Gimme! Gimme!.... Please.... and Release/Repress My Ninjas!

Hands Full of Glitter and Tofu : 2011 Day 48 : Flickering Outdoors One Last Time

Tonight I got me some Morning Glory!

Now before you think me needlessly course and gauche, not to mention wondering how one gets a morning occurence to pop up at night, so to speak, I am speaking of the very funny movie, Morning Glory (hence the capitals) starring Harrison Ford, Rachel McAdams and Diane Keaton, that Warren and I saw at the final session of Open Air Cinema (OAC) that we attended for the year.



Check out my review on my pop culture blog - http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=2664461933442416745&postID=8920818031145930728


The night was notable for :

* Almost raining heavily and then not....neatly ducked using ponchos which is great because while they keep you dry from the rain, you end up sweating like a banshee inside them which negates any dryness you may have gained otherwise

* Feral behaviour from the crowd - sad because we have been going to the OAC almost from the start, and tonight was the first night that saw rampant queue jumping - I confronted one couple who apologised and claimed it was their first night, and they didn't know which was a total lie because they were holding the bag that you get the free Sydney Morning Herald in only at the OAC.... plus who can't see where a line starts?! - and people who had queued properly pushing past us to get in when we started entering. We were both really surprised and appalled.

* Lots of drinking. Normally it's one bottle of wine and that's that but tonight we got a jug of Summer Breeze Belveder Vodka (cranberry juice and apple juice) which took forever to drink..... and no, we didn't fall asleep in the movie!

*Caught a taxi home. Usually I jump on the train but both Warren and I were very tired, and just wanted to get home. We got home just as the train would have been leaving.

A queueing Personal Best for us - 4th in line!

The trees above...and sunlight!

What wasn't so unusual - fish and chips for dinner, and an ice cream for dessert, and warm, fun, sparkling conversation between ourselves and the people around us. I haven't been seeing Warren as much as I usually do lately because he hasn't been working in the City and it was lovely to have so much uninterrupted time with the harbour as the backdrop to catch up.

So that's it for this year, and while I LOVE the event, to an extent that is likely disturbing and unnatural, I am glad we are done for the year. Now to hibernate for Winter....

Hands Full of Glitter and Tofu : 2011 Day 47 : 15 Milliseconds of Fame!

Once a quarter the company I work for releases it's results for the, well, last quarter naturally, and each time they do, they do an in-house media blitz and this time I was one of the people selected to participate. The photo doesn't accurately reflect the fact that the section I was used was in motion but essentailly they filmed it as if I was taking it from someone else and then handing it across to the next person.

Now please line up and I'll answer any questions and sign autographs....

Hands Full of Glitter and Tofu : 2011 Day 46 - Baby Its Dark Outside..... ACO DACO!

Early start today because there was printing for a major executive meeting to be done. What fun! So I left home on the 5.55 train - it was dark, very dark which oddly doesn't worry me when I get up to walk at 5 a.m. but bothers me when I have to go directly to work.... yes odd I know - got the 6.30 bus to work, and started printing at 7 a.m. Be still my beating heart!

St Peters station in the pre-dawn gloom

Being Tuesday, with a suite of executive meetings in the diary, it was crazy manically busy without any time to stop till later in the afternoon, when I decamped from the Cubicle o' Fun and Frivolity (Not) into the City for a night of Kulcha at the Australian Chamber Orchestra in Angel Place with my gorgeous man, and friends Alan and Pieta. We started off with wagyu burgers and red wine at Bar 333, sauntered across the road to Angel Place and enjoyed a night of Mendelsson, Prokofiev and Beethoven (my gorgeous guy's favourite composer), with Teddy Tahu Rhodes, looking dazzlingly handsome in a black shirt, loose tie and suit, and sounding like heaven as he sang, singing two sections of songs with music by a modern composer Bennett, and by Beethoven.

Absolutely delightful.

Hands Full of Glitter and Tofu : 2011 Day 44 (Sunday 13 February 2011) - Bacon & Eggs, Graffiti Art and Fruitcake

So after a big day yesterday which lasted until 1 a.m., you'd expect my gorgeous guy and I to just sleep in, order a big breakfast at a funky cafe and take it easy right?

Well, you would be wrong! Much as I wanted to sleep in, we were (1) in Melbourne, (2) my friend Ellen who'd gone to the wedding too was staying near us at Southbank and we thought it be fun to brunch and explore Melbourne together... and well no more bracketed numbers but we can sleep when we're dead....well that's what they say but frankly why would you need to?

Anyway, we managed somehow in our exhausted daze, to get up, shower, pack, check out, and make it across the bridge, well part way anyhow, to meet Ellen, wander back to Degraves Street for a yummy lunch at Quarter cafe - big breakfasts, while not healthy, are the best! - before wandering around the streets of Melbourne looking at all the graffiti art, predominantly in Union & Hoosier lanes. The art work is enormously creative and colourful, and it fills all the walls of these lanes, garbage bins, windows, like an unruly anarchic outdoor gallery. We were planning to go shopping but with all th shops shut till 11 a.m. we went art watching instead, and I think had a much better time. Yes better than shopping! I can't believe I just wrote that...

Ellen left us then to go on her tour of Phillip Island, and we went and did some last minute shopping for one of my gorgeous guy's nephews - Lego was the choice, and makes me wish I still got to play with it! - before heading to my guy's brother Brian's place for an afternoon of hanging out with him, his lovely wife Sue, and their three kids, who are the nicest, most well behaved, affectionate kids, a real pleasure to be around. My guy's sister also came along for the ride, and after lots of wine, cheese, pate great politically-based conversation with Brian, and Sue's to-die-for fruitcake, and some iPhone games apps playing with my guy's sweet adorable niece Stella, my guy's sister Carolyn took us to the airport for yet another delayed flight as it turned out. Apparently this time it was 'paperwork issues' in Melbourne and 'congestion' at Sydney airport....uh-huh yep sure.

It was the only sour note on what had been a very fine weekend indeed.

Hands Full of Glitter and Tofu : 2011 Day 45 : Happy Valentine's Day!

Ah romance.

I am romantic at heart - despite the harsh realities of life, which seldom allow ideals to be lived out fully, or warm fuzzy thoughts to survive longer than a Summer morning fog, I gravitate to affectionate caring gestures, rom-com movies, immersing myself in the manufactured warmth and sentimality of Christmas, and most importantly, showing my gorgeous guy I love him. I know it isn't necessarily reality but that doesn't worry me since letting the imagined loveliness of life to exist where day to day mundanities seek to snuff it out is far preferable to surrendering to a bitter jaundiced view of life as a crapfest of awfulness leading to death.

So it stands to reason that even though I know it's a commercialised holiday, and yes, you can tell your beloved you adore them any day of the year, that I love Valentine's Day and want to make sure that my gorgeous guy and I celebrate it with epic aplomb.

Which we did. We exchanged lovely gifts that night - the only flowers were chocolate roses in red metallic paper and plastic green stems that were cute I thought - and then went for dinner at a restaurant we love called Delhi o Delhi in Erskineville. Yes they were charging $60 for a set price menu but the food was delicious (the chicken tikka morsels especially were yum as were the lamb cakes for entree), the service warm and efficient, and the atmosphere, incontrast to the neon hell of 2009 (thank you The Clove! Ugh!), was lush, candle-lit and rose petal-strewn, even in the toilets. The loveliest part was 2 and a 1/2 hours of quiet time with guy which doesn't come around often.

It is wonderful that occasionally, just occasionally, romance not only survives but flourishes and resists the gothic horror show that is reality. Tonight was one of those moments and I am so grateful for it, and especially for the man I love.

Happy Valentine's Day babe.