Category: Stories

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A Buddy For Skitter

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.

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Giving Equal Time To Not-Love

I have posted a bunch of sappy stuff about love recently, in honor of Valentine’s Day. I’m a cheerleader for kindness, forgiveness, empathy, and compassion. I will defend those higher values until the day I drop dead. I really do believe in the ideas I’ve been writing about, but I also believe it’s a sign of a healthy mental state to face and deal with other, less sweet-and-gushy, feelings. As human beings, we all have what I will call moments of feeling darkly—those times when we encounter rudeness, unfairness, betrayal, injustice, etc. We feel more darkly when these negative things we encounter are such that we can’t (or think we can’t) really do anything to change what we see. We struggle with the way things are. We have emotional responses to these situations that are natural but not especially nice. Don’t feel guilty about feeling “not especially nice.” I suggest you acknowledge your feelings, figure out why you feel them, and then move on. If you can do something to fix the situation that upsets you, do. If you can’t, keep on truckin’, as we used to say in the 70’s. Been there, felt that.

There’s a trick I came up with in order to accomplish just this. It might not work for you, but I swear by it. If I’m in the midst of a situation in which someone is promoting contention, I talk to myself in my head. More specifically, I say not-nice things privately to myself. Outwardly, I will be as civil as the situation allows. I will try to talk the contention-maker down to a dull roar. But at some point, if it’s clear this person is hell-bent on being contentious to others, I give myself permission to rant in my head—while remaining polite. If a person is being a jerk, I give myself permission to repeat a mantra like, “You’re being a jerk” over and over again, out loud inside my brain. It is true that sometimes I say—in my head—words that are a bit stronger than “jerk.” I make no apologies for doing this. It makes me feel better without creating more contention by throwing fists or by running my mouth directly at someone else. Generally, if I just acknowledge and respect my not-nice feelings, these not-nice feelings pass. In most instances, there’s no reason to ruin a relationship about it.

Here’s an example of what I’m saying. In the late 80’s, I had a spiky short hairdo with one small tail of neon hair down to my right shoulder. I was in my mid-20’s at the time. I was with a friend (also in her 20’s) at Trolley Square in SLC, when we ran into her mother. It was the first time I had met my friend’s mother, so she introduced me. I said to the mother I was glad to meet her and stuck out my hand to shake hers—you know, I was polite. My friend’s mother kept her hands to her side and immediately asked me, “Do you really think you can meet Jesus with hair like that?” Now I know for a fact that I had never used the spikes in my hair to stab anyone or poke their eyes out or pick a lock to steal stuff. And I know for a fact that my neon yellow or pink or blue hair-tail never strangled anybody. Sadly, I had dealt with people like this before, so it didn’t startle me. I said to my friend’s mother, “The Jesus I am familiar with is busy dealing with real problems like hate and poverty and fear and hopelessness. The Jesus I know isn’t a busybody judging people’s hair.” I don’t remember how the conversation went after that, but I do remember that talking to myself, repeating “You are a jerk,” over and over again in my own noggin, helped me remain relatively civil in the situation. I knew the mother for many years after that and I grew to appreciate her for her other, less judgmental qualities. No matter the style of my hair during the more than decade I knew my friend’s mother, I always knew that in her eyes, my head hairs and I were never worthy of meeting Jesus. Oh well. I’m not worried.

The first three paragraphs of this post set the context for this afternoon’s “coded” Tie o’ the Day. It’s an uber-easy code to break, with only two words to be deciphered. (I realized as I was writing this that I’ve never actually said these two specific words together out loud to a person in my life.) The idea I’m trying to explore in this post is that it is sometimes fitting to feel not-nice about a not-nice situation or a not-nice person. It doesn’t make you a bad person to get fed-up with something. It is, however, usually better to deal with the raggedy feeling yourself, rather than lash out directly at someone in the heat of the moment. Egos get bruised that way. Pride gets injured. Even the most helpful, insightful point gets lost in translation under such circumstances. Saying things only to myself and/or wearing this Tie o’ the Day at strategic times can help me remain composed in life’s mean chaos: I’m subtly registering my dissent by expressing an authentic not-nice emotion, without causing emotional injury to someone else’s fragility. It’s a strategy which works effectively for me. 👁 💜 U’all

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My Rash Is Solved. Sort of.

