You must change your purse.

Rilke did not say that. Mom said, "Don't spend all your money on a purse, as you will have nothing to carry in it." Mom also bought me a "good leather purse" when I got married, predicting accurately that it would be a very long time before I could afford to buy another.

I did not spend all my money on this life-changing purse, but I can fit pretty much all my retirement savings inside it. And archaic Apollo would go for the cross-body strap.

It is indeed time to change my life. I need to hit the road and travel lighter. I need to get out of Dodge and go west. Wish I could take nothing but photos and leave nothing but footprints, but a condo is not so easy to shed, especially full of so much....  So envious of the caterpillar that makes a chrysalis and emerges to fly away.

© 2013 Nancy L. Ruder

Retrieving "spandex"

Been more than a little bummed out this week. I'm even bummed that I first heard the expression "bummed out" forty years ago. How can this be?  Tom and Cam were "bummed out" because the band did not play their best song at the concert.

Time is expanding, contracting, and even constricting.  Our little students love the song about being eaten by a boa constrictor.  Days are hot and patience is low.  Trying not to feed any kiddies to the boa!

Nature is getting more and more Tarantino around here.  I watched three squirrels play soccer in the street with a bright yellow horse apple. The victor tried to haul the ball up a tree.

Why can I remember Tom and Cam slumped and sweaty in those Greco-Roman history classroom desks, but can't dredge up an answer to Will Shortz's crossword clue for "Some gym wear"? And why do I dream of rolling sets of silverware in paper napkins in the hospital kitchen?

For days now I've been watching two Giant Swallowtail caterpillars devour the leaves of my small key lime tree.  When I got home today  at four, one caterpillar was struggling in the dirt under the tree.  Of course I rescued it and returned it to the lime leaves, not just once, but three times.  Each time it rolled right off and dropped to the dirt. Then the caterpillar started a writhing belly-dance of agony and/or delight.

When I give my heart and hopes to a caterpillar we are both doomed.  Caterpillars are stung and devoured by Texas fire ants.  Caterpillars are devoured by a praying mantis that looks like F. Murray Abraham. Caterpillars devour dill but fail to thrive on a long drive.

This time the caterpillar seemed to lack a zipper to shed its too-small skin. In You-Tube videos caterpillars make this costume change in less than a minute.  I watched my caterpillar's efforts for over two hours in the hundred degree heat.  Imagine trying to remove sweaty pantyhose while sitting in your car that's been parked in the sun all day without drawing unwanted attention from passersby.  Imagine trying to shed your skin without signaling hungry birds or lizards. Imagine "S P A N D E X" pops to mind for the gym wear.

It was a good answer, but not the right one.  The caterpillar has given up on shedding that skin.

© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

No more suctioning

Was thrilled when my eye doctor did not dilate my eyes last week.  If he had, he would have used Atropine.  This medication is also used to decrease bronchial secretions.  It's now on the "as needed" list for my dad, along with Mucinex.  


Rx googling might be unhealthy, but I found the information about Atropine on Wikipedia appropriate:


Atropine is a naturally occurring tropane alkaloid extracted from deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna), jimsonweed (Datura stramonium), mandrake (Mandragora officinarum) and other plants of the family Solanaceae. It is a ... drug with a wide variety of effects....[The name] derive[s] from Atropos, one of the three Fates who, according to Greek mythology, chose how a person was to die. Atropine is a core medicine in theWorld Health Organization's "Essential Drugs List", which is a list of minimum medical needs for a basic health care system.


Well, dang, I just put Edith Hamilton back on the shelf since she didn't mention Thor's goats!  This time she writes on page 44:


Very important, but assigned to no abode whether in heaven or on the earth were THE FATES, Moirae in Greek, Parcae in Latin, who, Hesiod says, give to men at birth evil and good to have.  They were three, Clotho, the Spinner, who spun the thread of life; Lachesis, the Disposer of Lots, who assigned to each man his destiny; Atropos, she who could not be turned, who carried "the abhorred shears" and cut the thread at death.

