Ant lions and Dorothy shoes

Every travail can be eased by a hummingbird at my patio feeder.

Nature's flash is so exceedingly wonderful compared to those darn pink and red Oz shoes that shed glitter creating a trail of every step of a day at preschool.  The clues are now embedded in the carpet, defying the vacuum cleaner.  The clues, alas, do not pertain to the current mystery. Dorothy and Toto are skipping up the wrong brick road.

Walking backwards, not a bit cowardly, are the ant lions aka antlions brought for Show And Tell in a mayo jar half full of sand.   With the sand carefully spread in a tray, a proud boy displayed his skill at finding the antlions.  We were all in awe at how fast these insects could back themselves under the sand again.  I'd forgotten the childhood lore about these "doodlebugs" that make conical pits to trap ants.

Maybe Dad's tax stuff had fallen into a conical pit.  The accountant mailed it First Class Priority at her post office, about two zip codes away on July fourteenth. Then flying monkeys got it.

The accountant and I have been a WEE tad stressed about the missing envelope full of social security numbers and investment data.  For two days I've left notes in my mailbox for the carrier suggesting that the large envelope might have been placed in one of the large parcel lock-boxes and the key not left for me.  Phoning the post office for my zip code was futile.  No one ever answered.  There's no one behind the curtain.

This evening it occurred to me to look inside the antique milk delivery box on my doorstep.  The milk box from Roberts Dairy has been sitting there in the hot sun for years with a gigantic purple rubber tarantula on top, and a winter faucet cover inside.  There was the 10 x 13 inch white and green envelope with postal labels.  Had the letter carrier put it there last week?  Had I been lacking imagination to look in that place instead of, say, my mailbox?

Nope.  My neighbor had gone to his mailbox for the first time since his eighty-eighth birthday last week.  He found a key for a parcel box, and thought he received another birthday present.  But instead he found my dad's tax package.  He placed it in my "tin bucket" milkbox, then phoned me last evening to make sure I got it.  Then he told me about his plane having too short range to reach Japan from Iwo Jima or Lusan and a few other war in the Pacific stories I didn't retain in my euphoria.  Wild Bill is my hero today!  He's got a brain, a heart, and courage.

Oh, the Roberts Dairy milkbox replaced our Skyline Dairy milkbox.  We were very sad when Roberts bought out Skyline in the Sixties.  Roberts never could make Swiss Almond ice cream taste right!  Never mind about the rubber tarantula.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Super powers are not for squirrels

In the hierarchy of playgrounds that has existed since the very first slippery slide was invented, the cool/older/savvy kids were planning the game for after lunch.  I was dining and eavesdropping with three boys, ages four to five, at a picnic table. 

Boy #1 to Boy #3 after conferring with Boy #2:  We are going to play Power Ranger Squirrels with Buffy and Twinkie [girls' names changed to protect minors].  We don't have any colors left, but you can be a squirrel.  You won't have any super powers, but you can climb trees. 

Buffy and Twinkie to the younger girls:  We don't have any Power Ranger colors left, but you can be rainbows.  When we freeze you, you have to stop.

. . .

I had no idea the Power Rangers were "re-versioned" in 2010, or that they visited Millennium Park in Chicago.  I bet they skipped the Art Institute:
...A new generation of Power Rangers must master the mystical and ancient Samurai Symbols of Power which give them control over the elements of Fire, Water, Sky, Forest, and Earth. Under the guidance of their all-knowing mentor and the aid of their devoted animal Zords, they battle the dark forces of the Netherworld ... .

Peace on Earth with Welch's grape jelly and whirled peas.  Be nice to the folks on your playground.






© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Gulf FlutterLarry

 

These photos of gulf fritillaries were taken at the Heard Nature Sanctuary in McKinney, Texas, not on my school playground. They show the beautiful butterfly, but not the red cypress vine flowers attracting it to our playground.   

The preschoolers are sufficiently impressed by the silver spots on the underwings to distinguish this butterfly from a Monarch.  Sighting a "flutterLarry" on the cypress vine can even distract them from their game of XTreme Duck, Duck, Goose.  Our kids' version varies slightly from other "extreme" versions described in the Wikipedia entry.  We seem to have at least three ducks and three geese running all over the playground.  Some of them seem to have special superpowers "with smoke coming out". 

I am XTremely pleased with any version that wears kids out for naptime!  Still, it is a shame to leave the fall noon playground with the flutterLarry on the cypress vine and skippers on the marigolds to go inside for naptime.

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Fairy dust

"You have glitter on your chin," I told the grandmother driving the car while I played semi-competent navigator. "Stay in this lane; we don't want to exit." My borrowed granddaughter was napping in the backseat.

The three of us didn't want to leave the ethereal atmosphere of the Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth. We didn't want to exit the fairy tale world created by Texas Ballet Theater's lavish Rococco production of "The Sleeping Beauty". We hadn't seen enough of the evil fairy Carabosse's spider-monster in the forest of Act II (which is really the third act).

The young daughters, nieces, and granddaughters in the audience were tired and crabby now. It was time for the show to end. Three hours is a very long time, even in Ballet Princess Land. Tiny girls in velvet and tulle swirly skirts were falling asleep with their heads on grandmas' minks. Girls in matching sister dresses were getting seriously cranky and being carried out by their parents.

I felt lucky to visit this foreign fantasy. Raising three sons, I missed Ballet Princess Land as a mom, just as I skipped the pink aisle at Toys R Us. My nieces have never been conveniently located for auntie outings. Maybe someday I'll be a glitter-chinned grandma myself (no rush, guys!!), and get to enjoy some fuchsia-tutu-sparkling-tiara time. I wouldn't trade a minute of the cowboy/camouflage/ninja/Hot Wheels experience of raising three sons. Still, it might be nice to add some experience with little pink aliens to my resume somewhere down the line. You know, try out some cultural diversity, with or without fairy wings.

