Category: Ties

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Matching Hurts Me A Little

It is no secret to y’all that I have a bit of a problem with matchy fashion: colors, styles, themes, textures, and so on. Wearing a hodgepodge of attire I like is more in line with my true self than matching is. I am an eclectic gal in all things, from music to food to books. I felt like wearing flip flops this afternoon. I felt like wearing cowboy boots this afternoon. Flip Flop Tie o’ the Day made it possible for me to wear both. Being not-matchy gives me the best of many worlds, all at once.

As you know, I have never owned a purse until I saw The Saddle Purse in the SLC Airport in March. It spoke to my soul, so I nabbed it. The Saddle Purse reminded me I’ve been on the hunt for cowboy boots for the last few years. If you’ve been reading this post regularly, you know I found “the” cowboy boots o’ my dreams while we were in Arkansas recently. Was I happy to finally find the boots? Not exactly. Why? They “match” my Saddle Purse.

When Suzanne took me into the boot store she ran onto in Mountain View, AR, my eyeballs less than five minutes to become glued to what were to become my cowboy boots. I tried to look away. I tried to find fault with them. I tried to focus on other boots. These boots would definitely “go with” The Saddle Purse, in a very matchy way. Oh, no! I did not want my boots to match The Saddle Purse. But it did no good to try to want a different pair. I was smitten with these.

The same boots came in a smoky rose color too. And I tried to make myself love that color more. They were purty. They wouldn’t have been anywhere near as “matchy” with my Purse. The smoky rose boots would have been so much more my clashy self. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t love the smoky rose-colored cowboy boots. They were the same, but they were not the same. Alas! I went with the boot color I loved deepest. I learned something about myself: in some things, love is more important to me than clash fashion. Don’t ever quote me on that though.

BTW For every post photo in which my white legs show, let me apologize right now. Before I got ancient, I tanned easily. That doesn’t happen to my legs anymore. No amount of sun alters their profound whiteness. It’s just their color. I suggest you keep sunglasses handy for when my leg whiteness appears in TIE O’ THE DAY posts. I do not want you to go snowblind, er, leg-blind.

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Sing Along: Saturday Is A Special Day! It’s The Day We Get Ready For Va-cay!

Skitter and I switched our “same” Ties o’ the Day, and we still like the look.

I’m usually full of clash fashion ideas, but I’m stumped today. What does one wear to Arkansas? And, more importantly, what does one wear for a week in Arkansas? We head there tomorrow, and I’m not sure what to expect. Of course, I usually wear whatever the heck I want anyway, no matter where I go– so I probably don’t need to stress too much about it. But an actual, paid model once told me I am “a fashion genius,” so I do fret about maintaining my bigly loud style. Otherwise, people are disappointed. And you know how my entire life’s goal is to please other people by living up to their expectations of what they think I should be. NOT!

As far as what neckwear to choose for our trip, I have found neckties tend to get in the way of vacay exploring and adventuring, so a stash of bow ties is usually the best choice for daily vacation attire. I pack the pieces carefully because they crush easily. Ain’t nobody wanna be seein’ no crushed bow ties!

I put each bow tie in its own tiny box. Hauling them in a carry-on requires expert packing skills because the boxes simply take up extra room. Think of it: We’ll be gone 6 days, so at 2 posts/photos per day (which is my goal), I must pack a minimum of 12 bow ties. And let’s not forget that I have to take along a few “stunt” bow ties on the trip, for posing in extreme vacay scenarios for TIE O’ THE DAY posts.

By the time I pack the necessities (i. e., neckwear), I hardly have room for my old timey, stripey swimming suit, socks, and bras. If we were staying in an Ozarks nudist camp for the week, I wouldn’t have to make tough packing decisions about what goes in the carry-on. And yes, if we were staying in an Ozarks nudist camp, you can bet I’d still be wearing a bow tie. I can’t even conceive of a nude-neck camp. That is the kind of sketchy place where you would never catch me walking around.