I don't have much luck growing datura aka jimsonweed aka moonflower in Texas, but we grew it from seed every year in Omaha.  It attracted lovely evening moths around our deck.  I took this photo at Texas Discovery Gardens, so datura can be grown here, just not by me (a common refrain of my brown thumb gardening song).

Working with the hospice aide and RN, the skilled care facility nurse, I got a new order in place banning all future use of the dreadful ineffective airway suctioning device.  Proactive use of nebulizer breathing treatments and the medications to decrease bronchial secretions will be used instead.  Dad's blood oxygen level is good now, so he can use oxygen just when it makes him more comfortable.  

While Dad napped I finished reading Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks.  Hellebore is the plant used to induce visions by the Wompaontoaonk people in the book.  Hellebore is from a different family than datura.  Just thought you would want to know.  

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

A bad night of isthmus

All night it seemed I was teaching in a giant lecture amphitheater.  The subject of my lecture defied my pronunciation.  I could not say "Peloponnesian Penninsula" to save my life.  The map for the lecture was displayed improbably at the top/back of the theater, behind all the students.  I had to gallop up the steps, get their attention, ask everyone to turn around, and then explain the map.  Then back down the steps to the podium.  Back and forth, this exercise would have burned thousands of calories in real life.  Breathless is not the way to say "Peloponnesian Penninsula".  Why?  I have no idea, but I will give some attention to arranging my real-life classroom teaching aids.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

The Big Clean

Started slow.  Organized my sock drawer by color, tossing out the holey loners.  Cleaned the lazy susans of spices, refilling jars in the rack.  Warmed up.

Tackled dusty slatted shutters.  I can almost feel the burn. 

Now the guest bathroom, formerly known as The Guys Bathroom.  I don't go up there much, making it a fine place for dormant Christmas cacti and orchids.  Amazing how dirty an unused place can become.  Maybe guy cooties still lurk just beneath the surfaces.

The Clorox Bathroom Disinfectant was inadequate.  Now I'm headed to the grocery store to buy Oxymoron, the cleanser for people who are too stupid to clean on a regular basis!

oxy-
from Gk. oxy-, comb. form of oxys "sharp, pungent" (see acrid). Also used as a comb. form of oxygen.
oxymoron
1650s, from Gk. oxymoron, noun use of neut. of oxymoros (adj.) "pointedly foolish," from oxys "sharp" (see acrid) + moros "stupid" (see moron). Rhetorical figure by which contradictory terms are conjoined so as to give point to the statement or expression; the word itself is an illustration of the thing. Now often used loosely to mean "contradiction in terms."

Oxydol laundry detergent has been around since 1927. 


© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

The spell is broken

Bubble bubble cellphone trouble.  Three friends have dropped their cellphones in liquids in the last three weeks, and now our dreadful, dry heat wave is over.  Coincidence?  I think not.  This is the rain dance for the new millennium!

I was ready to offer a sacrificial cellphone myself if it would bring relief from the triple digit temps.  Would you give up your August air conditioner in Dallas to save your cellphone?  Or would you give up the cellphone to save your a/c?

Let us carve caryatids to commemorate the three women who broke the spell:

The first demigoddess peeled off her sweaty exercise clothes, dropped them in the washing machine, and started the cycle.  Her phone met a sudsy end. 

Demigoddess Two lost her cellphone to what we will euphemistically call "Indoor Plumbing". These things happen.  Frequently.  How often?

Our third demigoddess, a Pythian homeschooler/prophetess, not to mention harried mother of teens, dropped her phone in her iced tea. 

And, LO!  Refreshing temperatures arrived on a divine wind.  And rain fell from Mount Olympus.

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Don't count your caterpillars before they pupate

Aesop* warned me, but I didn't listen. Last Friday I was ecstatic after discovering caterpillars on the sunflower in the school garden. Perfect timing. The munchers would be ready to make their chrysalises the first week of school. The summer school kids watched the bordered patch butterfly lay eggs on the leaf week before last, so we knew what the butterflies would be. This was going to be fabulous!

