May 04 2007
The Great Escape from Escapé (Pic of the Week)
Click to enlarge and sharpen.
Aperture: f/16
Shutter: 5 seconds
I had to use this Thursday night pic from a storm packing gusts of 100 mph and dumping 2.5 inches of rain on our fair town. Call it an exception to my recent rule that the post would be relevant to the pic.
And now, after the goat meat debacle…
We jaywalked across the street and both said, “Brrr,” as we climbed back into Homer.
So far, because we get along so well and laugh at each other’s wisecracks, the evening was a swimming success despite the food. Any married couple with kids should make every effort to have date nights.
“Hey, I know where we can go,” I said.
“Where?” Shannon asked.
“You’ll see.” She doesn’t like it when I do that.
I drove us to a place from one of my recent posts.
Escapé is a shop that, besides its name, bears the phrase, “Coffee and Donut.” I still say “donut” should be plural for it not to be funny.
We walked in to live music played by a young man with an acoustic guitar. He sat atop a padded stool and sang into a mic wired to a small PA head and two speakers.
The place was packed with people of all ages. A gray-haired man and a 7-year-old boy sat at the end of a long mahogany table playing Jenga. At tall round tables with barstools sat mostly families of mom, dad, and young children. A boy of 10 played chess against a 40-year-old, intense concentration on both their faces.
A man apparently suffering from cystic fibrosis cerebral palsy or similar affliction played Connect Four with a woman with a kind face. Head tilted at a constant but shaky 45-degree angle, he held the game piece aloft with a permanently bent arm and turned his entire body to make his next move.
Some sat watching the musician, some played games, and others reclined on welcoming plush furniture while they chatted. We were happy to be there before the door closed behind us.
I ordered a mocha and we headed over to a corner where we saw some room to sit.
I pointed to a padded armchair and looked across a coffee table at a cozy couple sitting on the sofa. He was a heavyset white guy, about 40-ish, she a lean Asian woman a few years his junior.
“Is this somebody’s seat?” I asked.
“It was, but he hasn’t been back for a while,” said the man.
Thinking it looked wide enough for both of us, I motioned Shannon into the chair as I sat. It was a tight fit, but something we could tolerate while I drank my mocha.
A man approached from the right, his eyes switching from us to the couple on the sofa.
“Oh, is this your spot? Here, we can move,” I said. We stood and walked over to sit next to the couple. “There wasn’t really room for both of us there, anyway.” No jokes about fat asses. No jokes about fat asses.
As chair guy took his seat, I wondered whether he felt our warmth. I’ve never liked using furniture preheated by a stranger.
“So, do you know Carl?” asked chair guy, looking right at Shannon.
“No, we’re just here because we needed a place to sit,” Shannon said.
It soon came out that we had sat in the middle of a group of folks who knew the musician, and a little later that they attended the same local church. I wondered whether it was non-denominational.
“So, is your church non-denominational?” Shannon asked.
“No, Southern Baptist,” said chair guy and a couple others.
Shannon and I both smiled politely and replied, “Oh, okay.”
“So, where do you guys go to church?” chair guy asked.
Shannon and I have a pat response to this question. No, it isn’t, “We don’t go to church.” Around here, you might as well say, “Each of us has a second face growing from our left breast. Wanna see?”
Instead, we looked at him and said, “We haven’t found a church home since we moved.”
“Oh, so you just moved in?”
“About two years ago,” Shannon said.
Chair guy told us the exact location of their church and asked if anybody had a card. A lady to his right quickly pulled out a business card embossed with the church’s name.
They all laughed.
“Yeah, I can’t believe I had one of those when I needed it,” said card lady.
Walking into a place full of families having fun with their kids was fine with me. We’ve never been party animals, and would reasonably expect such a Saturday night crowd at a place that doesn’t serve alcohol. Now, however, it was turning into not my idea of a date at all.
We already had sacrificed a goat for my meal, so I wasn’t adding any more religion to my evening.
“Well, babe, what time does that movie start?” I looked at my watch. “Whoo, looks like we better get going.”
Shannon took my cue without blinking and we high-tailed it outta there. We would give Escap&etilde; another chance some other time.
On a final note, what happened to movie start times of 5, 7, and 9? I guess most movies are so long these days the theater managers can’t fit them into a mortal’s schedule. We’re not old by any means, but we found nothing we wanted to see badly enough to sit down one day and leave the next. We may plan our next movie date night around what’s playing at The Studio Movie Grill, where we can eat mediocre food, see something on the big screen, and arrive home on the same date that we started our date.
And here’s another storm pic:
(again with the clicking)
Aperture: f/16
Shutter: 5 seconds
Note that while the minivan waits it out, a vehicle goes around it. You can tell exactly where the passing vehicle was when my shutter closed.
