Library Loot and The Thornbirds

1. A Woman of Substance by Barbara Taylor Bradford

2. Falling by Christopher Pike

3. A Year on Ladybug Farm by Donna Bell

I’ve finished The Thornbirds! That makes 1 book in Jan. All it takes is one good book to break the reading slump. Unfortunately, my book synopsizing muscles have atrophied during my blogging break so if you are unfamiliar with the plot, this make-out montage from the 1983 miniseries should do my work for me.

The Thornbirds has everything I look for in a multi-generational epic: people eeking out a living from the LAND, paternity issues, a manipulative and horny elderly matriarch, and a forbidden love affair with a priest which spawns another paternity issue. After roughly two weeks reading this book, my life has changed in two ways: I started to believe that I was Australian even though I’ve never been down under in the physical sense of the word, I yearned to live on an Outback sheep station and grab a handful of red earth… said dirt will slip through my fingers, my hands will convulse as I stare off into the distance for I have become ONE WITH THE LAND.  Then I remembered that I hate nature and the notion goes poof. Also, I’m on the look out for hot priests.

Speaking of nature, a sparrow flew into my workplace last week and trapped itself behind some cabinets. We could hear it twittering and chirping and flapping its bird wings against the wall. It was a most displeasing sound. Some of us (me) freaked the eff out and stayed far far away from the disease ridden avian demon while the bravest of my co-workers rigged a series of inventions: a bird scoop (a shovel fashioned out of filing folders duct taped to the back of a broom handle), a bird vacuum, etc… All to no avail. The little beast was too bird-brained to see a rescue attempt if it hit it in its simple beaky face. I made a panicked Animal Control call and several hours later, they sent the rescue squad which consisted of one man and a metal pole. I don’t think Animal Control was equipped with nets and whatnot (they deal with dead animals, which would have been the case if the suction on the vacuum was strong enough), so Animal Control guy used our bird scoop and, with prayers and swears, captured the disgusting little creature and shoved it in his pocket. Once outside, Animal Control guy did the Twilight hands and the bird flew away to crap in another office. The end.

One of my co-workers mused that she wished she had a blog to recount this amusing incident. I am the only one with a blog so here it is. If you haven’t already guessed, I hate birds. An arboretum is my idea of hell on earth. Beaks. Talons. Feathers. Beady eyes. Wings. Vile creatures, the lot of them.

I expect a flood of hate mail from falconers and pirates…

Okay. I’m not completely heartless with regards to the avian species, which is to say, I’m not above eating them.