Category: Hats

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Reminder: Call Your Mom, If You Still Can

Here’s a picture of me actually calling Mom yesterday. Well, I didn’t really wear the face mask, but I thought it clashed nicely with my outfit as a whole, so I wore it for the photo. And, to be honest, I didn’t really call Mom on this obsolete phone which now hangs in my garage. But it’s the phone that hung on my family’s kitchen wall for 60 years, so I knew it had to be in the snapshot. Mom was the official house phone-answerer. Dad had a compulsive aversion to answering the phone—except when Mom was out of town overnight, and then he sat at the kitchen table, waiting for her call.

Please note the smudges on the bottom of the receiver. Mom was probably in the middle of mixing a batch of cookies when the phone last rang. Mom always answered the phone (and she was always cooking something or other as she answered), and then she’d use her shoulder to hold the phone to her ear while she washed her hands, gabbing away like a pro to whoever was on the other end of the line. I’m so glad I decided not to wash the phone before I re-hung it here with me. Those smudges have lasting meaning.

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A Tidbit O’ Wisdom

Floppy Bow Tie o’ the Day gets kinda lost in my shirt, but “lost” is as fun a look as anything else. I’ve actually been lost in books today—moving them into organized-by-author stacks. When organizing your library, it doesn’t matter what organizing principle you use, as long as you use it consistently throughout. I’m toying with the idea of some day arranging the books in order of when I first read each tome. The problem with that organizing principle is that it would work only for me, and Suzanne would be up a creek without a bookmark.

I was also going through magazines so I can toss them. In one of the magazines, I read a simple and yet profound quote in an interview with the Tony-winning, Emmy-winning, Oscar-winning actor, Viola Davis. Speaking about how some people struggle to feel valuable even in their own lives, she said the following: “There are all these tickets into worth. In this culture you’re always showing someone your worth. But the only real ticket into worth is that you were born. That’s it. Over and out.” You are just as valuable as anyone else. You are neither more valuable, nor are you less valuable. To deliberately injure someone in any way is to believe that you are more valuable than they are. I’m here to kindly tell you that you are not.

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Make Centerville Less Windy Again

Last night on the news, we heard we would be under a High Wind Warning mid-way through the night and into mid-morning, and I woke up this morning to the sound of solid objects spinning around outside our house. I saw garbage bags flying in the neighborhood, and Suzanne told me she saw hunks of tin flying in our street. I swear I thought for a minute I had woken up back in Delta, where the wind comes whippin’ down the plain 24/7. But no, I was here in Centerville, where bigly winds are not the norm. Today’s winds, however, were interfering with our garbage and recycling pick-up. I decided not to even take our cans to the curb. This windstorm was nothing like the one that came through a few months ago, which uprooted trees everywhere in our neck of the woods, and took out the power for three days. I am at the age that I calculate the severity of any kind of storm based on how much tv I have to miss because the power is out. Flying sheets of tin or not, I judge this morning’s storm to ultimately be a lightweight piece o’ weather, because the television didn’t lose power for even one second. I was not inconvenienced one bit. That’s my kind of weather.

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My Little Zoo

I find ideas for my attire everywhere. This afternoon, I was cooking bacon to put on my turkey sandwich, and I said out loud to Skitter and myself, “Hey, I have a flying pig hat that I haven’t worn since clear back three whole, long weeks ago.” So while my bacon was cooking, I found my flying pig hat. I wondered, for a brief second, whether the flying pig would be offended that I was frying bacon, and fully intending to eat it. And then I wondered if the sizzling strips o’ bacon would gaze up at the flying pig on my head and wish theirs had been lives of high-flying pigs, instead of my lunch. And then I came back to the reality of how neither flying pig hats, nor bacon strips have brains to think with. All was well.

Anyhoo… I decided my pig-y hat needed some friends, so I put on my cat-y shirt and butterfly-y face mask. Thus, I am now wearing a small menagerie. Bow Tie o’ the Day has a tiger-print feel to it that zippily tops off my outfit.

