Month: April 2017

Welcome to (Bow) Tie o’ the Day #2. It appears to be made by DRY CLEAN ONLY. It has no other label on its tie-pidermis. It was probably created by Sister Who Wishes To Remain Nameless. It most likely calls itself Bow Tie Which Wishes To Remain Designerless.

Shirt is a short-sleeved Bugatchi, covered in a bunch of pastel blue (and a darker hue of blue) circles, on a field of yet a lighter blue. And yes, the circles resemble balls. And speaking of balls, I’ve told you before that even Mom thought Vinnie had cute ones. I have also referred to them as Vinnie’s Christmas Balls. Well, here is Roxy with her new holiday Easter Balls. She got right into the whole Easter colors theme for this picture. Notice that she made her left eye turn bright green for the tblog, while simultaneously turning her right eye a springtime yellow. The tblog models have all been wonderfully cooperative and gracious. Note that Roxy is, however, without neckwear. She has such a ball-track mind that when one is within her mouth’s reach, she can’t remember how to tie a Tie o’ the Day. I gotta learn her to multi-task.

 

 

Tie o’ the Day #1 is giving us a no-named designer, licensed by PEANUTS. Ah, Woodstock! Flying with an Easter egg. I love me my Charlie Brown/Peanuts characters. Pigpen is my fave, engulfed for time and all eternity in that cloud o’ dust. Even his Easter egg would be dusty, I’m sure. Shirt is from Urban Pipeline–a Kohl’s manufacturer. The shirt’s scenery sets a warm attitude for us all. So sing some Patsy Cline with me: “See the pyramids along the nile…”

And here’s a Chuck Brown aside: When Boston was born, his head was…interesting. His head was a Charlie Brown head. Robbie was paranoid about Bos’s head’s shape, and about how it loomed over his minuscule body. Of course, Bos’s head took its proper shape in no time at all. And Bos’s body grew into it (under it?) just fine. I still see a hint of a round, Chuck-esque cranium on Bos, but he is one handsome charmer.

The other thing about Neil Diamond, as promised by the above heading: That man can still sing. Powerful, full-on voice. Hasn’t lost a beat. In fact, I think I prefer his older voice. It is a touch deeper, with just a pinch of gravel. And I mean “gravel” in a good way. A Bonnie Raitt way. A Leonard Cohen way. And Suzanne declared Mr. Diamond officially still hot to look at. Suzanne does not lie, so believe her.

 

Tie o’ the Day #2 is a sweet little slice o’ spring orange, from IZOD. Got some purty yeller and sky blue stripes on this Old Navy shirt. The shirt is long-sleeved. However, today is one of those days near the end of winter, when no matter what you wear, you’re wrong. Too warm for jeans and long sleeves. Too cool for shorts and a t-shirt. After changing clothes from head-to-toe for the third time, I threw in the towel and got back into pajamas at around Judy o’ clock.

The picture Tie o’ the Day is presenting below is evidence of my Find o’ the Day. Voila! A new form of doggie breakfast! Mmmm…faux sliced pig flesh and chicken embryos for teethy pups!

And we all know the not-secret about our consumer culture and our canine members: Dogs don’t have $$$. Golly, mutts don’t even have pockets! Dogs don’t give a shucks about how their rawhide chews look. These doggie goodies are made FOR US, as “owners”! And even knowing this, I gladly took the bait and bought these chews for our mutts to have clever, fabulous-looking brunches for the week. And I won’t deny that I also wanted to present them on Tie o’ the Day! 👔🐶

 

Tie o’ the Day #1. As per usual, a Stacy Adams. Swell Easter colors. Tasso Elba button-down completes the Easter-ness, despite the fact that Rowan gave me this shirt for Christmas. He knows my style well.

Anyhoo…I’ve been experiencing what I call my “severed head” or “crazy head” for the past couple of months. Who knows exactly what starts its trajectory. But I know enough about where my bipolarity has me right now to know that despite some big changes/decisions I’m making right now in my life, what my head is going through is not situational. The various life-changes (I detest that term) are certainly variables in the life of my head. But these changes are not the cause of the inner turmoil.

