In-A-Gadda_Da-Vida igloo

discombobulate (v.) 

1834, American English, fanciful coinage of a type popular then (originally discombobricate). Related: discombobulating; discombobulation.

Wikipedia does not mention the dance in the gym of Millard Lefler Junior High with the mirrored disco ball.  A local band covered "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" while students threw chunks of cake donuts at each other under a strobe light.

Only Yinks drink pink ink. The preschoolers practiced winks and blinks, and washed up after at the sink.  Not my best art project, since the straws kept falling off the paper, but hey, a Yink's gotta drink.  Dr. Seuss's One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish is full of practical hints for learning how to read,  to manage wet pets or an ink surplus.  It helped my kiddies learn about "ink".

Teaching beginning letter sounds is very fun! It's a matter of finding illustrations and teeny-tiny objects for each letter sound that a young child might recognize.

In the line-up of difficult initial letter sounds for preschoolers we have:

• Xx--xray ... and box and fox when you are totally exasperated
• Qq--queen quilt quarter quartz
• Uu--uncle umpire ugly umbrella
• Nn--nickel nut necklace
• and Ii--ink igloo insects iguana

Elementary art students liked the Yink's hairdo.

In related news

My grandbaby has conjunctivitis so I am learning all about pink eye variations.

Dallas Morning News columnist Steve Blow bemoans the demise of winking without an emoticon.

This being January, I don't have a nickel and a quarter to rub together.  Not so different from many Americans. "Affordable health care" is basically an ice pack, bandaids, generic vitamins, and a bottle of soothing pink Pepto Bismal.

Thanks to a 365 Project photographer I discovered the possibility of building an igloo out of plastic milk jugs--428 of them.  For many years my walking buddy and I have pondered the best options for living in a  cardboard refrigerator box under a bridge.  We've planned to weatherproof the box with hot pink and leopard print duck tape.  Now we are rethinking our retirement housing options! 

© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

Craving poverty suppers

My oven is broken therefore it's no surprise I really want a baked potato and 4-H meatloaf now that fall has nipped the air.  Limited to stove-top prep I'm remembering suppers from the Sixties. My mom put supper for five on the table every evening and believed in the beneficial force of a round table to promote egalitarian conversation. 

May Fritzi dine at the celestial Outback for all eternity!  She deserves it.  Some of her Sixties suppers I now realize were poor family desperation basement pantry concoctions. And they were among my childhood favorites.  

Mom used to toast "open-face" left-over hamburger buns in the oven topped with salted slices of American (not Velveeta) cheese.  I'm craving one right now.  

Another deeply satisfying meal was Creamed Salmon on Crackers.  That was basically a can of salmon, a can of mushroom soup, and a lot of Tabasco sauce heated together in a double boiler, then ladled onto saltines.  The thrill was in arranging the cracker squares on our plates. 

Bread-and-gravy was one of my childhood favorites.  We each got a piece of white bread (bordering on stale) to tear up into pieces.  We competed to form the tallest heap. Served with thin slices of leftover rump roast and warmed-up "scram" gravy.  The cornstarch gravy was flavored with brown sauce. One good rump roast could make up for a lot of cheese buns and canned beans.

In those Ed Sullivan GI Bill years a carrot stick, a canned pear half, and a Flintstone jelly glass of skim milk were considered a balanced meal.  If you were living large you might have a Duncan Hines cake or some Jello instant pudding for dessert.

© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

Invisible and odorless

The spider usually sets off the smoke detector in August, so I was surprised to arrive home and  hear a repeating piercing beep.  Went upstairs and opened the smoke detector carefully, not to spoil Mario's handiwork. Replaced the 9v battery.  The alarming beeps continued.

Back downstairs, I gingerly opened the thermostat, again remembering Mario's electrical rescue, and replaced the AA batteries.  The beeps were giving me goosebumps.

Upstairs again to check the doorbell chime.  Back downstairs I found a forgotten smoke detector that's wired-in. This was turning into an Edvard Munch moment with bonus stair-climber workout.

