytime they come in, remeniscing about the good old days when we weren't so mean spirited and they got to drip sticky sweet honey all over their bread and butter.

We also used to have long sharp serrated knives out that customers could help themselves to a slice with. Too many odd characters and junkies come in for free bread though, so that is discontinued as well, and we never even leave a knife above the counter or on the board- they always go back to the shelf underneath. Sometimes I play out creepy scenarios in my head about what weapons I could reach if someone did psycho out in the bakery or we were attacked by zombies, etc. So far it hasn't happened, but working with the public at large does tend to keep you prepared for anything.

Things about the bread board that make me crazy are:

1) When sticky breads are allowed to gunk up the board and someone lays a fresh round of bread on top of the gunk without scraping the board clean first.

2)When people put things like the cheese jalopeneo cornbread right next to the apple scrapple- I mean, who wants a slice of apple cinnamon/jalopeneo bread, right?

3) People who get crumbs and things all over the butter spreader and put it back in the bowl. Ditto for people who crumple up their dirty napkin and leave it on the board with the bread.

4) People who come in for a FREE slice of bread with a latte from the Carabou across the street and dont intend to buy anything. I mean, I like lattes too, but TACKY, ok?

5)People who come in for free bread and complain about what kinds we have out and then try and bully me into putting out an entire loaf of THEIR favorite kind.

6)Anyone over the age of seven who tries to get me to cut them bread by doing any of the following things:

Grunting
Grunting and pointing
Grunting and pointing while talking on a cell phone to someone else
Saying 'gimme a slice of that' and pointing
Reaching out and touching the bread with a stabbing motion to ask what it is or indicate that
they would like a slice
People who do not keep their childrens' hands off of the bread
People who carry small dogs in under their arm and then allow the dog to sort of HANG right over the board with their paws or nose practically in the butter bowl
People who tap their fingers, keys or anything else on the glass sneeze guard- one guy shattered it once by doing that which I personally think is funny as hell
People who just grab the bread and try to tear off a hunk for themselves or saw at it with a butter spreader instead of asking for a slice
People who 'double-dip' with the butter knife

I think my largest complaint here though is just how few people- adults, kids, teens, etc- say please and thank you for their bread. If they dont say it to me, I often wait until they step away and then say VERY loudly and sweetly,

"You're welcome! Please come back again for another slice!"

Probably they dont care or notice, but I must be deriving satisfaction from it on some level or I wouldnt keep doing it. Also, it tends to crack my harried co-workers up.

Free slices of bread are nice- but not your God-given inalienable right, folks. The worst is when we take the board down. We do this first at about three PM when the local highschool lets out. Even then we are mobbed with kids crowding in and yelling "Don't you got the free bread?!?"I cant really blame the highschool kids on their own though, since adults do it to.

A special hello goes out to the mom who informed us that we had better keep it out JUST for her, since her little kids were taking a class at the music and language acadamy up the street and they needed a snack before going home!
Lady, buy a muffin, ok?

We also take the board down at night to wash everything about a half hour before closing. Yes, this is the end of the bakery world as some people know it. They get all cranky and try everything from wheedling to threats to get the bread board reinstated just for them. The people who are nice about it I sometimes give a free muffin to if we are closing up and have some left over. Decent behavior about the free bread board should be encouraged and rewarded, in my opinion.

Washing Trays

2004-11-28T01:22:00.000-05:00

The glamourous life of a bakerista (I dont know if that's even a word, actually) is not just mixing and kneading and baking and selling bread and coffee- oh no. There is an incredible amount of cleaning that goes on in a bakery, including a lot of mopping up, which I mentioned before.

Today, on Saturday, all the large metal trays are washed for the week. They are lined with parchement paper when they are being used, but by the end of a week, they really need scrubbing. I actually sort of like doing the trays, even though its kind of a bitch; you get wet and I use scalding hot water to soak them, so on Saturday night my hands feel all dry and awful and I slather them in lotion for the rest of the weekend.

The trays are stacked up on racks and then I put them into a big sink of hot soapy water to soak before I get down to actual cleaning- yes, I now have a METHOD for doing this, which is sort of sad, but hey, it works.

I wear a t shirt or tank top- its too sweaty otherwise, and put an apron over me, but I always end up all wet anyway.After I scrub and rinse each tray, I slide it upside down into the rack to dry off. There is always a pool of slightly scummy water around the drain in the floor where I stand, and the bottoms of my too-long jeans are soaked and icky.

The stickiest trays are the cinnamon swirl ones- the sugar sauce goes over and under the paper and makes it stick to the tray and it bakes into a crust that even soaking doesn't always get off. But I hate cheesey jalopeneo the worst- the steam smells like rotton old peppers and makes my eyes water and the cheese is all baked on... ick.

It is essential to have decent lively music for tray washing, because it's usually pretty isolated back in the kitchen by that time, and everyone else is up front bagging bread or waiting on customers. Sometimes one of the early baking crew will come and talk for a few minutes on their way out the back door, but you just have to get into a washing rythym and keep it up until you are done.

