The title of this post is the title and first line of a Mary Chapin Carpenter song which I often sing in my head when I’m in a certain kind of funk. This slide is one of my all-time fave pix of myself, for one simple reason: there is no trace of my bipolarity to be found on my mug. I was five. In so many photos of me as a kid, the bipolar darkness and worry that has always inhabited me had already begun to show itself on my face. This was clearly a day when I was blissfully unaware of the suffering ahead. This was a day when I didn’t even need all my teeth or a Bow Tie o’ the Day to be happy.
I apologize that this slide is of such poor quality. It is over 65 years old, so I’m lucky to even have it. The dapper little lad is my oldest brother, Ron. Look hard and you’ll see he’s sporting Bow Tie o’ the Day. It’s a family thing.
I owe Ron bigly for giving me some of my cool. Ron taught me how to play basketball. He taught me how to golf. Ron dressed with flair, fedoras and all. I learned some of my snarkiness from him too. Ron even baptized me.
And he gave me a name. Not a church blessing name. But a name that has stuck for more than five decades—at least, between us. He nicknamed me “Queenie.” I don’t know why he chose that name for me, but I suspect it was likely because—as the baby of the family—I was spoiled by my parents, my siblings, my grandparents, and so on. My wish was their command, I’m sure.
I was called Queenie so frequently while Ron still lived at home, that one day I came home from elementary school and found that Mom had renovated my bedroom door. This is a photo of the actual door, which still hangs in its original place at Mom’s old house in Delta. One day, the “Queenie’s Castle” door will live with me, where it belongs. It will perhaps become the door to The Tie Room, here in my current castle. That would be groovy, eh?
No matter where the castle door is, I will always be Ron’s Queenie. He’s my big brother. And he’s my friend.
Red and white Tie o’ the Day dresses up as the Delta Water Tower, with the aid of our water heater. The red “D” reigns, no matter what town I take off my cowboy boots in.
We’ve lived in our Centerville house eight years. It was new when we moved in. Guess what time it is? Time for the house and whatever came with it to need some little tweaks. Last week, the ice maker in the fridge simply stopped making ice. No smoke, no sputtering, no subtle dying creaks. It made ice, then it didn’t. Enter, the refrigerator repairman. He tinkered around in the guts of the freezer door, but he could find nothing wrong. Exit, the repairman and his fee. He must have done something though, because the ice maker is making ice now. It must have just wanted some attention from someone who understood it. Go figure.
And then there’s the plumbing. When the master bath shower is first turned on, there is a growing rumbling o’ the pipes throughout the house. I was outside on the morning of the 4th of July, and I could hear the pipes grumble when Suzanne got in the shower. The outside world should not have to hear our pipes. Also, the water pressure in the shower is almost zero. Lately when I shower, I feel like I’m standing under a rain cloud that drops rain one raindrop at a time. Dribble, dribble.
So I spent most of Wednesday watching the plumber do whatever he needed to do. A bigly bill later, and the pipes haven’t grumbled again. The water pressure in the shower is now restored. Victory! Almost. There are still a couple of water issues Suzanne’s not satisfied with, so I’ll be hosting the plumber again soon. I am a writer by trade. But I know my real job is to keep Suzanne happy—even with the plumbing.
Today, Suzanne is officially as many years old as I am. We are now both fifty-damn-six. This photo was taken at least 50 years ago, but she looks just the same to me. As a gift to her, I gave her photo a matching Bow Tie o’ the Day. We share the same year of birth, but we do not share fashion choices. Suzanne likes her ensembles to match. I like my outfits to have strains of head-bangin’ loud clash. Suzanne puts up with my fashion style by not looking directly at me. I guess I’m kinda like the sun. My outlandish costumes—and my effusive personality—have no doubt caused her many a headache. She used to get migraines regularly, but since she started forcing her eyes to look away from my duds, she has been relatively migraine-free.
Merry Migraine-free, Pandemic Birthday, Suzanne! I love you more than my bow ties. But let’s not tell them that.
The Bow Ties of the 4th of July happened, but the air parade we were supposed to see above us as we sat on the deck did not come to pass. The city said it was canceled at the last minute because of problems with insurance. Most of our development didn’t get that memo, so we were all outside looking to the skies. We each did our social distancing by staying on our own property, but socializing with each other very loudly. Gradually, the news of the air parade’s cancellation got texted, tweeted, screamed, and facebooked up and down the street. Oh, well. We got to see the regular air traffic in the blue sky anyway. Hey, we’re free! No complaints here.
As you can see from her pix, Skitter had dressed in her patriotic tie to watch the parade. She’s still a little unclear of the concept of how to watch any kind of parade. On the deck, her skittishness kept her staring into the house the entire time, instead of out at the neighborhood or up at the skies.
I spent my childhood living in two houses simultaneously, without ever moving. Mom and Dad lived next door to my dad’s parents, Walter and Zola Walker Wright. In this slide, my grandma is wearing a kinda Bow Tie o’ the Day. ( I can’t tell for sure if the bow is attached to her dress or her apron.) If I wasn’t found in one house, I was likely to be found in the other. Or I was out in what felt to me like one bigly yard. The horse corral and the vegetable garden and the bee warehouse were out back behind the two houses. The whole spread was like my own private amusement park. I wrung the fun out of every inch of the buildings, machinery, and the land. I hated to take the time to sleep. My world, on that tiny portion of a block, seemed endlessly fascinating, and I couldn’t wait to get started exploring and playing every day. I was free, yet safe there. I was making my way through the world on my own. I was learning, hands-on. I would never feel that free, confident, or that safe again in my life.
