Category: Family

Light-up Bow Tie o’ the Day enjoyed a family celebration at The Timbermine at the mouth of Ogden Canyon yesterday. The occasion was to celebrate (late) my oldest sister’s 50th wedding anniversary. Betty and Kent met at Weber State University in 1967. It was love at first English class.

You can see from these photos that I’m not the only one in my family who lives to entertain. The woman with her back to me is Betty. She is being a good party honoree and entertaining those at her table. In the first photo, she does take a few seconds to notice Kent and their daughter Angie performing for my camera. And by the time I snapped the next photo, she has already turned her attention back to her chatting duties with the other guests.

BT (As she prefers to be called. And I call her Mercedes.) is like Suzanne. They notice the antics we perform around them, but they take it in stride. They notice, they appreciate, they move on. Despite their own incredible humor, Suzanne and BT also shine as “the straight man.” Every great comedy routine needs one. Their reactions and/or non-reactions can make or break the joke. The straight man’s reaction is the cherry on top of the jokester dessert. It is the “all that and a bag of chips” which elevates the comedy routine.

In the second photo, you’ll notice Kent pretending to fiddle with his imaginary bow tie. As Suzanne and I were saying our goodbye’s and leaving the yesterday’s festivities, Kent sidled up to me and asked if I could get him a bow tie like mine. See, Kent drives a school bus, and he wants to wear one to entertain his bus kids. This is exactly who Kent is. He’s surrounded by– and joke-chatting with– half a billion members of his own family, at a landmark celebration for himself and BT, and he still has enough heart-capacity to think of how he can entertain his bus kids. For a guy like that, I’d give the bow tie off my neck. Which I did. It didn’t faze me one iota to part with Bow Tie o’ the Day and its three speeds o’ flashing.

Laurel & Hardy. Burns & Allen. Martin & Lewis. Rowan & Martin. Penn & Teller. BT & Kent. They are all members of the comedy duo Hall o’ Fame.

Bow Tie o’ the Day knows as well as I do that Skitter is not a cool cat. She is not hip. I don’t think we can truthfully describe her as groovy. She is not da bomb. Nope. Skitter is nerdy. Skitter is a Helen’s-girl. Skitter is timid. Skitter is a cowering wallflower. Skitter is the Mistress o’ Skittishness. Sometimes she does not walk or run to her destination, she shivers and vibrates her way to wherever she’s going.

It’s been almost five years since we rescued Skitter from an abusive situation. We don’t know the details of how she had been treated. We just know her life before us had been horrendous. Her defensive, frightened behavior is all the evidence we need in order to know she lived through hell. After all these years, Skitter still can barely handle being around anyone who isn’t me or Suzanne or Mom or Suzanne’s sister, Marjorie. The Skitt can hardly handle being anywhere except in our home. And even then, she is still occasionally wary of normal house and neighborhood noises. She sees her world as an obstacle course, designed to keep her from safety.

But even with her being almost perpetually askeered, she is becoming mostly content and happy in her days and nights with us. Her tail finally wags often, and twice per day she does what we call The Chew Dance on her hind legs. At 11 AM and 7 PM each day, we give her a dog chew. And let me tell you, she can tell time. Seriously, if I lose track of the time while I’m working on something, Skitter will show up jumping and turning on her hind legs. “Hey, look at me, Helen! It’s 11 AM! Time for my chew, Helen. Don’t you know it’s my chew time, Helen? Did you forget how to tell time, Helen? Look at me dance! A chew! A chew! A chew!” Bless you, Skitter.

I’ve never told anyone this before– not even Suzanne– but a few months after we rescued Skitter, I was concerned about the lack of progress she was making in terms of her constant fear. She was not “warming up” to people, places, and things as well as I thought she should have been by that time– not even to us.

She didn’t bite or fight in any way. She didn’t bark or whine. But if you made eye-contact with her, she would still run away and hide behind something, or she’d drop to the floor and ball up like a roly-poly, hoping to be unseen or ignored. I tried every strategy I could come up with to make her feel safe with us and with her new life. Nothing seemed to assuage her fears.

