Giving Thanks

Last night we watched a DVD of a History Channel show about the Pilgrims -- their persecution by King James I, their flight to Holland, their crossing of the Atlantic on the Mayflower, and their battles with sickness and cruel winter once they arrived in New England. It was really good.

This morning, as I played Scrabble online in my relatively warm house on our own seven acres, with the smell of pumpkin pie baking in the oven and the prospect of a plump turkey breast in the afternoon, I thought about how totally plush our lives are in comparison to thei Pilgrims' at this time of year almost four centuries ago.

I personally have absolutely nothing to complain about, and everything to be thankful for. For starters, Earth is fabulous! Can you think of any other planet you'd want to inhabit? Other good things: I was born to wonderful parents and they lived to be 79 and 84. Music and animals and friends have been a great source of delight and fun all my life. And now I have my own family -- wow, who'da thunk it?

So the economy stinks and the U.S. is mired in Bush mistakes. Obama is about to become president, and while we can't expect miracles, we can once again dare to hope for them.

I've had sorrow in my life, but can having your college roommate steal your boyfriend compare to half the Pilgrim company dying either on their journey or that first winter in Plymouth? I think not.

Good news abounds. The sun is shining, no one has kidnapped my child and I still think it's funny when I can't remember why I walked into the next room. When we look at the big picture, most of us have it pretty damn good.

Photo: That's me at age 5. I seem to have a twinkle in my eye!

I Give UP

I was definitely not cut out to raise my own meat. We now have eight roosters turned into cookable products sitting in our freezer, and I cannot even look at them without feeling sad and guilty. There's no way I'm going to EAT them! They were our friends! I'd be wondering all through dinner which one I was forking into my mouth -- was it the one with the green tailfeathers who buried his little head in a corner of the coop to "hide" from the other roosters? Was it the one who always woke up and crowed when I went out to the barn by flashlight late at night to check on the horses? Was it the one who was the first to come running to me for food?

My plan now is to sell the bodies (what would you pay for a fresh, organic 5-pound chicken?) and remember never to get into this situation again. No more incubating for me!

I still have seven roosters, too. What am I going to do with the three I don't want? Would you like a free rooster? Let me know. Operators are standing by.

Roosters and the Secret to Catching Them

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Now, if this doesn't make it to Google's Page 1, I want to know why!

How to Make a Million Dollars Writing for the Web

Wouldn't it be great to get paid to write the kind of stuff I put on this blog? I think so, so I took a trial membership in "FreelanceHomeWriters.com," or a title to that effect. It's a site that helps you enter the world of bidding for freelance writing jobs.

AN INTRODUCTION TO MAKING A MILLION DOLLARS WRITING FOR THE WEB

The first thing you have to do on the FreelanceHomeWriters site is read the introduction. If you're like me, and you want the bottom line without a lot of jibber-jabber, this introduction will really try your patience. I skipped the personal testimonials, mainly because I think they're all made-up anyway. And who cares how the site founders got started or what they personally struggled with? Just tell me how to make a million dollars tossing out blog entries!

That came next, in the form of an ebook on how to write for the Web. Now, that was an eye-opener! In fact, there were so many eye-openers in this section, I hardly know where to start!

AMAZING TRICKS FOR MAKING A MILLION DOLLARS WRITING FOR THE WEB

It's amazing how many tricks people employ to entice readers to their Web sites, to wit:

1. Liberal use of keywords. If you're hired to write an article, an employer will in most cases give you a set of keywords to sprinkle throughout the copy. That's because the more you mention a keyword, the better your article's chances of popping up on Page 1 of a Google search. Most people who Google something never even bother going to Page 2 and beyond, so being on Page 1 is a definite plus.