I’m sad to say that, so far, I am not planning to take The Saddle Purse with me to Arkansas. Suzanne and I try our best to fly completely “carry-on.” Aside from my carry-on suitcase, I can take one personal item on the plane, and I need it to be my computer bag. Alas, while packing for this first trip since buying my purse, I have finally discovered one thing “wrong” with The Saddle Purse: It’s not bigly enough to carry my laptop. I am devastated to not be able to take my purse with us. At least Skitter and The Saddle Purse will have each other to entertain and to comfort while we are away.

And they’ll have Marjorie, Suzanne’s sister, who will once again be Skitter’s chaperone at our house for the week. We all know what that means: The cops will be here regularly to give citations for noise disturbance complaints from the neighbors. Let the all-night parties begin!

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Neckwear Never Takes A Holiday

Skitter tolerates the neckwear stick props, but she does not like them. When she sees me pick one up, she stiffens. She probably thinks it’s my flyswatter. And where there’s a flyswatter, there is the potential for sudden noise. And where there is noise, there is the potential for all kinds of things that might not end well for Skitter. That’s what her pre-rescue life taught her about noise. She knows she’s safe with us, but it’s difficult for her to forget bigly bad stuff when you’ve had Skitter’s early life. Needless to say, I use stick props sparingly, and now that we don’t have a residence in Delta, I rarely have to use the flyswatter.

What I have no control over, however, is The Lightin’ O’ The Fireworks on the 4th of July, by organizations and municipalities, as well as by the rank-and-file U.S. citizenry. Skitter’s expression in her photo here sorta reflects what she told me as I held her stick prop Tie o’ the Day to her chest: “I’m proud to be ‘Merican, but I don’t like the fireworks.” And then she asked me to help her settle her nerves by shaking her a martini or six. She prefers an olive with hers, not a cocktail onion.

I decided I wanted to show y’all an icon three-fer in my July 4th selfie. I believe that, along with the obvious Bow Tie o’ the Day, nothing says ‘Merica like a bejeweled vinyl mustache and a Bat Sign. Freedom, my pals, isn’t just some stuffy ideal. It isn’t just about the freedom to do serious things. We have the freedom to have mindless fun. We can still love our country even as we laugh so hard we and our friends snort our Diet Coke through our noses. Been there, done that.

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This Post Has No Title

Honestly, sometimes I’m idea-less. For example, I can’t think of anything to write about right now. But I always like to show off the neckwear, even if my head is empty of stories or wit or what I call my sermons o’ wisdom. So here’s Tie o’ the Day, with its red, white, and blue peace signs. It can serve as a reminder of the possibilities for peace– especially for those of us who live in our U.S. of A.

Because we are free, we are free to take it upon ourselves to solve problems. We are free to try to bring peace and calm to chaos, wherever we find ourselves– in our homes or outside of them. When I say “free”, I mean we can choose to take on the challenges. We are free to do more than grumble and gripe about discord that exists in our homes, neighborhoods, states, country, and world. Griping can be a fine pastime, but it doesn’t accomplish anything. It doesn’t change what isn’t working. Start with changing your imperfect self. Transform yourself in ways you know you want to be better. Transform yourself in ways you know you NEED to be better, as well. You’ll grow increasingly at peace with who you are. Becoming more at peace with your transforming self brings a little more peace to the bigly picture that includes us all.

Did you see that? I just started describing my tie– and suddenly, a topic fell out of my head.

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Ya Gotta Be There

Tie o’ the Day flashes the country’s flag and the outline of the contiguous states of the United States o’ America. For the last few years I had the Delta house, we got ourselves all set up to watch the parade in our very own driveway gravel at the side of the road. The minute folks began to stake out their spots with their lawn chairs up on Main Street, I dragged ours out by the road in front of my house– as a gesture of solidarity with the rest of the town, while also gently razzing the tradition of staking off every inch of public parking on the mile-long Delta streets for the few days leading up to the 4th. Nevermind that the road in front of my house and Mom’s house is not, nor has it ever been, on the parade route. It was just fun to sit by the road with Mom and whoever else each day, drinking our sodas, and watching people try to figure out what the heck we were doing as they drove by.

