Archive for September, 2009

One could be forgiven for thinking Armageddon had come to our city this week.  A huge dust storm cast Brisbane in a weird orange glow and coated everything with a layer of red.  The dust apparently came from western New South Wales.  Here’s a picture of what our street usually looks like (on a Thursday – bin day!)…

And this is what it looked like all day during the dust storm…

Apparently there’s another one coming tomorrow.  I was driving along this morning under blue skies, but above the horizon in the distance I could see a definite line of the dust haze which is probably the encroaching dust storm.

Bribie Island aka 'Bribery' Island

Maddy is going to Bribie Island with her uncle Dave this weekend, and is all excited. She said to Ben “Ben! I need a suitcase to take to Bribery Island!”

So he gave her a knapsack to take to ‘Bribery’ Island, and she began to look through her drawers in her bedroom for clothes to take.

“Hmmm…” she said to herself, “Some of these clothes I got years ago but they still fit because I’m so small… I’ll take that as a compliment to myself!”

No thanks

My life is so boring and every day is much like the other, to the extent where I open my eyes in the morning and think to myself  ‘Groundhog Day!’  But Groundhog Day really took a turn for the worse last night.  I’d been up playing online poker in the hope that I’d push myself over the one million chip mark.  I’d had to hold my eyes open with matchsticks for the last two hours as each time my chip count was just short of the million target I’d set myself before I went to bed.  Finally, at 2am I made it past a million, and promptly closed my laptop and staggered into bed.

Our bedroom resembled a homeless shelter – Brenna, Maddy and the two dogs were all sleeping on a pile of blankets on the floor in our room after hearing a scary story earlier.  Bobbie was the only one to wake as I crept into the room – it was quite cute – Banjo had his leg over Bobbie as though he was cuddling him like a teddy bear.

I crawled into bed, turned off the lamp, struggled with my usual insomnia despite being bone weary, and eventually started to drift off to sleep.  I was awoken by a strange sound, and my foggy mind tried to make sense of the sound which I can’t even begin to describe.  I finally realised it was the damn dog vomiting.  I sprang up, switched on the lamp, to find Bobbie vomiting on the floor.  Brenna woke up and cleaned it up, and we all went back to bed.  I couldn’t sleep though so fetched my laptop and spent another couple of hours working.

So, finally, around 5am, I decided I’d better get at least a couple hours sleep, and closed the laptop up.  I lay there  for a half hour or so before I started drifting off – only to hear the vomiting noise from hell again.  Didn’t this just happen?! Springing into action, this time it was Banjo – a much bigger dog so potentially a much bigger mess.  He vomited next to my side of the bed (I spotted grass and a big stone in his puke – what on earth does that dog eat!), and Maddy’s carpet copped another lot.

Groundhog day – two lots of dropping off to sleep, two lots of vomiting just as I’d finally  fallen asleep.  The dogs are perfectly fine now – I don’t know what had gotten into them.