Hot Air and Deflated Balls in Today's News

Footballs.

Breaking: Brady's Balls "Perfect."

Hen articles typically don't get too sporty. I've come to accept that no one cares about the ever-bumbling Buccaneers, and that's where my professional sports loyalties begin and end. However, in the past few days I have not been able to sip my coffee or turn on the TV without getting blindsided with "news" about the inflation level of balls.

As if it wasn't bad enough that a press conference with the Patriots' coach was breaking news on CNN, today the story is the cover story for all of USA Today, a slightly-respected national newspaper! I'm paying as little attention as possible to this "scandal," but as a conscious bird, apparently I have no choice but to have it all thrown in my face.

I Just Want a Sidewalk!

Searching for sass.

This year's Hens on Ice tour is a mixed bag of prominent North American cities and "What state is that in again?" towns. However, lots of low-expectation towns have yielded pleasant surprises, like Lincoln and Des Moines (sorry, Fresno). Arriving into Allentown, PA, I had high hopes to be on par with Lincoln, Des Moines, or at least Moline.

My first morning in town, I followed my routine of pecking around the area to find local hot spots - coffee shops, restaurants, bars, parks, bookstores with cats, or anything similar. But in lieu of being in a downtown setting, we are a stone's throw from a major highway, the local airport, and "Condoms Galore." In spite of a different setting and planes rattling my window, I was optimistic to find some local sass in Allentown. Ten feet into the journey, I gave up on local sass and just hoped for a sidewalk.

The 2015 is Coming!

Being Britney Spears.

Now that Christmas is over, it's that dreaded time of year where I feel obligated to make up some New Year's resolutions and then justify why I didn't do the ones fully from the year before. In 2012, I survived the apocalypse, and then felt capable of bettering myself in 5 ways. In 2013, I didn't feel like making up new resolutions, but I looked back at the year and focused on the random things I did in lieu of the dumb resolutions. This year, I'm too mentally exhausted and/or clinically unstable to do any of these things, so I turned to the Internet for help in finding resolutions I won't keep, but might make a half-decent article.

Merry Clucking Christmas!

Merry Christmas from The Cackling Hen! This is a holiday I can support (unless you're eating turkey). Thank goodness that murderous blasphemy of a holiday called "Thanksgiving" is over! What should I be thankful for, slaughterhouses? Gluttony at my cousins' expense? Thanksgiving, my tail feather! On to Santa, Jesus, reindeer, and all that makes the season magical!

I'm home for Christmas day for the first time since I joined Hens on Ice. It got me thinking of how some traditions of our Christmas have stayed the same, but how it's changed for me as well over the years from baby chick to old hen.

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.