two things happened, this lunar new year

1
woke up last sunday morning to hear noises coming from the living room
i scurried out from the bedroom to find toppled, my vase of dried branches
and then, something flew past me

it was a sparrow!

honestly it was trifle alarming to see a bird in the house
i scurried again towards the balcony to slide open the doors wider for the sparrow to fly out
but before i could do so,

"PIAK!"

the poor bird whacked itself into the sliding door and dropped to the floor!
aiyohs, it really scared the wits out of me
somehow it managed to pick itself up only to fly a short distance
before hitting against one of the dining chairs

this time it stopped moving

k and i peered over the poor creature
it was blinking and still breathing,
its chest heaving up and down
k gingerly picked it up with a towel and brought it to the balcony

then i heard it again

"piak! piak! piak!"

i approached towards the source of the sound
*SCREeeeECH*!!!! there was another sparrow in the guest room!

this one was a tad smarter, despite several futile attempts to fly out through the closed windows, it didn't knock itself out as it was hitting against the glass with its feet.
i hurried to open the windows to release it and it flew with all its might out to freedom :)

(thank God the other poor fella maanged to recover by itself, by the time we returned home in the evening, it was gone =). k almost wanted to bring it downstairs to leave it by the tree! what if the cats got to it!!! hmmph!)

(we forgot to take pictures of the knocked-out birdie on the balcony! because: #1 - i was so caught up by the event, and rushing off to church, totally forgot to do so. #2 - k deliberately not suggest taking any, as he was worried the bird would not survive)

2
books galore!


my favourite delicious second-hand bookstall at beauty world plaza!
this elusive bookstall sets up periodically and sporadically
so the only way to find it is to chance upon it
and its my favourite haunt because you can get really rare finds here
so i greedily gobbled all these treasures with some mahjong winnings

1. the ever quirky Dr. seuss Dictionary! how cool is that! this one is printed in 1964!
"this dictionary has a serious purpose.
there is nothing more serious than helping a child learn how to read.
but the editors... who put this dictionary together,
decided they could be serious...and still avoid being stuffy.
so they made this book of words just as funny as they could make it.

it's full of ridiculous alligators, foolish bears and giraffes' uncles,
all racing around and getting involved in nonsensical adventures. - Dr. Seuss"

2. The Pooh Story Book, with original pooh illustrations by e.h. shepard -
nice nice lovely sketchy illustrations, unlike the pristine and flat illustrations of the commercialised pooh we commonly see now

3. Giant Treasury of Peter Rabbit
with beatrix potter's orignal illustrations of course

4. love and be wise
it's a children's story book adapted from a french book "riquet a la houppe" by charles perrault.
haven't read it yet, but this is one of the 3 morals from the book -
"if your lover's handsome
only in your eyes
is he deluded
when he thinks you wise?"

imagine, this in a childern's story book!

5. water voices
a book on water in different forms - rain, ocean, morning mist...

6. trashy novels! to unwind whilst chugging beer and chips :)

*

all in all it was quite a bountiful new year!