Not Pleased

A Rare Sunday Blog Post In Which I Grumble Unimaginatively About A Rare Early Snowfall

/ Ally Bean / 254 Comments

“Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative.”

Oscar Wilde said that, but I say WHATEVER.  I don’t see that dude standing here dealing with weather whiplash like I am.

You see, and I am a bit grumbly about this, after falling back one hour last Sunday we had a beautiful week of sunny days and agreeable daily highs in the 70s. I was running around outside wearing shorts and a t-shirt and sandals.

Life was good, in a warm busy way.

However yesterday *bing bang boom* we had our first snowfall of the season.  This isn’t statistically the norm.  Our first snow usually arrives in December [sometimes as late as January] meaning that I’m supposed to have a few more weeks of autumn.

With a gradual decline in the temperature.

With me going from shorts to capris, then pants.

But there I was yesterday morning scrambling around in the closet looking for jeans and a sweater and boots.  Clothes I enjoy wearing, but prefer to deal with in an organized, systematic way.

Not by throwing open drawers and storage bins, rooting through piles of turtlenecks trying to remember which ones I actually like–and which I ones I tolerate because I bought them & they’re here now.

Anyhow, because I’m sensing that the cold is here to stay and because I’m not ready to deal with it in a mature way, I wrote this rare Sunday blog post.  By talking about the early snow I do realize that I’m avoiding the obvious: that is, I could be doing something productive like getting my winter clothes in order.

But instead I’m complaining.  Not quite whining, but grousing, hoping to find the silver lining in this cold wet unwanted cloud of early snowiness that makes me feel like hibernating inside until next spring.

Which I should not do.

Thus if you see the silver lining in any of this please point it out to me.  Or if nothing else, distract me from the weather with your warm personality and joyful thoughts.

You know you want to.

No Song, Gleam, Or Peace Here: Ms. Bean Reports On Her Noisy Morning Thus Far

/ Ally Bean / 214 Comments

Good morning, my little rays of sunshine.

Or at least I wish it was a good morning.  I have no song in my heart.  No gleam in my eye.  And there is definitely no peace in my soul.

HERE IS WHY.

The following explains my morning so far.  Let me warn you that currently I’m not at my happiest.  Kind of snarly.

First, at 6:00 a.m. Zen-Den’s phone alarm chimed to inform him, and me be default, that is it was time for him, not me, to get up to face the day.  This is normal noise that I look forward to not hearing once he retires, something he claims will happen in September, but that’s a whole ‘nother story.

He got up, but I snuggled under the covers to contemplate arising to meet the day at this awful hour continue sleeping, as one does.

THIS WAS NOT MEANT TO BE.

At 6:14 a.m. his phone started blaring its alert signal.  Yes, that horn sound went off, loudly, as if all heck had broken lose.  Z-D was in the shower, didn’t hear the alert signal, so I reluctantly got up to find out what the emergency was all about.

It was that an elderly woman had wandered away from a home on a street near here.  She was only wearing a light top and jammies bottoms, which considering the cold temps, is dangerous.  Be on the lookout for her, so I will be.

Clearly at this point I was awake so I decided to go downstairs and make a pot of coffee.  This is my usual morning routine, just maybe not this early, but whatever.

I can adapt.

I can be useful.

I can sip coffee and mutter quietly in the corner.

THAT, SADLY, DID NOT HAPPEN.  

You see, I brewed the coffee without any trouble but as I sat there in the semi-darkness caffeinating myself with said coffee I heard a noise.  A noise that can only mean one thing. One lousy, awful, undoubtedly expensive thing.

The noise was the desperate sound of an animal trapped inside the house, probably in the attic or maybe in the walls, who was, and still is, scraping, pawing, flaying itself around in an attempt to escape from the inside our house.

WHERE IT SHOULD NOT BE.

And on that note of irritation I shall end this post.  Trying to not hear the noise that is going on over my head.  Trying to not be distressed by the events thus far on this ill-fated Friday morning.

Hoping that you, my little rays of sunshine, have something positive to tell me about your day.  Distract me, please.

 

 

The One About My Car Gone Wacko: My Kingdom For Some Earplugs

/ Ally Bean / 167 Comments

This is not my sweet Olivia, but it is a lovely 1908 Ford Model T car. I bet it had a heck of a horn on it. [Image via autos/yahoo.com on Pinterest]

And then this happened… 

I went shopping in a real store instead of online.  [My first mistake perhaps?]  The store was about 20 minutes from home.

I parked my sweet Olivia, my 19 y.o. Honda Accord, in the parking lot then went inside a store to buy a few things.  I returned to the parking lot and put my bags of stuff into Olivia’s trunk.

No problemo.

Then I got inside the car, began to turn on the ignition with my key, but before I could get Olivia started THE POOR DEAR WENT WACKO and began blaring her security alarm with me inside the car.

I tried getting in and out of the car, but to no avail.  She continued to produce a jarring cacophony.

I tried pushing random buttons on the dashboard, but the noise continued.

I tried using the little button on my key to deactivate the alarm but the battery in my key had gone dead. Did. not. work.

Given up the ghost.

This left me sitting inside my car in a parking lot with no way to turn off the alarm while the alarm continued to shriek in a pattern of 3 long honks, 2 second pause, 3 long honks, 2 seconds pause, ad infinitum.

Thus it came to be that I drove Olivia home serenaded by her ear-piercing security alarm system, noticed by many other drivers on the road.

Oh yes I was.

But the story does not end here… 

Once home I pulled into our garage.

You may remember that a few months ago a car was stolen at gunpoint from inside a neighbor’s garage;  the neighbor walked into his garage while the car was being stolen [weird story here].  It was the talk of the subdivision.

