she did a thing

Jimmy's Food Store has always owned our hearts.

It was where W first flirted. Where then, after my head finally stopped madly spinning, we hung out many times in the cramped front space, drinking four dollar cups of wine with a loaf of good bread and thinly sliced smoked mozzarella. Occasionally olives and such. Occasionally a sandwich from the deli.

There were paper plates, napkins, and bottles of olive oil & balsamic vinegar on the narrow shelf at the front windows. Help yourself...

Those were the days! Those glorious days before Covid put an end to the intimate antipasti tables which have never returned. But Jimmy's is still our place and W still continuously flirts with me in any given, wonderfully cramped aisle we very leisurely peruse. 

Yesterday we popped in, designed as it usually is: order our wine and if possible chit chat with the beloved staff a bit, then check out the produce. We always buy tomatoes but the rest just depends. Sometimes it's great organic potatoes or local garden squash. It turned out that afternoon we chose three large green tomatoes to fry, and zucchini for a quiche I'll make.

Being a holiday weekend, the store was busy but W managed, against my pleas not to, to pull an owner aside with her special request...

Young Tony didn't hesitate to oblige. He led her to the front's interior window bar which he thought would be perfect. It is! He even offered W a pen for initialing, obviously aware of this romantic worldwide tradition. 

Though our hearts are forever bound to this iconic place, and we need no proof of our bond to each other, the Love-Lock allowed to be placed where it is, means so much. So, so, so much. We have permanently marked our spot very publicly yet so privately.

We enter and we'll greet it. We exit and we'll blow a kiss. I'll forever be grateful to Jimmy's for this; one of many genuine gestures we've been gifted from them across the years.

And as for W... I'm thrilled she ignored my pleas. I'm grateful. What an amazing gift!

I pray she never stops flirting.