100 Days, 100 Ties

Mourning Cloak (Nymphalis antiopa) — “The Mourning Cloak, with its yellowish border and brilliant blue spots, is a majestic sight to behold. In contrast, when resting on the bark of trees, the Mourning Cloak’s dull underside provides an excellent camouflage. When added to the powderized wings of the Mourning Cloak, the blood of the Mourning Cloak can be free-based, producing a trippy high that can enhance the hell out of a sexual experience or a Grateful Dead show, man.”

All but the last sentence of that description can be found in the packaging for my Tie du Jour. The latest Gift du Month was a special gift to me, from my friend Jonathan Liss and his wife Kristen. Kristen, it seems, is a thrift store treasure hunter like myself. She spotted this Buttertie, brought to us by Ralph Marlin & Co, at an area resale shop. They were nice enough to purchase it for me a couple of months ago. As I had already been through my Bow Tie Fortnight, I’m glad that I found the vehicle to show off ties that were gifts to me. The aforementioned Mourning Cloak is the featured butterfly…ain’t she beautiful?

This evening was chock full of events–our quasi-regular Lawyers, Guns & Money (“the shit has hit the fan!”) networking group, held at The Cellar, was preceded by a Wellness event at Saint Francis Hospital, entitled “Let’s Move Our Numbers!” The guests of honor were Jerry & Estella Hayes, who won The Biggest Loser‘s At-Home Challenge a couple of years ago. A bit of an oxymoron, no? The Biggest Loser winner? Jerry lost 177 lbs, while Estella lost 83. I had the chance to meet Jerry, who was quite proud to tell me that he’s gained back only 2 pounds, as he nibbled a carrot.

While there, I was fortunate enough to have two Matts join the ranks of Guys With Ties. Matt Trewartha is the aide to Robyn Gabel, our newly-elected 18th District Representative to the Illinois House of, well, Representatives.

The other Matt is Matthew Moy Johnson, who is the VP of Marketing & Development at the McGaw YMCA here in Evanston.

And, finally, I consider this to be a great gift: I believe I mentioned my friend Chip Crain would be wearing a different holiday tie every day between today, December 1, and Christmas Day (December 25, doy). We have the first one, and it’s a good one. Christmas trees and snowmen, you just can’t get any better than that. When I realized that Chip was emulating my tie-photo style, I asked him to send a shot that showed his face. He claimed that I would lose readership if his face was on here. Chip, you are a fine & distinguished Southern Gentleman, and I am honored to have you, in your Irish national soccer team jersey, on my blog, and I will be so honored for the next few weeks to put your brilliant collection of ties alongside mine.

Thanks for reading…Brooke

This entry was posted on December 2, 2010 at 12:33 am and is filed under Guys With Ties, Tie du Jour. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.