Unnerving.

At that time Zen-Den and I agreed that if I ever knew or thought someone was following me home, I should pull into our garage and start blaring my car horn, thus alerting him to trouble.

Which, of course, is exactly WHAT I UNINTENTIONALLY DID when I pulled into our garage because I couldn’t turn off Olivia’s rather robust alarm system.

Big problemo.

Thus it came to be that a worried Zen-Den, who was working from home, heard the alarm and figured I was in trouble.

But before I could get inside the house to tell him what had happened, he came running into the garage to rescue me from harm, not realizing it was just my sweet Olivia throwing a hissy fit.

Oh yes she was.

QUESTIONS OF THE DAY

Has your vehicle [car, truck, SUV, van, motorcycle] ever set off its security alarm system for reasons unclear?

If so, what did you do?

Do you prefer to shop online thus avoiding any and all drama associated with going to a brick & mortar store?

[Gold star to anyone who understands the literary allusion in the title of this post.]

~ ~ 🚗 ~ ~

Move Over Grand Theft Auto, Pondering A Real-life Armed Robbery In Our Neighborhood

/ Ally Bean / 164 Comments
Because sometimes odd unexpected things happen…

Last week I learned that there was an armed robbery in this subdivision.  We’ve lived here over 20 years and this is a first.  I learned about it formally from the HOA [Homeowner Association] + informally from the neighborhood grapevine.

The robbery took place in the early evening and involved two men with guns stealing a new Volvo from a neighbor’s open garage.  It’s my understanding that the house security system with alarms and cameras wasn’t on at the time.

The neighbor heard noise in the garage, went to investigate, and found the robbery in process.  He was not hurt physically, although I cannot say how it affected him emotionally.  I don’t know him personally to ask him.

The police haven’t found his car and the men who stole it.  As of today this remains an open case.  My guess is it’ll never be solved, but will become part of the folklore of this large subdivision of 800+ homes.

• • •

A place to ponder. Drinking a mug of coffee while sitting on the deck on a foggy autumn morning.

• • •

It’s easy, and perhaps natural, to start thinking about why this robbery took place, to make up stories that might explain it.  I’m motivated by my need to make sense of this, to try to understand it.

It could be as straightforward as it seems.  The robbers who were driving a Volvo [and isn’t that interesting?] saw an opportunity to steal another one and took it.  It was a crime of opportunity, no advance planning.

This would be my preferred scenario.

Or it could be that the neighbor was working in league with the robbers, intending on splitting the insurance money.  After all, no one except the neighbor saw these two men, allegedly with guns, and because the security system cameras weren’t on at the time there’s no way to corroborate his story.

Or it could be that the neighbor owes money to someone, a bookie perhaps, and that someone arranged for payment in the form of his car.  Things like that happen in this world.  I watch police procedural TV shows;  I know things.

• • •

A view while pondering. Looking out from the deck into the backyard on a foggy autumn morning.

• • •

I’ve been trying to decide what I think about this robbery, discern how it makes me feel.  I’m not stressed by it.  I’m not worried about being safe. Instead I’m indifferent to it.

Is that peculiar?  Shouldn’t I be more panicked?

Of course, as Zen-Den pointed out, we always keep our garage doors closed plus no one wants to steal my 18 year old Honda.  Or his 5 year old one.  A fast risk-benefit analysis confirms his logic.  

Ain’t gonna happen.

Plus this robbery isn’t going to stop me from going for walks around this neighborhood.  If nothing else we might be safer now that more sheriffs are driving through here on a more regular basis.

From their point of view, we’re the place to be.

So that’s where I find myself this morning, hoping this is a one-off, an aberration and not the beginning of a trend.  I’m amazed that I’m writing about something so out of the ordinary that it doesn’t seem feasible, yet it happened.

And that’s all there is to it.

Comments, anyone? How would this make you feel?

In Which I Read A Book, Then Hit The Wall

/ Ally Bean / 183 Comments

A Cautionary Tale from my Daily Life

YOU SEE, I WAS IN BED READING A BOOK. I had a LED clip-on light attached to the book and I was involved in the story, eyes wide open. However my eyes got tired and started to blur so I stopped reading and put my spectacles aside.

I got up from bed, walked over to the light switch on the bedroom wall to turn off the overhead light [yes this one], then walked into the dark bathroom to avail myself of the facilities therein.

As one does.

I thought I could safely walk to where I needed to be in the bathroom, but I was temporarily blinded after turning off the lights in the bright bedroom and then walking into a pitch black bathroom. Thus it came to be that I walked smack dab OH MY GOODNESS TO THE GRACIOUS into the bathroom wall.

Yes, I hit the wall, literally.

Naturally being the mature woman I am I started yelling for Z-D to come help me because I KNEW THE END WAS NIGH. I was convinced I’d broken my nose and would be shuffling off to a hospital where I’d not be able to wear a mask because of my broken nose– and I’d catch Covid-19.

It was perhaps an overreaction, but during these dreary days of the endless pandemic one cannot be sure about what is going to happen to oneself after a bathroom wall willfully gets in your way.

To his credit Z-D did not immediately start laughing when he found me holding my nose and jumping up & down like a crazy person. In fact he turned on a light, politely examined my unbloodied, undamaged nose that never even got black and blue, THEN he started laughing like I was the lead character in the funniest Marx Brothers movie he’d ever seen.

And he would. not. stop. laughing.

Asking me over and over again why I didn’t turn on the light in the bathroom before I walked in.

Then laughing. some. more.

Finding this whole ridiculous slapstick incident much too entertaining, IF YOU ASK ME.

Happy Weekend, everyone. Try not to hit the wall.