This is a jolly photo of Mom and Judie Curtis, from December of 2017. Judie adores Mom, and Mom adores Judie. They both happen to adore me for some odd unknown reason, so they were pleased to wear a couple of Christmas Ties o’ the Day for this photo—just because I asked them to do it.
We joke that Judie is Mom’s favorite daughter. She checks in with Mom on the phone regularly, visiting her when she gets to Delta. Almost every time I call Mom, she’ll say something like, “I just talked to my friend, Judie!” or “My friend, Judie, was just here!” Judie has been a blessing to Mom for years, which automatically makes her a blessing to me.
Not only do I have my mother’s name for my first name, but my middle name—the name by which my family and most of Delta knows me—is Judie’s mother’s name: Eileen. Judie’s mom was the nurse who took care of Mom in the hospital when I was born. It was a difficult birth, and Mom came near to dying. Mom showed her gratitude for the tender nursing care she received by giving me Eileen’s name. Likewise, Dad showed his gratitude for my successful birth by also giving me Mom’s name—at the very last minute, in my naming blessing, unbeknownst to Mom herself until that very moment. That’s how I became Helen Eileen. And that’s when Judie became my real fake sista.
You see me pose like this often when I’m showing off neckties. I like to call it my “bobblehead pose.” It makes my head look bigly, and my chicken legs appear even toothpicky-er than they actually are. It makes my physical outline cartoonish, aside from my attire. But for TIE O’ THE DAY purposes, it is simply a superb pose for highlighting a necktie-type Tie o’ the Day in its full magnificence. This pose keeps a necktie front-and-center in the viewer’s sight. So this pose is not going away anytime soon. Besides, whenever I take the time to set up my little tripod and attach my phone to it—and then I squat-bend down and stick my face up close to the camera lens, it makes me feel sort of like an actual bobblehead. Believe me, it is a silly and funky feeling. It chippers me right up, even if I’m already in a good mood. In short, I must admit that I quite enjoy the bobblehead vibe the pose makes me feel. 🤡
FYI Due to lighting, shadows, and shirt collar issues, the “bobblehead pose” does not always capture the full essence of bow ties nearly as well as it shows off neckties. A bow tie can easily get lost or obscured behind and/or under my chin when I’m striking this pose.
BTW Make sure you take a second to notice this Shirt o’ the Day which is covered in Christmas-themed kitties and doggies.
Tie o’ the Day is all about The Twelve Days o’ Christmas. The days are each illustrated there on the tie. Go ahead—check for ’em! And after you’ve checked to find each day’s representation, the song will be stuck in your head all day. Remember to give always—with your whole, generous hearts, my friends!
We spent the bulk of our Sunday up in O-town, attending a bigly-deal holiday party. It was Suzanne’s Champagne Garden Club’s annual Christmas shindig. All the Garden Gals and their better halves were there. My, how the champagne did flow! It flowed mostly with orange juice in mimosas, as far as I could tell. And then the bubbly gave way to waves of wine. I had armed myself with a six-pack of my own Bud Zero not-beer, for the occasion and not one person poked fun at me about it at all. Bud Zero contains zero alcohol and no zing, but it does have its share of party bubbles. 🥂🍹🍷(These are the Garden Gals’ make-you-tipsy drinks.) 🍺
(Here is my lone, sad, virgin Bud Zero.)My stomach muscles are a wee bit strained today from all of the jolly laughing I did at the party. The house was roaring and chortling for the duration of our celebration, as it always does at these get-togethers. I can attest that there was way too much tasty food in the kitchen, which always assures a fine party. Exciting gifts abounded, too. I received a bee drink coaster and a bee kitchen towel AND a dark blue bow tie which conceals its very own bottle opener inside of it. I also got a funky, whisk-looking head massager for use on my bald head. (Thanks, Garden Gals.) HO, HO, HO! I win! 🎁
FYI: The Tie o’ the Day I wore is 1 of only 2 new additions to my holiday neckwear collection so far this season. Despite my expert tie-shopping tricks, it’s been impossible for me to find any other worthy pieces of holiday neckwear I don’t already own. ☹️ 🎄
In my humble estimation, this jumbo holiday Bow Tie o’ the Day is stark and quietly gorgeous. It evokes the chill and darkness of December nights, leading up to Christmas. It reminds me of bringing in shopping bags from the car, under the dark evening sky. In those jolly bags was the resulting haul of newly purchased gifts, after a busy day of seeking out the exactly right present for each name on my personal naughty-or-nice list.
