Look Mama, no rust!

Glad to get my new vehicle home to its carport this afternoon with no hail damage.  Many places in the DFW area have serious tornado and storm damage. There have been at least twelve tornadoes in the region. I don't have the latest information, but I'm glad my students are safe, and our school was not in the path of a storm.

We spent most of the afternoon in the windowless interior lunchroom in distraction/diversion mode. None of the students worried, so I think we were very successful. Lots of teachers tap-dancing in North Texas today!

Several friends suggested that my 1996 Skylark would not get a trade-in offer, and that I would have to pay to have the car hauled away.  Some said the only value was the cool  EARTH bumper sticker.  The good news is I had a replacement bumper sticker in reserve in hopes that I would one day have a new vehicle.



My two daughters-in-law have heard me rhapsodize about my newlywed 1980 brown Toyota Corolla, and suggested I would buy a new Corolla. Gotta love these smart women in my family now!  But no, not a Corolla.

Most people guessed small, fuel-efficient vehicles. Danger Baby offered his usual Chevy Malibu suggestion.  Friends with magical thinking guessed a pick-up truck or maybe a bright red Prius convertible!  Nobody guessed a '61 Plymouth Sport Fury, but I still would love to own one!

My dad's longtime home health helper guessed I got another Buick Skylark. Sharla's is the best guess and wins one autographed license plate. Just have to figure out how a car can sign an autograph!  Danger Baby was closest with his $401 guess on the trade-in offer.  His prize license plate will be a classy item in his law office!

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So what did I get?  Enquiring minds want to know how I'll be driving my traveling worms around to their performances.

Yup.  A Buick.  A 2002 Century with only 30K miles!  It's a cream puff.  A little old lady only drove it to church and kept it in her garage.

I hope a reader will tell me the expression for verbally carrying on and on in glowing, golden, melodic terms to compliment someone or something.  Geez!  Is this the beginning of dementia?  All I can think of is

raps his naughtic
rhaps hypnotic
hips rhapsodic
lapse hypsrhosdic

Please, please help.  I'm so far off I can't even find a way to search for this frequently used expression.


© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

Hillary Clinton shops for PJs

Thank heaven I don't travel as much as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  I've got two trips this month, so I'm experiencing pajama stress.  Sure, I should be worrying if the American Airlines bankruptcy will impact my flights, but last December's knit jimmy-jams from Target are looking mighty bankrupt, too.  Don't want to traumatize my daughter-in-law or my old library storytime buddy.


Surely I could pop into Kohl's and pick up a nice flannel floral-print granny nightgown with the discount coupon that came in the mail....and don't call me Shirley.  A flannel nightie for a Victorian B&B girlfriends' chat and art show weekend seemed just right.  But, hey, no, Aung San Suu Kyi, no such thing at Kohl's.  Instead, racks and racks of 

• neon-colored microfleece woven from fur of tiny sea monkeys forced to live their entire lives in black light.
• cutesy doggie-woggy prints.
• knits that hint at way too much middle-aged anatomy when the bed-headed wearer creeps toward the coffee-maker in early a.m. mixed company, but probably okay if one lives alone.
• dreadful Gypsy Rose Lee Designs Exclusively for Montgomery Wards creations showcased for male gift-shoppers.
• sleepwear made in China, Cambodia, Vietnam.  Probably Myanmar, too,  if I kept looking.

Poor Hillary.  She has to sleep on airplanes across time-zones.  Wherever she wakes up there are members of the press between her and the coffeepot, then diplomats and foreign heads of state.  She goes home to Bill, and/or Chelsea and Marc.  No wonder she has those bags under her eyes.

Time is short, and I still have to pick out an umbrella in the Totes department.  I choose some pajamas, check out, and go spoon-feed Dad alleged ground-up sweet & sour chicken.  Dad doesn't have to choose his PJs since aides help him into those sleeve-snapping/back-tying hospital gowns way before dark.

Once home, I try on the pajama set.  Dang!  Hillary and I need to save the receipt.  I look like a cross between O, Brother Where Art Thou and an overstuffed bagpipe.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

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

Spending O' the Green Acres

So far so good. 

I haven't been sucked into the garden center dirt therapy money trap this alleged spring.  You know how it goes.  You are so sick of gray skies and cold weather that the first sunny day you go to Home Depot or Calloways and buy a bunch of seedlings that, let's face it, once you get them in the ground you will be over it.  And you buy the enhanced gardening soil and the seeds and the extra pots and mulch and what on earth were you thinking!?



Except when my students paint in art class, I do not have a green thumb.  Then I have green hands and fingernails, often nose, and occasionally hair. 

Happily, two big flower pots on the condo patio are wearing green already for St. Patrick's Day.  One was planted with the wildflower seeds given at my eldest son's wedding reception in lieu of rice.  The other container has plants originally planted in a fairy garden.

It might be nice to have a pot of cilantro growing.  Basil.  Sage.  Dill.  But really, let's not delude ourselves about a jumbo harvest of homegrown veggies.  Maybe just a few color accents to slip in with the returning yarrow, oregano, mint, sedum, dusty miller and dianthus .....  ka-ching!

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Cash Cab vs golden moment

We never found ourselves answering questions in the Cash Cab during my NYC weekend. I was ready to play! Should I have auditioned?

No cash, but I was a winner on my Presidents' Day final NY taxi ride. Almost as soon as I hugged Danger Baby goodbye and settled into the cab, I started to cry.

"Please take me to La Guardia, and I'll get it together in a minute," I told the driver.
"You miss him already," he answered, and handed me a stack of napkins to dab my eyes.
"I'm just so proud of him and so fond of his wife," I snurfled between blowing my nose and wiping my eyes.

"Isn't it wonderful when your children are both successful AND happy?," the cabbie asked.
"You must be a parent yourself."

"Yes, my son is finishing law school in Connecticut, and my daughter is finishing nurse's training."

What a gift better than cash to have this cab driver's wisdom on the way to Queens!
© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Reading cookbook reviews

Reading the Booklist and Library Journal cookbook reviews with greater interest lately.  After my effort writing a compendium of kitchen disasters for my sons, I'm interested in the idea of cookbooks as social history.  This find dates from 1922, before my father was born.  It was his mother's:


  Hot button topics include arranging a butler's pantry, and whether finger bowls are needed when fruit is served at breakfast.

Dad's mother knew to put a spoonful of duck fat in the holiday sauerkraut to make it shine.  Williams Sonoma's catalog offers gourmet duck fat for the discerning shopper.  I feel vindicated, empowered.  Across generations duck fat will prevail! 

The world's population can be divided into two groups--those who appreciate the culinary contributions of duck fat and those who do not.  Just before serving, a tablespoon of duck fat is added and a little sprinkling of flour to give the kraut a nice shine.

The first Christmas we were married, my spouse announced having a jar of duck fat in the refrigerator was disgusting, and he was not going to allow it. If I’d shot him then, I’d be out of prison now, but I wouldn’t have three wonderful sons who have learned to enjoy sauerkraut with roast turkey or pork roast. Should they need advice on arranging their butler's pantry, I'll be prepared.

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Lay flat to dry

The care instructions in the Mother of the Groom dress are apt for the Mother of the Groom as well. I should not be dry cleaned. I need hand washing in cold water, but I especially need "Lay Flat To Dry".


It's been a week since the wedding, but I'm still in a mental fog. I've been on a fabulous trip, but I'm feeling a tad like Flat Stanley under the St. Louis Gateway Arch.

Although I tried to explain to my summer school students why I would miss the last two days of class, a few of them were convinced I was running off to get married. The real honeymoon couple is basking on the beach in Antigua. I'm reclining on my laundry room floor trying to relight the pilot of my hot water heater.

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Please help name this color

Teal blue. What is it? Please help a confused art teacher who can't name a color!

There's a blue dragonfly taunting me on the patio. A lapis blue dragonfly, and quite pleased with itself. He's way too cool to be named.


The tag on my MOG dress names its color "Pacific". That's not a meaningful color name when I describe my problem to the fabric store clerk. She is very helpful, but her understanding of "teal" is "peacock" to me. It's deja vu all over again, Yogi Berra famously said, although he wasn't altering a full-length gown with a sparkly jacket at the time.

When my great-aunt Emma died in 1974, she left written instructions that she wanted to wear her "teal blue dress" to the open casket funeral. Family members weighed in about "teal" as we searched Em's closets. Nothing fit our collective concept of "teal". Emma was dressed in a dark, vaguely blue dress. I wonder if she has been annoyed ever since at our failure to conform to her color specifications. It would be the pits to lie a-mouldering in the grave in the wrong outfit.

Sorry. That is disrespectful of the deceased. Trouble is, I'm still confused about blue vocabulary approaching a far happier event.


© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

June severe weather watch fashions

The search for perfect Mother of the Groom shoes has been this vacation week's prioritiy. After several purchases and returns, I'm feeling good about the latest choice. The shoes seem steady for standing in a reception line, and for being ushered to my seat without tripping. I would not want to wear them in severe weather, though.


During Weather Watch Radar radio broadcast interruptions I realized my dress for Danger Baby's big event is the color of a threatening Nebraska June thunderstorm. On the tag, the dress color is "Pacific". Since I've never been west of Moab, Utah, I don't know diddly about "Pacific". It's about the same for the new collegiate athletic conference realignment.

My dress for the upcoming wedding resembles my '96 Buick Skylark with potential hail up to golf ball size. This weekend I get to attend the Texas Ballet Theatre's version of "Sleeping Beauty". I don't want to look like Maleficent, the bad fairy in Disney's "Sleeping Beauty", but maybe if the mother-in-law looks like a tornado watch, the marriage will have fewer storms!


© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

The Purse Gods

The purse gods were with me when I walked into Kohl's today to hunt for a purse for the wedding. Earlier this week I lunched with my style advisor and my muse. Both of them should really be elevated to the pantheon. They have steered me well in all wedding matters.

I have never been a mother of the groom (MOG) before, nor have I rowed a trireme in Athens' war against Persia. I'm listening to John R. Hale's audio book, Lords of the Sea: The Epic Story of the Athenian Navy and the Birth of Democracy in the car. Long dormant history lessons and the Theseus myth are coloring my thoughts.

The Greeks invented gods and myths when politically or militarily expedient. I don't know which members of their pantheon would be in charge of purses, but I'm pleased to have those dieties on my side as I paddle the wine-dark sea to my firstborn son's wedding.

Homer's "wine-dark sea" merged with "plum" in my color thoughts as I searched online for colored Jordan almonds to match the wedding's official color. About as easy as killing the Minotaur! I was making the traditional bittersweet wedding almond favors that wish health, wealth, happiness, children, and long life for the wedding couple. I've got a little navy of fru-fru purple almond vessels ready to set sail.

Thankfully, my purse oracles were less ambiguous in their specifications for the perfect handbag for next weekend's events than Themistocles wooden wall advice from Delphi. "Find a black/brown combination and a wrist strap." At Kohl's I found exactly that, not all advice in one, but fifty percent off on two. The omens are auspicious!

© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

Dilly Bar + I Do

I'll be wearing a classy Dove Dark Chocolate with Vanilla Ice Cream Bar to my son's wedding. Or maybe I'll look more like a DQ dip cone. Either way I'm thrilled that I have my mother-of-the-groom (MOG) outfit.

Thanks to all my underpaid wedding attire consultant friends for your patient guidance and fashion brainstorming. An outdoor wedding in a mountain town in mid-October with four mothers for the bridal couple present some interesting challenges.

I plan to savor every moment!

Irresistibly rich, ice cream smothered in decadently delicious DOVE® Chocolate — you’ll savor every moment.

© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder