Last night my wife and I had dinner with some other couples (Mike & Angel, Warren & Marla, and Joel & Susan). Our friend Megan came over and kept our children, they love her. She dates our neighbor Chris who is currently delivering pizzas. So, of course we order a pizza for Megan and the kids, and request Chris as the delivery person. (Odd side note:: we live on the "wrong side of State Street" so Papa John's does not deliver to us. We have to give a alternative address, with our name, and request Chris, then call him on his cell phone with a heads up. That is funny to me.)
We leave the house ... my wife looks amazing ... I felt a little like beauty and the beast ... or at least Lyle Lovett & Julia Roberts. We met our friends at Walker's, one of our favorite neighborhood restaurants. We especially love the patio when the weather is great. Upon arriving we ask Warren (who works in properties) to talk through the development of downtown and his predictions about businesses on Farrish Street. He predicted what the Convention Center would--and would not—do for downtown.
Joel and Susan were a couple of minutes late, but I have since concluded that Joel must have spent an extra few minutes stretching his hamstrings and doing some hand-eye-coordination warm-up drills before they left their house. (Note to reader:: the previous sentence makes use of foreshadowing.)
Once we ordered, Mike began explaining his work at the “24 hour one-stop shop of uninsured and non-urgent medical treatment” or as it is also known, “The Emergency Room.” As the appetizers and salads arrived, Marla began confessing her recent embarassment of ordering the new Rob Bell book at Lemuria, it is entitled "SexGod" (Rob Bell is a pastor and Christian writer who loves provacotive titles). She had the first awkward moment when she had to ask for the book in the store. She is standing there with her sweet little kids asking for the new Rob Bell book. The guy behind the counter shakes his head and says, "Yeah, all I can find is a book called ... ummm ... SexGod." She has to respond, "Yes, that's it. Order me one." The second awkward moment came when the store left an uncomfortable voice mail at her house telling her that her book, "SexGod" has arrived. She has yet to go back to pick it up.
As we all continued enjoying the atmosphere of the Walker's patio at night time under the classic neon sign, I began noticing the levitation of our table umbrella. We are seated at an 8-person table, and the umbrella is big enough to cover all of us. It gets pretty windy. Then—in a flash—the umbrella blasted off the table and towards the other patrons. Joel jumped to his feet, caught the umbrella, and saved the lives of many. I still remember it. First he caught it, then it began blowing him back. It all happened in about 6 seconds, but during that time I had three different occasions to think, “Wow, that was a close one, glad it is over. Wait, there it goes again!” I just knew it would all end with Joel standing on the roof of Walkers. But it did not. Once it did end, every other dining customer erupted in enthusiastic applause. I’ve never seen anything like it. The applause made him feel good, but then my wife said something about a “mary poppins impersonation” that I thought was funny. (Sorry Joel, don’t be mad at us, you're still the hero!)
At one point Warren got up and changed seats. He claimed he wanted to hear what I was saying, but I think he was trying to re-position himself to catch the umbrella if it were to take off again. His movement started a trend of seat-swapping that continued throughout the night. I thought it was fun, although the waiter got confused trying to distribute our plates. During the meal I felt a little left out because I was the only guy not eating a Baby Bison, or whatever that thing was that was the manly special for the evening. I got the normal filet instead. I always get this plate when I go to Walker's.
After the meal--which was incredible--the waiter asks, “Did anyone save room for dessert?” We all say, “No, I don’t think so.” (Fast forward 10 minutes :: there are four giant bowls of dessert on the table, and about a dozen spoons.) As we ate dessert, we all learned from Angel about the difference between "the mullet" and "the shag." The former was a popular hair style when I was in junior high, the latter was something unfortunately going on the heads of women in the 70's.
In closing, here is an actual list of other topics at our end of the table, I will try to do ten::
1) Frankenstein, and the theological implications it suggests. There are many.
2) The role of sports in the social development of children in today’s culture. Our conclusion: it's overrated.
3) What does it mean to be “called” by God in a vocational sense.
4) The possible legitimacy of “witch doctors” in pre-modern African and Native American cultures. This topic wasn't so much of a topic, as it was me rambling. I later thought, “Why the hell was I explaining witch doctors to a retinal surgeon?" (Joel is a retinal surgeon).
5) William Faulkner.
6) A book called Kite-runner, or Blade-rider, or Wind-catcher, or something like that.
7) A film that had the word Peace in it, but I forgot the rest. It sounded good though.
8) The pros and cons of home schooling your children.
9) Philip Yancey books.
10) The positive and negative effects of the visible church owning real estate.
We met for supper at 6:30, and when we left none of us could believe it was almost 11. That was crazy. I like eating with couples our own age. Brings some balance to our crazy lives somehow.
All that to say, the Andrews’ had a blast. We came home to find our children asleep. Parker was asleep in one chair. Rosie was asleep on Megan in another chair. Jackson was asleep in his bed. And our dog Zak was asleep in the arms of Chris (the aforementioned pizza delivery person, neighbor, and boyfriend). Seriously, Chris answered our door with Zak in his arms.
Here's to good times ...
Last night, I took my family to eat supper at George Street Grocery. It is this great little pub that has a long history, including two brothers that had a gun duel in the doorway of the building in the 1920's ... resulting in the death of one of the brothers. It almost feels like the old west. It is a great place. Upstairs is kind of a younger "club" environment, not much fun. But downstairs is more diverse and feels a little like Fenian's Irish Pub. The kids ate all kinds of food and little Jackson (13 months old) ate a whole basket of sweet potato fries. It was funny to watch him. As much as a like it, I had never taken the kids ... they loved it. It is good to be home from Raleigh. I will post more about my Raleigh trip this week ... 
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