Author: Ally Bean

Voting With The Presbyterians: A Conversation About How To Get There

/ Ally Bean / 144 Comments

IN THE PAST

ONCE AGAIN OUR VOTING PRECINCT has been assigned to a different polling place. In the 20+ years we’ve lived in this community we’ve voted at:

  • the VFW Hall [smoke-filled with parking in a field used for their monthly turkey shoot];
  • the Country Club [time-consuming with parking at nearby Methodist Church, involved a shuttle bus taking us to the country club’s front door and then back to our cars];
  • the Elementary School [smelled like chicken sandwiches, had limited parking but nice landscaping to look at while waiting for a space];
  • the Non-denominational Christian Church [easy ingress and egress, adequate flat parking, short walk to front doors, only there one year];
  • the Greek Orthodox Church [difficult ingress and egress, limited parking on uneven sloped lot, many shiny gilded-gold objects inside building];  and
  • the Presbyterian Church [no deets yet].

BUT FOR TODAY

HIM: Where am I voting today?

ME: With the Presbyterians.

HIM: Which Presbyterians? The ones near us or the other ones?

ME: The ones near us. The ones who were hidden down the lane.

HIM: They’re not on the lane anymore?

ME: No, they’re in the same place on the lane but they’ve built a big driveway to the road, so that’s how you get to them now. They have a big welcome sign on the road.

HIM: How do I get there?

ME: Go down the road past the street that takes you to the United Methodists, but not so far as to make that sharp right turn into the Roman Catholics. And for goodness sake don’t go around the curve and make a right into the Bible Believers Baptist Church compound. Who knows what weirdness is behind the bunker they’ve built around that building.

HIM: OK. So where do I turn to get to the Presbyterians?

ME: It’s easy. When you see the big welcome sign on the left, turn left, and you’ll be in the right place.

HIM: Are you telling me directions to the polling place or voting advice?

ME: Both, I guess. Get on the road, go left, and you won’t go wrong! 😉

HAPPY ELECTION DAY

May you find your polling place without trouble. May you say *yes* to the school levies and mental health issues and support for the less fortunate. And for the love of all that is good and holy, I beg of you, may you dump the Trumpian chumps.

~ ~  🇺🇸 ~ ~

I’m Not A Fish, But Know How They Must Feel In Their Bowls

/ Ally Bean / 167 Comments

Some of you know this story already, but I’ll be brief, keep it snappy, and tell it here so that the title of this post makes sense to you, my gentle readers.

After 4 1/2 months of waiting we finally got new replacement windows on the front of the house.

It was a tedious, anxiety-producing process that started with a 3 1/2 month wait, involved delivery of mis-measured windows, a thwarted installation, a makeshift faux installation of the wrong windows to fill the holes in the house created by the thwarted installation, waiting… waiting… waiting again…, and then correctly-sized windows properly installed.

A Christmas Pella miracle, she says with a hint of sarcasm.

The result of this home improvement project is: 1) we no longer have leaky broken windows;  2) we are noticing how much quieter it is in the house with new windows;  and 3) we have no blinds, my preferred window treatment, to put on the new correctly-sized properly installed windows on the front of the house.

Specifically blinds for the windows in the home office where I sit at the desk while using a desktop computer to write this blog.

Forsooth.

But here’s where it gets fishy. Now that it’s darker outside in the early morning, and with no blinds on the windows, I feel like a guppy in a fishbowl sitting in this room. Passersby, whether they be kids on school buses or runners or adults walking their dogs, can see me swimming around sitting at the computer, under the overhead light, doing my early morning bloggy thing, often in my pajamas.

We taped a plastic super strength high density painter’s drop cloth over the windows in an attempt to make this room less noticeable from the street, but it just blurs me, doesn’t hide me.

Ptooey, she says with a hint of defeat.

I don’t like the idea of being on display here each morning but until we get blinds on the new correctly-sized properly installed windows, that took longer to manufacture and install than building this house did, I’ve no choice but to live my life like a fish in a fishbowl for everyone who goes by to see.

