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I Can’t Not See The Words On My Arms

Tie o’ the Day displays a colorful gaggle of Santa-hatted hot peppers. I would be generous and give this tie to Gary of the Hot Condiments if I thought he would ever wear a tie, but he won’t. So I won’t. My Shirt o’ the Day is full of Christmas gnomes, although this photo doesn’t display them well. I will wear it again soon in a different pose, so you can see the gnome clan. Wearing gnomes makes me want to come up with a joke whose punchline is punny, like “gnomenclature.” I’ll get right on that assignment.

I’ve topped off today’s attire with my gingerbread people sun hat. My kindness and empathy tats go with every outfit, whether they are visible or not. They are never out of style, if you use them. This time of year, we always talk bigly about kindness, empathy, compassion, and peace. But there are people who are in need of these things every day of the year—not just on holidays. I think we should make it a habit to put these ideas to work every day, whenever we see the need. I know I’m blessed with what these words mean. Are you? I think it’s our responsibility to share our blessings with those who are deprived of the love and security we might have plenty of. We can offer friendship to the lonely and despondent. Just look around, and you will see need. We can make an impact on the suffering of others—one person or one family at a time. I guarantee you there is need in your own neighborhood right now, if you will pay attention.

Today’s Banned Book I’ve been re-reading: John Steinbeck’s EAST OF EDEN. This is what I consider to be the first intensely grown-up novel I had ever read, probably when I was in 6th grade. It was also the longest book I had read up to that point. I had heard of John Steinbeck’s OF MICE AND MEN (which has itself been banned at times from some school districts’ bookshelves) but I hadn’t read it yet. On a trip with Mom, to the University Mall in Orem, this was the only John Steinbeck book I managed to find in a bookstore. EAST OF EDEN is, in essence, a re-telling of the Old Testament stories of the Garden of Eden, and Cain and Abel. (Remember, this Steinbeck book is where I also got the name Abra for my Maverick.) In EAST OF EDEN, I learned a word that I have thought of almost every day of my life since I read the book: timshel. Timshel is a Hebrew word meaning the freedom to chose between good and evil. It loosely translates as “thou mayest choose.” The word has been a kind of North Star for me over the decades. No matter the situation—the problem, the failure, the disappointment, the success, the reward, the triumph, the whatever—it is always up to me to make the choice between acting for good (which I’ll call love) or acting for evil (which I’ll call hate). I alone determine what kind of person I am, what kind of actions and vibrations I add to the world. With each bigly or tiny choice I make, I make myself in my own image. I hope the image turns out to be a noble one.

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Just The Facts, Ma’am

I am a lover of facts. Even if I don’t like the facts, I like knowing them because they are the truth. I am no denier of a public health crisis, the safety of vaccines, US election results, or of where a certain US president was born. One thing I have found myself to be denying recently is the season of the year in which we all find ourselves: Fall. I have caught myself denying that summer is gone. It doesn’t make it true, but I’ll be stubborn about staying in my denial for as long as I want. If I turn up the heater to its highest temperature, being warm in shorts is not a problem. I can easily spend time denying summer is truly gone—as long as I don’t look outside or go outside. But I am fully aware of the fact that my denial of Fall is my own fake denial. There’s reality, and then there’s the reality of my pretending. Reality and pretending: folks, they are two very different things. I’m still festively attired for Christmas, but my Tie o’ the Day tells you what I’d prefer to be shoveling. Please note my socks are labeled: Sock 1 and Sock 2. 🏖

Banned Books I’m re-reading today: Lorraine Hansberry’s play, A RAISIN IN THE SUN, and Maya Angelou’s novel, I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS. I give ’em each a thumbs-up, just like I did when I first read them in the DHS library when I was in 7th grade. However, I do want to make one general statement about I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS. I think we should worry less about banning this book, in which a child is raped—and has to deal with the awful aftermath of the rape. I think our time would be better spent educating our sons about how rape is always wrong, and about how rape not only causes physical damage to a girl’s/woman’s body, it can maim—and even kill—parts of a woman’s soul. We can make it clear to all the men in our lives that rape is unacceptable. Rape is what we should try to ban. If rape were not such a common atrocity for girls/women in real life, it wouldn’t be represented so often in the stories written about women—fact and fiction. And BTW, guys: there is no “joke” about rape that is funny. Personally, I grew tired of those jokes the first time I heard one.

