When I venture out into the community, I am used to receiving a certain level of attention to whatever my Bow Tie o’ the Day might be that particular day. My neckwear often gets a second look from people as I walk past. But when I was erranding one day last week—while wearing my jumbo seersucker cirtrus Bow Tie o’ the Day—some members of the public were giving me what I deemed to be an extra-long double glimpse. I asked myself, “Why is this bow tie more double-take-worthy than it has ever been before?” It’s true I was also wearing my new Lemonhead socks, but folks weren’t looking too over-long at them. No, I was sure something was up with the bow tie itself. Had I spilled something garish on it? Was I wearing it upside down? I was just about to take off my bow tie and examine it, when some old geezer caught my eye and said, “I forget about mine, too.” He pointed to my right cheekbone, and I knew immediately what I had done: I had forgotten to wash the lipstick off my cheek from Suzanne’s kiss goodbye when she went to work that morning. I do this more often than you can imagine. I replied to the guy, “Yeah, but we never forget we’re loved.” And we both went happily on with our respective errands. 💋
Yes, I purposely matched my socks so I’d blend in.Suzanne seriously cogitates over her decision on a new phone.
Tie o’ the Day couldn’t believe it either. But I tried to tone down my normal clash. I tried very hard to look like everybody else. I’ll explain, but it’ll take me a minute to get to the reason. You see, Suzanne and I had a list of errands we needed to do together on a weekday, so she took the day off yesterday. First, we were off to the credit union to sign some paperwork for our trust and estate planning. That went off without a hitch. Then we were off to the Apple store, so Suzanne could choose a new iPhone. If you’ll remember, in July—on Suzanne’s birthday—I told her I would like to gift her a new phone, but I wanted her to pick out whichever one she wanted. Flash forward to nearly 3 months later, and she was finally ready to make her decision yesterday. She went for the lilac iPhone 14. And then we were off to Verizon to get Suzanne’s new phone hooked up with a line on my account, so I and Suzanne and Rowan and Mom are truly on the same family plan.
Okay. So here’s the part where I finally tell you about why I purposely attempted to blend in yesterday. I knew one of our errands meant we were going to the credit union, and I thought we might have time to start the loan paperwork for my new truck—which really might be here sometime next week. A thing I’ve learned in my life is that what you wear in certain situations makes a bigly difference in how you are treated. If you’re going to the credit union to get a loan to buy your Velocity Blue new Maverick, there’s a better chance the credit union people will give you the money if you don’t look like you just walked in out of a hurricane under the Big Top at a circus—which is probably as good a way as any to describe my normal garb. Yesterday morning when I first got up, I was all set to wear a wood bow tie, my new Lemonhead socks, one of my protest t-shirts, my half-boots, and one of my protest baseball caps. But then I suddenly remembered our errand list. I knew it would not be to my benefit to wear what I had planned to for the day. So I found a pretty, somewhat low-key (for me), long-sleeved shirt. I paired it with a somewhat subdued (for me) Tie o’ the Day. I found a pair of not-loud-colored (for me) Sloggers shoes that didn’t have cows or paw prints, or chickens on them. Most important to my toning my look down a notch, was my decision to wear my pastel orange Bombas socks. It happened: on purpose, I chose to match my socks with my shirt! I knew this would give me the edge at the credit union when it came time for them to approve the truck loan. And I wore the most serious-looking golf cap I own. It does have black in it, after all. Alas! We didn’t even end up dealing with the truck loan yesterday, so I’ll never know if I successfully blended in enough with the other customers at the credit union, in order to achieve my loan approval.
After we got home from our errand-y day, I confessed to Suzanne that I had not been my normal self that day. I had lied with my style. She looked at me quizzically, and I told her about my decision to dress more like normal people and less like my usual clashy kind of normal-for-me attire. When she heard why I dressed down, she squint-eyed, belly-laughed out loud for a good 15 minutes straight. I suppose that meant I didn’t look all that different from how I usually do. I suspected as much. But hey, my confession made Suzanne lose herself in laughter, so my efforts were well worth it.
Socks Bow Ties o’ the Day and I were trying very hard to think of a way to wrap up my posts about my preoccupation with books. But we quickly realized I can never completely wrap up said book-y posts. I will never run out of book stories or my praise for books and reading, so think of this as the end of official book-related posts, but for only a limited time. Let’s consider this an intermission of sorts. Book posts and references will no doubt show up in posts from time to time—until I eventually declare it to be time for another series o’ posts about my printed and paged friends.
