Today, Suzanne went off to her decades-old Champagne Garden Club. They take turns gardening in each other’s yards once a month. But notice that in their official name, the word “champagne” comes before the word “garden.” If ya know what I mean.
COVID-19 can’t completely disrupt Champagne Garden Club, but precautions must be taken for the safety of all persons and plants involved. Along with social distancing in the garden, the ladies have to wear face masks, and they must drink a disinfectant version of champagne which was created by Miss Heidi, whose beauteousness peeks out from behind her mask in this photo. No, I do not know whether the gardening gals remove their masks to quaff their champagne cocktail, or whether they just drench the mask and suck on it. I’ll ask Suzanne when she gets home.
So what did I do all day, while Suzanne has green thumbed it at Miss Heidi’s? Spades, wood Bow Tie o’ the Day and I hung around the house with a couple of pillows of sealed air. Yeah, it was as fun as it sounds.
Leather Bow Ties o’ the Day have been counted in The Tie Room Census, and here they are—all 2 leather critters. I got the blue one in Monterey, CA when we vacationed there two years ago. I found the brown one on Etsy.
Since Suzanne has been working from home, I have had to adjust some of my daily routines just a tad. Fortunately, the biggest adjustment I have had to make has been in the area of my usual eating habits, which is kinda more like grazing.
About the time Rowan ventured out on his own to be a fine adult, Suzanne did a switch in her diet which requires she eat nothing tasty. (Yes, that’s really what her diet requires.) Well, what was the point of me cooking anymore? I was free from cooking! That freedom unleashed my inner grazer, which has allowed me to live off a handful of cereal, a half-dozen times a day—with a Junior Mint here, and a potato chip there, and a bowl of ice cream everywhere. And usually a steak for dinner. And so on. Oh, happy snackin’ me!
However, eating in such a manner throughout the day while Suzanne’s home seems just plain rude of me. I mean, she is ALWAYS right here in the same realm. Our house is bigly, but not bigly enough that we can avoid each other all day. How do I get my munch on? Let’s just say that if I could tally how many times I have spent time in the garage over the 7 years we have lived here, it wouldn’t amount to the number of times I’ve “had to” visit our garage in a single day, each day, for the past 6 weeks. That’s how many times I’ve been sneaking in there to “eat” from my carefully placed stash o’ not-so-nutritional food—just so Suzanne won’t see me. I don’t want to get her jealous of my too-much-salt-and-sugar foods, causing her to be swayed from her healthier diet. That would crush me.
It’s been really quite simple to keep Suzanne out of the garage for the last 6 weeks. I keep all the COVID-19 stuff in there: Used rubber gloves; re-usable shopping bag; masks which need washing; shoes I wore in the grocery store; etc. I disinfect the groceries in there. I out-and-out forbade her from going into the garage, for her own good. For once, she has done (not done, in this case) what I told her.
I don’t like being sneaky and secretive about anything. And I don’t delude myself about my current skulking around: I know Suzanne knows exactly what I’m up to. But she also knows I am, in my own way, trying to be kind. In fact, eating yummy stuff in front of Suzanne is probably more my issue than hers. She says it doesn’t bother her if I eat goodies when she’s around. I beg to differ. To me, it’s rude to eat pie when Suzanne’s eating a piece of Keto toast. Maybe, in the end, I really go through all of this surreptitious, spy-like behavior for myself—to prove to myself I can be nice on occasion. If that’s true, I’m actually being selfish by being kind. But my selfishness also says I care about Suzanne’s feelings. So am I selfish, or selfless? Both, or neither? Or am I simply writing a post which has somehow meandered from leather bow ties and The Tie Room Census, through my pandemic garage, across sugary and salty non-nutritional foods, over a theory of politeness, to this very last question mark?
The Saturday before Pandemic Easter, I was feeling like we should at least be in the vicinity of children celebrating the holiday. I texted Suzanne’s niece, asking if she thought her boys would get a kick out of us doing a one-float, drive-by parade on Easter afternoon. She was certain they would. In fact, when I crawled out of bed Easter morning, I got a text from her before I had both eyes open. Her text said, “First words out of Liam’s mouth today, ‘I’m so excited for my parade today!'” The pressure was on!
Skitter wore her pink halter top and her patriotic Tie o’ the Day, as well as her trademark cowboy hat. I wore my Tyvek duds and a Bow Tie o’ the Day, so I could be the Pandemic Easter Bunny. I broke out a dozen packages of marshmallow Peeps I bought on clearance last Easter, which I’ve been saving—cuz last year a brilliant idea came over me to decorate a vehicle with said Peeps for Easter weekend, just for the heck of it.
Suzanne and I attached the Peeps to our parade “float” as well as we could. It turns out that the old Peeps had dried out too much, and fresh Peeps are too gooey to cut. We had to practically rip open the Peeps to make them stickable. This was my first try at Peep-ing a vehicle, and I will admit that by the time we could get the Peeps to stay stuck on the car, they didn’t even resemble the Peeps they really were. The multitude of colors was purty, though. We had a parade to produce, so we went with what we had.
It was beautiful, but cold outside, so we didn’t stay at the boys’ yard long. The boys seemed to enjoy our confusing tiny parade. They got an Easter basket from Skitter, and their parents got an Easter egg filled with toilet paper. We got to see their family, but without hugs. Mission accomplished, but without hugs.
I’ll certainly do more Peep experimenting between now and next year, so I can improve the final “parade float” look. I will make my idea work. I am proud to report that most of the dismembered Peeps stuck to the car all the way home on I-15. Some of the Peep parts even stuck through two different car washes.
While we’re on the subject of wearing masks to help protect ourselves and others from COVID-19…
Suzanne makes me fantastic capes, and I’m discovering that they are not just beautastical to gaze at. My glitter-fied Wintry Cape—and all my other Suzanne-made capes—can perform a public service, by acting as a protective mask for my face and most of my body. Wood Bow Tie o’ the Day’s magnetized hardware sufficiently hangs on for the ride. I’m all set. Until my next post.
The days of home isolation have been generally the same old, same old—especially since Suzanne has been working from home. My main uniform is pajamas. A clean pair of pajamas per day is all I really need. Thankfully, I’m stocked up on that clothing staple. I had a bolo vibe this afternoon, so roadrunner Bolo Tie o’ the Day was the thing I had to wear.
I’ve ventured out every couple of days to pick up a few grocery items, which is not a bigly trek for me, cuz DICK’S is less than two blocks away from our house. Suzanne has declined any venturing out of the house, until yesterday afternoon when she wanted to do a quick Walmart trip. I gave Suzanne rubber gloves and strict orders for her to touch nothing but the shopping cart. I wore rubber gloves to touch nothing but the products we were buying. That Walmart experience prompted me to institute a new law: SUZANNE IS NOT ALLOWED TO GO ANYWHERE UNTIL THE PANDEMIC IS LONG GONE!
Why is she condemned to the house? Normally, Suzanne is level-headed and level-emotioned at all times, but she had a freakout of gargantuan proportions in Walmart because not all customers were social distancing properly. There weren’t a lot of shoppers there at all, but it seemed like almost every shopper who showed up at that time wanted to cozy up to Suzanne. Suzanne didn’t scream or run like a chicken with its head cut off out of the store. No, she had the kind of bigly meltdown only I could see. Her rubber-gloved hands gripped the shopping cart so tightly I thought I’d have to buy a crowbar while we were there to pry her fingers from the cart. She had a look in her eyes which said, “My head has exploded thrice already, and I no longer know my own name. Get me out of here!” And then, as if to properly punctuate her feelings, there were her eyebrows. Suzanne’s eyebrows tell all to me. As long as Suzanne has eyebrows, she will never fool me about anything. Her eyebrows told me she was seriously scared of COVID-19. Never again on my watch, I decided. I will travel alone for the foreseeable future.
This is Suzanne in her Tyvek work suit, on the job in our house. She has made her hazmat suit more dashing by wearing Bow Tie o’ the Day—at my suggestion, of course.
Last week, Suzanne was working part-time at her office and part-time at home. That’s what she was told to do, so she did it. Earlier this week, she was told to work from home for the foreseeable future. She is now slaving away, six feet from her Ultimate SewingBox, and six feet away from me. When it comes to COVID-19, Suzanne is a bit overly dramatic, if you ask me.
FYI Suzanne is such a good sport. When I ask her if she will help with one of my TIE O’ THE DAY ideas, she’s always game for whatever I’ve thought up. Not once has she ever said NO. Not once has she ever said, “Don’t make me look stupid.”
Well, I admit I’m probably not much more mature than I was. But I am another year older, as of last week. I declare my thanks for all the birthday regards which came my way from y’all. I try to never lose sight of all the kind people who have crossed my path throughout my life. And I mean you, of course, among others. By blessing, by luck, and by accident, I have always found good folks to know. I’ve encountered some mean beings here and there, but I have always tried to keep them at bay from me and the stellar humans I claim as my family and friends. If you believe in kindness and laughter, you are not just a name to me. You are my true clan.
In these photos, I present Bow Tie o’ My Birthday Dinner. Suzanne treated me to dinner in SLC at TABLE X, where our waiter scrounged up a candle for my birthday tiramisu after he heard it was my bday. Also, I liked the light fixture in the restaurant’s bathroom, so here it is for you to see. And finally, note Suzanne’s faces when she’s paying the check at the end of the evening. It looks like it was the teensiest bit painful for her and her debit card. But I’m worth it, she says. After all these years, I’ve still got her completely fooled.
Okay. I think these really are the last photos from our Nashville vacay. It was our last day in N-ville and wood guitar Bow Tie o’ the Day was happy to be out and about in such a city. We had to work to find the Carl Van Vechten Gallery, at Fisk University. GPS let us down the first time we tried to find it. We followed it faithfully to the point when it told us we were 50 feet from the museum—which we clearly were not. We fiddled around with the GPS entry and discovered that in reality, the museum was 2.5 miles away.
