As usual, Rochelle’s invitation to a recent party is funny and worth preserving. In addition to Rochelle’s birthday, this was the “coming out” party for our new kitchen (even though it wasn’t quite finished). We do regret that we didn’t get to the grilled cheese sandwiches on the griddle, but at least we did make quesadillas.

Worst of all, we forgot to take any photos during the event, especially of people in the kitchen. We’ll just have to try harder (or drink less) next time.

Keeping Up With The Jones Poverty Party

We started the year on a good note by getting rid of lots of crap, but alas, during a routinue appliance swap, we got sucked into a kitchen remodel. We’re only through Stage One (structural), and we’re broke.

So it’s time for a party! We’ll celebrate Rochelle’s birthday and our folly. Come by and make fun of us!

We’ll be serving cheap but good food like bread & dip, deviled eggs and…well…you haven’t lived ‘til you’ve had a fried baloney sandwich made on a Viking Range! We’ll have red wine & tequila (& mixers) from our existing but not insubstantial stash. We’ll also serve whatever beer is on sale that week.

From all you iPoders out there, Rochelle has a special birthday request — bring a playlist of not more than 10 songs from any time I have been alive (May 31, 1962 to present). They can be all from one year [extra points for great years: (birth)1962, (college)1980-84, (move to SF)1985, (move to 569)1992, (guess)1995, and (married Michael)1999], have a groovy theme, or just be 10 cool songs you love. We’ll take take turns jacking into the system, so it’s your chance to be a DJ.

And if you like dressing up, come as your favorite Jones (Davey, Shirley, Starr, Bridget?). Since I suspect there will be at least one Tom Jones, bring panties to throw.

PS – We highly, highly recommend coming via cab or public transit because parking is virtually impossible in the Lower Haight on weekend evenings. Seriously.

I wrote previously about our New Year’s Eve open house and “freecycle” party. I thought I’d post the invite here, since people told us it was pretty amusing…

New Year’s Eve Daytime Open House and Freecycle Party

First, we’ve missed you all so much. We’ve been so busy with work, school and travel, that we’re ashamed to admit that we didn’t have a single party in the Year 2004. Well, there’s still time so we can’t have that!

We know you all have active social lives and no doubt already have plans to paint the town, go to a fab party — or barricade yourselves in your own home. So here’s what we propose: come by during the afternoon or early evening for a relaxed visit, and have appetizers and tea or wine at our house before your main event for the evening.

And we have a planned a fun, interactive activity — a Freecycle Exchange!

Some of you may be familiar with Rochelle’s crap-o-holic tendencies and ongoing battle with shit-nacks, and who has visited us and not been dumbfounded at Michael’s BeBoxes…all 14 of them. Well, our NY resolution is to get rid of half of our possessions! (Or at least half the crap…and all the BeBoxes.) Yeehaw! Our due date is Rochelle’s birthday in May.

We have a four-pronged plan of attack: the last stage is taking stuff to Goodwill, the third stage is posting stuff on Freecycle.org (a site where people give stuff to strangers), the second stage is selling a few things on eBay (a site where people sell stuff to strangers), and…drum roll please…our opening salvo in the war on unnecessary possessions is…giving them to you!

From 1-7pm on December 31st (and until we truck it to Goodwill), our dining room will be full of clothes, shoes, purses, hats, books, a feather mattress, videotapes, curtains, household and kitchen items, and who knows what else, free for the taking. Even the cats are getting into the spirit and have offered up some of their toys and a scratcher.

And, to make this all the more exciting, we’ll even let you in on the offer: if you have perfectly nice possessions that you’d like someone else to be able to enjoy, bring them by. Whatever is left on Saturday will be taken to Goodwill or posted on Freecycle.org. (Note: if you bring something, please take something. ;-)

Now it’s certainly likely the party will go on after 7pm and you are welcome to come by anytime and stay as long as you like, but I want to assure you this is not an ambush, we don’t want you to put on your beer goggles and wake up next to something that you would have never brought home had you been sober. That would never cross our minds. Honest.

RSVP is preferred so we’ll know how much vittles to prepare.

PS: I know that giving stuff away is a sign someone’s considering suicide, but really, we not that depressed about the election results — we just have a lot of stuff.