First day of school! First day of school! Nothing surpasses the excitement of the first day of school, except of course the last day of school, birthdays, holidays, approximately 104 Saturdays and Sundays and perhaps that teacher’s in-service day in the spring where you get surprisingly good weather and go do something outside after being stuck inside for 4 or 5 g’dawful months.
Julia started 4th grade today, with much fanfare. Sunday she went with Diane to Justice, a clothing store on which I have laid nary an eye, to fire up the all-important Day1 outfit. Any mild anxiety she had over the weekend was partly washed away by getting gussied up in something new.
I figured my morning would be the complete opposite, my thinking being that choosing the first post-Tie Week Month tie would be simple. I’d be unfettered by purple-ness, ugliness or any other ness-ness. But, of course, it took me tens of seconds to choose.
Temp in the 80s, 'Tude in the 70s
And, choose I did. The Tie du Jour is a vintage paisley from Don Giovanni. It’s not extremely well-made, as the fabric was on the thin side. But, something about the pattern screamed out “Hey, I’m from the 70s!” This strip was from my Dad’s collection; it survived the Saucier Boys High School Years, as well as the Retirement Purge. So, as far as survival of the fittest goes, well-made apparently matters nil.
Since I passed the 100-tie threshold a couple of weeks ago, a few people have asked me if I would be finishing the blog soon. I am not done with my ties, so the answer is no, since I was assuming I had about 30 or 35 left. Today I actually counted the remaining ties…well, I counted most of them. I got up to 62, and then guessed that I had about 15 or 20 on a smaller tie rack. Sigh. 80 ties? I think I need to come up with a stunt or two to wear multiple ties in one day or something. This will end up being 200 Days, 200 Ties.
I had formulated plans to re-wear some of my ties that I’ve already worn. Some of them, after all, are nice ties, and deserve to be sported again, so I figured it would be okay to have one day a week for Reprise Day or something. But, man, that would put me WELL over 200…We’ll see. Part of me says that would be against the spirit of the blog; the other half says it’s my freakin’ blog. Even though I have been late, um, lately, I still am having a great time writing it and finding people out there who are interested in ties.
I just remembered why I named this post “Ties and Dolls”…a couple weeks ago, my buddy (and GWT alum) Paul Hletko sent me a picture of a Build-a-Bear outfit with a tie. I can only assume (and hope beyond recognition) that Paul had at least one of his children in the store with him. And, wow, I just noticed that the bear’s tie matches its skirt. Not an accessory that you’ll see me sporting on 100 Days, 100 Ties.
Away we go. Thanks for reading…Brooke
100 Days, 100 Ties 
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