2. Formulaic headlines. This site actually lists fill-in-the-blank headlines you should use for any Web articles you write, because they've been shown to reel in readers. Some examples: *

The Secret of… (your subject here)
Little Known Ways to… (your subject here)
Get Rid of (problem) Once and For All…
Here’s a Quick Way to (solve a problem)…
Now You Can Have (something desirable) (great circumstance)
(Do Something) Like (A Professional Example)…
What Everyone Ought to Know about (blank)…
Give Me (amount of time) and I’ll Give You (blank)…
The Lazy (person’s) Way to (blank)…
See How Easily You Can (desirable result)…
You Don’t Have to be (something challenging) to be (desired result)…


These work very well, although you may feel using them stifles your creativity. Say your subject is Having Sex with Pandas. Just plug that into each one of the above, and pick the one that works best for you. How about, "Now You Can Have Sex with Pandas and Still Be the Respected CEO of a String of Daycares!" Or, "Give Me 5 Minutes and I'll Give You the Best Sex You've Ever Had with a Panda."

3. Liberal use of subheads. The more the better, and, of course, each subhead should have the keyword in it. "Why Sex With Pandas?" "Sex With Pandas Has Long History" and "How to Find a Panda Sex Partner" would all be viable subheads in this hypothetical (we hope) article.

4. Then there's the tried-and-true bullets tactic. Readers love bulleted lists, which are so easy to compile and help you to quickly reach your 500-word quota.

Well, you get the gist.

YOU'LL BE SURPRISED HOW YOU CAN MAKE A MILLION DOLLARS WRITING FOR THE WEB

The next eye-openers came in the site's job bank. It will astound you to see what people are willing to pay for. "Blog commenter" looks like pretty easy money. A person who gets paid to blog needs to justify the pay, and so will pay others to comment on his or her blog.

Another job that strikes me as rather sleazy if not downright dishonest is "Expert craigslist poster." Craigslist doesn't like you to post the same ad in lots of places, so these people will pay you to disguise their ads and plaster them all over the craigslist world. Now there's a noble use of my writing skills!

On the plus side, people do need content for their Web sites and blogs, and it's not difficult to write the articles. It might be difficult for me, though, to stick to facts. Rather than jump in and bid on a job, I assigned myself a blog entry to see if I could suppress my wild individualism and yoke myself to writing to specs. Hence my Nov. 13 article on catching roosters.

CAN I REALLY MAKE A MILLION DOLLARS WRITING FOR THE WEB?

Despite my really long headline on my rooster article (readers are supposed to like long headlines better than short ones) and my use of practically every suggested headline strategy, and the use of the keyword "roosters" in just about every sentence, I saw absolutely no uptick in readership in the first 24 hours.

Oh my god, I forgot to put in subheads! (Smack myself on the forehead!) No wonder readers haven't been falling over themselves to read my rooster advice.

HOW TO MAKE A MILLION DOLLARS ON THE WEB WITHOUT WRITING A WORD

FreelanceHomeWriters.com says an 8-year-old child could write these content articles. I'll put my 9-year-old to work on it right away. In fact, maybe I'll pay her, and then resell the articles. What a brilliant idea! I could have an entire stable of local children churning out Web content.

Thank you, FreelanceHomeWriters.com!

Ten Steps to Understanding How to Unearth the Secret to Catching Free-Range Roosters: A Feat You Will Be Proud Of

You've always wanted to catch those roosters running wild in your backyard, right? I know I have. I look out my window and see those plump, juicy roosters and it make my mouth water like Niagara Falls. If I could just get my hands on them and take them to the slaugh... ... uh ... rooster heaven.

Now I can -- and so can you! Because I am about to reveal to you my incredible 10-step method to get those roosters into a pen and then pluck them like ripe berries from their perches. I know it sounds impossible -- and if you've ever chased a rooster, you know what I mean! But there's really no reason you too can't be successful using my tried-and-true tips to move your roosters from yard to oven with little fuss and no muss!

First you need to know something about roosters. Roosters may not seem very smart, but then, they don't have to be. All roosters have to be is WARY. And they are plenty wary. Roosters love their freedom more than they love their hens. A rooster will spend hours at a coop door putting one foot in, and one foot out, doing the hokey pokey and turning himself about without ever really committing himself to entering. You'd think you could sneak up behind him and pressure him to go in. Think again.

