Category: Stories

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It’s A Girl!

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.

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Mr. Nuk’s Wild Ride

Finally! Nuk got his ride in my new truck. He’s a groovy bro-in-law. Of course BT/Mercedes—my oldest sister—and Suzanne rode with us as we snaked through the roads of Pleasant View and North Ogden. We even made a pilgrimage past the original Floyd’s house. (In case you don’t remember, Floyd was the most uninteresting professor I had during my time as a student at Weber State.) Before our ride, we had a lively chat and laugh fest. Nuk and BT/Mercedes are two of the best and funniest people I have ever known. I lived with them a couple of times when I was going to WSU, and I consider the time I spent in their house as absolute fun. I always felt safe and loved there, at a time in my life when I didn’t even know I most needed to feel safe and loved. You know—like anyone who is 17, I was young enough to know all the answers. I didn’t need anything or anybody: I was invincible. Nuk and BT/Mercedes loved me anyway. Now that I’m old enough to know none of the answers, they still love me. I am a lucky littlest sister.

Please note that the Bow Tie o’ the Day I chose to wear for our Maverick ride was one I rarely wear for hours at a time—because it’s very heavy. Bow Tie was crafted out of a bike tire inner tube. I especially like that it shows off its patch and its air stem.

Tune in later today for an official introduction to my new truck. You will even learn its name, and you’ll learn the story of why I couldn’t order a license plate with its name on it.

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At Least Read It First Before You Try To Ban It For Others

TIE O’ THE DAY is a bigly fan of books, as you already know. We are also a house that mellows out by doing puzzles—especially when it is cold outside. Winter is puzzle season. I recently heard about some books being pulled off public library and school library shelves. And so I combined books and puzzling by completing this puzzle depicting a few of the book covers from books that have been banned in certain communities—some in the past and some currently. From July 2021 to June 2022, , according to the PEN America’s Index of School Book Bans, 1,648 books were banned—including 317 picture books for pre-schoolers. In Utah, the school districts that ban the most books appear to be Washington County School District and Canyons School District. I don’t think that’s something for those districts to be proud of.

I hope nobody likes reading books that exploit, or outright lie, or are poorly written. And as much as I would like such books to not show up on shelves of any kind, I think shutting down access to these books for people who might be interested in them by banning them is wrong. It is an egregious affront to our valued right of free speech. But one of the bigliest problems I have with the banning of books has to do with my experiences with those who try to get a book banned: most of these people that I have dealt with have, in fact, not read the book they want to prevent others from reading. They have based their outrage on what somebody’s cousin’s horse trainer’s postal carrier’s uncle told them—and that person likely did not read the book in its entirety either. I am reminded of the early 2000’s when people would tell me The Koran should be banned in the United States. (Pundits on some TV networks said the same thing.) Every time I heard someone say that, I asked if they had read it. I offered to have a chat about their reasons for thinking it should be banned. Of course, not one of these people had ever read the book. The only reason they could articulate was that it must be an evil book since it “caused” the 9/11 fiasco. As one who has read it, I can tell you this: there is not one idea in The Koran that would lead any Muslim to come up with such a terrorist plot. The message of The Koran is against everything that happened on that bloody day. The beautifully written holy book did not “cause” 9/11. Extremists who didn’t understand that The Koran is a book of peace were the fools who did all the damage.

I am proud to have read most of the “evil” books shown in the puzzle. The three stacks of books I’m posing by are just a few of the banned books I have in my own library. I am re-reading some of them to see if I can figure out more reasons someone would want to ban them in the first place. The top book in the middle stack is John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. And the top book on the stack closest to me is Alcoholics Anonymous—the so-called Big Book of AA. It has been banned merely because its subject has to do with drinking—more specifically, not drinking. As if that’s a bad thing. Go figure.