I began to wonder if it might be better for Skitter if the vet and I helped her go to sleep. Was Skitter’s 24/7 fear of being abused really that much better than her actually being abused? We loved Skitter, and we out-did ourselves showing her she was safe and adored. It all boiled down to this question: Do Skitter’s moments of feeling happy and safe outweigh her moments of fear and insecurity? I think I would have been irresponsible to NOT consider the possibility that Skitter might be happier if she didn’t have to exist.

Well, it’s obvious what I concluded. I’m glad we all had faith we could get Skitter to where she is now. Skitter stuck it out with us. She’s still skittish and hesitant and turns into a roly-poly on occasion, but now she doesn’t dwell in her fear constantly. In fact, she mostly dwells in “running” naps and in her own oddness. We appreciate her peculiarities, and we try to make her feel safe in herself and in her environment. She appreciates our peculiar ways too, I’m sure.

It’s a rare thing, but sometimes– as in this first picture– Skitter feels happy and free and safe enough to lean over and kiss me. Most. Bashful. Smooches. Ever.

Skitter’s tough heart makes me proud.

Bow Tie o’ the Day displays a host of animal tracks. And Shirt o’ the Day shows my own style o’ track-makers. We’re both looking ahead to the upcoming Fall critter seasons.

I hail from a hunting-obsessed home. In our house, the first day of the deer hunt was a bigger deal than Christmas morning, and I am not exaggerating. It’s an undisputed fact.

I knew how to reload perfectly weighted bullets at my dad’s bullet press before I had even been baptized. I fished. I killed pheasants, rabbits, and allegedly a deer. But I haven’t been a hunter since I was 16. I have nothing against ethical hunting. It just isn’t in me to do it. The thrill is gone, as they say.

But every Fall brings back amazing memories of trailing behind Dad– mighty hunter extraordinaire– on opening day of the deer hunt. When I see hunters getting themselves ready for their various Fall hunts, I can’t help but think about my Dad’s knowledge of– and enthusiasm for– hunting. I see folks buying orange and/or camo clothing this time of year. I know they’re re-loading bullets or buying ammo. They are target shooting to sight-in their scopes. In fact, I can already hear the “practice” gunshots in the hills above our house. Of course, I can’t see or hear all the hunting preparations going on around me, but it’s enough to just know it’s going on. Just knowing the hunts are happening makes me feel Dad’s presence near me.

When I was a kid, a friend once asked me if Dad was as mean as he looked. I started laughing, and then I started snort-laughing. Dad was a big guy. He had a huge presence. But he was a soft-hearted jokester. And despite his stature, he was a gentle man. And a gentleman.

As an adult, I finally figured out why someone could think Dad was mean. I was once accused of looking mean myself, so I pondered the topic. I stared in the mirror and tried on some different faces until I got back to my regular face, and there it was. I could finally see it. In fact, it was in every face I pulled, to some extent. But it was most prominent in my regular face. My face was Dad’s face, and I saw that we have the same serious-looking forehead lines and the same look-right-through-you eyes. Both characteristics are there in almost every face I can muster. (They are present even in my baby photos. And in his as well.) I see the clenched, focused lines even in my silly faces. When I surveyed a bunch of photos of Dad, even when he smiled, the forehead lines and knowing eyes were there. Those serious, focused forehead lines, together with our x-ray eyes, can be mistaken for meanness at times, I suppose. I don’t see “mean” in our faces. I see “serious” and “focus” and “I know who you are” and some “don’t mess with the people I love” in our faces.

Dad and I probably missed our career callings. If we look so intimidating, we probably should have been bouncers in a bar. Or Beyonce’s bodyguards. Or UFC fighters. Or Mafia enforcers. 🍺 🥊 🔫 We coulda been somebody!

As we all know by now, bow ties do not necessarily need to be created with fabric/cloth only. I’ve got bow ties made of wood, leather, vinyl, plastic, feathers, metal, etc. I even have one made from a recycled bicycle inner tube. At one of the Dauphin Island beaches, I arranged Bow Tie o’ the Day out of some of Suzanne’s seashells. I had to hurry to snap this shot, in order to beat the encroaching waves.

Suzanne found some bigly shells, and I immediately started to worry about how we were going to get them back to Utah with breaking them. Suzanne does not tolerate broken shells.

Add Suzanne to a beach where she can trawl for seashells and she becomes a stubborn, non-hearing child. I enjoy walking along beaches, for sure, but… When I’m walking on the sand with Suzanne, I know to just grit my teeth and follow where the seashells lead her. There’s no thwarting her when she’s on the Mission o’ Seashells.

So… one foot after we stepped off the fishing pier and onto the beach, Suzanne’s Seashell Glaze took over her eyes. It’s on. Here’s a shell, there’s a shell. On, she walked and picked up shells. On, I staggered for what felt like miles through the deep sand o’ the beach– setting back my recovery from surgery about a month. I was hurting, dizzy, thirsty for a cold Diet Coke, exhausted– you name it, I was feeling it. Suzanne was oblivious.

And then I looked ahead of me and saw Suzanne paying rapt attention to the grandeur of the ocean, feeling the warmth of every grain of sand between her toes, and touching the raised, undulating textures of shells. She was in heaven. And then, Suzanne looked back and smiled her happiness right at me– letting me know that my being with her on a shell-y beach is a big part of her heaven.

How could I not be happy? How could I not trudge ahead in tremendous joy, despite whatever ills my body felt? How could I not be sure to add that day to my long list o’ Best. Day. Ever.? 💝

This is a BTW, with a TMI alert:   From the Best. Day. Ever. at the beach, I am now back in real life, heading out to today’s scheduled doctor appointment– for a pap smear. Worst. Day. Ever. 😱

Up and down, plus and minus. Such is life. 🙃

Bow Tie o’ the Day sat with us for our first meal on Dauphin Island, at an appropriately named restaurant called ISLANDERS.

After a half-day of flying from Utah to the bottom of Alabama, it was high time to sit by the bigly restaurant window and gaze out at the ocean while eating seafood, right? Not quite, for Suzanne. No! Suzanne, the landlubber, wanted fettuccine alfredo, so she ordered fettuccine alfredo while I sat in my chair wondering who in the world I came on a beach vacation with. “Hello! Can you hear me now, Suzanne? We’re sitting down to dinner, looking out at the Gulf of Mexico– and you’re not ordering seafood? WTFlip?”

We did decide to split a couple of seafood appetizers before our meals showed up at the table. I ate most of the calamari, and Suzanne ate most of the chips and crab-and-spinach dip.

Oh, and what seafood did I order myself for dinner, after having such a big ol’ cow about Suzanne ordering the non-seafood dish– fettuccine?

Er, um, well, uh, so, er… I ordered up the roasted pork loin, covered in a tomato and raisin chutney. I know, I know– pork loin is not generally considered seafood. But it sounded like something I’d like to try, because of the interesting-sounding chutney combination of flavors I had never tasted together. I wasn’t disappointed one bit. The chutney and pork pairing was tasty. Also, the dinner came with cole slaw, which is a common seafood side dish. And I got thinking: pigs drink liquids, including water. That makes them sorta seafood-y. You can’t say that about fettuccine noodles.

And so I’m a hypocrite. I truly felt kinda guilty– like I was doing something wrong by not matching my meal to the environment I inhabited at that moment. And then I thought: “What is this “matching” thing of which you think, Helen? Blasphemy on yourself!” But I ate seafood at meals for the rest of our vacation. For most meals. Sometimes. Occasionally.

Bow Tie o’ the Day and I returned our family hitchhiker to Stockton this afternoon. We Uber-ed our passenger a total of 228 miles. There was a ton of slap-happy conversation when we were together. And there was terrific sing-a-long music for me when I was alone in the car.

One of the things about being retired that I never considered: Other people think that because you are retired you have absolutely nothing to do to fill your time, so they think you’re available at any given moment. They expect you to be ready for any task they might need you to do, including chauffeuring them to do their errands and to visit far-away relatives.

I don’t mind helping out one bit– except when I do. Seriously, I enjoy doing favors for people I care about. But after driving to the exciting town of Stockton twice today, my butt is tired. I think I deserve to take a holiday– and not just the kind in this photo, where you fill up your gas tank and grab a bad breakfast burrito.

Suzanne and I got the Gulf Coast go-ahead for the condo, the power, the airports, the roads, etc., so we’re outta here way too early in the AM. Off we go, to Atlanta to Mobile to Dauphin Island, AL.

Thank heavens I have not been drafted to drive anyone to or from Stockton tomorrow or I’d have to cancel our vacay.