Of Presidential Candidates & Contenders: What’s The Use In Jiving?

September 17, 2015 / Ally Bean / 20 Comments

{ Subtitled: Your Story’s So Touching, But It Sounds Like A Lie }

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Please note, I didn’t watch last night’s presidential wannabes debate tedious issues + character failings among themselves. I get nothing from such events. They are a waste of my time.

Next September after each political party decides who’ll be the candidate, then I’ll pay attention to her or him.

But in the meantime, I don’t want to be accused of encouraging any of these babbling, narcissistic, argumentative individuals with delusions of presidential grandeur by watching them.

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In fact, my suggestion would be that instead of televising these ~~dog and pony shows~~ debates, the TV stations would do better to play endless versions of the 1940s hit song, Straighten Up and Fly Right, written by Nat Cole and Irving Mills.

The lyrics of this tune summarize all that there is to be learned from the real presidential wannabe debates. Or at least it seems that way to me, an Independent voter with limited patience for political shenanigans.

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Kindness Deconstructed, A Fun With Foibles Post

August 20, 2015March 31, 2017 / Ally Bean / 30 Comments

John the CincyZooLion is not pleased that Ally Bean was dissed. *growl*

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I’VE ALWAYS OPERATED UNDER THE ASSUMPTION that kindness is a good thing.

This, of course, is a simplistic point of view. One that along the way has gotten me into more trouble than you might imagine, allowing me to perfect my eye-rolling technique.

From what I can tell, if someone, for some reason, does not believe that they deserve kindness, then anyone who shows them kindness becomes a problem.

And it’s time for a squabble.

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TO WIT, LOOKING OUT MY WINDOW I remembered that a former neighbor here in the midwest, who now lives on the other side of the country, used to love this time of year.

So, spontaneously, without any expectation of reciprocity, I sent her a fast, sincere thinking-of-you email.

A random act of kindness.

A note saying someone cares about you.

A positive little message.

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WITHIN THE HOUR SHE WAS ON the phone, not calling to thank me, but to tell me how bad she felt about herself after receiving my kind email.

That I made her feel like a failure because she never thought to send anyone a thinking-of-you email.

And why did I bother with this email, anyhow? Was I trying to make her feel guilty?

What was my real motivation?

And my only response, which was the truth but it seemed to irritate her, was that I was thinking. of. her. She liked this time of year in the midwest and I remembered that.

I was just saying “hello.” Nothing more.

*eye roll*

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WHILE THE GOLDEN RULE MAKES SENSE to me, I’ve come to discover that occasionally doing unto others what you would want for yourself, can lead to resentment among others.

Somehow, it would seem that some people with low self-esteem, or perhaps the inability to understand generosity of spirit, misinterpret kindness to mean manipulation.

Or showing off.

Or sanctitude.

Or, I guess, some other off-putting behavior, sneaky and weird, that doesn’t say friendship to them.

Meaning that, if you’re primed to believe that the golden rule is suspect behavior, then my kind email marked me immediately as an untrustworthy human being.

Twisted logic, huh? Go figure.

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“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”

~ SIMONE WEIL

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A Camellia In My Hair. If Only It Was That Simple.

August 11, 2015August 11, 2015 / Ally Bean / 36 Comments

Click here for more style advice.

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I am a hypocrite.

If you choose to walk away from this blog and never read another thing here, I understand. No one wants to follow a hypocrite.

Even a sincere, idealistic, middle-aged poser such as myself.

You see, for YEARS I’ve said to anyone who’d listen, that when the time came, when the moment arrived, when faced with THE DECISION, I’d go forward.

Boldly.

Into the unknown with head held high.

I would not weasel out of the truth by using chemical substances to cover the obvious. I would allow myself to go gray.

Naturally.

But last week, while getting my hair highlighted and cut, my stylist asked me, WITHOUT SO MUCH AS ONE WORD OF WARNING, if I was ready to go gray now.

She told me that underneath the two-tone highlights for which I pay a fortune, my natural hair color is 50% gray. Meaning that if I wanted to, I could stop the highlights, save money and go gray.

But without one moment of thought, throwing aside all my highfalutin talk about aging gracefully, I shouted: NO. I WANT TO BE BLONDE.

Make me blonde, please.

And so it came to be that my hypocritical nature came to light. Loud & clear. And I walked away from the salon with silvery golden blonde hair.

My Unhappy Story Of Flying Trapped Inside A MRI With Wings

June 25, 2015June 25, 2015 / Ally Bean / 37 Comments

Seating chart for MRI with wings.

While on vacation last weekend, I spent one leg of my travels on a flight from hell, trapped inside a MRI with wings. This would be a plane that is known to aviators as a Bombardier CRJ 200.

This airplane, while not the smallest one I’ve ever flown on, was the worst flying MRI I’ve experienced because– and I hope that I’m not going to get too technical here— THERE WAS NO AIR CONDITIONING AS WE WAITED AT THE GATE AND THEN ON THE TARMAC FOR TAKEOFF… ON A HOT SUMMER DAY… AT MIDDAY.

I’d love to tell you what airline I was on, but I’m not sure. It was some pokey little airline, doing business under some obscure name, for some larger, formerly independent, airline recently acquired by some huge US airline.

In other words, the usual inane flying experience that I’ve come to know, pay exorbitant amounts of money for and loathe.

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As fate would have it two things occurred simultaneously while I was on this flight from hell trapped inside a MRI with wings.

First of all, I had a hot flash.

To be clear, that would be my body spontaneously increasing its core temperature while I was sitting in the middle of the airplane, Seat 7C, where the ambient room temperature was close to 100ºF.

Trapped, I was.

And so far beyond toasty that I could barely keep conscious. I could see my vision begin to tunnel– and I knew that I would faint, unless I thought of something fast.

So I shut my eyes, let my head droop and begin to remember how cold and bleak it was on our screened-in porch in February, when I’d step out there for a bit of fresh air, mid-afternoon, with my mug of hot tea.

Oddly enough this mental distraction kept me from passing out and it gave me an opportunity to decide that, if I lived to tell the story, I’d call out the airline on this unconscionable, unhealthy, inhumane, ridiculous, shameful, cheap-ass behavior.

Didn’t their mothers teach these airline PTB to not treat other human beings as chattel? Hmmm?

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Actual MRI, similar to Bombardier CJR 200.

This would be the end of the story if it weren’t for the man next to me on the flying MRI with wings from hell who was an employee of one of the airlines that was part of the afore-mentioned cluster.

And he was taking notes. Lots of them.

For real.

And he was telling me EVERYTHING that this flight crew was doing that was wrong, that was illegal according to FAA standards, and that was just plain stupid.

So despite being the most physically and emotionally uncomfortable I’ve been on an airplane in decades, I had the pleasure of knowing that this flight crew, a bunch of yahoos who really should be ashamed of themselves, were going to get in trouble.

AS IN FAILING TO PASS INSPECTION. JOBS ON THE LINE. HELLO REVIEW BOARD [I CAN ONLY HOPE].

It is because of this note-taking man that I can look back on this flight as a learning experience for the crew as well as for me. To wit, I will never, ever in a hundred years set foot inside a Bombardier CRJ 200 again.

And if you know what’s good for you, you won’t either.