Bow Tie o’ the Day presents me in 1985. This was back in the day when you were required to have your Social Security number visible on your ID. Here’s a noggin’ o’ some hairs I was pleased to have. I liked this cut. And yup, that’s a yellow tail hanging down on my right shoulder. I had that for a couple of years, and I changed the color often. I remember going red, blue, and green at different times with my pet tail.
Mom hated the tail. While I was in Graduate School at the U of U, Sandy Ferrell cut my hair when I was in Delta during school breaks. Mom got more and more apoplectic every time she saw the bright chunk of hairs just dangling there on my shoulder. She threatened to pay Sandy $50 to “accidentally” chop off my colorful tail. No need. About a couple of months after this photo was taken, I shaved my head for the first time. Unfortunately for me, I shaved off my head fur during the winter, and my head froze bigly.
It’s time once again to check in with my scar. It has been almost six months to the day since I got sawed in half and put back together. I’m quite pleased with my scar’s progress, and I even think my it’s kinda pretty. At the same time, my scar also gives me street cred when I flash it in the ‘hood.
Photo # 1. This is a repost. Luau hula dog Bow Tie o’ the Day posed with me and my incision while I selfied this pic in my hospital bed at Huntsman. Please excuse the slight wardrobe malfunction in the upper left corner of the photo. I blame my epidural for drugging my censor ability at the time I snapped this.
Photo # 2. Bow Tie o’ the Day represents the screws and bolts my surgeon did not have to use to put me back together. I got stapled of course.
I thought it would be painful to have my staples removed, which they did right before they wheeled me out of the hospital. But I hardly felt their removal. I watched each staple as it was pulled out, and the entire thing was a smooth and graceful procedure. The doctor wouldn’t let me keep the staples though. The minuscule staple entry holes around my scar are almost completely invisible at this point. I have been told by my medical-y friends that the scar itself will gradually whiten-up over time.
At this point, my scar itches me quite a bit, and the area around it sometimes feels like I have a deep bruise inside my gut beneath the scar. I feel a tug or a pull inside now and then, but the strangest feeling I’ve had is feeling as if a strip of Velcro is being pulled off my innards. Nothing to worry about. I’m having an interesting adventure in my inner self, literally and metaphorically.
Sometimes, when I feel frustrated with my lack of energy and my various tweaks and pokes, I tell Suzanne I wish I’d never had the surgery. And I truly mean it for that moment. Occasionally, it’s a very long moment. But then I remember Suzanne pushed me to have the procedure because she says she wants me around for the rest of her life. I come to my senses then. Without the surgery, my expiration date would be years less than it should be. When I think going through the operation wasn’t worth it to me, I remember I’m not just one person. I’m my family and my friends. I’m especially Suzanne.
The first thing Suzanne said to me, with surprise, when she came downstairs this morning was, “You’re not wearing a bow tie!? ” I said, “I know I put one on, but I don’t see it anywhere.” Wood, camouflage-design Bow Tie o’ the Day is hiding from something. And I’m betting it’s trying to dodge the cold.
I had to be at physical therapy at 7:30 this morning. It’s a ten-minute drive to the clinic, but it took me 18 minutes just to clean off the car. It was 20 degrees outside. Even bow ties get frostbite at that temperature. I hate the cold. In case you weren’t clear on that, let me yell this: I HATE THE COLD! Today’s cold is so penetrating it has frozen my heart.
We have a two-car garage, but like everyone else I’ve ever known with a two-car garage, there’s only room for one car. There’s too much stuff nobody needs but nobody wants to get rid of taking up all the space. One vehicle can barely squeeze inside.
It’s only right that Suzanne’s car always gets the garage in winter, since she’s the one that has to be at a job at a certain time five days a week. It would be wrong for her to have to freeze in the cold, scraping her windows before heading to her office. I mean– when it gets right down to it, I freely admit my poetry does not come close to paying for the garage. Suzanne’s job does. Suzanne wins, as well she should.
Suzanne is convinced we will one day be able to fit two vehicles in the garage. I laugh at that thought. I live in reality. Suzanne usually lives in reality, but not on this issue. Between us, we have acquired 108 years of material stuff, most of which we don’t need but we don’t want to get rid of. And we’ll only acquire more things. That’s what people do, and everything can’t live in the house. Especially when the house is already full to the brim with sewing supplies and neckwear.
