sushipanda

Here are 3 pictures from Debbie’s birthday this past weekend. I don’t know how our friend Sabine does it, but she can put together a themed party at a piano bar, complete with props and costumes, in a span of 48 hours. Props to her, and to all the people who deftly mixed single malt whiskey and lots of red wine.

My original plans of ordering a roast chicken and sharing it with my mom for a low key Thanksgiving were dashed when Debbie called all of us together for a big Shanghainese dinner at Fu1039. The reason? Her awesome mom (who just now offered to set me up with a fleet of China Airlines flight attendants) is in town to drink whiskey and chill with her daughter and her awesome friends. So Jason and I both brought out our mothers for a big giving of thanks. Per usual custom, Debbie went all out at this very nice Shanghainese restaurant, the pinnacle of her efforts to please being the crab cake and dumpling pictured below. Shredded crab meat and crab egg yolk baked in a tiny crab shell, with crab sauce smothered in a ball of sesame sprinkled fried dough. We definitely have much to be thankful for. Good friends and family and food and fun. Hope all of you got yours as well.

Just finished watching the most recent episode of Mad Men last night. Betty and Don have the talk. And then…what the hell, that’s it? They go trick-or-treating? And how the hell does everyone drink so much and not get fat? Damn, I want to be back in the Sixties. Even though if I went back the way I am now, I’d be working in a laundry somewhere.

So in two days, Halloween is once again upon us. I’m attending an actual Halloween Party, of which there are ten thousand in Shanghai every year. But it’s special because I loathe Halloween parties, and I haven’t been to a proper one in a few years now. I actually only have two costumes, and frequently wear them at the same time: Super Mario, and drunken idiot. Here’s an example:

So this year I’m returning back to the Halloween stage, this time supposedly to be surrounded by hot, buxom Taiwanese nurses while I drink red wine out of an IV drip. Sounds wonderfully complicated, but putting this together falls completely out of the bounds of my enthusiasm. So, between now and Saturday night, I’m going to have to come up with something passably clever and impossibly easy to put together. And one that, despite their calls, does not require exposure of anything other than my big fat face.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Oh wait, no one reads this blog anyway, never mind.

One of the best ones yet! Reserved the entire bar of new restaurant 3TOP, and invited new and old friends alike. Got so wasted I completely do not remember what happened at Karaoke between 2am and 5am. Very scary thought. Ok, next year, will definitely scale it down. Thanks to my buddy Ozzie for taking all these great photos! Click on the photo above or at this link here to access the entire Flickr album.