Category: Face masks

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Not A Fungus Among Us

Bow Tie o’ the Day and I went to a follow-up appointment with my dermatologist this morning. It seems that the exotic rash on my torso—which the dermatologist suspected was some sort of fungal infection—remains a mystery. The skin samples the doctor chiseled out of me for biopsy at my last appointment turned out to be not fungal at all. I am sorely disappointed—not because I want my skin to have a fungus, but because I want to know what my rash IS. Knowing what it is will mean the doctor can give me the correct treatment, and the rash can be successfully eliminated from my pale-and-pasty white skin. I want it gone—now. So the doc carved out two deeper-than-last-time skin samples for biopsy, and wrote me a prescription for a set of x-rays. Apparently, my stubborn skin rash is a medical puzzle to be solved, and the dermatologist is determined to find the answers for us both. Instead of being annoyed by my pesky skin malady, I have decided to treat the whole affair like an adventure—during which I can amuse myself by learning a thing or two about skin and dermatological science. Perhaps I will eventually write a world-changing, epic poem about what I learn about aberrant skin patches. I could decide to be crabby and picked-on about the situation, but I am not a bigly believer in wallowing in miserablism. I hate that particular -ism. All that being miserable would get me is the confounding rash with a dollop of misery on top. Ain’t nobody needs any o’ that. And nobody wants to read about it either. 📖🤓

BTW As I was checking in at the front desk for my appointment, the receptionist complimented me on Bow Tie o’ the Day and my face mask and shirt. An assistant who was also behind the desk chimed in, “Are you a teacher? From the way you’re dressed, it looks like you’d be a fun teacher.” That was the first such comment I’ve ever heard about my “look.” Of course, I was a teacher for years back in the day. I guess it shows.

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This Is A Repeat Of Last Year’s Groundhog Day Post

Because I own about 500 holiday ties and bow ties, I imagine you think I have many Groundhog Day pieces o’ neckwear. But I don’t. I own this single Groundhog Day Tie o’ the Day, and unless I run across some ultra-spectacular one in the future, I’m content with this one. I mean—Groundhog Day is not an actual holiday. And it’s not even a party day, like St. Patrick’s Day. It’s just a day to gab about a groundhog named Punxsutawney Phil, about how long his shadow thinks winter’s going to stick around this year, and how we’re already ready to move on to spring.

Anyhoo… I had a virtual appointment with my pain doctor this morning. So I sat at the kitchen island at the designated appointment time, and some unknown-to-me dude starts talking to me on my laptop. I knew exactly what he was going to say, and he did. He told me he’s a doctor-in-training, working with my normal pain doctor, and then he asked if it was okay if he asked me a bunch of questions before I talked to my official doctor. Of course, it was fine with me. We chatted for probably 10 minutes, and as he was wrapping up his note-taking , he said, “Your doctor told me I was going to see a bow tie today when I talked to you.” Oh, I immediately felt I had disappointed the whole world. I have worn a bow tie to see my pain doc at every appointment I’ve had with her for the last 8 years, partly because her name is Dr. Bow. This morning, I felt like I had disgraced myself. Sure, I was wearing this Groundhog Day Tie o’ the Day, but ties are too long to be as visible as bow ties on virtual appointments. I lifted Tie so the guy could see and read it, and he liked it so much he told me he was glad I chose it. I apologized profusely to him for not having a Groundhog Day bow tie. I guess I ought to shop for one, whether I want one or not. I can’t just go around letting people down. I felt so bad for not being the authentic “me” for Dr. Bow’s trainee. How could I not present as the bow tie wearer which she had clearly advertised me to be when she prepared him for my appointment?

When the doctor-in-training signed off, and Dr. Bow joined me a few minutes later, the first thing she said was, “Where’s your bow tie?” I was disgraced, yet again. I felt as if I had disappointed her. But Dr. Bow liked the tie, too. She also said, “It’s just that I barely recognized your face without a bow tie under it.”

FYI Check out my new Face Mask o’ the Day, complete with a secret hole built into it for a drink straw. Oh, happy Diet Coke day for me!

