Bow Tie o’ the Day and I went on a bit of a boring, pre-weekend erranding escapade today, which had nothing to do with shopping for new clothing. But as I erranded—from far across a crowded discount store—I spied out of the corner of my eye, this lonely SpongeBob SquarePants shirt on a clearance rack. You know I had to have it. More specifically, I had to have the embroidered SpongeBob Squarepants with his signature red Tie o’ the Day. Ah, the unmitigated exuberance of running across psychedelic striped attire I can’t possibly ever actually need! I feel like I’m wearing Lucky Charms marshmallows. I so win bigly!
A couple of times a year, Skitter and I get pet-hungry. We sit around on the deck with our popsicles, wondering if it’s time to add a little critter of some kind to the household. I think Skitter needs a kitten. I think she would do well with a baby feline who would curl up with her for naps and nighttime, but otherwise demand absolutely nothing from her. Cats are so good about living their own lives as independent royalty—so separate and above us peons who feed them, change their kitty litter, and keep them supplied with catnip. Cats don’t even pretend to care about anybody but themselves—even though we know they secretly tolerate us. Skitter needs a pet like that: a pet with no needs, except to curl up and snuggle for warmth.
Skitter is usually the one who brings up the possibility of adopting more exotic types of pets, like maybe a chimpanzee or a kangaroo. I suspect Skitter watches National Geographic animal shows when I’m not around, because today she asked if we could get a meerkat. I will give Skitter just about anything she asks for, but I don’t think Centerville is a place a meerkat wold want to live—even with us. We probably could have made that work in Delta, but we don’t own a tumbleweed ranch there anymore.
Skitter and I will talk about pet options for another day or so, and then we’ll move on to another subject. My Bow Tie o’ the Day and Shirt o’ the Day in this photo scream out the kind of pet I’m always angling for. I’m a card-carrying mutt gal. Skitter doesn’t know it yet, but that means she’s a mutt gal too.
My dad occasionally got the urge to make a bigly breakfast for me and Mom—his breakfast “stack,” to be precise. I’d hear him in the kitchen shredding potatoes while I was getting ready for school, and I knew I’d soon be eating a yummy, tower o’ food. The frying would quickly commence. Dad’s stack was simple, but perfect: a little olive oil, hash browns, a fried egg, a thin ham steak or bacon, cheese, more hash browns, and green onions—all stacked up high, in just that order. The stacks grew to precarious heights on our plates. It was the Leaning Tower o’ Breakfast. Dad was so very proud of his creation, which he had seen a chef make once in a nice restaurant on one of his bee trips. It’s just another thing I miss about my dad sometimes. My bacon-and-eggs shirt made me think of it today.
Fashion hint: You cannot go wrong with bacon and eggs. Just like they are appropriate for any meal, at any time of day, I believe you must have at least one bacon-and-eggs-themed piece of clothing or accessory. You can wear it anywhere, and people who see you in it will feel magically calmed and nostalgic. Merely seeing bacon-and-eggs fabric can be hypnotizing—like watching puppies or babies. Bacon-and-eggs anything causes pleasant, homey, and tasty memories for just about everyone.🥓🥚
The first time I looked at swirling Bow Tie o’ the Day against Shirt o’ the Day’s stripes, I literally—and I mean that word correctly—felt the discomfort of going cross-eyed. Now, that’s superlative clash! 🎡 🎢
Tie o’ the Day screams to show y’all the Delta house we had for 17 years. Mom and her Pepsi are with us in this collage snapshot. Suzanne’s holding Skitter. I’m being the tie/bow tie missionary I truly am. And Bernie Sanders stopped by to chat.
Suzanne and I called our Delta house Southfork (as in the tv show DALLAS), and we called it the Desert Beach House. I think of it most fondly as my grandparents’ former house. When I owned it, I thought of it as my own private tumbleweed ranch. I had a serious green thumb for growing all shapes, sizes, and styles of tumbleweeds. The best part about this house is that it was just an easement away from my parents’ home, which came in especially handy after Dad passed away. When we were in Delta, we could keep a protective eye on Mom, without cramping her gallivanting style. Rowan and I spent the bulk of his childhood summers in this house, while Suzanne stayed in Ogden and slaved at the office. She grabbed chunks of time to spend in Delta whenever she could get away from work. Rowan got the benefit of growing up by my parents and surrounded by my grandnieces and grandnephews. Our summer porch was always full of Mom, and kids, and bubbles, and root beer floats. Oh, and the porch was home to buckets of sidewalk chalk for creating miles of kid art to behold. I am proud to say that no self-respecting kid ever walked off our porch clean. 🏖
You are not seeing this post on the wrong day, and I have not gone back in time. I guess I just didn’t get enough of St. Patrick’s Day this year. I think the green is out of my system now.
Hey! I got my CT scan results back from the radiologist today. Unfortunately, it’s written in Doctorese, so I need my surgeon to translate it into Patientese for me. That appointment is set for April, so… I hurry up and wait. But from what I can interpret of the CT’s report, somewhere on some part of what’s left of my pancreas is calcifying. I hate when that happens. It’s not a good finding, but for all I know it’s a minor thing that can be fixed relatively simply. I refuse to get ahead of myself and start worrying about the negative possibilities. Like I’ve said before, worrying is Suzanne’s job. I’ll wait to see what the doctor says.
I remembered something that happened when I was at my Hanky Panky doctor’s last month, where someone was helping me make the appointment for the CT scan appointment I just had. She was holding my file when she wrote something on a Post-It note and stuck it inside the file. I didn’t think too much about her writing a note about me, but while she was on the phone, my eye caught sight of the note. I read the two words: “Fart trash.” I was immediately embarrassed to think that perhaps I had unknowingly passed some gas and everyone but me knew it. How could I not know if I had done that? And it must have been distinctly horrific if this woman felt she had to write a note about it and put it in my medical file. I tried to hide in my chair. I figured I better let her just schedule my scan and get the Heck Tate out of Dodge as quickly as possible.
So the woman’s on the phone, arranging my CT scan and I hear her say to whoever is on the other end of the line, “She needs to be put on the CT fast track list. The fast track.” It took me a second, but then it hit me. The woman had not scribbled “fart trash” in my file, accusing me of creating indoor air pollution. It’s just that her handwriting was so illegible I couldn’t read the two words, “fast track,” correctly. I was elated to know I had caused no olfactory harm to anyone—I merely needed a fast track CT scan, as in ASAP. I was relieved to know I’m not Fart Trash, after all—I’m just the same redneck White Trash I was always meant to be, otherwise inoffensive to the nose.
I don’t think Suzanne and I have been out on a Friday night adventure since the pandemic began, so when the soonest appointment I could get for my CT scan was an evening appointment last Friday, I took it. My CT scan at 8:30 PM was the perfect chance to finally go out on the town. And since it was an evening affair, I chose to treat it as a formal “black tie” soiree. (Note my black sequined Face Mask o’ the Evening.) Unfortunately, we didn’t go to dinner. I had to fast before my scan, and we had to get right back home after the scan because Skitter had been colicky and spitting up all day. Indeed, after I fasted, then drank two bottles of the CT scan goop, then had the CT, my reward when I returned home was to clean up the urp in Skitter’s crate. It was still a Friday night and I was dressed up, so I cleaned up after poor Skitter while still wearing my formal Bow Tie o’ the Day.
I got dressed, donned my golf-themed Face Mask o’ the Day and my boggy green Bow Tie o’ the Day, took this selfie, then immediately changed back into a clean pair of pajamas. Yup, that’s it. Since I gave up drinking green beer, that’s pretty much how I celebrate St. Paddy’s Day. 🍀😜
So yesterday morning, before Skitter and I got in the car to make our pilgrimage to Millard Care And Rehab to visit Mom, Suzanne told me she liked my shirt but she said it kinda hurt her eyes, too. I considered changing into a less busy shirt, because I didn’t want my attire to cause injury to Mom’s old, old eyes. Ultimately, I didn’t change it, and one of the first things Mom said to me when she saw me was, “I like your shirt.” I told her what Suzanne had said about it earlier, and Mom said, “Well, if it bothers my eyes to look at your shirt, I’ll just quit looking at it.” Mom is a very sensible gal.
As Skitter and I made our way through the halls of MCR to get to Mom’s room, the staff was quick to welcome us back to the facility. And I was quick to give them our family’s thanks for their quality care of Mom during the pandemic. They kept her safe and engaged, and we never doubted they would. Indeed, when I walked into Mom’s room, she was alert and chatty. When I first hugged her, she seemed smaller and more fragile than when I hugged her last. It was like hugging a bird—but I’m sure that was mostly because it had been so long between hugs.
The window in Mom’s room gives her a clear view of people going into, or out of, the care center. She can also see the ambulance pull up to the ER at the hospital across the way. She especially enjoys watching the medical helicopter come and go. Mom and I sat on Mom’s bed talking and watching the world doing its thing outside her window. Mom was captivated by the construction guys working on the hospital roof. We laughed as they took turns coming down the ladder to use the port-a-potty in the parking lot. For a moment, it felt like she and I were sitting on The Porch again—Mom holding court and scattering her spunkiness and opinions everywhere within ear-reach.
As an added bonus for Mom yesterday, her friends, Dot and Roberta, drove past her window, as if on cue, and I managed to flag them down. They were gracious enough to stop and come over to Mom’s window so she could see them up-close. The three of them yelled greetings to each other through the window glass. (Oh, and Mom made me lift Skitter up to the window, so she could introduce The Skit to her good friends.) Dot and Roberta were cackling when they left, and so were we. Mom beamed at her almost-back-to-normal day as a resident of MCR. She can’t wait to go on MCR drives again, and she mentioned wanting to get back to playing BINGO with the other residents, too. I reminded her she will probably have to be patient a little longer, and she reminded me how much neither of us Helen’s likes to be patient.
My fave-rave moment of yesterday was a classic, comedic Mom moment. I nursed my bottle of Diet Coke and Mom had Pepsi in her cup as she and I chatted. Yup, we were drinkin’ together again. At some point, Skitter—who sat right up against Mom’s leg throughout the entirety of our visit—started sniffing at Mom’s cup. Quick-witted as ever, Mom feigned horror and said, “Skitter! You don’t want to drink that! That’ll get you drunk!” It caught me by surprise, and I admit I snort-laughed at Mom and the idea that she would spike anyone’s drink—let alone her own. I asked her what the Hell-en she spiked her Pepsi with, and where did she hide it, because I wanted some too. We kidded back and forth about that for a while, and at some point I said she should tell me where her booze was so we could get Skitter drunk, and put it on YouTube and get rich. I told her she was being stingy, and that I didn’t know how she was raised, but that my mother sure as Hell-en raised me to always share my liquor with the people I love.
What a bigly splendid day it was, in Mom’s little room! I can’t wait for our next visit.
