Witty & Wise Ties, Trivia & Lies
My bike helmet’s gotta be enough because I don’t own a football helmet. Bow Tie o’ the Day is clear. My feelings about Super Bowls are simple: First, the Seattle Seahawks should always be one of the teams in the Super Bowl. Second, if the New England Patriots or the Dallas Cowboys are in a Super Bowl, the other team should always win the game. That simple outcome will make the world a better place.
Bow Tie o’ the Day presents a map of the planet, and Shirt o’ the Day presents the heavens above us. They are a perfect pairing for me to present something which ticks me off to the moon and back. My peeve? The general thoughtless incivility which seems to have crept into every nook, cranny, and pothole of public and private discourse– from grocery store chit chat to politics, and every other kind of conversation or op-ed in between. It’s so often childish in the sense of being rude, crude, inaccurate, and just plain mean.
That got me thinking about how we say everyone is a child of God. Do we really believe that? I don’t think we always treat others as if they’re as much a child of God as we think we are. In fact, at times, I’m starting to be uncomfortable with terms like “child of God.” And it’s more and more difficult for me to be comfortable with any statement whose gist is that “We are all God’s children.” Nope. Those words and sentiments don’t really resonate for me completely, with the way we behave toward each other right now.
Don’t get your feathers in an uproar about what I just wrote. Of course, I know there is a difference between being “childlike” and being “childish.” Childlike = good. Childish = unacceptable. That’s not my problem.
Here’s the thing. I think we should add another term to be spoken with as much fervor as we say “child of God,” and it should be “adult of God.” We should grow up. We should become civil to one another– whether it’s in politics; in the drive-thru line at Burger King; or even in the crowded pool lane where you’re swimming laps. Let’s grow up. Let’s be considerate and say “please” and “thank you.” And let’s mean it. Be a child of God who acts like an adult of God.
Tie o’ the Day and I showed up at what I thought would be my last day at Physical Therapy, but I was wrong. I guess I will be attending one more week of shrugging, pointing my wood “wand,” and yanking on a bigly rubber band. I’ll just have to deal with it.
Tie was the cause of a minor commotion at PT. It was the first time I had worn a tie and not a bow tie to PT. Someone asked me a question about why the change, and then that turned into more questions about how the tie got so tiny. I explained it was a kid tie. The office assistant asked where she could buy some of the shrimpy critters for her kids, and I told her I got mine at Seagull Book. That prompted somebody else to stand all amazed and chime in to ask if I was LDS. Well, my answer to that question turned into a whole sprawling novel. And before I knew it, I had mentioned TIE O’ THE DAY.
Before I left PT, a few of the folks had already been on their phones, checking out the website for themselves. And when I got home to write a post, I noticed the website had grown by two more subscribers, from my day at PT. Apparently, I am a dynamic missionary.
Well, okay then.
All paisley, all the time. See, you can have a common thread to your outfit, while still creating the proper clashion. Hat o’ the Day, Cufflinks o’ the Day, Shirt o’ the Day, Vest o’ the Day (which I named the Pimp Vest), and– most importantly– Bow Tie o’ the Day combine to create a clash extraordinaire. I think this is some of my top work. I’m a proud momma of my fashion creation. Paisles are my fave “shape” with which to work my unmatchiness. I suppose my goal to clash makes me a non-matchmaker.
Perhaps I am overdressed for my day’s tasks. First they are all tasks I need to do at home. Cleaning, laundry, etc.. I will probably leave the house only for Skitter’s walkie. But what I’ll be spending most of my task-time doing is going through the storage bins and boxes in the garage, looking for ONE thing: a shoebox-sized box which holds half-a-dozen cassette tapes I recorded with my Grandma, Martha Anderson in 2000.
Grandma had fallen and broken her hip and shoulder. She was in the Delta hospital for a week or so before she could return to her apartment in The Sands. I stayed at the hospital with her each night. Well, Grandma must have gotten all of the sleep she would ever need in the preceding decades because she did not sleep. So we talked. At some point I started to record her stories. When I showed up at the hospital each night, I turned on the recorder and let it go. I haven’t listened to them for years. Life gets busy and you forget to do important things like that. Shame on us.
I know I still have the tapes somewhere, because I remember packing them up in Delta when we moved the contents of the Delta house up here. But I have no clue in which bin I so safely stored them. My biggest concern is that the tapes might not still be in playing condition after nearly two decades. I’ve kept them safe, but I can’t keep them safe from the passing of time. I no longer own a cassette player, but Betty/BT/Mercedes (whatever name you call my oldest sister) still has the one she got as a prize on WHEEL OF FORTUNE in the 80’s. She’s the family genealogist, so these tapes belong with her anyway.
I remember one startling moment during a night with Grandma, which I so wish had been recorded. After Grandma went back to The Sands from the hospital, I still stayed with her most nights. She stayed in a hospital bed in her living room, and I took over the couch.
One night, Grandma finally fell asleep for a few minutes. I started to nod off, when suddenly Grandma loudly said, in her sleep, “Isn’t it funny about horses? How they have sex, you know.” She stayed asleep and never uttered another word until she woke up a little later and asked me to get her some of her “cheesies.” Cheetos. Of course, I happily got her a bowl of cheesies. I did not ask her about the dream she had just had. But I really, really, really wanted to.
Bow Tie o’ the Day and I scurried off to sit in Suzanne’s office and stare at her while she ate her yogurt for lunch. I drank two cans of Fresca from Suzanne’s personal office refrigerator, cuz the Diet Coke I had left in my car overnight was still frozen solid. Ya can’t drink something the consistency of a brick. Thus, I gulped the flowing, free Fresca available to me. Tasty-riffic, but…
Apparently, I’m not acclimated to the side effects of Fresca consumption, because my face has been stuck like this since I drank the first sip. That drinking happened six hours ago, and this mischievous expression just keeps hanging across my face. What’s even weirder is that I think this photo looks more like me than I usually look like myself.
Think on that idea for a minute. It’s as if– due to my reaction to a relatively small dose of Fresca– my face finally got stuck in its “true” look. Has Diet Coke disguised my own face from me and y’all for all these decades? Can I only reach my full Helen-potential if I switch to the “true” Fresca?
And here I go, down The Existential Sinkhole o’ Questions (TESo’Q). You know the one. You fall into it every now and again, when some occurrence or another discombobulates you. The questions are the same for us all: Who am I? What is my purpose? Where is all the Chapstick I’ve lost? Should I have done x, instead of doing y? Should I stay or should I go? Who’s yer daddy? What happens if I forget to forget that I forgot to not forget something I forgot I meant to never forget? Why am I here? Have I wasted my life? What’s my stripper name?
See there? That’s how The Existential Sinkhole o’ Questions can give you a headache. Once you start with your “bigly” existential questions, you can get yourself easily mired down in them, to the point you don’t actually go out and do your living. You can waste time treading water in the swirling TESo’S questions for years on end. Try to avoid that. Try to drive right past that nasty TESo’Q, if at all possible.
And if you wanna be a compassionate person about all this TESo’Q biz, here’s what you can do: After every time you pull yourself out of The Existential Sinkhole o’ Questions, surround the sinkhole with orange traffic cones, so others can more easily avoid taking the grungy plunge. Oh, and help pull them free of the dastardly pit when they ignore the traffic cones you laid out so thoughtfully for their benefit.
Admit it. None of us pays attention to the orange traffic cones all the time. That would be smart. We’re not smart: we’re people.
I had a heckuva difficult time deciding what bow tie to wear this morning, so I took the easy way out and decided to wear my bow tie-covered ascot. When in doubt, wear as many bow ties as you can, as often as you can, and in any way you can. That little recommendation fits right in line with the goals of clash fashion. Wear bigly, clash bigly. Clash bigly, or go home!
With this philosophy in mind, I present to you, in one piece of neckwear, Ascot o’ the Day and Bow Ties o’ the Day combined. As an added bonus, I am pleased to give you Bow Tie Sunglasses o’ the Day, which I plan to hand over to my ever-sunglasses-wearing mother when I visit her next. Watch out for that!
I donned these Ties o’ the Day to wear alongside each other because they reminded me of a couple of people I know very well. Suzanne is one, and I am the other. Ties o’ the Day are accurate representations of our distinctive ways of moving through life.
Suzanne is the pretty red Tie o’ the Day, with its perfectly straight tree sides and its perfectly round tree ornaments. Suzanne is the trees being properly green. She’s the single gold line moving in thin curves, playfully and wildly in Tie’s background.
I am the red, what-the-hell-happened-here Tie o’ the Day. (I made it myself.) I am gold glitter, out of control. I’m a red nose, and pom-poms, and a deer whose eyes fell off. I’m a HO and a snowflake. I am full of empty spaces: hardened glue spots where I’ve lost some decorations from year to year. I am what is missing. I’m a silver tinsel pipe cleaner– – here for no reason except the silliness factor. Tie is as close to a fairly accurate description of my spirit as any.
Suzanne is practical and solid. She is careful and logical, and she plans for the long-term. She plans for the contingencies– for what might go wrong. Suzanne is back-up plans. Suzanne is the troubleshooter and builder. She is imagination and surprise. Suzanne is classic, and patterns, and a steady course. Suzanne is the straight man to my vaudeville act. She’s the breathtaking, bejeweled, antique chandelier from which I swing like a chimpanzee.
I am the comic relief. I am the in-your-face. I am the dark thinker. I am the cacophony, and the calm, and the storm on its way. I’m the rapidly-changing moods. I’m the screaming protest. I’m the creator of impractical amusements we need in order to remain sane. I’m the zig-zag. I’m the taser. I am the free spirit to come home to. I am the storyteller and the poet. I’m the loud, the clash, the funky. I’m the Care Bear and the conscience. I am the drowned and the saved. Oddly, Suzanne says I am the voice of reason. Imagine that.
And do you know what Suzanne’s doing right at this very moment in time? She’s sitting at her Ultimate SewingBox, making me another cape just because it will make me as joyful to wear it as it makes her to sew it.
I write this post as a preface to tomorrow morning’s post about our 5th wedding anniversary, which was last week. The traditional gift for the 5th anniversary is wood, and I had a heckuva time thinking of an appropriately snazzy wood gift for Suzanne. A Popsicle stick didn’t seem quite enough. It turned out we found swell presents for each other.
HOLIDAY TIE TALLY: 102 Bow ties. 210 Neckties.
After we shaved the lamp legs decor this morning, Bow Tie o’ the Day and Tie o’ the Day told me it was time to break out the Chuck Brown Xmas trees. We have Chuck trees in three sizes, for placement in various locations throughout the house.
The middle tree– the smallest– is named The Pub Tree, because every Christmas season, I put it on the window ledge by “our” table at The Pub in Delta. (Note the football ornament on the tiny tree.) My Sister Who Wishes To Remain Nameless and I decorated festively around our tree, but the tree was always the centerpiece of whatever window scene we constructed. I miss The Pub, my SWWTRN, and I miss decorating “our” Pub window for holidays.
The tree with the HO’s in it (I loved writing that) plays the Chuck Brown theme song music. When it plays, I “dance” to the music the same way the characters in the Chuck tv specials dance– which means I move my head forward and back, over and over. Eventually I get a neck ache and the song gets annoying. After a couple of hours, the music box battery finally dies, so I can stop dancing. So then I take two aspirin, put on a neck brace, and make a mental note to never put a battery in the music box again.
Yeah, I know I could just push the OFF button on the tree’s music at any time before all the pain and annoyance begins. But then I wouldn’t have a dramatic (sort of) story to tell about how harrowing it is to head-dance to the Charlie Brown theme song for the duration of a battery’s life.
Doing such a thing is an example of doing something for the sole purpose of saying you did. Hint: Doing something for the sole purpose of saying you did is rarely a good reason to do it. Which is why the truth is that I hit the OFF button on the tree’s music after about thirty seconds, so there’s still a bigly amount of juice in the battery with which to regale visitors. I’m sure they’ll want to boogie along too. And I have plenty o’ aspirin, and a neck brace if anyone needs it.
HOLIDAY TIE TALLY: 28 Bow ties. 74 Neckties.
Bow Tie o’ the Veterans Day added a patriotic touch to our Sunday Brunch at PORCUPINE, in SLC. Once again we brunched at a restaurant where we had never eaten before.
