Purple petunias in terra cotta pot as seen in humid, hazy light. No filter involved. Photo taken mid-morning.
With a hat tip to Jimi Hendrix, I’d like to share with you, my gentle readers, that this has not been a wonderful spring. This makes me sad because I love late spring.
It’s my second favorite time of year. Oh yes it is.
However this year, to continue quoting Jimi, “Lately things they don’t seem the same, Acting funny, but I don’t know why.”
Which is me alluding to the fact that all it does around here is rain.
Overwatered pots of formerly beautiful geraniums and petunias, now looking like death warmed over.
Pots of herbs so wet they are existing in a weird soggy stasis, looking pathetic.
Sad basil.
In the parlance of ye olde weather forecasters who claim to know why we’ve had this excessive, soul-sucking rain: there’ve been “numerous ripples of energy” that have brought more rain showers and thunderstorms to the region than are normal.
Uh huh. That’s nice.
However, be that as it may, while the rain continues unabated I’ll just contemplate “am I happy or in misery” while I’m stuck inside the house today in my own version of a caffeinated, irritable, non-psychedelic purple gray haze.
Me happy. NOT.
Stone steps down to terrace as seen in humid, hazy light. Again, no filter involved. Photo taken mid-morning.
Think about your SENIOR year in High School. The longer ago it was, the more fun the answers will be!
Did you know your current significant other? No. We met in college a few years later.
Make and year of car? I didn’t have a car until I was a senior in college.
What kind of job? I worked at a DQ until it went out of business. I never could master making those DQ swirls on top of the cones, but I don’t think that’s why the place went out of business.
Where did you live? I lived in a small house on a brick street a few blocks away from the high school. I walked to school.
Were you popular? I had friends but wasn’t part of the A-list crowd.
Were you in choir? No. I was in the orchestra and the band.
Ever get suspended from school? Why yes I did. Didn’t you?
If you could, would you go back?Are you crazy? I would not in a million years want to go back to high school.
Still talk to the person that you went to prom with? I didn’t go to prom because no one asked me, therefore I have no one to talk, or not talk, with.
Did you skip school? I liked school enough to not skip it.
Go to all the football games? I was in marching band therefore I was forced to go to the home football games. Our team was not a winning team. *yawn*
Favorite subject? I liked English and I also liked Printing which was part of a graphic arts department. Those two subjects made up for Chemistry and the most boring American Government class that has ever happened anywhere in this country ever.
Do you still have your yearbooks? No, I threw them away years ago.
Did you follow the career path you planned? I had no career path in high school. It was just something to get through on my way to college.
Did you have a class ring? Yes, I had a class ring. It was yellow gold with a dark green stone in it. I still have it [somewhere].
Still close with your best friend? Yes, she comments here sometimes.
Who was your favorite teacher? My favorite teacher was the assistant music teacher who’d just graduated from college the year before. His youngest sister was younger than I was and attempting to think of him as a teacher was almost impossible. He was a hoot, especially when he tried to direct the orchestra, something he did not do well.
What was your style? I was a girl wearing matchy-matchy outfits in bright colors with coordinating jewelry and pretty shoes. Let’s call that style: small-town Glamour magazine teenage chic.
Favorite shoes? I don’t remember any one pair in particular.
Favorite music? I liked rock and I liked jazz. I played classical.
High school hair? I had a short hairstyle that made my mother happy. I stretched my curly hair straight and used about half a can of hairspray each morning to keep the frizz at bay. It was a labor-intensive hairdo.
What kind of cologne/perfume? I don’t remember any one perfume that I used. I’m sure I did, but what it was, I dunno.
How old when graduated? I was 18 years old.
Did you play a sport? No, but I did take all sorts of lessons, like golf and tennis and swimming. But as for a team sport… you gotta be kidding me!
FYI: For the next few weeks I’m going to bug out of the blogosphere while we do homeowner things. Our house is 20 years old. There are problems to solve, issues to address. Therefore, I’ll be busy elsewhere being a responsible adult. Look for me back here mid-June.
It’s viewed almost year round because deer and pansies live in both hemispheres, thus this post is popular in both the spring and the autumn wherever you might live.
Who’d of thunk it?
And while I’m asking rhetorical questions, would you like to know why I was thinking about my most viewed post?
Soooo that’s what I’m doing today. Repurposing old content like a social media guru, sort of. Wondering if this idea will work on a personal blog, even kind of sort of.
Yep, I am your personal blogging dominatrix reusing that which is, to engage with &/or command influence over those readers who find this blog and read this post, ostensibly about deer and pansies.
Last week was a troublesome one for me. It was rascally and I got scattered and I lost focus on my one word of the year, streamlined.
I had dreams of getting it together last week, doing the things on my to-do list in a smooth and centered way like the organized lady of the list I long to be. But the Universe scoffed and instead, beleaguered by annoying things, I was distracted me from my true purpose.
THE WHINING PART
Nothing bad happened, only small RIDICULOUS annoying things happened that began to slow me down and wear on my very last nerve. Here is a list of those annoying things:
• tornado warning with winds gusting to 60 mph that took down a piece of our house’s gutter;
• smoke detector battery went chirpy during the day when I was here by myself, without anyone to spot me to climb on a ladder to change the battery, so the smoke detector sang all stinking day;
• the water department turned off the water to this subdivision because of a nearby traffic accident, thus in one day our water was off for 6 hours, on for 2 hours, then off again for 4 hours;
• landscape crew arrived without advance warning to do spring cleanup, then piled mulch in such a way as to trap my car inside the garage;
• laundry service lost one of Z-D’s shirts and told me such when the delivery man came to the front door, handed me the laundered unlost shirts and asked me if I could tell him which shirt was missing… as if I pay any attention to Z-D’s extensive collection of mostly white or pale blue button-down Oxford cloth dress shirts; and finally
• doorbell got stuck on meaning that the button, after being pushed in, connected with the bell box that rang its melodious ding, then the bell box started to buzz… loudly and ceaselessly… until I got a screwdriver and dismantled the doorbell separating the wires to make the stupid thing be quiet.
