Whew! I’m glad Valentine’s season is over. I’m sick of the mushy, smoochy, lovey-dovey attitude we’ve all had to have. Now we can finally go back to arguing with friends and family, and not loving our neighbors. We can resume being rude and ill-tempered to strangers. The pressure is off to pretend we’re nice people. I feel better already.🤡
Bow Tie o’ the Day and I took condiment Cufflinks o’ the Day to sit with Suzanne for lunch at her office– just in case she needed ketchup and/or mustard on her yogurt. She did not. But it’s good to be prepared even if you’re not an official Boy Scout.
While I was at her office watching Suzanne eat, I informed her it’s time for her to help with my stoopid hairs. Some days, I’m just gonna put her in charge of my head fur. Lower your expectations though, because I haven’t had even a trim since May, as per your votes. Suzanne will only be able to do what she can do with the mop I’ve got. She is not a miracle worker with hairs, although she is a miracle worker regarding everything else.
I’m sure the hairdos will mostly end up silly, and maybe even mystifying. What’s new? I had to make Suzanne a deal though, to get her to be my hairstylist. She made me promise to NEVER let y’all vote on anything to do with my head hairs again.
Bow Tie o’ Last Night had a fantastic Valentine’s Day dinner at THISTLE & THYME. The restaurant is located at the U of U Marriott Hotel, which is also where this Dale Chihuly glass chandelier hangs in the atrium. You gotta see it in person to get the beguiling enormity and complexity of the piece. You can see from one of these photos that Suzanne couldn’t look away from it for long enough to have her picture snapped. But the side of her head looks nice.
THISTLE & THYME has existed for less than a year, and it was our first time chowing there. We’ll be going back though. Suzanne’s scallops were luscious, and my tenderloin steak was nummy as all get-out. There are a couple of things on the menu we’d like to try. We had a tough time deciding what interesting dish to order, so we went with their special Valentine’s Day four-course feast. We’re going back for the meatloaf w/ tomato jam, and for the candied bacon. We’ve gotta give those a taste.
Our appetizer was ingenious and delectable. Imagine this: a tater tot, topped with a slice of salmon, topped with creme fraiche, topped with caviar. Who’da thunk it? It was smashing. (I am so mad at myself for not taking a pic of the creation.) A tater tot has more potential for tastiness than I have heretofore realized. And it was so incredibly cute, sitting in its minuscule dish all by it’s awesome tiny self.
Check out the Post-it Note decor I created on one of our living room walls for the day. Hearts, flowers, lips, and a couple of diamond rings. I love Post-it Notes beyond measure, but not necessarily the normal square ones.
Also, note my candy heart Lapel Pin o’ Last Night and Cufflinks o’ Last Night. With all my candy heart-design accessories, not only did my attire have a clear theme which actually fit the occasion, they made my look the most matchy I’ve dressed myself in years. It felt odd.
Skitter does not sleep in the nude. She doesn’t wear pajamas either. She always sleeps in a tie. She chose my “I LOVE YOU!” Tie o’ the Day to nap in, all through her Valentine’s Day. She gets right into the celebratory spirit of holidays, doesn’t she?
Tie o’ the Day shares its exuberant field of hearts. And we both wish y’all a Merry Valentine’s Day. If you are attached to someone, let them know they are precious and irreplaceable. Make it absolutely certain they know how you feel about them. If you are single, let yourself know you are precious and irreplaceable– because you are. You are enough, exactly because you’re you.
And then remind yourself you should treat your beloved and yourself this way every day, not just on Valentine’s Day. It’s the least you can do for someone who is so necessary to the grateful beating of your vast, glad heart.
Mom even let Dad know he was her one-and-only when he was out of town working the bees for a few days. She always tucked away a lovey-dovey or funny card in his suitcase for him to find when he got back to his motel room for the night. And I mean she stuck a card in there EVERY TIME he was off with his bees.
On one bee trip to California, Dad found a humongous ratty, dirty bra that had been left under his motel bed by a previous guest. He stuck it in his suitcase, hoping to get a rise out of Mom when she opened it to retrieve his dirty clothes to wash. So Dad got home, Mom got the clothes out of the suitcase. Dad was waiting to get yelled at for having a California girlfriend, and he heard nothing. No response from Mom. Finally, Mom tells Dad she’s not worried one bit he was with some dame because the bra is dirty and skanky, and she knows there is no way he would sleep with someone that dirty and gross. His prank. Her clever response. It turned out to be a great joke, on both their parts.
