Damp Celebration

Went out for dinner last night to celebrate the birthday. A tasty little Italian place, Mingo's, and since it was Last Tuesday in Beaverton, there was music and art in the courtyard outside the restaurants. You could sup on sushi, Thai, or Italian and listen to the band. Of course it was also drizzling, and the band and art were under tents. Not something you expect in late August, which has been even drier than usual this year. Half-inch of rain all month, and much of that in the last couple days.

I had a beer, fried razor clams, and pasta -- scallops and linguini in a red sauce with a little heat.

You know, health food ...

Music was Patrick Lamb and his band, blues, southern jazz, like that, and they did a nice job. A little too loud where we were -- the restaurant has these huge roll-up doors and when they are open, they funnel the sound at you. When the waiter has to yell out the specials, that's not so good when the band stops. Even I had to turn the hearing aids down.

There was a local dancer, Klinton Halliday, who does Indian Kalabharathi. He danced something classical from Bharata Natyam. Couldn't have been much fun, bare-chested and in the rain, and since this is a dance like the hula or traditional Siamese stuff, where the smallest gestures have big meaning, the mostly-whitebread crowd didn't have a clue what he was doing or why. I could appreciate that it had meaning and that he seemed to be good at it, but I didn't know what it meant, either. Hard gig -- kind of like Joni Mitchell trying to open for AC/DC -- the audience is just going to stare at you and wonder, WTF?

Weather guy says summer is coming back later this week. We'll see ...