Gustav Klimt-inspired Bow Tie o’ the Day and I drove Suzanne to yet another doctor appointment. This time, Suzanne was having a procedure done on some nerves to alleviate pain in her back and neck. Let me be clear: It’s not that we like going to doctors and have tried to make a hobby of it. And it’s not that our ancient bodies are falling apart right before your eyes. Nah, we are relatively healthy, “seasoned” gals who have good insurance, and—thanks to my mountain o’ medical bills this year—we have met our yearly out-of-pocket insurance deductibles. Therefore, it now behooves us to take care of all the bigly and little medical issues we need to address—at no extra cost to us—before the end of the year. Come January 1st, the medical insurance deductibles start over. The first day of the new insurance year is always a wistful day when your medically mortal body is almost as old as pyramid-entombed mummies, like ours are.💀☠️
Yes, I’m wearing the same Bow Tie o’ the Day and full garb as yesterday, because the photo of me really is from yesterday. Suzanne had to have out-patient foot surgery. While we were at the surgical center, I noticed this sign. I said to myself and Suzanne, “Whew! For a couple of reasons, that sign is of no concern to us. Thank goodness!”
Suzanne’s foot surgery went well, as far as we can tell for now. In this second photo—which is from today—you can see Suzanne “sleep-cuperating” on the love seat with Skitter’s aid. (There’s a tiny sliver of the love seat left for me at Skitter’s side.) As part of the surgery, Suzanne had to have a screw put in her hoof. Now, whenever Suzanne fusses at me about something, I can defend myself by replying, “Suzanne, you don’t even know what you’re talking about. Before you say one more thing to me, you better check on your foot—because I think you have a screw loose.” 😜 That will save me exactly once.
Striped Bow Tie o’ the Day and I are aware that growing older can sometimes be jolting. More often than not, growing older means making a series of unanticipated small adjustments. Take closed captioning, for example. You know it’s a service that lives somewhere there in your television’s settings, but you never think about it. You go decades without ever contemplating turning the CC setting to ON. Think about how many televisions you’ve owned in your adult life, and then think about how many of them you turned on the CC for. I’m guessing most of you folks have never used that service. A few of you older ladies and gentlemen might admit that the CC on your current tv gets some use. I certainly never imagined I’d be using CC, but now I freely admit that I always have the CC setting on, and CC it’s on all 3 of our tv’s. It’s a godsend for me. But using it happened sort of by accident. And it’s just another thing in my life that is all Mom’s fault.
A few years ago, each time Mom would stay with us, we noticed we had to consistently crank up the tv volume in order for her to hear what was happening on screen. Adding to the noise pollution in the living room was the fact that Mom and I were always having a conversation over the tv sound. One evening Mom was sitting on the couch and Suzanne and I were siting on the love seat watching who-knows-what on the turned-way-up tv. Mom and I were loudly chatting/yelling up a storm about some relative or other, and I turned to say/yell something to Suzanne. OMGolly! Suzanne’s face was frozen by all the Mom/me/TV noise. She was pale and petrified. She was afraid to move. I quickly diagnosed her problem. I got really close to Suzanne’s ear and calmly said, “Run for the stairs. Go up to the bedroom and close the door. Don’t come down until Mom’s asleep and there is no noise except her snoring.” That’s when I knew something had to be done. Mom wouldn’t consider getting hearing aids. So I found the CC setting, and turned it to ON whenever Mom visited. I still had to yell slightly to talk to Mom, but I didn’t have to out-yell the too-loud tv, so Suzanne’s ears didn’t get injured enough to make her catatonic anymore.
As my own hearing sputtered with age, and after one of Mom’s later visits with us, I left the CC setting to ON for a week or so. I found I liked it. We’ve had it on for years now. Between my hearing aids and the closed captioning, the tv volume is able to be in a normal range. I tell you this long story of CC because—for some unknown reason—for the past two weeks, the CC on my tv is discombobulated on one of its lines. In between working properly, it gives basically the same wrong “translation” over and over, no matter what is said on the tv: “Hmm, 1 des0erate need.” It does it on every channel, no matter what I’m watching. At first, I thought, “Oh, goody! It’s a secret code for me to figure out.” Then it just got annoying.
And so I’m griping. I’m not griping about being old enough to find comfort in the joys of closed captioning. I’m griping that this service I never dreamed I would ever need is not working. I made the adjustment of letting myself come to count on it, and recently I can’t. It gives me a headache to go back and forth between the correctly captioned words and then the stoopid “Hmm, 1 des0erate need.” I’ve had to jack up the tv sound again. I’m sure it’s a temporary thing, and CC will be back to normal soon. But until then, every once in a while, I swear I can hear my own voice in my own head turn very crotchety and spoiled and dramatic, and say, “They need to fix this right this minute. Don’t they realize how many of us old farts depend on CC? This is not fair.” Yeah, cuz malfunctioning closed captioning is the bigliest problem in the whole wide world right now.📺🤓
Suzanne and I drink a lot of flavored water. It’s almost like a hobby. We have a bigly stockpile at all times. We don’t keep it all on hand in case of catastrophe. We simply go through it relatively quickly because we like it, and we don’t want to be caught with no water on the pantry shelves when we’re parched. We each like different brands and different flavors, and I dare say we have become rather snooty about which flavored waters we will drink and which waters we will turn up our noses to. In fact, we are so into our flavored water that yesterday we packed up a little cooler filled with flavored water from our fridge, and took it on our drive to a Walmart in South Jordan. We drank water all the way there. While there, we replenished our flavored water hoard to the tune of somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 cases of water. After we had finished buying the water and loading it in the car, we opened up our little cooler, took out a bottle and a can, and each drank our fave flavored waters—drinking water and crying “wee, wee, wee,” all the way home.
Since TIE O’ THE DAY will be without my full services for a couple of weeks after my surgery this coming Thursday, I’ve asked Suzanne and Skitter to assist me temporarily. I’ve been training them about the in’s and outs’s of doing my posting job on the tblog—so y’all won’t miss my adventures at Huntsman and whatever my first few days of recovery are like. (If you have surmised that I have already selected and packed the neckwear I’m taking to the hospital for my week-or-so-long stay, you are correct.)
Skitter will likely do most of the writing for the posts, while Suzanne will take over the photography duties. Suzanne is a fine taker o’ pictures. We’ve had a couple of her “Spain” photographs framed and hung on the walls for decades. I’m currently schooling her about how to properly take TIE O’ THE DAY photographs. She got the shot right in only one of these two pix of me getting ready to enter the bigly doughnut for my CT scan yesterday. You see, the number one rule of shooting TO’TD photos is to make sure the tie/bow tie is visible in each shot for readers to see. The neckwear must always be a star. The first picture you see here follows this rule, while the second one doesn’t cut the TIE O’ THE DAY mustard. However, Suzanne’s a super-smart gal, so I’m confident she’ll figure out how to follow the main TO’TD snapshot rule.
With only a week until my surgery, I find myself being busier than ever with tidying up and doing errands—so I won’t have to worry about life around the house running smoothly while I’m out of commission for a few weeks.
Today, Bow Tie o’ the Day and I had to drive to Farmington Health Center to pick up the contrast goop I must drink tomorrow morning before my pre-surgery CT Scan at 10:30 AM. Tomorrow, after my scan, I drive to Huntsman Cancer Hospital to meet with my Cranky Hanky Panky surgeon. After that appointment, I will head to the lab, where I will have to give a river of blood to the lab personnel so they can assess whatever it is they have to assess before I can get cut open properly next week. And when I finally get back home from SLC tomorrow afternoon, my doctor-y day still won’t be done. I will have to flip open my laptop in order to have a virtual appointment with my ERCP doctor, so I can get his pre-surgery input. It’s gonna be a long medical Friday for me. Fortunately, my better half is taking off work tomorrow to be by my side while I do all these have-to-do’s I don’t want to do at all. Having Suzanne with me guarantees that we will both be just fine.
I donned a blue-polka-dotted orange Bow Tie o’ the Day and Skitter was wearing her avocados Tie o’ the Day (which you can’t see cuz it’s covered by her blankets in this photo), and we headed to Delta to see Mom last Friday. Suzanne managed to get the day off work, so she drove us to our destination.
When we got to the care center, folks were getting on the center’s little bus for a short outing. I could see Mom was already in the front seat, ready to see the sights. She had no idea we were there. I could have caught the group before they headed out, but since the pandemic began, the Millard Care and Rehab residents haven’t ventured out until recently. I did not want to keep Mom from a drive with her current neighbors, so Suzanne and I said to each other at the very same time, in almost the same exact words, “While we’re waiting for Mom to come back from her ride, we should go to Mom’s Crafts!” Mom’s Crafts is Suzanne’s idea of Heaven. Because Suzanne always spends a lot of $$$ there, Mom’s Crafts is also my idea of a depleted bank account.😜 So Suzanne bought a ton o’ fabric, and we both got to say “howdy” to Kyla. Mom’s Crafts is always a good time. Even Skitter was grooving about it. Skitter told me she wants Suzanne to teach her to sew, so she can shop for her own fabric at Mom’s Crafts and make her own doggie blankets. It’s gonna be a long and interesting winter, I can tell.
When we returned to the care center, the bus was already there, and Mom was already inside the building sitting with a pal at her table in the facility’s new fancy dining room. What a great space! I didn’t see Mom’s face as we were walking in her direction, cuz I was wrangling Skitter across the room and through the other residents, but Suzanne said Mom’s whole face beamed when she saw me. I was wearing my mask, and Mom had no idea I have shaved my head to the nubs, but she still managed to recognize me. I am always glad for that. It is something so basic, but it has become incredibly important to me now. I need Mom to know me. (So far, it was only that one instance when she didn’t recognize my voice on the phone.)
