Look At That: Learning About Cicadas, Laughing About A Credit Card

June 17, 2025July 2, 2025 / Ally Bean / 232 Comments

The Educational Cicada Part – EEK!

SINCE MID-MAY WE’VE BEEN experiencing Cicada Brood 14 here. Cicadas are insects that emerge into the world on a 17 year cycle. It is their year to show up for 4 to 6 weeks then die.

Cicadas, who have beady orangish red eyes, come up out of the ground and climb on/cling to surfaces that have texture, like trees and bricks and screens. They are everywhere outside the house and when clinging to window screens they appear to be watching you inside.

Not creepy at all. 😳

• • •

WE ARE PEOPLE WHOSE backyard is a woods, thus the arrival of Brood 14 has not been a joyful experience.

I cannot confirm how joyful the cicadas may or may not be, but from their dramatic random flitting about during daylight hours I’d guess they’re happy enough. After all they are here to do one thing: to ~~engage in amorous congress~~ mate.

After mating the adults lay their eggs and the cicada babies (nymphs) hatch in 6 to 10 weeks. Then the nymphs will burrow into the ground where they’ll live until 17 years hence when they emerge.

While cicadas don’t swarm or sting or bite anything or anyone, they are noisy. As in daily highs of 80 decibels [the sound of a lawnmower] to 120 decibels [the sound of a motorcycle revving]. This is what the newspaper told me and I believe it.

It is deafening.

• • •

HOWEVER HERE’S THE THING about these intrusive bugs. Remember when we got the new deck and I spent about a year deciding which color of Trex to use so that the deck would look natural as if it was made from real wood from the trees in the forest primeval behind us?

Well apparently I succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. Come to find out Coastal Bluff, the color of our deck, is such a dead ringer for the tree trunks that cicadas love it.

In fact they find it the perfect place to hang out and do their aforementioned thing— then ~~join the choir invisible~~ drop dead.

All day long.

The Amusing Credit Card Part – WTF!

The other day Z-D walked down to the mailbox, dodging cicadas, and came back into the house laughing while holding up a Visa card. I didn’t understand what was going on because we don’t have Visa.

Welp, come to find out the large company he used to work for, the one he formally retired from in the fall of 2022, had sent him a corporate business credit card with a limit of $15,000.00!

Obviously this was a test of good moral character. 🙄

My first thought was, and try not to think less of me when I say this, a vacation in Hawaii would be nice. Or how about going to London, England, for a week? Yep, we could make good use of that credit card.

BUT WE DIDN’T.

Instead Z-D immediately emailed his former boss letting him know what he had in his hand, asking for guidance about what to do with it.

And eventually, about two weeks later, Zen-Den received a snail mail letter from large company that said [of course] don’t use it and destroy it immediately because there’s been a mistake!

‘Ya think?!!

• 🧡 •

Now it’s your turn to spill the beans.

**What’s bugging you in your world today?**

**If a surprise $15,000.00 landed in your hands, through no malfeasance of your own, what would you think about doing with it?**

Tell all in the comments below.

• 💵 •

What To Do, What To Do? A Simple Way To Make A Decision + Kate’s Five Things

June 3, 2025July 1, 2025 / Ally Bean / 239 Comments

I’ve heard it said that when you need to make a decision and you find yourself stumped about what to do, your answer will become clear by asking yourself: what would make my 7 y.o. self proud and my 80 y.o. self grateful?

Today I’m asking myself this proud/grateful question because on the surface of it I have nothing to write about. Not that I don’t do things, but what I do to stay busy isn’t necessarily interesting to anyone else, me thinks.

I mean, I got a new prescription for my glasses & I planted some zinnia seeds & I discovered that a snazzy new-to-the-area convenience store, Sheetz, carries my favorite difficult-to-find candy bar, Zagnut. Thus I am seeing clearly & hoping for some late summer blooms & grooving on yumminess.

I’m happy, my bliss is buzzing as they say, but I can’t help but pondering: shouldn’t there be more to this blog post than a few random glimpses into my daily life?

And you know what?

Both my 7 y.o. self and my 80 y.o. self say YES!

Thus I’m answering Kate’s Five Things questions. They are a weekly feature on House Call WITH KATE ARENDS who you may know from her blog Wit & Delight.

Her questions + my answers are as follows:

• When did you feel most at home this week?

Answer: in the kitchen while I made a new delicious recipe, Raspberry-Ricotta Cake. I enjoy baking and I enjoy bouncing around in the kitchen creating a mess while following, but also tweaking, recipes. [I added 1/4th teaspoon lemon extract to bring out the berry’s citrus flavor.]

• Where are you moving forward?

Answer: in the last few months I’ve come to appreciate how organized I’ve become since March 2020, the official beginning of the Covid-19 Pandemic. Not that we were living in chaos before but I’ve come to realize that I didn’t know what we had + where it was, and this was causing me to feel a low level of anxiety. Now I feel more in control, proactive, rather than at loose ends, reactive.

• Where are you stuck?

Answer: I’m not a person who enjoys learning about technology. Recently I moved from an iPhone 8 to an iPhone 16. I’ve become overwhelmed and bothered by its newness: too many different ways of doing what I used to know how to do + too many new computer-y fiddly bits, none of which I asked for, that I now must contend with.

• What did you consume that was regenerative?

Answer: I read The Cat Who Saved Books by Japanese author Sōsuke Natsukawa. It’s a short novel, a fable, about the positive power of books and the types of people who disabuse this power. The protagonist, a lonely teenage boy, follows a cat into different realms to [you guessed it] save books. It’s a charming tale, insightful, gently pointing out flaws in human nature.

• What question are you asking?

Answer: Does this matter? And if so, where is the story?

~ 🤓 ~

QUESTIONS OF THE DAY

What have you done recently that would make your 7 y.o. self proud and your 80 y.o. self grateful?

Currently, in general, how organized do you feel you are? Is being organized a goal for you?

When thinking about books you have consumed [read], which one or ones has/have helped you feel regenerated, revitalized, ready to take on life anew?

What is your favorite candy bar? What is your favorite cake?

~ ~ 😋 ~ ~

Love Many, Trust Few: 7 Random Things To Tell You On A Tuesday In May

May 6, 2025May 6, 2025 / Ally Bean / 246 Comments

As they say: Love many, Trust few, Always paddle your own canoe

1 – I am vexed. I was a fan of Tetris when it first came out, became pretty darned good at it on my Game Boy, so when I stumbled over 368 Chickens I was enthusiastic. But this free little online game is impossible to win and I resent this. I keep trying to get to the goal, zero chickens, but consistently fail. Apparently this game, like many things in life, is designed to frustrate more than empower.

2 – I am laughing. I’ve wondered about the origins of Pantone, the company that decides which colors are THE ones we’ll be seeing and wearing everywhere during a year. Here’s an infographic explaining the company’s history plus adds a few suggestions for *revised* color names. For example, I adore a shade of blue renamed from Classic Blue to Postman’s Trouser. A better name, yes?

3 – I am unsettled. I used BookRaid AI’s Title Generator, followed by their Pen Name Generator, then their Book Plot Generator to see what artificial intelligence would tell me about writing a fiction book. The experience was unnerving because the suggestions were almost instantaneous, the ideas weren’t bad, and the plot was believable enough.

Thus a head’s up: if you see Violet Whitley’s children’s book called Paws and Claws: Unraveling the Mystery of the Wall Destroyer, A Story about Mittens and Whiskers, Feline Detectives, you’ll know it was *written* by me.

4 – I am excited. On my radar is the May 8th return of the TV series, Poker Face. Starring Natasha Lyonne as detective Charlie Cale this show’s first season was wonderful and that’s no bull shit. It’s well-paced, quirky, and off-the-wall in a good way, just the kind of entertainment to keep me upbeat.

5 – I am nerdy. I find typography interesting and enjoy punctuation so when Zen-Den saw a copy of AN ADMIRABLE POINT, A Brief History of the Exclamation Point! he bought it for me. [Thank you Zen-Den.] The book describes itself as reclaiming “the exclamation point from its much-maligned place at the bottom of the punctuation hierarchy.” Reading along in this witty little book I have to admit that I’m now a recovering punctuation snob who will henceforth adopt a more respectful attitude toward exclamation points!!!