Needless to say, it can be difficult to find music that can be considered decent, lively AND bakery/customer friendly all at once. More on that later...

Random Acts One and Two

2004-11-26T23:30:00.000-05:00

One

A woman had been standing outside talking to a scruffier-looking man for a few minutes and then she came in to buy bread. As she was filling her order, the other man, who was in his 40s and just looking a little run-down, came in and got a small cup of coffee.

As I bagged the woman's bread, she looked down at the packages of huge chocolate chip oatmeal cookies we make every day and said

"Give me one of those too!"

I did, and she paid for her stuff and picked up the bag of cookies and walked over to the man. She handed him the cookies and said,

"Here, take these home to your kids and give them a treat."

The man was obviously surprised, but he got this truly sweet look on his face and just said softly,

"Thank you. Really, I mean it, thank you. God Bless you."

The woman smiled at him and replied,

"Good luck!" then left out the side door and the man went back out to the bus stop.

And I thought to myself,

'You just witnessed one of those random acts of kindness that bumper stickers are always talking about. Wow...'

Honestly, I was floored.

Two

It is Thanksgiving morning. I am grumpy and tired from lack of sleep and disappointed that W does not seem to find watching the Macy's parade the same big deal it was when I was a kid and that the parade now seems to be one long sucky commercial for the station's daytime soaps and product and business placement thinly disguised as floats.

Let's face it, I am also cranky because this will be my first major holiday pretty much ever without W as I am walking him over to his dad's soon to have dinner at my former sister-in-law's. While I am not unhappy about missing the dinner, it is depressing not to smell things cooking and have a turkey to check and a table to set. I am going to a friend's for my own dinner, but let's face it, it just is not the same.

I have to get my laundry done. I have two pairs of jeans left that fit even a little bit. Working at the bakery is hard, hot work and I have lost wieght and haven't got the money just now to replace them. But I have to do laundry on Thanksgiving morning, since I am out of clothes to wear and my 'bakery jeans' will almost go in and make a cup of coffee all on their own.

So I trek down to the laundry room, grateful that the overhang of the back porches and outer stairways of the building shelter me from the slushy snow and load up the laundry. While I am there, one of my neighbors whom I know to nod and say hi to, but not more than that comes in with a small bundle of place mats and a tablecloth.

We make polite chit chat for a minute about the holiday and about the Downey softner plastic ball thingie that I have and then I wish her a nice holiday and tell her that if I am not back to pull my other laundry from the dryer when she needs it, that she is welcome to take it out and just toss it into my basket.

I go back up and W helps me make sweet potatoes with strusel topping for tonight and then we walk over to his dad's. I dont really want to let him go- I want to take him back with me. But I dont, and I am tired and discouraged walking the few blocks home. The sun hasnt reached this side of the street and there is ice under the snow on the unshoveled walks and I have to be careful not to trip in a rut, even in my boots.

Coming home, I let myself into the courtyard in back and head to the laundry room. When I come in, I see that the dryer is still going, but with one change.

My neighbor has taken out all of my laundry. She has taken it all out, FOLDED it all, and placed it neatly in my basket. It is not wrinkled or damp. It is warm and smells good and it is all folded.Once again, I am beyond surprised.

Thank you, neighbor.

xxxooo bakerygirl

how and why we got here

2004-11-26T23:22:00.000-05:00

Of course I have no idea how or why *you* are here- I can only speak for myself. I am working six days a week at a bread bakery. The various reasons behind this will no doubt come out eventually on their own in posts, and if they dont, I might even tell someone who cared to ask about it.

But you see a lot of interesting things at a bakery. Bread is a very powerful thing- people have this intense visceral reaction to it that is pretty amazing at times and brings out both good and bad qualities. Some of these things are so funny, pathetic, mean-spirited, selfish or just plain inexplicible, I thought they deserved to be recorded and a friend told me to start a blog.

So, here we are, with at least some of the why filled in.

Read more, eat good food and learn who you are.

xxxooo bakerygirl

Impatient for Free Slices

2004-11-26T23:20:00.000-05:00

I am tired and lonesome and feeling at loose ends this evening, despite the fact that I have a very smutty library book to read and a new laptop to try and figure out. I am wondering if I am too old to write a blog or something calling myself ‘bakerygirl’ and even how one goes about writing a blog in the first place since I don’t know how to do that either ;)
But I just have this horrible urge to tell the world the story of the businessman on his day off with kids today who was too impatient to wait for me to finish bagging an elderly lady’s bread for her and grabbed up two loaves from the breadboard with his bare hands and started sawing away at one with a butter spreader while saying to his kids
“This one? Is this the one you want?!?”
And I looked at him with my vacuous patented ‘ I am too dumb/sweet/insignificant to offend you, oh customer’ stare and said loudly and firmly in a disgustingly friendly voice,
“Sir! I’ll be happy to cut you some slices with the BREAD KNIFE now that I’ve finished waiting on this lady!”
I wish you or someone else appreciative could have seen it. He was sort of mortified in spite of himself, but recovered with great aplomb and proceeded to buy a muffin out of shame and agreed to my slices with a sort of impressive lassize faire considering he had just made an ass of himself.
But maybe I was the only one who was aware of that? Surely other NORMAL people- had they been present- would have thought “Guy! For the love of Pete, don’t grab the bread sample with your bare hand and start sawing at it with the butter spreader! We don’t know where those hands have been! And besides, it’s a lovely fall Sunday afternoon and you’re out with your kids, where could you possibly have to be that won’t wait five minutes for the BAKERYGIRL to cut you some free bread ?!?!?”
Ok, mini-rant over. But – the true issue here is of course: was it funny? Did you enjoy reading it? Did it make you smile and long to hear more of the trials and tribulations of your brave and beloved heroine?

