Curse of the Spider Woman*

Don't look at me even through squinted eyes. I am toxic. I am Typhoid Mama. No inanimate object is safe. Some animate ones behave too inanimately. It's been bad voodoo all over the place.

So far just since the rodents and the rat snake on the patio:

• Stove control panel died.
• Oven died.
• Microsoft support for Windows Home Premium operating system evaporated.
• Preschoolers took poopy pants to a whole new level.
• Brakes on Buick started grabbing and squawking.
• New electric range is delivered, but the old one is wired directly into the condo electrical system and giant delivery dudes are not authorized to remove old or install new range.
• Canon printer pooped out.
• Preschool pet rabbit plays possum while lead teacher is away on jury duty.
• Giant spider attacked library.

On the upside:

•  I finally got a photo of a funnel web spider.
• The eleven-year-old preschool rabbit revived.
• The lead teacher was not picked for a jury even though she was looking forward to being sequestered.
• The brake work was minor.
• I like Windows 7 and the new Canon printer.
• It's finally autumn.
• The condo mailboxes in the kiosk have been replaced after a year of broken locks and doors.

*Kiss of the Spider Woman was a haunting movie with William Hurt, Raul Julia, and Sonia Braga. Hurt won the 1985 Best Actor Oscar for his performance which did not involve mailboxes or rabbits as far as I can recall.

Once I had an evil eye charm given to me by an elderly traveling coworker.  Alas, I added the charm to a wire sculpture. The old blue eyes mystery of the Florida swordfish reminded me. I never had one of those creepy rabbit's foot key chains, thank heaven. I'm horrified to find they are still "harvested" and sold, even on Amazon.  

And so I close another crazed rant to go reweave my web.

© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

Microsoft's crab legs payback

Perhaps I enjoyed Maria Semple's skewering of Microsoft corporate culture too much.  I liked her book on facebook, so I should have known there would be technological hell to pay.  Where'd You Go, Bernadette is great fun, a romp narrated by Bee Branch, a tween girl as bright as Paloma Josse in The Elegance of the Hedgehog, but perhaps not as deep. 

Almost as soon as I "liked" the novel for its hilarious TED Talk parody, I got C80003F9 error codes on my failures to retrieve Microsoft Security Essentials and Windows updates. Coincidence, maybe. Aggravating, definitely. No amount of shutting down and reloading my old Windows Vista Home Premium could remove the curse. Now I've purchased and downloaded Windows 7 to replace my unsupported operating system. Are you happy yet, Microsoft?

Obstacles placed on my home computer turf are one thing, but when the Microsoft revenge tracked me to the grocery store things got ugly. The young male cashier did not know the code for those last two ears of corn on the cob of the season, sixty-nine cents each. Since he was searching for "husks" he couldn't find "ears". The other cashiers hollered codes at him.  When he entered the codes, they were rejected.  Same thing happened for the bunch of radishes. How many bunches? 

1     1 is what the teen entered, but that 1 added a $9.74 charge for crab legs to my bill.  Attempts to remove the crab legs added more and more crab legs.  This was going to be the most luxurious false gourmet grocery bill ever! Fifteen minutes, many more crab legs, and a puzzled store manager later, we voided the entire transaction and started over. Went home to make sloppy joes, not crab legs, for supper. Happy yet? At least we now know the product PLU for crab legs is 1.

© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

Good fences make good neighbors. Bad cursors make for cussing.

Survival under one roof in a long marriage, sharing a condo with teen sons, having a joint checking account or a shared minutes cellphone plan requires finding basic areas of agreement, and fencing known issues of disagreement outside the playing field.  The same is true for business partnerships, and that most dangerous zone of the shared computer.

To get along persons in any partnership must agree, or else agree to disagree and avoid the topics of

• Religion
• Politics
• Tidiness standards
• Vegetarianism vs. grilling big hunks o' beef
• Paper vs. plastic
• Cat or dog
• Recycling vs. being an irresponsible blight upon Mother Earth
• Manual vs. automatic transmission
• Apple vs. PC
• Planning ahead vs. frolicking frivolously in the present
• Thanksgiving at my parents'/Christmas at your parents'
• Talk radio vs. NPR
• Whether children can wear cowperson boots with Hawaiian print shorts
• Being perky before coffee vs. staying wisely silent until coffee kicks in

The choice of a screensaver and desktop theme should be right up there with the worst partnership/buddy breakers. An office passive-aggressive power struggle between fishy themes with seashell cursors for one, and falling autumn leaf screensavers and acorn pointers for two is threatening to maim the small business where I work.

© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

Oregon Trail family reunion logistics and other personal inadequacies

Inadequate.  Been on that trail a long time.  Inept. Inarticulate. Introvert. Sometimes I was given a label. Other times I hung labels around my own neck. There's been a long-running competition in my head and gut between those lethal quicksand labels and others that dubbed me a creative, funny, responsible artist, teacher, and wordsmith.

On the trail I couldn't ever shoot enough game or ford the river.  Those traveling with me died off rapidly of starvation, snakebite, and dysentery. I rarely made it to Chimney Rock playing the old Oregon Trail "educational" computer game in the early Nineties.  My youngest, the Woolly Mammoth, could get his wagon to Oregon every time even though he could not read the prompts and probably should have been taking an afternoon nap with his Special Bunny.  Back then the game graphics were primitive, and no voices narrated the trek.

One of my precious daughters-in-law prompted me to get on the stick and organize my kin into a virtual wagon train headed to Oregon for an approaching holiday. Seven adults, one baby, one very small dog (not Jack, the brindle bulldog), three time zones, five airports. Looking for relaxing reunion lodging with some kitchen facilities.

1982

© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

Morticia and Gomez fix computers

At the library where I work on Saturdays we are having lots of computer difficulties.  The librarian put up a new sign on all the broken computers that says

IT is working

on a solution...

Nobody reads further down the sign.  Everybody tries to log onto the broken computers thinking "It is working" when really "I. T. is working on a solution".  Alas, I. T. is not working very fast.

So, order a plastic hula skirt from Oriental Trading Company.  Gather the waist tight.  Wear the skirt over your head.  Add a hat and dark ZZTop glasses to become Cousin Itt.  Snap your fingers. 

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

As we have done before

Let's stare in and out with Windows.  Those barbarians @ Microsoft have decided this would be a nice evening to download, upload, and shake it all about.  Configure me!  Install me!  Restart me!  Was it good for you, too?

During this inconvenient and unslip-slidy technology encounter, my gaze strayed to the patio beyond the sliding glass door.  The red cannas are blooming, but all strangely contorted like rheumatoid arthritic joints.  A hummingbird seemed glad to sip a sideways flower anyway.

Go in and out the window,

Go in and out the window,

As we have done before.

The lizards on the fence were colored stressed browns, so I sprayed water on leaves for them to drink.  The hot wind was a blast each time I went outside.  At least the mockingbird didn't get in through this window to peck the ripening tomatoes!  

No tomatoes for you Bill Gates!

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

"One of those girls must be seven feet tall."

The pink Dora lunchbox zipper broke.  As it traveled around the three sides, the zipper teeth meshed, then gaped, then meshed.  Wrote a note to the mom.  Tomorrow my student will have a new pink lunchbox for her bologna sandwich.

Dad's thinking travels around three sides alternately meshing and gaping.  Wrote a note to the doctor, but Dad will not have a new brain tomorrow.  We are going to have to deal with the unmeshed teeth, confounding gaps, and frequent leaks.  We will have to deal with it in a kind, gentle, nonconfrontational way.  Telling Dad he's full of baloney doesn't do either of us any good.  I might hum that Oscar Mayer song  as a coping device, though.

