Category: Shirts

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Not-me On Errand Day

Yes, I purposely matched my socks so I’d blend in.
Suzanne seriously cogitates over her decision on a new phone.

Tie o’ the Day couldn’t believe it either. But I tried to tone down my normal clash. I tried very hard to look like everybody else. I’ll explain, but it’ll take me a minute to get to the reason. You see, Suzanne and I had a list of errands we needed to do together on a weekday, so she took the day off yesterday. First, we were off to the credit union to sign some paperwork for our trust and estate planning. That went off without a hitch. Then we were off to the Apple store, so Suzanne could choose a new iPhone. If you’ll remember, in July—on Suzanne’s birthday—I told her I would like to gift her a new phone, but I wanted her to pick out whichever one she wanted. Flash forward to nearly 3 months later, and she was finally ready to make her decision yesterday. She went for the lilac iPhone 14. And then we were off to Verizon to get Suzanne’s new phone hooked up with a line on my account, so I and Suzanne and Rowan and Mom are truly on the same family plan.

Okay. So here’s the part where I finally tell you about why I purposely attempted to blend in yesterday. I knew one of our errands meant we were going to the credit union, and I thought we might have time to start the loan paperwork for my new truck—which really might be here sometime next week. A thing I’ve learned in my life is that what you wear in certain situations makes a bigly difference in how you are treated. If you’re going to the credit union to get a loan to buy your Velocity Blue new Maverick, there’s a better chance the credit union people will give you the money if you don’t look like you just walked in out of a hurricane under the Big Top at a circus—which is probably as good a way as any to describe my normal garb. Yesterday morning when I first got up, I was all set to wear a wood bow tie, my new Lemonhead socks, one of my protest t-shirts, my half-boots, and one of my protest baseball caps. But then I suddenly remembered our errand list. I knew it would not be to my benefit to wear what I had planned to for the day. So I found a pretty, somewhat low-key (for me), long-sleeved shirt. I paired it with a somewhat subdued (for me) Tie o’ the Day. I found a pair of not-loud-colored (for me) Sloggers shoes that didn’t have cows or paw prints, or chickens on them. Most important to my toning my look down a notch, was my decision to wear my pastel orange Bombas socks. It happened: on purpose, I chose to match my socks with my shirt! I knew this would give me the edge at the credit union when it came time for them to approve the truck loan. And I wore the most serious-looking golf cap I own. It does have black in it, after all. Alas! We didn’t even end up dealing with the truck loan yesterday, so I’ll never know if I successfully blended in enough with the other customers at the credit union, in order to achieve my loan approval.

After we got home from our errand-y day, I confessed to Suzanne that I had not been my normal self that day. I had lied with my style. She looked at me quizzically, and I told her about my decision to dress more like normal people and less like my usual clashy kind of normal-for-me attire. When she heard why I dressed down, she squint-eyed, belly-laughed out loud for a good 15 minutes straight. I suppose that meant I didn’t look all that different from how I usually do. I suspected as much. But hey, my confession made Suzanne lose herself in laughter, so my efforts were well worth it.

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Some Hipster Got A New Hip

When I got dressed to pay a visit to my nephew, Brandon, at Davis Hospital this morning, I decided he needed superhero support, so I wore my caped Superman socks and my cartoon BOOM! BANG! POP! BAM! comic book hero shirt. I tried to exude the vibe of superhero strength, which Bray will need for his physical therapy. The birthday balloons Bow Tie o’ the Day I’m wearing in this photo is in honor of his mother—my oldest sister, BT/Mercedes, whose birthday it happens to be. Brandon got a fancy new hip yesterday, and he is in a screaming state of pain today. There was nothing I could do for him beyond trying to distract him from the OUCH he’s going through. Before I left home this morning to head to the hospital, I told Suzanne I’m well aware I’m not a pro at attracting anything but mosquitoes, but I’m a flippin’ expert at the art of distracting. Brandon and I share a lot of personal struggles in common. We had a good, long chat today, which doesn’t happen nearly as often as I would like. In fact, I think the last time we had an extended chat, one-on-one, was when he was in a different hospital a few years ago after having to have the lower part of his right leg amputated. (Bray now makes a spot-on pirate! ) Brandon and I really do need to quit meeting like this. 🏥 🚑 💉

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Over The River And Through The Desert

The grocery bag Mom is checking out is the stash o’ candy we gave her.
Mom and her purple housecoat, earrings, and snowman pin. Again.
Suzanne and Mom talked about something serious which they wouldn’t tell me about, so I know they must have been talking about me. I don’t yet know if I’m in trouble with either and/or both of them.

