Category: Bow Ties

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My Recent Bipolar Weather Has Been Udderly Puzzling

Everyone needs a cow-covered Face Mask o’ the Day and a crossword puzzle Bow Tie o’ the Day—as well as a pair of Bernie-Sanders-at-the-Inauguration socks. Okay, maybe not absolutely everyone needs these things, but I do. They keep me somewhat grounded in my authentic style during my times of roller coaster brain chemistry. The spirit o’ Bernie has warmed my feet on some of these days. Yes, the spirit o’ Bernie’s mittens has been punching right along with me through my most recent boxing match with my own complicated, manic-depressive head.

As my head finally started to find its balance a week or so ago, I was finally able to jot down some tblog ideas for updating y’all about my shenanigans you missed out on while I was not up to the demands of writing TIE-O-THE- DAY content. I went to bed that night, fully intending to get up at the crack of dawn and write a bigly original post the next morning, when—WHAM!—the ghost of my bum pancreas (my Hanky Panky) woke me up at 3AM with lightning strikes o’ pain. Two-and-a half years ago, I had successful Hanky Panky surgery, which left me with only one-third of my pancreas. Despite my Panky’s smaller size, I have been in relative Pancreas Heaven ever since the operation—until that night last week. Just my luck: I was thrown out of the bipolar frying pan, and into the pancreatic fire!

The sudden, old Panky pain felt entirely too familiar to me. Since then, I’ve been trying to ignore the discomfort, which has ebbed and flowed but hasn’t completely gone away. I luckily managed to wrangle an in-person appointment with my Hanky Panky surgeon at the Huntsman Cancer Institute tomorrow. I have bigly confidence that my doc can figure out what the Hell-en is going on with my Cranky Hanky Panky innard. A battery of tests and scans will follow over the next few weeks, I have no doubt. I am not askeered. Suzanne is askeered for me, but she shouldn’t be. She made me promise a long time ago that I won’t die before she does, and I consider it my main job to always keep my promises to Suzanne.

After much contemplation, I have decided I will gladly take painful flak from my teeny Hanky Panky any day of the week, over being lost in the dangerous labyrinth of my bipolar brain. Physical pain only hurts. Bipolar anguish, on the other hand, can trick you into thinking you can instantly make the world a better place by simply jumping off the nearest craggy cliff into your own annihilation. Hey, folks, how ’bout let’s none of us buy into that slick trick o’ the mind.

Anyhoo… I’m crossing my Cranky Hanky Panky that TIE-O-THE-DAY is back for a while, whether you’re ready for it, or not.🤠👔

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A Serendipitous Meeting (Part 2)

[A love-themed re-post that finishes this story I began this morning.]

Caught in the crosshairs o’ love, Bow Tie o’ the Day waited patiently to read Part 2 of our little tale. When we left our saga o’ love in the previous post, this is where we were:  Suzanne and I had decided to quit being we/us. And, as I have admitted, it was all because I was a dope. My bad.

Fast forward to the year 2000, when I moved back to Delta from the Baltimore-Washington, D.C. area. Between my freshly diagnosed bipolarity and my freshly flaming Hanky Panky (pancreas), I was not well. I seriously expected to die soon. I was drained of health and hope. I needed to choose a power of attorney (POA) to handle my finances and medical decisions if I couldn’t deal with them myself. I pondered about who knew me best in the world. I pondered about who I trusted most in the world. And even though I hadn’t seen her or talked to her in over a decade, Suzanne was the answer.

I had no idea where Suzanne even was. I searched. Was she still in Utah? Did she move to England? It was almost Christmas so I decided to try to contact her by sending her a Christmas card, in care of her parents— hoping they still lived where last I knew them. A couple of days later, Suzanne replied to my card by telephoning me from her house in Ogden. I was glad her parents still lived at their same address and that they actually gave her the card. And I was gladder that she still lived in Utah. And I was gladdest of all that our phone conversation wasn’t one bit awkward.

I drove my 1970 Ford Falcon from Delta to Ogden a few days after that phone conversation, to meet Suzanne for dinner and a chat about my need for a Power of Attorney. We went to her fave Italian place on 25th Street, where I ate halibut and explained exactly what I needed her to do and why. That dinner changed the course of our lives. Everything since that dinner has been nothing less than a wondrous second chance. From the moment we sat down in the restaurant, we talked easily, laughed far too loudly, and couldn’t quit smiling at each other. It was as if the years we lived through without each other had never happened at all—like we had never been apart. Love at second sight. The decade-long homesickness for something I could never quite pin down made its exit. We were where we belonged. We were home at last.

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Got Valentine?

[Another re-post. Thanks for your patience, while I try to corral my wild brain.]

That is one bigly Post-it Note heart! I thought it best to wear it only for the selfie. Driving while wearing it would probably result in mayhem and tragedy. Let’s see… I’d be pulled over and cited for DWP. Driving While Post-it-ed.

Jumbo pink Bow Tie o’ the Day is one of my favorites. Actually, I’m fond of jumbo-size bow ties, period. They give off such happy vibes. And we are here to be happy. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. I’m not saying happiness isn’t work. No, it’s something you have to achieve. The happiness a bow tie can give is a fleeting feeling. If you want real happiness, you have to mostly create it. It’s not going to knock on your door, fully-formed, and say, “I’m here to serve you!”

I think we get distracted by looking to/at others to find happiness. We think: “They seem happy. What do they have that I don’t? I need to get what they have, and then I’ll be happy.” It doesn’t work that way. Your happiness is singular to you. It won’t look like anyone else’s. It is authentic to you, and you only. It is your job to figure out what your happiness will look like. Ignore other people’s ideas of happiness. Mind your own happiness business.

If you find somebody (a spouse, partner, etc.) whose happiness pieces fit with your happiness pieces, you have found a powerful and rare thing. Your happiness inventory will not be exactly the same as the person’s you mesh with. But what would be the fun of that? Do you really want to be married to a clone of yourself? Another person isn’t your happiness. Your chosen person can share in your happiness, just as you can share in theirs. You are a part of each other’s happiness, not the whole of it. Let me make this clear: NEITHER A MATERIAL OBJECT NOR A PERSON “MAKES” YOU HAPPY. You decide to be happy. You make a plan and work to achieve it. It’s an attitude.

Living with another person gives you daily opportunities to express your happiness. You can care for and spoil them with whatever happiness you decide to share. Take the risk to spread your joy around the metaphorical and literal house. You’ll get hurt sometimes, even in the best of relationships. But so what? Remember, you’ll hurt your beloved too. You won’t mean to, but you will. Unless you’re perfect. Be kind. Be brave.

To be happy in a relationship doesn’t mean you feel jolly every minute. You can be happy, yet experience sorrow, anger, frustration, and every other emotion. Real happiness is not an emotion. Happiness is a state of your soul, not a mood.

If you make a habit of working to achieve true happiness, you can weather the relationship storms you will encounter, more easily and more courageously. This doesn’t sound like it makes sense, but I promise it does: When you are in the storm of yourself—when you are aching—muster your courage and every power in your heart to choose your happiness. Open up your happy heart just a bit wider. Share just a little more. Give. And then rain your happiness down on you and your beloved. Take the risk to love your beloved—again and again, day after day, second upon second. Your relationship will grow stronger. Your soul will thank you.

And one more bigly note: Selfishness does not grow happiness. Trying to get everything you want, and always trying to get your way, is as far from happiness as you can get.

This has been yet another bossy sermon. Just sayin’.

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It’s A Give And Take

[I think my noggin is on the mend. Nevertheless, I’m not back in writing shape yet. Enjoy another Valentine season re-post.]

The wall-hanging in this photo has shown up in the background of a lot of my post pix. It dominates our living room, on purpose. Mom chose a similar saying for the back of her and Dad’s headstone. The gist of its message is the over-arching truth with which I was raised. And it still frames the way I try to live my life.

To love and to be loved are not two separate things. Happiness comes from making and keeping them one thing together. (I’m not just talking about romantic love.) We love who we love. And we want their love in return, but we often don’t allow ourselves to accept it. Too often we don’t feel worthy of it, or we push it away because we don’t want to risk the chance we might get hurt. Loving and being loved is definitely going to have its pains, but think of them as growing pains. That’s what most of the hurts are. They are signs a relationship needs some overhauling in order to grow. So work on it. The payoff will happen if both parties are willing to give and take the love the work requires.

You can find love all over the place. For example, I’m wearing dog bones Bow Tie o’ the Day in Valentine’s Day honor of all the mutts in my life who have loved me. And in honor of my skittish Skitter who is snoring beside me as I type this post. She loves me even in her sleep. Our dogs simply love us. And they so clearly assume that we will love them back. They trust us. They expect us to befriend them and care for them. They make us better people because we cannot help but melt in their presence, like we give ourselves over to any baby that is near us. We coo at dogs. We talk to dogs in our baby-talk voices. We want to feed dogs and touch them and protect them. We want to cover them in warm blankies. Dogs pull the best parts of our hearts out into the open.

With my bipolar head, sometimes I feel lost and foreign even to myself. Having a dog around when I’m on one of my mental extremes can make me feel like I’m at home in myself, even if the feeling comes and goes. Even Skitter, who was severely abused before she rescued us, makes me feel at home in my bipolar self—just by following me around, or doing her chew dance, or prancing to the mailbox with me. Skitter’s abuser could not destroy Skitter’s capacity for love. That’s how strong love is. I can’t help but exude love for her. She brings out the baby-talk in me. “Skitter, are you ready to go walkie?” The love goes both ways. That’s happiness. Her giving and receiving love is healing The Skit. And it changes me. It strengthens an attitude that stays with me in my dealings with my fellow beings.

Perform love, wherever you go. Let your love rain down like glitter from the heavens.

That’s my sermon for this morning, and I’m sticking to it.

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Apparently, Mom And Dad Liked Each Other

[My wonky brain is still under the bipolar weather, so here’s yet another Valentine-y re-post about my parents. They were smitten with each other, that’s for sure.]

Bow Tie o’ the Day has its Valentine’s Day targets ready for Cupid’s arrows. Be on the look-out for a near-naked, winged baby armed with a bow and arrows.

When I first saw the photo with visible faces, I wondered who the heck Dad was hugging. It didn’t look like Mom to me, so I got my magnifying glass out. I discovered that it really was Mom. The shadows across her face were just weird. Whew! I was worried for a millisecond.

Anyhoo… Something you might not know about Mom is that she is disgusted that people wear un-ironed clothing—particularly to church. She and her best friend, Peggy Crane, spouted off about the general lack of ironing on the planet a bazillion times while I drove them across the county on their daily drinking rides.

Mom and Peggy even threatened to put an ad in THE CHRONICLE, offering to teach people how to iron. FOR FREE! But they decided that wouldn’t do any good since, according to them, no one knows what an iron is. (Oh, my! What a wrinkly world we live in.)

One morning of their Senior year at DHS, Dad didn’t show up at school. Mom had no idea where he was or if he was sick. (Remember: no cell phones in 1948.) Later that afternoon, Dad showed up in a class they had together. Mom quizzed him on his earlier whereabouts and he told her he had been doing an extra job for another beekeeper, to earn some extra cash. And then he handed her the few dollars he had earned that morning. She asked what the money was for, and he said, “Well, if we’re going to get married, we’re going to need an iron.”

Based on all the stories Mom and Dad told me over the years about their courtship, that anecdote is the closest thing to a marriage proposal I ever heard about.

So Mom bought an iron, and 73 years later she still has it. It still works, the last time I checked.

I’m sure I’m reading far too much into this, but I think the sweet “iron proposal” is responsible for Mom’s enduring attachment to the importance of ironing. That would explain Mom’s pet peeve about the lack of ironing going on in the wrinkly world today. I don’t know why ironing mattered so much to Peggy though—unless Grant proposed to her the same way.

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I Don’t Believe Anything That Makes Sense

I am wearing my footballs-and-helmets Bow Tie o’ the Day. While it is true that I am still in my bigly bipolar funk, a response to the Super Bowl came to me immediately after the conclusion of the game. I didn’t watch the game, but I wanted Kansas City to win, so I was not a happy camper about the final score.

My response to the game is this: On behalf of the Chiefs, I will not concede the Super Bowl. It’s irresponsible to congratulate Tampa Bay this soon after the game. If you count only the legal points scored, Kansas City won. By a lot. The Buccaneers rigged the game from the start. I will exhaust every legal avenue to challenge the final score, and I’ll make the Bucs pay for it. Tom Brady and his team stole the game. KC fans are mad. KC fans don’t trust the system. Besides, the whole game was a “deep fake” and never even really happened.

And now I’m going back to my unresolved bipolarity.

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Another Fine Cape For My Capers

[Here’s still another Valentine season re-peat post. My bipolar head is still out to lunch.]

Bow Tie o’ the Day is dressed in a field of red and white hearts on black silk. It clashes bigly with my newest cape. My heart-covered hat does some eye-popping clash as well.

As you probably guessed from the hearts on my cape’s pink side, this is my Valentine’s cape. Suzanne cut, assembled, pinned, sewed, and ironed it just for me. Just like she usually does. You know I have an obsessive hankerin’ for Suzanne-made capes. A girl can never have enough capes.

I’ve discovered that although wearing a cape doesn’t make me a superhero, wearing a cape does make me feel like I’m walking around in my blanket wherever I go. To me, that’s every bit as wonderful as being a superhero. I asked Suzanne to make me a flannel cape for extra warmth, and she’s all for it. A flannel blanket feels like home.

Especially as children, but also as adults, we have a tendency to mythologize our parents. We make them more than human. We make them bigger, smarter, funnier, braver, etc., than they really are. We think of them almost as superheroes. And that’s okay. I mean, to be fair, our parents think each of their kids is a genius, an all-state athlete, a musical prodigy, an artist, and a mythological character—all wrapped up into one snot-nosed brat.

Now, I know my parents aren’t perfect. You know your parents aren’t perfect. But they’re our parents. When we realize exactly how precious they are, their mistakes seem to recede into the horizon in our minds. Their greatest kindnesses and triumphs come to the forefront of our memories. We learn to forgive their mistakes and embrace their most excellent accomplishments. That’s as it should be.

Of course, we should try to improve on the worst qualities our parents handed down to us. And we should live by the best characteristics that live in them. We should carry their best characteristics with us always. We should tell stories and tall tales about our parents’ lives to our families and friends and whoever else will listen. That’s how we teach the important stuff forward.

Even when I’m wearing a fantabulous cape, I try to carry my parents’ best qualities with me. Perhaps one day, if somebody mythologizes me into a superhero, I’ll be able to fly in my capes.

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Huggin’ The Stuffin’ Out

[Here’s another Valentine re-peat.]

Tie o’ the Day is one of my fave Valentine’s ties. I like the lips and hearts covering the teddy bears’ scant clothing, and of course I am enamored with the bow ties. In the photos, Mom and Dad are around 16.

My dad was a burly bear of a guy. In fact, he seemed larger than he actually was. Ronald Edmond Wright had a gigantic presence. He had the “it” factor. And he was one of the most gentle men I’ve encountered in my life. If it had been possible for him to do so, he would’ve hugged every one of his millions of bees to show them they were loved. That’s just how he rolled.