Dad was eating tuna salad and cornbread for supper, and shoveling it in pretty well, so I didn't interrupt.  Instead I wondered why my wheelchair-confined father was wearing windstop nylon jogging pants with reflective stripes down the sides.  These are NOT Dad's pants.  Maybe they belong to the seven foot girl.  Maybe Watson could shed some light here.

I was curious about the "Jeopardy" show with Ken Jennings and Watson, the IBM computer.  Dad was sufficiently glad to have my company to let me watch part of the show.  My three-sided zipper brain malfunctioned trying to explain the computer search process for natural language puns as if I understood them!

Dad was in bed staring at the billowing hospital drape in front of his open window when I arrived Monday.  His aide had opened the window to the seventy degree afternoon breeze, but left his heater set at seventy-two.  Dad seemed to think very tall girls were hiding behind the drape and wiggling it.  This is the same Dad that thinks boys are playing leapfrog behind his bed and that I am Tall Alice.  The hospital drape on its curved ceiling track is beyond his comprehension.  When I scooted the drape down the track so the wind wouldn't catch it, Dad asked where all the girls went.  "Did they just shoot straight up?"  Yes, Scotty, the seven foot tall girls beamed up!

Like Alex Trebek, quoted in Sunday's Washington Post, I'm not worried about being replaced by a computer:

"Jeopardy!" host Alex Trebek isn't afraid he'll be replaced by a machine. "It's a possibility," Trebek told me recently, "but it won't happen for a few years." After all, the machine would require "infinite patience, great wisdom, a sense of humor, which is hard to build into a computer. And tenderness when dealing with contestants."

Oh, Lordy, save me from the seven foot tall girls wiggling the drape and send a double dose of tenderness for dealing with the contestant!

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Transporting old farts across state lines

Contemplating our upcoming road trip driving Dad from Lincoln, Nebraska to Plano, Texas, my sister and I have divided up the worries.  There are plenty to go around without duplication of efforts.  While MJ frets about blizzards, I fear multigenerational broiling.  To keep a frail, skinny old guy warm enough to ride 650 miles we will have to run the rental car heater on the perpetual Circles of Hell setting.  Yes, we will be driving through Kansas and Oklahoma in a toaster oven on wheels.

When we arrive in Lincoln, MJ and I will have to pack Dad's few belongings and obtain necessary supplies.  Remember the early versions of the Oregon Trail computer game?  It will be much like provisioning a wagon train.



That analogy doesn't bode well.  Through much of the Branch Davidian seige in 1993 my youngest was playing Oregon Trail.  The kindergarten Woolly Mammoth couldn't read, but he could defeat me every game.  My pioneer family never ever made it to the Dalles, and I was a college graduate! 



© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Ruby-throated battle bots

This is prime hummingbird time in Plano, Texas. My tiny patio is filled with seven-foot tall cannas topped with red blossoms. A cypress vine with red trumpet flowers has grown up the iron birdfeeder hook.



Beyond my privacy fence the soapberry tree on the next patio provides perches and shade for hummingbirds when they aren't engaged in territorial battles for control of the birdfeeder and the galaxy.



A striped garden caterpillar is eating the cypress vine crawling around and around the hook like a candycane stripe.  It nibbles oblivious to the air raids. 



Baby anole lizards less than three inches long are jumping from one canna leaf to the next.  And then there are the dogfights! Fabulous aerial duels between hummingbirds make me wonder why there aren't any hummingbird flight simulation video games.  One hummingbird pumped up on testosterone or sugar water attacked this large, clueless cloudless sulphur butterfly today.



It's a wonder I got anything done today!



© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Belushi slugs in an Evite world

Like waking up with a hangover, I'm not feeling all that good about my garden slug battle. And like the host of a college kegger, I'm worried that I should have checked IDs.

Annoyed that circumstantial evidence placed slugs and snails on/about devastated dill, rosemary, and lettuce plant crime scenes, I developed an anti-gastropod policy. Emulating the little Guard Duck character in the comic, "Pearls Before Swine," I wanted to launch an all-out assault.