With all due respect to the recently departed Queen Elizabeth, Queen Helen is NOT dead. We made a jaunt down the road to visit with Mom, and she is as alive as can be. In fact, she’s unstoppable. At some point in our lively conversation Mom mentioned she’s “quite content” to spend time in her room. She says she doesn’t “jingle” like she used to. She quickly corrected her mistake, saying she meant to say “mingle.” Then she went off on a rift about how she’s had a good, long life and she has—in her words—”jingled, jangled, and mingled all over the place.” She kept repeating that she had jingled, jangled, and mingled. I said, “Gee, Mother, you make it sound like you were a stripper!” To which she replied, “And your dad loved it!” Talk about wearing your feelings on the sleeve of your purple housecoat! That’s how Queen Helen rolls.

Mom assured us she’s not ready to die just yet, because she knows exactly where she’s going to go when she does: to Hell, of course, according to no one but her. We told her not to worry because we and Skitter will be there, too, so that works out okay. That got us all talking about sitting around and making s’mores over the fires of Hell, and Mom was all for that. Suzanne reminded us that Hell can be hot, but it can also be “as cold as Hell.” Suzanne said this is a good thing, because we can make those s’mores when we’re in the hot part, and we can eat ice cream when we’re in the cold part. Either way, I’m positive it’ll be nothing less than tasty as Hell. 🔥 🍫 ❄️ 🍦

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The Breakfast Of Champions

An ice cream headache is a good reminder to slow down and smell the ice cream.
This is way yummier than a picture can convey.
It is triple-dog-daring me to eat it all NOW.
And so I did.

Bow Tie o’ the Day can vouch for me that I am not generally a quitter. When I took the lid off the 30-ounce tub of White Raspberry Truffle-flavor Fat Boy ice cream, the message written on the blue safety foil tightly covering it implied that if I were to scoop the ice cream into dish after dish over a series of days, before finishing every last bit of it, I would be labeled a quitter. Like I said—I do not quit. I try to be a woman of solid character. I have a somewhat upright reputation to uphold, and my integrity matters to me. In short, I had no choice when I ripped the blue foil from atop the ice cream but to eat it in one sitting, straight out of the container until it was gone. All of it. I am not a lemming or a sheeple, but—like almost every human being I know—I can usually and easily do what I’m challenged to accomplish when it’s something I already wanted to do in the first place. 😉 🍦

Note: The ice cream headache I had when I snapped my photo was simply necessary collateral damage, resulting from my heroic effort to not be a quitter. You’d think a grown woman who is old enough to belong to AARP would know how to avoid the novice move of incurring an ice cream headache—which I, in fact, do know how to avoid when I am in my right mind. I solemnly declare my bigly ice cream headache was earned by accident, but also on principle. Forgive me—I was temporarily overcome by 30 fluid ounces of delectable chill. I’m pleading “ice cream intoxication” as my excuse for the whole gluttonous affair. But just to be sure that’s what caused my gluttony—in the name of scientific experiment—I think I am obligated to do this implied ice cream challenge again. Y’all know how much I will hate it. 🍨 😏

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This Place Does Not Resemble Me

My ice cream bar Bow Tie o’ the Day was an appropriate selection for when we went to Sunday brunch at Plated Dreams—a new restaurant that opened a month or so ago in Woods Cross. It was our first foray into the place. My pal, Darci, had posted about eating there with her lovey-dovey hubby, Dan. When I saw her photos of their visit, I knew from the decor that it was a Suzanne place we had to try: it is very pink and flowery. There is even a rose-covered retro phone booth, which makes for a nice spot to take a photo. I purposely did not snap a picture of it, so that I can have a really good excuse to go back soon.

