100 Days, 100 Ties

…B-O-W-T-I-E.

While dressing, I noticed that one of my bow ties had fallen on the floor of my closet. Normally, I would have left it there, for days or perhaps weeks. But, since I’m sooooo responsible, I picked it up and put it on. There’s some major thought process that goes into choosing a Tie du Jour.

But, apparently, throughout the day, that thought process left me; as I sat and stared at the white laptop screen, it remained a white laptop screen. Yes, I was watching the professional hockey match (here we go, Blackhawks, here we go! Chicago up 2 games to zip over the “do you know the way to” San Jose Sharks), and yes I was making full stretch use of my new wireless capabilities, but…I drew a blank; I shot blanks; I stared and stared at a blaaaaank paaaage. Couldn’t even think of the title.

But, after falling asleep numerous times, while thinking, “I’ve got to finish!” I gave up and brought the laptop back into its homebase. Magically, the “can’t spell” piece of my brain kicked in, and I came up with that one. Ahhhh, I knew that I’d wake up and be good again.

Row, row, bow your boat

So, the Tie du Jour from yesterday (Tie d’Hier, for you fellow francophiles) is/was a good one. No label, strangely enough, but I’ve had this bow tie for years. I like the yellow touches that seem to go well with the blue and white flowers and the gray background.

The BTdJ definitely made the rounds yesterday…lunch at the new Bombay Indian Grill on Sherman, a new-meeting center-warming reception at the Hilton Garden Inn, my daughter Julia’s Team Evanston soccer game (they won 5-1, huzzah!), and then PizzaFest at Carmen’s Pizza on Church, hosted by the Rotary Club of Evanston. The good thing about wearing a bow tie is that it’s pretty hard to drip hot pizza sauce on it. Or soup. Or wine.

Steve Hagerty and...

...Joe Romano

Yesterday there were a bunch of gents chalked up on the Guys With Ties board. We had Steve Hagerty, of Hagerty Consulting, and Joe Romano, of Romano Brothers, snapped in the lobby of our building, One Rotary Center. They were heading downtown to hear Gen. Petraeus speak (here’s a great GQ article on him–Petraeus, that is, not Hagerty or Romano).

Then, at the Hilton fiesta, Pat Kelly of John J. Cahill Plumbing was sporting a nice plaid strip. Pat is a new member of the Chamber’s Board, and will be properly hazed…I mean, installed…at our upcoming Annual Meeting & Awards Dinner on June 2. It’s the 90th Annual, you know…

And, finally, John Osterlund, of Rotary International, also wore a tie to our daughters’ soccer game (his Abby scored a hat trick IN THE FIRST HALF), thus ensuring that we’d win any Better Dressed Parents awards, if there were such a thing.

So, I smite thee, writer’s block. May ye never rear your ugly face again.

Thanks for reading…Brooke

“I have been chosen! Farewell, my friends. I go on to a better place.”  –Alien, Toy Story

Today I maybe got closer to heaven, if in fact there is one, and if in fact it is a nice place for nice people. I chaperoned the Lincoln School 3rd grade field trip to the Field Museum in downtown Chicago (hey, some people don’t know). My daughter Julia and about 39 other kids made the jaunt in a yellow school bus, accompanied by their teachers, Ms. Carlson and Ms. Ceffalio, and about 8 or 9 other chaperones. We were not alone.

Of course I could have–should have, really–gone into the day sans tie, but my mind projected itself upon the days (weeks, months) ahead, and I tried to figure out which tie I could wear with a bunch of 9-yr olds hanging around. Since those 9-yr olds and their randomly-functioning brains are much like aliens, I thought of this tie almost straight away.

The Claw is our Master!

Oooooooohh!

Yes, your brain is on target; you have correctly noted that this Tie du Jour portrays dozens of the annoyingly cute aliens from the Toy Story movie from (wow!) about 15 years ago. I surmised that being on a bus with 40 kids would be like interacting with a gaggle of mindless, otherworldly creatures. Not a stretch.

Anyway, I have had this tie for several years, and I’m glad I was able to put it into the rotation on a day where I wasn’t expected to dress like, well, a chaperone for a school field trip. I will admit that I also need to wear a Woody–a Woody tie, perv!– before this is all over. Not sure it’ll happen for another field trip for a while, as I probably earned some major parenting karma points (PKP) today.

A fine tie on a fine individual

Over the weekend I ran into–or biked into, rather–David Jones, who is NOT the former Monkee. David is an Epicopalian (or Anglican for the Papists out there) minister who works with Connections for the Homeless, an organization which does yeoman’s work striving to transition homeless individuals and families into job and housing situations. He was wearing this SWEET bow tie, on his way to a wedding, and I stopped on my bike to take a pic of him. It’s hard to tell on this silly iPhone pic, but those little red dots are strawberries. No, silly, not real strawberries, just, well, you know.

Ok, well the eyes are drooping, so I must call it a night. Thanks for reading!

Brooke

After 43 ties of normal length, we finally arrive at a bow tie.

Let’s get right to the (Bow) Tie du Jour. Here’s a look…ain’t it a beauty?

Little Bow Peep

It’s from Beau Ties Ltd. of Vermont, and I think I mentioned that I found this (and another Beau Ties bow tie) at the Hadassah Resale Shop in Skokie. Paid all of $1.50. A steal, especially when you see that their regular prices are about $40/bow. The website is worth a look, and they do something really cool. If you have a regular tie you like, for $35 they’ll turn it into a bow tie. Plus you can submit your own fabric and they’ll bow tie it up. Don’t Tread On Me, Vermont!

I don’t know why it took so long to break one of these out. I now have 9, I think, with another one on the way, so I have a lot of them to get through. The fact that these are more spring- and summer-friendly, at least in my mind, kept me from it. The first week of June will be Bow Tie Week, but I’ll try to sport another before then.

If you have any awesome (and I say ‘awesome’ in the most lovingly sarcastic way) pictures of yourself or a friend or a date from prom that demonstrates a really cheesy (probably pre-tied) bow tie, please email it to me at bsauce6@gmail.com. I’ll post them during Bow Tie Week, under Schmoes With Bows or something. I think I have a couple of meself, and there may be a peach bow tie/cummerbund, especially for our readers (thanks, Eryin, for making me match your peach dress…ah, the 80s).

Ran across some guys today…Guys With Ties, to be precise.

Dan the Man

Dan Mennemeyer, Treasurer of the Chamber, seemed perfectly pleased in this picture pose. He’s also in charge of our annual Golf Outing, which will be co-hosted with the Wilmette CofC on July 26 at the Wilmette Golf Club, which is in Glenview (it officially says Wilmette, but it’s across from Glenview’s finest watering hole, Meier’s Tavern). Just to be clear, Evanston Golf Club is in Skokie and Skokie Playfields GC is in Winnetka. Glencoe Golf Club and Winnetka Golf Club are in, boringly enough, Glencoe and Winnetka, respectively. Sorry about all the links. Ha, get it? Links?!

EMH 1389

GWT, Version Next, is Michael Hoadley. He and I went to college together and were fraternity brothers. Still are, I guess. Haven’t seen Mike in a few years, until today, when I broke him out of prison. Actually, as you can see from the tie and the decorative, um, decor behind him, we were actually at a Starbucks in Evanston. Obviously, the tie has nothing to do with Starbucks, or any other national chain of coffee shops. Or local ones, for that matter. We just had some business to discuss. So there. And, no, he wasn’t in prison.

Thanks for sharing the excitement surrounding my finally dusting off a bow tie. And thanks for reading. And thanks for saying, “You’re welcome.” It’s polite.

Brooke

Goodbye to IBTW (Impromptu Blue Tie Week)…you’ll get your chance, blue ties. There are a lot of you. Bow Tie week will happen soon (but not next week, as my mom asked me to postpone it until they return from Spain, where roaming charges would make it uneconomical to follow ‘100 Days, 100 Ties’–hey, it’s good to have fans), and there will likely be a Purple Tie Week (happy, CE?), and there will definitely be something along the lines of Ugly Tie Week. I have some ties that I can only wear under the guise of a gimmick such as UTW.

Busy day today…Julia ready, volunteer book club leader, meeting, Armenian Tea (@ArgoTeaEvanston), networking event, phone call, phone call, meeting, phone call, phone call, send invoice, phone call. That took me to about 5pm, and did you notice there was no lunch in there? Yeah…luckily my next item on the docket was happy hour pub grub with Paul, Freebie Friday winner numero uno. So, maybe not so busy, actually…just a full calendar.

Give me liberty (again)!

Our Tie du Jour is from Liberty of London, and, like the Liberty of London tie that was the Tie d’Other Week, it was brought home by my parents from a trip to–natch–London about 25 years ago. I like the way it pops against the aquamarine shirt. The picture is not very good…it’s not that bright in real life.

It’s a twofer on Guys With Ties today…

First we have Tom O’Hare, who’s a Commercial Banker with North Shore Community Bank, who will be sponsoring the Small Businessperson of the Year Award at the Chamber’s annual meeting and awards dinner in June. As you can see from his GWT debut (he was just elected to the Chamber board, so there’s a chance he’ll be on here again), he knows one of The Tie Secrets: Stripes CAN go with stripes! Well done, Tom.

Think Pink

Next is Jake Wilson, who dropped into the office today to introduce himself to the Chamber. A former baseball player for our hometown NU Wildcats, Jake was sporting a great pink tie. He said he’d just been to TJ Maxx to get a bunch of ties for his new gig…smart guy, that ‘Cat.

Thanks for reading, off to bed…Brooke

Irving Berlin would not have penned ‘Blue Skies’ today…not in Evanston at least. I am using my best Cloris Leachman/Frau Blucher (“Neigh!”) voice in saying, “Zis veather tsucked!”

Great for bike spokes--sounds just like a motorcycle!

But, look what came to me today, to brighten up my skies a bit–Blucher (Neigh!) be damned! My business card, courtesy of Minuteman Press on Sherman, looks fantastic, don’t you agree? Send me a note and I’ll mail you a couple.

Happy Blue--an oxymoron

My Tie du Jour is on the bright side, too. Any blue that tries to shine through a grim, gray day works for me. The white dots give it some light; unfortunately the toothpaste stain did, as well. Tasted like Colgate.

The label, just behind the aforementioned stain, says Eric Michaels, but I can’t really find anything online that talks a lot about this designer’s ties. I’m going to assume that his first name is Eric, and that he was raised by Mr. & Mrs. Michaels. I’m going to make up the fact that he donated a kidney to a nephew last fall. Unfortunately, that nephew didn’t actually need the kidney, and was pretty grossed out by the whole ordeal.

Well, I’m back in the Guys With Ties game. Larry Widmayer, a commercial realtor with Koenig & Strey in Evanston. He’s on the board of the Chamber, and was sporting this nice red tie w/blue & white stripes while visiting Chamber HQ today. I’m sure he was inspired by reading about Red Tie Week, oh those weeks ago. Good times.

Thanks for reading…Brooke

Sometimes the mail is fun. Yesterday I received a small package from my high school French teacher, Dan Murrell. As you can see from his LinkedIn profile, he’s a Guys With (Bow) Ties guy. Ergo, he sent me one, which I plan to wear when I announce–to much fanfare, no doubt–Bow Tie Week. I now have 6 bow ties, a fact which makes the announcement/week-of-bow possible. Many thanks, Dan.

I believe I mentioned a few weeks ago that, due to a not-rare slowdown in brain activity, I left my minivan running in a city parking lot for, oh, let’s say 4 hours to make me feel better (conscience: It was 5 1/2). Dan, or Monsieur Murrell as we so fluently called him–to his face at least, was the teacher that, 23 years ago, spotted a smoking Honda Accord in the CBHS parking lot. I quickly realized it was my car, running…with the keys somehow LOCKED inside. Since my Brainfart Version 20.10 was accomplished with the doors UNlocked, did I get dumber since B.F. V 19.87, or just more brazen. Uh-huh, I have to agree…dumb. As rocks. Luckily I have people who care for me, reminding me to do things and giving me gingko biloba.

Go ahead, London

So, onto the Tie du Jour. It’s from City of London, which have some really nice patterns. I’m pretty sure (gingko biloba, please) that this is the 2nd City of London strip that I’ve sported. It’s black (or a ridiculously dark navy blue) with cornflower blue stripes, and goes perfectly with my charcoal suit w/light blue pins. Throw in my indigo cufflinks, light blue small scarf (it’s a pocket square!) and my gray&blue argyle socks, and I can’t help but be reminded of the Kinks’ Dedicated Follower of Fashion. “Oh, yes he is!”

Good security starts with a good shirt/tie combo

Given my burglary from weeks past, I was connected with Todd Lazar from ProtectionOne Security. He dropped by in his tie, and told me what it would take to get all secure. So, you hear that, burglar-boy?! Two Dobermans (Dobermen?) will be waiting the next time you wish to play with your crowbar. And, dangit, if I won’t be around to scream the safe word. Anyway, Todd is now a member of the Guys With Ties clan.

Have a great evening, everybody. Thanks for reading…Brooke