With all the really cool pictures I’ve been seeing lately, I’m really gonna start wanting a nice dSLR, Mark. Stop it, would you?
When Chair Guy asked after your church, you totally should have said, “First Reformed Satanic. Do you like goats?” Then you REALLY would have had a reason to Escapé from that coffee shop. (I’m on fire today!)
The light trail in that last pic makes it look like Homer just came out of Hyperspace and pulled a quick u-turn to park in front of your house. She may not look like much, but she’s got it where it counts, kid.
The only problem with your church response is that it invites that kind of prosletizing. “Oh, looking for a church, eh?”
Very cool pictures and some very well written sections of this post. You set the scene well.
Si - I prefer to imagine that the minivan is being fired upon by an approaching Star Destroyer “Angle the deflector shields while I charge up the main guns!”
Simon - Yeah, you’re on fire, alright. And I probably would have burst into flame had I given that response.
That is a dream answer, but one that I probably could never give. Never know who one might talk to in a job interview somewhere down the line. Of course, I realize your were joking, but it’s still fun to dream.
I could have pulled a Spinoza on him, though.
MG - You’re right; that line is like an invitation to be recruited. We are not completely averse to attending church, so the question wasn’t totally bogus. Granted, our motivations aren’t exactly the same. I’ve always been fascinated by religion, partly because I grew up in a fundamentalist Church of Christ, and partly because I took a Sociology of Religion course in college. Had they said, “We go to the Church of the Poison Mind,” or anything else I’ve never attended, I might have liked a visit. I’m a little disappointed none of my Jewish co-workers have ever invited me to a service. I suppose I could just walk right in. There weren’t many of those near where I attended University.
Interestingly, I still believe that of all the churches I’ve seen that proclaim the Holy Bible as their guiding document, the Church of Christ does that part better than anybody else. There is no separate doctrine like in so many other churches, and no central governing body telling the churches what to do or whom to hire. Of course, they also adhere strictly to practices like “only men can conduct church business,” but I’m just talking hypothetically here. Oh, and I’ve never had the “no musical instruments in worship” shown to me, either.
Okay, maybe my theory is getting a few holes in it. That’s the problem when we start analyzing any religion — it’s filled with man-made holes.
Whoa. That got deep pretty quick.
Um, “angle the deflector shields?” I’ve never heard that one, and I’ve watched many a space battle on TV and in movies.
For some reason when I click, the photo reappears on a new page but it doesn’t seem larger. When I check the properties it does change from 464×309 to 600×399. I guess my 47 year old eyes are confused by the photo’s lack of surroundings on the click.
Anyway, they are nice shots. Reminds me of a downtown Chicago storm I experienced with my first SLR. I need to find those in my thousands of slides.
Also raised in the Church of Christ, I’ve had many issues with the operations of the church since becoming an adult. I have a half-finished post I need re-visit.
Your description of the gentleman with cystic fibrosis sounds more like cerebral palsy. I always thought CF was lung/mucus and other organ related and it was common in the past for sufferers not to live past their teens and early twenties. But I’m not a doctor and never played one on T.V.
BK - A fellow CofC’er. Or former, as it were.
Oh, I also forgot the whole “should not drink alcoholic beverages ever” part. That didn’t seem Biblical to me.
I’m sure you’re right on the CF vs. CP point. I admit to a total guess on that one. The result of a simple five-second search on WebMD.com confirms that you’re right. Thanks.
Bring on the storm shots! In the spirit of May the Fourth Be With You, and the 30th anniversary of Star Wars, we’re storm troopers (of a sort).
Mark, I’ll chalk up your admission to ignorance at the end of comment #3 to a simple lack of appropriate introspection. As you mentioned, today is May the Fourth be With You day (also my boy’s 3rd birthday), and so the answer was sitting right in front of you.
Remember when the Falcon “escaped” from the Death Star in A New Hope and stumbled upon the sentry Tie-Fighters? Luke was moping under a blanket, being consoled by his still-unknown sister, when Han gave those memorable instructions to Chewie before he raced to man one of the two main gun turrets. His next line, to Luke, was then, “C’mon kid, we ain’t out of this yet,” thereby snapping the youth out of his reverie and into Imperial-killing action!
Huzzah for Star Wars and all it’s references!
As a non-Star Wars aside, I’m all about Spinoza. That’s about my idea of a Creator, right there. (In the guise of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, that is.)
Praise be to the Flying Speghetti Monster.
Praise be to overly detiled analysis of Star Wars quotes.
Praise be to catching even Simon using the incorrect form of “it’s”
My students love that coffee shop, but I’ve never been - probably because I don’t want to run into them - even though I do like most of them this year.
Great storm shots! I love weather shots and you have captured the intensity of the storm well.
I appreciate you stopping by the blog. I hope this gets posted ok and wanted to give it a shot.
Wow…. looks awful. Glad you’re all right though…