Journal of a Sabbatical

October 27, 2000

portuguese?

Today's Reading: none

Here's another picture of Pajama Woman's witch decoration as seen from the parking lot (yesterday's was taken from my window). It's still creeping me out. I keep thinking some weird gray-haired kid in a pointy hat is trying to break into my house. I'm not big on witch kitsch to begin with because Andover/North Andover (which were all one town back then) was the place with the most accused during the 1692 witch hysteria. I don't mind a lot of the other Halloween decorations and in fact kind of like the pumpkins and ghosts and stuff, but the witch stuff seems disrespectful to the local people who were hanged for supposed witchcraft. Just a thought. I'm figuring Pajama Woman will be up on the dangerous ladder on Thursday taking the witch down. I'll just try not to look out the window 'til then.

So today's big accomplishment was buying a loaf of bread. Oh sure, I met M (of M&M) for coffee and showed her my China/Tibet pictures, and ran into Hussein while I was waiting for M. Oh sure, I bought other groceries and did other errands. But buying the bread was unexpectedly challenging.

The market often runs out of Iggy's 7 Grain Bread early so I made a point of going there right after lunch so they'd be sure to have some. So far so good. I spot some loaves in the display case.

The weird woman who works at the bread counter was busy with something else and it took a couple of minutes to get her attention. She hangs out at Starbucks sometimes and has attempted to join in conversation with me and with some of my friends. Her contributions to the conversation are often irrelevant or newage or out of left field. Tom dubbed her "that weird woman" after she told Gerri that I am married to QI and cheating on him with Tom. Gerri found this hilarious as both QI and myself are so obviously queer that it doesn't bear discussion, and if Tom were cheating on Julie it sure as heck wouldn't be with me. So Tom has called her the weird woman ever since - and Tom and Gerri and Dan refer to QI as my husband.

OK, so weird woman comes over and greets me warmly, asking what I want. I ask for a loaf of Iggy's 7 Grain, sliced please. She is distracted by the prayer wheel around my neck and asks what it is. I tell her it's a prayer wheel from Tibet.

She asks again what kind of bread I want. I repeat Iggy's 7 Grain. She tells me the bread department just got a new computer. I don't know if I am supposed to be impressed by this, frightened by it, or what.

She asks again what kind of bread I want. I repeat Iggy's 7 Grain. By now there are other people behind me in line wanting to buy bread too. She notices them and turns back to me to ask about the prayer wheel. I reply that it is a prayer wheel that I bought in Tibet, where I have just come back from.

She asks "Are you Portuguese?"

Portuguese? Is there a big Portuguese population in Tibet?

I say no.

She asks again what I want. "Iggy's 7 Grain, sliced please." I respond patiently. Finally she slices the loaf of bread and puts it in a plastic wrapper and closes it with a twist tie. She puts it on the scale (the bread is priced by the pound), which is connected to the computer, to print out a price label. Nothing happens.

A couple of tries later, she gives up and finds a blank label on which she writes the price with a black marker. She tells me to tell the cashier the computer is broken. After all, they just got a new computer.

It's not often it takes all afternoon to buy bread.