Red Wine Served In The Wrong Glass

November 15, 2012January 28, 2021 / Ally Bean / 14 Comments

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After a rainy Monday our weather this week has turned sunny and unseasonably cool– cold even. I’m rather torn about this. While my spirit likes sunny days, my body prefers gray days. I always have more energy on gray days than on sunny ones.

I know, it’s backwards from how most people operate. But that’s how I roll, so I’ve been in low gear all week.

Unique.

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I attribute this weirdness to my childhood. For me, grays days were in the fall + winter + spring when I was in school and involved in all sorts of extracurricular & church activities. If it was gray outside, I was busy.

But sunny days were summer days when I was free to do nothing. I learned to relax during the summer when the sun was out.

Mellow.

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Earlier this year I bought some cut crystal glasses. I thought the small size was about right for one healthy serving of red wine. Plus serving red wine like this makes it easy to hold & pretty to look through.

Unexpected.

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I told a friend that I was drinking wine from the wrong glass. She was not enthused. She explained to me all the different types of wine glasses that she has, and how she keeps track of them in her home. She reminded me that the shapes of the wine glasses were for a definite purpose– to enhance the wine.

She shook her head from side-to-side about my lapse in proper wine glass procurement & management.

Concerned.

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It’s not as if I go out of my way to do things in an unusual fashion. I just do my thing– and somehow it often seems to be the odd thing to do.

It’s not a bad way to live your life. But it does, from time-to-time, give me pause as I wonder how it is that I naturally end up doing things differently from everyone else.

Unconventional.

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What Do You Value Right Now?

November 12, 2012November 12, 2012 / Ally Bean / 10 Comments

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I. While researching the concept of “values” I found this Checklist for Personal Values. The checklist intrigued me so I did what the author suggested and picked the 10 values that mean the most to me [in alpha order]. Then I chose which 5 values were most important to me [in bold].

change & variety
economic security
effectiveness
freedom
friendships
good health
inner harmony
nature
respect
wisdom

II. I then ranked these 5 values in order of importance to me until I had the following list.

good health
inner harmony
economic security
change & variety
respect

III. Then I sat here and thought about what I’d learned about who I am today. I realized that:

I no longer care as much about being right as I once did. Whatever, people.
I no longer care at all about status. If I ever did.
I no longer believe in as many abstract principles as I did when I was younger. What is, is.

IV. I did this simple little exercise in self-awareness just to see what would evolve from it. I don’t know that these results surprise me as much as they confirm what I already suspected about my middle-aged self. Which is that I’m pragmatic, well-balanced & curious as ever.

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If you enjoy learning a little bit about what makes you tick and you have the time [5 minutes max], give this exercise a go. It was rather fun, I thought.

Three Changes I’ve Made During The 2012 Presidential Election Campaign

November 7, 2012November 7, 2012 / Ally Bean / 12 Comments

1. I’ve started watching CBS news. I used to watch ABC, but our local affiliate could not shut up about the national election. It was weird.

So I clicked over onto CBS and discovered that our local affiliate talked about [get this] local news & weather & traffic. And that CBS This Morning with Charlie Rose, Gayle King & Norah O’Donnell is a delight. No sales pitches. No silliness. No crowds of onlookers. Just [get this] news & intelligent discussion & quiet humor.

In other words, my kind of people.

2. I decided to boycott a business because this small, local business put up way too many political signs in front of its store. While it is a right for any business to do this, it is also my right to stop frequenting an establishment because of it. There are consequences for extreme partisanship– and one is the loss of customers who believe that politics is a personal matter, not part of a business plan.

[In fairness, I cannot take credit for this idea. A friend pointed out to me that she had stopped going to her doctor because this doctor had become so blatantly political outside & inside her practice, that my friend walked away from the practice.]

There is a time & place for all things.

3. I have learned to drive more slowly and with much more awareness. Those darned lawn signs obscure who or what might be darting out from behind them. Small children & pets are drawn to those signs, and more than once I’ve hit the brakes while driving through suburbia because I’ve noticed suspicious movement around the signs.

I understand that to many people political signs are a right… a need… an important way to make a difference. So if you do put them out in front of your property, please consider putting them up close to your house instead of by the street. I know they’ll be less visible, but doing such might avert a horrible accident.

Just saying, no offense intended…

Odds & Ends

October 16, 2012 / Ally Bean / 21 Comments

:: ON SUNDAY I MADE a Ratty Apple Pie. That’s my name for an apple pie made from a mix of not so good-looking apples. My pie included 2 Melrose, 1 Granny Smith, 2 Red Delicious + 1 mystery apple [Gala?] that was in our frig. Then I put what my Betty Crocker cookbook describes as French crumb topping on the pie. The pie was yummy.

:: I READ AN ARTICLE in the Sunday paper about the increase in incivility in daily life. It rang true with me. I know that in the last few years I’ve encountered rude drivers, indifferent sales clerks, one incredibly hostile bank manager, a couple of ill-mannered [former] friends, and countless offensive individuals shrieking about politics.

My guess is that after watching violent movies, viewing rude tv shows & absorbing the hostility inherent in extremist political views these annoying people are so desensitized that they don’t know that they are, indeed, rude & uncivil. The sad part is that I’ve come to realize that sometimes being rude right back to an uncouth person is the only way to accomplish anything because these. people. do. not. get. kindness.

:: WE HAVE AN INFESTATION of icky miniature fly-like bugs in our house. The man who washes our windows was here yesterday. He told me that the bugs, which are coming into the house through the holes in the mesh of the screens, were from the Hackberry tree.

[Having never heard of a Hackberry tree before I googled it. Natch. I learned that it is sturdy; produces tiny dark-red colored berries for the wildlife to munch on; provides a safe haven for birds in the winter; was cultivated in 1636; & in pioneer days was used for making barrel hoops.]

As for getting rid of the icky little bugs– not going to happen until we have a hard frost, the window washer man tells me. Seems that the dumb little bugs are impervious to all types of removal– including my withering gaze and vacuuming the screens.