Dad got a bonus laugh about it when he told his coffee drinking buddies at Top’s the next morning. They were shocked he had dared put a bra in his suitcase for Mom to find. They said their wives would have killed them if they’d done that.
Mom thought the whole thing was so funny that she’s been telling the story to anyone who’ll listen since it happened, in the 70’s.
That is one bigly Post-it Note heart! I thought it best to wear it only for the selfie. Driving while wearing it would probably result in mayhem and tragedy. Let’s see… I’d be pulled over and cited for DWP. Driving While Post-it-ed.
Jumbo Bow Tie o’ the Day is one of my favorites. Actually, I’m fond of jumbo-size bow ties, period. They give off such happy vibes. And we are here to be happy. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. I’m not saying happiness isn’t work. No, it’s something you have to achieve. The happiness a bow tie can give is a fleeting feeling. But if you want real happiness, you have to mostly create it. It’s not going to knock on your door, fully-formed, and say, “I’m here to serve you!”
I think we get distracted by looking to/at others to find happiness. We think: “They seem happy. What do they have that I don’t? I need to get what they have, and then I’ll be happy.” It doesn’t work that way. Your happiness is singular to you. It won’t look like anyone else’s. It is authentic to you, and you only. It is your job to figure out what your happiness will look like. Ignore other people’s ideas of happiness. Mind your own happiness business.
If you find somebody (a spouse, partner, etc.) whose happiness pieces fit with your happiness pieces, you have found a powerful and rare thing. Your happiness inventory will not be exactly the same as the person’s you mesh with. But what would be the fun of that? Do you really want to be married to a clone of yourself? Another person isn’t your happiness. Your chosen person can share in your happiness, just as you can share in theirs. You are a part of each other’s happiness, not the whole of it. Let me make this clear: NEITHER A MATERIAL OBJECT NOR A PERSON “MAKES” YOU HAPPY. You decide to be happy. You make a plan and work to achieve it. It’s an attitude.
Living with another person gives you daily opportunities to express your happiness. You can care for and spoil them with whatever happiness you decide to share. Take the risk to spread your joy around the metaphorical house. You’ll get hurt sometimes, even in the best of relationships. But so what? Remember, you’ll hurt your beloved too. You won’t mean to, but you will. Unless you’re perfect. Be kind. Be brave.
To be happy in a relationship doesn’t mean you feel jolly every minute. You can be happy, yet experience sorrow, anger, frustration, and every other emotion. Real happiness is not an emotion. Happiness is a state of your soul, not a mood.
If you make a habit of working to achieve true happiness, you can weather the relationship storms you will encounter, more easily and more courageously. This doesn’t sound like it makes sense, but I promise it does: When you are in the storm of yourself– when you are aching– muster your courage and every power in your heart to choose your happiness. Open up your happy heart just a bit wider. Share just a little more. Give. And then rain your happiness down on you and your beloved. Take the risk to love your beloved– again and again, day after day, second upon second. Your relationship will grow stronger. Your soul will thank you.
And one more bigly note: Selfishness does not grow happiness. Trying to get everything you want, and always trying to get your way, is as far from happiness as you can get.
This has been yet another bossy sermon. Just sayin’.
Five Valentine-red Bow Ties o’ the Day are proud to provide a recipe we think you’ll find tasty. It’s cheesy and bready. Who could find fault with that?
Actually, I really can’t call this a “recipe.” Mom’s recipes ranged from easy-peasy to intricate and near-impossible. This is a simple one. Three ingredients are all you need. Oh, and you’ll also need an oven.
1 loaf of French bread. 1 stick or 1/2 stick of butter. And one jar of Kraft Old English Spread.
Lay a sheet of foil across a cookie sheet. You do not want to have to clean baked-on cheese off your cookie sheet. Use the foil.
Hand-mix the cheese spread and butter together. Mom generally uses the whole stick of butter, although I’ve seen her use just half a stick. I always use just the half.
Skin ALL the crust off the bread. Ditch the crust.
Cover the entire loaf of bread with the cheese/butter spread. Spread it as evenly as you can. Since the size of French bread loaves vary, you might or might not use the entire amount of spread. If you want a thin layer of cheese on the entire loaf, you’ll probably have enough to cover two loaves.
Throw the loaf on your foil, and bake for 10-ish minutes at 350 degrees. Ovens vary, you know.
