I saw a photo of these blue and red lizards with the nick name “Spiderman” lizard obviously because of their colour and markings.  I didn’t find it amusing at all because now people are going to want to turn these wild reptiles into pets and cage them simply because they are beautiful… and that I could never agree with. On the other hand this could simply be someone having fun in photoshop and if that is the case… I want to see a “Batman” lizard!

Yesterday’s dust storm sure did do funny things to the sky, at one point I thought I’d stepped into an episode of Doctor Who and I was wondering if the dark shadow on the horizon was in fact a Dalek invasion.  The sun was so blue through the haze that it was not at all difficult to look at so the girls and I lay down on the trampoline and did a bit of sun gazing… something I have never been able to do before. The sky was such a beautiful colour, it was like having a glorious sunset in the middle of the day. As long as fire and brimstone doesn’t pelt down from the sky I’d love to have few more days like that.

When our home phone stopped working last week I plugged in spare phones in an effort to “fix” the problem but after three different phones and three failed attempts I accepted the problem wasn’t my phone.  I looked up Optus on the Internet in the hope of reporting the fault,  however I was appalled to see that the only means of reporting a line fault was by phoning them… a bit hard to do with a phone line fault! So I text Luke at work and got him to call from his office land line, there was no way I was going to use my mobile only to sit on hold while my money is being chewed up listening to a recording of  “we know your time is precious and we will endeavour to answer your call shortly”.  No way Jose, so while Luke was chasing the problem up I sent an e-mail to Optus via their feedback e-mail form… I wrote:

“You have to be kidding me! My telephone line will not work and has not worked for a day and a half so I go to your site to get an e-mail address (since I can’t use my phone) and wouldn’t you know it… all your contact details are PHONE NUMBERS! that doesn’t help one of your customers when they don’t have a phone they can use.  Guess I just wait and see if you pick up the fault by physic ability then come out and fix it.”

I also sent a copy to Luke and he replied with “You need to take more Valium!”

trailer trash tea

While shopping last week I picked up some herbal tea for Luke and right next to it was trailer trash tea… Twinings Russian Caravan!  I like to have a bit of fun with Luke regarding his childhood caravan days so I seized the opportunity and bought some of that tea as well. While unpacking the shopping I informed Luke (with a smirk on my face) that there was a new tea made especially for him and …ta da… my punchline was delivered.  It was met with the usual grunts and groans and rolled eyes but I thought it was a classic! After tasting the tea he informed me that it was actually really good, in his own words “it’s like a kick to the balls” which I assume is trailer trash talk for ‘invigorating’.

This year  instead of going to the Riverfire fireworks we were planning on going to my mother-in-laws place for a dinner party, but once we found out it was to be the last year the F-111 were doing a dump and burn we blew off the dinner party and headed to Southbank.  It was fantastic, we got a great spot and the kids had a blast… 30 minutes of fireworks seems to go by in just a few minutes when you are right there in the heat of the action. The Airforce planes were spectacular and SO loud but simply breathtaking amongst the backdrop of colour from the fireworks.  In my photo above you can see the F-111’s fuel burn as the giant ball of fire and sad to say the very last for Brisbane’s Riverfire festival… I’m so glad we got to farewell it.

I just had to crack up laughing yesterday when I read about 16 year old Jessica Watson crashing into a Merchant ship.  So much for her being able to cirrumnavigate the globe solo… Stradbroke Island was as far as she got… less than 24 hours along coastal waters! Perhaps I’m being a bit unfair… I mean it must be hard to see an itsy bitsy tin can that some call a merchant ship… maybe she blinked and missed it? I think we can now safely say that it is indeed irrisponsible of her parents to allow her to attempt this record.

Today we took the kids to McDonald’s to grab a frozen coke and there was a strange sight in the drive through lane… not as strange as a couch on wheels but strange enough.  An old man on a mobility scooter full of shopping and two walking sticks poking out… he was patiently waiting between two cars for his turn to order.  His bright orange safety flag was blowing in the wind and his two side mirrors did a good job of imitating a car but overall it just looked ridiculous.

It’s good to have a partner who you can be honest with instead of having to lie or tip toe around things.  For example that famous question: “Does my bum look big?”  would be met in this household as a “Sure does, as big as a whales arse”,  IF that was the case of course.  Just the other day Luke came home with the crappiest haircut I have ever seen and he didn’t even have to ask what I thought, I jumped in as soon as that door opened… “wow, what a CRAP haircut!!!” and I strongly suggested that his mother (a former hairdresser) should try to fix it.  He didn’t get offended though because it was the truth and he knew it.  It goes both ways though because not so long ago Luke said to me “It’s when your mouth opens that problems begin”… ahhh… got to love honesty!

Is it just me or are chocolate blocks smaller? My father recently bought the kids some Cadbury chocolate blocks and I was surprised to see that the weight was only 190g… didn’t it used to be 200g? The block size was the same but the actual chocolate was thin and it was packed in a cardbox packet.  What’s going on here? Cadbury charge us the same price but take 10g away…why?