Secondly, roosters get hungry when they haven't had food for a long time. This may seem self-evident, but most people don't think about the time factor. Most people think a rooster is always hungry, that all you have to do is put down some corn any hour of the day and a rooster will hop right to it. That is just not the way roosters are.

OK, those are the basics. And now (drum roll, please), the way to catch those roosters:

1. Do not feed roosters any breakfast until about 11 a.m.

2. Open the coop's people-size door. If the coop's chicken-size door leads to a secure pen, leave it open. If it does not, then make sure it is firmly shut and that a rooster can't push it open from the inside.

3. Fill food pans and place them as far inside the coop as you can.

4. Get a long stick and position yourself about 15 feet from the coop, on the side from which you will be closing the door.

5. Stand for what earlier in the day would have been an infinite amount of time waiting for a rooster to go in, but which now, because you waited so long to feed them, will be just a minute or two.

6. As soon as a rooster has disappeared inside the door, move quickly and quietly closer to the door and use your long stick to slam the door shut. Voila! You have your first rooster! And as they say, a rooster in hand is worth two in the yard.

7. Enter the coop and, shutting the people door behind you, pressure the rooster to go out the chicken-size door into the pen. If you don't have a pen, corral your captive somehow so that when you repeat the process, he doesn't escape out the people door. You could erect a temporary wall with a small, blockable entrance, or put up a strong, fine-mesh net. Or you could pop your prisoner into a crate of some sort.

8. Repeat the previous 7 steps with your remaining free-range roosters.

9. Once all roosters are captured and accounted for, release them from their in-coop restraints and don't let them out.

10. The night before the Big Day, enter the coop after the roosters have all gone to sleep, remove the slumbering future Sunday roasts from their perches and deposit them in the cages you'll transport them in.

Don't be discouraged if a few roosters seem to have a sixth sense about when you are approaching the door to shut it. They'll come back, eventually. They'll hear their buddies crowing and scuffling inside and their flocking instinct will kick in. You must exercise patience, which can be difficult, but the rewards are well worth it!

One caveat: You'd think that once all the roosters are contained, you're home free. I thought I was, with seven roosters in the pen as the sun began to set the night before their final journey. Alas, despite my impassioned gestures to shut up, my husband mentioned at the dinner table about our plans for the morrow. Our 9-year-old daughter jumped up, shouting, "What? You're taking the roosters to be killed?"

Before we could catch HER, she ran outside, threw open a door and my day's work literally flew the coop.

So, perhaps an 11th step is needed: Add padlock to coop door. Or, add duct tape to husband's mouth.

Now, get out there and round up those roosters! You can do it! And think of the pride you'll experience when your family gathers for Thanksgiving, and someone asks, as he's licking his fingers clean from the fried chicken, "Who caught this delicious bird?" You can righteously puff out your chest and crow, "That would be me!"

Let's Try This Again

I gave my first piano lesson today. It was a challenge. My 5-year-old student was very nervous and wouldn't even sit in front of the piano. I had to dredge up my psychology training and take her through a hierarchy of fears before she edged close enough to touch the keys. By the time she left, she'd thawed out considerably (probably from a massive dose of relief that it was over) and was showing me her gymnastics moves and speaking at a normal volume.

It's a beautiful day outside, if a bit chilly. November is bearable when sunny. It's the overcast days that make me want to just RUN AWAY.

Today's picture is my first experiment with the scanner, which my husband was kind enough to connect to and install on this computer. Actually, it's my fourth experiment. The first three scans wouldn't upload, I guess because they were saved as the wrong kinds of files.

This is a photo that appeared in 1971 in the Piscataquis Observer. Somehow I made it into the National Honor Society. Some society! We never had any meetings or did anything fun. The only thing we had in common was an ability to get good grades.

See if you can tell which one is me!