Category: wisdom

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Shaving Cream Is Important

Ties o’ the Day are pleased to be posing with many incarnations of an American Christmas icon: The movie, A CHRISTMAS STORY’s “major award.” Ain’t nothin’ better than a leg lamp or two. Aside from two actual leg lamps in the photo, we have our leg lamp stocking, our Old Man-and-his-major-award bobble head, our leg lamp night-light, and our leg lamp tree ornament (hanging from the light switch).

At the beginning of the Christmas season every year, we jump into our one-horse open Buick and take a jaunt to COSTCO– where we buy bigly cases of shaving cream and razors. We need these supplies in order to properly shave our lamps’ legs, so they will be presentable for their seasonal admirers. You will not believe how much hair these legs can grow while they sit in a closet for eleven months a year. I wish my head hairs grew as quickly.

I haven’t had my hairs cut since the first of May, and it’s  got a long way to grow until it’s long enough that I can declare it’s long, and then promptly shave it off. Growing my hairs out is a pain in the ass, which is one reason this is the final time I’ll do it. I grumble about growing out my hairs in my posts routinely, and Suzanne will tell you she’s tired of hearing me bellyache about the project too. But I’ve decided to give the process a larger meaning, which will surely force me to be more pleasant about my temporarily awkward, stoopid mop.

I’m making it a symbolic quest for discipline. And I’m deciding to let it be an exercise in patience. Who can’t use a little more discipline and patience? Or a boatload of discipline and patience, in my case. I’m going to make my mop one of my lesser Higher Powers, temporarily. And I’m not being disrespectful of, or glib about, the term “Higher Power.” Learning more discipline and patience is serious business.

In AA, I discovered you have to find and acknowledge your Higher Power. Most alcoholics cannot successfully not-drink on their own. You’ve gotta have more power than your willpower. A Higher Power can be any person, place, thing, or idea that helps you not drink. It has strength when you don’t. You appeal to it when you feel like you don’t have enough whatever-it-is-in-yourself to not pick up a drink. For most people, their Higher Power is God. But it doesn’t have to be God, and you can certainly have as many Higher Powers as you need. Trust me: I’ve needed more than one. The dog of my life, the late Araby, was my first Higher Power.

But today, I’m adopting as one of my lesser Higher Powers the idea of growing out my head hairs. I must accept my hair every day for what it is. I must appreciate it in whatever state it’s in on any given day. I must learn from its existence. And I must discipline myself to let that same  acceptance and appreciation radiate out to what surrounds me– people, places, things, and ideas in my life. The smallest things can give us strength– if we’ll see them with our own new eyes. We make things matter. We can learn from anything if we decide to.

I know this thinking sounds silly, maybe even crazy. And I did not think about the topic at all until I started writing this post. So I’m still trying to make it make sense. I will be thinking it into a reasonable idea. And if I can’t make it make sense, I’ll have to think of something else. It’s okay to do that, you know. It’s not weakness to refine your thinking to the point where you have to change your mind sometimes.

It can be a powerful thing to do something simply for the purpose of maintaining the discipline to see it through.

[I’m simplifying the meaning and idea of a Higher Power, so don’t quote me about it.]

HOLIDAY TIE TALLY: 27 Bow ties. 73 Neckties.

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Shot Needles Hurt

Bow Tie o’ the Day gives us our white, red, and green plaid. Ties o’ the Day give us more of the basic Christmas icons. What I also see when I look at this photo is that my flaking nails need new nail polish.

I’ve recently scrounged up some Christmas-y nail polish colors. But let me just say this: Just a plain ol’, regular Christmas green was a difficult color to find in the world of nail polish I visited. I found everything from Fluorescent Green, to Alien Blood Green, to I’m-Gonna-Throw-Up-Face Green. But was there a nail polish color called “Just Plain Ol’ Christmas Green?” Nope. I got what greens I could find. The right reds were easy colors to locate.

