Cake Walk

Last Saturday morning was an opportunity to sleep late. The soul was willing, but the body woke up at four in the morning. I could tell it would be useless to fight it, so I went ahead & got up, fixed coffee, got scoured & dressed, and went to Walmart before everyone else decided to go. There were few shoppers (nice!), but I also missed out on photo-ops for POW. I wasn't there to roam the aisles, though; I was on a mission to buy my neighbor some holiday containers for the party mix she makes each Christmas.

I went to my group's Saturday morning meeting (8:45 instead of the weekday 6:45), picked up a box of pastries that Romeo made for a party I was attending in the evening, and went to Jean-Jacques Bakery for a cake I had ordered for the same party. By the way, the first photo shows a sidewalk dispenser for a local weekly periodical, in case you were wondering, and no, I have no idea who that lady is supposed to be.

This all leads to the photos I'm posting today. I had called Jean-Jacques Friday to order an Almond-Amaretto cake, but they told me they couldn't make one for the following day so I went with a Chocolate-Rum cake.

Jean-Jacques is a bakery of local renown in Carytown, an upscale street of retail establishments in Richmond. I popped in at ten on Saturday morning and was told the cake wasn't quite ready. I said it wasn't a problem at all and that I'd just wander around Carytown for awhile. I grabbed my camera from the car and took a few pictures.

The bakery is in Cary Court, a very small shopping center in the heart of Carytown that opened in 1938. It was Richmond's first strip shopping center, and was an instant hit. Soon, other properties along Cary Street were converted to retail shop space, and the area drew tourists as well as locals.

Below are some views of modern-day shop windows. Sorry about the glare on the windows; it wasn't the best time of day for taking pictures.





Today's Carytown is billed as "A Mile of Style" and is clearly a commercial street, but this merchant district got its start during the Great Depression (the economic depression of the 1930's; not the current one) when residents began converting the lower floors of their homes into small shops. With the fabulous Byrd Theater and Cary Court drawing visitors from surrounding counties, residents gladly took advantage of ways to make the most of the traffic. These blocks of Cary Street gradually transitioned from residential to retail, and by the 70's became known as Carytown.

Below is a new photo of a placque in Cary Court that shows an old photo of Cary Court. Trippy, huh? Other than the cars, it looks very much the same today.

More window shopping below, this time at For The Love Of Chocolate, a very dangerous store in Cary Court. Very, very dangerous. This photo shows a mere snippet of the alluring perils that await visitors. For a candy store, it covers a lot of square footage, and every nook & cubbyhole is packed with sugary hazards and menacing chocolate pitfalls.

I stumbled out of the chocolate shop with my virginity intact, and went back to Jean-Jacques to see if my cake was ready. The young woman behind the counter greeted me with a rather sick expression on her face.

"Um, we found your order and I don't know what happened I'm sorry we've looked everywhere and here's your order form but they must have forgot to make the cake we're so sorry would you pick out another one from the case and we would like you to take it please for free okay?"
"Gee, sure. No problem at all. Could I have that Almond-Amaretto cake?"

So, somehow - planetary alignment, Fortuna's Wheel, my Higher Power peeking at my bank balance, take your pick - I walked out of the bakery with my original choice free of charge.

I actually felt a twinge of guilt, as if this shouldn't have happened to me. Then I considered that I've learned to accept the bad things in my past and the troubles of today with as much grace as I can muster, and I need to learn to do the same when good things come my way.