Field Notes 1

It was a rather warm morning for being so early, so early in fact that I’m not usually one to see such an early part of the day. Looking up in the clear sky without a cloud in a sight and feeling nothing but the hot sun beating down on my face made me think of the extremely hot days that have yet to come.

As I walked into the restaurant I felt a cold gust of air come over me as I opened the door, at first I actually thought it felt quite refreshing, but after a minute or so sitting at my booth I began to feel cold. After getting myself situated and placing my order I heard the woman that came in slightly after I did that was seated directly in front of me mention that it was cold inside, and upon her making that comment I looked up at her and noticed that on the back of her neck she had a small tattoo of the playboy bunny, we’ll call her Curly. Curly had a little boy (I'm assuming her son), we’ll call him Bomber as he did have an angry birds hat with the bird that explodes on it, he was about 3-4 years of age. Bomber had extremely long for a male, it seemed as though it was even longer than his mother’s (curly) hair. Bomber would not sit still and kept standing on top of the booth looking back at me on a consistent basis, most likely the typical behavior for a child of his age. Curly seemed extremely “picky” as she placed her order with many rather annoying specifications. As the two finished up their meal and headed out, more and more people began to trickle in.

With Curly and Bomber gone I could more clearly hear the annoying sound of older country music in the background.

The sound of a foreign language caught my ear and drew my attention to an Asian family. Tourists I assume as they were all wearing out-of-state college t-shirts and were dresses as if they are prepared to sit in a car for multiple hours. Two younger boys, about 5-7 years of age and an older woman and an older man, I assuming the mother and father of the two young boys. They were rather quiet and stayed to themselves as they patiently awaited their order which was taking extremely long to come out. I noticed that at first one of the young boys decided that they needed the bathroom, so the father got up to take him. Then shortly after the father and son returned to the table the other young boy decided that they also needed the bathroom, so the mother gets up and takes him. I find it unusual as to how siblings seem to want or do the exact same thing as their brothers or sisters, I’m guessing that that is just the role of the older sibling taking on the role of being a role-model. Overall, the family seemed average as they finally received their long-awaited order and began to eat.

As some people leave and new customers arrive, I noticed that all the older customers, which seem to be above the age of 40 have ordered coffee. Also, I have noticed that the older country music has stopped playing and has instead turned into more modern country music. The air conditioner has again kicked-on and it is getting to be an uncomfortably cold environment.

Most of the customers that have shown up are in pairs aside from the few families that have children, and all the pairs of customers at tables are male and female. These male and female pairs all seem to be spouses to one-another and engaged in what seems to be small talk as neither of them seem to be deeply engaged in conversation.

A lesbian couple have entered and are sat at a booth. One of them seems to have more a masculine and serious appearance as the other appears to be more feminine. The more masculine woman (we’ll call her Sergeant) has a haircut to that of what could be considered a male hair style. Sergeant is also wearing baggy pants and a white collard polo shirt. What gives her her serious look is more within the tough looking sunglasses that she has on. Sergeant, specifically, seems to draw the most attention from people. Especially the attention from one couple that seem to be staring. I find it oddly enough that the lesbian couple have two boys, both about 3 years of age. They seem rather well behaved as they both keep to themselves and interact amongst each other.