Oh, and my turkey-and-bacon sandwich was divine. Wish you were here. I would have made you one.

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Practicing How To Fly In My Cape

Hey! Look what I got! My new Day of the Dead skulls face mask goes well with the Day of the Dead cape Suzanne made for me two years ago. I actually do have a bow tie made out of the same fabric as the mask, and I really did put it on before I cinched up the turquoise Bow Tie o’ the Day I ended up wearing in the selfie. But I had to immediately take it off and toss it for another day, due to the cutesy matching that was happening between the perfectly matching mask and bow tie. When it comes to matching, as you have probably surmised, I can usually match according to theme—but rarely can I breath while wearing two separate things made of the very same fabric. Even wearing matching socks is a hives-inducing stretch. It is just how I be.

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Pop The Cork! It’s TIE O’ THE DAY’s 2,000th Post!

www.tie-o-the-day.com has been in existence almost four years. This post marks the 2,000th episode of my neckwear musings on the website. Balloons-and-confetti Bow Tie o’ the Day is bustin’ out the non-booze to celebrate.

Before it was a tblog (short for “tie blog,” according to me), TIE O’ THE DAY existed for a couple of years as a twice-daily group text to a dozen or so friends and family members. Compared to the bipolar-tinged poetry which I consider my real writing, and on which I spend most of my writing time and energy, I wanted/needed a place to write something sort of casual. And I also wanted a venue in which to share my decades-in-the-making neckwear collection with others. TIE O’ THE DAY seemed like a way for me to accomplish both. So far, I think it has been a good fit.

TIE O’ THE DAY is a project that is still evolving. It is part memoir, part tall tale, part comedy, part clash-fashion show, part hard-won wisdom, and part things I haven’t even considered yet—all somehow inspired by, or enhanced by, my ties and bow ties of many ilks.

I like usually not knowing exactly what TIE O’ THE DAY is going to be, from post to post. Often, when I sit down to create a post, I have no idea what I’m going to write. I’ll stare at the photo I snapped after I first got dressed in the morning, and then I begin to type. Sometimes, the text is lengthy. Sometimes, it’s only a handful of words. Usually, there’s at least a tiny chuckle or a nugget for contemplation to be found inside the writing. I thank you, folks, for continuing to tune-in to gawk at the groovy neckwear, and to read the words that tumble out of my wild head. Above all, my friends, I do hope you never feel like a post is a waste of your time and attention.

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A Broken-hearted Tie o’ the Day

This is how I feel about today’s disruption of the ceremonial counting of the 2020 electoral votes at the U. S. Capitol—a requirement of the United States Constitution. Not only has the Constitutional business of the People been disrupted, but the bullying trespass into the Capitol has been an embarrassing spectacle, at about the same maturity level as guileless brats breaking into a church to take narcissistic selfies as they destroy sacred property—for no other reason than to post their self-absorbed and destructive actions for all to see.

The saddest thing about today’s dangerous undermining of American Democracy is that I fully expected it was going to happen. Bad behavior is apparently the new normal, even when it comes to what the Constitution demands.

I believe in the power that passionate, safe, well-planned, and well-disciplined protests can have for the common good of the People. But the undertaking today didn’t have a single redeeming characteristic. In fact, it made America appear weak and unhinged. I can’t stop crying.

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A Pandemic Birthday Party In The Birthday Boy’s Garage

I posted last week that my very first brother-in-law, Kent, was turning the bigly 70-damn-5. Here are a few pix of our brief visit to give him our eternal regards for joining the family in 1967, and for staying in the family for the duration. From then, until now, Kent has always hit our funny bones with his up-beat brand of cleverosity. His wisdom shows up wrapped in humor, as well. And his heart is wide open.

