Of Hummingbirds & Humility

October 27, 2016August 28, 2018 / Ally Bean / 42 Comments

I was dive-bombed by a hummingbird the other morning.

I was wearing a bright pink fleece jacket, sitting outside on our deck in the sunshine, drinking coffee from a red mug.

I was lost in serious thought pondering what I might write about next on this blog, when *flutter, flutter, flutter* a small energetic little bird started diving at me.

I knew that the bird was a hummingbird; there are lots of them in the wooded ravine behind our house.

They flit around. You cannot miss them.

I knew that to this little bird I must look like the biggest darned flower in the land, a doozy of a good find.

I tried to sit still hoping that the little bird would tire of attacking me, but you know what? That little bugger just kept going. The Energizer Bunny should be so determined.

Eventually I decided to *shoo* the hummingbird away from me because I needed to sip my coffee while it was hot to get my brain going. I had important things to think about like the topic of my next blog post.

But of course my brain, that can be a tad self-absorbed and egotistical, was blinding me to the obvious.

That is, the topic of this post was making itself known, quietly, right in front of me. A humble little idea showing me the way, while at the same time reminding me of the basic premise of The Spectacled Bean.

A premise I explain thusly:

be here now;
make sense of what you’re seeing | feeling | experiencing; then
write about it.

In other words, PAY ATTENTION. Life is in the details, and that’s where you’ll find the best stories.

Always.

Heebie-Jeebies Alert: Creepy Birds Here

November 12, 2015November 19, 2015 / Ally Bean / 35 Comments

GLANCING OUT INTO THE BACKYARD the other morning I saw these birds walking on the grass, wandering along the edge of the forest behind my house.

TO ME THESE HUGE BIRDS looked like gang members, in black leather jackets, up to no good, on the hunt for something.

HAVING MISTAKENLY IDENTIFIED BIRDS BEFORE [and having had approximately 3 gazillion + 27 people tell me I was wrong], I’m going to say that I don’t know what ~~gang these birds belong to~~ kind of birds they are.

INSTEAD I’LL CONTINUE TO REFER to them as Creepy Birds, because they give me the heebie-jeebies and the name, you gotta admit, seems right. *shudder*

A Report From The Sidelines Re: Neighbor Vs. Birds

April 14, 2015November 19, 2015 / Ally Bean / 33 Comments

{ Image Source }

[Note to readers: we live in a neighborhood with homes built on wooded ravine lots. With many trees. In which birds build nests, as they are wont to do. These are facts.]

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The neighbor woman who lives behind us has upped her anti-bird campaign. She’s still out to chase all the birds away from her property, but she has a new tactic.

Now, in addition to her shouting and noise-making, she has begun to place bright shiny silver & red metallic streamers in her trees.

• • •

She wanders around her backyard throwing these streamers up into the air near tree branches. Then when a streamer gets caught on a tree branch she loosely ties it to the branch, leaving yards of streamer fluttering in the wind.

This means that when the sun shines and hits the moving streamers, her backyard has bright lights randomly twinkling. It reminds me of an old-fashioned used car lot, which I guess she thinks is a turn-off for birds.

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I find this new behavior alternately entertaining or annoying.

What entertains me is that her neighbors on the property immediately beside her have put a large bird feeder on a shepherd’s hook. They’ve positioned the shepherd’s hook in such a way that she’ll see the bird feeder ever time she steps outside onto her deck, but they cannot see it from their deck.

Don’t you just love passive-aggressive behavior?

• • •

However, what annoys me is that when the streamers are twinkling their brightest the light from them is strong enough to be noticed on our TV screen. Inside the house. Across the ravine.

Meaning that if we happen to be watching something on TV, our show has little sparkly red dots of color superimposed on it. It’s kind of like stroking out without going to the bother of having a stroke.

Now how strange is that?

Pondering A Neighbor’s Nutty Behavior

October 17, 2014November 19, 2015 / Ally Bean / 29 Comments

You know how sometimes when you’re walking along a downtown city street and a person, who is nuttier than a fruitcake soaked in rum, starts shouting nonsensical things at you from the other side of the street?

Well, here’s my suburban equivalent of that city experience.

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Woman on other side of street pointing at passersby as she shouts for no discernible reason.

{ Source: Folger Shakespeare Library Digital Image Collection }

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I was sitting outside on our deck, mid-afternoon, reading a catalogue, enjoying the mild October weather.

When BAM-BAM-BAM the neighbor woman who lives behind us on the other side of the wooded ravine started clanking metal objects together. This went on for about a minute.

I was startled, of course, so I looked up from my reading to see what was going on that required this much noise. I saw nothing out of the ordinary.

So I went back to reading my catalogue.

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Me outside my house heading toward the deck to enjoy a bit of fresh air.

{ Source: Folger Shakespeare Library Digital Image Collection }

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But that was not the end it. About a minute after she stopped clanking metal objects together she yelled to no one in particular: “Don’t. Feed. The. Birds.”

Then I heard her stomp into her house and slam shut the sliding patio door, leaving me to ponder what the heck she was talking about and who she thought would hear her.

It also made me realize that I needed to thank my lucky stars that the nuttier-than-a-fruitcake suburban neighbor lives way over there on the other side of the ravine.

Far away from me. Forsooth.

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