Rounding the corner into the bathroom I find the beep source, the carbon monoxide detector I saved from my parents' house. Isn't carbon monoxide a winter killer?  Every CO horror story I've ever heard clamors into my anxiety between the shrieking beeps.

I move the detector to different electrical outlets feeling guilt for never pushing those TEST MONTHLY and RESET buttons. Should I be getting myself outside into the hundred-degree fresh air before I become woozy and unconscious?

There was that spell in junior high when I wouldn't ride in the car in the Nebraska dead of winter without the window open because I was so sure we were all a-gonna die from fumes. It's a miracle my family didn't just drop-kick me out into a snow drift and drive away. This anxiety was between my two phases of moth phobia, but smack in the middle of the pancake anxiety year.


Now, I could just unplug the *%! bleaking CO detector and throw it in the dumpster, then toddle off to beddy-bye. That story would have the pride-goeth outcome where I drift into a happy sleep with a tad bit of nausea before death.  Or I could let the CO detector keep shrieking, and have a sleepless night worrying about dying, kind of like a bad night camping. Or I could maybe call the Fire Department and have them check it out.


Feeling too torn to actually call 9-1-1, I looked up the phone number in the Yellow Pages for our Fire Department.  Sure, wasting those precious seconds could be the difference between life and death, between dying in my sleep and going outside into the hundred degree fresh air to live another dang hot day. Apparently when it is not a 9-1-1 emergency, the Fire Department phone is answered by a cleaning woman who might be your mom. She hems and haws with you about whether or not your CO detector might have gone a little funny in the head.  She reassures you that putting your call through to dispatch will not cost you hundreds of dollars and could be good for your peace of mind, which you are rapidly losing what with all the shrieking barks of that Tasmanian devil CO detector.

So that's how I ended up with four hunky Plano firefighters in their turn-out pants and suspenders in my kitchen taking readings on their carbon monoxide gizmos and filling out official forms.  They took readings near my gas water heater and upstairs near the gas furnace.  When I mentioned that my fireplace is gas, they ask if I had used it recently.  It was clear they might would drive me straight to the loony bin if I answered yes.  

I thanked them profusely for retrieving my peace of mind, and told them I would be calling my 89 year-old next-door neighbor right away.  "I don't want him to have a heart attack seeing the firetruck."  


"We don't either," they said sincerely.








Let's review what we learned in this Unit, boys and girls:

• Firefighters are our community helpers.
• Check your smoke detectors regularly.
• Stock up on batteries.
• Test your electrical outlets monthly.
• A carbon monoxide detector is a good thing to have, but they don't last forever.
• It's good to know a Mario who can fix electrical problems.
• It's wise to check on elderly neighbors in this heat.

© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

Lung toenails and twitchy ear canals

Al Veoli.  Wasn't he that brown-eyed kid who sat behind me in Mr. Stith's 8th grade American History class? No, that kid was Dougie Something.  Al wasn't in The Godfather, either

Al is the guy sitting beside the dusty elephant while it clips its toenails in my lungs.  Al is the kid trying to slide into second base during the third grade coach-pitched sandstorm.  Al is the hyena rock star growling and prancing like Mick Jagger on the arid Serengeti.  Al is my sister's first fiance who waxed his chest hair.   Aarrrgh... It is spring allergy season here in the blog. Why, oh why is dear little Susie picking up paw paws in my ear canals with those spiny echidnas?

© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

Never before with a hellebore

[In a would-you-could-you-on-a-train manner this post will ride hell-bent for leather all over the place, so be forewarned.]

The Dallas Arboretum cured my madness. Walked all around this morning taking photos and working out the Tristan und Isolde kinks. I came under the spell of hellebore in beds both shady and sunny. 

hellebore 

late 14c., from O.Fr. ellebore, from L. elleborus, from Gk. helleboros, perhaps meaning "plant eaten by fawns," from Gk. ellos/hellos "fawn" + bora "food of beasts," from bibroskein "to eat," from PIE base *gwere-"to swallow." Among the ancients, the name given to various plants of both poisonous and medicinal qualities, reputed to cure madness.

