Two loaves, and butter that turned up

The plan for Friday was never a plan until I wrote it down, which is how most of our plans work. Two loaves. Not three. Pim arrives hungry from bridges and from weather and from standing still, so he eats before he comes. Elise said two would be enough if he did. He said he would. I am choosing to believe the sentence.

Noor wrote that she could bring butter and that it was not a personality. I told her butter is a personality. She brought it anyway, in a dish that does not match anything in the hall, which is the correct way to bring butter. It sat next to the folded map. The map is Elise's. If you borrow it, it comes back folded. She has said this often enough that it is now a furnishing, like the table.

The loaves were from the shop that shuts at six, which is why I go at half five or I don't go. Last month I didn't go and we had the heel of something from Anouk's jar row, which she has asked us not to treat as a shop. Fair. A heel is not a dinner. Two loaves is a dinner if people are not performing hunger.

There is a story people tell about communities that bake together. We do not. I buy bread because I live near a shop and the rest of you live near excuses. That is not a complaint. It is a division of labour, like Joost and the oil, like Lena and the count, like Marek and the mail. If you want to bake, bake at home and bring it, and say so before I have already stood in the queue.

Friday itself is twenty minutes at the table and then the evening. Sara's notes, if anything was decided. I am Sara. The notes are short on purpose. A transcript is how you get a second meeting about the meeting. If your disagreement is not in the note, you did not say it where anyone could keep it.

Next Friday is the same shape unless the shop is shut, in which case the paper will say so and you will survive.