Skitter wore her checked collar-with-built-in-bow tie to her visit to the vet, and I wore one of my magnetic, wood t-shirt pieces for my Bow Tie o’ the Day. As per usual, Skitter vibrated with apprehension every minute of her vet appointment. And as usual, having her temperature taken rectally was the single worst moment for her. Her already pleading eyes, got even plead-ier, making her bigly forlorn eyes almost audible to me: Save me, Helen!
As y’all might recall, the black mold in Skitter’s ear has made her left ear an angry shade of red, as you can see. She has been increasingly miserable over the last two weeks. I am happy to report that the vet inserted a medication into the bowels of the Skit’s ear. This medication will be working in her ear to annihilate her ear fungus for the next month, which gives Skitter the added bonus of at least the next 30 days with no bath or ear cleaning of any sort, allowing her treatment to effectively do its work. After we returned home from the vet, and after she finally wound herself down, Skitter remained in her bed on the loveseat for the rest of Saturday, where she dozed and napped and lounged—before she finally went upstairs to her crate and slept peacefully through the night. The next day, she was a bit more her usual eccentric doggie self. Today, she’s acting even more like herself—skittish and wonderfully odd. I don’t have the heart to tell her about her already scheduled visit to the vet in a couple of weeks to get her teeth cleaned. I’ll inform her about her teeth appointment maybe fifteen minutes before we get in the truck to drive there. I already feel bad about it for her. It makes me feel as if I’m plotting against her. Which, technically, I guess I am.
In the late 80’s, there was a television show called “The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd.” It starred Blair Brown as a divorced woman living in NYC. The show was literate, surprising, and engagingly quirky—so, of course, it didn’t last long on network television. Even as I mention the show, I imagine I’m getting nothing but crickets of recognition from most of y’all. Trust me—the show was good. Anyhoo… I loosely recall a particular quote from the show that I have thought of often in my life, when I’ve planned to do one thing, but end up having to do something entirely different. It goes simply like this: “My life keeps getting in the way of my future.” I thought of it again this morning when I planned to create a kind of elaborate new TIE O’ THE DAY post, but then Skitter lost her balance while shaking her ear as she walked. The deep “black mold” she had in her left ear in 2020 has recently come back again. We already have a vet appointment scheduled, but this morning, her stinky red ear is especially angry. She is extra uncomfortable and wants me right where she can see and touch me. So this is all the TO’TD post I can create for now—stuck as I am to the loveseat, held captive by my dog’s misery. Just as it should be.
[This is another repeat about plumbing from July 2020. It’s mid-afternoon and I’m still tinkering with the troublesome garbage disposal.]
I’ve got a bigly jumbo butterfly Bow Tie o’ the Day for y’all this morning. I will definitely remove my Face Mask o’ the Day before drinking from my infamous potty cup. I just had to fit this toilet cup in my selfie, since the post’s topic is plumbing.
In my last post, I mentioned the plumber had been to the house last week to conquer a few issues. But I forgot to tell you about two groovy things that happened during the plumber’s time here. At some point the plumber said to me, “My hearing aid battery is about out of juice, so if you need to get my attention, you’ll need to yell.” Of course, I am a wearer o’ hearing aids myself, so I yelled, “312 batteries?” And he said in astonishment, “Yes!” So I handed him a 312 hearing aid battery from my stash. Hearing accomplished. I did not present him with a bill for my services.
My favorite moment was when he came downstairs to do his paperwork—tablet work, really. He promptly said, “With all the ties and sewing machines I’m seeing around the house, I’m betting you make ties for a living.” I explained to him that the sewing machines belonged to the crafty, sew-y Suzanne and had nothing whatsoever to do with me. And by the time I finished regaling the man with my quirky love for ties and bow ties, and how I have a tblog so I can show off my neckwear and tell stories—well, the plumber was shell-shocked, to say the least. He stood all amazed. But I enjoyed it. I always love instances when I can go into my what-do-you-know-about-bow-ties-and-would-you-like-to -know-more pitch.
My all-time fave experience with a plumbing problem and the plumber who fixed it occurred a decade ago. We still lived in Ogden at the time, but also had the Delta house. I was at my desk in Ogden when I got a call from someone at the Delta City office. Apparently, the outside water at my Delta house had sprung a very leaky leak underground, and my water meter was racking up the gallons at full speed—lickety-split enough that my water usage had caught the attention of an astute water-watcher in the city office. I was 175 miles away from Delta at the time. What to do?
I herded the dogs into my car, and off we hauled to Delta. In the car, I immediately called a Delta plumber, of course. I had his number already in my phone, because the Delta house was an old house, and plumbing problems had occurred previously. I got his voicemail. I left a message: “Hey, Kelly. I know you’re busy, but Delta City called me and said I have a major outside leak at my place—possibly inside,too—but I’m not in town right now. Could you please go over to my place and check it out ASAP? I’ll be there in 3 hours. Mom has a key to my house, so I’ll call her now and have her unlock my doors. Feel free to go in and out as you need to. Go ahead and do whatever you think needs to be done.” I was only slightly worried on my drive from Ogden to Delta. I was confident the problem would be properly dealt with. When I finally pulled up to the Delta house that day, my yard was torn up and gutted where the pipes were. The plumbing crew was already hard at work fixing my water problem. The leaky water situation was under control.
Mom was at my waterlogged-grass house, too. She was sitting like usual—like a queen—on my front porch in her wild socks, supervising the plumbing crew’s work and promising them a batch of her homemade cookies for their help. I immediately noticed she also had her usual huge, fountain Pepsi-with-mostly-ice from Cardwell clutched in her arthritic right hand. Mom clasped her drink so tightly it looked like a prosthetic that would forever be attached to her real hand. And wouldn’t she love to have a Pepsi-with-mostly-ice permanently attached to her paw, if it could be made a reality! Mom is so cool. Cool learns its cool-osity from Mom. I love her, and I love my small town.
[This is a repeat of a post from July 2020. The garbage disposal has been colicky since Sunday, so my day is about to be all plumber-y. It reminded me of this post. ]
Red and white Tie o’ the Day dresses up as the Delta Water Tower, with the aid of our water heater. The red “D” reigns, no matter what town I take off my cowboy boots in.
We’ve lived in our Centerville house eight years. It was new when we moved in. Guess what time it is? Time for the house and whatever came with it to need some little tweaks. Last week, the ice maker in the fridge simply stopped making ice. No smoke, no sputtering, no subtle dying creaks. It made ice, then it didn’t. Enter, the refrigerator repairman. He tinkered around in the guts of the freezer door, but he could find nothing wrong. Exit, the repairman and his fee. He must have done something though, because the ice maker is making ice now. It must have just wanted some attention from someone who understood it. Go figure.
And then there’s the plumbing. When the master bath shower is first turned on, there is a growing rumbling o’ the pipes throughout the house. I was outside on the morning of the 4th of July, and I could hear the pipes grumble when Suzanne got in the shower. The outside world should not have to hear our pipes. Also, the water pressure in the shower is almost zero. Lately when I shower, I feel like I’m standing under a rain cloud that drops rain one raindrop at a time. Dribble, dribble.
So I spent most of Wednesday watching the plumber do whatever he needed to do. A bigly bill later, and the pipes haven’t grumbled again. The water pressure in the shower is now restored. Victory! Almost. There are still a couple of water issues Suzanne’s not satisfied with, so I’ll be hosting the plumber again soon. I am a writer by trade. But I know my real job is to keep Suzanne happy—even with the plumbing.
My wood ‘Merican flag Bow Tie o’ the Day and I gathered up a bunch o’ stuff I don’t need anymore, boxed it up, and put it in the pile I’m going to drop off at Deseret Industries later this week. I had four televisions turned-on throughout our house, so I could watch the January 6 hearing without having to miss a minute of it—while I slaved away at a miscellany of tedious-but-necessary household chores. Up and down the stairs, I trod all day. Poor Skitter followed me up and down religiously at first, but she soon figured out I wasn’t going to light in any single place for an extended period of time, for a while anyway. She split the difference and finally stretched out on the bottom stair, so she was on my mind no matter where I was, because I had to work very hard not to step on her as I made my ascents and descents on the stairs. She looked comfy there, so I didn’t want to bother her by shooing her somewhere else. Yes, Skitter is spoiled. And yes, I’m responsible for it. But it didn’t hurt me one bit to simply step over her doggie body on the stair. Stepping over her even seemed to work out a leg muscle or three that I don’t normally use, so that’s a plus.
I mention the 1/6 hearings only to say that they have reminded me of how weird I have always been. I was a political junkie long before I studied political science. One of my first memories of anything political has to do with the Watergate hearings in 1973, beginning near the end of my 3rd Grade school year. I begged to stay home from school to watch the hearings. But my 10-year-old self wasn’t allowed to do that. I had to settle for watching the missed hearings’ highlights on the evening news, from the mouth of Walter Cronkite himself. (That was kinda cool too, actually, now that I think of it.)
To my young political wonk delight, the hearings were still going on after school let out that year. I don’t remember how often they were held, or when exactly they ended. It felt like they proceeded through the whole summer. When the Watergate hearings were being broadcast, they were on the 3 major tv channels we all received. Yup, only 3. If the hearings were being televised, I was in front of the tv watching and taking notes on the living room floor. It did no good for anyone to make me turn the channel, cuz the hearings were on all of them. (I never counted PBS and BYU as real channels, because I don’t remember us watching anything on either one, except BYU football and BYU basketball.)
Every day, Mom would say to me, “It’s summer. It’s a beautiful day. Why aren’t you out on your bike?” I had no answer except to tell her that I was having fun doing what I was doing. And I really was enjoying myself. Kids continually came to the door, asking if I wanted to play. My answer, if a Watergate hearing was on the tube, was always NOPE. What kid watches the Watergate hearings when she could be riding her bike out to the reservoir to bum boat rides? See what a weird child I was? See why my parents could never quite figure me out? Or figure out quite what to do with me? All I knew about my politics habit was that I was fascinated by the dramatics, rituals, and legalities of this thing called politics.
My clothing choices often offer some not-so-subtle clues about what’s going on in my subconscious. If I interpret my Tie o’ the Day and Shirt o’ the Day choices here, I believe the message is this: I’m in the mood for BBQ. I swear, I wasn’t even thinking about food when I picked out my wardrobe and got gussied up first thing this morning, and then I looked in the mirror, and all I saw was BBQ written all over my attire. Right away, I headed to the grocery store.
When I grocery shop, I usually play music from my phone through my hearings aids. Today, I was in the mood to listen to either something new or something I haven’t recently heard. Yes, I have large playlists for both of those options. I selected my like-it-but-haven’t-listened-to-it-in-a-while playlist. Pushing my shopping cart up and down the store aisles, I might have been physically at Dick’s Market, but as soon as the music began, I was also in Johnny Cash heaven: I was listening to Johnny Cash [Live] AT FOLSOM PRISON. If you know the album, you already love it. If you don’t know the album, I suggest you become acquainted with its brilliance—if only for purposes of cultural knowledge and Jeopardy! categories. At the Dick’s this morning, I bought ordinary, non-thrilling things like grapes and Fresca and light bulbs, but I had a rowdy, unforgettable grocery shopping experience by listening to the Man in Black and his band take over a California state prison with his music, in the winter of 1968. In my head, Johnny and I had Dick’s Market rockin’ the prison bars down as if we were in Jericho. Yup, that’s the kind of place superb music can take you. To visit there, no ticket or passport is required. I go there as often as I can, and I recommend you visit there, too. Just push PLAY. 🎧 🛒 🎸
I fell in love with my used 1998 Isuzu Hombre the moment I saw it in Delta on the lot at Sahara Motors in early 2001. [I had recently moved back to Delta after living in Maryland for nearly a decade. I had no income yet and no real plan, but I needed a vehicle. Russ Greathouse, out at Sahara, shook my hand and basically said to me, “I know who you are. Take the truck. You’ll make the payments. I’m not worried about it.” It was a vote of confidence I needed at the time.] I still adore my Hombre now that it is a jalopy of a truck, a shadow of its former badass self. It’s growing patches of rust here and there. My needle butt has worn a full-fledged hole in the driver’s seat, so that I have to sit directly on the metal seat frame when I drive it. The weather stripping on the doors has given up its stick-to-it, as you can see in this photo. The Hombre is on its second emergency brake. When the first one died a few years back, it took over a year for my mechanic to locate a new one in some salvage yard, because nobody manufactured that particular emergency brake anymore. At some recent juncture, the wiper fluid gadget lost its ability to spray, so it’s best I don’t drive the truck if any snow or rain is going to hit the windshield. The fabric covering the interior ceiling is literally crumbling, and chunks of foam fall on my head whenever I hit a pothole or drive on a gravel road, or sometimes when I simply stop. The Hombre’s latest feat of disintegration is that about half the time the stereo doesn’t turn on when I turn the key. The stereo was my fave feature in the truck, I admit it. Now, I could put some money into repairing the Hombre’s ills, but it would cost far more than the truck is worth to do that—if the necessary parts are even available anymore. And the truck isn’t getting any younger. An old truck in Delta is one thing: if your vehicle breaks down, you’re always somewhere among friends or sworn enemies who will gladly help you do what you’ve gotta do to get the automobile going again. Somebody in a truck will just get out the tow chain they always carry to tow you to the mechanic of your choice. But up here in the city, and on the freeway, I need a truck that’s a bit more reliable. I need a truck that’s got all of the grit and fervor of a young whippersnapper.
As you know, after much contemplation, I put down a deposit and pre-ordered a 2022 Maverick way back in November. My Maverick, of course, has not yet been able to be built due to a shortage of certain parts. Last week, Ford emailed me with a couple of options for using my deposit to build me a truck, one of which is to completely forget about the 2022 and order the 2023 model instead. I decided that option made the most sense. I will have to submit a whole new order for the truck o’ my dreams in mid-August, but because I’ve been on Ford’s waiting list for the 2022 model, my order for the 2023 will get priority (along with any other 2022 customers whose orders weren’t fulfilled) when Ford starts assembling the 2023 Maverick model in October. I might actually get my truck by Christmas. I’m fine with the wait because I have to be: I have no choice if I want a Maverick. On average, in the USA, gas prices have consistently gone down for each of the past 27 days, so by the time my personal Maverick shows up in my driveway in a few months, gas prices might feel reasonable again.
To my great giddiness, I was this close to buying an already built 2022 Maverick over the weekend. My cousin, Judy, messaged me and told me she saw a new red Maverick at a dealership in Santaquin. Could it be true? Was a lone Maverick just sitting there patiently waiting for me to rescue it ASAP? How fortunate, I thought I was. I had never been so happy to have Judy as a cousin in all my life! I nearly ripped off the top of my laptop as I hurriedly opened it to get online and somehow nab this alleged Maverick before anybody else could get it. There it was, on the dealer’s website—available! Oh, it was spiffy-looking! I ordered a blue truck, but I can certainly handle driving a plush red truck if it means I can get it NOW. I looked at all the pictures of it. It was decked out with splash guards, smokin’ rims, and leather seats. The bed was beautifully lined. The Maverick had secret compartments for storing valuables, and it was all wired up for any devices I might need to plug in. It even had the hybrid engine I wanted. Oh, happy day!!!
I was looking up the phone number for the dealership so I could call and give them my credit card, to ensure they would hold it for me for a couple of hours until I got there. In my excitement, I felt like I was forgetting about something, and then it dawned on me: I should probably look at the price of this particular Maverick. When I saw it, my mood and my jaw dropped lower than my old woman breasticles. The price was nearly twice the cost of the decked-out Maverick I will be re-ordering next month. Wah-wah! I do not know what extras the Santaquin Maverick could possibly have that would jack the cost up to double what I will be paying for my Maverick. I can afford to pay the high price, but I’m not going to pay double when I know I can get everything I really want for so much less—and I can get it in the exact color I want, which Ford currently calls Velocity Blue. Perhaps the red Maverick in Santaquin has a hidden bathroom installed in it, or maybe a small swimming pool—or it comes with pink diamonds embedded in the dashboard. I hope whoever ends up buying the expensive truck spoils and babies it like I would. So that’s my 2022 Maverick catch-and-release story. My cousin’s alert message launched me into a suddenly over-the-moon exuberance—until my online information-gathering just as abruptly sent me into a state of sore and utter disappointment. Ah, the vicissitudes o’ life! They’re some kinda fun, eh?
You know how sometimes you get so wrapped up in whatever you’re doing that you completely lose track of time? Even hat Bow Tie o’ the Day knows about how time can slip away. Well, that’s what was going on with me last week, for the whole week. I kid you not. On Sunday night, I got caught up in watching the Deuel Creek fire break out in the hills just above us. I couldn’t look away: it was hypnotic and treacherous and gorgeous all at the same time. And then, suddenly, it was the 4th of July—with a family gathering and more fireworks in the neighborhood than Skitter could handle, so I spent a significant amount of time calming and comforting the mutt by burying her in her Suzanne-made blankets, and reminding her that she, too, lives in a country where she is free to experience life, liberty, and the pursuit of canine happiness, albeit at the odd cost of enduring eardrum-torturing, foothill-igniting celebratory fireworks a couple of times a year. And SNAP, it was suddenly Suzanne’s birthday on the 7th, which meant I had to be all gift-y and entertain-y—doling out cards and treats and miscellaneous varieties of potato chips to the birthday girl. She wanted to go to El Matador in Bountiful for lunch, so we did. I tried to get Suzanne to pick out a new phone for her birthday, but she was too mesmerized by the potato chips at home, so she hasn’t collected on the phone gift yet.
Now it’s this morning and time for this post. TIE O’ THE DAY is back on track—until the next time I get distracted by something shiny or otherwise interesting. I promised myself when I began TIE O’ THE DAY that actually living my life would always be a priority over posting about it. I apologize—but only sort of—that the sometimes irregularity of my posting can be annoying to regular readers. I do value you. I appreciate that you tune in. However, like you, I am in the midst of living a life that occasionally doesn’t leave me time and head-space to do everything I want to do. As much as I am enamored with creating TIE O’ THE DAY, it is not a have-to-do, top priority kind of venture. But even as I just wrote that sentence— even as I am thinking about it just now, I must admit that I honestly feel more balanced and connected on the days I post. Perhaps, after all these years of writing it, it has become more of a priority than I have heretofore been willing to admit. TIE O’ THE DAY is, in fact, an integral part of the life I’m living. I gotta ponder this and its various implications. 🤔
In this afternoon’s post, I will regale you with my Maverick order final answer, including the part about the Maverick in Santaquin that I played catch-and-release with a few days ago. 🎣
Enjoy a few more book-y memes this afternoon. In the photos, you’ll note I made my magnetic Bow Tie o’ the Day out of a couple of my pens and a spare ink refill. I can easily utilize these tools to write what I hope will one day be my million-dollar book of bipolar poetry. 📖 🖊 💵 🤓
Anyhoo… Well, it had to happen sometime. And, coincidentally enough, it happened today: a day on which my morning TIE O’ THE DAY post was book-related. I was hard at work putting a stack of books away, when I ran out of book space on our Stairway to Heaven, which is what we call our artsy stair-rail “bookcase.” I could not fit one more book into the stacks. Luckily, I found a corner of space in the bedroom to put the books that did not fit on the stairs. But I was sad the stair shelves were full. It’s been a cool point of interest our house that visitors seem to fawn over. Some guests relax on the stairs and spend time reading book titles and flipping through whatever books catch their eyes. They are envious we thought of creating such a thing.
Ever since we bought the house, we’ve talked about having a bookcase built in across an entire wall of the living room. For various reasons we have not had it constructed yet, but perhaps now that the stair bookshelf is full, Suzanne will decide it’s finally time. I have a feeling we have put off finding a contractor to build it because when she and I have talked about what it should look like, our visions of how the shelves need to be has not exactly been the same. I want the wall o’ shelves to be simple straight lines, no doors or glass or anything ornate about it. The books will be the stars. Of course, we both want a moving ladder attached to the shelves: on that, we agree. However, I want the built-in to hold only books. It’s a bigly wall, but I’m certain we have enough books to fill it almost completely.
Suzanne, on the other hand, envisions the bookcase as something that can display books, pieces of art, maybe her salt-and-pepper shaker collection, and other various doo-dads, gee-gaws and photos. I believe she thinks the bottom of it should be shelves with doors for keepsakes, or storage, or tablecloths (which we haven’t used in nearly a decade, cuz we just don’t use tablecloths, and I don’t know why we keep them), or whatever else she wants to bring out from her craft room for the crowds to gaze upon.
I suppose we could have a second wall o’ bookshelves built in to a second wall, so we can each be a dictator of one wall unit, but it’s not really practical to do that, space-wise. I guess we could divide the one wall into halves: one half for me to design, one half for Suzanne to design. Now, you know I believe in clash fashion with all my heart, but I also know that if we each designed half a wall, the result would be a nauseating clashing wall of equal good taste in decor that does not play well together. My taste in house decor is modern: sort of like Art Deco or Frank Loyd Wright’s design style. Suzanne has a preference for more ornate, classical, or homey designs. So far, our house design discussions have never devolved into so much as a food fight. We’ll figure it out. We always do.
BTW I still haven’t made a decision about what to do about my truck that never gets built, but I’m going to the dealership to decide tomorrow. Please keep your phone with you in case I need to phone a friend for help with my final answer.
TIE O’ THE DAY is proud to present some memes about reading and libraries. I’m not usually a meme-poster, but every time the culture chatter starts up about banning a certain book from a school library or a public library, I make it a point to read the book. I want to see for myself what all the hubbub is about. Often, the people who want a book banished, haven’t even read the book. They’ve just “heard about” it from someone else who likely hasn’t read it either. It’s my book-reading opinion that “hearing about” a book, and the rumored dangers of its ideas, does not qualify anyone to call for its banishment from public availability. If you haven’t read a book in its entirety, I think you cannot possibly have anything close to a valid, informed opinion of it. You cannot engage in an honest discussion about its merits without knowing the full context of any book’s alleged offending word, sentence, paragraph, chapter, or ideas.
Personally, I like to be reading at least one banned book at any given time. With the probably hundreds of banned-somewhere books I have read in my life, I have yet to meet one that I agree should be metaphorically put to death. Oh, I’ve read plenty of books nobody has sought to ban that I think have nothing to add to a library, due to being badly written or manipulative or presenting lies as factual, etc. But I still think they have a right to exist. I do take pity on those books’ readers, though.
Before I die, I intend to start a book club called something along the lines of the Banned Book-of-the-Month Club, where people who’ve read the book can discuss exactly what it is about the book that might make somebody think it is too dangerous for potential readers’ minds, and why they feel so threatened by the words on a page. And I don’t doubt we will also discuss what makes some people think they are the bossy arbiters of the planet’s literature. 📚