I started small. Gardening friends all recommended beer traps to lure slugs. Last weekend I set an assortment of jar lids and plastic bottle caps around my patio container garden and gave each a drizzle of stale Busch beer. Nothing happened. Okay. One elderly slug stumbled over the lip of a yogurt lid and died of dehydration.

Alas, two more nasturtiums and another marigold were nibbled to the quick. Little Guard Duck's evaluation of my efforts:

• Too small.
• Too unplanned.
• Too low-tech.

After laying low for a few days, I sent out an Evite to the slug and snail Facebook members. These are hip, techno-savvy slugs, but they appreciate esoteric retro connections. Party highlights:

• Projected the 1978 "Animal House" movie on the condo wall.
• Snails and slugs crowded in for a better view and unlimited brewskis.
• Some chanted, "Toga! Toga!"
• Others stayed late for the second feature to see Kathy Bates in the "About Schmidt" hot tub.
• Added tiki torches, Doritos, and a vintage Twister game.

Now I wonder if gastropods are our friends. Did the attendees of the beer party leave my patio ecosystem poorer?



© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Barbershop Quartet Blindsided Me Outta Nowhere

The six-year-old held his lunchbox in his left and reached out to shake my right. "Good-bye," he said with a certain timing that stirred a song deep within my LaBrea tarpit memory.

"Good-bye," I sang as I shook his hand, "my Coney Island baaaaa-byyyy. Farewell my own true love, true love my honey. I'm gonna go away and leeeeeeave you...never to see you any, never gonna see you anymore."

Google has not been much help this evening as I tried to understand my straw boater flashback. It's useful to remember that the internet is not the most reliable of sources. A quick search led me to sites claiming the song was written by Les Applegate or Les Appleton in 1924, or 1945, or 1948, possibly, but no, not really for "No, No, Nanette".

It doesn't matter. The student is mildly stunned, but resting comfortably at his home. He doesn't know what will happen the next time he shakes my hand. I don't either, but I'm not telling him.

© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

Out of Control

So many lesson plans and calendars for the new semester to cut and paste. So many websites to link. I've been out of control for several days, unable to Ctrl+C, Ctrl+X, Ctrl+V, or Ctrl+N. The Ctrl key bit the dust on the Compac keyboard I found in a closet when my "real" keyboard died many months ago. I've become accustomed to limping along, just barely hanging on. I've coped with the quirks in this age of austerity. The latest failure, though, a total lack of Ctrl, was too much to bear. I'm already dealing with a parent in a skilled nursing facility. I shouldn't have to cope with an incontinent and demented keyboard, too!

© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

Alamo cocktail swords

Waiting to pass through the security chute at the new Collin County Courthouse for jury duty, I wondered why this was the first event on my summer vacation itinerary. Shouldn't I be beached on the sand sipping a parasol-garnished frozen concoction?

Not the moment for applying sunscreen and searching for my lost shaker of salt; alas, I was on the case in McKinney. To be honest, I was hoping to be off the case, but staying philosophical should I be selected for a jury, the duty of every citizen.

There's a life-size bronze statue of Col. William Barrett Travis in the courthouse lobby, drawing his famous line in the sand with a life-size cocktail sword . "Bronze" plus "sand" should equal tan, relaxed, and buff, but those of us gathered in the Central Jury Room are chubby, irritable, and pasty.

The legend goes that Travis called the defenders of the Alamo together to announce that reinforcements would not be coming. The District Clerk announced there would be no coffee, let alone donuts.Travis drew his sword to make a line in the dirt, asking all who were ready to stay and die to cross the line. One person declined to cross, but escaped over the Alamo wall, and lived to tell the tale.

I've never made a clothespin Col. Travis, but I suspect it would be much like making a clothespin Captain Jack Sparrow. Wish I'd thought of that for all those times when my middle school sons had to do Texas history projects!