In Mom’s room, Skitter jumped up on her bed and curled right into Mom like she always does. Mom absentmindedly stroked Skitter throughout our visit, as is her usual way. Mom was in high spirits, as she always seems to be. She says she’s sleeping well—”like a log”— and she’s snoring well. This is true. She says she is in no pain. This used to be true until quite recently. But it’s not true anymore, and she will not admit it. She maintains her playfulness and penchant for humor. But she is also quieter than I have ever known her to be. We left her a stash of peanut butter Snickers and candy corn pumpkins. Mom is beyond pleased when we pretend on occasion that she doesn’t have to watch her sugar. 😉 We can’t wait for our next visit with her.
I cannot be left to my own whims. Suzanne is going to be perturbed at me—or at least shocked. The handful of times in my life when I have felt the urge to get my head shaved, I have always gone with the #2 comb guide on the clipper. Today, while driving to my hairs appointment, Bow Tie o’ the Day whispered into my hearing aids, “Do something different. Try the #1 comb.” I thought to myself, “That’s something I’ve never done. It sounds like a dandy plan.” Like I always say, it really is okay to do some things just because you have never done them before. And so, when I greeted Miss Tiffany (isn’t she a cutie!?) at her new workspace, I told her to throw the #1 comb on the clippers. You can see that’s exactly what she did. I am fully aware it is not my best look, but I’m already glad I did it. It feels a lightyear different than the #2 comb shave. My head hairs now feel so not-there, and I can’t begin to accurately explain how interesting it feels to rub my own head. My hair feels like semi-soft sandpaper! My head is Velcro! Also, when I swam in the pool with this hairdo, I felt like I swam with all the speed and grace of a streamlined torpedo. I might, however, need to invest in a wig before Suzanne gets home from work and discovers what I have done. I am—as always—her cross to bear. It is true: I can’t take me anywhere.
I’m wearing my in-the-doghouse Tie o’ the Day, which faithful readers of TIE O’ THE DAY will know means I’m in trouble with Suzanne. I should probably wear this tie a lot more often than I do, but I save it for when I’m so far in the doghouse that I’m digging said doghouse a new basement.
It happened like this: Yesterday morning, I came downstairs where Suzanne was sitting at the kitchen table. I proudly and forcefully announced to her, “I’m preparing to die!” I knew the minute the words fell out of my mouth that I had made a bigly miscalculation. Suzanne, the family’s official worrier, was in no mood for me to be ironic and otherwise jokey about my demise.
All I meant by my announcement was that I have a month to get my house in order before surgery—in case. I’m not worried about the “in case,” but I do think it’s always wise to keep the “in case” of a situation in consideration. It would be irresponsible not to.
I’ve “prepared to die” plenty of times before in my life, and Suzanne has always laughed along with me when I mentioned it. When you’re going to move into a different abode, for example, an efficient way to prepare for the move is to think like you’re getting ready to die. You prioritize. You assess all the crap you have, then you get rid of what you know you don’t need anymore. You throw junk away. You donate stuff. You decide to give certain things to people you know might love them like you used to. You get your important papers organized and filed in such a way that someone else can find them if they need to. You make sure the bills are paid early. You thoroughly clean the house. That’s all I meant about preparing to die.
Heck, I even used this prepare-to-die thinking before my prior surgery, and I don’t recall Suzanne having a problem with my terminology or behavior back then. For whatever reason, she’s a bit more touchy about my operation this time around. So I’m in the doghouse. I can respect that. I can also make sure I don’t make any further dramatic, facetious death announcements or let her see me getting rid of clutter that once mattered to me, but no longer does. I will have to prepare to die in secret this time. In case.
Disco ball Tie o’ the Day was my choice for an outing we took Saturday to R. C. Willey. For Suzanne’s birthday a few week’s ago, I told her to pick out a rug — any rug she wants — for the living room and that would be my birthday gift to her. She knows I am not a rug person, and I know she is very much a rug person. In fact, rugs might be the bigliest topic on which we are divided. I think I can coexist with rugs more easily than Suzanne can live without them, so I will bend on this matter.
Anyhoo… So, knowing that she would want to haul off to the new R. C. Willey in Layton, I went to their website. I scrolled through their whole selection: 304 different rugs (not including shag rugs). I put three rug possibilities in my virtual “shopping cart” for later reference. I thought each of them would “work” with our flooring. One of them was red and had Suzanne written all over it. If I had gone to pick out a rug for her myself, it’s the one I would have brought home. But, hey, it’s her gift, so it’s hers to choose.
At R. C. Willey, we were each going through every hung rug they had. I finished going through them before Suzanne was done, so I was getting ready to wander off while she made her choice. I went to her to tell her I was off to check out other sections of the store, and she said, “I found this rug I want to show you. It’s red.” “Show me,” I said. Oh, you know where this is heading. I looked at the rug, pulled out my phone with its virtual shopping cart, and said, “See. It’s the first one I picked out for you.” Yes, we know each other that well. It’s true that I could have saved a lot of time by ordering the rug and having it delivered when I first saw it, but saving time is not always the point. Spending time is sometimes the point. That’s how you get to know someone so well in the first place.
BTW I will post a pic of the red rug after it’s delivered in a couple of weeks.