6 – I am amused. According to the results of an online survey sometimes grandparents do not like their grandchildren’s names feeling the names are “ugly, old-fashioned, weird.” This can be problematic. The top hated names are Aurora, Charlotte, Elijah, Finn, Jack, Lindsay, Noah, Sally, and Tabitha.

For what it’s worth as a child-free woman I like those names and have never taken issue with my friends’ kids’ names. Although I have wondered [quietly to myself] about unusual spellings of names: a Candace spelled Candyce OR a Dana spelled Dhana. Seems like you’re burdening your child with a lifetime of correcting everyone about how to spell their first name.

7 – I am contemplative. Years ago, as an adjunct to determining what I am grateful for at the end of each day, I began answering the question: what have I learned today? I ask myself this question every night, sometimes surprised by my answers. I do this because I find that framing my life as an ongoing learning experience prompts me to keep engaged in life itself.

QUESTIONS OF THE DAY

Have you ever played Tetris? Have you watched Poker Face? How do you goof off in your free time?

Do you believe, like I do, that the naming of colors is a career you were meant for but never found?

Does the mere existence of AI make you mutter and start to get twitchy?

Thinking about children’s names, have you ever disliked a child’s name so much that you voiced an opinion about it? How did that work out for ‘ya?

What have you learned today?

• + • + • + •

The One About Affirmations & Allergies & Assertiveness, Oh My!

April 2, 2025 / Ally Bean / 211 Comments

The Affirmation Part

As I’m sure you realize, my little cherry blossoms of joy, there’s a difference between quotes and affirmations.

Quotes are thoughts said by someone. Ideally a quote, when properly sourced, is from an authority— maybe a person like a novelist or poet or songwriter OR from a well-known book or movie or TV show. When examined in their context quotes add depth to your thinking, speaking, writing.

Affirmations on the other hand are sayings that provide generic emotional support or encouragement. They tend to be popular ideas, often reflecting the existential angst of the era in which the affirmation originates. While an affirmation may be motivating for one person, it could just as easily be dismissed as poppycock by another person.

So keeping the foregoing in mind I share an affirmation that dropped into my sneezy life as I was scrolling along the interwebs. It stopped me long enough for me to muse upon its meaning | wisdom | value.

And how it could be a reflection of the times in which we live. The need to feel some control over something is powerful in the best of times and doubly so in our socially-mediated times. Maybe more so than in the past.

N’est-ce pas?

The Allergy Part

Without a second thought I can tell you the 3 months I like the best: October [at the top] – May – January. Then there are six other months I’m indifferent to, followed by the 3 months I dislike the most: February – August – April [at the bottom].

I apologize to people with April birthdays and wedding anniversaries, but for me April is a lousy month. This is because of ALLERGIES.

You see, I suffer from what the allergy doctors refer to as Rose Fever, the springtime equivalent to late summer’s Hay Fever [which I also suffer from]. While Hay Fever makes me tired, Rose Fever makes me irritable & leaves me feeling churlish.

It aggravates me in ways that fuel my natural penchant for being snarky, which I admit may work to my benefit. People tell me it’s my sassiness that draws them to this blog.

Thus this is where I find myself today, a woman muttering about her drippy nose, eyes that won’t focus, itchy skin, a mild never-ending headache, and the ability to sneeze loudly enough to startle Z-D when I’m downstairs and he’s upstairs on the other side of the house.

True story, really happened!

The Assertiveness Part

While researching something unrelated to that which follows I stumbled over another interesting online test that I had to take. I have a thing for them and from what I can tell so do my bloggy friends.

I realize I’ve been known to say that I believe life is one big ole test with a few pop quizzes along the way. I was being figurative but maybe for me it’s a literal thing.

Anyhoo I took the simple + fast Psychology Today’s Assertiveness Test that helps you determine how confident | bold | decisive you are.

From my results I learned that on a scale of 0 to 100 I rate 73. This puts me in the Somewhat Assertive range which means I’m an “effective communicator” who respects other people.

It also confirmed that I know that my “thoughts and feelings have value.”

Since becoming an adult I doubt there has rarely been a time when I didn’t know that my thoughts and feelings had value, but it’s good to have outside confirmation.

I guess…