And I understand my bipolarity enough to know how to deal with it. I have a host of coping mechanisms. I know what is and is not a good idea to try to accomplish in each of the stations of the cross of my mental state at any given time. The inside of my head is best described as a pendulum, and a thing I’ve learned about being bipolar is that wherever the pendulum moves–and how fast or slow it moves–it will ALWAYS move. It will always swing back to the other side. And it will always wear a bald trail along the path it plods. Sometimes it even stops for a while at the bottom of the arc it travels. The trick is to be patient enough to move through the tumult until the pendulum swings to a more habitable place.

 

So…

First church nuisance: At church yesterday morning, when the 2nd not-the-bishop guy was opening the meeting, Mom said, “I can’t hear him!” But she said it more loudly than any misbehaving child in the chapel. Hers was that loudness with which hard-of-hearing folks speak, cuz they think if they can’t hear, neither can you. And sure enough, the 2nd not-the-bishop guy spoke louder, even though he was perfectly hearable before Mom’s little outburst. Mom is louder than Tigmond is in church. And Tigmond does not have an inside/church voice anywhere in his little soul, even when he’s behaving properly.

Second church nuisance: That would be me and Sister Who Wishes To Remain Nameless. Sitting in the pew ahead of us was a little girl who was probably around 18 months. Well, she and I like to wave at kids and pull faces at them and do a little peekaboo with them. We are serving our  “church mission” thusly, I suppose. Anyhoo…. At some point, I pulled out a tiny stuffed doggie from my “diaper bag” and gave it to the little princess. And then I said to Sister Who Wishes To Remain Nameless, “I really should tell the parents of the kids we go out of our way to amuse that we aren’t child predators. We just like to amuse kids in church.” (FYI My “diaper bag” is what I call the messenger bag Suzanne made me to take to church. I have it stocked with my pens and notebooks, and with toys and crayons for the herd of grandnieces and grandnephews who might need stuff to do in Sacrament Meeting. And also, I keep Mom’s water in said diaper bag. She tends to choke after partaking of the sacrament water. I don’t think that is an omen or symbol of any spiritual thing Mom has going on.)

I also remarked to Sister Who Wishes To Remain Nameless that we are like a funeral or wedding reception line. When the kids come into the chapel, they form a kind of loose line in the aisle, in our direction. Then they walk, one-by-one, through our pew to give us and Mom our hugs. I suppose this is a nuisance for those who are trying to get to seats past them while they hog the aisles to give us some sugar.

After church, and after an after-church nap, Suzanne and I drove back to C-burg. If we are in two cars for thew excursion, we caravan. Deja is always the lead car, and Vonnegut Grace follows.

And after we got home, Suzanne spent a couple of hours sifting through a week’s worth of mail. I watched Major Crimes. Our day was still not done though. We headed to SLC to the Neil Diamond concert, courtesy of Sister Who Wishes To Remain Nameless. She had given us the tickets, much to our grateful surprise.

About 30 years ago, Suzanne accompanied Sister Who Wishes To Remain Nameless to a Neil Diamond concert at The Salt Palace, a night after Suzanne and I went to the same concert. Suzanne and Sister Who Wishes To Remain Nameless are Neil groupies. I’m ok with him, but I’m pretty much just a tag-along to his concerts. (I didn’t imbibe at the show, but I did notice the vendors were selling beer for $9 a cup. That is not right.)

And you are wondering what tie I wore to the concert, I’m sure. The answer is: YOU DON’T WEAR A TIE TO A NEIL DIAMOND CONCERT!

So now you have the skinny on my busy Sabbath. I shall return to the tblog with today’s Tie o the Day #1 in just a bit. Haven’t decided on my day’s clash fashion yet. It will help me decide on an outfit to get out of my pajamas.

How is that heading for a teaser? And you still have to wait for the skinny on it all, cuz we are on the move. Not one extra minute so far today for tie stories and/or spiritual substance from the tblog. Cross your fingers, and I promise I will get a real post to y’all ASAIL. (See CAST O’ WORDS for a translation.)

Church Bow Tie o’ the Day is a Stacy Adams, yet again. And shirt is a Bugatchi, yet again. Easter colors and hues abound on both. Snow and wind snapped off icy tree limbs all over D-ville during the night, but I refuse to be thwarted from my holiday colors.