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Getting Ahead Of Ourselves

Today is Groundhog’s Day Eve and I’ve caught my first glimpse of Easter candy!

My slim, diamond-point Bow Tie o’ the Day looks very sequin-y. And my mask affirms I’m sarcastically just rollin’ with the conspiracy theories again. In reality, I am an Occam’s Razor gal, through-and-through. That means I hold with the idea that the simplest explanation for something is most likely to be the one that’s correct. My nearly six decades of experience on the planet has taught me that this is so. There are exceptions to this principle, which fall neatly under this phrase: “the exception that proves the rule.” Complexities and implausibilities might make a story seem more dramatic or otherwise interesting, but complexities and implausibilities don’t make a story true—whether we’re talking about literature, conspiracy theories, or real life. The sustaining meat of any truth is its simplicity and efficiency. 💡

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If You Wear All 4 Together, You Win

This post photo highlights my belief in what I call The 4 Patterns o’ Groovy Fashion. At least for me, these are the 4 staples of sartorial style: paisley, houndstooth, polka dots, and plaid. I try to wear as many of these patterns together as possible. Each individual pattern works against and/or with the other patterns to create a kind of eye-popping symmetry. Often, TIE O’ THE DAY fans (all 2 of them) ask me to explain what it is I’m trying to create with my fashion stylings. What is my personal fashion aesthetic? In a nutshell, I guess I can say that my goal when getting dressed is to end up wearing a get-up that looks as if it might make more sense if those seeing me are wearing those clunky, cardboard, 3-D glasses from the 70’s. Yeah, that wonky look! That’s what I’m going for. Please forgive me.

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A Visit To The Dermatologist

Here’s a bit o’ wisdom I have gathered over the years: When going to a new doctor for the first time, it is best to tone down the loudness of my idiosyncratic fashion. To display my clashion in its most eye-opening forms at a first doctor appointment risks scaring the new doctor. And you know dang well it is not wise to scare a doctor who is in charge of treating your body. I don’t know about you, but I want my doctor to be focused on my ailment, not on trying to decipher the meaning of my attire—at least not until they get to know me, and realize that my normal is not like anybody else’s normal. For this reason, when I had a first appointment with a dermatologist yesterday, I chose a plain-ish blue shirt, a solid-color hat, a doctor-friendly face mask, and a perfectly mellow-but-gorgeous Bow Tie o’ the Day. Yes, I was wearing a pair of golf pants, which my doctor immediately noticed and swooned over. It seemed I had chosen my get-up well.

Anyhoo… For the past three years, I have had a patchy rash on some areas of my torso. The rash is not hideous, and it doesn’t ooze, hurt, or itch. It hasn’t spread anywhere else. It just hasn’t gone away. For the first year, I tried to treat it with various creams, lotions, and gels—convinced it was just something to do with my notoriously dry skin. I figured it would eventually go away. After almost a year of the recalcitrant rash, I knew it was time to make an appointment with a dermatologist. But that’s when the pandemic showed up, and making an appointment with a doctor to deal with a problem that was stubborn and vaguely annoying but otherwise not causing me any discomfort—well, that wasn’t gonna happen. At about the time it was getting easier to get a doc appointment again, my Cranky Hanky Panky flipped out and I had to deal with doctors about that for almost another year. It’s been three months since my pancreas surgery, so I decided it was time to finally make an appointment with a dermatologist. Which I did.

