La Boulangerie is a little bistro where I live and I love it! A boulangerie is a bakery that specializes in bread, especially French style breads but from what I can tell they have every kind of bread, even Pan Dulce! My favorite is the Almond Croissant. Yummy!

I had never actually been here until last December 2023. In all my years of living and working here, for whatever reason it never occurred to me to walk in. If I’m totally honest, it looked a little ritzy, don’t know why I thought that, just did. Well I do know, but that’s a different post, maybe later. Anyway, since that day in December of 2023, it has become one of our favorite, lets sit and hang out places. I enjoy sitting outside on the patio or like today, inside by the big windows and starring outside, watching people come and go hearing the door open and close, watching the trees outside, today’s a little windy and so the leaves are rustling around with little drops of sunlight bouncing off them here and there. There’s ivy around the patio posts and all kinds of people to watch come and go and to wonder about. There is a crooked replica of the Eiffel Tower sparkling above one of the bakery cases that kind of makes me laugh and posters and pictures of other French cafes and bread around the walls. There’s old time jazz music playing, doesn’t seem particularly like French music but the kind you hear on period piece shows like When Calls the Heart, coming out of a phonograph while people waltz around. Old people, young people, groups of people and single people, of all races and I assume creeds having conversations or just sitting and enjoying a coffee and a treat. One lady we have seen the past two days sits in a corner with her magnifying glass and her puzzle and dictionary. She’s obviously a regular as every now and again someone will sit and chat with her and then she’ll be alone again and go back to her puzzle. I was thinking yesterday if I was alone but didn’t want to feel alone this café might be a pretty nice place to sit to do my puzzle and chat now and again, it’s that kind of place and today I am actually alone and it has been enjoyable to whittle away the morning here. It’s almost perfect except for the line! Sometimes there is no line but sometimes there is a really long line and if all you want is a coffee or iced tea the only real way to ensure you will get one is to get in the line.

I have actually been here everyday for the last three days counting today. My daughter and I usually need someplace to sit and spend a little time before her track practices on certain days and if she doesn’t have piano you’ll probably find us here, at least this week anyway. Today, this morning, I’m here again because of track, she has a meet. The League championships are today and so I took the day off school so I could go and cheer her and her team on to victory, which is usually measured in PR’s and sometimes a medal here or there.

I have had a thoroughly enjoyable morning with my almond milk cappuccino, breakfast sandwich and a couple of bites of an almond croissant. I am hopeful for the afternoon and eager to cheer for my daughter’s track team. It’s been a good day so far! Thinking on summer plans, writing in this journal, watching the blue sky through the trees, cars driving by and hoping the wind dies down before the track meet. I even got to read a few journals/blogs from other writers and I liked a few of them and a few I didn’t agree with at all but the writing was still good, even if the ideas were foreign to me. I also spent a bit of time missing a colleague from work who I recently found out passed away. His name was Patrick Casey, a wonderful English teacher who frequented this place, he was always kind to me, gave me some great advice on teaching once and I’ll miss running into him now and again. We weren’t particularly close, we talked here and there, but it’s sad to think he’s not here to run into anymore. You just think about things in a café like La Boulangerie because you actually have time to think about things, it’s that kind of place.

Anyway…so far today for La Boulangerie, my daughter having an early track meet, almond croissants and cappuccinos…I Give Thanks!

No running this AM but we ran yesterday AM and did stairs, hard run because I was tired but we got it done. KOR!

View from my window seat….

The crooked sparkly Eiffel Tower….