Category: Earrings

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A Visit With Mom, During Bruce Week: Part Two

Whenever we get inside the front doors of Millard Care and Rehab, Skitter prances her way to Mom’s room. She doesn’t dilly-dally. She makes a beeline for Mom. When Mom notices us at her door, she is quick to say, “Hi, Skitter! What are you doing here?” (To heck with me or Suzanne. Skitter is Mom’s favorite by a mile. I don’t blame her.) Skitter then leaps up on Mom’s bed, and snuggles as close to Mom as she can get—where she remains for the duration of our visits. During our last couple of visits, Mom has sort of forgotten Skitter was by her side. In fact, she almost ignored Skitter once Skitter got up on her bed—to the point that Suzanne and I have been extra worried about Mom’s state of mind. But when we visited Mom a few days ago, Mom was back to her old Skitter-petting self. They were inseparable. Whew! When it was time for us to leave, Skitter would not get off the bed, even when Mom did. Suzanne had to physically remove The Skit from Mom’s space.

Suzanne’s leg is a focal point of one of these photos for a real reason. I thought I should document Suzanne elevating her leg on Mom’s bed because her foot was swollen. She and Mom had a dandy time commiserating about the woes of their swollen feet. What a couple of exciting broads I was hanging out with! For the record, my feet don’t swell. Except for that time when I was 16 and discovered I was suddenly allergic to bee stings—and at the old Delta hospital, the nurses had to cut my new Nikes off my feet because all my appendages were swollen up like I was auditioning to be the Hulk in a movie. Or Popeye with his spinach-ed arms.

During our visit with Mom, we laughed so much that I can’t remember what silly thing Mom was laughing about so hard she covered her mouth as if pretending she didn’t say something irreverent. But isn’t that a great picture of Mom looking like the mischievous dame she is? She can say anything she wants, and she gets away with everything she says because she’s so Old Gangsta Old Lady about it. And also because what she says is usually both funny and dead-on about the topic being discussed. BTW Check out how Mom is not wearing her purple housecoat for the first time in a long while. And note her bigly flower ring and brooch. She was stylin.’ She says she couldn’t get her earrings on that day.

For my part, I wore my pig earrings for the visit because Mom likes to see them so much. I wore my bee socks for her, too. She mentioned many times how much she liked my brand spankin’ new bejeweled Bow Tie o’ the Day. Mom does love to see the bling! We took her some shrimp and some sugary treats, too. It was all for Mom. It always is.

FYI The weather is not looking good for our scheduled flight from SLC to Portland in the morning. To that news, I say, ” &*+($^#@!*^~#^@$#^^&!!!” That mess o’ symbols was my silent swearing. Rest assured, those words are not silent in my head! 😡

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Truth, Beauty, Goodness

Yesterday, Skitter and I packed our various water bottles into the truck and headed south to spend some time with Mom. It was a no-brainer for me when it came to choosing Tie o’ the Day for the occasion. The tie had to be Mona Lisa—a tie o’ beauty for a visit with my beautiful mother. Skitter and I were surprised to find Mom wasn’t wearing any earrings. It’s been quite a long while since we’ve seen her ears naked. She also didn’t mention my earrings, which she always does. She did mention liking Skitter’s tie a number of times. Of course, she remarked about Mona throughout the visit. She also made a bigly deal about liking the taco socks I was wearing. Mom told me she is content with not doing much anymore. She said, “All my life I did everything, all the time.” She took a long pause, looked into my eyes, and said, “But not all of me is here anymore. Do you know what I mean?” I told her I knew. I did not tell her how many years I’ve already missed so much of her. Nor did I tell her how she sometimes melts farther away from me, even as I am sitting right next to her. And I certainly didn’t tell her how helpless and ineffectual it makes me feel that there is not one damn thing I can do for her to make it stop. 🕯

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Adventures In Synchronized Dancing

Last night Suzanne and I ventured to The Eccles Theater in Salt Lake City, for a performance of AIN’T TOO PROUD: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE TEMPTATIONS. It’s a Broadway musical not BY the Motown group, but ABOUT the group. If you’re too old to remember The Temptations, or if you’re too young to have a clue about the group, do yourself a favor and visit YouTube to watch a video or two of their classy synchronized dance moves which accompanied their complex vocals. The Temptations’ choreography was somehow simple but extravagant at the same time. The group’s tight moves were sweetly innocent, while simultaneously being slickly seductive. Their smooth moves were the equivalent of crushed velvet. The performances in this particular production at The Eccles stood up well to what can be seen in existing footage of the real shows. There are also the iconic songs themselves, like “My Girl,” “Just My Imagination,” and “Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone.” As always, my fave Temptations songs are the most desolate, bleakest songs in their catalog—like one of their lesser known hits, “I Wish It Would Rain.”

