Yesterday, Skitter and I packed our various water bottles into the truck and headed south to spend some time with Mom. It was a no-brainer for me when it came to choosing Tie o’ the Day for the occasion. The tie had to be Mona Lisa—a tie o’ beauty for a visit with my beautiful mother. Skitter and I were surprised to find Mom wasn’t wearing any earrings. It’s been quite a long while since we’ve seen her ears naked. She also didn’t mention my earrings, which she always does. She did mention liking Skitter’s tie a number of times. Of course, she remarked about Mona throughout the visit. She also made a bigly deal about liking the taco socks I was wearing. Mom told me she is content with not doing much anymore. She said, “All my life I did everything, all the time.” She took a long pause, looked into my eyes, and said, “But not all of me is here anymore. Do you know what I mean?” I told her I knew. I did not tell her how many years I’ve already missed so much of her. Nor did I tell her how she sometimes melts farther away from me, even as I am sitting right next to her. And I certainly didn’t tell her how helpless and ineffectual it makes me feel that there is not one damn thing I can do for her to make it stop. 🕯
On our patio table this afternoon, we had 3/4 of a Skitter of snow. For you non-canines, that snow total amounts to over 12 inches of powder which has fallen over the course of 2 days. For the official measuring o’ the snow, Skitter wore a Christmas Tie o’ the Day to show her reserved enthusiasm. After her snowy table affair, Skitter asked me if I would like a real snow gauge stick from Santa for X-mas, so she won’t have to sit in the freezing snow again to pose for TIE O’ THE DAY photos. I told her I understood her not-so-thrilled perspective about getting her paws and belly ice cold in the accumulated snow, but I also told her about how all the TO’TD readers like to see her do fun things for my nefarious purposes.
Although my truck finally got to me during the first week in October, Oakley’s death made it impossible to celebrate its arrival—which I had eagerly awaited since I ordered it in November of 2021. After almost a year of gestation at the Ford plant, the truck I adored from afar just didn’t seem all that important. I knew that deep inside I was happy about it becoming officially mine, but I couldn’t muster up the happiness at the time. Losing Oakley was the only thing on my mind for weeks. I am only now beginning to feel the glee of getting a material thing I have wanted for the last couple of years. I have only two stickers on the truck so far. One is political. One honors Oakley, so her spirit rides with me wherever I drive.
What name did I decide on for the truck? I named her ABRA, as in abracadabra. It took a lot of magic to get her here. Abra is also the name of a minor character in one of my fave novels: John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. The name has stuck with me since I was 11 and I first read the book. I liked the name so much I thought if I ever had a daughter, I would probably name her Abra. The book’s larger theme is about good and evil, and how we always have the agency to choose which way we will live. We are the sum of our choices.
I wanted to order Abra vanity plates that said ABRA, but my experiences with ordering vanity plates in Utah told me there was no way “they” would approve it, because it has the potential to be read as A BRA, and that’s a scissor hop, skip, and a jump away from almost inducing bad thoughts in other driver’s minds. Seriously, to the DMV, ABRA would be considered almost pornographic and, therefore, dirty because naughty-minded people might read something into it. And we can’t have ABRA being mistaken for A BRA by innocent children, you know. So I didn’t even apply for a plate that said ABRA on it: it would have been a waste of time and effort. Instead, I legally transferred my BOWETRY plate from the Vibe we are selling. When I ordered BOWETRY a few years back, I had to explain to the DMV what it meant. I explained that it is a combination of my two obsessions: bow ties and poetry. Those folks at the DMV who are in charge of approving orders for vanity plates had no problems with my BOWETRY after my explanation. Abra seems pleased to be wearing the BOWETRY plate, too.
Without further ado, I introduce to you the gorgeous Blue Beauty of 2022 Mavericks—my Abra. Skitter and I decided our cowboy hats were a must for pix of us in the cow-named Maverick. Skitter is also wearing what she refers to as her official sheriff ‘s badge Tie o’ the Day. She has called it that since our good pal, Herschel Walker, once told Skitter that the stars on her tie looked like the honorary token sheriff’s badge he carries. My cowboy hat has a silver star right smack-dab in the middle of my hatband, so I’m a sheriff too. I chose my bolo-design Tie o’ the Day. Skitter and I are cowgirls in our bones. Or, at least, dang true rednecks. 🤠 🐶 🏇 🚙 🍩
TIE O’ THE DAY’s next post will cover Suzanne’s recent revelation about how I drive. She’s close to accurate, but not quite.
A few months ago, I posted about reconnecting with one of my college pals from way back in the 80’s. Since then, I’ve visited Jane a few times and, so far, we still seem to have plenty to talk about. We seem to be able to make each other think, and we still make each other laugh. Earlier this week, I took Skitter with me to Jane’s for one of our gabfests. Skitter wore her lemons Tie o’ the Day for the occasion.
Now, you know Skitter is afraid of every new person and every new place and every new thing. She shivers and vibrates in fear of each new noun she encounters: she’s skittish. I know Jane has two cats, and I wasn’t sure Skitter could handle being around the critters, so I anticipated I might have to leave her in the car with AC running while I socialized. I thought of all the possible Skitter-skeered outcomes, so I was prepared to improvise. When we arrived, I laid out one of Skitter’s blankets on the floor by the chair I was sitting in, so she would know where her place was in this environment which was foreign to her. However, Skitter was not having any part of staying on her blanket on the floor.
Skitter didn’t vibrate, pulsate, oscillate, or tintinnabulate. Skitter simply and nonchalantly jumped up on the couch, cuddled up to Jane, and stayed by her side the entire visit. Since then, my lower dentures have almost fallen out of my mouth on multiple occasions whenever I contemplate the whole affair—because my jaw is still dropping in amazement about Skitter’s chill behavior at Jane’s. Skitter has never acted comfortable anywhere but in our house, and sometimes she barely acts comfortable here. Skitter jumping up on Jane’s couch and making herself at home was Skitter maturing before my very eyes. I was both shocked and impressed by Skitter’s poise and determination. In fact, the Skit acted as if Jane was her old friend, not mine, and I was the newcomer to the group. It was an unbelievable hours-long event, and Suzanne still doesn’t believe it really happened. Skitter is clearly living proof that old dogs can, in fact, learn new tricks. It was fortunate that Jane was just fine with the mutt-glued-to-her-hip situation Skitter put her in.
FYI The cats ended up not being a factor in Skitter’s adventure during our visit. They stayed away from where we were conversating, for the most part. Skitter saw one of the cats a few times, but she paid it no mind. Maybe they’ll try to interact during a future play-date.
I often mention that I have had a lifelong love affair with words. They fascinate me. One-syllable words have no less charm than lengthier five-syllable words. They all matter. As I began to compose this post, the word “delightful” came to mind. It’s not a word I regularly use, although nothing is wrong with it. I simply don’t inhabit the world of feelings I would describe as “delightful.” But I can only describe yesterday as utterly delightful. Suzanne and Skitter and I trekked to Delta to spend some time with Big Helen, who seems to have shrunk just a bit more each time I hug her.
I wore my new honeycomb golf shirt, and Mom recognized what it was immediately. Dad was the beekeeper in the family, but Mom lived the bee life right beside him every step of the way. She knew a full comb of honey was not only delicious, but it bought school clothes and made car payments. We wished Mom a happy 74th Anniversary, and she wondered why Dad had to leave her. I reminded her he’s waiting, probably impatiently, for her to meet up with him when she decides she’s ready.
Mom wore her royal purple housecoat, and kept showing us how her ring matched it. She was so surprised at the fact that she matched. She knows it’s a rare thing. She and I share a penchant for mismatching in ways that make sense only to us. To match is nothing short of a miraculous oversight. For me, matching is also somewhat painful to my sensibilities. Mom can blithely relish it when it happens. I mentioned to Mom how the royal appearance of her purple housecoat and purple ring stone would surely capture the attention of every person who sees them, she said, “Well, I’ll just start to bow to them all.” And then she thought a minute, and said, “No. I’ll make the people bow to me.” That’s my mother, in a nutshell.
I took the pictures of Mom’s hands because her hands are amazing. Think about how many pints of peaches and pears those hands have bottled. I can’t begin to count the quilts her hands made over the decades. Potato salads, batches of toffee, pans of candied popcorn. And batches of cookies as far as the mind’s taste buds can remember. As I examined her hands yesterday, Mom said they looked “curdled.” It was an elegant and poetic description. Mom has a gift for language too.
As we escorted Mom to lunch, Terry—one of Mom’s fave nurses—passed us in the hall. We chatted briefly. And suddenly, Terry started dancing, and then she got Mom dancing along. I can’t explain how it happened, but it did. Terry then went on her way, and Suzanne and Skitter and I continued walking Mom to her lunch table. As we left Mom, I couldn’t get her happy dancing out of my mind. Mom not only dances at Millard Care and Rehab, but she never dances alone.
BTW I wore my Wonder Woman socks to visit Mom, my own personal Wonder Woman. The Minions Bow Tie o’ the Day is a trip.
Skitter wore her checked collar-with-built-in-bow tie to her visit to the vet, and I wore one of my magnetic, wood t-shirt pieces for my Bow Tie o’ the Day. As per usual, Skitter vibrated with apprehension every minute of her vet appointment. And as usual, having her temperature taken rectally was the single worst moment for her. Her already pleading eyes, got even plead-ier, making her bigly forlorn eyes almost audible to me: Save me, Helen!
As y’all might recall, the black mold in Skitter’s ear has made her left ear an angry shade of red, as you can see. She has been increasingly miserable over the last two weeks. I am happy to report that the vet inserted a medication into the bowels of the Skit’s ear. This medication will be working in her ear to annihilate her ear fungus for the next month, which gives Skitter the added bonus of at least the next 30 days with no bath or ear cleaning of any sort, allowing her treatment to effectively do its work. After we returned home from the vet, and after she finally wound herself down, Skitter remained in her bed on the loveseat for the rest of Saturday, where she dozed and napped and lounged—before she finally went upstairs to her crate and slept peacefully through the night. The next day, she was a bit more her usual eccentric doggie self. Today, she’s acting even more like herself—skittish and wonderfully odd. I don’t have the heart to tell her about her already scheduled visit to the vet in a couple of weeks to get her teeth cleaned. I’ll inform her about her teeth appointment maybe fifteen minutes before we get in the truck to drive there. I already feel bad about it for her. It makes me feel as if I’m plotting against her. Which, technically, I guess I am.