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Two More Things About This Past Weekend

Although my dad died 15 years ago on Dec. 4th, yesterday is also a happily significant date in our family because my grandnephew, Bosten, was born on this date a few years before Dad’s passing—so the two of them got to pal around with each other often. So Merry Birthday, Bos! I will not state Bosten’s age here, because it makes his mom, Kathi, feel too, too old. I will say that Bosten is still in high school, so that gives those of you outside the family a clue about how many trips he’s made around the sun. When Bosten’s sister, Ronni, was born a few months after Dad passed, her parents named her after Dad. When Ronni learned to talk, and the topic of Dad came up, she was adamant that she had spent time with him and knew exactly who he was. I don’t doubt it one bit.

Also, yesterday, I “decorated” the pantry for Christmas. It was easy. I simply put the green Folgers (decaffed) coffee right next to the red Folgers (caffed) coffee. Bite Me Tie o’ the Day was a bigly help to me in that never-did-it-before decorating job. 👔

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Various Musings About My Weekend

I got bored with figuring out the nonsensical sets of instructions for the bookcase and the end table I needed to put together, so I simply scheduled a visit from a tasker on TaskRabbit. Someone named Leah showed up Sunday afternoon, and in less than an hour, Leah had assembled both pieces of furniture—while Suzanne and I sat on our butts and streamed the latest episode of Dateline. That’s Leah in the background of the photo, assembling my end table on the kitchen island. Notice I didn’t Christmas-up my Bow Tie o’ the Day or any of my other attire for her visit. I have found it is best to not weird-out visitors at our house on their first visit. If Leah comes back to task for us in the future, I will surely pull out all the clash fashion stops. I will dress as myself.

Sunday marked 15 years since my Dad’s death. I woke up thinking of Dad hunting coyotes every morning before showing up at the counter at Top’s Cafe for his morning cup o’ coffee. I quickly made a playlist of songs Dad liked and sent it to my siblings. The playlist was full of only country music, of course.

On a less serious side, Saturday I watched a vet show on Animal Planet. A pig was being treated for something-or-other. It was kinda cute, in a muddy-fat-pig sort of way, but I was dismayed that the poor critter had a forgettable name—which I have forgotten. But it got me to pondering about what name I would come up with as a more interesting name for a pig. I went right to Hamilton or Hamlet. Or Piggy Lee. But I also like Sir Francis Bacon for a pig name. Or maybe I’d go simple and just name my pig Kevin, as in Kevin Bacon.

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It Flies, It Soars, And So Much Of It Is Already Gone

I chose a pine-cone-and-berry Bow Tie o’ the Day, and coupled it with my dogs-and-cats-in-Santa-hats Shirt o’ the Day. Don’t miss the peppermint stick stripes of the Pocket Square o’ the Day. And note the glittery, gold reindeer antlers head band I was able to set atop my Hat o’ the Day: my beloved fedora I’ve had since 1984, just before I graduated from WSU. That makes the hat 38 years old. The fedora is still in astoundingly dapper shape both for being that old, and for having been dragged across the country to live with me in Virginia, then Maryland, and then back to Utah again—where I and my fedora have lived now for 22 consecutive years.

Time does fly. I feel it fly more quickly now that I can see the end of my mortality coming closer. My death used to be statistically so far ahead of me that I rarely considered it. I think about it a little bit more often these days. In fact, I must admit the topic comes into my mind in some way or another almost daily now—especially since my Cranky Hanky Panky has had to have two major surgeries within 3 years. I don’t obsess over what I hope is my far-in-the-future passing, but there are legal and financial things that need to be put into place, so somebody else doesn’t have to figure out what I would have wanted done. And you know all the material things we spend decades of our lives accumulating? A great deal of that has got to go. I don’t want to leave all that stuff for anybody else to have to deal with when I die, so I am—for the most part—done accumulating. And while I am still walking the earth, I’m now working on passing on things I’ve acquired. It’ll probably take me years to accomplish this feat, but I intend to gift my eclectic and eccentric collections to various people who I think will be most likely to take care of my beloved objects with tenderness, just like I have done while I’ve owned them. I have always tried my best to be mindful of my various and sundry stewardships—stewardships of material stuff, of people and animals in my life, of the rights I have as a citizen of the USA, and of all that I’ve learned and know to be true. I have tried to tend to my beliefs and love my neighbors, always. I’m in a good place in my soul, and death, whenever it comes, is nothing I fear at all. 🎀 🎄

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Seasonal Candy

My new candy discovery for Christmas 2022 is the Reese’s Peanut Brittle Big Cup—King Size. I bought one to try, and it was a yummy surprise. I highly recommend it for anyone with a sweet-tooth who likes peanuts and peanut butter flavor. There’s no actual peanut brittle in this candy bar, but the shell is vaguely the flavor of peanut brittle. It doesn’t matter: the total confection is a tasty change o’ pace for Reese’s fans. Remember, it’s a holiday treat, so it won’t be available for long. Try one, and try it ASAP—while you can still find ’em. By far, the most important thing about the King Size version is that after you’ve eaten both cups, you are left with an empty package that makes a kitschy Bow Tie o’ the Day.

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More About My Ms. Fix-it Tasks

I have some of Dad’s wrinkles, as well as some of Mom’s.

Bow Tie o’ the Day is covered in brass instruments. If it’s Christmas season—and it is—the carolers often need a band.

This morning, my hearing doc was able to jump-start both my hearing aids. Apparently, whenever your phone updates its operating system, if the hearing aid software on the phone hasn’t updated their app yet, it can cause hearing aids to not take orders. It can cause one or both hearing devices to shut down completely. That’s what caused mine to go dead last week. My hearing doc told me this almost never happens. I’ve had my hearing aids and their software on my phone for over 4 years, and this was the first time it’s happened to me. If it ever does happen again, I will know what the problem is, and I now know how to fix it myself. My hearing aid doc told me this morning that he and everybody else in his office would prefer that I come in for any and all adjustments instead of doing them myself— because they like how I brighten up the place, and they love to see my bow ties. Well, okay then.👂🏻

Besides attempting to fix my own hearing aids, and assembling a piece of furniture I desperately need, while lugging the new printer upstairs and the old printer down, I have spent the bulk of my time over the last two days dealing with what I will call Password Problems. It began when one of my email accounts quit receiving email on my laptop. I tinkered with the account on there, but it keeps telling me to clean out my email. When I try to put the old, useless email in the trash, the trash throws it back into the account and I get a message telling me I need to clean out my email. How’s that for a little touch of argument-in-a-circle? However, that same email account of mine works just fine on my phone. So I used my phone to successfully delete tons of that email. But the tried-to-be-trashed email still hangs there in the very same account on the laptop. My computers, laptop, and phone are all connected to that same email account, with the same password. Every email I deleted on my phone got successfully deleted on all devices—except the laptop where it haunts me by remaining un-trashable. The email account on the laptop now says my password is not my password. I can’t prove I’m me, so the online support technicians won’t help me fix the problem. I can’t prove I am I, nor can I prove whoever I am is who owns the email account. And then I discovered my phone no longer let’s me open the DirecTV app on it, because—as the phone tells me—the one and only password I’ve ever had for the DirecTV app is not my password. Good golly! The password dominoes are falling, and I know it’s not a conspiracy. I have no doubt it somehow began when I inadvertently touched a button I did not know I touched, on one or more of the dozen devices in this house. I hope I didn’t kill Alexa. She’s the only one here during the day who talks to me out loud.

Yeah, I’ll get it all figured out. I have not given up on finding a solution to this pesky Password Problem yet, but I am writing this post so I can get away from the irritating tech dramas for a couple of hours. 🎭