I used the night out as a chance to finally wear my silver floppy Bow Tie ‘o the Day for the first time. I won’t mention my lapel pin, although I stand by its sentiment.😏 I even wore a new jacket to last night’s show. Suzanne didn’t seem to like it though. It is cut differently than any other jacket in my closet, and the fabric’s brown plaid pattern is more traditional than what I usually cover myself with. After Suzanne first observed me in my jacket, all she kept saying was, “It’s not like what you wear. It’s not like what you wear.”—over and over again. It was as if the very sight of me in my differently-fangled jacket had stunned Suzanne into a mystical fog of confusion and repetition. Personally, my new jacket looks kind of Sherlock Holmes-y to me. Very Heathcliff-esque, if you know what I mean. I wore a splashy golf cap to balance things out.🕵️‍♀️🔍

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Mom Deserves To See Double

I wasn’t available to post yesterday. We made an early Xmas visit to Mom’s kingdom, for my true Christmas morning. I knew I would wear the leg lamp Tie o’ the Day for our visit, because Mom loves it so. But she also likes the tie on which Richie wears—and abhors—the bunny pajamas. I decided a two-fer festive Tie o’ the Day was necessary for our get-together. (She made a bigly deal about how much she liked my “ugly sweater”-ish green holiday jacket.) Skitter was a constant at Mom’s side, in all her elf-collar glory. When I pulled the phone out for pix, Mom playfully showed off one of the soft peppermints we brought her. I showed Mom a couple of Christmas “stockings” she had made me over my kidhood, and she remembered them, mostly. As you can see in the first photo, Suzanne and I found Mom the perfect Santa hat for her gift: it matches her purple housecoat AND it sports a tiara—befitting Mom’s eternal Queen Bee status. As Mom drank from a convenience store Coke with lots of ice—which she said her friend, Dot, had brought her earlier that morning—she said to me and Suzanne, “I’ll drink FOR you, and TO you, and WITH you kids—for ANY reason, ANY time.” She was having such a good time. She sounded like she had been drinking eggnog with extra whisky in it. I’ll have to quiz Dot about what she really put in that drink she brought Mom.

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Have I Ever Mentioned How Much I Love My Mother?

Mom and Skitter entertain the troops.
Mom’s loves to wear earrings and eat KFC coleslaw.
Mom was full of stories and political opinions Saturday.
Mom just had to show Skitter her box of jewelry.
Skitter sits all amazed.
Mom’s got Skitter, a bag of Swedish Fish, and a new phone. Yay!

Wood Bow Tie o’ the Day joined us for a Saturday jaunt to visit Queen Helen of Delta. We loaded up the car with Swedish Fish and KFC coleslaw, two of Mom’s fave edibles. Our mission was to deliver Mom a new-fangled flip phone to replace her old-fangled flip phone which had ceased to do its one job, which is to keep Mom connected to her begats and her pals. She seemed pleased with the new phone because it functions exactly like the one it’s replacing. Mom has made it very clear to me that she does not want a smarter phone because, at nearly 92, she does not want to have to learn one more damn thing (her swear word, not mine). Mom fell in love with the goldfish-in-a-bag earrings I was wearing, and I fell in love with her blue crystal earrings. I don’t recall seeing them before, but they are the color of her dreamy blue eyes. Note to self: Steal Mom’s ice-blue earrings on next visit.

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Yes, My Earrings Are Hearts

Jumbo red Bow Tie o’ the Day and candy hearts Lapel Pin o’ the Day were a fitting combo for our February 13th brunch reservation. The bigly Scrabble board behind me is a sure sign we’re at Hotel Manaco for a meal at Bambara. We ate a tasty Valentine’s Eve brunch there at the absolute best time to have an up-scale restaurant to ourselves: Super Bowl Sunday. While everyone else was home or at an all-day Super Bowl party stuffing themselves with Buffalo wings and pizza and every variety of chip and dip known to humankind, we had a hoity-toity restaurant almost completely to ourselves. We didn’t plan it that way, but we had such a fine time I can guarantee fancy dining out on the day of the NFL Championship is going to be an annual tradition. 🏈 💘

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The Debut O’ The Piglets

I’ve had some new earrings I’ve been wanting to try out on a Saturday night, and yesterday Suzanne sent me a text from upstairs that said we were going to SLC to dinner for the evening. Finally, I had a place to wear my piggie earrings out on the town for all to see. I took an up-close pic of the chubby earrings so y’all can see both the front and back of my tiny pink friends. Since we haven’t been out a lot lately, I decided to be as formal and black tie-y as I get—with my fave black shirt (the oldest shirt I own, from the 80’s) and my black-background flip-flop Bow Tie o’ the Evening. Likewise, I went black vinyl with my record album Face Mask o’ the Evening.

Suzanne had made reservations for us at PAGO, where we filled up on some of our favorite foods. I almost ordered the pork chop, just to maintain the piggie-theme of the night, but I ended up opting for the steak. Suzanne, of course, ordered the scallops. We are very predictable sometimes. Suzanne chose a sauvignon blanc to drink, which she said was tasterrific, and I can verify that her wine smelled nummy and made my mouth water. I sometimes wonder if Suzanne gets weary of my sniffing her wine selections, but it’s not like I’m going to quit doing it, so we both might as well get over it if it’s a problem. I think Suzanne will agree that probably our best discovery of the night was an appetizer made with beets, strawberries, goat cheese, and candied quinoa. The true gem within the appetizer was the pickled strawberries. We didn’t know pickled strawberries even existed, and now we will never forget they do. We will be ordering them at PAGO again, soon.