Popeye feeds a family of five

There's nothing like a block of frozen spinach to make you feel bad about your family dinner.

     Dr. Oz in the Time Magazine 12/3/2012 issue

My mom, Fritzi, never heard of pesto.  The only way we ever ate spinach was dumped out of the can, heated, and seasoned with vinegar or lemon juice.  I had learned to like this at Camp Kiwanis where Camp Fire Girl food whiners were never tolerated. A week at camp and I was dang happy just to get some stewed whole tomatoes.

Seems like lately we are trying to feed ourselves and our families farmers market foodie-style at considerable time and expense. Yes, it is fresh, nutritious, and aesthetically pleasing.  But wait. Are we wearing ourselves out and busting our budgets?

My sons will surely tell the judge that I served them horrible meals and they were lucky to survive.  I would tell the same judge the same sad story about my mom's cooking.  We lived and thrived, though, without fresh kale, pomegranate juice, or that tiny $4.99 bag of pine nuts.

A friend was feeling  guilty because she fed her 87-year-old father canned soup and toast for supper when she had a killer sinus infection.  Soup and toast reminds me of a desperation meal my mom used to make.  She heated a can of salmon in a double boiler with a can of cream of mushroom soup, and Tabasco Sauce to season.  She diluted it with milk to stretch servings, then ladled over saltines.  Fritzi would open a can of pear halves or splurge with a can of Royal Anne cherries, and we would fill up on carrot sticks and conversation.  Mind-blowing.  Three cans = supper for a family of five.

Canned and frozen foods are much lower in salt than when I was whining at camp in the Sixties.  At least Dr. Oz said so in the Time story.  And yes, I made pesto with some frozen spinach, garlic, faux parmesan cheese, walnut pieces, and "sadder but wiser" olive oil.  Gonna have the leftovers tonight without guilt.

© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

Thanksgiving with Dad and butterflies

Snout butterfly on White Mistflower. Heard Sanctuary.

There coulda been a rumble on the crowded white mistflower today, but the skippers were too hippy dippy blissed-out to battle the snouts for turf.  All kinds of snouts, skippers, painted ladies, queens, assorted bees, and flashy-dresser webworm moths were imbibing, snorting, and pollinating with scandalous abandon. I haven't seen such a traffic jam since the wheelchair gridlock at the nursing home.


Been thinking of my dad, Howie, as we approach a first Thanksgiving without him.  For several Thanksgivings he was way, way out there, completely unfiltered, and uninhibited in his speech, and unable to control mucus secretions while eating. Dad in his holiday attire of terry bib, plaid flannel pjs and Depends ramming his wheelchair into the wall over and over took much of the enjoyment from the holiday meal.

Checkerspot.

Just in the last couple weeks I've been able to replace some visual memories of Howie in his protracted, degrading decline with better memories and visual associations.

Watching the common checkered skipper and the checkerspot butterfly sucking down smoothies while wearing their plaid jammies, I got a momentary flash of peace about Howie and my seasons as his "responsible party".

Common checkered skipper.

Party snouts.

Queen butterfly.

Ballerina spider.

Ailanthus webworm moth.

Catching butterflies was a family hobby Dad encouraged.  It probably started as a way for me to earn a Camp Fire bead.  Dad bought one net, then immediately made several others.  Our backyard was a good starting point, but Dad was happy to take us places where we could run around, up and down hills, waving nets, getting worn out, and occasionally catching butterflies. My perfectionist mother mastered the mounting of specimens. We studied field guides to identify our catches.

Now I just catch butterflies with my camera, but I still get exercise and fresh air. I get out the field guide to identify my sightings for Dad.

The flashy dressing webworm moth looks like a skinny beetle, since it rolls its wings around it.  I never did get a photo of one in flight. These are diurnal and good pollinators, not the evil fall webworms Dad used to cuss.

The very fragrant White Mistflower causing all the ruckus is a Texas native.  Ageratina havanensis is tolerant of drought and rocky soil. It blooms from mid-October until very cold weather


© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

Seating arrangements

What did you do on Spring Break?  Some of my students have been globe-trotting.  Some have been dropped off at the roller rink all week.  What would I say?  I hung out with Turbo-Tax?  Got an oil change?  Sat in my chair and stared out the window?  Sometimes looking.  Sometimes pondering.  Often zoned out.  Not in the driver's seat.  Blasted back by the airbag, and can't recall the collision.  A crew is smashing the concrete on my street to replace a rectangle, then another rectangle, then another. 

Always fond of chairs, and this book, Chairs.  Edited by George Nelson. Published by Whitney Publications, copyright 1953. We had a bunch of second-hand bentwood chairs in the basement. I loved the arches and circles, the smooth, dark wood. These chairs provided the seating for Blue Bird meetings and birthday parties along the converted shuffleboard table.

I twirled on a stool at the Highland Park Pharmacy Soda Fountain (since 1912) for an early lunch -- Grilled ham and cheese on white with mayo, no lettuce, a bag of chips, and a root beer, $8.19.  Old fashioned experience at 2011 prices about the same as Corner Bakery's.  Plus I can like it on FaceBook.  Dad would have ordered the goose liver sandwich and Mom the pimento cheese.  Then they would have traded halves.

Stickley probably didn't host shuffleboard evenings or Blue Bird meetings.  I headed downtown to renew my Dallas Museum of Art membership and see the Gustav Stickley exhibit.  The furniture pieces on display dated from 1901-1913.  They might have inspired the pieces in Grandma's house in Pierce.  Certainly the dark wood, green walls, and Craftsman aesthetic had trickled down to northeast Nebraska before the first World War.  I wished my Ohio friend Mary could have joined me, as she is a student of the American Arts and Crafts movement. 

Far more fun than Stickley was the DMA's installation in the Center for Creative Connections.  The current exhibit is great fun for kids, families, and art teachers. "Sculpting Space: 299 Chairs" is a fantastic installation created by students from DISD's Skyline High School Architecture Cluster using standard-issue fourteen-inch classroom chairs.

Just finished watching a strange artifact of American movie history. "Neptune's Daughter" starred swimming sensation Esther Williams, Ricardo Montalban, and Red Skelton. These chair formations could become synchronized swimming routines!

This one reminds me of a student I taught many years ago.  He couldn't pronounce his "L" sound. Yes, this yooks yike a yunar yander!

 

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

PLEZ CNOKE IF AN RNSR IS NOT REQID.

A friend gave me a bottle of homebrew porter, a beer, along with these instructions:

If you want to drink @ room temp. be careful upon opening so you don't lose any.

Alas, I was too busy wondering about porter and trespassers w to be properly careful.  After I cleaned up the little mess, I found the porter to taste sort of like A and W Root Beer.  This reminded me of the time Judy Anderson brought root beer lifesavers for Blue Bird treats when we went on a field trip to Lincoln General Hospital in second grade, except that they weren't really Lifesavers, but some different brand, but we each got a whole roll to eat in the station wagon.  And before I could say "trespassers w" the porter was consumed without making much impression on my tastebuds.

I can remember useless information about Blue Bird meetings better than I can remember my own name sometimes.  I grew up under the name of Porter.  The door knocker on our blue front door had P O R T E R engraved on it.  We were the only family in the neighborhood with a door knocker, a point of some pride.  The Porter family was the original owner of the house.  Although, of course, a bank owned the house and the Porters just lived there.  Much as I argued for having a new knocker with our name engraved on it, my parents just left us living under the name of Porter.  Since my family owned the house for fifty-two years, I still believe a new door knocker could have been justified.

 My sister painted this picture.  See the gold door knocker?

It is Owl who has the door knocker* in the 100 Aker Wood, but Piglet who lives under the name Trespassers w.  This is useful information, so I had to look it up, along with the not-Lifesavers root beer candy which was made by Reed's.



Without crossword puzzles, I would remember nothing about beer, other than to pick some up after a rough day at work.  The crossword spaces are usually for three, five, or seven letters:

ale
lager
stout
pilsner 

As a non-native Texan, I know Shiner Bock.  Now with porter, I'm set for four and six letter beer clues.

*  Owl also has a bell-pull that is really Eeyore's tail, so PLES RING IF AN RNSER IS REQUIRD.  I saw Eeyore, the tailless squirrel, down by the creek twice during our ice storm.  My Eeyore father is a little happier today, and I should probably take him some root beer.
© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Kinder, Gentler, and Tindling

Or Kindle and tindlers.  All very confusing, so I keep skipping through the forest in my red-hooded cloak carrying my bundle of sticks.

I love my Kindle for reading big, heavy novels that might make my wrists tired.  It was great for Moby Dick and The Poisonwood Bible.

The classics that cost $0.00 are hits with me.  This is an easy way to whittle away at my Important Books I Should Have Read But Somehow Didn't List.


Even back wearing my blue vest with all the beads and my red neckerchief, I never did get tinder and kindling straight.  In Campfire Girls we painted wooden matchheads with nail polish and kept them in metal Band-Aid boxes to keep them dry.  Survival skills are soooo important. 

What were those Campfire Girl ranks?

• Wood Gatherer
• Fire Maker
• Torch Bearer

The symbol of membership in the Camp Fire Girls is the silver fagot ring. This is given by the National Board without cost to each girl when she becomes a Wood Gatherer.

And yes, you can spell that bundle of sticks with one or two Gs. As for combustible fiction, I just finished Djibouti, by Elmore Leonard, on my Kindle. 

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Catalpa morning

I'm grateful to work near lovely tall trees. They set my mind on a pleasant path walking under the gingko, sweet gum, and catalpa trees with their distinctive leaves.

My gratitude is unlikely to be sufficient to save the catalpa trees along the curb when the builders of the faux castle monstrosity get past their stone exterior work. A native species with messy flowers, big seed pods, and lots of caterpillars is unlikely to fit their landscaping fantasy. Chances are better for a topiary shaped like a poodle.

The ancient previous owners of the property were satisfied with myrtle groundcover, tall trees with cigar seedpods, and their poodle. The uncoifed poodle endeared them to me.

In the Sixties I desperately wanted an unstyled, care-free poodle puppy. Back then, kids pretended catalpa seedpods were long cigars. We could quote the tv commercials for "cigars, cigarettes, Tiparillos", and ask, "Should a gentleman offer a Tiparillo to a lady?"

Nature was unhealthier then, that's for sure. Locust trees provided piles of "bacon" pods. Maples gave us swirling "potato chips". We spent lots of time picking the round blue "berries" from juniper bushes, adding acorns, grinding them rogether with rocks, mixing in mud, and smushing the results into foil chicken pot pie pans. We were smart enough not to actually consume our concoctions.

Back in Nebraska we had to use pine cones for hand grenades. My own sons were able to use the vastly superior seedpods of the magnolia tree in Texas.

Just thinking about sycamore trees sent me on a sneezing jag. Sycamores produce "Christmas ornament" seeds. Camp Fire Girls annually spray-painted assorted seeds, pinecones and with innocent uncooked pasta with gold or silver. Texas sweet gum trees produce seed pods from Young Bucky Fuller Visits the Galactic Empire. no spray paint required.

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Story-starters, fagot-finders, and flame-broiled whoppers

"Did you attach the key onto the outside of the Buick with a Band-Aid?," I asked the Woolly Mammoth. It wasn't a good start to the morning. He had left the car at the train station for his brother in the wee hours by my standard--after eight p.m. The three of us are sharing one working vehicle, one non-working vehicle, and a mass-transit system that leaves something to be desired for these few summer weeks. Our jobs and schedules are not yet braiding together in seamless harmony like the warf and woop of the cosmos, but the candle of hope flickers still.

In the evening, waiting for the charcoal to reach the perfect degree of orange and gray to cook the marinaded chicken, I drift into a Camp Fire Girl reverie:

Burn fire burn
Burn fire burn
Flicker flicker flicker flicker flame

My baby Weber is still six briquettes short of a flame-broiled whopper. Should I feed it tinder or kindling? Should I paint the heads of wooden matches with nail polish, and store them in a metal Band-Aid box? That was one of the survival skills I learned in Camp Fire Girls in the mid-1960s. So far, I've never needed a waterproofed match to survive, although I did fantasize once or twice about painting my spouse's head with nail polish and then stuffing him in a metal box.

I have a fondness for vintage metal boxes, Band-Aid and other. It's funny what sticks, and what doesn't. What sinews bind us to things and to people?

At one a.m. I fret. Did my son collect the Buick at the train station? To ward off worry I try to remember the girls in my Camp Fire Girl group so many years ago. The names sound so old-timey compared to my students' names:

Nancy, Nancy, Nancy, Prissy, Julie, Julie, Judy, Jody, Wendy, Wendy, Hilde, Debbie, Laurie, Donna, Janice, Dee-Dee, Linda, Susan, Margaret, Pam...

Margaret's mother taught us the "Burn Fire Burn" song:

BURN, FIRE, BURN!

(Adante moderato)
Burn, fire, burn! burn, fire, burn!
Burn, flicker, flame!
Whose hand above this blaze is lifted
Shall be with magic touch engifted,
To warm the hearts of lonely mortals
Who stand without their open portals.
The torch shall draw them to the fire,
Higher, higher, higher, By desire.
Who so shall stand by this hearthstone, flame-fanned,
Shall never stand alone;
Whose house is dark and bare and cold,
Whose house is dark and cold;
This is his own!
Flicker, flicker, flicker, flicker, flame!

Such tiny diversity within our group! One girl with a divorced mother, one girl living in an apartment, one Jewish girl, one Unitarian... Five daughters of engineers, two daughters of doctors plus one veterinarian, one daughter of a minister, at least five daughters of university professors. All of us save two walked home from school for lunch with our moms everyday, and then walked back for the afternoon class. When school dismissed at 3:15 we walked together to our Camp Fire meeting at one of our homes.

Camp Fire Girls worked their way up from Wood Gatherers to Fire Makers and Torch Bearers. The way was perilous, hidden under tinder and kindling, fraught with fagot-finders, and mired in the classic contest between wiggly loose front teeth and homemade popcorn balls.

WOOD GATHERER's DESIRE (1914) (spoken)

As fagots are brought from the forest
["Fagot" here means "a bundle of sticks tied together."]
Firmly held by the sinews which bind them,
So cleave to these others, your sisters,
Wherever, whenever you find them.
Be strong as the fagots are sturdy,
Be pure in your deepest desire;
Be true to the truth that is in you;
And--follow the Law of the Fire.


The five year olds are beginning to write stories. They choose a photo from the box of story starters, then make two to four sentences about the picture. Usually they write who is in the photo, what they are doing, and where. Sometimes they tell when, but rarely why. I keep trying to get them to spice up their stories.

Surprise me. Tell me something I don't already know. Tell me something exciting. Make me laugh. What did the flamingos play?

WE BIRDS
PLAY NOW
FLUTE AND CELLO?

And no, the Woolly Mammoth did not use the Band-Aid to stick the key on the Buick. The Band-Aid wrapper was left on the car seat because he cut his finger while hiding the key.


© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Mourning Cloak

"Look! There's a mourning cloak by the sandbox," I told the elementary students. We were having lunch at the picnic tables on the playground. The butterfly was being very cooperative, almost posing for our observation.

"Do you know what a cloak is?" Alas, the children are not familiar with Charlie Needs A Cloak, by Tomie dePaola, a wonderful picture book about a shepherd who shears his sheep, cards and spins the wool, weaves and dyes the cloth, and sews a beautiful new red cloak despite comic interference from the sheep.

A cloak is like Superman's cape, but big enough to wrap around you to keep warm. It's not like a coat, because it doesn't have sleeves. The elementary teacher and I were making progress explaining the butterfly's peculiar name.

"Mourning is when you feel very sad after someone you care about dies. People used to wear black clothes for a long time when someone died. A mourning cloak is a big black cape you would wear to a funeral," I explained.

The butterfly isn't actually black, but a very dark brown with hints of purple in the sunshine. Remember those stories of young brides wearing mourning clothes at their weddings before they left their families forever to set off on the Oregon Trail? Mourning cloaks also remind me of the movie "Amadeus" and the grieving common folk following Mozart's cortege.

Our butterfly sunning its wings by the sandbox seems dramatic, not gloomy. I was afraid of mourning cloak butterflies as a child. My parents made butterfly nets for us so I could earn a Campfire Girl bead by catching and identifying butterflies. Chasing butterflies was great exercise and fresh air whether we caught anything or not. Why was I afraid of mourning cloaks?

I wanted to check my facts before I said any more to the children. Mourning cloaks are quite unusual because they live up to ten months, longer than any other species. They can be seen on warm winter days when they come out of hibernation from under tree bark and other sheltered places. They settle on high, sunny spots to absorb heat through their outspread dark wings.

When we used to hike in Fontenelle Forest beside the Missouri River south of Omaha, we would see mourning cloaks flitting about in early February when snow was still on the ground. Mourning cloaks are the state butterfly of Montana, so I found some useful teaching information at www.montanakids.com. I also recommend the Butterfly Lab site for pictures of mourning cloaks and other butterflies every child should learn.

Mourning cloaks were scary, but not nearly as scary as miller moths. Now that I think about it, I probably first learned about "mourning" after the assassination of JFK when I was eight years old, about the same age I became a butterfly-chasing Camp Fire Girl. Going with my mother to pray silently in the nave at First Plymouth Church and trying to understand this national sadness and fear must be entangled in my butterfly memories. How does an eight-year-old understand grieving and mourning?

Miller moths are scary because when you get up in the night to go to the bathroom and turn on the light, they fly at you!


© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Dad's Dizzy

No, it's not a spring baseball reverie about my dad snoozing on the couch while Dizzy Dean and PeeWee Reese did the play-by-play of baseball games in the early Sixties. This time that apostrophe doesn't denote a possessive. Dad is dizzy, or he was yesterday. The doctors told him he might be goofed up because of crystals in his ears.

Unbeknownst to most of us vertebrates, we have calcium deposits in our ears. Bits of this calcareous material can break off and float around in the inner ear fluid, like baby icebergs awaiting the Titanic. These teeny-weeny otoliths sometimes impinge upon nerve endings due to changes of position and gravity. And wouldn't Impinging Otoliths be a great name for a rock band?? This type of dizziness is called benign positional vertigo.