The place did not disappoint. I had the Smoked Rainbow Trout Roses, which dish is described on the menu as follows: “Sourdough Bread, Feta Cheese Mousse, Pickled Mustard Seeds, Caramelized Shallots, Puff Baby Capers & Pink Peppercorns, Dehydrated Lemon & Fresh Dill.” I had them add a poached egg on top. Suzanne had the Chef’s Benedict, which came with corn & cheese bread instead of the traditional English muffins. She said it was delicious, but she will order it with English muffins next time. She didn’t like the texture of the corn & cheese bread.

We were too full to eat dessert at Plated Dreams, so we took home four of their decadent-looking dessert offerings to try at our leisure. I’d like to say some of the four confections lasted a full 24 hours, but I cannot say that truthfully. They survived in our house for just under 10 hours. I only got a picture of two of the creations to show y’all because we were dessert piglets and ate the first two treats before I even thought of my TIE O’ THE DAY responsibilities. I am pleased to report they were all yummerrific to the palate. I included a photo here of the kids’ menu because I liked the clever-yet-somehow-perfectly-accurate names of their various kid meals.

BTW Whenever I make reservations at Plated Dreams in the future, I will ask them to seat us in the “Feed me cake and tell me I’m pretty” booth you see behind me. If that booth isn’t available at that time, I will make our reservation for a time when it is.

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I Take Full Responsibility, And I’d Do It Again

Flip-flops Bow Tie o’ the Day has convinced me to come clean about something I have done for decades. I admit it. I did it. A lot. I confess: I have hit my mother almost every summer, more times than I can count. I have hit her with The Chronicle, The Salt Lake Tribune, and my notebook. I have hit her with a flip-flop, a dish towel, and a fly swatter. In fact, I have hit her mainly with fly swatters. To be fair, I have only hit her at her own request—whenever she’s said something along these lines: “Sis, there’s a fly on me and I can’t reach it. Hit it! Hurry!”Mom cannot abide a fly anywhere, especially on her.

At first, I couldn’t swat the fly on Mom hard enough to kill it because I worried I’d hurt her. It is antithetical to everything I am to raise a hand—or fly swatter—to Mom for any reason whatsoever, but when the gentleness of my swatting merely urged the fly to go somewhere else, Mom fussed at me bigly for being tentative and not annihilating the offending fly dead, dead, dead when I had the chance. She gave an order: “If there’s a fly on me, hit me as hard as you need to, but kill that fly!”

I must tell you I have never seen anyone enjoy seeing a dead fly as much as Mom. She relishes it. Seeing a squashed fly with its guts dangling from the head of the fly swatter has always reduced Mom to a primal glee I can barely describe, no matter who killed it. More than once, I have observed Mom so elated about killing an annoying stalker fly in the house that I thought she was going to drive up to Curley’s and dance on the bar in celebration. If I could have, I would have had the head of every fly she ever so happily obliterated mounted and hung on the wall in the family room right by where Dad’s moose, elk, antelope, and deer heads hung in all their taxidermy glory.

And so, over the years of purposely hitting my mother with any available swatting devices, I became a pro at swatting any fly who dared light on Mom—all the way to their flattened deaths, while doing as little damage to Mom as possible. It’s all in the wrist, as they say. I hit Mom for so many summers that I believe it qualifies as a full-fledged family tradition. I hate flies landing on me, too, so I plan to hand down this semi-violent-but-necessary summer tradition. Thus, I will pass down my cherished quiver o’ fly swatters to the next generation—along with the order to kill dead, dead, dead any fly dumb enough to land on me. Mom will be so proud to know the family tradition will live on past us both.

FYI You can never have enough fly swatters. When you see one, buy one. They are like reading glasses. You use both of these items for a few minutes at a time, then you lay them down when you’re done, and then you forget where you last had them. I say, cut to the chase: make sure you have a fly swatter and a pair of reading glasses in every room of the house. It’ll be incredibly useful for weeks or months. Eventually, you won’t be able to find any of the reading glasses or fly swatters in any room, yet again. You’ll lose them all. When it gets to that point, it is a sign it’s time once again for you to clean and organize your house. Some people do “spring cleaning.” I do “reading glasses and fly swatter” cleaning.

