One "natural" thing about New Zealand is that the birds here are actually not afraid of humans. When we go picnicking they would be hovering close by for scraps and crumbs
and stay so near us they would actually share a meal with us on the picnic table if we let them! In the countries where we lived before birds don't do that. They would stay as far away from humans as possible. In the Philippines, where I come from, no bird bigger than a
sparrow would be seen in the wild anymore. Anything bigger than a sparrow has already been shot with a sling, cooked and eaten.
Last Monday I went to shop at my favourite Oriental shop here in
Auckland. After the embarrasing incident I had there with my younger
daughter I decided to stop bringing her along. That means being able to
shop there only on weekdays, not weekends anymore
After I finished shopping I needed to go to the loo. My favourite place
to go to when nature calls in that part of town is the Burger King
outlet just one block away from it, on the same way I take to go home. Its toilet is always clean and the salesclerks don't bother whether the people using it actually patronize the shop or don't. Then I got tempted with the thought of my favourite beef burger with mushroom topping combo for a high-calorie breakfast!!
But I had lots of left-over vegetarian food at home! 
So, I was debating... piss and eat or hold and drive. Then "Ting" - bright idea lightbulb lights up - save the money!! That would be about $10 saved, so, "hold and drive" it was!! 
When I got home I quickly unloaded the car and locked the boot. But I had to pee quick, so I forgot to close the garage door... went straight to the loo and, lo and behold, I needed to clean my toilet a bit and that's what I did!!
On my way out of the bedroom I picked up my laundry pile and went back to the garage to load it into the washing machine. Hmmm, fresh cold air in my face... shux! my garage door was still open! I dumped my laundry into the machine, closed the garage door and while putting in the detergent into my washing I heard some pecking noise coming from my living room. Hmmm, sounds creepy, like there's somebody in my house!!! If it's a burglar I thought it must be trying to get in through my living room window! So, I went to check, looked out of my kitchen window to see if there's anyone near my living room window, but there was no one,... or nothing rather. I went to my living room and shoved the curtain aside and what do you think, a bird!! A brown, long-tailed bird which I usually see in my garden. It wasn't an ordinary sparrow, it was much bigger than that. It ran here and there, flew, scampered and pooped on the carpet next to the window. It flew to my kitchen so I opened my livingroom window wide. Then I followed it to my kitchen where it scampered, flapped its wings against the glass panels and panicked some more, making more poop on my windowsill! I opened my kitchen window wide, but just like all the bugs and flies that get trapped in our house, the poor Kiwi winged creature didn't know how to fly out through an open window! I opened the smaller window nearest to it and it still didn't know what to do! So I took my dust pan, scooped the poor bird up with it and literally threw it out of the small window! For a moment I was tempted to actually scoop it up with my own hands so I could feel its soft feathers before I set it free but it looked so frightened, I didn't want to give it a heart attack.
(If it was an Asian bird it would know exactly where the fresh air was blowing from and just fly out of the open window nearest to it!)And then what? That meant I had to deal with the poop tracks it left behind all over my house. I spent the next 30-40 min. of my precious life brushing every stain and dropping off my carpet, with soap and water. While I was at it, I thought, "How did it get in? Did we open one of the windows last night and forgot to close it and it was trapped in our house the whole night? But I would have seen it this morning before we left for school." It was only later I realized that most likely it flew through the open garage door in the few minutes I was in the loo, and from the garage it flew into our living room. What a daring bird!!? NZ birds actually do that!!
Later, I also thought, hmmm, "wrong decision." I should have spent my time leisurely munching on burger and fries and drinking fizzy drink in BK while watching other people eat and muddle by, rather than spend that same time squatting to clean my carpet!! Maybe if I had chosen to "pee and eat" rather than "hold and drive" I wouldn't have been in such a rush to go to the loo when I got home and I would have closed that garage door! That $10 and time spent would have been worth it all! Maybe, just maybe.
Later that day, on our way home from school, when I told my children my "story for the day," my older daughter said, "Mom, your life is so exciting even though you are just a housewife!" >.< O.o
Oh well, whatever....
My older daughter feeding chips to a peacock in the wild in Shakespear Park, 2009. (If it died, it would be the chips!!) The peacock was making chicken-like noise coming to us for food and we didn't have anything but chips!!
Seagulls hovering over Joche as she ate her McDonald's food in Long Bay Beach, Jan. 2010.
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