Looking back, I realize I was very well supervised, though I felt completely independent at the time. I must have sensed somehow that I was safe and looked after. I do recall seeing Mom and Momo having impromptu chat sessions in the driveway between our houses. Many times, I would see them both turn to me as I arrived on the scene, and I would hear a duet of, “There you are!” in my direction. I am positive these little chats were more like a conference on the mound in baseball, where the two checked in with each other about my travels and then strategized about my care and supervision for the rest of the day.
Wood Bow Tie o’ the Day and parrot Face Mask o’ the Day were grocery shopping with me at DICK’S when I realized I’m not the only one who is back in the public eye. Yup, the toilet paper is back on the shelves and in mountainous stacks throughout the store.
COVID-19 has made it such that we have all had to make a few changes in our routines, like donning masks and doing our best at social distancing. During these days o’ the pandemic, I am most proud of something I HAVEN’T had to do. During the upheaval of the last three or four months, I haven’t had one toilet paper supply worry. In our house, there has been no need for toilet paper panic or toilet paper hoarding. (Well, at first, Suzanne occasionally panicked about the size of our tp stash, but it was totally unnecessary. I had it covered, with rolls to spare.)
As the li’l homemaker-during-the-pandemic that I am, I am proud to say we have never run out of the ample supply of toilet paper I always keep stocked in our garage. To be honest, I guess you could say that keeping us supplied with the correct amount of toilet paper is about the only real homemaking skill I have. I certainly can’t cook. Overseeing the household tp supply is my one skill, so I have to pat myself on the back about my stellar permanent record on that front. A lot of people were caught with their pandemic pants down about the toilet paper, if ya know what I mean. Not I.
I wonder. Is my single, house-y skill of being Toilet Paper Monitor Extraordinaire alone mighty enough to justify my entire existence on the face of the earth? Why, yes! Yes, it is. Those of you who have ever had to scramble for a square or six of “bathroom tissue” know I’m right. In fact, I’ve probably always been worth my weight in toilet paper.
FYI I have been a zillion places. I have met a zillion people. But I have NEVER heard anyone actually refer to toilet paper as “bathroom tissue,” despite what the labels on the packaging say. Talk about hoity-toity!
The boot laces are tied, which is all that is necessary to qualify this slide pic o’ me for Tie o’ the Day. I swear I can remember standing in our front yard in the sun while these pix were taken. The date on the slide is April 1967, making me a total of 3. The boots are not small enough to be mine, and not bigly enough to be Dad’s, so they must belong to one of my siblings. Clearly, even in my wee beingness I had already confidently started my amazing career as a bold fashionista rebel. I just hadn’t figured out the bow tie gimmick yet.
Y’all will be glad to know I ordered a gadget to help me digitize and clean up all these ancient slides I recently discovered. As soon as it gets here, the slide photos I post will be more seeable. TIE O’ THE DAY anecdotes based on the slides will improve lickety-split.
This afternoon, I’m too exhausted to even attempt a real story. I have not stopped erranding since Suzanne left for work this morning. What have I been doing? Well, I finally got Skitter’s new trailer attached to my bike, and I’ve been practicing making turns without turning over either the trailer or the bike, or both. I think I’m confident enough about safely dragging Skitter around in her new RV to actually take her on a trek early tomorrow before the heat hits.
Since I had to drive the car around in the pandemic world, in order to accomplish most of the tasks on my Honey-Do list, I grabbed a sandwich at the Chick-fil-A drive-up, where I learned cash money is no good. Only plastic money is accepted.
I then drove my car full o’ donations to the Bountiful Deseret Industries, only to find that right now you have to make an appointment to drop off your donations. I have an appointment there for sometime next week. I then checked in with the tattoo place I want to use, at which shop I learned I am required to make an appointment to make an appointment. ‘Tis true.
And then I went to Best Buy at Station Park to get the slide digitizer I mentioned earlier, so I could begin using it today. But you have to have an appointment to stand outside the store’s door and tell them what you need. You can’t go inside even if you have an appointment. You can make an appointment at Best Buy to pick up whatever you buy from them online and have shipped there. Why the heck would you have something shipped to Best Buy for you to make an appointment to pick up, instead of just having it shipped to your house? I decided it was better to not even ask the question out loud. I walked back to my car.
Anyhoo…I drove home and ordered the gadget online. But I had kinda hit my top nerve as far as not being able to actually finish any of my errands today, so I decided to just order the gadget through Amazon, and prime can deliver it right to my front door sometime next week. Errand done. With my current erranding luck, I fully expect the slide converter gadget will probably be delivered at the exact same time I have my appointment to drop off donations at D. I.—and the package will either require my signature before it can be left on the porch, or a package thief will pilfer it from my front porch before I arrive home in my donation-empty car.
Here at TIE O’ THE DAY, we try to not go too gaga over tieless supermodels—even when they turn out to be our Gracie—but when these photos showed up on my iPhone this morning, I knew we would drop whatever current projects and posts we’re working on, and go all-Gracie. I learned two major things about this young lady-whippersnapper from these pictures: 1. Gracie’s enthusiasm for mac ‘n’ cheese allows her to create smile-worthy performance art. 2. Gracie “cleans up real good,” as they say. I never doubted my grandniece would have these two important skills.