Although it’s this simple to make, it’s important to keep an eye on the browning of the cheese. You need to experiment with how crispy/browned you want the top. You do not want the entire loaf crispy/browned. Well, maybe you do. I suggest experimenting many times with different levels of crispy/brown. That gives you an excuse to eat a ton of cheese bread.
The other thing you’ll want to experiment with is how thick you want your cheese spread layer to be.
I recommend you slice the cheese bread (an electric knife works best) while it’s still hot. And put it on the table hot. But it’s still yummy when it has cooled off.
As any good cook knows, even with an easy recipe the taste is in the details. Mom’s excellent cooking was the result of tweaking good recipes to make them better, and her knack for timing. She cooked primarily by sight, smell, and taste. Measuring ingredients wasn’t much of a concern to her. She guesstimated a lot.
That’s what makes it difficult to pin down her actual recipes. If someone wanted a recipe, she’d give them one, but she also invited them to come to the house while she made what they were asking about. Her candy-type creations are especially almost impossible to re-create, even if you watched her make it and tried to write everything down. She was always changing the way she did it or adding a new twist or a different ingredient. [I’ll write more about Mom’s recipe collection and locating specific recipes in another post.]
Oh. About the potato chips and Diet Coke in the photo. Those are to snack on while you make cheese bread.
The company I buy most of my bow ties from (Beau Ties LTD) names each design of its bows. Bow Tie o’ the Day’s name is KISS GOLD, because it is based on Gustav Klimt’s painting called THE KISS, a photo of which I’ve provided here. (And look, there’s a cape involved in the painting’s smooch.) Cufflinks o’ the Day provide mini lips, for added thematic detail. After I got dressed, I made one of the lips links give Skitter a kiss, and it was about the right size for her lips. Note: I don’t usually make my cufflinks kiss Skitter on the lips.
Because it’s almost Valentine’s Day, I should say something about kisses. But I’m at a loss as to how to begin or end writing about a kiss. There is so much to say, and yet no pile o’ words comes close to approximating how it feels to experience kisses. Like the kiss from your soulmate. Or how it feels to kiss your baby for the first time. Or how it feels to give your crying teenager an it’ll-get-better kiss, after they experienced an unfairness at school. Or how it feels to kiss a beloved parent’s forehead for the last time, before the casket lid is closed. I could go on. There are infinite kinds of kisses, and they can mean infinite things. Sometimes a single, solitary kiss can express a multitude of meanings, layer upon layer.
But about kissing or about being kissed, or about what a kiss even is exactly– I dunno. I am a writer, and all this “kiss” stuff is one topic I know I don’t have the skills to write about in a way that could possibly say what I want to say, and say it in the way I want to say it. Kisses leave me speechless, which is probably the most accurate, graceful thing I can say about kissing.
Having praised all kisses, I will now present the exception that proves the rule (at least for me). Here goes: Slobbery kisses on the cheek from aunts are yucky! The horror! The horror! (Not all my aunts, but most.) When we’d go visit an aunt or an aunt would come to our place, the first moment that aunt would see me, I could see it coming. I’d hide, I’d duck, I’d bob-and-weave but I couldn’t dodge the slobbery aunt kisses.
“Aunt Kiss Slobber” never dried. You were always somewhere a paper towel or tissue wasn’t handy, and you didn’t want that kiss goop anywhere on your sleeve. But you didn’t want to wipe it off with your hand because you knew you could never wash your hand completely clean of it– no matter how long and roughly you scrubbed. It would forever feel like it was there, sticky and ewwwww. Forget about your cheek. It’s toast. There’s no saving it. It’s just plain invisibly scarred for time and all eternity.
Decades ago when I was a wee one, up Oak City Canyon for a family gathering, I received an aunt kiss so wet I knew I would surely die of gross. I ran to the creek, grabbed the first leaves I could find, and used them to wipe, wipe, wipe that goo off my face till it hurt. I dunked my head in the water, holding it under as long as I could stand it. My cheek stung like the dickens and I was sure the aunt kiss had eaten clean through my cheek to my teeth. But nope. The leaves I’d grabbed to wipe it off were stinging nettle. I was too young to know my canyon foliage yet. [Do not misunderstand me: I loved my aunts, just not their over-the-top cheek kisses. Even now, I’d choose stinging nettle over an aunt slobber.]