When my sons were about middle school age, they had a computer game called "Battle Bugs". The bugs marched around on a picnic blanket planting toothpick flags to a theme song forever implanted in my brain. I don't know if the battling bugs ever had cocktail parasols or swords. Maybe they drew their own line in the powdered sugar defending a box of donuts.

Two songs are battling now for control of my mind. Will the "Battle Bugs" theme conquer Jimmy Buffett's "Margaritaville"? Shouldn't this internal struggle render me unfit for jury duty? I don't even like donuts, but I'm ready to climb the walls to get a glazed one with a cup of black coffee!

...The alluring odor of last week's pizza lies heavy in the air. Antennae strain and agony etches lines of pain into the faces of the cockroaches. With monumental effort, these warriors raise the flag above the carnage in the pepperoni. This is Battle Bugs. A game of military strategy where insect troops rage across tabletops and storm junk food targets. Standing in their way are legions of enemy bugs, armed to the teeth. You - and your battle smarts - guide your troops to glory. Will your armada of spiders cross the cola lake in time to save the flag? Will the suicide run of a kamikaze mosquito take out the praying mantis? At what cost? At what price victory? We Will Fight In The Pizza. - We Will Fight In The Cookies. We Will Fight In The Coleslaw. We Will Never Give Up.

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Christmas spider and New Years back-up

Almost stood on my head to get a photo of a small spider inside a big flower pot of sedum. The angle of the web made it impossible for me to see the spider's marking with my own eye, so I did photographer contortions to get an image. What a fun surprise to discover the Christmas tree shape with snow on the ground!

Back in January I made two New Years resolutions. These were not save-the-whales-and-lose-fifty-pounds lofty goals, although I did plan to follow through on them with "firm determination". My planned course of action called for improved care of my teeth, and frequent backing-up of my computer files.

Four-plus months later, I'm amazed that I've really implemented those two little resolutions. Bet this is the first time I can even remember my resolutions by mid-May!

Now when I wake up at 4:40 a.m. and can't go back to sleep, I make back-up cds of my computer files. Sometimes the thought of hauling myself out of bed to back-up the computer is enough to solve the 4:40 insomnia. If it isn't, at least I'm eliminating computer crash anxiety as a wee hours worry.

"Take better care of my teeth" is a pretty subjective resolution. My dentist's hygenist will tell me if I've succeeded. My Oral B Vitality Braun electric toothbrush is definitely a step in the right direction. Okay, that's probably too much information!

Still, if I ever become the elderly blue-haired owner of an obese, low and long-haired, yippy, irritable condo dog of the Pomeranian or Spitz type, I will name it Gingivitis. Its puppies will be called Swish, Floss, Tartar, Plaque, and the runt, Hyperactive Gag Reflex.

Perhaps computer back-up insomnia is more to be desired than fat dental Pomeranian nightmares. Next time I see 4:40, I'll meditate on the Christmas tree spider, and pop Vince Guaraldi into the cd player.



© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

How long can you tread water?

Came home from work and found red alerts from my Avast antivirus program letting me know that VBS malware was breeding like the rabbits on the ark all over my computer system. Rats! I should have gone to Vacation Bible School instead of weaving those sit-upons at Bluebird Day Camp. Avast.com can't seem to wrestle the VBS worm virus into the quarantine chest because the worms are being used by some computer process to eat holes in my files. Ack!

I knew it would come back to haunt me. This is all because I sometimes put all the pennies into the benevolence side of the First Plymouth Sunday School offering envelope instead of splitting the five or eight cents between the local church expenses and benevolence. Somebody up there was agonna get me eventually. I just expected it to be while I was still wearing itchy petticoats, lace-edged anklets and black patent Mary Janes.

Bill Cosby and my dad taught me how to saw. My dad told me to let gravity do the work. Bill Cosby taught me that sawing should sound like VOO-bah, VOO-bah, VOO-bah... The Lord told Noah to build an ark, and Bill Cosby created a wonderful stand-up routine about their conversation. The VBS malware worm has me peering into the bottom of the computer ark. Who is going to clean up the mess down there?



