Month: September 2018

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Wearing Shotgun Shells

Shotgun shells Tie o’ the Day is one of those ties your face has to be no more than an inch away from, in order for you to decipher what it is. Tie is named by its maker “The Buck Starts Here.” As in buckshot. Clever, eh? My neckwear collection is overflowing at this point, so a tie/bow tie has to have a little extra sumpin’ sumpin’ about it, to be worthy of me adding it to the population of The Tie Room. Clearly, I like Tie. It’s a surprise to have any kind of weaponry on a tie– let alone bullets.

Tonight, Tie and I have made ourselves a pot roast. I haven’t made a pot roast for two or three years, at least. Suzanne started eating a specific diet a few years ago, and pot roast is not on its list of approved menu items. Actually, she can eat the roast if it’s a beef roast, but she’s not allowed to consume the potatoes or carrots. And if you can’t eat the potatoes and carrots with your roast, you ain’t eatin’ an official pot roast.

I’m supportive of Suzanne’s new eating habits. She’s lost 65 pounds. I feel guilty if I eat certain things in front of her, so I try not to do that. And because I don’t want to tempt her into eating her forbidden foods, I wait until she’s not around before I cook the not-good-for-Suzanne recipes. Like pot roast. Suzanne is out at a work dinner tonight, so I am free. Free, I tell you. I’ve thrown food caution to the food wind, and built myself a feast. I’d invite y’all over, but I’m so over-hungry for what I’ve cooked that I don’t want to share it this time. Next time, maybe.

And after I eat, I have to make certain I get rid of all the evidence. There can be no leftovers in the fridge, and I will definitely have to air out the house. There must be no trace of an old-fashioned, meat-and-‘tatoes dinner.

I like carbs and fat. So sue me.

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O, Happy Day!!!

Tie o’ the Day’s bucking broncos are pleased to announce that today is a joyous, exciting day for Suzanne. It’s a day she has waited for since we filled up our garage with boxes o’ parts for assembling The Ultimate SewingBox a couple of months ago. We have finally wrangled a talented put-togetherer to build the bigly piece o’ furniture. Suzanne’s nephew, Colton the Cowboy, is coming to our place this evening to do the task. The instructions say it should take somewhere around three hours to put the beast together. I’m betting Colton won’t need that much time to do it. He’s that proficient at stuff like this. (I’ll post pictures of The Ultimate SewingBox in its various stages of assemblage.)

Whew! When the thing is assembled and all its boxes disposed of, we will be able to park a car in the garage again. But mostly, Suzanne will have what will surely be her fave piece o’ furniture of her life. I am not using hyperbole when I say that.

Yes, The Ultimate SewingBox will be standing in the living room on our new flooring. Some people have a fireplace as the centerpiece of their living room, or maybe a piano. We thought of having a custom built-in bookcase across an entire wall of the room as our focal point. But when Suzanne saw The Ultimate SewingBox, and when I said OK to it, the bookcase was off the plan list. The Ultimate SewingBox will fill most of that wall. If there’s room for nothing else in our living room except a folding chair for my butt, the television, and The Ultimate SewingBox, that’s absolutely cool with me.

Suzanne originally planned to put the behemoth in her craft room upstairs, but I used my VETO power on that idea. I would like to see Suzanne occasionally, and if The Ultimate SewingBox is in her craft room, I will never see her again. Thus, The Ultimate SewingBox will become the designated focal point of our living room. It will make me happy to see Suzanne a lot. And not only just to see her, but to see her feeling ecstatic. When she’s happy about something, she has this barely perceptible smile on her face, but you know the smile is there, because her cheeks go up. With The Ultimate SewingBox, she’s going to be so happy for so long that her cheek muscles will constantly be sore. That’s as it should be.

BTW   In regard to my DI hat, I don’t want you to be misled into thinking that Deseret Industries has a gift shop. Nah, the DI on this hat stands for Dauphin Island. When I saw it there, I had to get it. How could I not buy a hat with “DI” embroidered on it? Most of the world doesn’t have a clue about the existence of Deseret Industries, but I do. We do. It’s enough that a DI hat is amusing to the Utah crowd, at least.

