Witty & Wise Ties, Trivia & Lies
Skitter wore a St. Paddy Tie o’ the Day for our in-person, in-the-same-room visit with Mom yesterday. Mom and Skitter were glued to each other the whole time, and I was just a third-wheel. Luckily, I did manage to grab a few hugs from my very own mother. In this afternoon’s post, I will regale you with the complete tales of yesterday’s adventures with Mom. She was in fine form, so stay tuned. Ain’t Mom just the cutest old lady?
How do I know I need a trim? Because only two weeks after I got them shaved, my head hairs are already long enough to hold my shamrock hair clips. Green Bow Tie o’ the Day is kinda grass-like in its fabric design. It does remind me of hilly fields in Ireland. And I’ll tell you a secret: The last item on my Bucket List is to die on one of the Aran Islands in western Ireland. If I have to die—and we all do—that’s the place I wanna be when I do it. Well, today that’s where I want to die, anyway. The place designated in the last item on my Bucket List changes often.
Folks, I am so stoked to be able to visit Mom in her room at Millard Care and Rehab tomorrow. I have not been able to concentrate on much else, since I got the news this morning that visitors are again allowed to hang with the residents. Things are not back to normal-normal. For example, visitors are allowed to visit their person only in their person’s room. That’s fine by me. All I need is a hug from my mother, and she probably needs one from me after a year. I know for a fact that she needs a hug from Skitter. Skitter will jump up on Mom’s bed, curling up against Mom’s leg to nap just like she belongs there. Mom will then coo at Skitter, and pet her the entire time we’re visiting. Helen Sr. will be so overjoyed to see Skitter that I’ll be lucky to steal a few hugs from the grand old broad.
Seriously, although I turned 57 last week, this afternoon I feel more like just the 7. The thought of seeing Mom in person—and being able to touch her—has got me feeling like a kid on Christmas Eve. I won’t sleep a wink tonight.
I was culling through my St. Patrick’s Day props this morning when I took a break to check my email. Glory be! I got an email informing me that Millard Care And Rehab is finally allowing visitors again. I CAN NOW HUG THE STUFFIN’ OUT OF MOM FOR THE FIRST TIME IN OVER A YEAR!!! You can bet I’m planning a road trip for Skitter and me to Deltabama ASAP. I’m so excited that only a bigly Bow Tie o’ the Day like this one is bigly enough to illustrate my mood. ‘Scuse me while I go cry for joy and fill a box with treats to take to Mom.
Since I already posted a photo of Mom and the very tall green hat for a bit o’ pre-St. Patrick’s Day levity this morning, I’ll go ahead and finish the day by posting a snapshot of Mom and her equally amusing Tie o’ the Day. (And another Hat o’ the Day.) This is from St. Paddy’s Day 2018, when she was staying here with us in Centerville. I’ve posted both pix before, but nobody gets tired of them. BTW Mom has the bluest eyes.
Here’s a photo of Mom wearing a St. Paddy’s Hat o’ the Day, in March of 2016, while dropping by to visit me at my Delta house. You can see where I get it. And by “it,” I mean high fashion style, coupled with an I’m-here-to-entertain-you attitude. I love Mom.
[Another Mom and Dad Valentine re-post. I think I’m coming out of my bipolar fog. Cross your fingers.]
Tie o’ the Day shares its exuberant field of hearts. It is my fave-rave Valentine’s necktie. If you haven’t finalized your Valentine’s Day plans, I suggest you git ‘er done. You’re running out of time.
If you are attached to someone, let them know they are precious and irreplaceable. Make it absolutely certain they know how you feel about them. If you are single, let yourself know you are precious and irreplaceable—because you are. You are enough, exactly because you’re you. Mr. Rogers says so, too.
And then remind yourself you should treat your beloved and yourself this way every day, not just on Valentine’s Day. It’s the least you can do for someone who is so necessary to the grateful beating of your vast, glad heart.
Mom found a way to let Dad know he was her one-and-only even when he was out of town working the bees for a few days. She always tucked a lovey-dovey or funny card in his suitcase for him to find when he got to his motel room for the night. And I mean she stuck a card in there EVERY TIME he was off having a sleeping party with his bees.