Tie o’ the Day #2 comes from Stacy Adams. My “blouse” is a Gap, classic fit. No pocket on the shirt, unfortunately. A pocket square matching the bow tie would be a fab look to walk around in.

Just pretend the polka dots on Tie o’ the Day #2 are Easter eggs if this colorful garb isn’t pastel-y  and, therefore, Easter-y enough for you.

Suzanne brought the high-fallutin’ carpet scrubber down to The Beach House for the week, to scrub the couch and chairs we are selling.  When Suzanne’s sewing machine hasn’t been creating noise pollution in the living room during the past few days, her carpet shampooer has been. The dogs are sore afraid of all the racket, but are pleased with having a clean couch to cover in their fur again.

When we live only in C-ville, the mutts will miss being able to romp and run, unleashed, in the outside wilds of Deltabama. They have such freedom to safely dog around here. I hope they will remember their D-ville life fondly, while embracing the finer aspects of citified living. Perhaps I can teach them how to sneak into concerts and museums so they can be edified by the arts.

Skitter had already slipped into this orange and brownish Tie o’ the Day #1 (a VAN HEUSEN), when we read Mercedes’ comment about her not being all hepped up about 70’s colors. Hey, Mercedes, remember Mom’s orange carpet in the living room? And how the entire wall going into the bathroom was carpeted in the stuff? But we all survived it, not much worse for the experience. I guess.

Some mutts like to curl up inside blankets to nap. Skitter prefers to stretch out in a tie to do her daily dozing. But I did a bad tie thing yesterday. I will be paying for it for the near future. I made the mistake of going uptown to do some errands, but I had forgotten to wear a tie. Let’s just say that I was hardly recognizable at Verizon and Quality Market. I was read the riot act at both locations. Of course, I immediately blamed it on Skitter’s and Roxy’s thieving ways. I said they must have pick-tied me on my way out of the house.

Tie o’ the Day #2 be another Tommy Hilfiger. It has a light blue, denim-looking background with fluorescent pink paisley paisles. Shirt is a Code Blew from the late 80’s.

With clothes, I’ve always been partial to bright and/or bold colors and designs. When I lived in the D.C. area, I had a blinding orange t-shirt and baseball hat which I wore whenever we ventured out to crowded outdoor events. No matter how many people were in our group, if we got split up, I was the lighthouse. Everyone could see me easily, so I was the meeting up spot no matter where I was. I was that dot on the signs that says YOU ARE HERE. (FYI! That was in the eon before cell phones, young folks.)

I wasn’t a fan of the landscape back there, especially the sky. But I do miss the boatload of “free” museums and events and monuments in that area. Our taxes pay for all those remarkable things, and I don’t mind that one bit.

And here’s a thing about the idea that government (and by “government” I mean city, county, state, federal) should be run like a business: The government is not a business. The government’s purpose is not to make money. The government’s purpose is to provide services and protection for its citizens. These things cost money. We citizens pay the costs because we are the ones who receive the services, protection, and benefits.

 

Tie o’ the Day #1 is a Tommy Hilfiger. I love the pointy bow ties. Their cuteness never gets old. This is our first tie foray into Easter colors, for the purposes of tipping our hats to the Easter holiday. So prepare for springy, pastel neckwear and shirts for the next week. This shirt is neither springy nor pastel. It is, however, a…..SAY IT WITH ME, TBLOGOPHILES…..Bugatchi.

We couldn’t have an Easter egg hunt today, if we wanted to. The wind would blow the carefully hidden eggs to Moab. I can see it now: a tornado funnel made entirely of plastic, pastel Easter eggs. And when the funnel petered out, some community would be blessed by the raining down of eggs with goodies inside.

I’m not engaging in hyperbole (not much, anyway) about the strength of today’s blowhard wind. When Skitter was squatting to pee this morning, the wind blew her over. Poor Skitter. She is scared of everything but us, and even the weather assaults her. On the other paw, there is no category of hurricane or tornado that can budge Roxy’s girth. Perhaps when it’s windy we should leash Skitter to her, so Roxy can keep her anchored to the earth.