Category: Bow Ties

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Bow Tie Can Tell The Future

 

 

Here’s what Bow Tie o’ the Day knows with perfect certainty: Suzanne will get home late from work today, because that’s how she rolls every day. Even with The Ultimate SewingBox waiting for her– which is her dream come true– she will still be the brilliant educator she is, and she will put children first. She pushes herself to excel at her work, with the students always foremost in her mind.

But when Suzanne gets home, she will open up The Ultimate SewingBox you see here. And she will be single-mindedly engaged in the task of filling up The Ultimate SewingBox with her sewing supplies– prepping it for her current list of projects. She will not pass GO. She will not collect $200. ( If you don’t get that reference, I feel really bad for you. And I feel really old.) She will not pay attention to me, nor will she acknowledge Skitter. For her, this whole The Ultimate SewingBox thing is her Christmas morning, as it should be.

For me, watching Suzanne hobby around is like watching a litter of puppies play. You can’t not watch them, and you can’t not relax and smile at how seriously they take their playing. The day Suzanne isn’t sewing or crafting in some way is the day she will no longer be with us. And you can be sure I hope that day never comes.

You know how we’re encouraged to have food storage in case of some natural disaster, or a lost job, or the invasion of green aliens? I think Suzanne has decided she needs to store fabric and thread and sewing machines in case of any of these Armageddons. She’ll be sewing a quilt top, while we’re all fighting our neighbors in the streets for the last of the drinkable water. She will not die with her boots on. She will die cradling a bolt o’ flannel in her arms.

I should probably also pack her a 72-hour kit full of sewing and crocheting implements to carry in the trunk of her car. It’ll make us both feel better about the catastrophic end of the world.

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I’ll Never Be In The Doghouse Again

The star Neckwear o’ the Day is the Wild Rag o’ Last Evening worn by Suzanne’s nephew, Colton. He’s our very own The Ultimate SewingBox Assembler. Colton made it clear to me that wild rags are not scarves, and to refer to them as such is out-and-out wrong. I will refrain from even trying to figure out the difference between the two.

Ain’t Colton cute? Don’t you just wanna hug him? You can see his cute butt in one of these photos, also. It’s worth a look-see. Colton was obviously game to be in this pic, but he felt bad he didn’t have his signature cowboy hat with him. A sweaty work hat looks good on him, too.

Although The Ultimate SewingBox instructions said the project required approximately 3 hours to put it together, it took over 5. And that was with Suzanne assisting Colton after she got home from work. If Colton can’t complete what somebody says is a 3-hour task in 3 hours, it isn’t a 3-hour task. That man can work. That man is efficient.

So here is The Ultimate SewingBox, although I’m sure it won’t be the last time I post about it. It takes up one entire living room wall when it’s opened up. It’s kind of its own little room. It is certainly bigly-er than either of us imagined it would be. You can get an idea how large this thing is when you see Colton standing next to it. He is 6 ft. 15 inches tall.

As I’ve said, some people have a fireplace as the focal point of their living room. This is now what we have. I told Suzanne I will be happy if The Ultimate SewingBox is always open, taking up a pretty bigly chunk o’ the living room. Her  happiness is my happiness.

And now, I have a lifetime pass on her fussing about anything I do. She’s that hyped up about having The Ultimate SewingBox in her possession. From now on, I can do no wrong.

Suzanne hasn’t yet inserted all of The Ultimate SewingBox’s bins and trays. That’ll take up an evening. And then filling each container after they’re in place will take up the weekend. Suzanne will be thrilled to have to figure out what she wants to put in it. She will definitely have to carefully choose The Ultimate SewingBox supplies from her overflowing craft room. I could buy her one of these for the other three living room walls, and they still wouldn’t be able to hold her hoard o’ sewing stuff. (I know. I’m one to talk. I have The Tie Room.)

Suzanne seems deeply pleased with her new toy. In fact, even before it was completely put together, I saw her literally petting it. And her cheeks were high with giddiness. Best. Money. I. Ever. Spent.

If you wanna see The Ultimate SewingBox in action, here’s the link you wanna check out:

https://youtu.be/fRisNZfdsLs

 

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Two Reds Do Make A Right

 

Tie o’ the Day shows us a spot-on example of creating clash fashion by using different degrees of one color. The red of my shirt, paired with the red of my tie, sets forth two clashing reds that also sorta kinda blend into each other.

If your tie doesn’t jump out and grab attention, you are not clashing correctly. The trick to creating satisfactory clash out of the “same” colors is to close-but-not-quite match them. The hues must be different enough from each other that it’s clear you weren’t attempting to be matchy  in the first place. They must clash to the extent that it is clear to everyone who sees you that you purposely meant to not match. Choose a single color and go with it. Almost.

And look! These two reds helped me pull a whole new face for my photo. I’ve never mugged like this before. Although it’s not a complicated face to make, I had no idea I was capable of making it. I think it’s important to learn how to do something new every day. 😜

While I was in The Tie Room choosing Tie this afternoon, I took a quick gander at the ties– just the regular ties–  hanging in my closet. I have only a dozen ties whose colors are mainly red. It appears the majority of my ties are covered in blues. 2nd Place goes to hues of purple. I’ve got a thing for purples. The ties in last place are green. I’ve got probably only five or six green ties in my collection. It’s not that I don’t like the color green, it’s just that I haven’t found many green ties that stand out enough for my purposes. There are few loud and/or fun green ties out there . There are even relatively few green X-mas ties, but I do have some.

Speaking of Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa holiday ties and bow ties… Don’t forget that I have so many to wear that– in order for you to see every last one I’ve collected– I will have to sometimes wear more than two per day, even though I’ll begin wearing them the day after Thanksgiving. It’s what I have to do, in order to wear them all by Christmas. Tie + photograph = website post. Whew! I’m tired just thinking about all that extra work.

Seriously, I look forward to showing y’all all that merry holiday neckwear. Sing with me: “It’s the most/wonderful time/of the year.”

BTW   The Ultimate SewingBox is being assembled as I’m typing this. I’m hoping I can write about the all-done furniture in tomorrow morning’s post. For now, I’m off to take photos of the various stages toward its completion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Numbers 1 and 2

Bow Tie o’ the Day likes the fact that more and more days are chilly enough for me to wear long-sleeve shirts, cuz that means cufflinks will be around to spend part of the day with the bling. It seems like the ties enjoy sharing their limelight on the website.

Today’s Cufflinks o’ the Day offer a dog and a tree, and we all know how our mutts love trees. Male mutts mostly. But I have seen plenty o’ female canines use a tree.

Skitter is not one of them. In fact, I’m beginning to doubt if Skitter is even a dog. She will neither pee nor poop when we take her on walks. She will do neither at rest stops. She will do neither in the brush at the side of the road. I’ve taken her to parks where dogs aren’t even allowed, just to see if she would give it up in the name of breaking the law for the sole purpose of being a rebel. Nope.

I once drove to Cedar City and back to Delta in one day, with Roxy and Skitter in the back seat. Whenever I stopped at a gas station for drive snacks, Roxy jumped out and did her business. I’d have to drag Skitter out of the car, walk her to the back of the station, and wait. And wait some more. Skitter would just shake. Roxy’d get tired of waiting and go back to the car. Not one drop of anything ever came out of Skitter.

Defeated, we continued our day journey to and from Cedar. And don’t think for one minute that Skitter did any of her business at any point during our trip. We got to our Cedar destination, and still no #1 or #2. And there was not one Skitter drop or dropping on the way home either. She seemed fine about it, but I know better.

Where will Skitter do her thang? She would relieve herself anywhere on The Wright Block in Delta. But now that we sold the Delta house, the one place on the entire planet she will relieve herself is in our fenced-in back yard here in Centerville. That’s it.

When we go on vacation, Suzanne’s sister, Marjorie, comes to live in our house with Skitter for a few days. If Marjorie isn’t available to Skitter-sit, we don’t go. So far, Marjorie hasn’t let us or Skitter down yet. They both seem happy about their playcations at our house. Skitter doesn’t even shake, rattle, and vibrate around Marjorie anymore.