When you become an aunt, you understand the impulse to cover your nieces and nephews in kisses and hugs. When you become an aunt, you automatically receive The Calling: you are endowed with the aunt power that makes it impossible for nieces or nephews to dodge your hugs and kisses. Despite the Aunt Calling, the memory of slobbery aunt kisses has always haunted me. As a result, I have never given a slobbery aunt kiss. I get a gold star for that.
As far as slobbery aunt kisses go, my recommendation to young nieces and nephews all across the planet is this: Since you’re never going to escape your aunts’ kisses, position yourself strategically in front of them, such that they end up kissing the same cheek every time. That cheek will be tainted, but you’ll still have one pure, uncontaminated cheek left for your soulmate.
BTW I know many a grandma gives slobbery kisses too. But that’s different. That is Grandma Slobber, and that’s the best.
Entwined hearts Bow Tie o’ the Day is perfect for Mom. I have been told she’s having an extremely tough time missing Dad recently. Even though he’s gone, their love lives. It’s a time-space continuum thing.
This photo was taken almost 20 years ago. I think Mom is in the kitchen at the Palomar. Most likely, this was a Thanksgiving bash. Check out Mom’s attack face. She is darn well gonna conquer those two loaves of cheese bread. And note the oven burns on the back of Mom’s hand. You’ve heard of rug burn. Well, this is cheese bread burn. She burned her hands on the oven coils every time she made cheese bread. Every time, I tell you. Mom never met an oven glove she’d use. She was strictly a dishtowel gal.
In our house, the electric knife was used for cutting only two things: carving turkey and slicing cheese bread. It was basically used only on Thanksgiving and Christmas and Easter. And then the gadget was put back in its little 70’s original box, and into the kitchen cupboard where Mom and Dad kept the checkbook. The knife laid in its skinny box all alone for 363 days a year. Poor thing. I should have put a bow tie in with it for company.
Mom’s cheese bread is a sacred food. Many of you have had the privilege of tasting Mom’s confections over the years, and you know she was an excellent all-around cook. But Mom’s cheese bread was something she made almost exclusively for family holiday dinners. It was a rare gem. And it was the key food item of those dinners. Dinner did not happen without the cheese bread. Kinds of salads changed. Different versions of potatoes joined the basic mashed potatoes. You’d think the turkey would be the star of these feasts, but it was always about the cheese bread.
And it was war. The most desired slices of cheese bread are the ends, where the cheese-to-bread ratio is the highest. If you managed to score one of the ends, it was only because you managed to steal one before someone else stole it.
At some point after dinner, there was what I’ll refer to as The Semi-Annual Battle Over the Tinfoil On Which the Cheesebread Was Cooked. The tinfoil cheese was like the cherry on top. It was like the prize in the cereal box. The foil was covered in baked-on, cheese bread drippings. Dad usually won that war. And then he would sit at the head of the table, picking carmelized blobs of cheese off the tinfoil—obnoxiously, so we couldn’t help but watch it happen. And we drooled through the torture of witnessing the results of our defeat.
I have made this cheese bread for parties and dinners and potlucks in three states in this U.S. of A., and I can attest to its lusciousness. A couple of enemies became my friends because of this cheese bread. Its powers know no bounds. Hell, Mom’s cheese bread could probably find a way to balance the federal budget. It’s powers are that incredible.
Over the weekend, I saw Suzanne stretching out a cornucopia of clothing items on the kitchen island. With her sewing, crafting, and whatever-ing relentlessly happening around the house, I notice not-ordinary things like that all the time. I don’t always ask about them. Sometimes I treat whatever’s going on like a game– to see if I can figure out the activity’s result. Sometimes I want to know what’s going on, and sometimes I’m sure I don’t. I simply use my powers of observation most of the time.
And so I did, with Suzanne’s clothing on the kitchen island. I heard a buzzing noise, looked over, and saw Suzanne shaving her clothing with her battery-powered lint and hair remover gadget. I don’t recall ever owning clothes in need of an occasional shave, but apparently Suzanne has a few outfits whose goal is to attract globules o’ lint. Or she secretly works in a lint factory. I dunno. Fortunately, she doesn’t have to lather shaving cream on her clothing items before she shaves them.
I did, however, have to change my clothes– even my socks– after I returned home from taking Skitter to the vet this morning. I was more of a fur ball than Skitter by the time we were done with her exam and tests. She shook so ferociously during the appointment it was as if she was ejecting each hair on her body at me, one at a time– like a firing squad of arrows from Tie o’ the Day’s Cupids. Like it’s MY fault she’s got a bladder infection. (We think that’ll be her diagnosis. We expect her test results tomorrow.)
I was surprised to discover Skitter’s solo photo here isn’t a blur of fur. I guess I caught her in mid-quake. Even as she sat there on the exam table, her eyes begged me to get her out of there. I heard her thinking, “If you really loved me, you’d help me escape. Please, please, please. You rescued me once before.” I think I heard her soul howl at me telepathically.
I felt bad about things from the minute I woke up this morning, because I knew what was ahead for Skitter. She naively dressed up in her red flannel Bow Tie o’ the Day for an undisclosed outing with me. She had no clue the destination would be the Parrish Creek Veterinary Clinic. Some things you just shouldn’t tell your dog until you absolutely have to. As we exited the car at the clinic, I was already apologizing to The Skit for the inevitable rectal thermometer, and for whatever the dog urine extractor is called.
But as I type this post, Skitter is sitting beside me at the other end of the loveseat. She has already forgiven me. How do I know? Because she is completely buried under three Suzanne-made blankets– except she has stretched out one of her front legs in my direction, such that her paw is touching my leg. I’d love to snap a pic of Skitter’s precious paw on my thigh to show you, but if I move to pick up my phone, it will startle her. And then there goes the photo op. I’m just going to sit here and enjoy watching it until she moves it.
Blessings are sometimes no bigger than a dog’s paw on your leg. I hope you notice your tiny blessings. They surround you. Just look.
I threw together my BE MINE Bow Tie o’ the Day and my hearts Cape o’ the Day–with nicely clashing paisley, and Suzanne and I headed to Sunday brunch. It was our first time dining at TRADITION, a trendy restaurant near Liberty Park in SLC. It was a sort of pre-Valentine’s Day food outing.
Here I am, squinting into the sun, so I could do my traditional brunch selfie with the restaurant’s name in the photo.
Finding parking was a pain because the place was busy, and snow filled the gutters. It was fortunate we had reservations. In fact, Suzanne finally dropped me off at the door to hold our reservations while she searched hither and yon for a parking spot. She found one and promptly got stuck in the snow, whereupon two good samaritans (2 of the 3 Nephites?) descended to push her out of her dire straits. She finally got a not-so-snowy spot, and into the restaurant she breezed. And I say “breezed” because the wind literally blew her in through the doorway.
The restaurant’s decor was simple and modern, but it was clearly not a place you could have a conversation. Everyone seemed to be yacking, but I have no clue how they understood each other. Suzanne and I yelled our conversation and still had to repeat most of what we said. I am not exaggerating. The din reminded me of a full school lunchroom. It was worse than that, though, because school lunchrooms are larger, so people and their conversations are more spread out.
And how was the food at TRADITION? I had the maple and oatmeal crusted chicken, and sourdough pancakes. You know how I like to try new food at new places. I want to like whatever new dish is on the plate in front of me. At the very least, I want my meal to be edible. Thumbs up on the chicken. Thumbs down on the pancakes. And they sounded yummy. Not! Suzanne and I aren’t opposed to eating at the place again, if for some reason we find ourselves in the neighborhood, but we wouldn’t go out of our way to return. We won’t end up there because we get a craving for the food.
Maybe as I’m growing older, my taste buds are becoming less adventurous. Maybe they are harking back to my younghood. I’m beginning to want the same old familiar food, over and over. Of course, I can’t get any of Mom’s food anymore, so I mean the next lower level of the same old, simple food. I like my steak, pizza, tuna sandwiches, spaghetti. I mean– funeral potatoes never sound like a bad idea to me anymore.
My current pet peeve about most finer restaurant menu’s is that aioli is everywhere. Lemon-insfused aoili. Spice-infused aioli. Garlic-infused aioli. Pomegrante-infused aioli. Oh, please! “Infused” is basically a fancy word for “flavored.” And “aioli” is mayonnaise.
I hereby inform all dining establishment owners: Your whatever-infused aioli does not need to be on every food creation you offer. You also do not need to charge a buck more because you print this exotic-sounding item on your menu. If you see me coming, whatever I order, hold the aioli. I will be the one in the cape and bow tie. If you value my patronage, DO NOT DRIZZLE AIOLI ON, IN, OR AROUND MY FOOD! I can bring my own mini bottle of mayo with me to your establishment if that will help you out.