All weekend I spun art class projects to connect with the science observations of the caterpillars. Saturday I attended the Butterfly Festival at Texas Discovery Garden, further fueling my imagination.

Monday morning, no caterpillars. None. How could this be? While I watered the school garden, I searched every inch of the sunflowers. My little larval lesson plans had disappeared like the Roanoke colony or the Anasazi. To say my hopes were dashed is inadequate.  There was nothing to do but float despondently in the condo pool.

Late this afternoon I drove to school on the pretext of watering the garden. Really I was praying the caterpillars had just been playing hide and seek with me. Just as I arrived a sunshiny downpour started. Never mind getting soaked. Were there any caterpillars on the sunflowers? No!

I did feel like someone was staring at me in my wet t-shirt, and it wasn't the bald guy from the office building next door who drives the baby blue Honda. Hanging upside down from the highest sunflower leaf was our playground friend, the praying mantis, looking larger.

Two mysteries are solved. I know where the mantis goes when it rains.  Plus, I know who ate the caterpillars.     

Going to float in the pool.  Think I'll wait on making new lesson plans, though.
 
*570 B.C. "The Milkmaid and Her Pail" just in case you wondered.


© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

A good week for spiders

Spiders portend good luck according to my dream-guide friend. I've had lots of luck finding and photographing spiders this week. Maybe that's because I read Gerald McDermott's Anansi the Spider to the extended-day children. When Anansi got in a predicament, his six children worked together, each using a special ability, to extricate their father. And, the moon ended up in the sky, which is good!

Spiders' special ability to spin webs probably inspired human inventions of spinning, weaving, knots, and nets. Spiders certainly inspired myths and legends. Every time I spy a dewy web sparkling in the sunlight I feel transported to Aladdin's cave of jewels.

Was Helen Augusta Blanchard, the inventor of the zigzag sewing machine (1873), inspired by spider webs? Alas, there are so many things it would be interesting to learn, and so little time. The zigzag pattern appeared in most of my lucky spider webs this week. The zigzag is called a Stabilimenta, but stabilization is not thought to be its purpose.



Thanks to the macro function on my little Canon camera, the designs on spiders' bodies have been revealed. Each spider seems like a design for a Persian rug or Navajo blanket. The markings are amazingly intricate whether the spider is the size of a pencil lead, or the size of my thumb.




Spider education in my childhood was limited. Nancy Drew's cases with black widow spiders in old attics fueled scary slumber party stories. Camp Fire Girl warnings about brown recluse "fiddle-back" spiders taught me to shake out any shoe that hadn't been worn for awhile and to be very wary of violins. Lazy summer evenings sprawled on the warm concrete driveway with the other neighborhood kids included building obstacles for Daddy-Long-Legs between hopscotch and jacks. We didn't learn anything about the beneficial spiders in nature.

I'm including a photo of the biggest spider I ever saw outside of a "bug zoo". It was among the cattails at the bottom of the Oak Point Preserve pond. Its leg span was the size of my hand. And instead of feeling arachnophobic, I was cheering this Argiope girl's capture of a large grasshopper for her lunch. I've known lots of red-blooded grown-up American males who were mighty scared of spiders. Me, I just get the heebie-jeebies from grasshoppers.



© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Looking for a sign

Walking along my usual route thinking it sure would help to receive a clear cut omen, directive, or prophecy. Nothing Delphic from some oracle who inhaled too much sulphur. I don't need, "Put your faith in a wooden wall," thank you very much.

Then, right at my feet in some worm castings I see the sign. The sign is 2. I was expecting doves or smoke signals, but the sign is a plastic square that probably escaped from a child's game. The surrounding clover isn't four-leaf, but I'll overlook that (with apologies to Mort Dixon).

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

Etiquettiphobia

That would be the fear that Emily Post, Amy Vanderbilt, and Letitia Baldrige are going to swoop down from Mt. Olympus in their perfect plus-size mother-of-the-groom attire hurling lightning bolts at me for my glaring errors. This week I am trying to avoid their wrath as I address the envelopes for my son's wedding.

My son and his lovely fiance don't have the same concern about Mr. and Mrs., Master, Miss, and Ms. They are busy young professionals who have grown up in the email generation. To them an address includes first.last@.

Choosing the proper pen with Letitia's guidance was a treat, though I worried Amy and Emily would be jealous. You know how those goddesses are.

It's nice to use the dying art of handwriting for a good cause. So soothing gliding the pen in lovely curves and curls on the large envelopes. Just please don't let the three goddesses of wedding protocol get me in their sights. Was that thunder I just heard?


© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

Knievel Anole or Anole Oakley?

Recently Robbie Knievel, the son of Evel, jumped his motorcycle over two Budweiser trucks near the state capital building in Austin, Texas. This stunt did not impress me. I was much more awed by Stubby's leap from the forehead of the clay mask across 2.5 feet into the canna bloom. The little lizard with the short tail seems to have mastered the art of reckless abandon when it comes to patio jumps.

Stubby is still shy when I head outside with my camera. He raced from the flowers into the hiding spots among large canna leaves.

Had to dig out my Edith Hamilton's Mythology to get my story straight. Stubby didn't spring from the terra cotta mask forehead full-grown and in full armor like Pallas Athena from the head of Zeus. It was still an impressive leap.

Wondering tonight why I respect Annie Oakley's stunts but not Robbie Knievel's. Had a great visit to the Annie Oakley Center at the Garst Museum in Greenville, Ohio on a rainy day this month. Annie was a class act, and a much better role model for young Stubby than Mr. Knievel. The image below is of mother-of-pearl opera glasses given to Ms. Oakley by Princess Alexandra, wife of England's Prince Edward. Alexandra's photo is in the oval frame.




© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

Harem eunuchs

"Trust you won't have to be a harem eunuch," I wrote my friend. He got a teensy part in a spring Dallas Opera production of Rossini's "The Italian Girl in Algiers".

Such a funny word, eunuch. Back in high school, during the last Ice Age, the males in my social group formed an intramural flag football team called "The Eunuchs". Why exactly they chose this team name isn't important, just as most of what happens in high school isn't important.

We had yearbooks in those paleolithic days, but no Facebook. It was just as well.

Well = eu. That's what we learned about Greek and Latin root words: Eugene, Eunice, euphoria, eulogy, eucalyptus...

Eunuch has a different etymology. Eune = bed. This from the Online Etymology Dictionary:

eunuch
1387, from Gk. eunoukhos "castrated man," originally "guard of the bedchamber or harem," from euno-, comb. form of eune "bed" + -okhos, from stem of ekhein "to have, hold." The Gk. and L. forms of the word were used to transl. Heb. saris, which sometimes meant merely "palace official," in Septuagint and Vulgate, probably without an intended comment on the qualities of bureaucrats.

Good grief. Let us not comment on the qualities of bureaucrats in or out of bed!

Instead I comment on my abbreviated adventure in Facebook. The Dallas Morning News ran a large double op ed about Facebook today. As a DMN Voice I've had a couple questions from the editorial board about online social networks.

For research only, I created a Facebook account today. My sons have bravely allowed me to blog as long as I didn't have a presence on Facebook, so this was dangerous territory. As quick as possible I logged out, but not before one of the Lincoln East High Eunuchs showed up on the list of people I might know. If I've been happily unconnected with high school eunuchs for over thirty-five years, why would I want the wonders of the Internet to reconnect us now?

Do you Facebook? Sitting around the dining table at New Years I quibbled with sons and girlfriends about whether "Facebook" could be a verb.

Do you Auroch? We are considering Ice Age animals in the preschool class. We are discovering saber tooth tigers and woolly mammoths. Aurochs were the giant wild bison depicted in the cave paintings at Lascaux. Maybe the cave paintings were a social networking site for the Ice Age.





© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

Lunch at the White House

Laura looked in the kitchen cabinet yesterday and shrieked, "I don't have enough water glasses! The only ones left have horrible water spots!" Dubya had invited his dad, Jimmy, Bill, and Barack to lunch. Laura had been using the inexpensive Homelife dishwasher detergent from Albertsons, and hadn't added any JetDry since Hector was a pup. Maybe the Secret Service guys wandered off with the rest of the tumblers. Maybe Cheney took them down to his undisclosed bunker.

