Knitting (针织) has always been a passion of mine. A few years ago, I finished knitting a scarf and couldn’t help but burst into laughter. It was my first attempt at knitting and it hadn’t gone as planned. It was misshaped and far too short, making it only the perfect size for a kid. “I have to show this to the team at work tomorrow,” I thought.

I work at a hospital, where I perform ultrasound scans. It was a stressful job, and humor was always appreciated.

The next day, I brought my delicately knitted scarf to work, and my colleagues couldn’t help but have a good laugh at its tiny size. Then we got back to our patients. Intending to give it to one of my colleague’s children, I casually placed the scarf in a drawer.

One day, as I waited in the examination room to attend to a patient, a very young girl entered. She was about six or seven years old, with curly (卷曲的) hair and wearing a blue coat. In her arms, she held a doll (洋娃娃) that matched her appearance, also sporting curly hair and a blue dress.

The little girl seemed frightened and totally at a loss, constantly avoiding eye contact and refusing to undergo the examination. “Poor kid,” I thought. My heart filled with sympathy and tenderness for such a young patient.

I tried to approach her to offer comfort, reaching out to pa t her shoulder, but she quickly moved away. That’s when I had an idea —I could talk about her doll.

“Is this your friend?” I asked.

She nodded. And now I saw my chance. I continued, “Does she have a name?”

“Yes, she has a name — Nora. It’s from my favorite comic storybook.”

“Your friend Nora is lovely and beautiful, just like you. But honey, it’s getting cold now, and you should probably find her a new coat to keep her warm.”

The little girl listened intently, showing more interest.

One of my favourite things about spring is the arrival of different species of birds. My grandfather was a bird lover, and I picked up the birdwatching hobby at a young age, thanks to his influence. My husband John and I found it a relaxing way to enjoy nature; we like birdwatching when we go camping or hiking. Plus, I have a great love of nature photography, so when we sit out in the backyard of our home, I always have my digital camera with me. John is an artist, and he often paints the birds I photograph.

Usually when the yellow warblers (莺) come back from the south in springtime, they pass us by; we don’t typically see them hanging around our home. But not on this particular sunny day in spring. As soon as I finished my workday, I put on a light jacket and went out to the backyard to relax in my favourite way: by watching the birds.

While taking some pictures of cardinals (红衣凤头鸟) and chickadees (北美山雀) at one of our feeders, I looked up and noticed this yellow warbler in our maple tree. The tree had recently begun to bud, and the bird’s yellow feathers looked striking against the yellow blooms, so I took this photo. Our backyard has a variety of trees and between my husband and me, we’ve documented almost 40 different species of birds. I’ve photographed most of them, but some can be a bit camera shy so I also keep a written list of what we see. Our more common visitors are cardinals, chickadees, hummingbirds and various sparrows.

I sat down to watch a recorded TV play after my husband left for his night-shift job. Not ten minutes into my favorite TV play, I was alerted to the unmistakable beep (哔哔声) of the smoke alarm indicating a low battery. Sighing, I paused my program and got up from the sofa.

I got a stepladder, climbed up it and quickly replaced the battery. The second I sat down and started watching my play, the beep started again. Evidently, the replacement battery was dead, too, so I went through all the motions again. I’d barely picked up the remote and pressed Play a third time when the alarm went off yet again. I gave out some unladylike comments. This time, I was one rung down when the same thing happened.

By then, I was out of all the batteries. I had to search the entire house for some electronic equipment that housed the same kind. I finally found one in an old clock. I crossed my fingers, hoping the battery still had some juice, and popped it in.

No luck! That round, plastic thing that was designed to save lives was about to make me have a nervous breakdown! Frustrated, I pulled the entire thing out of its “nest” and actually yelled at it to shut up before I tore it up into pieces. Holding it, I climbed back down and almost killed myself by practically falling over the dog and two cats who always watched every move I made and every breath I took. Driving my pet s away, I threw the alarm on the table and reminded myself to sleep fully clothed in case I smelled smoke. Carbon-monoxide (一氧化碳) detection would be taken care of by our back up alarm downstairs.

I glared at the troublesome item once more before walking off to seat myself on the sofa again. My program was already forty-five minutes into the play because I’d forgotten to pause it. Within seconds, that sound hit my ears again!