It was a busy day today.  It started when I forgot I had lined up the fabulous Mercedes to babysit for Lily (summer camp is closed today and tomorrow).  She sat in my driveway for an hour while I ran errands with Lily.  Ooops.  This afternoon,  I took my neighbor’s son with us to the Little Gym so he wouldn’t have to suffer through a long swim meet with the rest of his family.  We returned home around 6, and I walked the sweet boy back to my neighbor’s house while Lily and Arden played in the driveway. 

As I turned to walk back to my house, I heard gleeful shouting and two girls running straight for me. 

First glance at Lily, I saw feathers.  Then I saw bare skin.  Then I saw a beak, wide open, and possibly a beady eye. 

I saw Arden, clutching what looked to be a similar bunch of feathers, skin and beak. 

Insert me, screaming and running toward them.  In my head, a steady stream of thoughts:  “OH MY GOD THEY HAVE FOUND DEAD ROTTING BIRDS THEIR HANDS ARE WRAPPED AROUND DEAD BIRDS DISEASE AVIAN FLU WAIT I DON’T KNOW WHAT AVIAN FLU IS OH MY GOD CRUSHED BIRD GUTS WILL BE ON MY CHILDREN I AM GOING TO VOMIT THOSE POOR BIRDS BIRD FLU BEAKS aghghahhahahahahhhh….” and so on. 

Lily and Arden stopped short.  Apparently some of those words came out of my mouth at a very loud decibel.  Lily looked frightened.  Arden dropped her bird and screamed, “I TOLD YOU NOT TO TOUCH THEM, LALLY!” (she calls her Lally when she’s irked or very happy)

Suddenly the bundle of skin and feathers moved, and Lily’s started to cheep.  And the cheeping got louder.  Then I realized we were being dive-bombed by the bird parents.  Two parent birds that were super pissed their babies were being manhandled by unruly children.  I started yelling, “Give me the birds!!! Where is the nest???”  Arden’s bird was flapping around uselessly on the ground, and I was hoping the wings weren’t broken.  Lily scooped up both into her hands and ran faster than I’ve ever seen her run back toward the Crape Myrtles that line the driveway.  I helped her get the birds into the nest.  The mom and dad birds were still dive-bombing and screeching at us, so we all ran into the garage. 

As soon as we got into the garage, Arden burst into tears.  Lily followed.  They were both shrieking like someone had run over the dog in front of them.  I’m sure the neighborhood thought someone had died.  I am not sure I’ve ever seen them as upset as they were.  They were both so scared, and I think because I yelled, they thought I was mad at them.  I took them inside and tried to calm them down by telling them about the time, in Ann Arbor, I decided to take some robin’s eggs home with me to watch.  I ended up killing all of them. Ooops again.  I assured them the birds would be fine, that their mommy and daddy would feed them, and that I wasn’t mad.  We then discussed never touching anything in nest and promptly washed hands for the next 20 minutes in hot water and Clorox bleach. 

Mike came home in the midst of the screaming and helped me settle them down.  I needed about 30 minutes before my heart rate dropped into the normal zone, and I will possibly need a large glass of something alcoholic tonight.  Or a valium. Or both. 

I did some reading on the fabulous ‘net back in 2000 when we had a baby bird fall out of a nest in our front yard.  We watched the mom circle and make bird crying sounds until we couldn’t stand it, and picked up the bird so he could go back in the nest.  I had always heard that if you touch a baby bird, the parents will abandon it.  This is probably on par with some of the crap my family forwards me about men spraying you with cologne which is actually mace in parking lots so they can rob, then rape, then kill you - but I believed it.  The ‘net said otherwise.

Still, I was very relieved when I checked on the babies tonight.  They were both cuddled together, sleeping.  I further traumatized them by sticking a camera into the center of the Crape and taking this picture:

I’ll be even more relieved when I see the parents feeding them. 

I am SO far behind in blogging.  Between not having my car and a lot of things happening last week, I never got around to downloading pictures from Lily’s swim meet and our trip to Yorktown to celebrate Mia’s 2nd birthday.  Here they are!  Make sure you click on “show info’ during the slideshow to read the captions.  Or don’t, and just make up your own captions. . . 

Part II in my wildly successful series on social media things that annoy Cristina.  Keep in mind that these are my opinions, and like you know what, everyone has one.

1.  Adding “Tw” to every word.  Tweet Up.  Tweeters.  Tweminars.  Kill me now.  People who twitter are annoying enough to the rest of the world.  When we start adding “tw” in front of normal words, not only are we annoying, we sound like raving lunatics with a speech impediment. 

2.  Using Twitter as your personal pimping pad.  Imagine yourself in the room full of 500 people you don’t really know. You pick up a megaphone and scream: “Contact me if you want information on how the internet can make you millions.  Call now and I’ll send you a free set of Ginsu knives!  But only if you are serious about making money!”  (that may be more than 140 characters).  That, folks, is what a high percentage of Twitter users do.  It’s so obnoxious. Nothing makes me unfollow someone faster than when my first contact with them involves being told to click a link, stop by their website to sign up for a enewsletter I do not want, or am told they are an “expert in social media”. (side note:  one “expert” spelled social media like this:  socail meda)

3.  Calling yourself an “expert”.  Nowhere else but on Twitter have I ever seen the word “expert” whored out as much.  65% of people claim to be social media experts.  It took me more than a decade to call myself in expert in a couple of very specific areas.  Twitter’s only been around for a couple of years.  How the heck can you be an expert???  Terms like “social media guru”, “Web 2.0 Hero” and “new media leverage expert” make me dry heave. 

4.  Assuming Stupid Followers. It is not easy to make money on the internet.  Newsflash:  the dot com bust was a long time ago.  People wised up. Just because you are slamming me with tweets about your get rich quick schemes doesn’t mean I’m going to buy it from your website.  In fact, chances are, I’m going to unfollow or better yet, block you.  Stop telling me how easy it is to make money on the internet.  I run two internet businesses.  I know it’s as hard as any other money-making endeavor. 

5.  Weird, mass-following keyword searches.  I must have posted a status that mentioned a pimple.  Within one week, I had about 20 “acne experts” following me and bombarding my stream with “new acne cure 2.0!” every 15 minutes.  From a marketing perspective, it’s smart to target your market.  Obviously they have a search set up for anyone using the word “zit”.  However, maybe check the context of the tweet before bombarding?  It’s obvious I’m not covered in acne based on what I talk about.  Nor did my tweet say, “Help - I’ve got more craters than the moon!  Please send me acne help!”  If I had, well then, game on. 

6.  Typing vomit.  Let’s get back to what I personally think Twitter is all about.  Twitter, to me, is about communication.  If you are there to blast out random crap about your company that has nothing to do with me, and fill up my stream so I can’t see the stuff I’m interested in, I’m going to unfollow.  For instance, I’ll call one fellow Twitterer “StuffedAnimal”.  They sell, yes, stuffed animals.  Every 20 minutes I’d get something like this: 

“Why oh why
don’t you stop on by
oh me oh me
our stuffed animals will make you cry”

I wish I was kidding. 

and finally . . .

7.  Ask and ignore.  People who constantly ask questions, like “Is Jeff Goldblum really dead”, receive responses, and only acknowledge the ones from the handful of people they will deign to talk with? Grrr.  This hits on my peeve about bloggers only talking to their perception of the elite.  If you don’t wish to talk to others, do not ask questions.  Or privately message those you wish to ask. Otherwise, regular lame-o’s like myself are going to assume you really want an answer, and take time to do so. 

There you have it!  Hope you twenjoyed it.  What are some of your Twitter peeves? 

Hey, guess what?  I’m kind of a perfectionist.  It’s a theme that has followed me throughout the years.  No matter how good I was at something, it wasn’t good enough. Even being really good at starving or withholding food wasn’t enough.  Someone was always doing it better than me.  One of my college roommates was anorexic.  It was like the battle of diseases - my bulimia versus her anorexia.  In retrospect it was so sick, it would have made for good reality tv.  “Watch her puke as her roommate starves!  Who can eat less than the other?  Tune in at 10 for the final showdown!”

Everytime I cycle through gaining weight, then losing it, the extremes are hard to temper.  At one extreme, I can’t imagine ever eating sensibly again.  My inner demon says, “You’ve denied for years.  You deserve whatever you want, whenever you want it.”  On the other extreme, my inner demon says, “You fat pig - you can never again eat like other people.  You aren’t like other people.  Barley and oats for the rest of your life.”

Doing Weight Watchers has been fairly enlightening.  Because no foods are verboten, I don’t get that panicky, “OH MY GOD THAT COOKIE WILL KILL ME” feeling like I did during the two years I went without flour or sugar.  And because I am “allowed” to eat whatever, I tend to want certain foods less.  In this respect, Weight Watchers - for now - has been successful.  I’ve struggled with food for too long to be able to proclaim that it’s the Perfect Diet. 

Part of growing older and looking back over all the years of the struggle has proven to me once again that there is no such thing as perfection.  I was reading an article today on ”Phantom Fat” and unfortunately I can really relate to it.  Even at my thinnest, I only saw the fat girl lurking beneath the skin.  How could I be 102 pounds and think I was fat? Oh, the joy of a messed up head . . . and how annoying!  how irritating! that all these years later I still struggle with the image in the mirror.

I will say that I’m more able to accept the imperfections of my diet.  That occasionally I will order french fries with my grilled chicken, or get an ice cream cone with the kids.  That’s the joy of being “normal” and of eating “normally”.  Food isn’t good or bad - just because it’s a donut doesn’t mean it’s a convicted felon and should be in food jail.  Salad isn’t angelic, nor is broccoli.  I came face to face with that when I found myself eating a piece of cold pizza at 3 o’clock in the afternoon (!!!).  My first instinct was to freak out and feel like I’d ruined not only my day, but my entire life.  That combination of dough, tomatoes and cheese had the power to just crush my resolve and make me feel tiny (and huge, all at the same time).  Later, after the panic had subsided, I put it into perspective.  It was a piece of pizza.  A simple piece.

As the weight comes off, I’m hopeful my need to be perfect will come off along with it.  Hope is a very good thing. 

I briefly mentioned yesterday that there are certain “bloggy” behaviors that drive me nuts.  I thought I’d make a little list for those of you who are up and coming “famous” bloggers, and for those of you who are climbing the virtual ladder.  Also on the off-chance that some of the bloggers who irritate me read this, perhaps you’ll think about tweaking your attitude.  What’s funniest about this list is that in my previous life as a marketing consultant, this very same advice was given time and time again (with some substituted words) to many lawyers and accountants.  I guess the same “Do Unto Others” cliche really works in all walks of life

1.  Don’t Forget Who Reads You.  Those same people who started reading you 2 years ago, when you started (in the blogging world, 1 year is equal to about 25) are probably still reading you.  Only now they are being encouraged to comment (because comments are blogger crack), and the writers know that the more comments they have, the more advertising dollars they can leverage.  No one likes to feel used.  If you expect your readers to comment, you might want to spend some time around the world wide interwebs commenting on other blogs besides your best bloggy friends. 

2.  Newsflash - This Just In!  Just because you finally got your blog leveraged where you want it to be, or your book deal is finally being inked, doesn’t mean that the quality of writers has magically dried up just because you got paid (or noticed).  The same core group of mom bloggers still talk mostly to each other.  In the meantime, thousands of blogs that put theirs to shame have popped up - it’s unfortunate that it seems many of them are missing out on the larger blogging community because it’s easier to stay in the safe zone.  Matt Logelin’s a perfect example of this.  Aside from having his life ripped apart when his wife died after the birth of their first child, he’s managed to attract a lot of attention with his blog and get a book deal.  He travels a lot and always makes time to reach out to the people who read him.  He is always linking to new blogs.  And this guy gets as many comments as Dooce, so don’t tell me you’re too famous to deal with it.

3.  Ignoring comments.  If comments are blogger crack, then I really don’t get why more bloggers don’t occasionally respond.  Avitable is completely awesome at interacting with his commenters - he responds, he jokes, he engages.  I get that not every blogger wishes to engage, but I don’t really understand that.  If you are writing publicly, and putting it out there, paying attention to your crack supplier might be a good idea. 

4.  On that same note . . . one blogger in particular ONLY responds to negative comments.  She could have 3,000 positive comments offering support or humor or kind words, but she’ll only respond to the one a-hole who tells her she sucks as a mother and is a drunk.  Most of the time it’s not even that blatant.  It appears that if she even senses the person doesn’t 100% agree with her, she responds.  Or deletes the comments.  The bloggers I respect allow dissenting opinion.  Now if it gets personal, or crass, then I get why comment are deleted.  This goes way beyond this. 

5. Most bloggers twitter.  Nothing annoys me more than my twitter feed being barfed on by the same 5 bloggers in a sycophantic frenzy.  It goes something like this:

@totallyfamousblogger:  OMG!  Your latest post made me LOL!!!  Call me so we can talk!
@almostasfamousblogger:  Awww, shucks, I love you too.  Can’t wait to drink at (insert upcoming female blogging event here) with you!
@totallyfamousblogger:  What do you think about my boob job?
@almostasfamousblogger:  I love it! But you couldn’t be any hotter!
@totallyfamousblogger:  My kid just barfed. 
@almostasfamousblogger:  Tell your agent to clean it up. That’s what you pay that whore for!

It might not be quite that bad, but some days, it’s all I can do to swallow it.  Why not just delete them from my follow list??  Because I like their writing enough to want to know when new stuff is coming out, but I’m beginning to dislike them intensely as a person.  I’m not alone in that feeling. 

Speaking of Twitter,  it’s called a “micro-blogging” site.  I agree with Avitable. It’s not really a blogging site.  It’s a condensed narcissistic discussion about yourself, unless you engage.  So bloggers who constantly tweet about themselves and only to certain special people look like complete buttholes in my opinion.  I might care more about your car troubles or the fact that your carpet smells like cat pee if you actually responded to anyone other than yourself.  Queen of Spain is well-known and very busy - but if you respond to her, she will respond to you.  It makes me a lot more willing to take the time to read those who take time with me. 

6.  If you want to make money from blogging, treat it like a business.  Seriously.  Duh.  This is marketing 101.  Want a big following?  Want rabid fans who will bail you out of jail, or believe you were actually pregnant with a terminally ill baby even after it’s been proven you freaking lied?  Interact.  Become involved with your customers - aka your readers.  Take some time to check out their blogs.  You might even bring yourself to comment outside the popular clique.  Trust me, it won’t kill you.

7.  Recommend other blogs you like, but not the same 5 over and over again.  Help your readers discover new and great bloggers.  Just yesterday, The Checkout Girl recommended some blogs (including mine, which was totally super of her).  I added all of them to my RSS feed.  This might be a problem if you don’t actually read blogs anymore, but maybe you could fake it?

So there you have it. Homeslice’s 7 Rules on How to Blog Without Annoying the Universe (aka your customers).