Slapping current events

For once an idiotic politician has disgraced himself and NOT been from Texas.  Don't you just want to slap that legitimate jerk?

Unfortunately we are living in our own news story, the West Nile Virus. Collin County had its first West Nile death yesterday. Texas has something like 580 cases of West Nile and over twenty deaths. Am I freaking? Nope. I just wish I was better at slapping the mosquito that's in my condo.  It's lurking in wait like Inspector Clouseau's servant Cato Fong  for me to arrive home from work.


Check out West Nile info for your state here. I love USGS maps...

This map does not show the great grey-green greasy Limpopo River where the Elephant's Child went after all his relatives slapped and spanked him for his 'satiable curtiosity.

O, best Beloved, remember how the Elephant's Child kept eating melons and throwing the rinds about?  There I was trapped in the Buick in bad traffic listening to Diane Rehm and her guests discuss contaminated cantaloupes and food safety enforcement.  Listeria...salmonella...ecoli...

And for a D'oh! head slap, I salute the United States Postal Service for its over-estimation of Simpsons stamps demand.

© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

Cake crumbs with Mr. Sunshine

Voila!  I whisked the lid off Dad's supper plate, and there was Mr. Sunshine.  I was so surprised I started laughing uncontrollably.  That started the aide known as The Lady In Red laughing, too.  She went out to the food cart to see if all the plates had carrot sunshines.  Nope.  Someone in the kitchen must think just Dad needs to brighten up.

Dad was not particularly amused, but he ate three carrots, and half each of the mystery meat, biscuit, and cake.  He drank some milk.  For him, a pretty good meal.  The Lady In Red started calling Mr. Howard "Mister Sunshine" instead.  He wore another quarter of the cake, but I tried to clean it up.

I told Dad a halfway right version of "How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin".  It was because of the cake crumbs, of course.  Then I had to go home to change my shirt due to itchiness from my haircut, which felt as bad as burned currants in a waterproof.

Feeling less itchy, I found the last cassette player in the house and popped in the old Rabbit Ears tape of Jack Nicholson and Bobby McFerrin doing that Just So Story.  Fabulous as ever!

Them that takes cake

Which the Parsee-man bakes

Makes dreadful mistakes.



Last night we had a big storm with crazy lightning and hail.  Having fallen asleep on the couch under the twin skylights, it was a multisensory wake-up tapdance and lightshow.  My flowers weren't harmed.  A few miles south at my school the hail was so large it hadn't melted away eight hours later.  The lambs ears looked stabbed and slashed with pointy scissors, not the round-tip Fiskars.

I am listening to Aimee Bender's The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake on cd. In the nap room at school I'm reading The Caregiver's Path to Compassionate Decision Making, by Viki Kind, MA, with my Mighty Bright book light, connecting my three jobs--kids, books, and Dad.  At bedtime I read a bit of The White Lioness, by Henning Mankell.  I do not eat cake in bed. 

 You are my sunshine

My only sunshine

You make me happy

When skies are gray.

You'll never know, dear,
How much I love you.
Please don't take my sunshine away.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Won't you be my darling?

Some weeks have seven Wednesdays.  Life is more Seussy than usual, so I need to rent a seven hump Wump.  Can I make a reservation online @ MrGump.com?

The three year old is singing to herself (at considerable volume) as she works:

Humping along in my little red wagon

Humping along in my little red wagon

Humping along in my little red wagon

Won'tcha be my darling?

She doesn't know any other verses.  She doesn't know any other connotations, thank heaven, as in "your sister's cocker spaniel kept humping the coffee table leg".

My sons learned a more mechanical version of the song:

Who's gonna fix my little red wagon?

One wheel's off and the axel's dragging

not to mention the blinker light from Hell.

Won'tcha pay the mechanic's bill?

My sister learned the song from her Australian preschool teacher who carried a bumpershoot on rainy days:

Chucking along in my little red wagon

Chucking along in my little red wagon

Chucking along in my little red wagon

... Won't you be my darling?

Efforts to track the expression "chucking along" ran off the rails. It is frequently used, sometimes instead of "chugging along".  We would like to hope that expression has more to do with railroad trains than brewskis.

The most common version of the children's song starts out:

Bumping up and down in my little red wagon...



Teaching an introductory clay lesson, my Hump Day morning was spent transforming lumps.  No time to stare at my reflection!  No time to be idle!  No time for a roll in ze hay or in ze red wagon!

Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: You know, I'm a rather brilliant surgeon. Perhaps I can help you with that hump.
Igor: What hump?

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Cupcake aggravation, O best beloved

I will proceed now to relate how Dad got himself into an agitated state over the delayed delivery of his supper tray.  He had no manners then, and he has no manners now, so he hollered for his supper.  Then he declined to eat his supper except for the cupcake, since he was all in a tizzy to get into bed.  But as he ate the cupcake, only just, the crumbs were distributed all about Dad's turtleneck and sweatpants and furthermore.  When dear Penelope came to pop Dad into his nightshirt and transfer him into beddy-bye, the pulling off of the turtleneck unwound the cake crumbs down into tummy skin rolls and crevices.  And if only Jack Nicholson had been there at the long-term care facility with Bobby McFerrin making music it would have sounded exactly like this.

Just so!

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Calcutta Summer

During my recent air conditioning problems I thought often of a wonderful commentary I heard on NPR's Morning Edition Wednesday. Listen to Sandip Roy's "Summer Season Sizzles in Calcutta", and have a vacation from August in Texas.

Roy's essay took me back to hot summer days spent sprawled on the coolest patch of floor reading Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book. This experience could never be confused with watching Disney's cartoon video with Phil Harris voicing Baloo the Bear. Reading Kipling is to savor the glorious use of the English language, and to imagine the exotic setting of colonial India.

It's time for a trip to the library--air conditioning for your mind!

O, Best Beloved, Where Art Thou?

My copy of The Just So Stories is missing in action. I have so many stacks of stuff at home and at work, and it's just got to be here somewhere. Rudyard could probably explain that CollageMama "humphed" instead of filing and putting things away ever since the work began, and she will just have to deal with it. And wouldn't Rudyard be a good name for a junkyard dog?

I am one of the world's luckiest inhabitants. My mother rocked me in the yellow Eames rocking chair when I was tiny, and read Kipling to me in the mornings after Captain Kangaroo and the Arthur Godfrey Show ended. Arthur Godfrey had a ukelele, and the Captain had Mr. Moose, Bunny Rabbit, the ping-pong balls, Mr. Green Jeans, the Banana Man, the Magic Drawing Board, Bainter the Painter, Dancing Bear, and stories. Oh, what wonderful, gentle stories! Caps for Sale, The Littlest Snowman With the Red Candy Heart, Ping, Make Way for Ducklings, Millions of Cats, Stone Soup, Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel!


I put together a whole curriculum for a summer art/drama camp about Australia because the Captain used to sing "Waltzing Matilda" forty years ago. I still wish a jolly swagman would sit beside my billibong and eat marzi doats and doesi doats. Some of my strangest nightmares may have origins in the Magic Drawing Board's version of "There's a Hole in the Bottom of the Sea." Bob Keeshan was the genius that defined my childhood, even more than Dick, Jane, and Sally. I even saw Captain Kangaroo IN CONCERT! Yes, at Lincoln's Pershing Auditorium. It was a totally big girl event. A babysitter was engaged to deal with my brother and baby sister. I'm nearly fifty, and I've never felt more grown-up than going to that event.

When a story begins, "O, Best Beloved," you know you will be traveling in a special jungle. It is the same as, "Once upon a time," but without the shining armor. I am sad when people reduce the Kipling experience to the thumbnail plot outline. Kipling is all about language; words, wonderful words, swirling in dust storms across the outback or wallowing in the great grey-green Limpopo River, more patterned than a bicolored python rock snake, and absolutely feeding my "satiable curiotity".

"O, Best Beloved," the stories would begin, and my mom and I still call each other Best Beloved (pronounced Bee-luv-Ed). Did I obsess that I would be spanked by adults as the Elephant's Child was spanked by his aunts and uncles because of his endless questions? Of course not. Did I go out and paint myself with fingertips dipped in mud like the leopard? Well, only that one time, and I'm almost over feeling guilty.

The Elephant's Child

Thank heaven that I've been given "insatiable curiosity" like Kipling elephant's child. And thank heaven my mom read me Kipling's stories while we rocked in the yellow Eames rocker. Curiosity is one of life's great gifts. For many years of my marriage it was too dangerous a package to open. Thank heaven for a wonderful therapist. My trunk may be much longer than it was a dozen years ago, but my life is infinitely richer. O, best beloved:

Ask questions!
Keep learning!
Expand your horizons!
Fire all your senses into warp speed!

Going over to the Dark Side

My calling is to train young Jedi warriors to use Fiskars scissors. Using scissors is a powerful force for change. Mastering the skill involves not just coordination, but focus and imagination. The young Jedi must become one with their inner crocodile.

Sadly, there comes a time when most Jedi must flirt with the Dark Side. They have mastered the power to use Fiskars. Now they must prove they have the mature judgment to use that power.

Often, a young warrior or warriorette will exercise the power without the judgment. These are the sad days when I must send ponytails and bangs home to mommy in a ziplock bag. Then I want to zoom off in my landspeeder to the cantina.

My current group of Jedi-wannabes includes a four year old warriorette who has used the force for evil. She has snipped sections of her hair down to the scalp in rows. Try to visualize the wookie after a John Deere convention.



Make a Crocodile Your Cutting Buddy

Mastering scissors is an exciting moment in every preschooler's life. It takes a small investment of an adult's time and attention to reach that mastery safely, but it doesn't have to be torture for either child or adult. The two best friends of the child learning to cut are a pair of Fiskars round-tip scissors, and an imaginary crocodile.

Why Fiskars? I find the extra expense over other round-tip scissors to be worth every penny in reduced frustration. Also, lefties usually experience success with Fiskars as well as right-handed children. This is important when hand preference has not yet been determined.

Why the crocodile? Ah, that's a good question. Preschoolers sense that mastering scissors will make them more powerful little people. A crocodile is a powerful animal that can bite the way the child wants the scissors to bite the paper. Grown-ups forget the thrill of personal power that comes with being able to cut snowflakes, paper lanterns, valentines, and "play money". The crocodile imagery helps the child remember the correct way to hold and manipulate scissors.

Help your youngster place his thumb in the small round hole of the scissors, and then two or three fingers in the larger hole. Say that the thumb is the crocodile's eyes. The crocodile can only bite if it stays awake, so the thumb needs to stay on top when the child is cutting. Children usually try to roll their hand inward, and their thumb down when beginning to cut. Tell the child that rolling the thumb under makes the crocodile fall asleep and then it can't bite anything.

Before trying to cut, have the child make the biting motion of opening and closing the scissors. If your child doesn't have the hand strength to open and close the scissors, delay learning to cut, and instead spend some fun time together squeezing and shaping with Play-doh or clay to increase strength. When the child is ready to make the crocodile bite, you can help hold the paper and say, "Bite, bite, bite" along with the child.

Crocodiles are very hungry, so stock up on construction paper. It is easier to cut than copier paper or newspaper (or sibling's hair). Soon your young crocodile will be ready to expand its diet.

We often jokingly compare risky behavior to "running with scissors". What's the best way to carry scissors? Have your child put their fist around the crocodile's closed mouth, with the scissor blades pointing down, as if you were going to peek through the handles or use them for a microphone.

Share these wonderful books with your young snipper: Imagine You Are a Crocodile, by Karen Wallace; Bernard Waber's Lyle the Crocodile stories; and The Elephant's Child by Rudyard Kipling.

Chilling out

Beginning a splendid and much-needed two weeks away from teaching before blasting into our intense summer program. It is time for nurturing my inner artist, washing my outer automobile, filing my expanding papers, dealing with my imploding finances, making fire ant sculptures, while making the real McCoy feel unwelcome.

My budget and parenting responsibilities keep me physically close to home. My brain keeps me traveling, and I ought to be accumulating "miles". I've been so often to the great gray-green greasy Limpopo River of the Elephant Child due to my insatiable curiosity that the bicolored python rock snake and I are considering buying a Kipling timeshare.

Exercise program derailment

So tired this evening I've paged through the Lands' End swimsuit catalog three times. Mental mixing and matching tankinis, but mostly just turning the pages and zoning out. Skipped my evening swim with some really excellent excuses for not going. The excuses were even true.

Worked on a texture mural of Mr. McGregor's garden with preschoolers this morning. They cut orange poster board to make carrots, crumpled tissue paper "lettuce", and made a bountiful bunch of tomato plants.

Growing real tomatoes is a frustrating business in Dallas. The mockingbirds watch the ripening of the tomatoes on the vines. They know within minutes when I will go outside to pick the tomatoes, and they swoop in to peck holes into the perfect beefsteaks to devour them just ahead of me. Mockingbird entertainment value is high, so I can't get too annoyed at the thiefs.

The elementary students used coil construction to make clay pots, and then added noses, ears, eyes, etc. to make "Picasso Jugheads". A rowdy time was had by all. Loaded the clay pieces and the mural-in-progress back into my car and went to my other school. Unloaded everything. Began wishing I had never bought these shoes.

Made pinch pots with more preschoolers. They barely have the hand strength to squeeze the clay. They are very afraid of getting clay on their hands and under their fingernails. At their age I had already learned to scoop the cat poop out of the sandbox before making foxholes for the plastic soldiers. "It's okay to get messy in art!" I read them The Piggy In the Puddle with its wonderful "squishy-squashy, mooshy-squooshy, oofy-poofy" mud puddle. I fantasize about sinking into a puddle of warm mud. Just sitting there. Squinting out toward the horizon through dark sunglasses. I think of the djinn in Kipling's "How the Camel Got It's Hump". The djinn just sitting in the salt pan, behind cheap sunglasses, waiting for the other animals to come bitch and moan about the "humphing" camel that wouldn't do any work with the world so new and all.

I remind the kids of little Jack Horner, and get them to stick their thumbs in smooth balls of clay. Then we discuss quacking like ducks, and practice the universal hand motion for quacking. We put our thumb back into the clay ball, and "quack" our clay balls into pinch pots.

What with all the humphing camels and quacking and carrots and clay, I'm thinking it should be time to go home. Wouldn't that be loverly? Instead, I gear up for creating papier mache dragonflies of Jurassic proportions with third grade girls. Gift wrap cardboard tube bodies, coat hanger wings, lightbulb eyes, egg carton thoraxes, packing tape to the rescue. Slimy papier mache paste transforms kids even more that oofy-poofy clay.

Canned Vienna sausages for toes after a day in these shoes, with the world so new and all.