Month: June 2019

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A Place I Never Thought I’d Visit

Bow Tie o’ the Day is helping me make bigly plans. We’ve been flipping through actual, paper pages of two guidebooks about the state of Arkansas. I know! Who’da thunk it? I’ll be on the loose with a suitcase of bow ties in Arkansas. It’s gonna happen in a couple of weeks.

I have nothing against Arkansas. I just never imagined I’d be visiting it. Arkansas, as a destination, is Suzanne’s fault. She took the opportunity to arrange our July vacation completely on her own. She followed our main “rules” for choosing a vacay spot. First, it must be a place tourists don’t flock to, cuz we want to look at the place and its people, not other tourists. Second, the vacation spot needs to have a beach. We’ve done ocean beaches, but this time we’re beaching at a lake in the Ozarks.

When I order guidebooks for our various vacations, I don’t order the ones with fancy maps and facts, facts, facts, dry facts. I order the guidebooks that tell you about the weird, infamous, haunted, tall tale places you might want to visit. For example, I read in one of my Arkansas guidebooks about the chicken in this photo. Its owner named it Boo Boo because it was afraid of everything. And it regularly had seizures. (I’m envisioning Boo Boo, the chicken, as kind of like the fainting goats who get startled, freeze in mid-motion, then fall over. Boo Boo, The Fainting Chicken!))

Apparently, one day Boo Boo had a seizure and she fell beak-first into a pond. Boo Boo’s owner saw her floating there and tried to save her, but she was dead. Well, Boo Boo’s owner’s sister, who was a retired nurse, happened to show up. The sister performed mouth-to-beak resuscitation. Dead Boo Boo came back to life. Somehow, Jay Leno heard about Boo Boo’s life-and-death adventure, so Boo Boo and its owner were guests on The Tonight Show.

Back in Arkansas, a few weeks after Boo Boo’s Hollywood appearance, she had a bigly seizure and really did die. One of Boo Boo’s people erected a memorial shrine to the famous, dearly departed bird. Personally, I think the retired nurse who gave the chicken mouth-to-beak resuscitation deserves a shrine too. But if we find Boo Boo’s final resting spot, it will be enough to keep me jolly.

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Once, I Almost Smiled

Some people are BORN TO RUN. Some are BORN TO BE WILD. Some are even BORN TO BUY FABRIC (like Suzanne). I was BORN TO BE BIPOLAR. I probably won’t be making a silly t-shirt or bumper sticker about it though. I joke around about my escapades in lunacy, but I also take my brain’s mood pendulum seriously. While combing through photos, in an effort to learn more about my brain’s life, I made a discovery. In pix of me as a child, I wasn’t usually smiling bigly, animatedly, or even cheesily– the way most kids do. Even as a kid, I carried a hidden darkness. I was around 6 months old in this photo, which shows me wearing an almost-smile. This is a rare snapshot of 1964-baby-HEW coming close to actually showing a happy, bigly smile as a kid.

[NOTE: Not only do I think I was born with my crazy head, I know I was born with my Spock ear. See, it’s there atop my left ear.]

Bow-tied Bow Tie o’ the Day is helping me act out on some infantile ridiculousness this afternoon. I admit it: The 1964-baby-HEW is jealous of the newest baby in the Wright clan, Grace Anne Blackwelder. I’ve been posting so many pix of her, and posts about her, that 1964-baby-HEW has developed a severe case of jealousy. In my family, it’s all about Gracie right now. “Gracie! Gracie! Gracie!” I’m even jealous of all the attention I, myself, pay to Gracie. I childishly believe Gracie has thrown down the pacifier-gauntlet, and now the baby duel is on. 1964-baby-HEW v. Baby Grace Anne. I’m cheering for Gracie. I want her to win.

That’ll make 1964-baby-HEW even more jealous. And thus, the infantile, bitter absurdity of the life of babies goes on. Just kidding. 😁🤣

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Trespassing On City Water

Tie o’ the Day was given to me by my bro–in-law, Nuk. I think of it as a summer tie, or more specifically, a tie for the water. Tie’s wearer can blow it up on one end, which makes it a safety tie one can wear with a life jacket. Air-filled Tie can also be Skitter’s floatie, as is seen here.

