The Husband

Visiting The Oldsters

/ Ally Bean / 7 Comments

Over Father’s Day weekend we went to visit my in-laws, aka the Oldsters.  They live a good four-hour drive from us and are 80 years old, more [FIL] or less [MIL].  This weekend reminded me of many things that I’d long forgotten about.

•  We drove in Z-D’s SUV which is eleven years old.  It has no place for an iPod, with a broken CD player, and a radio that works when we’re near signals, but not in the empty spaces we were driving through this weekend.  We turned off our cell phones and sat together in silence only broken by our conversation.  It was wonderful to be totally detached from noise.

•  I didn’t feel like reading– roads too bumpy, sunshine too intermittent thanks to lots of trees blocking it.  So I looked out the window to see what I could see.  It’s been a very long time since I just watched the world go by– cows, barns, farms, and exits with fast food establishments and gas stations.  It was relaxing to be out of the city and just existing as we drove along. 

•  The Oldsters were happy to see us.  We had lunch at their house [chicken salad sammies, natch] then went shopping for a wedding present that we were buying together.  BB&B fascinated them with all its stuff– and the price tag of said stuff.  It was fun to watch them be amazed by the beautiful things that the world has to offer now.

•  We left the house at 3:30 pm so that we might get to dinner at 4:00 pm!  This was to ensure that we’d be back home and safely within the house before 6:00 pm when FIL’s fav tv shows are on.  The small restaurant we went to had delicious, old-fashioned style food– ham loaf, smothered chicken, basic cole slaw.  It also had the smallest wine & beer list I’ve seen in years, so Z-D and I had a glass of the only Cabernet Sauvignon on the menu– which was delicious.  It was fascinating to be somewhere with so few choices and such good quality.

•  We got back to the house in time to watch Sanford & Son and All In The Family.  I hadn’t seen either of those shows in– well, decades.  And while the former is very dated and tedious, most of the humor in the latter has held the test of time.  It was entertaining [and a bit sad] to see FIL laugh with Archie about the way things should be. 

•  We left mid-morning on Sunday.  The Oldsters had turned on the Weather Channel at 7:00 am to check what might be in store for us on the drive home.  Once they saw that there were thunderstorms on the way, they became agitated about us getting on the road ahead of the rain.  In their world, driving in the rain is very bad and risky.  Z-D pointed out that we have a SUV with 4 wheel drive, but they were having none of that nonsense!  So we packed up and hit the road.  It was interesting for us who live entirely apart from any family to experience a bit of “parenting.”

•  Driving home in silence, just watching the road go by, I saw a sign for a small town called “Belleville.”  I know nothing about this particular town, but in a snap my empty mind filled with the images of and the theme song from a delightful movie called: “The Triplets of Belleville.”  It was a pleasant, but unexpected, ending to a visit that went quite well– and brought back to me memories of times gone by.  

[for your entertainment…]

And Then He Said…

/ Ally Bean / 4 Comments

“I’ve found that with email it takes people longer to get back to you, or ignore you, than you think it will.”

~ Zen-Den

Well.  Okay.  You’re right.  But I don’t have to like it– now do I?

And how am I supposed to know if they’re just pokey little puppies about returning my emails?  Or if they’re really ignoring me?  Hmmm?  Answer me that one, He-who-talks-in-koans.

<sound of me muttering while stomping out of the room>

*humph*

[The WP spell checker just told me that “humph” isn’t a word, but “Humph” is a word.  And I just reset the spell checker to always accept a lower case “humph” as a word.  Doesn’t WP know that not all situations call for a capital letter “Humph”?  Honestly, who creates these spell check thingies?]

Shopping For Furniture

/ Ally Bean / 9 Comments

A brief overview…

We wanted to buy two comfy chairs and an ottoman for an upstairs bedroom that we’re turning into what I call a sitting room– or as Zen-Den refers to it, the un-bedroom.  [The man is very literal.]

Because the bedroom is up the stairs, around a corner, and has a small doorway, the size of the chairs was our primary concern.

After much… much… much searching online and on foot, we ended up with three possible chairs that would fit into the room.  One was at Crate & Barrel.  The other two were at Ethan Allen.

The Top Five Reasons Why We Bought Our New Furniture At Crate & Barrel… And Not At Ethan Allen 

Number 5 –  Crate & Barrel was less expensive than Ethan Allen.  Not by much, but a little bit.

Number 4 – Crate & Barrel had a better selection of fabric than Ethan Allen.  Fewer choices, but more current colors.

Number 3 – Crate & Barrel allowed us (encouraged us, even) to take fabric samples home so that we could see how our chairs/ottoman would look in all kinds of light, night and day, in our house.  Ethan Allen wouldn’t let us have even one sample to take home and required us to make an appointment with one of their designers who would bring the fabric samples to our house for one hour; during which time we were to decide which fabric to use on our furniture.

Number 2 – Crate & Barrel sales associates were knowledgeable about the furniture on the sales floor as well as all the items online and in their catalogues.  Our request to see certain chairs that I’d researched online before going to the store confused the Ethan Allen designers;  they couldn’t find one of the two chairs on the sales floor (or in their catalogue) to show us.

Number 1 – Crate & Barrel sales associates were friendly, hip, and encouraging with lots of good decorating ideas.  Ethan Allen designers were uptight and high-handed.  They seemed weirdly disinterested in selling furniture to us– or anyone else in the store, for that matter.  So, we walked out the door and didn’t go back.

[Hello FTC!  I know that posts like this worry you, so let me assure you that I/we have received no money or other compensation for the above endorsements.  This is just my take on what happened to us when we went shopping in these stores in our city.  Feeling less worried now FTC?  Good.] 

In Which We Learn A Bit More About The Beans

/ Ally Bean / 9 Comments

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I took the Right Brain vs Left Brain Creativity Test.  It was straightforward.  No right or wrong answers.  A fun kind of test.

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It said that I am 52% Right Brain and 48% Left Brain.  My most dominant Right Brain characteristics are Fantasy-oriented & Intuitive.  My most dominant Left Brain characteristics are Verbal & Linear.

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Does this mean that I’m well-balanced?  Or does this mean that I’m equally mediocre on each side of my brain– not being able to excel in one direction or the other?

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Being more Right Brain than Left Brain means that I am a creative thinker who visualizes the “whole” picture first, uses what appears to be illogical and meandering thought processes, yet finds an innovative solution to the problems at hand.

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Yep, that’s me.

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Zen-Den took the test.  He is 56% Left Brain and 44% Right Brain.  His most dominant Left Brain characteristic is Verbal– just like me.  His second most dominant Right Brain characteristic is Fantasy-oriented– just like me.

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 I’m guessing that it is the overlap of the same strong dominant characteristics that makes us so compatible.  ‘Cause on the surface we are very different.

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He is described as a critical thinker who uses logic to collect information, sees only parts of the “whole” picture, which he puts together in a step-by-step systematic manner to arrive at the conclusion.

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Yep, that’s the hubster.

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The results of this test were surprisingly accurate.  It confirmed what we knew about ourselves and helped us understand what we didn’t realize about ourselves.  Very interesting.

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If you get a chance to take the test (allow 10 minutes), let me know what you think about your results.  Do they describe you, or not?

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[Please note: the italicized portions of this post represent my summary of the test’s conclusions using mostly their words.  I’m too lazy to punctuate properly today.]