My Aunt the Carnivorous Moose: Hands Full of Glitter and Tofu : 2011 Day 148 (Saturday 28 May)

Today was a crazy day.

I try to avoid ridiculously busy weekends because even though the events I fill them with are invariably fun, and involve catching up with people I love, if you have too many of them they start to feel like an exhausting schedule you have to maintain, and frankly I have enough of that at work!

But, in the end, I have to remember that the things I am doing are far more enjoyable than work will ever be, and so it was with brunch this morning when my gorgeous guy and I caught up with our dear friends, Ian & Ingo, for Ingo's farewell brunch at Cafe C in the heart of bustling Newtown. Ingo is heading back to Germany while he sorts out a permanent working visa in Australia, and while it's going to be very sad to see him go, we are focusing on the fact that he will return and hopefully very soon! (Only down side is they forgot our meals again... not a good track record Cafe C....lucky your food is yummy!)

Our lovely friend, Ingo

Now that's a big breakfast.....and yes I ate it all!

My sligthly blurry but always gorgeous boyfriend

Ian eats his gluten free breakie

My gorgeous guy and I then jumped into the car, headed for Marrickville and hopefully a cake shop that could, in the short space of a week, create and make us a cake for our friend's Fahmi's 50th. I expected this to be a drawn out affair, but the first shop we went into, Marrickville Cakes, run by a darling Greek lady who showed us a couple of photo albums full of cakes (we plan a cake that combines the look of the two cakes below), dialled the wonderfully warm and frriendly Greek lady who makes them for her, and even gave us a box of Greek pastries as we left the store. Who knew ticking something off a To Do list could be so much fun?

The cake sorted, we headed back to my guy's place and..... NAPPED. What a blissful, chilled afternoon and so very needed....

Autumn put on quite the show near my guy's place

Reinvigorated, we dashed back to my place, I got into my fancy schmancy clothes and we headed in on the train with our good friend Fahmi for drinks at The Shakespeare Hotel on Devonshire Street, Surry Hills with Steve's work colleague and friend (by virtue of their shared love of R & B music, Liz and Fahmi are firm friends too) Liz and her friend Jane, then a divinely yummy dinner at Mohr Fish across the alley next to the pub (you're allowed to take your drinks with you so close is the working relationship between the two businesses; the dumplings we had were divine as was the beer battered fish!) before jumping into cabs for a quick trip to The Opera House for a performance by the famed Dee Dee Bridgewater of songs by the legendary singer, Billie Holiday. Fahmi had bought the tickets for us, which he often does when he wants company at concerts, and while I am not a huge jazz fan, I abosloutely had a ball!

Facebook check in photo of my gorgeous guy and Fahmi @ St Peters station

The fish, ginger and shallot dumplings were beyond delicious!! Fahmi thought so...

Dee Dee Bridgewater was so much fun on stage - fantastically talented with a powerful yet sublimely nuanced voice but down to earth, funny, and just plain silly at times. She was a joy to watch, as were the four musicians accompanying her (the drummer and the sax players were both very handsome guys so that helped, as did our 7th row seats which meant up close and personal viewing) and we had a ball!

Check in shot at The Opera House

We emptied out with the capacity crowd, and my guy, Fahmi and I spent time till our train went wandering around the Opera House, and the colonade between the House and Circular Quay admiring all the amazing light shows and light installations in place for the Vivid Live festival, which succeeded in doing what the organisers wanted which was drawing lots of people out on a very cold autumn night. The lights were just stunning, and in the case of the ones where we put our faces up against of the ropes of our piece of luminous artwork, damn near creepy (but in a good way!), and I kept snapping pix right up until the train pulled out.