'Tis so sweet when at 2 in the morning, Richie leaps onto my bed and gives me a gentle nudge (or what I interpret as a feline 'kiss') on my cheek before settling down beside me in quiet repose. And I know he wasn't begging for food, he did it just because he wanted to.

On another note, yesterday's sightings at Lower Pierce included a purple heron in a pose befitting its royal colour; an Osprey, which is a bird that lives near the sea; and many Pacific swallows skimming the water, catching insects on the reservoir's surface. It occured to me how Ospreys could be likened to no-nonsense, serious fighter planes patrolling the skies, whereas the daredevils of Pacific swallows playfully swooped in and out between closely-knitted branches, somewhat like the feats achieved by aerostunt pilots. Highly amusing and very awe-inspiring to witness such diversity all around me.

The following's taken from an article written in yesterday's Life! section:

Read 'em and weep
You really can't judge a book by its cover. Some self-help books on relationships should actually be in the humour section

By Teo Pau Lin

Girl Talk

I am standing in the self-help/relationship section of a bookstore. And I am thinking: Who on earth buys these books?

There's Love At First Sight by Suzi Malin, who says that to figure out if a man is 'the one' for you, you need only look at his face.

She claims that couples destined to be together tend to share the same proportions in facial features.

As proof, she dredges out photographs of celebrity couples - Victoria and David Beckham, Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston, Madonna and Guy Ritchie, even Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky.

She draws parallel lines across their faces, and shows that their foreheads, noses and chins are of the same length.

It doesn't seem to bother the author that in some pictures, like one of Hugh Grant and Liz Hurley, his chin juts out longer than hers by a mile (maybe that's why they broke up).

Or, when the halves of John Lennon and Yoko Ono's faces are pieced together, it doesn't look like the same face; it looks like a creepy wax mask with his half drooping from heat (maybe that's why he went first).

I'm thinking that with the millions of archived photographs of celebrities out there, you can find one that'll match another in any which way you like.

Why, with the right choice of angles, Queen Elizabeth could well be soul-mates with former basketball star Dennis Rodman.

The most disturbing thing about this book is that it is also placed on the bestsellers shelf.

Someone please tell me it's put there because the store personnel think it can be a bestseller.

If this clunker ever hits the Top 10, e-mail the address at the end of this story if you're a man with a big nose and a spotty chin.

Then, there's another book, Secrets Of Attraction by Sandra Anne Taylor. The hypnotist claims it is universal laws, like quantum physics, that direct the course of your love life.

'Your energy is the centre of all that you attract,' says the back cover.

It's this energy that magnetically determines whom you will meet, and the dynamics that the relationship will take on.

Imagine this. People can now use a new reason to break up with their partners: It's not you, it's my energy.

Is the romantic marketplace so dire these days that people are willing to believe just about anything to find true love?

Whatever happened to good ol' advice that says, look for someone with character and integrity? Or, marry your best friend? Or, don't look for it, it'll find you?

These are just too darn difficult, it seems. The singles of today demand easier, more immediate signposts.

Take the looking-for-love guidebooks with the word 'Now!' in their titles.

There is How To Find Your True Love - Now! by Diane Mordecai, a 'no-nonsense' guide for busy singles.

And Mr Right, Right Now! by E. Jean Carroll, which promises to land you your dream man in six weeks.

The problem with these books is that they assume the intricacies of finding love is something you can dictate.

It's as if every woman has a constant line-up of eligible men standing before her, each with a full list of personal details - character traits, toilet habits, charitable record, how many women he really slept with - all written out.

The woman just needs to get up and pick one.

Hello, this is not The Bachelorette.

In real life, you don't often get a line-up. The one you pick may not pick you. And sometimes, men lie in their resumes.

I'm laughing especially hard at this book, How To Make Anyone Fall In Love With You by Leil Lowndes.

One of the tricks it teaches is to massage the man's ego, and the author unashamedly tells you to 'Let your body do the praising'.

The attitude is so self-serving that it denies the possibility that your intended victim might actually have a mind to reject you.

I don't know about you, but I'm seeing visions of a whole new generation of home-wreckers and leather-clad dominatrixes.

Are there short-cuts to true love?

Most couples I know who are in fulfilling, long-term relationships met by 'chance', or 'destiny', and have sustained them through a whole lot of devotion and hard work.

I don't think love is something you can just go out and get - like a mobile phone.

It comes early to some, late to others. But definitely not through measuring the size of someone's nostrils.


See now, there really isn't a Quickie-Mix formulae for relationships. Or marriage. You need loads of patience and determination, and I'd say a healthy amount of passion to start the engine. Hey, without that (i'm refering to passion here) one might as well subscribe to matchmaking. So maybe I could be wrong but I'm not an advocate of matchmaking. Anyway... back to the cliched but often skimmed-over passage of 1 Corinthians 14:4-8:

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails...

Christian approach to interpreting the passage aside (for now), is there anyone out there who disagrees with any part of what love is biblically made out to be? Think about it.