The Lamb Was Delicious

Last Saturday night the bloggers of Asheville were having a little hoe down in West Asheville. I had no intention of going because I am absolutely terrified of crowds of people that I don't know where I have to make small talk. You can put me in a crowd of thousands watching a band and I am fine but once I need to make small talk, I just sort shut down and pull a wall flower act. This is particularly ridiculous because I have to be very social for work, building bridges, turns plans into action, yada yada. I think if I knew any of the other Asheville bloggers I might have been able to go, but maybe not. Maybe in the next year I will reach out and try to go to a drinking liberally meeting (some of the Asheville bloggers get together on a Thursday night and talk politics and drink beer) and work my way to a large crowd over time. I read a bunch of their blogs daily so I feel like I know some of them to some extent. I just am a little shy sometimes. I think this was because I was an uber-geek in high school (now I am an IT goddess).
Hubby and I got a baby sitter anyway and went for dinner and a movie. We got downtown. We hemmed and hawed and settled on Jerusalem Garden, I love the lamb shanks so I was pretty excited. They have both traditional seating (sitting on the floor on pillows) and western seating (on pillows). We sat western style which placed us near the music and the belly dancer.
The belly dancer, it turns out, was at a birthday party of an acquaintance of ours a few months back. I didn't go to this birthday party because of the same reason I didn't go to the aforementioned party. My husband brought our daughter - did I mention it was a 6 year old party? The belly dancer at a small girl's party didn't go over that well, little girls staring with big round eyes, not dancing, and mothers a little bit in shock. My husband been told some interesting info about the belly dancer. She had once been an exotic dancer and a belly dancer but now only did belly dancing. That made us chuckle and we ate our olives. At a table near ours there was a nice older couple drinking wine and carrying on. They really liked the belly dancer. So much so that they put dollar bills up in the air and then tucked them into her skirt.
Just like at strip clubs in movies.
I have never been to a 'gentlemen's club' so I have no idea what really happens, as far as I know they could be playing scrabble.
In the movies, people hold up bills and dancers let them tuck them into parts of their apparel. People were doing this right in front of me in a Middle Eastern restaurant! The dancer was all about the tips. I was pretty uncomfortable. Hubby was pretty uncomfortable. We had been to this restaurant before, they have fantastic food, but I didn't remember money exchanging like this before. I, of course, had to do research about this when I got home. Typically, belly dancers do receive tips this way while dancing. But, according to a few websites, the dancer is supposed to move away from the outstretched hand quickly, not wiggle up against the person who gave the tip.
I learn something new every day.I wonder if there was belly dancing at the blogaversepaloozathon?