Perhaps the plant was eaten by fauns, not fawns.  I never before saw a hellebore nor Nijinsky dancing to Debussy's "Afternoon of a Faun". Nor Nureyev neither, no matter how many negatives that is. I was as spellbound by the flowers as by the classic ballet film from one hundred years ago that beckoned me from my search.

Something about these plants feels very ancient even before I learn their name. Is it the dusty, slightly faded colors? The quality of porcelain? The chalky '68 rouge on the withered cheeks of the junior high art teacher two years shy of retirement telling eighth-graders how to carve plaster of Paris into della Robbia rondels?

Dallas Arboretum test garden

Hellebore plants are known as Lenten roses even though they are not part of the rose family.  

Hellebore for Lent....

Hellebore for lemons... also one lime, a clove of garlic, lite mayo, a red bell pepper, Tillamook pepper jack, today's newspaper, black olives... wait, wait, this is a grocery list!

Hellebore for leather? 

Hell-bent for leather. 

Hell-bent? Hell for leather? All in a lather? 

What do these mean? Am I stuck in a dream? Why are my former in-laws in this dream? Well, that last one would take many more blog posts and an interview with Isadora Duncan to explain!

• Hell-bent--with reckless determination; at full speed.
• Ride hell-for-leather--early use of this phrase by Kipling in 1888 to mean desperately and/or swiftly causing a horse's skin to lather.

Now I'm all in a dither about daffodils, narcissus, and jonquils. Every spring Dad and I used to wonder about the distinction. We could never remember from year to year.  This year Dad is beyond care, and I must dither on alone. 

The library regular wants to check out two DVDs from the NEW shelf, but the circulation system allowed only one. We josh around a bit, both of us having mellowed over the years. He semi-jokingly claims I put the kibosh on his movie plans. I tell him I researched "kibosh" once, but now I've forgotten its origins. The regular says if I researched it I should remember.Trouble is, I joshed, my memory was kiboshed and my brains are goulash.  

kibosh 

1836, kye-bosk, in slang phrase put the kibosh on, of unknown origin, despite intense speculation. 

goulash 

1866, from Hungarian gulyáshús, from gulyás "herdsman" + hús "meat." In Hungarian, "beef or lamb soup made by herdsmen while pasturing."

© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

From your first cigarette to your last dying day

In my formative Social Studies years I aspired to ace the Current Events quiz every week.  Back then we heard reports of Mao's Cultural Revolution and of his wife's Gang of Four.  They were causing  horrible suffering for the Chinese people far beyond the ability of our junior high minds to grasp.  Still, it hit me as strange to hear President Obama refer to a Senate "Gang of Six" working on the budget/debt ceiling crisis.

Sure, I enjoy reading about the outlaw gangs, those Jameses, Youngers, and Daltons.  They weren't nice boys, and they weren't Robin Hoods.  I wouldn't want them in charge in Washington.

Gang is a troubling word.  I'm too young to remember the Little Rascals of Our Gang beyond a vague image of Alfalfa and the phrase "Teacher, Miss Pretty".

"West Side Story" is my favorite movie  I've never seen.  I played the soundtrack LP over and over on my parents' mono record player while pouring over the album cover and liner notes, imagining all the scenes.  Do I want the Jets and Sharks negotiating tax deductions and loopholes?  No, but I will snap my fingers until the Senators deal!  Those guys sure need a choreographer!

Disney's "Robin Hood" is a movie I've seen way too many times.  I can only wish the Senate Gang of Six included a bear voiced by Phil Harris and a very cute fox dressed in green:

• Little John: You know somethin', Robin. I was just wonderin', are we good guys or bad guys? You know, I mean, uh? Our robbin' the rich to feed the poor. 
• Robin Hood: Rob? Tsk tsk tsk. That's a naughty word. We never rob. We just sort of borrow a bit from those who can afford it.
•  Little John: Borrow? Boy, are we in debt.

