Month: June 2019

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It’s Lookin’ Good

SCAR UPDATE! Bow Ties o’ the Day present my scar, exactly one year after it was carved into my belly during my pancreaticoduodenectomy. 6 inches o’ scar! It is healing well. It’s gradually whitening up, especially on the left end so far. It will never be invisible, but it will fade. I don’t mind having a scar on my body. It’s like my wrinkles and gray hairs: I earned them all. Deal with them or look away. In a way, they are my body’s evidence of parts of my life’s story. This is my only physical scar. If it were my style to wear bikinis, I’d still wear one. I am not ashamed to show what my belly has been through, inside or out.

RECOVERY UPDATE! My handsome Hanky Panky scar is an adequate symbol for my year o’ post-operation recovery. I can report that every step in the healing process has been textbook, best-case scenario, near-perfection. I’m feeling substantially less Hanky Panky pain. I’ve done everything Dr. Mulvehill told me to do to heal. Suzanne made sure of that. She has taken good care of me and she did all the heavy lifting, as they say. She fussed at me to slow down when I got over-zealous about how much I could do. I learned Suzanne knows how to scold when she sees bad behavior. (It’s kinda funny though. She didn’t seem to know how to use that disciplinary skill when Rowan was a young’un. Alas! I was always the bad cop o’ his kidhood.)

I continue to feel weird tugs and pulls in my torso, but throughout the last year, they have lessened in terms of pain, oddity, and regularity of occurrence. I notice them most now when getting in and out of bed, and when using my bigly strength to push something down– like closing my car’s obnoxiously heavy hatch or pushing down the lid on my mini keg.

I’ve been extra cautious with my recovery. (Except for falling down the stairs while running. Twice. And a few other not cautious things we won’t talk about now.) I rested and rested and rested until my rester was sore. I didn’t lift anything but Popsicles and Diet Cokes for the first two months after the operation. I’ve gotten my stamina back almost completely, because I go for walks.

Also, I take what I call My Pancreas with every meal. My Pancreas is a bigly capsule containing a prescription pancreatic enzyme which helps what’s left of my pancreas do its job. I take My Pancreas very seriously. I am beyond diligent about taking it when I feast. I have, on only a couple of occasions, forgotten to carry it with me when we’ve gone out to eat. At one restaurant, I was so surprised and aghast I didn’t have My Pancreas that– upon discovering it wasn’t in my pocket– I said a little too loudly, “I forgot to bring My Pancreas!” That entire evening, I got the distinct impression nobody at the restaurant noticed my bow tie or my cape. Instead, they were straining to see if there was evidence of a nook, cranny, or cupboard somewhere on the side of my gut where a pancreas could be kept or let out.

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Whew! I’m Glad THAT’S Over

On this date and at this very hour last year, I was being gutted at Huntsman Cancer Institute. (You can see in the photo that Bow Tie o’ the Day jumped on my neck right after I got into my regular hospital room.) After nearly 20 years of chronic idiopathic pancreatitis, I’d had enough. Most of my dastardly pancreas (my Hanky Panky) had to go. With it, went my gall bladder, duodenum, and a bit of my small intestine. And finally, my surgeon had to replumb my innards. Whenever I tell the story of my surgery, I am most excited to tell this detail: While hacking out 2/3 of my pancreas, my surgeon, Dr. Sean Mulvehill, found and removed a bunch of pancreatic stones the size of olives! That’ll clog your pancreatic duct! Olive-sized stones! That’s my fave part of my whole surgery tale to tell.

In today’s later post, I’ll write a very tiny update about my recovery, and I’ll show y’all a Scar Update, so be warned.

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My Eyes Are Getting Sleepy, Sleepy, Sleepy

That kind of day when one of your email accounts locks you out and you’re not sure if you’ve been hacked or if you just hit the wrong button the last time you used it and you’ve run out of options for troubleshooting the problem so you decide to grit your teeth and call CenturyLink to unlock your account and let you make a new password so you can use your CenturyLink email again and after a while the techie on the phone tells you it works now and so you end the call and go to check your account and you’re still locked out so you call CenturyLink a second time and go through the whole Concocting o’ the New Password and the Unlocking o’ the Old Account with a second person and finally your account really works this time but you realize that you have spent almost three hours of your morning on the phone with CenturyLink just to get you back to normal in your email situation and then you realize that being patient with techies on the phone for almost three hours not only blew your entire morning’s work and errands it exhausted your bipolar noggin and now all you want to do is tie on a wienerdog-wearing-a-bow-tie Tie o’ the Day and take a nap in the recliner while curled up in the tv blanket Suzanne made you and then you’ll contemplate how it is that being polite and patient with your email account problems and the phone techies who helped solve them can make you so very very sleepy.

Yeah, that kind of day.

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A Bow Tie Is A Bow Is A Bow

When I turned 8, I was given a bigly birthday bash. I don’t remember anything about it, but this snapshot tells me it happened. Evidently, it was an outdoor party, so I don’t have a clue why we’re wearing dresses. More specifically, why was I– of all people– wearing a dress? At least the dress had a Bow Tie o’ the 8th Birthday belt around the waist. I do remember Mom made this particular dress for me, which explains the bow belt I must have begged her to include in the design.

I am amazed my aging brain can still identify almost every person in my party photo. But I’m also amazed to see a couple of faces who don’t look at all familiar to me. It’s not just that I can’t remember their names: I have no memory of their happy faces. Obviously, I must have known these now-unknown-to-me girls at the time. They must have mattered to me. And now I feel guilty I draw a blank when I see their faces– especially since they probably brought me gifts. How rude of me to not remember them– my pals, my birthday gift-givers.

Of course, maybe if any of y’all can help me identify the young gals I can’t place, knowing their names might make my memory of them smarter.

Back row, left to right: Terilyn Anderson, Cynthia Cox, Shelly Brown, ???, Kris Garrett, Darlene Church, Georgia Grayson (?), ???, Sheila MacArthur, Shaunda Morrill.

Front row, left to right: My nephew Jeff, Vicki Farthing, Brenda Lowder, Thelma Tsosie, Shelly Taylor, ME, Fonda Albertson (?), PJ Clayton.

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And Then The Shoes Appeared

This afternoon, paisley Bow Tie o’ the Day and I were cleaning off my desk, which I’ve needed to conquer for the last year. It resembles a landfill at this point, so I must buckle down. Behind the computer monitor, I found The Stack o’ Magazines. You know The Stack of which I write. You’ve got one too. It’s the pile that results when you don’t have time to read the magazines that show up in your mail, but you are hoping one day life will slow down enough for you to catch up on your mag reading– maybe on a beach. You don’t want to toss the mags yet. You still have hope for free time. Silly you. But eventually, you do give the unread magazines the heave-ho in order to not be turned in to the Health Department for being a hoarder, with mouse-eaten magazines towering to the rafters of every room in your cluttered house. That’s the Stack o’ Magazines I mined from my desk today.

I took them to the garage and threw them in the recycling can, without really paying attention to them. But one VOGUE magazine fell out of the stack and hit the floor. It sort of fanned open. And TA-DA! Look what I found: an advertisement for ballet-style shoes, with Bow Tie o’ the Day bling as ornamentation. And it happened on the same day TIE O’ THE DAY gave you Gracie in a tutu in the early post! Ballet coincidence? Ballet sign? You know me. There’s a meaning here. And even if there’s not, I’ll make one up.

At first, I thought this “tutu/twinkle-toe” coincidence meant I should buy Gracie and me each a pair of these matching ballet flats, but then I found out their price. As I perused the advertisement, I learned the shoes are $1300 per pair. I’m certain the meaning of my ballet-y Coincidence o’ the Day has got to mean something profound which doesn’t cost that much money. Seriously, if you think about it, the things with truly enduring meaning for us rarely come to us with a price tag. Maybe the meaning of today’s coincidence is simply a reminder that money ain’t what makes you leap. Gracie and I can twirl just fine without it. It ain’t the shoes. It’s the love.

And the tutu. A tutu is always meaningful.

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Indulge Me: She’s A Sprite

Here she is again: Grace Anne Blackwelder o’ the Day, wearing her Bow Tie o’ the Day outfit– complete with Tutu o’ the Day! This little wonder girl has fashion panache!

Trivia Alert! The word “tutu” reminded me that the actor, Rob Morrow named his daughter Tu. She is Tu Morrow, as in “tomorrow.” Evidently, Morrow is a fan of punny names. He married a pun. His wife is the actress, Debbon Ayer– which is pronounced like the word “debonaire.”

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An Okay Idea, But Lousy Execution

Magnetic Bow Tie o’ the Day’s graphics are a bigly FAIL. The lobster design was a good idea, but the actual design etched into the wood doesn’t look lobster-y to me. The little critters look more tentacle-y than claw-y. They even look spider-like. Thus, I’m wearing my “LOBSTER” t-shirt in hopes of clarifying Bow Tie’s etchings.

Bow ties like this one, which attach to clothing with magnets, are perfect for wearing with collarless shirts. They are not, however, abundant. I’ve never found one in a physical store. The ones I own, I found online. And I’ve found only a few. When I see one, I buy it. I ordered this one last week, and it came in a bundle of three, different-graphic bow ties. The total for the bundle was an astounding $4.19 on Amazon Prime. No charge for shipping.

I tell you about the price because I want you to know this bow tie’s design FAIL is not crippling to me in any way. It doesn’t discourage me in my neckwear endeavors. I haven’t gone broke by mindlessly building my collection with cheap neckwear FAILS, although I have inadvertently acquired some less-than-dazzling pieces over the years. I am thrifty and picky in my selections when it is at all possible. No matter its condition or temperament, every piece of neckwear has a speshul place in the various neighborhoods in The Kingdom of The Tie Room.

Speaking o’ The Tie Room… I’m currently reorganizing and rearranging my collection, and so I will be posting pictures of where my neckwear resides– one or two photos at a time. To show a bunch of photos of the entire room, all at once, would be too overwhelming for any human being who is not I. Trust me.

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It’s In The Photograph

Little ol’ Mom, and little ol’ me. We were tuckered out, and I just figured out why. I am wearing the neckwear we kids wore when we had a sore throat or were congested. As I was filing this pic this morning, it leapt out at me: I was wearing Vick’s Rag o’ the Day. Neckwear! I don’t know what you called it in your house, but in our house it was The Vick’s Rag. It was a clean, white dishtowel, rolled up, slicked with a glob of Vick’s VapoRub against your neck, and fastened around your neck with a bigly safety pin. It most likely had absolutely no medicinal value, but it always helped me feel a tad better when Mom put one on me.

The Vick’s Rag was also a kind of neck tiara or full-on crown. It came with privileges. You had dibs on just about everything. The living room sofa was yours if you were wearing The Vick’s Rag. Mom would anoint the couch with The Tuckin’ in o’ The Sheet down its length, for you to rest on. You could ask for special eats if you wanted to– and that was on top of Mom’s regular family fixin’s. Your cup held endless refills of warm Jell-O water. And.. you could do all of your sick eating and drinking on the couch. You were not required to move your bones one iota, as long as your wore The Vick’s Rag.

The highest prize The Vick’s Rag entitled you to? Television channel selection was all yours. Now, for the benefit of you youngsters, let me assure you: Being the boss of TV channels back in the olden days when I grew up was a bigly deal, like you cannot fathom. We, like most people, had only one television in the house. One. That was it. You were choosing for the whole family what you’d all be watching.

But receiving the television privilege was a somewhat complicated prize, because in those same olden days when I grew up, TV remotes were not a common entity. This meant either you had to get your speshul butt off the couch to change the channel, or you could ask someone else to change it for you.

Each of those two options carried with it a hidden trap. You had to be careful. If you got up to change the channel too often, Mom or Dad would say, “Oh, you seem to be getting around ok. You must be getting better.” That was code for, “You’ll probably be well enough to go to school tomorrow.” Doh!

If you asked someone else to turn the channel for you, you had to be extremely polite. You could not be bossy or constantly asking for the channel to be changed, or Mom or Dad would say something about how they don’t work all day just to come home, and get up and down, to change TV channels. You knew that option would rarely end well, and Dad would be allowed to take over “your” couch before the evening was over– even if everybody knew you wore The Vick’s Rag in the family.

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Smoke ‘Em, If You Got ‘Em

Checkered-flag Bow Tie o’ the Day is protecting the innocent by hiding the identity of some unfortunate DHS boy who actually went on a date with me in 1980. I don’t remember which dance this was, but the brick wall tells me it was held in the old gym of the old DHS. I seem to remember we went 4-wheeling out by DMAD with another couple before AND after the dance. And then something weird happened, which I can’t seem to remember, and we ended up walking to my house, and then I drove my mystery date to his house.

Don’t think for one minute I’m not wearing a bow tie in this photo. If you look closely, you can see the girl on my sweater is wearing a pink bow tie around her collar. I find bow ties even when I didn’t know I had ’em. They’re just little pieces of the real me, showing up in my history. Some people’s souls throw glitter wherever they go. Apparently, I sprinkle a little trail o’ bow ties on my life’s journey.

The 3-D, pigtail-adorned sweater I’m wearing in this photo is one of my fave pieces of clothing ever. But I ended up wearing it only two or three times. You see, I have this stoopid tendency to “save” my best stuff (clothing, dinnerware, etc.) for speshul, bigly deal occasions. I’m afraid I’ll spill, snag, or otherwise ruin them if I wear them on regular occasions. And then, to compound it, I also worry the next speshul occasion will be speshul-er than this speshul occasion, so I should save the best outfit for the upcoming possibly speshul-er event. And so on.

Before I knew it, my pigtail sweater didn’t fit anymore: I had pubertied into a larger shirt size. My sweater was nearly pristine when I finally had to take it to D.I.. While it fit, I didn’t wear it and enjoy it as much as I could have. That means a gaggle o’ spectators couldn’t enjoy it while I wore it too. My decision to “save” it means I held back a bit o’ joy from others and myself.

We forget that every minute we’re alive is a speshul occasion, and we should wear our best stuff every day if that’s what we want to do. Each of us is important enough to deserve to do speshul stuff just for our own tiny selves. We don’t need to be in front of a grand audience before it’s okay to dazzle and shine while we walk across a room.

We don’t need to feed speshul guests at our table, to use the good plates and cups. We– and the folks around us who love us– are speshul too.

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“It Takes A Long Time To Grow Old Friends”

TIE O’ THE DAY brings flowery Bow Ties o’ the Day in honor of Peggy Crane’s birthdate. Peggy was amused by my neckwear, even as she told me it was weird.

It has been almost two years since Peggy and I last spoke and razzed each other. I was blessed to be able to sit beside her hospital bed and hold her hand for a long while on the day she passed. Throughout our conversation, she was still showing signs of her wild self, despite her rapidly deepening pain. I miss Peggy, and I think of her daily. She was Mom’s best friend, and she was my second mother.