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Good Thing I Took ‘Em To Her

Skitter and I and my slim-line Bow Tie o’ the Day had a blast visiting Mom in her MCR bachelorette pad earlier today. One of the first things Mom said to me and The Skit when we arrived was, “I need my sunglasses so I can see.” I handed Mom her usual shades from her table and she was convinced they weren’t her sunglasses, even though they were. She said they didn’t fit right. That was my cue.

Voila! I immediately pulled these bow tie-shaped shades from inside my cape, and Mom grabbed them heartily– as if she’d owned and protected them forever. Honestly, when I bought these sunglasses for her I didn’t know if she would actually like them. I knew I could get a jolly Mom-bow-tie-photo out of it, but I had no idea she would take to them so easily and so much. (The bow tie doesn’t fall far from the tree?) Mom wore them during our entire visit. And one of my MCR spies has already let me know that Mom is still wearing the bow tie spectacles, even as I prepare to post this from my house in Centerville.

I lost count of how many folks at MCR complimented Mom on how snazzy her new sunglasses look. I was especially grateful to Skitter for having had the presence of mind to remind me to put the speshul shades in the car before we headed out to Delta this morning. Saved by the Skitter!

Tomorrow, I’ll post more about our MCR playtime with Mom. I’m too exhausted from the quick roundtrip to do any further thinking.

BTW Skitter’s visit with Mom was just the thing her little doggie-highness needed. She got a part of her Skit-spark back.

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A Car Ride To The Country

Here’s Mom from the mid-70’s. Our living room. Dad’s green chair, which had to be reupholstered and re-springed half-a-dozen times because he liked it so well he refused to get a new chair for his old butt. Mom’s reading either The Salt Lake Tribune or The Chronicle. Isn’t her freshly done hair boo-tee-ful? And if I remember correctly, here she’s showing off her new ring and watch, which Dad gave her. (I tacked on Bow Tie o’ the Day. Duh!)

Skitter and I are jumping in the car in about ten minutes to drive a couple of hours to our old Delta stomping grounds to see this regal Queen. We’ll certainly report our findings. I think the trip will perk up Skitter’s current blah’s. And mine. That’s what Mom does, whether she’s trying to or not.

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Another Safe Photograph

I thought Bow Tie o’ the Day and I should follow-up this morning’s clean post photo with another super-duper wholesome picture this afternoon, just in case Suzanne is still touchy about the January 5th morning post photo, which she considers to be exposing too many square inches of my pale, pale skin. How scandalous of me!

Here I am, snapped with my Kodak Handle Instant camera, back in the same days of the crazy sleepovers and my mooning. I am showing off my car door. It’s not my car door which belonged to my car. It’s my car door, which I rescued and took home. I found it in the middle of a gravel road in Sugarville. It looked so forlorn laying there all by itself, with its fair share of life’s rust, scratches, and dents. I thought it only right that I should be a Good Samaritan and provide it with shelter and love, so I adopted it. You have to understand: this was during the early-/mid-70’s– the era of pet rocks– so a pet car door didn’t seem all that outlandish to me. Occasionally, I drove it uptown to one of the gas stations, where I would unload it by my car and wash its window, to provide amusement for folks dragging Main. The car door’s window relished getting the squeegee treatment.

My car door lived with me until I went to college, where I couldn’t take it with me. I re-homed it before I left Delta, in 1981. I drove it out West to a farm near where I’d found it, where it could live out its earthly existence running fast and free in the fields of the Lord.

[FYI Skitter is a bit more active today, but not much. She stays zonked-out under her pile of blankets like she’s hibernating. She did decide to accompany me on the walk to the mailboxes late this afternoon. She hasn’t cared to go for a walkie for a few days, so that’s a getting-better sign. Skitter thanks you for the positive vibes you’ve sent her way. We think they’re helping.]

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It Finally Happened

I can’t believe it. I guess I did it. And it surprised me. I pushed Suzanne to her limit. Suzanne got upset about a photo I posted here. I didn’t mean to get her out of kilter about anything, but she got that way anyway. It was the photo from the morning of January 5th, when I was wishing Georgia Grayson Wadsworth a merry birthday. Even though I posted it a few days ago, Suzanne didn’t bring it up until yesterday.

If you recall, the pic had been taken at one of the infamous sleeping parties I hosted in the 70’s. It shows Georgia surprising me while I’m on the potty, while someone else takes the picture (and I’m sure it was Tauna). It’s an innocuous photograph, if you ask me. All you can see is my naked thigh. And a little bit of the naked almost-behind my thigh. But Suzanne was not pleased with me so wantonly putting it out in cyber land for all to see.