xxxooo bakerygirl

Thanksgiving orders

2004-11-26T23:13:00.000-05:00

Today was interesting. I worked with Bridget and K and it actually was pretty fun at times, although I was frustrated, since I like to just get it all done and they both meander through things and we had a ton of stuff to do. But K had a two for one coupon for a double cheesebhburger at Tasty Dog and she let me have one, so at least I ate something besides bread. She brought beers as well and seemed sorry to learn that I didn’t drink beer and said she would have gotten something else if she had known. All in all, it was the friendliest we had ever been, comeraderie fueled by the desperateness of our situation, since we had so many things to get done.

Bridget was wearing a blue and yellow SpongeBob shirt and had her hair dyed a perfect blue to match with sparkly eyeliner a shade lighter and yellow shoes. She looked great, really, sort of like a giant angelfish that you see at the aquarium. She was pretty terrible at cutting onions, but most people are, and most people don’t have to cut nine pounds at one time either.Her taking breaks and whimpering about it was sort of getting on my nerves, but really she was so funny when she is doing it that I didn't mind much. At one point she took a plastic bread bag and fitted it over the top of her head so it covered her eyes to protect them from the onions, and she looked just like she had a giant condom over her blue hair.

Jeff even showed up towards the end when most of it was done and I was mopping the floor.Mopping is really an interesting job in a way- there is a lot more to doing a good job of it than most people would think.

In my mundane way, I now feel this internal connection to school custodians and late night cleaning crews everywhere and I want to nod to them as they mop and squeeze out the water through the wringer in the ubsiquious yellow plastic bucket and make some sort of secret mopper's sign- 'brother, I feel your pain; the determanation to get that last stubborn raisin stuck to the floor up without having to actually bend down for it'.

In spite of a descision that this is not the sum of your life, you do WANT to get the raisin, you WANT to do a good job on it and it is maddening when others don’t. Kyle, whom I like a great deal, is a rotton mopper. I can always tell when he has mopped out the kitchen because his heart is not in it, and even though I cant exactly say that MY heart is in the mopping, in a way I don’t like it that he doesn’t do a better job.

So in the guise of being nice, I finally took over the onions from Bridget, since she had a huge pile of unevenly chopped onions all leaking awful painful stink into the air and I wanted it to just get the fuck done already instead of her taking little mini-breaks to ease her eyes or whatever. I didn’t want to be the boss of her or anything- its just that I knew how to do it quickly and as painlessly as possible from cooking school, and she didn’t. I showed her how I was going to cut them and explained why it would make it easier, but I always feel awkward trying to show the highschool girls any of that stuff- as if I am being all obnoxious and 'I know best', etc. I hope she didn’t feel like that- I just thought it might come in handy if she had to chop onions again, that's all.

But anyway, I finished them off and then cleaned the board with vinagar and later on in the car driving home realized that I had spent the remainder of the night with dark raccooon circles of mascara under my eyes from it. Thanks for mentioning it,ladies… But I swept and mopped and did the coffees and sliced and bagged all the production bread and chopped onions … It was good to be busy and I surely need the money, but … damn. Im tired now and I need to go to sleep because I have to be in tomorrow around six or half past.

It's just that I am tired but not sleepy and Banjo the evil kitten is rushing around making his high pitched querying sad meow and wreaking havoc noisily and bothering Merle and knocking stuff over, but I havent got the heart to shut him into the bathroom just yet.

And W isnt here. I know that its nice of J to keep him the extra night and I hope he wasn’t pissed about taking him to school tomorrow morning, but … I just miss him when he isnt here. It feels as if he ought to be, and I suppose J feels the same when he is with me, but- I don’t know. I just feel like he ought to be WITH me more and I hate working six days a week and having to take him to his grandmother's on Thursday night.Friday all day was bad enough- but it makes me sound whiney to say this, because if she wasn’t watching him I would be screwed at the moment, work-wise.

Must get paperwork filed and must get all that info going. Must find new, real, successful, reasonably lucritive job. But how to do that, when I barely have the energy to get the laundry done on my one day off?

Wow- what a bitchy, whiney bakerygirl I have been today. Hopefully I will have happier stories for tomorrow.

Xxxooo, bakerygirl