While out shopping for a few X-mas gifts on Saturday evening, I managed to find myself staring up longingly at a certain scented candle. The candle scent? Maple glazed donut! I thought seriously about stealing a package of matches from another aisle, and lighting up that candle right there in the store—for my own personal smelling pleasure. But my brain kicked in and promptly overruled the desires of my olfactory sense. I decided I didn’t really like the idea of being arrested for shoplifting a match and creating a public nuisance by arson—just so I could smell the mouth-watering aroma of artificial maple-glazed donuts. I did seriously contemplate it for a flash of a second, though. Alas! I am a failed criminal, yet again. In the end, I did the right thing. I settled for breathing-in the existing odor of the Target store in which I stood. Sometimes I dislike following the straight-and-narrow. 🔥🤡
I spent my Friday night on the town at Huntsman Cancer Hospital last night, for one more “last” post-surgery CT Scan. The hospital was good to me throughout my October stay, but I’m sick of seeing the place. In a healthy passive-aggressive fit of fashion, I walked right in through the doors of that hospital with all the COVID-19 I own: my COVID-19 Face Mask o’ the Day. The virus does have a snowflake-ishly festive look to it. I wore another of my pre-printed ugly sweater t-shirts, which wears its own Christmas Tie o’ the Day. God bless us, every one!
This Bow Tie o’ the Day is pre-printed right onto my pre-printed ugly sweater t-shirt. Suzanne recently crocheted my new red beanie. And my Red-nosed Rudolph Face Mask o’ the Day is one of my very fave masks in our Christmas collection. 😷🎄
It’s a good thing I still have access to this photo from last Christmas season. I had come up with a swell idea for a new TIE O’ THE DAY selfie for today, in which I once again wore the Rudolph body thong some anonymous reader sent me in the mail a couple of years back. This morning I eagerly headed directly to the Tie Room to retrieve the attire, accessories, and various props I would need for the bigly reindeer thong photo I had promised I’d show you. But for the life of me, I could not find my Rudolph thong. It was not where I usually keep it. The tuxedo thong was there. The tuxedo boxers were there. But the Rudolph thong was nowhere to be found.
I suspected foul play immediately. I suspected a devilish, war-on-Christmas interloper had somehow breached the sanctity of the Tie Room for the sole purpose of stealing my fabulously awkward Rudolph thong. I even got thinking that Suzanne might have accidentally-on-purpose snuck into the Tie Room and gotten rid of my jingly garment, in order to prevent me from ever wearing it on TIE O’ THE DAY for y’all ever again.
Normally, Suzanne’s cool with my over-the-top fashion shenanigans, but I have always suspected this particular festive fashion gift of reindeeer-thong-from-a-stranger crossed the line for her by about eight country miles. I can understand how she might feel like that. However, whatever mystery has befallen my dear deer thong, I resolve to find it—no matter who is ultimately to blame for stealing it from me in the first place. I will indeed show off a new photo of me in my Rudolph thong for y’all before the end of this Christmas season. Mark my words! 🦌
I kept it simple: a Santa Tie o’ the Day. This clothing configuration was a bigly hit at Dick’s Market this morning. There were a handful of kids throughout the store with their parents while I was there, and most of them jollied right up when I passed by. Only one kid broke out in actual tears (loud, wailing tears) when he saw me. His mother—equally not-festive at the sight of me—gave me the how-dare-you-dress-like-that-in-front-of-children look. Did I care that I got “the look”? Heck Tate no, I didn’t care. I gotta be me. Besides, everyone else in the store seemed as happy as flying reindeer to see me in my seasonal garb. 🦌 🎄
⚠️WARNING! Remember the reindeer Christmas thong a reader sent me a couple of years ago? Well, I’ll be wearing that in the next post. Once seen, it cannot be unseen—so if you think your heart and/or eyes can’t handle it, please rapidly scroll past the next TIE O’ THE DAY when it shows up on your screen. If you think there’s even a slight chance you might be askeered by it, look ye not directly at the image! You have been warned, y’all! ⚠️
Here’s Skitter in her first Christmas 2021 Tie o’ the Day. She was present, watching with doggie amusement when the following tale played out.
On the day after Thanksgiving, I was dizzy all day long. I’d get up to do something, and I’d sort of catch myself leaning and weaving as I gingerly made my way from place to place. At some point, I began to wonder if I’d started drinking again without my own knowledge. It was an odd feeling. But honestly, I was more curious than concerned about my wobbly state of equilibrium. I chalked it up to having eaten excessive amounts of cheese bread, tater tots, and green Jell-O the day before. Or maybe what I was experiencing was simply due to my age. I blame “getting older” for a plethora of inexplicable and/or idiosyncratic things that occur in, on, to, or anywhere near my body. I’m positive I’m mostly correct to direct blame at this culprit of time.
Anyhoo… It was the day after Thanksgiving, and Suzanne had her side of the love seat reclined so her recently operated-on foot could be constantly elevated. Her foot stuck out towards the middle of the living room like a sore thumb (har, har, har) the entire day. She was following her surgeon’s orders to stay off her hoof and be a couch potato slug. As the day wore on, so did my light-headed condition. So we spent the bulk of the holiday sitting safely on the love seat watching television. At one point, as I unsteadily walked across the living room to get something, I felt myself falling—slowly but surely—to the floor. To catch myself, I instinctively reached out and grabbed the nearest available object, which just happened to be Suzanne’s recently operated-on-and-still-throbbing, elevated foot which stuck out in the perfect spot to save me. Which it did. Which caused Suzanne to yelp out in pain. My apologies yelped out in response. I felt like the worst dizzy person on the face of the earth.
I saw it in my mind’s eye then: the tableau we had made at that very moment. Picture it yourself. Suzanne sitting in the love seat—footrest deployed. Her decades-worn foot elevated and iced, protruding into the center of the room. If she were moving, her joints would be creaking. She is cozily semi-swaddled in her Minky blanket because she has been perpetually cold for the last decade, no matter the temperature. Her reading glasses are perched perfectly on her nose, so she can sufficiently see what she’s currently embroidering. To conquer painful inflammation, a dishtowel-wrapped bag of frozen peas is draped like a too-tiny shawl around the back of Suzanne’s neck, which aches these days with an ever-increasing regularity.
Now picture my part in this tableau o’ long-settled domesticity. There I stand, on the verge of falling in my own living room. Babying my pancreas. Hand over my still-scabby surgical scar. My own eyeglasses on so I can focus better on increasingly blurry words, things, critters, and people. Full set o’ dentures in my mouth. Tinnitus blaring in my brain. Hearing aids like barnacles growing out of my ears. An amnesia haze developing about what it was I even crossed the room to do or retrieve in the first place. My balance weeble-wobbly, at best that day.
After I managed to sit my butt back down on the love seat to calm the adrenalin, I recognized the implications of the scene Suzanne and I had just made. I said to Suzanne, with all the exuberance I could muster, “It has happened! I think it’s official!” She asked me what I was talking about. I said, “Finally! When we were young, we talked about how nice it would be to achieve it. And after all these years—as of this very moment—I am certain we have accomplished it: We have officially grown old together!” Even with all manner of natural maladies which might accompany it, I can say it’s even better than I imagined it would be. It feels like home to me. 🛋 📺 👣 💝