What else could Obama call the "Gang of Six, or maybe Seven"?  Long ago I had a large number of high school studentes who came to the condo every Friday for a noon meal.  I called them the "Lunch Bunch".  We need a better collective noun for leading compromising bipartisan statesmen, and we need it fast.  Merry Men?  Let's make every elected representative in Congress wear tights until they work out a deal.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Giant worm gets remote control!

Details at ten?

This old lavender twin flat sheet was sacrificed to the cause of worm education.  Great fun to be dyeing fabric again, inhaling the hot, stinky smell of RIT and vinegar on the stove, wondering how many weeks my hands will be red, ruining another plastic colander, and bleaching my sink. Joy in the moment!

Maybe the giant worms will pop out of a Rubbermaid tub at the We Did Worms event, instead of a can.  I priced giant can options at Target this morning while my walking buddy spent her gift card.  We were cooling down after one of our intense strolls around the neighborhood.






I have not yet dragged the bags of play sand, pea gravel, and $1.00 topsoil out of the Buick's trunk.  These are ingredients for worm parfaits. I'll deal with those tomorrow at terra. There's only so much I can do while remembering  when Gary Hardin put the worm gizzard from the dissection tray down the throat of Resusci Annie in Mrs. Wittemore's seventh grade Life Science class.

And was Mrs. Wittemore's hairstyle what is called "marceled"?  How old was Mrs. Wittemore in 1967?  We thought she was at least a thousand with her weird hair, sensible shoes, and frumpy green dress.  She was probably much younger than I am now in my sensible shoes, fat lady capri pants, and chrome hair.

The prototype giant red wiggler gave me many hints that there must be a better way to make the other three worms.  Life Science today, Home Ec class tomorrow.







© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Visualize whirled worms

World peace is beyond my control.  "Whirled peas" always brings mental images of bad junior high cafeteria tricks back at Millard Lefler in the late-Sixties.  Whirled worms might be manageable with a touch of Doppler radar.  

Whirred worries about worms are causing an undercurrent of anxiety as my Worm Show moment of fame approaches.  In just a few weeks I'll be presenting a "We Dig Worms" event for a nearby public library summer reading program.  My worms are not at the peak of their training, ready for Olympic competition.  And the worms are far ahead of me!

Tuesday evening I sorted worms from humus while tracking weather watch radar on t.v.  Joplin, Missouri was on my mind, as were memories of Omaha in 1975.  I moved my worm bin to the living room so I could sort while watching t.v.  I was afraid I'd have to take my bin of little critters with me into my "safe room" (aka downstairs bathroom).

We were lucky.  It rained hard, but my area didn't get any hail.  This weather dude kept talking about the curving tail motion on the storm cells.

© 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

Thank you, Nolan Ryan

Dad's supper included a red/yellow/green layered Jello dessert with the green on top, just like we learned to make in junior high home ec class.  The stripes reminded me of the old Houston Astros uniforms way back when Nolan Ryan was pitching for them. 

Then today I read it is the twentieth anniversary of Ryan's seventh no-hitter.  That was a golden moment for a young family of Texas Rangers fans: 

When we first moved to Texas we attended lots of Rangers games at the old Arlington Stadium. Little Steven would usually fall asleep in my lap. Jeff would count all the airplanes that flew over. Mike would eat fruit roll-ups, raisins, and jalapeno nachos. The Rangers had Bobby Valentine managing back then, Julio Franco 2B, Rafael Palmieio 1B, Steve Bueuchele 3B "Boooosh"!, Nolan Ryan, Pudge Rodriguez (age 19)C, Jeff Huson at SS, Ruben Sierra, Juan Gonzalez, and Gary Pettis in the outfield, Brian Downing at DH, Kevin Brown, Jose Guzman, Bobby Witt, Brian Bohanon, Oil Can Boyd, Rich Gossage, Kenny Rogers pitching.

