Friday, December 13, 2019

Ordering breakfast has too many variables. How would you like your eggs? What kind of bread? Green salad or Israeli? Avocado? I stumble through the interrogation, understanding what I can and guessing at the rest. The server is stumbling too. Partway through, she says “English?” I nod. She looks relieved. “Good. Let’s start again.” Her accent seems Israeli, but, like me, she is from elsewhere. English is her second language, Hebrew her third. The breakfast is sumptuous and not too expensive. What I hear as “eggs like eyes” are indeed sunny side up. With the bread basket (good whole wheat bread; they are out of multigrain) and the coffee mug taking up space, the plate, with eggs in the left compartment, salad to the right, and scoops of tuna, avocado, and some sort of cheese in the center, is too large for the tray. I balance it all carefully as I carry it from the counter to my seat. A man in a wheelchair backs up abruptly into my path, but I see him in time. Nothing spills. Nothing falls. I sit down, shift the complimentary chocolate away from the coffee cup so that it doesn’t melt, and begin to eat.