When I was in the 1st and 2nd grades at Delta Elementary School, there was a silly rule that girls had to wear dresses. This was a stoopid rule, and I don’t even think it was officially written down anywhere. It was just the way it was. I cannot begin to tell you how much the “rule” curtailed the girls’ playground actvities. Even if you wore shorts under your dress, hanging upside down on the monkey bars was only for the bravest of girls who were willing to risk getting in trouble for what gravity does to a dress when you hang upside down from the monkey bars. Heck, even hanging right-side-up on the monkey bars created a problem—especially if you were up high. Boys seemed to like looking up at what could be seen of girls simply playing on the monkey bars, but that was just a creepy things girls had to endure if they wanted to climb the monkey bars. The slide, the merry-go-round, and the swings had different, but very much the same, dress perils.
When wearing dresses during those early elementary years, I always wore white knee socks. Occasionally, I got a beige pair of knee-highs. What excitement! The best thing about wearing knee socks was—and still is—the stealth they can provide for carrying contraband. In my case, the contraband was usually a small book and mini notebook and pencil. And Chapstick! I always had Chapstick. Still do. I walked around with bulging socks most of the time when I wore dresses, because girl dresses tended to come with no pockets—yet another stoopid “rule” the clothing manufacturers followed as if it were a law. Who ever came up with the not-brilliant idea that girls didn’t carry stuff and didn’t need pockets? Had these clothing people never seen a real girl in the world, in her natural environment? I’ll make this simple for clothing manufacturers who still make pocketless clothes meant for girls: every being on the planet needs pockets—especially children. There is no exception to this.
My knee-high socks also bulged with raw sliced turnips whenever they were part of the school lunch in elementary school. I was one of the few kids who liked turnips. Sometimes, the lunch lady would get in a huff and wouldn’t excuse a table if every kid hadn’t taken at least one bite out of each food item on their plate. When turnip slices were on the menu, I let everyone at my table know that I would be more than happy to take their turnip slices off their hands ASAP so we could get excused for lunch recess. Kids at nearby lunch tables got in on my scheme too. I’d accept the turnips until my socks were packed. With socks chock-full, I had the lower legs of The Elephant Man. The lunch lady would excuse our table, with nary a turnip to be seen on a kid’s tray, but I had to time my getaway with utmost care—for when she was looking in an entirely different direction. If she had laid eyes on my temporarily deformed legs, she would have made the coming years of my elementary lunchroom life more Hell than it already was. I never got caught.
Of course, even though I didn’t get caught with the turnips, it doesn’t mean I didn’t do that thing every kid has to try: I stole something. I stole a book from the Rexall, a Delta drugstore which used to be on the corner where Curley’s is now located. The movie, The Godfather had just come out in movie theaters, and I wanted to read the book. I was a sad case that day because the city library didn’t have it, nor did the elementary library (duh!). It was checked out of the Bookmobile, and there was a waiting list. The high school secretary told me I couldn’t use DHS’ library due to my excessive youth, so I don’t even know if DHS had it. And then, on my way home from my ever-disappointing search for the un-findable book—The Godfather, somewhere, anywhere in the environs of my hometown—I saw the book, my day’s Holy Grail, on the rotating kiosk of paperbacks at the Rexall: The Godfather, by Mario Puzo. My family didn’t have a charge account the Rexall at the time, and I did not have the 4 bucks to purchase the book. I had to have this book. Must. Have. Book! I casually stuffed it in my sock when no one was looking my way. It wasn’t easy to get it in the sock because The Godfather was one of those bigly thick books I don’t cotton to. I sort of slid-walked sideways to the door closest to me. I made it out of the Rexall with my horrible crime undetected. I amscrayed. I skedaddled. I booked it (pun intended). I fled like the scared petty criminal I knew I was. Who knew I could run home so fast in a dress and with a fat book deep in one of my knee-high socks?!
At first, I didn’t feel guilty at all about being a book thief. It was right after I finished reading The Godfather that I began to feel contrite. I had been wrong to steal it, and I felt the abject guilt in every cell of my body. I worried myself sleepless. I couldn’t secretly return the book because it was evident someone had read it. I knew I should tell my parents and the Rexall owner what I had done. But I took the chicken-y way out to try to absolve me of my guilt: when I had saved up the $4, I surreptitiously left it on one of the two Rexall counters by the cash register. No note of apology, no nothing—just the $4. I didn’t feel like I was ever quite even with the Rexall, but I did feel considerably better. And, most importantly, I knew I did not want to feel the way stealing made me feel, ever again.
I often mention that I have had a lifelong love affair with words. They fascinate me. One-syllable words have no less charm than lengthier five-syllable words. They all matter. As I began to compose this post, the word “delightful” came to mind. It’s not a word I regularly use, although nothing is wrong with it. I simply don’t inhabit the world of feelings I would describe as “delightful.” But I can only describe yesterday as utterly delightful. Suzanne and Skitter and I trekked to Delta to spend some time with Big Helen, who seems to have shrunk just a bit more each time I hug her.