Well, my little appointment this afternoon for the ultrasound on my shoulder went ok. On the ultrasound machine screen, my right rotator cuff looked gnarly from all sides. I mean– it was ugly, with a capital O-U-C-H. Shoulder surgery is most likely in my future, but not the really-near future. I’m trying cortisone shots before resorting to that. In fact, I got shot up right after the ultrasound. If my shoulder pain is going to improve because of the cortisone, I should know in a few days.

I’m trying to be hopeful, but when I got similar shots in my lower back a few years ago, they were not effective at all. Those shots did not touch my back pain one iota. The only way I knew I had gotten the shots was because I got the bills. But I tried what my then-doc suggested. And I’ll try what I need to try now. I follow doctors’ orders. Mostly.

In fact, you might find it impossible to believe but I am pretty much a rule-follower. I’m a straight arrow. I go with the flow. However, I also do my research, and I’m observant. I have a brain. I’m not a dope, and I’m not easily duped.

To follow rules and laws does not necessarily make you a lemming. It makes things work. For example, I might not like the new four-way stop they recently created over in the next block, but I want all drivers coming from all directions to follow the law and STOP when they are driving there. I prefer not to get t-boned.

On occasion, in the face of a specific rule and/or law, we do have to stand up and say, “Whoa! Uh-uh! Nope! That ain’t gonna happen!” It’s our obligation as people on the planet. I believe in sending reasoned messages when rules/laws encroach on human dignity and freedom. I believe in non-violent civil disobedience. I believe in safe protests. I believe in posters and signs and bumper stickers and banners. I believe in short-hand slogans on t-shirts. I believe in voting.

I also believe in thick-skin, and in not being offended by every bigly and little thing done by people whose bumper stickers (aka opinions) differ from mine. Facts are a different animal altogether. Facts are not debatable. I’ll call you on your “fake facts.” And I expect you to call me on mine. And I most certainly expect us to act like ladies and gentlemen while we do it.

HOLIDAY TIE TALLY: 27 Bow ties. 71 Neckties.

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What Gifts Will I Get The Ties For Christmas?

One Bow Tie o’ the Day gives us a mix of red and gold Christmas colors, while the other shows us wrapped Christmas gifts. Snoopy and Woodstock Tie o’ the Day suggests we write our wish list letter to Santa ASAP, before the deluge of letters from kids asking for ponies arrives at the North Pole. If you’re early with your requests, you have a better chance of getting what you want. The elves can only cobble so many toys, and items go quickly. You might not be able to get a rain check on some products.

As for the filled stocking Tie o’ the Day, all I can say is that whoever filled it with these dandy gifts must have been successful in the Black Friday chaos. And although Christmas is not about commercialization, gift giving is symbolic of the real “reason for the season.” The Three Wise Men didn’t show up empty-handed, and the gifts they carried had to be bought from someone. The gifts were things that had monetary value. They did not cost $0.00.

My point is this:  Although we decry the game of materializing Christmas by getting caught up in all the shopping, the giving of gifts to friends and family and charities we value is symbolic of higher values than the monetary values.

When we buy a gift for someone, we are giving them more than we stop to consider. It “costs” us the time we take to decide what exact things will show the message of singular care we feel for each separate recipient. It costs us the time to find and buy the gift. It costs us time to wrap a gift. And you know darn well you take the time to choose the “right” wrapping paper for each gift.

Also, a gift costs us part of our paycheck, which means it costs the time it took for you to work for the amount of money on the gift’s price tag. Most of us “spend” that time on many people. Time adds up. Time’s value is incalculable, folks. We each get a limited amount of it.

[If you MAKE things to give others, you’re probably spending significantly more time on gifts. However, you also spend money on purchasing whatever supplies or ingredients you will need to create your home-made offering.]

All of this is not to say that we can put a price on what a gift recipient means to us. A person on your gift list is not worth only the monetary value of the gift you give (or the number of gifts), just as your worth to the person who gives you a gift is not tied to the gift’s monetary value. The act of giving is the message.

HOLIDAY TIE TALLY: 21 Bow ties. 52 Neckties.

