I’m simply feeling feathery this afternoon, whatever that might mean. Bow Tie o’ the Day is made of real peacock feathers. My suspenders are not. I don’t wear this grand Bow Tie too often, for fear I will damage or soil it somehow. Not only is it gorgeous, it is also delicate. At a sale cost of around $250, it is the single most expensive piece of neckwear I own, as well. It’s worth every penny. Sometimes I just open up its little box and stare at it or pet its feathers. My life is so not-like-everybody-else’s. 😁
What exactly does one wear to watch a Presidential Inauguration on television? I don’t know what “one” wears, but I wear a red-white-and-blue plaid shirt and a red-white-and-blue houndstooth Face Mask o’ the Day for those who might drop by to join my socially distanced watch party. And most importantly, I wear my United States Constitution fabric Bow Tie o’ the Day. I celebrate my freedom to make my dapper fashion statements appropriate to the historical occasion.
Last night on the news, we heard we would be under a High Wind Warning mid-way through the night and into mid-morning, and I woke up this morning to the sound of solid objects spinning around outside our house. I saw garbage bags flying in the neighborhood, and Suzanne told me she saw hunks of tin flying in our street. I swear I thought for a minute I had woken up back in Delta, where the wind comes whippin’ down the plain 24/7. But no, I was here in Centerville, where bigly winds are not the norm. Today’s winds, however, were interfering with our garbage and recycling pick-up. I decided not to even take our cans to the curb. This windstorm was nothing like the one that came through a few months ago, which uprooted trees everywhere in our neck of the woods, and took out the power for three days. I am at the age that I calculate the severity of any kind of storm based on how much tv I have to miss because the power is out. Flying sheets of tin or not, I judge this morning’s storm to ultimately be a lightweight piece o’ weather, because the television didn’t lose power for even one second. I was not inconvenienced one bit. That’s my kind of weather.
As we get ready to witness our country’s transition from one Presidential administration to the next tomorrow, I propose we all behave like adult patriots—instead of like spoiled brats who exploit their rights without shouldering the ever-present responsibilities that secure those rights. In short, how ’bout we all act like grown-up’s? Just a thought.🇺🇸
Gracie is, as her mom says, “puttin’ on all the bows.” She presents our Bow Tie o’ the Day. I am so proud that the Divine Miss Grace is already paying homage to her bow tie roots. I’m sure Gracie will also embrace her redneck roots someday soon.
I threw on my dog bones Bow Tie o’ the Day, and we all took a Sunday drive to Deltabama yesterday to “visit” Mom. We delivered Mom some tasty goodies from us and from BT, and then Suzanne and Skitter and I stood outside Mom’s window in the cold—feeling warmed by the company through the window. As with every visit, Mom said hello to Skitter first. It is odd to be so close to Mom and yet have to speak to her by phone. Mom kept joking that our visit made her feel like she was in jail. I asked her if she had been hiding a prison record from us, because there’s no other way she could know what jail visitation is like. That made her cackle up a joyous storm.
Mom is doing well, despite her pandemic time in solitary. Whenever I speak to her on the phone, she is generally in her normal happy spirits. But I still have to see it for myself on occasion—even if it is only through a care center window.
BTW Mom sends her regards to y’all. She often refers to my TIE O’ THE DAY readers as “the tie people who sent me birthday cards for my 90th.” Thanks again, for doing that.
[This is a repeat of a photo and its accompanying post from 2018.]
Bow Tie o’ the Day and I are practicing our scary faces for Halloween, even though it’s still January. Clearly, we need to work on more looks o’ horror. We woke up this morning and simply decided we wanted to give in to our whim to wear our orange and black today.
It is said that we should follow our arrows. I agree with that advice, but I also believe in indulging our whims. To me, your arrow is usually a big, abstract, directional kind of concept—like where you want to go in your career; how you want your family to be; your personal goals and values.
Whims, on the other hand, are very specific things that add panache and wonder to your life. They should celebrate your individuality and give you singular joy. It’s usually best if your whims reflect your arrow, but sometimes you need a whim to be so out-there that it knocks your arrow’s arc into a better path than you aimed your arrow in the first place.
Both things matter. I do have to say that, although I’m a dang good see-er o’ the expansive picture o’ The Big Arrow, I’ve become quite wrapped up in committing as many whims as I can at this point in my life. Hey, folks! We’re all running low on years.
The best way I can explain it is that we spend so much of our adulthood making sure we’re following our Big Arrow (family, career, education, etc.), and then at some point we realize our Big Arrow’s traveling just fine without our constant fussing over it. Ain’t really no knockin’ it off its path now. We don’t need to worry quite so much about the trajectory of the Big Arrow we’ve tended so well for years. The aim of our Big Arrow is true. It has become who we are. It is the sum of our lives. We decided its path long ago and adjusted it as needed. We can now use the auto pilot we’ve achieved through decades of living true to our Big Arrow. Our autopilot can do its job to get us to our desired cosmological destination.
Now’s the time for whims. We should “whim around.” We should have whimsical attitudes. We should do things in a “whimmerly” way. We should exercise our “whimmers.” We should expand our “whimmerosity.” We should do “whimmerrific” activities. I could continue to come up with oodles more words o’ whimsy—real and made-up. But you get the idea.
I am my own Whim-meister. You are your own Whim-meister. Let us play on! 🤡 😜
One of the gifts I gave Suzanne for Christmas was this Ruth Bader Ginsburg puzzle, on which we see Justice Ginsburg’s face created from the words of some of her most noteworthy dissents. Well, Suzanne set the puzzle out last week, and has been hunched over it every evening since. It was a tough puzzle. I’ve never seen Suzanne be so puzzled about a puzzle before. She labored diligently, and finally finished it last night. She said to me, upon her successful completion of the RBG puzzle, “I better see this puzzle in a TIE O’ THE DAY post.” Her proud exasperation made my orders clear, so here it is. Bow Tie o’ the Day salutes Suzanne’s puzzle prowess.
About two minutes after I posted about not being able to find my peanut M&M’s bow tie this morning, I immediately ran onto it. Yes, it was in the last place I looked—because there’s no reason to keep looking for something, after you’ve found it.
Here I am, still enjoying my Pajama Day of reading, writing, and no ‘rithmetic. My bag o’ M&M’s functioned as a real-life face mask this afternoon, when I had to answer the door and didn’t have a mask handy. I put the bag of candy in front of my face and answered the door to the masked Amazon prime delivery person. I am pleased to say that my candy face mask caused the prime guy to convulse in a fit of laughter, for which he gleefully thanked me as he went off to the rest of his work day.
Note to self: Eat this bag o’ candy, so you have an excuse to buy more.
I could not find my peanut M&M’s bow tie anywhere in the Tie Room this morning. It was my intended Bow Tie o’ the Day. I know it’s not lost. It’s in the Tie Room somewhere, just not in its usual place. But I’m in the mood to wear that particular bow tie, and no other. Never to be deterred, I know how to improvise when necessary. Still, not finding one of my trusted bow ties in its place discombobulated me to the point that I declared a Pajama Day for myself. I’m passing my pj morning on the love seat—reading, writing, and dozing off. I also discovered another use for my Face Mask o’ the Day. It works niftily as a sleep mask.
