site hits, kioskmen, pretty bird

If you blog on Saturday nights, you’re a diehard blogger. In that case, I am a blogging kingpin. But I do have cause to celebrate, for today I received my 1,000th viewer. If you want to get technical, it’s more like I’ve had ten blog readers who have each viewed my blog 100 times, but no one wants to get technical. Last night, Melinda and I were talking shop about blogs and how your site meter can show you what countries people are finding your blog from and what words they type in the search engine to end up at your page. It was some pretty interesting stuff. If I have to admit it, I was so addicted that I spent most of this morning catching up on the last 1000 hits.

I was at the mall today and nearly lost my cool on one of those kiosk salesman. One time, I was sucked in and spent a half hour trying to come up with plausible excuses to get me out of there. I ended up having to promise I would return the next day when I had my money with me (right, because people go to the mall without money). I’m not really sure what it is they sell: something for your hands, nails and cuticles, I think. That is one extremity that gets absolutely no attention from me, and it’s not going to change because some salesman badgered me into it. It wouldn’t be a bad idea for the mall to make a tunnel to shield grouches like me from being pestered by the kioskmen, poll takers, and people collecting donations. You think that sounds like a lot of work, but I think it would actually be less work than me taking out a restraining order against each of these people one at a time.

We have these neighbors on our block who spend hours on the sidewalk with the necks craned, trying to see some bird. I don’t understand the obsession with birds. They freak me out. Once a bird got trapped in our house and I stayed outside all day. We’ve also had a bird in the garage and a bat in the dorm room. Any winged creature can stay very far away from me and we both will be happy. You have to admit you are a bit scared of anything that can fly. You have to be. They have a power we will never obtain. Anyway, this bird likes to torment these neighbors by staying away from his home. We came home from the walk (and the accompanying stop-and-chat with the birdwatching neighbors), and I kind of saw what all the fuss was about. There he was perched on the flowers atop our patio table. He was small and colorful and beautiful, and not menacing at all. I snapped this photo. If the neighbors knew about this, they would pitch a tent in our backyard.

But this one instance hasn’t voided my fear of birds. Rest at ease knowing I’m still petrified of all animals other than my own dog.