Gabriel Garcia Marquez checks his rain gauge

Can't prove any of it happened. Maybe it was all dreams in another night of restlessness occasionally interrupted by sleep. But if it was a dream, where was the overloaded moving van, the treks through snakely rock ravines, the  incomprehensible bus schedules, the cafeteria line lacking trays, those Persion carpet flying rollerblades, unprepared art lessons, unwritten term papers, lost keys, brakeless cars, unlockable doors, and recurring crumbling teeth?










But still, it seemed like it rained today right when the preschoolers were going back inside from the playground.  Did we or did we not let plump drops fall on our heads, arms, and even tongues? Did we sniff the scent of precipitation on the air? Later did we really find that eighth of an inch of water in the rain gauge?

The anole was first spotted last evening on the parrot wind toy munching a transparent insect that didn't quite fit in its mouth. "Please chew with your mouth closed," I ask the five and six year olds to little avail.  "Please stand quite still so I can photograph you," I ask the little anole.

That's about when my Canon stopped working, so I suspect the lizard is magic. It has a white horn sticking up from its snout.  I've spotted it twice on the patio today. I pray the white protuberance is not just a massive nose goobie. We have plenty of those at school. A rain totem animal is what we need.

If all of the raindrops

Were lemon drops and gumdrops
Oh, if all of the raindrops
Were lemon drops and gumdrops
Oh, what a rain that would be!
I'd sit outside, with my mouth open wide
Singing La la la la, la la la...

© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

Sad underwing

Thank you, Judith Viorst, for your children's books. Alas, this very minute I can't put my hand on my copy of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.  It may be in Australia.

When I walked in the warm noon woods today I had to tell myself, "My mama says there aren't any zombies, ghosts, vampires, demons, monsters, fiends, gobins, or things.". It was just an itty-bitty bit scary because there were these big camouflaged moths with sad underwings flying out at me from the tree trunks along the trail.

How big? Nine centimeter wingspan, and hey, there were a whole lot of 'em! Five or six on some trees.Catocala maestosa is the Sad Underwing Moth (Hulst, 1884). Sad Underwear is Viorst's book of poems for children. It may also suggest it's time to clean out the top drawer of the dresser.

Thanks for all the frass

Whole lotta action on the patio!  It's a three-ring circus worthy of Sneelock, my spiritual advisor.


And just by the way of the way I'm okay today I say I'm very grateful for:

Play

And also:


To Dr. Seuss for the words and pictures.
To Dave Brubeck for the music.
To Cliff Hillegass for the roses, 
and Jerry Garcia for the rainbows.




To Ms. Janie and the other Ms. Janie for curiosity and compassion.
To the Woolly Mammoth for the macro world of digital photography.
To owls of Omaha, red-tailed hawks of Oklahoma, and the Allman Brothers for saving my life more than once.

To Gail Butt for rich, bright, and delicate.


To Dale and Norma for screened porch serenity, rope swing risk, sandbar simplicity, and fishing bobber patience.
To Bernd Heinrich and John Janovy for cosmic biology.
To Fritzi for the curse and gift of perfectionism.
To hummingbirds and anoles for joy.

This little anole is about 1/4 the size of that Giant Swallowtail caterpillar.  It is hopping from one mint leaf to the next, making the patio a tiny popcorn popper.





To Aunt Em for cursive perseverance.
To Coach for the opera backstage.
To Maurice Sendak and Pierre for care.
To Ms. Heather for wisdom and basil.
To Howie for graph paper and blue prints.


To all the red wiggler worms named Dave for taking it below ground.
To Juliet for being my artistic muse, O These Many Years.
To the Buick Skylark for hanging in there for 175,000 miles as my alter ego. I'd like to think it will emerge soon from its chrysalis transformed just like the caterpillars.

In all the whole world the most wonderful spot is right behind where you are in the big vacant lot. Clean up the cans!


It's a Barnum and Bailey world.  Grab onto the trapeze.




© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder


So long, and thanks for all the frass.

Hobgoblin of little minds

Hodblogkins are in my sinuses with tiny sledgehammers, tapping, driving the golden stake, and hitting their own little thumbs. Tree pollen is high. Grass pollen is medium high. Wind is from SSE at 24 mph gusting to 34 mph.

It's been a bad day all around. Our newest preschool student hides in the restroom when she isn't making herself gag or shrieking about the terrible bunny rabbit. I feel a C-clamp squeezing on my skull.

Just getting past the trouble with the letter C s-s-s- making the k-k-k sound is a trip. Cluck! Again the trouble with my brain being switched with that of a chicken!  Settling Dad's estate has become far more problematic than I ever expected.


Lately I've been buying eggs from the farmer grandpa of a student for $3/dozen.  Love their look and the deviled eggs are to die for. And those tiny hammers are cracking the shells...

"A foolish consistency," according to Mr. Ralph Waldo in his Self-Reliance essay, is the real "hobgoblin of little minds".  Parental inconsistency is the biggest problem facing preschoolers. Self-reliant is what our kids need to become. Tough enough to peel the shell off a hard-boiled egg all by themselves!

On the first date I ever had in my whole life the guy try to get past first base by claiming to adore Emerson's Over-Soul essay.  Unlike Barbra Steisand's Judy/Burnsie in What's Up, Doc? I did not adore anyone who adored Emerson that much:

Mr. Larrabee: I must point out that "foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."

Judy: Emerson!

Mr. Larrabee: I beg your pardon my dear?

Judy: Ralph Waldo Emerson, born 1803, died 1882.

Mr. Larrabee: You like Emerson?

Judy: I adore him!

Mr. Larrabee: I adore anyone who adores Emerson.

Judy: And I adore anyone who adores anyone who adores Emerson. Your turn.

And now, back to reading Thomas Mallon's Watergate with a lengthy cast of cracked eggs and hobgoblins.  Dad followed the downfall of  his "Tricky Dick" with such concentration that I couldn't skip this novel.

© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

Dog and macaw show

Flashback to last Friday--Oh, how can it be almost a week ago already? I took a break from sitting beside Dad's bed, and entrusted him over to the care of the round-the-clock nurse.  Got a Subway sandwich and drove to my favorite Plano park.  Starting down the trail I saw a young family soaking up the sunshine on this beautiful afternoon:

• Two parents lounging on an old quilt next to a cooler
• One toddler sitting up in a patch of grass under the watchful eye of a small dog
• One preschooler sitting in a little red wagon supervised by a big dog

The scene did more for me than the sandwich, and I set off on a quick walk around the lake.  Circling back toward the Buick the family scene got even better:

• Dad throwing a frisbee for the small dog to the delight of the toddler
• Mom flying a gorgeous macaw kite
• Big dog pulling the red wagon and preschooler around in circles in the meadow

"That's a great kite," I hollered at the mom, craning my neck and squinting up into the bright blue sky.  "Twelve dollars at Costco," she hollered back.

Back beside Dad under the hypnotic spell of the respirator, I wondered about the meaning of "dog and pony show".  In my experience it is used to mean the peons are trotting out their whole underfunded bag of tricks to entertain an entitled,  blasé  audience.  The dog and macaw experience seemed gloriously authentic. If I'd had more time I would have requested a ride in the wagon!

I still remember my dad taking me to watch many kite-flyers at Pioneers Park.  Dad flew a basic Ben Franklin Five & Dime box kite, red and green.  There were so many flyers I can't imagine how they stayed untangled.

I read The Kite Runner in Dad's hospital room five years ago, after he broke his hip the second time. It was a time suspended without night or day, tangled between reality and hallucination.  This vigil I read Elmore Leonard's new Raylan, which was not so deep.  Elmore Leonard is still writing entertaining crime dialogue at age eighty-six.  I hope I'm still blogging about kites in 2041!

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Bohemian Girl

Be the first on your block to read Terese Svoboda's Bohemian Girl.  It's short, poetic, picaresque, and packs a punch.  I've got so many reference points snapping back and forth on mental telegraph lines I must be building new brain cells.

How can writing be so epic and spare at the same time?  The story is an inch wide and a mile deep.

The word for today is "tableau":

Some years ago I became the custodian of a plush velvet album with photographs, bits of ribbons and black fabric, Czech newspaper clippings and handwritten letters.  The album had been a family hot potato, being mailed, handed off, or left on doorsteps like last year's fruitcake because none of us know the people in the album or speak Czech.  We are just sure the album might be important  to keep.  I'm guessing that the young woman in this photo might have been creating a tableau.   

tableau [tab‐loh] (plural ‐leaux or ‐leaus), a ‘picture’ formed by living persons caught in static attitudes. Tableaux were sometimes used at the ends of acts in 19th‐century melodrama and farce. The parlour‐game of tableaux vivants (‘living pictures’), in which living people adopt the postures of characters in a famous painting, was also a popular diversion in the 19th century, and is sometimes found in modern pageants. In a story or poem, a description of some group of people in more or less static postures is sometimes called a tableau.  

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/tableau#ixzz1Zxhm3mhy

[Also, my dad is doing better, out of pain, eating like a bear, slipping out of bed, and nutty as can be.  Today he is saying, "G A N E L G E".  If you can figure that out, please comment!]

Hemingway's rosy wallpaper

Or  not so macho.  

Once upon a time in a lovely, small library where I happen to work, there was a copy of Death In the Afternoon.

For some reason, the book wasn't circulating, even though there was a resurgence of interest in Ernest Hemingway's wives, boats, and feasts.  I have to wonder about the sensible shoes librarian or her assistant, (Igor) who used this pinkie floral wallpaper scrap for the dust jacket many decades ago.

All I know about bull-fighting I learned from Bizet's opera, "Carmen" and from The Story of Ferdinand, by Munro Leaf.  One is all about passion, death, blood, lust, jealousy, and fate.  The other is about smelling the flowers in all the lovely ladies' hair and declining to fight.

Was the old librarian being frugal, using whatever material was at hand to protect her precious books?  Or was she making a statement and trying to dissuade manly men from reading Hemingway's non-fiction reportage?

Matadors wear pink hose.  Library books wear dust jackets with a protective plastic cover to increase their longevity.  The rosy wallpaper on Death In the Afternoon might have come from Grandma's house in Pierce, Nebraska, already faded in the early Sixties. The style of plastic book jacket cover on our book would have looked old, cracked, and marginally appealing at the Pierce Library in those same years when I was being Grandma's little library assistant:

The seeds of Brodart took root in 1939, when a young Columbia University student named Arthur Brody invented the plastic book jacket cover.  Involved with architectural photography as a student, one day Mr. Brody washed the emulsion off some film and folded it around his books for added protection.  When the cover’s popularity grew among his fellow students, the plastic book jacket cover was officially born, as was Brodart.  Today, the covers are used to protect the original paper jackets of library books, giving them a longer shelf life and increasing their circulation.
  
© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Ninth grade English class

On the centennial birthday of Bel Kaufmann, author of Up the Down Staircase, I've beamed down into ninth grade, 1969-1970, Millard Lefler Jr. High, land of the dread One Way Hall.

This is not the semester Beverly Renee Blume (nee Austin) with the pink Coke-bottle thick glasses was my English teacher.  It must be the semester she was my journalism instructor instead.  Sniffing blue stencil correction fluid left my memories a bit warped.  In Miss Bev's English class we read The Odyssey, The Iliad, or maybe both on that wine dark sea.  Miss Austin took time off from teaching to get married to an army officer on his leave from Viet Nam and have a short honeymoon.  Her most memorable lesson is the importance of considering initials when naming our future infants, as a monogram was unfortunate no matter how curly the script: 

BRA

Instead, it is the semester I had a young spitfire English teacher named Deb Wightman first thing in the morning in the dreary dust mote-filled spare room between the Typing and Art classrooms, far from the drinking fountain, but close to the back stairs down toward the gym and the lunchroom. Miss Wightman (or maybe Miss Whiteman) had peculiar dry breakable straw blond hair in a flip, and one navy blue suit. She was part-time. She weighed about 105 pounds, wore pointy toe flats, and sat ON the desk at the front of the room!

A surprising number of secondary students get through school now without actually reading any books. Miss Wightman soon became Mrs. Ens, and was assigned to classes for reluctant readers, full-time. But that one semester Miss Wightman introduced us to Poe with "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Cask of Amontillado", and we took turns reading aloud. Then we studied The Pushcart War, The Mouse that Roared, Animal Farm, and 1984. To end the semester, we read Up the Down Staircase. She is my Bel Kaufmann nominee of excellence in English teaching in those early teen years.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Undissolvable, with lava lamps and Jujyfruits for all

Prologue 1598.  Boris Godunov has retreated to the Novodievichy Monastery near Moscow.  ... Shchelkalov announces that Boris still refuses the throne and sorrows over Russia's insoluble misery.*

Russian misery won't dissolve.  It can't be diluted.  It won't mix with water.  No wonder it seems gritty. It must be related to the liquids with "Thick-It" for stroke and Parkinsons patients.

Insoluble--Is thitta word?  Is thit the right word?

Meeting despicable former KGB agents in Henning Mankell's The White Lioness, I am in a gritty, clouded Russian mood.  The Dallas Opera's production of "Boris Godunov" is fantastic.  FANTASTIC!  Still, that word "insoluble" is burbling in the back of my head.

It's a wonder I passed eleventh grade chemistry class.  It was right after lunch, a time when my brain is least likely to form a solution. 

• Is Boris refusing (throne + sorrows)?
• Is Boris sorrowing? 
• Does Boris have clogged plumbing?
• Does Boris need a blender?
• What would be the crown for Your Insolubleness?
• Wouldn't Insolubly be a great name for a racehorse?
• Did I mention "Boris Godunov" will move into my Top Ten Dallas Opera productions?

insoluble [ɪnˈsɒljʊbəl]  adj

1. (Chemistry) incapable of being dissolved; incapable of forming a solution, esp in water ... Not capable of being fully dissolved. Fats and oils are insoluble in water.


2. incapable of being solved ...  Therefore, I am happily proved wrong.  The Playbill word choice was appropriate.

insolubility , insolubleness n

insolubly adv

[This photo subject is not a lava lamp. It is the lamp my sister and I had in our bedroom growing up in the Sixties.]



* From the Playbill for the Dallas Opera's production of "Boris Godunov", courtesy of Opera News.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Arkady Renko and the allergy sinus funk

Into the Moscow pothole I happily sunk, ready for the ever-inefficient and corrupt Putin-era cement to be scooped into the bottomless pit.  What a treat to have Martin Cruz Smith's Three Stations to read while Dad or the class rabbit napped nearby.  Book over, I pulled back to a redbud-blooming Texas spring against my will.  Back to driving the rusty Buick Skylark instead of Sergeant Victor Orlov's Lada.

Definitely the shortest of the Arkady Renko novels, Three Stations is not Smith's best.  But weak Arkady is better than no Arkady at all.  Wolves Eat Dogs is on my mind because of the Japanese nuclear reactor situation.

Gray, pollen-filled sky, too-warm and humid air with no hope of rain, this day signals the beginning of tornado season.  Squeezy head days make me want to nap, but was too agitated to actually curl up on the couch.  I'll regret it tomorrow, but I went to hike at the Heard Sanctuary near McKinney. 

Grandma babysitters were trying desperately to tire out Spring Break children, walking them all over the refuge.  A few older children had escaped to the parking lot to sit in warm minivans with their stocking feet on the dashboard and an electronic game in their hands.  Smaller children played Hansel and Gretel, leaving a trail of crunched orange Goldfish crackers. 

My father leaves similar crunched Cheez-It messes and a trail of used Kleenex.  His blinds are closed and he bashes his wheelchair into the wall while he demands his coffee.  At least Dad isn't in Arkady's Moscow, wheeling into the perpetual pothole of the Putin era. 

Sightings today at the Heard:

• Great blue heron adding material to its nest

• Canoeing kids watching the heron = great

• Carolina chickadees improving a hole in a tree
• Wrens skipping on exposed tree roots
• Indigo buntings just blew me away
• Cardinals

• Hairy woodpeckers in the wetland
• Snowy egret
• Pair of bluebirds
• Titmouse
• Blue-gray gnatcatchers

• Camera-shy goatweed butterflies (this one has its head under the whitish leaf)
• An out-of-focus funnel spider
• Too busy crescentspot butterflies
• Teasing falcate orangetips
• Two yellow swallowtails too early in the season

• Mossy red-eared slider turtle snoozing.  No novel.  No nap?

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

WWCKD

What would the Color Kittens do?  There's no green paint!  And we are going to learn about pastels in art class tomorrow.  Sure, I could mix up the blue tempera with yellow, then add white, but it won't look minty fresh.  We will have baby blue, pale pink, melon, butter, lilac, aqua, but we need mint.

So this evening I snarfed a few tater tots off Dad's supper tray and headed to the school supply store.  Tomorrow's lesson will be pastel seashells.  The kids need to understand "pastel" so they can reinforce the concept for their parents. 