Skitter is a pro Tie o’ the Day wearer, just like me. She sometimes can’t get to sleep without surrounding herself with every tie she owns. I am jealous of her. If I were to attempt to sleep under my bigly tie collection, the weight would not only suffocate me, but it would flatten me out like a pancake in the process. That is why I encourage Skitter to be moderate in accruing her personal collection. That’s right: I preach moderation in all things to her, while I, on the other hand, busy my days creating an extreme, cash-draining, space-occupying, and possibly dangerous necktie and bow tie collection of my own. I’m all about excess. 🛌 🎀 👔
Skitter takes a cozy nap in her dog bed—with her hard-working new pal.Skitter joins Rumi at the Roomba helipad.
TIE O’ THE DAY is pleased to introduce the arrival of a new pet at our house. As you know, Skitter and I have been angling for a new critter for a couple of years now. Suzanne has not joined us in our wish. At some point, we finally gave in to the reality that Skitter is so weird there is no plausible way she could handle having another living creature in the house 24/7 without shaking to her tragic death—no matter how badly she tells me she wants an animal pal. Folks, it’s good to let go of the impossible (at least until you figure out how to make it possible). That’s the only way to be free to embrace The Great What Is.
When I got Suzanne the bigly red rug for her birthday, I somehow knew I would eventually be getting her a Roomba to keep her rug immaculate—so a Roomba was Suzanne’s Christmas present. It has made itself at home here with us since then. And it is exactly the kind of pet Skitter can calmly co-habitate with. Part turtle, part manta ray, all vacuum—The Great What Is for us is a Roomba we’ve named Rumi, and we’ve pet-utized it. Suzanne programmed Rumi to be a primarily nocturnal beast.
Skitter has a routine tendency to leave trails of food and slivered bits of dog chews on Suzanne’s red rug—and nowhere else at all—for us to gaze upon with wonder. While Suzanne was initially programming and trying out Rumi, Skitter tried very hard to relate to the new critter, but she was sore afraid of it. She watched it move and it caused her to vibrate with fear, as Rumi seemingly took over the house. It’s not like we could explain a Roomba to Skitter to ease her anxiety. She is just a dog even though I pretend she’s not, and as such she only has a brain the size of a walnut. In the end, I think we came up with a pleasantly livable solution for all involved.
We decided to make Rumi a primarily nocturnal animal. It runs only in the middle of the night. This suits Skitter just fine cuz she’s asleep upstairs when Rumi has run of the first floor. So we have a new “pet,” but Skitter doesn’t have to be askeered of its furtive movements. Skitter ventures over to where Rumi sleeps all day on its own pad, to see and smell her new pet. And Rumi and Skitter occasionally nap together in the dog bed—if Rumi is off. Of course, Suzanne never sees Rumi in motion either because she’s also upstairs asleep when Rumi is awake and active. Rumi and I are tight, however, because I have insomnia often so I go downstairs to putter around and eat popsicles or ice cream while I’m not sleeping: Rumi and I thus share its brief awake time. I guess you could say I supervise the work as Rumi does it.
Twice I have come downstairs in the morning to find Rumi motionless and self-trapped in the tiny 1/2 bathroom, having accidentally pushed the door closed behind itself as it toiled away at cleaning the floor for us. Poor thing. I can imagine Rumi bouncing from one bathroom wall to the next, over and over again, for an hour or so, trying to find a way out and back to home base. Rumi looked so pathetic when I found it like that, so now I try to remember to shut that bathroom door before going up to bed. Yes, I know Rumi is a mere object, but I still felt so sad to picture it trapped and temporarily dead, so close—but yet so far—from its tiny Roomba helipad. Oh, it had places to go.
Skitter sports this holiday Tie o’ the Day, as she acts as my yardstick for checking the snow accumulation outside our abode. We had hours of dizzying, robust snow last night. This afternoon, I plopped down Skitter and her long legs in various areas throughout the yard, as a purely scientific way to gather snow totals from the storm. The snow measurements I gathered with my yardSkitt were all in the range of 7 to 11 inches. Skitter did not willingly walk into the deepest spots, which is why I had to plop her down where I wanted her. The bigly-est snow offended her butt by merely skimming it. She did not even attempt to squat and relieve herself in the bigly-est snow. She managed to find a few areas of nearly bare skiffs of snow for that purpose, so we have only a couple of hard-to-see spots of shallow, yellow snow desecrating our otherwise pristinely glistening white yard. This outdoor whiteness is brighter than Crest 3D Whitestrips.❄️🏔🌨
