Bees Tie o’ the Day is a fitting accessory to my new honeycomb Shirt o’ the Day. I grew up playing around bees. The fact that in my late teens I developed an allergy to bee stings did not diminish my admiration for the buzzing insects that paid my family’s bills, nor did my allergy quell my taste for occasionally grabbing a frame of comb from a hive and barehandedly pulling out a chunk of the honey-filled wax to gnaw on. I still maintain that honey-filled comb straight out of the hive is the most succulent honey you can possibly eat. However, I do not recommend that you simply go find a beehive and stick your hand in to get a taste. No, that’s a recipe for a thousand bee stings to the body of any untrained honey thief. If you decide to try it anyway, please let me know the “where” and the “when” you’ll be attempting the daring feat, because I would love to be there to watch when you end up screaming like a toddler as you run crazily from an angry cloud of bees you will not be able to shake. I will, of course, kindly call the ambulance for you as I watch you spasm with each new sting, in your failed honey thievery. 🐝
[This is a repeat of a post from July 2020. The garbage disposal has been colicky since Sunday, so my day is about to be all plumber-y. It reminded me of this post. ]
Red and white Tie o’ the Day dresses up as the Delta Water Tower, with the aid of our water heater. The red “D” reigns, no matter what town I take off my cowboy boots in.
We’ve lived in our Centerville house eight years. It was new when we moved in. Guess what time it is? Time for the house and whatever came with it to need some little tweaks. Last week, the ice maker in the fridge simply stopped making ice. No smoke, no sputtering, no subtle dying creaks. It made ice, then it didn’t. Enter, the refrigerator repairman. He tinkered around in the guts of the freezer door, but he could find nothing wrong. Exit, the repairman and his fee. He must have done something though, because the ice maker is making ice now. It must have just wanted some attention from someone who understood it. Go figure.
And then there’s the plumbing. When the master bath shower is first turned on, there is a growing rumbling o’ the pipes throughout the house. I was outside on the morning of the 4th of July, and I could hear the pipes grumble when Suzanne got in the shower. The outside world should not have to hear our pipes. Also, the water pressure in the shower is almost zero. Lately when I shower, I feel like I’m standing under a rain cloud that drops rain one raindrop at a time. Dribble, dribble.
So I spent most of Wednesday watching the plumber do whatever he needed to do. A bigly bill later, and the pipes haven’t grumbled again. The water pressure in the shower is now restored. Victory! Almost. There are still a couple of water issues Suzanne’s not satisfied with, so I’ll be hosting the plumber again soon. I am a writer by trade. But I know my real job is to keep Suzanne happy—even with the plumbing.
Enjoy a few more book-y memes this afternoon. In the photos, you’ll note I made my magnetic Bow Tie o’ the Day out of a couple of my pens and a spare ink refill. I can easily utilize these tools to write what I hope will one day be my million-dollar book of bipolar poetry. 📖 🖊 💵 🤓
Anyhoo… Well, it had to happen sometime. And, coincidentally enough, it happened today: a day on which my morning TIE O’ THE DAY post was book-related. I was hard at work putting a stack of books away, when I ran out of book space on our Stairway to Heaven, which is what we call our artsy stair-rail “bookcase.” I could not fit one more book into the stacks. Luckily, I found a corner of space in the bedroom to put the books that did not fit on the stairs. But I was sad the stair shelves were full. It’s been a cool point of interest our house that visitors seem to fawn over. Some guests relax on the stairs and spend time reading book titles and flipping through whatever books catch their eyes. They are envious we thought of creating such a thing.
Ever since we bought the house, we’ve talked about having a bookcase built in across an entire wall of the living room. For various reasons we have not had it constructed yet, but perhaps now that the stair bookshelf is full, Suzanne will decide it’s finally time. I have a feeling we have put off finding a contractor to build it because when she and I have talked about what it should look like, our visions of how the shelves need to be has not exactly been the same. I want the wall o’ shelves to be simple straight lines, no doors or glass or anything ornate about it. The books will be the stars. Of course, we both want a moving ladder attached to the shelves: on that, we agree. However, I want the built-in to hold only books. It’s a bigly wall, but I’m certain we have enough books to fill it almost completely.
Suzanne, on the other hand, envisions the bookcase as something that can display books, pieces of art, maybe her salt-and-pepper shaker collection, and other various doo-dads, gee-gaws and photos. I believe she thinks the bottom of it should be shelves with doors for keepsakes, or storage, or tablecloths (which we haven’t used in nearly a decade, cuz we just don’t use tablecloths, and I don’t know why we keep them), or whatever else she wants to bring out from her craft room for the crowds to gaze upon.
I suppose we could have a second wall o’ bookshelves built in to a second wall, so we can each be a dictator of one wall unit, but it’s not really practical to do that, space-wise. I guess we could divide the one wall into halves: one half for me to design, one half for Suzanne to design. Now, you know I believe in clash fashion with all my heart, but I also know that if we each designed half a wall, the result would be a nauseating clashing wall of equal good taste in decor that does not play well together. My taste in house decor is modern: sort of like Art Deco or Frank Loyd Wright’s design style. Suzanne has a preference for more ornate, classical, or homey designs. So far, our house design discussions have never devolved into so much as a food fight. We’ll figure it out. We always do.
BTW I still haven’t made a decision about what to do about my truck that never gets built, but I’m going to the dealership to decide tomorrow. Please keep your phone with you in case I need to phone a friend for help with my final answer.
I was all set up to construct a full-blown TIE O’ THE DAY selfie and tale. My laptop was open and possible post ideas were parading through my brain, when I made the mistake of casting my gaze towards the mountains. This is what I saw. No, it’s not raining. It’s not foggy or smoggy either. Clearly (pun intended), our windows are in dire need of a thorough cleaning. I have surely shirked my window-cleaning duties. Bad housewife! It’s odd how things like this sneak up on you. The windows are fine, fine, fine—and all of a sudden, they more closely resemble privacy glass. I swear the windows were clean yesterday, but of course they must not have been. Once you see the problem, you can’t un-see it. And so, I am compelled to put thoughts of neckwear away right now. I must scrub the windows until I can once again see the obvious mountains so near our abode. They are pretty bigly things to not be able to see. ⛰
Tie o’ the Day comes to you from the pages of my 1980 Delta High School yearbook—interestingly enough, called The Triangle. Suzanne went off to see a play without me last night, and I must have been feeling lonely (not) and nostalgic (not) because I found myself leafing through old yearbooks. I’m so glad that’s what I did, because I found bigly treasure. It’s a yearbook message from my English teacher, Bill Ronnow, a non-Deltan who taught at DHS for only my Sophomore year before he gathered up his family and headed off to law school. Although he taught at DHS for only a short time, he made a bigly impression on me. You know how sometimes—and I mean very rarely—you meet someone and you just know that they “get” you? Mr. Ronnow and I simply understood each other from the get-go. He was of the hippie variety—always a plus for me. Our mutual respect for the infinite fun and complexity of sentences and the literature they created was a key element in both of our lives. I lived for words and ideas, as did he. And I liked his clothing choices, the snazziness of which this photo doesn’t really convey. He often wore dapper button-down sweater vests, and I began to follow in his sweater-vest footsteps as soon as I could arrange a trip to the University Mall in Orem. 👔 📖
The yearbook note he jotted to me is a fine example of how we bantered with each other daily. “You’re a gentleman and a scholar.” is a quote right out of the book, Catcher in the Rye, which we must have gabbed about together. The order to “Sling that mud, Ms. Hoddie.” is a reference to the times he had seen me hod-carrying “mud” and bricks on construction projects with my brother, Ron. The note makes me laugh for so many reasons, one of which is that if a current teacher wrote some of what it says to a student, that teacher likely would be canceled. 📚🗒
Trophy buck Tie o’ the Day is draped over the antlers of the 1 deer I kinda killed. I didn’t have the whatever-it-takes to shoot this young Bambi, so I aimed high in order to miss. I believe Dad took a shot at the same time I did—to make sure I brought it down. He never admitted he took a shot, but I’m no fool. And I know where I aimed. Dad never missed a deer—including a deer he killed as he sat back on a ridge to take a shot and unknowingly sat on a cactus. Yup, he nailed it anyway.🌵 Dad personally ‘dermied “my” “California 2-point.” 🦌 I think he knew I wasn’t going to hunt ever again, although we didn’t really talk about it directly. But I also think he wanted to give me something so I would remember that last hunt together, as well as the hunting understanding we came to on that day. Plus, those are basically jackalope antlers! And that’s just funny.🤡
Dad’s photo was taken in the early 70’s, on his bigly hunt in Alaska. His caribou’s antlers fit him perfectly. (Yes, Dad is still on my mind. As always.)
See Dad’s superhuman strength. See my bigly diaper-butt reflected in the mirror. See me not yet wearing a bow tie. Sing with me: “He’s got the whole baby… in his hand… He’s got the whole baby… in his hand…” MERRY 92nd BIRTHDAY, DAD! WISH YOU WERE HERE, SO I COULD KISS YOUR BALD HEAD!
I am a fan of staplers—mini and not-mini. I turned my all-time favorite mini stapler into another Bow Tie o’ the Day. This stapler is designed to look like a cowboy hat and a red bandana. It is certainly worthy of being seen by the throngs at 7-11 while I’m putting gas my jalopy truck. ⛽️
When the cantankerous din of the world’s shouting is just more noise than I can take, I can simply yank out my hearing aids and make a magnetic Bow Tie o’ the Day out of them. “Can you hear me now?” No, I can’t hear you now—and it sounds fabulous. 👂🏻👂🏻
Because I’m allergic to bee and wasp bites, this magnet-and-spray-can Bow Tie o’ the Day can be my first line of defense when I’m out on the deck or patio this summer. If the spray fails me and I get stung, I can use my EpiPen Tie o’ the Day to give myself a life-saving shot, so I can continue to breathe. Breathing is pretty much necessary if I want to stay alive to create TIE O’ THE DAY hijinks. 🐝 👃 🐽