I mentioned Delta’s old outdoor swimming pool in one of yesterday’s posts, and the topic got some of you reminiscing about “old pool love” right along with me.

The long-demolished Delta pool was set on the corner of the property where The Sands is currently located. Its structure was basic: a swimming pool, with a single diving board; an office and dressing rooms. In the office, you could buy chips, sodas, candy, and Popsicles from Arjanna Wood, who ran the joint. I guess you could say Arjanna’s office was Delta’s first convenience store.

The pool was surrounded by tall cinder block walls. I’m just guessing the walls were somewhere in the ballpark of 10-feet tall. I never took time out of the fun I was having to measure the pool wall height.

I remember waiting anxiously every year for the city to get the word the Utah Health Department had once again declared the pool sanitary and safe enough to be opened for at least one more summer. The state’s annual stamp o’ approval quit happening in the mid-70’s. To be honest, the Health Department probably should have closed down the open-air pool we dearly loved long before it did. But I’m glad they didn’t. The slippery, cracked place was a blast. It was a palace to those of us who made it a second home for the summer.

The city’s “cement pond” was also a blast after dark when it wasn’t officially open. Think about it: Outdoor pools can’t really close. It wasn’t difficult to sneak in after dark. Ropes, ladders, milk crates, even backhoes were just a few implements we used to get ourselves inside for a midnight swim. You simply had to make sure you pulled your break-in tools over the wall with you, eliminating your outside-the-wall trail.

I know one doofus and his group of friends who threw a ladder against the outside wall and didn’t pull it in after everyone snuck inside. The cop out on patrol saw that clue right away. Doh! Heck, I watched a herd of at least a dozen kids ride their bikes to the pool around 2 in the morning, and then were dough-headed enough to leave their bikes piled up outside one of the pool walls. Cop noticed the mound o’ bikes. Hey, people, if you’re going to commit a prank, don’t tell on yourselves by leaving bigly clues. Just a thought.

The real trick to not getting caught trespassing in the Delta pool at night was to not emit too much noise. It was best if you didn’t yell or cackle or do a cannonball. Delta is not a loud village. It especially wasn’t loud in the 70’s, and the city cops made their rounds through the town faithfully. If a cop caught you trespassing in the pool, you weren’t in too much trouble if you hadn’t been drinking or smoking or damaging the property. The cop would usually drive you right to your house (like free Uber) and chat with you and your parents. That was as far as your legal concerns went. For better or worse, your fate was up to your parents. 😱 Fortunately for me, Dad had harmlessly trespassed into many an outdoor pool in his youth too. He understood the exuberance of kidhood.

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A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Fashions

I soooo wish Mom and I had been wearing Bow Ties o’ the Day like these when this photo was snapped in front of my kidhood house. I think Mom’s holding my nephew, Jeff. He was her first grandchild, and he is certain he is her favorite. Check out Mom’s hair. Once again her hair looks like it just got did. What a put-together broad! Mom has always been a hair-done-once-a-week-whether-it-needs-it-or-not woman.

Guess which photo star is I?! I chose today’s photo offering as evidence that I have always had my own style. I have always been fashion-forward. I wish I still had these cowboy boots. I would bronze them like parents used to bronze their babies’ first pair of shoes, and then display them on an important shelf in their living room for visitors to gaze upon. I remember riding my bike in these boots. I remember walking up to the outdoor Delta pool twice daily in my swimming suit and cowboy boots. I wish I had a snapshot of that.

It was a sad day for me when I outgrew my cowboy boots. But I got over it pretty quickly when I discovered saddle shoes. (The saddle purse had not yet been born.) And after saddle shoes, I moved on to Hush Puppies, then Earth Shoes, and I am sure you’re aware that recently my feet have walked a mile in my many Sloggers. You think my middle name is Eileen? Heck, my middle name has always been STYLE.

I have shown you my Sloggers garden shoes collection in some of my post pictures over the past couple of years, and I have loved them so. I have worn Sloggers every day since I discovered them, but I am Sloggered-out. I feel the need for the changin’ o’ the footwear. I now want a different style of shoes. My Sloggers are pretty hashed anyway, so it’s a practical matter as well as a fashion move.

