Personally, I am not a fan of being matchy with my attire, as y’all well know by now. However, I can whip up an entire outfit in accordance with a set theme, if I so desire. With creating a singular, comprehensive theme in mind, one might ask the following question: “Exactly what is the appropriate fashion move to make when one’s newest golf pants are peacock-y?” TIE O’ THE DAY is pleased to impart a spectacle-worthy answer: one must go with the bigly peacock theme at least once in one’s life. One must surely create one day’s worth of all-out peacock-y attire to be gawked at. To do this, one must don one’s peacock-y Bow Tie o’ the Day, one’s peacock-y Face Mask o’ the Day, and one’s peacock-y Suspenders o’ the Day—in addition to one’s peacock-y Golf Pants o’ the Day. If one follows my advice, one will be both peacock-y and forever unforgettable. Indeed, one will become a legend—if only in one’s own mind. 🤣
Valentine Teddy bear Tie o’ the Day knows that having a good thing can make you downright speechless. Whether you’re contemplating love or a pair of golf pants, sometimes words can’t convey its singular splendor. So shut up about it, and behold its glory. Bask in its beauty. Love. Golf pants. And a necktie. Stand all amazed—at peace in content silence—in your luck to have found what you were looking for. 💝👖👔
“Cupid” rhymes with “stupid,” but they are not the same thing. However, Cupid-covered Tie o’ the Day will be the first to tell you that sometimes loving someone can certainly make you feel stupid. When you love someone, you’ll forever find yourself running into burning buildings—or jumping in front of speeding bullets—to save your beloved from all possible harm. Your wallet will inexplicably look anorexic because you’re paying bills for two. You will learn how to be content with sharing almost every bit of your very time, space, and air. Cupid can make you almost glad to regularly endure someone else’s all-night snore-fest: you’re simply so grateful to be snored awake right where you are. Yup, love can be loud and demanding. And yet, I highly recommend not wearing Cupid repellant. I recommend jumping head-first into the deep end of love. It isn’t always easy or fun to grow an enduring relationship. But a relationship full of devotion and respect will turn you into a stronger, wiser, more patient person than you ever dreamed you could be. Whether or not you want to evolve, if you’re working at love, you will. You must be brave for the duration. Love done right, in its truest sense, will transform you into a childlike grown-up. You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. You’ll get frustrated. You’ll fume. But even the most difficult times you share with someone you adore will be packed with perpetual wonder. Love has the power to do that—if you pay meticulous attention.
I have included here a copy of one of my favorite e.e. cummings poems. I am happy to report that when you are in love, flowers really do pick themselves. I see it happen every day. Enjoy the poem.
Heart-covered Bow Tie o’ the Day is here to remind you you’re running out of time to make your Valentine’s Day plans. It’s a hokey holiday, created to sell cards and flowers and chocolates, but it’s a day that can hold profound meaning—if only symbolically. Decide to make the day matter. That’s how meaning is created. Just decide it matters, and act accordingly. 😍
Bow Tie o’ the Day and I spent some time at Farmington Health Center this morning. My dermatologist wrote me prescription to get a set of lung x-rays. In trying to diagnose my mysterious skin rash, my doc’s thinking it could be related to a weird thing in one of my lungs that showed up in all the CT scans I had leading up to my pancreas surgery. Based on what I understand from reading the radiologist’s findings about my x-rays today, my lungs appear to be healthy and probably not involved with the rash on my torso. Of course, the dermatologist will have the last word about the whole thing at my next appointment.
In my whole life, I have never had any trouble breathing, that’s for sure. I’ve never had pneumonia, or bronchitis, or asthma, or a collapsed lung. I can huff and puff with the meanest of bigly bad wolves. But based on my half dozen CT scans over the last year, one of my lungs has what looks to be a little patch of scar tissue where the lung is stuck to itself. I’m pretty sure I know where it came from, and I blame Bob Lyman—my kidhood neighbor from across the street. I don’t remember how it all came to pass, but when I was almost 8—and about to be baptized—Bob (who was 10) and I were playing in his backyard. Somehow I had lifted a pack of smokes from a carton in a family member’s fridge, and Bob was determined to assist me in smoking my first cigarette. I wanted to have the experience of smoking at least one cigarette in my life, so I could know what it was like. Moreover, it was very important to me that I smoke it before I was baptized, so the sin of smoking (and stealing) could be cleansed from my soul immediately upon completion of my baptism. I had thought out the whole thing, and I had decided it was a perfectly efficient and reasonable way to proceed with committing this sin.
Anyhoo… Bob found some matches in his garage, and he lit up first—carefully explaining and demonstrating exactly what I should do in order to smoke correctly. I practiced various ways to hold the cigarette in my fingers, and how to pose to look cool while sinning in this manner. Finally, I lit the match, then lit my cigarette—sucking in as hard as I could. I did it, step by step, exactly how Bob instructed me. Except. Except he didn’t tell me to not swallow all the smoke I sucked in. I think I figured you took the smoke in and it effortlessly just kind of made its way out of your mouth and nose while you talked. That’s how it had always looked to me when I observed smokers. Clearly, my powers of observation were not very developed when I was 7.
Well, I started coughing and choking and writhing around on the grass in Bob Lyman’s back yard, while Bob rushed around the corner of the house to get the hose. He turned the water on full-blast. He heroically stuck the hose in my mouth—hellbent on saving my life. I don’t know which felt worse: the smoke or the water. I am convinced this is how I likely scarred up a wee spot on my lung. Heck, it might have been the tip of the hose itself that did the damage to my lung, because I swear Bob stuck that green hose down my throat all the way into my stomach. I remember rolling on the ground for what felt like forever. The coughing and choking gradually lessened as I slowly made my way to the edge of Bob’s front lawn. I told him he didn’t need to follow me home because I had no idea what punishment awaited me, and I didn’t want him pulled into the brouhaha I was certain was going to be coming in my direction. I wanted to be baptized right then and there, but that was not to be. When I felt like I had pulled myself out of the state of discombobulation I had gotten myself into, I slinked across the road to the sidewalk in front of my house. I was trying not to throw up, and I was hoping I didn’t smell as stinky as I knew I did. I was also sopping wet from the hose, which I hoped no one would notice.
I tried to act casual when I opened the front door and nonchalantly strolled in. Dad was in his chair reading The Salt Lake Tribune, and Mom was cooking in the kitchen. I said my howdies to them, then I sprawled out on the living room carpet in front of the television. My head was throbbing and I soon fell asleep, coughing intermittently as I slept, I’m sure. When I woke up a few hours later, I was still oh-so miserable and I told Mom and Dad I was going to bed early. I remember it was still light outside.
Mom and Dad just let me go to my room. No questions, no punishment. Between my ashtray odor, and my coughing, and the grim expression on my face from the moment I came in the house, I have no doubt they pieced together the gist of what I had put myself through. I imagine they figured my transgression had rightly turned against me, and it was punishment enough to make a lasting point. They never said a word to me about that day. My parents knew that in my case, most of the time “less is more” was the best method to effectively parent me. I was a fast learner. My baptism couldn’t come soon enough for me and the soggy cigarette smoke polluting my spritely spirit. 🚬
The chill of recent February days—especially in the mornings—has got me resorting to bigly desperate measures. Oddly, even though I have barely a skiff of head fur, my noggin has stayed relatively warm this winter. My ears, however, have felt frosty as all get-out—especially my Spock ear. To protect my ears from what feels like frost-bite, I have resorted to wearing a pair of oversized earmuffs, both outdoors and indoors. It works. A side effect of wearing this ear-y fashion accessory is that I am deafer than usual. No one seems to mind I can hear nary a thing as I move through the community. I think it’s because Bow Tie o’ the Day casts a pleasant aura around me even though I have no idea what’s going on wherever I go. Being purposefully oblivious to what’s happening around me has been a nice temporary treat. I highly recommend knowing nothing—except what’s going on inside your own brain—as an every-once-in-a-while way to be. Wearing earbuds underneath your earmuffs while your playlist tunes blare in your ears for you only is a blissful bonus. You can always pay attention to everybody else and their problems tomorrow.
I named this Tie o’ the Day SHAZAAM, for its comic book-style lightning bolts. Along with what I recently mentioned as the 4 Patterns o’ Groovy Fashion (paisley, houndstooth, polka dots, and plaid), there is a somewhat close 5th pattern to be reckoned with. It is the piratey design of skull-and-crossbones, otherwise known as the Jolly Roger. From this photo, you can see why I had to acquire this apron. It sports a combo of paisley with a gaggle of neon skull-and-crossbones. The skull-and-cross machetes here are an added bonus. When I’m wearing this apron as I make dinner, I feel as if I should be cooking up shark and barnacles. I also feel like I should be wearing my eye patch and a wooden leg. I do own an eye patch to this day. I used to own a wooden leg I bought for $2 at Deseret Industries—with which I once won a three-legged race in the 80’s. I was ultimately disqualified, however, because the judges said I had to be two people running the race, not just one person running with three legs. I felt like a real pirate that day, because I was disqualified for doing something wrong. I still maintain I was the crowd favorite. ☠️
Bow Tie o’ the Day and I went to a follow-up appointment with my dermatologist this morning. It seems that the exotic rash on my torso—which the dermatologist suspected was some sort of fungal infection—remains a mystery. The skin samples the doctor chiseled out of me for biopsy at my last appointment turned out to be not fungal at all. I am sorely disappointed—not because I want my skin to have a fungus, but because I want to know what my rash IS. Knowing what it is will mean the doctor can give me the correct treatment, and the rash can be successfully eliminated from my pale-and-pasty white skin. I want it gone—now. So the doc carved out two deeper-than-last-time skin samples for biopsy, and wrote me a prescription for a set of x-rays. Apparently, my stubborn skin rash is a medical puzzle to be solved, and the dermatologist is determined to find the answers for us both. Instead of being annoyed by my pesky skin malady, I have decided to treat the whole affair like an adventure—during which I can amuse myself by learning a thing or two about skin and dermatological science. Perhaps I will eventually write a world-changing, epic poem about what I learn about aberrant skin patches. I could decide to be crabby and picked-on about the situation, but I am not a bigly believer in wallowing in miserablism. I hate that particular -ism. All that being miserable would get me is the confounding rash with a dollop of misery on top. Ain’t nobody needs any o’ that. And nobody wants to read about it either. 📖🤓
BTW As I was checking in at the front desk for my appointment, the receptionist complimented me on Bow Tie o’ the Day and my face mask and shirt. An assistant who was also behind the desk chimed in, “Are you a teacher? From the way you’re dressed, it looks like you’d be a fun teacher.” That was the first such comment I’ve ever heard about my “look.” Of course, I was a teacher for years back in the day. I guess it shows.
Because I own about 500 holiday ties and bow ties, I imagine you think I have many Groundhog Day pieces o’ neckwear. But I don’t. I own this single Groundhog Day Tie o’ the Day, and unless I run across some ultra-spectacular one in the future, I’m content with this one. I mean—Groundhog Day is not an actual holiday. And it’s not even a party day, like St. Patrick’s Day. It’s just a day to gab about a groundhog named Punxsutawney Phil, about how long his shadow thinks winter’s going to stick around this year, and how we’re already ready to move on to spring.
Anyhoo… I had a virtual appointment with my pain doctor this morning. So I sat at the kitchen island at the designated appointment time, and some unknown-to-me dude starts talking to me on my laptop. I knew exactly what he was going to say, and he did. He told me he’s a doctor-in-training, working with my normal pain doctor, and then he asked if it was okay if he asked me a bunch of questions before I talked to my official doctor. Of course, it was fine with me. We chatted for probably 10 minutes, and as he was wrapping up his note-taking , he said, “Your doctor told me I was going to see a bow tie today when I talked to you.” Oh, I immediately felt I had disappointed the whole world. I have worn a bow tie to see my pain doc at every appointment I’ve had with her for the last 8 years, partly because her name is Dr. Bow. This morning, I felt like I had disgraced myself. Sure, I was wearing this Groundhog Day Tie o’ the Day, but ties are too long to be as visible as bow ties on virtual appointments. I lifted Tie so the guy could see and read it, and he liked it so much he told me he was glad I chose it. I apologized profusely to him for not having a Groundhog Day bow tie. I guess I ought to shop for one, whether I want one or not. I can’t just go around letting people down. I felt so bad for not being the authentic “me” for Dr. Bow’s trainee. How could I not present as the bow tie wearer which she had clearly advertised me to be when she prepared him for my appointment?
When the doctor-in-training signed off, and Dr. Bow joined me a few minutes later, the first thing she said was, “Where’s your bow tie?” I was disgraced, yet again. I felt as if I had disappointed her. But Dr. Bow liked the tie, too. She also said, “It’s just that I barely recognized your face without a bow tie under it.”
FYI Check out my new Face Mask o’ the Day, complete with a secret hole built into it for a drink straw. Oh, happy Diet Coke day for me!
Today is Groundhog’s Day Eve and I’ve caught my first glimpse of Easter candy!
My slim, diamond-point Bow Tie o’ the Day looks very sequin-y. And my mask affirms I’m sarcastically just rollin’ with the conspiracy theories again. In reality, I am an Occam’s Razor gal, through-and-through. That means I hold with the idea that the simplest explanation for something is most likely to be the one that’s correct. My nearly six decades of experience on the planet has taught me that this is so. There are exceptions to this principle, which fall neatly under this phrase: “the exception that proves the rule.” Complexities and implausibilities might make a story seem more dramatic or otherwise interesting, but complexities and implausibilities don’t make a story true—whether we’re talking about literature, conspiracy theories, or real life. The sustaining meat of any truth is its simplicity and efficiency. 💡
