New Year s Party

gene's

i had picked up a bottle of bombay sapphire gin, martini vermouth, and a bottle of absolut vodka for ben's new year's eve party. q offered to pick up a bottle of grey goose, so we ran down to the liquer shop and picked up a bottle. he also picked up two mini-shots, one for m, the other for himself. m picked up a mini-shot of godiva cappuchino liquer for nnc.

afterwards, we went over to gene's to carpool. gene was preparing a host of food for the party. he roasted this huge turkey, made 10 lbs. worth of mash potatoes and made a pot of gravy. when the turkey came out, it smelled so amazing. it was stuffed w/ stuffing too. after gene carved it up, he went to take a shower. in the mean time, q, m, and myself just tore into what ever was left. we picked at it till it was practically clean. it was some of the best turkey that i ever had. even the meat right up againt the bone was moist and flavorful. in general, turkey tends to be dry. gene's mash would have been better, had he not thrown in whole cloves of roasted garlic and mashed them up first.


ben's party

dinner was supposed to be served at 8, but we got there about 10 minutes after. i opened up the bottles of liquor and stated mixing up some drinks. i made a few dry martinis, a few california drivers, and some vodka w/ vodka. i had a little hard time mixing because i didn't know how much my double jigger held. was it 1 oz? 1.5 oz? i had no idea. i just did my best by making larger drinks.

the food at ben's party was really good. in addition to the turkey, stuffing and mash that gene brought, there were two different plates of sticky rice, some dumplings, steamed pork buns, mini-pizza bagels, fried rice noodles and general tso's chicken.

i spent most of the night playing mahjong w/ steve wang, his brother kenny, and m. the other people played taboo and cranium, while todd sat and watched last samurai by himself. periodically, i would get up to mix either myself or someone else a drink. i'd also grab various food items to eat. at one point, dessert was brought out. m made an angel food cake and frosting. ann made rice crispies and moa gee. someone else brought brownies and cookies. the brownies were really good, very soft and chocolately. i didn't have a chance to try m's cake though. there were also various kinds of ice cream to go along w/ the desserts.

after mj, we watched the ball drop in timesquare. during the entire ordeal, it all felt very meretricious. just staring at this ball of light and seeing the thousands of people in the street, worshipping it. as if once the ball was dropped, their sins of the previous year would be absolved. right afterwards, it was all sort of anticlimatic, like: this is it? i no longer have hope for the new year. as the ball hit zero, people clinked paper and plastic cups filled w/ either korbel or sparkling cider. the irony of champagne in plastic/paper cups was so thick.

some people started leaving, the boys that were left dropped in nba street 2. while they were playing, i sat on the love seat w/ m and tina. the three of us and q talked about different upkeeping such as manicuring and facial cleansers. tina shared about some of her "secrets" and i learned a lot.

the night wore thin, and we departed around 3.