Witty & Wise Ties, Trivia & Lies
Here’s my fave-rave photo from last week’s two-state vacay. Suzanne selfied this picture as we rode the High Roller ferris wheel in Las Vegas. Under my jacket, I’m wearing my old timey swimming suit and gold-thread embellishments Bow Tie o’ the Day. Suzanne’s wearing her new BAND OF HORSES hoodie. Vegas was a bit on the chilly side. You can see how much it didn’t matter to us.
I intentionally do not have the Facebook app on my phone. I also intentionally do not have the administrative/editing capabilities of the TIE O’ THE DAY website set up on my phone. When I’m out and about and away, there’s no way I can post a darn thing until I get back to my laptop at the hotel. That’s exactly how I want it. If I’m doing something, I don’t want to even be tempted to stop in mid-activity and write a post that comes to mind about it. I do not want to miss doing the next thing or the next thing, etc. cuz my head is in my phone, posting about what already happened– at the expense of what I’m doing right now. I post about my life, but I want to live it first. Having experiences is primary. Making my experiences into stories and observations and sermons is secondary.
In Las Vegas, while out gallivanting around the Strip with Suzanne, I ran into four bow tie products I didn’t buy– although one of them caused me stop in the middle of the path through the mall of shops, in which we found ourselves. And I mean STOP. Upon seeing the luggage shown in the photo, I became a mute statue. All I could do was point. I so wanted this set of bow tie luggage. But I will have to start a GO FUND ME account if I’m going to buy it– unless any of y’all have $3000 just sitting around in a cookie jar, and are willing to fork it over so I can buy something I don’t even need.
I could have afforded the hat shown in one of these pix, but it just didn’t strike me as something I’d wear.
The same is true of the bow tie necklace. It was affordable. It has good bling, and yet it was somehow too “plain” for my taste.
Now, the tie-design necklace Suzanne is modeling was downright hideous to behold. Even Suzanne couldn’t make it okay to look at. No way was I gonna wear that object of not-art. And you know darn well that I will generally wear anything. That should prove how wrong this necklace looked.
When I am traveling– out discovering things and having experiences– I am never on the search for neckwear products. But I can’t help it if I run into pertinent objects occasionally. It’s true that when I do come across some tie/bow tie thing, I consider what I could do with it, or write about it, in a post. Rarely, do I postpone my immediate plans in order to stop and acquire it. Neckwear doo-dads are beauteous, but they don’t compare to the joy of fully participating in the adventures– bigly or small– of your own life. That’s how you build a life. You can write about what you did later– when you get home.
While at McCarren International Airport, prepping to leave Las Vegas, I fetched Suzanne and me a couple of Diet Cokes to keep us awake on our flight home. (Fantastic vacations are exhausting.) Let me translate for you, in case you can’t see the price for a 20-ounce soda in this photo: $4.09, before airport tax– which puts the price darn close to five whole buckaroos. And one soda is not nearly enough for me, no matter how many hours I’m going to be flying. It’s a lucky thing I had won $20 at a penny slot machine in one of the casinos we visited on our Vegas jaunt, or I’d have been Diet Coke-parched for the remainder of the trip. Flashy silver Bow Tie o’ the Day offered to sell its glitzy self for me if I ran out of soda money before we got home. However, thanks to my superior penny slot gambling skills, Bow Tie’s sacrifice was not necessary. My neckwear is so charitable regarding my quaffing needs.
Bigly gratitude for the birthday greetings y’all took the time to send my way yesterday. You make a girl o’ many ties and bow ties feel important. Y’all da bomb! I’m blessed to have big-hearted friends and readers. And I’m blessed to be fifty-damn-five.
For my Sabbath birthday, I donned balloons Bow Tie o’ the Day; sugar skeletons Cape o’ the Day; paw prints Sloggers Garden Shoes o’ the Day; and “Best. Life. Ever” Cufflinks o’ the Day. What a Day o’ the Day! And, no, your eyes are not playing tricks on you: I gave in and bought my airport saddle purse, which I call the Purse o’ My Life. I call it that because I’ve never had a purse before, and I will probably never buy another one. Once I saw the saddle purse, I could not move forward in my life without it. (I will write a post about the saddle purse saga, which I have already titled in my mind: A Tale O’ Two Purses.)
