Category: Ties

Bow Tie o’ the Day and Tie o’ the Day remind me that my growing-out-my-hair situation could be worse than it is. I could have no hair at all. Personally, I think these bald skulls look pretty wocka-wocka in Santa hats.

Seriously, I want to shave my head again– after I’ve grown it out this one last time. I’ve shaved it twice in my life. The first time, I did it in the late 80’s. I liked it. But it was in Utah, so it didn’t go over all that well at the time.

I was fine with being a hairless outsider. But soon after I shaved my noggin, Suzanne and I were on the sidewalk in front of ZCMI, and some dude had to be tough and rude about my bald head. I actually felt like we were in danger. And all because of my apparently world-ending bald head. When I’ve ended up in that kind of situation, I’ve always been able to deal with it. But it wasn’t fair that my hairlessness put Suzanne in danger. No matter how much I liked my no-hairs head, I would not do that to her again. I kept my head hatted until my hairs grew out enough to be non-threatening to the status quo.

Flash forward to the early 2000’s, when my Delta hairdo-er, Miss Sandy, did me the honor of shaving my head, as per my request. I figured times had changed a bit in Utah, and the whole state would be ready for my shiny head. I was, in fact, relatively safe and rarely mocked– especially in Delta, where no one dared to hassle Dad’s baby girl.

But clearly, I didn’t keep my head shaved. When I shaved it that second time, Suzanne said NO MORE BALDY. According to her, my head isn’t shaped right to have a bald head. The shape of my head didn’t seem to bother her in 1986. She liked it back then. But I’m not going to argue with Suzanne. She puts up with so much of my comedy malarkey, the least I can do is keep my misshapen head all furred up and hidden from her and from the unsuspecting world.

HOLIDAY TIE TALLY: 60 Bow ties. 125 Neckties.

This is the last “in case” picture I snapped a few days ago when I was still capable of using my right arm. I must resort to other, one-armed measures for taking pix from this day forth. Of course, there is a possibility I’ll wake up in the morning with a somewhat usable right arm. Let’s hope. I think my roto cuff is feeling a touch better, just in time for my next physical therapy appointment. The PT will then make it scream again.

Anyhoo… Bow Tie o’ the Day is covered in red, abstract tree foliage, while one Tie o’ the Day is full of shiny green and red Christmas trees, set on a background of midnight black. Grand.

And the wordy Tie o’ the Day? I was hanging with a bunch o’ this Tie o’ the Day’s HO’s who were trying to turn their lives around. Get it? Cuz the word HO is turned around backwards in the mirror. That was a good example of a groaner joke/pun. But just because a joke/pun might be a mere groaner, that doesn’t mean it’s not funny. Groan on!

The middle Tie o’ the Day brings up a very serious topic for me. I’ve been meaning to address this subject ever since I began posting selfies. It’s about time I finally come clean. The subject is my eyebrows. Check out Santa’s unruly eyebrows on Tie. You may have noticed in other posts that my eyebrows have a bigly presence in my selfies– though not in this one. They aren’t like Andy Rooney’s eyebrows. His were in need of being raked daily, and they stuck out far enough from his brow that they served as an umbrella for his grandchildren when it rained.

Nope. My eyebrows aren’t quite that prominent. But they are a defining feature on my face. I do take the time to eliminate the unibrow look, although I think the unibrow look is very becoming to the artist, Frida Kahlo. But other than making sure I have two eyebrows instead of one, I keep my eyebrows un-mowed, dye-free, organic, gluten-free, non-GMO, and free-range.

The reason I let my eyebrows be what they are is simple. The will inevitably disappear like my Mom’s have done. Oh, she’s still got the hairs there, but they turned translucent a couple of decades ago. In fact, Mom has twice had eyebrows tattooed on. The tats didn’t take for very long. Her eyebrows are back to being see-through.

I think it’s pretty safe to say that whatever happened to drain Mom’s eyebrows of color will eventually happen to mine, so I’m keeping every last eyebrow hair for as long as I can.  I appreciate each one every day I wake up and see they’re still visible. And even though I have a bunch of tats on my body, most of which I can show people without being arrested for public indecency, I refuse to tat up my eyebrows. It just seems oogy to me for some reason.

I’m hoping you too can take as much joy as I do in seeing my somewhat-unruly eyebrows daily, until they go invisible. It’s not like you have a choice. Except if you quit visiting TIE O’ THE DAY. Don’t do that, okay?

HOLIDAY TIE TALLY: 59 Bow ties. 124 Neckties.