Two-sided offering envelopes were a strategy for Protestant congregations with regular expenses beginning in the 1920s:

Excerpted from Samuel A. Stein, A Guide in Church Finance, (Columbus, Ohio: Lutheran Book Concern, 1920), 11-18.

The one and best envelope system to introduce is the Weekly Duplex Envelope System. This system is recognized practically by all Protestant denominations as the most successful method at the present time for congregations to raise money for their own up-keep and for benevolences. ... We solemnly express the opinion that a congregation which fails to introduce the very best possible method in keeping with the tasks imposed by God lags behind in obedience to God's Word.

Here is a sample of the weekly duplex or divided envelope--one for each Sunday in the year. Study the reading.
1. THIS METHOD HELPS TO INTELLIGENT GIVING
The church, at insignificant expense, tells the giver fifty-two times a year what the Lord needs His moneys for; what His moneys are expended for. It answers many questions. In many congregations not half a dozen people half have a clear idea of what is required to support the Kingdom of God in their own midst, and their support is according to their hazy views ...

The system is decidedly educational ... Here is a system that leads up to intelligent giving. It instructs, teaches and informs regularly and repeatedly each contributor as to the needs of God's Kingdom. And it reaches more persons, old and young, than any other method. In the parable of the talents, Matt. 25:14, Christ teaches us to use our money to the best advantage of His Church.

2. THIS METHOD ENCOURAGES CHEERFUL GIVING.
... Cheerful giving ought to flow throughout all the year. The weekly double envelope offers this opportunity. "God loveth a cheerful giver" (2 Cor. 9:7).

3. THIS METHOD ENCOURAGES REGULAR GIVING.
Regularity here means good order. Mild regularity is needed everywhere--in the clock, in the home, in the state, and why not in the church?
What happens in the biggest business concerns if irregularity creeps in? The Church of Christ is the biggest business on this planet. Regularity and good method cannot be separated. A minister, layman, or congregation can accomplish more with good methods than without them. There is a business side to the church ... Method and habit go together. Much of Christian virtue consists in good habits. A good act comes from faith; often repeated it becomes a good habit.

... Many Sunday Schools use the weekly double envelopes. Their use is of great educational value
... Several months ago we read: The envelope system was introduced recently into a leper church in Siam. In imitation of their more fortunate brethren, the lepers with mutilated fingers made their own envelopes out of scraps of white paper from a mission press. On the first Sunday under the new system their offerings increased from 60 cents to $1.44...

4. THIS METHOD ENCOURAGES PERSONAL GIVING.
...The old custom that the head of the family should pay for all is out of date. And why should the husband not give his wife money for the Kingdom of God as well as he gives her money for a new hat? All housewives that have an allowance certainly ought to give to Christ's Church. Then, remember, it is the Christian Church that has given to woman the high place that God wants her to have. Parents give their children money for useful and often even for useless things; why not for the Church?

A certain father was liberal and the main financial supporter of a church. When he died the church was hardly able to survive the financial loss. How about his large family? Oh, the sons and daughters give practically nothing. They were not taught to give. Pa always gave for themThe training feature of the weekly duplex envelope system is great. "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it" (Prov. 22:6).

5. THIS METHOD ENCOURAGES RELIGIOUS GIVING.
Giving belongs to true religion. Christian giving is worship. "Honor the Lord with your substance." We worship God by paying as well as by praying. ... Some insist upon paying by the year; but God gives us grace every moment. It seems when the Christian congregation on the day of its Lord hears: "He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through His poverty might become rich" (2 Cor. 8:9), it ought to respond also with money. The weekly duplex envelopes give the opportunity to all worshippers to give of their substance "upon the first day of the week," "the Lord's day." This is one of the underlying ideas of this method.

