I’m Just Saying

Beep Beep! Roadrunner, The Coyote’s After You! 7 Random Things To Tell You On A Wednesday

/ Ally Bean / 203 Comments

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1. I am agreeing. Social connectedness can take on many forms. I read THIS article about lively front yards that include any items like, but not limited to, garden gnomes, porch swings, plastic flamingoes, little free libraries, and assorted other decorative stuff. The conclusion was that: “residents who expressed themselves with items in front of their house reported feeling a greater sense of place.” 

2. I am enthusiastic. What beach reading books are to summer, ‘Bunny Rabbit’ TV Shows are to your mental health. Bunny Rabbit TV shows aren’t literally about rabbits, they are shows that give you a lift, not requiring more from you than your willingness to be distracted in a lighthearted way from your woes. I grok this term, enjoyed the article and the comments that followed, and haven’t stop thinking about which TV shows to put on my list since I read about this idea.

3. I am ditzy. In my ongoing attempts at being mindful of water usage, I pour the end of our glasses of drinking water onto the houseplants. Welp, in a moment of *duh* I poured the remains of a flavored club soda [San Pellegrino Dark Morello Cherry & Pomegranate to be exact] onto a large pothos. And within days the plant turned yellow-ish and began dropping leaves. Yes, I murdered a plant.

4. I am laughing. According to my results from the Pottery Barn Style Finder Quiz my decorating style is Farmhouse: “rustic woods, hardworking metals, and sprinkles of barnyard whimsy.”  Me thinks not. While the metals around here may be hardworking [not sure what that even means] the wood is refined and there is NO barnyard whimsy here. As if.

5. I am enthralled. I’ve learned that after soccer, badminton is the most popular sport in the world. Who knew? As such there is scientific research about which shuttlecocks, also known as birdies, are best: ones with duck feathers or ones made of nylon. Learn more HERE about findings that “may represent a new arc in the history of the beloved sport.”

6. I am indulging. I decided that I NEEDED something sweet to eat, something devoid of nutritional value. So I scrounged around online and found this Strawberry Rice Krispie Treats recipe that adds freeze-dried strawberries to the classic recipe. Divinely delicious.

7. I am entertained. I stumbled over this website, MovieGrid.io, that offers a daily online challenge about movies. Titles of said. Dates premiered. Stars in movies. You have 9 chances to answer 9 questions correctly which, if you do, creates a completely filled-in grid of 9 movie posters, NOT like what you see immediately below.  

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QUESTIONS OF THE DAY

What gives you a sense of place? Is having one important to you?

What’s on your Bunny Rabbit TV Shows list?

If you take the PB style quiz, what style do they say you are? Do you agree with the results?

When you want something sweet to eat that is devoid of nutritional value, what do you turn to? Are you on Team Rice Krispie Treats with me?

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Glimpses Into A 1980s Presbyterian Community Cookbook & A Peek At Angelic Little Me

/ Ally Bean / 232 Comments
And now for something completely different…

My mother collected cookbooks. The following is a church community cookbook, a fundraiser, from the 1980s. She didn’t contribute anything to it, but dutifully bought one. I’ve shared a few glimpses into it along with a group photo of little Presbyterian angels that included me.

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• On the front of the cheerful yellow custom cookbook is a lovely drawing of a generic, one presumes Presbyterian, church.

• My mother used to make this recipe for Crunchy Scalloped Turkey. It was tasty in a mushroom-soup-cracker-crumb sort of way. You understand, different times.

• This is a recipe for Blueberry Salad that I can swear on a stack of Bibles my mother never made. No way would she have put pie filling, sour cream, and [Jell-O brand?] gelatin together. Nor would I. Would you?

• Here is a Worth Remembering page featuring advice about how to clean house. My favorite idea is: “Wash old powder puffs in soapy water, rinse well and dry thoroughly. Then use them for polishing silverware, copper and brass.” Truth bomb, I have no powder puffs BUT if I did by cracky, I’d do this.

• Above is a Poetic Contribution to the cookbook. What would a church cookbook be without a hint of sanctimonious snark*? After Esther’s first rhyming stanza she shifts into a rhyme-less warning about bad breeding.

• Here is a close-up of my thick cute cat-eye glasses that measure 4.75″ wide x 1.25″ high. The little curves on the bows held the glasses securely around my ears thus keeping the glasses attached to my wiggly little self.

• And finally here is a photo of the First Presbyterian Cherub Choir in which you can see me over to the left in the front row wearing said cute little glasses.

~ QUESTIONS OF THE DAY ~

Do you have any community cookbooks? If so, did you buy the book, receive it as a gift, or inherit it?

Thinking about how you approach recipes in general, do you follow the instructions religiously or do you wing it adjusting the recipe as you go along?

Did you wear eyeglasses [aka spectacles] as a child? And how did that make you feel? Do you wear them now?

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* Another delightful example of snark from an 1890s Presbyterian cookbook found here.

Implausible But True: Learning About Gnus & Answering 10 Questions

/ Ally Bean / 256 Comments

Subtitled: A Look At How Seamlessly One Thing Can Lead To Another

Photo of a gnu by titiamatta via Pixabay

“In Scrabble putting the GNU in the wrong place won’t get you the points you need,” said I.

I’d lost to Zen-Den in a close game and I felt like explaining myself, assessing where I’d gone wrong. He, however, burst out laughing, finding my statement hilarious, resulting in a question.

“Do you even know what a gnu is?” 

“No, not really,”  said I.

So off I went to research GNUS because I like to learn and because I thought this topic might be decent blog post fodder.

And it was, just not in the way I’d anticipated.

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So first here’s what I learned about GNUS, using bullet points to summarize the information in this article. Then I’ll share the surprising place where I ended up.

  • Gnus are the largest of all antelopes and live in Africa, the largest herds being in Tanzania and Kenya.
  • Gnus are also known as Wildebeests.
  • Gnus is pronounced like “news” making the ‘G’ as useless as the ‘G’ in lasagne.
  • There are two species: the black, also called white-tailed, and the blue, also called common.
  • Baby gnus, called calves, arrive in February and March so we’re in gnu birthing season right now and how exciting is that?
  • Gnus are herbivores who can become dinner for spotted hyenas, lions, cheetahs and African wild dogs.
  • A group of gnus is an implausibility according to James Lipton known to many from Inside the Actors Studio fame.

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Well once I learned this last point of about gnus I had an epiphany. I knew I had to find Lipton’s famous questions based the Bernard Pivot adaptation of the Proust Questionnaire.

Then, of course, I had to answer Lipton’s 10 questions because to a personal blogger a list of questions is manna from heaven. The questions are as follows with my answers immediately after each one:

1.  What is your favorite word?  

Snazzy

2.  What is your least favorite word?  

Should

3.  What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?

Going for a walk, seeing what I see, letting my mind wander, quietly pondering what’s really going on around and within me

4.  What turns you off?

Hypocrisy

5.  What is your favorite curse word?

Fu@k

 6.  What sound or noise do you love?

The sound leaves make when the wind blows through the trees, resulting in a quiet rustle that is the epitome of mellow

7.  What sound or noise do you hate?

The high-pitched whirring of a poorly maintained machine that is the aural manifestation of anxiety

8.  What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

Interior design

9.  What profession would you not like to do?

Trash collector

10.  If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?

Welcome! Your favorite table is waiting over here on the deck with a good view of the ocean. Now, are you still drinking Sauvignon Blanc? Will you need to see a menu today?

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Questions Of The Day

When’s the last time you played Scrabble? Did you win?

What’s the last subject you researched? If you write a blog, did you share what you learned?

Back in the day did you ever watch Inside the Actors Studio?

Will you be answering Lipton’s 10 questions?

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Jottings: A Thursday Morning Change Of Heart + Discerning The BS In Your Writing

/ Ally Bean / 241 Comments

Is this not true?

I WAS GOING TO WRITE ABOUT something different today, something that had to do with people on social media, but I got up this morning, read what I wrote, and decided that while the words flowed I don’t want to talk about people.

As in how oddly many of them are behaving lately. As in desperate to get attention by any means, often dipping into the realm of contrived moral outrage.

As in mentally unwell.

And tedious.

Crazy and unhinged even.

And here’s the thing, because I usually have a thing when I make a snap decision, I’m aware that crazy stays the course unless there’s some medical intervention. And while I’m a problem solver at heart, I am not anyone’s psychologist, thus these people and how they behave aren’t truly of interest to me.

So why talk about ’em?

As the saying goes, energy flows where attention goes.

Thus I shall put my energy and attention, and by default your energy and attention, elsewhere, laughing together as we talk about the following fun thing rather than focusing on the dubious conduct of some people.

Yes I’m rising above the hoi polloi, avoiding that which might be considered gossip, leaning into my better nature.

You with me?

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IN ALL HONESTY I DON’T KNOW how I came to be aware of the BlaBlaMeter, a bullshit detection tool, but I’m glad I did.

It’s fun, in a snorts and giggles kind of way.

Here’s what you do: the website asks you to input at least five sentences of your writing as a sample, then it determines the percentage of bologna sandwich in your writing style.

Based on my five sentences taken from HERE, you can see that my writing style scores extremely low on the BS scale. I was told, and am taking pride in knowing that, my score was a mere 0.09% and that my “text shows no or marginal indications of ‘bullshit’-English.”

[An aside: Interestingly enough when I input five sentences from the one time I used ChatGPT to write THIS, the BlahBlahMeter judged that story to be 0.19% and to show a few indications of ‘bullshit’-English.]

Thus I’ll end this post by suggesting that if you are so moved, give the BlahBlahMeter a whirl using your own writing to see what happens.

Make of it what you will.

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