Just the usual, please
Welcome to my random musings about the world, on a weekly-to-occasional basis.
Yesterday, Lee went to the coffee shop for breakfast. He’s been going to the same spot every morning since we arrived in Bariloche. Every day, he orders a medialuna and an Americano, pays, and sits down to get some work done. When he finishes the first coffee, he orders another. He is a creature of certain habits.
Yesterday, though, the young woman who waits on him every day stopped him in his tracks. She asked him if he wanted to open an account.
I guess if you go every day for 3 weeks, you’re a regular.
Later that same day, we went for ice cream. I’m sure you see where this is going—yes, we’ve gone to the same ice cream place every day for the last 3 weeks. Don’t judge. Here, the order of operations is reversed: you pay first, wait for your number to be called, then tell the scooper which flavors you want. When it was our turn, one of the servers asked what I wanted. I started to tell him, but the other server interrupted me and rattled off our order before I could get it out in my sloppy Spanish: 1 scoop of chocolate cherry and 1 scoop of vanilla, pecan and caramel for Lee; triple temptation for me, 1 scoop only. We all laughed.
We’re definitely regulars.
It doesn’t happen everywhere we go; sometimes we don’t stay in a place long enough; sometimes we don’t settle into a routine. But when it does, it gives me all the warm fuzzies. There’s something special about having a neighborhood spot, where—forgive me—everybody knows your name. (There’s a reason Cheers was so popular for so long.) Humans want, even need, that kind of community. When we lived in Raleigh, there was a coffee shop across the street from our apartment. It took me 3 minutes to pop over and order a cup of tea or a mocha. I went most days, just to see what was going on in that little world, and maybe feel slightly less isolated in mine.
So of course, we’re leaving tomorrow.
Nowadays, right about the time we start settling into a rhythm, it’s time to go. It’s a little like the end of summer camp: Come back next year! We’ll be friends forever! Find me on Facebook! And we do feel like we have new friends all over the world, but then, just like friends from summer camp, they move on and we move on and that magical moment is over.
It’s bittersweet. I will be a little sad to leave Bariloche, but equally excited to get to Buenos Aires. I feel like Dr. Dolittle’s Pushmi-Pullyu: I can see in both directions, and both have their appeal.
Take care,
Lisa
P.S. Thanks for reading, and feel free to share. If you have feedback, I’d love to hear it. And if someone forwarded this to you, thank them for me, and go to https://bookwoman.com/ to subscribe.