Perhaps a fancy pair of cowboy boots is in my near future. Now that it’s summer, I can recreate the style I exhibited in this photo every day. Shorts, boots, and neckwear. And, of course, I will add a touch of clash, which is my signature. A total ensemble like that strikes me as my next personal style trend. I hadn’t even thought of dressing like my 6-year-old me before I just wrote it. Now, I’m excited for the boot hunt!

Suzanne will roll her eyes, but enjoy every minute of my new-old style phase. It’s what she does. Somethin’ ain’t right with that girl.

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Bowtieful Baby Contest

Here’s Grace Anne Blackwelder in her church clothes on Father’s Day. She sported a formal, black and white frock. At one-month-old, she is already a classy dame. Her acre of hair is topped off with that colorful and bigly Hair Bow o’ Gracie’s Day. She is following in my bow tie steps already. Bishop Travis and Bishopette Collette better like her style or learn to hunker down and deal with it, cuz my bow tie influence on Gracie isn’t going anywhere. [Here, my Bow Tie o’ Father’s Day is the closest in fabric design I could find to one of Dad’s red hankies (sometimes blue), which he always carried. I never once caught Dad hanky-less, even when he was in the hospital having heart surgery.]

I promise I won’t continue to inundate y’all with pix o’ Amazing Grace forever. Over the years, one of the things I’ve learned is that we each feel like the babies in our families are the absolute cutest, and we are certain everyone else wants to see dozens of pictures of them. Guess what?! They don’t. They might wanna see a couple of pix of your babies; but after looking at a few photos of the family babies you love, they’re saying to themselves, “MY baby is cuter than your baby. Your baby looks like a chimpanzee. MY baby never looked like a chimpanzee. I hope your baby outgrows its chimp face.” And on and on.

I’m utterly intrigued by Miss Grace Anne, but TIE O’ THE DAY posts must continue to honor neckwear. Gracie’s parents can let her star regularly on THEIR social media pages. She is theirs, after all. If they want to, they can bombard others with pix of Grace to the point of others’ silent chimpanzee comparisons.

But for right now, permit me to be crazy about this wee mammal who we never thought would find her way into Bishop Travis’ and Bishopette Collette’s life. I think we had all given up on that possibility years ago. And suddenly, Gracie sauntered into their lives– and our lives– like she owns the place, like she was just taking her sweet time to get here. And now that she’s here, it’s like she wants us to put on our bow ties and party– complete with Funeral Potatoes. Or, at least, put on our bow ties and go to Sacrament Meeting. Smart chick.

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If You Think Nobody’s Given You A Gift, You’re Just Plain Wrong: Part 2

Skitter is like Mom: Her eyes are sensitive to light, so she tends to wear sunglasses indoors quite often. Skitter is wearing Bow Tie o’ the Day shades this morning. You’ve seen these sunglasses on Mom, on me, and now on The Skit. We share well.

All the gifts in all the universes can’t save you from a mental illness like bipolar depression. Depression doesn’t care what material gifts you have been given. It doesn’t care about the gift you’ve received of being loved and wanted. It does what it wants to your head and, therefore, to your life.

I have mentioned before that I decided to do TMS to jump start my depressed feelers and level my mood. I had been “not feeling” for a while. Simultaneous to my “not feeling,” I was in a crippling depression. It might seem like a contradiction to “not feel” while also drowning in depression, but I assure you it’s possible. I have been there more times in my life than I’d like to count. This time was significantly more debilitating and dark. I honestly believe my mental illness was getting close to being terminal, if you get my drift: Bye, bye, Helen Jr.

Anyhoo… It’s been two weeks since I completed TMS, and I want to tell you what I’ve noticed. There’s been no bigly cookie at the end of the TMS rainbow for me, but I see and “feel” a trail of crumbs which will add up to at least half a cookie when I gather them and put them all together. As I wrote yesterday, TMS has been a smallish welcome gift– despite 36 treatments that felt like a woodpecker beak knocking at my skull.

I got part of my appetite back, which is probably good cuz my weight went down to 7th-grade level. I have been unable to focus my attention enough to read for the last year, and I didn’t even care about it. Not reading is sooooo not me. But I’ve been back to reading for the last month. My moods are back to being lighter, though not as light as my usual, weird “normal.”

I can’t say my “feelers” are back to feeling, but I get little bursts of feeling, so I’m confident TMS has helped to get that coming back to me. Until feeling shows up more often, I’ll stick to knowing what I anticipate I will feel in the future. Suzanne says I am talking more, which is a bigly change back to my true self– since I am a chatter-er like Mom. I’ll let you know when/if I notice other changes I think are TMS-related. TMS wasn’t magic for me, but it helped pull me up a couple of rungs on the slippery ladder in my depression pit.

Before TMS, aside from thinking it would be best for everyone if I jumped off the planet, the worst idea I ruminated over was…. hold on to your bike helmets…. are you sitting down?…. I told Suzanne I was going to shut down TIE O’ THE DAY. Forever. No more website. No more Facebook posts. I didn’t care about it or my stoopid neckwear anymore.

And I ranted to Suzanne about how I’m too old to write these stoopid posts about my stoopid, uninteresting life. And I ranted about how this stoopid tie/bow tie thing makes me look like a stoopid fool, and I should feel embarrassed. And I ranted about how nobody cares about my stoopid ideas about living better lives. And nobody thinks my writing is funny. Blah, blah, blah. You know… all that prattle, which is kinda true.

The tragedy! The tragedy! Junking TIE O’ THE DAY might have actually thrown me off the runaway train. Sticking with writing my posts– despite not caring about the venture for a while– anchored my depressed and sunken days with a purpose. I somehow convinced myself my readers would miss TIE O’ THE DAY to the extent that their souls would lose a wee bit of joy forever. Oh, if I were to quit writing and posting, it would destroy y’all’s lives! I told myself I had to keep TIE O’ THE DAY up and running, for the good of all mankind. I’m SuperBowTieLady, patron superhero of all neckwear!

Seriously, TMS has helped. Mostly, I am still here, and here is where I want to be. I’m not positive I would be here on this blue-skied day in June if I had decided against doing TMS.

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If You Think Nobody’s Given You A Gift, You’re Just Plain Wrong: Part 1

If you’re reading this post right now, you are enjoying a cornucopia of gifts. You’re probably not even thinking about them, but they’re yours. You’ve got your sight, your scrolling coordination, your friends on Facebook, and you can read. There are plenty more gifts you’re experiencing right now, but you get the idea. You are floating in an ocean o’ gifts. Just notice them and say “thanks.”

Bloom-y pink and white Bow Tie o’ the Day is a gift I received from Bishopette Collette last Sunday. I’m sure it’s from Bishop Trav and baby Gracie as well, but you know darn well who probably found it and bought it. The Blackwelder’s have had the courage to gift me two pieces of neckwear in the last year or so– something Suzanne won’t even do, for fear I already have the same of whatever neckwear it is. Both neckwear gifts from the Blackwelder’s have been pieces I didn’t already have. Amazing. Their family clearly has good instincts about giving me neckwear. Having good instincts is a gift too. And always remember that a material gift is an embodiment of the true gift: someone wanted to show you affection.

Clearly, I’m thinking about gifts today. It’s been two weeks since my last Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation treatment. I’ve been giving my head a little time to settle itself down and cogitate about the whole experience and any changes I might have noticed after the entire round of 36 treatments. I decided now is a fine time to give you my verdict on the TMS. TMS was a gift. It wasn’t one bigly gift. The gift is coming in tiny waves, here and there, at random times.

The entire round of TMS treatments significantly decreases bipolar depression 50% of the time. Suzanne said I should take the chance I’d be in the lucky half, so I jumped in. I only noticed one negative side effect of the treatment itself: for a few minutes after each treatment, my vision was blurry– as if I had forgotten to put my glasses on to drive. But that was it for the negative effects of TMS treatment.

Some things from that time were a pain in the butt. By the time I drove to the University Neuropsychiatric Institute (UNI) for treatment and back home, it took a two-hour block out of each day. I didn’t like having to commit to stay around SLC for two months of weekdays. And I didn’t like paying for the TMS, which I believe my insurance should have been responsible for. But those negative things have nothing to do with TMS itself.

What I could not see as I was going through treatment were gifts accompanying the same irritants I listed above. I see them now when I look back. I got to drive to SLC for treatments before rush hour, so I enjoyed beautiful mornings. I enjoyed the gift of listening (and singing) to weird music I can’t play if someone’s with me, cuz nobody else likes it. Having to remain “up north” for over two months, meant that I was able to get a lot of domicile work done which I wouldn’t have been able to do if I’d been gallivanting across the state and/or continent. And I am grateful to have health insurance that kicked in for a bigly chunk of the TMS cost. Yes, I’m saying health insurance is a gift.

During the last week of my TMS, I experienced a day throughout which I felt lighter and more alive than I had felt in the last decade. The next day, for whatever reason, the lightness was pretty much gone. If that one day is the only big change to come out of my TMS, I will remember and treasure that singular gift.

FYI Stay tuned for Part 2 of this post topic, tomorrow. I’ll let you in on some specific changes I have noticed as a result of going through the TMS.

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They Are Everywhere

M&M Bow Tie o’ Father’s Day comes to us courtesy of Nuk, my oldest sister, Mercedes’ husband of at least 8416 years. I swear they have been married since before the Pre-existence. Nuk got this M&M’s bow tie for Dad’s Day. Mercedes and Nuk always make sure they send me photos of whatever post-worthy neckwear they run into– even if they create it themselves. They are sometimes my photo suppliers. They are my dealers.

Nuk, whose given name is Kent, is one of the most hilarious people I have encountered in my long, long, long, crazy life. He can find a joke or snarky comment regarding anything. In the 80’s, when I attended Weber State, I had a professor who was boring to the point of actually putting me to sleep in class, more than once. In class, the prof had never once come close to being anything even resembling interesting, and he would not have recognized a sense of humor if Joan Rivers had come into class and performed a routine.

I lived with Mercedes and Nuk at the time, and I expressed to Nuk my frustration with Brother Boring. It just so happened Nuk knew the guy from some church work, so he had also experienced boring, mind-numbing time with my professor. With classic Nuk perspective, he simply said, “That man is drier than a popcorn fart.” Nuk nailed it. The truth is the truth.

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She’s Such A Baby About Everything

Sunday was another Provo outing to attend church with my Sister Who Wishes To Remain Nameless, at Bishop Travis’ and Bishopette Collette’s ward. Of course, month-old Gracie was there too.

Since it was Pa’s Day, Bishop Travis held Gracie in his arms as he sat by the podium. Bishopette Collette’s plan was to let that happen for a few minutes and then go fetch the baby when she started to fuss. Neither Gracie nor Bishop Trav fussed one iota, so Gracie lay in her father’s arms the entire Sacrament Meeting. Bishop Travis grinned at Gracie constantly and kissed her tiny hands, while Bishopette Collette kept an eye on Gracie’s behavior from our bench, waiting desperately for a reason to go steal the baby from the Bishop. Though Gracie was positively fine being held by her dad, I think Collette was experiencing some separation anxiety.

My Sister Who Wishes To Remain Nameless and I sat on our bench wondering why the heck we even traveled to attend church with the Blackwelder’s if the baby wasn’t in our pew for us to fight over. Oh, that’s right: We went to church with the Blackwelder’s before Gracie arrived in their family. We’ve always loved the Bishop and Bishopette– with Grace Anne or no Grace Anne. It’s just that Bishop Travis and Bishopette Collette are a little too big for us to hold on our laps, coo at, call dibs on, and fight over.

Here is Grace before she got dressed up in her “church clothes.” I usually carry stick Bow Tie o’ the Day with me for occasions such as this. I wasn’t about to wake the sleeping beauty, Grace Anne, to put a real stunt bow tie on her for a photo. But I had to take a picture anyway. In fact, I snapped so many pix that by the time we left the Blackwelder home to attend church with them, my phone needed to be charged again. That’s a bunch o’ pix.

FYI If you ever want to put a real bow tie on an infant’s neck, I suggest you use a bow tie that’s past its prime. It doesn’t matter if its tag says it’s washable or can be sent to the dry cleaner. Use a bow tie you are never going to wear again, since bambinos have a tendency to produce spit-up, regular vomit, and even projectile vomit. Clearly, a necktie will receive more damage than a bow tie, but neither one is capable of remaining alive after being hit by any kind of vomit. Even plain old slobber can sometimes be deadly for neckwear.