Day: August 26, 2018

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If You Have To Freeze, Freeze With Tie Pals

Ties o’ the Day want you to hear the tale of last night’s frozen woe. Here’s the background: The day before I went into the hospital, a vital part in the AC died a sudden death. The house toasted up oh-so quickly.  I immediately worried that Skitter would melt in the heat o’ the house unless the situation could be fixed immediately. Did I call the AC company and schedule a repair ASAP? No. I was having surgery early the next morning, and I had no idea when the heck I would be getting out of the hospital, so making an appointment for the repair folks to show up at a specific time wasn’t possible.

Suzanne was on a flight from Florida when the AC part gave up the ghost, so she was no help at that moment. When she got home late that night, we didn’t spend time worrying about how hot the house was– cuz we had only a few hours left to convince me to show up for my surgery. Apparently, when I scheduled the surgery I wasn’t clear about the fact that the doctor couldn’t operate on me if I wasn’t actually in the operating room to be sliced open. There isn’t an app for that.

I had no doubt Suzanne would handle the AC repair scheduling as soon as I lived through my procedure. I knew the house would be cooled to our satisfaction by the time I returned home from my medical odyssey. Skitter would be saved from melting! But I also knew the repair would cost more than necessary, because Suzanne would be handling it instead of me.

Suzanne likes gadgets and apps. A gadget that comes with its own app is irresistible to her. The AC dudes came and made the repair on the 4th of July, while I was still walking around the halls of Huntsman in my hospital nightie. Later, that day when Suzanne came to sit with me in the hospital, she immediately pulled out her iPhone to show me the app for remotely controlling the AC thermostat. But, of course, to use the app, she had to get a new “smart” thermostat control put on the wall. (Anybody want a working, not-smart thermostat?) And that’s not all she got us. Of course, she had to get a sensor that knows where we are in the house at all times, so wherever there’s a human being, the room is temperaturally correct.

Anyhoo… We have all accidentally “butt dialed” a phone call or have been butt dialed ourselves. Heck, I’ve even “cleavage dialed” a person or two. Last night, as I snored the night away, I somehow rolled over on my phone and some part of my body “skin dialed” the AC app temperature setting– changing it to somewhere in the vicinity of below zero. In the middle of the night, I woke up in Antarctica. I reset the temperature setting to the right temp, but I was still so cold I had to dress like this to get back to sleep. Count ’em: 8 ties, 3 sweaters, and 3 hats.

No more sleeping with the phone on the bed, which wouldn’t have happened if Suzanne had been in it. The moral of this tale is that if Suzanne gets new gadgets with apps, she shouldn’t leave me all alone while she goes camping for four days with her Champagne Garden Club.

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But Which Selfie Is The Real You?

Wood Bow Tie o’ the Day shows us a throwback. An “old school” type of camera isn’t seen much anymore, although I have started to notice more of them in the last couple of years. However, these cameras are not particularly selfie-friendly on the spur of the moment.

It’s my opinion that some folks take way too many selfies. They spend so much time taking pix of themselves that they never actually experience the experience of which they’re taking selfies. It also seems like some people don’t think they themselves even really exist if they don’t constantly take photos of themselves to prove they’re alive. And then, they have to put their selfies on the internet to prove to everybody else that they’re alive.

I know what you’re thinking: “Well, Helen, you take at least  two selfies per day, and then you make everybody look at each one by posting them.” Am I a hypocrite? Oh, I’m sure I am a hypocrite about some things. Aren’t we all sometimes? But on this issue, I think I’m not. Quite.

First, I have this little website about/with ties and our adventures. A post like that needs a photo, and who wants to gaze at a naked tie? My purpose is to do a little not-so-serious (usually) writing every day, and the ties are my props. But they are also the stars, and somebody’s gotta wear them. I would rather not hire models, since I’m the one wearing them anyway.

Second, I have a bunch of untaken photos to make up for, because I somehow made it through the 80’s and 90’s without ever actually being in a photograph. (There might be a few exceptions, but I don’t have evidence of them.) Does it mean I didn’t exist for two decades, just because I don’t appear in photos? No, it means I was snapping the pictures for everybody else. Of course, the photos I took for others were blurry and out of focus, because I wouldn’t stop experiencing the action I was in while I snapped away.

It was fine by me to not be in photographs. I have always disliked myself in pix. In photos, it seemed like I looked like someone else. The pix of me didn’t fit the image I had of myself. I’m not talking about my physical self/face. No, I always thought I looked like a ghost or zombie of myself. A photo couldn’t hold me. It seemed to always hold the not-me.

Even with all my wrinkles, sags, and gray hairs, I kind of enjoy the selfies I take. I earned my face. And when I’m picking out a selfie to use in a post, I see me. Most of my self is usually there in my selfies. It’s probably just the effect of the ties. Whatever it is, when I see myself in photos now, I no longer see a zombie staring back at me.