Moscow Cafe Crawl

Every shop in town has it’s typical customers. There are more exceptions to the rule than there are people who follow the rule, but there are some patterns that are pretty easy to observe. I find the diversity to be fascinating. It’s hard not to eavesdrop.

Not long ago, I had the opportunity to spend the evening reading at the big table in Bucer’s Coffeehouse Pub. Many of the student’s at New Saint Andrews classical college study here in the evenings. This night was pretty typical I believe. To my left were two young men who spoke at length about how this Easter came very early this year because of the complicated formula used to determine what Sunday it should fall on. It was noted that the Orthodox church (and the Jews) still have Easter (or Passover) coming later this year due to the fact that their calendar isn’t accurate. It doesn’t have leap-years frequent enough to keep the equinox lined up correctly. I didn’t know that before…

Across the table from me was a young man working on translating a cryptic Hebrew text for one of his classes. He occasionally joined in to the discussion about the church calendar with comments about how he had recently visited an Orthodox church on his trip to the Balkans where the daily scripture reading was recited in 10 different languages to cover all the people that might be attending.

To my right was a guy reading Peter Leithart’s new book Solomon Among the Postmoderns. Well, at least he started on it. He ended up spending most of the hour surfing Facebook.

Exactly 5 years ago, it was me sitting in the same chair with my sheet music spread all over the table. I was analyzing a Miles Davis solo transcription as the final project for Theoretical Basis of Jazz at the university. Wow, what a wonderful time. I miss school. Part of me envied all the guys around the table that evening.

The weekend before, I chose to stake out at One World Cafe instead. The singer/songwriter in the corner was covering Dylan and Led Zeppelin. The guy at the table next to me was studying not ancient Hebrew, but books on water resources and environmental engineering. There were also lots of people playing board games, oddly enough! The table on my right contained two young Asian men playing chess. Behind me were a couple of ladies dealing cribbage. On the floor below were four players gathered around a heated game of The Settlers of Catan. I think everyone was glad to be there.

This weekend, I took my wife to the airport in Spokane. I don’t make it up there very often, so I always try to hit Lindaman’s, where you can get a designer espresso made with a fine liqueur. I had a wonderful tiny drink they call “The European”, which is about 1.5 oz of espresso, 1 oz of Sambuca and 1.5 oz of steamed half-and-half. Sambuca happens to be made from Anise extract and tastes like black licorice.

This is a very upscale shop and it shows. There was no missing what kind of cars were in the parking lot. 3 BMWs, a Saab, and a Toyota Prius. I significantly diluted the pool with my old Subaru wagon. Inside there were a group of very well-dressed young women at one table. Another contained a couple sipping red wine and conversing in Spanish. Except it wasn’t the Mexican Spanish I grew up around in the fruit fields of the Columbia Basin. It was slower and smoother. Maybe they were from Spain? Possibly it was Portuguese.

I think I’ll keep life interesting by showing up at all these places from time to time!

Filed under: Bucer's Coffeehouse Pub, One World Cafe, Out of town on April 26th, 2008