Someday I might actually be able to retire and sit myself in a rusty lawn chair on a sagging screened porch and listen to baseball on the radio.  Or maybe I will just wallow in disjointed memories of 3B Dean Palmer's arm tendon rolling up like a window shade underneath his skin, of Kevin Kennedy letting Jose Canseco pitch, and of Nolan Ryan putting Robin Ventura in a headlock.

 

Twenty years is just two golden bead ten bars ago in the math manipulatives.  It seems hundred squares and thousand cubes ago in professional sports.

Maybe Dad is playing way-out-out outfield this season.  Perpetual klutz, I always wanted to be in the position least likely to actually have to field a fly ball. 

Dad has been sleeping for over twenty-four hours.  He won't remember Nolan Ryan.  So I just crank him up to sitting in bed and tell him I have to go soon to set up the school's twenty-fifth anniversary fair.  He isn't able to hold the styrofoam cup of coffee all the way up to his mouth.  He will never be able to hold Robin Ventura in a headlock.  He won't be inducted into the Hall of Fame.  The flowers in Dad's birthday bouquet are still golden, and light shines through the purple vase. 

In the hall right outside Dad's room the weekend aides gossip about the new resident who died just after he chatted with them over his breakfast tray.  I wonder if the deceased had orange juice and black coffee at his last meal.  The crossword puzzle is difficult, adding and subtracting "it" from answers.  The aides seem like comic costumed base-runners between innings.  In their muffled fake fur chicken suits they are unaware of the residents or of me.

Hospice care double dare

On a dare from my walking buddy, I have refrained from emailing updates about Dad to my siblings during my Spring Break.  She was correct in her theory that they would not contact me for updates.  Trouble is, if I don't write stuff down, I don't remember it.  Does that mean I'm senile?  Or does that mean the letter-writing habit begun in sixth grade has changed the way I experience events?  Did the note-taking skills grilled into us in the old-timey junior high guidance classes of the late Sixties undermine my ability to hold onto the unrecorded thought?

I know, know, know I read a book review last Saturday from Booklist (2/15/11), or a recent Wall Street Journal or New York Times.  According to the reviewer, the author suggests social media and the internet have changed the way we experience our own lives.  Is part of our consciousness split off watching ourselves for potential blog posts, FaceBook status updates, or tweets? 

I'd love to tell you more about this book, but I didn't write it down, and now I can't remember or find it online.  It's not among my desk litter of scraps listing books with intriguing reviews.

My friend changed her loan of size 9 boots into a gift.  I'm thrilled because I can keep my creek clean-up effort going.  I love the creek, but have to ask if I'm authentically noticing nature, or just searching for the next 365 Project photo op?  Thank you, Ms. Janie!

Was I curious, or just looking for new material?  Norton, the class rabbit, has fretted much over terry cloth towels I put under his cage.  The bunny knows these are not HIS towels.  Also, he doesn't appreciate the padding layer of newspaper I put under the bath towels in one corner to prevent orange rabbit pee stains on my ancient carpet. 


Norton fusses every chance when he's out of the cage.  He pushes the substitute towels around, nibbles at them, shreds the newspapers, and huffs his indignation.  HIS towels are in the dryer and will be back in place under Norton's cages as soon as possible. 

Was I curious, or just looking for new material?  I stopped in to see Dad this noon.  He was obsessing about the names of my four sons and their wives.  He would not accept that I only have three sons.  We reviewed his grandsons, the two wives and their whereabouts, and made more cue cards. "What about the fourth couple?  What about the other Mike?," he demanded.

"I'm very lucky," I told Dad.  "I have three wonderful sons.  They have terrific wives and a girlfriend I adore.  But one Mike was plenty!"

"That's the way I feel, too,"  Dad says, "but what about the other couple?"  As we go around and around, releafing the family tree, I hear the approach of the hospice chaplain.  I hear with the same relief and trepidation every woman experiences when the OB/GYN who has left her wearing that silly gown in the exam room for forty-five minutes (after an hour and a half in the waiting room) finally pulls her chart from the rack outside the door with a big whoosh.  Well, finally, BUT, crap, here comes the pelvic exam.

During long visits with Melva and Elvira on the other side of the hall, the hospice chaplain plays a recording of hymns performed by a country western singer.    Shall we gather at the river?  The elderly ladies sing along.  Nearer Mike Odd Toothy.  Gladly, the Cross-Eyed Bear.

Amazing Grace, how sweet the anticipation.  Would Dad be polite with the chaplain?  Would he decline to sing, but tell tales of the choir loft at First Plymouth just after WWII?  Would Dad tell the minister to go to hell or to drop dead the same as he tells the nurses?  Since Dad has no filters, it could be a full-contact confirmation class.  And then I could write about it.

Alas, the encounter didn't live up to a bloggable moment.  The chaplain explained to me how he can help Dad phone my siblings and other faraway relatives.  That would be good.  Or my siblings could call Dad when they were ready for an update. 

For now, Mike Odd Toothy is on the phone telling me his wife's zucchini pie recipe.  Plus Norton has HIS towels back.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Golden girls stake claims for retirement living

Home is where the heart is. 
She had a heart of gold. 
Don't put me in the home. 
There's no place like home. 
Home-cooking good looking, whatcha got?  Hey?
Home room and other scary flashbacks to junior high.

Geez.  What if being "put in the home" is a return to seventh grade Home Room?  Old age is already hell.  Don't make it worse by making me twirl the dial of a junior high locker combination with arthritic fingers! 

For years now my walking buddy and I have been scoping out sites for our retirement living in corrugated refrigerator boxes along the creek.  Sadly, this game has become a likely future.  So far, we don't believe economist reports of improved conditions.  Gas and grocery prices climbed again this week.  Imagining spending my last ten bucks on plain label Saran Wrap to weatherproof the refrigerator box is not what I call "consumer confidence".

I would rather go live in a milkweed pod or tiny bird's nest, dress in lichen, and sip tea from acorn caps. I'm planning to co-star in the movie, "Honey, I Shrunk the Seniors" with Rick Moranis.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Not a right angle in the bunch

Flat on his back in bed, Dad scans the suspended ceiling left to right, right to left, toes to head, and back again.  His eyes are watering.  He says he's been doing "close work all day long". After one bite-size Milky Way, Dad asks, "What do you call a full volleyball court?"  This is not an elephant riddle.

After my bite-size Milky Way I remind Dad I don't know much about volleyball.  Any version I played in junior high PE class was very tame.  I just tried to move any ball that I couldn't avoid away ASAP to become someone else's problem.  I tried to become ill enough to go to the nurse's office before any chance of my having to "serve".  Thank heaven there would be a written test over the rules and rotations of volleyball so I could cancel out my hideous skills drills results!  Dad chuckles, seeming to recognize my self portrait. 

There's some very serious athletic womens' competitive volleyball out there.  Did Dad see some on t.v. today?  "No," he reports, "I don't need t.v. to see volleyball."  Yikes.  There's some seriously demented spectator ceiling volleyball going on out there!  And the court is not square.

"There's not a right angle in the bunch," Dad says.  He claims to have worked all day starting at the upper right hand corner to correct the problem.  He couldn't get any help from "all the people crowding in here", no doubt wearing hard hats.  Dad's mind has jumped from the grids of the volleyball net to his many construction site review gigs as a structural engineer.  We climb around the infinite Escher staircases and weave through the unraveling graph paper of the mind.


I sit for many minutes, eyes closed, knees sore. Climbing stairs in and out of the NY subway stations and the grander Metropolitan Museum of Art, I'm tired. "How far off is it?," I vaguely ask Dad. "Will it get worse than 89 degrees?" No, Dad assures me. It's only a little way off.

