What The Sheriff Saw: A Story About Yours Truly Doing Her Gardening Chores

October 17, 2019January 30, 2021 / Ally Bean / 147 Comments

I want to tell you what happened. I didn’t quite understand what really happened as it happened and it was only after Zen-Den gently walked me to an epiphany that I got what happened.

• • •

THE OTHER MORNING AROUND 9:00 a.m. I decided to water the planters that are on the stoop in front of the house by the front door. I do this using an old Rubbermaid aqua-colored 2 1/4 quarts plastic pitcher whose white lid I lost decades ago.

As I was watering these planters I looked over in the bushes to where we have a medium-sized concrete urn that holds a spike plant. Because it’s been more dry around here than usual the poor spike looked droopy, so I got more water in my repurposed pitcher, now watering can, and stepped into our bushes in front of the windows in front of the house to water the thirsty plant.

I probably should add at this point that I was wearing Stewart plaid flannel jammies, a bright pink fleece jacket, dark teal suede house slippers, and had my curly mess of graying blonde hair pulled up, with a neon orange elastic band, into an off-kilter pineapple-style ponytail on top of my head.

Oh, and I was wearing dark glasses because it was sunny outside.

• • •

THERE’S BEEN A CHIPMUNK hanging around the front of the house all summer and as I was watering the spike I saw it scurry by me on its way to the other side of the front of the house. I do not like the damage that chipmunks can cause so I stopped watering and glared at the little rodent to see where it was going.

And, of course, I yelled a few random death threats at it.

As one does.

Suddenly I had a strange feeling and realized I was not alone. That out on the street in a large black SUV someone was watching me as I stood there.

And who was this person watching me? A sheriff who had happened to notice me as he was driving by. He’d rolled down his passenger side window to get a closer look at me and when I saw him, he waved.

I smiled and waved back while holding up my repurposed pitcher, then started pouring water into the concrete urn to show him I belonged where I was. I wasn’t a burglar hiding in the bushes, I was just the lady of the house doing a chore.

He smiled back, nodded his head, rolled up the window, and went on his way.

• • •

LATER THAT NIGHT I told Z-D what had happened and how funny I thought it was that a sheriff thought I was a miscreant attempting to break into our house.

As if.

Zen-Den listened to my story and conclusion, then quietly suggested that what the sheriff thought he saw probably didn’t register with him as a burglary in progress.

Instead from the sheriff’s perspective what he saw was an addlepated gray-haired senior citizen, perhaps suffering from dementia and jibber-jabbering to herself, wandering around in the bushes in her nightclothes, seemingly confused, while carrying a random kitchen item with her.

And darn it to heck, Zen-Den is right. That’s exactly what the sheriff saw.

Talking To Myself: Evidence Of Impending Decrepitude Or Productivity Hack?

October 15, 2019 / Ally Bean / 144 Comments

Oh the brain, she be tired and easily distracted.

Like the pre-old person I am.

You see, last week I was in a productive mood. I was busy, but not overwhelmed. Happy, but not dippy. Energetic, but not the most organized I’ve ever been.

Thus it came to be at one point in the late afternoon, while I was whirling around the house, doing the things, thinking the important blogging thoughts, that I realized I’d forgotten what I was doing.

Completely forgot.

Just standing there in the middle of the room, immobile. Alone, no one else around to give me a prompt.

*Humph*

Thus as a way of getting myself back on track I said out loud to myself:

“Do the thing you were supposed to be doing when you realized that you hadn’t done the thing you were supposed to have done and stopped to do that thing.”

And guess what?

I listened to myself, did what I said I should do, and got back in the groove, because apparently when it comes to keeping the productivity choo-choo train on the track I need to use convoluted sentences to communicate with myself.

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Questions Of The Day

Had any good conversations with yourself lately? Did you listen to yourself? And how’d that work out for you?

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Notes On Getting My TSA Known Traveler Number + Chitchat About Where I’ve Been

August 28, 2019July 1, 2025 / Ally Bean / 157 Comments

Let’s heAR it for Ms. Bean

This summer, after yabbling about doing this for years, I finally enrolled in the TSA PreCheck program.

The online application was easy. The total cost was $85.00 for five years. But it did require an interview with a real person at a TSA-approved IdentoGO office that happened to be nowhere close to where I live.

My interview appointment time, the soonest I could get, was 4 weeks from when I sent in my enrollment– and then it was 10 days after that before I got my official TSA Known Traveler Number [KTN].

For me this was not a fast process

Do I need this TSA PreCheck status? I dunno. But after some of my air travel experiences, most notably standing in the Las Vegas TSA line for 1 hour 45 minutes, I’ll do anything that *might* make the process less painful.

[Click HERE to read an article that helped me to better understand the program.]

And on that note, having talked about the practical side of travel, I’ll share the following fun and pretty stuff.

I created these images using the Visited Countries Project on Douwe Osinga’s website. You may already know about this because it’s been around for a long time.

Nonetheless here is where I’ve been

I’ve been to 9 countries which amounts to 4% of the world.

• • •

I’ve been to 34 US states which amounts to 68% of the country.

• • •

I’ve been to 3 Canadian provinces which amounts to 23% of the country.

• • •

QUESTIONS OF THE DAY

Are you in the TSA PreCheck program? If so, how has that worked out for you?

Where did you go for your favorite vacation ever? Where did you go for your worst vacation ever?

Got any travel plans for the rest of this year?

• • •

Don’t Let The Smile Fool You, It’s A Sad Ad

July 30, 2019October 3, 2019 / Ally Bean / 138 Comments

WHO YOU CALLING OLD?

The above advertisement has been following me around the internet like a bored toddler. It showed up on my email sidebar a few days ago and has stayed with me as I research and read all over the intertubes.

I can’t decide if I’m insulted by the advert’s implication that I’m mature [old?] OR if I’m charmed by its desire to help me look better. Presumably.

Of course if you look closely you’ll notice that there’s no indication of the name of the company that makes this allegedly fabulous lipstick nor where I might buy said lippy.

IT’S A SAD AD IF YOU ASK ME.

But here’s the thing, no one has asked me. It’s as if no one cares about my need for or opinion about the product featured in this unsolicited advertisement that will not go away.

And no matter how much I keep smiling about this advert, and all the other unsolicited ones that clutter my computer screen, I cannot help but feel irritated by the impudence of these wet-behind-the-ears companies assuming I’d want to buy anything from them because they’ve decided I’m mature.

PIFFLE, I SAY.