Dot-terrific wood Bow Tie o’ the Day debuts itself on this breezy Pandemic Hairs Thursday. I don’t own curlers and other such hair accessories (and I don’t want to), so my pandemic hairs have to be managed by other means. Most days, I go the Mad Hatter route, which means I go to my Storage Bin o’ Hats and choose whatever hat feels right. And I love my hats. But sometimes, I don’t feel hatty at all, and I have to get creative. I am a writer; therefore, I have scores of funky accessories in my desk drawers. This morning, these heavy duty paper clips came to mind. I have many kinds and colors and sizes of paper clips. They came in handy when it came time to wrestle my head hairs for today’s post—especially the bigliest clip. I think the clips add the proper panache and bling to my dramatic, pandemic hairs, and I’m glad Bow Tie o’ the Day and I thought to use them. Otherwise, I would have had to use my stapler to tame my noggin hairs—with my fancy pink, blue, and yellow staples. That would’ve looked fantabulous, but it would have hurt. A heckuva lot.
These photos are from 2008, a few months after Dad died. The adorable baby girl Mom’s holding is Ronni Wright. (You can never have enough Ron Wright’s in my family.) Her big brother, Bosten, is supervising the occasion. Bosten and Ronni are two of Mom’s army of great-grandkids.
For all of my adult life, when I’ve shown up in Delta at the grocery store or the swimming pool or a restaurant, inevitably someone not related to me will ask me, “How’s Grandma doing?” I know exactly who they are asking about. Mom has always treated the friends of her grandkids and great-grandkids like they belong to our family. She’s an extra grandma to them. And I’m sure she knows what kind of cookies each one of them likes best.
Swashbuckling wood Bow Tie o’ the Day and I are exuberant. We had the weirdest, best day. My day started out normally enough. I looked at what Suzanne was wearing to work, then dug around in the Tie Room for a clean face mask to match what Suzanne was wearing to the office. Suzanne is as matchy as I am not-matchy. After she left, I toiled around the house for an hour, when I was suddenly overcome with complete weariness. I went back to bed and slept for over an hour. I have no idea what brought on that unfightable exhaustion. I do know that Skitter likes it when I take naps, cuz she gets to sleep in the tall bed with me. I don’t like to go back to bed, because I have TIE O’ THE DAY to write and other things to accomplish before I die, and I feel time hurtling away too quickly for my taste.
But the grooviest thing happened after I woke up from my nap to face the day. I felt energized—breathless, in a good way. I was even a bit antsy. I turned off the television—my bipolar head’s constant companion. I spent a few minutes going through the cd’s to find the exact right things to listen to, and to my surprise I gravitated to the first three Sarah MaClachlan cd’s. Yup, right back to the 90’s. I lined them up and cranked them up, and—bigly surprise—I felt like dancing. I do not normally dance around the house, but I felt the groove and danced anyway, both upstairs and downstairs. In fact, I haven’t danced in years. But I felt the undeniable urge to boogie around the premises. Skitter was even amused. She was an attentive audience. It was a workout like I haven’t had in a long time, and it lasted almost two hours. Golly, it was fun. I can’t explain what came over me, but I feel blessed that it did. The music was superb, and I had a blast all by myself. I highly recommend you find your music and get dancing.
FYI Suzanne is forbidden to dance. Ever. She has a klutz problem that leads to scrapes, and bruises, and twisted ankles, and broken furniture when she tries to dance. Fortunately, she knows this about herself and refrains from dancing for the sake of all people, animals, and things in her vicinity. I applaud her for her sacrifice.
Over the weekend Suzanne and I accomplished as little as possible. That was our goal, and I’m pleased to say we met. We did nothing productive. I take that back: Suzanne vacuumed the bedroom and cleaned the bathroom no one uses anymore. And I did wash the face masks so Suzanne can wear clean ones to her office this week. But other than that, we accomplished nothing bigly.
We binge-watched a couple of seasons of DEXTER. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the series, let me just say that Dexter is a serial killer who feels it’s his mission to get rid of murderers who somehow escaped punishment from the legal system. The show is not for everyone. It’s a dark, edgy series, which begs the question, “Can a serial killer do ‘good’ for society?” In reality, of course, I vote NO on that question. But within the context of the series, Dexter is a rather decent sociopath. He follows a code.
Anyhoo… The photo I offer y’all this afternoon is a photo of my television screen at a terrifying moment for one of Dexter’s victims. The scene was intense and horrible and dark and wrong and worthy of screams from whoever’s watching. But me—well, my brain saw nothing but Bow Tie o’ the Day in the taped-over gag in the victim’s mouth! I wasn’t askeered of the scene at all. I was ecstatic to see the bow tie shape. It was calming to my senses. I kinda have a one-track mind, and it comes in handy sometimes.
I drove to the Centerville Deseret Industries to drop off a truck bed o’ donations. I had been planning on it for weeks. Why? Because during our lovely pandemic, you must get an online reservation for a specific date and time to drop off your D. I. offerings. Right now, getting a ticket to donate to D. I. is like going on Ticketmaster to get tickets to a Neil Diamond concert. I didn’t originally intend to spend part of my National Bow Tie Day using my donation ticket to D. I., but it was the only available appointment I could get.
BTW No ties of any ilk were donated to Deseret Industries. That just never happens.
My fave bow tie makers—Beau Ties of Vermont LTD—added a line of dapper face masks to their catalog at the beginning of the pandemic. They also offer matching bow tie/mask combinations. When they announced they were sponsoring a matching bow tie/mask combo contest for National Bow Tie Day, I was tempted to enter a photo of myself. But I don’t do matching. Matching gives me mental hives. Anyhoo… Here’s the winner of the contest, announced this morning. And it’s one more reason I love doing business with Beau Ties of Vermont.
“CONGRATULATIONS!!! By unanimous decision from the Beau Ties family, Jake K. has been chosen as the winner of this year’s National Bow Tie Day contest and will be receiving 3 Beau ‘n’ Mask combos of his choice.”
I don’t know exactly what Mom is up to at Millard Care and Rehab today, because I can’t make phone contact with her. She has so many family members and pals on this earth who regularly call to check on her that her phone is always busy, especially since she’s living in lockdown. That’s a good thing, and I’m very grateful to everyone who cares so deeply about her—except when I want to talk to her and her phone is busy. I’m annoyed I have to share her with anyone else when that happens.
This is a photo of Mom at MCR demonstrating her crafting skills earlier this year. The duster she’s wearing has a small Bow Tie o’ the Duster at the neck, thus qualifying Mom to be on TIE O’ THE DAY. But my fave detail about this pic is that when you look closely at Mom’s ear, you can see she is wearing her clip-on earrings. Yes, she put on earrings to do crafts at the care center. What a sense of her own style, Helen Sr. has! She knows exactly who the Hell-en she is, and she’s not afraid to show her true hellion self to anybody. No wonder she sleeps well. May we all be so comfortable with who we truly are when we’re 89. I’ve got a lot to work on to feel that cool about myself, but I’m trying. Mom’s always been a phenomenal character, drawing people into her circle without even trying to. Which is why her phone is always busy and I can’t get in touch with her.
During one of my sleepless nights last week, I went downstairs and tinkered around while watching whatever old movies on late-night tv that happened to catch my interest. The film adaptation of Tennessee Willliams’ play, “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” was on, so I watched Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor do some of their top acting work. I first read the play in 7th Grade, after I found a book of Tennessee Williams plays in the DHS library. When I tried to check it out, Ruth Hansen, the DHS librarian at the time, said I wasn’t old enough to be reading such “racy” things. I politely asked her if we could call Mom and get her thoughts on the matter. Miss Hansen called Mom, and they had a jovial phone conversation full of laughter. Miss Hansen then let me check out the bigly book of Tennessee Williams plays I had been itching to get my hands on. I found out later that Mom had told Miss Hansen that if something was ok enough to be housed in the DHS library, it was ok for me to read it. Mom told her if it wasn’t fit for me to read, it probably wasn’t fit to be in a high school library. I guess that made sense to Miss Hansen, cuz I could check out whatever I found for the rest of my time there.
In honor of that little walk down Tennessee Williams memory lane, Bow Tie’s o’ the Day are here to put on a performance of their own just to make me feel at home. This is Bow Ties performing their rendition of “Bow Ties on a Hot Cast Iron Pan.” I’m so glad we don’t have a tin roof, or they would surely be dragging me up there to watch them frolic on it.
The game is Solitaire, but Bow Ties o’ the Day are apparently clueless as to what the word “solitary” means. They’ve turned the card game into a team sport. Bless their little pea-pickin,’ fabric hearts! 😏
I’m spittin’ out my hearing aids about it. I can hear the ocean. I’m wearing my nautical wood Bow Tie o’ the Day, but I’m not at the ocean. You might think it’s nice to hear the ocean from Centerville, UT on a hot August day, but it’s not. It’s my stoopid tinnitus. I am yearning for a silence I will probably never again have. It is driving me batty. Some days it just irks me beyond all reason. No matter how sweet a sound you can think of, be assured that you don’t want to hear it unceasingly in your head 24/7 until the day you go completely deaf or die—whichever comes first. I love hearing the ocean when I’m at the ocean. But my old ears haven’t let me have a silent night’s sleep in over a year now. I don’t think I hear it in my dreams, but I’m not sure because I’m asleep when I dream.
My tinnitus doesn’t just manifest itself as the sound of the ocean. I’ve started keeping a list of the various ways its sounds. So far I can attest that my tinnitus can sound like outside water running; inside water running; wind gusting; ringing; air being let out of a tire or ball; steam being released from an iron; radio static; the microwave running; the fridge running; plastic being removed from a new product; tinfoil being crumpled; being underwater; somebody breaking in downstairs; any kind of hydraulics; an Alka Seltzer fizzing; the AC starting up; and a roulette wheel coasting. I’m sure the list will only get longer and longer.
The one thing my tinnitus doesn’t sound like is silence. Day, night, day, night. The one sound my tinnitus can’t mimic is silence. I’m done finding it interesting. I’ve been ranting about how fed up I am about it to Skitter all day, and it’s almost time for Suzanne to get home from work. I declare my rant about my failing ears to be officially over for today. Thank you for always listening to my rants.
Now, I shall pretend my ears are 17 again, so when Suzanne gets home she will be none the wiser that earlier today I debated poking a hole in both my eardrums with one of her crochet hooks, just to “hear” some peace and quiet.
[I am aware that for some of you the post photos are not oriented correctly. I’m working on it. There’s no problem on most platforms, but on the website itself, some of the recent pix are not oriented as they should be. Thanks for your patience while I try to troubleshoot.]
