The Old Ball Game: Peanuts, Cracker Jacks & Katie Casey

June 9, 2015July 1, 2025 / Ally Bean / 28 Comments

• I’VE BEEN TO THREE BASEBALL GAMES so far this year.

Two of the games were MLB & one was Single-A. I’ve sat a few rows up from the field and I’ve sat a few rows down from the top. Plus I’ve sat in box seats.

None of the games have been scoreless, but they haven’t been memorable either. No grand slams. No amazing fast balls. No outrageous home runs hit out of the park.

Just pleasant somethings to do.

• I ONLY MENTION THEM TODAY BECAUSE, oddly enough, I have no real flapdoodle or twaddle to tell you, my gentle readers.

I usually have something to say here, whether it be a topic or an observation or an absurdity. So in place of the usual, I thought that I’d leave you with ALL the lyrics for “Take Me Out To The Ballgame.”

Not everyone understands that if it weren’t for Katie Casey, none of us would be singing this particular song during the 7th inning stretch.

That girl had it going on!

• • •

• • •

Take Me Out To The Ballgame

Katie Casey was baseball mad
Had the fever and had it bad.
Just to root for the home town crew,
Ev’ry sou, Katie blew;
On a Saturday, her young beau
Called to see if she’d like to go
To see a show, but Miss Kate said “No,
I’ll tell you what you can do.”

“Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out with the crowd.
Buy me some peanuts and cracker jack,
I don’t care if I never get back,
Let me root, root, root for the home team,
If they don’t win it’s a shame.
For it’s one, two, three strikes, you’re out,
At the old ball game.”

Katie Casey saw all the games,
Knew the players by their first names;
Told the umpire he was wrong,
All along, good and strong.
When the score was just two to two,
Katie Casey knew what to do,
Just to cheer up the boys she knew,
She made the gang sing this song:

• • •

Catching A Train To Nowhere, I Am This Week

June 4, 2015June 4, 2015 / Ally Bean / 28 Comments

Some weeks I feel as if I’m getting nowhere.

As if I’m sitting at the station waiting for a train that I hope will go somewhere, but realize may go nowhere.

I know where I want to get to. I can see what needs to be done.

But because I’m waiting for something outside my control to happen, I’m unable to decide what to do next.

So here I sit. Bored. Impatient.

Thinking that life could be more exciting than this, yet knowing that it often isn’t filled with adventure.

And if I am to be truthful, feeling apprehensive about what’s going to be asked of me next.

When the train gets here. Where I am.

Eventually.

Curly Hair, Haircut Appointments & The Games I Must Play

April 28, 2015 / Ally Bean / 27 Comments

I. I have naturally curly hair.

Only a few people know how to cut naturally curly hair so that it doesn’t turn into a frizzy, choppy mess. In fact, I recently got one of those lousy haircuts, but that’s not the story I’m going to tell you here.

No, this story is about how it came to be that I needed to go to a different hair stylist than my usual one. It is a story about how difficult it is to get an appointment with my usual hair stylist, who moved her business to Salon Lofts about two years ago.

II. Here’s why.

As a client I book my appointments with my hair stylist online using the Salon Lofts easy, intuitive scheduler. ‘Tis a breeze to use it. Love it.

At first this process was easy and wonderful. When I needed a haircut I’d go to my account online and look to see when my hair stylist had an opening. Then I’d pick my appointment.

However, other deceitful clients have begun to take all the appointments that they think they might want. For instance, if Little Miss Suzy Self-Absorbed likes to get her hair cut at a specific time on Wednesday afternoons, she’ll book all of those Wednesday afternoon appointments for months ahead.

Then, 24 hours before said appointment, our Little Miss Suzy Self-Absorbed will decide if this is the week she needs to get her hair cut, or not. If she no longer wants the appointment, she’ll cancel it without financial penalty.

III. This leaves me in a difficult situation.

Either I play this take-all-the-appointments-I-might-want-game, or I check online every morning to see if an appointment I can use has opened up for the next day. Then I re-arrange my schedule to take advantage of it.

I’ve talked with my hair stylist about this scheduling situation, but here’s the thing: from her point of view this is not a problem. After 30+ years of cutting hair she has an established clientele who will do anything to get an appointment, so she’s always booked with clients who show up.

Leaving me to play games to get an appointment. And when that fails, forcing me to go to some other available hair stylist who, as this last cut would prove, ain’t so good at what she does.

Of Writing Prompts & Morning Walks

March 2, 2015January 28, 2021 / Ally Bean / 14 Comments

Here’s a fact about me: I read my horoscope once in a while, but not for the reasons that you might imagine.

No, I read my horoscope to get writing prompts.

On the days when I read my daily horoscope, I save the ones that I think will challenge me to think about my life in a new way. Then on a future day when I cannot think of what to say, I peruse my horoscopes and use one as a way to start writing.

• • •

To wit, here’s a horoscope from who knows when that got me thinking over the weekend.

Use your energy wisely to work with the natural currents instead of trying to control them. It’s not your job to eliminate the clouds; the sky will clear on its own.

• • •

What did I get thinking? I decided that even though I’ve almost always been a morning blogger, I’m going to change my posting schedule to the afternoon for the month of March.

You see, I’d like to use my energy in a different way. I want to go for a walk outside each day, and mornings around here have the least amount of vehicle traffic. [No sidewalks here.]

• • •

So instead of plopping down in front of my computer, typing my morning away– I’m going to be propelling myself out the front door, trudging my morning away.

Which means that you, my gentle readers, will just have to wait until I’m done being healthy each morning, and [hopefully] regain enough energy thereafter to sit down and ~~pursue my passion for flapdoodle and twaddle~~ write my blog posts.

Guess we’ll see how this all works out together, won’t we?