The Skit and I have lounged around the house in our Ties o’ the Day, looking out the tall windows at the falling snow. And occasionally, Skitter has ventured out to color the snow yellow. She’s a vibrant abstract artist. And then the falling snow puts down another layer of canvas for her, and out she goes again to show off more of her artistic genius. I have never seen an artist work so brilliantly with only one color. You, go, Skitter van Dogh!
I love today’s photos, especially the one in which my eyes are closed. It doesn’t matter that it’s blurry. There is no misinterpretation of these pix. Despite Skitter’s skittishness about everything and everybody in the universe, she is no longer hesitant to put aside her fear, and love me enough to give me a stinky smooch. And the ties and I kinda like her, too.
Bow Tie o’ the Day is one of my bow ties you have to see up close, in order to fully appreciate it. If you scrutinize these tasty chicken drumsticks, you’ll see a few of them have already had a bite taken out of them. Clever little details like that make an already fine bow tie extraordinary.
Although chicken is not an exotic meat, the exquisite Bow Tie does remind me of menus I encountered in frou-frou restaurants when I lived in the Baltimore/Washington, D.C. area. I lived there eight years, so I ate at a few of the finer establishments on occasion.
I was always surprised to see the most outrageously priced entrees on the menu were things like venison, pheasant, trout, rabbit, duck, elk, etc. I did not know, until I moved to back east, that I had spent most of my life eating exotic meats.(Asparagus was considered an exotic side dish.) And, of course, all those meats were free for us. Apparently, even when we had no money, we ate as if we were rich. We were obviously too stoopid to know it. We were redneck hicks, and I’m still proud to be the white trash I was taught to be.
Did I ever sell my soul to pay for one of these fancy meals? Yes. One time. I was curious, and I ordered duck. It did not compare to the duck Mom prepared. In fact, its taste did not resemble duck at all. Duck fail! The worst part of it was that after I paid for it, I was too broke to eat out for another six months.
Once, when I was a kid, Dad headed to California to hang with his bee family, and he was going to be there longer than usual. It was winter– the time of year when we were usually tight on money. He gave a guy a can of honey in trade for the guy to bring Mom a few rabbits for us to eat while he was gone.
A few days after Dad left for California to babysit his precious bees, the dude brought Mom the skinned rabbits in a bucket. She thanked him, and off he went. But when Mom started to put them in a big Tupperware container to put them in the fridge, something about them just didn’t seem right to her. When Dad called to check in, Mom told him there was something hinky about the critters. Dad told her not to use them and he’d deal with it when he got home. Somehow, Mom managed to feed us while he was gone. Hell, we probably ate honey for every meal.
When Dad got home, he opened up the Tupperware container. He said a word or two that I won’t write here. Those skinned “rabbits” were cats. Dad left the house for a couple of hours, and when he came back he had the can of honey he had bartered for the rabbits. And a couple of hours after that, the rabbit guy showed up with a dozen real rabbits, a sheepish apology to Mom, and looking a bit roughed-up. And I remember he brought authentic rabbits to us every now and then throughout the winter. Dad was a very persuasive guy. It wasn’t about the deal. It was about hurting cats, and feeding his family, and messing with Mom.
Skitter and I put on our big girl Bow Ties o’ the Day for an afternoon of unspeakable work outside. Skitter stood on the patio being foxy-looking while I put on my rubber gloves and grabbed a plastic grocery bag, for the sole purpose of de-pooping the back yard. Skitter happily watched me work, and then added a couple of poops to my chore. And look at how tired it made her to supervise my efforts on her behalf. I’m certain you don’t want me to describe any more about it, and I’m certain I don’t want to tell you any more about it. Some things are better left unsaid. But it’s no accident paw print Bow Tie is brown.
Here Bow Tie o’ the Day and I are in my over-stacked, over-messy writing loft. Two desks, a few crates, and two cabinets do not provide enough space for my files. My piles overfloweth.
But at least I’m wearing a flowery bow tie, which I wore to Suzanne’s office to watch her eat lunch. I wanted to take her flowers, but she has allergies. My bloomin’ bow ties solve the problem. If I’m wearing one, Suzanne knows it means I’m metaphorically giving her a bouquet. Bow Tie’s flowers are also more cost-effective than real flowers. That’s an added bonus. No matter the price though, I’d still give her fresh flowers if she wouldn’t sneeze the petals onto the floor.
Dad had horrible allergies, which is beyond inconvenient if you’re a beekeeper. Alfalfa fields and orchards were his offices. One summer evening, after a long day in the bee yards, Dad was reading the newspaper in his chair, which sat just inside the front door by our house’s picture window. The door was open to the screen door, in order to get some air moving through the stuffy house. The house didn’t yet have an air conditioner, so opening the door was absolutely necessary.
Suddenly that evening, Dad got into a prize-winning, allergy-induced sneezing fit. He said nothing. He folded his newspaper closed, got up, and walked out the back door. A few minutes later, he was outside the picture window with a shovel, digging up every marigold in Mom’s flower bed, which was right below the big window. When he was done, he came in through the front door, sat back down in his chair, and opened up his Salt Lake Tribune. He didn’t say a word. And neither did Mom when she saw her marigolds turned over in clumps of dirt. She just shoveled them into the wheelbarrow, hauled them out back, and torched them. That was the end of Mom growing flowers anywhere in our yard. Home should be a place where your allergies can calm down a bit.
This story demonstrates how Mom and Dad understood each other so well that sometimes they didn’t even need to discuss a problem. They simply cut to the result they would have ended up with if they’d had the argument in the first place. It saved them time and energy, and possible hurt feelings. Do not think for one millisecond that their un-argued arguments always went in Dad’s favor. Mom gave as good as she got.
All paisley, all the time. See, you can have a common thread to your outfit, while still creating the proper clashion. Hat o’ the Day, Cufflinks o’ the Day, Shirt o’ the Day, Vest o’ the Day (which I named the Pimp Vest), and– most importantly– Bow Tie o’ the Day combine to create a clash extraordinaire. I think this is some of my top work. I’m a proud momma of my fashion creation. Paisles are my fave “shape” with which to work my unmatchiness. I suppose my goal to clash makes me a non-matchmaker.
Perhaps I am overdressed for my day’s tasks. First they are all tasks I need to do at home. Cleaning, laundry, etc.. I will probably leave the house only for Skitter’s walkie. But what I’ll be spending most of my task-time doing is going through the storage bins and boxes in the garage, looking for ONE thing: a shoebox-sized box which holds half-a-dozen cassette tapes I recorded with my Grandma, Martha Anderson in 2000.
Grandma had fallen and broken her hip and shoulder. She was in the Delta hospital for a week or so before she could return to her apartment in The Sands. I stayed at the hospital with her each night. Well, Grandma must have gotten all of the sleep she would ever need in the preceding decades because she did not sleep. So we talked. At some point I started to record her stories. When I showed up at the hospital each night, I turned on the recorder and let it go. I haven’t listened to them for years. Life gets busy and you forget to do important things like that. Shame on us.
I know I still have the tapes somewhere, because I remember packing them up in Delta when we moved the contents of the Delta house up here. But I have no clue in which bin I so safely stored them. My biggest concern is that the tapes might not still be in playing condition after nearly two decades. I’ve kept them safe, but I can’t keep them safe from the passing of time. I no longer own a cassette player, but Betty/BT/Mercedes (whatever name you call my oldest sister) still has the one she got as a prize on WHEEL OF FORTUNE in the 80’s. She’s the family genealogist, so these tapes belong with her anyway.
I remember one startling moment during a night with Grandma, which I so wish had been recorded. After Grandma went back to The Sands from the hospital, I still stayed with her most nights. She stayed in a hospital bed in her living room, and I took over the couch.
One night, Grandma finally fell asleep for a few minutes. I started to nod off, when suddenly Grandma loudly said, in her sleep, “Isn’t it funny about horses? How they have sex, you know.” She stayed asleep and never uttered another word until she woke up a little later and asked me to get her some of her “cheesies.” Cheetos. Of course, I happily got her a bowl of cheesies. I did not ask her about the dream she had just had. But I really, really, really wanted to.
So then… I got to thinking that even though this morning my neckwear and I nixed the idea of wearing the current trendy clothing which VOGUE says is “in,” maybe I should start wearing make-up– specifically make-up styles that are “hot” as of this month’s issue of the magazine.
Here’s a mascara scare I found on one page of VOGUE. It appealed to me, as far as its gaudy, outllandishness. I couldn’t look away for the longest time. But I wondered if maybe it could be beautiful for Bow Ties o’ the Day to become huge, mascara-like eyelashes. It works, right? Hey, it’s innovative. My bow TIELASHES will soon be the envy of everyone whose eyelashes wear make-up. Model agencies will clamor for my newly created designs. The world-wide trend begins right here. Y’all can say you saw it here first.
