Voting Day 2017 And Last Year’s Election Day Sadness Lingers

November 7, 2017November 7, 2017 / Ally Bean / 66 Comments

An old downtown building in the process of being improved: out with what no longer serves, in with what will make it safe.

• Later this morning I’ll make my way to our current voting precinct in its current polling place.

It’s in an old Greek Church now. The decor in this church is gold and overstated, think My Big Fat Greek Wedding, but the church members who welcome you to their church/polling place are as sweet as can be.

They stand in sharp contrast to the election board people who, it seems, would prefer to not be doing what they’re doing, as shown by the snarls on their faces.

Same grouches, every year.

• When we first moved here over 20 years ago we voted at the VFW Hall.

Situated back a long creepy lane, to get to this polling place you followed the signs for the “Sunday Turkey Shoot” that lead to a grass parking lot. Then you stood outside in the weather until the election board people allowed 2 voters at a time inside the building.

We’d moved here to this big city suburb from an upscale small town and were shocked that the polling place, reeking of cigarette smoke, still used paper ballots– and consistently ran short on pencils.

We learned to take a Benadryl before we went to vote and to take a pencil with us.

• Our next polling place was at a fancy golf course.

It was easy to get to this place that had a real parking lot, lighted even. At first it seemed ideal, however this is the polling place where Zen-Den, Esq., got mad and made a point.

He was not pleased about how the partisan people who lurk around the outside entrance into the polling place were positioning themselves; they were too close to the building, thus breaking the law.

Inside the building he told the election board people this was wrong–and they shrugged. So Z-D called the sheriff’s office and filed a complaint. The pushy lurker people got in trouble, and the election board people have never forgotten about it.

Or Zen-Den. Or his wife. Who they consider to be has much of a troublemaker as he was.

Guilt by association, you know?

• All of which brings me to today’s foray into the American voting process.

I’ve paid no attention to any of the people who are running for office this election cycle. In what will a first for me, an Independent voter, I’ll be voting a straight Democratic ticket.

If the GOP won’t do the right thing and depose our so-called president, a sexual predator, business fraud, Russian-backed, draft-dodging old man, then I’ll start the ball rolling by getting rid of the GOP.

Are you with me here, kids? If last year’s presidential election confirmed one thing for me, it’s that you can do everything right and still fail; BUT it’s important that you do that right thing anyhow.

Words to live by.

#ThursdayDoors | Visiting A Spooky Cemetery, Playing The Hand You’re Dealt

October 26, 2017July 1, 2025 / Ally Bean / 63 Comments

Today I’m joining Thursday Doors, hosted by Norm Frampton, so that I can share with you the following door photos– and a bit of almost forgotten history.

I took these photos at Evergreen Cemetery in Miamiville, OH. It’s a small well-tended cemetery that is typical of township cemeteries throughout Ohio.

What is not typical in this cemetery is one particular tombstone [2 photos below] that you can see from the road as you drive by.

Here are some pics of what I saw at this cemetery on an unexpectedly foggy October morning. The whole place looked so spooky cool– just perfect for my adventure.

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DOORS on stone building erected 1870.

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Typical old tombstones from 1800s.

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Typical older monument with girl looking skyward.

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DOORS on monument in newer part of cemetery.

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Tombstone of Charlie Henry Rich, the man who in 1867 dealt the infamous “Aces and Eights” [Dead Man’s Hand] to Wild Bill Hickok in Deadwood, S.D.

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Back of Charlie Henry Rich’s tombstone that is equally not as typical as the front.

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DOOR on cemetery maintenance building built in 1983.

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9 Links For People Who Like Wordplay

September 21, 2017May 6, 2021 / Ally Bean / 43 Comments

… because information is FUN dammit.

Dear me, am I seeing a photo of a deer? Aye, it is a deer, my dear. Is the deer near here? No, from what I hear, the deer is not near here, my dear. 😁

• • •

Need a laugh? Enjoy a generic millennial ad here.

But I don’t want to not say this word when I apologize.

Did you know that grok, like Jabberwocky, are examples of nonce words?

Miss Phryne Fisher’s 1920s Australian slang is here to help you increase your vocabulary.

There used to be more to the alphabet.

If you write headlines, how good are they? Find out here. [link revised 9/22]

The Oxford comma has an online dating profile that you can view here.

Looking for some petty phrases to use in your work emails? Click here.

According to this, your craft beer name is your grandfather’s job + a word you don’t fully understand. My craft beer is: Salesman’s Milieu.

Apparently You Cannot Motivate Me With One Written Word

June 22, 2017May 6, 2021 / Ally Bean / 71 Comments

To thine own self be true…

LATE LAST WINTER I STUMBLED on an article that was about how to be more productive. I wasn’t looking for an article on that topic, but for some reason when I saw this particular article I stopped to read what it had to say.

The gist of this article, that I did not save the link to, told me that if anyone [who reads English, I’m assuming] sees the word ACHIEVE while working at any task, then that anyone will be more productive.

So being a curious open-minded person who happened to be bored on a winter afternoon, I wrote “Achieve” on a post-it note and put the post-it note where I’d see it when I sit at my desktop computer every day.

The premise of this idea seemed a little woo-woo to me, but I thought: Why not? I’ll keep the note where it is for spring and then when summer arrives I’ll evaluate what has happened.

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SUMMER IS HERE NOW SO it’s time for me to weigh in on the efficacy of this visual aid: that is, have I been inspired to new heights of productivity because I see the word ACHIEVE every day?

As much as I want to say “yes, this ezpz solution has helped me be more productive,” I’m going to be honest and tell you, my gentle readers, that I don’t think I’ve been any more or less productive since I put this post-it note in my line of sight.

I, of course, have no way of verifying my finding because I have no baseline level of productivity from which to start my study, so my conclusion is entirely subjective… rather like the idea in the article that prompted me to try this experiment.

But what I have learned about myself from this little foray into the land of inspirational signage is that for me the desire to do things has to come from within, and cannot be supplanted by one random word… no matter how clearly or often I see that word.

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QUESTION OF THE DAY