On one bee trip to California, after Dad got checked in to his motel, he found a humongous ratty, dirty bra that a previous motel guest had left under the bed. He stuck it in his suitcase with his dirty clothes, hoping to shock Mom with it when she opened the suitcase to retrieve his clothes to wash. Sure enough, when Dad returned home, Mom got his soiled clothes out of the suitcase and headed to the washer. Dad sat in the living room, patiently waiting to get yelled at for having a California girlfriend whose bra had found its way into his suitcase. But he heard nothing. No screaming, no yelling. He heard no response at all from Mom for the longest time. Finally, Mom announced to Dad that she’s not worried one bit about the dame whose stray bra he brought home with him—because the bra is so dirty and skanky that she knows there is no way he would sleep with someone that gross. His prank. Her clever response. It turned out to be a great joke, on both their parts.
Dad got a bonus laugh about his Bigly Bra Hijinks when he told his coffee-drinking buddies at Top’s Cafe the next morning. His pals were shocked he had dared put a bra in his suitcase for Mom to find. They said their wives would have massacred them if they’d done that. Dad was clearly still standing.
Mom thought the whole thing was so funny that she’s been telling the story to anyone who’ll listen since it happened, way back in the 70’s.
Now, that’s a solid marriage.
[Another re-post.]
Each robot on Tie o’ the Day has a heart inside its plastic, metal, wired self. Apparently, even robots have the capacity to love when they’re on a tie. Aside from loving hearts, Tie has nothing whatsoever to do with these pix of Mom and Dad. I just think it looks snappy.
These photos were taken when Mom and Dad were being Bonnie and Clyde, playing cops and robbers. For over 60 years, they were partners-in-crime. Dad is currently a fugitive, although Mom reports she feels his presence more and more as time moves on. She would like to take him into custody again soon, but she’s not quite ready to follow him all the way to his current hide-out.
[My wonky brain is still under the bipolar weather, so here’s yet another Valentine-y re-post about my parents. They were smitten with each other, that’s for sure.]
Bow Tie o’ the Day has its Valentine’s Day targets ready for Cupid’s arrows. Be on the look-out for a near-naked, winged baby armed with a bow and arrows.
When I first saw the photo with visible faces, I wondered who the heck Dad was hugging. It didn’t look like Mom to me, so I got my magnifying glass out. I discovered that it really was Mom. The shadows across her face were just weird. Whew! I was worried for a millisecond.
Anyhoo… Something you might not know about Mom is that she is disgusted that people wear un-ironed clothing—particularly to church. She and her best friend, Peggy Crane, spouted off about the general lack of ironing on the planet a bazillion times while I drove them across the county on their daily drinking rides.
Mom and Peggy even threatened to put an ad in THE CHRONICLE, offering to teach people how to iron. FOR FREE! But they decided that wouldn’t do any good since, according to them, no one knows what an iron is. (Oh, my! What a wrinkly world we live in.)
One morning of their Senior year at DHS, Dad didn’t show up at school. Mom had no idea where he was or if he was sick. (Remember: no cell phones in 1948.) Later that afternoon, Dad showed up in a class they had together. Mom quizzed him on his earlier whereabouts and he told her he had been doing an extra job for another beekeeper, to earn some extra cash. And then he handed her the few dollars he had earned that morning. She asked what the money was for, and he said, “Well, if we’re going to get married, we’re going to need an iron.”
Based on all the stories Mom and Dad told me over the years about their courtship, that anecdote is the closest thing to a marriage proposal I ever heard about.
So Mom bought an iron, and 73 years later she still has it. It still works, the last time I checked.
I’m sure I’m reading far too much into this, but I think the sweet “iron proposal” is responsible for Mom’s enduring attachment to the importance of ironing. That would explain Mom’s pet peeve about the lack of ironing going on in the wrinkly world today. I don’t know why ironing mattered so much to Peggy though—unless Grant proposed to her the same way.
[Yup, another Valentine-y re-post.]
With its random bandaids, Tie o’ the Day represents love and the pain love inevitably causes us. We’ve all needed to heal our hearts when they have been broken. If we allow ourselves to love, our hearts will break many times while we live. Family members and friends pass away. Our pets meet death. Maybe someone we fell in love with fell out of love with us. Maybe we lose hope, and our dreams die.
