As y’all know, TIE O’ THE DAY—which is I— is a bigly believer in being kind whenever possible. It is my belief that most people don’t hear they are loved and precious nearly as often as they ought to hear it, as they move through this wild world of good-hearted, but fallible, human beings.
In many situations, the way you dress can aid in expressing to a person you spend time with that you care. Consider the Tie o’ the Day and Hat o’ the Day I wore this morning. I am a proud University of Utah supporter, but I drove to Provo this morning to spend some time with my nephew, Travis. If you know Travis, you know he bleeds BYU Cougar blue—and I suspect BYU blue blood is likely a literal condition where he’s concerned. So I donned my blue-and-white argyle tie and threw on a blue-and-white flat cap for the occasion.
You see, Travis might think I’m eccentric. He might think I’m obnoxious with my ties and bow ties. He might think I’m that nutty aunt who defies all explanation to anyone outside the family. But when I flaunt my BYU colors in his presence, there are a few things of which Travis can always be assured with me: 1. I know who he is at his deepest core, and I know what he values. 2. I love him and want him to see the evidence. That’s how much he means to me. When I showed up at his door in my blue-and-white accessories, he had to know immediately I had thought about him with purpose before I even left my house to meet up with him. We had a fine chat, even if it was in BYU territory.
M&M’s Bow Tie o’ the Day and donuts Shirt o’ the Day are part of a new strategy I’m employing to ensure my successfully giving up sweets—and junk food, in general—for Lent. I am experimenting to see if I can sublimate my seemingly unending desire to eat sugary treats by wearing goodies-themed attire. At least it appears as if I’ve got plenty o’ sugar in the vicinity of my system. So far, wearing bad-for-you confections hasn’t helped me and my taste buds much, but I’ll give it some more time. 🍩🤓 37* days to go.
Well, it is the second day o’ Lent 2022, during which I am sacrificing junk food—particularly sweets— for the 40* days Lent lasts. I have not cheated—except for absentmindedly taking two Tums last night before I remembered they have sugar in them. I don’t think that counts as officially cheating since Tums is a medicine, and I didn’t mean to consume that little bit o’ sugar. I can also report that I am still very much alive so far, although I’m feeling kind of forlorn. I’ve got 38* days to go.
Yesterday, I de-sweeted the house by dumping the remainder of my Honey Smacks cereal. I also threw out my stash of chocolate licorice (blasphemy) and licorice licorice. Getting rid of chocolate licorice was a horrid blow to my innards. It also almost killed me to jettison my annual Whoppers malted milk Easter eggs candy. The freezer is now barren of all ice cream. If I am not an ice cream fiend, who am I? I am so lost and discombobulated. The sweet-less me is like a fish out of water: I can hardly breathe. I fear I will start to flop around on the ground any day now. Just who the Hell-en am I supposed to be for the next 38* days?
Ultimately, I suppose I will survive this junk food self-ban by clinging to my neckwear even more obsessively than I already do—if that’s even possible. I will have to fill my junky-food-less time by scribbling more poetry and fiction than I already routinely do. And I will certainly amp up my reading habit accordingly. I will keep up with posting my TIE O’ THE DAY whatever-it-is tblog. And I will, of course, continue to romp outside and inside with Skitter. So, in effect, I will be in my usual Heaven, but without snacks of any kind. It’s a good thing “one day at a time” is a key mantra I believe in. 😇😏
Maybe you missed the fact, but please know that I have a soul-deep attachment to paisley. This photo is evidence of my truth. The paisley Tie o’ the Day, Shirt o’ the Day, Face Mask o’ the Day, and Hat o’ the Day are my kind o’ snazzy. For the most part, I have ceased wearing face masks. However, I think this mask adds to the point I’m making in this post: it’s all about the paisley. Do not be askeered, however. I have no intention of posting pix of my paisley Underwear o’ the Day. I do have some scruples, you know.😜
FYI Stay tuned for this afternoon’s post about how I’m handling a treat-free Lent. Hint: So far, it hasn’t been pretty.
Lent has begun, and I’ve decided to give up sweets and junk food in general. For the next 40* days, I am giving up ice cream, licorice, cereal, birthday cake-flavored Hershey’s kisses, peach gummies, crackers, potato chips, pretzels, and all other junk edibles of this ilk. I am even giving up my Freedent gum, which contains sugar. It is the one and only chewing gum that does not stick to my dentures, and it makes me particularly sad to ignore it. (If I get lonesome for doing some chewing during Lent, I suppose I will have to take up chewing tobacco.🤢)
I am taking this Lenten sacrifice seriously. It will be a true challenge for me because I am more of a snacker or grazer, not a 3-meals-a-day eater. During Lent, my whole food routine must change. If I discover I like the eating change, I suppose I will make it my new normal way of eating. That is something I cannot imagine, but I am big on being reasonable: if the result of my not eating junky food is that I feel better, I will likely follow the logic of it and decide to eat differently for the duration of my life. Right now, the idea that it is best to drop the junky food is only theoretical. I “know” the way I eat could be healthier, but experiencing a more healthy diet firsthand will make it personally clear and logical.
I do not look forward to these 40* days of Lent. It will be tough. I will need distractions. And I’m sure I will ask myself at some point in every day why I’m giving up anything for Lent at all, especially since I am not Catholic. But I like a challenge, and I like the idea of sacrificing something in order to grow as a person—even to treat my own body with more discipline and more respect.
So that’s the plan. But I know it’s possible I might fold tomorrow and eat a bowl of ice cream. The result of that would be a feeling of abject failure, and I do not need to feel like a failure. Ain’t nobody got time for that. I am indeed in charge of my success or failure in this matter. If I don’t succeed in sticking to the challenge for 40* days, it will be completely my fault.
And here’s a secret: I must admit that I am fully aware success in this endeavor will be possible for me to achieve only because Mom doesn’t cook her magnificent treats anymore. If Mom were still creating her yummy confections, I would not have even tried to give up sweets. Such a sacrifice would not have even occurred to me to attempt. I would have been setting myself up for sure failure. But I can do this now that Big Helen has retired from cooking. I think I can. I think I can. 🍧🍨🍦🍰🍭🍬🍫🍿🍩🍪
BTW If you don’t understand why 40 is followed by an asterisk, be sure to read yesterday’s TIE O’ THE DAY post for the explanation.
I figured I should acknowledge Mardi Gras, if only because I’ve been busy today thinking about what I should give up for Lent tomorrow. What I really want to give up for 40 days is my sobriety, but that would sort of defeat the purpose. Actually, it would defeat a bunch of purposes. Nah, I will be giving up something else for 40 days. I’m not sure what it will be. I’m thinking giving up sweets would be a sacrifice for me, but my birthday is next week and I can’t justify breaking Suzanne’s heart by not eating whatever birthday dessert she will want to feed me. Still, I’d kind of like to test my mettle and see if I could go without sweets for 40 days.
I know it would be breaking the rules of Lent, but maybe I could go sweetless on 39 of Lent’s 40 days, and then go without sweets one extra day after Lent officially ends. Of course, that means I would have to put an asterisk by my accomplishment if I eat sweets on my birthday, for cheating just a smidgen smack dab in the middle of Lent. It would be as if I were a Major League Baseball steroid user in the 90’s. I’d have an asterisk by my stats. Asterisk, asterisk, asterisk. ✳️
Coffee bean Bow Tie o’ the Day and I mean no disrespect to any of y’all who might be coffee lovers. Nor do we mean any disrespect to those of y’all who might find coffee to be the work of the Devil. Nope. This is just me telling you about my own personal recent relationship with coffee.
I have never been a coffee drinker. I have ordered a cup o’ Joe at various times throughout my life—mainly to see if I can finally taste what the bigly hubbub is all about, and whether I’ve acquired a taste for it yet. It has never seemed tasty to me. People tell me to throw in some cream and sugar, but I think if you have to put a ton of cream and sugar in coffee in order to be able to stand drinking it, it ends up being something other than coffee—so why bother? Fresh peaches can be good with cream and sugar, but peaches are good on their own already. It’s not the same with coffee. So every once in a blue moon, I slurp some coffee, push it aside, and then forget about it for a decade or so—when I decide to give it another try and order myself a cup. My verdict, as always is a resounding, lower case “meh.”
Fast forward to some minor-but-picky issues I’ve been having with my gut since my surgery in October. I did some research and spoke with a couple of my doctors, and the consensus is that I should try drinking a minimal amount of coffee every day to see if that helps my system work out its kinks. So about six weeks ago, I made a morning cup o’ coffee part of my daily routine.
Let me describe to you how coffee smells and tastes to me. When I put a cup of coffee to my lips and take a sniff, I smell what I can only describe as a motel ashtray filled with layers of cigarette ashes and crumpled butts and the tail end of a cheap cigar. And when I take a sip of the coffee, it tastes like I drank the liquified contents of said full ashtray—and then licked the ashtray clean. 😱
Theoretically, it seems like an easy choice for me to simply quit drinking the bean brew—except I’m now “blessed” (stuck?) with a working solution. Yup, coffee seems to be working miracles for me. And I’m a bit miffed that it does. I want my gut problem solved, but I have discovered I really really really really don’t like coffee. Drinking coffee makes me metaphorically sick, but it cures my literal belly woes. Go figure. ☕️ 🚬
[As a favor to a pal who requested it, I am re-posting this post from 2019. Enjoy it again, or for the first time in case you missed it when it originally showed up here.]
Hey! Look what I rescued. It’s my ties-themed 100 oz. mini-keg, which was my go-to sip cup for a couple of years after I bought it. Although it cracked inside last year, I never had the heart to throw it out. Its flex straw had a slight crack in it too, and the lid doesn’t fit tightly either, but its tie graphics are too perfect for me. 7-11 doesn’t sell the tie design “cup” anymore, so I can’t go buy another one. What’s a girl to do with a cracked 100 oz. ties mini-keg? For the last year it’s been mocking me by sitting in the garage whining out its jealousy of my new, differently designed mini-keg. I was about to finally toss the battered, cracked mini-keg over the weekend. And then I had a genius idea I can’t believe I didn’t think of last year: DUCT TAPE. I’ll tape the inside cracks and let you know how it works out.
As I searched for the duct tape, Tie o’ the Day and I were contemplating the weirdities of my life. I don’t care who you are or how straight-laced and “normal” your life has been, you’ve likely found yourself in surreal situations here and there—when you wonder how you got into the predicament and how you’ll ever get out of it. You didn’t set out to be in the situation. The scenario is so outlandish you couldn’t have purposely concocted it if you had wanted to. And you’re positive no one will believe you when you tell them the story.
Because I am I, I have a zillion of ’em. Because I am I, everyone knows my improbable tales really occurred. I call these odd goings-on My Greatest Hits. One of My Greatest Hits is courtesy of the 7-11 in Takoma Park, MD, in the mid-90’s. It doesn’t star a 7-11 mini keg, just a 7-11 Super Big Gulp cup.
Interstate 95 is the main N-S route on the East Coast. The traffic usually runs at a pretty good clip. I used to drive it every school day morning from Washington, D.C. to Baltimore’s inner city where I taught middle school. My drive to work usually took about 35 minutes.
But one morning, when I was just about to exit the freeway and head into West Baltimore, all lanes of the I-95 traffic going my way came to a halt. That was rare for that particular area of the freeway. Rarer still, an hour later no vehicle had moved a centimeter. Something bigly was surely shutting down the road. (It ended up being a many-car accident.) By that time, I had been sitting in the car for more than an hour. For me, that’s venturing into MUST PEE NOW territory. I had finished my Super Big Gulp of Diet Coke, and I needed to get rid of it. And I don’t mean I needed to throw away the cup. A half-hour later, all drivers were still sitting in the precise same place we first were stopped. I was beyond desperate. I had no choice except to do what I had to do.
As a middle school teacher at the time, I learned to always have back-up clean clothing in the car. Out of nowhere, middle schoolers can create unheard of messes, and it’s not uncommon for those messes to end up on the teacher—whether you were anywhere near ground zero or not. It’s nice to have clean clothes to step into. Anyhoo… That day, in an attempt to make myself invisible in my car for a minute, I used my spare clothes to cover my front, side windows. I pulled down the visors. With my empty Super Big Gulp cup, I strategically did what had to be done. The contortionist skills I learned as a teenage mooner came in quite handy. Mission accomplished. Almost.
I extremely carefully got my pants back where they belonged. I opened my door and emptied the cup, which I didn’t want to keep in the car, but I don’t litter. I “baby wiped” my hands. (It was the pre- hand sanitizer era.) Although we drivers had all been stuck going nowhere on I-95 for almost two hours, I felt much better.
As I took my back-up clothes down from the windows, I heard a knock. I was sure it was a cop who would soon give me a ticket for Public Urination or Public Indecency or some such charge that would put me on the Sex Offender Registry. But it wasn’t a cop. It was a soccer mom from the van behind me. She asked, “Can I borrow that cup? I gotta go too.” I said, “No, you may not borrow it. You must keep it. Please, for the love of all that’s holy, keep it. Take these Wet Wipes too.”
I kid you not. As time passed and the cars still didn’t move for a small slice of forever, Soccer Mom was not the last person to use my cup. I watched my Super Big Gulp cup and the wipes travel up, down, and across a handful of the halted lanes as we sat parked on I-95 whittling away our time in the pre- affordable cell phone era. The cup that almost ranneth over had a somewhat bonding effect on those who were there that day. That cup was the founder of a different kind of Relief Society. Those of us who got relief became friends for life on that commute, even though we didn’t talk to each other and we would never see each other again. We shared a moment. We shared a cup.
I do not know who finally ended up with the Super Big Gulp cup and baby wipes.
BTW Speaking of my Delta, teenage mooning career, I once mooned a worker at the Taco Time drive-up window while driving and wearing overalls. Now that is a true and rare skill set. (Yes, young-un’s, Delta once had a Taco Time. And an A & W and an Arctic Circle.)
Just a tiny post today. Bow Tie o’ the Day has a purple-and-lavender-and-teal reptilian vibe to its look. Tonight’s dinner is likely to be this colorful bow tie pasta I found. Bow tie pasta is the only pasta we regularly stock in the pantry at our house. It’s our food mascot. 👒
Today, I’ve been busy catching up on a quiver of projects, errands, and even stoking a fervent wish. Tie o’ the Day is symbolic of my wish: I want a beach, somewhere far from the cold and snow I live in. But that’s not on the schedule currently, so I guess I will half-heartedly settle for beach-y, tropical neckwear. I want to rent a palm tree and some white sand. A girl can dream.
I’ve been playing phone tag with the car dealership where I ordered my new truck in November. I have heard nothing from them or Ford since placing my order. I knew I would have a months-long wait to get my Maverick, so I’m not worried. I’m simply wanting to check in with somebody official about it, though, just for reassurance that my order didn’t get lost somewhere in the process. But my car salesguy hasn’t returned my texts or calls yet. I see a drive to the dealership in my plans, which I really don’t have time for—but okay.
I’ve been considering my head hairs this afternoon, and I am having a heckuva time deciding whether to keep shaving it or to let it grow out again. I have kept it shaved for almost exactly a year now. I’m feeling like a hairs change would be nice. But I also really like how it feels to have teensy-weensy head hairs. Maybe I should do both: keep my head shaved, but start a wig collection and wear a different hairstyle every day. Hey, it could be the best of both worlds. I can see the wigs now: all the obnoxious colors I can find and every hairstyle yet known on the planet. I am tempted. But if I start another collection, I can count on collecting divorce papers, too. What to do?
Another bigly project for me today has been to get working on choosing my Oscars gown. I had almost forgotten about the ceremony being only a month from now. I must get crankin’ on that. I know that sometimes I make bold attire moves that I later regret. That just comes with being a fashion genius. Sometimes you hit, sometimes you miss. But messing up with a gown at the Oscars is committing a faux pas in an entirely different universe. I cannot afford to pull a blunder on that socially-enormous, over-blown, bloated-ego stage. Nope. I must get my look right on the Red Carpet. So I’m working on it.
