Hands Full of Glitter and Tofu : 2011 Day 69 - Brain Cells Foggy

Today was so utterly unremarkable that I can't recall what I did.... not at all...

So here's a gratuitous shot of a moose, my favourite animal of all ..... who doesn't love that?!

(apart from those with moose phobias - you may look away now, of course)

Hands Full of Glitter and Tofu : 2011 Day 68 - Sushi with Sammi!

I love sushi (no big shout-it-from-the-mountain-tops surprise there).

I love my friend Sammi.

So naturally when we caught up for dinner tonight, we had sushi @ Asagao on Pitt Street - I naturally had my Yakitori balls and eel sushi... naturally), talked heaps about everything and anything, and finished off with Asian flavoured ice cream @ Passionflower on George Street (the gelatinous sesame balls with red bean and sesame ice cream were delicious!).

The only downside was a very long day leading up to that, and chaos on the train network after an attempted suicide at Petersham, but the wait was minimal, and thankfully the person who caused it all lived, hopefully to realise life is a very good thing.

With a friend like Sammi and sushi, it is.

Hands Full of Glitter and Tofu : 2011 Day 67 (Tuesday 8 March) - TAXI!

Cityrail, you won't be surprised to learn, let me and my friend Warren down yet again today.

We'd boarded the 5.38 from Wynyard, our favourite train of the evening peak period, primarily because it is airconditioned which in Summer in Sydney is a must for a pleasant trip home. Of course, Cityrail being Cityrail many of the trains heading west are older non air conditioned ones (the theory is that because Labor think western Sydney voters will always vote Labour that they don't try too hard with them, hence the awful, old trains; naturally the trains heading to mostly non-Labor voting North Shore are almost uniformly chilled and new) and so we have endured many a Summer trip home in trains that were so hot that it was like being trapped in a hot house with no way out.

So hot trains, while not pleasant, aren't exactly something we haven't experienced before, and so when we stepped into the train last night and the air con was on, we just shrugged sat down, and hoped for a speedy trip home. All went well till we got to Central, where traditionally the majority of commuters join the peak trains, and after the crowds had piled in, AFTER mind you, Cityrail said the train was terminating there because of defective air condtioning. Quite apart from waiting till the carriages were packed, which was typical of the ineptitude of Cityrail generally, I was amazed that after the trips we'd suffered through in wilting heat where no one seemed worried if we melted into sweaty puddles or not, that on this trip, this one (!!),  after a day so long and exhausting that I just wanted to crawk into bed and sleep, that Cityrail felt they needed to discontinue the service.

Naturally, eight carriages of people pouring onto a train created ridiculous crowding both on the platform, and no doubt on subsequent trains, when they could finally arrive, but we didn't wait around to find out, preferring to race outside before anyone else got the same idea and hire a taxi for a quick trip home.

We were home just 15 minutes later than normal, and while it cost us money, it sure beat enduring another one of Cityrail's shambolic delays.

Hands Full of Glitter and Tofu : 2011 Day 66 - A Monday Full of Bangles

No, not those bangles!

These ones....

Well not exactly. It's not like they were standing behind me, watching my every boring administrative move, but so unenamoured of work was I today that all I could hear on my internal stereo was Just Another Manic Monday, over and over....

Cliched true but then who said that anyone's internal stereo is ragingly avant garde?

Hands Full of Glitter and Tofu : 2011 Day 65 (Sunday 6 March) - The Day After the Sequined Night Before

So much quieter and less glitter filled.

That wasn't a bad thing after a very big day yesterday which finished at 2 a.m. this morning. We didn't get up till 10 or so, took our time getting ready and made it for Yum Cha by about 12. As usual, we ate too much too quickly but loved it all the same!

From there we went to Peter of Kensington's - not Ken's thank you, which is the name of a sex-on-premises venue just a few doors down, and oddly a name I kept using instead of Peter's! - warehouse sale in Alexandria and then to the aiport for coffee with Jason before we waved him off home to Brisbane. (Well technically we left him at the gate with his friend Wil as we had to race back to the parking garage before the capitalist blood suckers of Macquarie Corp, the airport's owners, slugged us for even more money!)

My gorgeous guy finished the day off with a much needed nap snuggled up together and a very small post-Yum Cha dinner....

Hands Full of Glitter and Tofu : 2011 Day 64 (Saturday 5 March) - MARDI GRAS BABY!

Mardi Gras Parade day!

Lots of colour, camp, sexy male bodies, Dykes on Bikes, my friends in two different floats (way to go Jason in Freedom To Be and John & Essie and Stephen in Rainbow Kids - so proud of you!), lots of waiting, lunch at Lumiere with Warren, Jason and my gorgeous guy, late night dips, pastizzis and wine at my place afterwards till 1.30 a.m., unusually cold temps, me wearing big cherry red sunglasses that looked oh so straight - ha!, crowds pressing in on you, a celebration of being gay! It had all that, and much more, and was, as always, fabulously colourful and over the top, and the best parade in years!

Hands Full of Glitter and Tofu : 2011 Day 63 : Mardi Gras Eve....

The company I work at is sponsoring a float in the Mardi Gras parade tomorrow with a play on the Wizard of Oz. They have been incredibly supportive of the event and that support has included a glitzy sequined covered giant mobile phone in the lobby of one of the campus receptions. naturally, both myself and my colleague Sandra had to camp it up!

Hands Full of Glitter and Tofu : 2011 Day 62 - It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Mardi Gras

It's Mardi Gras this weekend, and everywhere (apart from red neck bars and fundamentalist churches) I go you see people celebrating the event. It's especially evident on King Street, Newtown, where many shops are getting into the swing of things, and decorating up a gay storm.

Here's some shots of the best shops I passed this morning at 5 a.m. when Fahmi and I went on our usual morning walk up to Sydney Uni and back.....

Eastern Flair