Zooming in on the small grey-green bird

Home today. I almost made it to the three-day weekend before coming down with a snozzfest headcold. Adding to the sinus pain is an eye twitch. Herbert Lom's Chief Inspector Dreyfus had Clouseau. Like many teachers, I could name my eye twitch after a certain student, but I won't do that publicly! I could name the likely suspects who shared this headcold, too, but again, a bad idea.

In between naps I sat in a sunny spot and stared out the window. To my great joy, a small grey-green bird was hopping about the soapberry tree on the neighbor's patio. It only took fifty photos, three field guides, four checklists, and two websites to get a partial ID.  My feathered insect-eating friend seems to be a warbler. Maybe a prairie warbler. Feel free to jump in with a better suggestion. Its tummy and rump shone yellow in the bright sunshinne.

Been writing about winter visits by the small grey-green bird since shortly after my mother died. I've never gotten a good identification, but this guest always cheers me up.

 

The day warmed up to near sixty degrees, so perhaps insects became active. I watched a red admiral butterfly materialize from nowhere to circle the patio.  Two anole lizards were out back, too.

The next two days should be warm. My camera and bird books are waiting by the window with the box of tissues.



© 2013 Nancy L. Ruder

Formica shades of gray

Walking shoe and Formica chips

Rooting around in a disorganized teacher box in search of a piggy finger puppet I find a cache of Formica samples circa 1965. Give myself  The Talking To where I insist that something I haven't needed or even known existed should be thrown out in the interest of leaving less mess for my kids should I happen to die. Then I talk back to myself and whine.

I fail to put myself in Time Out.  Instead I reach a compromise whereby I keep the gray samples since they are relevant to an ongoing discussion, and chuck the others in the dumpster.

The Formica samples provided some further names for gray:

Bunny grays

haze
platinum
seagull
stardust
white kid leather

Newport, Oregon beach in December

ninja
orchid
optix
graceful oak
ice
surf




Just getting warmed up to the challenge plus inspired by Formica, I add these shade suggestions:

Very large sauerkraut crock

crock
tomato cage
bubble wrap
mystery meat
Duct tape
mockingbird
junco
freezer burn

Hairstreak butterfly

window screens
retro diner
comfy sweats
nap-time tantrum
no bars of service
mirror
shining armor
flashlight batteries
Velcro
wasp nest

Rock and roll is here to stay

fan oscillations
typewriter ribbon
Tut's tomb
tar pit
rocks
aspen bark
tumbleweed
windmill

Remote grays

Miss Haversham
sorry old guys' nasty undershirts
Brillo
air quality alert
technology
obituary
socket set

VCR gray

coming down with something
paper shredder
cable service outage
coin collection
dog-eared textbook

Hindenburg
tax return
charm bracelet
armadillo
clean the grill

Scared of the basement gray

furnace filter
tinted window
dryer lint
cafeteria fork
Mt. St. Helen's
required reading
sensible shoes
emery board
Dragnet
stink bug

Pale bucket gray

lichen
safe deposit box
pewter
tarnished
Edward R. Murrow
toad
cream of mushroom soup
mercury

Lichen or not

but fear itself
jammed stapler
fish scales
snowed-in

teen car oil spot
utensil
Stonehenge

Cozy afghan knit sofa snoozy gray

AV club
pencil shavings
galvanized bucket
pocket protector

dried Elmer's
firework snakes
desert lizard

toenail fungus

Fritzi's wastebasket

aging Tupperware
sink caulk
laundromat
padlock
snowplow
wet mitten
small kitten


© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

How many shades?

Click beetle gray

Stood in line in the airport bookstore behind females of various ages all purchasing Fifty Shades of Grey to read on their flights. Dull, putty graphite me, I was buying the New York Times for the crossword puzzle.

As an art teacher and fan of Mid-Century Modern design, I'm a connoisseur of gray. Like the Inuits describing snow, fifty seems a small number for the distinctions of gray.

In art class we call the project a value study. I'm not a prude. I've read lots of reviews for the bestsellers, but they do not tempt me. It's interesting that gradations and degradations both pop to mind.

Taunting no rain gray clouds

gray

Texas mountain laurel tree gray

ash
silver
chrome
charcoal
nickel
slate
mica
gravel road
flint
frost
smoke
smudge
fog
drizzle
asphalt
foil 
onyx
basalt
dust


cement concrete
storm
granite
grime
silt
clay
Kodak
tin
aluminum
sleet
scum
grout



stainless
granite
stone
institutional
eraser
sage
moth
lead
pistol
weathered driftwood
smog
mushroom
mouse
fox
tornado
mildew




© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

New growth on prickly pear

I love the tension between sharp greens and heavy-laden grays of spring,.  I love the sprouts and the storms, the dang piccolos versus kettle drums, Peter Rabbit vs. Old Mr. MacGregor on Pay-Per-View.  The contest gets me through the sinus headaches and aggravations of sticky, green pollen coating my windshield.  The pollen defies the washer fluid and gets smeared by tired wipers. The cobalt violet of blooming redbuds adds the neon shock of pain and ecstasy, much like the time the otorhinolaryngologist rammed his scope into my deviated septum.  This is spring.

en garde  (ä gärd)

interj.

