Skitter’s sad, sad, sad face at Gracie’s front door.Here’s Gracie a few months ago.
Today is The Divine Miss Gracie’s 2nd Birthday. I cannot believe it. It seems like she just barely showed up in our family. On the other hand, Grace has taken over like none of us even existed before she was born into this world. She’s a blessing, a spit-fire, and a tornado all in one. She is also wise beyond her years, according to anyone who has ever spent time with her. When she and Skitter finally met last Christmas, I don’t know which of them was more taken with the other.
This morning, Skitter and I threw Gracie’s gifts in the car and headed to Provo. We had hoped to surprise her with our good tidings. We miscalculated and found no one at home. See how forlorn Skitter’s expression was as we discovered at the front door that our Grace Anne was nowhere to be found at her house. We should have known better. We should have assumed her little birthday dance card was full. Clearly, it was.
Skitter and I left Grace’s gifts at the front door and headed back north to our turf. Skitter was beside herself about not seeing Gracie on her birthday. I told Skitter that not being able to see Gracie might turn out to be a favorable thing for us in the end. I said, “Travis and Collette will feel so bad about missing our visit that we could probably ask them if Gracie can stay with us for a whole sleepover at our place soon.” Skitter looked at me with deep concentration as I then went on to explain the concepts of “guilt” and “manipulation”—and how to use them to your advantage, to get things like playdates, sleepovers, and extra treats. 🤡
Remember how my phone inadvertently and repeatedly called 9-1-1 yesterday? It shaped up for a while—until I decided to play another game of solitaire on it. An ad came across the screen again, and the dang thing froze up again, and it dialed 9-1-1 again as I attempted to shut it down. The solitaire app had to go. I dumped it and my iPhone hasn’t frozen up for at least 24 hours. I’m no fool, though. No phone lasts forever—although they are tougher than they used to be. I always prepare for the worst, and hope for the best—like the cliche says to do. This is why I always have a Phone Fund slowly building up in a piggy bank. It’s right there by the Fun Fund For Travel; the Mom Fund, in case she needs something; three College Funds For Family Who Can’t Afford It; and the Gambling Fund for when we go to Las Vegas again. Oh, and there is also the Bee Piggy Bank Date Night Fund for nights out on the town, which we have not used for over a year. I tell you about these savings stashes so you can see that my spare change already has lots of places to go. My Phone Fund is not quite bigly enough for me to need a new phone right now. I hope keeping solitaire apps off my phone will make it possible for my phone to live a much longer life—at least until my Phone Fund is equal to the cost of a new iPhone.
Interestingly, I have recently realized I’ve been using a terrific investment strategy for decades, which I wasn’t even aware of until now. I’ll let you in on it, in case you want a sure bet as you follow your road to prosperity and obscene wealth. Three words: wood bow ties. Do you know what lumber is worth right now? It’s worth exactly… a lot of money. It’s certainly worth more than it was worth a few weeks ago. I could build—and sell—a wood cabin with the bulk of my wood neckwear, or I could just sell the bow tie wood outright and move to Ireland right this minute. But you know me. I’ll hang on to my wood neckwear collection because it makes me happy. However, with wood prices what they are today, I’m buying a gargantuan gun safe to house all the wood critters in my neckwear collection. I must remember to leave room in the gun safe for my gun.
When I woke up this morning, I fully intended to throw Skitter in the car and drive to Delta to see Mom. I put Skitter’s diaper bag in the car, then waited for Suzanne to get off safely to work, at which time I would head for the west desert. I waited and waited, but Suzanne didn’t come downstairs at her usual time. I figured she knew what she was doing, schedule-wise. About 30 minutes past when she was supposed to actually be at work, I finally went upstairs to see if she was okay. She must have slept through her alarm, because she was still sleeping. I woke her up to verify she wasn’t dead or comatose, and then I told her how late she was. She was up in a flash, and out the door in another flash. If I hadn’t been home, she’d still be in bed snoozing this afternoon. This is why I like to wait for her to leave before I do.
