Category: Stories

Posted on

And I’m Still Counting

A few days ago, I checked in with myself. I was feeling kinda crabby, so I figured it was time to seriously ponder how blessed I really am. I started counting my blessings, and I discovered I have so many blessings that I had to take a few days off from writing TIE O’ THE DAY posts, because I have never counted that high before and it made me dizzy. That is I— discombobulated by my wealth of blessings.

My list o’ blessings begins with my mom, Big Helen. These photos were taken on my front porch in Delta. Mom would walk across the property line between us to porch. “Porch” is a verb too. Mom would sit and rule the world from the Porch at least a couple of times a day, weather permitting. Porching with Mom was a blessing of time well spent. I learned so much about her and her perspectives on her own life, as well as her take on the world. I hope she likes what she learned about me.

We told stories, joked, passed along nice gossip, and laughed. Once, we laughed so loudly and animatedly, a UPS truck stopped in my driveway. The driver— who we didn’t know— got out to ask if Mom needed help. “I sure do need help,” she said while laughing even harder, then she invited him to porch with us. Of course, the concerned UPS dude had packages to deliver, so he opted out of our invitation to porch. But he left with a bigly smile on his face.

Everyone was welcome on the Porch. A few people were officially invited to sit with us there, and they all declared their visit to be the best porching they’d ever done. They all left laughing.

The last year Mom lived in her house happened to be the last year I owned my Delta house. I was in Delta most of that year, on Mom duty. I had become the official designated driver for Mom and Peggy for their daily drinking (Pepsi) and driving. The old girls gradually became less interested in going on their routine leisurely drives around the county, so the three of us did most of our daily drinking on the porch. Two or three months before I sold my house, Mom wasn’t able to porch with us most days, so it was just Peggy and I on the porch. Porching alone with Peggy is one of my magical blessings too. We laughed, cried, and learned a lot about each other. Peggy told me things about the history of Hinckley that I’m sure Hinckley would rather I not know.

Posted on

My Drink Is Always With Me

Tie o’ the Day is practical, as well as stylish. Whether I’m Swiffering the floors, dusting our books, or I’m outside walking Skitter, I do a much better job if the Spirit of Caffeine is always with me. My hands are usually busy being useful or creative, so Tie is a helpful solution to my need for an occasional swig as I go about my day. And I never have to wonder where I last set down my drink. I just wish my 100 oz., 7-11 mini keg could fit in Tie’s drink holder.

Posted on

Because Falling Out Of A Tree Once Isn’t Enough

Bow Tie o’ the Day is here to say I’ve had a hankering to go fishing. I found this PRADA fishing jacket in the pages of VOGUE magazine, and as soon as I can save the $2,130. for the jacket and the $690. for the shirt, I’m definitely planning a fishing trip. The ad doesn’t say how much the boots cost, so I’ll save up an extra thousand bucks just to be sure I can afford them. Not.

Anyhoo… Without setting out to do it, I made a second “snow” angel in the earth below the tree “house,” later on during the same summer I made the infamous Tumbleweed Angel (see previous post). I was probably 6 or 7 that year. I was up in the tree sitting on the piece of wood we called a treehouse, reading WHERE THE RED FERN GROWS for the dozenth time— boo hoo-ing about the tragedies befalling the Redbone Coonhounds, Old Dan and Little Ann. I’m sure it was the bucket of tears in my crying eyes that caused me to fall back and away from the tree. For the second time.

My body wafted from the tree house, down to the vacant lot below it— where I landed in a kind of backflop. A cloud of dust rose from the ground and surrounded me. The tumbleweeds that caught me in my previous post weren’t there anymore. The vacant lot had recently been cleared and tilled. I hit nothing but overturned dirt clods. I lay flat on my back, in an indention created by my weight pushing the soft clods into the ground under me. The wind got knocked out of me in a bigly way. I thought the dust might even be smoke. It felt like I would never take a breath again. As I lay there trying to breathe, my arms flailed. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was making yet another incredible, unbelievable “snow” angel, which I will forever refer to as The Clod Angel. I was completely unharmed by my fall from the tree. Again.

Clearly, I’m protected by angels of my own making.

Posted on

Experiments In Gravity

FYI Apparently, purses are “in” this year. How do I know? Because VOGUE says so. I do like that the purse handle works as a sort of bow tie.

As Skitter took me and Bow Tie o’ the Day out for my morning walk today, we enjoyed seeing the thick white snow. We ignored the yellow spots of snow dotting the neighborhood yards, close to the sidewalk. I had a brief idea about using Skitter to create a snow dog-angel in a particularly beautiful patch of snow, and then take a TIE O’ THE DAY photo. But my internal voice of reason came to Skitter’s rescue, reminding me that Skitter would be scared by being embedded into the snow to be a snow dog-angel. And honestly, I didn’t really want to lie down in the cold snow by myself. So we walked on, and I thought about some of the snow angels I remember making.

