Author: wetleatherdog@gmail.com

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I’m Growing It As Fast As I Can

Bow Tie o’ the Day has been overhearing an ongoing– though not constant– “argument” between me and Suzanne. It seems Suzanne is not at all happy with me growing out my hair. This photo makes a good case for her side of the “argument.” She is no longer happy looking at my not-pretty hairs. And she is tired of me wearing hats and bandanas to disguise its awkwardness.

Suzanne has even threatened to take over my posts and beg y’all to rescind your grow-out-your-hair votes. Her protestations have not swayed me from pursuing my goal, and she thinks yours might. Nope. I am committed to growing out my all my hairs for one last time in my life. I will not be dissuaded.

I do have a slight fear that she will reach her absolute limit of patience with my hairs, and I will get out of bed one morning to find my hairs have been hacked off during the night, while I peacefully slept and dreamed of my eventual long, sexy mane. And that would be a double whammy for me. I’d have no longish hairs AND I’d have to change the sheets before I took a nap. 💇

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This Is Complicated. You Might Have To Read It Twice. I Know I Did.

Tie o’ the Day provides us Halloween colors, while Cufflinks o’ the Day present us with Breast Cancer Awareness Month pink. These ‘links might look plain, but they are James Bond-y. Each one is a functioning USB flash drive, with 8 GB of storage. Imagine how many secrets they can each hold. I can wear these anywhere, and no one will suspect I might have documented spy secrets in my cufflinks. This pair of ‘links– and all the information they contain– will most likely travel with me on our upcoming journeys.

Yes, my scar and my exhaustion and Suzanne and I are flying off again. Next Saturday we head to L.A. for two days, to see a Sunday concert at The Forum. We’ll be seeing a band called Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. It’s an obscure band, so don’t feel un-cool if you haven’t heard of them. Suzanne and I have listened to them for three decades, and it’s one of Suzanne’s fave bands of all-time. However, we’ve never seen them in concert, and seeing them live is one of the items on Suzanne’s bucket list. The band is giving only two performances in the USA– one in L.A. and one in New York City. Clearly, L.A. is closer and less expensive, so it was an easy choice. We leave next Saturday and fly back that Monday, when we are scheduled to arrive at SLC International about 4 PM.

Here’s where the super-duper crazy part comes in.

Suzanne has a work conference in Albuquerque, beginning Tuesday– the morning after we return from L.A.. I’m going along with her for the ride. Our flight to New Mexico is Monday night, only four hours after our arrival from L.A. We will speed home from the airport in between flights to kiss Skitter and grab different, pre-packed suitcases for our Albuquerque trip. (Suzanne is still in charge of lifting my luggage. Sorry, Suzanne.) Then we’re right back at the SLC airport for the 8 PM flight. We will arrive in Albuquerque– wiped out from a long travel day– late Monday night.

Tuesday morning, Suzanne will wake up early and skip off to work, where she will slave in the dark, damp, dank coal mines of public education. And I will sleep in.

It will be like a regular morning at home. 😜

 

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Any Mention Of BYU Makes Me Think Of Trav

Pink Bow Tie o’ the Day brings the extra large– to bigly remind you October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. This wide, fat style of bow tie is commonly referred to as a Big Boy. I found this one at a company called Phat Knot.

As for the BYU hat… All I can say is that although I am a U of U fan, through and through, I have to give props to “The Y” every now and again because Bishop Travis and Bishopette Collette both work there. They themselves keep that institution of higher learning functioning smoothly. That might be stretching the truth just a little, but not much.

You should see Travis and Collette in the same room together: No matter what else is going on around them, you can almost see their adoration for each other seep out of their pores. It’s not a sappy thing to behold. It’s not a matter of public displays of affection. It’s as if some sort of love halo forms over and around them when they are together. They remind me of my parents in that way.

If everyone had that kind of love in their lives, the planet would be automatically transformed. Having that kind of love in your heart makes it impossible to have any desire to do harm to another human being.

I hope you live in the “love halo.” I know I damn sure do. ❣️ 😇

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Ice Cream Is The Freezing-est Food Group

The things you do– they tell on you. Even Bow Tie o’ the Day can see that. Yup, that is, in fact, a teeny drip of chocolate ice cream on my chin. It’s not huge, but it is there. It might surprise you to know this, but I don’t have a make-up artist and a hair stylist to primp me every day before I snap these tblog selfies. I’m sorta wash-and-wear. As a result, this afternoon my chin tells on me that I have been eating ice cream for lunch again. What my chin doesn’t tell you is that I ate the last of the ice cream, so I’ve gotta go to Dick’s Market to replenish my supply.

To properly stock up on ice cream, you must have a plan. I can help you out with that. First, you must know that there are a number of premium brands of ice cream made with gobs of sugar and cream, and it’s better to eat no ice cream at all than to eat no-name brand, lard-laden ice cream. Go for the best. One extremely rich brand or another is always on sale.

Second, choose your flavors wisely. You never know what flavor of ice cream you’re going to crave at any given time. To assure that what you crave is always in the freezer, buy a well thought-out variety: A tub o’ vanilla is a must buy. You can eat it plain, or you can douse it with any of a variety of syrups– and you can load it with candies or fruits. Next, make sure you have some kind of chocolatey ice cream. And then make sure to get a fruity ice cream. And, if it’s to your taste, you need to stock an ice cream dotted with nuts too. You have to cover all the taste bases.

At the grocery store, after you’ve made your basic selections for the ice cream pantry you’ve made of your freezer, it is your duty to choose one Ben & Jerry’s flavor for your special self– for you only. It does not matter how much your little pint of ice cream costs. It does not matter how many calories of fat it harbors. We must think of that pint as our reward for getting our sorry asses off the couch to go grocery shopping.

Even if all we buy is ice cream.

BTW   Keep wearing your pink this month, to show your support for Breast Cancer Awareness.

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The Invisible Tie Woman

I needed a clothes hanger to help out Tie o’ the Day this morning. My face feels too tired to be in a photo. Sometimes that happens. And also, I’m planning to scrub the bathroom later, and I ain’t gussying up for that task. I hereby declare Pajama Day for myself. Suzanne’s just gonna have to miss out on a pj holiday until this weekend.

Despite the fact that I still need to take frequent pj days while I’m healing up, my daily to-do lists are getting longer and longer, as my surgery gets farther in my rearview mirror. For almost a month after my hospital adventure, my only daily chore was walking to the freezer for Popsicles, if Suzanne wasn’t home to retrieve them for me. And since Popsicling was my only chore, I didn’t even need to write a list.

After a few more weeks, I added a few routine chores to my to-do’s. Things like folding clothes, putting dishes into the dishwasher, driving myself to my own doctor appointments in my car, etc. Oh, and going to brunch. That’s my favorite-est chore of all.

I can cook and make the bed and do my own laundry now, so I write those tasks on my list. (I have never ever been allowed to do Suzanne’s laundry, for no discernible reason except that she has OCD about it, and is compelled to do it herself.) I can empty the dishwasher and put the clean dishes and pans in their places now. I can roll the garbage and recycling cans to and from the curb. I can run errands in my clutched truck. I grocery shop again. I can de-poop Skitter’s droppings from the back yard on Wednesday’s, before the HOA lawn dudes show up to mow.

An unfortunate thing about my torso feeling better, however, is that I am once again able to put on a bra. I no longer have an excuse to not wear a breasticle girdle. I hate when that happens.

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Dr. Bow Says, “Later”

Bow Tie o’ the Day added some zip to my appointment with my pain doctor, Dr. Bow, this afternoon. She was pleased with Bow Tie, but not so pleased with my current pain situation. Oh, apparently I’m healing up from surgery just dandily. But there are enough tweaks and jabs going on in the vicinity of my belly right now that we decided it’s probably best to not change anything pain medication-wise, until my belly brouhaha calms down. In a few months, I should have a much more accurate gauge of my intricate pain situation.

How bloody long does this recovery take? I’m losing my patience with not being able to do every last thing I want to do. I want my way. And I want it now. And my way is to go about my regular activities without worrying about pulling some innard or another. And I want to ditch my pain meds– or at least knock ’em down a notch– if I so desire. And I do.

What truly scares me is the fact that my Whipple procedure might not ease any of my pancre-ass pain. My surgeon told me before we scheduled the surgery that even a successful operation still might not solve the pancreatic pain issues. He said there was no guarantee the operation would diminish one iota of ouch.

Apparently, pancreatic stones are not like gall stones or kidney stones. With gall stones and kidney stones, if you get rid of the stones, the pain goes with them. Not necessarily so, with pancreas stones. But after almost twenty years of trying to deal with my panky, my pain had worsened to the point that I couldn’t stand it anymore. I decided it was worth taking the risk– hoping it will eventually relieve some of the agony.

Also, I could no longer stand Suzanne constantly pestering me to take the chance and go under the knife. Her nagging me to give in and have surgery was another kind of pain. A pain in the butt, to be precise. Don’t you just hate it when somebody wants what’s best for you? It’s such a pain to be loved.

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Dr. Bow Does Not Wear Bow Ties

Orange Bow Tie o’ the Day and black Shirt o’ the Day join up with pink-lettered Hat o’ the Day, for a confluence of the upcoming Halloween holiday AND Breast Cancer Awareness month.

It’s perfectly clash-ceptable fashion to throw together holidays and causes in one outfit. Call attention to as many topics in one fashion statement as you wish. Different onlookers will concentrate on whichever theme strikes them. You’ll grow your audience simply by multiplying your garb’s themes. I don’t really recommend wearing more than three or four topics in one outfit, because you risk confusing onlookers and making them dizzy. As always, though, clash fashion allows you to do whatever the heck you want. You dress yourself. Make it interesting to yourself.

I have a doc appointment this afternoon in SLC with my pain doc, Dr. Bow. (That’s not her real name, but her name has a syllable pronounced BOW in it, so that’s how I will refer to her in posts.) For Dr. Bow, I like to be extra choosy about the bow tie I wear when I see her. She expects me to show up in a bow tie that will make her “oooh” and “ahhh” at each appointment– in honor of her name. I would never dishonor her by wearing a necktie to an appointment.

Dr. Bow has been my pain doc for six years, but I haven’t had an appointment with her since the day before my surgery. I had chronic pancreatitis for 18 years before I was able to have the surgery. That meant I had chronic gut pain for that same 18 years. And that meant taking pain meds, which I hate. But they were necessary for me if I wanted to have a life with any kind of movement in it.

Getting the correct pain medication and an adequate dosage of it is tricky. To quell the pain completely would have required that I take a high enough dosage to basically put me in a coma. Being comatose is not living. So Dr. Bow’s task has been to find a med and dosage that handled enough of the pain so that I could make it through a day able to do most normal things, but without making me lethargic and loopy. And comatose. Dr. Bow helped me get the right med, in the right dosage, so I’ve been able to live a productive, fulfilling, useful life.

I tell you about all of this to give you some context about how important today’s appointment is to me. I’m hoping Dr. Bow will agree to let me cut down the current dosage of my pain med. I think I am feeling less pancreatic pain since my surgery. It is difficult for me to accurately assess my pain, however, because I still have all kinds of intermittent tugs, pulls, stabs, jabs, and pains going on in my healing innards. Dr. Bow will help me figure out some of that.

Wish me luck. Cross your fingers that I can nix some of my med. I’m crossing what’s left of my pancreas.

#iwantoffmymeds  #ithinkthesurgeryhelped  #drbowwillseemyprettyscar

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Button, Button, Who’s Got The Button?

As you can see from some bare bins and shelves, Suzanne still hasn’t finished filling The Ultimate SewingBox. She wants to get her supplies situated in just the right places, so she’s thinking things through extremely carefully. She’s even experimented with chairs– like Goldilocks– to find the perfect one for her height and butt.

In one of those bins, on one of those shelves, lives an ever-increasing population of buttons. She has the buttons. But I have the button Bow Tie o’ the Day. Actually, I bought Bow Tie for Suzanne to wear while working at her sewing machine. I thought that would make a good post photo. But I am insanely greedy about my bow ties. Every once in a blue moon, I can share. But I couldn’t share this one, even though it was my sincere intention to do so. I think I’m jealous that Suzanne can craft and sew and play with buttons, and I can’t do any of those things. Bow Tie is the only way I can play along. It’s the only way I can be part of the sewing agenda.