And another BTW   I use the exact full name of The Ultimate SewingBox whenever I mention it, cuz the name makes me chuckle. It’s so definitive and audacious and important-sounding. 📦

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No words except Seattle Seahawks Bow Tie o’ the Day celebrates the Seahawk’s first win of the season– especially cuz they defeated the Dallas Cowbabies. 🏈

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A Bigly Family And A Bigly Family Day

Light-up Bow Tie o’ the Day enjoyed a family celebration at The Timbermine at the mouth of Ogden Canyon yesterday. The occasion was to celebrate (late) my oldest sister’s 50th wedding anniversary. Betty and Kent met at Weber State University in 1967. It was love at first English class.

You can see from these photos that I’m not the only one in my family who lives to entertain. The woman with her back to me is Betty. She is being a good party honoree and entertaining those at her table. In the first photo, she does take a few seconds to notice Kent and their daughter Angie performing for my camera. And by the time I snapped the next photo, she has already turned her attention back to her chatting duties with the other guests.

BT (As she prefers to be called. And I call her Mercedes.) is like Suzanne. They notice the antics we perform around them, but they take it in stride. They notice, they appreciate, they move on. Despite their own incredible humor, Suzanne and BT also shine as “the straight man.” Every great comedy routine needs one. Their reactions and/or non-reactions can make or break the joke. The straight man’s reaction is the cherry on top of the jokester dessert. It is the “all that and a bag of chips” which elevates the comedy routine.

In the second photo, you’ll notice Kent pretending to fiddle with his imaginary bow tie. As Suzanne and I were saying our goodbye’s and leaving the yesterday’s festivities, Kent sidled up to me and asked if I could get him a bow tie like mine. See, Kent drives a school bus, and he wants to wear one to entertain his bus kids. This is exactly who Kent is. He’s surrounded by– and joke-chatting with– half a billion members of his own family, at a landmark celebration for himself and BT, and he still has enough heart-capacity to think of how he can entertain his bus kids. For a guy like that, I’d give the bow tie off my neck. Which I did. It didn’t faze me one iota to part with Bow Tie o’ the Day and its three speeds o’ flashing.

Laurel & Hardy. Burns & Allen. Martin & Lewis. Rowan & Martin. Penn & Teller. BT & Kent. They are all members of the comedy duo Hall o’ Fame.

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Halo, My Name Is HELEN W

Golden-hued Tie o’ the Day was kind enough to escort me  as I drove my truck for the first time since surgery. We drove out to Suzanne’s office to sit with her during her minuscule lunch hour, which lasted only about 20 minutes today. Apparently, she’s the most important person in the building, and they can’t get anything done without her,  even during her lunch hour.

The last time I drove my jalopy was June 27th– the day before my operation. My voyage today was yet another milestone in my recovery. I waited longer than you might think I needed to wait to drive it, but you have to understand my beloved Hombre. It is twenty years old. It has a manual transmission, and the clutch is not friendly. The driver’s seat has a tear in it which makes your butt sit on part of its metal frame. Plus, Hombre gives a bouncy, bumpy ride. Riding in it is like riding an earthquake.

I survived the brief ride, but my innards are pulling, and my shifting and clutch muscles ache because they haven’t been used in exactly that way for three months.

The thing about conquering the milestones in your healing is that you have to push your limits, in order to know your limits. And you can’t tell you’ve gone dangerously past your limits until you’ve already done it. By then, it’s too late to not hurt yourself. You have to learn to nudge your limits gently. So far, I’ve been lucky to not do irreparable damage when I’ve gone a bit too far. And do you know what the biggest pain about working to regain your normal movements is? After a serious surgery, your limits are not bigly at all. Baby steps is all you can take, and even baby steps sometimes injure you.

BTW Hey! Check out the halo effect on me in this photo. This is the first and last time I will be mistaken for an angel. 😇

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To Every Bow Tie There Is A Season

The chill is on. Bow Tie o’ the Day and I are experiencing our first long pants, long-sleeve shirt day since probably April. We mourn Summer. We’ll get used to the coming Fall and Winter seasons since we have to. Actually, Fall is my fave season of the year, but it seems like it’s a much shorter season than it was a few decades ago.

