Witty & Wise Ties, Trivia & Lies
With all the down-time I’m trying to fill up, cassette tape Bow Tie o’ the Day and I are doing some serious self-reflection– a little personal evaluation of my life/human/spiritual progress. Whenever I self-assess, I always come up short of where I want my soul to be. But the upside is that it’s easy to make a lengthy Do-Better List of the traits and deeds I need to work on. As I convalesce for the next few weeks, my Do-Better List will grow. That’s why I’ll need stamina. 📋 🏋️♀️
Bandage Tie o’ the Day is trying to help speed up my recovery– CUZ I’M GOING NUTS!!! I hate my bed, my couch, my loveseat, and every chair in my house. I hate the patio chairs. I hate the deck chairs. I hate the blow-up mattress. I’m tired of being too tired to do anything but sit or lie down. I occasionally walk around the house to shoo away any possible blood clots. But I’m so bored that I’m boring to myself. And that’s never happened before. 🤡
Bow Tie o’ the Day pays fond tribute to Mom’s little sister, Arlene, who passed away at home in Oak City early this morning. She was the baby of my grandfolks’ crop. Arlene was born at home, to Martha and LeRoy Anderson, without a doctor. She was premature, and the only way they could keep her tiny, tiny, tiny body warm was to heat her in the oven– until Grandpa built her an incubator. Here’s Grandma Martha and her girls, in 1972. (L-R, Shirley, Arlene, Rosalie, Grandma, Barbara, Mom.) 💐
Bow Tie o’ the Day and I just finished brunch. What did we eat for brunch on this Sabbath morning? Popsicles. 3 Popsicles, to be precise. Since escaping the hospital eleven days ago, Popsicles have been my food staple. They taste yummy and feel good in my tummy. And they aren’t filling, so I can just lallygag around consuming them constantly. “Chain Popsicle-ing,” I suppose. I calculate that in these past eleven days, I have eaten over 100. And now I’ve got a pile of Popsicle sticks to craft with. 😎
I let U of U Bow Tie o’ the Day pick out and order a suitable fanatic outfit for me, for the upcoming college football-watching season. It’s a charming winner. Sorry, but this is a lazy post on my part. See, I took a shower so I could be clean and shiny for the day’s activities. It’s been over two weeks since surgery, and that 20-minute shower exhausted me. All I’ve been capable of doing is nodding, dozing, and snoring, on the couch for five hours. Thus far.
Recovery from having your innards played with is boring. I’ve gotta get out! Bow Tie o’ the Day accompanied us on my first post-surgery venture. I would have preferred to go to a movie or do some white-water rafting, but Suzanne made me live in reality, so she drove us to Walmart. My stamina gave out before Suzanne even got to the make-up aisle. If she’d gotten there, she’d have forgotten about me, and I would’ve had to wait, napping in the shopping cart for hours. 🛒
Tie o’ the Day presents green olives swimming in martinis. (If you martini, go with the olives, not cocktail onions. Just sayin’.) Why is Tie olive-ing on this post? One of Hanky Panky’s issues was its gravel pit full of pancreatic stones which needed to be mined and hauled away. When I woke up from my magical surgery, Suzanne explained what the doc had taken out, moved, re-plumbed, etc. My doc had told her that some of my Panky stones were the size of olives. 🍸 Groovy, eh?
I had my surgery follow-up appointment yesterday, and Bow Tie o’ the Day is showing off its healthy cells to announce that my biopsy found no evil, cancerous cells. My recovery from being gutted a couple of weeks ago is also progressing on schedule. My incision is still stunning, even without the bling-y staples. I find it interesting that the same day I got my healthy health news, my monthly subscription bow tie showed up in the mail, covered in perfect cells. I got the message. 📪
Here, Bow Tie o’ the Day stars in the last of the hospital selfies I took. You’ll also note that I had one of the sock monkey blankets Suzanne has made me over the years. And on my shoulder sits my stuffed gnome head, which is symbolic of my Sister Who Wishes To Remain Nameless, who runs a gnome ranch. She has so many, I’m sure she can only keep track of them by branding them. A bow tie, a blanket, a gnome, and a sister. I felt safe.
The day before I went into surgery, these crocheted Bow Ties o’ the Day knocked at my door. Bow Ties and flip-flops– two of history’s greatest inventions. My pal, Georgia Grayson Wadsworth, crocheted them for my hospital stay. With these and all the prayers and good vibrations y’all threw at me, I wasn’t askeered. I wasn’t alone. Some of you, I haven’t even seen for a couple of decades. When we begin to quit believing in the world’s goodness, remember these kinds of things. The generosity outweighs the chaos.