Walked through this public hall on Wall Street Saturday afternoon.  M.C. Escher was there playing volleyball. 

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Miss Frizzle goes ruleless

My inner junior high guidance counselor has finally given up urging me to "make good use of my time" on these snow days.  I just want to sit here in my Van Gogh starry night fleece robe and stare at the freezing precipitation.  I can't psych up to turn on the Weather Channel, even with the remote control, and I sure don't want to iron while I watch tv.  Just paging through the Sudoku book to find a fresh puzzle takes more zip than I can muster.  Thank heaven I don't have to drive a Magic School Bus full of kids on a learning adventure today.  Make the bed?  You must be kidding.  I'm climbing back under the covers and pulling them over my head so as to miss the end of civilization as we know it.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Modern dance mushroom dirndls

  Encouraging news from the modern dance scene here in Dallas/Fort Worth--Bruce Wood may be back.  Sunday when I spied these fungi growing on a dead tree at Oak Point I was reminded of a Bruce Wood Dance Company production five years ago.  Subdued colors.  Swirling skirts.  Intricate patterns.  How would Bruce have choreographed these mushrooms?  When will I see his work again???

In our junior high 4-H club we learned to sew "dirndls".  These were the simplest possible skirts made with a rectangle of fabric and elastic to gather the waist. 
"Dirndl" is an even stranger word than "drivel". 

Our 4-H efforts were much simpler than this Folkwear pattern: 

I'm hoping that pre-teens still wear their sewing efforts to school, but especially that I'll see some Bruce Wood choreography soon.


© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Great literature/Embarrassing parents/Burning questions

Upon reaching middle school age our children announce that we parents must walk a good twenty feet behind them and try not to embarrass them by acting related. 

In our middle age we wish we could be twenty feet behind our elderly demented parents, but instead we are pushing them in their wheelchairs.

Desperately trying a new tack to entice my dad into a conversation, I asked him if he'd ever read Moby Dick. I said I'd just finished it, but it took four months to read on my Kindle. Dad said he'd never read it. He was wheeling his chair back and back out the door and into the hall. I made a spyglass gesture and said, "Ahoy, matey. If you keep backing up you will go right out the window, and splat onto "O" Street." He agreed, then announced in his loudest voice, "Speaking of whales, here comes..." the weekend LPN.

Turning beet red in embarrassment I tried to explain the great literature problem to the nurse while wanting to jump out the window.  Dad has no filters at this point in his dementia.  Any idea that pops into his mind gets blurted out of his mouth.

Sunday an aide accidentally spilled a paper cupful of water on Dad's lap when she was offering him a half dozen pills.  Dad swore like a pirate.  Today Dad spilled very hot coffee into his own lap.  The burn is large and blistered.  Don't know if Dad's swearing was creative, but I can guarantee it was oceanic in scale.  I would gladly walk WAYYYY back!




© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Bridesmaid kharma & Facebook whale tagging

Oh that this too, too solid flesh:


A year ago I stood on a busy Cincinnati street and took photos of a violent altercation while a son tried to reach police. This year I stood in a public place in Chicago and took photos of a different crime, gross aesthetic bad judgment and cruelty to friends. A bride with an enormous party of wedding attendants was having a photo shoot in Millennium Park.

Holy Rubenesque Renoirs, Batman! Why does the bride want her best friends and closest relations to look like boiled hot dogs? Just a few blocks away the Chicago Art Institute has an exhibit of Matisse's "Radical Invention" centered on the artist's World War I-era monumental nudes.

Back in the Wonder Bread all-white Sixties we had "flesh" Crayola crayons in our box of 128. Never, ever would any third-grader choose "flesh" for a paper doll's fashions. In 1970, Lefler junior high girls shunned flesh-colored pantyhose, aka "nude", preferring the fake "suntan" sandal-foot shade.

Today I learned that young persons tag photos when they want their Facebook friends to view uploads. "If you want a friend to see your picture of a whale, you tag it with that friend's name." It's clever, certainly, but wide open to misinterpretation. Please, please don't tag blubbery photos with my name! And please, please don't ask me to wear a flesh-tone satin bridesmaid outfit.

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Pinball dental

Nice to pop out of bed this morning to answer the phone. My jaw and I had slept well. Refreshed, I was glad to make my "phone tree" calls. I admit I was not displeased to have a snow day off from the classroom.

Out on the front step to retrieve the newspaper, my view of giant snowflakes floating down seemed almost as psychedelic as my recent nighttime headaches. Last weekend I spent sleepless hours with sharp pains shooting from my left jaw to my right ear, and then pingponging around my skull like an evil pinball wizard. Geez, I hate it when my junior high health class teacher is right about flashbacks. This was a bad dental trip!

My dentist alerted me that I'm storing stress in my jaw, and grinding my teeth during deep sleep. That was my wake-up call for the week, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to change and prevent further damage to my teeth (and to put his kids through college).

I got to make the wake-up calls today. My voice is so rarely turned on before eight a.m., that I sounded funny making calls to the seven school families on my branch of the phone tree at seven a.m. No school today:

SNOW DAY! Don't spend it all clenching your teeth.

A letter of appreciation to my control-top pantyhose

The best discussion at the library today involved the proper way to thank a donor who contributes to an organization every year. Just in case the usage police were out in force, we weighed the pros and cons for appreciating "continued support" against "continuing support".

The longer I pondered, the more I thought about Leggs control top pantyhose. Do pantyhose provide continued support or continuing support? Mostly pantyhose are a source of persistent irritation. They sag and bag around my ankles, or the saddle migrates south toward my knees. I'm continually thankful for a job that rarely requires donning pantyhose.

Men should not wear pantyhose for many enduring reasons. Primarily, they can't distinguish between nude, "barely there", buff, beige, taupe, coffee, and suntan in the hosiery department. I'm constantly grateful that the popularity of "suntan" pantyhose and Yardley white lipstick peaked while I was in junior high.

When stuck in such a usage dilemma, I usually try to substitute a completely different word. So I suggested replacing continuing or continued with "constant". Thank you for your constant support... Another person suggested "faithful". Dogs are faithful, but annual contributors don't want to think they are the dog. As Sally asked Harry, "Is one of us supposed to be a DOG in this scenario?"

That dog is Lassie. What's up with the continuous yapping? It's so annoying. You say Timmy fell in the well again, and he's dropped the thesaurus too?

Somewhere between persistent and sustaining we can find the properly nuanced word for reliably donating to a worthy cause. Then we can acknowledge the donation in a proper manner.

"Persisting" sounds like an itchy rash that defies treatment. "Sustain" is what honey and condensed milk do for Winnie-the-Pooh. "Continued" has problems with being postponed, adjourned, interrupted or resumed at the city council meeting. "Enduring", "unfaltering", and "needing no renewal" are all synonyms for "continuing". Of course, we always want donors to renew, or none of us would get so many letters from charities this time of year.

I've never had a pair of pantyhose that endured. Even the ones with continuous support falter.

© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

Sendak recipe with oil change

All seasons of the year are nice for having chicken soup with rice.

I'm thankful today for the wonderful hours I've shared with children reading the Maurice Sendak Nutshell Library. I may need to give a copy to the pregnant young woman at my local car repair shop. She knows my Skylark From Hell well, and gives me the best customer service and friendliest discounts possible.

We've chatted about the glorious relief when North Texas days stay cooler than the mid-nineties. While it's still too hot for her to use the blow-dryer on her hair, my automotive acquaintance is craving chicken and dumplings.

I'd never eaten chicken and rice before my junior high Spanish class, but "arroz con pollo" is a very satisfying sound for a meal. Tonight I'm trying to recall the name of a restaurant in Lincoln that served chicken and dumplings and dessert dumplings back in the Seventies.

© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder