Orange Sky At Night, Tomatoes Take Fright

June 28, 2016June 28, 2016 / Ally Bean / 80 Comments

A SHORT STORY

One day the Lady of the House carefully planted a few pots of herbs + one pot of small patio tomatoes. There was joy in the land.

The sky was blue above, forsooth.

Cardinals, sitting in trees, shooketh their tail feathers.

Cute garden tags proclaimed what was in each herb pot.

However, one evening a magical thunderstorm rolled through the land turning the sky to a weird shade of orange, creating a beautiful unexpected rainbow. Things had changed.

At first, the Lady of the House was charmed by the rainbow, until she saw that the storm winds had snapped her tomato plant in two. She was sad.

But the Lady of the House, being ever hopeful and raised on fairy tales, put the little green tomatoes in a dish on the kitchen table near a sunny window.

Where, alas & alack, despite the Lady of the House’s tender care, the little tomatoes remain green and inedible to this day.

THE END

In Which A Doofus Makes Himself Known In The Colonoscopy Waiting Area

June 21, 2016June 21, 2016 / Ally Bean / 76 Comments

AS IF MY LIFE is not exciting enough, I had the pleasure of escorting Zen-Den, at 6:00 a.m., to the hospital for a routine colonoscopy.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been the Colonoscopy Escort, but your duties are simple:

Get the [snarly and grouchy] patient to hospital at assigned time.
Wait by yourself in the Colonoscopy Waiting Area while patient is checked-in.
When receptionist tells you it’s okay, go sit with the patient in Pre-Op Area until patient is rolled away for procedure.
Go back out to Colonoscopy Waiting Area and wait.
After procedure go sit with patient in Post-Op Area until he or she is released back into the wild.
Take [ravenously hungry] patient home and feed + water him or her.

# # #

AS PER DUTY #4 I was sitting in the Colonoscopy Waiting Area, playing games on my iPad, waiting, when the receptionist called out the name of someone’s Colonoscopy Escort.

No one in the waiting area responded.

She said the name again.

*crickets*

The receptionist got up from her desk and walked around the Colonoscopy Waiting Area, quietly asking each of us if we were this someone’s Colonoscopy Escort, until she eventually got to a 40-something man with his face buried in his laptop computer.

Standing directly in front of him she said his name again, loudly, and he finally looked up at her.

By now everyone in the Colonoscopy Waiting Area was staring at him, because human beings are nosy, and because waiting is boring so anything out of the ordinary is entertainment.

She told him he could go back and wait with the patient, DUTY #3, to which he said: “WHY THE HELL WOULD I WANT TO DO THAT?”

And immediately went back to looking at his laptop.

# # #

THE RECEPTIONIST WAS IRRITATED, but shrugged and went back to her desk.

However, the rest of us, the cooperative Colonoscopy Escorts, started sending hate glances toward this guy. While an adorable 80-something lady with silver white hair went a step further by looking over the top of her bejeweled reading glasses, and loudly *tsking-tsking* in his general direction.

Somehow that particular sound got this guy’s attention and he looked up to see all of us glaring at him, shaking our heads at his obvious Colonoscopy Escort faux pas.

So with a noisy *sigh* he snapped his laptop shut and trudged over to the receptionist’s desk, ready to be taken to sit with someone who had the misfortune of knowing this man well enough to ask him to be his or her Colonoscopy Escort.

Can you even imagine? 0.o

{ Images |1| |2| |3| from Pixabay }

Blogging Tip #88: When Your Writing Mojo Melts Away, Colorful Photos Work

June 1, 2016August 28, 2018 / Ally Bean / 49 Comments

Personal blogging is difficult when your writing mojo melts away.

This problem may, or may not, be a result of your air conditioner breaking as June begins, and the temps + humidity skyrocket.

Said lack of coolness in the air could leave you hot + cranky, without the inclination to sit down, to write something pithy, to fulfill your personal blogging goal to show up to your blog at least once a week.

If that should happen to you may I suggest that fussing around with your words isn’t worth it; instead post a few photos, preferably colorful + pretty.

And then promise your gentle readers, who you hope are an understanding lot, that you’ll be back next week after the AC is fixed– and, we can only hope, your writing mojo returns.

V Is For Vinegar, Very Much So

April 26, 2016May 6, 2021 / Ally Bean / 27 Comments

Full of spit and vinegar

… is a slang term that implies someone is high-spirited, boisterous, full of vigor.

Noisy, even.

I have no idea when I first heard this innocent version of, shall we say, a classically crude saying, occasionally seen in literature, but rarely said in my world.

This is not because I’m offended by coarse language, but because this saying doesn’t float into my addled brain when I want to tell you that I’m feeling youthful and rowdy.

Too many words. Too idiomatic. Too easy to be misunderstood.

Instead, I’d rather tell you straight up and directly: I’m feeling energetic today. Watch out world.

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{ SOMETHING TO DO FOR FUN }

Here’s a website where you can create your own custom background noise. You can make the noise to help you mellow out OR be productive. It’s up to you. Go try it now.

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