When bass use the crosswalk and the candidate washes his shirt

Why didn't Mitt just put his shirt on the car roof with the dog and drive through the carwash? Why didn't he do the sniff test and just squirt Febreez on the least worst shirt like any teenage guy?  The man makes me miss McCain, for heaven's sake!


I admit to once washing out my kids' Ghostbusters underpants and drying them overnight atop the a/c in a Wichita motel.  The vacation ran long because of car repairs and a broken arm.  BUT GEEZ! THIS MAN IS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT and he can't look long range enough to send some local volunteer to the mall! He wants to play chess on the big board???  

So my sympathies go out to all the comparatively normal Illinois bloggers.  There were more fisherman than presidential candidates out at Oak Point Nature Preserve after our 4+ inches of rain in twenty-four hours.  


This father and son were fishing on the dam while water drained across the walk into a runoff stream.  It looked like a golden memory moment.  Suddenly there was a whoop and holler.  I was afraid the dad had lost the lad in the overflow rush.  Nope, the dad was whooping because a "fourteen inch bass just swam across the sidewalk."  Taking traditional fisherman measurement exaggerations into account, that was still a good surprise and a golden moment.

And yes, that is kale.  Scanned it because the camera was behaving badly.  Even if your old dog is on the car roof, it can still learn new tricks.  Never had kale before in my whole live-long life, but the minestrone recipe called for kale.  And it was good.

© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

No Man is a Minivan

For Mothers' Day I'll be hauling my youngest's belongings back home from the dorm. It seems fitting, somehow. When this son was born, the two of us came home from the hospital on Mothers' Day. Now he's nineteen, and I don't need the diaper bag and zinc oxide any more. He won't fit in the stroller. In fact, if I take another son along to help with the toting and carrying down three flights of dorm stairs, I can't fit all the belongings and two sons into my poor, suspension-challenged Buick. And dang, I do hate it when important or expensive parts of the Buick fall off while I'm driving down the highway!

On another front, a friend's old spring-operated garage door opener crashed this week, narrowly missing both her and her car. Although I sometimes miss having a garage, I never miss the headaches of repairing garage doors. In my experience, garage doors only break when your husband is out of the country and you have twenty-six dollars to your name.

Shortly after I got rid of the husband and the garage door, but before I got rid of the Mazda minivan, I eked out part of my living teaching kindergarten readiness classes at the local rec center. The students were an incredible assortment. I taught twins, triplets, autistic kids, deaf kids, kids who were terrified of everything, kids who brought popsicles in their lunchboxes, kids who spoke no English, kids who took the baby dolls hostage, kids who acted out Lamaze labor and delivery, and a few kids who were ready to sit on their own chairs, listen to stories, learn to use scissors, and play well with others.



A favorite memory is of twin boys who spoke no English at the beginning. Their favorite toy was the Fisher Price house with all the little people, furniture, cars, and garage. Every week I listened to them converse in a combination of their language and twinspeak babbling. After many weeks I suddenly realized they were speaking English. They were saying, "mee-nee vahn," "ga-hadj door," "uppan-down." Minivan, garage door, up and down!

Thank heaven I have a whole team of brains assisting me! My friends helped me see the automotive options for the upcoming dorm retrieval trip. I could rent a bigger vehicle! We will be conducting the special ops mission in a rented Chrysler Town & Country mee-nee vahn. There may be some moments of sibling rivalry uppan-down as my sons begin to forge an almost-adult relationship of friendly equals. At least the Buick will stay out of the mechanic's ga-hadj.

No man is an island
No man stands alone
Each man's joy is joy to me
Each man's grief is my own

And remember, no mom is an island, either. Each son needs to phone!

Only you can prevent forest fires

Teaching preschoolers about the warm colors by creating 3D campfires for cooking all the fish we caught the last few weeks of art. We acted out the whole sequence of building a campfire on a campout. I was emphasizing the building of a fire ring of stones to keep the fire from burning grass and trees. Suddenly a four-year-old broke into this song doing an impressive Johnny Cash imitation:

I fell into a burning ring of fire
I went down, down, down
and the flames went higher.
And it burns, burns, burns
the ring of fire
the ring of fire.

Getting the sympathy vote

The kindergarteners got into a shoving and shouting match at five p.m. during the popcorn snack break over which presidential candidate was The Real Liar, Liar [Pants On Fire]. Just before I outlawed the discussion topic for the rest of art class, one girl told me she had voted for George W. at school. I asked why, and she explained that she felt sorry for him because his teeth hurt so much. What??? You, know, Ms. Nancy! They are made of wood.