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Kitties And Penguins, Dressed For A Merry Christmas

Bow Tie o’ the Day and one Tie o’ the Day offer up a batch of kitties in their festive Christmas hats. The other Tie o’ the Day lets us watch a Santa-hatted penguin do some ice fishing with a candy cane. Love me my critter ties.

I have done my fake research and come up with the fake fact that the internet was originally created for the sole purpose of distributing sappy cute animal pictures, memes, and videos. That might be fake news, but sometimes my Facebook news feed makes me wonder if it might actually be true. Cute animals and political posts that haven’t been fact-checked– that’s the bulk of what shows up for me on Facebook.

I don’t have to sift through all that extra stuff when I’m on my tie website, and that’s nice. But it’s also worth it to me to stay on Facebook to connect with my pals. I’ll wade through the malarkey posts in order to get to my “friends.” I mean– we all do interesting stuff. And the things we do differ significantly from each other. I find it fascinating to see what we’ve all done– and continue to do– with our lives. We are diverse, and we are much the same. I guess that’s what makes us human beings.

We have approached our adult lives with varied plans. And I imagine most of us are not quite where we thought we would be at this point on our mortal journey. Stuff happens. Let’s be honest: shit happens. Not every circumstance in our lives is under our control. We do the best we can to stay out of our own way when we can, but sometimes we’re just stooopid idiots. For whatever reason, we occasionally make choices that create havoc in our own lives, diverting us from any brilliant plan we might have had. But we are, in fact, still here. That’s a good thing.

If you haven’t already– and you most likely have– you will experience tragedy, pain, loneliness, and disappointment to a degree you could never have imagined existed before they found you. These sadnesses will become part of your story. You can make it through these storms. You can learn the lessons these floods can teach you. Your Facebook friends– and tblog friends– are part of your cheerleading squad. Their LIKE’s and COMMENT’s can build you up.

And that idea leads me to this: In your life’s trek, you will meet people you don’t especially care for. Maybe they simply bug you in some minor way, like the way they hold their chopsticks. Maybe they mock you because you have a website about ties. Maybe they slashed your car tires when you broke up with them. But remember– tragedy, pain, loneliness, and disappointment will surely visit them too. It will punch them in the gut as hard as it punches you. It will bring them to their knees. And you might be on your knees at exactly the same time. You might as well pray together while you’re both kneeling down there in the mud, because you’re gonna need to help each other up.

That’s part of what it means to love your neighbor– chopsticks and all.

TIE TALLY: I’ve worn 5 holiday bow ties and 5 holiday neckties so far. That’s 10 pieces o’ Christmas neckwear in only 3 days. I wonder how high I can count.

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Memories R U

I’ve been thinking about how much I enjoyed my balloon ride in Albuquerque a couple of weeks ago. Tie o’ the Day is here to tell you I had a whale of a good time.🤡 Honestly, I did. There are things you don’t even know you want to do, but after you do them, you can’t imagine what kept you from doing it for so long. My balloon flight is a perfect example of that. Why did I finally do it? Because I was there and the balloon was there. Simple as that. That single hot air balloon ride added a nifty story to the essence that is “me.”.

We should do more things like that, and for that reason: WE ARE HERE. We might be surprised sometimes about how important some things can become to us, when we didn’t even know we’d ever do them. Some of those because-it-was-there experiences might turn out to be boring, or we might even regret doing them. Or they could transform our perspective in a positive way. They could alter the course of our lives for the better. But how do we know how it’s going to turn out if we don’t get out of our comfort zone and try a thing or two we never seriously considered. I guess I’m saying to get into your “discomfort zone” and explore.

Jump off that intimidating too-high diving board. Decide where to go on vacation by closing your eyes and sticking a pin on a map. Go to a concert by a band you’ve never heard of before. Take a college course in a subject you think you don’t care about. Take up a sport you hate to watch. Strike up a real conversation with someone you don’t know very well. Ask an “enemy” to lunch. Volunteer to do good deeds you know you’re not very good at.

I could go on and on, but you get the idea. Face a fear. Experience something that isn’t something the “you” you think you are would normally do. It can be a bigly feat. It can be a teeny-tiny step. Whatever it is, it will enlarge your soul. You will be changed forever, if only in the sense that you’ll know yourself and the world better than you did before.

Memory is what you carry with you wherever you go, but you have to make memories in order to have them to carry. Get a very big backpack to haul them around. And don’t be selfish: unzip that backpack and share your memories with others. 🤠

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Here’s A Lecture, But It’s Short.

Hat, Tie, Shirt, and Cufflinks o’ the Day sing out loudly in their clothing chorus: “The voting polls are still open. Hurry up and get your butt there, if you haven’t cast your ballot already.” Make sure you take the opportunity to flex your political muscle. You are a citizen, so act like it.

As United States citizens we don’t just have rights, we also have responsibilities. We forget about that bigly detail far too often. If you read The Bill of Rights carefully, you will see that our rights are interwoven with our responsibilities. I think the document would be better served by being called The Bill of Rights and Responsibilities. No, I’m not proposing we change the name. I’m proposing that we expand our perspective of The Bill of Rights to include the totality of the ideas the document actually contains.

Personally, I believe that if you have the incredible right to vote, you also have the responsibility to use that right. So use it. Just a thought.

My tiny Constitutional Law lecture is over. My name is Helen Eileen Wright, and I approved this message. 😸

 

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Just Sayin’

Got vote? If not, you must git ‘er done TODAY. Your vote is your ticket to gripe about politicians, and how they are letting the country go to Hell in the proverbial hand basket. Comfort yourself with this fact: Every generation of voters– after they reached their middle to late years– has thought that politicians were crooked, and that the country was going to hell in a hand basket. It’s an American tradition. We are following in our ancestors’ gripe-steps. And our country is still here. And we’re still here griping about hand baskets. 😉🇺🇸

GET YOUR VOTE ON!

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Up Early. Must Beat Rush Hour Traffic.

Tie o’ the Day and Cape o’ the Day are headed out the door with me before dawn, to take one of our lickety-split drives to Delta to see Mom– and we’ll be back this afternoon in time for Judge Judy. Mom and Judge Judy! Two of my all-time fave bad-ass women!

I chose this particular Tie o’ the Day for Mom’s benefit. Mom has a thing for snowmen. Even though I’m not dragging out the daily holiday ties yet, Mom deserves to see this one. Here’s a piece of wisdom for you: There is nothing wrong with trying to make your Mom jolly– ever. If your mom likes snowmen, give her snowmen– no matter what time of year it is.

Cape o’ the Day is the reverse side of the skull/Frida cape I showed off last week. Mom’s gonna get a kick out of this too. She will especially swoon all over it when she finds out Suzanne made it. OMGolly, Suzanne can do no wrong, as far as Mom’s concerned. Suzanne’s general good behavior and craft ability help me get away with my shenanigans. I guess Suzanne’s kind of my redeeming quality, whether or not she’s present with me. Her upstanding essence will be traveling with me today, in the guise of my Suzanne-made cape.

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Chuck Brown’s Only Shirt Inspires A Tie

Tie o’ the Day is a wood tie, created by a craftsman in Logan. He named this chevron design “Charlie Brown,” and I was lucky to get it when I did, because the style has been sold out for months, and the dude is probably not going to produce more of this style again.

The second photo here is the same tie, folded for storing when not in use. Wood neckties are fabulous, but most begin to feel a bit heavy to wear after a few hours at a time. I do not recommend wearing a wood necktie for an entire day at work. But wearing one for a dinner date or going to a performance of the symphony will go over smashingly. You probably shouldn’t wear a wood tie to a campfire where you plan to roast marshmallows and hot dogs though, unless you plan to use your tie for kindling.

In fact, you have to be cognizant of the fact that wearing a necktie can put you in peril, in a way that bow ties don’t. Oh, the neckties certainly don’t mean to be dangerous to their wearers, but they simply aren’t the most practical neckwear to wear in certain situations. I’m not just talking about situations like trying to keep your tie out of the paper shredder when you shred your secret spy documents. For example, don’t wear a necktie when you’re doing some downhill skiing. It’ll work its way out of your ski coat and fly up over your ski goggles, blinding you. Before you know it…. hello, tree! Hello, Sonny Bono.

Also, don’t wear a necktie if you’re going to be stirring together the spell ingredients you’re boiling in your witch’s cauldron. The bottom of your tie is bound to accidentally dip into the brew, and some living monstrosity in that goop will most certainly grab your tie and pull you in. Bubble, bubble, toil, and trouble. See ya!

There are circumstances in which neckties should be employed more often than they are. If you have a dog who loves to stick its head out the window of a moving car (or ride in the truck bed), for example, allow your dog to wear one of its neckties the next time you go for a Sunday drive. The dog will not only enjoy its usual wind-blown flapping ears and flapping lips, but it will be thrilled to have its very own necktie flapping right along with it. And your mutt’s blowing necktie will also indicate to others that your dog is respecting the Sabbath. Nice doggie.

Bow Ties are almost completely safe from possible necktie dangers. And I vehemently vouch for this next fact: Wearing a bow tie actually makes you safer than not wearing one. You see, bow ties have a cute-factor to them. I’ve told you before that bow ties are kinda charmingly disarming and tend to make people smile. If a mugger is smiling at your bow tie, you can be sure that criminal is gonna pass right by you and go mug somebody else. And if you accidentally cut off a car on the freeway, that driver who’s instantly developing road rage towards you will look at you, see the bow tie, and likely lose the rage. Instead of getting the middle finger, you might just get the peace sign.

More than that– bow ties give you an advantage in the world of finance. Need a bank loan? Wear a funny bow tie to your appointment with the antagonistic loan manager, and not only will you get the loan, even if your credit sucks– you’ll get a couple of thousand bucks more than you applied for. And the loan manager will make sure the money gets into your account on that very same day. You think I jest, but I do not. The power of the bow tie cannot be denied.

I mean no disrespect to neckties. I adore them as much as any neckwear to be found. A necktie is nifty as heck. But a bow tie is a superhero. All hail, to the bow tie!

 

 

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Mom And I Ain’t Askeered

Bow Tie o’ the Day is one of my favorites to wear. I have a grand time showing off my novelty neckwear– like my Skittles bow tie, or my wood mustache bow ties, or my Band-aid tie. But I never tire of a simply beautiful, colorful tie of any type.

Paisley is probably my fave design pattern, so I tend to collect ties with paisles (my word) on them. Polka dots are fabulous too. But when I’m cremated, I guarantee I will be wearing one of my paisley bow ties. I have given that instruction to Suzanne already. At some point, I will need to designate which bow tie it will be, but I’m not thinking about it yet. Hey, I’m not dwelling on dying. I don’t expect to do it soon. (Knock on wood.) And my surgery probably bought me a decade more than if I hadn’t had it. (Knock on wood again.)

I can’t deny death has been on my mind the last few years. I figured my Hanky Panky would take me out of the game long before we could do anything about the dang organ. But mostly, it’s Mom who has had me thinking about death. Her death.

Even before she broke her hip last year and things have kinda headed downhill for her health-wise, Mom would occasionally say to me– out of the blue– things like, “Write this down. I want so-and-so to speak at my funeral.” Or, “Here. I want this picture on my funeral program.” She’s also been giving away her possessions for a few years. She’s been downsizing. I guess you could consider that to be a way of unpacking her baggage for her next, last trip. We all travel light when we die.

I think that since Dad died, in 2007, she has been making her peace with the end of her turn on the planet. She certainly has never stopped living a loud life, but she hasn’t been shy about talking with me about her death. She is not afraid of it. And I have heard her say a few choice words to Dad about getting off his lazy butt and climbing out of his grave– so obviously she can joke about it. But ultimately, Mom is very clear that she is not done here yet. Yay!

Personally, I think Mom is one of the Three Nephites (Mormon reference), so she’ll never die. She’ll just wander around in her housecoat doing good deeds, for time and all eternity.

I’m cool with that.