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We arrived back in New York in the early afternoon. Tonight's party was organized by the wonderful Deanna Zandt, a media tech smartie who works with many leftie media outlets. (She'll be presenting a workshop at the WAM! (Women, Action, and the Media) conference at the end of March called The Revolution will use Media Technology.) She also cuts a fine strawberry.

Tonight's party was at the home of Phillip Frazer, publisher of Hightower Lowdown. We arrived early to chat with Deanna about our website plans and hit Phillip up for some publishing wisdom. We were feeling pretty fancy having a party at a Lower East Side loft.  As if that weren't enough, Phillip's adorable feline companion Smudge, was also in attendance. I stalked her with my camera, but she's tiny and quick, so capturing her cuteness on camera proved to be somewhat difficult.

The party was supposed to start at 7:00. When 8:00 rolled around and no one was there, Deanna assured us that if something starts at 8:00 in New York, most folks won't show up until 10:00. She was right. The first guests arrived at 8:30, and at 10:30 new folks were still coming.

There were some lovely people in attendance. Unfortunately there were also some... well, let's just call them party-crashers. Lisa summed it up when she said, "I've never seen so much naked self-interest in my entire life." I'll leave it at that. But we got to chat on a deck in Manhattan in October. Pretty amazing.

Phillip left the rest of us in the dust with his food and drink offerings. The only thing I could take credit for is the fancy bread swirl I created to mask the fact that the pieces I cut were jagged and uneven.

Our last fundraising party is tomorrow. After that it's back to the B-word headquarters in Portland. I'm excited to return home, but sad that the trip is nearing its end.