Original Commentary
I try to remember to give the name of the person on the other end of the line. The difficulty in one-sided phone conversations is making sure that the reader knows what's going on, without having one of those soap-opera style phone calls where they're obviously just repeating what the other person said in the form of a question. I mean, if the end you hear goes "They kidnapped my uncle?!" "They want one billion dollars?!", then the other end is almost certainly "Joe, they kidnapped your uncle." "And they want one billion dollars" - Terrence

Modern Commentary
Why don't they have this shindig at Sandra's? Because she's house-sitting at her uncle's. It's a fancy place and they'd be terrified of breaking something. It's full of technology that was very expensive and advanced thirty years ago. There's no documentation of how any of it works and Sandra can't decipher the pictograms on the remotes.

I'm not sure why Sandra couldn't decamp back to her own apartment and host everybody else, other than Jane is organizing this shindig and Sandra is too shy to suggest this.

Jane hasn't been over to Sandra's yet and isn't about to invite herself over, especially since Sandra isn't there herself. - Terrence