Day: March 8, 2017

Well, heck! Wednesday, Day Four, Shirt #2. Designed by CHAPS. I promise this is the same tie. The lighting is causing it to appear more yellow than the bright green it is. Count that as one of my photography/techno faults. Perhaps it happens only to me, but technology can make me feel inept and obsolete. So I try to stick with things that make me feel ept. Pretty much, that boils down to writing poetry, which is a solo effort. Thus, nobody gets to watch me be ept at a skill. That’s probably why I like being a hermit for about 20 hours of the day.

When it comes to being a people-person, I’m a great dog-person.

Finally! We are caught up to today! Wednesday, Day Four, Garb #1. Shirt is by CHAPS, and ain’t it jail stripey? Even though these patterns clash, they clash matching-ly. Very nice look, if you ask me. And I suppose that if you’re reading this tblog, you are sort of asking me what I think.

What Mom thinks about things is never a mystery. She is not shy about opining about any topic. In fact, she’s even good at opining about non-topics (un-topics?). She doesn’t need something to talk about. She can just…well…talk.

I’ve been asked if I record Mom telling her stories. I probably should, but I don’t need to. Point at a house, a road, a store, or a person anywhere in Delta or on television. Throw me a topic, any topic. And I can tell you, word for word, Mom’s take on it. I can do the meanderings, mispronunciations, antecedent-less pronouns, etc. I can even tell you the stories in the exact ways her mind has recently mixed things up.

In her 86 years, she’s seen the most dynamic changes in the world’s history. I’m glad she has something to say about it all. That means she knows she’s still here, and that she knows she’s still actively part of the goings-on. You go, old girl! I mean– You stay, old girl!

This is the tblog for Tuesday, March 7, Day Three. Get-up #2. Here’s an Old Navy shirt from their PLAID collection. Remember that our Tie o’ This Week is from IZOD. It is kinda hard for me to stick with the same tie for an entire week, but I shall do it for the Clash Fashion cause. I hope this experiment is not monotonous for you.

Erin go Bragh/Braugh is the anglicization of the Irish language phrase, Eirinn go Brach, which basically means “Ireland Forever.”

I, however, prefer my own version: Error in go Bra! Loosely (pun intended) translated, this means that it is an error to wear a bra, unless absolutely necessary. Or, in even looser (pun intended again) words, “Bra-less Forever!”

 

 

 

Tuesday, Day Three, Outfit #1. Top o’ the mornin’ to ya! Here’s the Bugatchi o’ the Day! All I can say is Bugatchi better get its corporate butt in gear and start sponsoring me and this tblog. I mean–actual people actually ask me the for the actual brand name of these actual shirts, and they actually ask me where I actually purchase these actual shirts. (Nordstrom Rack, BTW. From the “clearance” rack.)

All this green clothing/neckwear–and St. Paddy’s Day– has put Ireland in my head, wall-to-wall. My favorite place in said country was just outside Lisdoonvarna, in County Clare. Ballinalacken Castle is a sprawling Victorian lodge, and it stands beside the 16th-century O’Brien castle ruins. “Castle ruins” is a bit of hyperbole, since what remains of the castle is a round, rock, silo-shaped remnant of the bottom of a turret.

The lodge itself is surrounded by 100 acres of wildflower meadows. And it is situated on a hill, with a panoramic view of the Atlantic, the Aran Islands, Galway Bay, and the Connemara Hills. (Heard of Connemara marble, anyone? Gorgeous.) Sat on that hill and watched the sun mosey its way over the Atlantic for hours, until it finally slipped under the horizon, then under the water, at almost 11 PM.

And one of the best spaces in the kinda haphazard insides of Ballinalacken Castle was a dark wood pub, in a corner about the size of a medium-sized walk-in closet. You know I was in a beer heaven I can’t belong in anymore.

The room we stayed in at Ballinalacken was the least roomy in the lodge, and the only room in the place that had no windows. That’s how we rolled through Ireland. Drove all day, saw whatever interested us. When we were done for the day, we’d find a pricey hotel. I’d walk up to the front desk and say, “We want your worst room.” (I had to go in alone and do the asking, cuz it embarrassed Shari. Not that she minded the pricey digs one bit.) So that’s how we stayed in expensive hotels we couldn’t otherwise afford, all over Ireland for two weeks in 1997. Can’t believe it was 20 years ago. I clearly had a groovy time, as evidenced by the fact that I still remember how to spell “Lisdoonvarna” and “Ballinalacken”.

 

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!