It's difficult to bond and form a support group over lunch if you have distracting unmatched and spotted glasses. I mean, how do you decide which former prez gets the plastic kiddie cup from Dickey's BBQ? Who gets the jumbo souvenir cup from the Dallas Burn soccer game against David Beckham and the LA Galaxy? Who gets the spotted Flintstones Welch jelly glass?

Some Homelife products work fine. The unscented laundry detergent is good. But if you are entertaining once and future presidents, or potential daughters-in-law, it's worth springing for high-priced dishwasher Cascade.

I called my dad, not to be confused with Dubya's dad, to ask him just when Hector was a pup. Dad has been using the expression "since Hector was a pup" since I was little, and probably far longer.

N Who was Hector, Dad?

H Some old dog.

N When you used that expression were you thinking about the Trojan War?

H Definitely not.

N Was it a Twenties expression like "the bees' knees"?

H More likely from the Thirties.

N Was it possibly a baseball radio announcer's expression?

H I think I was saying it before I was listening to radio.

When I first encountered Odysseus, Achilles, Priam, Helen, Edith Hamilton, and Menelaus in Miss Madsen's 1967 junior high English class, I was surprised to find a Trojan hero named after my dad's pup, Hector. Hey, I wanted to raise my hand, hey! I've heard of Hector. He was my dad's dog in the Great Depression! Miss Madsen would have twitched her mustache in disapproval.

I hope the 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue lunch group was able to give Barack some suggestions for an allergy-friendly White House puppy. Maybe name it Hector? Or Spot.

© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

Tourists in our own hometowns

Gas prices, airplane fares, and other economic conditions are causing many Americans to rethink the traditional summer vacation. Our workday commutes are pushing lots of to use mass transit where it's available. Some of us have the option of using mass transit to become tourists in our hometown. It just takes a little mindset shifting.

In an area like the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex there are an amazing number of possible attractions and events to see on any day or night of the week. Most residents never sample even a fraction of the possibilities, myself included. Many residents travel the same route everyday in their car, and never experience it on foot or by train, myself included We are always going and going, driving past the pretty little park, but never getting out of the car to walk past the flowers to sit on the bench.

Last evening I had the chance to ride the light rail to downtown Dallas to hear a "casual concert" by the Dallas Symphony. The ride gave me chances to see the impressive amount of construction going on along the DART rail corridor.

A brisk walk from the Pearl Station brought us to the Morton Meyerson Symphony Center with views on every side of new construction in the Dallas Arts District. The concert itself was "a gem," and I'm still hearing the Allegretto non troppo movement of Mendelssohn's Concerto in E Minor for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 64, in my head.

Afterwards, we intended to walk to catch the McKinney Avenue Trolley for a ride through Uptown and a late supper. The walk up Pearl took us past the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank building. I had only the foggiest notion that Dallas had a Federal Reserve Bank, and that it might have a building with art in its lobby. I wasn't sure it was really art, as it looked like a giant fiberglass model of a heart from the sidewalk.



Walked up the steps to the bank. From this vantage we could begin to see a bull seeming to plow through curving waves with a male figure following. Bull... sea... male...Poseidon? Was Poseidon the Greek god of banking and U.S. monetary policy? I've always been vague on the bull markets, but clearer on Theseus, the Minotaur, and returning home with black sails!

Or maybe this was a conceptual representation of Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, the early Spanish explorer of the New World whose surname means either "head of cow," or "in charge of vacations," depending whom you ask. Walking closer to the lobby window we could begin to tell it was a man plowing behind a yoke of oxen:

The Dallas Fed's art collection comprises contemporary works, including sculpture, oil and acrylic paintings, photographs, lithographs, collages, pen and ink drawings and a sound sculpture. The collection represents a diverse group of artists from Texas, Louisiana and New Mexico whose expressions reflect the Eleventh District’s historical and cultural diversity. The cornerstone of the collection, Luis Jimenez's "Sodbuster", is located in the main lobby. This fiberglass sculpture, depicting a farmer and two oxen, is a tribute to the spirit of the American West.

