I can’t believe it. I guess I did it. And it surprised me. I pushed Suzanne to her limit. Suzanne got upset about a photo I posted here. I didn’t mean to get her out of kilter about anything, but she got that way anyway. It was the photo from the morning of January 5th, when I was wishing Georgia Grayson Wadsworth a merry birthday. Even though I posted it a few days ago, Suzanne didn’t bring it up until yesterday.
If you recall, the pic had been taken at one of the infamous sleeping parties I hosted in the 70’s. It shows Georgia surprising me while I’m on the potty, while someone else takes the picture (and I’m sure it was Tauna). It’s an innocuous photograph, if you ask me. All you can see is my naked thigh. And a little bit of the naked almost-behind my thigh. But Suzanne was not pleased with me so wantonly putting it out in cyber land for all to see.
To me, it was the bathroom wallpaper that was so hideous and offensive about the scene. I almost didn’t post the snapshot because of it.
I told Suzanne posting the picture was really not a bigly deal, since I was a prolific mooner in the Delta environs during those years, so almost all Deltans had seen my butt anyway. She was kinda not amused. “Disturbing” is the word she used.
I’ve got her settled down now. This morning she got ready for work without bringing it up again. I dashed out of the house to get to my physical therapy appointment ASAP. I headed out long before I needed to leave, because I wanted to escape the house before Suzanne even had a chance to bring it up. She has not texted me about the whole hullaballoo, so I’m probably safe now. She’s most likely moved on.
Anyhoo… I figured I should post a completely, absolutely innocent photo– with an equally innocent Bow Tie o’ the Day. Just to be safe. Suzanne cannot quibble with a photograph of Helen, Sr. and baby Helen.
[Hey, check out Mom’s curlers. I think she still has the very same set.]
I decided to wear this Tie o’ the Day in order to be sorta blendy with my shirt. Not matchy, just blendy. Today, I’m playing the clash as low-key as I know how to play it, because Skitter is ailing and I don’t want to add any loudness to the vibes of the house.
The tiny part of Skitter’s face you see here in the photo is pretty much all we’ve seen of her for the past three days. She hasn’t wholeheartedly performed her “chew dance.” She hasn’t even finished eating her daily chew treats. She’s kept herself in her beds, under her Suzanne-made blankets. She does, however, seem to want to do her convalescing right next to me or Suzanne. She has to be close enough to reach out at least one of her long legs to constantly touch one of us. Her paws are pokey.
We don’t have a clue what’s got Skitter down. She doesn’t limp when she walks. She’s not throwing up. I felt around in her mouth, and her teeth and gums seem fine– stinky but fine. She’s not the kind of mutt who digs though garbage cans so I doubt she’s eaten some dangerous food scrap. I also don’t think she has Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).
On the other hand, dogs can sometimes sense somethin’s up. Dogs get vibes. The Dog of My Life, the late Araby, once physically and literally saved me from suicide. Araby had passionate, heightened senses when it came to knowing and watching over me.
The mind-meld Araby and I shared also made Araby an excellent editor of my writing. I used to read drafts of my poems to her, and I could tell by how she moved her facial muscles as I read whether a poem needed more work, or whether it was worthy of being sent out for publication. Not one poem Araby okayed was ever rejected for publication. Araby got me. And she got what I was trying to say in my writing. Hell, sometimes I don’t even get me, let alone get what I write.
Dogs get it. They compute. They sometimes call us on the b.s. they see us pull. They can save us from our own mis-steps. Some dogs have better intuition than others, just like some people do, but they all feel us to some extent. So how could Skitter not be hip to the shifts in my bipolar tectonic plates? Poor thing.
Knowing Skitter as well as I do, I’m confident my current mental state is not what’s making her feel icky. I’m sure she’s aware of my crazy head, and I’m sure she worries a bit about me right now. I have no doubt she senses my current depression, but she’s never joined me on my bipolar arc before, so I don’t think she’s following in my head’s swinging now. I think she simply has some kind of doggie flu bug in her system. She’ll be prancing to the mailbox again alongside me and my pendulum head any day now. And I’m hoping it’s tomorrow.
Birthday balloon Bow Tie o’ the Day joins a frou-frou feather Bow Tie o’ the Day to honor the birthday of Georgia Grayson Wadsworth.
One set of Cufflinks o’ the Day represents the sweet slices of birthday cake I’m sure Georgia will scarf down today. The other Cufflinks o’ the Day represent the zillions of tasty food orders Georgia cooked at the Desert Drive-in (I think that was its name) and the Burger Box. I wish I owned a pair of onion ring cufflinks to have included in the picture. To this day, I have never found onion rings as incredibly tasting as the ones Georgia made. I am not stretching the truth. Even as I write this, I can taste them. And they had the exact amount of crunchy consistency. Yum in my head.
In this late-70’s photo, Georgia has interrupted me in my bathroom as I attempt to rid myself of soda pop. (Check out Mom’s superb wallpaper o’ the era. Flowers, anyone?) This took place at one of my infamous sleeping parties, which Dad tolerated with much grace.
I’m pretty sure this was the party when we got high on junk food, then crushed potato chips, in an attempt to smoke them. What wild girls we were!
At this same party, the dozen partygoers and I managed to escape from my house, most of us in only our underwear, whereupon we ran down Lyman Row. We made a ruckus down there, and Bill Cave’s dad came out of his house and chased us down the road and through many back yards. We were convinced he was going to maim us with his hook arm.
Somehow we escaped and made it back to the house– all of us with our bodies intact. Last. Sleepover. At. My. House. Ever. Dad’s grace had run out. Honestly, I don’t know why we would have needed more sleepovers anyway. At the parties we’d had up to that point, we had already done every harmlessly fun thing imaginable.
Flash forward to last summer when I had surgery. The day before I went into Huntsman, a package showed up at my front door. It contained a pair of crocheted slippers, with a bow tie crocheted into the design. It was, of course, from my old pal, Georgia. They were a sign.
I was scared about the surgery, and Suzanne was out of town. I was alone in my scaredy-cat emotions. That slipper-y gift of compassion literally kept me from canceling the operation, which I was so close to doing. Those hand-made, bow tie slippers gave me the push and courage necessary to go through with what I needed to do.
In the middle of one of the nights I was at Huntsman– after my surgery– I was in horrendous pain. I remember actually saying to a nurse, mostly jokingly, “Kill me now!” because the pain was so massive and relentless. As tough as I am, I’d had it. In fact, at some point that night, I thought I was literally going to die. I looked down at the end of the bed, and there were those bow tie slippers on my feet. And I thought to myself, “If I die, I will die with my bow tie slippers on.” I didn’t need boots to die in.
Floppy Bow Tie o’ the Day tops off my clashy attire this afternoon. Honestly, I am sick of red and green right now. I needed a whole lotta other colors going on. I didn’t go anywhere today, I just needed to dapper-up in non-Christmas colors for my trek to the mail with Skitter, aka, The Skit.
Skitter is not pleased that the temperature outside was 13 degrees at 4 PM, which is when we walked to the mailbox. But she pouts now if she doesn’t have her little walkie to the mail, no matter the weather. She will not let me escape to fetch it on my own in the car. Perhaps she’s afraid I won’t know how to get there and back by myself.
But I think it has more to do with the fact that she pretty much had to be dragged on a walk for the last five years, and now that she’s finally figured out walks are not scary, she MUST go for he daily mail walk. She likes it so much I walk her to the mailbox on Sundays and holidays when the mail isn’t even delivered. I will never tell her I’m pulling a trick on her for her own benefit. I don’t want Skitter to think I would lie to her.
And do you know what? Skitter doesn’t “walk” on her walks. She prances. For the entire walk! She prances like Lipizzaner horses when they perform. YouTube them, and envision Skitter prancing in the mix among them. If I ever figure out how to post video, I’ll be sure you get to see Skitter’s marvelous prissy gait. And you simply must see her “chew dance.” Words can’t convey these two Wonders of the Skitter World, which I am fortunate to witness and experience each and every day.
Anyhoo… I boxed up the holiday bow ties this afternoon, and I put away the holiday attire and doodads. Storing all that away is helping me in my attempt to reorganize The Tie Room. I’m convinced there is some unused space in there somewhere. I haven’t found it yet, but I did fill two big garbage bags with stuff to take to D.I. tomorrow. I also managed to uncover a pair of earrings I lost over the summer. And I found a buried bag of chocolate Twizzlers from who knows when. Suffice it to say, it wouldn’t be possible for me to eat said licorice unless I had a jackhammer. I certainly didn’t have one handy, so into the garbage the petrified package went.
That is a tragic fate for such a terrific food. Chocolate Twizzlers deserve a far better send-off. At least they got to mummify in the hallowed presence of neckwear. A most pleasant death, I’m sure.
Wood Bow Tie o’ the Day brings us back to the realm of routine days without celebratory hoopla. The Christmas break is officially over. If the neckwear says it’s over, it’s over.
As I was putting the holiday ties into their storage boxes last night– where they will hibernate until November– I found myself in a sort of meditative state. As I curled each one into another and laid them in the bin, I felt Zen-y. I was so into the regular procedure, I lost myself in peacefulness. It was weird.