Ear crystals sounds very New Age. Put an ear, maybe Van Gogh's ear, under a pyramid to grow crystals with powerful energy. In Bluebirds we grew crystals on charcoal briquettes in foil pie pans in Julie B's basement. True, I've met some children and adults who listen like they have briquettes in their ears, but this is not the case with Dad.

After Bluebirds, we entered Camp Fire where we had to meet requirements in science as well as nature, citizenship, art, home, sports, and other areas. When I showed some interest in electricity, Dad helped me by providing a dry cell battery, wires, a light bulb, pegboard, and a telegraph toggle for my guided experiments. He also gave me a crystal radio kit for Christmas, or maybe prompted Santa along that line. Unfortunately, all I remember about the crystal radio experiment is the red headphone set and wrapping the wire around and around a tube.

It's been forty years. You would think kids these days could cross two wires and disintegrate oto-icebergs the same way they defeat aliens on those video games. The possibilities are dizzying.

Otolith is from the Greek oto indicating ear, and lithos for stone; one of many minute calcareous particles found in the inner ear of certain vertebrates and in the statocysys of many invertebrates.

Calcareous is from the Latin calx for lime; containing calcium, calcium carbonate, or limestone: chalky

Crystal is from the Latin crystallum which is from the Greek krustallos. And here I thought krustallos were those burnt toast crumbs in the bottom of the toaster oven.

Impinge is also Latin from impingere to push against. To encroach or trespass...Maybe Encroaching Otoliths is a better band name.

Some Camp Fire science projects:
S-316
Learn Morse code.
S-317
Make a string telephone.
S-318
Record a mock radio broacast.
S-319
Write and send a telegram.
S-320
Make a crystal radio set.

© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Sweetgum WoHeLo

Growing up in Nebraska, I didn't learn about sweetgum trees. School teachers and Blue Bird leaders helped me learn about maples, pin oaks, locusts, pines, balsams, Bradford pears, crabapples, willows, forsithias, pussywillows, lilacs, and cedars.

Nature-walking again with the elementary class. The students have magnifying glasses this time. We find some sweetgum fruits. They look like medieval maces. Camp Fire Girl leaders back in Nebraska would have a heyday spray-painting these splendid natural specimens before gluing them onto styrofoam wreath forms. Forget the acorns and fluffy sycamore balls, the Quaker Oats and Baskin Robbins containers and Contac paper. This is true craft nirvana!

I'm grateful for the awareness of nature I gained in my Blue Bird and Camp Fire Girl years. It's good to know when to sit upon your own sit-upon, when to put on insect repellent, and when to put our head between our knees to keep from fainting. It's fun to remember our group leader's awe-inspiring talent for twisting apples apart during long hikes.

Just wishing I could remember all the different beads:

Brown--Outdoors
Red--Sports and Games
Red/white/blue--Citizenship
Yellow--
Green--
Blue--
Orange--

These last four were for Creative Arts, Science, Business, and Home.

Chemists have found that the seeds of the sweetgum fruit — also called “gumballs” — contain significant amounts of shikimic acid, the starting material used to produce the main antiviral agent in a much-heralded drug for fighting bird flu. The finding could help increase the global supply of the drug, which is now in short supply, they say. Their study will be presented March 29th in Atlanta at the national meeting of the American Chemical Society.


© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Sell No Clem Before Its Rind

Back in the Seventies, Orson Welles did some television commercials for Paul Masson jug wine, in which he uttered the tag line, "Paul Masson will sell no wine... before its time."

Drying clementines for use in ornamental wreaths takes more time than anticipated. I'd been air-drying the fruit for a week or so when I got frustrated. That's it! These Lil Cuties are going in the oven at 170 degrees for about twelve hours. I'm going to stick some whole cloves into their little vampire hearts, too.

Okay, they are a little bit cute. Back in Camp Fire Girls, we would have spray-painted them gold and added many folded Readers' Digests.






© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Losing my marbles in the cow

A memory can be a dangerous thing to let loose in a parking lot or grocery store to run around unsupervised. This is not the same as a mind being a terrible thing to waste*, nor is it like your toddler climbing out of the grocery cart. It is more like losing your marbles in a cast iron skillet.

I woke up from an afternoon nap remembering attending a Health Expo in Lincoln's Pershing Auditorium with my grade school class or Camp Fire Girls group in about 1965. The highlight of the expo was the cow with the porthole in it's side. Kids would dare each other to go look in the cow's stomach(s), and then go racing down the aisle of human body system plastic models and past the normally popular Resusci Annie. The auditorium was warm and crowded. The grass in a cow's stomach smelled funny. I expected it to be agitating like a load of laundry. A housefly traveled in and out through the window. A nursery song played in my head:

Go in and out the window,
Go in and out the window,
Go in and out the window,
As we have done before.

Go round and round the village,
Go round and round the village,
Go round and round the village,
As we have done before.

Stand and face your partner,
Stand and face your partner,
Stand and face your partner,
As we have done before.

Now shake his hand and leave him,
Now shake his hand and leave him,
Now shake his hand and leave him,
As we have done before.

Given my knack for locking my knees and fainting in the mid-1960s, I'm surprised I stayed upright. Must have been the peer pressure.

Neda Ulaby's report on Friday's "All Things Considered" probably set me off on this tack. It was difficult to ponder the ethical questions surrounding current science museum exhibits of plastinated human cadavers. The Dallas Morning News prints ads for the Houston Museum of Science engagement of Gunter Von Hagen's Body Worlds, the Anatomical Exhibition of Real Human Bodies. And I thought seeing the Dead Sea Squirrels at Omaha's Joslyn was scary! I admit I had to look up the definitions of flay and flail to get them straight. This kind of info checking takes up my time--time that normal people would spend watching "Dancing With the Stars," I guess.

Yes, dead bodies have been exhibited throughout history. I'm well acquainted with the photo of the shot-up Dalton gang after the Coffeyville raid. I was as fascinated with Egyptian mummies as most kids. I've been haunted this week by a print image I saw in some newspaper of large and small caskets draped with the Lebanese flag, lined up awaiting a mass burial. We are allowed to see these images, but not those of coffins arriving from Iraq draped with the U.S. flag.

Most of us can't hold onto all these images and current events around the clock. It's just too sad and infuriating. We have our everyday lives to lead, whether the fly goes in and out the window or not. If we didn't keep chewing our cud, we'd go crazy. The rhythm of the agitating washer drowns out the ethical questions and moral outrage.

About the same year as the bovine with the ruminal fistula, as cow portholes are known in the agricultural research world, I attended the Cub Scout Expo, also in Pershing Auditorium. My brother's scout den was exhibiting and selling the jewelry it made by frying marbles.

Fried Marbles
NOTE: This is a project that an adult should do FOR the child. The child should watch at a safe distance. This is an old-time activity.

Heat a single layer of marbles in a cast iron skillet on the stove until hot and then drop them in cold water. When you put them in water, you might want to try just a couple at a time in varying degrees of room temperature water to ice cold water.

What Happens
The glass inside the marbles shatters into shards and looks like shimmering crystal.
Why It Works
When glass goes from extreme heat to extreme cold, it cracks from the inside out.

I feel a bit like one of those marbles today, slightly cracked from the inside out. I hope no fifth grade boy picks up a marble and then races across the auditorium to drop it through the cow window. Boys can be like that. They put worms in Resusci Annie's mouth, you know. Then they grow up to be in a Yale secret society, doing pretend rituals with Geronimo's skull.

A 1966 marble is a terrible thing to fry. This is your 1986 brain on decongestants! This is a wasted afternoon in 2006.



*"A mind is a terrible thing to waste" was the excellent public awareness campaign for the United Negro College Fund beginning in 1971. The phrase was mangled by then Vice President Dan Quayle in May of 1989:

What a waste it is to lose one's mind.
Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful.
How true that is.

Tomato basil big box

My Micro Center has been painted the color of La Madeleine's tomato basil soup. It's not really mine, but I drive past it several times a week. It's part of a trend to paint the exteriors of big box stores and strip malls in food colors of salmon, pimento, fruit Smoothies, and the perfect match for Tabasco Sauce on the rice in a Chipotle burrito bol. I'm ready for lunch before I even start my workday.



Is this part of the Santa Fe-cation of America? Or is it something more sinister? Is it a plot to make Texas drivers even fatter so they need those big seats in Detroit's monstrous SUVs that require all that polar bear/caribou oil drilling?

Which reminds me of a gourmet recipe I learned forty years ago from my Camp Fire Girl friend, Janice. I was totally impressed by her salad dressing cooking ability. I've lost the recipe card I wrote out in ten-year-old's cursive, but it's easy to find on the web!

"French Dressing"

1 can (10 3/4 oz) Campbell's Condensed Tomato Soup
1/2 c Salad oil
1/4 c Vinegar
1/2 tsp Dry mustard

In covered jar or shaker combine ingredients; shake well before using.

This recipe appeared on Campbell's Tomato Soup cans back before World War II. That makes it older than green bean casseroles, Janice, and I. The recipe doesn't have the conversion amounts for enough gallons to paint a computer superstore, but your brushes clean up in soap and water.


My dad's tool pegboard.

Candy Thermometer for Election Day

Got going early this morning so I could vote right after the polls opened at seven. My polling place is the middle school my sons attended. Middle schools are very scary places, so I wanted to be long gone before incoming students began swarming.

Last Friday I had my hair permed. My relationship with my hair is difficult. We are like roommates who live in the same apartment, but aren't actually friends. We cycle through phases of amused tolerance, benign disinterest, forced civility, not making eye contact, and outright loathing. About once a year we need a professional mediator and a permanent.

It's a good perm. I like it a lot. Adults seem to like it, or are very polite. My students take one look, scrunch up their faces like they are studying a flipped-over beetle wiggling its legs in the air, and say, "You look really weird. What happened to your hair?"

This afternoon the preschoolers gave my appearance a thorough appraisal, and informed me I looked "like a clown". A few minutes later the oldest girl amended that analysis. "You look," she said, "like the mother of the clown." That's harsh! And there I'd been humming a West Side Story tune to myself...

I feel pretty,
Oh, so pretty,
I feel pretty and witty and bright!
And I pity
Any girl who isn't me tonight.

I feel charming,
Oh, so charming
It's alarming how charming I feel!
And so pretty
That I hardly can believe I'm real.


After the perm Friday, my stylist convinced me I needed a product to define my curls if I wasn't going to aim for the Texas Big Hair bouffant look. For relaxed, easy shower-and-go, I definitely needed Twisted Taffy Raw Hair Goo.

The Raw Hair Goo results were pretty good Saturday-Monday. Something went way wrong this morning. The Twisted Taffy never progressed past the soft ball stage. It didn't dry all day long, let alone define curls and provided promised "textured shine."

Soft ball stage, as any Camp Fire Girl who ever tried to make popcorn balls for treats knows, begins at 234°. A small amount of syrup dropped into chilled water forms a ball, but flattens when picked up with fingers.

"You can't make fudge when it's hot," my wise team teacher quoted. Since I make fudge once every other Christmas, I did not know if this was ancient wisdom or something she made up for this occasion. We are experiencing ridiculous temps in the mid-eighties, and humidity around sixty per cent. For November, that qualifies as hot.

When my sons were young, they melted plastic toy soldiers with the magnifying glass out on the afternoon sidewalk, in the name of science. Being of a certain majestic, energized, and powerful stage in life, I can probably melt any plastic toy soldier within three feet of my scalp, in the name of menopause.

Can weather affect candy making?

Oddly enough, it can. Cooking candy syrup to the desired temperature means achieving a certain ratio of sugar to moisture in the candy. On a humid day, once the candy has cooled to the point where it is no longer evaporating moisture into the air, it can actually start reabsorbing moisture from the air. This can make the resulting candy softer than it is supposed to be.

That’s why dry days are recommended for candy making, although the effects of humidity can be somewhat counterbalanced by cooking the candy to the upper end of the appropriate temperature stage.

Cool weather is also recommended for candy making, because—generally—the faster candy cools, the less chance it has to form unwanted crystals.

My what bad hair you have, Grandma!

FEMA vacancy

Known many Girl Scouts and Camp Fire Girls with more ability to run a disaster relief operation than George W's horses assn. buddy Mike Brown. First thing we learned about survival as Camp Fire Girls was to paint wooden matches with nail polish and store them in a metal Band-Aid box.

It's time for a woman to take charge of FEMA, George, even if the Coast Guard's Thad Allen and the Army's "Ragin' Cajun" handle the actual muddy shoes stuff. Women prepare for every contingency, George, every worst case scenario, everyday. My walking partner and I explored this concept as we waddled along our normal route Sunday. "A woman," my buddy explained, "would have made sure their were plenty of toilets. She would have trucked in the porta-potties first thing!"

• Most women have enough stuff in their purse to get a family through a weekend of lost luggage.
• Most women pack the luggage for a trip so that they have survival attire for every temperature between -10 F and 110 F.
• Many women can sing forty-seven imaginative verses of "Old MacDonald" for all the kids stranded on a freeway overpass at the same time they arrange transportation and carpools for the whole first grade class.
• Many women can arrange the luggage in the car trunk so there is enough room for Grandma's soup tureen, carefully packed full of spare socks and undies. This is at the same time their spouses are helping with the emergency evacuation by putting a six pack of Diet Coke into the freezer so will be sure to explode before departure.
• Women like to have important medical records at their fingertips. My kids have all left home, but I still have photocopies of their immunization records in my purse. I must admit I no longer have the bottle of Triaminic and the plastic spoon in the Ziplock bag in my purse. Just last year I quit carrying a photo of my ex in case I needed to ever show it to police. That is what I consider being prepared.
• Women can think a full day ahead, and have supplies and a Plan B in case their pantyhose run or the baby spits up on their shoulder.
• Women can plan a week ahead, and know which day the soccer team treats are needed. They can figure out which day is best to whip into Sam's to get the juice boxes and peanut butter crackers, with time to spare before preschool dismisses. They can keep a mental holographic chart of days, activities, field locations, transportation arrangements, and game times for up to six children.
• Women can think a minimum of one month ahead, and be prepared for inconvenient surprises. Call it a biological logistics advantage.

I don't wish to make light of the situation in the Gulf States, but I do think most women are better at emergency preparedness than men. I know all moms have more experience with crisis management than Michael Brown. Moms always have that barf bag stuffed under the car seat for when the Road of Life is twisty, congested, and under stinky water. They've been that way since their toddler first smelled the feedlot on the way to Grandma's house.

Now let's all sing that song about the duckies in the rain while we pick up the litter and put it in Mr. Trashcan. Would you like a cough drop? I just happen to have one... If I dig deep enough, I can probably find the accordian-folded rain bonnet that I started carrying in 1964. Looks to me like that levee might need some reinforcing. I'll have the kids put mud in all my old pantyhose, and we can fill that breach.

Grab that case of shoestring potatoes!

First thing this morning I turned on the t.v. to check on Hurricane Katrina and the evacuees inside the Superdome like many folks all over the country. New Orleans is one place I've actually been in person, not just through the eyes of some fictional caterer/amateur detective. New Orleans is a foreign, wondrous, decadent, humid city of fascinating history and insects the size and weight of a bowling bag. It is also the site of national Whiz Quiz tournaments which, despite their popularity and importance, have never been held in the Superdome.

The Superdome is even bigger than the insects. Sure, it was many years ago when my then-spouse insisted we go for a run around the Superdome SEVERAL times, but I bet it hasn't shrunk. That sucker is monstrous, and jogging in New Orleans is like doing water aerobics in a kettle of boiling crawdads. I hold New Orleans in my fond memory. I'm mostly over wanting to put my ex in a kettle of boiling crawdads.

Sunday night I watched footage of the evacuees waiting in lines to get into the Superdome carrying their trashbags of food and clothing. Then this morning they had dim light but NO A/C! Those poor people, I thought, remembering my eldest's high school graduation held inside sweltering Texas Stadium. If I felt trapped sitting through the ceremony for the largest high school class to ever graduate in Texas, with concession stands selling H2O for $3/bottle, imagine how they must feel sitting out the storm. I had the luxury of knowing that the parade of students across the platform would eventually reach the Z's, although I did have on pantyhose, which counted double for suffering. Please don't let any folks in the hot, muggy Superdome have on pantyhose!

I had just worn nylons for the first time at my sixth grade promotion in late May of 1967. The nylons were "Suntan", and my dress for the occasion was a lovely Monet blue and lavender voile. My mantra was, "Don't lock your knees. Don't lock your knees. You won't faint and fall off the risers if you don't lock your knees."


1967 was Nebraska's statehood centennial. My pal and I were going to attend the Nebraska Camp Fire Girls Centennial Camporee in Lincoln's lovely, shady Pioneers Park. It was going to be "real" tent camping for hundreds of girls, with educational bus trips to the major sites of the Capitol City.

There's a definite lack on web information on this event, despite my best search efforts. Using the rainfall statistics for Lancaster County at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's High Plains Climate Center, along with the perpetual calendar in my loyal World Almanac, I suspect that the Camporee began on Sunday, June fourth. On the first full day of the week-long event, all the campers rode school buses into town to visit the Historical Society Museum, the State Capitol building with its Unicameral Chamber, the Governor's Mansion, the Folsom Children's Zoo, and the Sunken Gardens. After about the second educational tourist attraction this adventure had become a torture of searing bus seats and delays for hungry, thirsty, bored, irritable girls in navy shorts and white blouses.



Finally we boarded the buses to ride back out to the campsite. Recognition had dawned that we would continue to be hot, sweaty, bored, irritable, and itchy inside the canvas tents while counselors stirred big pots of hamburger stew made with Lipton dried soup packets, mixed the Tang, and got out loaves of Wonder Bread. The darkening sky matched our moods.

