Life in the Skywalks

After a riveting week in Lincoln, Nebraska, the Hens on Ice tour plopped us birds into Des Moines, Iowa. Not having much prior knowledge about Des Moines, I learned a lot in our time there. It's the capital of Iowa (with a surprisingly posh capital building!) and really the only city I can name in Iowa. They also don't sell wine in Walgreens and it's really cold in November, just to name a few things.

Smug local.

Like Lincoln, I was happy to find some more local gems, including another sassy coffee shop and some weird, but great bars. There was even an Asian pizza restaurant, which looked wonderfully weird, but I never felt weird enough or wonderful enough to try it. And a shocking beauty within all this surprise sass is that it's all connected by an extensive skywalk system. After a day of freezing like a fool and crying on the empty sidewalks of Des Moines, I decided to try to join the smart birds up above, wearing t-shirts while it was snowing.

Land of Something.

Hopeful.

Lincoln, Nebraska.

Many of the Hens on Ice coop wondered what to expect this week in Lincoln and no one had any answers. A few hens had been Kearney, few didn't know Nebraska was a place, and one bird said, "God bless you" after I said, "Nebraska" in the makeup room. While some birds expected Lincoln to be a bust, I remembered how much fun one could have in hotspots like Ft. Wayne, Biloxi, and Huntsville. As long as Lincoln wasn't another Erie, we'd be just fine.

Writing About Not Writing

Last night, I had dinner with a hen friend who also writes one of my favorite blogs. (Check out Life and Laughter!) We caught up on clucks over Mexican food, with the charm of a busted 50s record and an overly-chatty, disgruntled waitress in the background. I didn't pay much attention to my friend Peri, but I did learn that our waitress hates everything about California, Utah, and tortilla chips.

When the server was away and the record went silent for the fifth time, I learned that Peri is having a book published on December 26, just in time for the holidays. Since this bird also wants to be a New York Times Best Seller, (I'm coming after you, Peri!) I realized I had to get back to writing more. Sure, I've gone through some recent hard times, (see "I'm a Resident Loon" and "Life Isn't Fair") but wallowing in a bird bath of self-pity and self-loathing won't write a book! So I'm back on the writing horse with this article.

I'm a Resident Loon

Apparently it's been nice out.

Life was pretty rough when I missed the One Direction concert. Life got really rough when mother goose made a wrong turn and landed in the hospital's intensive care unit. With her status questionable, I flapped my wings as fast as I could to Tampa General. Mom had always watched "General Hospital," but this was too much.

I've spent the daylight hours of every day for over 2 weeks in the hospital. I'm not here to dwell on mother goose's health troubles nor the emotional toil of partially living in a hospital ICU. I'll keep that bottled up until I lash out inappropriately on Thanksgiving. They say laughter is the best medicine (no one told the surgeon that), so we'll take all the medicine we can get.

Life Isn't Fair: 1D in Tampa

Life sucks sometimes.

Life isn't fair. That's something I've learned to accept as a very young, somewhat handsome adult. And yelling, "That's not fair!" never even worked on the playground.

If life was fair, I'd be at tonight's One Direction concert in Tampa. I even had tickets for the show. But instead, I'm in some dump of a city called San Diego with my steady touring job, doing something I love while seeing many parts of the world. Like I said, life isn't fair.

Hen Testimonials Part 1

The Cackling Hen likes to get its loyal fans involved so The Hen experience is an interactive one. I've written an advice column and a social media guide, to name a few. And since those two articles were somewhat popular and slightly rewarding, I thought I'd try again. This time, I called all Hen fans to share why they love The Hen! It would give fans a change to participate and also help sway people who are on the fence about reading The Cackling Hen, or maybe reading in general.

I expected a flood of responses, sharing personal stories on why The Hen is life changing, or at least people desperately wanting their five seconds of fame. I didn't really get either, but thanks to some of my most faithful cluckers, I got enough to stretch into an article. 

Hola, Mexico! Parte Dos: Talking to Locals

One of many reasons I was excited to come to Mexico was to put my countless hours of Spanish classes and thousands of dollars spent on a degree to good use. I had a positive experience with my language skills in Spain two years ago, and I was hoping for the same here, although my degree is two years dustier. Sure, I can't roll an "R" or conjugate vosotros verbs, but here I am. Thankfully Mexicans don't use the vosotros tense, but there are too many Rs for me to sound native. Blonde hair doesn't help either.

Robbie in Spanish

It took a few days for the cobwebs to dwindle, but soon I felt mostly comfortable being surrounded by Spanish. I can understand most of what's said to me, and I can understand most of the words flying out of my beak. Most locals have been friendly, receptive, and patient, and everyone at the corner coffee shop knows my name. They call me "Roberto" because "Robbie" turned into a two-minute conversation for the barista to write "Robbin," but I'll take it.

Hola, Mexico! Parte Uno.

Hola! Welcome to The Hen's first article from Mexico! It's been a wild and bumpy ride, but some of my feathers are still in tact. And with years of Spanish classes and a dusty Spanish degree under my belt, I had been waiting for years to show local Mexicans my gringo Spanish skills. Mexico, The Hen has landed.

Welcome.

My time here began with a warm welcome at Mexico City's airport. After having my bags and language skills questioned, I was let into a Mexico with a rowdy welcome. I was greeted by a mob of hundreds, some wearing sombreros, some screaming, and none of them for me. I found my ride, weakly holding a company sign after being there 12 hours of Hens on Ice pick ups. I woke her up and picked her off the floor while we waited for one more hen.

100 Clucking Articles!

Me being happy.

This bird has reached a milestone! I'm not talking about Facebook page likes or hate mail; it's The Cackling Hen's 100th article at TheCacklingHen.com! We've been through a lot, haven't we? This huge article also lands around the Hen's 2-year anniversary of launching this site after USFSP forced me to graduate and end my havoc on The Crow's Nest. But the anniversary is less of a celebration and more of a reminder to pay my renewal fee to GoDaddy.

I've been wracking my bird brain on what to write for this big event. Highlight the best articles? Eat 100 pounds of seed? Make fun of Cher? Then, after flapping through social media feeds, I remembered there is already a viral "100" theme out there for the pecking: #100happydays.

100 days of happiness, because we need to publicly show we are happy for a set, milestone number of days, otherwise no one will care. Or something like that.

Next, Please!

I'm just so overrated!

After last Monday's mildly successful "The Rudeness of Strangers," I've been thinking all week of how I could follow up with another riveting article to start the work week. Ideas included bashing the Kardashians (all of them!) or commenting ignorantly on the World Cup (Go Cameroon!). But after a week of procrastination, Monday arrived and I thought Tuesday would have to be the day. Thankfully, today's mundane errands turned foolish when I flapped into one dumb bird!

I started a Father's Day crafts project last week that has turned into a summer solstice crafts project. A Target gift card would have been easier than these homemade coasters, but I was determined to get crafty with Pinterest. With step C nearly dry, I needed the last obscure supply: acrylic sealer. Neither Wal-Mart nor Burger King sell it, so I was forced into Michael's.