A Soggy Summer: How Bored Can A Bean Get?

July 13, 2015 / Ally Bean / 28 Comments

Things I have done in the past week to try to entertain myself while it rains almost non-stop outside during July, a month when accomplishing things on my “Save It For Summer” To Do List is a top priority.

1) I rooted for Zen-Den to burn up a waffle while he was making some for breakfast yesterday morning. I thought that the smoke might add a little excitement to the day.

He, however, didn’t burn anything, made delicious waffles, and even cleaned up the kitchen afterward, thereby depriving me of things to complain about here in a blog post.

Yes, I’m bored enough to feel defeated about not having a cooking mishap to start the day.

2) I watched hours of TV shows about buying property in Alaska. Alaska is a state that I adored in Northern Exposure, but after watching these shows, I dunno about these people.

While watching these shows I learned that 33% of the homes in Alaska have outhouses. And that people there seem ga-ga over views of mountains that all look the same to me. And that moose wander around free-range style in Alaska’s largest city, Anchorage, population 300,000.

Clearly, no matter how much I loved Maggie and Joel, this is not a state for me, a woman who thinks staying at a Motel 6 is roughing it.

3) I sorted through all the catalogues that are in this house. I ended up with a 14″ high pile of catalogues, unwanted, in my way, yet here, for reasons most varied.

Some were catalogues from companies that I have bought things from online, while other catalogues, unsolicited, seem to magically appear in our mailbox. Then like a ninny, I bring them inside the house.

My conclusion? Catalogues are a plague of locust, impossible to stop.

4) I researched perfumes online. I want a new fragrance, but when shopping in the stores I can’t find one that suits my fussy nose. So I sat here, at the computer, reading online descriptions of fragrances, knowing full well that perfume is something that needs to be sniffed and dabbed before buying it.

Yet all because I cannot accomplish anything around the house like I want to do, I was bored enough to read about perfume, as if that was a good use of my time.

I mean really? Reading about fragrance? I’m doomed.

My Weekend At Home With A Snotty Hacker

June 16, 2015June 16, 2015 / Ally Bean / 24 Comments

Last week Zen-Den got a cold. This is unusual.

He was traveling for work and somewhere along the way, on a plane or at a hotel perhaps, he picked up a nasty head cold that over the weekend morphed into wheezing and chest congestion.

This condition, as you can imagine, lead to lots of nose blowing and loud coughing. I dubbed him a snotty hacker, which I thought was clever.

He didn’t seem to appreciate my sly sense of humor, clearly showing you that he didn’t feel good.

Snotty hacker. That’s funny. Healthy people would laugh.

Whatever.

So this past weekend, when I wasn’t fetching hot tea or a blanket or a box of Kleenex, I goofed off in my own low-key, dear-lord-it’s-hot-and-humid-outside, kind of way.

The following are my three big takeaways from my time spent, more or less, alone.

I finished watching Grace and Frankie which is a wonderful new, not violent or crude, TV show available on Netflix.

The show, which stars Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin as two straight women whose husbands have left the women for each other, is smart + authentic + funny.

Just a little bittersweet.

And has the most amazing house porn, the sort of which that is usually reserved for movies.

Go watch it now. I give it 5 stars.

Ever since I heard the whole “Call Me Caitlyn” thing, it has bugged me. Not the idea that a human being has the right to do whatever he or she wants to do within and/or to his or her body.

No, that I get.

What has bothered me, I finally figured out, is that a woman born in 1949 would not be named Caitlyn, a name that showed up in the the 1970s. She’d be called Linda, the 1st most popular girl name that year. Or Mary, the 2nd most popular.

And if by chance her name was “Caitlyn” it wouldn’t be spelled all modern-like. It would be spelled Kate Lynn. Shortened for the 9th most popular girl name, Kathleen + basic middle name, Lynn.

Kathleen Lynn. A perfectly acceptable 1940s name.

Right?

I finished reading A Little Salty to Cut the Sweet: Southern Stories of Faith, Family, and Fifteen Pounds of Bacon by Sophie Hudson.

Sophie is a blogger who took her personal stories to the next level by writing this funny, charming memoir. The book, published in 2013, has been on my list of books to read for years, so I’m not exactly talking about it on a timely basis.

No surprise there. My reading is rarely current.

However, be that as it may, I thought that I’d tell you, my gentle readers, that if I could pick a family to join, I want to be part of Sophie’s family. I know that I could fit right in immediately.

I like bacon. And I adore kindness.

Both of which are in abundance in this delightful memoir. Highly recommended.

Tweeted Twaddle: A Blog Post “Written” Without Doing Much Of Anything

April 9, 2015April 9, 2015 / Ally Bean / 20 Comments

• I can’t see straight today. My April allergies are in full swing making my eyes itchy & watery. This happens every year, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. Now does it?

• Because I refuse to stop reading while my vision is blurry, I have set my Kindle’s font to old-people-rheumy-eyed large. It’s a feature on there. Really.

• Naturally, while reading I became a bit peckish so I tried a new-to-me snack. I did not like it, so I had to share this fact on Twitter. That’s what Twitter is for, right?

• So in closing of this eclectic [some would say filler] post, I leave you, my gentle readers, with this tweet of creative writing in which I summarize what I wish was going on outside today. Because a girl can dream. Yes?

A Quiet Sunday Afternoon At Home With A Patient On The Mend

March 29, 2015April 1, 2015 / Ally Bean / 20 Comments

“Ms. Bean, what the heck are you doing this weekend? I see you messing around with frozen peas. Now if it was peanuts I’d understand, but peas? Please explain, I’m all ears.”

• Looking out the window today I see, beyond an inquisitive squirrel staring in at me, a spring day filled with pale blue sky above leafless gray trees. A couple of daffodils have made their appearance in the yard, but the forsythia bushes are showing no sign of joining the daffs.

Outside the temperature is in the upper 30s/lower 40s, which is more wintry than springy. However, I’m not going anywhere today so the weather can do that which it wants to do without me whining about it.

As if I have any control over it to begin with.

• I’m at home today looking after Zen-Den who had surgery [to correct ptosis] on his eyes on Friday. His recuperation is going well. He’s walking around the inside of the house without any trouble, able to see well enough to play Farm Heroes on his iPhone.

And beginning to get bored with the 20 minutes on/20 minutes off post-surgery eye icing schedule. No longer do the little plastic bags of frozen peas, used to ice his eyes, charm him with their whimsical healing properties.

No, he’s leaning toward grumpy now– and I fear that he’d rather eat the peas than wear them. But I persevere and follow him around with the little green ice packs, forcing him to use them for at least 10 minutes on/30 minutes off.

This schedule will have to do.

• And with that I’m off to bake some banana bread. The surgeon’s office did not specifically mention it as necessary for a proper recuperation, but I figure it can’t hurt. Zen-Den loves it– and it might just be the thing to coerce him into cooperating with me and those damned little plastic bags of frozen peas.

“If you sit still with your pea packs on for 20 minutes, then you can have a big slice of banana bread afterwards. Now wouldn’t that be nice?”

Later, kids. Much to do.