Attire for the spring music festival performers is solid pastel shirts with no logos paired with black, brown, or blue pants.  That would mean no skirts, shorts, or leggings.  Oh, and closed-toe shoes with rubber soles.  And no exceptions.  What a concept!

It will never happen, but we can try.  This is an exasperating era of excess, entitlement, exceptions, and endless entertainment.  When children need plush pink camouflage lunchboxes with rhinestones more than they need PB&J sandwiches, carrot sticks, apple slices, and 2% milk, something is askew.

O wonderful kittens! O Brush! O Hush! At last, almost by accident, the kittens poured a bucket of blue and a bucket of yellow together, and it came to pass that they made a green as green as grass. Green as green leaves on a tree. Green as islands in the sea.

When I grow up I want to be Margaret Wise Brown.




© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Spanish flu, terrorists, and colored glass

Starring out the window at the striped clouds in very cold blue-grays and white, I wonder how Mr. Tiffany would have ordered glass for that sky made.  Would he have used multiple layers, or had the brawny, shirtless workers in the glass factory comb through blue glass with a second color of glass at a different temperature.  The process described in Clara and Mr. Tiffany reminded me of those fudge factories.  Ummmm.  Fudge.  There must be some chocolate somewhere in this condo!  I would have enjoyed Vreeland's more if it had been nonfiction with lots of old photos and color plate illustrations.

My escapist reading for the ice storm is The Death Instinct, by Jed Rubenfeld, set in the same time period as Vreeland's novel about Louis Comfort Tiffany.  Rubenfeld's book is just right for conserving electricity wrapped in a quilt for hours at a time.  I'm going to see New York City eventually when I visit Danger Baby and his lovely bride, and then I will go find Wall Street, the JP Morgan Bank, the Treasury Building, the Flatiron, and many other places in these two books.

My book buddy is reading The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, by Rubenfeld's wife.  Just reading the Wall Street Journal and New York Times reviews of Tiger Mother elevated my blood pressure.  I feel very sorry for Rubenfeld, being married to such a shrew.  But then, maybe he is no prince either.  Sometimes writers are not nice people.

This ramble was meant to be about the coincidence of my recent readings.  Two gifts from my eldest, Last Call and Dennis Lehane's The Given Day, have entwined with the unionizing and suffragettes of Clara, and the Vienna of Death Instinct and The Hare With Amber Eyes.  Very strange to read two descriptions of the items on Sigmund Freud's desk in just one month.


© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Bedside book chat

The stack by the alarm clock grows alarmingly.  My Kindle is loaded.  Roadtrips with audio books should be fewer in 2011 now that my dad is nearby. 

Wait!  I Have a Blog tells of all the books Kathleen and her bookshop customers are reading and why.  I feel like a literacy slug.  Sure, I read lots of book reviews in Library Journal and ALA Booklist at one job.  I try to read Medicare handbooks for my unofficial job.  I read children's books aloud five days a week, reminding me of the power of that experience for all participants. 

Maybe I need to read aloud to Dad.  He is bored.  His eyes can't track print across a page now, so he can't read.  He is tired of all television, even sports.  He never had any patience with fiction.  He can't hear very well.  I'll sleep on this idea.  If I ask him what he'd like to hear, he will say "nothing".  I will have to just begin.



What do I read, and why?  I read Clive Cussler, Dwell magazine, and the NY Times on airplanes.  Why?  Because that's what I was reading when I realized I wasn't nervous about flying anymore.  Same reason I always drink tomato juice or Bloody Mary mix during the on-flight beverage service, too.  Silly, but still.


Organized by Danger Baby's fiance and Speech-Debate's wife, my sons and their loving ones, gave me a Kindle last spring.  I like it, and will use it even more with my new Mighty Bright MiniFlex LED eReader Light.  Read on Kindle in '10:

• Following the Water:  A Hydromancer's Notebook--Why?  Because the Woolly Mammoth's girlfriend knows I like nature writing.
• The Poisonwood Bible--because I always planned to, but never got around to it.
• Moby Dick--because my curiosity was piqued by the Dallas Opera's premiere of a Moby Dick opera.
• Elmore Leonard's Djibouti--because I don't want Leonard to go off and die like Donald Westlake and George MacDonald Fraser.  That boy can write dialogue.  A great for-no-reason gift from Danger Baby.
• King Solomon's Mines, by H. Rider Haggard-- because it was free, plus Amelia Peabody, Indiana Jones, and Howard Carter are some of my favorite people.

What's loaded into the Kindle for '11? 

• Last Call, by Daniel Okrent
• The Alexiad, by Anna Comnena--gifts from Speech-Debate and his wife.
• The Count of Monte Cristo
• Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
• The Prisoner of Zenda--Freebies for filling in the gaps in my education.
• Anna Karenina--because of the hedgehog.

The last two books I read were Nora Ephron's I Remember Nothing from my sister, and The Hare With Amber Eyes, by Edmund de Waal, from the library.  The first was lightweight name-dropping, and not as funny as hoped.  The second was slow-going and worth every minute in gaining a new understanding of art history, Europe in the 20th Century, anti-Semitism, attention to detail, and memoir-writing.  Highly recommended.

This is the year I will read:

• King Lear--because of elderly fathers and daughters and Stephanie Kallos at work on Novel #3
• New World Kids: The Parents' Guide to Creative Thinking, by Susan Marcus and Susie Monday--Why?  We've got to change the way we teach because children are increasingly low-initiative and low-empathy, even as they over-stimulated and over-scheduled.  And because Mr. and Mrs. Danger Baby gave me an Amazon gift card.
• Sightings, by Sam Keen--spiritual discovery through bird-watching found on the donation shelf at the library!
• More cookbooks and books about cookbooks.  Arto der Haroutunian's classic Vegetarian Dishes from Across the Middle East spent months on my kitchen table inspiring my meals with new flavor combinations.  Cooking for one can be very dull without fresh inspirations.  Field guides to birds, insects, trees, butterflies, and geology will continue to linger on several desks.

Memorable fiction held in my hands in 2010:

• One Amazing Thing, by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
• People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks
• The Given Day, by Dennis Lehane
• Mink River, by Brian Doyle
• The Last Dickens, by Matthew Pearl

Fascinating audio books in 2010:

• Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery--because Steph knew I would enjoy it! 
• Lacuna, by Barbara Kingsolver--Some parts more interesting than others. 
• Homer and Langley, by E. L. Doctorow--Intriguing while I cleaned out my father's house.  How do you spell "hoarding"?
• Shadow Divers, by Robert Kurson--Suggested by Esther at the library, I found myself driving down the highway breathing along with the scuba tank regulators.  Check it out for your next trip.

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Bye Baby Bunting

Ohio is the land of porch patriotic bunting, although that is not its slogan on car license plates. Red, white, and blue decorations must be recommended, if not actually required, in every sort of Ohio community.

This particular bunted abode is the former home of William Holmes McGuffey. The writer of the McGuffey Readers series lived in this house from 1826 to 1836:

It was during his years at Miami when McGuffey was approached to write a series of readers for school children. In addition to the work done on these by William Holmes McGuffey, he was assisted by his brother, Alexander Hamilton McGuffey, who also compiled a speller and had sole responsibility for the Fifth Reader. Alexander taught school while working on his law degree and opened a law office in Cincinnati in 1839. The McGuffey Readers sold over 125,000,000 copies.


Why do folks in the Buckeye State bunt so profusely? This was something to consider during the Reds vs. Cubs game which had a few instances of bunting.

bunt
1825, "to strike with the head or horns," perhaps an alteration of butt (as a goat), or from M.E. bounten "to return." Baseball term is from 1889. [from the Online Etymology Dictionary]

My old American Heritage dictionary shows bunt as a variant of butt with horns or head. In baseball, it is to bat a pitched ball with a half swing, and with the upper hand supporting the middle of the bat, so that the ball rolls slowly in front of the infielders. Bunt also has a nautical usage, being the middle section of a square sail or the sagging middle part of a fishnet. And then there's the agricultural bunt disease of wheat, rye, and other cereal grasses caused by fungi of the genus Tilletia and resulting in sooty black spores in place of normal seeds. Ick.

What does "bunting" mean?

bunting (1)
"flag material," 1742, perhaps from M.E. bonting gerundive of bonten "to sift," because cloth was used for sifting grain, via O.Fr. from V.L. *bonitare "to make good." [from the Online Etymology Dictionary]

A light cotton or woolen cloth used for making flags. Flags collectively. Long, colored strips of cloth used for festive decoration. [Origin unknown]

bunting (2)
"type of lark-like bird," c.1300, bountyng, maybe from buntin "plump" (cf. baby bunting, also Scots buntin "short and thick;" Welsh bontin "rump," and bontinog "big-assed"), or a double dim. of Fr. bon. [from the Online Etymology Dictionary]

Any of various birds of the family Fringillidae, having short, cone-shaped bills.

A snug-fitting, hooded sleeping bag for infants. [From "Bye, Baby Bunting," a nursery rhyme, origin and meaning unknown.]

Then there's the matter of the buntline. It's a rope that keeps a square sail from bellying when it is being hauled up for furling. Edward Zane Carroll Judson chose the pseudonym Ned Buntline for his sensational newswriting and dime novels about Buffalo Bill Cody.

Where does Ohio fit in this, with its bounty of pleated fan bunting and flag-festooned porches?

I'm only guessing that it dates way back to the "front-porch" presidential campaigns of Ohioans James A. Garfield in 1880 and William McKinley in 1896.

This little side note for folks like me from the hometown of William Jennings Bryan:

"McKinley's opposing candidate, William Jennings Bryan, gave over 600 speeches and traveled many miles all over the United States to campaign, but McKinley outdid this by spending about twice as much money campaigning. While McKinley was at his Canton, Ohio, home conducting his "front-porch campaign", Mark Hanna was out raising millions to help with the campaign." [from Wikipedia]

© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

What is a bonnet?

Go placidly just a bit east of the noise and haste of Custer Road, and a little north of Spring Creek Parkway. Sit your bizoozy right down amidst the bluebonnets, unless, of course, it has been raining.

It is spring, time for commencement addresses, and other urban legends. I've been feeling my Bohemian prairie girl ancestry lately while listening to Willa Cather's My Antonia on cd. Cather celebrates the grasses, the flatness, and the horizon I love so well.

The preschoolers are learning about Texas plants and animals. The wild bluebonnets hold a magical power in this Lone Star state far surpassing the Nebraskan's appreciation of the Western meadowlark. I will never consider myself a Texan, but I definitely claim the bluebonnet as my inner state flower.

The preschoolers are vague on the concept of bonnets. Bonnets are hats for sun protection, I tell them. Each floret of a bluebonnet stalk resembles a teeny tiny pioneer girl's sunbonnet.

Cather's Antonia is as full of life as Laura in Little House on the Prairie. Antonia and Laura both resist wearing the bonnets that would protect their skin from the sun. Which brings me to that fabulous, fictitious commencement address* never delivered by Kurt Vonnegut at MIT in 1997:

Wear sunscreen.
Pick a bluebonnet. Just don't overdue it. One or two, max. Otherwise Mother Nature will be pissed even if it isn't illegal. That's another urban legend.

The commencement speaker at Texas Tech in 2007 told me to play chess. A month from now I'll be listening to the University of New Mexico commencement address. Willa Cather will be there. I may need to reread Death Comes for the Archbishop.

*Mary Schmich, Chicago Tribune, 6/1/97

© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

Open the pea pod bay door, Hal

Do cell phones dream of electric sheep?

One of the hazards of teen dating that receives very little press involves the reading habits of guys. A guy asks a girl out, or vice versa. They go bowling. They eat chili dogs. Then they sit in a parked car talking about good books they've read. This is where it gets dangerous. A teen guy may pressure your daughter to read his favorite book because he really likes her. He's done his best to share her enthusiasm about Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay, "The Over-Soul". Now he wants payback. He wants your daughter to read, gasp, science fiction!

There's the trouble with tribbles, girls! You like a guy. He says he is totally into the Transcendentalists and long walks on the beach. Next thing you know, he's insisting you buy his personal favorite by Philip K. Dick. It's a slippery slope from there. Make sure your cell phone gets a good nights' sleep.

Good Design: For Halloween I received a driinn Mobile Phone Holder. It works great, plus it makes me laugh. The driinn hangs between the battery charger and the wall socket like a futuristic cryogenic futon/cupholder. It is so simple and keeps the cord neat. It is good design!



© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Working for Change

Studs Terkel's Working was my introduction to the philosophy and poetry of labor. My love of oral history was born around Grandma Halma's dining table in Pierce, Nebraska. I wish I'd had a tape reel in the Craig 212 recording more of those family stories. Studs Terkel did record his conversations with ordinary people about life's labors. At NPR.org you can listen to actual cassette recordings of some Terkel interviews for the book.

Studs died in Chicago this week at the age of ninety-six. Danger Baby now lives in Chicago, that brash city of Terkel and Carl Sandburg. I may have to get him a copy of Working for Christmas.

Terkel's book made me realize the meaning of my life would be largely defined by my philosophical relationship with my work. That realization came in the 1975 "Work Project" in Centennial College. UNL's Centennial College was a living-learning community for self-motivated students to choose and design their own individual and group study projects.

Much that I allegedly learned in regular college classes is long lost from my brain. Not so these quotes from Working:

"Jobs are not big enough for people."

"Most of us have jobs that are too small for our spirit."

Having work that uses our abilities is a blessing. Having a job that respects our efforts is a gift. These words from the Chicago Tribune, 11/1/08:

...Working, a book that welded him [Terkel] to the lives of common people by telling their stories. Even though it was not his first book, it defined his style, his compassion and his talent, all at the same time. No one ever used a tape recorder and a few questions to better effect.

America's next administration must make its educated citizen workforce a priority. The needed "Change" rocking this election campaign should focus on a new frugalitly while realigning employee compensation to ensure that ordinary citizens can provide for the nutrition, health care, and education of their children. Adam Cohen said it far better than I could in his New York Times op-ed on the thirtieth anniversary (5/31/04) of Terkel's Working. His piece ends:

When America begins to pay attention to its unhappy work force — and eventually, it must — "Working" will still provide important insights, with its path-breaking exploration of what Mr. Terkel described as "the extraordinary dreams of ordinary people."

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

If only Flashman had been there

Just finished a brand new novel, The James Boys, by Richard Liebmann-Smith. I was laughing out loud while reading it on the DART train back to Plano. The usual tattooed crazies avoided making eye-contact with me, since I was the rowdy, psycho passenger. The idea is that Frank and Jesse James are the long-lost brothers of Henry James and William James--with some Pinkerton detectives mixed in.

The book goes along delightfully mixing history, invention, good characterizations, and pseudo scholarship until the last fifty pages. Then my suspended disbelief was sorely tested. All in all, it was a satisfying outing. Something George MacDonald Fraser, Ron Hansen, and Elizabeth Peters might cook up together in an afternoon or two at the nearest Starbucks.

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Purple martins

Please check out this site! It's being put together by a sister and brother here in the Dallas area. Rebecca Dellinger has written and beautifully illustrated a children's book about purple martins. Proceeds will go to benefit conservation organizations. Don't miss the audio of purple martin song.

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

We Heart Larry!

Back-to-back sessions at the Larry Book Festival led to another good discussion about jobs. After a reading of Ice Cream Larry (which I consider the least successful picture book in the the series), I told the kids we would read a bonus story. We want to get through all the books before I have to return them to the library, I explained.

"Whoa," one kid said, "I hope my library has Larry books!"

"Whoa, me too!," the rest said.

I explained that a librarian's job is to help you find the books you want. You can go right up to the librarian and ask for help finding books about Larry the polar bear. Even better, you can ask for help finding books by Daniel Pinkwater, so you can check out the Wallpaper From Space book, too. We closed our eyes and imagined a glass of water turning pink so we could remember Pinkwater. A librarian gets money to buy blueberry muffins by helping children and grown-ups find the books they want to check out.

The children loved Sleepover Larry. Most kids have gone on a sleepover with grandma or friends by the time they are four or five. They were excited to find a bunny in the book along with Larry, his brother Roy, Bear Number One, and Bear Number Three.

The dress-up party in the hospitality suite of the book festival was a big success. Kids took turns wearing a beret, dark sunglasses, and my mom's London Fog raincoat, pretending to be our favorite bear. That's what Larry wears when he goes walking around Bayonne, New Jersey to meet Roy at the zoo or have blueberry pancakes and sundaes. Other kids wore groovy beads and snapped their fingers like the bongo beatnik bears at Cafe Mama Bear. The teachers snapped digital party pics for this adventure in pretend silliness.



I refuse to serve codfish ice cream bars at snacktime on the final day of the book festival. We'll have blueberry mini-muffins instead. We'll make a collage poster with the party pics and magazine clippings of real polar bears. Then we'll wind up the festival with Dancing Larry.

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder