Witty & Wise Ties, Trivia & Lies
Red-white-and-blue Bow Tie o’ the Day gets as nervous as I do when it comes to choosing the perfect Academy Awards gown for my glide down the Red Carpet. I vow that one day I and a bow tie shall top the Oscars Best Dressed list. How do I know for sure it will happen? It’s my goal, and I believe in my fashion sense. If they make it, I will wear it.
Now, after looking at this photo for too long, I must rest my dizzy eyes.
It’s that time of year! The Oscars are only a few weeks away, so I’ve once again been trying on glamorous gowns for my walk down the Red Carpet to the Oscars ceremony. This dress feels a bit drafty, but the outfit’s headwear has me mesmerized. I don’t think I could wear the “hat” in the limousine— unless I sit directly under the limo’s open sunroof. I can totally see myself doing that.
Ruler and protractor Bow Tie o’ the Day is honored to be nominated to maybe possibly perchance be worn by me to the bigly movie star extravaganza.
I calculate that I should try on a few more gowns before making a final decision. My fashion choices are seen in my posts by hordes of important people, and I don’t want to let anyone down. I have a fashion reputation to uphold, you know. It’s exhausting to be so famous.
Last weekend, Suzanne and I ventured out to a comedy show. I thought my Prince-Albert-in-a-can Bow Tie o’ the Evening was absolutely appropriate for a comedic adventure.
We all had a swell time listening to the hilarious Paula Poundstone, whose turning and twisting observations were spot-on. I went on a principled strike, refusing to take pix at the event because Paula was not wearing a tie! I have watched her perform on tv since the late 80’s, and in every performance I saw, she was wearing a tie. But on the one night I— the TIE O’ THE DAY tblogger, and constant wearer o’ ties— paid to see Paula Poundstone perform in person, she didn’t wear a tie. It broke my heart a little. But she did wear a tuxedo, and she fiddled with her collar enough when she came onto the stage that I felt like she was realizing she had forgotten to tie one on, so to speak. I forgave her, but I still didn’t take any pictures. My tie feelings were hurt, for each and every tie I own. I’m almost completely over the snub to ties everywhere.
Life can be difficult. Small things and bigly things can grab us and throw us off track. Even things we have under control can have uncertain outcomes. We stumble, we fall, we get hurt. Bad things happen to us all. Stuff happens. That’s life.
If we’re lucky folks, when we find ourselves in an existential jam, we have our people to help us out: friends, family, Good Samaritans, and dogs. And we have ourselves. We forget to tap into our strengths. Most of you are up to the task of helping others, but are you up to the task of saving yourself? The answer to our dilemmas is mostly in our ability to help ourselves. Take care of yourself every day. Be kind to yourself. You’re no good to anyone else if you’re falling apart inside and out.
Usually, but not always. When Suzanne goes whistling off to work on weekday mornings, her last instruction to me is almost always, “Be good.” To which I reply some snarky remark like, “If it’s your command, I guess I’ll have to try.” Or, “I’ll be better than good, I’ll be perfect” But when she told me to be good today, I said, “No. That’s all over with. No more being good for me.” There was a palpable silence as she held the door open to the garage, mostly because I never say NO to Suzanne even in jest. Suzanne was temporarily speechless, but not fazed for long. She said, “Well, just call if you need me to bail you out of jail.” And then she left, shutting the door behind her, before I could say anything in response.
I got thinking about it, and I realized Suzanne always jokes with me to be good because she pretty much assumes I’m already planning on being good— which, I admit, is true. But I’m kinda insulted that she doesn’t really think I’m capable of getting into mischief. I took that as a challenge. So what bad things did I do today?
I didn’t wear a bra. I didn’t do errands. I didn’t walk Skitter to pick up the mail. I cooked myself liver for lunch, so the house will likely still reek of the smell when Suzanne gets home. I said all the swear words I could think of, just to be really, really bad. Of course, I made sure to shut Skitter in her crate upstairs while I went downstairs to swear. Swearing in front of Skitter is a level of bad where I will never go.
The baddest thing I did today is so bad that I will undo it before Suzanne gets home: Bow Tie o’ the Day and I completed the PENCILS puzzle Suzanne and I started over the weekend. Check out those photos. To fully appreciate how bad that is, you have to understand that in our entire decades-long relationship, our puzzling partnership has evolved to seamless workmanship. There are unsaid, unwritten rules and responsibilities. I don’t know how or why the rules came into being, but I don’t mess with them. For example, I am responsible for getting the puzzle pieces spread out on the table, right-side up. I am also in charge of finding all the edge pieces, and setting them aside. Suzanne is the only one allowed to put together the edge pieces. And one of the other rules is that Suzanne gets to finish the puzzle— whether she puts in the last hundred pieces or the last three. The point is that Suzanne completes the puzzles. Always. See how bad I was today?
So I guess I can be bad if I try hard, but I am not stoopid. I will take 40 or so random pieces out of the already-finished puzzle. I will lay them out all around the table, so when Suzanne comes home from work tonight, she can relax ’round the puzzle which she will finish. Oh, happy day! And I won’t need to be bailed out of jail!
FYI Don’t worry about Suzanne finding out I actually completed the puzzle, out of my sincere attempt to be bad. She doesn’t read TIE O’ THE DAY daily. She binge-reads it when she has time, and I happen to know she’s too busy this week to read it at all. By the time she reads this post, I will have already felt so guilty about the puzzle lie, to the point that I will have already confessed to her and been forgiven. It’s all good.
Head Bow Ties o’ the Day are brought to you by the one and only Grace Anne. She turned 8 months old this week, and she’s a stunner. If I could rock the head bow ties like Gracie, I would always wear one. But I’ve got a hat head, not a bow head.
For your added viewing pleasure, this post includes my fave Daddy-Gracie photo so far. Bishop Travis was a good sport about the fact that Bishopette Collette grabbed the camera and took the picture BEFORE rescuing him with the burp rag. I’m glad they have their priorities straight. The world would be poorer in spirit without this snapshot.
Church Bow Ties o’ Years Ago are choice examples of their breed. The snapshots from the past are also evidence that my cameras have improved with each phone upgrade.
Bow Tie o’ the Day is here to say I’ve had a hankering to go fishing. I found this PRADA fishing jacket in the pages of VOGUE magazine, and as soon as I can save the $2,130. for the jacket and the $690. for the shirt, I’m definitely planning a fishing trip. The ad doesn’t say how much the boots cost, so I’ll save up an extra thousand bucks just to be sure I can afford them. Not.
Anyhoo… Without setting out to do it, I made a second “snow” angel in the earth below the tree “house,” later on during the same summer I made the infamous Tumbleweed Angel (see previous post). I was probably 6 or 7 that year. I was up in the tree sitting on the piece of wood we called a treehouse, reading WHERE THE RED FERN GROWS for the dozenth time— boo hoo-ing about the tragedies befalling the Redbone Coonhounds, Old Dan and Little Ann. I’m sure it was the bucket of tears in my crying eyes that caused me to fall back and away from the tree. For the second time.
My body wafted from the tree house, down to the vacant lot below it— where I landed in a kind of backflop. A cloud of dust rose from the ground and surrounded me. The tumbleweeds that caught me in my previous post weren’t there anymore. The vacant lot had recently been cleared and tilled. I hit nothing but overturned dirt clods. I lay flat on my back, in an indention created by my weight pushing the soft clods into the ground under me. The wind got knocked out of me in a bigly way. I thought the dust might even be smoke. It felt like I would never take a breath again. As I lay there trying to breathe, my arms flailed. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was making yet another incredible, unbelievable “snow” angel, which I will forever refer to as The Clod Angel. I was completely unharmed by my fall from the tree. Again.
Clearly, I’m protected by angels of my own making.
FYI Apparently, purses are “in” this year. How do I know? Because VOGUE says so. I do like that the purse handle works as a sort of bow tie.
As Skitter took me and Bow Tie o’ the Day out for my morning walk today, we enjoyed seeing the thick white snow. We ignored the yellow spots of snow dotting the neighborhood yards, close to the sidewalk. I had a brief idea about using Skitter to create a snow dog-angel in a particularly beautiful patch of snow, and then take a TIE O’ THE DAY photo. But my internal voice of reason came to Skitter’s rescue, reminding me that Skitter would be scared by being embedded into the snow to be a snow dog-angel. And honestly, I didn’t really want to lie down in the cold snow by myself. So we walked on, and I thought about some of the snow angels I remember making.
The best “snow” angel I ever made was not made in the snow, nor was it made on purpose. I unintentionally created it when I fell from our treehouse once when I was a kid. Our “treehouse” was a single piece of wood nailed to a high tree limb which hung out over the vacant lot next door. The lot was a dense tumbleweed farm at times. When I fell out, it was into tall dry tumbleweeds. It was as if the weeds held up their arms to catch me and break my fall. I landed atop a clump of weeds, flat on my back, and gradually fell through their snapping limbs to the ground.
No harm, no foul. I brushed myself off and climbed back up in the treehouse, where I looked down to where I had fallen, and I could see where I had left a perfect outline of my body in the grouping of weeds, smooshed down to the ground. I must have been flailing my arms as I fell flat through the weeds though, cuz the impression in that bunch of tumbleweeds looked exactly like a snow angel.
Who says there’s nothing to do in Delta, UT?!
Seattle Seahawks Bow Tie o’ the Day was not enough to move my team past the Green Bay Packers yesterday. Their season is done. I was sure my new Seahawks bow tie earrings would be magic enough to guarantee a win, but I guess I was wrong. Clearly, my wintry cape’s snowflakes didn’t help either.
The only thing weirder than sports fans thinking what they wear will help their team win is why we like our chosen teams in the first place. When I was 12, I chose the Seahawks to be my team when they came into the league in 1976. Why? Because they were there. On Sundays after church, everybody else in the family cheered for their chosen teams, so I figured I needed one. I wanted to back a team nobody else had their mitts on yet.
I’m a fan of the underdog, and as the new NFL team in 1976, Seattle was the underdog of all underdogs. The Seahawks seemed like my kind of team. They were doomed to be losers. I knew my team would lose, and lose, and lose. I prepared for it. I prepared for all the razzing I knew I would endure with my team for years. Every NFL Sunday I got full to the gills with cheers and wins for the Denver Broncos, the Dallas Cowboys, and the stoopid Green Bay Packers, while my Seahawks sucked. But me and my Seahawks won a Super Bowl in 2013, and although that ain’t gonna happen this year, it very well could come to pass next year. Hope springs annually with the coming of the NFL season.
FYI. I’ve visited lots o’ places, but I have never even been to Seattle.
Bow Tie o’ the Day and I have been playing with both the new and old computers today. Suzanne transferred my old computer’s contents to the new computer last night, and I’ve been comparing various files to make sure everything made it to the new machine. So far, so good. No problems. And the new machine is quick, I tell ya.
This photo shows my computer’s desktop screen, which is a picture of one of my fave summer meals Mom made for me: asparagus and pickled asparagus. Mom planned to make me creamed asparagus over toast too, but it was July— and way too hot to eat creamed anything. Still, it would’ve made an even better photo.
As a kid, I spent a great deal of my summer on my bike, prowling the county’s ditch banks for asparagus for Mom to cook. It kept me out of trouble, and it generally kept me on her good side. I lost track of time one day, and when the sun went down I found myself and my bike out on the ditch banks of Sugarville. There were no cell phones back then, of course. And I was so young I didn’t know I knew anyone who actually lived in Sugarville, so instead of knocking on some “stranger’s” door and asking to use their phone, I hauled my butt back into Delta as fast as my cowboy boots could push the pedals. Darkness falls fast in the desert.
My bike basket brimmed with perfectly fat asparagus. I was sure the ton of asparagus would save me from Mom and Dad being miffed at me for being AWOL all day and after dark. It did not.
When things were settling down in the Ron and Helen Wright household that night, Dad said I should think of my asparagus hunting as deer hunting. I should think smart. He said, “You can hunt asparagus anywhere you’re not trespassing. You just have to tell us which direction you’re going, so we know where to find the carcass when you don’t come home.” Message received.