Of course, I only knew this weird thing had happened when I came back to myself. When I awoke from my nap of the mind, I was astonished about how the calm that came into in my crazy head was all because I was carefully laying ties into their hibernation. It’s a yearly routine, and it requires touching each tie and making the exact same movements to place it in its box, over 200 times. There is a rhythm to it. It doesn’t require thinking. It requires simply being.
It got me cogitating about how people lose themselves, for example, in gardening. The planting, the pruning, and etc. need to be done over and over and over. There’s a routine and a rhythm in working in a garden, and it can be relaxing.
Routine household chores can be like that. They are work, but they can be calming. Doing them can make you Zen-y. You can get in a zone that makes you let go of all the crap you need to let go of. (Of course, household chores are not as elegant as gardening.) We perform a zillion other routines that cause the same peaceful effect. Hobbies, especially, can do that. Religious rituals can function like that.
But there is a negative effect that can come of the regular, the routine, the same-old-same-old. The negative is that we can fall from peaceful dreaminess too far into only ourselves. That kind of thing can make us forget we are here to care about others. We can also get tunnel vision and forget to discover the unfound and to try new things. We can forget there are things out there that we haven’t yet imagined. You can’t feel joy if you’ve lost your imagination.
BTW I’m putting away the holiday bow ties this evening. If I get as Zen-y about it as I did with the neckties. I’ll let you know.
Here’s Bow Tie o’ Christmas Eve, when Suzanne and I took ourselves out for a double-celebration. Since our anniversary is December 23rd, and X-mas is the 25th, we threw the occasions together on Christmas Eve at one splendid dinner at Log Haven, up Millcreek Canyon. Plenty of glittery snow and trees and mountains. Gorgeous, even in the dark evening.
Since the traditional gift for the 5th wedding anniversary is supposed to be something made of wood, I just had to make dinner reservations at LOG Haven. How could I not keep with the “wood” theme? Log Haven is basically a log cabin. Okay, it’s a log mansion which a guy built for his wife as an anniversary gift in the 1920’s. See, I put thought into these things. It matters how their meanings reflect what we celebrate if at all possible. I don’t just throw a dart at a map of eatin’ places.
We had never been to Log Haven before. It was incredible, complete with snowy trees and mountain views and a sunset down the canyon. It was worth saving up for. And save your pennies for a couple of months– you must.
My wintry cape gave us a surprising highlight of the evening. As we emerged from the car and Suzanne handed the keys to the valet, a man in a tux happened to be walking toward us. Upon seeing the cape, he stopped in his tracks. I was so afraid he was going to say: NO CAPES ALLOWED IN THIS FROU-FROU ESTABLISHMENT! I was sore afraid. But he said, “Oh my, we don’t normally get things that classy here.” A few minutes later, we noticed he was the restaurant’s piano player. Play on, kind sir! I figure what he said is further proof of the wintry cape’s coolness, cuz the piano player sees all, and he should know.
Suzanne and I shared a butternut squash soup, which was beyond yummy. And we ate grilled calamari, which was a first. The only calamari we’d ever seen on a menu in our world-wide restaurant-hopping has been breaded. I had the prime rib, whiskey potatoes, and charred Brussels sprouts. I am not normally a Brussels sprouts gal, but I have been known to eat outside my comfort zone. I was pleased I did. Suzanne ate huge sea scallops. She also ordered a mid-priced bottle of fancy wine, which meant I would be driving home. The wine was an intriguing water-white. It was like no wine we had ever seen. Suzanne let me smell the wine, and then I vehemently kicked myself mightily for being an alcoholic and, therefore, unable to drink wine.
We did what’s becoming our new dessert routine, which means we each have dessert, and then we order a third dessert to take home with us. I chose the pineapple upside down cake, while Suzanne had something I can’t remember– and she’s still asleep so I can’t ask her. We chose a bread pudding to bring home to eat for breakfast the next day. All so good.
As for wood anniversary gifts… Suzanne gave me a circular wood lamp with inlaid lighting, which turns on when its two magnets almost meet. It now sits in the loft, where I write. I’m sure I will compose exquisite poems ‘neath its glow. She also gave me shelves made of teak wood. She will assemble the piece and hang it when I make up my mind where I want it, which I’m sure will also be in the loft.
I gave Suzanne a necklace with a Bolivian rosewood pendant, with 5 silver in-lays– one for each year. And I was proud of myself for thinking of hand-turned wood crochet hooks as a gift for her. She seemed surprised and infatuated with them. She has three, in three different woods: Rosewood, Quilt Maple, and Cocobolo wood. When she decides on exactly what style and wood she wants the hooks to be, she can get a set.
Suzanne and I have been together for decades, but it only counts legally as five years. I guess it’s kinda like dog years: Your dog might be 5, but it’s really closer to 35. Same with us. By my math, that means dog years equal lesbian years. That’s the only way it makes sense to me. (Har, har, har.)
We’ve had a fantabulous ride, even with the break from each other we took for a few years. That was part of the ride too. When I begin to think our life can’t possibly get any better, it always does. Even the rough patches seem to have an essential core of goodness.
Gratitude has to be a way of life if the good is going to surround you. I’m infinitely grateful Suzanne stopped to talk to me for the first time, in the Weber State College library in 1984. Every day of my life, I’m grateful for that.
Merry 5th Anniversary, Suzanne. My love for you deepens with every passing moment we are here.
I donned these Ties o’ the Day to wear alongside each other because they reminded me of a couple of people I know very well. Suzanne is one, and I am the other. Ties o’ the Day are accurate representations of our distinctive ways of moving through life.
Suzanne is the pretty red Tie o’ the Day, with its perfectly straight tree sides and its perfectly round tree ornaments. Suzanne is the trees being properly green. She’s the single gold line moving in thin curves, playfully and wildly in Tie’s background.
I am the red, what-the-hell-happened-here Tie o’ the Day. (I made it myself.) I am gold glitter, out of control. I’m a red nose, and pom-poms, and a deer whose eyes fell off. I’m a HO and a snowflake. I am full of empty spaces: hardened glue spots where I’ve lost some decorations from year to year. I am what is missing. I’m a silver tinsel pipe cleaner– – here for no reason except the silliness factor. Tie is as close to a fairly accurate description of my spirit as any.
Suzanne is practical and solid. She is careful and logical, and she plans for the long-term. She plans for the contingencies– for what might go wrong. Suzanne is back-up plans. Suzanne is the troubleshooter and builder. She is imagination and surprise. Suzanne is classic, and patterns, and a steady course. Suzanne is the straight man to my vaudeville act. She’s the breathtaking, bejeweled, antique chandelier from which I swing like a chimpanzee.
I am the comic relief. I am the in-your-face. I am the dark thinker. I am the cacophony, and the calm, and the storm on its way. I’m the rapidly-changing moods. I’m the screaming protest. I’m the creator of impractical amusements we need in order to remain sane. I’m the zig-zag. I’m the taser. I am the free spirit to come home to. I am the storyteller and the poet. I’m the loud, the clash, the funky. I’m the Care Bear and the conscience. I am the drowned and the saved. Oddly, Suzanne says I am the voice of reason. Imagine that.
And do you know what Suzanne’s doing right at this very moment in time? She’s sitting at her Ultimate SewingBox, making me another cape just because it will make me as joyful to wear it as it makes her to sew it.
I write this post as a preface to tomorrow morning’s post about our 5th wedding anniversary, which was last week. The traditional gift for the 5th anniversary is wood, and I had a heckuva time thinking of an appropriately snazzy wood gift for Suzanne. A Popsicle stick didn’t seem quite enough. It turned out we found swell presents for each other.
I was afraid of this. My dang rotator cuff is in such a dire state this afternoon that I am unable to tie my ties. Apparently, my shoulder has also aggravated the arthritis in my right hand. And even though all of my bow ties are pre-tied at the factory (as per my request), I am unable to lift my right arm into a position that allows me to clasp their bands together around my neck. What’s a girl to do?
And there’s one more thing, and it’s a bigly thing. This afternoon my shoulder kept me from raising my arm high enough to take my tie-and-face selfie. (I can’t snap a pic with just one hand.) In case you’re sad about seeing no selfie of my visage, Ties o’ the Day give you a selfie o’ elves and a selfie o’ Santa and Mrs. Claus.
Excuse my extreme pessimism, but what if my sorry, can’t-raise-my-arm situation continues? I’m sure you’d enjoy looking at my neckwear collection without my selfie face ruining the photos, but that would probably get boring after a few days– no matter how interesting the ties and their adventures might be. I’ve done faceless posts before, although not regularly. But no face for two tie posts per day, for who-knows-how-long? Or no face in a post photo forever? I ask it again: What’s a girl to do?
I’m sure Suzanne would do the tie tying for me, but she has a real job. Where would she find the time to dress my neck AND still go to the office AND still sew? Well, she couldn’t. Hours in a day are finite. Nor would I let her give up any of her valuable sewing time, even if she offered. She deserves her crafty/sewy play time. Also, the hours it would take Suzanne to tie ties on my neck, or hook the clasps of my bow ties, would cut into the hours she spends sewing me capes. We can’t have that.
As long as my arm remains painfully near-dead, I suppose I will end up using Skitter frequently as a model. I can drape untied and unclasped neckwear all over her, and she is fun to look at. She’s also patient when I stage her and the neckwear for photos. I guess I could drape untied ties on me too. I’ve done that on occasion, but it doesn’t have the same jazzy effect. A photograph of neckwear without a face above it is neither dramatic nor dynamic enough to grab the attention my neckwear is due.
I will now go to The Tie Room to meditate about this predicament. I’m sure I’ll be inspired to figure out a workable plan. The Tie Room has speshul powers o’ enlightenment, and I treat it with the respect I would give any other chapel or shrine.
Bow Tie o’ Last Night spread its Christmas cheer at a new-to-us restaurant find in SLC. In the past few months, I’ve had out-loud conversations with myself about wanting to dine at CURRENT. I’ve googled CURRENT’s menu, and I’ve relayed to Suzanne my enthusiasm about wanting to try the place. So yesterday, when Suzanne said she’d made a reservation for dinner, I was hoping this would be the place. It was. And it is. It is a keeper (pun intended). CURRENT belongs to the same ownership group as my old go-to, STANZA, so I figured I’d be happy with the atmosphere and fare. We were not disappointed.
Golly, my sake-marinated salmon was a culinary pleasure. Suzanne surprised me by ordering the cod instead of scallops. If scallops are on the menu, Suzanne and scallops are the match. But not last night. Personally, I believe making a not-scallops decision was Suzanne’s way of spicing up the relationship. You know, you gotta change it up to keep it alive. You  have to keep your person guessing about you a bit. This was a bigly change-up for Suzanne. Subtlety is her mode.
Anyhoo… Dinner was a definite dessert-deserving meal. Two desserts, to be precise. And I wanted to bring a third one home, but I realized that would’ve been out-and-out sugar gluttony. I’ve been accused of worse. But I decided moderation was a wise course of action for once. (Since my surgery, I have been hungry, 24/7.)
In the photo, notice the background wall’s design of waves and fish. Hence, the place’s name: CURRRENT. It is attached to a bar called UNDERCURRENT.
I planned to get another photo outside the restaurant, which would have shown you my wint’ry cape, but the photographer fell through. Suzanne, it seems, forgot about the required TIE O’ THE DAY outside-the-eatery photo, and she immediately walked off to fetch the car– leaving me striking sexy poses in my cape, under the CURRENT sign, without being photographed while doing it. Silly Suzanne, forgetting a TOTD photo protocol. But the car was warm by the time she picked me up in the street, so that was good.
It’s a total mystery: I’ve tried a number of times to present the totality of my new cape here, but it seems to stay under wraps (pun intended) for some reason I can’t fathom. The cape’s glory doesn’t seem to want to unfurl itself when a photo can be snapped. My other capes threw themselves into the TIE O’ THE DAY spotlight as soon as they were born. But it’s as if this wint’ry cape is trying to remain hidden, like some sort of caped……crusader?
Is this particular cape super speshul? Is this particular cape full o’ superpowers it doesn’t want to call attention to? Is my cape trying desperately to retain its anonymity in order to successfully fight crime and boredom and blandness and whatever else it fights? Does wearing my cape turn me into some kind of superhero, and if so what is my superpower? Time will tell. Time will show. And I can’t wait.
Bow Ties o’ the Day and I have been on high clash fashion alert this afternoon because Suzanne, out of nowhere, texted me from her office that we are going out to dinner this evening. Date Night! (Not Bee Pig Date Night, which we haven’t done for months. Reminder to self: drain Bee Pig.) What you’re seeing in this picture is one of my attempts to wrangle my hair into a hairdo which won’t be unattractive and/or dangerous. This photo is incontrovertible, damning evidence I haven’t yet found a workable and appealing hairdo for my current hairs situation.
The list o’ things I need to do to gussy-up myself for a Friday night on the town is lengthy. I haven’t picked out the right bow tie yet. That always takes more time than I anticipate, because I end up getting pleasantly distracted in The Tie Room. The choosin’ o’ the neckwear for a public event is an exacting task. To me, creating the right clash fashion statement is both an art and a science experiment. And then there are the cufflinks, and earrings, and bracelets to be chosen. Oh, and I gotta decide on the perfect suspenders. It’s so hectic being a girl sometimes! Gotta go make myself stunning! But my giving spirit gives you these three Christmas bow ties to behold. Enjoy.
