Tie o' the Day

Monday, Day Two, Garb o’ the Day #2. You guessed it: Shirt’s a Bugatchi. I mentioned in the previous tblog that I have always felt at home in flannel shirts, even while wearing ties. But I find I am changing my shirt preferences in my old age. I’m likin’ dressier shirts, especially my gaggle of Bugatchi’s. I have no idea why this is happening, except to say I’m still a work-in-progress, so I’m assuming this must be some kind of progress.

Here’s a thing I left out of my Sunday morning tblog about grief: Multitudes of people get hung up on the question of how a benevolent god can allow so much human tragedy and its resulting suffering. This has never been a philosophical thunk-it I’ve gotten tripped up by. I’ve always thought that we are the ones who allow it. I think that human beings must take responsibility to fix the problems we human beings have created. And we are, in fact, the creators of most of the small and bigly matters that cause the grief that thrives in this world (excluding most, but not all, weather-related disasters). It is our job to fix what’s wrong. I don’t think it  is okay to surrender to the way things are, figuring “it will all be made right in the next life”. That is a cowardly way to think. I can’t solve everything. You can’t solve everything. But if every person on the planet immediately starts taking care of their particular stewardships, and if we help our neighbors do the same, things will immediately improve.

Here’s Monday’s #1 Get-up o’ the Day. Shirt is a Tony Hawk. I’ve always been at home in flannel shirts. Grandpa Anderson wore them every day. They didn’t help him hear any better, that’s for sure. He did always have a soft mint in his shirt pocket for me. I knew he thought their peppermint scent covered up the smell of his cigarettes. We all let him think it. He was happy. Every Christmas I bought him the same gifts: Jergens lotion and Lipton tea bags. Gee, I wish my wants and needs were that simple. I oughta learn a thing or eight from that.

Grandma Anderson didn’t go out of town often; but when she did, Mom bought him a fried chicken dinner from Arctic Circle, and we drove it up to Oak City to feed him. He could go whole years without driving that 14 miles down to Delta. He did, however, make the trip each day his pet rat, Lady, was recovering from a malady at the vet’s. Ok, so Lady wasn’t really a pet rat. Lady (and Lady, Part Two, after the original Lady died) was an angry chihuahua. She only liked Grandpa, and was expert at chewing holes in every other person’s ankles.

And yes, there was an Arctic Circle in Delta when I was a kid. In fact, Mom worked there. Heck, Mom worked everywhere in Delta at some point. Van’s Grocery, Tolley Carpet, The Delmart, some jeans store I can’t remember the name of, the Delta High School lunch room, and Clara’s Cleaning at IPP. And don’t forget: she got fired from IPP for being a security risk!😁😂😜 She was not an extremist Muslim, nor an extremist Mormon. Way to go, IPP!

 

Tie o’ the Day #2 is the beginning of a beautiful week-long friendship. This vibrant green argyle tie is from Izod. And, yup, it is paired with yet another eye-boggling Bugatchi. Our fashion experience plans to carry us through the upcoming week with a single tie. The shirts will change. The tie will remain the same. And you will see that the limits of clash are, in fact, limitless.

[This post was created on the afternoon of Sunday, March 5. But the wind had its way with my electrical and technological aspects at the Beach House for a couple of days. Tomorrow is Wednesday, March 8. But it will be known to me as Tblog Ketchup Day, during which the Tie o’ the Days and I will catch y’all up on stories inspired by this talkative necktie.]

(Church Bow) Tie o’ the Day #1 is a jaunty Stacy Adams. Shirt is from Croft & Barrow. Jacket is from VanHeusen, Studio Collection. Pocket square is done in what is called a “puff fold”.  Ya just grab it in the center, shake it, and then put it in the pocket. Paisley, as always, is m-mmm gooooood.

I suppose you could say that today is a back-to-normal day. Even after mourning, things just go on. As they should. The lessons we learn from grief are right in front of us, if we will do the work to take them in. They will change us, no matter how much we have been injured throughout our lives. Life happens to us all, and that means we are dented from time to time. That is why it is so important to not create problems and drama for ourselves. There is enough hard damage, which is out of our control, that happens to us no matter how well we live our lives and treat other people.

A Grief Observed is a short book by C. S. Lewis, which he wrote after the death of his wife. It is written within a Christian and philosophical framework. Definitely worth a read, if you’re trying to understand grief and what it means for sad things to happen.

 

Tie o’ the Day.  University of Utah Utes colors for Kyle.

Kyle’s heart is the perfect size to hold his three kids tightly, forever.

Tie o’ the Day #2 be a fleur de Tommy Hilfiger. Springy, huh? And my shirt be another fave Bugatchi. If you look closely at the shirt pattern/colors, you can see that the lines are kinda frosted-looking/out of focus. Groovy.

As for the neckwear, I couldn’t resist choosing a tie with gardeny flowers all over it, cuz I just finished watching the episode of THE CLOSER in which the murder weapon is a bigly garden gnome. Now that’s some clever scriptwriting. 😂

It’s funny that I can re-watch THE CLOSER, from the beginning to the end of the series, as much as two or three times a year. It never gets old to me. (Suzanne just rolls with it, and she crafts her patient heart out while I’m spinning dvd’s.)

If you are familiar with the THE CLOSER’s characters, you must have figured out already that I am Lt. Provenza, who grouses around sagely, while decked out in swell ties and a fisherman-style hat. But he is not hesitant to declare that he does not run, climb stairs, search for evidence in dumpsters, or otherwise move swiftly or unnecessarily.

Suzanne is clearly Lt. Tao, with his cornucopia of gadgets and overly-technical, long-winded explanations of ballistics, statistics, trajectories, etc.. A trait Tao and Suzanne don’t share: Tao’s explanatory speeches always have a point, but Suzanne’s sometimes do not. Don’t worry. She knows this about herself. She can be pointless at times, despite building up a good story.

I, on the other hand,–unlike my Provenza self– tend to be non-linear in my storytelling and exhortations. And I usually make way too many points.😲

Tie o’ the Day #1 kind of apologizes for being a Ryan Seacrest. But it is cute and Irish-y. It’s not an American Idol, but I think that counts in its favor. Shirt is one of my Bristol & Bull’s. In case you can’t tell by now, note that I love the color purple. And the book of that same name, as well.

Today Tie and I are having the garbage dump adventure, followed by a drop-off at the thrift store adventure. Then we are filling a dozen bins full of stuff we are moving up to Centerville, so we can start filling up the garage that Suzanne just cleaned out, with belongings that have lived in D-ville. Thus, there will still not be room for two vehicles in the two-car garage. How we are gonna put three vehicles in the two-car garage when we keep the truck up there too is beyond me. I suppose if we put Vonnegut Grace in the truck bed before we pulled it into the garage… Maybe not, I guess.

Trivia Alert! I was doing some reading this morning (surprise, surprise), and I discovered a fact that made me feel incredibly stoopid. Quicksilver is just another name for mercury. How can I live this long and have such an intimate relationship with words, and still have missed that fact? I will feel like a big dope all day, I’m positive. And then it makes me wonder what other simple factoids like that am I still in the dark about. How do I know what things I don’t know, so I can know to know them? I’m stymied and in a panic. And I can guarantee this: the pendulum in my head has swung to the mania side. Aaaaarrrrrgggghhhh! My day just got busier with manic bipolarity.😜

 

Tie o’ the Day #2 is from Geoffrey Beene. I like its combination of lime hues and gray. The wild shirt is one of my Bugatchi favorites. It will continue to play a recurring role on this tblog, as will all my Bugatchi “blouses”. It is a great piece of clash, in and of itself. In fact, it can cause almost every tie in the free world to be an element of visual discord.😲

This Tie o’ the Day is pleased to present the following clever poem, about knowing what we are good at, and what we are not:

“What I Can Do”, by Mary Oliver

The television has two instruments that control it./ I get confused./ The washer asks me, do you want regular or delicate?/ Honestly, I just want clean./ Everything is like that./ I won’t even mention cell phones./

I can turn on the light of the lamp beside my chair/ where a book is waiting, but that’s about it./

Oh yes, and I can strike a match and make fire./

Ain’t that simple, smart, and true?!

Tie o’ the Day #1 is a swirly green Alfani. Lovely shirt is a houndstooth Bugatchi, my favorite shirt collection. We are stylin’ today!

Please enjoy the photo’s salmon pink bathroom tiles that are still on Momo’s bathroom wall. How could I ever dare to replace such beauty? They probably have been decorating said bathroom for at least fifty years. For all I know they are a bearing wall; and if removed, the house would fall down.

That reminds me of the old, old DHS, which used to be on the grounds of the city park, where the Delta City offices currently sit. The authorities solemnly condemned the school in the late 60’s, determining it was structurally unsound. It was reportedly going to collapse at any moment! Panic ensued! I attended kindergarten in the high school’s former lunch room, which was a separate structure, set off yards from the high school. We students were never allowed to approach the unsafe high school for fear it would fall down on us.

When the ancient school was finally filled with blasting caps, and the engineers attempted to implode it, the damn thing wouldn’t fall. I was a wee tyke and can’t remember exactly how many times they had to bomb the place before it finally collapsed. But I do remember this: Momo and Pop took me up to watch the implosion on more than one occasion before the school building finally came down.

Say it with me, people! They don’t make ’em like they used to. 😁

Tie o’ the Day #2 is a ritzy Beau Brummel.  That just plain sounds snooty, doesn’t it?

Skitter must have snuck into the tie closet while I was watching Judge Judy. She came waltzing out of the bedroom in this tie. Of course, she was trying to wrangle her way into going with me to The Pub.

I used to be able to tell Skitter she couldn’t go to The Pub with me cuz she was a minor, but she’s not a minor anymore. I had to break it to her this afternoon that she will never be legally allowed in The Pub—because she is not a people. She had no idea she was “different”, so that was an enormous shock to her skittish, canine system.

I explained to her about prejudice and discrimination. About its many forms and guises. About bigots. About how every living thing is “different” in some way (many ways, in fact), depending on what “they” say is the “norm”. I explained that the categories and mechanisms used to commit bigotry are completely arbitrary. They bear no resemblance to the truth, beauty, and goodness of existence. Bigotry is reductive and riddled with the fear of everything except itself.

Skitter pondered seriously about the in’s, and out’s, and up’s, and down’s, and sideway’s of what I said. She thought and thought, until her tiny thinker was exhausted. And then she said, “But can I still wear the tie?”

Now, that’s a perfect perspective: Just go about your life, in wonder and love and ties.