Month: August 2019

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Having My Tie, And Bow Tie-ing It , Too

Tie o’ the Day is also Bow Ties o’ the Day. They’re all being a little matchy with my raggedy cowboy Hat o’ the Day. I’ll survive the matchiness just fine cuz it does look snappy.

I dressed for going out today, although I never actually went anywhere. Instead, I did all kinds of house chores in my good duds. My efforts don’t show, however. My choring ended up being mostly tasks which must get done, even though no one else will notice them. My list was full of things like the following: de-squeaking the doors (which took longer than it should have cuz I had to find the WD-40); untangling the cords under my computer table; putting new light bulbs in the high ceiling fixtures; and dusting baseboards. I swear, the work is more interesting when you dress up to do it.

A day like this is not uncommon for me. And when I have one, I begin to feel really guilty about what I did, or didn’t do, all day. This happens to me right around the time Suzanne is on her way home from work. Today, I feel the need to apologize for doing only the “invisible” housework. I will most likely apologize to her when she walks into the house, before she’s even hung up her keys. And then she’ll tell me to quit apologizing for it. I know she doesn’t give a darn what I do with my days, but I still feel like I should apologize for EVERYTHING not getting done EVERY DAY. Apologies and excuses just fall out of my face. I know it annoys her sometimes. Heck, it annoys me too.

I’ve been mulling it over. Why do I apologize for being unable to do the impossible? I know you do it too. How is it that we can know that “x” can’t ever be perfect, but we still feel the desperate need to apologize for not making it perfect, 24/7?

Maybe part of it is because we know we really could do a little better at whatever it is we do. Maybe another reason is we appreciate what someone does for us, but we don’t feel like we are doing nearly as much. We feel inadequate, but instead of thanking that person for what they do, we apologize for the x, y, and z which we didn’t get perfect. We take it out on ourselves. Maybe we need to appreciate our own efforts a bit more. Mostly, I think we need to remind ourselves we’re as imperfectly human as anyone we apologize to.

Hey, I’m gonna try an experiment. For the next 24 hours, if I feel like I need to apologize to someone for something I didn’t get done (or something I did get done but not perfectly), I’m not going to apologize. Instead, I’m going to thank that person for something they do. This experiment will be disastrous or enlightening. I’ll report how it worked out. If you don’t ever hear from me again, you’ll know my behavioral experiment was a dangerous, failed undertaking which Suzanne didn’t appreciate. 😬🙀

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This Is Seriously A Joke

The TUMS were necessary. The whole event made me queasy. And the red, white, and blue TUMS were appropriate to the situation because they help me make my patriotic point.

Lavender hanky Bow Tie o’ the Day warned me, so it was my own damn fault. I went against my own recent “rule.” A few years ago, I decided it was best for my own happiness to not “talk politics” on social media. I don’t make a judgment about those of you who choose to talk politics on social media. If it’s your thing, keep doing your thing. In fact, I’m glad when anyone feels they have a responsibility to participate in the political life of our country. I wish more people would feel it is one of their responsibilities as a citizen to actually be a responsible citizen and to participate. We need to speak out, but we also need to actually do something.

Anyhoo… I lost my mind for a moment recently, and I began to read snippets of a political Facebook post and its comments, which had been accumulating for a couple of hours before my reading eyeballs came along. I then commented a correction to a “fact” which was in the post, which immediately eliminated the need for any of the political argument to continue. (Fortunately, these people accepted a fact for a fact.) Checking the veracity of that one, major fact would have kept the person who wrote the post from feeling the need to write and post it in the first place. And the dozen people who spent two hours becoming angry with each other about the politics they were arguing– well, they would have been able to spend that time more productively and more happily doing anything else. During said online conversation, participants were called vulgar names (including me); profanity was used (even at me); people were falsely accused of being traitors (as was I); more inaccurate “facts” were treated like God’s word. It made me sick to my stomach.

Rhetoric like that is why I made my no-politics-talk-online rule. Some people post things that have very little to do with the actual topic they are discussing and more to do with tearing down others for concluding something different than they themselves believe. That is not “discussing politics.” That is cultivating incivility, anger, and fear. Unfortunately, this is what most of the “political discussion” you can find in any media is like. And I must add that most of what you hear politics-wise in coffee shops, bars, the check-out line, and in living rooms is far too similar to the sketchy yelling and mocking you read and hear online. It’s not well-informed, and it’s not civil. I try to extricate myself from those kinds of conversations.

But I dig history and politics. I dig having conversations with people who see issues very differently than I do. I also believe it’s my duty as a citizen to participate in the workings of our relatively young country. I believe it’s my duty to spend time getting my facts straight, making sure what I have to say is logical, and then presenting my thoughts in a civil manner– even when arguing against something. Civility means you treat people in such a way that shows you don’t think you’re better than everyone who might disagree with you.

When I first made my rule, I couldn’t think of any situation where I could talk politics in civility at this time. Seriously. But I thought about how important it is to me to participate in real political discussion, and I thought about how much I’ve enjoyed these conversations my whole life. I have learned from those conversations. I have grown to respect people’s thoughts and ideas, even as they were world’s away from mine. I have learned to see how and why they came to their understanding of the issue. And they have learned from my thinking. If we hadn’t been friends before a “nice” discussion, we were friends after it. We could work together at that point.

I like to talk politics. I’ll continue to be fascinated by it. I’ll continue to be a responsible citizen, educate myself, and participate in the political process. But I won’t touch politics on social media. And I won’t discuss it in groups. I will sit with you, one-on-one, so we can look each other in the eyes and have a civil conversation about the current state of the US of A. I’ll even make you Rice Krispie treats if you want.

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I Abandon Skitter Daily For An Hour Or So

Sticker Bow Ties o’ the Day have noticed I’m in the doghouse, as far as Skitter is concerned. When I don my bike helmet and head for the garage to get my bicycle, Skitter withers into one of her beds. The pout on her face is deafening. She knows I’m going outdoors without her, and she wants me to feel super guilty about leaving her home.

And I do feel guilty about it. She would enjoy a bike ride, I’m sure. But her legs wouldn’t be able to keep up with me if she tried to run at my side. She can’t yet ride a bike herself, and she hates to ride on the handlebars of mine. She’s too tall to fit in a bike basket. I thought of attaching a toddler trailer to my bike, but it would freak out The Skit to not be able to see my reassuring face every other second.

I mean– I know the solution. But I haven’t yet been able to actually locate or create the solution. What’s the solution? Skitter needs a sidecar attached to my bicycle. Heck, I could add a second sidecar to the other side of my bike for Mom. Oh, they’d both be in heaven. I wonder if Suzanne knows how to crochet bicycle sidecars.