It’s been a busy weekend here in the khowaga household.

Let’s see.  On Saturday, Ray and I went to San Antonio, to the King William Fair.  Ray’s co-worker’s parents live on King William Street, which is the old-money/rich gay district, and every year they have this big street festival where they have a parade (first thing in the morning – we never make it) performances and food booths and arts and crafts and whatnot.  So, we chugged on down there.

It was supposed to be overcast.  It wasn’t.

So, here’s an old truck all festooned out …

… and a cute little house with a banana tree in front of it …

… and, oh, my God, these were some terrible bellydancers.  They were in front of the house where the party was, and I had to stop and stare and … OK, I know you’re probably thinking that I’m an expert on bellydancing or something because of what I do, and so I’m holding them to a really high standard of authenticity, but you’d be wrong.  I do, however, know what it’s supposed to look like, and it’s not middle aged white ladies in costumes swaying to 70s pop music.

The proper term for bellydancing is raqs sharqi, or “eastern dance.”  This is more like raqs shitty.

We got there just in time for the mariachis to start playing.  The guy in the white shirt and ballcap in the lower right is Charles Butt, owner of the HEB grocery chain (it’s huge in Texas).  He lives next door …

… in this little shack with the Texas Historical Landmark plaque in front.

So, Ray and I went walking round the fair, which was crowded despite the heat (it was 86 / 35) …

… stumbled across a house that we would very much like the owners to leave us in their will …

… funnel cake!  How’d that get there?

… and joined the lengthy line of gay men taking photos with the world’s largest bougainvillea:

Then we drove back to Austin, where I had to turn around almost immediately and go into campus for a special evening event: a private concert with Lebanese musician May Nasr.

She played an acoustic set – woman with guitar on her own, but she has a powerful voice and it was an incredible hour and a half of just sitting and watching her spin her tale.

I bought her CD (and she autographed it – yes, you may touch me), but I found it a little overproduced.  Her voice is still powerful, but it gets kind of buried in there.  I liked her better on her own…

Anyway.  So, that was my weekend.  Hope yours was awesome!

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