Emergency rations - 21 March 2011
Monday, 21st March
Today we take the hand to the hospital. It’s okay as far as hospitals go, but still a hospital: you know, press this button, sign here, wait on these chairs – the kind they first introduced at Port Authority a couple or three decades ago: anti-tramp seats. In the waiting room two tween girls – unrelated – have foot injuries. One left. One right. Which maybe qualifies them for a 2-legged race? A man with a nose-bleed sits next to me. On another chair a woman obviously in pain. And a stretcher with something awful where the face should be. More waiting. Now we’re in the examination room:
Between 2 nurses, 1 doctor, a photographer and a writer, we manage to stitch together enough English and French to get Joel’s hand bandaged too tightly for 83 Euros. I redo the bandage in the parking lot.
We decide to treat ourselves to St. Paul de Vence, the town where every Artiste you ever heard of, once paid for their lunches and dinners at La Columbe d’Or with paintings. But we are too late for lunch. It’s 2:30. We’re starving. We go across the street to the antithesis of la Colombe d’Or. No paintings here and the food, not so good. But we’re sitting outside. The sun is hot on our faces and the still-naked, heavily pollarded trees are formidable, as are 3 teams of Boules players: all men, all older, all good players. The clack of the metal balls, the dull thud as one lands on the baked ground, the exclamations of victory and exasperation create a nice piece of theatre distracting us from the lack of belle cuisine.
We pay l’addition and stroll through the archway to this ancient mountain village above the Mediterranean. Within yards we are horrified. These once charming narrow streets – too narrow and steep for anything but foot traffic – are now studded with cheap boutiques and galleries where once there must have been charcuterie, boulangerie, alimentation, and surely a cobbler and ironmonger. But this is the 21st Century. There isn’t a piece of cheese in sight, and yet the whole town strikes us as cheesy. But salvation waits at the top of the village: an ice-cream shop and a church. And yes, I take them in that order.
Inside the church the stained-glass windows are catching the mid afternoon sun, splashing kalidascopic color on saints and sinners alike.
We drive back to Vence with relief. It’s real. Like Grasse. I mean let’s face it, the Columbe d’Or is not the restaurant those artists went to last century. Try bartering for a meal today. This is the 21st Century, you have to make your way through a lot of crap to get to the pay-off. And you know what? It’s worth it. In Vence the pay-off is the Bio-Patisserie. An organic bakery that makes breads from spelt, quinoa, and other whole grains. No yeast. Amazing sugar free cookies. Down the street another Bio shop, stocked with organic grains, jams, oils, herbal remedies and teas. The owner puts down her crystal long enough to help us pay for a few treats.