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Election Day 2022: I’m Glad We’re Almost Done With It

When I was a kid, I used to play board games with some older kids in the neighborhood. As the youngest kid by a few years, I was usually the first one to lose at Monopoly. It was like that for what seemed to me like decades, but it was probably for only one or two summers. For me, the neighborhood board games ended when—for the first time ever—I won at Monopoly. My astonished glee at finally winning the game came to an abrupt end, when a certain little boy who didn’t win started to cry and called me a cheater. Plus, I was a girl cheater, too! And a little girl couldn’t possibly beat all the boys at Monopoly! This new winning stuff was no fun for me at all. I wanted to go back to losing and having an uncontested ball. Heck, I was so young that I didn’t even know how to cheat successfully—especially with a handful of snot-nosed neighbor boys right beside me in the room, playing and watching every move of the game unfold. I think it was my Sister Who Wishes To Remain Nameless who clued me in later that day about the fragile egos of sore losers who think they always deserve to be the winner, especially when you clearly beat them. I remember thinking I better be sure to play and win at board games with whoever I dated when I grew up, so I could make sure I didn’t marry a sore loser. I can testify that what I refer to as The Board-Game-Always-Unmasks-A-Sore-Loser Test really works.

With this childhood anecdote in mind, patriotic Tie o’ the Day and I will make one, two-part prediction before the polls close on this Election Day: A few Republican candidates who lose their races tonight will claim they lost because of voter fraud/stolen election crapola, which will fail to explain how other Republican candidates who did win their races, won fairly. On the other hand, zero Democrats who lose their races will whine about a stolen election. Regarding all candidates and voters in any contested race, I have a thought for us all to gnaw on: If you accept the results of an election only when your chosen “team” wins, you are saying you do not believe in or cherish the democracy our Constitutional Republic makes possible for all of its citizens. Just sayin.’

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And A Good Time Was Had By All—Meaning Me

A few weeks ago I donned my red-white-and-blue paisley, painted, wood Bow Tie o’ the Day for a foray to the movies. I had been looking forward to seeing Viola Davis’ latest acting offering, called THE WOMAN KING—about a woman general who trains a group of all-female warriors called the Agojie to protect their West African kingdom of Dahomey in the 1820’s. I had looked forward to seeing the film, despite the fact that I am not generally a big fan of war/combat/fightin’ flicks. I am, however, a huge fan of Viola Davis’ acting prowess. I knew I’d see brilliant acting in the movie, but I was pleasantly surprised at how captivated I was by the film’s hand-to-hand combat scenes. The fighting was realistic, but without the exploitive blood and gore that usually gets thrown at the audience in movie war scenes. The combat scenes in THE WOMAN KING were gorgeously choreographed, while still graphic and intense. The combat was actually as beautiful as it was raw. Sadly, I was the only person in the theater for that particular showing. That’s how it is sometimes: the better the movie, the smaller the audience. I feel bad that so many people miss out on some of the finest work out there. 📽 🎞 🎥

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I Am Responsible For The Death Of Many Trees

Purple-and-blue Tie o’ the Day is one of my fave neckties. I don’t know why. It just is. I was wearing it last week when I decided to take a complete inventory of all my filled notebooks and journals. The final count? What you see here are 307 notebooks full of what goes on in my head. These writings are the sum of my notes, drafts of poems, story ideas, and other miscellany that I have scribbled in notebooks for the past 15 years. Except for TIE O’ THE DAY posts, I do not compose at a keyboard. I print wildly and illegibly on the pages of bound notebooks, for the most part. When I have gussied up a piece of writing into something that works, I then type it on the computer, before submitting it for publication.

As you can see from these photos, I am not a fan of spiral bindings, but I do make exceptions for spiral-bound notebooks that call out to me for some extra-peculiar reason—like my three, spiral-bound Joe Kenda: Homicide Hunter notebooks. I couldn’t pass those up. You’ll notice I fill up all sizes of notebooks. The smallest one you see on the table is about the size of a 50-cent piece. My preferred notebooks are the bound Moleskine brand, specifically the now-discontinued “Chapters” style. Fortunately, I can still find “Chapters” for sale on Amazon occasionally. Although I have storage bins filled with blank notebooks I haven’t yet written in, I think I should begin to pull back on writing new things. As I’m approaching my 60’s, I think it’s time to cull my already-written-in notebooks and concentrate more on arranging my ideas and drafts into completed pieces. Otherwise, when I die, my legacy will be mostly notebooks of illegible writings which will make sense to no one. For the next 15 years, I need to edit and polish and finish all the work I’ve already started. I think I’m done with first drafts.

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The Chia Election Update

Even Bow Tie o’ the Day can see it’s still a toss-up in regard to which of the two major political parties will come out on top in tomorrow’s election. Our very own Chia busts, Mitt and Barry, are sprouting robustly on the sides and in back of their pottery noggins—representing their respective political parties well. However, both Mitt and Barry are sprouting poorly directly on top. What does all this Chia growth predict for the 2022 election outcomes? I’m thinking that it’s a safe bet neither party is gonna run away with all the spoils, which is always a good thing.

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And The Vibe Is On The Market

With the arrival of my Maverick, I have no need for my 2007 Pontiac Vibe. When we got the Vibe, I christened it Vonnegut Grace Vibe, in honor of two incredible writers who died in 2007—Kurt Vonnegut and Grace Paley. It is the best vehicle I have owned in all of my driving life. In 15 years, it has given me zero problems. It easily carted around three dogs at a time and Rowan. It performs well in bad weather, and it still gets 36 miles per gallon. I have babied it beyond all reason. It has nearly 165,000 miles on it, and I have no doubt it will drive for another 200,000. I have been trying to justify keeping it, because I love it. But I know if I keep it, it will just sit in the parking lot alone for years, being unused and rotting on its tires. My new truck has all my attention now. Vonnegut Grace needs to belong to someone who loves her and plays with her every day. This is a very sad, but necessary, break-up for me and the Vibe to go through. We were a happy couple at one time, but we have have simply grown apart. It was good while it lasted. I wish Vonnegut Grace well in all her future endeavors. I hope she finds her soul-driver.

In preparation to sell Vonnegut Grace, Suzanne wants to get her detailed before we present her to any prospective new owners. I asked Suzanne if it was okay for me to leave the bumper stickers on and let the detailers remove them. Suzanne made it clear that she wanted me to de-sticker Vonnegut Grace before the car’s bigly spa day at the detailers’ shop. So this morning, I got out my trusty razor blades and went to work. You know me: I not only wear my heart on my sleeve (and on my t-shirts and hats), I also wear it on my vehicles—by way of numerous bumper stickers. I put them on my bumpers. I put them on my windows. If you see me in a vehicle, you see stickers. It was near traumatic to me to divest the Vibe of its sticker philosophies. The car got naked-er and naked-er as I scraped each bumper sticker off its rightful place. I got to the final sticker and I just couldn’t do it. It’s so close to the election that I made a stand. I will not remove my “LIVE, LAUGH, VOTE-OUT MIKE LEE” sticker. I want as many people as possible to see it, even if it’s only the car detailers before they detail it off. It’ll make me feel better, and Vonnegut Grace will not be completely bare just yet.

I think it’s only fair that I share with y’all the last inventory of Vonnegut Grace, just as I shared the Hombre’s last contents. Again, sorta from left to right in the photo: two folded in-case potty pads for Skitter; a blue ice scraper/brush; a blue flashlight; a bottle of antibacterial gel; a black pack of ritzy Daneson toothpicks; a pair of small binoculars; a spare Sylvania taillight bulb for the car; a Hillary Clinton cigarette lighter somebody gave me; a mini Twister spinner board, cuz you never know when a game of Twister will break out; a huge pink manuscript clip; a stack of useless papers from the glove box; 13 cd’s in their cases; 7 notebooks, in case I was driving when I got an idea for the million-dollar poem I’m going to write; my Hello Kitty sunglasses with the bow tie attached to the frame; 2 pocket knives (I know. What is it with me and pocketknives in my vehicles?); the most important AA chip, for getting through the first 24 hours (I carry my 15- year chip in my pocket at all times); a LET PEOPLE VOTE bumper sticker; 3 dollar bills; a GAP hat; 2 packs of Freedent gum; the newest George Saunders book of fiction; a pad of lined, pink Post-It notes; the squattiest screwdriver I own; 2 spare party bow ties; a set of yellow and pink earplugs for concerts; Poligrip; key lime Chapstick; a tube of Burt’s Bees lotion; a roll of Rolaids AND a roll of Tums; a tin of wintergreen Altoids; 4 pencils; 8 pens; one of Skitter’s ties; and a bigly bottle of Aspirin. That inventory pretty much sums up my life somehow. Ain’t it fabulous?!

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Here’s Another Thing About Oak

I’m writing a longer post of formal introduction to my new truck, but I haven’t finished it yet. Y’all will most likely be able to read about that vehicle tomorrow. But for today, I have a brief story about Oakley, which I was reminded of when I encountered the Frank’s Red Hot Sauce in the refrigerator this morning. The hot peppers on my Bow Tie o’ the Day underscore the theme.

I wasn’t there when it happened, but I have heard varying versions of the story many times. I am giving you the bare bones gist here. Oakley was probably about 3 or 4 when she and her family were on the road to or from Delta, which was a semi-long drive. Along the way, the car and its occupants stopped at a convenience store for treats and a potty break. The young princess, Oakley, had one complaint about her convenience store experience. She announced to all of those within earshot, “This toilet paper is spicy.” Apparently, the toilet paper in the bathroom at that particular convenience store was a bit rough on the behind, and Oakley was not about to be silent about it. What a swell description of cheap, grating toilet tissue—especially from a little kid! I’m sure you’ve heard of the Hans Christian Andersen story, “The Princess And The Pea.” Well, we had our very own Princess Oakley And The Spicy Toilet Paper.

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The Ballad Of Floyd And Nuk

How many sister wives did Kent get?
A rare note from Nuk/Knuk.
Mercedes adds the context for Kent’s note and bow tie gift.

It all began in 1969, when I was 4. I met the man o’ my dreams: Kent in a Bow Tie o’ the Day. My oldest sister, BT, married him, which I think I thought meant I had married him, too. Which, I guess, I sort of did, since he has looked out for me and made me laugh ever since, and I have no plans to divorce him in any way, shape, or form. After all these years, he is still McDreamy to me. And no one has rooted more for me about getting my new truck than Kent. In fact, he has practically nagged me about it ever since I ordered it last November. Still, after I relayed word to him that my Maverick was finally built and being shipped, I was a bit surprised when I received a note with an attached origami Bow Tie o’ the Day in the mail from Kent, who I often refer to on TIE O’ THE DAY as Nuk. Nuk has never written to me before, so this gem is a keeper.

How Kent and I got to be known as Floyd and Nuk is a tale of two completely separate tales. First, when my nephew, Travis, was little, he couldn’t pronounce Kent’s name. He called Kent “Nuk.” If anyone else called Kent “Nuk,” Travis would pipe up, “He’s not Nuk, he’s Nuk.” And thus, Kent became Nuk. Simple enough.

Somewhere near the end of 1984, Kent and I began referring to each other as Floyd. I was living with BT and Nuk at the time, while finishing up my college degree at Weber State. Although my major was English, and I was in my last quarter, I had to scurry to find one last English class to fulfill the requirements of the major. It had to be a class I hadn’t already taken and one that was being offered that quarter. I ended up stuck taking a basic Introduction to English Literature survey class with a full-blown herd of students who did not care whatsoever about anything remotely related to literature. But they could read, so they thought the class would be easy to pass. I took the class because it was literally the only English class that was available to me at the right time AND fulfilled the requirement for me to major in English.

Suffice it to say that my teacher for the Intro to Lit class was a dud. He was dull. He took all the “lit” out of literature by his very presence. He took roll every day, with 150 or so students, which took up a good chunk of class time. And if you weren’t there when your name was called, or if he didn’t hear you say “here,” you got what he actually called “demerits,” which he recorded at length in his roll book: you lost points. His bad hearing could actually affect your grade. His first name was Floyd. Well, one day I was bemoaning to Nuk all about my bad luck in getting this boring soul as my teacher, and Nuk asked me what the guy’s name was. I told him the dude’s name, and Nuk said he knew him from some church goings-on having to do with their Stake. With great sympathy, and without skipping a beat, Nuk said, “He’s a nice enough guy. But he’s drier than a popcorn fart.” That was all that needed to be said, and it still makes me chortle when I think about it. It was the perfect description of the real Floyd’s personality, or—in Floyd’s case—the lack thereof. Since then, Nuk and I have referred to each other as Floyd with great giddiness. Kent’s forever Nuk to me, and I’m honored to be his Floyd. 🍿