Two Bow Ties o’ the Day and Six Ties o’ the Day provide almost enough emphasis to accurately put across my wish to spend Christmas at a beach with a wavy, warm ocean in front of it. My butt’s cold.

But this morning, the closest I can get to my beachy holiday is to spread out a beach towel on my sheet before I sleep in, whereupon I will dream of palm trees and sailboats and swimming. And my dreams will be covered in a blanket of white sand as bigly as the blue-eyed ocean I can imagine.

HOLIDAY TIE TALLY: 58 Bow ties. 121 Neckties.

Tie o’ the Day reminds us of the proverbial “reason for the season” of Christmas. Tie’s scripture is from Psalms 16:11. Tie is joined by a nativity scene Christmas tree ornament created by my Grandma, Zola Wright. (She was Momo to her grandkids.) I do believe her craft imagination exceeded even Suzanne’s. Who woulda thunk to make this ornament? Momo.

This little nativity scene is set in milkweed pods. I remember this decoration from as far back as I can remember anything, so it’s probably at least fifty years old. It is now in extremely fragile condition, so I am overly protective of it. I bring it out for a short time each Christmas season, and I gingerly put it away in its private box until the next year. The box is made of wood– strong enough to protect this precious item from being crushed, or otherwise harmed.

Although this nativity scene was made to be a Christmas tree ornament, I don’t hang it on the tree. I’m afraid it might accidentally fall to the floor and shatter. I’m equally afraid the character figures might simply give up the glue ghost and fall out. I lay it on its back. Momo made this before the advent of crafty glue guns, and the Elmer’s glue which she used is not holding all the figures to the pods anymore. I’m quite amazed that the gold rick-rack still adheres as a frame for the nativity. (I don’t have plans to re-glue things. I’m keepin’ it real.)

The ornament is kitschy, I know. But it reminds me so much of how Momo enjoyed her projects. She was perpetually in the midst of creating art pieces out of tidbits and scraps. I miss how excited she was to display the treasures she built. The shelves in her house were filled with her wonders to behold, especially to kids. Momo was an elegant, humble woman, but she was a proud show-off when it came to her crafts.

Bow Tie o’ a Few Days Ago sports Santa and a snowperson. Ties o’ a Few Days Ago give us a snowboarding polar bear, a snowboarding Santa, and Santa and his wifey bringing home their Christmas tree. Why the penguins are on top of the Claus’s car, I have no idea. I especially have no idea why they are seat-belted to the Christmas tree. But hey, it’s a jolly scene.

I snapped this photo earlier in the week, when I was still able to put my ties around my neck and tie them. Glad I did that. I pride myself on my post photos being taken on the day I post them. I like you to see what I’m actually wearing on that day– or what I wore the evening before on some outing. It helps make my posts “true” or maybe “authentic” is a better word. I also don’t write my posts ahead of time, even if the pic is from something I did the night before.

But sometimes I do take a couple of “extra” photos to have “in case” I want to do a post and I’m– for some reason– unable to use my phone camera, or will be somewhere I don’t have access to different ties to put on. A pre-taken pic in my media library comes in handy. Like today, when I can’t lift my arm to perform tie things. Stoopid, stoopid roto cuff. I want it roto-rootered.

I know it’s not even Christmas yet, but I’ve already made my New Year’s resolutions. Really it’s just one resolution: For 2019, I resolve to have no more health issues. I’m going to grit my teeth, and I’m going to will myself to keep aging pains from happening– as well as any other type of injury or ailment. It is my sole goal. I know I’m pretending I have control over my falling-apart body, but I pretend a lot of things. Delusions? Rationalizations? Tilting at windmills? All of the above.

Personally, I think the very act of making resolutions is where the real power is. Whether we accomplish our goals or not, making them means we are examining ourselves. It means we’ve looked at ourselves and we’ve identified ways in which we want to be better. Looked at from that perspective, resolutions are like bullet points on a list. They are the highlights of what we think we most need to improve about our souls and our little corner of the world. Being self-aware is the kind of thing that improves us a bit, without us even consciously doing anything else. You’re a better person, just by knowing yourself better. But don’t stop there. Accomplish your change.

I am not a whiner, but this year has been a painful body fail for me. I’ve had enough. If I can achieve my New Year’s resolution, I will be relieved to not have to feel my body’s decrepitness. And more importantly, you will feel extremely relieved to not have to read about it.

HOLIDAY TIE TALLY: 56 Bow ties. 114 Neckties.