Suzanne went the omelet route, while I had the white wine-poached salmon. Suzanne assured me that eating something that has been poached in white wine does not count as drinking alcohol, so I felt fine about doing it. True enough, my salmon did not get me drunk, or even buzzed. It was tasty, but the next time I order it at PORCUPINE, I will definitely say, “Yo! Don’t drizzle no stinkin’ hollandaise sauce on top of my salmon!” A salmon does not need to swim upstream or on your plate in hollandaise sauce.
Those sorts of frou-frou touches are not only un-needed, they can often be dang annoying. For example, consider just some of the current plethora of Oreo flavors: watermelon, jelly donut, waffles & syrup, red velvet cake, cherry cola, kettle corn,  pumpkin spice, green tea, fruit punch, caramel apple, cotton candy, root beer float, S’mores, cinnamon bun, birthday cake with sprinkles, uh-oh (?), heads or tails (?), strawberry milkshake, Android (?), Swedish Fish, brownie batter, Peeps,… I could go on and on and on, but I must cease. I’m queasy just thinking about the lengthy list of flavor tangents. Who needs any of these filling flavors in an Oreo? Some of them are downright creepy. When will the bacon-flavored Oreos be on the market? I want to be sure I’m not at Dick’s Market on the day those blasphemous cookies hit the shelves.
My friends, this flavor-swinging is a sacrilege. The Oreo is an undeniably perfect culinary creation. Don’t mess with it. Don’t even “double stuf” it or make it thin. You can’t improve on THE Oreo. The only possible thing you can do to the Oreo by altering it is to crapify it– by small and bigly degrees. There is a word for this tinkering with an already-perfect product: bastardization. It means to lessen the perfectness of a thing while passing it off as equal to the real thing.
Hear ye! Hear ye! I will not be silent about this issue. I believe that candy-corn-flavored filling in an Oreo is a bastardization of a flawless, American cookie icon. Stick that in your Oreo and dunk it!
Tie o’ the Day reeks of prettiness. Just gaze at it a sec. See what I mean?
Hat o’ the Day is a new addition to my hat club. It showed up in my mailbox yesterday. I was not surprised at its arrival because– of course– I ordered it. Duh!
Anyhoo… My main bow tie supplier is Beau Ties Limited of Vermont. In my post photos, you’ve often seen me in their t-shirts and hats, as well as their bow ties. They make a bunch of misc. other stuff. For example, I have drinking glasses and a coffee mug with their bow tie logo stamped on them. And then there are the playing cards with bow tie backs. And a bow tie-emblazoned water bottle. And a lovely bow tie logo Christmas ornament they just sent me. And on and on. Heck, you can even send Beau Ties Limited of Vermont one of your neckties and they’ll turn it into a bow tie for you.
This sleep cap is a new item they’re peddling. I had to have one. It looks stunning, and that alone is enough reason to fork out a couple of bucks. But there is a practical reason I “need” this cap: My ears are cold from October to May, and I need a little sumpin’ sumpin’ to keep my ear tips warm. I like to sleep in a freezing bedroom, so this is a fashionable alternative to wearing a regular old beanie while I sleep.
A funny thing already happened to me and my new night cap. Last night, on our way home from our dinner/movie event at the U, Suzanne and I stopped to get the mail. There was a little package with my name on it, and I knew exactly what it was. At home, I opened my package while Suzanne was upstairs. I fell in love with my new sleep hat and immediately put it on. So there I was– sittin’ in the loveseat, wearing my glorious sleep hat, watching LivePD, and generally being me. Suzanne came downstairs and sat in the loveseat next to me. Picture it: I’m wearing my not-so-tame hat she’s never seen before. You can see it’s a silly, long, red-and-black flannel hat. With a tassel!!!! Suzanne said nothing about it. Nada. Not one word.
For five minutes, I waited for some kind of reaction from Suzanne. A word, a snicker, rolling eyes– a response of any kind. Nothing. Finally, I said, “Hey, do you notice anything different about me?” And she said something like, “Yeah. I saw your hat.” And then she immediately went back to looking through her JOANN’s sale ads.
Are my shenanigans getting dull, or is Suzanne starting to take my weirdness for granted? Either way, I gotta revamp my schtick.