Regarding People

You Gotta Laugh: An Unexpected Email From A Former Boss Asking Me A Question

/ Ally Bean / 244 Comments

And then the absurd happened.

I received an email from a former boss, someone I hadn’t heard from in years.

Call me prescient but when I saw her name on the email I instantly flashed back to working for this woman who, while sweet enough, was a flake. She could not, would not, get to a point directly, instead dithering around about what she wanted to say.

Come to find out she has not changed.

• • •

In the first part of her email former boss talked about how she and her husband had retired. They’d moved to another state, built a house on 10+ acres, and were raising farm animals, mostly as pets.

Groovy.

She continued by explaining that she’d thought of me when trying to remember some events that happened decades ago in a bar we’d gone to after work. She wanted to know if I remembered the names of any of the bar shots we drank, specifically the ones made with Baileys Irish Cream.

And of course true to her personality, she didn’t tell me why she wanted to know about these drinks, just that she’d thought of me.

• • •

Now kids I’m sure I won’t shock you when I admit that there have been many alcoholic beverages in my life and while I like to think of myself as a helpful person, on this particular subject I was hampered by time and my indifference to Baileys Irish Cream.

Don’t love it, don’t hate it.

I could only remember two drinks.

One was a NUTTY IRISHMAN [recipe here] made with Baileys + Frangelico. The other was a B-52 [recipe here] made with Baileys + Grand Marnier + Kahlua. So I replied to former boss’s email telling her what I remembered.

• • •

Without any context in her email I’d assumed former boss was having a party and was looking for a signature drink for her event. But that couldn’t have been farther from the truth, something I learned when she emailed back thanking me for my help and further explaining herself.

You see, and let me clue you in that you’ll be surprised to learn, the reason former boss wanted to know about these bar shots is that one of her alpacas, named Bailey, had given birth.

Former boss thought it’d be clever to name the newborn, a girl, after one of those Baileys Irish Cream bar shots we’d enjoyed years ago.

Because of course she did.

• • •

Unforeseen as this email exchange was, there was logic involved, something former boss was not known for when I worked for her. And much to my continued amazement former boss did get back to me saying she liked the name Bea, as in reference to the B-52 bar shots, so she was going with that name.

She also promised to send a photo of Bea as soon as she got around to taking one, which considering this is former boss I figure said picture will arrive many years hence when former boss thinks of me again.

‘Ya know? 

QUESTIONS OF THE DAY

Have you ever had a boss from way back when get in touch with you? If so, why? Were you flattered to be remembered? 

Do you like Baileys Irish Cream? If so, do you like any particular drink made with it?

If you were living on a farm raising animals as pets which animals would you raise?

~ ~ • ~ ~

Laugh When You Can: A Tale Of Brotherly *Love* + A Poem About Methuselah’s Diet

/ Ally Bean / 207 Comments

Is this not true?

A Tale Of Brotherly *Love*

The other afternoon the temps were in the lower 80s so I went out onto our screened-in porch to enjoy fresh air and read a book.

I heard kids playing in the ravine behind the house. They were down in the creek bed that’s practically dry this time of year. Kids go exploring down there occasionally and in this case it was two boys, about 6 y.o. and 10 y.o.

I didn’t think a thing about it until I was jolted out of my reading by a loud  Dad voice coming from the other side of the ravine.

Dad said: Alexander, where is your brother?

{Small voice, indistinguishable words}

Dad again: Alexander, I asked you, where is your brother? Where is William!!

{Slightly louder small voice, somewhat indistinguishable, but saying words that included “I don’t know”}

Dad continued: Alexander, I don’t care. Go back down into the ravine and find William. NOW!

At this point I heard a small whimper coming from the bottom of the ravine. A whimper so pathetic that I put down my book, stood up and looked down into the ravine where I saw a small boy sitting on a log by himself, crying, but not hurt or in any danger.

He was pretty much playing up the drama of being left behind.

I shouted over to the Dad telling him that I could see the abandoned brother, that he was fine, and then explained where I was so Alexander, the reluctant keeper of his brother, could find William.

At which point the Dad shouted thanks over my way while giving Alexander one last clearly stated command, a guideline for how to treat your brother.

And maybe all of humanity.

Dad said: ALEXANDER WE DON’T LEAVE OUR BROTHER IN A RAVINE, ANY RAVINE, EVER. Now go find him.

Which Alexander did with some alacrity while I watched, amused, from above.

So sayeth Dad, so let it be.

A Poem About Methuselah’s Diet

I continue to sort through old family photos and papers. In one of the boxes I found the following pithy poem. My father had saved it by cutting it out a newspaper.

According to the introduction to the poem it was on the dinner cards of the 1890 Class, College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York. Researching online I discovered there’s no known author for the poem.

DIET

Methuselah ate what he found on his plate,

And never, as people do now

Did he note the amount of the caloric count;

He ate it because it was chow.

•🔸•

He wasn’t disturbed, as at dinner he sat,

Destroying a roast or a pie,

To think it was lacking in granular fat,

Or a couple of vitamins shy.

• 🔸•

He cheerfully chewed every species of food,

Untroubled by worries or fears,

Lest his health might be hurt by some fancy dessert––

And he lived over Nine Hundred Years!

Here is the poem as seen in print.

Questions of the Day

What have you laughed out loud about lately?

What’s the last thing you overheard that made you stop what you were doing and eavesdrop?

What do you think of Methuselah’s pragmatic diet plan?

• • ❤️ • •

Jottings: A Thursday Morning Change Of Heart + Discerning The BS In Your Writing

/ Ally Bean / 241 Comments

Is this not true?

I WAS GOING TO WRITE ABOUT something different today, something that had to do with people on social media, but I got up this morning, read what I wrote, and decided that while the words flowed I don’t want to talk about people.

As in how oddly many of them are behaving lately. As in desperate to get attention by any means, often dipping into the realm of contrived moral outrage.

As in mentally unwell.

And tedious.

Crazy and unhinged even.

And here’s the thing, because I usually have a thing when I make a snap decision, I’m aware that crazy stays the course unless there’s some medical intervention. And while I’m a problem solver at heart, I am not anyone’s psychologist, thus these people and how they behave aren’t truly of interest to me.

So why talk about ’em?

As the saying goes, energy flows where attention goes.

Thus I shall put my energy and attention, and by default your energy and attention, elsewhere, laughing together as we talk about the following fun thing rather than focusing on the dubious conduct of some people.

Yes I’m rising above the hoi polloi, avoiding that which might be considered gossip, leaning into my better nature.

You with me?

+ • 🔸 • +

IN ALL HONESTY I DON’T KNOW how I came to be aware of the BlaBlaMeter, a bullshit detection tool, but I’m glad I did.

It’s fun, in a snorts and giggles kind of way.

Here’s what you do: the website asks you to input at least five sentences of your writing as a sample, then it determines the percentage of bologna sandwich in your writing style.

Based on my five sentences taken from HERE, you can see that my writing style scores extremely low on the BS scale. I was told, and am taking pride in knowing that, my score was a mere 0.09% and that my “text shows no or marginal indications of ‘bullshit’-English.”

[An aside: Interestingly enough when I input five sentences from the one time I used ChatGPT to write THIS, the BlahBlahMeter judged that story to be 0.19% and to show a few indications of ‘bullshit’-English.]

Thus I’ll end this post by suggesting that if you are so moved, give the BlahBlahMeter a whirl using your own writing to see what happens.

Make of it what you will.

+ • 🔸 • +

A Sweet Story About A Stroller, A Stumble, And A Stranger

/ Ally Bean / 245 Comments

I’ve no particular reason to write about this other than to confirm that things can go sideways quickly and that random acts of kindness still happen, sometimes right in front of your eyes.

I WAS WAITING FOR the mail to arrive. We live on the curve on this suburban street so I can see the USPS mail truck coming from a long way off.

I realized the mail would be here in a minute or two so I sat down in the living room and stared out the window. It was mid afternoon when there are few vehicles driving around. The day was clear and sunny, in the 50s F so a beautiful day for everything.

I saw a young mom and dad out running while pushing a stroller with a small baby in it as they jogged along the street in the direction that slopes gently downhill toward a gully.

I watched as the dad nodded to the mom then took off downhill at a faster speed while she pushed the stroller at a decent pace, stepping like a metronome to her own beat. All was good until the mom tripped, lost her balance, and tried to catch herself on our neighbor’s mailbox post.

As she fell to her knees, hanging onto the mailbox post, she lost control of the stroller and inadvertently gave the stroller with the baby in it a huge push that caused it to roll quickly down the middle of the street.

Unattended.

Rolling along like nobody’s business.

She screamed to her husband for help but he had earbuds in and didn’t hear her.

HOWEVER AN OLDER MAN, probably in his mid-70s who I see walking slowly up this street every afternoon, saw what happened and, I kid you not, sprinted up the middle of the street toward the stroller.

He was flailing his arms and yelling at the dad who eventually turned around to see a stranger running to stop his baby’s stroller as it gained momentum rolling down the hill and his wife on her knees a few houses back while shouting at him to get. the. baby.

At this point the dad, who clearly didn’t know how this could have happened so quickly, looked so gobsmacked that I couldn’t help but smile at the dude.

Well the older man pushed the stroller back up the slight hill to the mother and went back to walking. The dad came back to the mailbox post and hugged the mom who’d gotten to her feet.

And while the mother was a heap of nerves, shaking, crying, grabbing for the baby, it’ll come as no surprise to you to learn that the baby and the dad and the older man were fine.

However after a minute, having regained her composure while wiggling her ankle around in small circles, the young couple with the baby turned around and walked back up the slight hill in the direction they’d come from both holding onto the stroller.

NOTHING TERRIBLE HAPPENED YET it was one of those moments in time, that transpired in a snap, when I realized again that we all depend, in some way or another, on strangers to help us get by.

Plus, being a pragmatic soul, I also realized that I do hope this young couple invests in a stroller wrist strap. Seems like it might be a good idea, all things considered.

‘Ya know?

QUESTIONS OF THE DAY

Have you ever see something happen so quickly in front of your eyes that all you can do is watch it unfold?

Have you seen anyone do a random act of kindness lately?

If you walk or run outside on sidewalks or streets, have you ever stumbled like this mother did? If so, what happened next?

~ • ~