I mean– I’m resting in the recliner today, and since an entire wall of the living room is taken up byThe Ultimate SewingBox, it’s impossible to not gaze upon it constantly without even trying. Oh, I like it, and I told Suzanne I wanted it here in the living room, so she’s not going to always be shut away in a 2nd-floor room, being crafty all by herself. We would never see each other because she would never come downstairs again.

Sometimes, though, I feel left out of what goes on in the living room since the arrival of The Ultimate SewingBox. When Suzanne had a couple of sewing machines on the table, I didn’t feel left out like I feel now. But now that The Ultimate SewingBox has taken up residence here, Suzanne is more obsessed with it than either of us could have predicted. On the other hand, I guess I really did know this would happen.

And that’s why I bought us a 65-inch TV, which is far too big for the living room. It takes up a bigly amount of space on the wall adjoining The Ultimate SewingBox wall. It’s the only way I can compete. It’s the only way I can distract my eyes from focusing even their peripheral vision on Suzanne’s object of eternal joy. Two can play at this game. I’d like to see Suzanne try to ignore me and that TV now.

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Multiply, Replenish, And Magnify

I’m wiped-out from yesterday’s day trip to Delta. Clearly, my stamina’s improving but it still sucks. It’s only driving, you know. Before she left for work, Suzanne gave me strict instructions to do absolutely nothing that requires movement today, so Bow Tie o’ the Day and I are camped with Skitter on the recliner, where I’m reading in my new blinged-out reading glasses.

I finally broke down and admitted to myself that my old pair of reading glasses wasn’t cutting the reading mustard. Off I went to Walmart to search for a stronger prescription. I discovered that when it comes to reading words on a page, I am almost completely blind. For a few years, I used a magnifying glass when reading, but holding it got in the way of me using the remote. Can’t have that. That’s when I got my first readers.

I wore bifocals for a time, but they made me dizzy and gave me headaches. It’s worth it to me to switch glasses depending on what I’m doing. It’s a pain in the butt, but it’s better than wearing one pair of glasses that makes you want to carry around a barf bag.

What I learned as a kid from watching my parents use reading glasses is that reading glasses are like the scissors and the scotch tape. You can never find them when you need them. It’s as if those three objects conspire to play hide-and-seek without letting you in on the game.

To counter this where-did-I-put-that? phenomenon, there is only one solution: Buy more than one of each. Hell, buy a case of each. Scatter them through the house. You’ll still never find them when you need them, but at least you’ll have a better chance.

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A Mad Dash

Tie o’ the Day and I made a lickety-split trip to Delta and back. We spent the day with Mom, who could not quit telling me how much she loved Tie. I picked it out to wear especially for her because Mom has this thing for witches. She always says she’s a witch. In fact, she and Peggy Crane each claimed to be the witchin’-est witch of them all. They tried mightily to out-witch each other. Mom claims to be a witch because Dad used to ask her every Halloween if her broom was sharpened for the holiday.

I drove down to D-ville for the sole purpose of checking on Mom. Already. She’s been in the Care Center less than a week, but I had to see for myself how she’s adjusting. OMGolly! She’s a popular old broad– with family, friends, and staff.

And this photograph is evidence that she’s got a healthy appetite. She was eating so intently that she couldn’t turn around for a photo with me. And that would have been an exceptional picture because she had her sunglasses on. She’s sitting with her longtime buddy, LaRae. They always eat together like they did when Mom was in the Care Center last year, recovering from her broken hip.

Mom says she’s content. She says she doesn’t want any of us to think she’s not happy right where she is. I asked her if she was telling the truth about that, or was she just saying she liked it in order to make us all feel better about the situation? She went on for at least five minutes, listing all the things she liked about being there. Of course, she mentioned the Atkinson’s regularly coming to sing– more than once. And she mentioned Sing Along– more than once. Oh, and the food’s good. And she can get her hair done whenever she wants. And she also mentioned she might get her nails done. And then she mentioned Sing Along again.

Speaking of singing, she said she enjoys having so many visitors there fawning over her that she sometimes feels like singing. I told her that wasn’t a good idea– except during Sing Along– if she wants the staff to let her stay. Talk about Halloween and horror!!! Mom and I not only share the same name, we share the same frightening singing voice. It’s ghastly. We are both smitten with music, but music is not smitten with us.