a tale of 3 parties

It's holiday party time but this weekend the parties got started with some birthdays. Jane and her girlfriends came down from Vancouver to celebrate their 30th bdays. The party started at Mochica for tasty eats. From there we went to Loft 11 and then half of us left to meet up with some other friends who weren't about to pay $10 to go to a packed hip hop party. So Jane and my friends spent the rest of the night at Holy Cow which was pretty (surprisingly) fun.

Jenn, Jenn, Christine, Jane, me, Clara

The tacky looking but delicious cake (and oops, I didn't realize it was only Jane, Clara, and Christine's birthdays, not the Jenns)

Me and Willy being stupid

Jane and I in front of Crepes-a-Go-Go

So that was Friday night. Yesterday I served as Denny's volunteer escort to a couple of holiday parties he had to go to that he didn't want to brave alone. Now that was interesting. The first was the party of a classmate of his, whom I found out I knew as well. OK so I don't know her but I thought of her as pay check lady because she works in the dean's office and I see her for my checks. She is also an interior designer in the making and her place in Nob Hill was gorgeous. Everything looked like what you see in magazines and design shows. And the guests were also all decked out with their perfect coifs, designer clothes, polite conversation, the whole nine yards. Everything on the table matched. EVERYTHING. Even the dog was wearing a nice sweater. I realized that I don't find myself at parties like this very often with everything and everyone looking so perfect... and I get urges to do or say something stupid just to entertain myself. But no need. I made an awesome faux pas completely by accident but I don't think anyone saw. As I was refilling Denny's punch, I tipped his cup and all his backwash at the bottom of his cup got dumped into the beautiful silver punch bowl. Oops. So to be polite I scooped up all the punch so that no one would be drinking his backwash. But I couldn't scoop it all and before I knew it, someone came to refill the bowl. Oh well. Hehe, that was funny.

So after we got out of there we headed to party #2 which was his coworker's friend's party. What a contrast. We walked in and it smelled of liquor (instead of scented candles). Two nice fellows who knew Denny came to greet us and I noticed both of them were wet. Like their shirts were soaked. Apparently they were playing a game where you hold your arm up straight and pour champagne on yourself and try to get as much into your mouth as possible. Most of it ends up on the floor or on your shirt. The photos on the fridge were of drunk people some with no shirts on and there was no silver punch bowl here. No siree bob. Instead, a recycling bin lined with a garbage bag held the punch which you scoop up with your own cup (obviously no concerns about backwash here) and most people just drank liquor straight out of the bottle. Despite some high school flashbacks (it was a bit fratboyish and I think I only counted 3 nonwhite people), I somehow felt like we fit in better there than at that last party.

Party #4 is my Toastmasters potluck. Gotta go make my deviled eggs now.