Witty & Wise Ties, Trivia & Lies
This Bow Tie o’ the Day is pre-printed right onto my pre-printed ugly sweater t-shirt. Suzanne recently crocheted my new red beanie. And my Red-nosed Rudolph Face Mask o’ the Day is one of my very fave masks in our Christmas collection. 😷🎄
It’s a good thing I still have access to this photo from last Christmas season. I had come up with a swell idea for a new TIE O’ THE DAY selfie for today, in which I once again wore the Rudolph body thong some anonymous reader sent me in the mail a couple of years back. This morning I eagerly headed directly to the Tie Room to retrieve the attire, accessories, and various props I would need for the bigly reindeer thong photo I had promised I’d show you. But for the life of me, I could not find my Rudolph thong. It was not where I usually keep it. The tuxedo thong was there. The tuxedo boxers were there. But the Rudolph thong was nowhere to be found.
I suspected foul play immediately. I suspected a devilish, war-on-Christmas interloper had somehow breached the sanctity of the Tie Room for the sole purpose of stealing my fabulously awkward Rudolph thong. I even got thinking that Suzanne might have accidentally-on-purpose snuck into the Tie Room and gotten rid of my jingly garment, in order to prevent me from ever wearing it on TIE O’ THE DAY for y’all ever again.
Normally, Suzanne’s cool with my over-the-top fashion shenanigans, but I have always suspected this particular festive fashion gift of reindeeer-thong-from-a-stranger crossed the line for her by about eight country miles. I can understand how she might feel like that. However, whatever mystery has befallen my dear deer thong, I resolve to find it—no matter who is ultimately to blame for stealing it from me in the first place. I will indeed show off a new photo of me in my Rudolph thong for y’all before the end of this Christmas season. Mark my words! 🦌
I kept it simple: a Santa Tie o’ the Day. This clothing configuration was a bigly hit at Dick’s Market this morning. There were a handful of kids throughout the store with their parents while I was there, and most of them jollied right up when I passed by. Only one kid broke out in actual tears (loud, wailing tears) when he saw me. His mother—equally not-festive at the sight of me—gave me the how-dare-you-dress-like-that-in-front-of-children look. Did I care that I got “the look”? Heck Tate no, I didn’t care. I gotta be me. Besides, everyone else in the store seemed as happy as flying reindeer to see me in my seasonal garb. 🦌 🎄
⚠️WARNING! Remember the reindeer Christmas thong a reader sent me a couple of years ago? Well, I’ll be wearing that in the next post. Once seen, it cannot be unseen—so if you think your heart and/or eyes can’t handle it, please rapidly scroll past the next TIE O’ THE DAY when it shows up on your screen. If you think there’s even a slight chance you might be askeered by it, look ye not directly at the image! You have been warned, y’all! ⚠️
Here’s Skitter in her first Christmas 2021 Tie o’ the Day. She was present, watching with doggie amusement when the following tale played out.
On the day after Thanksgiving, I was dizzy all day long. I’d get up to do something, and I’d sort of catch myself leaning and weaving as I gingerly made my way from place to place. At some point, I began to wonder if I’d started drinking again without my own knowledge. It was an odd feeling. But honestly, I was more curious than concerned about my wobbly state of equilibrium. I chalked it up to having eaten excessive amounts of cheese bread, tater tots, and green Jell-O the day before. Or maybe what I was experiencing was simply due to my age. I blame “getting older” for a plethora of inexplicable and/or idiosyncratic things that occur in, on, to, or anywhere near my body. I’m positive I’m mostly correct to direct blame at this culprit of time.
Anyhoo… It was the day after Thanksgiving, and Suzanne had her side of the love seat reclined so her recently operated-on foot could be constantly elevated. Her foot stuck out towards the middle of the living room like a sore thumb (har, har, har) the entire day. She was following her surgeon’s orders to stay off her hoof and be a couch potato slug. As the day wore on, so did my light-headed condition. So we spent the bulk of the holiday sitting safely on the love seat watching television. At one point, as I unsteadily walked across the living room to get something, I felt myself falling—slowly but surely—to the floor. To catch myself, I instinctively reached out and grabbed the nearest available object, which just happened to be Suzanne’s recently operated-on-and-still-throbbing, elevated foot which stuck out in the perfect spot to save me. Which it did. Which caused Suzanne to yelp out in pain. My apologies yelped out in response. I felt like the worst dizzy person on the face of the earth.
I saw it in my mind’s eye then: the tableau we had made at that very moment. Picture it yourself. Suzanne sitting in the love seat—footrest deployed. Her decades-worn foot elevated and iced, protruding into the center of the room. If she were moving, her joints would be creaking. She is cozily semi-swaddled in her Minky blanket because she has been perpetually cold for the last decade, no matter the temperature. Her reading glasses are perched perfectly on her nose, so she can sufficiently see what she’s currently embroidering. To conquer painful inflammation, a dishtowel-wrapped bag of frozen peas is draped like a too-tiny shawl around the back of Suzanne’s neck, which aches these days with an ever-increasing regularity.
Now picture my part in this tableau o’ long-settled domesticity. There I stand, on the verge of falling in my own living room. Babying my pancreas. Hand over my still-scabby surgical scar. My own eyeglasses on so I can focus better on increasingly blurry words, things, critters, and people. Full set o’ dentures in my mouth. Tinnitus blaring in my brain. Hearing aids like barnacles growing out of my ears. An amnesia haze developing about what it was I even crossed the room to do or retrieve in the first place. My balance weeble-wobbly, at best that day.
After I managed to sit my butt back down on the love seat to calm the adrenalin, I recognized the implications of the scene Suzanne and I had just made. I said to Suzanne, with all the exuberance I could muster, “It has happened! I think it’s official!” She asked me what I was talking about. I said, “Finally! When we were young, we talked about how nice it would be to achieve it. And after all these years—as of this very moment—I am certain we have accomplished it: We have officially grown old together!” Even with all manner of natural maladies which might accompany it, I can say it’s even better than I imagined it would be. It feels like home to me. 🛋 📺 👣 💝
Ye olde red-and-green, starry starry Bow Tie o’ the Day. Santa face. And critical thinking on top.
[This is Dad’s obituary, as printed in his much-beloved SALT LAKE TRIBUNE. Note that Dad is wearing a Tie o’ the Day in this photo, and he was rarely a tie guy.]
Ronald Wright 6/13/1930 ~ 12/4/ 2007
DELTA- Ronald Edmond Wright, 77, died on Dec. 4, 2007 at home surrounded by his family after a valiant struggle against multiple health issues. Born June 13, 1930 in Nephi, UT to Walter Edmond and Zola Walker Wright. Married Helen Anderson, his high school sweetheart from Oak City, UT on July 26, 1948 in Manti LDS Temple. Ron graduated in 1948 from Delta High School.
After graduation, bought father’s bee operation and was known as knowledgeable, reputable beekeeper. Shared expertise, labor and equipment with local beekeepers and others he met while traveling throughout the west. To stay home more while the children were young, Ron took a second profession as brick mason. Dad enjoyed outdoor activities and was an avid hunter in his favorite Millard County mountains. Also took forays to other areas, notably Alaska where he hunted moose, caribou and Kodiak bear. The trophies hung in the old First Security Bank and in the former Wolfe’s Sportsman store. Dad was never happier than when being stung by a bee, or holding a baby.
Survived by wife: Helen, of 59 years; children: Betty and Kent, Anne and Gary, Ron and Marie, Rob and Mary, Helen E. and Suzanne; 18 grandchildren, 30 great-grand-children- and three more in a few months; sister: Shirley (Pete) Petersen; a brother: Derral (Shirley) Wright; and a sister-in-law: Joanne P. Wright. Preceded in death by brother: Wally Ray; dogs: Dumb Dumb, Becky, and two Berts.
Services: Sat. Dec. 8, 2007 at noon, Delta LDS 1st Ward. Friends call Sat. morning at church, 10-11:45 a.m. Burial Delta Cemetery.
With a jumbo Bow Tie o’ the Day covered in wrapped and be-ribboned presents, I present my munchkin-est Charlie Brown Christmas tree. It stands at just under a mini-majestic 10 inches tall. Its singular ornament is a milkweed pod creation by my grandma, Zola Walker Wright. She made it in the early 70’s, and it is indeed the beauteous Zola whose photograph adorns this particular ornament. She made similar photo-personalized milkweed pod ornaments adorned with pictures of each member of the the family. When she and my grandpa, Walter, decorated their X-mas tree with all the milkweed pod faces, it both figuratively and literally became a family tree. I still have my precious Zola-made, milkweed pod face-ornament. It is securely stored away somewhere so secret and safe in our garage that even I can’t find it. 🤓🎁
If you’re a long-time dedicated reader of TIE O’ THE DAY, you have probably been suspicious that something is bigly and seriously wrong with me. Normally, at this point on my tblog calendar, I would have been wearing holiday neckties and bow ties for weeks now—in my seasonal attempt to wear every piece of holiday neckwear in my collection. For example, last year on this date the TIE O’ THE DAY Holiday Tie Tally shows that I had already worn 92 Christmas-themed neckties AND 22 said-themed bow ties. The complete 2020 Holiday Tie Tally total of what pieces I wore ended up at a whopping 209 seasonal neckties and 93 jolly bow ties. All the holiday neckwear filled 6 storage bins in the Tie Room and garage. The annual endeavor is always fun and challenging for me, but I’m taking a break from it this year. There will be no wearing of a dozen ties at one time. But worry not! I will still be sporting festive neckwear from now until January 1st. I have no doubt I’ll come up with plenty o’ other gimmicks to keep y’all entertained for the holiday season as best I can. I will be super-selective in my 2021 Christmas season neckwear choices. My first Bow Tie o’ the Day choice of 2021? Santa-hatted yellow lab puppies. Enjoy the merry tie offerings for the coming weeks. And a heartfelt HO, HO, HO to y’all!
I was going through photos on my phone this afternoon when I realized I had not yet posted anything about our bigly Thanks Feast of last week. I admit I had a cheese bread hangover for a couple of days after the event, and that’s the likely reason the documenting photos slipped my brain. Note this: Turkey Tie o’ Thanksgiving can also function as a handy bib!
Anyhoo… We stayed home this year for the holiday, so it was just me and Suzanne and the skittish Skitter for the entire day. When it’s like that, you know I have to put my spin on the traditional food offerings. I once again prepared food one item at a time, at various junctures throughout the day. I launched the festivities with the opening of the can o’ jellied cranberry and dumping it on a plate—thus, causing the traditional cranberry-blob-from-the-can-suck sound. And we were off.
We ate “canned”-ied yams and baby corn-on-the-cob and stuffing. At some point, Suzanne ate a whole can of olives. In lieu of mashed potatoes, I slaved away baking tater tots, which is one of Suzanne’s all-time fave potato creations to eat. (It’s true. When I’m in the proverbial doghouse with Suzanne, I just drag out the tater tots, and I am immediately forgiven.) We ate bow tie-shaped ham and turkey sammiches. There are no photos of the loaf of cheese bread I sculpted, because we were so busy eating it while it was warm that it would have been blasphemous to take up valuable eating time to find my phone or camera. And since we live in Utah, I served up green Jell-O—bow tie-shaped, too. Also, of course, we napped-and-snacked intermittently. For dessert that evening, I scooped up mounds of Dreyer’s pumpkin pie ice cream for us to snarf down until we were beyond full. Fortunately, we ate so much that I’m sure we won’t need another meal until Christmas—or possibly Easter. Yup. Mission accomplished.
I channeled Dad in order to make a final decision about purchasing the new truck I’ve been eyeing. Dad knew his trucks. Also, Dad always had a red or blue hanky dangling from his back pocket, so I wore a hanky-esque Face Mask o’ the Day to the car dealership yesterday. I doubled-down with the black in my Bow Tie o’ the Day and the yellow in my shirt—the two colors signifying the bees Dad expertly cared for in his life-long work.
I picked up Suzanne from her office and took her on a test-drive in my potential auto acquisition. Suzanne’s tummy gets hyper-queasy when riding in bouncy vehicles like my old jalopy truck, so I wanted to make sure she could stomach the ride in this new vehicle. If she couldn’t relax and enjoy the truck’s ride, I would not even entertain the idea of acquiring this truck candidate. At some point during the test-drive—as I drove, and as Suzanne played with all the gadgets and controls in the cab—Suzanne seemed to be remarkably pleased with the level of smoothe-icity of the truck’s ride. Suzanne’s perfectly settled stomach was saying, “Yes!” to the truck. Consequently, I made my bigly decision to buy the 2022 Ford Maverick—and in my kind of flashy color, called Velocity Blue. When we finally returned the demo truck to the dealership, I was grinning through my face mask as I signed my “Helen Hancock” on the necessary paperwork. Oh, happy, wallet-emptying day! 💸💸
The bad news is this: My brand new travel toy is a special order, and it will not be built and delivered to me for 2 or 3—or maybe 4 or more—months. The good news about the bad news is this: If I don’t explode to smithereens with anticipation before my truck gets here, I will have grown my patience to superpower-strength. That kind of patience comes in handy on this planet full of imperfect human beings. Patience, I fervently believe, is the next best quality to kindness.