At this point the building security guard came through the lobby to wave us away with absolutely no sense of humor. I know I looked like a terrorist in my sandals and floral skirt! Must have been my purse that set him off.

On up Pearl, we waited at the stop for the McKinney Avenue Trolley. The trolley is known to tourists with guidebooks, but exists only as a vague concept to a long-time resident of suburban Plano. In theory, we could ride the trolley, get supper, then ride the trolley back near the DART light rail station. Sounds like a vacation itinerary!

A warm night with a cooling breeze and the occasional sprinkle, it was pleasant standing at the trolley stop. And standing. And standing. Looking back south at the lighted skyscrapers from this new vantage point and waiting. My stomach was starting to growl in a manner that would alarm the Federal Reserve.

Look! Here it comes! Here it comes! And there it goes! What's up with that? Guess I won't be singing about Rice-A-Roni or Thomas the Tank Engine anytime soon. I'll just hang onto that violin concerto in my head for awhile.

Walking on it was fun to see girls' volleyball teams and trendy loft dwellers passing on the sidewalk. Over seven hundred VB teams are in Dallas for the Junior Olympics championship, probably seeing more sights between games than most locals.

It was easy to be annoyed that the trolley didn't stop, and that it was a long walk back to the DART station. There was a distinction to be discovered. The McKinney Avenue Trolley is a free attraction sponsored by local entities and manned by volunteer rail afficianados. It is not mass transit with a timetable and transfer points. Some other visit I'll sing the "Trolley Song"* with Judy Garland or Frank Sinatra:

Clang, clang, clang went the trolley
Ding, ding, ding went the bell
Zing, zing, zing went my heartstrings
From the moment I saw him I fell

Chug, chug, chug went the motor
Bump, bump, bump went the brake
Thump, thump, thump went my heartstrings
When he smiled I could feel the car shake


That's all the vacation I can handle for one evening, but it sure was fun seeing the city in a new way.

*From "Meet Me In St. Louis," 1944, by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane.



© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Memorial Day picnic brunch

This Memorial Day weekend I am finally writing last winter’s Christmas letter. Perhaps arriving at the beginning of summer it will be seem less bloating than roast turkey with stuffing and sauerkraut--still newsy, but more like fresh fruit ambrosia or a melon boat.

Ah, yes, the nectar of the gods!

Ambrosia, favored food or drink of the Olympians, from the Latin ambrosia, from the Greek ambrosios, literally “of the immortals,” from a- “not” + mbrotos, related to mortos “mortal”.

In the early Sixties a neighbor over on “L” Street had a holiday brunch open house in her backyard. My memory is a Technicolor scene of green grass, swing set, card tables, and kids in bright sunsuits and sundresses. The centerpiece was a splendid watermelon boat cut with dramatic zigzag edges, filled with fresh watermelon wedges, cantaloupe balls, green grapes, and canned pineapple “tidbits” and mandarin orange sections.

Sometimes Aphrodite demands cut strawberries, and Hermes hollers for honeydew in Olympus. In Nebraska in the Sixties nobody knew about kiwi, although it does add nice color in the melon boat.

I have no idea what else was on the menu at that backyard brunch--maybe muffins, donut holes, and Little Smokies. The family’s obese long-eared dog waddled around the lawn looking for dropped goodies under the card tables. It was quite the most elegant event I had ever attended!

This holiday weekend my condo is the cut and hollowed watermelon boat for the ambrosia. The boat is very full of immortals from the Latin and Greek, or at least a junior home from a year in Italy.

My year with the Montessori preschoolers has been filled with daily delights and insights. I love photographing school happenings and the insect visitors to our playground garden. We help introduce the children to nature at its most basic level, including worm composting, and I get to teach art with an emphasis on nature. Next weekend I will attend the Ft. Worth Opera Festival’s “Turandot” with friends in the very elegant Bass Hall. There probably won’t be a melon boat or a long-eared waddling dog, but it will be lots of fun.

Have a great summer!

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Not your middle-aged Olympic torch relay

If I were the Statue of Liberty, Tom Bodett would have to leave the light on for me. Having a terrible time turning twist-knob switches at the bottom of lamps lately.

I've given up a few times and just crawled under my desk to unplug or plug in the lamp cord. That limbo-limbo solution may be temporary. So far, I can still twist knobs at the tops of lamps, but my professional underhand pitching career is probably over for good.

"The first things to go are the_____." We've heard that phrase since Phidippides ran the first Marathon in 490 B.C. Fill in the aging blank with knees, eyes, hearing, memory, neck, sex drive, stomach muscles, shoulders, or ankles. For me the answer seems to be "wrists". Did this ever happen to Chubby Checker? Come on baby, let's use that wrist:

Come on baby let's do the twist
Come on baby let's do the twist
Take me by my little hand and go like this
Ee-oh twist baby baby twist
Oooh-yeah just like this
Come on little miss and do the twist

Actually, this is my third thing to go. First I lost my ability to thread needles. Then I lost all interest in ...


...


...


...


...


dusting!

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Nehi to a grasshopper OR the boy who cried barf

It is fitting on this day, my brother's fiftieth birthday, that I should spend a moment in contemplation of queasy stomachs. These musings have nothing whatsoever to do with the grown-up person my brother became, but more to do with the way life imitates and aggravates Aesop.

One of my young students tells me often that his tummy hurts. His tummy hurts a lot when he doesn't want to do something. I understand that ploy, having used a similar tactic, "the faked nosebleed" to exit third year Spanish class rather more often than believable, it is embarrassing to admit. An actress I wasn't.

As a young boy my brother told us often that his tummy was upset. Because we almost always saw the proof of this queasiness, and then tried to get the stain out of the rug, my brother had credibility. Orange soda pop is a very persevering stain.

"Credibility Gap" was a phrase of the Viet Nam Era. It indicated "public skepticism about the truth of official claims and pronouncements", according to my dictionary. My brother had no such gap, but my student does. He has been the shepherd boy calling the warning of "wolf" far too often. He is Weapons of Mass Destruction without the orange Nehi.

That is why we were surprised when he suddenly went chalk-white and blew chunks all over the sidewalk. In Aesop, the villagers just ignore the boy's warnings, and the wolf eats all the sheep. In real life, the teachers ignore the warnings, and get it on their shoes. In the Bush Era we forgot the Credibility Gap, and never will get that orange soda out of the rug!

Happy birthday, Rog.

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Single dips and double jugheads

It isn't easy learning to draw and cut Valentine hearts. I'm surprised I don't remember learning it as a kid. I have such vivid memories of learning to draw houses and people, to zip my jacket, to swallow pills, to stop a nosebleed, to avoid brussel sprouts, to climb a tree, and to spell y-o-u, l-o-o-k, and r-e-d.

My lead teacher makes Valentine hearts using the Department of Motor Vehicles method. Imagine finding your one true love in the line to renew your drivers license. Some enchanted afternoon in a crowded civic buildng smelling of dried roaches, repressed cigarette smokers, and mildewed corrugated cardboard you would have plenty of time to get acquainted, and possibly create little Yugos. It's the inspirational stuff of Rogers and Hammerstein!

m + v = heart

Somewhere in the last couple decades I began teaching kids the Baskin Robbins method of drawing and cutting out Valentine hearts. A heart is really just a cheap date for teenagers too young to barhop. They are sharing two dips of strawberry ice cream in sugar waffle cones. This is the best method for drawing along a fold of colored paper before cutting.

(cone + dip) x 2 = heart



My tulips are thine.

Puns are an essential part of any school Valentine celebration. It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that zing!

Two ears are better than two lips for drawing hearts. An amphora is a two-handled Greek vase, generally with a swollen belly, narrow neck, and a large mouth. Sometimes the vase had a pointed bottom.


Jughead is a recurring character in the Archie comic books about Riverdale High School. Girls didn't seem as interested in comic books as boys when I was a pre-adolescent. I bought my Archie and Millie the Model comic books in the sunshiny front window of the Rex-All drugstore in Pierce, Nebraska. In those days of Twiggy and Yardley, I learned to draw Valentine hearts inspired by Jughead's ears.



© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Cense and Sensorbility

My Buick, a '96 Skylark, has a new crank sensor in this week's effort to make it start reliably. My unfortunate repair shop has been sucked into the vortex for "Stump The Mechanic"--yet another excellent reality show to get us through the writers' strike.

What is a crank sensor?
Let's ask Wikipedia:
A crank sensor is a component used in an internal combustion engine to monitor the position or rotational speed of the crankshaft. This information is used by engine management systems to control ignition system timing and other engine parameters. Before electronic crank sensors were available, the distributor would have to be manually adjusted to a timing mark on the engine....
That sure clears it up for me!

What is Crankshaft?
Crankshaft is a spin-off from the popular Funky Winkerbean comic by Tom Batiuk and Chuck Ayers.

Does my Skylark have a crank sensor?
Does a 1994 Buick Skylark have a throttle position sensor or a crank sensor?
It has both.

Does my Buick have a Crank censor?

Only if it gets really crabby!

Why does my car need one?
A good question. Maybe to eat up finances. Possibly to deal with objectionable, harmful or sensitive situations when it fails to start. [See censorship]

Does my car have Spell Check???
From the web: Has anybody had any experience with the crank position censor? I have herd from somewhere that when it goes out, the Jeep will not move. The motor will just keep cranking over and will not start. Where can I get one online that is cheeper than a dealer?

Or as one parakeet cheeped to another, "Y'know what I herd? .... "Sheep!"

What is a censor?

As any of June Williams' former Greco-Roman History students will tell you, a censor is a Roman magistrate in charge of the census, finances, and public morality.

Or from the Online Etymology Dictionary:

censor (n.) 1531, Roman magistrate who took censuses and oversaw public morals, from L. censere "to appraise, value, judge," from PIE base *kens- "speak solemnly, announce." Transferred sense of "officious judge of morals and conduct" is from 1592; of books, plays, later films, etc., 1644. The verb is from 1882.

[Is "officious censuses" the same as that time the Oklahoma allergist asked my kids to sneeze on a piece of Reynolds Wrap for lab analysis? Or was that offensive sinuses?]

What is a crank? For that we must search the Online Etymology Dictionary:

O.E. cranc- preserved only in crancstæf "a weaver's instrument," from P.Gmc. base *krank-, and related to crincan "to bend, yield." Eng. retains the literal sense of the ancient root, while Ger. and Du. krank "sick," formerly "weak, small," is a figurative use. The sense of "an eccentric person," especially one who is irrationally fixated, is first recorded 1833, said to be from the crank of a barrel organ, which makes it play the same tune over and over, but more likely a back-formation from cranky "cross-tempered, irritable" (1821), and evolving from earlier senses of "a twist or fanciful turn of speech" (1594) or "inaccessible hole or crevice" (1562). Popularized 1881 when it was applied to Horace Greeley during Guiteau's trial. The verb meaning "turning a crank" is first attested 1908, with reference to automobile engines.

Guiteau, as we all know, assassinated President James A. Garfield.

What is a sensor?

This noun dates from circa 1928:

a device that responds to a physical stimulus (as heat, light, sound, pressure, magnetism, or a particular motion) and transmits a resulting impulse (as for measurement or operating a control)

How is a censer used in the Greek Orthodox Church?

I was really amazed the first time I visited the Greek Orthodox Church in Lincoln with my junior high Sunday School class. The use of burning incense in the swinging metal censers was so different from my Congregational-UCC church experience. Incense is the symbol of prayers rising to heaven, and we all know the Buick could use some divine intervention!

Bonus question

Who was James Ensor?

He was that Belgian symbolist painter of grotesque masks, skulls, and corpses. The mechanics look more like Edvard Munch's "Scream" when they see me drive up in the Buick.

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder