Doctor's Orders: New Power Dynamics, Beautiful Women

I ate at Çorbacı Mülayim twice today: ezogelin çorbası for breakfast in Düzce and mercimek çorbası for dinner in Bolu. Either I’ve got the blues, or I’ve got a cold. Or both.

But some other things happened.

I spend a lot of time here bossing other people around: my students, people who enter my kitchen, travel partners, people with whom I go clothes shopping, and etcetera. It may be my age or my aura, but I end up making a lot of decisions and telling people what to do. This is good because I often get my way, but I begin to tire of the energy it takes to plan and make these kinds of decisions. I’d like to be back in the kitchen I share with Erich and just be his sous chef.

So, when I get the chance, I relax and let myself be bossed around here. I don’t want to be exploited: I just want to give consent for others to have their way with me. Neriman hanım, my cooking class instructor, loves this. I’ll get to class a couple minutes early and she’ll demand I bring tea to the table. Tonight it was even better: the guy who runs grocery errands for the cooking class (there’s like a bazillion people there—I can’t know his—everybody’s—name!) shared a look with Neriman hanım and then told me to get tea for everyone at the table. What?! Now I’m getting bossed around by him?!

I was more than happy to get everyone their tea.

I left class early tonight—there were too many hands to fold too few mantı, but I’ve got the general idea now. I ate dinner and caught the bus from Asmalı Café.

Then I had a truly unique experience.

If I’d been paying attention as I’d gotten on the bus, I probably would have anticipated a Forrest Gump-esque moment and bolted before sacrificing my fare. Thankfully, I was preoccupied with a text message and didn’t notice much until I got to my seat, which faced perpendicular to the rows of other seats on the bus.

I have never been on a bus so full of stereotypically beautiful women: it was incredible.

The bus was standing-room-only and maybe five passengers and the driver were the only males there. And they (driver excepted, of course) were all on their phones, texting and wearing very self-satisfied grins.