Because It’s Still February & I’m Bored: 10 Trivia Facts I Know

February 24, 2017August 28, 2018 / Ally Bean / 113 Comments

{ photo by Alice Donovan Rouse via Unsplash }

I don’t know if the following list is an example of useful information OR humblebragging.

I mean on the one hand, knowing some trivia can be fun and fill-in those awkward pauses in social conversations.

But on the other hand creating a list like the one that follows is a bit egotistical. I mean in essence I’m saying to you, here are things that I know and you probably don’t. Woo-hoo!

However, I have nothing else to write about today because February, the longest short month on the calendar, is never going to end and I am bored with it. So why not share some trivia?

Ten Trivia Facts That I Know

I know that on the Jetsons, Astro’s name before he came to live with the Jetsons was Tralfaz.
I know that Cosmic Latte is the name of the color of the universe.
I know that at one time Jell-O came in a Celery flavor.
I know that shoes used to be made with buttons on them, no laces or velcro; and that you needed a button hook to get the button-hole over the button on your shoe, so it would stay on your foot.
I know that a stoat is a kind of weasel that according to folklore, upon seeing one a person must say “hello” to it– or risk bad luck.
I know that coffee, not tired eyeballs, is an ingredient in red-eye gravy.
I know that baby squirrels in the nest chirp like baby birds.
I know that at one time in the English language you put a backward question mark at the end of a sentence when the question in the sentence was rhetorical.
I know that chromophobia is the word for the fear of color.
I know that you can make a passable martini using chardonnay instead of vermouth.

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NOW IT’S YOUR TURN TO SHARE, MY GENTLE READERS. TELL ME SOMETHING TRIVIAL THAT YOU KNOW!

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In Which Breakfast Disappoints Me & I Am Not Happy

January 27, 2017January 28, 2021 / Ally Bean / 73 Comments

“A helpful Tribe Called Quest flow chart” via @MarionDowling

THE FIRST THING you need to know is that I dislike eating the end of anything. Heel of the loaf of bread? Yuck. Last of the peanut butter in the jar? No thanks. Final serving of the mac and cheese in the casserole? Ugh.

[Character failing or intriguing personality quirk? You, my gentle readers, are free to decide which it is.]

So this morning, half-awake, as I prepared my breakfast, I went outside my comfort zone when I decided to voluntarily eat the end of the Orange Marmalade. I like Orange Marmalade, and in the winter when it’s cold and dreary outside Orange Marmalade cheers my soul, which I believe is an admirable thing for a condiment to do.

[It makes me think of England where I went to college for a term. In the spring, when it was pretty and green outside. The opposite weather of this morning.]

# # #

SITTING DOWN TO breakfast at the kitchen counter, with my mug of coffee and my tasty toast smeared with Orange Marmalade, I bit into what I thought would be the perfect midwinter anti-gloom breakfast.

[Oh, but was I disappointed.]

It seems that in our refrigerator we also had a jar of almost used up Apricot Jam, which just happened to be sitting beside the aforementioned Orange Marmalade. And as fate would have it, glancing casually at the orange color, I picked up the Apricot Jam, plopped the end of it onto my toast, and then took a big bite of the wrong thing.

[BLEECH! A thousand times bleech!]

And that’s how my morning started. Reminding me that my comfort zones are there for good reasons. To keep my safe, healthy– and HAPPY. Which I am not, right now.

Pillow Talk: Of Snowy Nights and Annoying Logic

January 10, 2017 / Ally Bean / 60 Comments

IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT I woke up with itchy eyes. I have lots of boring medical problems with my eyes so this happens.

Downstairs on the kitchen counter was a bottle of prescription eye drops that I knew would relieve my itchy eyes, but it was all. the. way. downstairs. and I was toasty warm in our bed upstairs.

Botheration.

However, I couldn’t get back to sleep so I begrudgingly got up and went downstairs at 3:00 a.m. to instill [that’s medical lingo!] a drop in each eye.

Of course while I was downstairs waiting for the drops to do their thing, I glanced out the window to see what was happening outside.

Curiosity. Or habit. Maybe both.

I dunno for sure, but I took a look-see. Just ‘cuz.

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Is this me OR is this a showgirl featured in a promotional photo for the New York World’s Fair (1939-1940)? { source }

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ABOUT FIVE MINUTES LATER I WENT back upstairs to bed where I thought I quietly slipped into bed again. But apparently my blanket shuffling was more disruptive than I realized and I awakened Z-D.

After politely inquiring if I was “ok” Z-D, who knows my habits, asked what the weather was like outside. I told him that it had snowed, but that it had only snowed on the grass, not on the sidewalk, driveway, and street.

He mumbled: “that can’t be.”

I assured him that was what had happened outside. It had snowed on the lawn, not on the hard surfaces. I’d seen it.

Again he said: “can’t happen.”

Then he rolled over away from me taking the covers with him and began to snore. I would have ignored him entirely but he had swiped too much of the blanket and I wanted my part back.

~ • ~

Is this our bedroom OR is this a photo from the New York World’s Fair (1939-1940) Town of Tomorrow Exhibit? { source }

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SO I TUGGED ON THE BLANKET which roused him again.

At which point, in his sleepy daze as if the conversation about the weather was still ongoing, he said to me: “you’d have to be some kind of stupid to not know that snow falls on everything outside. It just doesn’t land on the grass, it falls on hard surfaces, too, where you don’t see it because it’s melted.”

And with that he fell fast asleep, leaving me, the stupid person, to realize that: 1) he was absolutely right; & 2) I had no more interest in talking to him if he was going to use annoying old logic.

I mean, really– this is a man who can’t find his car keys at noon when they’re on the kitchen counter right in front of him, but he can tap into meteorological reasoning when awakened from a sound sleep in the middle of the night?

Who does that? Honestly…

Meh.

Holidays In The Suburbs: Of Discord & Delivery Trucks & Discernment

December 20, 2016 / Ally Bean / 70 Comments

WELP, considering what a year this has been…

it’s no surprise, really, that as we approach the end of December there is discord amongst the ± 3,000 suburbanites here in Mom Trails.

Some residents are not happy with what the HOA has done. This time.

The story of this holiday discord is set in our multi-acre hilly subdivision where, from what I can tell, no one shops in stores, everyone shops online. From mid-November through December, UPS & FedEx deliver here almost daily from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

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“When I’m worried and cannot sleep,

I count my blessings instead of sheep,

And I fall asleep counting my blessings.”

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TO KEEP things simple…

UPS & FedEx have put large plain storage units in the four flat pool parking lots. These storage units have all been discretely placed away from the street, close to the pool houses where you barely notice them as you go by.

Then multiple times throughout the day the large delivery trucks, that we usually see on our curvy streets, go to these units where the drivers drop-off copious amounts of stuff, while door-to-door delivery people drive around the subdivision in cute energy-efficient golf carts delivering the stuff to each house.

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“When my bankroll is getting small,

I think of when I had none at all,

And I fall asleep counting my blessings.”

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I LOVE this idea because…

1) it keeps the large delivery trucks from blocking traffic on our streets during the day [safety]; and 2) these companies have paid the HOA for the right to put these storage units in the unused pool parking lots [cha-ching].

However, neighbors ~~who do not know how to count their blessings~~ are displeased to see the allegedly tacky storage units around the subdivision, and are trying to stop what the HOA has already contracted to do.

*shakes head at the stupid*

So it is with this little glimpse into my holiday suburban world, that I leave you, my gentle readers, with the following musical number that melodiously encapsulates my opinion on this latest HOA controversy.