On Kent’s birthday, we threw The Skit in the car and drove up to his and BT’s abode in Pleasant View, where a day-long drive-by of honking horns bleated their birthday wishes to our Kent. We actually stopped in to hang for a little while in their garage, which was set up with socializing at pandemically social distances in mind. The libation served to birthday revelers was sparkling cider in the grooviest teensy bottles. A bigly and tall heater spread the heat. The present we gave Kent was one of Mom’s old HELEN W license plates, in honor of him christening all of Mom’s cars with the same title of “the Helenmobile,” probably starting as far back as the 70’s. I will not lie: We stole a masked hug or two from Nuk and Mercedes before we left.

I wore my lighted turkey hat for the occasion, as well as a holiday Tie o’ the Day covered in portraits of polar bears, Santa, and snowmen. Skitter’s Tie o’ the Day is an authentic mystery, and we’re open to any guesses you might have as to what the “thing” on Skitter’s tie is supposed to be. It appears to have a sort of snowman head. It has what might be strings of lights wrapped around its Christmas tree-like “body.” I think it might be a dinosaur of some kind, or maybe Godzilla. It does have a tail. Is it holding a baby who’s wearing a black hat? Seriously, what is this creature? Is it an icon from some cult? Is it a mascot for an octuple-A baseball team nobody’s ever heard of? I feel like I’m missing the punchline to a joke. Whatever it is, I like it cuz Skitter likes it.

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Holiday Posts Inventory

Drum roll, please!

Helen’s bigly Holiday Tie Tally: 209 Neckties. 93 Bow Ties. (In a few upcoming photos you will see me and Skitter in more holiday ties. They were snapped over the holidays, but I have already included the neckwear in this final tally.)

Helen’s Holiday Face Mask Tally: 9. (I didn’t make much of an investment in Christmas face masks, cuz I hope we won’t be needing them next X-mas season.)

Skitter’s Holiday Tie Tally: 25 Neckties. 1 Bow Tie.

Here’s the rest of what I utilized to bring y’all TIE O’ THE DAY’s jolly neckwear o’ 2020: 2 leg lamps. 3 Charlie Brown Christmas trees. 1 Old Man bobblehead. 1 Ralphie bobblehead. 5 festive jackets. 4 X-mas-themed, button-down shirts. 1 lighted antler headband. 1 Santa hat. 1 Bah Humbug hat. 1 Santa baseball cap. 1 lighted turkey hat. 1 pair of Grinch pajama bottoms. 3 pairs of obnoxious X-mas leggings. 1 ugly sweater. 3 “ugly sweater”-style, long-sleeved t-shirts. 1 gingerbread person t-shirt. 1 redneck elf t-shirt. 1, 3-D turkey necktie. 1 bow tie body thong. 1 red-nosed reindeer body thong. 1 blow-up Santa beard. AND most importantly, 2 milkweed pod, Nativity scene Christmas tree ornaments made by my grandma, Momo, at least 50 years ago.

Whew! This has been an exhausting blast!

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To Be Merry, Or To Humbug It

Bow Tie o’ the Day sports a simple message of “Merry Christmas.” The 6 Ties o’ the Day are a bit more divided in their expressions about the holiday season. I am a “Merry Christmas” sort, which is probably obvious by my expansive X-mas neckwear collection, but I am also a Grinch-lovin,’ “Bah Humbug” sort of gal when I’m particularly ironic. Especially around Christmas, I must admit I have an even lower-than-usual tolerance for people acting hateful and petty to each other. That kind of behavior really roils the true, thin slice o’ humbug in my soul, in any season. I hate when that happens. In this annual season of giving and striving for peace, I often worry less about the need to—as the saying goes—”put Christ back in Christmas,” and more about the need to put Christ back in Christians. Kindness changes the weather of every room it’s in. Let us be the good weather, folks. End of sermon.

Holiday Tie Tally: 190 Neckties. 74 Bow Ties.

Holiday Face Mask Tally still stands at 9, cuz I’ve worn this one before.

#wearthedangmaskalready