Yesterday was my initial appointment. I have been supremely curious to get to the bottom of what these seemingly innocuous rashy patches on my front and back are all about. The doctor walked into the exam room and—after complimenting me on my golf pants—her eyes lit up at the sight of my rash. She circled my torso with glee. I kid you not: she was grinning and her eyes got bigly. I asked her if she knew what it was, and a bunch of Latin words came out of her mouth. I had never heard of anything she said. I asked her to tell me in English, and she said: “You have a skin fungus. It’s one of four different types. We’ll have to do a biopsy to find out exactly which one it is, then we’ll know how to treat it.” Well, okay then. I was glad to have something close to an answer. Then she took chunks out of my torso in three different spots and sent them off for biopsy. (The doctor will call me with the results in a few days.) My doctor grinned throughout the whole office visit. She was downright giddy. Apparently, what I have is not something she has seen often. The doctor asked if I would let her colleague come in to view my rash, and I was fine with that. So my doc left and the other dermatologist came in—also grinning as she circled me, again and again, with a special light. She was giddy, too. I was a spectacle, and not for my clothing choices. My doc’s colleague said she had never seen this particular skin problem in real life. She spent more time perusing my rash than my own doctor. And then when she was done examining me, she thanked me profusely for letting her look at my stubborn patches. My skin malady is something exotic! Of course, that makes me feel like I’m cool right down to my literal skin. I felt kind of like the Elephant Man. I should have charged admission.

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My Calls To Mom About Mortality

I tied on a neon-hued Tie o’ the Day to change the furnace filters this afternoon. And after that was done, I sat my butt down at my desk in the loft. My intent was to make my regular call to check on Mom. I am always excited to talk to Mom, especially if I find her to be having an especially clear-ish mind. No matter her state of mind, she remains ever playful and interested in whatever, whatever.

I initially intended to call Mom yesterday, but I found myself unable to go ahead and make the call. And today, the call didn’t happen either. I was paralyzed. You see, I do not exaggerate when I say that almost every time I call Mom, I have to deliver the news of another death of someone significant in her life. At 91, she is outliving so many of her people—friends, family, and close acquaintances. It’s her own fault this is constantly occurring: she made it her life’s mission to know and care about so many people. They, in turn, have cared for her. When I finally call her this time, I must relay the news of two more people passing from her life. She will be the first to tell you that her life has been rich with good folks—so it’s sad when they pass on.

I could choose to not tell Mom about dreadful things at this point in her life, but I wouldn’t want to risk her overhearing snippets of sad news and have it not make sense to her. I’d rather be able to explain the information and answer her questions, sometimes over and over again—even if she will likely forget the news and then need help being reminded about it at a later date. Her best friend, Peggy, passed away around 4 years ago, and Mom will still ask me sometimes about what happened to her “Pegetha.”

As time passes, Mom needs more and more reminding about her own life. With a little help, she can often at least temporarily reconnect with the gist of whatever she’s trying to access in her brain. Still, occasionally—like yesterday and today—I can’t rustle up the soul-strength to make a call to her to deliver not-good news. I can’t rise to the task sometimes. I do always feel incredibly guilty about postponing any phone call to Mom, however. But all I can do about it right now is hope I’m stronger than I was yesterday and today, when I attempt to place the call to Mom again tomorrow. ☎️ 📞 📱

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Saturday Is A Special Day, Yet Again

High-tops Bow Tie o’ the Day knows it’s true. If it’s Saturday, household chores will get done. It’s a habit I don’t see myself changing at this point in my life. I’ve mentioned before how that Primary song about Saturday being a special day gets stuck in my head every Saturday. It always has, and it always will. I was brainwashed into doing housework with that song. Oh, it’s okay. I have no illusions about the inner-soundtrack of my Saturday mornings ever being anything different. I used to fight it, but I don’t anymore. However, I’m always at the ready to add to the Saturday playlist in my noggin. Along with the heavily rotated Primary song of my youth, “Saturday,” there are songs like “Saturday Night” by The Bay City Rollers, and “Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting” by Elton John. One of my fave songs to have stuck in my head on a Saturday is Tom Waits’ “The Heart of Saturday Night.” And there are plenty more Saturday-reference songs to add. If you’re a better Utah Mormon than I am, your Saturday playlist can include every song on the SATURDAY’S WARRIOR soundtrack—randomly shuffled, or in order! Whatever music is stuck in your head while you’re checking off tasks on your Saturday to-do list, it is imperative that you sing out each song with exuberance and pride. The quality of your voice isn’t what’s important. What’s important is to sing loud enough to let the next-door neighbors know you’re choring and you’re happy about it. Above all, remember where you came from: Primary.