Dang. I didn't realize Rummy chopped down the cherry tree on the ranch in Crawford. We all know Karl Rove has been throwing a lot of silver dollars across the river.

Baby, you can wash my car

At the end of most preschool classes while kids are finishing their projects and washing hands we get out some building toys that are like straws and jacks. Once their hands are clean they can build. Of course, all the little boys make "guns". Last week (the first class), I told them they couldn't "shoot guns", but they could wash my car. "Where's your car? What color is it? Why is it dirty? My gun can shoot water! My gun can shoot soap! Sssshhhhwwwwsssshhhhssshhh!" I told them they could wash my car while I drove through the car wash in my chair. They were delighted, and managed to not poke my eye out with their car washing wands. So today, they were so charged about washing my car they could barely make it through the art project and the hand-washing. They were relieved when I told them I hadn't been able to wash my car because it rained. I convinced them that a car-washer has a handle and a spout. That means they connected the straws at right angles. This seems so basic to you and I that we can't ever remember not being able to do it, but to them it is new stuff. The water seems to shoot at a much higher pressure when the wand has a handle, judging from the sound effects. Some of them could connect more straws so their car-washers also shot out suds, or dried my car. Some shot out yellow suds for the tires, some shot pink suds for the doors, and the best builders could also spray wax my car. Suddenly, some little guys were on their backs on imaginary mechanic's creepers "fixing the brakes" with the "tools" they built, and were making loud sound effects for drilling and welding and heaven knows what. The little girls replaced the headlight bulbs, and were ready for me to give them my credit card. You could almost smell the 10W30.

Galoshes

Jeff has safely arrived at the midwestern university where he will attend grad school and be a residence hall manager. He is there with all the worldly goods he could stuff into his little used car and still see out the windows. And, he is there with his galoshes! As the Boy Scouts say, "Be prepared, and get those puppies out of your mom's coat closet."

We have lived in Texas for fourteen years now. It's not my idea of an hospitable clime. This time of year when I walk out the door, the muggy heat slams me backward against the nearest wall, czungkak! My chest hurts, and I feel exhausted by my exertion. And that's just going out front to pick up the newspaper at 6:15 a.m.

I started my "new job" the day we all woke up and realized the world did not end on Y2K. One of the first weeks on the job I had to use my break between classes to go to the nearest mall in search of galoshes. Jeff was going to a high school debate tournament at Harvard. He was required to take two suits, a winter coat appropriate for wear over the suits, AND galoshes. I had already searched everywhere in my suburb for galoshes, and I was having to expand my search. My new co-workers offered advice and directions to the mall, and I raced over there. I hit every possible store setting a world speed record pace, and still couldn't find any galoshes.

What I remember is that I was learning this new job, and meeting all these new people, and feeling overwhelmed with their creative brain-storming effort to help me find the darn galoshes. What I forget is that they were learning about this new super-stressed single mom/art teacher and her three sons. As Dr. Seuss writes in What Was I Scared Of? about the empty pale green pants, "...I began to see that I was just as strange to them as they were strange to me!"

So this week these dear friends have laughed with me as I sent Jeff off into adulthood with those darn galoshes. I'm not sure he ever even wore them at Harvard in 2000. I know they've been in the bottom of the coat closet ever since. After we located his coat and the zip-in lining I told Jeff to wait! He needed to take the galoshes, too. I unearthed them, and Jeff said, "So these go on over my shoes, right?" Right, and they are not my responsibility any more! One son crossing over into adulthood as equipped for the real world as I could make him. One mom letting go of the small stuff.

And, just in case you are wondering, I finally found those galoshes at the Army/Navy store. They cost $19.86.

"Please" and "Thank You"

Those are the most powerful magic words. You knew that. Your own fairy godmother made sure you knew them before you were five.

We've been making magic wands today. We used the cardboard tubes from trouser hangers. We wrapped the tubes in foil gift wrap, then stuck curling ribbon and sparkly pipe cleaners in one end. Shot in some hot glue and poked in three craft feathers. Drizzled with messy glitter and spangles to "boot up the magic". The kids chose their personal magic words, then went around the room poofing and shazamming things. One five-year old boy told me, "My wand does inside magic. Things still look the same on the outside, but they are changed on the inside." Isn't that fantastic?

