A pleasant surprise and some lols.

International Women’s Day is on Saturday, and this year will be the 80^th that the day is celebrated in Australia. To commemorate, I had a few feminist rants written for you all—about assholes who yell out ‘show us your tits’ as they drive past on the street, about super-expensive IWD events around Townsville, and sexual assault and prisons. But, I accidentally deleted them, and they can’t be recovered in any way. So, shoot. Maybe I’ll recreate them soon. For now, here are a few little things.

--The JCU Student Association hosted an alternative media workshop, a free bbq, and a movie night yesterday for all women. As far as I know, it was the only free, open-to-the-public IWD event in Townsville this year. Even though I am wary of bbqs, I wanted to go even if I just ate a bit of lettuce on bread. Well, imagine my surprise when I turn up to find an all-woman band playing kick-ass music while homemade chickpea-veggie burgers were being grilled on a meat-free grill! (There were beef burgers, but they were cooked after the veggie burgers were taken off.) Sure, the crowd was very small, but it meant that I got to have good, in-depth conversations with other feminists. And, even though I knew I would be eating dinner when I got home, I ate a veggie burger and it was so good. When the meat burgers were all cooked, no one was eating them. The 'chef', a veg*n, asked if anyone ate meat--amidst a chorus of "no", only one person said yes. Wahoo! Vegan feminists! Unfortunately, I had to cut the afternoon short because I was riding home on my bike, and I didn’t want to get stuck in the dark.

--When I did get home, Andy was just starting to cook me a delicious dinner. This is the second time he’s cooked in two days, thanks to late afternoon meetings—Tuesday I got home at 9:30 and was welcomed with fried rice and orange tofu. Last night he had the Ultimate Uncheese book open to the “Spinafel” recipe, which are spinach and ricotta balls. The recipe was changed in a fairly big way—instead of firm tofu we used a tin of chickpeas. And instead of vegan mayo, we used a block of silken tofu and a splash of vinegar. They were good, but a little dry and a little bland. After some tweaking, I’ll post the recipe. While he was mashing, I peeled and chopped some beetroot which we tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper.

--Nacho loves chickpeas. Andy was getting annoyed with her trying to get into the mixing bowl while he was cooking, and I overheard a conversation that made me laugh out loud:

“Nacho, when I sleep on the couch all day and you walk to the shop to buy the food, you can have all the chickpeas you want. Until then, get off the counter.”

--Nacho also loves Andy’s armpits, for some weird reason. The other day he was sitting with his arm resting on the windowsill, and she was going nuts, licking and biting his armpit hair. We bought her a toy a few weeks ago and she just doesn’t like it. We thought maybe it was the smell, so I came home to find the toy wrapped in Andy’s shirt, which was really sweaty from a bike ride. I laughed out loud when I saw that (maybe it was endorphins since I had just ridden home). She still doesn’t like the toy.