Meanwhile, I had noticed that I kept nodding off from the moment I got out of bed. I didn’t feel tired, then all off a sudden, my eyelids would close and my head would fall back against the couch—and ZIP, I was wide awake again, until the next time I dozed. I can take a hint. I made the bigly, unilateral decision that taking a long drive was probably not the smartest plan today. If you drive on Utah freeways frequently, or at all, you have likely come to the conclusion that many drivers surely seem to be driving in their sleep. It might work for them, but I ain’t up for driving like that. Nodding off is not how I roll—especially with a Skitter on board.
BTW Yes, I am! I am wearing the same Bow Tie o’ the Day I wore yesterday, just because I can.
Mom has always been a superb napper when she’s had time to do nothing for a few minutes. Here she is at our house in 2014, napping with Roxy and Skitter. If I remember correctly, she had been binge-watching BLUE BLOODS that whole day, and we all know how exhausting that sort of thing can be. When filing photographs, I’ve noticed that I have a bunch of pix of Mom in full nap mode. When Mom visited us in Delta or here in Centerville, it was somehow a huge happiness for me to see her sleep as I puttered around the house. I’m sad our sleepovers are in the past now.
Here’s a photo of Mom eating a sandwich while sitting on her sofa, back in August of 2017—weeks after breaking her hip. Mom has always been a good sport about donning the neckwear I hand her for what she calls “our tie pictures.” This lavender Bow Tie o’ the Day was privileged to spend some time with her that day. You’re probably saying to yourself, “Why the gosh are you showing us a snapshot of your mother with her eyes closed?” Go ahead—ask Mom, and she’ll be the first one to tell you that one of her claims to fame is that she has somehow managed to unwittingly close her eyes in most of the photos taken of her throughout the 90 years of her life. Actually seeing Mom’s gorgeous, ice-blue eyes in a photo is, indeed, a rare thing.
I was sweeping and mopping in the kitchen this afternoon, and I found a small edible stuck to the floor, the likes of which I don’t even recall buying or stocking in the pantry. It was normal to find mysterious “food things” on the floor when Rowan was a wee sprite, but he’s got his own place now. I know Skitter hasn’t brought any edible trophies into the house, because she would be too afraid to touch a food that I didn’t personally give her. Anyhoo… During my sweeping today, I found a tiny unidentifiable blob on the floor under the kitchen island. I am not going to stress out about where it came from and who might have dropped it there. I’m going to forget it completely, figuring Suzanne recently ate something and a sliver of it got away from her—depositing itself where it wasn’t visible to anyone until I did the bigly sweep.
I impart to you all of this information to help paint a picture of how a freaky blob turned me all teary and nostalgic for our long-departed canine, Roxy Lou—as seen with me here in the accompanying photograph from 2008. Back when Roxy was on floor patrol, sweeping in the kitchen was a cinch for me. Why? Because Roxy was our Hoover. She was our Electrolux, our Oreck, our Shark. She was our Roomba. In her younger years, I swear, she could hear a crumb falling from the counter and be stationed right under it with her choppers open to catch it before it even hit the floor. Our floors sparkled effortlessly with Roxy on the job. Of course, she did become the fattest mini-dachsie in the world, but she was happy. As she slowed down in her old age—and got whoa! wider, she didn’t even try to beat the occasional cooking crumbs and scraps which fell to the floor. She knew darn well that whatever was falling would be untouched on the floor when she waddled over to claim it. While cooking, I sometimes let things fall to the floor on purpose, just to watch Roxy at her anteater-like work.
I am proud to say that the beauteous Roxy Lou was an equal opportunity eater, which amused us to no end. We’ve always had dogs, but only Roxy hoovered every edible thing. A fallen watermelon rind? Roxy ate it. A dropped banana peel? Roxy ate it. A stray piece of cauliflower or broccoli from the cutting board? Roxy devoured it and wanted more. I gave her a pickle once, just to see what she would do. Without batting a sour eye, Roxy gobbled it up with doggie glee. Near the end of her days on earth, when she only had three teeth left in her ancient mouth, she hoovered a few fallen chopped onion fragments. I can report that the onion improved the smell of her stinky breath by leaps and bounds.
I had to take a blood test for my crazy-head doctor, and a COVID-19 test before I’m allowed to go inside the hospital to have my ERCP procedure Friday. We have a U of U clinic about four blocks away, so I figured I’d head over there as soon as the clinic lab opened, and I’d be back home to do a morning TIE O’ THE DAY post before the day really got going. I left the house at 8AM. And then, suddenly, it was almost noon. That’s right. An annoying, but necessary, errand which should have taken 30 minutes to conquer, magically took 4 hours. Hey, we’ve all been there. Some days are like that, and you might as well smile through every minute of those days. There’s nothing more ridiculous to see/be than the poor fool who’s having an clumsy, luckless day and tries to fight it, but is unsuccessful. Sometimes it is best to accept your circumstances and press on as best you can. I was an illustration for the ages of this principle this morning.
So I went to the Centerville clinic just a few blocks away to get my two tests done. They could handle the blood test, but they had very recently quit doing COVID-19 tests at their location. I knew then that I would be driving somewhere else to get my COVID test, but I was already at this clinic, so I let them poke me for the blood test my crazy-head doc had ordered. With the blood test done, I drove out to the Farmington Health Center where I was sure they were still doing COVID testing. And they were. Now, I’d had the stick-poking-way-up-in-the-nose COVID test a few months ago. It made me sneeze, and it felt more obnoxious than painful. Today’s test was different. I was in charge of the swab sticks. I got to poke one swab stick in both my nostrils—swab, swab, swab. I then got to poke a second swab stick in my throat—swab, swab, swab. If my test comes back negative, I will be set for my ERCP Friday.
After I left the Farmington Health Center and headed in the direction of home, I spied HARMON’S at Station Park. I didn’t have a Goliath shopping list, but I needed a couple of things. I parked as close as I could to the front doors because the wind was getting serious about blowing, and things were turning cold. I was only in the grocery store for 5 minutes, but the wind was significantly windier when I carried my one bag of groceries out the door and into the parking lot. Out of nowhere, I was attacked by a stray shopping cart—piloted by no one but the gusts. It rolled over my toes and kept right on going. (A roll-and-run?)
I must pause here to tell you a true thing about me: I’m always the odd person who says things like, “Jesus would return his shopping cart.” I mean, if you’re gonna say you’re a Christian, then you better take every opportunity—bigly or small—to act like him. So right away I knew I had to wrangle that aimless shopping cart and put it where it belongs, where it can’t injure someone or someone’s property. Off, I ran across the parking lot. My goal was to snag the cart before it hit a group of cars it seemed to be aimed at. All the while, my bag of groceries is flying whichever way the wind haphazardly whipped it as I ran. Despite my “old broad” style of running, I gained on the shopping cart. Finally, before it ran into anyone or anything, I grabbed it. I stopped it. I pushed the cart against the gusts of wind and into a stall at the cart return. Next stop, my car.
Yup, I was panting up a storm because of the cart chase, and I was now far away from my car. My car was waaaaaaaaay across the parking lot from where I had ended up. I walked through the chilling wind, warmed by the feeling that I had done my tiny part to make the world a better place. I had put a fleeing shopping cart back on the right path.
But the wind was not done with me yet. I turned my head from side to side to keep an eye out for any approaching vehicles—or other stray shopping carts—as I trudged bravely across the parking lot to my Vonnegut Grace Vibe. Suddenly, a gust of wind—probably a tornado, I’m sure—caught one of my hearing aids in exactly the right/wrong spot. It blew my left hearing aid completely out of my ear! (For a moment, I thought I must be back in windy Delta.) Once again today, I was on the trail to catch something running away to who-knows-where. My runaway hearing aid had flown out of my ear, then dropped, then flown and dropped again and again, as I zig-zagged dramatically and desperately to tackle it. I would say that I probably looked to gawkers like I was performing some kind of expressionist dance routine, but I’m sure it didn’t look anything like that at all. And it’s not likely any passersby would have been able to see my minuscule hearing aid scurrying about. Nope, they would have seen only me, chasing the wild air. At least with the cart, an onlooker could see I was chasing after a delinquent shopping cart in the wind. The Hearing Aid Dance was a whole other enchilada.
After I got my still-functioning hearing aid back in my ear and was safely in my car, I realized I had just had some unplanned fine fun. I hadn’t wasted time and energy shaking my fist at the travails of my day. Bow Tie o’ the Day and I had simply danced through the bluster. All is well.
NEWS FLASH! The way we handle things is always a choice of our own making.
I put on my Flintstone-y wood Bow Tie o’ the Day and had my bigly appointment with my Hanky Panky doctor at Huntsman Cancer Hospital last Friday morning. (Isn’t the Huntsman lobby ceiling fantabulous above me?!)
As you know by now, I have no problem violating HIPAA laws about myself. My doc and I went over the results of my CT scan from March. Here’s the skinny on my Panky: What little bit is left of my pancreas is healthy and working relatively well since my Whipple surgery almost three years ago. However, my Hanky Panky has taken it upon itself to grow a pancreatic stone which is blocking the pancreatic duct. It causes pain and it hinders the pancreas from correctly aiding me in terms of digestion and nourishment. Excuse my French, but DAMNIT! Stoopid pancreas!
My Hanky Panky doctor has a plan. Actually, he has three plans. The first thing we’re going to try is called an ERCP, during which a specialist will stick a long camera-with-a-claw down my throat and attempt to extract the panky boulder. If this works, my problem is solved. But the chances this will work are about none. When I had pancreatic stones before my Whipple surgery, we tried the ERCP to get them out, but my pancreatic duct was so twisty that the doc couldn’t pull any stones out. And now, there’s also scar tissue from the surgery which the specialist will have to contend with. We’ll try the ERCP solution again anyway, because it’s better than jumping right to surgery. It might work. But none of us are counting on it. (My ERCP is already scheduled for this coming Friday morning.)
If the ERCP doesn’t work, the second thing I will be doing is a thing called lithotripsy. Lithotripsy is a medical procedure that uses shock waves or a laser to break down kidney stones, so the resulting particles can move through the body to be peed out. Unfortunately, lithotripsy doesn’t usually blow pancreatic stones to smithereens as well as it does kidney stones. This probably won’t be successful either, according to my doctor.
The third option—if it gets to this point—is good, old-fashioned cut-me-in-half surgery again. Excuse my French again, but DAMNIT! This is the option that is the most likely to relieve my agony, but I am not going to think about even the possibility of surgery beyond this post. I have stuck my fingers in my mind’s ears when it comes to hearing anything about surgery.
Nope. I’m putting all my good vibes into the ERCP solving my problem with its tiny claw this Friday morning at 6AM.
FYI Millard Care and Rehab says in-person visits are back on immediately at their facility. Skitter and I see a visit with Mom in our near future! Yay!
With me, it’s all about the neckwear. My days revolve around finding the right tie or bow tie to wear at any particular point in historical time. Being vigilant about neckwear is not as easy a path to tread as you might think. I see it as my calling in life. But yesterday, as I was flipping through my television offerings, I saw a sport that caused me to second-guess my tie priorities. Was it golf at the Master’s Tournament? Nope. I landed on a channel which offered up something I had never seen on television before: The Johnsonville ACL Cornhole Championships. Holy cow! I have tossed beanbags through holes at mountain campgrounds, on beaches, on front lawns, and in city parks throughout my life. I had not known—until yesterday—that I could have made a career out of it! And, until I read the programming description provided by DirecTV, I really didn’t know that Ye Olde Bean Bag Toss is considered an “extreme sport.” Wow! I feel so misguided. I could have done something truly important with my life, if I had only taken the path of tossing bean bags. I could have been on tv. I could’ve won prize money. I have to now re-think every jot and tittle of my existence.
FYI Yes, I do always have the Closed Captioning setting turned on when I watch tv. My ears are old.
It was hairscuttin’ time again. I knew the head hairs I got shaved off last month were due for a tune-up shaving, but I wasn’t in any real rush to get a touch-up at first. And then an odd thing started happening—or, I should say, an odd thing started not happening. You see, after I got that bigly shave, every time Suzanne walked past me, she was automatically compelled to rub my bald head. I liked it. But this past week, I noticed she easily walked right by my head billions of times a day, without paying any attention to my barely-there head hairs whatsoever. Well, my head fur is not going to stand for being ignored. I can take a hint: It was time for a #2 razor shave. Miss Tiffany at Great Clips was happy to oblige. And Miss Tiffany was just as happy to see me show up in my beautifully designed Tie o’ the Day, with its open straight razors and shaving brushes.
