In Which I Grumble About A YUCKY Routine Medical Procedure

/ Ally Bean / 219 Comments

But first, yesterday BOSSSYBABE posted an interview with me for her ongoing monthly Blogger Spotlight Series. I was thrilled to be asked to participate. Go HERE to read the interview. ‘Tis more upbeat than the following, I can guarantee you that.

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• FIRST FUN FACT: I had a routine colonoscopy last week. It was every bit as awful, loathsome, & dreadful as I remember them to be.

Corollary to first fun fact: It took me 40 days to get the doctor’s practice to call me back after my initial phone call to schedule the procedure, then four weeks after that call to have the procedure. I was a returning patient. I have insurance. YET they played phone tag with me until the magical mythical Brittany was ready to schedule me, a mere patient pawn in the Gastroenterological Version of Game of Thrones.

• SECOND FUN FACT: I have puny weak sad little veins that when deprived of liquid, as happens when one does a colon cleanse prior to one’s colonoscopy, said veins become elusive. So much so that it took the nurse FIVE attempts to get the IV inserted into me.

Corollary to second fun fact: My right hand is sore. Almost the entire top of it is black & blue, as if someone used it as a pincushion.

• THIRD FUN FACT: I did my colon cleanse on the night that Russia invaded Ukraine. Meaning that while *indisposed* in the bathroom I was also watching on my cell phone, that I never take into the bathroom except on that particular night, as the surreal international situation unfolded in real time.

Corollary to third fun fact: I probably heard about the Ukrainian woman with the sunflower seeds long before most people did. She was a passive-aggressive ray of light during my long night confined to the bathroom.

• FOURTH FUN FACT: There’s nothing wrong with my colon so that is good news. HOWEVER after the procedure while I was in the post-op area the doctor told me that I have: “an extremely twisty colon.”

Corollary to fourth fun fact: I’m a polite articulate woman, but for the life of me I had no idea what to say in reply to what the doctor said. [Would you?] Should I have said something like ‘thank you’ or ‘oh dear’ in reply? I just said  a less than eloquent “huh” and continued to sip my Coke.

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This Is What Happens When You Crowdsource A Blogroll

/ Ally Bean

I had no clue about what I was in for with this idea.

I haven’t had a blogroll on The Spectacled Bean in years. Last month in honor of this weblog’s 11th birthday, I decided it’d be fun and unique to put together a crowdsourced blogroll.

So in this post I asked you, my fellow bloggers, to let me know if you’d like your weblog, one year or older, to be on the blogroll. I also asked you to tell me how old your weblog is.

This was a one-time offer, never to be repeated.

Well, much to my amazement many, many bloggers jumped in and left me information about their weblogs in the comments. This was wonderful, but also overwhelming.

Over the weekend I put together the blogroll. I did my best to make sure I got all 90+ weblogs on the blogroll, starting with the oldest, ending with the newest. I doublechecked that I spelled each weblog name properly and that each link works.

[To be clear, the blogroll isn’t on this blog post, it is on a tab. Keep reading & all will be revealed.]

Thus without further ado I shall direct you to the blogroll. I’ve closed the comments here hoping that instead of chatting on this blog post you will:

  1. Go review the DELIGHTFUL BLOGROLL now called BLOGROLL 2.0 by clicking on the capitalized purple words you just read.
  2. Pick one new-to-you weblog and go visit.
  3. Leave a comment there IF you feel so moved.
  4. Introduce yourself by saying: “Ally Bean sent me.”

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True Confessions In A Snap: Some Photos You Dislike, Some Photos You Like

/ Ally Bean / 281 Comments

This is a photo of a blooming amaryllis that first bloomed in late December and has now re-bloomed in mid-February. Let’s give it up for this likable go-getter.

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I FIND PEOPLE FASCINATING, although I’ll admit that what people do is much less interesting than why people do what they do.

Therein is the start of many a good conversation. N’est-ce pas? 

You can tell me every stinking detail about WHAT you do in your life, but if I have no idea WHY you do what you do, I’m much less inclined to be interested in you.

To be clear I’m not here to fix people. I figure my job is to observe [what’s up] and understand [as best I can] and help [when asked] and report [in this blog] on them.

This brings me to the point of this post.

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FRIENDS HAVE TOLD ME the following three reasons WHY they dislike some photos their friends + family post on social media, but these friends will not tell their friends + family that they dislike the photos.

[And I sure as heck am not going to tell them.]

I’m not saying these are the most rational ideas, but they are enlightening and have made me smile as I listen politely, nod my head encouragingly, and murmur nondescript soothing sounds of understanding.

√  Friend A dislikes photos of food.

This would be any food, either plated, for sale, or in the process of being made. Friend A feels these photos are something that could potentially make her fat because they trigger her to want to eat, which she is always trying not to do.

Friend A is thin.

She doesn’t like food photos so much that she won’t join IG where she feels too many people share photos of food, but does admit that she likes seeing people sitting around a table on which there is food.

√  Friend B dislikes selfies.

She thinks they’re are an egotistical show of shallowness that distracts from any relationship. She wants to see what a person is looking at, not what the person looks like while they are looking at something.

Friend B is artistic.

Because of her firm conviction about the wrongness of selfies, she ignores them as best she can which means she’s ignoring a lot of people. This reality, she admits, gives her pause.

√  Friend C dislikes photos of paths in the woods.

She says that all paths look the same, all woods surrounding a path look the same, and therefore if you’ve seen one path you’ve seen them all. Why anyone would bother to take these photos is beyond her.

Friend C is studious.

She extends this principle to photos taken of city sidewalks with buildings on either side, but seems less harsh with her criticism allowing that sometimes those photos are interesting.

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THUS HAVING SHARED THESE three character studies based on the truthful mutterings of generally kindhearted people with a need to vent, I’m reminded of Eeyore’s wise words: “We can’t all and some of us don’t. That’s all there is to it.”

This, of course, leads to me to asking you, my gentle readers, a few questions as catalysts for discussion about photos you see on social media.

Or as I like to think of the comment section here, it’s true confessions time!

When it comes to the photos your friends + family share, do you have a strongly held opinion about any one type of photo you dislike seeing?

Do your friends + family know that you dislike seeing that type of photo and WHY?

Or to put a positive spin on this conversation, do your friends + family know which photos you prefer to see and WHY?

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No Song, Gleam, Or Peace Here: Ms. Bean Reports On Her Noisy Morning Thus Far

/ Ally Bean / 214 Comments

Good morning, my little rays of sunshine.

Or at least I wish it was a good morning.  I have no song in my heart.  No gleam in my eye.  And there is definitely no peace in my soul.

HERE IS WHY.

The following explains my morning so far.  Let me warn you that currently I’m not at my happiest.  Kind of snarly.

First, at 6:00 a.m. Zen-Den’s phone alarm chimed to inform him, and me be default, that is it was time for him, not me, to get up to face the day.  This is normal noise that I look forward to not hearing once he retires, something he claims will happen in September, but that’s a whole ‘nother story.

He got up, but I snuggled under the covers to contemplate arising to meet the day at this awful hour continue sleeping, as one does.

THIS WAS NOT MEANT TO BE.

At 6:14 a.m. his phone started blaring its alert signal.  Yes, that horn sound went off, loudly, as if all heck had broken lose.  Z-D was in the shower, didn’t hear the alert signal, so I reluctantly got up to find out what the emergency was all about.

It was that an elderly woman had wandered away from a home on a street near here.  She was only wearing a light top and jammies bottoms, which considering the cold temps, is dangerous.  Be on the lookout for her, so I will be.

Clearly at this point I was awake so I decided to go downstairs and make a pot of coffee.  This is my usual morning routine, just maybe not this early, but whatever.

I can adapt.

I can be useful.

I can sip coffee and mutter quietly in the corner.

THAT, SADLY, DID NOT HAPPEN.  

You see, I brewed the coffee without any trouble but as I sat there in the semi-darkness caffeinating myself with said coffee I heard a noise.  A noise that can only mean one thing. One lousy, awful, undoubtedly expensive thing.

The noise was the desperate sound of an animal trapped inside the house, probably in the attic or maybe in the walls, who was, and still is, scraping, pawing, flaying itself around in an attempt to escape from the inside our house.

WHERE IT SHOULD NOT BE.

And on that note of irritation I shall end this post.  Trying to not hear the noise that is going on over my head.  Trying to not be distressed by the events thus far on this ill-fated Friday morning.

Hoping that you, my little rays of sunshine, have something positive to tell me about your day.  Distract me, please.