Traffic

The only time we want more traffic is on a website, not driving down 6^th street in Eugene Oregon at 5 p.m. Or on the Hollywood Freeway for that matter.

Gosh, I remember the time years ago when my girls and I stopped rush hour traffic on 6^th Street because a momma duck with a string of babies had left the sidewalk and was determined to cross the street. I bet she was aiming for the wetlands that lie west of town. The trouble was, someone put a street in her path and filled it with roaring cars.

We frightened the momma duck by catching her babies, sorry, but we pulled a baby from beneath a stopped car. She flew in circles around us as we put her little fluffs back up on the sidewalk. Someone yelled, “Thanks for saving the baby ducks!”

Both daughters wanted to take the ducklings to our property where we had a pond, but I didn’t want them to lose their momma when she was trying hard to save them. Without her, I doubt if they would survive, especially since our property was overrun with duck killing raccoons. 

We left them to their devices, a family together, trying to weave through life’s obstacles.  I drove down 6^th street the following morning, and found no squashed ducklings on the road, so I trust that resourceful momma managed to save her brood.

Funny isn’t it what pops into our head in response to a word.

Baby ducks.

This You Tube is awesome: A man in New York saw a baby duck about to jump off a building’s ledge about 10 feet above his head. He caught it in mid-fall. One by one about ten babies followed. One by one he caught them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMYGQ7ICKg8

Traffic.

I’ve been hearing a lot about traffic lately, and while 6^th street abounds with it, my website is a country road. Think of country roads, though, where people wave to each other, and sometimes ask if they ask to borrow a jar of #Grey Poupon.

In Hawaii with the long lava encrusted road, people would pull their cars aside to allow others to pass. We would wave and each move on. It was a cooperative affair. The mongooses, too, liked to get into the act. “Wait,” they would say, “here comes a car. Want-a bet we can beat it?”

We always let them.

Wish on White Horses doesn’t sound like a high falutin informational blog, or an entertaining one for that matter. Yeah, I know #50 ways to Boost Your Web Traffic sounds better.

Yes, boosting traffic is what we want on our websites. It means people are finding us. It means our words are worth reading. It means something to the publishing community who counts numbers, and to #Google who determines who gets top billing.

I know everybody and their dog writes blogs, and even my dog Peaches got into the act.www.dogblogbypeaches.blogspot.com.

She has been silent since she passed on to doggy heaven.  I intended for her to add posts from the great beyond, but she is having so much fun being healthy again, and running with Bear that she doesn’t have time to write.

 Bear sleeping on Peaches

I just had an epiphany.  #ProBlogger by #Jon Morrow, one of the biggest, mightiest bloggers in the business, has great give-a-ways, but to get them you must enter your email address. I have probably put my email address on his site 50 times. Does that mean he has counted me as 50 different people?

Ah ha, it’s the old numbers game.

Feel up to following me? And thanks to those who have. Love you guys.

Joyce

P.S.www.thebestdamnwriterbloggerontheblock.com

"Bon Voyage"--my Saturday with #Michael Larsen.

Absurd? I love it.

Have you ever...

• Wadded up a piece of paper only to have it unwad before your eyes?

• Been in a public toilet and, while virtually standing on your head, tried to pull toilet paper off a new roll the size of a European cheese wheel? And then after it has spun around about 50 times as you tried to find its end, you find it to be pasted down? Before all your blood runs to your head, you claw at the paper trying to loosen a piece, and finally, you get a strip of paper, only to look down and see you have created a rat’s nest on the floor.

• Spent 10 minutes trying to choose a toothbrush from the 6,000 displayed?

• Purchased a bag of chips to snack on while driving, and then spent the next ten minutes tearing at the bag, biting it ,trying to pop it open, and then you did, it exploded all over you and the car?

• Needed scissors to open a package of scissors?

• Purchased cold cuts, salami and roast beef, cheeses, olives, to create an easy meal and then spent a half an hour getting into the packages?

• Gone into the grocery story grabbed a quart of half and half--same brand you got before--but when you got it home and actually read the label, you found it was “Non-fat half and half—with sugar and corn syrup?  What sort of an oxymoron is that?

Ain't life’s grand?

To show some contrast, when I was a kid we licked Santa stickers to paste our Christmas wrappings together. Cellophane tape existed, but for some reason, we didn’t have it. Oh, I just found, cellophane tape wasn’t invented by a Scott, but got its name from a slur because the inventor was stingy on his adhesive.

He rectified that. The name stuck.

Here I am making fun of our modern times, but think of this: when I was a kid a little girl next door had braces on both legs because she had been crippled by polio.

“When I’m worried and I can’t sleep, I count my blessings instead of sheep, and I fall asleep counting my blessings…”—Irving Berlin

Live long and prosper,

Joyce

P.S. 

On the home front: Two weeks ago I lamented that I needed 35,000 words to complete my manuscript The Girl on the Pier. My goal was 55,000 words. Not possible, I thought. Saturday I told my husband I needed 350 more words. Sunday, 108. Today, Monday, Viola’.  I hit 55,044.

The Girl the Pier is a love story.

The Girl on the Pier is a painting. A customer came to view it, and offered two million dollars to purchase it, however upon viewing the painting he said, “That’s not the painting. There is another.”

Sara ,the executrix, didn’t know another Girl on the Pier existed, but is determined to find it, and why would Mr. Ahmad offer two million for it?

Something was fishy.

The book wrote itself, I just put my fingers on the keys…

Now little bird, fly…