I took my hearts Face Mask o’ the Day and my hearts-and-arrows Tie o’ the Day to my appointment with the dermatologist this afternoon. My doc relayed to me the final results of my biopsies, and now the rash on my torso is diagnosed. For those of you who want me to violate my own HIPAA rules, here’s the name of what I have: disseminated granuloma annulare. According to my dermatologist, it is not something she usually sees. It is not common, nor is it rare. She last saw it on someone over 5 years ago. It’s just rare enough that it can be difficult to diagnose without all the biopsies and x-rays I just had.

The good news is that disseminated granuloma annulare is a relatively harmless condition, although my doc says I need to be vigilant about having mammograms and “lady parts” exams more frequently than is generally recommended for a chick of my age. But here’s the bigly annoying thing: there is no cure to make my rash go away. It will go away on its own—just as it came to me—whenever it dang well wants to. If it decides to go, it can also decide to come back—repeating the process over and over. Or it might disappear tomorrow—never to recur again. Or it might decide to never leave my body at all. So I finally know what the malady is, but there’s nothing anyone can do to eliminate it. My rash has a mind of its own. Fortunately for me, it does not hurt or itch. It simply covers part of my belly and back in patches of red bumps. All in all, I remain grateful my rash is neither dangerous nor hideous. I’m also happy to report that the rash is not contagious. As long as the rash remains innocuous, I guess it’s okay if it hangs around here with me and the neckwear if it really has nowhere else to go. The more the merrier, I always say.

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Not The Birds And The Bees. Just Bees.

[Here’s a much-requested Valentine repeat post. Enjoy.]

Tie o’ the Day is content to hang in the background, while Mom stars in this morning’s pix. These are evidence of Mom’s alluring ways. Dad was born into a beekeeping family, and bees were his thing. He was crazy for bees from the minute he could toddle. Based on that fact, I have no doubt Dad thought the photo of Mom dressed up in beekeeper attire was the sexiest of these two pictures. Mom does have nice legs though.

Dad’s family lived in Delta. Mom was from Oak City, a small town about 15 miles away. In Oak City, at that time, the kids went to school there until high school, then the Oak City-ites rode the bus to Delta High School every day. Mom and Dad didn’t know each other until that came to pass.

But they had sort of met once before high school. One summer day, Dad and his pals happened to be at the Oak City swimming pool when Mom was there with her friends. Mom was standing by the edge of the pool when Dad walked by and rudely pushed her in.

Mom was ticked off, turned to her gal pals, and said, “Ignernt Delta boys!”

Dad smiled, turned to his friends, and said, “I’m gonna marry that girl.”

And he did. And she wasn’t even a bee.

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Today’s Mission: Lung X-rays

Bow Tie o’ the Day and I spent some time at Farmington Health Center this morning. My dermatologist wrote me prescription to get a set of lung x-rays. In trying to diagnose my mysterious skin rash, my doc’s thinking it could be related to a weird thing in one of my lungs that showed up in all the CT scans I had leading up to my pancreas surgery. Based on what I understand from reading the radiologist’s findings about my x-rays today, my lungs appear to be healthy and probably not involved with the rash on my torso. Of course, the dermatologist will have the last word about the whole thing at my next appointment.

In my whole life, I have never had any trouble breathing, that’s for sure. I’ve never had pneumonia, or bronchitis, or asthma, or a collapsed lung. I can huff and puff with the meanest of bigly bad wolves. But based on my half dozen CT scans over the last year, one of my lungs has what looks to be a little patch of scar tissue where the lung is stuck to itself. I’m pretty sure I know where it came from, and I blame Bob Lyman—my kidhood neighbor from across the street. I don’t remember how it all came to pass, but when I was almost 8—and about to be baptized—Bob (who was 10) and I were playing in his backyard. Somehow I had lifted a pack of smokes from a carton in a family member’s fridge, and Bob was determined to assist me in smoking my first cigarette. I wanted to have the experience of smoking at least one cigarette in my life, so I could know what it was like. Moreover, it was very important to me that I smoke it before I was baptized, so the sin of smoking (and stealing) could be cleansed from my soul immediately upon completion of my baptism. I had thought out the whole thing, and I had decided it was a perfectly efficient and reasonable way to proceed with committing this sin.

Anyhoo… Bob found some matches in his garage, and he lit up first—carefully explaining and demonstrating exactly what I should do in order to smoke correctly. I practiced various ways to hold the cigarette in my fingers, and how to pose to look cool while sinning in this manner. Finally, I lit the match, then lit my cigarette—sucking in as hard as I could. I did it, step by step, exactly how Bob instructed me. Except. Except he didn’t tell me to not swallow all the smoke I sucked in. I think I figured you took the smoke in and it effortlessly just kind of made its way out of your mouth and nose while you talked. That’s how it had always looked to me when I observed smokers. Clearly, my powers of observation were not very developed when I was 7.

Well, I started coughing and choking and writhing around on the grass in Bob Lyman’s back yard, while Bob rushed around the corner of the house to get the hose. He turned the water on full-blast. He heroically stuck the hose in my mouth—hellbent on saving my life. I don’t know which felt worse: the smoke or the water. I am convinced this is how I likely scarred up a wee spot on my lung. Heck, it might have been the tip of the hose itself that did the damage to my lung, because I swear Bob stuck that green hose down my throat all the way into my stomach. I remember rolling on the ground for what felt like forever. The coughing and choking gradually lessened as I slowly made my way to the edge of Bob’s front lawn. I told him he didn’t need to follow me home because I had no idea what punishment awaited me, and I didn’t want him pulled into the brouhaha I was certain was going to be coming in my direction. I wanted to be baptized right then and there, but that was not to be. When I felt like I had pulled myself out of the state of discombobulation I had gotten myself into, I slinked across the road to the sidewalk in front of my house. I was trying not to throw up, and I was hoping I didn’t smell as stinky as I knew I did. I was also sopping wet from the hose, which I hoped no one would notice.

I tried to act casual when I opened the front door and nonchalantly strolled in. Dad was in his chair reading The Salt Lake Tribune, and Mom was cooking in the kitchen. I said my howdies to them, then I sprawled out on the living room carpet in front of the television. My head was throbbing and I soon fell asleep, coughing intermittently as I slept, I’m sure. When I woke up a few hours later, I was still oh-so miserable and I told Mom and Dad I was going to bed early. I remember it was still light outside.

Mom and Dad just let me go to my room. No questions, no punishment. Between my ashtray odor, and my coughing, and the grim expression on my face from the moment I came in the house, I have no doubt they pieced together the gist of what I had put myself through. I imagine they figured my transgression had rightly turned against me, and it was punishment enough to make a lasting point. They never said a word to me about that day. My parents knew that in my case, most of the time “less is more” was the best method to effectively parent me. I was a fast learner. My baptism couldn’t come soon enough for me and the soggy cigarette smoke polluting my spritely spirit. 🚬

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This Is A Repeat Of Last Year’s Groundhog Day Post

Because I own about 500 holiday ties and bow ties, I imagine you think I have many Groundhog Day pieces o’ neckwear. But I don’t. I own this single Groundhog Day Tie o’ the Day, and unless I run across some ultra-spectacular one in the future, I’m content with this one. I mean—Groundhog Day is not an actual holiday. And it’s not even a party day, like St. Patrick’s Day. It’s just a day to gab about a groundhog named Punxsutawney Phil, about how long his shadow thinks winter’s going to stick around this year, and how we’re already ready to move on to spring.

Anyhoo… I had a virtual appointment with my pain doctor this morning. So I sat at the kitchen island at the designated appointment time, and some unknown-to-me dude starts talking to me on my laptop. I knew exactly what he was going to say, and he did. He told me he’s a doctor-in-training, working with my normal pain doctor, and then he asked if it was okay if he asked me a bunch of questions before I talked to my official doctor. Of course, it was fine with me. We chatted for probably 10 minutes, and as he was wrapping up his note-taking , he said, “Your doctor told me I was going to see a bow tie today when I talked to you.” Oh, I immediately felt I had disappointed the whole world. I have worn a bow tie to see my pain doc at every appointment I’ve had with her for the last 8 years, partly because her name is Dr. Bow. This morning, I felt like I had disgraced myself. Sure, I was wearing this Groundhog Day Tie o’ the Day, but ties are too long to be as visible as bow ties on virtual appointments. I lifted Tie so the guy could see and read it, and he liked it so much he told me he was glad I chose it. I apologized profusely to him for not having a Groundhog Day bow tie. I guess I ought to shop for one, whether I want one or not. I can’t just go around letting people down. I felt so bad for not being the authentic “me” for Dr. Bow’s trainee. How could I not present as the bow tie wearer which she had clearly advertised me to be when she prepared him for my appointment?

When the doctor-in-training signed off, and Dr. Bow joined me a few minutes later, the first thing she said was, “Where’s your bow tie?” I was disgraced, yet again. I felt as if I had disappointed her. But Dr. Bow liked the tie, too. She also said, “It’s just that I barely recognized your face without a bow tie under it.”

FYI Check out my new Face Mask o’ the Day, complete with a secret hole built into it for a drink straw. Oh, happy Diet Coke day for me!

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Golf Pants Are The Best

Even without bright colors, flowery Tie o’ the Day shines every bit as boldly as my newest golf pants. Have I mentioned lately that I have fallen thigh-over-knee in love with crazy golf pants? I mean—based on a pair like this, who wouldn’t be smitten?

A couple of my fave-rave television shows over the years are COPS and LIVE PD. They are real-life cop shows. I’m sure Suzanne and I have seen every episode of both, and we marvel at some of the dopey things captured criminals will say to the cops as they plead their innocence. Our all-time favorite defense has been used more times than you can possibly imagine. It happens when a culprit’s pockets are being searched by a police officer, and drugs are found to be in said pockets. When the cop finds the drug and shows it to the alleged criminal, the suspect will often adamantly explain to the officer, in all seriousness, “That’s not mine. These aren’t my pants!” Gosh, that sounds believable. Maybe putting on someone else’s pants is a more prevalent problem throughout the USA than I’m aware of, but I doubt it. In my entire life, even when I was a professorial-level drinker, I cannot think of one time when I accidentally or purposely slipped on a pair of pants belonging to someone who isn’t me. I still watch re-runs of those shows, just hoping to hear that not-my-pants defense come out of the mouth of captured culprits.

Sometimes when, for whatever reason, things get tense around the house, it is now common for whichever one of us is in the doghouse to irrelevantly declare, “These aren’t my pants!” We immediately laugh, and it easily breaks the tension—no matter what the trouble is about. In reality, I am loyal to my pants, and this is true: no matter what is found in the pockets of my golf pants, no matter who put it there, I will never say, “These aren’t my pants!” These are definitely my pants, and you can’t have them.

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Bow Tie Looks A-OK, But It Reeks

Bow Tie o’ the Day has been a bad bow tie, and it must go to the dump. I discovered it today, laying crumpled beneath shelves in the garage. It is so stinky I had to seal it in a biohazard bag before I could properly dispose of it in the garbage can. I don’t know exactly what trouble it got itself into, but y’all should consider yourself lucky this post is not a scratch-n-sniff. Bow Tie reeks of some kind of nauseatingly malodorous waywardness. If I were pressed to describe the critter’s rotting stench I would say it smells like a triple cross between day-old fish guts, dog teeth tartar, and an ingrown toenail infection. I don’t even want to speculate about the possibilities of what, where and/or how Bow Tie’s tragic olfactory tragedy came about—other than to say that somehow Bow Tie got restless and escaped from the Tie Room, only to eventually come to its nose-offending demise on the garage floor, in a cobwebbed corner. I’m infinitely fascinated by the eventful lives of all my neckwear, but I think I’m glad I don’t know the specific story of how this once-promising little darling came to its sorry stenchification.

Rest In Peace, my ill-fated tiny fashion accessory! I shall never forget you. Especially your rancid scent.👃 R. I. P., P. U.

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My Calls To Mom About Mortality

I tied on a neon-hued Tie o’ the Day to change the furnace filters this afternoon. And after that was done, I sat my butt down at my desk in the loft. My intent was to make my regular call to check on Mom. I am always excited to talk to Mom, especially if I find her to be having an especially clear-ish mind. No matter her state of mind, she remains ever playful and interested in whatever, whatever.

I initially intended to call Mom yesterday, but I found myself unable to go ahead and make the call. And today, the call didn’t happen either. I was paralyzed. You see, I do not exaggerate when I say that almost every time I call Mom, I have to deliver the news of another death of someone significant in her life. At 91, she is outliving so many of her people—friends, family, and close acquaintances. It’s her own fault this is constantly occurring: she made it her life’s mission to know and care about so many people. They, in turn, have cared for her. When I finally call her this time, I must relay the news of two more people passing from her life. She will be the first to tell you that her life has been rich with good folks—so it’s sad when they pass on.

I could choose to not tell Mom about dreadful things at this point in her life, but I wouldn’t want to risk her overhearing snippets of sad news and have it not make sense to her. I’d rather be able to explain the information and answer her questions, sometimes over and over again—even if she will likely forget the news and then need help being reminded about it at a later date. Her best friend, Peggy, passed away around 4 years ago, and Mom will still ask me sometimes about what happened to her “Pegetha.”

As time passes, Mom needs more and more reminding about her own life. With a little help, she can often at least temporarily reconnect with the gist of whatever she’s trying to access in her brain. Still, occasionally—like yesterday and today—I can’t rustle up the soul-strength to make a call to her to deliver not-good news. I can’t rise to the task sometimes. I do always feel incredibly guilty about postponing any phone call to Mom, however. But all I can do about it right now is hope I’m stronger than I was yesterday and today, when I attempt to place the call to Mom again tomorrow. ☎️ 📞 📱

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What Mountains?

Argyle Tie o’ the Day and I usually have a nice view of the mountains, from morn until night. Unfortunately, we haven’t seen hide nor hair of a mountain in the mornings for days. It’s the ever-dreaded inversion time of year up in these parts. Even after the worst of the haze burns off mid-day, the skies are generally grayer than their usual winter-gray or blue. I take all this air muck as a personal insult. You see, I was born of the sky. The sky is my spirit animal, so to speak. And not just any sky. I was born of the Utah, west desert sky that makes you feel like you’re living in a snow globe. There, the sky begins at your feet and doesn’t really end anywhere. I get sky-withdrawal when the inversion comes to town.

When I lived in Virginia and Maryland, I knew it would be a temporary relocation. I knew I could not live long without bigly sky. For all the beauty and sights and things to do in the D.C.-area, there was just not enough blue sky for my taste. Too many trees, too. The most at home I felt back there was, oddly, at the beach in Delaware or New Jersey—where water and sky met, and together created the illusion of the never-ending bigly sky of my kidhood and young adulthood.

When I left Maryland for the last time, there was no question where I would move to begin to figure out a new life. When I came back home, it wasn’t to Delta itself that I was headed. It wasn’t necessarily to my mostly-Delta family I decided to return. The fact that my hometown and my family were there was added blessing. No, I was broken, so I went to the sky I knew. I bought a truck and I drove and thought, and drove and thought under that bigly sky. I did my best thinking under that sky, as I always had, while traveling on washboard gravel roads between farms.

When I was a child, I had driven those same roads on my bicycle and composed my first poems as I pumped—getting off my bike when necessary, to sit alongside ditch banks covered in asparagus, where I could write down every kid-profound word I’d strung together into whatever I thought was surely poetry and my fate. After I was done writing a kidhood masterpiece in my tiny notebook, I’d fill the pockets of my overalls with as much fresh-picked asparagus for Mom as I could carry—careful to not crush it as I peddled home to supper.