But Dad stuck to hugging Mom and us and our pets. Dad was protective of Mom in ways large and small. They were in a restaurant once, and some dudes at the next table were swearing while they talked. Dad gave them “the look.” They continued on, as if to show they’d speak any way they wanted. Dad then said as nicely as he could, while giving them “the look” again, “This is my wife, and I won’t make her to listen to that kind of language.” They continued spewing their profanity. Finally, Dad stood up. They immediately apologized and cleaned up their language. Chivalry was alive and kicking when Dad was with Mom.

I’m sure you don’t believe it, but I wasn’t a rebellious kid. I don’t think I ever had a real “fight” with Dad when I was a teenager, but I remember loudly arguing with Mom a couple of times. The arguments were about my hair, believe it or not. Mom was never happy with my hair. Well heck, I wasn’t happy with my hair either. But it’s her fault I inherited her lifeless, style-resistant locks.

Anyhoo… One day after school, Mom and I were having one of these battles, and I finally hauled off to my bedroom in tears. Dad got home from work and heard the tail-end of the yelling, as well as Mom’s version of my whole, overly-dramatic teenage outburst. After a while, he came into my room to see how I was doing. I launched into my side of things—about how Mom was always on my back, and she was always unfair, and she was always wrong, blah, blah, blah. The usual teenage crapola.

Dad listened to my tirade and let me get it all out of my system, then he said, “I love you. But no matter who is right or who is wrong, I am always on your mother’s side. I will always stand with your mother.”

At the time, what Dad said to me made me even more angry. How could “right” and “wrong” not be what matters? And then I grew up, and found myself working to forge a lasting relationship like my parents had. I now understand exactly what Dad meant about the importance of standing by your spouse, against all conflict.

Big. Huggy. Chivalrous. Wise. That’s my dad.

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I Learned Love From These Kids

[My bipolar head is still squealing, so here’s another Valentine season re-post.]

Red hearts Bow Tie o’ the Day is ecstatic to be chosen to present this picture of Mom and Dad. They were probably 15 or 16 when this photo was snapped, and I’d bet bigly money this is a selfie taken by Dad.

If you ever saw my parents together, you saw something wild with life. They played their humor off each other like a perfectly timed vaudeville comedy team. They took joy in each other’s whims. When they looked at each other from across a room, even in public, you could see absolute brightness in their eyes.

In a time when it wasn’t always socially acceptable for women to work, make important decisions on their own, and speak their minds, Dad thrived on Mom being her spunky self. He encouraged her in her endeavors, and he watched with pride as he saw her conquer thing after thing she attempted.

Once—again, way back before women were people😉—to her friends’ amazement, Mom went to the car dealership in Delta and bought a new car on her own while Dad was in California working with his bees. When she told him, during their nightly phone call, that she had picked out a car and bought it, he had no problem with it. He figured she must have needed it. They trusted each other to make bigly decisions individually, if need be, even when the decision affected the whole family.

Of course, Mom and Dad had their disagreements and bumpy times. Of course, they huffed and puffed at each other, here and there. But it was always obvious Mom and Dad were in a deep, wide, tall, true love.

There are billions of things in the universe I will never know. But I know at least this one truth: I am the daughter of a grand romance.

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This Post Has No Title

Bow Tie o’ the Day sports molecules, and Face Mask o’ the Day is covered in mathematical symbols. Chemistry and math have never been great areas of interest to me. I do know enough about each to respect and appreciate those who work in fields requiring a keen understanding of each. Personally, most of my high school and college math was unnecessary for the needs of my adult life. Honestly, all I’ve ever needed to do is add and subtract from whatever amount is in my bank account. And the reality of that is that I mostly subtract. I know I am not alone in this.

So why molecule Bow Tie and math Face Mask? That’s easy. I am a chimpanzee when it comes to my clothing and accessories. Like a chimp, I am all about bright, shiny, busy things. I am distracted to the point of attraction to them.

BTW Yes, as you can see in the background of the photo, our Chuck Brown Christmas trees are still atop Suzanne’s Ultimate SewingBox. We are thinking about keeping them there year-round, where we can see them every day.