I donned my hairscuttin’ shears wood Bow Tie o’ the Day, and Suzanne and I zoomed off to our hairs appointments with Miss Tiffany—the craftswoman who is in charge of our manes. Suzanne just needed a quick trim, but you can clearly see I was in the mood for a bigly change. Miss Tiffany is always happy to oblige my hair ideas. Suzanne is not a bigly fan of my rare adventures in baldness. She prefers my asymmetrical styles o’ longer hair. Before we went to visit Miss Tiffany, I was thoughtful enough to warn Suzanne of the drastic hairstyle change I intended to make, and she said she would kindly endure my head hairs being shaved as long as it’s a strictly temporary hairdo. Suzanne has to look the other way—both literally and figuratively—somewhat regularly when it comes to my hairs and fashion style choices. She’s a very good sport, if you ask me.
I decided my Big Willie’s Plumbing Repair t-shirt was appropriate to wear to my appointment with my innard doctor at Huntsman today. I threw in a nautical-themed wood Bow Tie o’ the Day to encourage the “smooth sailing ahead” vibe. My doctor appreciated my choices.
Suzanne had to work, so I took the Saddle Purse with me as my official hospital escort. As you can see, Saddle Purse doesn’t always obey the rules we mere mortals do. As I sat in the waiting area to be called to the exam room, Saddle Purse just had to strike up a protest against the tyranny of scientific facts by flagrantly sitting in the restricted chair beside me. I felt kinda bad for my rebel pal, the Saddle Purse, because no one took offense at its blatant civil disobedience. There ensued neither yelling nor scuffling at the Saddle Purse’s public defiance. A few passers-by pointed directly at the Saddle Purse and told me it was “so cute.” It’s mighty difficult to create a newsworthy brouhaha when we, the people, are slinging compliments at a full-fledged protester. There’s a lesson in that for us all if we will pay attention, I am sure. Just sayin’.
The actual appointment with my Cranky Hanky Panky surgeon went pretty much as I had imagined it would. My doctor read the organs in my abdomen like they were written in Braille. He did not particularly like what he read when he poked the area of my pancreas. He especially didn’t like that I nearly jumped off the exam table in a shot of pain when he poked my Cranky Hanky Panky point-blank. Still, my doctor and I agreed to not worry about my teensy, wayward organ until we know anything specific about its current state of being. I told him we might as well assign all the worrying to Suzanne, since nobody’s gonna be able to stop her from from doing it anyway. But there’s certainly no need for the rest of us to suffer needlessly.
After my chat with the doctor, I gave what felt like a fishing pond full of my blood for lab tests today. The first available CT scan I could schedule is in mid-March, so I have plenty of time to study for that test. And then the first available appointment I could schedule with my doctor to discuss my various test results is in April. That’s gonna make for a long month of uncertainty. I resolve to be patient and hopeful, while still allowing myself occasional fits of childish impatience and mortal fear. Fun times ahead, boys and girls! And, as always, y’all are free to join me for the entire tour.
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.🤠👔
[A love-themed re-post that finishes this story I began this morning.]
Caught in the crosshairs o’ love, Bow Tie o’ the Day waited patiently to read Part 2 of our little tale. When we left our saga o’ love in the previous post, this is where we were: Suzanne and I had decided to quit being we/us. And, as I have admitted, it was all because I was a dope. My bad.
Fast forward to the year 2000, when I moved back to Delta from the Baltimore-Washington, D.C. area. Between my freshly diagnosed bipolarity and my freshly flaming Hanky Panky (pancreas), I was not well. I seriously expected to die soon. I was drained of health and hope. I needed to choose a power of attorney (POA) to handle my finances and medical decisions if I couldn’t deal with them myself. I pondered about who knew me best in the world. I pondered about who I trusted most in the world. And even though I hadn’t seen her or talked to her in over a decade, Suzanne was the answer.
I had no idea where Suzanne even was. I searched. Was she still in Utah? Did she move to England? It was almost Christmas so I decided to try to contact her by sending her a Christmas card, in care of her parents— hoping they still lived where last I knew them. A couple of days later, Suzanne replied to my card by telephoning me from her house in Ogden. I was glad her parents still lived at their same address and that they actually gave her the card. And I was gladder that she still lived in Utah. And I was gladdest of all that our phone conversation wasn’t one bit awkward.
I drove my 1970 Ford Falcon from Delta to Ogden a few days after that phone conversation, to meet Suzanne for dinner and a chat about my need for a Power of Attorney. We went to her fave Italian place on 25th Street, where I ate halibut and explained exactly what I needed her to do and why. That dinner changed the course of our lives. Everything since that dinner has been nothing less than a wondrous second chance. From the moment we sat down in the restaurant, we talked easily, laughed far too loudly, and couldn’t quit smiling at each other. It was as if the years we lived through without each other had never happened at all—like we had never been apart. Love at second sight. The decade-long homesickness for something I could never quite pin down made its exit. We were where we belonged. We were home at last.
[Another Mom and Dad Valentine re-post. I think I’m coming out of my bipolar fog. Cross your fingers.]
