A Glimpse Into Life With The Beans, Mid-Summer Edition

July 23, 2015 / Ally Bean / 24 Comments

The Good

Zen-Den went to the grocery and bought everything on the list, including cornstarch. This, as he pointed out to me, was a big deal because, as he said: “even five years ago I wouldn’t have known what cornstarch was– and would have bought corn meal instead.”

Congratulations, darling. You’ve passed GROCERY SHOPPING 201, an intermediate level course in advanced shopping techniques wherein husbands learn to buy exactly that which is written on the list.

Isn’t he something? Let’s give it up for the Z-D.

~ • ~

The Bad

Influenced by Mad Men [and a bit of nostalgia for my parents], I had a hankering for an Old Fashioned. So I got out the bourbon and the sugar bowl in which I keep sugar cubes and the Angostura Bitters. Then I made myself an Old Fashioned using the last of the bourbon.

While my drink sat on the counter below, as I attempted to put the sugar bowl back onto the cupboard shelf above, in a horrible moment of miscalculation, I knocked the lid off the sugar bowl. It fell onto the counter, shattering into 3 gazillion + 1 pieces, many of which landed in my drink.

Leaving me distraught and drinkless.

~ • ~

The Ugly

Because of the excessive rain, we’ve not used our screened-in porch as much as we usually do in the summer. However, the other evening there was no rain, so we decided to go out there to sit.

Almost immediately we both noticed that there were ants walking around on the rug in the screened-in porch. This is amazing because the porch is up a story from the ground below, but those miserable, icky, sneaky, destructive ants were on. my. porch.

I took off one of my Birks, grabbed it with my hand and started hitting the ants until they stopped moving. I put the sandal back on when I thought that I’d killed all the ants, but I hadn’t. So when I saw one last ant moving, in a fit of anger, I stomped down really hard with my sandaled foot on the last ant… and twisted my left ankle in the process.

I hate ants.

~ • ~

No Whippy Frosting For Me, Please & Thank You

July 15, 2015January 28, 2021 / Ally Bean / 29 Comments

Welcome to Fun With Foibles, an ongoing series wherein I helpfully point out what is wrong with other people & things, while remaining quiet about my own failings. Today’s topic is…

Whippy Frosting

In case, somehow, you are unfamiliar with Whippy Frosting, it is a vile, faux-vanilla flavored concoction of Crisco, Cool Whip and Peeps, blended together, making what bakeries try to pass off as frosting for cakes.

Whippy frosting is an abomination against man and God.

In fact, while often omitted in modern translations of the Bible, everyone knows that on the eighth day God created cake. And He said: Let there be butter cream frosting on all cakes. Henceforth and forevermore. Amen.

[That would be “Fiat Yum” in the original translations.]

Yet some people, mostly heathens I’m assuming, continue to buy cakes with whippy frosting from the bakery– thereby encouraging the bakery to ignore God’s perfect creation, butter cream frosting, and to continue to make said sub-standard frosting.

And try to pass it off as edible. WHICH. IT. IS. NOT.

So I urge you, gentle readers, as a favor to me, who asks so little of you, to not buy cakes with this stuff on it. Maybe then, it’ll go away.

I can only hope.

My Unhappy Story Of Flying Trapped Inside A MRI With Wings

June 25, 2015June 25, 2015 / Ally Bean / 37 Comments

Seating chart for MRI with wings.

While on vacation last weekend, I spent one leg of my travels on a flight from hell, trapped inside a MRI with wings. This would be a plane that is known to aviators as a Bombardier CRJ 200.

This airplane, while not the smallest one I’ve ever flown on, was the worst flying MRI I’ve experienced because– and I hope that I’m not going to get too technical here— THERE WAS NO AIR CONDITIONING AS WE WAITED AT THE GATE AND THEN ON THE TARMAC FOR TAKEOFF… ON A HOT SUMMER DAY… AT MIDDAY.

I’d love to tell you what airline I was on, but I’m not sure. It was some pokey little airline, doing business under some obscure name, for some larger, formerly independent, airline recently acquired by some huge US airline.

In other words, the usual inane flying experience that I’ve come to know, pay exorbitant amounts of money for and loathe.

# # #

As fate would have it two things occurred simultaneously while I was on this flight from hell trapped inside a MRI with wings.

First of all, I had a hot flash.

To be clear, that would be my body spontaneously increasing its core temperature while I was sitting in the middle of the airplane, Seat 7C, where the ambient room temperature was close to 100ºF.

Trapped, I was.

And so far beyond toasty that I could barely keep conscious. I could see my vision begin to tunnel– and I knew that I would faint, unless I thought of something fast.

So I shut my eyes, let my head droop and begin to remember how cold and bleak it was on our screened-in porch in February, when I’d step out there for a bit of fresh air, mid-afternoon, with my mug of hot tea.

Oddly enough this mental distraction kept me from passing out and it gave me an opportunity to decide that, if I lived to tell the story, I’d call out the airline on this unconscionable, unhealthy, inhumane, ridiculous, shameful, cheap-ass behavior.

Didn’t their mothers teach these airline PTB to not treat other human beings as chattel? Hmmm?

# # #

Actual MRI, similar to Bombardier CJR 200.

This would be the end of the story if it weren’t for the man next to me on the flying MRI with wings from hell who was an employee of one of the airlines that was part of the afore-mentioned cluster.

And he was taking notes. Lots of them.

For real.

And he was telling me EVERYTHING that this flight crew was doing that was wrong, that was illegal according to FAA standards, and that was just plain stupid.

So despite being the most physically and emotionally uncomfortable I’ve been on an airplane in decades, I had the pleasure of knowing that this flight crew, a bunch of yahoos who really should be ashamed of themselves, were going to get in trouble.

AS IN FAILING TO PASS INSPECTION. JOBS ON THE LINE. HELLO REVIEW BOARD [I CAN ONLY HOPE].

It is because of this note-taking man that I can look back on this flight as a learning experience for the crew as well as for me. To wit, I will never, ever in a hundred years set foot inside a Bombardier CRJ 200 again.

And if you know what’s good for you, you won’t either.