Merlin Goes Mod

Merlin, the wizard of Arthurian tales, has been portrayed as a time-traveler. My students discovered that Merlin had spent some time visiting the last half of the twentieth century, a time most mod, hip, and groovy, when they interior decorated their wizard towers last week. They also gave his tower a moderately mad scientist look with a telescope on the roof and a chemistry lab by the fireplace. The spells and potions books they made were quite similar to Texas roadkill recipes. I just wish we'd had enough time to make little Oster blenders so Merlin could make nutritious/delicious [eye of] newt smoothies.



History may look back on the past forty years of architecture and interior design with a critical newt eye. I've lived through flocked wallpaper, foil wallpaper, and flocked foil wallpaper. Do-it-yourselfers put crinkle veined mirror tiles on bathroom, living room, and allegedly elegant dining room walls. Both VWs and bathtubs got groovy daisies. The bathtub ones were non-slip, at least. Law students studied in eyeball chairs at the University of Nebraska. Student apartments were hung with black light posters. New construction homes and ancient mildewed basements both got very scary shag carpets in red, burnt orange, and avocado green.



Perhaps strangest of all were the early-1980s personalized custom travel vans with shag carpet on most surfaces. These family vacation get-away van exteriors were done up with airbrush paintings that were part NRA hunting billboards, part carnival midway caricatures, and part drunken truck driver tattoos. A Nascar vehicle looks sophisticated and understated by comparison. That may have been too much for Merlin, as the fad seemed to disappear from the face of the United States as if someone said, "Abracadabra, please and thank you very much!"

Peter Harlaub wrote in the 10/04/05 San Francisco Chronicle about this mysterious disappearance. His story is, "Once, custom vans ruled the road" is worth a read.



My students didn't have to travel through time to style their wizard towers. We received a goodly batch of gift wrap samples that took the place of foil, flock, and crinkle veins. It was a magical riot of cut and paste, plus glitter tempera paint! If only we'd had some shag rug samples--and a disco ball or two.

"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?

Thanks to Maria Muldaur

I spent my week at a moonlit oasis in an orgy of glitter and glue. I managed not to break into song while we made oasis dioramas in the elementary classes, and the preschoolers painted their "rainbow" genie lamps. An Arabian Nights camp can't help but go a bit overboard on the gold and sparkles.

All this special effects excess reminded me of a major rule of teaching and parenting and adult self-discipline: Structure Before Freedom.

SBF is essential at any age. With a structure in place humans are safe to explore free choices. When freedom dominates a classroom before a structure is established, there is a constant salvage operation against the ravages of chaos: Unsuccessful way to make art. Ineffective way to manage a classroom. Lifelong damage for a child. Horrible personal finance approach.

I did not give my all-girl class of 7-9 year olds enough structure before diving into the construction of our desert oasis dioramas. Not enough guidance about building a shelter from the boxes and cardboard tubes. Not enough background information about deserts, caravans, oases, and architecture. Instead of relying on my lesson plans, I saw the project as an opportunity to use up an oversupply of materials. Clearly, I demonstrated a lack of SBF myself. I gave the girls the boxes and turned them loose. When they opened the boxes they found the packing foam I forgot to remove ahead of time, and started planning mattresses for their tiny desert sleepovers. It just got worse from there. The paper towel tube towers were topped with halves of plastic Easter eggs, just because I had an oversupply of tubes and eggs. I had an oversupply of plaster of Paris and play sand, too, and with some brown paint thrown in to coat the projects with "sandstone and stucco" we quickly had a dreadful mess of mattresses and phallic symbols. Not an art project we want little girls to take home! The rest of the week was spent trying to salvage the project, and I had no one to blame but myself.

In my next group with 5-6 year olds, I managed to avert this crisis. I gave a better explanation about shelters, towers, arches, and mosaics. We practiced specific folding and cutting skills. We considered our dioramas as tiny stage sets for a desert drama. Our tiny clothespin people became actors in the roles of sheiks, carpet merchants, princesses, and magicians. Tag board arches allowed the actors to enter stage left. Stars reflected in the precious well water, and the moonlit sand became a fabulous collage of cool blues and purples. The clothespin acting was wooden, but it took place beneath fabulous date palm trees made of wine corks and green construction paper fronds all cut and curled. The midnight desert fairy danced through the classroom with magenta glitter to shrieks of enthusiasm. Rather more special effects and less substance than I prefer in my clothespin dramas, but it was popular at the box office.


Midnight at the oasis
Send your camel to bed
Shadows painting our faces
Traces of romance in our heads

Heaven's holding a half moon
Shining just for us
Let's slip off to a sand dune, real soon
Kick up a little dust

Blues falling down like hail

Robert Johnson is singing in his falsetto, "Hellhound on My Trail," but that's not what is falling down on me. For a change it's a dry shower this week. The day started off with installing new suspended ceiling panels in the theatre after the water damage I wrote about before. Nothing like spotting for the Kahuna while she's up on the 14' ladder, with dust and chunks of ceiling panel falling down on us both.

The a/c at work is still defiant and manipulative. Much of today I was overheated and "glowing", so the art class glitter clung to me. The chrome wasn't just in my hair for a change.

I won the janitorial nightmare triple crown this week: Sand; plaster of paris; glitter. If I had managed to use raffia I would have been a legend in my own time. They would have retired my number!