And ain’t that grand?

One-Liner Wednesday: A Mantra Courtesy Of A Three Year Old Girl

/ Ally Bean / 162 Comments

I was in Costco on Friday afternoon.  I ducked into the women’s restroom and while in there saw a cute little girl, about three years old, with her mother.

The little girl was wearing black leggings, a bright blue t-shirt, sturdy white sneakers embellished with cartoon characters, and a sparkly pink tutu.  She was a vision of free-spirited sartorial confidence that made me smile.

Oh, to be so sure of yourself!

The duo was standing by the sink in the restroom and the mother was starting to turn on the water at the sink in order for the little girl to wash her hands.  However, as we all know, toddlers like to do for themselves that which they believe they are capable of doing by themselves.

And they are often loud and dramatic in the process.

This little girl was no different than her independently-minded peers, thus she said for all to hear the following phrase that I think, as an example of positive self-talk, might be the perfect succinct mantra for anyone who momentarily loses their confidence while negotiating the ups and downs of life:

“I. CAN. ME.”

~ ~ • ~ ~

This is the brainchild of Linda G. Hill. Click on the badge to learn more & to connect with other bloggers who are doing #1LinerWeds this week.

What The Sheriff Saw: A Story About Yours Truly Doing Her Gardening Chores

/ Ally Bean / 147 Comments

I want to tell you what happened. I didn’t quite understand what really happened as it happened and it was only after Zen-Den gently walked me to an epiphany that I got what happened.

• • •

• • •

THE OTHER MORNING AROUND 9:00 a.m. I decided to water the planters that are on the stoop in front of the house by the front door. I do this using an old Rubbermaid aqua-colored 2 1/4 quarts plastic pitcher whose white lid I lost decades ago.

As I was watering these planters I looked over in the bushes to where we have a medium-sized concrete urn that holds a spike plant. Because it’s been more dry around here than usual the poor spike looked droopy, so I got more water in my repurposed pitcher, now watering can, and stepped into our bushes in front of the windows in front of the house to water the thirsty plant.

I probably should add at this point that I was wearing Stewart plaid flannel jammies, a bright pink fleece jacket, dark teal suede house slippers, and had my curly mess of graying blonde hair pulled up, with a neon orange elastic band, into an off-kilter pineapple-style ponytail on top of my head.

Oh, and I was wearing dark glasses because it was sunny outside.

• • •

THERE’S BEEN A CHIPMUNK hanging around the front of the house all summer and as I was watering the spike I saw it scurry by me on its way to the other side of the front of the house. I do not like the damage that chipmunks can cause so I stopped watering and glared at the little rodent to see where it was going.

And, of course, I yelled a few random death threats at it.

As one does.

Suddenly I had a strange feeling and realized I was not alone. That out on the street in a large black SUV someone was watching me as I stood there.

And who was this person watching me? A sheriff who had happened to notice me as he was driving by. He’d rolled down his passenger side window to get a closer look at me and when I saw him, he waved.

I smiled and waved back while holding up my repurposed pitcher, then started pouring water into the concrete urn to show him I belonged where I was. I wasn’t a burglar hiding in the bushes, I was just the lady of the house doing a chore.

He smiled back, nodded his head, rolled up the window, and went on his way.

• • •

LATER THAT NIGHT I told Z-D what had happened and how funny I thought it was that a sheriff thought I was a miscreant attempting to break into our house.

As if.

Zen-Den listened to my story and conclusion, then quietly suggested that what the sheriff thought he saw probably didn’t register with him as a burglary in progress.

Instead from the sheriff’s perspective what he saw was an addlepated gray-haired senior citizen, perhaps suffering from dementia and jibber-jabbering to herself, wandering around in the bushes in her nightclothes, seemingly confused, while carrying a random kitchen item with her.

And darn it to heck, Zen-Den is right. That’s exactly what the sheriff saw.