Quick question and get your ears ready for another Happiness Between Tails podcast soon:
Have you checked out the new podcasting integration between WordPress and Anchor? I’m getting ready to try it and wonder if you have thoughts to share regarding it. (Here’s a podcast I published some months ago.) According to WordPress’ recent email, “We’re excited to announce a new feature that automatically converts the text of any page or post into a podcast on Anchor, the world’s largest podcast platform. If you’re already blogging on WordPress.com, there’s a good chance it’s podcast-ready—because our new integration with Anchor means you can now turn your words into audio in a few steps. The blog-to-podcast process is simple, and it opens up your work to new possibilities and listeners.”
COVID-19, staying-at-home included, is plenty hate-worthy. (I’ve griped about it here and here and here.) But not everything, i.e., I’m writing my novel, “Flamenco & the Sitting Cat” at a far better clip. (I elaborated on some COVID silver linings here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here, as did author Alice Renaud here.)
Anyone got a pumpkin seed?Nonetheless, there are those among us who love, loooooove, luuuurrrve COVID-19. Indulge me for how tickled I am by the “sound effects” of one such COVID fan…
Our fluffed, furred, feathered, slippery, scaled, and whatever else creature-family who can’t get enough of us — those guys are overjoyed! In their unique ways, they broadcast, “Hurray! Our people are home!”
At the start of quarantine, I heard a radio item about a doggie who needed a vet’s attention because she’d sprained her tail from wagging it so much!
People I know average an extra three hours to their days thanks to working from home. Here in Los Angeles County, “driving’ is a euphemism for “fuming in stand-still traffic.” Think of all the heart attacks fended off if we didn’t have to waste hours fuming behind the wheel. Just the other day, road rage triggered (pardon the sad but irresistible pun) a shooting in Long Beach.
More free time means more gardening. Urban gardening activist Ron Finley of South Central Los Angeles says, “Growing your own food is like printing your own money.”
His TED talk describes how his first parkway (what divides sidewalk from street) orchard-ette turned eco-lutionary…
When we moved into our home, my dear husband, Khashayar, applied his engineer’s practicality to our front and backyards. “If we’re going to work it, we’re going to eat it,” he said. Or something to that effect.
Which is why we’ve got several fruit trees crammed onto our bit of green. We (okay, he did the grunt work as our soil is basically clay) spent Sunday laying the groundwork for this year’s tomatoes and herbs.
Our little garden blooms with future fruits and herbs. (Here you can see some of what we harvested.)Do you know a pet who’s celebrating COVID-19?
Happiness Between Tails by da-AL 
[…] me? Check back soon for that tale, dear readers. In the meantime, here’s a photo of our tomatoes (first introduced here) are coming […]
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Reblogged this on Ned Hamson's Second Line View of the News.
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K-D is such a beautiful dog! Great video.
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K-D is blushing 🙂
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What a wonderful garden! Now i have noticed the header image too, and i am sure i am knowing K-D’s thoughts “Now the muzzle is on her!” Lol
K-D really is eating pumpkin seeds? Wow! Our former cat – we have given him a noble name – at least only was eating smoked salmon. Lol Michael
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lolol K-D would definitely prefer smoked salmon
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Keep on buying him some. 😉 xx
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if I did, she would become as spoiled as your cat lol
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Lol – Thats true, and this could become very expensive too.
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This whole pandemic has been life altering, for sure, da-AL. I have heard that even after it’s finally over, more people will be working from home on a permanent basis. I love the photo of your pup and the back yard. All the best with the book. 🙂
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thanks on all counts, Mark – definitely would be nice if people continue to work from home more. tho I already know plenty going back to offices unfortunately…
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Our lockdowns didn’t make much difference to me since I’ve been working a home-based freelancer and novelist for a the last couple of years (and spent many years working from home in the past). It was harder when my teacher husband was also working from home, but only because of problems with the internet!
I did try out Anchor for a poem I’d written a few weeks ago. The automated voices were awful, and I’m going to need a lot more practice to read myself. Perhaps I should get Luna on it. She’s very vocal these days!
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Hi Chris, this is interesting to know. I have set up Anchor and was going to try the automated voices [just because I thought it would be easier]. I’ll rather do my own reading then. I have a YouTube channel so I’ve been practicing reading for a while. I don’t really like making videos of myself but my sons tell me I must do this if I want to market with the times.
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Robbie – & Chris – I understand what Chris is saying & indeed the robo-voice wouldn’t work the greatest for lovely verse — but I’m thinking of using it for same reasons as you, only for having it read my blog posts. really to experiment, dip toes further into land of podcasting for when I start recording my novel. am going thru anchor fine print now, wanting to see how their ‘Patreon-like’ thing works in terms of how much control podcaster has over parameters…
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I think it’s much better to do your own reading! And yes, we all must move with the times. I must start declaiming to my rose bushes, as one of my characters is prone to do 😉
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ah – what a great idea — I’ve been depriving my garden of my declaiming (except when a bug is biting me) lolol
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