My wife was doing a slow dance with a man wearing a beaded necklace and carrying a purse.

Really.

After a long five hours of the food drive on Saturday, we spent the evening at the United Way annual banquet. A means of the volunteers treating themselves for all their hard work the past year. Their theme this year was "Night on the Bayou."

Whoever came up with the idea of a Mardi Gras celebration up here in the cold, windy north in November was a genius.

Or insane.

The decorating committee had done a wonderful job. The dinner was held in the larger of the two ballrooms at the community center. A simple, square room with a high pyramid ceiling of wooden beams, maybe three stories high at the apex. They had filled the room with dining tables, interspersed with probably thirty to forty large, tall plants. Plastic beads and masks at every place setting.

There is a line of wire forming a square suspended from the ceiling, about halfway from the apex to the outer walls. Have no idea why it is there. Just always been there, ever since we first had meetings here, so many years ago. They had loosely wrapped artificial green vines all around it, with Spanish moss and large paper flowers hanging down.

The biggest treat in the room decor, and the only source of light, was two streetlights.

Yes, two streetlights. Real metal and glass streetlights, of the same design that the city lined their downtown with in their urban renewal program several years ago. The old style lamps, as one would expect on Bourbon Street.

Neat.

Dinner was catered, by a local gal. But with a definite Bayou flavor. Steaks, yes, but also Bourbon steaks, which disappeared fast, and we had to go back to pick up later as she got another batch cooked. Likewise for the salmon (good) and blackened salmon (excellent).

Never had peached pork chops before. Like 'em. A lot.

Never had crawdads before, either. Trays of red crawdads (or "crayfish", i believe, on the menu). These big fat bugs were a lot larger than anything we grow locally. Our local crawdads will fit in your mouth in one large bite, entire (if you were so inclined). These were like small lobsters.

Didn't taste like lobster, though. A piece of advice if you've never had these things... don't eat the inside of the body of the bug. Gritty goop that tastes like, well, the inside of a boiled bug. Soaked in the black and grey mud of a stagnant pond.

Take my word for it.

The only edible part is the tail, like in big shrimp. That at least tastes like lobster.

Lobster that's been laying dead in that muddy, slimy, stagnant pond for four or five days.

After downing the insides of two of these bugs, I'd rather eat deer testicles, thank you very much.

The dinner entertainment was by a "special performer". "Special", as in she's the daughter of the president of the organization. "Performer", as in she actually gets paid to sing with a band (Smith Junction) in her home, Mesa, Arizona. A gorgeous, thin brunette. So she sang a couple songs with boom box accompaniment. Good voice, though she needs more diaphrahm work on some notes.

Then it was into the auction.