Category: Bow Ties

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The End: PART THREE Of Some Meandering Of My Mind

I haven’t selfied today, so I’ll let Grace Anne show off her cute Bow Tie o’ Last Sunday before she got in a fancy polka dot dress for church. See, her bow is on the ballerina costume emblem on her chest.

So….. I’ve been writing here about wanting to just un-me myself, cuz I keep needing to re-learn the lesson of using moderation in assisting folks in solving their own problems. When I do too much, I short-change myself and disappear, which makes me realize I really don’t want to change into someone I’m not. I just want myself to grow to be better at being me. I think we all want that for ourselves.

But why do we make the same mistakes again and again? Yesterday, I said that one reason is because we are familiar with the pattern. It feels comfortable to us. We feel safe in a pattern we’ve set, if only because we’re used to it.

However, I think there’s a much bigly-er reason we get stuck in our patterns of behavior that replay our weaknesses. What complicates our battles with our own personal deficiencies is the fact that our weaknesses are usually intricately tied to our strengths. And we don’t want to chance giving up our strengths.

For example, I think most of us will agree that helping others is a good way to be. Helping others, to the detriment of ourselves is not so good. We have to keep learning how to harness all the bells and whistles of our helping, so we don’t collapse in self-neglect. Ideally, we want our characteristic strengths to grow, while our characteristic weaknesses diminish. So although it is true in some sense that we must lose ourselves in order to find ourselves, it’s also true that we can lose ourselves in helping others to the point that our “self” can starve to death. If that happens, we are of no use to anyone. We have made it impossible to love our neighbors. Now, that’s what I call a sin.

To use a car metaphor, the long and short of it is that I had been speeding around for others a bit recklessly, until I had no speed with which to move. My tank wasn’t just empty, it finally rusted out. My wheels were stuck in a mud puddle of my own making too. I spun my wheels out of helpless anger, knowing fully well that I was only throwing mud and making deeper ruts. I gotta remember to not do that again. Y’all know exactly what I’m sayin’.

As a decrepit old gal these days, my “me” is like the muddy used car. Folks, I’m never gonna be a new car. I’m pretty much AS IS. But used cars can be detailed, so I’m also AS I WILL BECOME. I wanna be a continually NEW used car, regularly detailing myself with mostly snazzerrific bow ties.

End of deep thoughts.

BTW You know how I find connections everywhere I look? Here I am posting about the good and bad of helping others, and what did my fortune cookie tell me at lunch today? “Life’s greatest privilege is being able to help someone in need.” Duh! I kid you not.

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Where, Oh, Where Have The Bow Ties Been? (PART ONE)

Even heart-target Bow Tie o’ the Day knows I post, post, post. And then I’m suddenly silent. I’ve done it before, but never in TIE O’ THE DAY history have I been post-less for nearly half a month. (Thanks for your patience.) With the exception of a short post on Mom’s birthday last week, that’s how long it’s been. And even more astounding is the fact that I purposely haven’t worn neckwear (this is an earlier photo) for that amount of time. Oh, the pigs are flying about that! I am simply not myself.

Usually when all’s quiet on the laptop it’s due to some bipolar thing, or connectivity issues while we’re vacationing. This time my silence has been part bipolar vortex and mostly existential crisis. I wore my spirit out, and I wanted to be un-me. I guess even I couldn’t handle my high-maintainance diva self. Thus, I haven’t worn neckwear, nor have I had the oomph to consider posting. I haven’t perked up to think of clashy fashion. I haven’t been clever or chatty. I haven’t restocked the fridge with Diet Coke. I have not had one story or sermon formulating in me to write. I have not offered to assist others. I have tried to be as un-me as I can be. What if the un-me is the best me? I don’t know if anyone has missed me and the neckwear that is so much a part of me, or not. I kinda haven’t missed myself, which tells you I’m not quite back to my normal. I’m the kind of person I and other people regularly need a vacation from. But trying to be a matchy, low-key me isn’t working all that effectively for me either. My “me” got pooped. What’s a me-gal to do?

Besides, we can’t really run from ourselves anyway, can we? I mean– really, escaping ourselves is one task we cannot possibly accomplish. But I’ve recently been trying to be un-me anyway, as I tried to do a couple of other times in my life. I’m sure you’ve tried to be un-you, too, at certain points in your existence. Yet here you are, right at this moment– you are most probably being inescapably you. Mr. Rogers and I are glad you are you. I’m trying to get back to being me, by creating this post. I’m pushing through it, but it’s tiring to be me.

Bottom line: I don’t think we need to change who we are, as much as we each need to continuously try to grow into a more glorious authentic self: a self that takes care of itself, in order to be strong enough to care for others without disappearing into exhaustion.

[Tune in tomorrow for PART TWO of this post, which will likely clarify what I’m trying to say.]

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Merry Birthday To Big Helen

Birthday Bow Tie o’ the Day is proud to present its party balloons to Mom today, on her 89th self-anniversary! This photo of Mom and Dad was taken at a Ruby River dinner for Dad’s 75th birthday party, in 2005. I chose it for today because I know Mom’s only real birthday wish is to have Dad with her every minute of every day. Together, Mom and Dad are an authentic, original, complete set. But for now, the family will do our best to fill in for Dad. We want Mom here for as long as she can stand to put up with us.

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Skeered Skitter Is A People Magnet

Skitter’s Bow Tie o’ the Day offers this photo as proof that I don’t always have to create a many-paragraph set-up to give you a guffaw. Nope. The title of this photo is Skitter Spends Time With Her Peeps, as in “people.” Groan over that pun.