Baseball highlights reel

A friend is attending an Orioles/Royals game in KC tonight. I've been showing my students a clip from the baseball time travel movie "A Kid in King Arthur's Court". Baseball is on my brain, so maybe I've been beaned. These are special baseball memories for me:

Wilson Alvarez throwing a no-hitter against the Orioles during one of the last games at old Memorial Stadium in 1991. After arriving in the majors with Texas in 1989, it took Alvarez a while to get his act together. He gave up two homers and three earned runs without retiring a batter in his major league debut with the Rangers and, five days later, was traded with Scott Fletcher and Sammy Sosa to the White Sox for Harold Baines and Fred Manrique. In just his second major-league start -- on August 11, 1991, at Baltimore's Memorial Stadium -- Alvarez showed his potential by becoming the eighth-youngest pitcher in history to toss a no-hitter.

We were sitting up really high with our backs against the chainlink. The boys all had on blue Texas Ranger caps. (That was how we kept track of them on the Metro and at the museums on the Mall.) My sister drove us up to Baltimore. We were plagued by yellowjackets the entire game, and were afraid to eat or drink anything because of the bees. We had spent the morning at Ft. McHenry. It was Jeff's ninth birthday. I had forgotten that. Mike was six and Steven four. It was an unusual vacation because no one broke their arm or required stitches.

I think Jeff was four when he went to his first Major League game in Kansas City. It was my first, too. Mike was maybe one, so '85 or '86. I had been to Royals Stadium before for a Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young concert with the Beach Boys back in '74 or '75. I am pretty sure George Brett hit a triple at the game. We mostly watched the fountains and scoreboard as I recall. A fan three rows behind us got excited and flipped his beer and hotdog with sauerkraut into the air. It all landed on me. As soon as the boys got cranky I was real glad to go back to the motel and take a shower.


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...

I remember an especially scary night when all the fans were told to exit to the concourses. The sky was dark and very green. I was sure we were all a-gonna die in a tornado at the ballpark. The weather was too bad to attempt the long trek across the parking lots to our car with three tiny boys, so we just had to hang out as the temperature dropped about thirty degrees and golf ball-size hail fell.

The boys each had a radio in their bedroom, and I would let them listen to Rangers games until they fell asleep. It takes amazing concentration for anyone to create a mental picture of the action of a baseball game just from radio descriptions while wrapped in blankies in a dark room. I figured they were either being lulled to sleep as pitchers tediously reviewed the signals, or they were developing impressive skills that would last a lifetime, and either way they were being quiet after a long day. They also developed math skills figuring out baseball statistics that make absolutely no sense to me to this day.

When Mike played T-ball he would put a clip-on earring on one ear so he could be Ruben Sierra. We would play a cassette tape of "We Are the Champions" on the way to the field so he could get psyched. I was supposed to imitate the KRLD radio announcer saying "Roooo-Ben Sierra!" when Mike walked up to the plate. Always fashion-conscious, Mike had to have a batting glove even for T-ball. He didn't like soccer because soccer players don't wear caps.

Steven spent many hours during his bigger brother's T-ball, coach-pitch, and kid-pitch baseball games playing in the dirt behind the backstop. He would bring a case of GI Joes or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and hang them all from the chainlink backstop. Even then he appreciated members of the opposite sex if they had brought sidewalk chalk to the games.

Some other day I will post about the meaning of the '68 World Series between the Detroit Tigers and the St. Louis Cardinals to an eighth grade girl in Lincoln, Nebraska. I can't write it just at the moment. I'm having a bad flashback of 3B Dean Palmer's arm tendon rolling up like a window shade underneath his skin.

My dad used to tell a story of breaking his arm during the Depression. He didn't let that put him on the DL. He just used the plaster cast on his arm as a bat. Amazingly, he grew up to have pretty good sense later on.

Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?
A nation turns its lonely eyes to you (Wo wo wo).
What's that you say, Mrs. Robinson?
"Joltin' Joe has left and gone away" (Hey hey hey, hey hey hey).

Dizzy Dean and PeeWee Reese on a tiny black and white t.v. My dad snoozing on the couch with the newspaper over his face after a lunch of saltines, summer sausage, and cheese, priceless.

Vincent Van Gogh

This is how my students, age 3-7, have been describing Vincent Van Gogh’s "Starry Night" to me this week:

It’s the stars, the moon, and the planets.

The sun is painting the picture.

It glows in the dark.

Bees are buzzing round and round.

It's fireworks, and puddles.

There's the wind.

But the wind is invisible!

It should be called, "The Dragon's Wind".

Or "The Moon Houses".

There’s a scary black castle.

No, it’s a church or a mountain or a cliff.

It is not. It’s seaweed.

It’s the sea witch under the water!

There’s a village. You can see the car lights.

The moon fell into the water.

It's a bedtime story.