Author: wetleatherdog@gmail.com

If you don’t know the song from which the above header’s lyrics hail, you are way too young to be spending your time sitting home looking at a tblog.🤣

Tie o’ the Day #2 is a formal-looking pierre cardin. The dark blue and light blue patterns play serenely on the black background. This ‘fit (see Cast o’ Words) classed up The Pub bigly this evening. The dark/light blue Bugatchi shirt beneath the tie, creates the  proper jot and tittle of contrast. If it weren’t for blue, I’d have no clothes at all.

Suzanne and I packed up Deja (see Cast o’ Folks) to its gills with boxes of books, dvd’s, and whatever else we were able to fit in it, for the big drive to C-ville on Sunday. We had to load the boxes into the car already so we can have a bit o’ floor space throughout the house. Each of us has tripped over a mound of something or other at least once today. We are too ancient to be tripping on anything. We have great health insurance, but….. And knowing me the way I do, if I fell down I’d most likely break my Hanky Panky right in half. And then the doctor would have to put a cast on it. And then I’d have to buy it little crutches so it could get around. As fun as that sounds, I would prefer not to be part of that tremendous scene.

Tie o’ the Day # 1 is a fantastic Geoffrey Beene. This mix of blue and purple colors makes my day. How can you not be cheered up just to see it coming at you? Shirt is from Haggar. Haggar shirts run long. Almost a nightshirt on me. So what? Ain’t stopping me from wearing ’em. I’m such a rebel, eh?

Suzanne really does think my shirts are too big for me. First of all, I have to buy shirts a size bigger than what fits me better, cuz I have these breasticles that would be bustin’ out all over if I didn’t give them ample space to inhabit. Second, I hate to wear anything vaguely tight. I’m allergic to tight. Have been all my life.

When Suzanne and I were together in the 80’s, I had a penchant for balloony pants that snapped tight at the ankles. She dubbed them my Big, Fat, Ugly Pants. I guess it is just another peculiar thing that makes me me. FYI: I pretty much only wear skinny jeans these days. And yes, I wear the correct size. But they often come close to falling off me cuz I have no butt. If I wear a belt, it’s worse, cuz a belt just adds more weight to pull them down. Suspenders might be my only chance to solve this problem.

And just so you know, I have managed to keep one pair of Big, Fat, Ugly Pants, which I don’t wear when Suzanne’s around.

General Conference Bow Tie o’ the Day is just hangin’ around this morning with my new MacBook Pro. Bow tie is a lovely brown and navy blue paisley design by U.S. Polo Association. Laptop is courtesy of our tax refund. I am one slap-happy Camp Crafter camper! (Is it still called Camp Crafters?) No more lugging the desktop from C-ville to D-ville and back. Yay! It is my wholehearted opinion that every writer should own a laptop they don’t have to share with anydamnbody else. Just sayin’.

This morning, I have been packing up dvd’s and books for transport to C-ville. Where did they all come from? And what was I thinking when I thought I needed to buy the whole world?

For the most part, it’s actually relatively easy to decide what stays and what can go live somewhere else. It’s the question of where does the stuff that’s nixed go. Garbage? Yard sale? Thrift store? eBay? Things For Sale In Millard County website? Friends and relatives who might enjoy x, y, and/or z? How to divide it all up and get things to their right places is the quandary.

Why can’t we get burglarized and robbed (yes, they are two different crimes) sometime soon? That would solve so much thinking and effort. And then we could just junk all the empty boxes and bins that currently overfloweth The Beach House. I guess the insurance company wouldn’t be happy with having to cut a bigly check to us though. Let me repeat the word of our moving days: quandary.

Tie o’ the Day #2 really got into the Conference spirit, so we are sharing our Relief Society grapes with our loyal tbloggies. Viney tie is from Penguin. Shirt is a velvety-soft, lavender John Ashford from back in my Maryland era, around 20 years ago. It’s about time for someone else to get two decades of use out of it, so it’s going bye-bye in the yard sale next weekend. I’m sure I can get at least a dime out of it. Maybe.😜

But the true item of beauty here is the grape brooch, complete with its D.I. packaging and price tag. I will never remove the brooch from its packaging, for full effect. Suzanne was with me when I found this gem cluster at the D.I. in SLC in the late 80’s. Now think about this: If these fine grapes were worth 50 cents in 1986, how much more valuable do you think they are thirty years later? If they weren’t genuine antiques before, they certainly are in 2017. And they are grapes, after all. You know–as in WINE. And you know flippin’ well that liquid grapes get more pricey with the passage of time. I do believe that if we decided to sell this brooch right now, Suzanne and I would be in the bigly money!😃

Tie o’ the Day #1 is another Stacy Adams. (Will they ever end?) It is a cornucopia o’ patterns in purple, with just a stripe (not a pot) o’gold. A little bit o’ paisley. A lot o’ lines. And a ton o’ squares–tiny and bigly. Shirt is a Bugatchi, with a scene right out of a travel agency. You can feel a warm breeze just by looking at it.

Warm is as warm does, of course. And Mom walked over here to The Beach House a couple of hours ago with a plate of steaming, creamed asparagus over toast. Pretty tasty stuff, if you don’t mind a hardened artery or two. I asked her how she was liking General Conference, and she didn’t know it was even on. Poor Mom’s mind. I think she’s becoming blonde. Anyhoo…. It seems I had watched more of Conference than she had. I won!😆 I’m sure that she is ahead of me by now though.

A near-black blue Bugatchi shirt for a night on the town. Tie o’ the Day #2 is one more selection from my collection of Stacy Adams neckwear. These particular tie colors are radiant together. And not just cuz of the camera flash reflection. 😀

At The Pub this evening, there was a table o’ strangers sitting near “our” table when I walked in. I did my thing as per usual. Plugged in “our window” lights. Turned on the tv we bought for ourselves. Walked behind the bar and got my purple paw print cup from the cupboard. Filled it with ice and Diet Coke. Grabbed a straw. Walked back to our table and sat down. The strangers sitting at the nearby table had watched my whole routine, it appeared. I gave ’em the yup-I’m-a-regular glance, and they gave me the table-o-raised-glasses salute.

See. You can look just about anywhere and successfully find a reason to keep on keepin’ on.😊

Tie o’ the Day #1 is a deathly Penguin. And polo shirt is a heady Old Navy piece. I was never a fan of Guns n Roses. Perhaps if the band had been named Skulls n Roses I would have been more into them. But as far as fashion goes, skulls are like polka dots: They jazz up anything and everything. They will redeem even the most ill-advised outfit. It’s just a bigly fact.

Speaking of skulls…..Back in the heyday of The X Files, on FOX, my spritely Devon confused the main characters’ names for years. Scully and Mulder were always Mully and Sculder. And did I tell you he did it for years? It might have been a bone thing he had going on cuz he also couldn’t pronounce the word “skeleton”. He pronounced it “stelekon”. He’s going to be 32 in mid-April, and I’m pleased to say that his pronunciation confusions are no longer confused.

Devon is a high-end  landscape architect, based in Dallas. Right now, however, he is living in Italy, where he is working on a project. The man is living in a vineyard, no less. I am so very proud of him. I have missed him every minute of every day for the past 17 years. But that is a whole “nuther” story.

A li’l pink (Sonoma button-down). A li’l Momo blue on the tie, as I call this color. Tie o’ the Day #2 is a Stacy Adams, of course. I’m sure you are starting to recognize the Stacy Adams style–gaudy, lots of paisley, and wide as can be. If you aren’t yet able to distinguish it from the styles of other designers, Tie o’ the Day will still and always love you anyway.

“Is it raining at your house, like it’s raining at mine?” Today’s rain reminded me of one of my favorite Vern Gosdin songs: “Is It Raining At Your House?” You should take a listen to it. Very sad, in just the right unrequited love way. Vern’s voice has that classic country & western smooth twang. Kind of a mix of George Jones and Hank Williams. And he also sings a song called “That Just About Does It”.  That ditty has these lines in the chorus: “That just about does it, don’t it? That’ll just about kill it, won’t it?” That is plain snazz-errific. Break-up songs are the best.

One of the most obscure break-up songs I know is called “Sweaters”, written and sung/spoken by performance artist Laurie Anderson, in the early 80’s. The gist of it is that what makes us move on from someone isn’t the big things. What makes is leave is usually a gaggle of tiny things. It’s like the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back: Those itsy-bitsy moves of theirs drive us nuts and away. The little things become so irritating that we are DONE. A couple of fantastic lines from Anderson’s song: “I no longer  like the color of your sweaters. I no longer like the way you hold your pens and pencils.” The music of the song is purposely irritating, to great dramatic effect. Suits me fine.

Laurie Anderson is one of the way early influences of my life’s word-work. So blame her and Bruce Springsteen and Leonard Cohen for nudging me in the poetry direction. And they did it before I was even old enough to vote, I might add.

Mom visits her kids as often as she wants. And she sleeps like a log, according to her. Everywhere she goes, she keeps a nightie and a duster hanging in our closets. Today, her clothes wanted to guest star in Tie o’ the Day #1, which is a black and sea foam-colored tie by designers at little black tie. Duster is from Secret Treasures. Nightie has no label. Mom has probably worn it so often that it rubbed off.

These days Mom spends whole days in nighties and dusters. In winter, she adds her pajama bottoms.The other day, when I was driving the broads for our drinking, Mom was wearing her usual attire, but she was also wearing her earrings. She sports the same outfit, right down to the earrings, whenever the priesthood guys bring the sacrament to her at home when she isn’t able to make it to church. I don’t ask why about the earrings. It is what it is.

Mom wears rings only to church. I don’t think I ever saw her wear her wedding ring. She gave it to Suzanne a while back. And interestingly, Suzanne now wears the wedding rings of both her mothers-in-in law. And she wears them at the same time, all the time. One of Suzanne’s co-workers noticed them on Suzanne’s finger one day, and said they looked like old lady wedding rings. Which they are.

For 9 years, I have kept a pair of Dad’s broken reading glasses. And, a couple of years after his death, Mom gave me the last bar of soap that he used in his shower. I didn’t ask for it. How could I have guessed she had saved something like his soap? She just showed up to The Beach House with it one day. I keep it with his broken glasses. I’m sure I will keep the outfit shown above, as well. As it should be.

Tie o’ the Day #2 (a bloomy pierre cardin design) had a road trip south on I-15 this afternoon. Tie and I and the mutts were at my desk in the loft,  just sitting’ on the dock o’ the bay, watching’ the tide roll away…. anyhoo….and then a text from Suzanne zipped into our cell phone, about how a hutch in her new office crashed to the floor and became pressed-board slivers, and would I like to go to IKEA with her and the district credit card to find some kind of office cabinet that won’t explode into smithereens. Heck Tate, yup. So off the Tie and I went when Suzanne came to fetch us. The mutts stayed home to read Harlequin Romances and chew on fluttering Post-it notes.

To me, IKEA stores are to furniture what Cabela’s is to outdoor play, for mostly grown-ups. They are both huge planets insulated unto themselves. They are as close to infinity as you can get anywhere in creation. It is as if these stores do not have walls, just kinda thick, tall map borders. It is pretty much a necessity to use GPS to navigate the shopping experiences these places provide. Good luck trying to locate your shopping companion if you happen to get separated. It’s not like you can text them and ask where they are, cuz the answer would be the same no matter where you are: “I’m by that white chair in the furniture.”

IKEA has fun stuff, most of which nobody really needs. At the restaurant inside, the swedish meatballs with lingonberries is a nice plate o’ sustenance to nosh on when you need an intermission in your IKEA shopping.

Yes, Suzanne found a non-exploding cabinet and shelves for her office. Suzanne’s district credit card paid for no more and no less than that. Mission accomplished. And a good ride was had by all.

And at home, while Tie and I were gone, Roxy and Skitter had chewed up exactly three tissues from the garbage. Not bad for their day’s work.