Andy's Going Away Party

On Thursday, Leina's friend Andy is moving to China to be a lawyer there. Leina and Erica threw Andy a going away party on Sunday. It was a brunch party, and Leina generously hosted, and did much of the preparation. Charles fried bacon and Tony almost flipped out when he saw that Leina was trimming the fat from the bacon. He also started to give Leina and Charles a hard time because she had him using an undersized thin frying pan which was causing smoke to billow throughout the house when a few weeks earlier he had gone through the effort of cleaning up and seasoning a very nice cast iron frying pan which would have done the job much better, but then he remembered he was trying not to be so mean to her so he cut himself off.

Angie made quiche, which generally consisted of her yelling at her brother and Chris to do things because "I have a cast on my hand!" but she did manage to slice the thumb of her good hand while trying to chop parsley with Leina's incredible sharp knife that was so sharp it was dangerous.

Will and Amy brought bagels and lox and cream cheese, Joe and Kanade brought a scrumptions lemon poundcake, and Nicole supplied the little coffee maker which worked hard but kept up with the caffeine addicts present (Leina is not among them). Erica brought o.j., Dianda's almond torte, some random brownie things her mom gave her, and made a big fruit salad (she had fretted that there was nothing red in it, due to the fact that she'd bought yellow watermelon, to the point that she almost had Tony talked into going to the Ferry Building to buy some strawberries on the way but it didn't open until 10:00 because California organic farmers like to sleep in, and no one noticed anyways). Steven Dodson brought three bottles of Champagne. Andy arrived a few minutes late for the party, something that he will not allow to happen in China, where a few minutes early means right on time, and he brought a bottle of port. To brunch. Leina was happy to have it, but the partygoers were happier drinking mimosas.

During a lull, Leina brought up a few volumes from her famous home video collection, and the party watched videos from Leina's 16th birthday (she used to wear glasses all the time and have bangs!), their high school graduation. Afterwards, they watched Flava of Love, Season II, where Flava voted off one of the contestants because she had lied and said that she hadn't been a porn star. People never learn--as Flava told her, it was just like Watergate; it wasn't the crime, it was the cover-up. Maybe Flava didn't explicitly make the connection, but that's what he was thinking.

Despite all the food at her brunch, Leina was too busy hosting and making small talk to eat much, so by 4:00 she was hungry again. She and Charles went off and ate Thai food at Stonestown. She also tried on a skirt while there. Afterwards, Leina pretended that her stomach hurt so she didn't come over to the Turners' and hang out with Erica and family.