It has been a busy couple of days. A Snoopy Christmas tree Bow Tie o’ the Day will keep me in the proper spirit for yet another day of being Ms. Fix-it around the house and beyond. Our printer died a while back, and the new one showed up on the doorstep, whereupon I had to get the heavy thing into the house and up the stairs and onto the printer table. It was a two-person job, so I pretended to be two people. It is now sitting in its rightful place, waiting to be connected to all our electronic gadgets. That is one of today’s tasks. I’m at a stand-still with the end table I began assembling two days ago, because the “clear” instructions are opaque, to say the least. I’m still working on it. And last week, both of my hearing aids went kaput. I’ve been hearing only the low murmur of the world around me for an entire week. Because of the T-giving holiday, the first appointment I could get with my hearing doc is in 20 minutes. Thus, I must end here and now, in order to get there on time. Later, y’all.
Yup, we went to BAMBARA again this year for our Feast o’ Thanks. It was chilly enough outside that I brought out my Suzanne-made wintry cape for Thanksgiving 2022. I went with a Tie o’ the Day festooned with a prominent pumpkin pie. I am including a picture of the menu, so you can see how yummified our eats were. And everything brought to our table was superior. I was partial to the dessert, of course. Suzanne and I were both pleasantly surprised by the tart green beans. Suzanne chose what turned out to be, according to her face, a do-over bottle of a Riesling wine. She granted me permission to smell her filled glass, and even from merely sniffing, I could tell the wine would have a splendid taste. For my part, I drank four Diet Cokes throughout dinner. I swear I felt a bit tipsy.
As we were finishing up and getting ready to leave, Suzanne gave me a look, and I gave her a look. We had been thinking the same thing at exactly the same time. She whispered it first: “I want us to buy that guy’s Thanksgiving dinner.” I told her I was just going to propose the same thing to her. There was a guy sitting a few tables from us, eating all alone. He looked really, really alone. And so we paid for his meal and left before he was informed someone already paid his check. We hope it perked him up.
Suzanne came home from work one day recently and I said, “Suzanne! I just got the ugliest golf shirt ever! You’ve got to see it!” When I showed her this Shirt o’ the Day, she was gobsmacked. She was stricken and pale. I could see the nausea take over her face. “Isn’t it cool?” I beamed! I knew the shirt would go with ALL of my golf pants. In the first photo, you will note that I have pulled up my pants to old-man-in-a-hat level, as high as I could pull them up. A while back, I ordered a new Thanksgiving Tie o’ the Day. Unfortunately, the tie material had been cut such that there is not one headed turkey displayed on the front of the tie. On the back of the tie, however, turkey heads abound. Hey, it’s a look. 🦃
I thought it was appropriate to wear a book-themed Tie o’ the Day—and my book-y Face Mask o’ the Day to add extra emphasis to this post. When I began writing about the banning of books from public and school libraries last evening, I was struck with a case of the opposite of writer’s block: the post I began writing kept getting longer and longer, and it’s still flowing through my pen this afternoon. Rather than offer my thoughts in one bigly post, it’s clear I’m going to have to chop up what I’m writing into a handful of posts, over the next few days starting Monday.
So today I offer you this one small section of my thinking. I have noticed in the recent blathering of a few very small-but-loud groups, books about the LGBTQ experience and books written by LGBTQ authors are a main target for removal from public/school libraries. (On Monday, I’ll explain in a more personal post why that’s a literal death sentence for LGBTQ kids.) But for right now, for those of you who might think books by LGBTQ authors and illustrators are pornographic just because of who wrote them or the subject matter, I am assigning you to purify your home library. If you have children’s books in your home, you definitely want to start in your own back yard—so to speak—to get rid of any children’s book written by the following LGBTQ authors: Margaret Wise Brown (The Runaway Bunny, Goodnight Moon); Ian Falconer (a number of the Eloise books); James Howe (the Bunnicula series); Ann M. Martin (the Babysitters Club books); James Marshall (the George And Martha series, as well as Miss Nelson Is Missing); Arnold Lobel (the Frog and Toad books); Maurice Sendak (Where the Wild Things Are); and Louise Fitzhugh (Harriet the Spy). Hilary Knight illustrated Kay Thompson’s Eloise books, and the Miss Piggle Wiggle series). For an older child, you’ll also need to ban Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. She was not straight. And trust me—this list of LGBTQ authors of children’s books is just a small selection, off the top of my head.
Of course, I need to be clear. I made that assignment to book banners facetiously. The assignment is ridiculous. These books are staples of children’s early years. They belong wherever children are. But they have also been created by people who book banners think don’t deserve to have their work end up residing in public/school libraries. Those who would ban books would rather pretend LGBTQ people don’t exist, than learn about their stories and the struggles they face. The book banners would rather stay in their fear of what they don’t know than understand their fellow human beings who aren’t cookie cutter versions of themselves.
Today, as a preface to the next few TIE O’ THE DAY posts, I leave you with this CAUTION about reading. Reading books that aren’t about people exactly like you, might lead you to understand that those people are every bit as human and precious as you are. Just like they are precious to God. If you read about others, you might gain a rare thing called empathy. You might learn to let go of your fear— which is where hate comes from. You might enlarge your soul. And, like the Grinch, your heart might grow 3 sizes in one day. 📚
When I was ordering my truck in 2021, Suzanne piped up and said, “We’re ordering the heated seats!” I saw no reason to go the luxury route, but it was a must-have for her. I teased her while we waited, and waited, and waited for the truck to be built that waiting for Ford to get the parts for the heated seats was what was holding up the truck’s production for so long—and I’m still convinced it was. If she hadn’t wanted us to order the luxury package, I have no doubt my truck would have been here a couple of months after I ordered it, instead of the 10 long months it actually took to be built. Suffice it to say, Suzanne’s fave things about Abra are the heated seats and the heated steering wheel. I am learning to appreciate the fancy extra heat. As for me, the first time I drove the truck, I had no idea my seat heat was already turned on. Suddenly my butt was warming up. I felt as if I had accidentally peed my pants. It felt like when you have an MRI and the technician injects that contrast or whatever. They tell you it will make your whole body feel warm and might even make you feel like you’ve peed yourself. Yup, that’s how it felt. Wow! Just WOW!
Oddly, my fave thing about the truck so far is the little dial on the center console that I must turn in order to change gears. It’s just so funky. I also like that every person who has ridden in the back seats has commented on how spacious it feels. It seems I can please my backseat drivers without even trying, so maybe they’ll quit trying to tell me how to drive from back there. I also like that Abra gets nearly 30 miles per gallon, which is why I chose to wear my fuel pumps Tie o’ the Day for this selfie. Also, if I’m listening to music on my phone when I get in the truck, the music immediately and automatically switches over to Abra’s speakers. Yup, regarding my Maverick, I’m a spoiled and happy girl. Abra is a valued member of our family.
When I was driving us home last weekend, Suzanne told me that when no other cars are around, I drive as if I learned to drive out in the desert, with lots of space—which, of course, I did. She said I drive like a farmer. She says I make wide turns and I sort of mosey along, mostly in the right lane. I do not deny any of this. When no other cars are around, I tend to meander. But I do disagree with the farmer comparison. I corrected Suzanne: I drive like a beekeeper. Not that it is really all that different from driving like a farmer. But I am proud of my coverall-wearing, bee veil-hatted, apiarian agriculture way of driving. It is part of who I am. Call me a hick if you feel so inclined. I won’t take that as an insult. 🐝 🚜 ⛽️ 👩🌾
NOTE: Unbeknownst to me, even as I posted about our recently put-together banned books puzzle earlier this week, yesterday I saw an article in this week’s Millard County Chronicle Progress about a Millard School Board meeting where there was talk of banning certain books from the Delta High School library. I was disgusted. My next post will revisit the consequences of book banning. It is, believe it or not, a matter of life and death: kids can literally die when so-called “bad” books are made unavailable to them. And that is not an exaggeration. Stay tuned for a difficult fact or two, as well as some personal anecdotes I never planned to divulge. But it’s time for me to do my tiny part to help defend books.
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.
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.
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.
Suzanne, Rowan, and I spent most of Saturday in Delta for Oakley’s funeral and burial. We ended our day there with a visit with Mom. Mom had been able to attend the funeral, but was glad to be back home at the care center. (I will write more about our visit with Mom in another post.) In honor of Oakley, I tried to pack as much purple into my wardrobe as I could, including Bow Tie o’ the Day. Even my socks and shoelaces were purple. When I commit, I am true.
I’m taking a deep breath this morning. Oakley was privately and publicly honored over the weekend, and then her body was laid to rest near family. Last week was a constant shock—of loss, and breakdown, and gutting through every moment. I can only speak for how it seemed to me, but it felt like, from one minute to the next, family and friends were alternating between being supportive to each other and being supported by each other. Now, we are supposed to get back to normal. We are supposed to go back to business as usual. But the thing about the idea of “normal” is that there is no such thing. There never was. Things are always changing, always in flux. Movement in time and space is the way all of this works. Change is the constant. Last week, in barren grief, time seemed to stop for our family. But we were the ones standing still. We stood as witnesses to Oakley’s earthly dance, and we applauded her as she entered into the eternal present she now inhabits. Today, we are again tasked with finding our momentum. We are left to choreograph our own dances. We are left to interpret the moves Oakley taught us while she was with us. I will tell you this: If you did not learn something about life’s dancing from our Oakley, it’s only because you didn’t know her.