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About My Relationship With Books: Part 2

In college and graduate school, whenever I was down to my last few bucks before payday, I often chose to buy a book instead of buying more practical things like socks and bacon. I’m not talking about buying textbooks that were required for my classes. This went beyond necessary books. I’m talking about buying books that could live on my own bookshelves for all time, but were irrelevant to my immediate academic or practical pursuits. It was common knowledge among my peers at that time that I would choose a book over food in almost every instance. For me, it was a no-brainer to buy a book. It wasn’t difficult to skip a meal or two, every once in a while. Yes, I had access to plenty of libraries, but one of my book-reading eccentricities involves my propensity for making notes in the book margins and underlining or bracketing a magnificent word, or a smart point, or a lovely sentence as I read. Libraries tend to frown on the type of collateral graffiti I perpetrate on books as I read, so I learned young that it was better for me—and everyone else involved—if I have my own copy of a book to read.

So how did I acquire food to keep me alive and passing my college courses when I was broke because I bought books instead of groceries? Trust me when I tell you this: Saturdays are a veritable feast of free food at the grocery store. Saturday is the day I could count on there being free samples of food products being offered to—even thrust upon—customers as they made their way up and down the grocery aisles. Of course, technically, I wasn’t shopping. But I assured myself it was okay for me to sample because I was there browsing for items I would be buying when my paycheck hit the bank and I could return to the store with check that wouldn’t bounce. The key to making this food sampling strategy work was to alternate the stores where I grazed. I didn’t want to become “that suspicious customer” who eats all the samples at the same store every Saturday, and who then ends up being trespassed from the premises forever, with the aid of a kindly police officer. On any given Saturday, I’d browse and sample at 1 or 2 grocery stores—whatever it took to get a not-so-balanced meal. The other days o’ the week were trickier. I discovered that pastry shops and delis always had free samples, so they were good targets, though their offerings were meager and not very filling. At least once a week, somebody in my circle invited me to a bbq or party of some kind, and it was okay to just show up empty-handed and leave with some leftovers. It was okay that I couldn’t contribute to the party-at-hand because when I was flush with cash I could be counted on to repay the meal by hosting the bbq or party myself. We were starving students together, but mostly—thankfully—not all at the same time.

The best how-to-get-food-because-I’m-hungry-and-I-bought-a-book-with-my-last-10-dollars-instead-of-food scheme was the funnest for me to carry out. I only had to use it when I was in college. I’d invoke the pretense of a game of scavenger hunt, for which I was the only participant. I’d write out a list of food items to be scavenged. I stuck with the basics, so as to not make it hard for the strangers I would encounter: a piece of bread, an egg, a slice of cheese, an apple, and so forth. I conspicuously carried my list with me to a stranger’s front door, so I looked legit. I’d knock or ring and the innocent soul would open the door. At which time, I’d inform the stranger that as part of a party game, I’d been sent on a scavenger hunt, and I wondered if they might have—and could give me—one or more of the items on my list. I have to say this about the Weber State University-area communities where I lived while getting my degree: nobody ever sent me away empty-handed. And then I’d take my scavenged treasures home to whatever sketchy house or apartment I was living in at the time, and I would build myself a meal—which I would eat while reading a book.

See what I did right there in that last sentence? I organically ended up right back at books, which is exactly where my higher education food trouble originated. (That’s a writer’s trick.)

BTW Keyboard keys Tie o’ the Day reminds us that books have to be written before they can be read.

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The Paperwork That Makes It Work

Purple-striped Bow Tie o’ the Day was on display when we had a second appointment at the attorney’s office, to help us get our when-we-die concerns in order. The process is somewhat lengthy, which seems weird since our “estate” is straightforward except for a couple of things. We don’t have more than one house anymore, and we don’t collect cars or yachts, or stamps or coins. We do not have a fortune in cash locked away in a secret safe hidden behind a picture on the wall—or anywhere else, for that matter. We do have books, but there’s no money in having them. There is value in books, but not money. I doubt anybody we know has the space to adopt the whole bigly herd of slender volumes and bigly tomes we have acquired over the decades. It’s a huge job to look after thousands of books under one roof. We’ll have to do some deep thinking to divvy up the books. We know a ton of readers and I think we have a pretty fair idea of who might be interested in what. Still, it’s sad to think of our books living with other people in the not-too-near future. Yes, it’s the circle of life, but it kind of sucks anyway—to not be alive and reading, in the thick of things on the planet.

And then there is my neckwear circus. Exactly who will inherit the thousands of ties and bow ties I’ve amassed over the decades is an entirely different story. It’ll be challenging to divide them and/or designate them to go anywhere, because I can’t think of anyone who shares my adoration of the critters. Maybe I can get the Guinness Book of World Records people to send somebody to declare my neckwear collection to be the bigliest tie/bow tie menagerie in existence. That could increase the collection’s value, making it worth a tidy bit of pocket change. Rowan could then sell my collection on ebay and make enough money to buy himself a gallon of almond milk and a vegan Slim Jim to eat. Or he could just decide to open up the Tie Room as a museum and charge admission. That ought to be a negligibly lucrative money pit venture. Of course, Suzanne and I will be dead when anything happens to our belongings, so it really won’t be any of our business anymore. And that’s probably a good thing. All we can do is love the stuff we love for as long as we’re here. 📖 👔

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Skitturbing Skittsurdities

So, yeah, as I wrote about last week, I came up with the word “skitturbing” the other day, to accurately describe how it feels when Skitter engages in some of her disturbing eccentricities. I offereded up the example of when she decides to perch like a gargoyle somewhere across the room and she just stares at me for an hour or so. It can only be described as kind of “skitturbing” when she does that. But she does other odd things that need to be described a bit differently. For these less creepy behaviors, I created a combination of “Skitter” and “absurdity,” and came up with the word “skittsurdity.” Skitter commits many “skittsurdities.” The example I and my Bow Tie o’ the Day will regale you with this afternoon has to do with Skitter’s canned food. After Skitter has gone outside to empty her doggie bladder first thing each morning, she jumps up in her bed beside me on the loveseat for her first nap of the morning. I write, I putter, I make calls, I plan for the day. Skitter wakes from her first morning nap around 9, and then she immediately prances over to her food and water bowls to make her official inspection. She samples the water and oh-so carefully surveys her food bowl. It holds some dry dog food, like it always does. It does not contain any of Skitter’s allotted wet food—a serving of which I place on top of her dry food each day at Skitter’s request. What makes the story of Skitter and her wet food result in it becoming a bona fide “skittsurdity” is the fact that although Skitter doesn’t like to eat her wet food until the evening, she will not settle down until she sees her gooey wet food is placed in her bowl in the morning. So she checks her food bowl after her first nap, then paces back and forth in front of me in a highly agitated state, whereupon she returns to her food bowl—again, watching me to be positive I’m watching her—to make sure I understand she is alerting me to the fact that there is no sign of wet food in her food bowl yet. That’s my cue to spoon the correct amount of her wet food into her food bowl—not because she’s hungry and wants to eat it immediately or even soon, but so she can observe it sitting atop the dry food in her food bowl for the entire day. She needs to see it there, just in case she decides she wants it earlier than her normal suppertime when she actually devours it. If the blob of wet food is there, Skitter relaxes and continues her day. Yup, the wet dog food simply sits there silently, for hours before she wants it, like the cherry atop the dry food—so Skitter can check on it at various times during the day. The gushy wet food sits for hours to naturally harden and crustify and stink and change colors before Skitter happily consumes it a couple of hours before she retires to bed. That, my friends, is just one “skittsurdity” in a long list of Skitter’s behavioral “skittsurdities.” I am always glad to find the right word for things—even if it means I have to make them up myself. 🤓

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Brandi Wore A Tie

Last night’s Brandi Carlile concert at Vivint Arena in SLC was a rip-roarin’ tune fest. The Indigo Girls and Celisse were the opening acts. The evening’s combination of superb musicianship and stellar performances was nothing short of amazing. These folks are all compelling songwriters of the highest order. Brandi wore a tie—just for me, I’m sure. It was a loose necklace-type tie which balanced out the ostentatiously sparkly gold sequins of her shirt. (I wore my 3D-printed purple Bow Tie o’ the Evening, which attaches itself by sliding over the top button of my shirt.) Ticketmaster flubbed our ticket order, so instead of the reasonably priced tickets for upper-level seats I had originally ordered, we were given mega-expensive terrific floor seats. We did not complain about it. Sometimes you’ve just gotta roll with the good fortune that system errors can conjure up to your benefit. Especially if it gets you closer to Brandi Carlile’s stage. 🎸 🎹