Back in December 2020, closer to our actual anniversary, we made a pilgrimage to the one place we had lived in Ogden. This was not just an apartment, like all our SLC residences had been. This was our house—with a swell porch for sittin’ and watchin’ the world go by. It was located on the “bad” side of Harrison Blvd, but it was a good area for Rowan to grow up. We lived here until we moved to our current residence in Centerville, almost a decade ago.
Note that in this photo I am wearing a Christmas Tie o’ the Day and a Suzanne-made Cape o’ the Day.
At our BAMBARA brunch, Suzanne gave me a Valentine’s card, a birthday card, and an Easter card. This was her signal to me that our first real dining-out-fancy in a restaurant since the pandemic began was meant to celebrate more than just Easter. In my post this morning, I told you Suzanne called our 3-in-1 holiday “Valenbirtheaster.” But after we completely filled our tummies at brunch, Suzanne had yet a fourth “holiday” which we needed to acknowledge on her agenda.
Not only did we not venture out to a restaurant to celebrate our 7th Anniversary back in December, I had told Suzanne that in honor of our anniversary, I wanted us to go on a trek to re-visit the three places we had lived in Salt Lake City when we first got together way back in the ancient 80’s. Due to the pandemic and life’s busy-ness in general, we never got around to doing the anniversary abode trek—until Suzanne surprised me with just such a nostalgic drive after brunch yesterday.
Behind us in the first photo is a house which had been split into apartments, one of which was our first residence. Our apartment was on 8th East, near the 9th and 9th neighborhood. We lived on the 2nd floor, in a U-shaped apartment. Suzanne’s brother, James, lived with us in this apartment too. We enjoyed watching him eat pizza-sized pancakes whole. Most notably, our apartment had red popsicle-colored walls surrounding the bathtub. Also, we had a neighbor across the hall who had the jaunty name of Sadie Cowboy. She was probably not much older than us, but she had lost most of her teeth—likely to violence. She did have a young daughter whose laughter brightened Sadie’s otherwise dire situation. One of our downstairs neighbors was a Goliath of a U of U football player named Kyle who took a liking to us, and made sure nobody gave us any trouble.
Our second apartment was in a big complex on 9th East, around 3rd South. We had a lot more room there, and the apartment was closer to the U of U where I had a teaching fellowship. But the apartment’s plastic yellow carpet was sharp to bare feet, so we wore shoes in the apartment all the time. If we wanted to sit on the floor to read the Sunday paper or watch a movie, we had to lay down a thick blanket over the carpet first. I kid you not, if your skin directly touched the carpet, it gave you a carpet burn even if you were completely still. We named that apartment The Kingdom of Scary Yellow Carpet. We had another U of U football player living right next door to us there too, but he wasn’t protective like the football guy from our first apartment building. On more than one occasion this guy threw his wife against the wall we shared, knocking out his wife, and knocking our pictures off the wall.
In the third photo here, you are seeing us in front of two houses on 10th Avenue, just off I Street. When we visited our third—and final—SLC apartment we once occupied, we couldn’t agree which house our garden apartment was in. Suzanne thinks we lived in the baby blue one, and I think the gray-blue one’s house numbers sounded like the right address. We aren’t sure which one housed us, but we are sure it was one of the two. It doesn’t surprise me we aren’t positive about it, because we didn’t live in this one very long.
And so, after revisiting our old SLC domiciles, the word Valenbirtheaster had to get longer. I have officially christened yesterday’s celebration of four different things to be “Valenbirtheastaversary.”
The pandemic has cramped our out-on-the-town celebration style, but Suzanne decided our masked and vaccinated selves were finally safe enough to go forth and eat fancy food in an actual restaurant in Salt Lake City. Of course, she didn’t tell me exactly what we were doing or where we were going to do it. All I knew is that she had made secret reservations for something somewhere, but she told me nothing more than when to have my goin’-out duds on. I just did as I was told and got in the car. Off we drove to the bigly city o’ Salt. When the car was safely stopped in a parking stall, I finally knew we were going to dine at BAMBARA. Well played, Suzanne.
I had a superb meal of grilled asparagus, a perfectly fried egg, and a pork chop the size of a pork roast—all smothered in a cherry tomato vinaigrette and a tomato hollandaise sauce. I’ll be eating what’s left of my pork chop for lunch for the rest of the week, and probably the upcoming weekend. Suzanne ordered the salmon Caesar salad, which had garlic croutons the size of popcorn balls. The waiter brought us a piece of chocolate cake with strawberries and cream to share—and a lighted candle—when he found out we were celebrating my birthday, among other things.
Suzanne surprised me with not one, but three different special occasion cards. With this one Easter brunch, she was handling three separate and distinct celebrations. We hadn’t been able to go out to eat for Valentine’s Day or my birthday this year, so Suzanne says we were celebrating what she calls Valenbirtheaster. After Easter brunch, Suzanne took me on a drive to celebrate a fourth “holiday.” Valenbirtheaster morphed into Valenbirtheasterversary. I’ll tell you all about that in this afternoon’s post.
Face Mask o’ the Day depicts a glimpse of the fabled race characters, the tortoise and the hare. I have paired it with a recently acquired Bow Tie o’ the Day made of painted wood. Other than that, I don’t have anything else to write today, because for once in her working life, Suzanne just now came home from the office early. Trust me—it’s the kind of thing that will never happen again. I’m going to post this as is, and then sit down and make her watch Judge Judy with me.
I am miffed this afternoon, but in worse words than “miffed.” Suzanne and I had made plans to go visit Mom in her room at Millard Care and Rehab Thursday, and then I got an email from MCR saying that in-person, in-the-flesh visits are once again not allowed. Apparently, the COVID-19 positive rate for Millard County has risen over the CDC guidelines, and there will again be no in-the-flesh visits until the positive rate is below 10% for two Monday’s in a row. I won’t be hugging Mom again for at least two dang weeks from today. Don’t get me wrong: I’m pleased MCR puts its residents first, keeping them as safe as possible. Mom often mentions how safe she feels living there, and her feeling of security is priceless to us. We know they will take care of her. But I don’t have to like it that I can’t be in the same room as my mother—even if it is for her own safety. Just let me be grumpy about it for the rest of the day.😡
I just had to share. I was cleaning drawers in the Tie Room and I came across these Cufflinks o’ the Day, representing the oft-asked question: boxers or briefs?
If you’re a longtime reader of TIE O’ THE DAY, you know what I’m doing today. If I’m wearing my money Bow Tie o’ the Day, it means we’re filing our taxes. You also know that my tax post always contains a few words about how I consider my tax dollars give me the biggest bang for the buck, relative to any other dollar I spend. Yes, I gripe about paying taxes, but it’s an ironic gripe. Due to nothing more than good luck, I was born in the United States of America. I get to live here. The least I can do is pay an annual tithe to my country to help pay my way. 💵 💰🇺🇸😁
I can now cross my COVID-19 vaccinations off my list. As of this morning, I am fully vaccinated. I wore my wood, lobster claws Bow Tie o’ the Day out to the Davis fairgrounds to get my second shot. Bow Tie got a couple of compliments from the clinic workers, and the guy I handed my documents to through my car window congratulated me on having manual windows in my car. He said he couldn’t remember when he last saw a vehicle with manual windows—and he’s the guy who sees all the cars as they line up. Folks, my Vibe is fourteen years old—and I know that’s a bit old for a car—but it runs perfectly and I still get 36 mpg, and I ain’t getting rid of it until I absolutely have to. The guy acted as if I was driving a classic antique car, with a much-coveted, near-extinct feature: an un-gadget, in an electronic world. I told him he could have a turn rolling the windows up and down if he wanted to, but he was too busy. And then I told him my car is really like those mini clown cars in the circus, from which—when the doors open—a parade of two dozen clowns comes traipsing out from who-knows-where. Hey, it could be true. My car is a magic relic.