Suzanne took me to birthday brunch at BISTRO, in the SLC Avenues. I was pleased trout was on their menu. There’s nothing better than trout and eggs. Later, Suzanne made me a German chocolate birthday cake. We fully intended to invite Suzanne’s parents over to have a piece, but somehow the cake went mostly missing as soon as it got frosted. Oops! Doh!
I debated between actually going to brunch, or just sleeping in. We got home from our travels Saturday, and we were still beat. Sleeping in was only a brief thought for me though. Suzanne had made birthday brunch reservations, and I decided I better take advantage of that– since one year she completely forgot my birthday even existed. Poor Suzanne. Her sin of forgetfulness happened nearly two decades ago, and I still harass her about it every year. And for the past five years, I’ve done it in this public forum. It’s obvious I forgave her, and we can guffaw about her little faux pas. I razz her annually about it with gratitude and adoration for each and every OTHER day we’ve been together.
Bow Tie o’ the Day helped me take this back-up hair shot last week, in case Suzanne wouldn’t have time to do my ‘do for today– cuz of her workload in Tucson. Snapping it ended up being a good idea. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be looking at this gem. All I did to style my mop this way was to get out of bed and onto my feet, lean over frontward, and then flip my head right back up. Doing all of that, made all of this. Isn’t that speshul?
Suzanne finished her Tucson assignment yesterday, and the plan was to immediately fly from there to SLC, where we would have an expensive, so-so airport meal. We’d kill an hour at the boarding gate, and then hop on our evening flight to Las Vegas, aka, Lost Wages. Lo and behold, a four-hour departure delay at the Tucson airport foiled our plan to fly away to Vegas last night, since our Vegas flight left SLC before we even boarded the flight from Tucson to SLC. Anyhoo… We got to SLC late last night, slept for four hours, confused the heck out of Skitter by showing up for a minute before leaving the house again first thing this morning. And then we hopped a plane to Vegas, where I’m typing this post from THE LINQ hotel.
Suzanne and I have a way of handling thinks like rescheduling flights at the last minute: Suzanne makes the call, using her calm bureaucrat voice, and she works out the details of the arrangements. Problem gets taken care of. I, on the other hand, have a low-boil tantrum. Bad words come out of my mouth. I can be downright childish. And then Suzanne tries to wind me down to a normal pout, whereupon I say things to her like, “Just let me have my tantrum, and then I’ll get over it.” I’m feeling much less prickly now.
Cactus Bow Tie o’ the Day reminds me I said I would still post twice per day while on vacay in Tucson. I always plan to keep up with my post quota when I’m away exploring places other than Centerville, but I am easily distracted by new landscapes. I say I’ll follow my post routine, and then I don’t. Sorry. I don’t feel all that guilty about it because I will eventually post the stories of every second of my life anyway. Sooner or later, I will tell you way too much about my little ol’ life. It’s what I do. I like to tell stories, and since I am I, I’m usually a character in them. Imagine that.
Anyhoo… I’ve been here in Tucson four days, and I’ve already opened up my first clothing store! I am officially an entrepreneur. I even opened a second location in another section of Tucson. In this photo, you can see my very first customer. I’m in the money!
I also notice I’ve got the rabbit ears photo-bombing my selfie. Don’t know how that happened.
And finally, I know you might be wondering what I decided to give up for Lent. I type it here to make it official for all eyes to see: I am giving up chewing tobacky– at least until Easter. Suzanne is giving up the same thing she gives up every year: smoking. It will be hard for us to deprive ourselves of tobacco leaves, but we will suffer through it.