The best “snow” angel I ever made was not made in the snow, nor was it made on purpose. I unintentionally created it when I fell from our treehouse once when I was a kid. Our “treehouse” was a single piece of wood nailed to a high tree limb which hung out over the vacant lot next door. The lot was a dense tumbleweed farm at times. When I fell out, it was into tall dry tumbleweeds. It was as if the weeds held up their arms to catch me and break my fall. I landed atop a clump of weeds, flat on my back, and gradually fell through their snapping limbs to the ground.

No harm, no foul. I brushed myself off and climbed back up in the treehouse, where I looked down to where I had fallen, and I could see where I had left a perfect outline of my body in the grouping of weeds, smooshed down to the ground. I must have been flailing my arms as I fell flat through the weeds though, cuz the impression in that bunch of tumbleweeds looked exactly like a snow angel.

Who says there’s nothing to do in Delta, UT?!

Posted on

Another Asparagus Story

Tie o’ the Day is just plain gorgeous as it clashes sublimely with one of my paisley shirts. They both clash with my Suzanne-crocheted Hat o’ the Day. She’s been on a binge with crocheting hats lately. I counted over a dozen she created over the X-mas holidays. I can’t decide which I like the most, so I’m wearing them all once, then we’ll donate them.

But back to asparagus… Most of you know my hometown— Delta, UT. Many readers are not familiar with it at all. Delta was kind of a truer-to-life version of Mayberry. For the most part, we all knew each other. I lived in a terrific neighborhood, on the wrong side of the tracks, just inside the city limits. My dad’s parents lived next door to us, and Dad’s bee warehouse was behind their house. Farm country started literally across the street to the west of our home. That meant a canal full of irrigation water was also literally across that same street. And a dirt ditch canal meant loads of asparagus.

Every neighborhood has its share of grouchy folk, and mine was no exception. I was on the canal bank picking asparagus one fine summer day, when I heard an ominous voice: “Don’t you steal my asparagus!” It was not God’s voice, although it shook me to the core. It was one of our crabby, old lady neighbors who seemed to think that everything in her not-too-good eyesight was hers just because she lived closest to the ditch. I’ll just call her Mrs. Canal. Off, I ran the whole forty yards to Dad’s bee warehouse, leaving a trail of scared asparagus falling behind me. Yes, even the asparagus was scared.

Through the fog of bees in the honey extracting room, I regaled Dad with my latest exploit. He was sympathetic. He had grown up there, right across the street from Mrs. Canal. I asked him how old Mrs. Canal was. He pondered, then said, “All I can tell you is that she was at least a hundred years old when I was a boy.” That was Dad’s way of saying I’d better just be polite, and leave that area unpicked until Mrs. Canal gives up the ghost, then I could have at it.

I started picking the asparagus where Mrs. Canal couldn’t possibly see me, and it killed me to leave “her” asparagus growing there on the canal bank. Year after year, she never picked it, so it just grew spindly and went to seed. What a waste.

Posted on

A Fancy Food I Didn’t Know Was Fancy Until I Moved Back East

Bow Tie o’ the Day and I have been playing with both the new and old computers today. Suzanne transferred my old computer’s contents to the new computer last night, and I’ve been comparing various files to make sure everything made it to the new machine. So far, so good. No problems. And the new machine is quick, I tell ya.

This photo shows my computer’s desktop screen, which is a picture of one of my fave summer meals Mom made for me: asparagus and pickled asparagus. Mom planned to make me creamed asparagus over toast too, but it was July— and way too hot to eat creamed anything. Still, it would’ve made an even better photo.

As a kid, I spent a great deal of my summer on my bike, prowling the county’s ditch banks for asparagus for Mom to cook. It kept me out of trouble, and it generally kept me on her good side. I lost track of time one day, and when the sun went down I found myself and my bike out on the ditch banks of Sugarville. There were no cell phones back then, of course. And I was so young I didn’t know I knew anyone who actually lived in Sugarville, so instead of knocking on some “stranger’s” door and asking to use their phone, I hauled my butt back into Delta as fast as my cowboy boots could push the pedals. Darkness falls fast in the desert.

My bike basket brimmed with perfectly fat asparagus. I was sure the ton of asparagus would save me from Mom and Dad being miffed at me for being AWOL all day and after dark. It did not.

When things were settling down in the Ron and Helen Wright household that night, Dad said I should think of my asparagus hunting as deer hunting. I should think smart. He said, “You can hunt asparagus anywhere you’re not trespassing. You just have to tell us which direction you’re going, so we know where to find the carcass when you don’t come home.” Message received.

Posted on

I Hate Haters

Skitter’s Ties o’ the Day offer up this story for your contemplation. Every day, when we still had the Delta house, and I still had a daily Delta/Mom routine, Skitter would put on a tie and ask to go with me on my daily Diet-Coke-at-The-Pub visit. At first, I told Skitter she couldn’t go to The Pub with me cuz she was a minor. But when she aged out of minor-hood, I then had to break it to her that she would never be legally allowed in The Pub, or other places like it— simply because she is not a people. She had no idea she was “different”, so it came as an enormous shock to her skittish, canine system.

I explained to Skitter about prejudice and discrimination. About its many forms and guises. About bigots and bullies. About how every living thing is “different” in some way (many ways, in fact), depending on what “they” say is the “norm”. I explained that the categories and mechanisms used to commit bigotry are completely arbitrary. They bear no resemblance to the truth, beauty, and goodness of existence. Bigotry is reductive and riddled with the fear of everything except itself.

Skitter pondered seriously about the in’s and out’s, the up’s and down’s, and the sideway’s of what I had told her. She thought and thought, until her tiny thinker was exhausted. And then she said, “But I can still wear the ties, right?”

Now, that’s a nifty perspective: Just go about your life, in wonder and love and ties.

Posted on

Showing Off My Slippers Again

When you have something really groovy, show it off. Show it off often. Thank you again, Georgia Grayson Wadsworth for crocheting me these slippers over a year ago, for my Hanky Panky surgery stay at Huntsman. I never tire of my friend-made slippers, and I never tire of feeling grateful for what others do to help me on my life’s adventure.

It is quite freeing to feel gratitude. Feeling appreciative is one indication somebody has actively loved you. It means someone thought enough about you to offer a kind word; make a needed loan; give a sheltering hug in a time of loss; flash a smile across a room of strangers; etc. The list is infinite. And if you’re not feeling gratitude for anything, you aren’t paying attention. At the very least, you are reading this right now, and who do you think I’m taking the time and effort to write it for? You, of course. Even if you’re bored with this particular post, I wrote it for you. It’s not much, but it’s one way I can show I care about you. We should all be more grateful for whatever parts we play in each other’s lives.

Other good people can find value in stuff that makes you joyous, just like you can find value in theirs. (Stay away from selfish, jealous people who can only appreciate something if they own it.) In a nutshell, that’s what my tblog is all about: I love wearing ties and telling stories, and I want to share them with others. Sometimes I write a lot. Sometimes I write a little. Sometimes a post is sarcastic. Sometimes a post is downright profound. The neckwear is always splendid, at the very least.

I’m sure I’ll show off my bow tie slippers here again and again over the coming years, but I probably won’t climb back up on the dining table to show them off with a Neckties o’ the Day puzzle. That is not a do-over. The standing-on-tables part of my life is now done. I guess I just needed to do it one more time. I’m grateful I did it, and I’m grateful I don’t want to do it anymore. I’m sure I’ll live a longer life by keeping my Bow Tie Slippers o’ the Day on the floor.

Posted on

A Visit To Dr. Bow

Kandinsky-style Bow Tie o’ the Day and I spent the bulk of our afternoon clashing our attire at my doctor appointment with my pain management doctor. I refer to her as Dr. Bow since the word “bow” sounds like a syllable in her real name. And she is a TIE O’ THE DAY fan.

The appointment went well. You know that irritatingly vague 1-10 pain scale the docs use to pin down the seriousness of your current pain? When Dr. Bow asked what my pain level was today, I said a lower number than I’ve said in 20 years of being asked. I happily said I was at a 5. I might as well have won the pain level lottery. I’m feeling a-ok.

Knock on wood, and on anything else that’s handy.

Posted on

I Like Words

Booked-out Tie o’ the Day is hanging out with the computer keyboards. As much as I am smitten by ties and bow ties, I revel in words. One-syllable words, bigly words, odd words, unpronounceable words, and so on. If it’s a word, it’s my buddy. I’ve never bothered to learn a second language, cuz I haven’t yet finished with all the English words and their various combinations. It’s a good thing I’m a writer, or I’d have no idea what to do with the words in my head. They’d probably turn into voices, which would probably make my head implode.

I even find a use for most swear words. Not the bad, bad, bad ones. They make me cringe. But a basic swear word is sometimes the exact right word to use. It makes a point. It adds emphasis. I get tired of profanity if it’s just there to take up space. It’s usually unimaginative. In almost all instances of swear word usage, there is a more descriptive, more precise word to convey whatever message you’re trying to get across to someone else. I admit I use the tamer profanities on occasion, but I would not say that swearing is one of my prominent characteristics. However, I recently benefited bigly-time by letting out a few “hell”‘s and “damn”‘s I didn’t know anyone heard.

My desktop computer sits upstairs in the loft area where I write. The poor machine is a dozen years old, and we all know that in “technology years,” it has outlived itself at least three times over at this point. Its operating system can no longer be updated. It loads whatever it loads at a speed barely resembling motion. I don’t recall complaining to Suzanne much about the ancient machine. I bear the desktop no ill will, and I mostly make it work.

But apparently, when the computer hadn’t followed my orders lately, I began to drop a fairly innocent swear word. Or two. A tiny “hell” or “damn,” spoken in almost a whisper from the loft. The words must have floated down the stairway, where they curled into the living room— where they flew right into Suzanne’s ear while she tried to think of presents to get me for our 6th Anniversary and Christmas. She took hints I didn’t even know I was giving. Of course, she has known me since 1984, so she can read me beyond my words. And so Suzanne gifted me a new iMac, to cover both our 6th Anniversary and X-mas. She says she’s pretty sure iron (traditional 6th Anniversary gift) is used somewhere in the machine’s construction, and I am happy to believe her.

Gee, I hope I can determine which computer keyboard is the new one and which is the old one. I know: I’ll follow the Yellow Key Grime.