Category: wisdom

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Not A Fungus Among Us

Bow Tie o’ the Day and I went to a follow-up appointment with my dermatologist this morning. It seems that the exotic rash on my torso—which the dermatologist suspected was some sort of fungal infection—remains a mystery. The skin samples the doctor chiseled out of me for biopsy at my last appointment turned out to be not fungal at all. I am sorely disappointed—not because I want my skin to have a fungus, but because I want to know what my rash IS. Knowing what it is will mean the doctor can give me the correct treatment, and the rash can be successfully eliminated from my pale-and-pasty white skin. I want it gone—now. So the doc carved out two deeper-than-last-time skin samples for biopsy, and wrote me a prescription for a set of x-rays. Apparently, my stubborn skin rash is a medical puzzle to be solved, and the dermatologist is determined to find the answers for us both. Instead of being annoyed by my pesky skin malady, I have decided to treat the whole affair like an adventure—during which I can amuse myself by learning a thing or two about skin and dermatological science. Perhaps I will eventually write a world-changing, epic poem about what I learn about aberrant skin patches. I could decide to be crabby and picked-on about the situation, but I am not a bigly believer in wallowing in miserablism. I hate that particular -ism. All that being miserable would get me is the confounding rash with a dollop of misery on top. Ain’t nobody needs any o’ that. And nobody wants to read about it either. 📖🤓

BTW As I was checking in at the front desk for my appointment, the receptionist complimented me on Bow Tie o’ the Day and my face mask and shirt. An assistant who was also behind the desk chimed in, “Are you a teacher? From the way you’re dressed, it looks like you’d be a fun teacher.” That was the first such comment I’ve ever heard about my “look.” Of course, I was a teacher for years back in the day. I guess it shows.

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At The Plant Store

I kill plants dead. It’s just a fact of my life. It doesn’t matter how hearty a plant might be, or how to-the-letter I follow plant care instructions. If I have a plant to take care of, it dies much sooner than later. You’ll find no green thumbs on my paws. Luckily, I learned this factoid about myself in my kidhood, which has caused me to remain mostly plant-free throughout my adult life. In the 70’s, I stuck with pet rocks, and not one of them died. I was successful with rocks.

Every now and then, someone who doesn’t know I have black thumbs has unfortunately gifted me a plant. And on occasion, I have thought, “Well, maybe I can keep this one alive. I’ll try again.” So I water it, and nurture it, and make sure the plant is situated in the right amount of light. It inevitably ends badly for all parties involved. Most of the time, when I have received vegetation as a gift, I have had the good sense to hand it right off to anyone who is not me. The plants thrive under someone else’s care.

Suzanne has our abode stocked to the gills with plants, and they prosper. They surround me, and yet my black thumbs somehow aren’t deadly to them. How can this be? Well, I follow a strict policy with Suzanne’s houseplants: I act as if they don’t exist. I never talk to them, nor do I make eye contact with them. I certainly don’t try to care for them. So far, pretending the plants don’t exist has insured their continued existence. I know and accept my limitations, which is the beginning of sincere humility. Many plants lost their lives to teach me this lesson.

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CTR

CTR is shorthand for “choose the right.” It’s a Mormon mantra I learned in my kidhood. It has served me well throughout my life to take that extra few seconds to ask myself, “What’s the right thing to do?” Sometimes even a loud, red Tie o’ the Day like this one can have a tough time deciding what’s right and what’s wrong. Decisions can get complicated when real-life context comes into play. However, I do believe sometimes there is an obvious right and an even obvious-er wrong.

For example, at the grocery store, I came across this new twist on an already perfect candy bar, and I was shocked and appalled!* Let me be very clear: POTATO CHIPS IN A REESE’S PEANUT BUTTER CUP IS WRONG!!!!! It is a sacrilege to both the potato chips and the Reese’s. What kind of person thought this debauched confection was “right” for the world? I am certain that nobody associated with the production, distribution, and marketing of this ill-conceived concoction is going to any Heaven I’ve ever heard of! The very existence of such a candy bar defies common sense. Those consumers who partake of this monstrosity will pay for their sin by experiencing their own digestive Hell as they eat it! Can you hear me?

