[gmku]

After the party report:

1. We were the only white faces there, my wife and I and our two friends (our 30-something married couple friends). There were about 50 black people.

2. gmku and his friend become bartenders. We were volunteered, in a weird reversal of the racial stereotype of the servant. We didn't know what the hell we were doing, but we poured generously--everything from glasses of merlot and snifters of cognac to strawberry daquaris and rum & Cokes--and kept 50 black people very happy!

No tips, but the best part, of course, was getting creative with our own concoctions and drinking them. I came up with a Ruby Red grapefruit juice-based equivalent of a tequilla sunrise, there being no opened orange juice around.

3. What does black and white mean when the colors are stated on your invitation? For all you losers who think it means "black tie," it doesn't. It means black and white. I wore black dress chinos and a black and white thin stripped long-sleeve shirt, for example, and my wife wore a black and white patterned dress. We fit right in--well, as well as two white kids can fit in at something like this.