The storm came in suddenly, whipping the tent flaps and pouring down rain. The rain felt pretty good, but then the tents started falling down on us. The counselors couldn't make supper. They had to herd all the girls into the concrete park restrooms at the back of the concession stand. We could hear the tornado sirens. A couple adults held transistor radios to their ears. We kept packing closer together, standing inside the restrooms, scared, still itchy, thirsty, and hungry, and horrified about being in the MENS. Sirens, lightning, thunder, loose pieces of clothes and paper flying around. Then a lull. A brave young woman ran out through the rain, wind, and mud to what was left of the mess tent. She was bringing us provisions! She was bringing us a case of canned shoestring potatoes! It was just like a chapter from Little House on the Prairie or On the Banks of Plum Creek! We were going to huddle together budgeting our precious, limited supply of salty, greasy, potato sticks as the rain poured down even harder. We would gradually rotate so that each member of the group would get a turn to sip a bit of water from their cupped hand at the dirty sink of the MENS restroom.

In those primitive days there were no cell phones. Somehow, someone sort of in charge managed to get word to the city that the camp was a wreck. The Lincoln National Guard sent buses to load all the campers and the rest of the shoestring potatoes to ride to the armory. We each got a cot, and a PB sandwich. We didn't sleep well, still being soggy, and not knowing where we were.

After a few days at the armory, and a volunteer work detail back out to the campsite to load all the wet belongings into National Guard buses, I found a way to contact my parents so they could pick me up. All organization for the Camporee had broken down. No FEMA, no Plan B. And not enough shoestring potatoes!

Sending visualizations of shoestring potatoes to everyone in the Superdome tonight...

Humidity Flashback

Walked out to the dumpster this morning, and came back soaked. Geez, it feels just like Camp Kiwanis near Milford, Nebraska, in June. That would be just after the flood waters of the Big Blue River receded enough for the Camp Fire Girls of 1964 to hike out on the penninsula to the swinging bridge, swatting at the enormous mosquitoes and horseflies as they walked.



Camp Fire Girls hiked in their little baby blue Keds and white anklets with their names written in Rub-a-Dub laundry marker. They wore navy shorts, white blouses, and hats to protect them from ticks. They coated any bare skin with a 6-12 brand insect repellent stick that looked like an art room glue stick and felt about the same, if you've ever drawn on yourself with glue stick the way my students often do. Smelled lots worse though.

The Kiwanis Club of Lincoln owned and maintained Camp Kiwanis from the 1920's until 1983 when it was sold to Easter Seals. For fifty years the camp was used by the Camp Fire Girl's Council. Originally six acres in size, it grew over the years to sixty-three acres bounded by the Big Blue River and the Chicago Burlington railroad tracks.

Being a camper on the Big Blue River penninsula, and much later visiting the Lied Jungle at Omaha's fantastic Henry Doorly Zoo are the closest I've ever been to the Amazon rain forest. If I ever went there, I would be sure to write my name on my socks!

Bad crafts and good fairies

Last week I received the gift of a milkweed plant from a butterfly gardener. Milkweeds are the host plant for monarch butterflies. They are the host plant for memories of Blue Bird day camp at Roberts Park, too.

Roberts Park had a tiny creek running through it, with reeds and milkweed plants along the banks under the spotty shade of big trees. As a Blue Bird, I learned to make a sit-upon out of newspapers, and a drum out of an oatmeal container. I learned to be very careful sitting on splintery picnic table benches wearing shorts, and that crying wouldn't get my mom to take me home.

When I "flew up" to become a Camp Fire Girl, I got to make far more advanced craft projects that all seemed to require gold spray paint. We glued dry macaroni onto a cigar box to make a sewing basket (and I liked the cigar smell!). When spray-painted gold, and loaded with straight pins and a measuring tape, we young ladies were ready to make quilt squares for orphans, which was a step up from making holiday napkin rings for nursing home residents out of tp tubes. I still have the same strawberry pincushion from 1965.

Camp Fire Girls attended day camp at the more remote, large, and wild Pioneers Park. I rode out there every summer day with the day camp director in the far, far back of her pale blue VW Beetle. We went early and were the very last to leave. Due to a terror of falling down a porta-potty, I was forced to stay dehydrated for ten hours per summer day.

We used a mosquito repellent that resembled a glue stick, and was called "6-12", or something like that. Coated with the smelly mosquito repellent, the bonfire smoke, itchy dried-on sweat, and the camomile lotion on yesterday's bites, avoiding the potties, and afraid to drink the instant Tang (in spite of the astronauts), I spent more days on splintery picnic benches and woven newspaper sit-upons. We hiked around the park collecting leaves to glue onto more oatmeal containers, and sandwiched other weeds between clear Contac paper to make bookmarks. We learned to coat the outside of an iron skillet with Joy Dishwashing Liquid to keep the skillet from turning black over the flames. We learned to not coat the inside of the skillet with Joy Dishwashing Liquid to avoid getting diarrhea. We learned to put nail polish on the tips of wooden matches and store them in metal Band-Aid containers in case of emergency. We learned to put our head between our knees if we felt faint, and to lean back if we had a nosebleed. We learned that "nature" was when you used four pieces of tree bark to make a picture frame. "Art" was making a lanyard out of plastic braid. I've got the beads and patches to prove it!

During the winter months we had weekly afterschool Camp Fire meetings in our basement. The high point of all meetings was having "treats", which were usually Hi-C and cookies or popcorn balls. Each December we made crafts like the classic Reader's Digest angel--again with the gold spray paint. Another biggie was making a pomander out of an orange and cloves. Do you know how many meetings it takes to cover the surface of an orange with cloves at one hour per week when you are ten years old??? I would rather go through induced childbirth than make another pomander in Camp Fire Girls!

The all-time greatest bad Camp Fire Girl craft project involved collecting milkweed pods, cattails, and other weeds in Roberts Park. Then next meeting, our amazing leaders brought LP 33 1/3 rpm record albums that had been baked in some fool's kitchen oven until the vinyl rippled and ruffled out from the spindle hole to the edge. Where the record label was, we glued on a halved styrofoam sphere. Into the half-sphere, we poked the stems of all the dried weeds and milkweed pods. Then the leaders spray-painted this aesthetic nightmare in gold. We were able to take these lovely creations home to use for Thanksgiving table centerpieces. You know, we gather together to spray-paint the milkweed...

I've done some dumb kitchen stunts in the pursuit of children's craft projects over the years, but I can't imagine the bravado and stupidity that would allow a young mother to bake LP's until they rippled. I set a microwave oven on fire trying to melt crayons for a wax resist project. I tinted the wallpaper around the kitchen exhaust fan a lovely blue by switching on the fan at the same time I sprinkled a package of dry RIT dye powder into a boiling pot of water.

If you would like to see a sweet video about fairies, look for "Kristen's Fairy House" at your local library or video rental store.

Sorta Supper, Kinda Cuisine

I am auditioning for my own cooking show on the local cable access channel, or at least that's how I feel. Dad is here for an extended visit. I am cooking. A lot. At least by my standards. Normally, I am good for one home-cooked meal per day, preferably breakfast; one fresh fruit smoothie; one salad; and then one Bonus delicious meal per week for the Lunch Gang.

Dad sits at the table to visit with me while I cook, but sometimes he just stares as I attempt to put together a meal with wholesome sidedishes. "And what would that be called?," he asks.

[I need to work up more patter for my cooking show. Witty banter with the celebrity cohost. Product placement. Testimonials for smoke detectors and grease-cutting cleansers.]

A. "Well, Dad, this is my famous Kinda Chinese Chicken Without Cashews." Dad had already eaten the cashews to go with his beer.

B. "Well, Dad, this is my famous Tostita-less Spanish Pork Chops With Canned Black Beans, 2 for $1.00 On Special".

C. "Well, Dad, this is my world-reknowned Roast Beef With Spackling Paste Mashed Potatoes", so you need to sing the song about "Scram Gravy Ain't Wavy". You've always said Scram Gravy was made with cornstarch.

*****
The closest I get to gourmet ingredients is the jar of Lyle's Golden Syrup given to me by the dear ex-wife of my organic cousin. It is GOOD STUFF. Put some in a little Tupperware container that still has a matching lid. Add the last of the soy sauce, some vinegar, some lemon juice, a shake of cayenne pepper and of ginger, and 2T of cornstarch. If you use a measuring spoon, go back two spaces and do not collect $200. Put the matching lid on and shake it all up. My preschoolers would say, "shake your booty," which is another sign that our culture has gone to hell in a hand-basket. Cook some cut up chix boobs in the electric skillet in hot Crisco oil. Add cut up celery, summer squash, red pepper (or other colors), mushrooms maybe, frozen peas, and leftover Minute Rice. When it all seems warm and crispy, pour the Golden Booty Shake Mix over everything, and stir as it cooks for about two minutes. As an afterthought, set the table. Get out the chow mein noodles for crunch.

Back in the Wonder Years, I was a Camp Fire Girl. In sixth grade we had to have a progressive dinner to meet a basic requirement. The girls divided into three groups to plan for the dinner. My group chose a Mexican theme. I was blasted out of my sheltered childhood by this introduction to Doritos and pinatas. The next group chose to cook Italian. I learned about the joys of candles stuck in wine bottles, spaghetti, and Ragu. Last in the progressive dinner was the Hawaiian group. Terrifying stuff of coconuts, pineapples, and Jello.

The next year in 4H Club I learned of another cuisine--the one made from canned corn, Quaker Oats, ground meat, and cream of mushroom soup. This is the second tier of comfort food, after food actually made by my mother and grandma. 4H cuisine is down-to-basics satisfying. My "4H You Learn To Bake" pamphlet is grease-stained, water-rippled, and held together with yellowed Scotch tape. We were learning to bake in 1967-68. It was a tense time for our nation, and I was a very tense junior high student. Garrison Keillor can carry on about ketchup solving all our problems, but I think 4H cuisine might work better.

In college I learned about Chinese food at the Hong Kong Pizza King just south of the UNL campus. The only link I can find on Google leads to a conservative forum discussing gay Norwegian elk, immigration, and Minutemen. As a student in the mid-Seventies, Hong Kong Pizza King was an inviting spot the size of a postage stamp just beyond campus for meeting friends and eating egg rolls. The windows would steam up from Thanksgiving to St. Patrick's Day against the solid layer of packed snow and ice on the sidewalk.

Steamed windows make everything taste better. Make a note to the set designer for my cooking show.

Family Tree with Flair

This is the first revised edition of my family tree originally drawn up in 1965 at the dining table of my Grandma to earn a Camp Fire Girl bead and become a Faggot Finder or Torch Bearer, I'm not sure which. That first family tree was created during an oral history moment and sketched out on blueprint paper in pencil.



For eighth grade American Studies class we had to compile a neater and more detailed family tree. I had just received my very first set of colored felt pens. The twelve pens were in a black box that opened and folded back to stand ready to comply with my artistic wishes. This family tree is written with my op-art Papermate pen, and underlined with green, yellow, and red violet felt pens. I am proud to have grown up with the Beatles and the first felt pens. Where would we be without them?!

My walking bud wants to know why I am into this genealogy stuff. Maybe I just want to feel like I'm sitting to the left of Grandma at the big dark table in the light green dining room. I can smell the dark wooden buffet. I see the day's mail in the big glass bowl on the buffet, and the little pots of African violets and baby's breath on the shelves by the window. I can feel the anodized drinking glass at my place and see the tiny salt shaker with the bluebird design. Forty years ago, and we would have been anticipating cold pressed chicken, cukes & onions, mandarin orange jello salad, sugar cookies, and sweet iced tea from a cut glass pitcher.

Grandma would tell a bit about teaching in a one-room school near town. I would get more of the story from Dad as we walked off our big lunch. I especially liked the story of my great-great grandmother, Susa Smith, who was disowned by her parents for eloping with John Lee, the [handsome] gardener of their estate in England. The next generation had a different Cinderella spin, and Grandma had to go live with her aunts when her new stepmother came into the picture.



Behind the door to the kitchen were the shelves of games. Marbles for Chinese checkers were in a heavily waxed cottage cheese container. The Tinker Toys were in their original cylinder. Mom told us not to trip on the electrical cord running under the area rug. The figurine on the corner whatnot stressed, "Speak no evil, see no evil, hear no evil."