I chose a pine-cone-and-berry Bow Tie o’ the Day, and coupled it with my dogs-and-cats-in-Santa-hats Shirt o’ the Day. Don’t miss the peppermint stick stripes of the Pocket Square o’ the Day. And note the glittery, gold reindeer antlers head band I was able to set atop my Hat o’ the Day: my beloved fedora I’ve had since 1984, just before I graduated from WSU. That makes the hat 38 years old. The fedora is still in astoundingly dapper shape both for being that old, and for having been dragged across the country to live with me in Virginia, then Maryland, and then back to Utah again—where I and my fedora have lived now for 22 consecutive years.
Time does fly. I feel it fly more quickly now that I can see the end of my mortality coming closer. My death used to be statistically so far ahead of me that I rarely considered it. I think about it a little bit more often these days. In fact, I must admit the topic comes into my mind in some way or another almost daily now—especially since my Cranky Hanky Panky has had to have two major surgeries within 3 years. I don’t obsess over what I hope is my far-in-the-future passing, but there are legal and financial things that need to be put into place, so somebody else doesn’t have to figure out what I would have wanted done. And you know all the material things we spend decades of our lives accumulating? A great deal of that has got to go. I don’t want to leave all that stuff for anybody else to have to deal with when I die, so I am—for the most part—done accumulating. And while I am still walking the earth, I’m now working on passing on things I’ve acquired. It’ll probably take me years to accomplish this feat, but I intend to gift my eclectic and eccentric collections to various people who I think will be most likely to take care of my beloved objects with tenderness, just like I have done while I’ve owned them. I have always tried my best to be mindful of my various and sundry stewardships—stewardships of material stuff, of people and animals in my life, of the rights I have as a citizen of the USA, and of all that I’ve learned and know to be true. I have tried to tend to my beliefs and love my neighbors, always. I’m in a good place in my soul, and death, whenever it comes, is nothing I fear at all. 🎀 🎄