TIE O’ THE DAY is beginning an important feature. I read many books at any given time. There are the books in the bathroom, the books by the bed, the books by my side of the loveseat, the books in the loft, the books in the Tie Room, etc. In these anti-arts, anti-science, anti-intellectual, anti-fact, and anti-gospel times, I am making a conscious effort to henceforth be reading at least one “banned” book on any given day, and I will let you know which banned book(s) I am currently reading. Fortunately, it won’t be difficult for me to find plenty of “banned” books to read, since so many magnificent books have been the targets of the Book Busybodies. As for the banned books I have most recently finished, I re-read Russell Banks’ AFFLICTION, as well as James Dickey’s DELIVERANCE. They were thought-provoking reads, but after partaking of those two books, I’ve had my limit of male inner angst and the American male ego, for a while anyway. Today, I’m re-reading the following Banned Book(s) o’ the Day: Toni Morrison’s BELOVED, Hart Crane’s WHITE BUILDINGS, and Donna Tartt’s THE SECRET HISTORY. All three are globally acclaimed books, artfully written. Though not as old as some of the books in our literary canon, they stand tall among the classics of 20th Century American literature. 📚

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Overworked In Retirement

It has been a busy couple of days. A Snoopy Christmas tree Bow Tie o’ the Day will keep me in the proper spirit for yet another day of being Ms. Fix-it around the house and beyond. Our printer died a while back, and the new one showed up on the doorstep, whereupon I had to get the heavy thing into the house and up the stairs and onto the printer table. It was a two-person job, so I pretended to be two people. It is now sitting in its rightful place, waiting to be connected to all our electronic gadgets. That is one of today’s tasks. I’m at a stand-still with the end table I began assembling two days ago, because the “clear” instructions are opaque, to say the least. I’m still working on it. And last week, both of my hearing aids went kaput. I’ve been hearing only the low murmur of the world around me for an entire week. Because of the T-giving holiday, the first appointment I could get with my hearing doc is in 20 minutes. Thus, I must end here and now, in order to get there on time. Later, y’all.

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Yes, It Is Still Pajama Day In This House

I really have stayed in my pj’s all day. I also got out my Christmas-themed jackets, as you can see for yourself. I’m a little sad though, because my sleep cap’s tassle has fallen off somewhere, and I can’t find it. Suzanne will re-attach it to my cap if I can locate it, so I’ll sleuth around for it. I saw no reason not to find a Santa-hatted cat Bow Tie o’ the Day, to complement this morning’s Santa-hatted dogs. In fact, some of the felines are wearing reindeer antlers. Now, it’s late afternoon, and while I’m assembling a cabinet/end table to hold my sundries, I’m still reading Dolly Parton’s SONGTELLER when I take breaks from the tiny screws and dowels and bigly chunks o’ wood. I like a bunch of Dolly’s songs, but my absolute favorite is one called “The Grass Is Blue.” Its vibe is every bit as forlorn as Hank Williams’ “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.” I’m always up for a heartbreakingly woeful “unrequited love” song. The sadder, the better. I doubt I’m the only one.Hey! I’m still thinking about how to handle my Christmas tie-wearing over the next month. At last count, I had over 500 holiday bow ties and neckties. I have started way too late this year to even begin to somehow wear all of them for you folks during this season of giving. When I triumphantly managed to wear the whole collection a few years ago, I had to rest my neck from January 2 until my birthday in March. That many ties are heavy when you’re wearing a dozen or 20 at a time. In fact, I don’t know if I can ever take on that mission again. But for X-mas 2022, I need some theme, or some gimmick, to help me select some of the best entertaining ties from my holiday tie collection. I am currently stuck for an idea. I shall devote the rest of my Pajama Day to reaching a decision on this matter.FYI I’m also pulling my holiday face masks out of storage. I shall wear them because I like them so very much, and they add to my other seasonal attire.

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I Will Always Love Dolly

There’s close to 5 inches of snow on the ground this morning, and it’s still coming down, albeit lightly. I’ve declared a Pajama Day for myself, which includes wearing my sleep cap to keep my head and ears warm. I’ve also donned my Santa-hatted yellow lab puppies Bow Tie o’ the Day, and selected a book Suzanne gave me a while back for my morning reading—the Dolly Parton book, SONGTELLER. In this book, Dolly writes about her life and how she came to craft the lyrics of songs she has penned over the decades. It’s fascinating reading, whether or not you’re a Dolly fan. Excellence is excellence, no matter where you find it. Personally, I think Dolly’s songwriting is on par with that of Leonard Cohen or Joni Mitchell—although in an entirely different manner. In keeping with the vibe of TIE O’ THE DAY, I give you a photo of Ms. Parton wearing her own Tie o’ the Day, on what appears to be the set of the film, 9-5. 📄 🎼