Right now I’m taking a gander at the mountains behind our house, and I see the turning leaves on the trees. Watching the leaves turn into their brilliant Fall colors is one of the best parts of the season, but this year the colors are muted and dull. Not enough water in them thar hills! It makes me sad just to look at them. The leaves are not their best selves. That’s gotta be hard on their self-esteem. 🤡

Beyond having to wear “long clothes,” another harbinger of the nearness of Fall is The First Fly-In-The-House o’ Fall, which has been tormenting me and Bow Tie and Skitter all morning. Fall flies move more slowly than Summer flies, it seems. But they are harder to swat for some reason. They move unpredictably, as if they are intoxicated. Apparently, drunk-acting flies are just as annoying as certain drunk people. You just wanna slap ’em. At least you can do that to flies.

A bigly bright spot to the return of long-sleeve shirts is the return of Cufflinks o’ the Day. Love me my ‘links. This morning’s ‘links need no introduction. We all know a crayon when we see one. Yes, these actually work. Of course, I don’t want to wear them down. I don’t have a crayon sharpener this mini.

I remember when I first read the word “crayon.” I had to figure that word out, because I had only ever heard the coloring sticks referred to as “crens.” Was it just me? I don’t think so, because nobody ever made fun of me for saying it that way. I dunno.

The calming effects of crayons cannot be underestimated. Give an out-of-control kid a few crayons, and nine times out of ten, that kid will rein it in a notch or two. There is a reason that parents don’t attend church without carrying a supply of crayons and coloring books for their kids to use when they get fidgety. Hey! It just occurs to me that crayons are really kinda the original fidget spinner. Just’ sayin’.

Crayons work the same way with adults. Hence, the plethora of adult coloring books you can buy in almost any store. As adults, we might have exchanged our crayons for markers or colored pencils, but we all know they aren’t as fun as crens. Markers and colored pencils do not carry the same feelings of safety, freedom, boundless creativity, and memory of childhood possibilities. When you hold them in your hand, they don’t feel like that same crayon kind of imagination. Think about it: When we were in our kidhoods, a box of crayons could create AND rule the kingdoms of our minds and hearts.

And if you’re honest with yourself you’ll admit that in your life, few things have made your entire soul happier than when you so proudly gave your mom or dad a crayon drawing, and it ended up posted on the fridge for all to see. That drawing sucked, but it was a family treasure.

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I Hear Ya

 

Bow Tie o’ the Day helps highlight my hair progress with the growing-it-all-out goal. Remember, it’s not my project, it’s yours. So far, I am complying with your votes. Right now, I think my mop would look better if it were actually a mop. But at least I can still see the asymmetry I like to have in my haircuts. Where this will end, I don’t know. I didn’t put a deadline or length on my hairs project. Technically, I can cut my hairs right now and say, “Well, I grew it out for three months. That’s long enough.” But I know what y’all mean: you wanna see it with some real length to it, whether I want to wear it like that or not.

Suzanne knows how much I detest having long hairs, and she says I can go ahead and cut ’em off any time I want. But I also think she secretly wants me to grow it out, because she knows how much it matters to me that I follow through and keep my promises– even about stuff that really doesn’t matter in the big scheme of things. Anyhoo… This is how the hairs are hangin’ as of today.

Bow Tie hung on the bathroom door when I made a discovery earlier. I discovered that my hearing aid is super comfortable– so much so that I forgot it was in my ear, and I wore it into the shower and promptly began to wash this scrappy hair. Oops! I caught my mistake ASAP. I wrapped my wet hearing gadget in a dry washcloth, cast a voodoo spell on it, and hoped.

But my head shifted into a panicky rant about how I had most certainly destroyed my 4-month-young hearing device, and I don’t dare tell Suzanne what I did, and so somehow I have to find $2000 without her knowing it’s missing, to buy another of the exact same model of hearing aid without Suzanne suspecting anything, cuz I’d rather be broke than have to face Suzanne about doing something so stupid, and on and on and on.

But five minutes later, I opened up the washcloth. The device appeared to be ok. I stuck it in my ear, and the house sounds abounded. Luckily, all was right with my hearing device. I discovered that it is a bit water-resistant, thank heavens. And as an added bonus, it was really, really clean. My biggest discovery is that this little hearing-aid-in-the-shower escapade will not be happening again. It created such a panic in me that I was scared smart.

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A Sorta Banned Book Or Two In Delta, UT

Cravat o’ the Day and I were banished to the upstairs last night. It was Suzanne’s turn to host her monthly book club, so I took my cue to be out of the way. Suzanne’s book club doesn’t have a classy name like her Champagne Garden Club does. Apparently, her book club is just a book club. I can report that book club is not raucous, while Champagne Garden Club is never NOT out of control.

As Cravat and I puttered around upstairs in The Tie Room all evening, I got thinking about some of my book adventures in Delta. The first booky thing I remember is Mom’s monthly book club, known simply as Club. Club always consisted of a group of around twenty women, and they took turns hosting the event. One woman was assigned to “give” the book, which meant to talk about it and get the discussion going. The host provided refreshments.

When it was Mom’s turn to give the book, she prepped by marking pages she wanted to be sure to present. Neither highlighters nor post-its had yet been born, and it appeared Mom didn’t believe in paper clips. She clipped her noteworthy pages with bobby pins. When Mom hosted Club, recipe cards were strewn all over the couch for days before the event, as she decided on the perfect dessert to construct.

When Mom hosted, Dad and I stayed in their bedroom watching tv. About every third minute, Club laughter would explode– with two laughs dwarfing the others. After the first round of laughter of the night, Dad would always say about those two wild laughs, “Well, Dot and Roberta got here.”

Club existed for somewhere around fifty years, and then around four years ago, it just stopped. No fanfare. It was sad. But its time had come. Few original members were still living. I think they were maybe a bit booked-out.

My stand-out book adventures in Delta occurred in the DHS library when I was in 7th Grade. At that time, 7th and 8th grades were located in the high school, so the DHS library is where I got my book fix. Miss Hansen, the librarian, yelled at me one day because I checked out too many books. She telephoned Mom– with me standing right there at the library desk– to “tell on” me for my wicked, wicked way: reading a lot. Mom asked, “Has she ever not returned a book on time? Has she ever lost a book? Has she ever destroyed a book?” Of course, I hadn’t. It wasn’t an issue after that. I could check out as many books as my little heart desired, from that moment on.

But Miss Hansen wasn’t done monitoring my reading just yet. Soon after the checking-out-too-many-books incident, I tried to check out another bunch of books, and Miss Hansen told me I wasn’t old enough to read a couple of them. She wouldn’t let me check them out. I wish I could remember the names of all the “banned-from-me” books she wasn’t going to allow me to check out. I do remember that one was a book of plays by Tennessee Williams.

Miss Hansen called Mom again, this time to tell on me that I was trying to check out books that were not appropriate for me. Mom said, “If it’s okay for the books to be in the DHS library, it’s ok for her to read them. Let her check them out.” Mom to the rescue! It was not an issue after that phone conversation.

[What a literate mess I was! Sorry, for the inconvenience Mom. Thanks for the trust in me, Mom.]

But wait! An ending that I didn’t see coming showed up. Miss Hansen was a large woman, and she was old. These two things apparently prevented her from tying her shoes. I was walking by the library one morning when Miss Hansen had just arrived and was unlocking the door. She asked me to come in with her a minute. She asked if I would please tie her shoes. And thus began a couple of high school years of me stopping in the library each morning to tie Miss Hansen’s shoes, whether or not I needed to check out illicit books.

Blame everything on books. And I mean everything.

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Hangin’ with The Skitt

Bow Tie o’ the Day knows as well as I do that Skitter is not a cool cat. She is not hip. I don’t think we can truthfully describe her as groovy. She is not da bomb. Nope. Skitter is nerdy. Skitter is a Helen’s-girl. Skitter is timid. Skitter is a cowering wallflower. Skitter is the Mistress o’ Skittishness. Sometimes she does not walk or run to her destination, she shivers and vibrates her way to wherever she’s going.

It’s been almost five years since we rescued Skitter from an abusive situation. We don’t know the details of how she had been treated. We just know her life before us had been horrendous. Her defensive, frightened behavior is all the evidence we need in order to know she lived through hell. After all these years, Skitter still can barely handle being around anyone who isn’t me or Suzanne or Mom or Suzanne’s sister, Marjorie. The Skitt can hardly handle being anywhere except in our home. And even then, she is still occasionally wary of normal house and neighborhood noises. She sees her world as an obstacle course, designed to keep her from safety.

But even with her being almost perpetually askeered, she is becoming mostly content and happy in her days and nights with us. Her tail finally wags often, and twice per day she does what we call The Chew Dance on her hind legs. At 11 AM and 7 PM each day, we give her a dog chew. And let me tell you, she can tell time. Seriously, if I lose track of the time while I’m working on something, Skitter will show up jumping and turning on her hind legs. “Hey, look at me, Helen! It’s 11 AM! Time for my chew, Helen. Don’t you know it’s my chew time, Helen? Did you forget how to tell time, Helen? Look at me dance! A chew! A chew! A chew!” Bless you, Skitter.

I’ve never told anyone this before– not even Suzanne– but a few months after we rescued Skitter, I was concerned about the lack of progress she was making in terms of her constant fear. She was not “warming up” to people, places, and things as well as I thought she should have been by that time– not even to us.

She didn’t bite or fight in any way. She didn’t bark or whine. But if you made eye-contact with her, she would still run away and hide behind something, or she’d drop to the floor and ball up like a roly-poly, hoping to be unseen or ignored. I tried every strategy I could come up with to make her feel safe with us and with her new life. Nothing seemed to assuage her fears.

I began to wonder if it might be better for Skitter if the vet and I helped her go to sleep. Was Skitter’s 24/7 fear of being abused really that much better than her actually being abused? We loved Skitter, and we out-did ourselves showing her she was safe and adored. It all boiled down to this question: Do Skitter’s moments of feeling happy and safe outweigh her moments of fear and insecurity? I think I would have been irresponsible to NOT consider the possibility that Skitter might be happier if she didn’t have to exist.

Well, it’s obvious what I concluded. I’m glad we all had faith we could get Skitter to where she is now. Skitter stuck it out with us. She’s still skittish and hesitant and turns into a roly-poly on occasion, but now she doesn’t dwell in her fear constantly. In fact, she mostly dwells in “running” naps and in her own oddness. We appreciate her peculiarities, and we try to make her feel safe in herself and in her environment. She appreciates our peculiar ways too, I’m sure.

It’s a rare thing, but sometimes– as in this first picture– Skitter feels happy and free and safe enough to lean over and kiss me. Most. Bashful. Smooches. Ever.

Skitter’s tough heart makes me proud.

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A Bigly Thing To Cover My In-Between Hair

I have to try almost everything, fashion-wise.  Sometimes I try stuff on when I already know I won’t be making it a staple of my wardrobe. Suzanne’s newly purchased sun hat is one of those items. Plaid, purple Bow Tie o’ the Day is rather surprised I took the time and opportunity to put this floppy hat on my head. It is sooooo not anything close to any hat style in my hat quiver. And the size o’ the flop! I don’t even know what to comment about that.

But I’m pleased Suzanne likes the hat well enough to give it a home. This afternoon, I took it upstairs to put it away in the closet for her, and I thought, “Why the Hell-en not at least try it on?” My verdict on this headwear is a thumbs down, as I suspected it would be. On the other hand, I don’t remember a bow tie I’ve put on which I didn’t want to adopt. But if you don’t try on a diversity of styles, you might miss what suits you perfectly. Something unexpected might feel like it accentuates the authentic you.

I’m amazed at how different our like’s and dislike’s can be– whether it’s about fashion, food, pro football teams, and on and on. I can’t explain why our tastes are so all-over-the-place within a circle of friends or within our own families. For example, I’m into neckwear, while most of my peeps prefer jewelry– as far as fashion accessories go. I like to eat only the crust around the edges of a pizza, along with the toppings, while most people eat the entire slice. I’m a decades-long Seattle Seahawks fan. Suzanne rolls with the Chicago Bears.

And there’s no logical reason that any of these things should make us feel one way or the other anyway. Doesn’t the bottom pizza crust taste the same as the edge crust? Why collect things that wrap around your neck? Have I ever even been to Seattle? No.

It’s not just that we differ in our preferences. We sometimes don’t even care about something our best friend can’t live without. My bro-in-law, Gary, thinks Kurt Busch and NASCAR walk on water, and I think, “I’d rather turn right.”

Sometimes our tastes are unexplainable even to ourselves. For example, I like ice cream. I like chocolate chips. I like marshmallows. However, I abhor chocolate chips/shavings/chunks in my ice cream. I can’t abide marshmallows in it either. WTFlip?! I dunno how to figure that one out. I’m fine with a swirl of chocolate syrup in/on my ice cream. I’m fine with marshmallow creme in/on it.

As the cliché says: It is what it is. Such minor things are not worth going to war with oneself– or anybody else– about. Embrace your you-ness, however inexplicable and weird you might be, even to yourself. Your you-ness is what I and Mr. Rogers like about you. 🙃