The Iceberg Illusion: Reflections Upon The Occasion Of My Return To The Blogosphere

September 13, 2016August 28, 2018 / Ally Bean / 38 Comments

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WELL… I’m back.

August turned out to be every bit as hot and humid and hateful as I anticipated it would be. Just a miserable excuse of a month during which I did not do much of anything except think about what I will be doing in the future.

Planning? Or procrastinating? You decide.

Whatevs.

Bottom line? I’m here now with a renewed sense of purpose.

To wit, I’ve decided that blogging gives my weeks a bit of much-needed structure, provides me with a way to process the details of my life, and overall it’s fun.

Plus I’ve concluded that I’m doing something right and helpful here, considering how many people follow me and make the effort to comment. Thank you.

So I’m going to keep on keeping a blog.

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BUT… I’ve also realized that writing a quirky personal blog, such as The Spectacled Bean, has morphed from a hobby into an unpaid part-time job that has a certain work-y-ness to it that you, my gentle readers, don’t see.

Rather like an iceberg. Much going on below the water line to make this blog engrossing and twaddle-y, so to speak.

I’m not complaining, mind you. Just explaining that if I disappear from the blogosphere from time-to-time, it’s not that I don’t love you all to pieces. I do.

It’s just that I’m an introvert who occasionally doesn’t know what to say. About anything. Here.

Or in real life.

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A Study In Arrogance: When Coleus Becomes Political

July 22, 2016May 6, 2021 / Ally Bean / 52 Comments

Trying to rid myself of the RNC’s frenetic vibes this week, I turned my attention to doing something productive.

I researched COLEUS.

I wanted to find out the names of the three varieties that are growing profusely in pots on our deck.

At the beginning of the summer I planted six different types of coleus in pots, but three died within weeks of planting. So I thought that next year I’d plant more of the ones that grew, if I could figure out/remember the name of each type.

But, of course, in the process of my research I found more information about coleus than I’d anticipated. Coleus has a long history.

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For instance, did you know:

that in the scientific community coleus is called PLECTRANTHUS SCUTELLARIOIDES?
that at one point coleus was referred to as PAINTED NETTLES?
that some sources say coleus has A CONNECTION TO ARTHURIAN LEGEND?
that coleus was cultivated by the Mazatecs of Mexico as A HALLUCINOGENIC PLANT?
that during England’s Victorian period coleus was planted to create what was known as A CARPET GARDEN?

# # #

But my research, inspired by a desire to rise above politics, ended when I discovered the most ridiculously depressing fact about coleus. You see, in the language of flowers coleus means: “How dare you address me that way?!”

That is, the plant means ARROGANCE.

And it was upon learning this that I found myself circling back to my thoughts about the Tangerine Tornado + the Nattering Nabobs of Negativity. I couldn’t believe that I was researching a plant whose meaning embodied all that The Donald represents, when my goal was to avoid thinking or hearing on the news about his nonsense.

Yet here I was doing something good, trying to make the world a better place through learning, only to find myself tripped up by arrogance.

Now how defeating, and oddly metaphorical, is that?

In Which A Doofus Makes Himself Known In The Colonoscopy Waiting Area

June 21, 2016June 21, 2016 / Ally Bean / 76 Comments

AS IF MY LIFE is not exciting enough, I had the pleasure of escorting Zen-Den, at 6:00 a.m., to the hospital for a routine colonoscopy.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been the Colonoscopy Escort, but your duties are simple:

Get the [snarly and grouchy] patient to hospital at assigned time.
Wait by yourself in the Colonoscopy Waiting Area while patient is checked-in.
When receptionist tells you it’s okay, go sit with the patient in Pre-Op Area until patient is rolled away for procedure.
Go back out to Colonoscopy Waiting Area and wait.
After procedure go sit with patient in Post-Op Area until he or she is released back into the wild.
Take [ravenously hungry] patient home and feed + water him or her.

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AS PER DUTY #4 I was sitting in the Colonoscopy Waiting Area, playing games on my iPad, waiting, when the receptionist called out the name of someone’s Colonoscopy Escort.

No one in the waiting area responded.

She said the name again.

*crickets*

The receptionist got up from her desk and walked around the Colonoscopy Waiting Area, quietly asking each of us if we were this someone’s Colonoscopy Escort, until she eventually got to a 40-something man with his face buried in his laptop computer.

Standing directly in front of him she said his name again, loudly, and he finally looked up at her.

By now everyone in the Colonoscopy Waiting Area was staring at him, because human beings are nosy, and because waiting is boring so anything out of the ordinary is entertainment.

She told him he could go back and wait with the patient, DUTY #3, to which he said: “WHY THE HELL WOULD I WANT TO DO THAT?”

And immediately went back to looking at his laptop.

# # #

THE RECEPTIONIST WAS IRRITATED, but shrugged and went back to her desk.

However, the rest of us, the cooperative Colonoscopy Escorts, started sending hate glances toward this guy. While an adorable 80-something lady with silver white hair went a step further by looking over the top of her bejeweled reading glasses, and loudly *tsking-tsking* in his general direction.

Somehow that particular sound got this guy’s attention and he looked up to see all of us glaring at him, shaking our heads at his obvious Colonoscopy Escort faux pas.

So with a noisy *sigh* he snapped his laptop shut and trudged over to the receptionist’s desk, ready to be taken to sit with someone who had the misfortune of knowing this man well enough to ask him to be his or her Colonoscopy Escort.

Can you even imagine? 0.o

{ Images |1| |2| |3| from Pixabay }

Not Everything Lasts Forever: Chatting About Luggage

May 17, 2016July 1, 2025 / Ally Bean / 45 Comments

Zen-Den travels for work, flying all over the place, using luggage that he’s had for over a decade.

Said luggage, an example of which you see in the photo below, is now held together, much to my amazement, with some lovely medium green patterned duct tape that coordinates with the darker green luggage fabric.

I’ll give it to him, the boy has style. He did this himself.

Lovely, huh?

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I’ve mentioned to him, as has his assistant, that it’s time to get some new luggage, with snazzy little twirly wheels and lots of outside pockets, but he’ll have nothing to do with that crazy idea.

He prefers, instead, to ignore the fact that time has marched on.

I can’t figure if this is an example of him being practical. Or of him being ornery. It could be either.

Or both, I suppose.

DSCN7078

I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but last week 3,000 bags were stranded in the Phoenix Airport after there was a TSA computer glitch. [Story here.]

Now as fate would have it Zen-Den was in Phoenix, where the piece of luggage featured in the above photos was going through the system. But did the TSA and/or United Airlines manage to lose his ratty old bag?

HELL NO!

Zen-Den’s bag made it through the system without a problem.

Which only adds credence to his ~~stubborn~~ belief that there’s nothing wrong with his dilapidated, scuffed-up luggage– that according to him, clearly has good travel karma.

As evidenced by the fact that his bag, when the opportunity presented itself, didn’t get lost in the system.

Dagnabbit.