Witty & Wise Ties, Trivia & Lies
My Tie o’ the Day for our visit with Mom last Friday was full of a spooky bunch of ghosts and pumpkins. Please gloss right over the dopey look on my face, and turn your attention to Mom and Skitter looking adoringly into each other’s eyes.
In the second pic, Skitter is apparently being a model while I’m taking a photo of the two Halloween pillows Suzanne made for Mom. Skitter is a photobomber.
Last week, Suzanne finished a bigly project, which has kept her at her office for basically three months straight. I kid you not. The project was a tremendous success. I wish I had permission to write about it, but I don’t. Trust me, though: you should be as amazed as I am that Suzanne does brilliant work for the benefit of public school students, educators, and education employees.
Anyhoo… Suzanne took a day off Friday, before our vacay to New Mexico– which is where we are right now. We just had to use the day to go visit the Big Helen. Yes, at 89, Mom is The Incredible Shrinking Woman, but she’s still the bigliest shrinking person I know. That woman can fill up a room by just walking in. I always describe Mom as the coolest old broad I know, and this photo proves it yet again. The candy corn Bow Tie o’ the Day Mom’s holding up to her neck is just the cherry on top of her coolness sundae.
This snappy snapshot also gave me an idea. Since Halloween Candy Corn Bow Tie seems to be quite popular with TIE O’ THE DAY readers, I think we should play a game with it. I’m proposing a sort of “Elf On A Shelf” series of adventures for Candy Corn Bow Tie. Every day, from now until Halloween’s over, you’re going to see at least one photo of what I’ll simply call Candy Corn Bow Tie On A Shelf. I, myself, am interested to discover what Candy Corn Bow Tie will see and do. I have a feeling its capers will show it to be pretty cool.
But no matter what, Bow Tie can’t possibly be as cool as Mom. Compared to Mom, the rest of us are barely room temperature. I know I’m prejudiced in her favor, but that doesn’t mean I’m not right.
Bow Tie o’ the Day reminds me of hunting pheasants with my dad, which we sometimes did from as close as our own back yard. I ordered Bow Tie with Dad and hunts in mind. But when it showed up to live with me, I knew immediately it was sort of an oopsie. This is a bow tie whose idea was better than its execution. It is pretty enough, but it just doesn’t show itself off to spectators very well. Ya can’t see the pheasants! When I’m wearing Bow Tie, no one can decipher what’s on it unless they creep right up into my face. And “creep” is the right word because when people I’m not married to or who aren’t babies get that close to my face, it feels creepy. Seriously, that degree of up-close is what I refer to as I-can-count-your-nose-hairs-without-even-trying-you-creep close. Yeah, that kind of close.
I love Bow Tie anyway, despite how it sometimes creates awkward situations for me. It’s silk, too, which feels elegant. And it still reminds me of Dad.
When I was wee, every year after bagging our pheasants, he’d stick a couple of handsome pheasant tail feathers into an empty rifle shell, then crimp it closed. VOILA! I would throw that feather-and-shell toy as high and as far as I could for hours, watching its feathery trajectory plop it back to the dirt. Best. Childhood. Toy. Ever. Thanks, Dad.
I haven’t selfied today, so I’ll let Grace Anne show off her cute Bow Tie o’ Last Sunday before she got in a fancy polka dot dress for church. See, her bow is on the ballerina costume emblem on her chest.
So….. I’ve been writing here about wanting to just un-me myself, cuz I keep needing to re-learn the lesson of using moderation in assisting folks in solving their own problems. When I do too much, I short-change myself and disappear, which makes me realize I really don’t want to change into someone I’m not. I just want myself to grow to be better at being me. I think we all want that for ourselves.
But why do we make the same mistakes again and again? Yesterday, I said that one reason is because we are familiar with the pattern. It feels comfortable to us. We feel safe in a pattern we’ve set, if only because we’re used to it.
However, I think there’s a much bigly-er reason we get stuck in our patterns of behavior that replay our weaknesses. What complicates our battles with our own personal deficiencies is the fact that our weaknesses are usually intricately tied to our strengths. And we don’t want to chance giving up our strengths.
For example, I think most of us will agree that helping others is a good way to be. Helping others, to the detriment of ourselves is not so good. We have to keep learning how to harness all the bells and whistles of our helping, so we don’t collapse in self-neglect. Ideally, we want our characteristic strengths to grow, while our characteristic weaknesses diminish. So although it is true in some sense that we must lose ourselves in order to find ourselves, it’s also true that we can lose ourselves in helping others to the point that our “self” can starve to death. If that happens, we are of no use to anyone. We have made it impossible to love our neighbors. Now, that’s what I call a sin.
To use a car metaphor, the long and short of it is that I had been speeding around for others a bit recklessly, until I had no speed with which to move. My tank wasn’t just empty, it finally rusted out. My wheels were stuck in a mud puddle of my own making too. I spun my wheels out of helpless anger, knowing fully well that I was only throwing mud and making deeper ruts. I gotta remember to not do that again. Y’all know exactly what I’m sayin’.
As a decrepit old gal these days, my “me” is like the muddy used car. Folks, I’m never gonna be a new car. I’m pretty much AS IS. But used cars can be detailed, so I’m also AS I WILL BECOME. I wanna be a continually NEW used car, regularly detailing myself with mostly snazzerrific bow ties.
End of deep thoughts.
BTW You know how I find connections everywhere I look? Here I am posting about the good and bad of helping others, and what did my fortune cookie tell me at lunch today? “Life’s greatest privilege is being able to help someone in need.” Duh! I kid you not.
Birthday Bow Tie o’ the Day is proud to present its party balloons to Mom today, on her 89th self-anniversary! This photo of Mom and Dad was taken at a Ruby River dinner for Dad’s 75th birthday party, in 2005. I chose it for today because I know Mom’s only real birthday wish is to have Dad with her every minute of every day. Together, Mom and Dad are an authentic, original, complete set. But for now, the family will do our best to fill in for Dad. We want Mom here for as long as she can stand to put up with us.
Here’s a grand Bow Tie o’ the Day salute to an incredible couple, Suzanne’s parents. Steven and Geri’s love is 60 years young. Best. In-laws. Ever.
You are correct, if you think I gifted Gracie her Tie o’ the Day bib. Bishopette Collette sent me this photo of her and Bishop Travis’ Wonderment Girl a couple of days ago, along with an explanation that the little darling is wearing her tie bib to eat her very first peas. I think Gracie looks like she’s enjoying them. Or maybe she just puts on this gorgeous face for the camera when she knows she’s gonna be starring on TIE O’ THE DAY. Honestly though, I know for a fact she never takes off this endearing face. It’s the only face I’ve ever seen her wear. How can I not show her off, peas and tie bib and all?!
Face it, folks. Gracie is the newest part of my wild, neckwear-y, spectacular life. She fits right inside my bow-tied heart. Expect to see her here from time to time. If you are tired of seeing her pix here already, you should probably go ahead and unfriend me; unfollow me; and/or unsubscribe to the TIE O’ THE DAY tblog now. Oh, and then you should immediately go visit a therapist, cuz something is surely kaput with The Adorable-osity Detector in your brain. Just sayin’.
Because I had my mind stuck on Mom a few days ago, Bow Tie o’ the Day woke up Saturday morning and declared we were off to MCR. So we all got in Suzanne’s car and she drove us to the land of Deltabama, where Mom seemed mighty glad to see us.
Skitter did her usual curling up right by Mom, and Mom did her usual constant petting of Skitter. Mom and I did our same old Two Helen’s Telling Stories and Snort-Laughing routine. After a while, Suzanne left us and drove over to see her other Delta mother: Mom’s Crafts. When she came back to MCR, Suzanne showed Mom her new fabric, and then she lotioned Mom’s itchy legs. When it was time to leave, even Skitter wanted to stay with Mom.
It was such a simple day. And it was pretty much the same as every visit we make to Mom at MCR. We even laughed at a lot of the same ol’ family jokes and tales for the thousandth time. I am always amazed at how a day so “the same” and simple can feel like a kind of high Heaven.
Both times I’ve sat down at my desk to write TIE O’ THE DAY posts today, my brain has gone right to Mom. Clearly, I’m missing her bigly. I need to make another day-journey to Deltassippi ASAP. Skitter will certainly tag along. Suzanne will too, I hope.
This photo is from 2015. Again, Mom’s in my old Delta living room– drinking her Pepsi and peering out the window at the neighborhood’s comings-and-goings. It must have been a cold-butt day outside when I snapped this. As always, Mom was setting trends with her lackadaisical, tie-less style. It’s the socks that raise this outfit to a supreme level of Mom-ness fashion.
I can totally see Mom as a commercial fashion designer. She might have to create herself a designer-y name though: Oscar de la Mom-a. Tommy Helenfilger. Gloria VanderHelen. Grandma Klein. Diane Von FurstenHelen. HWNY. Dolce and GabHelen. HUCCI. Helenmut Lang. H. Crew. Heljimmy Choo. Helaxander McQueen. Paco Helbanne. Helentino. Ralph Helen. Yves Saint Helent. One of those could definitely work. If anyone can pull it off, it would be Mom.
I love running across pix of Mom. Here she is, sometime around four years ago, visiting me in my former Delta abode. When I was in town, Mom wandered over to hang with me two or three times a day. Usually, Mom held court on my porch, where we solved the problems of the world. We were laughing so hard about something one summer day on the porch that Mrs. Rowlette—who just happened to be driving by—pulled into my driveway and asked what was so funny. We invited her onto the sacred porch, where she laughed with us for the next hour. Mrs. Rowlette was not the first, nor was she the last, to find out what happened on the porch, stayed on the porch.
When the weather and temperature didn’t cooperate, this bigly chair by the bigly picture window at my place was Mom’s throne. Mom’s style needs no neckwear, although I’d give her the bowtie off my neck if she wanted it. And you can see where I got my basic fashion sensibilities, right?