Used to warn a fencer to assume the position preparatory to a match.

---

[French : en, on + garde, guard.]

[Disc 3 of my "Carmen" cd is damaged right where Don Jose and Escamillo fight.  And I dreamt I forgot to shave my legs.  Knew the crossword puzzle answer for the clue "Gillette blade" though--ATRA]

Felt like I'd been through the woodchipper even before arriving home from work.  The elementary students did the printmaking for the music festival invitations, and the results will be totally awesome.  Tonight this art teacher will have a bad case of brayer shoulder and should go to bed early.  Thanks to the glittergoods blogger for this perfect spring green brayer illustration:

The lawn service guys for the condo are sending today's prunings through a real woodchipper.  The high-pitched whine makes the hairs on my arms stand straight up and shriek.  Yup.  Spring.  Now 'scuse me while I ice my March madness injury! 

© 2012 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

Improve your day the titmouse way

School photo day.  Half the kids dressed like outrageous paper dolls in impractical, unseasonal outfits by their parents.  The other half just hustled in for their turn before the camera before they wipe the inevitable nose goobies through their hair.  One boy in a dark corduroy sportcoat over his t-shirt had the look that made me fall in love with my ex.  Every girl's crazy 'bout a sharp-dressed man.

Class group photo.  Moving the lunchroom benches.  Lining up tallest to shortest.  What a miracle to get everyone to smile and Ms. Nancy to not blink without crossing the line into laughing chaos.  All day expecting a voice mail with the final news of a friend.  Snap the picture before I cry.

Staff photo.  Six women all rushing to be in the back row.  All pushing their glasses higher up their noses.

Radish photos.  The first planting of the season in the school garden.  Snapping the photos to document kids poking holes in the dirt.  The cup of tiny seeds blown over.  Praying the watering can bearers would sprinkle and not flood the expectations.  Walking away to hear of the tsunami in Japan.  Oh, the radish seeds!

I lied to my father.  Thursday he let me spoon him the soup from the bowl he kept trying to locate with finger tips that no longer feel.  Friday, slapping my efforts away.  The aide would take over.  I had an appointment, I told Dad.

An appointment with sanity.  A date with the creek.  A conference with woodpeckers, robins, Mr. Mallard.  A wren sighting.  A buzz from the PA system.  Another buzz.  Oh, the warning call of a tiny gray titmouse in gray suit and pointed cap telling me to get lost.  Tufted or black-crested?  Definitely sharp-dressed.

Clean shirt, new shoes


and I don't know what I am gonna do.


Silk suit, black tie,


I don't need a reason why.


They come runnin' just as fast as they can


cause every girl is crazy 'bout a sharp dressed man.



© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Color fix with graph paper

During Friday morning's big snow I decided to tromp the six blocks to the grocery store after the lone llama photo shoot.  I'd been reading recipes, always a dangerous activity since I have Chronic Failure to Follow Recipes Otherwise Unspecified.  [I'm not a psychiatrist, but I play one on the Food Network.]:

• Why do they call them red lentils if they are orange? 
• Why do they have to turn gray when cooked?  It's just so gruelly. 
• Why do I think maybe this is the time I will actually like wild rice?  Hah!

I had most of the ingredients for Grandma's baked chop suey, the essential snowstorm food. But I needed soy sauce, as usual. Cocoa mix, celery, and a newspaper would all enhance my "snowed-in" experience. These would fit in one reusable totebag, easy. Plus, I could look for gumballs on my walk to the store. More on that later.


What I really needed was a color fix.  The windows of Calloway's Nursery pulled me like a magnet.  I couldn't get enough of the red, white, and pink cyclamen and the saturated bright colors of the primroses. 

The light coming through the snow on the greenhouse roof gave a sense of fragility and imminent danger.  Condensation on the windows added to the magic exhilaration of stealing this color while no one was watching. 

Once the temperatures rose and the streets became safe on Saturday, I took another color detour off the freeway to Northhaven Gardens on my way to the library. Using a gift card, I got two bright red cyclamen plants to inspire a Valentines art class. The silver markings on the dark green heart-shaped leaves have refueled me. 

I'm working on spatial vocabulary with the little kids--on top, behind, between--and we will arrange and observe the two flower pots. Maybe I'll take some graph paper to add to the backgrounds. It's silly, but the thing that attracted me to this condo was peeking in the window and spying the "graph paper" blue and white wallpaper in the dining area and kitchen.

The reds, greens, pinks, and silver did me way more good than the wild rice or soy sauce.  Oh, and about the gumballs, it might be time for my annual read-aloud of Daniel Pinkwater's Wallpaper from Space.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Progression--Small stone #9

creamy nougat clouds

curtains of caramel light

another day coated in dark chocolate

gone in two bites

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Trunks

Trunks were already on my mind when I found the abandoned light fixture beside the dumpster.  A condo updater made a trip to Home Depot for a new ugly chandelier, no doubt.  The unwanted chandelier ended up down by the creek  a few days later.  No longer a found object for a photo study, I hauled the darn thing up and heaved it into the dumpster.

The elementary art students added paintings to their elephants from last week to create art reminiscent, but much more uplifting than the heave-ho of the light fixture. 
 
 
 

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder