Loving

Let’s Laugh: Three Absurd Conversations + Something I Cannot Explain

/ Ally Bean / 243 Comments

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Three Absurd Conversations

ONE – Out to dinner with friends. The conversation turns to ice cream. The questions: 1) What is your favorite flavor? and 2) Where do you buy it?

My answer: Spumoni is my favorite flavor but it’s difficult to find, usually only around Christmas, and never for sale in Kroger where I shop most of the time. Seems like they could have it.

A friend, a lawyer, pipes up and jokingly says: It’s not Kroger’s fault for not having spumoni, it’s your fault for liking a weird flavor of ice cream.

Immediately everyone at the table agrees with him and starts laughing at me while I’m forced to admit that he could be right. He might have a point.

You like vanilla, it’s everywhere, no problem.

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TWO – Overheard while shopping in Dillard’s. An older couple, mid-80s, are in the women’s clothing section near where I’m standing. She’s looking at blouses, he’s looking bored. She pulls a blouse on a hanger off the rack and tells him she’s going to try it on.

He seems surprised and says: I thought we were just horsing around here. Then he makes a low guttural snorting sound like a horse whinny while attempting to prance like a horse.

She looks over at me, rolls her eyes, then turns to him and says: Slow down there Roy Rogers, hold your horses, and wait here.

This spunky reply made me laugh out loud and him smile like the ornery cute kid he probably used to be.

Oh, to age with your sense of humor intact.

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THREE – Said by the husband after he plugged in the heating pad so I could lay on the bed with it on my aching thigh.

Him: You’re not supposed to sleep with the electric heating pad on, so once you fall asleep turn it off.

Me staring at him: Think about what you said.

Him: Really, that’s what the warning on the tag says.

Me: Keep thinking.  

Him after long pause: OH… I see the problem.

Which confirmed that he still understands logic, but had me in stitches laughing at and thankfully with someone who rarely says anything illogical.

Even the brainy ones can be dim. 

Something I Cannot Explain

This isn’t my car.

Mid-afternoon I pulled into a parking lot adjacent to a city park and found this car *parked* [abandoned?] in this awkward way.

There were no indications that the car had hit any other vehicle, stopping midway while pulling into the parking space.

After I parked down the way and walked back by the car I saw that the inside of the car was tidy. There wasn’t a note on the windshield explaining what had happened. There was no police citation on it.

It was just a half-parked car in the way in a public parking lot with nary a soul around to explain the situation.

Any idea what was going on here?

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Color Me Amused By A Trend Known As The Unexpected Red Theory

/ Ally Bean / 244 Comments

Because I’ll read just about anything that talks about color (names, descriptions, history), I read What Is TikTok’s ‘Unexpected Red’ Theory— and Why Should You Be Following It? which just happens to be the latest interior design trend within a demographic younger than I am.

Have you heard of this?

According to the above-referenced article: “The unexpected red theory is incredibly easy to implement, requiring only one small red object… big enough and central enough to catch the viewer’s eye, and it’s always best if the decor piece itself is also interesting to look at, whether that be because of its shape, function, or texture.”

EZPZ, right?

Thus armed with this knowledge, grasping for something to write about here, I grabbed my camera and wandered around the inside of our house to see if, by chance, I already had the unexpected red theory going on here at Chez Bean. It sounded familiar to me, like something not particularly new.

And by gosh and by golly I discovered that what I refer to as pops of spirited color is in fact what the young ones of today are touting as the unexpected red theory. 

Thus I realized that this was a trend that might be less of a trend than more of a design principle, an attitude, a timeless way of adding energy into a room without overwhelming the room with too much saturated color.

Like people have been doing for decades.

So with that little bit of introduction I’ll share my pops of spirited color examples of unexpected red that make this house a home and suggest that not all trends are as avant-garde as trendsetters may think.

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QUESTIONS OF THE DAY

Do you like the color red? If so do you have a particular favorite shade? [List of Crayola crayon colors, beginning with shades of red, found HERE.]

Do you feel, like I often do, that it’s best to ignore trends because someone somewhere is trying to do more than influence you, they’re trying to manipulate you? [Definition of + a bit of history about ‘manipulation’ HERE.]

Do you love the fact that tomorrow is an extra day, a rare 29th day in the month of February? Will you be celebrating it in some special way? If so, how? [List of possible Leap Day activities found HERE.]

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Repurposing Can Spark Joy: My *New* Standing Desk + 3 Nosy Blogging Questions For You

/ Ally Bean / 258 Comments

With a hat tip to Marie Kondo who probably wouldn’t approve of my approach to clutter but would be kind about not saying so, this post goes out to procrastinators and frugalistas everywhere.

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Last week when I said nothing was going on here, I lied. In fact the story was staring me straight in the face, but I didn’t see it at the time.

You see, and the photos below will confirm, the story is that I’ve created a new better version of my homemade standing desk. The one on which my computer, Keyzia, sits while I write my posts.

In an effort to make my back love me again in the fall of 2022 I gave up sitting at a desk and thus began my quest to figure out a way to make my favorite current desk, a sturdy Pottery Barn number, into a modern-ish standing desk.

Granted I could buy an official real deal standing desk but I am frugal. And creative. And never sure how much longer I’ll be writing this blog, meaning that at some point I’ll no longer need a standing desk so why spend the money?

I got the idea for what you’ll see below from an Ikea hack website where someone had bought a small Ikea bench that they put on top of their Ikea desk to create a standing desk.

That is practical and cute as can be, thought I.

Then in a flash of money-saving insight I realized two things:

  1. We had a wooden bench [from Ballard Design] sitting in the garage waiting for me to get around to phoning St. Vincent de Paul for pickup [with other furniture of course];  and
  2. I’d kept that wooden bench stored in the basement for years, even though it never sparked joy within me, because it was sturdy and I bought it at the outlet store for a decent price.

Therefore instead of buying anything new, like from Ikea, I used what we already had here, repurposing the Ballard Design wooden bench by placing it on the sturdy Pottery Barn desk to make the perfect riser for my sweet Keyzia.

Thus Keyzia no longer rocks down to Electric Avenue while sitting precariously on a pile of World Book Encyclopedias covered in a tablecloth. We’re both happy about this improvement.

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BEFORE: my messy desk-type situation

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BEFORE: close up of where Keyzia sat

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BEFORE: the stack of World Books hidden under the tablecloth

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AFTER: a wooden bench soon to be turned into a standing desk component

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AFTER: bench on top of desk elevating Keyzia to a comfortable height

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AFTER: a standing desk with a tidy desktop because baskets sitting on lower shelf of bench encourage me to put my paper notes in one place

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3 NOSY BLOGGING QUESTIONS

When it comes to writing blog posts do you use a desktop computer like I do? OR, more likely, do you use a laptop or a tablet or a phone? OR, quite possibly, a combination of all of the aforementioned?

When you’re at home working on your blog where do you write? Like at a desk? At a table? Plopped down on a comfy chair or bed? Standing at the kitchen counter? Other spot?

Thinking ahead, how much longer will you be writing your current blog? When you end it will you walk away from blogging entirely OR start a new blog, maybe on a different platform?

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Plan B: In Which I Beguile With A Potpourri Of Pretty Pictures & Pithiness

/ Ally Bean / 252 Comments

This is what I think of as a flapdoodle & twaddle post.

I’ve nothing specific to talk about today, Tuesday, the day I try to be here every week. This happens occasionally because when you write a personal blog you can only write about things that happen to you and if nothing much is happening because it’s a dull January, then you have to go to Plan B.

Which in this case is: I look through my files, I find images + links, I write something here, thereby adding value to the blogosphere whilst giving you, my little kumquats of curiosity, something to talk about. That’s Plan B.

I await your snarky insightful comments below.

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1 – Here’s a visual representation [via The Washington Post] of book genres and the percentage of people by age who read the genres. Are you in step with your age group OR marching off in your own direction?

2 – This is an excellent observation that is worthy of contemplation, akin to the medieval scholarly question: how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?  [Answer: it depends on the music.] 😇

3 – I’m not a dog but this feelings wheel calls to me. I have my ZOOMIE moments and my GROWLY moments. Who among us doesn’t?

4 – After taking a year off from One Word 365, I’ve picked *LIGHT* as my personal inspirational focus word for 2024. Let’s see how this goes, shall we?

5 – I know World Penguin Day isn’t until April 25th, which also happens to be Light Jacket Day a la Miss Congeniality, BUT I can’t resist a good flow chart. Can you?

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