If we choose to, we can empathize with each other’s broken hearts, because most kinds of losses happen to everyone. If they haven’t happened to you yet, they will. We’re part of the human race, and our lives follow similar trajectories. Birth. Relationships. Work. Aspirations. Death.
Loving is worth any pain that might accompany it. A broken heart is often the cost of a full heart. And broken hearts can be instructive. We have the power to look inside that broken heart at all the mistakes we made which caused the heartbreak in the first place. We can learn from those mistakes, and we can get a little better at the practice of love.
Two months after Mom and Dad graduated from Delta High School, they got married in the Manti Temple. Dad had barely turned 18, and Mom didn’t turn 18 until two months later. They were youngsters. Nobody should get married that young, in my opinion. The odds of a couple that young—and, therefore, that dumb—staying together are miniscule. Mom and Dad somehow found a way to kick the odds and stick together. They lasted 59 years together before Dad died, in December 2007.
Dad suffered horrible, constant pain for the last two years of his life. He stayed with us for as long as he could—for all of us, and especially for Mom. During the last two weeks of Dad’s life, Mom often told him it was okay for him to let go. She told him she would be okay. She told him we would all take care of her. Dad knew we would. But I believe one of the reasons Dad held on for so long is that he was trying to make it another few months, to be with Mom on their 60th wedding anniversary.
Of course, no matter when Dad died, Mom’s heart was going to break anyway. And when he finally did let go, her heart did break. Thirteen years later, it’s still broken. But Mom’s heart is also still full of memories and time and the adoration Dad gave her. It’s impossible for that kind of splendid stuff to ever fall out of even the most broken heart.
[Here’s another Valentine re-peat.]
Tie o’ the Day is one of my fave Valentine’s ties. I like the lips and hearts covering the teddy bears’ scant clothing, and of course I am enamored with the bow ties. In the photos, Mom and Dad are around 16.
My dad was a burly bear of a guy. In fact, he seemed larger than he actually was. Ronald Edmond Wright had a gigantic presence. He had the “it” factor. And he was one of the most gentle men I’ve encountered in my life. If it had been possible for him to do so, he would’ve hugged every one of his millions of bees to show them they were loved. That’s just how he rolled.
But Dad stuck to hugging Mom and us and our pets. Dad was protective of Mom in ways large and small. They were in a restaurant once, and some dudes at the next table were swearing while they talked. Dad gave them “the look.” They continued on, as if to show they’d speak any way they wanted. Dad then said as nicely as he could, while giving them “the look” again, “This is my wife, and I won’t make her to listen to that kind of language.” They continued spewing their profanity. Finally, Dad stood up. They immediately apologized and cleaned up their language. Chivalry was alive and kicking when Dad was with Mom.
I’m sure you don’t believe it, but I wasn’t a rebellious kid. I don’t think I ever had a real “fight” with Dad when I was a teenager, but I remember loudly arguing with Mom a couple of times. The arguments were about my hair, believe it or not. Mom was never happy with my hair. Well heck, I wasn’t happy with my hair either. But it’s her fault I inherited her lifeless, style-resistant locks.
Anyhoo… One day after school, Mom and I were having one of these battles, and I finally hauled off to my bedroom in tears. Dad got home from work and heard the tail-end of the yelling, as well as Mom’s version of my whole, overly-dramatic teenage outburst. After a while, he came into my room to see how I was doing. I launched into my side of things—about how Mom was always on my back, and she was always unfair, and she was always wrong, blah, blah, blah. The usual teenage crapola.
Dad listened to my tirade and let me get it all out of my system, then he said, “I love you. But no matter who is right or who is wrong, I am always on your mother’s side. I will always stand with your mother.”
At the time, what Dad said to me made me even more angry. How could “right” and “wrong” not be what matters? And then I grew up, and found myself working to forge a lasting relationship like my parents had. I now understand exactly what Dad meant about the importance of standing by your spouse, against all conflict.
Big. Huggy. Chivalrous. Wise. That’s my dad.