We had been wanting to visit this museum before we even left for Nashville, cuz they reportedly have a phenomenal collection of Alfred Stieglitz’s (Georgia O’ Keefe’s hubby) photographs. And they do have such a collection. But I guess it had been on loan to another museum; and although it was now back, it was still crated up downstairs. We were bigly disappointed, but we went through the Terry Adkins exhibit which currently inhabited the Stieglitz photos’ space. Our verdict on the art we saw was “meh.”
You see me here playing around the art offerings. I don’t know what the “antlers” installation was all about, but I come from a huntin’ family, so if they look like antlers, they’re antlers and I’ll take a pic of me “wearing” them. As far as the record label piece of art, the label closest to my right ear is for a song named “Peg Leg Woman.” Sounds like a song which would amuse me to no end.
The timing for our Nashville vacation might have been off for our visit to see the Stieglitz art at the Carl Van Vechten Gallery, but our timing was spot-on for missing the Nashville tornadoes last week. My oldest sister, Mercedes/BT, worries that Suzanne and I somehow violently affect the weather of the places we choose to travel. We went to Nashville—BOOM!—deadly tornadoes right after we left. We went to Dauphin Island, Alabama almost two years ago—BOOM!—Tropical Storm Gordon came ashore a day before we arrived. Remember the rarely-happens, days-long, bigly dump snowstorm in Tucson last year? Yup, I guess that was our doing too, cuz we had a trip planned there for just days later.
I’d like to think I had enough power to alter the planet that much. But I wouldn’t waste such power on weather. Nah, I’d use my power to change things more along the lines of eliminating poverty, illiteracy, hunger, addiction, animal cruelty, and general hate.
Oh, and I’d plop down the Dallas Cowboys and the New York Yankees on their own private island with no technology or chance for rescue—where they would be never be heard from again. Ah, a perfect world. 😇
We went to Nashville about 30 hours after we got home from Valentine’s dinner, so I put these photos aside until now. Rest assured, I will never NOT post about Valentine’s dinner. It’s what I do, so here it is.
Like last year, I chose to wear my candy, conversation hearts Bow Tie o’ the Day for the bigly event. It’s one of my jumbo-sized bow ties, which are especially fun to wear because no one can ignore them.
I was lucky to get Suzanne and I dinner reservations at CURRENT, in SLC. The minute we walked in the door, we were accosted by admirers of my cape and Bow Tie. I always like to give proper credit to Suzanne, as the cape maker of my smashing frocks, so I love for her to be around when I get cape compliments. It’s so much better than just telling her about the accolades I hear when I’m out alone in a cape. Sometimes when I relay a cape compliment I’ve received, I think she doesn’t believe me that her seamstress ability is as eye-catching and successful as I try to express. But she knows how to create a fine cape. If ya wanna cape made, Suzanne is definitely your man.
Once we were seated upstairs for our din-din, Suzanne promptly managed to order a bottle of wine that cost more than dinner. She’s always thoughtful enough to let me smell the adult beverages. I can vouch for the fact that expensive wine has an expensive smell. And the aroma will have to be enough for me.
I ordered an appetizer which was mostly a mystery to me—even after I ate it. I recognized most of the words on its menu description, and I knew from dining at CURRENT in the past that it would show up looking glorious on the plate in front of me. It would be pretty and safe—whatever it was. I can attest that my appetizer had pesto and butternut puree and grilled bread, among other things. It was yummy. Suzanne had the crab bisque, with puff pastry crackers.
You can guess Suzanne had the scallops, and I had the prime rib. Always guess that’s what we had for a fancy dinner, and you’ll be right more often than not.
We didn’t decline dessert, even though we were stuffed. Our desserts were extravagantly pretty too. Mine was called Persian Love Cake, and I can’t explain it except to say I know it was covered in pistachios and fig jam, and at some point I was eating rose petals as part of it. ‘Twas tasty. I was so focused on my own dessert that I didn’t really pay attention to what Suzanne had. It was some kind of chocolate torte. I think.
At some point during dinner, my cheeks got kissed. I’m telling you right now that I did not wash my cheeks that evening. I did not wash the kisses off my cheeks the entire next day either. I finally did wash the lipstick away before we went to the airport to fly to Nashville.
I chose an ice cream bar Bow Tie o’ the Day for our first foray into downtown Nashville. We were touristing in the guts of the city, and I asked Suzanne if there was anything special she wanted to do while we were there. She wanted to go to the symphony.
There’s a plethora of music to be had in Nashville, as we all know. Leave it to Suzanne to have read something about the Nashville Symphony throwing Beethoven a birthday party when we were in town, by performing some of his works. So the first thing we did was score a couple of tickets for a symphonic performance later in the week. For the life of me, I don’t know what got into Suzanne because I can’t drag her to the symphony at home. But we set foot in Nashville for 15 seconds, and suddenly Suzanne was symphony-hungry.
For our evening at the Nashville Symphony, I donned a paw print Bow Tie o’ the Day. It seems I was missing Skitter beyond all reason that day. I knew darn well she was happy being spoiled with a week-long sleeping party at our house with Suzanne’s sister, Marjorie. Still, I missed her, and I knew she would have enjoyed the symphony. Skitter is a devoted listener to all kinds of music, and Beethoven is right up there on Skitter’s List O’ Astounding Composers—right up there with Philip Glass and Lawrence Welk.
