I treated B to dinner at Blue Ginger for his birthday last night-- just something casual and close that I knew he would like before his weekend birthday celebration. Just as we were finishing our dinner and attempting to polish off our bottle of Emmolo Sauvignon Blanc, Ming himself walked over to introduced himself to us. A nice, surprising little treat. We talked about the dinner, the dessert, he shook our hands (twice) and thanked us for coming in. Lovely. Boston creates interesting celebrities. It's not as if we ran into Jennifer, Ben, and Violet on the streets of Cambridge, but close enough.

And then a few minutes later-- while we were still working on that Emmolo-- Ming dropped by again. This time he had a menu in hand and mentioned that he knew we had all of his books so he wanted to sign a menu for us. As he signed, he asked us where we were from, which began a conversation about his Midwest Dayton roots and how B was enamored of his line of noodle bowls sold in the Houston-area SuperTargets. Leave it to us to get Ming talking about shelf-stable noodle bowls and SuperTarget. We are nothing if we are not sparkling conversationalists.

He jaunted off again, no doubt puzzled by our aloof casual charm, just as we were puzzled by his tenacious attention. B asked me if I had planned for him to stop by-- I said I wished I could take credit for it, but it must have just been luck of the draw. And that "all of his books" thing-- quite puzzling, indeed. We moved from the wine to our double espressos without giving it another thought.

Until we heard the couple at the table next to us ask our waitress if Ming was available to stop by the table. She apologized to them, saying that he had just left the restaurant. And then the bomb dropped, "We're big fans-- the hostess said that she would send him over to say hello and possibly sign one of his books."

Oooooops. Ummmm, Ming? Wrong table.

So we're not as glamorous as we might have imagined-- just the end product of miscommunication. And on top of it, we stole someone else's special introduction and autographed menu. Ummmm, yeah-- sorry about that.

Later at home, we found that our new celebrity-thiefdom didn't ruin our tiny slivers of B's Vicki Lee Winter White birthday cake.

Not one bit.