Mozzeenet

Marie-Louise as the wicked witch of the west

It was BIG and SCARY and fit for the glitziest, ritziest show in town. And that was only the enormous, sparkly spider affixed to Marie-Louise’s bottle-green, velour-enshrouded shoulder.

At one table sat the Bride of Frankenstein and at the front of the room, Trudy Valentine, and Sandy Togs strutted and pranced and camped it up, all dressed in drag which was nothing unusual! With a theme of ‘scary’, Trudy wore a fiery orange, spiked wig and a black, shiny vinyl, skimpy dress with a skull and cross-bones at the front and nothing underneath! Sandy Togs’ long, blood-red hair flowed over her black, vampy dress hitched above thigh-high black and white striped socks and transparent plastic mega heels.

Big Bingay is held twice a year to raise funds for the Aids Council of NSW (ACON). Ian, Marie-Louise and I went at the last minute earlier in the year and this time around, encouraged by Ian, we decided to put together a table. It was again held at the Paddington RSL and it was the weekend of Halloween hence the ‘scary’ theme. The room was decked out with plastic skeletons and pitchforks and we all took up the challenge of dressing for the occasion.

Marie-Louise made a spectacular and rather provocative wicked witch of the West in fishnets, red shoes, a green velour dressing gown, a teensy weensy black dress, red scraggy wig and feather duster for a broomstick. The aforementioned spider was a gift to her from an impressed passerby on Oxford Street earlier in the night.

Snake tattoos adorned Lisa’s upper body, wildly impressing and attracting many curious and awe-struck glances. Ian donned his ‘usual’ mongrel drag attire of fishnets, pink hot pants and black, ripped chesty bonds T-shirt, held together with over-sized safety-pins.

Amit and I scratched and clawed in wicked cat masks - I had also picked up a matching leopard-print singlet for a bargain $5 from Supre on Saturday. Last but not least, Nick wrapped himself in a black and white kimono with correctly-tied sash and a black-haired bobbed wig to complete his transformation into a “scary” Japanese person.

Like the best of the usual RSL crowd, we knuckled down for some competitive Bingo. Mitzy Macintosh called out the numbers in between a barrage of insults, lewd comments and anecdotes and her side-kick Naomi spun the barrel and entertained with soulful renditions of ‘We will survive’ and other great songs from Priscilla and Moulin Rouge. The pair also host weekly Bingay nights at the Imperial hotel at Erskineville where Priscilla was filmed and Mitzy performs regularly in the drag show there.

Participants had to call out ‘Bingay’ when their numbers matched and were escorted to the front by Trudy or Sandy to pick up their prizes from a range of kitsch trash. Ian managed to score a set of steak-knives and a mega sack of Omo washing powder. The room was very hot so by the end we were all flagging but we had a lot of fun and best of all, we were supporting a great cause. Over the whole night, $8000 was raised for ACON which was a worthy effort. See all the photos on flickr…

Look at how many people were on Bondi beach yesterday – it was like an army of ants, dotting the sand and floating in the waves. How many places in the world can say they have a swathe of gorgeous beaches located so near the city and that by the middle of Spring it’s hot enough to swim, wear T-shirts and enjoy the outdoors to the max. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and I was doing the scenic walk along the cliff tops for exercise and as a restorative (oops, seem to have relapsed into Jane Austen mode with that last one).

I finished my final assignment for the year yesterday, a week early…it was straightforward and quite enjoyable actually but it was a fantastic feeling to finish. Although it did feel kind of weird too – like, what am I going to do for the next few months? Then I remembered that I have plenty to keep me busy.

The walk was really refreshing, from Bondi, past Bronte beach and to Clovelly. I particularly like the bit winding through Waverley cemetery which is built on sloping ground on the edge of the cliff overlooking the sea. It is an amazing place and in a strange way, sort of romantic. I would like to be buried there but I doubt there are any plots left – all the dates I saw were in the early 1900s, very English names of the deceased like George and Edith. It’s funny – gravestones give no real expression of who a person was - they’re all the same, concrete, marble or some other neutral-coloured stone saying something like ‘Edith McMahon, died 73 years of age, 1909, beloved wife of George’. It’s pretty generic and anonymous really - that’s mortality I guess.

That’s enough about gravestones for now. I then carried on to Clovelly beach and caught the bus back to Bondi Junction where I caught a train to the city. I had a very lucky day with public transport connections. You can never be sure how long you’re going to have to wait on a Sunday but yesterday it all went like clockwork.

When Andrew and I get together, we always have a feast of fabulous food. This week hasn’t been any exception. Andrew arrived late on Saturday night at 10pm and we promptly went with his Dad to the Balkan seafood grill on Oxford st. Very meaty dishes but yummy grilled flavour.

Sunday, we met some friends at Glebe for brekkie - eggs benedict with smoked salmon and spinach for me, at Cafe Otto. That cafe has excellent memories for us because that is where we went the first night we met up! After that we walked into town which was a good move because later in the afternoon found us in the David Jones food hall purchasing half a dozen flourless mini tortes, four chocolate and two rosewater and poppyseed. These were our dessert on Sunday night after the main which I cooked, Mediterranean-style pasta. We washed it down with some lovely Rosemount Orange Vineyard Shiraz and a late harvest riesling dessert wine (we did share this with Ian and Dale in case you’re wondering).

On Monday night, we met up with Andrew’s sister and another friend and had a good Italian meal in Crows Nest and last night we had Vietnamese at Newtown with another friend. We had planned to go to a Viking restaurant - must be one of the only places offering Danish food in Sydney - but it was closed. And no, it was not because we wanted to celebrate the birth of Mary’s baby! We have been to the Vietnamese place before and we had the rice paper rolls again which are self-assembled and a delicious duck salad.