Our Tie o’ the Day is a prime example of what can happen when you buy a tie online. I thought I was ordering a silly tie with a bunch of waving Santa’s and a single mooning Santa with a “Kiss my ass” attitude. Groovy, right? Lo and behold! What I got was one mooner and a herd of Santa’s flipping off the world. Sorry.

Except I’m not actually sorry. I’m amused. I feel like I got a bonus chuckle, beyond just the mooner I thought I was getting. C’mon. It’s not like it’s sacriSantareligious to see Santa lose it all across a Tie o’ the Day. And you know in your heart Santa has surely got to get a little fed up with all the “I want, I want, I want” this time of year.

Oh, Santa’s a professional all right, but all those full-diapered, runny-nosed, germy kids sitting on his lap– well, that has got to take a toll on even Santa’s nerves. So go ahead, let him flip off a soul or two. Let him moon the passers-by. He’ll get over his lapse of decorum in time for the next scheduled line of kids to sit on his lap and cry in fear of the bigly, bearded, red dude. And he’ll most certainly be set to perform his Santa-ly duties professionally on Christmas Eve. For now, I’m wearing this somewhat irreverent tie when I walk Skitter through the neighborhood.

HOLIDAY TIE TALLY: 55 Bow ties. 109 Neckties.

What a day! You know it’s true that I like to have escapades, but today’s goings-on didn’t make me all that joyous– despite my festive Bow Ties o’ the Day and Ties o’ the Day.

The “swear” word I heard my dad use when something broke, or otherwise went wrong, was BALLS. And then he would apologize to me for saying it. He was not a regular profanity guy, but I do know he swore a bit. I once observed Mom help him walk around in their house after his heart surgery, to get his strength up. He was in bigly pain. His pain was such that he said BALLS every other step, and promptly apologized to Mom each time for doing it. With each other step, he would say real swear words. Again, he would immediately apologize to Mom after saying each one. It was as if all the swear words had a last name and it was SORRY. Mom didn’t fuss about it. In fact, a couple of years after that, she had a similar heart surgery, and the tables turned. When Dad helped Mom walk, she did not say BALLS in response to her pain with each footstep. But she did utter a few of the more minor swear words– SHIT being her go-to.

When I went to my shoulder specialist a couple of days ago, he prescribed me physical therapy for my stoopid rotator cuff. Off I went to my initial PT appointment at 7 damn AM today. I knew therapy would amp up the pain that’s already killing me. And I already know PT will not work. Been there, done that years ago. But I have to jump though this PT hoop in order to convince my insurance I need the expensive scope procedure I already know I need. I will do what AETNA tells me to do. I’m blessed to be able to afford health insurance, so if I have to jump through a hoop or two, I will say the proverbial, “How high?”

My shoulder felt mostly not-worse as I left the physical therapist’s office, but when I turned the key in the car ignition… a new OUCH! But it got much worse. I could barely put the car in drive. Another new OUCH, followed by a swear word or two. I am not a swearer, but the bad words just flowed. I haven’t been able to drive my Hombre for weeks already, cuz it’s a stick. What the flip will I do if I can’t drive Vonnegut Grace Vibe?

I managed to drive home safely. Sorta. I was driving along minding my own beeswax a block from home, singing my lungs out to BAND OF HORSES… And then the red and blue lights lit up. Long story short, I got a speeding ticket. I have never gotten a speeding ticket in my entire existence, and that includes the Pre-existence! It was one of those speeding tickets that was on the ticket/warning fence. 32 mph in a 25. I hoped for a warning. I’m not angry about getting the ticket, cuz I did the crime. And I love me my police officers. However, I am ticked off at myself for paying more attention to my howling singing and my yowling rotator cuff than to Vonnegut Grace’s speedometer. Mostly, I am disappointed that the cameras from LivePD weren’t with my cops. Being on LivePD is one of my life’s dreams. (BTW It took two cops to deal with my dangerous law-breaking.)

I began cogitating about the powers of neckwear after I got home. When I got pulled over, I was wearing the silvery Christmas balls Tie o’ the Day you see in the photo. If I had been wearing a bow tie– holiday bow tie or not– I have no doubt it would have nudged the cop to be satisfied with giving me only a warning, instead of a speeding citation. Bow ties are like that. They make onlookers melt. They soften the heart. Bow ties catch people by surprise. I will no longer wear any neckwear but a bow tie when I drive. And it also might help if I don’t speed.

HOLIDAY TIE TALLY: 55 Bow ties. 108 Neckties.