AND IN CONCLUSION
Pretty hot pink geranium harbinger of better days.
At this point, if I were an inspirational sort of blogger, I’d share with you a pithy lesson, succinctly put, so that you might learn from my experiences too and say to yourselves: what a wise Bean is Ally for sharing her troubles here and showing us, through her example, how to live better lives.
However, I’ve no such conclusion to this post.
Other than to say, I guess, it’s rather empowering to acknowledge setbacks, complain about them, then get over your sorry self while you carry on with another week as if you’ve got it all together.
Have you ever thought [or said] something that made you say to yourself: now where the heck did that come from?
BE MINDFUL AND PAY ATTENTION to your thoughts, they say. Tune into yourself, they advise. Be cognizant of what you’re thinking about, they encourage.
Then you’ll know your true self, they claim.
Well apparently, if we agree with the basic premise of the foregoing, I’m morphing into a southern lady. Here are three real life examples from last week in which I paid attention to what I was thinking while the person in front of me babbled on.
~ • 🔷 • ~
#1 – The cashier at the drug store went on a small rant when I gave her cash for payment for my purchase. She immediately started talking about pennies, specifically her dislike of them, and how recently our county tax rate had changed, making her job more difficult because [somehow] the new tax rate made more work for her when she had to make change… so she was going to get a petition going to change the tax rate back to what it’d been before.
#2 – The receptionist at the doctor’s office told me in a wordy girlfriend-to-girlfriend way that she was not happy about the newly remodeled waiting room because she could no longer see the TV on the wall in the waiting room without getting up from her seat and walking into the room itself, instead of sitting behind the reception counter… doing her work… presumably.
#3 – An acquaintance, known for being a drama llama, told me with tears in her eyes about her latest troubles that stemmed from being asked to do too much in too short of time for her to feel in control of her project. Yes, she was sure the system was actively working against her… until she double-checked her text message and realized that she was getting twice the amount of time she needed to do her thing.
UNTIL LAST WEEK I DIDN’T realize that underneath this midwestern nice exterior lurked a southern lady waiting to summarize the scene in front her with pointed polite colloquialisms that ooze passive-aggressive charm.
Well tie me up and call me Loretta*, it’s like I’ve found my true self, y’all.
I suppose it’s a matter of time before I start saying these things out loud, but with a midwestern accent that may negate their impact. This will in no way make me less happy, because I can’t stop the people from babbling but I can have fun with it in my way.
What do you say to yourself when people drone on and on about topics you don’t care about? Are you a southern lady, too? Spill the beans in the comments below.
* Gold star to anyone who knows where that Southern saying came from!
I understand how he feels. April is difficult for me, too, Mr. Bird. I’m allergic to the pollen and mold that is everywhere outside this month. I’ve been this way for as long as I can remember.
Not a fan of this month. Don’t sign me up to be on Team April.
There’s nothing for me to do except complain take allergy meds that make me drowsy and wait for the rain to clear the pollen and mold from the air.
I mean I’m out and about living my life because I’m a conscientious woman who said she’d do the things. But I’m doing the things with tissues in pocket, eye drops in handbag, forced pleasant attitude on display.
As if I think April is dandy.
QuestionS of the Day
What’s happening where you live? Are you sneezing and wheezing? Or are you happy and healthy, unbothered by pollen and mold? Tell me your deal, ok?
Thanks to everyone who took my How Am I Doing? survey [now closed].
You’re the best and overwhelmed me with your kind answers. I wasn’t fishing for compliments with this survey; I was challenging myself to see if I could write one. Then on a whim I decided to share it here for the fun of it.
At one point in my life I worked in marketing research so I’m familiar with the process of collecting data from respondents. Below I’ve categorized it into three parts.
I also know that once you collect the data, interpretation is a whole ‘nother thing. Spin it the way you want. So with that in mind, and me being me, I’m spinning this funny, because honestly some of your answers were a hoot.
• • •
PART 1
What I learned about you:
90% of you write a blog
50% of you like to goof off on social media in the blogosphere; followed by YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter
60% of you were very likely to recommend this blog to friends and family
90% of you thought the survey was cool beans
• • •
PART 2
How you answered two specific questions regarding this blog:
These responses were straightforward and clear to interpret. No further explanation required.
This is where things got complicated because over half of you used “Other” when responding to the question. Some of you said that there was nothing you disliked so you were using “Other” to tell me this. Some of you who clicked on “Other” made suggestions about my writing style and graphic design. And one respondent said that using “Other” was the only way to show that all the choices were applicable to this blog.
• • •
PART 3
Here are some of your responses when asked what comes to mind when you think about this blog:
Ohio
A red kidney bean dressed like Elton John
Ooh, what will Ally Bean say today?
Engaging, enjoyable blog. Funny without trying too hard.
oh, shit, I haven’t read that spectacled blog in awhile. I better go catch up!
Beans 🙂
Lovely variety of slice of life topics.
A string bean wearing glasses. But also humorous posts and genuine connection with others.