6. THIS METHOD ENCOURAGES PROPORTIONATE GIVING.
...God is the owner of all money. He gives it to us. We are not the absolute owners, but stewards. Some of the money God gave us we received for the purpose of using it for the upbuilding of his Kingdom. How much? A percentage need and cannot be stated here--that would be legalism; but this much is certain that we ought to give a fair share of what He gave us. That means, in dollars, much more for the rich man than for the poor. God's Word lays down a certain principle: "Every man should give as he is able, according to the blessing of the Lord thy God which he hath given thee" (Deut. 16:17). "According to ability": "As God hath prospered," "not grudgingly, or of necessity; for God loveth a cheerful giver" (2 Cor. 9:7).

Now, is it reasonable and God-pleasing for a man to hold off bringing an offering to the Lord until some festival, or until six months or the congregational year is up, and then try to figure out what proportionate giving is? Does the good Lord not give to each one every day in the week; and would it not be much more reasonable for him to bring his offerings each Lord's Day? A man says: "I'll pay mine in a lump when the year is up." Suppose he wants to see then how the Lord has prospered him. Well, we do not see how he can see at the end of the year whether or not the Lord has prospered him, if he cannot see it now. Experience shows that he never gives a due portion. Moreover, what right has a man to hold up "his share" for months when the Church of Christ needs it today? ... Many Christians hate to think of the old way of giving. We can see no doctrinal difficulties in the new may. We know the Spirit of God says, "Give as the Lord hath prospered you," and the weekly plan reminds us of this, offers the opportunity for it and encourages us to do so. It makes the service of love easier. Is it right to tempt to covetousness by unsuccessful methods?

Oh, and VBS malware isn't really divine retribution. Visual Basic Script seems to be a handy tool for folks who like to disrupt a wide swath of computer communications and functions. I hope Fat Albert sits on them.

© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Slivered almonds

Please comment and tell me I am not the only person who has zoned out in the salty snack food aisle of the grocery store in search of a small package of slivered almonds for the healthy fresh green beans. I know those almonds are somewhere in that store. I've seen them there before. The packages hang from a hook, and have dark green on the label. I've wandered the baking aisle, the health food aisle, the produce department, the dried fruit section, and the nut department over by the magazines and candy. My brain just can't make the right association for the search keywords. I have Googlefreeze Grocerymeltdown.

And worse, when I give up, go home, and cook the green beans, and cook them, and cook them still more, they continue to have the texture of garden hose and the flavor of pencil erasers. Sometimes I just can't find my groove.



Tonight I've wasted nearly a half hour Googling in search of an entertaining vine weed we used to call "Chinese lantern" or "Popberry" when I was a sprout back in the Cornhusker State. My students are building fairy houses, hence the need for nature lanterns. The weed was less annoying than dandelions or spurge, so my parents didn't fret much about it. You couldn't braid the vine into a chain the way you could clover, though, so you would never be discovered looking photogenic by a movie producer in a big convertible when you were sitting out in the front yard in the evening.

We spent a lot of summer evenings sitting down at the end of the driveway betting which color car would drive by next. When that got too slow, we played Kick the Can until the fireflies came out. Heat lightning and humming cicadas. Sphinx moths zipping around the honeysuckle bush. Calamine lotion. Maybe almonds some other day, or else running through the sprinkler.



© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Ridin' & ropin'

Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip.

Will Rogers



Get along little dust bunnies. It's time for me to drive the herd to the summer range. Moving the computer to greener pastures is a job for Gus and Call straight out of Lonesome Dove . Only things missing are Blue Duck, those swarming water snakes, and Pea Eye wandering around naked in the snow. I could be wrong on some of that, since I read Lonesome Dove just after moving to Texas in 1990. The book took longer to read than it took the Hat Creek gang to drive those dogies from Texas to Montana.

Rope tricks are on my mind whenever I have to lasso the computer cords. I've come a long way from my dude ranch days. Back then I had to use Sharpies and masking tape to make tags for each end of each cord so I could get it all plugged back together and working. Back then I had techno teen cowboys here at the ranch to do most of the herding and riding fences.



Almost visited the Will Rogers Memorial in Claremore, Oklahoma, last drive north. Maybe next time. Instead I enjoyed a visit to the beautiful Philbrook Museum gardens in Tulsa. Still remember the exhibit of gorgeous saddles at the Memorial from the last time I visited----in 1962.


© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Mission Control

The preschoolers love talking into their microphones to communicate with the class pet rabbit during his imaginary space mission. They direct the astrobunny when to wake up, to blast off, to fix the rocket, take space walks, to exercise, snap photos, and build the international space station.

They think the best way for astrobunnies to stay in shape out there in space was to do some karate. Yikes! Weightless lagomorphic tae kwon do!

The kids push buttons on their egg carton computer keyboards when they want to capture an image of a passing meteor or asteroid (or the ubiquitous smiling sun in the upper left corner of every picture). The "screens" of their computers are clear plastic bags. That way, they can change which of their astrobunny drawings is on view by slipping in a new picture. We included some colored cellophane to alter the look of their drawings. It also resembles the dreaded "blue screen of death" every PC owner fears. The kids spoke clearly into their microphones telling the astrobunnies to hurry back to Earth to fix the broken computers! Classroom pets have to be multitalented heroes. Give that bunny a sip of Tang!

At the spring music program a few kids spoke into the microphone as narrators. At our egg carton Mission Control, everybody gets to talk into their own microphone!



© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Even my resolutions are belated

The Christmas cards never happened. The thank you notes have been slow. Already missed Miss Mary Melissa's birthday.

2006 gave me several unpleasant opportunities to learn an important lesson. 2007 will be the year I keep my computer files backed-up. Go ahead and put on your Spandex. Eat your Weight Watchers frozen pizzas. I'll be copying files to my cute little blue Lexar JumpDrive.

Haunting Nabucco

When the Overture to Verdi's "Nabucco" began playing in my dark five a.m. condo, I woke wondering what phantom was in the condo. Who was in my condo? How did they get in? Why are they playing an opera cd? Is this a dream, or am I awake?

Mothers of infants and toddlers awaken at the tiniest of sighs or whimpers. Mothers of children sit bolt upright from a sound sleep because their sleeping subconscious has momentarily misplaced the mental schedule of soccer practices, scout meetings, allergy shots, and play rehearsals. The web has to be rewoven before we can sleep.

Parents of teens don't sleep all that soundly or often. We are waiting for the phone call telling us the speech team bus will arrive back at the school at 1:30 a.m., so please be there to pick me up. Then it's just a few hours until another child needs a ride to board the bus for the 8 a.m. cross country meet.

Parents of teens with drivers licenses have new ribbons of anxiety braided into their daydreams and nightmares. If they happen to doze off before the car is safely back in the garage, they wake up in a cold sweat. I know my mother didn't sleep back in the Seventies before the invention of cell phones. My kids knew that ignoring the agreed upon return time would ensure taking an embarrassing cell phone call in front of their friends. "No, Mom, I'm not dying in a roadside ditch somewhere. No, Mom, please don't call 911! I'm dropping ___________ at her house right now, and I'll be there in five minutes! I'm sorry I made you worry."

In the empty nest phase our college kids return for the occasional weekend, but can't arrive before Friday midnight. Mine let themselves in quietly, or not, and I might only roll over and murmur a sleepy greeting. They watch some cable t.v., nuke some popcorn, receive phone calls, start their laundry. They DO NOT play opera recordings! Never, ever.

That's what confused me. Who is here, and why are they playing Verdi? It must be a ghost! This is completely unacceptable. I've got to drag myself out of bed and turn off the music before it wakes my neighbor in the next condo.

The cd is playing on my computer, so I close Windows Media Player, and crawl back to bed. Perhaps the "phantom" was an automatic upgrade download that required the system to reboot. Like those public service announcements, it's five a.m. Do you know where your children are? Do you know what your computer is doing??