It’s Fat Tuesday! Bow Tie o’ the Day sports its Mardi Gras masks, beads, and colors. The thing encircling my breasticles is my new Mardi Gras Cummerbund o’ the Day. I ordered the smallest waist size they had, but it was still too bigly for my waist. As you can see, I can make it fit my chest. I could probably make the XL size fit my chest. Or maybe I should wear my cummerbund as a sash– covered with layers of scout badges, or with words like “Miss America” emblazoned upon it.
Not today though. I’m frenetically busy with the seein’ o’ the sights, so much so that I can’t settle down to compose a proper post. Don’t worry. I’ll update y’all as soon as my physical steam runs out. Suffice it to say that today I’m un-drunkenly celebrating Mardi Gras. I didn’t know it was possible to get your Mardi Gras on without drinking– until I got sober. (I still hate when that happens. But a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.) Fun is a state of mind, not a state of intoxication.
In between being captivated by various Tucson-area tourist spots, I’m trying to decide what I’m giving up for Lent tomorrow. Ash Wednesday is nigh! I’m not even Catholic, but observing Lent is the kind of exercise all of us could benefit from. Unless you’re perfect. Giving up something for Lent is always a tough decision for me. What’s something I need to NOT do for at least the next forty days? Can’t decide. Luckily, I provide myself with plenty of imperfections to choose from.
Suzanne is here in Tucson to work on a secret public education project, which is so confidential she can’t tell me about it. If I ask about the particulars, I get the standard, “I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.” Yup, her job here is that kind of confidential. Apparently, I don’t have a high enough security clearance.
Poor Suzanne is working 12-hour days, and I get to doodle around being a no-schedule, go-where-I-want, solo tourist. I feel kinda guilty about the situation. I try not to brag to Suzanne about the interesting places I’ve been and what fantastic things I did while I was there, but she asks. And I tell. It’s fortunate she likes her work, and it’s a bonus for me that I get to tag along to places I wouldn’t necessarily travel otherwise.
I’m realizing that Suzanne likes that I can travel and enjoy myself. My Hanky Panky (evil pancreas) pestered me bigly for a couple of decades, and I just wanted to hang close to home. Since my operation last summer, I feel freer. I feel better. I’ve still got one-third of a pancreas– which works. The other two-defective-thirds is somewhere in a biohazard waste dump, which is exactly where it belongs. Sometimes, having less of something is a life-enhancing solution. Out with the bad. On with the effective and painless. I’m glad Suzanne pestered me to be gutted. Now I can be a stowaway, wherever she does her super-secret work.
Today, I followed Bow Tie o’ the Day’s arrows to Saguaro National Park. CacTie, cacTie, cacTie. My rental truck is a Chevy Silverado, which looks like it could be my red 1998 Hombre on steroids. My beat-up Hombre can’t last forever, so I’m treating my vacay driving as long test drives for when the day finally comes I’ll be in the market for a fresh jalopy. I have named the cactus sharing the photo with the Silverado “If It Looks Like A Tall Duck, It’s A Cactus.”
When I initially looked up the mountainsides as I traversed the Bajada Loop trail, I thought, “Look at all that asparagus!” I knew I was seeing cactTIE, But they kept resembling asparagus to me– especially the farther away they were. In the desert valley where I was born, I was raised to see asparagus growing on a dirt ditch bank from six acres away. It’s a skill I don’t have much use for, but I still claim to be an expert at spying the stuff.
And finally, I hereby admit to something I do when I travel. You see those two bow ties sitting in a cactus? When I travel, I always bring along a couple of “stunt” bow ties. I no longer perform all the death-defying and/or painful antics for these posts. When I can, I leave that danger to my stunt neckwear. Sit on cactus needles? I’ll pass. I have stunt bow ties for that. They never complain. They can handle the wear-and-tear better than my old bones can. I pay them well, and provide them with health insurance. Plus, they make me feel like I’m with friends. I’m not completely alone on my treks through new landscapes. I and my stunt bow ties have a raucous, wild time.
FYI A bow tie qualifies to be a “stunt” bow tie if it is a duplicate of one I already have, or if it is deformed or falling apart in some way. Just thought you’d like to know.
I rolled out of bed at 4:30 AM this bee-you-tee-full Sabbath morn to finish the prep for our impending flight to Tucson. Skitter rolled out of her bed already pouty cuz she saw suitcases getting filled last night– and not one of them was hers.
Right before we boarded the plane for AZ this morning, CacTie Bolo o’ the Day was an awe-struck witness to an amazing development at the SLC airport. I stopped in an airport gift shop to buy a $6, 20-ounce bottle of Diet Coke, and something cataclysmic happened that has never happened to me before in all of my lengthy adult life. And it’s so unheard-of it can’t possibly happen to me again.
But occur this once, it did. I spied an object in the aforementioned airport gift shop, out of the corner of one of my blue eyes: a PURSE. Not simply a purse, but the only purse I have ever actually wanted to own for myself. I want it. I wanted it immediately. I want this “saddle” purse, if only for the mini saddle bag towards the back and the stirrup on the side. Oh, and the horn looks groovetastic too! Must. Have. Purse!
I don’t know what flash came over me when I gazed in the purse’s direction. It was such an odd feeling– I couldn’t bring myself to buy the artsy creation. But for the hours since that moment, I haven’t been able to stop daydreaming about it. And I have a feeling I’ll end up with that flashy leather bag o’ my dreams.
What is wrong with me, people? I’m too old and set and happy in my neckwear ways to start collecting other things. I don’t have the space or the bucks or the energy for another kind of collection anyway. But a purse? A purse! A purse, I ask you again? Of all things! A purse is so unlike me. I wear pants with bigly pockets, just so I don’t have to drag a bag with me wherever I go. Anyway, I’m more of a backpack/briefcase/messenger bag sort of girl. Golly gee, I don’t hang a purse strap over my shoulder. That doesn’t translate.
But when we return to SLC International, when our vacay is done, I’ll most likely be walking out of the airport to our car with the freshly purchased turquoise saddle purse. And Suzanne will likely walk out with the red one. (I should have known not to show her a picture of me with a snazzy purse. Of course, she’ll have to have a purse too.) Suzanne with a purse makes sense. A purse and I makes me a stranger in the land of my own clash fashion. Would Skitter even recognize me while I’m disguised by a purse? Would I recognize myself? The pigs will be flying again over me and my new purse, that’s for damn sure.
Bow Ties o’ the Day are each vying for me to select them for our Tucson/Vegas trip tomorrow. It’s a cacophony of bow tie voices around here today as each one is begging, “Me, me! Take me!”
I’m sure those of you who have had kids remember the times you were leaving them home with a sitter and they clung to your neck or your legs with every ounce of their strength, pleading with you to either not go at all or to take them with you. That’s how every piece of neckwear in The Tie Room is acting this morning while I pack. I feel like Meryl Streep in SOPHIE’S CHOICE. I’m stuck deciding something that will injure tie/bow tie feelings, no matter what I choose. The weeping and wailing The Skit will hear emanating from The Tie Room for a week will be tough on her.
I pack mostly bow ties to accompany me on travel adventures. Neckies tend to easily get in the way when you are sightseeing or otherwise exploring. Think about it: hiking, walking, tramming can be dangerous with a tie blowing around or possibly getting caught in machinery or roller coaster cars.
Flying with bow ties, however, has a downside too. Although you don’t have to worry about a bow tie getting in the way while you wear it, you have to pack them in individual boxes, so they don’t get smashed in your suitcase. That means they take up a lot of space. For example, I will be gone 7 days, which means I need to take at least 14 pieces of neckwear, since I usually post twice per day. That leaves a shortage of space for clothing in my carry-on bag. And I only travel with a carry-on– and my laptop bag. I refuse to pay $30 to check a suitcase. Heck, you might see photos of me wearing the same clothes every time I post a pic this week. But I won’t be wearing the same neckwear in each post. That’s not how I roll. Or fly, or see the sights.