Now, I know we each probably have at least one weird food combination in our own palate’s repertoire—and that’s ok. As far as I’m concerned those odd taste proclivities are personal and should remain behind closed doors. To publicly sully a candy perfection like a Reese’s is sinful. Likewise, a potato chip is equally sanctified in its own salty perfection, too. Don’t be gluttonous and mess with perfection! Enjoy the perfect state of both goodies, but not in the same treat. Together, they ruin each other. Some goodies work together, but some combinations result in degradation. It is my snacky opinion that this mix is “wrong.” Somebody wasn’t paying attention in Primary when they were supposed to be learning their CTR. Here, “right” matters.

End of rant.🤠

* “shocked and appalled” is meant for Jane E. Holman, who I hope remembers why we laughed at the phrase decades ago.

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Rudolph and I Both Have Red Noses Today

Here I am in my fave pajama bottoms. The Grinch is one of my fave fictional characters. I generally like villains in stories, especially if they eventually see the error of their ways and decide to try to make bigly changes in themselves accordingly. When I read fiction or watch movies, or just watch actual human beings live, I am usually drawn to shady characters with struggling souls. They are the ultimate underdogs. They are usually trouble incarnate. They certainly aren’t boring. I secretly cheer for them to gain enough scraps of insight to make a choice to rise above their tendencies to self-destruct. Whether causing harm to themselves and/or others, the fight is on to define what higher/lower principles the character is—or is not—made of. Causing harm to the self or causing harm to others are, inevitably, the same thing. In the end, everybody involved with a villain is somehow injured. Everybody gets “schooled,” as they say. Which means everybody involved gets taught a valuable lesson. We read it. We see it. We can tell someone else what the lesson of a story is.

But do we apply the lesson to ourselves? Do we benefit from it and learn it deeply, for use in the fight for our own souls? I’d like to say that we do. And sometimes, some people do take a lesson or two to heart. They incorporate lessons learned by others into their lives—moving seemingly easily from one wise choice to the next. But so often, we like to read these stories and watch these stories on tv or at the movies—then leave any valuable lessons the story might conveniently offer us right where we found them.

A lot of us are kinda dopey in this respect: We seem to prefer to make our own mistakes, despite any lessons we’ve watched other people—fictional or human—make and learn from, throughout all of history. In fact, as I’m thinking more about it right at this moment, it seems to me that many of us are downright very, very, very dopey. Hopelessly dopey, in fact. We make the same dang mistakes over and over even in our own lives, as if human beings are brand new here on the planet and haven’t learned a bloody thing. We’re ridiculous. We’re so ridiculous that writers and artists continue to look at us and see even more stories to write about the absurdity of our continual refusal to learn from our mistakes. They write books and tv shows and movies about us making bad choices—stories which we pay bigly bucks to read, watch, and NOT LEARN FROM. This evidence suggests we are addicts, hooked on our mistakes. We must like our mistakes. We’d rather make monstrous mistakes than learn something from anybody who has already learned the lessons from experience. We bark out: “Ain’t nobody gonna show me how to make wise choices!” Perhaps we should reconsider that impulse. Perhaps we should learn. But we’re very dopey dopes—so we won’t.🤠

And that’s the end of my TIE O’ THE DAY’s cynical sermon. 🤓

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A Vehicular Decision

Channeling the spirit of Dad, while ordering a truck.
I haven’t yet given this baby a name. But I’m working on it.

I channeled Dad in order to make a final decision about purchasing the new truck I’ve been eyeing. Dad knew his trucks. Also, Dad always had a red or blue hanky dangling from his back pocket, so I wore a hanky-esque Face Mask o’ the Day to the car dealership yesterday. I doubled-down with the black in my Bow Tie o’ the Day and the yellow in my shirt—the two colors signifying the bees Dad expertly cared for in his life-long work.

I picked up Suzanne from her office and took her on a test-drive in my potential auto acquisition. Suzanne’s tummy gets hyper-queasy when riding in bouncy vehicles like my old jalopy truck, so I wanted to make sure she could stomach the ride in this new vehicle. If she couldn’t relax and enjoy the truck’s ride, I would not even entertain the idea of acquiring this truck candidate. At some point during the test-drive—as I drove, and as Suzanne played with all the gadgets and controls in the cab—Suzanne seemed to be remarkably pleased with the level of smoothe-icity of the truck’s ride. Suzanne’s perfectly settled stomach was saying, “Yes!” to the truck. Consequently, I made my bigly decision to buy the 2022 Ford Maverick—and in my kind of flashy color, called Velocity Blue. When we finally returned the demo truck to the dealership, I was grinning through my face mask as I signed my “Helen Hancock” on the necessary paperwork. Oh, happy, wallet-emptying day! 💸💸

The bad news is this: My brand new travel toy is a special order, and it will not be built and delivered to me for 2 or 3—or maybe 4 or more—months. The good news about the bad news is this: If I don’t explode to smithereens with anticipation before my truck gets here, I will have grown my patience to superpower-strength. That kind of patience comes in handy on this planet full of imperfect human beings. Patience, I fervently believe, is the next best quality to kindness.

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A Field Trip To The Holiday Dog Toys

Post-surgery, I’m spending so much time napping, nodding off, and dozing lately that I haven’t been getting out of the house much. I am now trying to get in the car and haul out of the neighborhood at least once a day, even if it’s only for an hour. Here I am browsing in the shops at Station Park on Saturday. I chose to wear a snarky, conspiratorial Face Mask o’ the Day for the brief outing. You are also witnessing a rarity of a Bow Tie o’ the Day in this selfie: a solid-color bow tie, and in gold. Two things you can count on me usually NOT wearing are solid colors and/or the color gold. It is my not-humble opinion that solid colors don’t try hard enough to entertain people, and the color gold tries too hard to be oh-so important. But some days you just have to step out of your comfort zone and do something not-you. It makes you relate to the world differently, and it makes the world see you in a slightly different light. The discomfort of wearing something which is not-you helps you remember who your deepest soul really is, and it’s certainly important that you never forget what your singular soul is all about. After all, you’re the only you we all have. Don’t betray yourself by trying to be somebody else.

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A Bigly Hairscut

Before my hairscut.
After my hairscut.

I cannot be left to my own whims. Suzanne is going to be perturbed at me—or at least shocked. The handful of times in my life when I have felt the urge to get my head shaved, I have always gone with the #2 comb guide on the clipper. Today, while driving to my hairs appointment, Bow Tie o’ the Day whispered into my hearing aids, “Do something different. Try the #1 comb.” I thought to myself, “That’s something I’ve never done. It sounds like a dandy plan.” Like I always say, it really is okay to do some things just because you have never done them before. And so, when I greeted Miss Tiffany (isn’t she a cutie!?) at her new workspace, I told her to throw the #1 comb on the clippers. You can see that’s exactly what she did. I am fully aware it is not my best look, but I’m already glad I did it. It feels a lightyear different than the #2 comb shave. My head hairs now feel so not-there, and I can’t begin to accurately explain how interesting it feels to rub my own head. My hair feels like semi-soft sandpaper! My head is Velcro! Also, when I swam in the pool with this hairdo, I felt like I swam with all the speed and grace of a streamlined torpedo. I might, however, need to invest in a wig before Suzanne gets home from work and discovers what I have done. I am—as always—her cross to bear. It is true: I can’t take me anywhere.

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There’s Smoke In Them Thar Hills

Bow Tie o’ the Day and I are giving y’all a view of the sky out back. It is gray. It is grey. No matter how you spell it, the sky is full of smoke. For the past few days, the mountains to our east have been disappearing right before our eyes. First, we see ’em. And then, we don’t. The smoke moves in, then blows away. Back and forth. And then repeat some more. It’s a slow-motion show through our tall windows, that’s for sure. It’s like watching a snail-paced ocean ebb and flow in the sky. Don’t get me wrong—the wildfires are a tragedy. I am, however, fascinated with how the smoke finds its way to my sky, and how it changes my normal landscape. The natural light falls differently on objects in the house. Behind the smoke, the sunrises and sunsets are vivid with unusual hues. My mountains seem to be playing a game of peek-a-boo with me and Skitter. It’s all very interesting to me, because I am here to see it happen. My advice is simple: While you’re here, notice everything.

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It’s Inevitable

I’ve been a bit bummed out the last few days, and it has nothing to do with the state of my Cranky Hanky Panky. The sweetest angel on the planet—who happens to be my very own mother, Helen Sr.—has caused me to be upset. It’s certainly nothing she’s done intentionally. She doesn’t go around agitating her family or friends, or even the few people she doesn’t necessarily care for all that much. So, what did she do that got my heart in a dither? Well, when I called to check on her at Millard Care and Rehab earlier this week, Mom had to ask me which of her kids I was. That has never happened before. This was a first, which I hoped would never happen at all. I did not like it one bit—no, sir!

To be fair, my siblings and I do all sound remarkably alike, especially on the phone. But still, I am my mother’s babiest baby, and she knows my voice. I think it should be against the law for her to not know my voice. Mom will be 91 next month, and changes like this make it feel like she is gradually moving farther and farther away from us. I feel like she is moving farther away from being the mother of her babiest baby. I hate having to deal with these complicated feelings. Logically, I understand exactly what is happening. It makes perfect sense. I know it is the Circle of Life and all of that stuff. It’s all the feel-y things that go along with these natural changes that get me stirred up.

I also know that as hard as it was for me to hear Mom tell me she didn’t recognize my voice, it was just as hard for her to have to ask me which kid I was. These changes never go just one way. We still need each other’s help to get through it. That’s called empathy. I learned it from my mother.

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In Trouble

I’m wearing my in-the-doghouse Tie o’ the Day, which faithful readers of TIE O’ THE DAY will know means I’m in trouble with Suzanne. I should probably wear this tie a lot more often than I do, but I save it for when I’m so far in the doghouse that I’m digging said doghouse a new basement.

It happened like this: Yesterday morning, I came downstairs where Suzanne was sitting at the kitchen table. I proudly and forcefully announced to her, “I’m preparing to die!” I knew the minute the words fell out of my mouth that I had made a bigly miscalculation. Suzanne, the family’s official worrier, was in no mood for me to be ironic and otherwise jokey about my demise.

All I meant by my announcement was that I have a month to get my house in order before surgery—in case. I’m not worried about the “in case,” but I do think it’s always wise to keep the “in case” of a situation in consideration. It would be irresponsible not to.

I’ve “prepared to die” plenty of times before in my life, and Suzanne has always laughed along with me when I mentioned it. When you’re going to move into a different abode, for example, an efficient way to prepare for the move is to think like you’re getting ready to die. You prioritize. You assess all the crap you have, then you get rid of what you know you don’t need anymore. You throw junk away. You donate stuff. You decide to give certain things to people you know might love them like you used to. You get your important papers organized and filed in such a way that someone else can find them if they need to. You make sure the bills are paid early. You thoroughly clean the house. That’s all I meant about preparing to die.

Heck, I even used this prepare-to-die thinking before my prior surgery, and I don’t recall Suzanne having a problem with my terminology or behavior back then. For whatever reason, she’s a bit more touchy about my operation this time around. So I’m in the doghouse. I can respect that. I can also make sure I don’t make any further dramatic, facetious death announcements or let her see me getting rid of clutter that once mattered to me, but no longer does. I will have to prepare to die in secret this time. In case.