DON'T DON'T DON'T Feed the trolls!

The ABC posted this news item today. (click to read) It is the best advice I've heard for all of those people who have been hounded by offensive, abusive, insulting, judgemental and usually anonymous commentors on their blogs.  They are like the schoolyard bullies who get their thrill from the response of their victim.  No response - no thrill and they go and bug someone else. 
People who do this are cowards hiding behind their anonymity.  They complain of censorship if they are ignored or deleted, but this is a manipulation because they do not respect other folks' rights to disagree with them. Freedom of speech is valuable, but it is not a licence to be offensive.
Trolling is obviously a growing problem if the some online news media are turning off their comments section.
The writer gives this advice:
"The good old motto is 'don't feed the troll'. Don't acknowledge them, don't give them attention, don't react because that's what they want."

Summertime

Officially it's still Spring, but we don't really have Spring here - just dry season and wet season. In the dry season it can get cool, never cold. In the wet season it gets hot. Not blistering dry heat but, but steamy, sauna-like, sticky heat. It's starting to get like that, but we've had some gentle breezes to make it much more bearable - very pleasant. It will get worse. Much worse. February is usually the most unbearable month.
There is some recompense to the heat. One of them is the Frangipani. About 200 years ago a botanist described them as a set of antlers bedecked with posies. They have been the subject of many artworks, but there is one thing art cannot show you. The fragrance. Every time I step outside the air is filled with their gorgeous scent. Frangipani-scented perfumes never do it justice.
The grandchildren love to pick up a fallen flower with brown edges around the petals (they seem to accept imperfections in flowers and people) and make a special presentation of it to me.
That makes them smell even sweeter.

Dragon birthday post

I did it for Lion and intended to do it for his little brother Dragon. So better late than never :)  Dragon's 3rd birthday was weeks ago.

This is his birthday post from his Grannysaurus.

Honestly, I don't know why my family put up with me when I take so long to do things.

Poor little Romeo once waited months for the tooth fairy to remember that there was a tooth waiting to be collected because I forgot to let her know.  They must be a very forgiving family.

But on with this short picture history of our darling Dragon.

In the top pic he is one day old.  Already you could see what a spunk he was going to be.

Next picture is baby Dragon being cuddled by his big cousin Cheetah.  He is about 3 days old.  Not Cheetah, Dragon. Cheetah is 7 here. After that is baby Jesus with Mary and Joseph Dragon with Mummy and Wolf McTavish at the Stable on the Strand (an annual major Townsville Christmas event that unites churches and community) in December 2006 when Dragon played a pivotal role for a short time.  He played his part well, but doesn't Mummy McT look tired?

I had to include a picture with his big brother Lion.  They are such good mates and the beach is one of their favourite places.  They were all dressed up for the beach wedding of Aunty Juliette's big sister.

Last pic is baby Dragon in the arms of Aunty Chimera getting his photo taken with his friend Ralph and Ralph's dad, King Rick. Ralph and Dragon and Lion are still all good mates and love to get together for a play as often as they can nag their long suffering mothers into it.

A belated Happy Birthday Dragon!

You can meet Ralph here.

Prophetic?

In my last post in honour of Lion's birthday, I included a pic of a little Lion watching the heavy machinery in my street a few years ago.  It was strangely prophetic. . .
Today Lion and Dragon have their birthday party for their mates.  Last week was the family birthday party.  They live in the cul de sac of a longish street.  Two days before their birthday party the city council decided to dig up most of the street in order to replace the road surface.  The road had been so poorly made in the first place that they have removed at least 50 cm deep from the surface of their road and several surrounding roads. 
The result - Mums (and/or Dads) with little kids and toteing birthday gifts became confused due to "ROAD CLOSED" signs and have had to walk some distance. Aunty with twins expected in a few months also had to walk with panicy hysterical toddler in tow (possibly upset by the machinery noise?). 
Thank you City Council. Great timing!
Naturally it decided to rain today too, for the first time in months.
At least we won't blame the City Council for that.

Lion's Birthday

It's Lion's birthday on Monday 26th and it's an important one - the big 5. That means that in a few months he will be a big school boy. In honour of his birthday I thought I would find some of my favourite Lion baby/toddler photos. The first one is Lion and Mr Sunshine at the TV towers on Mt Stuart.
The next was a really exciting time (if you are a little boy) when Grannysaurus' street was full of BIG machines because the city council decided we needed new curbing and asphalt.  There were many far worse streets around that didn't get fixed, but Lion was happy.

The bottom one is Lion at the beach. He loves the beach. Isn't he a sweetie?

Happy birthday Lion!

Bring back the smile

I love the way her smile lights up her eyes in this photo.

Actually she can still smile some of the time. This afternoon she was even giggling as she placed a cold, wet face washer on grandma's bare belly. Of course I had to overact a lot about how cold it was -the air temp was about 27 Celsius.

But Little Bear is not well and hasn't been 100 percent for months. She really didn't like wearing the pee collecting gizmo in her nappy this afternoon. Being sick is the pits when you are two. Let's just hope that the antibiotics fix the unknown bugs that are causing repeat high fevers and night time vomiting and chest infections. Let's also hope that the high doses and extended time on antibiotics don't knock her immune system out of whack even more.

Let's pray that Little Bear can be back to her lively, happy, impish self asap.
I'm just greedy for more of that gorgeous smile.

Dragon Dreams

I don't need to be told that this is NOT the most flattering pic of me, but any pic with our little Dragon is a good pic. He is so darn cute.
On Friday his Mummy was not feeling great so I picked up Dragon and he came to work with me. I can do that because Mr Sunshine, Romeo (previously Jingles) and I own the business. I didn't get much work done, but I was there and I answered the phone.

On the way to work I did my usual thing when I have grandchildren in the car - my racing car sound effects. You know, brrrrmmmm brrrrmmmm through the gear changes and eeeeeeeeeee around corners, making sure to include the Doppler effect and any other relevant stuff. Later in the morning Dragon came to me with a very serious look and tone and said in his cute deep voice, "Grandma, I'm a dump truck today". I told him that I love dump trucks and gave him a cuddle and off he went to do some more drawing. At no time did he actually act like a dump truck, but dump trucks don't have to act like dump trucks. They just are.

Later in the day we left work, went to the bank and went to my home for a nap - both of us. Dragon slept on Grandad's side of the bed and I read him a story or two and fell asleep on my side of the bed. About an hour later I was woken by a strange whining sound coming from Dragon and I thought he was having a bad dream. The whining sound was then interupted by brrmmmm sounds and then more whining sounds and another brrrrmmmm sound. When Dragon woke up I asked him if he had been having a bad dream. "No," he assured me, he was having a good dream. He was dreaming he was a dump truck.

I guess this dump truck was doing some pretty fast cornering.