To me, it was the bathroom wallpaper that was so hideous and offensive about the scene. I almost didn’t post the snapshot because of it.

I told Suzanne posting the picture was really not a bigly deal, since I was a prolific mooner in the Delta environs during those years, so almost all Deltans had seen my butt anyway. She was kinda not amused. “Disturbing” is the word she used.

I’ve got her settled down now. This morning she got ready for work without bringing it up again. I dashed out of the house to get to my physical therapy appointment ASAP. I headed out long before I needed to leave, because I wanted to escape the house before Suzanne even had a chance to bring it up. She has not texted me about the whole hullaballoo, so I’m probably safe now. She’s most likely moved on.

Anyhoo… I figured I should post a completely, absolutely innocent photo– with an equally innocent Bow Tie o’ the Day. Just to be safe. Suzanne cannot quibble with a photograph of Helen, Sr. and baby Helen.

[Hey, check out Mom’s curlers. I think she still has the very same set.]

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We Don’t Know Why

I decided to wear this Tie o’ the Day in order to be sorta blendy with my shirt. Not matchy, just blendy. Today, I’m playing the clash as low-key as I know how to play it, because Skitter is ailing and I don’t want to add any loudness to the vibes of the house.

The tiny part of Skitter’s face you see here in the photo is pretty much all we’ve seen of her for the past three days. She hasn’t wholeheartedly performed her “chew dance.” She hasn’t even finished eating her daily chew treats. She’s kept herself in her beds, under her Suzanne-made blankets. She does, however, seem to want to do her convalescing right next to me or Suzanne. She has to be close enough to reach out at least one of her long legs to constantly touch one of us. Her paws are pokey.

We don’t have a clue what’s got Skitter down. She doesn’t limp when she walks. She’s not throwing up. I felt around in her mouth, and her teeth and gums seem fine– stinky but fine. She’s not the kind of mutt who digs though garbage cans so I doubt she’s eaten some dangerous food scrap. I also don’t think she has Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).

On the other hand, dogs can sometimes sense somethin’s up. Dogs get vibes. The Dog of My Life, the late Araby, once physically and literally saved me from suicide. Araby had passionate, heightened senses when it came to knowing and watching over me.

The mind-meld Araby and I shared also made Araby an excellent editor of my writing. I used to read drafts of my poems to her, and I could tell by how she moved her facial muscles as I read whether a poem needed more work, or whether it was worthy of being sent out for publication. Not one poem Araby okayed was ever rejected for publication. Araby got me. And she got what I was trying to say in my writing. Hell, sometimes I don’t even get me, let alone get what I write.

Dogs get it. They compute. They sometimes call us on the b.s. they see us pull. They can save us from our own mis-steps. Some dogs have better intuition than others, just like some people do, but they all feel us to some extent. So how could Skitter not be hip to the shifts in my bipolar tectonic plates? Poor thing.

Knowing Skitter as well as I do, I’m confident my current mental state is not what’s making her feel icky. I’m sure she’s aware of my crazy head, and I’m sure she worries a bit about me right now. I have no doubt she senses my current depression, but she’s never joined me on my bipolar arc before, so I don’t think she’s following in my head’s swinging now. I think she simply has some kind of doggie flu bug in her system. She’ll be prancing to the mailbox again alongside me and my pendulum head any day now. And I’m hoping it’s tomorrow.

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The More Things Change, The More Things Change

TIE O’ THE DAY took the Sabbath off. We slept in, then binge-watched IN PLAIN SIGHT, and then it was time for dinner at the in-law’s. We drove over to their house, even though they live only about three blocks way. We always drive there, and I think it’s ridiculous that we do that. But we do it anyway. What lazy butts we have. We always come up with an excuse not to walk there. Yesterday, we decided it was too cold to hoof it over. Our excuses are rarely good ones, but that doesn’t matter to us.

Bow Tie o’ the Day has a classic Tiffany glass design. It’s a beauty. I wore it for the express purpose of showing you my latest interior design construction: a trail of ascending/descending books. As a lover of books, I named this the Stairway the Heaven. I design with books, and I thought I’d try this books-on-the-stairs look. It is visible the minute you walk in the front door, and people who’ve come into the house seem to like it. It’s eye-catching because it’s unexpected. FYI It leaves ample room to walk up and down the stairs, which is the most important concern. Safety first!

We are always running short on bookshelves, so I guess I’ve just given up. I try to find other places for the library to live. At some point, there’s no more wall space for more shelves, so I’m making do. So far, Suzanne has been mostly okay with my book spots. She is, however, tiring of the twenty books stacked on the toilet tanks in each bathroom. I can tell she’s had it with that. But, really, I never know exactly what I’m going to want to read when I’m bathing or am otherwise occupied in the bathroom, so I like a large selection handy. I say the books stay. And they will. Until Suzanne has finally had enough and moves them.

We don’t argue about stuff like that. Things like that just stay the way they are, until suddenly they are different. I’ll simply walk into the bathroom one day and the books will be gone. They will have been replaced with a knick-knack or doodad. That’s the clue that Suzanne’s patience with the towers has ended, and I better not put books there again. Well, okay then. Argument avoided about something that doesn’t really matter, in the scheme of things. Score.

Suzanne puts up with a lot, so I rarely have a problem with her sorta having the final word on house design matters. As long as something isn’t in the way of my antics or isn’t hideous, I’ll roll with it. Sometimes, I even know she wants to put something somewhere she won’t even mention. For example, I knew she wanted the Ultimate SewingBox in the living room, where we spend most of our time. But I also knew she would never in a bazillion years ask me if it was okay to put it there, since it hogs so much space and sewing machines are loud. I took it upon myself to suggest the idea and ask if she wanted to put it there. She was gleeful. That made me happy. The television volume does have to be deadly loud though.

Suzanne and I agree upon pretty much all of the bigly things. She even picked out our house without me when we were in the market six years ago and I had to be in Delta with Mom. Yes, we do have veto power over each other’s bigly decisions, but we rarely use it. Think about it: If you don’t agree about the bigly things with the person you live with, why are you even living with them?

Most disagreements aren’t about life-altering choices that might be more important to one person in a couple than the other. Most things don’t matter. Most arguments between couples are about small, unimportant things like who’s turn it is to do the dishes. We should all stop that. What’s wrong with us that we let the tiny, irritating stuff set the mood of a household? Do you really wanna come home to that?


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Two More Crime Scene Photos

I’m surprised these photographs have survived from the 70’s. Besides Utah, I’ve lived in Virginia and Maryland, and then back in Utah. These prize pix have been with me all along the way. They were taken at the same sleepover as the photo from this morning’s post. See. I wasn’t exaggerating about our boisterous clowning. The pix are joined here by Delta Rabbit-y bunny Bow Tie o’ the Day (Trust me, the white critters on the fabric are bunnies.) and DHS colors Bow Tie o the Day.

In the bunny bow tie photo, top row, left to right: Sandra Topham, Terilyn Anderson, Penny Porter. Middle row, left to right: Tammy Harris, Georgia Grayson, me, Janet Eliason. Bottom: Shelly Brown.

In the red-and-white DHS colors bow tie photo, clockwise from the top: Janet Eliason (behind the elbow), Leann Sorenson, Tauna Louder, Tammy Harris (back of head), Sandra Cropper, Karla Meyers, Edie Gross, Terilyn Anderson.

I don’t know about the rest of these chicks, but I got a lot older.

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Can’t A Girl Just Pee?

Birthday balloon Bow Tie o’ the Day joins a frou-frou feather Bow Tie o’ the Day to honor the birthday of Georgia Grayson Wadsworth.

One set of Cufflinks o’ the Day represents the sweet slices of birthday cake I’m sure Georgia will scarf down today. The other Cufflinks o’ the Day represent the zillions of tasty food orders Georgia cooked at the Desert Drive-in (I think that was its name) and the Burger Box. I wish I owned a pair of onion ring cufflinks to have included in the picture. To this day, I have never found onion rings as incredibly tasting as the ones Georgia made. I am not stretching the truth. Even as I write this, I can taste them. And they had the exact amount of crunchy consistency. Yum in my head.

In this late-70’s photo, Georgia has interrupted me in my bathroom as I attempt to rid myself of soda pop. (Check out Mom’s superb wallpaper o’ the era. Flowers, anyone?) This took place at one of my infamous sleeping parties, which Dad tolerated with much grace.

I’m pretty sure this was the party when we got high on junk food, then crushed potato chips, in an attempt to smoke them. What wild girls we were!

At this same party, the dozen partygoers and I managed to escape from my house, most of us in only our underwear, whereupon we ran down Lyman Row. We made a ruckus down there, and Bill Cave’s dad came out of his house and chased us down the road and through many back yards. We were convinced he was going to maim us with his hook arm.

Somehow we escaped and made it back to the house– all of us with our bodies intact. Last. Sleepover. At. My. House. Ever. Dad’s grace had run out. Honestly, I don’t know why we would have needed more sleepovers anyway. At the parties we’d had up to that point, we had already done every harmlessly fun thing imaginable.

Flash forward to last summer when I had surgery. The day before I went into Huntsman, a package showed up at my front door. It contained a pair of crocheted slippers, with a bow tie crocheted into the design. It was, of course, from my old pal, Georgia. They were a sign.

I was scared about the surgery, and Suzanne was out of town. I was alone in my scaredy-cat emotions. That slipper-y gift of compassion literally kept me from canceling the operation, which I was so close to doing. Those hand-made, bow tie slippers gave me the push and courage necessary to go through with what I needed to do.

In the middle of one of the nights I was at Huntsman– after my surgery– I was in horrendous pain. I remember actually saying to a nurse, mostly jokingly, “Kill me now!” because the pain was so massive and relentless. As tough as I am, I’d had it. In fact, at some point that night, I thought I was literally going to die. I looked down at the end of the bed, and there were those bow tie slippers on my feet. And I thought to myself, “If I die, I will die with my bow tie slippers on.” I didn’t need boots to die in.

Thanks, Georgia. As I always say, Merry birthday!

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Stick With Your Brand, Or Else

Bow Tie o’ the Day and I scurried off to sit in Suzanne’s office and stare at her while she ate her yogurt for lunch. I drank two cans of Fresca from Suzanne’s personal office refrigerator, cuz the Diet Coke I had left in my car overnight was still frozen solid. Ya can’t drink something the consistency of a brick. Thus, I gulped the flowing, free Fresca available to me. Tasty-riffic, but…

Apparently, I’m not acclimated to the side effects of Fresca consumption, because my face has been stuck like this since I drank the first sip. That drinking happened six hours ago, and this mischievous expression just keeps hanging across my face. What’s even weirder is that I think this photo looks more like me than I usually look like myself.

Think on that idea for a minute. It’s as if– due to my reaction to a relatively small dose of Fresca– my face finally got stuck in its “true” look. Has Diet Coke disguised my own face from me and y’all for all these decades? Can I only reach my full Helen-potential if I switch to the “true” Fresca?

And here I go, down The Existential Sinkhole o’ Questions (TESo’Q). You know the one. You fall into it every now and again, when some occurrence or another discombobulates you. The questions are the same for us all: Who am I? What is my purpose? Where is all the Chapstick I’ve lost? Should I have done x, instead of doing y? Should I stay or should I go? Who’s yer daddy? What happens if I forget to forget that I forgot to not forget something I forgot I meant to never forget? Why am I here? Have I wasted my life? What’s my stripper name?

See there? That’s how The Existential Sinkhole o’ Questions can give you a headache. Once you start with your “bigly” existential questions, you can get yourself easily mired down in them, to the point you don’t actually go out and do your living. You can waste time treading water in the swirling TESo’S questions for years on end. Try to avoid that. Try to drive right past that nasty TESo’Q, if at all possible.

And if you wanna be a compassionate person about all this TESo’Q biz, here’s what you can do: After every time you pull yourself out of The Existential Sinkhole o’ Questions, surround the sinkhole with orange traffic cones, so others can more easily avoid taking the grungy plunge. Oh, and help pull them free of the dastardly pit when they ignore the traffic cones you laid out so thoughtfully for their benefit.

Admit it. None of us pays attention to the orange traffic cones all the time. That would be smart. We’re not smart: we’re people.

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Ain’t No Such Thing As “Enough”

I had a heckuva difficult time deciding what bow tie to wear this morning, so I took the easy way out and decided to wear my bow tie-covered ascot. When in doubt, wear as many bow ties as you can, as often as you can, and in any way you can. That little recommendation fits right in line with the goals of clash fashion. Wear bigly, clash bigly. Clash bigly, or go home!

With this philosophy in mind, I present to you, in one piece of neckwear, Ascot o’ the Day and Bow Ties o’ the Day combined. As an added bonus, I am pleased to give you Bow Tie Sunglasses o’ the Day, which I plan to hand over to my ever-sunglasses-wearing mother when I visit her next. Watch out for that!