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Find Your Passion And Purpose, Then Fly

Bow Tie o’ the Day and I have been ruminating on the ideas of purpose and passion today. Naturally, for me, that meant I dug up one of my haggard copies of Annie Dillard’s book of essays called TEACHING A STONE TO TALK. The first essay in the collection is called “Living Like Weasels,” and it references the story of a man who once shot an eagle out of the sky. (Bad man!) Upon examining the freshly dead eagle, the man discovered the dry skull of a weasel with its jaws attached to the eagle’s throat. It seemed a reasonable assumption that the eagle had at one time pounced on the weasel, and the weasel had swiftly and instinctively swiveled and bit the eagle’s throat. The weasel lost its life to the eagle, but its dead jaws remained clenched on the eagle’s throat for who-knows-how-long until the eagle itself fell prey to its executioner, and all that remained of the weasel was its skull’s clenched jaw. The weasel latched on, with all of its instinctive weasel purpose and passion, most of its body falling away piece by piece over time. The weasel flew high, even to its own end. But imagine what unbelievable things that dying weasel got to see—if only for a few moments—of the world from up in the sky, where it had never before been in its tiny weasel life!

The essay ends with this call to find our own purpose and passion:

“We could, you know. We can live any way we want. People take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience—even of silence—by choice. The thing is to stalk your calling in a certain skilled and supple way, to locate the most tender and live spot and plug into that pulse. This is yielding, not fighting….

“I think it would be well, and proper, and obedient, and pure, to grasp your one necessity and not let it go, to dangle from it limp wherever it takes you. Then even death, where you’re going no matter how you live, cannot you part. Seize it and let it seize you up aloft even, till your eyes burn out and drop; let your musky flesh fall off in shreds, and let your very bones unhinge and scatter, loosened over fields, over fields and woods, lightly, thoughtless, from any height at all, from as high as eagles.”

Chew on that. Ponder those images. Then ask yourself if you hold that tightly to anything? Got purposes? Got passions? If you’re lucky, you know exactly who you are and what you’re about. You’re already flying.

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Life Is A Conspiracy, Old Friend. Come To The Conspiracy.

Not only did I declare today a Pajama Day around the house, I also declare today the day I begin to embrace the plethora of conspiracy theories that surround us. I am determined to say goodbye to reason, scholarship, science, and common sense. No longer will I be a run-of-the-mill sheep. I will, from this point onward, be a conspiracy theory sheep. The more crackpot the conspiracy theory, the more likely I will be to believe it. In fact, I henceforth refuse to believe in anything that is NOT a conspiracy theory.

Bow Tie o’ the Day is not convinced of my new-found conviction. Bow Tie tells me my newly adopted belief in all things conspiracy will last about 15 minutes. Personally, I’m betting my conspiracy theory phase was over before this paragraph even began. 😉

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Merry Anniversary To Us

A couple of days before Christmas, Suzanne and I celebrated our 8th legal Anniversary. We had reservations for a frou-frou dinner at Log Haven, up Millcreek Canyon. I did something I don’t normally do, in terms of my attire: for Suzanne, I matched my bow tie and face mask. I decided a wedding anniversary was worthy of wearing my out-of-season, Valentine-themed BE MINE Bow Tie o’ the Day and Face Mask o’ the Day—instead of Christmas-themed neckwear. I also wore my “mrs.” Cufflinks o’ the Day.

We dined on swordfish, which was a first for both of us, and we liked it. Suzanne ordered a bottle of wine she said was dreamy, which she let me smell for a ridiculously long time. I can attest that it did, in fact, smell dreamy as could be. As we ate dinner, we engaged in a deep conversation about the nearly 40 years we have known each other. Through the restaurant’s bigly windows, we watched the trees as it began to snow. The snow continued to gradually layer itself outside, and when we drove back down the dark canyon headed for home, everything surrounding us was covered with a thick quilt of sparkling grey-white. It was a slow drive down the canyon, and the scene was storybook magnificent. The cold magic of the landscape cradled us as we drove, and I felt like we had somehow transformed from our mortal world existence into a state of pure metaphor—if only for a small and perfect moment.

Ain’t love amazing?! ❄️💝