365 Pink Feather Boas All in a Row - Day 169 : Off To Meet the In-Laws!

A big, gigantic, enormous, huge, date that ate Paris type of day!


I am off to Melbourne to meet my gorgeous guy's family, who by all accounts are warm, sweet and welcoming - well with a guy as lovely as mine coming from their midst, that's exactly what I'd expect - and while I am not sick to my stomach nervous, I am feeling the effect of flocks of butterflies flying in formation around my stomach. I am sure, like usual, I will be just fine once I meet them, but the lead up is nerves central!

I had the day off thankfully, which gave me a chance to pack ahead of rushing home from work (I still packed in a last minute frenzy though naturally!), watch some episodes of Stargate Universe, and chill (as much as the ADHD butterflies would allow anyway) before my gorgeous guy arrived and we set off for the airport nice and early to make sure we didn't get caught up in any Friday night traffic snarls. As it turned out, we could have walked there and still made it in plenty of time! Unbeknownst to us, the Virgin computers had crashed earlier than day creating big delays and so instead of flying out at 6.15, we spent a delightful hour plus, cooling our heels (wine, beer, chips and pink donuts help assuage the pain!The cafe at gate 40 must have adored the extra patronage) at gate 40 before being herded back to gate 35, in what was an hilariously Flying High gate swapping exercise.

Waiting at the aiport - we drank, we kicked back..... but didn't fly

But the Virgin Blue Keystone Cops hilarity had not fully run its course, and the aerobridge was broken so everyone was forced across the tarmac in scenes reminiscent of every flight I have ever taken in or our of the Gold Coast. But did the fun end there? It did not! Just into the flight, Steve & I got thirsty and Steve opened one of the funky slim water bottles I had bought at the airport newsagency/bookshop. What I hadn't read was that it was lightly sparkling water, and it fizzed out of the bottle with alarming, jean-drenching vengeance, much more aggressively sparkling than anything else! Thankfully being water no lasting damage was done, and we managed to land without anything more happening to us.


OK not true! Turns out the back door of the plane wasn't working now - thankfully the plane's engines worked just fine which when all is said and done is the one thing you want to kick along withouit interruption - so everyone went out the front door. Let's give thanks for picking seats at the front of the plane! We were met at the airport by Steve's brother, Darren who is a skateboarder, runs his own sign writing/graphics design business, and is very down to earth and friendly.

I found myself relaxing in his presence very quickly and talking to him was very easy. Melbourne's fabulous road network, and the disappation of my nerves, meant we were in the City before I knew it, and at our hotel, Causeway 353, which sits down a lane off Little Collins Street called Equitable Place, which pleased the left winger in me no end! Frankly I didn't see much evidence of human rights upholding on the cobblestones - there was an older lady in a red coat smoking in a doorway who was possibly a hooker but doubtful she was lobbying for more rights for refugees - but the hotel staff were very friendly, the room modern and clean, not that we wasted much time at 10.30 at night before we had headed back out to see what food was on offer. Men cannot live on airport food alone.... or ever really....

After a wander across some of Melbourne's wonderfully wide boulevards, and along the mall - where a drunk early 20s girl called us sexy before realising we were gay and proclaiming the fact, very humourously to any and all passers by - where Steve did a fabulous job of filling me in on Melbourne's history and architecture, and his own trips to the City as a boy when he'd buy coins, watch a movie with his schoolfriend, and eat a piece of pavlova at the Coles cafeteria. For a school boy, that was the big time! It was lovely exploring it all with him, getting a sense of what his home town means to him, and then finally finding a great unfussy place called Sambal Kampung where we ate some delicious Nasi Lemak, dumplings and vegetables and rice in egg gravy. We decided to start taking photos of the food to show our friend Fahmi who's idea of holiday snaps is endless food shots! He loves Melbourne and was so envious of us being there. I can't blame him as even this small walk around the City centre left me mightily impressed.

