Look At That: Learning About Cicadas, Laughing About A Credit Card

June 17, 2025July 2, 2025 / Ally Bean / 232 Comments

The Educational Cicada Part – EEK!

SINCE MID-MAY WE’VE BEEN experiencing Cicada Brood 14 here. Cicadas are insects that emerge into the world on a 17 year cycle. It is their year to show up for 4 to 6 weeks then die.

Cicadas, who have beady orangish red eyes, come up out of the ground and climb on/cling to surfaces that have texture, like trees and bricks and screens. They are everywhere outside the house and when clinging to window screens they appear to be watching you inside.

Not creepy at all. 😳

• • •

WE ARE PEOPLE WHOSE backyard is a woods, thus the arrival of Brood 14 has not been a joyful experience.

I cannot confirm how joyful the cicadas may or may not be, but from their dramatic random flitting about during daylight hours I’d guess they’re happy enough. After all they are here to do one thing: to ~~engage in amorous congress~~ mate.

After mating the adults lay their eggs and the cicada babies (nymphs) hatch in 6 to 10 weeks. Then the nymphs will burrow into the ground where they’ll live until 17 years hence when they emerge.

While cicadas don’t swarm or sting or bite anything or anyone, they are noisy. As in daily highs of 80 decibels [the sound of a lawnmower] to 120 decibels [the sound of a motorcycle revving]. This is what the newspaper told me and I believe it.

It is deafening.

• • •

HOWEVER HERE’S THE THING about these intrusive bugs. Remember when we got the new deck and I spent about a year deciding which color of Trex to use so that the deck would look natural as if it was made from real wood from the trees in the forest primeval behind us?

Well apparently I succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. Come to find out Coastal Bluff, the color of our deck, is such a dead ringer for the tree trunks that cicadas love it.

In fact they find it the perfect place to hang out and do their aforementioned thing— then ~~join the choir invisible~~ drop dead.

All day long.

The Amusing Credit Card Part – WTF!

The other day Z-D walked down to the mailbox, dodging cicadas, and came back into the house laughing while holding up a Visa card. I didn’t understand what was going on because we don’t have Visa.

Welp, come to find out the large company he used to work for, the one he formally retired from in the fall of 2022, had sent him a corporate business credit card with a limit of $15,000.00!

Obviously this was a test of good moral character. 🙄

My first thought was, and try not to think less of me when I say this, a vacation in Hawaii would be nice. Or how about going to London, England, for a week? Yep, we could make good use of that credit card.

BUT WE DIDN’T.

Instead Z-D immediately emailed his former boss letting him know what he had in his hand, asking for guidance about what to do with it.

And eventually, about two weeks later, Zen-Den received a snail mail letter from large company that said [of course] don’t use it and destroy it immediately because there’s been a mistake!

‘Ya think?!!

• 🧡 •

Now it’s your turn to spill the beans.

**What’s bugging you in your world today?**

**If a surprise $15,000.00 landed in your hands, through no malfeasance of your own, what would you think about doing with it?**

Tell all in the comments below.

• 💵 •

What To Do, What To Do? A Simple Way To Make A Decision + Kate’s Five Things

June 3, 2025July 1, 2025 / Ally Bean / 239 Comments

I’ve heard it said that when you need to make a decision and you find yourself stumped about what to do, your answer will become clear by asking yourself: what would make my 7 y.o. self proud and my 80 y.o. self grateful?

Today I’m asking myself this proud/grateful question because on the surface of it I have nothing to write about. Not that I don’t do things, but what I do to stay busy isn’t necessarily interesting to anyone else, me thinks.

I mean, I got a new prescription for my glasses & I planted some zinnia seeds & I discovered that a snazzy new-to-the-area convenience store, Sheetz, carries my favorite difficult-to-find candy bar, Zagnut. Thus I am seeing clearly & hoping for some late summer blooms & grooving on yumminess.

I’m happy, my bliss is buzzing as they say, but I can’t help but pondering: shouldn’t there be more to this blog post than a few random glimpses into my daily life?

And you know what?

Both my 7 y.o. self and my 80 y.o. self say YES!

Thus I’m answering Kate’s Five Things questions. They are a weekly feature on House Call WITH KATE ARENDS who you may know from her blog Wit & Delight.

Her questions + my answers are as follows:

• When did you feel most at home this week?

Answer: in the kitchen while I made a new delicious recipe, Raspberry-Ricotta Cake. I enjoy baking and I enjoy bouncing around in the kitchen creating a mess while following, but also tweaking, recipes. [I added 1/4th teaspoon lemon extract to bring out the berry’s citrus flavor.]

• Where are you moving forward?

Answer: in the last few months I’ve come to appreciate how organized I’ve become since March 2020, the official beginning of the Covid-19 Pandemic. Not that we were living in chaos before but I’ve come to realize that I didn’t know what we had + where it was, and this was causing me to feel a low level of anxiety. Now I feel more in control, proactive, rather than at loose ends, reactive.

• Where are you stuck?

Answer: I’m not a person who enjoys learning about technology. Recently I moved from an iPhone 8 to an iPhone 16. I’ve become overwhelmed and bothered by its newness: too many different ways of doing what I used to know how to do + too many new computer-y fiddly bits, none of which I asked for, that I now must contend with.

• What did you consume that was regenerative?

Answer: I read The Cat Who Saved Books by Japanese author Sōsuke Natsukawa. It’s a short novel, a fable, about the positive power of books and the types of people who disabuse this power. The protagonist, a lonely teenage boy, follows a cat into different realms to [you guessed it] save books. It’s a charming tale, insightful, gently pointing out flaws in human nature.

• What question are you asking?

Answer: Does this matter? And if so, where is the story?

~ 🤓 ~

QUESTIONS OF THE DAY

What have you done recently that would make your 7 y.o. self proud and your 80 y.o. self grateful?

Currently, in general, how organized do you feel you are? Is being organized a goal for you?

When thinking about books you have consumed [read], which one or ones has/have helped you feel regenerated, revitalized, ready to take on life anew?

What is your favorite candy bar? What is your favorite cake?

~ ~ 😋 ~ ~

How Fare Thee? Two Lighthearted Conversations + A Fast Test To Determine Your Stress

May 20, 2025 / Ally Bean / 208 Comments

LAUGHING

A delightful former neighbor stays in touch. She moved across country and usually emails or texts, but one day she called me to talk.

Like old-timey friends.

In the process of catching up on who we each have stayed in touch with she asked me about, let’s call her, Martha.

While it’s been well over a decade since either heard from her directly, Martha is sometimes in the local news around here.

In fact I was able to explain to former neighbor that Martha, a state government employee, has been accused of failing to disclose a conflict of interest involving a corporate lobbyist. She has denied the accusations, but resigned from her job.

Upon hearing this my former neighbor shouted, “she didn’t do it.”

I asked, “how do you know?”

“Because there’s no way she’d do anything illegal.”

I persisted, “it’s been years since we talked with her, how can you be so sure? She may have changed. People do, you know.”

Former neighbor said, “because I sang with her in the church choir and no one in that group would ever do anything wrong.”

To which I replied sarcastically, “well there you go! As we all know singing your heart out for Jesus is a valid legal defense against criminal accusations.”

As if! 🙄

LOVING

I overheard this.

While this isn’t the first time I’ve written about a kid who got lost in the bottom of the ravine behind our house, this succinct little plea for help charmed me. Girlfriend was NOT happy and knew exactly who was to blame for her predicament.

Here’s what happened. I walked into our kitchen at the back of the house around 5:00 p.m. The windows were open and I immediately heard a LOUD kid voice [maybe age 5 or 6?] shouting from below.

“Find me,” the voice said.

I stepped outside onto the deck to see if I could see who was shouting.

“Find… Me…,” the voice commanded.

Squinting through the leafy tree branches I looked down into the ravine, but couldn’t see anyone. However I could hear a small person whose tone of voice didn’t suggest panic, just increasing irritation with the adult powers that be.

“FIND ME!”

I was about to shout back when I heard a dad say, “Katelyn? Is that you?”

“FIND ME, NOW!”

Picking up on the irritation in her voice I heard the dad start laughing as he asked, “where are you?”

Then in one of the best deadpan punchline deliveries ever our Miss Katelyn replied stating the obvious, “DOWN. HERE.”

She sighed loudly implying, I believe, that it took all her effort to not say *DUH* to this dimwitted dad person whose job it is to rescue her from predicaments like this one.

And with that her father, still laughing so loudly I could hear him, maneuvered down the side of the ravine cheerfully saying, “I’ll get ‘ya!”

And he did. 🥰

LEARNING

I stumbled over this Psychology Today How Stressed Are You? Test and decided to answer the 20 questions.

From my test results I learned that I’m at 24/100 and the average is 59/100. This means I’m “Not stressed” which came as a surprise to me. Not that I’m jonesing to be more filled with stress, mind you— just that I thought I’d rate a higher score.

I feel a bit like an underachiever.

However, I attribute my relaxed attitude to the fact that FOR ONCE our annual spring home maintenance that requires 5 scheduled visits from 4 companies has happened WITHOUT INCIDENT. This means that the landscape beds and the lawn sprinkler system and the gutters and the windows and the AC system have been mulched or activated or cleared or cleaned or serviced BEFORE Memorial Day.

A personal best! 😃

QUESTIONS OF THE DAY

Do you know anyone who is currently in trouble with the law? Is or was that person part of a church choir?

Have you ever called out for someone to rescue you? If so, did someone rescue you?

Had or overheard any funny conversations lately?

If you took the test how stressed does it say you are? Does this jive with how you feel?

~ ~ • ~ ~

Love Many, Trust Few: 7 Random Things To Tell You On A Tuesday In May

May 6, 2025May 6, 2025 / Ally Bean / 246 Comments

As they say: Love many, Trust few, Always paddle your own canoe

1 – I am vexed. I was a fan of Tetris when it first came out, became pretty darned good at it on my Game Boy, so when I stumbled over 368 Chickens I was enthusiastic. But this free little online game is impossible to win and I resent this. I keep trying to get to the goal, zero chickens, but consistently fail. Apparently this game, like many things in life, is designed to frustrate more than empower.

2 – I am laughing. I’ve wondered about the origins of Pantone, the company that decides which colors are THE ones we’ll be seeing and wearing everywhere during a year. Here’s an infographic explaining the company’s history plus adds a few suggestions for *revised* color names. For example, I adore a shade of blue renamed from Classic Blue to Postman’s Trouser. A better name, yes?

3 – I am unsettled. I used BookRaid AI’s Title Generator, followed by their Pen Name Generator, then their Book Plot Generator to see what artificial intelligence would tell me about writing a fiction book. The experience was unnerving because the suggestions were almost instantaneous, the ideas weren’t bad, and the plot was believable enough.

Thus a head’s up: if you see Violet Whitley’s children’s book called Paws and Claws: Unraveling the Mystery of the Wall Destroyer, A Story about Mittens and Whiskers, Feline Detectives, you’ll know it was *written* by me.

4 – I am excited. On my radar is the May 8th return of the TV series, Poker Face. Starring Natasha Lyonne as detective Charlie Cale this show’s first season was wonderful and that’s no bull shit. It’s well-paced, quirky, and off-the-wall in a good way, just the kind of entertainment to keep me upbeat.

5 – I am nerdy. I find typography interesting and enjoy punctuation so when Zen-Den saw a copy of AN ADMIRABLE POINT, A Brief History of the Exclamation Point! he bought it for me. [Thank you Zen-Den.] The book describes itself as reclaiming “the exclamation point from its much-maligned place at the bottom of the punctuation hierarchy.” Reading along in this witty little book I have to admit that I’m now a recovering punctuation snob who will henceforth adopt a more respectful attitude toward exclamation points!!!

6 – I am amused. According to the results of an online survey sometimes grandparents do not like their grandchildren’s names feeling the names are “ugly, old-fashioned, weird.” This can be problematic. The top hated names are Aurora, Charlotte, Elijah, Finn, Jack, Lindsay, Noah, Sally, and Tabitha.

For what it’s worth as a child-free woman I like those names and have never taken issue with my friends’ kids’ names. Although I have wondered [quietly to myself] about unusual spellings of names: a Candace spelled Candyce OR a Dana spelled Dhana. Seems like you’re burdening your child with a lifetime of correcting everyone about how to spell their first name.

7 – I am contemplative. Years ago, as an adjunct to determining what I am grateful for at the end of each day, I began answering the question: what have I learned today? I ask myself this question every night, sometimes surprised by my answers. I do this because I find that framing my life as an ongoing learning experience prompts me to keep engaged in life itself.