The Old Ball Game: Peanuts, Cracker Jacks & Katie Casey

June 9, 2015July 1, 2025 / Ally Bean / 28 Comments

• I’VE BEEN TO THREE BASEBALL GAMES so far this year.

Two of the games were MLB & one was Single-A. I’ve sat a few rows up from the field and I’ve sat a few rows down from the top. Plus I’ve sat in box seats.

None of the games have been scoreless, but they haven’t been memorable either. No grand slams. No amazing fast balls. No outrageous home runs hit out of the park.

Just pleasant somethings to do.

• I ONLY MENTION THEM TODAY BECAUSE, oddly enough, I have no real flapdoodle or twaddle to tell you, my gentle readers.

I usually have something to say here, whether it be a topic or an observation or an absurdity. So in place of the usual, I thought that I’d leave you with ALL the lyrics for “Take Me Out To The Ballgame.”

Not everyone understands that if it weren’t for Katie Casey, none of us would be singing this particular song during the 7th inning stretch.

That girl had it going on!

• • •

• • •

Take Me Out To The Ballgame

Katie Casey was baseball mad
Had the fever and had it bad.
Just to root for the home town crew,
Ev’ry sou, Katie blew;
On a Saturday, her young beau
Called to see if she’d like to go
To see a show, but Miss Kate said “No,
I’ll tell you what you can do.”

“Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out with the crowd.
Buy me some peanuts and cracker jack,
I don’t care if I never get back,
Let me root, root, root for the home team,
If they don’t win it’s a shame.
For it’s one, two, three strikes, you’re out,
At the old ball game.”

Katie Casey saw all the games,
Knew the players by their first names;
Told the umpire he was wrong,
All along, good and strong.
When the score was just two to two,
Katie Casey knew what to do,
Just to cheer up the boys she knew,
She made the gang sing this song:

• • •

QOTD: What Are Your Dreams For This Spring?

March 19, 2015January 24, 2016 / Ally Bean / 28 Comments

Always looking forward. Always planning. Influenced by ~~Arrowsmith~~ Aerosmith. I’m rarely without a list of what I need to do next.

Usually my lists revolve around practical matters, but occasionally I make a personal list of a few simple things that I want to accomplish. So without further babble, I give you…

My “Dreams For Spring” List

I want to go for a walk almost every day. There will be no numerical goals attached to this walk, I just want to move more. Rain be damned.

I want to bake muffins. The reality here is that for months I’ve said that I’m going to start baking again– then I haven’t done so. However, now that it’s on my list, let muffin-palooza begin.

I want to travel somewhere. While this may seem vague, I’ve learned that when I talk about a specific vacation, the gods start screwing around with my life. So mum’s the word. I’m going to sneak travel by them this time. You just watch and see.

I want to work in the garden. Last year I was lazy about gardening because– well, I haven’t a clue why I was, but I was. This year I’m planning some new features out there– and some new color schemes. Nothing like a design project to ramp up my interest and keep me enthused.

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So here’s the Question of the Day, presented to you on the last full day of Winter:

What are your dreams for this Spring?

Answer in the comments below and I promise that we here at The Spectacled Bean will cheer you on to victory!

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http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUaVqw0VvAY&t=77

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Simply Wonderful: Fall Is Here

September 23, 2014September 23, 2014 / Ally Bean / 24 Comments

I tend to overthink things. I don’t know if that comes to me naturally or if it was instilled in me as a child through well-meaning adults. Doesn’t matter. What is, is.

{ source }

I’d been pondering my tendency to overthink when I happened to see this Cary Grant quote. It seemed like the perfect mantra to adopt during my favorite season of the year. Why not think less? Keep life simple. Occupy myself more with doing.

{ source }

Later while surfing the net, I stumbled upon this Paulo Coelho quote, which reinforced my newfound desire to live simply. I mean, who doesn’t want to find the extraordinary things? I can do that. I’ll be wise.

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBo-n_17XU0&app=desktop

So it is with the foregoing in mind that I’ve decided to groove on simplicity for the next few months. I don’t know exactly what that means, but I figure if the Universe has gone out of its way to make sure that I get this “simplify” message, then the message is important. Hallelujah, eh? Make it so.

In Which I Just Keep Truckin On, Like The Do-Dah Man

June 6, 2014February 14, 2023 / Ally Bean / 15 Comments

“Sometimes the lights all shinin on me;
Other times I can barely see.
Lately it occurs to me what a long, strange trip its been.”

~ Truckin, Grateful Dead

~ • ~

If weeks had subtexts, then I’d say that this week’s subtext has been: HIPPIE-NESS. [a word?] Do you, gentle readers, have weeks like this when one unusual subject keeps turning up repeatedly?

I’m not kidding, every day this week I’ve been part of a conversation that has centered one way or another around topics that belong smack dab in the late 1960s or early 1970s.

Sock it to me, sock it to me.

~ • ~

I’ve talked about:

Birkenstocks [which are now fashion forward again, btw]

AND

senior citizens who like a little toke to start the day [former neighbors, in case you’re wondering]

AND

a slightly insane off-the-grid genius who spent most of the 60s building a castle from stones he found along a river bank [photos coming next week]

AND

Colorado vacations [where weed is now legal, like you didn’t know]

AND

mothers in the 1960s who dressed their children in brightly colored matching outfits [not sure if this is technically hippie-ness, but it was a thing back then].

~ • ~

Yes, it’s been a groovy week– and I’ve loved it. I’d forgotten how the hippie culture which influenced the late 1960s and early 1970s was so much less uptight and so much more in the moment than today’s world of goals and analytics and marketing and– oh, whatever.

Like, far out, man.

So what better way to end this post than to leave you, my gentle readers, with this song by the Grateful Dead that has run through my head all week?

Guess I’ll just hang it up now and see what tomorrow brings! 😉