Tonight we had the main bash for graduate Matthew at Albany Community Center, where we rented one of the rooms.  Man, the rules.  Brutal.  It costs, too.

We schlepped in prepared food from 99 Ranch Market (3288 Pierce Street, Richmond). They don’t deliver, so we had to go get it.  Matthew made some great selections, and a number of our Asian guests were pleasantly surprised to see fried belt fish and curry fish balls on the buffet, though I can’t say the same for the Caucasians.

The price more than made up for the must-pick-up situation.

Everything worked without a hitch.  We had choreographed well in advance and also had an extra set of hands in the form of one Uncle Bill.  Bill made it clear that he wanted to be a worker bee and not a planner.

We needed to decorate quickly due to cutthroat policies employed by the City of Albany in their facility rental operation.  We nabbed the food at 99 Ranch and the coffee at Peet’s after preliminary work.

The sound system — a set of powered speakers and three iPods — was brought over in our initial trip, so I hooked that up while my Mom handled decorations, tablecloths and chip and dip setups.

Meantime, Steve went to BevMo to get ice for a  massive soda operation.  Soda had been delivered to the house by Safeway and stored in the garage.  Soda is about the only thing I would trust Safeway with in terms of home delivery.  The few times I tried their delivery service it was a mess.  I didn’t get things I paid for and got things I didn’t pay for and didn’t want.  I don’t want 6 egg custard pies in lieu of a prime rib.

There was the matter of those horrible foil chafing dishes.  We had to have them ready when the food arrived.  We had nine, and they required their own trip over in our Civic because their wire frames are so large and they don’t nest.

After this experience I can appreciate why people have SUVs.

The only thing that was crap, in terms of ingredients — other than the soda and some of the chip-like substances — was the chocolate cake.  It was from Costco and loaded with trans fat.  If there was any butter in that cake at all I wouldn’t know because I fell asleep reading the list of ingredients before I ever got to it.  Note on 12/3/12:  Costco has since removed trans fat from their All-American Cake — the one we had at this party 

Matt and his friends had a great time, and we all keeled over at midnight.