The 4th of July in Delta is basically Christmas in shorts. It’s a bigly deal everywhere in the country, but nothing like in Delta. I have seen a lot of 4th’s in a lot of other places, and I am telling you Delta is the July 4th-iest place to be. It’s not that it has events and things to do which you can’t find at other 4th’s. It offers about the same stuff to do as any other Independence Day celebration I’ve attended, but it offers a key difference: The Spirit o’ the 4th of July. Everybody’s into it. It just plain matters.

There are really only two annual holidays in Delta: Christmas and the 4th of July. If you’ve moved away from Delta, you might come home for Christmas. But you WILL come home for the 4th of July. It’s what you do. I have never met people who feel such an intense desire to go back to their hometowns for the town’s July 4th celebration. Natives and Delta-natives-who-live-elsewhere plan their summer trips around Delta’s 4th of July. I kid you not. If you’re a Delta Rabbit, when you put away the Christmas ornaments each year, you start dragging out the 4th of July decor.

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Is It “Bow Tie” or “Bowtie?”

I am loved. My cheek is loved. The residents of The Tie Room and I sincerely hope your cheeks are loved too.

‘Tis the season for stars and stripes. Bigly jumbo butterfly-style Bow Tie o’ the Day shows off its patriotic print. It’s paired with my new black t-shirt, which I must say is traveling the bow tie road o’ life. I have no feelings either way about car brands, but Chevrolet’s got the bow tie emblem, so you know I must don Chevy-wear from time to time.

As you can see, the folks at Chevrolet’s advertising firm spell “bowtie” as one word. I do not. In terms of proper spelling/grammar, “bowtie” and “bow tie” are equally acceptable. For whatever reason, I have always gone with the two-word form of the term. [Regarding the term “necktie, my research shows that it is more acceptable to spell it as one word.]

In the scheme of things, probably nobody except me cares about the bow tie/bowtie question. In fact, I know I care about a lot of things which mean absolutely nothing to most other people. We’re all like that, but about varied things. I’ve got my interests. You’ve got yours. The interests that save me on a boring or bad day might not be the interests that save you. And vice versa. My neckwear fan club is smaller than your Utah Jazz fan club. But when it comes to what makes us excited about our days, the size of the club doesn’t matter. It’s the passion for the thing itself which moves our souls.

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My Eyes Are Getting Sleepy, Sleepy, Sleepy

That kind of day when one of your email accounts locks you out and you’re not sure if you’ve been hacked or if you just hit the wrong button the last time you used it and you’ve run out of options for troubleshooting the problem so you decide to grit your teeth and call CenturyLink to unlock your account and let you make a new password so you can use your CenturyLink email again and after a while the techie on the phone tells you it works now and so you end the call and go to check your account and you’re still locked out so you call CenturyLink a second time and go through the whole Concocting o’ the New Password and the Unlocking o’ the Old Account with a second person and finally your account really works this time but you realize that you have spent almost three hours of your morning on the phone with CenturyLink just to get you back to normal in your email situation and then you realize that being patient with techies on the phone for almost three hours not only blew your entire morning’s work and errands it exhausted your bipolar noggin and now all you want to do is tie on a wienerdog-wearing-a-bow-tie Tie o’ the Day and take a nap in the recliner while curled up in the tv blanket Suzanne made you and then you’ll contemplate how it is that being polite and patient with your email account problems and the phone techies who helped solve them can make you so very very sleepy.

Yeah, that kind of day.

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A Place I Never Thought I’d Visit

Bow Tie o’ the Day is helping me make bigly plans. We’ve been flipping through actual, paper pages of two guidebooks about the state of Arkansas. I know! Who’da thunk it? I’ll be on the loose with a suitcase of bow ties in Arkansas. It’s gonna happen in a couple of weeks.

I have nothing against Arkansas. I just never imagined I’d be visiting it. Arkansas, as a destination, is Suzanne’s fault. She took the opportunity to arrange our July vacation completely on her own. She followed our main “rules” for choosing a vacay spot. First, it must be a place tourists don’t flock to, cuz we want to look at the place and its people, not other tourists. Second, the vacation spot needs to have a beach. We’ve done ocean beaches, but this time we’re beaching at a lake in the Ozarks.

When I order guidebooks for our various vacations, I don’t order the ones with fancy maps and facts, facts, facts, dry facts. I order the guidebooks that tell you about the weird, infamous, haunted, tall tale places you might want to visit. For example, I read in one of my Arkansas guidebooks about the chicken in this photo. Its owner named it Boo Boo because it was afraid of everything. And it regularly had seizures. (I’m envisioning Boo Boo, the chicken, as kind of like the fainting goats who get startled, freeze in mid-motion, then fall over. Boo Boo, The Fainting Chicken!))

Apparently, one day Boo Boo had a seizure and she fell beak-first into a pond. Boo Boo’s owner saw her floating there and tried to save her, but she was dead. Well, Boo Boo’s owner’s sister, who was a retired nurse, happened to show up. The sister performed mouth-to-beak resuscitation. Dead Boo Boo came back to life. Somehow, Jay Leno heard about Boo Boo’s life-and-death adventure, so Boo Boo and its owner were guests on The Tonight Show.

Back in Arkansas, a few weeks after Boo Boo’s Hollywood appearance, she had a bigly seizure and really did die. One of Boo Boo’s people erected a memorial shrine to the famous, dearly departed bird. Personally, I think the retired nurse who gave the chicken mouth-to-beak resuscitation deserves a shrine too. But if we find Boo Boo’s final resting spot, it will be enough to keep me jolly.

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Trespassing On City Water

Tie o’ the Day was given to me by my bro–in-law, Nuk. I think of it as a summer tie, or more specifically, a tie for the water. Tie’s wearer can blow it up on one end, which makes it a safety tie one can wear with a life jacket. Air-filled Tie can also be Skitter’s floatie, as is seen here.

I mentioned Delta’s old outdoor swimming pool in one of yesterday’s posts, and the topic got some of you reminiscing about “old pool love” right along with me.

The long-demolished Delta pool was set on the corner of the property where The Sands is currently located. Its structure was basic: a swimming pool, with a single diving board; an office and dressing rooms. In the office, you could buy chips, sodas, candy, and Popsicles from Arjanna Wood, who ran the joint. I guess you could say Arjanna’s office was Delta’s first convenience store.

The pool was surrounded by tall cinder block walls. I’m just guessing the walls were somewhere in the ballpark of 10-feet tall. I never took time out of the fun I was having to measure the pool wall height.

I remember waiting anxiously every year for the city to get the word the Utah Health Department had once again declared the pool sanitary and safe enough to be opened for at least one more summer. The state’s annual stamp o’ approval quit happening in the mid-70’s. To be honest, the Health Department probably should have closed down the open-air pool we dearly loved long before it did. But I’m glad they didn’t. The slippery, cracked place was a blast. It was a palace to those of us who made it a second home for the summer.

The city’s “cement pond” was also a blast after dark when it wasn’t officially open. Think about it: Outdoor pools can’t really close. It wasn’t difficult to sneak in after dark. Ropes, ladders, milk crates, even backhoes were just a few implements we used to get ourselves inside for a midnight swim. You simply had to make sure you pulled your break-in tools over the wall with you, eliminating your outside-the-wall trail.

I know one doofus and his group of friends who threw a ladder against the outside wall and didn’t pull it in after everyone snuck inside. The cop out on patrol saw that clue right away. Doh! Heck, I watched a herd of at least a dozen kids ride their bikes to the pool around 2 in the morning, and then were dough-headed enough to leave their bikes piled up outside one of the pool walls. Cop noticed the mound o’ bikes. Hey, people, if you’re going to commit a prank, don’t tell on yourselves by leaving bigly clues. Just a thought.

The real trick to not getting caught trespassing in the Delta pool at night was to not emit too much noise. It was best if you didn’t yell or cackle or do a cannonball. Delta is not a loud village. It especially wasn’t loud in the 70’s, and the city cops made their rounds through the town faithfully. If a cop caught you trespassing in the pool, you weren’t in too much trouble if you hadn’t been drinking or smoking or damaging the property. The cop would usually drive you right to your house (like free Uber) and chat with you and your parents. That was as far as your legal concerns went. For better or worse, your fate was up to your parents. 😱 Fortunately for me, Dad had harmlessly trespassed into many an outdoor pool in his youth too. He understood the exuberance of kidhood.