I wore my new honeycomb golf shirt, and Mom recognized what it was immediately. Dad was the beekeeper in the family, but Mom lived the bee life right beside him every step of the way. She knew a full comb of honey was not only delicious, but it bought school clothes and made car payments. We wished Mom a happy 74th Anniversary, and she wondered why Dad had to leave her. I reminded her he’s waiting, probably impatiently, for her to meet up with him when she decides she’s ready.
Mom wore her royal purple housecoat, and kept showing us how her ring matched it. She was so surprised at the fact that she matched. She knows it’s a rare thing. She and I share a penchant for mismatching in ways that make sense only to us. To match is nothing short of a miraculous oversight. For me, matching is also somewhat painful to my sensibilities. Mom can blithely relish it when it happens. I mentioned to Mom how the royal appearance of her purple housecoat and purple ring stone would surely capture the attention of every person who sees them, she said, “Well, I’ll just start to bow to them all.” And then she thought a minute, and said, “No. I’ll make the people bow to me.” That’s my mother, in a nutshell.
I took the pictures of Mom’s hands because her hands are amazing. Think about how many pints of peaches and pears those hands have bottled. I can’t begin to count the quilts her hands made over the decades. Potato salads, batches of toffee, pans of candied popcorn. And batches of cookies as far as the mind’s taste buds can remember. As I examined her hands yesterday, Mom said they looked “curdled.” It was an elegant and poetic description. Mom has a gift for language too.
As we escorted Mom to lunch, Terry—one of Mom’s fave nurses—passed us in the hall. We chatted briefly. And suddenly, Terry started dancing, and then she got Mom dancing along. I can’t explain how it happened, but it did. Terry then went on her way, and Suzanne and Skitter and I continued walking Mom to her lunch table. As we left Mom, I couldn’t get her happy dancing out of my mind. Mom not only dances at Millard Care and Rehab, but she never dances alone.
BTW I wore my Wonder Woman socks to visit Mom, my own personal Wonder Woman. The Minions Bow Tie o’ the Day is a trip.
We hadn’t been out to a movie for quite a while, until yesterday when we saw the documentary, GABBY GIFFORDS WON’T BACK DOWN. You might remember that Giffords—a Congresswoman from Arizona—was the target of an assassination attempt in January of 2011. It happened at a meet-and-greet outside a grocery store, where Giffords was meeting with constituents who wanted to speak to their representative. 6 people were killed that day, and 13 more were wounded. Giffords was shot in the head. Even as some news reports incorrectly claimed she was dead, she fought to stay alive. This documentary is primarily about her complicated recovery, from Day 1 to now. You can see her grit, grief, and humor throughout all the stages of her rehab, even when she could barely communicate. Yes, there are some gun politics in the film, but not much. She is a life-long gun owner, as well as the victim of a mass murderer with a gun, so it makes sense that she has something to say on the subject. We ought to at least listen. But again, the bulk of the film is about her long recovery. She is still partially paralyzed, and it takes Giffords great effort to speak. Singing has seemed to come easier to her than speaking. Her mind is still sharp, but often her brain won’t let her say the words she’s thinking. She has also lost about 50% of her vision in both eyes. And still, she sings! I recommend the movie to anyone who wants to witness an indomitable person right while they’re being indomitable. If you need a pick-me-up, this is it. If you don’t need a pick-me-up, you’ll still be glad you saw it.
BTW We had the theater to ourselves, at least until the movie started. Look closely to see the Saddle Purse hanging around. Suzanne is eating popcorn, and I am wearing my caped Superman Socks o’ the Day. We reclined the entire movie.
Mom is as fragile as she is tough. She’s needed a little extra care the past few days, so she’s been getting some rest at the hospital, next door from Millard Care and Rehab. We kids have all been doing our best to bother her in small doses by spending time with her there, which is just as she seems to like it. She got shrimp with her salad at lunch on this day, and you’d have thought it was Christmas at Rockefeller Center. That’s another bigly lesson Mom has consistently taught us: it doesn’t take much to be happy—if you wanna be happy.
BTW For this visit with Mom, I wore some of my animal-print accessories: pink Bow Tie o’ the Day, brown Sloggers, and orange print face mask (not shown), so Mom would be inspired to reach down into her deep animal instincts to get well and get back to her digs at the care center soon. I threw on my Bernie socks just cuz he’s old and still thriving. Bernie’s always good for a laugh.
Paisley Tie o’ the Day was brave to be a part of this eye-injuring ensemble. The attire is goshdarn near-match-y, in its own way. I debated about whether to wear my cow Sloggers or my cowboy boots. I finally decided to wear the cow Sloggers, because—although the cowboy boots would mercifully cover up the glare of my fish belly-white chicken legs—they would also, unfortunately, cover up my taco socks. And here’s a little fashion tip no other fashion genius but I will ever tell you: Taco socks must be visible to onlookers at all times! Some style critics might call this outfit over-the-top. I call it “Happy Helen, Left Unsupervised On A Monday In June.” I’m rather proud of this clothing concoction. 🏆
I spent yesterday at the University of Utah Hospital having a lithotripsy procedure directed at the pancreatic boulder my panky seems to have gone out of its way to grow. I’m moving gingerly this morning. Stay tuned for this afternoon’s Cranky Hanky Panky update, in which I regale you with details of my latest medical adventure.
FYI Excuse my fish-belly-white legs, but note that my socks reveal I am honest when I say I never go anywhere without books.🤓
Everyone needs a cow-covered Face Mask o’ the Day and a crossword puzzle Bow Tie o’ the Day—as well as a pair of Bernie-Sanders-at-the-Inauguration socks. Okay, maybe not absolutely everyone needs these things, but I do. They keep me somewhat grounded in my authentic style during my times of roller coaster brain chemistry. The spirit o’ Bernie has warmed my feet on some of these days. Yes, the spirit o’ Bernie’s mittens has been punching right along with me through my most recent boxing match with my own complicated, manic-depressive head.
As my head finally started to find its balance a week or so ago, I was finally able to jot down some tblog ideas for updating y’all about my shenanigans you missed out on while I was not up to the demands of writing TIE-O-THE- DAY content. I went to bed that night, fully intending to get up at the crack of dawn and write a bigly original post the next morning, when—WHAM!—the ghost of my bum pancreas (my Hanky Panky) woke me up at 3AM with lightning strikes o’ pain. Two-and-a half years ago, I had successful Hanky Panky surgery, which left me with only one-third of my pancreas. Despite my Panky’s smaller size, I have been in relative Pancreas Heaven ever since the operation—until that night last week. Just my luck: I was thrown out of the bipolar frying pan, and into the pancreatic fire!
The sudden, old Panky pain felt entirely too familiar to me. Since then, I’ve been trying to ignore the discomfort, which has ebbed and flowed but hasn’t completely gone away. I luckily managed to wrangle an in-person appointment with my Hanky Panky surgeon at the Huntsman Cancer Institute tomorrow. I have bigly confidence that my doc can figure out what the Hell-en is going on with my Cranky Hanky Panky innard. A battery of tests and scans will follow over the next few weeks, I have no doubt. I am not askeered. Suzanne is askeered for me, but she shouldn’t be. She made me promise a long time ago that I won’t die before she does, and I consider it my main job to always keep my promises to Suzanne.
After much contemplation, I have decided I will gladly take painful flak from my teeny Hanky Panky any day of the week, over being lost in the dangerous labyrinth of my bipolar brain. Physical pain only hurts. Bipolar anguish, on the other hand, can trick you into thinking you can instantly make the world a better place by simply jumping off the nearest craggy cliff into your own annihilation. Hey, folks, how ’bout let’s none of us buy into that slick trick o’ the mind.
Anyhoo… I’m crossing my Cranky Hanky Panky that TIE-O-THE-DAY is back for a while, whether you’re ready for it, or not.🤠👔
I know y’all depend on me for fashion tips, and I take your trust in me very seriously. 😉 My fashion lecture today has to do with superheroes. More often than not, you must be your own superhero. You have the ability to save yourself far better than any other human being. It’s just how it is. You are in charge of you, and you’re usually the bigliest reason you got into whatever pickle you find yourself in, in the first place. Thus, you must become your own superhero.
To be a superhero to yourself, you don’t necessarily need a special name. But you do need a snappy costume. You need to create a style for the superhero you truly are, and it’s not that difficult.
First, no matter what costume you assemble, it must include some reference to at least one already existing comic book superhero. Here, you see my costume includes a Batman wood Bow Tie o’ the Day and my Batman socks.
Second, you must wear a tie of some ilk. Of course, of course, of course you must.
Third, to be an official superhero even to yourself, you must wear a cape. And in these photos, I’m wearing three capes at once. My Batman socks have their own capes. Look closely, and you will see the sock capes hang out over the back of my cowboy boots. The socks’ flowing capes make a superhero fashion statement even when I’ve still got my boots on.
And finally, choose a mask designed to scream out to onlookers KAPOW! ZAP! or BOOM!, or whatever powerful comic book word suits you. Have you got that? Your costume must include: a reference to an existing superhero; neckwear; a cape; and a mask. Add whatever else you think you might need. It’s a breeze.
There is no denying that today I have created an original superhero costume that will forever be identified with only me—at least until I drum up a different original one. Now, you must create your own stylish alter-ego, with whom you can rescue yourself from all harm. Go forth, my secretly superhero friends! You’ve got this.
