Category: Stories

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O, Happy Day!!!

Tie o’ the Day’s bucking broncos are pleased to announce that today is a joyous, exciting day for Suzanne. It’s a day she has waited for since we filled up our garage with boxes o’ parts for assembling The Ultimate SewingBox a couple of months ago. We have finally wrangled a talented put-togetherer to build the bigly piece o’ furniture. Suzanne’s nephew, Colton the Cowboy, is coming to our place this evening to do the task. The instructions say it should take somewhere around three hours to put the beast together. I’m betting Colton won’t need that much time to do it. He’s that proficient at stuff like this. (I’ll post pictures of The Ultimate SewingBox in its various stages of assemblage.)

Whew! When the thing is assembled and all its boxes disposed of, we will be able to park a car in the garage again. But mostly, Suzanne will have what will surely be her fave piece o’ furniture of her life. I am not using hyperbole when I say that.

Yes, The Ultimate SewingBox will be standing in the living room on our new flooring. Some people have a fireplace as the centerpiece of their living room, or maybe a piano. We thought of having a custom built-in bookcase across an entire wall of the room as our focal point. But when Suzanne saw The Ultimate SewingBox, and when I said OK to it, the bookcase was off the plan list. The Ultimate SewingBox will fill most of that wall. If there’s room for nothing else in our living room except a folding chair for my butt, the television, and The Ultimate SewingBox, that’s absolutely cool with me.

Suzanne originally planned to put the behemoth in her craft room upstairs, but I used my VETO power on that idea. I would like to see Suzanne occasionally, and if The Ultimate SewingBox is in her craft room, I will never see her again. Thus, The Ultimate SewingBox will become the designated focal point of our living room. It will make me happy to see Suzanne a lot. And not only just to see her, but to see her feeling ecstatic. When she’s happy about something, she has this barely perceptible smile on her face, but you know the smile is there, because her cheeks go up. With The Ultimate SewingBox, she’s going to be so happy for so long that her cheek muscles will constantly be sore. That’s as it should be.

BTW   In regard to my DI hat, I don’t want you to be misled into thinking that Deseret Industries has a gift shop. Nah, the DI on this hat stands for Dauphin Island. When I saw it there, I had to get it. How could I not buy a hat with “DI” embroidered on it? Most of the world doesn’t have a clue about the existence of Deseret Industries, but I do. We do. It’s enough that a DI hat is amusing to the Utah crowd, at least.

And another BTW   I use the exact full name of The Ultimate SewingBox whenever I mention it, cuz the name makes me chuckle. It’s so definitive and audacious and important-sounding. 📦

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A Bigly Family And A Bigly Family Day

Light-up Bow Tie o’ the Day enjoyed a family celebration at The Timbermine at the mouth of Ogden Canyon yesterday. The occasion was to celebrate (late) my oldest sister’s 50th wedding anniversary. Betty and Kent met at Weber State University in 1967. It was love at first English class.

You can see from these photos that I’m not the only one in my family who lives to entertain. The woman with her back to me is Betty. She is being a good party honoree and entertaining those at her table. In the first photo, she does take a few seconds to notice Kent and their daughter Angie performing for my camera. And by the time I snapped the next photo, she has already turned her attention back to her chatting duties with the other guests.

BT (As she prefers to be called. And I call her Mercedes.) is like Suzanne. They notice the antics we perform around them, but they take it in stride. They notice, they appreciate, they move on. Despite their own incredible humor, Suzanne and BT also shine as “the straight man.” Every great comedy routine needs one. Their reactions and/or non-reactions can make or break the joke. The straight man’s reaction is the cherry on top of the jokester dessert. It is the “all that and a bag of chips” which elevates the comedy routine.

In the second photo, you’ll notice Kent pretending to fiddle with his imaginary bow tie. As Suzanne and I were saying our goodbye’s and leaving the yesterday’s festivities, Kent sidled up to me and asked if I could get him a bow tie like mine. See, Kent drives a school bus, and he wants to wear one to entertain his bus kids. This is exactly who Kent is. He’s surrounded by– and joke-chatting with– half a billion members of his own family, at a landmark celebration for himself and BT, and he still has enough heart-capacity to think of how he can entertain his bus kids. For a guy like that, I’d give the bow tie off my neck. Which I did. It didn’t faze me one iota to part with Bow Tie o’ the Day and its three speeds o’ flashing.

Laurel & Hardy. Burns & Allen. Martin & Lewis. Rowan & Martin. Penn & Teller. BT & Kent. They are all members of the comedy duo Hall o’ Fame.

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To Every Bow Tie There Is A Season

The chill is on. Bow Tie o’ the Day and I are experiencing our first long pants, long-sleeve shirt day since probably April. We mourn Summer. We’ll get used to the coming Fall and Winter seasons since we have to. Actually, Fall is my fave season of the year, but it seems like it’s a much shorter season than it was a few decades ago.

Right now I’m taking a gander at the mountains behind our house, and I see the turning leaves on the trees. Watching the leaves turn into their brilliant Fall colors is one of the best parts of the season, but this year the colors are muted and dull. Not enough water in them thar hills! It makes me sad just to look at them. The leaves are not their best selves. That’s gotta be hard on their self-esteem. 🤡

Beyond having to wear “long clothes,” another harbinger of the nearness of Fall is The First Fly-In-The-House o’ Fall, which has been tormenting me and Bow Tie and Skitter all morning. Fall flies move more slowly than Summer flies, it seems. But they are harder to swat for some reason. They move unpredictably, as if they are intoxicated. Apparently, drunk-acting flies are just as annoying as certain drunk people. You just wanna slap ’em. At least you can do that to flies.

A bigly bright spot to the return of long-sleeve shirts is the return of Cufflinks o’ the Day. Love me my ‘links. This morning’s ‘links need no introduction. We all know a crayon when we see one. Yes, these actually work. Of course, I don’t want to wear them down. I don’t have a crayon sharpener this mini.

I remember when I first read the word “crayon.” I had to figure that word out, because I had only ever heard the coloring sticks referred to as “crens.” Was it just me? I don’t think so, because nobody ever made fun of me for saying it that way. I dunno.

The calming effects of crayons cannot be underestimated. Give an out-of-control kid a few crayons, and nine times out of ten, that kid will rein it in a notch or two. There is a reason that parents don’t attend church without carrying a supply of crayons and coloring books for their kids to use when they get fidgety. Hey! It just occurs to me that crayons are really kinda the original fidget spinner. Just’ sayin’.

Crayons work the same way with adults. Hence, the plethora of adult coloring books you can buy in almost any store. As adults, we might have exchanged our crayons for markers or colored pencils, but we all know they aren’t as fun as crens. Markers and colored pencils do not carry the same feelings of safety, freedom, boundless creativity, and memory of childhood possibilities. When you hold them in your hand, they don’t feel like that same crayon kind of imagination. Think about it: When we were in our kidhoods, a box of crayons could create AND rule the kingdoms of our minds and hearts.

And if you’re honest with yourself you’ll admit that in your life, few things have made your entire soul happier than when you so proudly gave your mom or dad a crayon drawing, and it ended up posted on the fridge for all to see. That drawing sucked, but it was a family treasure.

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I Hear Ya

 

Bow Tie o’ the Day helps highlight my hair progress with the growing-it-all-out goal. Remember, it’s not my project, it’s yours. So far, I am complying with your votes. Right now, I think my mop would look better if it were actually a mop. But at least I can still see the asymmetry I like to have in my haircuts. Where this will end, I don’t know. I didn’t put a deadline or length on my hairs project. Technically, I can cut my hairs right now and say, “Well, I grew it out for three months. That’s long enough.” But I know what y’all mean: you wanna see it with some real length to it, whether I want to wear it like that or not.

Suzanne knows how much I detest having long hairs, and she says I can go ahead and cut ’em off any time I want. But I also think she secretly wants me to grow it out, because she knows how much it matters to me that I follow through and keep my promises– even about stuff that really doesn’t matter in the big scheme of things. Anyhoo… This is how the hairs are hangin’ as of today.

Bow Tie hung on the bathroom door when I made a discovery earlier. I discovered that my hearing aid is super comfortable– so much so that I forgot it was in my ear, and I wore it into the shower and promptly began to wash this scrappy hair. Oops! I caught my mistake ASAP. I wrapped my wet hearing gadget in a dry washcloth, cast a voodoo spell on it, and hoped.

But my head shifted into a panicky rant about how I had most certainly destroyed my 4-month-young hearing device, and I don’t dare tell Suzanne what I did, and so somehow I have to find $2000 without her knowing it’s missing, to buy another of the exact same model of hearing aid without Suzanne suspecting anything, cuz I’d rather be broke than have to face Suzanne about doing something so stupid, and on and on and on.

But five minutes later, I opened up the washcloth. The device appeared to be ok. I stuck it in my ear, and the house sounds abounded. Luckily, all was right with my hearing device. I discovered that it is a bit water-resistant, thank heavens. And as an added bonus, it was really, really clean. My biggest discovery is that this little hearing-aid-in-the-shower escapade will not be happening again. It created such a panic in me that I was scared smart.

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A Sorta Banned Book Or Two In Delta, UT

Cravat o’ the Day and I were banished to the upstairs last night. It was Suzanne’s turn to host her monthly book club, so I took my cue to be out of the way. Suzanne’s book club doesn’t have a classy name like her Champagne Garden Club does. Apparently, her book club is just a book club. I can report that book club is not raucous, while Champagne Garden Club is never NOT out of control.

As Cravat and I puttered around upstairs in The Tie Room all evening, I got thinking about some of my book adventures in Delta. The first booky thing I remember is Mom’s monthly book club, known simply as Club. Club always consisted of a group of around twenty women, and they took turns hosting the event. One woman was assigned to “give” the book, which meant to talk about it and get the discussion going. The host provided refreshments.

When it was Mom’s turn to give the book, she prepped by marking pages she wanted to be sure to present. Neither highlighters nor post-its had yet been born, and it appeared Mom didn’t believe in paper clips. She clipped her noteworthy pages with bobby pins. When Mom hosted Club, recipe cards were strewn all over the couch for days before the event, as she decided on the perfect dessert to construct.

When Mom hosted, Dad and I stayed in their bedroom watching tv. About every third minute, Club laughter would explode– with two laughs dwarfing the others. After the first round of laughter of the night, Dad would always say about those two wild laughs, “Well, Dot and Roberta got here.”

Club existed for somewhere around fifty years, and then around four years ago, it just stopped. No fanfare. It was sad. But its time had come. Few original members were still living. I think they were maybe a bit booked-out.

My stand-out book adventures in Delta occurred in the DHS library when I was in 7th Grade. At that time, 7th and 8th grades were located in the high school, so the DHS library is where I got my book fix. Miss Hansen, the librarian, yelled at me one day because I checked out too many books. She telephoned Mom– with me standing right there at the library desk– to “tell on” me for my wicked, wicked way: reading a lot. Mom asked, “Has she ever not returned a book on time? Has she ever lost a book? Has she ever destroyed a book?” Of course, I hadn’t. It wasn’t an issue after that. I could check out as many books as my little heart desired, from that moment on.

But Miss Hansen wasn’t done monitoring my reading just yet. Soon after the checking-out-too-many-books incident, I tried to check out another bunch of books, and Miss Hansen told me I wasn’t old enough to read a couple of them. She wouldn’t let me check them out. I wish I could remember the names of all the “banned-from-me” books she wasn’t going to allow me to check out. I do remember that one was a book of plays by Tennessee Williams.

Miss Hansen called Mom again, this time to tell on me that I was trying to check out books that were not appropriate for me. Mom said, “If it’s okay for the books to be in the DHS library, it’s ok for her to read them. Let her check them out.” Mom to the rescue! It was not an issue after that phone conversation.

[What a literate mess I was! Sorry, for the inconvenience Mom. Thanks for the trust in me, Mom.]

But wait! An ending that I didn’t see coming showed up. Miss Hansen was a large woman, and she was old. These two things apparently prevented her from tying her shoes. I was walking by the library one morning when Miss Hansen had just arrived and was unlocking the door. She asked me to come in with her a minute. She asked if I would please tie her shoes. And thus began a couple of high school years of me stopping in the library each morning to tie Miss Hansen’s shoes, whether or not I needed to check out illicit books.

Blame everything on books. And I mean everything.

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Hangin’ with The Skitt

Bow Tie o’ the Day knows as well as I do that Skitter is not a cool cat. She is not hip. I don’t think we can truthfully describe her as groovy. She is not da bomb. Nope. Skitter is nerdy. Skitter is a Helen’s-girl. Skitter is timid. Skitter is a cowering wallflower. Skitter is the Mistress o’ Skittishness. Sometimes she does not walk or run to her destination, she shivers and vibrates her way to wherever she’s going.

It’s been almost five years since we rescued Skitter from an abusive situation. We don’t know the details of how she had been treated. We just know her life before us had been horrendous. Her defensive, frightened behavior is all the evidence we need in order to know she lived through hell. After all these years, Skitter still can barely handle being around anyone who isn’t me or Suzanne or Mom or Suzanne’s sister, Marjorie. The Skitt can hardly handle being anywhere except in our home. And even then, she is still occasionally wary of normal house and neighborhood noises. She sees her world as an obstacle course, designed to keep her from safety.

But even with her being almost perpetually askeered, she is becoming mostly content and happy in her days and nights with us. Her tail finally wags often, and twice per day she does what we call The Chew Dance on her hind legs. At 11 AM and 7 PM each day, we give her a dog chew. And let me tell you, she can tell time. Seriously, if I lose track of the time while I’m working on something, Skitter will show up jumping and turning on her hind legs. “Hey, look at me, Helen! It’s 11 AM! Time for my chew, Helen. Don’t you know it’s my chew time, Helen? Did you forget how to tell time, Helen? Look at me dance! A chew! A chew! A chew!” Bless you, Skitter.

I’ve never told anyone this before– not even Suzanne– but a few months after we rescued Skitter, I was concerned about the lack of progress she was making in terms of her constant fear. She was not “warming up” to people, places, and things as well as I thought she should have been by that time– not even to us.

She didn’t bite or fight in any way. She didn’t bark or whine. But if you made eye-contact with her, she would still run away and hide behind something, or she’d drop to the floor and ball up like a roly-poly, hoping to be unseen or ignored. I tried every strategy I could come up with to make her feel safe with us and with her new life. Nothing seemed to assuage her fears.

I began to wonder if it might be better for Skitter if the vet and I helped her go to sleep. Was Skitter’s 24/7 fear of being abused really that much better than her actually being abused? We loved Skitter, and we out-did ourselves showing her she was safe and adored. It all boiled down to this question: Do Skitter’s moments of feeling happy and safe outweigh her moments of fear and insecurity? I think I would have been irresponsible to NOT consider the possibility that Skitter might be happier if she didn’t have to exist.

Well, it’s obvious what I concluded. I’m glad we all had faith we could get Skitter to where she is now. Skitter stuck it out with us. She’s still skittish and hesitant and turns into a roly-poly on occasion, but now she doesn’t dwell in her fear constantly. In fact, she mostly dwells in “running” naps and in her own oddness. We appreciate her peculiarities, and we try to make her feel safe in herself and in her environment. She appreciates our peculiar ways too, I’m sure.

It’s a rare thing, but sometimes– as in this first picture– Skitter feels happy and free and safe enough to lean over and kiss me. Most. Bashful. Smooches. Ever.

Skitter’s tough heart makes me proud.

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We Be Trackin’ The Critters

Bow Tie o’ the Day displays a host of animal tracks. And Shirt o’ the Day shows my own style o’ track-makers. We’re both looking ahead to the upcoming Fall critter seasons.

I hail from a hunting-obsessed home. In our house, the first day of the deer hunt was a bigger deal than Christmas morning, and I am not exaggerating. It’s an undisputed fact.

I knew how to reload perfectly weighted bullets at my dad’s bullet press before I had even been baptized. I fished. I killed pheasants, rabbits, and allegedly a deer. But I haven’t been a hunter since I was 16. I have nothing against ethical hunting. It just isn’t in me to do it. The thrill is gone, as they say.

But every Fall brings back amazing memories of trailing behind Dad– mighty hunter extraordinaire– on opening day of the deer hunt. When I see hunters getting themselves ready for their various Fall hunts, I can’t help but think about my Dad’s knowledge of– and enthusiasm for– hunting. I see folks buying orange and/or camo clothing this time of year. I know they’re re-loading bullets or buying ammo. They are target shooting to sight-in their scopes. In fact, I can already hear the “practice” gunshots in the hills above our house. Of course, I can’t see or hear all the hunting preparations going on around me, but it’s enough to just know it’s going on. Just knowing the hunts are happening makes me feel Dad’s presence near me.

When I was a kid, a friend once asked me if Dad was as mean as he looked. I started laughing, and then I started snort-laughing. Dad was a big guy. He had a huge presence. But he was a soft-hearted jokester. And despite his stature, he was a gentle man. And a gentleman.

As an adult, I finally figured out why someone could think Dad was mean. I was once accused of looking mean myself, so I pondered the topic. I stared in the mirror and tried on some different faces until I got back to my regular face, and there it was. I could finally see it. In fact, it was in every face I pulled, to some extent. But it was most prominent in my regular face. My face was Dad’s face, and I saw that we have the same serious-looking forehead lines and the same look-right-through-you eyes. Both characteristics are there in almost every face I can muster. (They are present even in my baby photos. And in his as well.) I see the clenched, focused lines even in my silly faces. When I surveyed a bunch of photos of Dad, even when he smiled, the forehead lines and knowing eyes were there. Those serious, focused forehead lines, together with our x-ray eyes, can be mistaken for meanness at times, I suppose. I don’t see “mean” in our faces. I see “serious” and “focus” and “I know who you are” and some “don’t mess with the people I love” in our faces.

Dad and I probably missed our career callings. If we look so intimidating, we probably should have been bouncers in a bar. Or Beyonce’s bodyguards. Or UFC fighters. Or Mafia enforcers. 🍺 🥊 🔫 We coulda been somebody!

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And On A Sunday, No Less

Bow Tie o’ the Day and I did some grand manipulating yesterday. Suzanne was, of course, the victim of it. She always is. But I’m an up-front manipulator. I make it clear that I’m doing it. She plays along, and let’s me be successful.

For example, I wanted to go to Sunday brunch yesterday. Suzanne would have preferred I declare a Pajama Day and that we not go anywhere at all. She knew my innards had been painfully tugging at me for a couple of days, and she wanted me to rest. She was thinking of what I needed.

So I did this little speech about how I was feeling oodles better than a few days ago, but I didn’t feel quite well enough to cook breakfast, and I didn’t want her to cook because she’s been working such long hours, and then coming home to cook and clean and heft and tote and yada yada. And how I felt sooo bad she’s had to carry the whole work/home burden for two months, as well as take care of me and blah blah blah. And so I told her that since I didn’t feel quite better enough to cook, it’s only right that she drive us somewhere to brunch, and I pick up the tab. (As if our money is separate.)

The manipulation worked. I knew what I was doing. She knew what I was doing. And don’t think for one second that she doesn’t use the same manipulation tactic on me. Honest, open manipulation is my fave kind of manipulation.

So off we headed to SLC, to yet another restaurant we’ve never tried before: PURGATORY. Yes, on the Sabbath. Suzanne had a breakfast burger without a bun. I had a bacon-egg-french fry-beans-pickled onion-salsa breakfast burrito. We were both pleased with our entrees. We ate on the deck, and when we were done, we sat there for another hour or more– iPhones in hand– searching online for outlandish cowboy boots for me. I have no idea how our conversation led us to the topic of cowboy boots. But, oh, the choices we found!

I asked Suzanne if she had a problem with me wearing cowboy boots with my shorts. She was all for it. I mean– I wore them with my shorts as a kid, and the Bible says we’re supposed to be childlike. And it was, in fact, the Sabbath. So Sunday brunch was a little bit like a Sunday School lesson, I guess. My spirit is joyful that we went to PURGATORY on the Sabbath.

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Goodbye, Dauphin Island, AL. For Now.

I wore white, flip-flop Bow Tie o’ the Day on our flight back from Alabama. And Suzanne wore her new sun bonnet (I love that word), so it wouldn’t count as a carry-on.

Suzanne’s hat is purely practical, for use in the sun. Suzanne does not wear hats, otherwise. It’s not that she doesn’t like hats. It’s more like hats don’t like her. It doesn’t matter what style of hat it is. Suzanne and hats don’t look pleasant when they are combined. Suzanne knows this fact, and wears hats only for health reasons– like avoiding sunburns in the summer and frostbite in the winter. And even if she’s wearing a hat for a good reason, we all know better than to look at her when she’s got one on her head. She doesn’t even look at herself in the mirror if she’s wearing a hat. I kid you not. For your viewing safety, Suzanne and I worked extremely hard at making this photo of her in a hat somewhat look-at-able.

This is my final official Dauphin Island post. But– as I do with my months-ago surgery– I’m sure I’ll occasionally find a reason to bring up the topic again and again. You can count on me to yammer on about our island respite for the next decade or two. I’m like that. As I’m sure you’ve already learned by now.

 

 

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The Tropical Aftermath

Tie o’ the Day is as close as we got to sailing during our ocean trip. Suzanne has this itty-BIGly motion sickness problem. Because of this, she has to wear a Rx patch whenever we fly, and she has to be the driver whenever we travel somewhere in a car– even if we’re going just around the block. It’s just a Suzanne thing, and even though I quite enjoy driving, I automatically ride shotgun when we’re off to the races in a motor vehicle. Boats, ferries, rafts, etc. are not even possibilities in the Suzanne universe.

On our initial drive around Dauphin Island, we were not just getting our bearings, we were surveying the damages left by Tropical Storm Gordon. AND HERE’S WHERE I’M SCREECHING TO A HALT!

Tropical Storm Gordon was just barely not blow-y enough to be a hurricane. If its winds had been blowing 1– count ’em– 1 mph harder, it would have been an official hurricane. If it’s that close, I’m declaring it a hurricane. There. Hurricane Gordon. Doesn’t that make it sound more dramatic? And drama is the point of all things, right?

Think about it: The term “tropical” before the word “storm” makes it sound like the storm is going to be fun and relaxing. It sounds like you might as well be saying, “Hey, remember to bring your tropical beach towel to the tropical beach.” Tropical drinks, tropical vacations, tropical punch. Those are all fun. Storms with winds of 73 mph are not fun, just because you use the word “tropical” in front of the word “storm.”

So we got to the island two days after “Hurricane” Gordon had passed through. The island seemed to have taken the event in stride. “Oh, that little ol’ wind and those little ol’ waves.” The island’s residents are used to these weather events. And, true enough, things looked quite normal. Bow Tie o’ the Day on my visor in the rental car noticed a bit of standing water and piles of sand along the roads by the empty vacation homes.

Sneakers Bow Tie o’ the Day poses with me by a pile o’ sand (not a sand dune) that had been scraped off the road and piled the same way we plow and pile snow here in Utah during the winter. Piles o’ white sand, piles o’ white sand, everywhere.

Sneakers Bow Tie also poses in front of one huge, blue vacation home, which happens to have been built next door to a rickety green shack. This photo doesn’t show the contrast in homes as clearly as I’d like, but I couldn’t go on private property to get a more striking picture. It’s a visual comment on the economic realities of this country. Fortunately, the dilapidated home survived as well as the pricey, new vacation home.

FYI  All the houses on the island are built on “stilts” to protect them and their contents from the routine, temporary flooding caused by routine storms passing through. I refer to the houses as RumpelSTILTskin homes.