BTW I bought these Peeps the Monday after last Easter. I’m saving them for a top secret TIE O’ THE DAY post activity this coming Easter. Stay tuned.

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A Visit With Royalty

Because I had my mind stuck on Mom a few days ago, Bow Tie o’ the Day woke up Saturday morning and declared we were off to MCR. So we all got in Suzanne’s car and she drove us to the land of Deltabama, where Mom seemed mighty glad to see us.

Skitter did her usual curling up right by Mom, and Mom did her usual constant petting of Skitter. Mom and I did our same old Two Helen’s Telling Stories and Snort-Laughing routine. After a while, Suzanne left us and drove over to see her other Delta mother: Mom’s Crafts. When she came back to MCR, Suzanne showed Mom her new fabric, and then she lotioned Mom’s itchy legs. When it was time to leave, even Skitter wanted to stay with Mom.

It was such a simple day. And it was pretty much the same as every visit we make to Mom at MCR. We even laughed at a lot of the same ol’ family jokes and tales for the thousandth time. I am always amazed at how a day so “the same” and simple can feel like a kind of high Heaven.

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Mom Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Bow Tie

I love running across pix of Mom. Here she is, sometime around four years ago, visiting me in my former Delta abode. When I was in town, Mom wandered over to hang with me two or three times a day. Usually, Mom held court on my porch, where we solved the problems of the world. We were laughing so hard about something one summer day on the porch that Mrs. Rowlette—who just happened to be driving by—pulled into my driveway and asked what was so funny. We invited her onto the sacred porch, where she laughed with us for the next hour. Mrs. Rowlette was not the first, nor was she the last, to find out what happened on the porch, stayed on the porch.

When the weather and temperature didn’t cooperate, this bigly chair by the bigly picture window at my place was Mom’s throne. Mom’s style needs no neckwear, although I’d give her the bowtie off my neck if she wanted it. And you can see where I got my basic fashion sensibilities, right?

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9/11 First Responders Rule

Bow Tie o’ the Day pays tribute to the police officers and firefighters of 9/11. They did monumental and incredible work. They did their jobs, and beyond.

As a parent, aunt, and teacher, I have been asked many times why a police officer or firefighter gets all kinds of attention when they die. Kids see them in the newspaper and on the tv news, becoming famous (to a kid). And to a kid, it’s like the fallen get a parade on the way to their burial. One young sprite asked me, “Why are cops and firefighters more special than anybody else who dies?”

My answer is always simple. Police officers and firefighters are not better or more important than anybody else. They are not perfect. Some of them are jerks– as in any profession. But they all belong to us because they serve our communities. We ask them daily to do dirty, dangerous work in our cities, counties, states, and country. When something catastrophic happens, we all take our frightened butts and scram as far away as we can and as swiftly as we can. While our scaredy-cat selves are leaving the scene of the crime, the goal of first responders is to run right into whatever deadly chaos we want to escape. Their aim is to do whatever needs to be done to keep us secure and alive. They aren’t superheroes, but they are probably the closest thing we have to superheroes.

Even kids understand that answer.

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Sweatin’ To The Oldies

Paisley-adorned wood Bow Tie o’ the Day went with us on a Sunday outing for an “infrared massage.” Suzanne’s back had been pitching a fit all week because of her long days at work, so I ferreted around in my out-of-control gift card/coupon folder, and VOILA! Two gift cards for infrared massages popped up.

We had no idea what an infrared massage might be but we scheduled one anyway. As we were driving to our appointment, I said to Suzanne, “You know, it could be something a like a lampless sunlamp.” I was close.

We ended up brrrr-naked and enclosed in something like a long phone booth, in which wall panels put out intense heat. I believe we maxed out at somewhere around 165 degrees, for 40 minutes. It was a Sweat Lodge, but without steam.

We were able to program what our infrared massage was supposed to do for us. We choose the “anti-aging” setting. The heat really did feel great on our aches and pains, but we look just as old as before we spent our time in the Infrared Time Machine.

One thing really messed with my head while we were being heated up. We could program what music we listened to during the massage, and I went with a simple Pandora 80’s Rock station. Folks, I was fully conscious about music in the 80’s. I had a stereo, a Walkman, and an armband radio. I was ALWAYS listening to all kinds of music. I know my 80’s Rock. Pandora presented its version of 80’s Rock as if it was all Whitesnake, Guns N’ Roses, and Scorpions. Over and over and over. I WAS THERE! I know they weren’t the only three rock ‘n’ roll bands playing music during that decade. But Pandora made me doubt my own music memories. I kept thinking I must have been wrong. It must have been the heat.

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The B-Words

When I was a much younger chick, I seriously contemplated whether or not to have my own biological children. I decided it wasn’t my thing, and I’ve never regretted my decision. Nonetheless, I ended up being a parent my whole adult life anyway.

Bow Tie o’ the Day laid out across this 8th Grade school picture helps present some of my reasoning for remaining bio-childless. I’m sure I’ve made this true joke before in a past post, and you’ll probably have to read it again in the future: If I had a bio kid it would have bad hair, bad teeth, big boobs, and be bipolar. And who wants to give their kid those blessings?

It’s a joke which drips with truth. You can’t see the bipolar in me here, but it’s already working in full force. I have no doubt that the breasticle genetics are so formidable in me that even a bio son would likely end up with a trophy rack, and that wouldn’t be pretty. My teeth only lasted about five years beyond when this photo was taken. And my hairs in this photo are a perfect example of how stubbornly straight my hairs are. I had just had a permanent which was supposed to give me a tight afro.

This is my hair. This is my hair on afro.