It’s a good thing Skitter and Marjorie enjoy their sleepovers here, because Suzanne and I are planning to go away for a week in October. We can’t take Skitter or Marjorie with us, but at least I’ll have ties with me. 🐕 🌳

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I Can’t Think Of Anything To Write

But that won’t stop me. In fact, Bow Ties o’ the Day/Tie o’ the Day encouraged me to press on with our post. And I listen to this tie because it allows me to not have to decide between wearing a bow tie or wearing a regular tie. Sometimes a girl just needs to wear both types of neckwear.

How are we going to come up with something to write about? Well, I have a tried-and-true method for figuring out a starting point– whether it’s for a post, a story, or a poem. I grab a dictionary, open it up to a random page, then put my finger on a word. I have to write something about that specific word. That’s my rule.

For this post, the first word I touched was a dirty word, so we’ll bypass that one. The second word I touched– the one we can use– was “mucilage.” I know. Weird. It shares the same word root as “mucus.” And of course it means an adhesive gum or glue, usually made from plants. Yes, it looks and feels like mucus.

I wondered mightily what to say about mucilage, and then I remembered a crafty glue/mucilage concoction called Mod Podge, which I always heard pronounced MODGE Podge. Ah, the 70’s! (It’s still around in craft stores, although it kinda disappeared for a couple of decades. Throwback!)

Mod Podge dried almost completely clear, no matter what you spread it on. It was a mostly transparent glue, but it dried with a matte finish. Aside from brushing completed puzzles with Mod Podge so they wouldn’t fall apart, or cutting out pictures and Mod Podging them to pieces of wood, the main thing I did with Mod Podge is use it to coat rocks I had painted, to protect the paint and to give the rock a matte look.

We were all doing it. We painted our pet rocks. We painted faces on our rocks– like doing their make-up, I suppose. We painted what adults considered hippie words on rocks, like PEACE, LOVE, GROOVY, HARMONY– evil, counterculture words. The size of the rock didn’t matter. Rocks tiny enough you could keep them in your pocket. Rocks bigly enough you could decorate your front porch with them. Rocks you could put in your school locker or on your desk. What were we thinking? But it was a heckuva blast.

So that’s my mucilage story, for what it’s worth. And if you didn’t know Mod Podge before, now you do. And if you didn’t know mucilage before, now you do. If you see the word MUCILAGE and can’t remember what it means, try to see MUCUS. That’ll remind you.

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No Title

No words except Seattle Seahawks Bow Tie o’ the Day celebrates the Seahawk’s first win of the season– especially cuz they defeated the Dallas Cowbabies. 🏈

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A Bigly Family And A Bigly Family Day

Light-up Bow Tie o’ the Day enjoyed a family celebration at The Timbermine at the mouth of Ogden Canyon yesterday. The occasion was to celebrate (late) my oldest sister’s 50th wedding anniversary. Betty and Kent met at Weber State University in 1967. It was love at first English class.

You can see from these photos that I’m not the only one in my family who lives to entertain. The woman with her back to me is Betty. She is being a good party honoree and entertaining those at her table. In the first photo, she does take a few seconds to notice Kent and their daughter Angie performing for my camera. And by the time I snapped the next photo, she has already turned her attention back to her chatting duties with the other guests.

BT (As she prefers to be called. And I call her Mercedes.) is like Suzanne. They notice the antics we perform around them, but they take it in stride. They notice, they appreciate, they move on. Despite their own incredible humor, Suzanne and BT also shine as “the straight man.” Every great comedy routine needs one. Their reactions and/or non-reactions can make or break the joke. The straight man’s reaction is the cherry on top of the jokester dessert. It is the “all that and a bag of chips” which elevates the comedy routine.

In the second photo, you’ll notice Kent pretending to fiddle with his imaginary bow tie. As Suzanne and I were saying our goodbye’s and leaving the yesterday’s festivities, Kent sidled up to me and asked if I could get him a bow tie like mine. See, Kent drives a school bus, and he wants to wear one to entertain his bus kids. This is exactly who Kent is. He’s surrounded by– and joke-chatting with– half a billion members of his own family, at a landmark celebration for himself and BT, and he still has enough heart-capacity to think of how he can entertain his bus kids. For a guy like that, I’d give the bow tie off my neck. Which I did. It didn’t faze me one iota to part with Bow Tie o’ the Day and its three speeds o’ flashing.

Laurel & Hardy. Burns & Allen. Martin & Lewis. Rowan & Martin. Penn & Teller. BT & Kent. They are all members of the comedy duo Hall o’ Fame.

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To Every Bow Tie There Is A Season

The chill is on. Bow Tie o’ the Day and I are experiencing our first long pants, long-sleeve shirt day since probably April. We mourn Summer. We’ll get used to the coming Fall and Winter seasons since we have to. Actually, Fall is my fave season of the year, but it seems like it’s a much shorter season than it was a few decades ago.

Right now I’m taking a gander at the mountains behind our house, and I see the turning leaves on the trees. Watching the leaves turn into their brilliant Fall colors is one of the best parts of the season, but this year the colors are muted and dull. Not enough water in them thar hills! It makes me sad just to look at them. The leaves are not their best selves. That’s gotta be hard on their self-esteem. 🤡

Beyond having to wear “long clothes,” another harbinger of the nearness of Fall is The First Fly-In-The-House o’ Fall, which has been tormenting me and Bow Tie and Skitter all morning. Fall flies move more slowly than Summer flies, it seems. But they are harder to swat for some reason. They move unpredictably, as if they are intoxicated. Apparently, drunk-acting flies are just as annoying as certain drunk people. You just wanna slap ’em. At least you can do that to flies.

A bigly bright spot to the return of long-sleeve shirts is the return of Cufflinks o’ the Day. Love me my ‘links. This morning’s ‘links need no introduction. We all know a crayon when we see one. Yes, these actually work. Of course, I don’t want to wear them down. I don’t have a crayon sharpener this mini.

I remember when I first read the word “crayon.” I had to figure that word out, because I had only ever heard the coloring sticks referred to as “crens.” Was it just me? I don’t think so, because nobody ever made fun of me for saying it that way. I dunno.

The calming effects of crayons cannot be underestimated. Give an out-of-control kid a few crayons, and nine times out of ten, that kid will rein it in a notch or two. There is a reason that parents don’t attend church without carrying a supply of crayons and coloring books for their kids to use when they get fidgety. Hey! It just occurs to me that crayons are really kinda the original fidget spinner. Just’ sayin’.

Crayons work the same way with adults. Hence, the plethora of adult coloring books you can buy in almost any store. As adults, we might have exchanged our crayons for markers or colored pencils, but we all know they aren’t as fun as crens. Markers and colored pencils do not carry the same feelings of safety, freedom, boundless creativity, and memory of childhood possibilities. When you hold them in your hand, they don’t feel like that same crayon kind of imagination. Think about it: When we were in our kidhoods, a box of crayons could create AND rule the kingdoms of our minds and hearts.

And if you’re honest with yourself you’ll admit that in your life, few things have made your entire soul happier than when you so proudly gave your mom or dad a crayon drawing, and it ended up posted on the fridge for all to see. That drawing sucked, but it was a family treasure.

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I Hear Ya

 

Bow Tie o’ the Day helps highlight my hair progress with the growing-it-all-out goal. Remember, it’s not my project, it’s yours. So far, I am complying with your votes. Right now, I think my mop would look better if it were actually a mop. But at least I can still see the asymmetry I like to have in my haircuts. Where this will end, I don’t know. I didn’t put a deadline or length on my hairs project. Technically, I can cut my hairs right now and say, “Well, I grew it out for three months. That’s long enough.” But I know what y’all mean: you wanna see it with some real length to it, whether I want to wear it like that or not.

Suzanne knows how much I detest having long hairs, and she says I can go ahead and cut ’em off any time I want. But I also think she secretly wants me to grow it out, because she knows how much it matters to me that I follow through and keep my promises– even about stuff that really doesn’t matter in the big scheme of things. Anyhoo… This is how the hairs are hangin’ as of today.

Bow Tie hung on the bathroom door when I made a discovery earlier. I discovered that my hearing aid is super comfortable– so much so that I forgot it was in my ear, and I wore it into the shower and promptly began to wash this scrappy hair. Oops! I caught my mistake ASAP. I wrapped my wet hearing gadget in a dry washcloth, cast a voodoo spell on it, and hoped.

But my head shifted into a panicky rant about how I had most certainly destroyed my 4-month-young hearing device, and I don’t dare tell Suzanne what I did, and so somehow I have to find $2000 without her knowing it’s missing, to buy another of the exact same model of hearing aid without Suzanne suspecting anything, cuz I’d rather be broke than have to face Suzanne about doing something so stupid, and on and on and on.

But five minutes later, I opened up the washcloth. The device appeared to be ok. I stuck it in my ear, and the house sounds abounded. Luckily, all was right with my hearing device. I discovered that it is a bit water-resistant, thank heavens. And as an added bonus, it was really, really clean. My biggest discovery is that this little hearing-aid-in-the-shower escapade will not be happening again. It created such a panic in me that I was scared smart.

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Hangin’ with The Skitt

Bow Tie o’ the Day knows as well as I do that Skitter is not a cool cat. She is not hip. I don’t think we can truthfully describe her as groovy. She is not da bomb. Nope. Skitter is nerdy. Skitter is a Helen’s-girl. Skitter is timid. Skitter is a cowering wallflower. Skitter is the Mistress o’ Skittishness. Sometimes she does not walk or run to her destination, she shivers and vibrates her way to wherever she’s going.

It’s been almost five years since we rescued Skitter from an abusive situation. We don’t know the details of how she had been treated. We just know her life before us had been horrendous. Her defensive, frightened behavior is all the evidence we need in order to know she lived through hell. After all these years, Skitter still can barely handle being around anyone who isn’t me or Suzanne or Mom or Suzanne’s sister, Marjorie. The Skitt can hardly handle being anywhere except in our home. And even then, she is still occasionally wary of normal house and neighborhood noises. She sees her world as an obstacle course, designed to keep her from safety.

But even with her being almost perpetually askeered, she is becoming mostly content and happy in her days and nights with us. Her tail finally wags often, and twice per day she does what we call The Chew Dance on her hind legs. At 11 AM and 7 PM each day, we give her a dog chew. And let me tell you, she can tell time. Seriously, if I lose track of the time while I’m working on something, Skitter will show up jumping and turning on her hind legs. “Hey, look at me, Helen! It’s 11 AM! Time for my chew, Helen. Don’t you know it’s my chew time, Helen? Did you forget how to tell time, Helen? Look at me dance! A chew! A chew! A chew!” Bless you, Skitter.

I’ve never told anyone this before– not even Suzanne– but a few months after we rescued Skitter, I was concerned about the lack of progress she was making in terms of her constant fear. She was not “warming up” to people, places, and things as well as I thought she should have been by that time– not even to us.

She didn’t bite or fight in any way. She didn’t bark or whine. But if you made eye-contact with her, she would still run away and hide behind something, or she’d drop to the floor and ball up like a roly-poly, hoping to be unseen or ignored. I tried every strategy I could come up with to make her feel safe with us and with her new life. Nothing seemed to assuage her fears.

I began to wonder if it might be better for Skitter if the vet and I helped her go to sleep. Was Skitter’s 24/7 fear of being abused really that much better than her actually being abused? We loved Skitter, and we out-did ourselves showing her she was safe and adored. It all boiled down to this question: Do Skitter’s moments of feeling happy and safe outweigh her moments of fear and insecurity? I think I would have been irresponsible to NOT consider the possibility that Skitter might be happier if she didn’t have to exist.

Well, it’s obvious what I concluded. I’m glad we all had faith we could get Skitter to where she is now. Skitter stuck it out with us. She’s still skittish and hesitant and turns into a roly-poly on occasion, but now she doesn’t dwell in her fear constantly. In fact, she mostly dwells in “running” naps and in her own oddness. We appreciate her peculiarities, and we try to make her feel safe in herself and in her environment. She appreciates our peculiar ways too, I’m sure.

It’s a rare thing, but sometimes– as in this first picture– Skitter feels happy and free and safe enough to lean over and kiss me. Most. Bashful. Smooches. Ever.

Skitter’s tough heart makes me proud.