QOTD

In Which I Prattle On About Ivy, Donating Furniture To Charity, And Tuesday

/ Ally Bean / 94 Comments

I’m feeling lighthearted and warm today.

Hence I shall show you the above photo of two pots of ivy immediately after they had a shower in the kitchen sink. One is silver bells ivy, the other is jubilee ivy.

I can’t tell you which is which but I like ivy, and I especially like these two varieties because they have great names and are easy to grow.

That, my friends, is a win-win.

May you heart be like holly and your words be like ivy.

[An Irish blessing, not sure if I got it quite right, but you get the idea.]

Anyhoo, the real reason I’m in a great mood today is that once again I’m waiting for St. Vincent de Paul to get here to pick-up some furniture that we’re donating to them.

Everything but the kitchen sink.

[A nice idiom that lends itself to this post.]

Slowly, ever so slowly, we are divesting ourselves of that which we don’t need but someone else can use.

Another win-win, I believe.

Thus I’ll end this jotting-style post in which I prove that I can and will show up on Tuesdays. Because unlike most of the peoples I know, I like Tuesdays.

Having been born on one.

Tuesday’s child is full of grace.

[A childhood poem, one line remembered.]

So be it with me. What’s up with you?

Thou Shalt Not Doubt: Overheard While Picking Up Chinese Carry-out

/ Ally Bean / 102 Comments

Zen-Den overheard this conversation and it was funny so naturally I have to share it here. 

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Our local Chinese restaurant does a decent carry-out.  The food is hot, fresh, and vaguely Chinese.  Z-D sometimes stops there to get us dinner.

The owner of this restaurant is Chinese and is not one to mince words.  He has a business to run, and his grasp of the English language is exactly what he needs to know so that he can communicate directly and loudly with his suburban patrons.

In other words, no chit-chat.

In fact, when you call in your order instead of the traditional time-consuming “hello” that you might expect to hear, the owner answers the phone with a snappy: “WHAT YOU WANT?”

At this point you, the caller, tell him your order.  He then shouts at you what time your order will be ready for pick-up and hangs up the phone.

There are no further social pleasantries like “good-bye” or “thank you.”  The call is over, your order is in process.  And now it’s up to you to show up on time and get it.

So last night Z-D was waiting in line to pick up our order when he overheard this conversation between the restaurant owner and the guy in front of Z-D in line who was there to pick up his family’s dinner.  It went like this:

Restaurant Owner: “HERE YOUR FOOD.”

Guy Picking Up Dinner: “That’s mine?”

Restaurant Owner: “YES.”

Guy Picking Up Dinner: “Are you sure? My wife ordered all that?”

Restaurant Owner: “SHE TALK. I WRITE. THAT HOW IT WORK.”

Guy Picking Up Dinner: “Hmmm… seems like a lot… I dunno…”

Restaurant Owner: “NOW YOU PAY.”

Guy Picking Up Dinner: “Well, ‘ya, that sounds about right. How much?”

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Question of the Day
What’s the best | funniest | weirdest thing you’ve overheard someone say? Everyone has overheard something so ‘Fess up in the comments below.  
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The One About Beautiful Wedding Photos & Sneaky Weasel Words

/ Ally Bean / 115 Comments
Here’s a story I heard from an acquaintance wherein weasel* words created a situation that is not dire, but truly annoying. See if you don’t agree.

Photo by Pexels via pixabay

Acquaintance’s mother recently married.

Acquaintance’s mother had a lovely, perfect wedding that included hiring a well-known local professional photographer to take photos.

Beautiful photos.  Many of them.

But here’s the thing, what acquaintance’s mother did not read [or understand?] in her contract was that this photographer would not use his expertise to discern which photos were the best ones, instead giving acquaintance’s mother the opportunity to see all the photos he took of the wedding.

In practical terms this means that acquaintance’s mother has a problem.

She is now forced to sort through 3,000 photos and decide which ones she wants to keep and have put in an album.  In many cases there are 20 or 30 photos of the same thing like a bouquet… or of acquaintance zipping up her mother’s dress… or of the cake from a gazillion angles.

As you can imagine this sorting process has become a tedious burden for acquaintance’s mother.  It’s overwhelming and is an unwanted game for acquaintance’s mother as she tries to figure out which photos are the best ones.

Acquaintance’s mother is flummoxed by this situation.

It’s not as if she has the time, or the eye, to fuss around with three thousand wedding photos that she’s has contracted for, assuming the photographer would narrow down her choices.

Acquaintance has offered to help her mother, but she can’t intuit which photos her mother and new stepfather will want, nor can she wrap her head around how this happened.

Can you imagine…?  What would you do with 3,000 photos of your wedding day?  

* Oddly enough this has turned into animal week here at The Spectacled Bean.  First ducks, then squirrel, now weasel.  I didn’t plan it this way but go where the road stories take you, I guess.

If A Butterfly Flaps Its Wings In August, Do We Get A Polar Vortex In January?

/ Ally Bean / 125 Comments

Look closely.  The above is a photo of a butterfly landing on salvia.  I took it, while standing on our stone path by the side of the house, last August.

Seeing the butterfly then made me happy because I’m working on turning one quadrant of our garden, by the stone path, into a butterfly habitat.  So far, this is a project in its infancy having attracted only a few butterflies.

But I have dreams. Big Butterfly Habitat Dreams.

And now, not to put too fine a point on it, I have a cheerful photo, perfect for sharing here today, whilst we’re in the midst of the Polar Vortex.

People, it is cold outside.

Yesterday it was 7ºF in the early morning and I thought that was cold.  I had to go to the doc’s office for routine blood work so I bundled up and navigated the plowed, but still slippery, streets to get there.

It was an interesting drive.

Today, at the same time in the morning, it’s -3ºF outside and I’m going nowhere.  Nowhere I say.  Yep, I’m staying at home inside, being the reasonably prudent slacker that I am at heart.

Why?  Because I can [the obvious flippant answer that we all know and love].

And because you, my gentle readers, are out there in the world wide web, waiting, I hope, to comment on this post so that I have something meaningful to do with my time today.

What up, kids? Life treating you well?