The lane the hotel sits in

We walked home via Flinders Street Station and Federation Square which is funky, with some very oddly angled archiecture going on. I loved it, more so when I saw the sign for ABBAWorld which I knew was starting the next day, but had figured I couldn't tickets for because everyone would have booked it out. It was wonderful spending this time with my guy in a place that had helped formed the lovely man he is, and being away in a hotel room on our first trip away where we weren't staying with family or friends.


So far, so fabulously great!

365 Pink Feather Boas All in a Row - Day 168 : Sunrise Magic.... and a Most Excellent Train Adventure (Sort of)

I was up before sunrise as usual today for my daily trek to work - a little bit different today but more of that later - and had to go out to the balcony to retrieve a business shirt for the day. I was greeted, thankfully not by Tony Abbott in speedos hiding refugees on my balcony (that is something that no one should ever have to go through.... certainly not the refugees who have already suffered enough!), but by the most magnificent sublime colours in the early morning sky. It was a wonderful way to start a very pedestrian day and injected just enough magic to elevate the day above the mundanity it was drowning in up to that point....

Having suitably dazzled me with it's brilliance, nature retreated and allow stultifying routine to try to resume it's bland and insipid routing. Instead though, Warren and I fooled mundanity (which isn't smart and doesn't overly think things through) and went on a (Sort of) Most Excellent Adventure by catching the train to North Ryde, rather than me catching the bus and him driving (he couldn't anyway as the SAAB was in the shop after suddenly stopping in it's tracks yesterday). While it was fun varying routine, and discovering the 'delights' of platform 16 at Central where the North Ryde trains leave from, ultimately the train was crowded (fortunately with a few cute guys throughout), and took far longer than the bus would have taken me.

Still it was fun to vary things a bit and spend some time with Warren, and I am all for doing what it takes to keep life even a little more interesting than it ordinarily is....

365 Pink Feather Boas All in a Row - Day 167 (Wednesday 16 June 2010) : Reunited....and It Feels So Good

Why use a song title by renowned singers Peaches & Herbs as the title for today's blog entry?

Why not I say? It perfectly captures the spirit of the night (when I actually got away from work on time and made a social outing) when Warren and I caught the train from North Ryde together - well eventually... he turned up at North Ryde near where he's temporarily working thinking it was the station I use, Macquarie Park; much confusion ensued until I realised he was at the 'wrong' station... we finally ended up on the same train!) - to meet up with our wonderful close friend Peter, who finally returned from his four month mega trip through South America.

He had a ball, visiting places as diverse as Machu Pichu, Cusco, Nazca Lines, and the Galapagos Islands and taking something like 3000 pictures in the process, and bringing back lots of rocks, and an overly endowed fertility god. He also returned bearing gifts including alpaca wool scarves for Warren & I which are lovely and warm. We caught up over some yummy champagne at his place before heading out to a brilliant Thai place in Cammeray which serves the most delectable tuna and chilli in leaves entrees..... food to die for but we decided to live instead and catch up on 4 months of our lives....

Of course, being close friends, it was like Peter hadn't been gone for any time at all, and it was lovely to get a bear hug from him and see him so animated and happy.

A lovely night!

365 Pink Feather Boas All in a Row - Day 166 : Wagamamas, I Forsook For Too Long

I was supposed to go to have dinner with my dear friend Justin tonight at Wagamama's, a restaurant I used to go to heaps, but haven't frequented in ages for no particular reason.....

BUT work has struck and as of 5.46, I am still here waiting for some data that one of my bosses must have for an 8.30 meeting with an ETA more rubbery than Gumby that seems to keep moving ever further into the sun-hazed horizon. So it is increasingly looking like I won't be home till 7.30, and will have some leftovers - yummy leftovers it has to be said but hardly my Wagamama faves - and there goes my evening.

So much for the fabulous glittering prize of work/life balanace. I am fairly certain that work just took out life in the mother of all smackdowns.

................and so I wait...............

In the end leftover was not appealing enough and I grabbed some takeaway Indian at Erskineville on the way home (and no, I didn't go the trouble of making it look pretty when I got home, despite the random image taken from the net, above!). Yes its comfort food, and not wise when I haven't been exercising lately but I had had a horrible day and decided to buy some temporary culinary-based happiness....

365 Pink Feather Boas All in a Row - Day 165 (Monday 14 June 2010) : Adventures With My Guy

It seems to have been the (long) weekend for it.

After our fabulous new cafe discovery in Stanmore on Saturday, we decided to strike out for parts unknown - well not completely but it sounds dramatic doesn't it, with some Hitchcockian suspense promised - and go to Norton St, Leichhardt for dinner instead of Erskineville/Newtown or Dulwich Hill, which while lovely, are where we always end up.

But after the time it took us to find a hotel we wanted to stay at in Melbourne, when I head down this weekend to meet his family (which is simultaneously exciting as I have always loved the idea of in laws, and nerve-wracking), we decided to stay a little closer to home but still branch out and ended up settling on a Chinese restaurant in Marrickville Road. I usually avoid Chinese restaurants because I grew up in the country where the Chinese food was cliched and very Aussie (I do have affection for them though and one year even ordered a whole dinner of cliche classics with an old high school friend one Boxing Day) but we decided in the spirit of adventure to go in and see what happened.

If it was cliched, it was cliched, and we'd just laugh and make the best of it. But it turned out to be reasonably authentic, with a number of Chinese families eating at scattered tables, and we settled on shredded beef (thinking it would be like the Vietnamese version which is light and healthy) and Shandong Chicken, which had no description, but which fell into the category of "why the hell not give it a shot?". That was the motif of the night after all! We did go with one small cliche - seafood fried rice but its yummy so it doesn't count! - figuring that all the other food was non-cliched so mission accomplished.

It didn't quite turn out to be as healthy as planned - both dishes were deep-fried though delicious - but we had a lovely time with each other as always, loved trying somewhere new (even if it wasn't as ground breaking as Cafe Perci on the Saturday), and had a blast reaffirming our commitment to trying new things no matter how they turn out.

ADDENDUM: We got home just in time to see Q & A, the ABC's weekly panel talkfest, which featured the usual varied guest list - in this case including journalist David Marr, Federal Environment Minister, Peter Garrett, and Liberal Helen Coonan - and one of the topics debated was ethical treatment of animals. One of the things that Q & A features a live Twitter feed where they pluck a few of teh 100s of Tweets made and run them on a ticker tape like feed across the bottom of the screen. Not expecting to make the cut, I commented on the ethical treament of animals question and lo and behold, made it on screen! Very exciting stuff (even if some Neanderthalic fool felt the need to respond to me on Twitter itself with a disparaging response. Quite why people need to be so vicious online is beyond me.) !!

365 Pink Feather Boas All in a Row - Day 164 (Sunday 13 June 2010) : Dr Whoooooooooooooooo!

I do love Dr Who.

It scared the bejesus out of me as a child, and I still can't brush up against a plant without remembering Seeds of Doom where alien spores turned people into giant violnet plants, and it was very cartoony, but the new series, primarily the ones with David Tennant in them, were thoughtful, emotionally intelligent, and clever, and dragged me right in.

David Tennant alas, has now departed - he was by far the hottest, sexiest doctor - and while I love Matt Smith and his new sidekick, I can't help but feel that the new Dr Who is being dumbed down and infantilised, as evidenced by the Confidential (a weekly behind-the-scenes look at the episode that's just aired) that was on last night which centred on a tour the actors and PR team undertook to.... schools.

Now there is nothing wrong with targeting kid as your demographic, but when the series has been so clever and heartfelt up till now, I lament the cartoonish nature of the new episodes, and hope this isn't some sort of calculated attempt to get younger viewers, which risks alienating older viewers. Certainly while I love my weekly Dr Who fix, it definitely isn't as satisfying as it once was, which is a pity.

365 Pink Feather Boas All in a Row - Day 163 (Saturday 12 June 2010) : We Have a New Favourite Cafe!

That sound you heard today of angelas singing on high, in between sipping their lattes, and chewing down on their heavenly brioches, was due solely to the fact that my gorgeous guy and I, haters of all ruts no where how cute and furry, went to a different suburb today, Stanmore, and found a fabulous, yummy new cafe called Cafe Perci.

We almost missed since it is tucked away at the top of a string of shops heading into streets of houses, but it was where we finished up after exploring the shops - passing a delectable looking patisserie on the way that we have to go back to soon! - and everything about it turned out to be wonderful. It was small, but not too small with great ambience, the staff were warm and friendly - and even made jokes! I ordered a second hot chocolate, and after remarking that the first one had a marshmallow and how much I liked them, and when delivering it, the waiter said "If you wanted another marshmallow, you just had to say so!"  - the owner was low key flamboyantly gay, the food was delicious (scrambled eggs as light as clouds, bac on cooked to perfection, and in my gorgeous guy's case, French toast to die for), and prices fair.

All in all, it was a wonderful discovery, and we had the most sublime brunch. Largely due as always to the wonderful company of the man I love, but due to cafe Perci, which merits many return visits.

365 Pink Feather Boas All in a Row - Day 162 : An Excursion.... Where's the Note From My Parents?!

Work has been very stressful of late - like my endless bleating in blog entry after blog entry didn't give up that frazzled morsel of goodness - and I decided today was the day to leave Dodge, go to the local mall with a good work friend, Charles, and have some fun!

For me, that equates to a wander through JB Hi-Fi (bought nothing! Quelle fromage! Yes I know that the second French word means cheese.... it's a joke), Borders (latest issue of my favourite entertainment magazine in the world, Entertainment Weekly, from the USA), and lunch at a Japanese eatery (Katsu Don rules! Yum!) with a stop at Easyway chinese teas on the way out for Taro Milk Tea with Pearls.

A perfect end to a mind numbing, brain-frying week......

**********

Until that night, when I went with my gorgeous guy to my friend Waz's place for champagne.....

Pizza.....

 ...... and cupcakes while we watched an episode of Modern Family, and the end of the latest series of The Amazing Race, with lots of talking and jokes inbetween.

Now the day was perfect.......

365 Pink Feather Boas All in a Row - Day 161 : Day of the Scarf!

The night was freezing....

.........and the day even colder. So one of my scarves made it's first appearance today.

I love wearing scarves, winter jackets..... I felt smart in them, love the dressing up (what gay boy worth his glitter doesn't?!), and appreciate the fact that I will keep looking well dressed, as opposed to Summer when my propensity for sweating and much of it, renders even the funkiest outfit limp and damp.

I know many people yearn for Summer but not me. Keep it cold, Wintery and snuggly and I'll be happy.

Especially when my gorgeous guy is back here to snuggle with!

Bring on Friday night!!

365 Pink Feather Boas All in a Row - Day 160 : Zara (my niece) Loves her Breakfast! YUM!!

She is so adorably cute and photogenic to the hilt! What a gal!

365 Pink Feather Boas All in a Row - Day 159 : Ugly Like a Troll....Not Ugly Betty

It was very cold today. Brr!

But even so, because I couldn't find a scarf to match my shirt (silly since you barely see the shirt under my black jacket) - I can be so gay at times! - I went to work in just the jacket.

It was an uneventful day at work, punctuated by no walking outdoors - let's hear it for my bosses getting their own lunches! - until.....

I walked to J B Hi-Fi to get Season 2 of Sanctuary, a show I love with my favourite Stargate alum, Amanda Tapping (Yes now I am being really nerdy!) with my friend Waz....

Then caught a train home....

Then went walking with him around Sydney Park....

Then ate dinner.....

Then..... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Irony - Thy Name is Not Alanis Morrisette

I was sent these in an email yesterday and they cracked me up. How deliciously contradictory is life sometimes!

365 Pink Feather Boas All in a Row - Day 158 : My Very Own Soap (Dish) Opera

Over a year ago, the soap dish in my shower shattered all over me.

Not fun.

Today I finally got it replaced by the landlord.

Is it wrong that I am so happy to have it back?

Cause I am.

365 Pink Feather Boas All in a Row - Day 157 : Monday Thy Name is Manic!

Today was nothing remarkable...just another Manic Monday.....

So here's a picture of The Bangles.

Thank you, and good day.