Tie o’ the Day shares its exuberant field of hearts. It is my fave-rave Valentine’s necktie. If you haven’t finalized your Valentine’s Day plans, I suggest you git ‘er done. You’re running out of time.
If you are attached to someone, let them know they are precious and irreplaceable. Make it absolutely certain they know how you feel about them. If you are single, let yourself know you are precious and irreplaceable—because you are. You are enough, exactly because you’re you. Mr. Rogers says so, too.
And then remind yourself you should treat your beloved and yourself this way every day, not just on Valentine’s Day. It’s the least you can do for someone who is so necessary to the grateful beating of your vast, glad heart.
Mom found a way to let Dad know he was her one-and-only even when he was out of town working the bees for a few days. She always tucked a lovey-dovey or funny card in his suitcase for him to find when he got to his motel room for the night. And I mean she stuck a card in there EVERY TIME he was off having a sleeping party with his bees.
On one bee trip to California, after Dad got checked in to his motel, he found a humongous ratty, dirty bra that a previous motel guest had left under the bed. He stuck it in his suitcase with his dirty clothes, hoping to shock Mom with it when she opened the suitcase to retrieve his clothes to wash. Sure enough, when Dad returned home, Mom got his soiled clothes out of the suitcase and headed to the washer. Dad sat in the living room, patiently waiting to get yelled at for having a California girlfriend whose bra had found its way into his suitcase. But he heard nothing. No screaming, no yelling. He heard no response at all from Mom for the longest time. Finally, Mom announced to Dad that she’s not worried one bit about the dame whose stray bra he brought home with him—because the bra is so dirty and skanky that she knows there is no way he would sleep with someone that gross. His prank. Her clever response. It turned out to be a great joke, on both their parts.
Dad got a bonus laugh about his Bigly Bra Hijinks when he told his coffee-drinking buddies at Top’s Cafe the next morning. His pals were shocked he had dared put a bra in his suitcase for Mom to find. They said their wives would have massacred them if they’d done that. Dad was clearly still standing.
Mom thought the whole thing was so funny that she’s been telling the story to anyone who’ll listen since it happened, way back in the 70’s.
Each robot on Tie o’ the Day has a heart inside its plastic, metal, wired self. Apparently, even robots have the capacity to love when they’re on a tie. Aside from loving hearts, Tie has nothing whatsoever to do with these pix of Mom and Dad. I just think it looks snappy.
These photos were taken when Mom and Dad were being Bonnie and Clyde, playing cops and robbers. For over 60 years, they were partners-in-crime. Dad is currently a fugitive, although Mom reports she feels his presence more and more as time moves on. She would like to take him into custody again soon, but she’s not quite ready to follow him all the way to his current hide-out.
[My wonky brain is still under the bipolar weather, so here’s yet another Valentine-y re-post about my parents. They were smitten with each other, that’s for sure.]
Bow Tie o’ the Day has its Valentine’s Day targets ready for Cupid’s arrows. Be on the look-out for a near-naked, winged baby armed with a bow and arrows.
When I first saw the photo with visible faces, I wondered who the heck Dad was hugging. It didn’t look like Mom to me, so I got my magnifying glass out. I discovered that it really was Mom. The shadows across her face were just weird. Whew! I was worried for a millisecond.
Anyhoo… Something you might not know about Mom is that she is disgusted that people wear un-ironed clothing—particularly to church. She and her best friend, Peggy Crane, spouted off about the general lack of ironing on the planet a bazillion times while I drove them across the county on their daily drinking rides.
Mom and Peggy even threatened to put an ad in THE CHRONICLE, offering to teach people how to iron. FOR FREE! But they decided that wouldn’t do any good since, according to them, no one knows what an iron is. (Oh, my! What a wrinkly world we live in.)
One morning of their Senior year at DHS, Dad didn’t show up at school. Mom had no idea where he was or if he was sick. (Remember: no cell phones in 1948.) Later that afternoon, Dad showed up in a class they had together. Mom quizzed him on his earlier whereabouts and he told her he had been doing an extra job for another beekeeper, to earn some extra cash. And then he handed her the few dollars he had earned that morning. She asked what the money was for, and he said, “Well, if we’re going to get married, we’re going to need an iron.”
Based on all the stories Mom and Dad told me over the years about their courtship, that anecdote is the closest thing to a marriage proposal I ever heard about.
So Mom bought an iron, and 73 years later she still has it. It still works, the last time I checked.
I’m sure I’m reading far too much into this, but I think the sweet “iron proposal” is responsible for Mom’s enduring attachment to the importance of ironing. That would explain Mom’s pet peeve about the lack of ironing going on in the wrinkly world today. I don’t know why ironing mattered so much to Peggy though—unless Grant proposed to her the same way.
With its random bandaids, Tie o’ the Day represents love and the pain love inevitably causes us. We’ve all needed to heal our hearts when they have been broken. If we allow ourselves to love, our hearts will break many times while we live. Family members and friends pass away. Our pets meet death. Maybe someone we fell in love with fell out of love with us. Maybe we lose hope, and our dreams die.
If we choose to, we can empathize with each other’s broken hearts, because most kinds of losses happen to everyone. If they haven’t happened to you yet, they will. We’re part of the human race, and our lives follow similar trajectories. Birth. Relationships. Work. Aspirations. Death.
Loving is worth any pain that might accompany it. A broken heart is often the cost of a full heart. And broken hearts can be instructive. We have the power to look inside that broken heart at all the mistakes we made which caused the heartbreak in the first place. We can learn from those mistakes, and we can get a little better at the practice of love.
Two months after Mom and Dad graduated from Delta High School, they got married in the Manti Temple. Dad had barely turned 18, and Mom didn’t turn 18 until two months later. They were youngsters. Nobody should get married that young, in my opinion. The odds of a couple that young—and, therefore, that dumb—staying together are miniscule. Mom and Dad somehow found a way to kick the odds and stick together. They lasted 59 years together before Dad died, in December 2007.
Dad suffered horrible, constant pain for the last two years of his life. He stayed with us for as long as he could—for all of us, and especially for Mom. During the last two weeks of Dad’s life, Mom often told him it was okay for him to let go. She told him she would be okay. She told him we would all take care of her. Dad knew we would. But I believe one of the reasons Dad held on for so long is that he was trying to make it another few months, to be with Mom on their 60th wedding anniversary.
Of course, no matter when Dad died, Mom’s heart was going to break anyway. And when he finally did let go, her heart did break. Thirteen years later, it’s still broken. But Mom’s heart is also still full of memories and time and the adoration Dad gave her. It’s impossible for that kind of splendid stuff to ever fall out of even the most broken heart.
Tie o’ the Day is one of my fave Valentine’s ties. I like the lips and hearts covering the teddy bears’ scant clothing, and of course I am enamored with the bow ties. In the photos, Mom and Dad are around 16.
My dad was a burly bear of a guy. In fact, he seemed larger than he actually was. Ronald Edmond Wright had a gigantic presence. He had the “it” factor. And he was one of the most gentle men I’ve encountered in my life. If it had been possible for him to do so, he would’ve hugged every one of his millions of bees to show them they were loved. That’s just how he rolled.
But Dad stuck to hugging Mom and us and our pets. Dad was protective of Mom in ways large and small. They were in a restaurant once, and some dudes at the next table were swearing while they talked. Dad gave them “the look.” They continued on, as if to show they’d speak any way they wanted. Dad then said as nicely as he could, while giving them “the look” again, “This is my wife, and I won’t make her to listen to that kind of language.” They continued spewing their profanity. Finally, Dad stood up. They immediately apologized and cleaned up their language. Chivalry was alive and kicking when Dad was with Mom.
I’m sure you don’t believe it, but I wasn’t a rebellious kid. I don’t think I ever had a real “fight” with Dad when I was a teenager, but I remember loudly arguing with Mom a couple of times. The arguments were about my hair, believe it or not. Mom was never happy with my hair. Well heck, I wasn’t happy with my hair either. But it’s her fault I inherited her lifeless, style-resistant locks.
Anyhoo… One day after school, Mom and I were having one of these battles, and I finally hauled off to my bedroom in tears. Dad got home from work and heard the tail-end of the yelling, as well as Mom’s version of my whole, overly-dramatic teenage outburst. After a while, he came into my room to see how I was doing. I launched into my side of things—about how Mom was always on my back, and she was always unfair, and she was always wrong, blah, blah, blah. The usual teenage crapola.
Dad listened to my tirade and let me get it all out of my system, then he said, “I love you. But no matter who is right or who is wrong, I am always on your mother’s side. I will always stand with your mother.”
At the time, what Dad said to me made me even more angry. How could “right” and “wrong” not be what matters? And then I grew up, and found myself working to forge a lasting relationship like my parents had. I now understand exactly what Dad meant about the importance of standing by your spouse, against all conflict.
[My bipolar head is still squealing, so here’s another Valentine season re-post.]
Red hearts Bow Tie o’ the Day is ecstatic to be chosen to present this picture of Mom and Dad. They were probably 15 or 16 when this photo was snapped, and I’d bet bigly money this is a selfie taken by Dad.
If you ever saw my parents together, you saw something wild with life. They played their humor off each other like a perfectly timed vaudeville comedy team. They took joy in each other’s whims. When they looked at each other from across a room, even in public, you could see absolute brightness in their eyes.
In a time when it wasn’t always socially acceptable for women to work, make important decisions on their own, and speak their minds, Dad thrived on Mom being her spunky self. He encouraged her in her endeavors, and he watched with pride as he saw her conquer thing after thing she attempted.
Once—again, way back before women were people😉—to her friends’ amazement, Mom went to the car dealership in Delta and bought a new car on her own while Dad was in California working with his bees. When she told him, during their nightly phone call, that she had picked out a car and bought it, he had no problem with it. He figured she must have needed it. They trusted each other to make bigly decisions individually, if need be, even when the decision affected the whole family.
Of course, Mom and Dad had their disagreements and bumpy times. Of course, they huffed and puffed at each other, here and there. But it was always obvious Mom and Dad were in a deep, wide, tall, true love.
There are billions of things in the universe I will never know. But I know at least this one truth: I am the daughter of a grand romance.
