Wallowing in self pity and melted Parmesan

Nobody wants to hear my whole tale of woe. It's not the sort of stuff for Fox News or CNN or even Judge Judy. Instead I will offer two enchanting new short reads and two tiny tales, just little woe-Lite. I will alternate, beginning with a woelette so as to end with an upper. Okay?

• The squash vine borers found our brand new zucchini sprouts in the garden.  After the fancy dressing "bad boys" killed our first zucchini the schoolchildren dug and improved the soil and built a mound. They planted the seeds and waited for the sprouts. They decided which three sprouts looked the strongest, and pulled out the wimps. And the very next day the squash vine borers reappear. A five year old spotted the and started the special clapping signal for everyone to race to the garden. "This is gonna be BAD!," she announced. 

• Chapman's Odyssey, by Paul Bailey is the stream-of-conscious life-passing-before-his-eyes tale of a British poet/actor/professor/novelist. While not as fabulous as I'd hoped, it gave me a new way to think of some of my father's ramblings toward the end of his life.

• Seriously wiped out after my preschool day I got groceries and came home. Put things away in the kitchen, then spent a couple hours with a platypus. When I took the reusable bags back out to the car trunk I found the $3.76 container of shredded Parmesan behind the jumper cables.  The contents were melted into a solid glob.

• Albert of Adelaide is the can't-put-down tale of the platypus by New Mexico lawyer Howard L. Anderson. It's delightful, but hard to explain.  The best description I've seen is "if Larry McMurtry had written Wind in the Willows", although I might have said it was The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly crossed with Watership Down. You will be amazed how suspended your disbelief can be!

Much have I not travell'd in the realms of gold*, silver, and bronze, but I did catch a segment on NBC Sunday recalling Olga Korbut at the 1972 Olympics. Found myself suddenly misty-eyed.

© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

Keep your nose to the grindstone

You can keep your nose to the grindstone, or you can hold my nose to the grindstone.  You can grin and bear it, or knee the bastard in the groin. You can grin and bare it but you better have a gimmick. You might have a millstone around your neck. It would not be a gewgaw, but it might come from France through the port of Galveston in 1851.

I had not properly girdeth up my loins for a long perusal of the Big Red Dictionary. You might say I was groping, and that's not so bad as long as political office is not my goal.  You can stomp on a ground cherry calling it a Chinese lantern or a pop berry.

The historical plaque next to the grist mill stone reads:

THIS GRIST MILL STONE WAS BROUGHT TO TEXAS IN 1851 THROUGH THE PORT OF GALVESTON BY WILLIAM TERRY EDMONDSON.  MADE IN FRANCE, THE STONE WAS ORIGINALLY LOCATED AT A GRIST MILL NEAR THE CORNER OF CEDAR SPRINGS ROAD AND KING'S ROAD.  EDMONDSON'S DESCENDANTS CITE THIS PRESENT LOCATION AS THE NATURAL SPRING WHERE HE WATERED HIS HORSES WHILE ELUDING THE INDIANS. EDMONDSON'S DAUGHTER, ANNE ELIZABETH, MARRIED WILLIAM HARRISON PRATHER, A CONFEDERATE VETERAN AND THE GREAT GRANDFATHER OF HUGH E. PRATHER, JR., WHOSE FAMILY GENEROUSLY DONATED THE STONE TO THE PARK CITIES HISTORICAL SOCIETY AND THE TOWN OF HIGHLAND PARK.            MAY 7, 1995

Here is my nose ready to be kept or held.  Holding someone's nose to the grindstone is far different than keeping your own nose there:

grindstone 

early 13c. “millstone,” from grind (v.) in sense of "sharpen" + stone; meaning “revolving stone disc used for sharpening, etc.” is from c.1400. Phrase nose to the grindstone in use by 1530s; originally to get control of another and treat him harshly:

This Text holdeth their noses so hard to the grindstone, that it clean disfigureth their Faces. [John Frith, "Mirror to know Thyself," 1532]

The main modern (reflective) sense of "work hard" is from 1828.  Don't know about you, but it seems like my nose has been there since at least 1828.  A dictionary diversion is in my budget.

Grin is related to grimace and groan.
Grind is bizarrely or burlesquely related to being a boring study buddy, a cup of coffee, or a striptease pelvic rotation.
Nose to the grindstone is to work diligently and continuously, but a large, heavy
millstone could be around your neck if you have a perpetual problem or responsibility that prevents you from doing what you want.
Grist for the mill means something that can be turned to one's advantage.
Grits are coarsely ground grain, especially corn, related to bran.
True grit is plucky, indomitable spirit, and two movies I've never seen.
Worms need grit in their gizzards, as do birds, reptiles, and some fish.  My vermicompost worms are besides themselves over coffee grounds and smashed eggshells.

Ground cherry is the name for many plants that produce a fleshy fruit contained in a papery husk.  When I was a kid we called them "pop beans" or "pop berries", and sometimes "Chinese lanterns".  We love to stomp on them.


Groin derives from abyss or depression
Groin architectural the curved edge at the junction of two intersecting vaults


This would be Olga Korbut vaulting in 1974.

Then she called to the cat and the duck and she asked, "Now, who will take this wheat to the mill to be ground into flour?"
"Not I", said the duck.
"Not I", said the cat.

"Very well, then", said the little red hen, "I will take it myself".

So the little red hen trudged off to the mill, and in a few hours she was back with a sack of fine flour.

grist 

O.E. grist "action of grinding, grain to be ground," perhaps related to grindan "to grind" (see grind), though OED calls the connection "difficult." Meaning "wheat which is to be ground" is early 15c.; the figurative extension from this sense is from the same date.

gewgaw 

early 13c., giuegaue, contemptuous reduplication, possibly connected with O.Fr. gogue "rejoicing, jubilation; joke, prank, mockery, game;" or jou-jou "toy," baby-talk word, from jouer "to play," from L. jocare (seejoke).

gird¹

vb girds, girding, girded, girt (tr)

1. to put a belt, girdle, etc., around (the waist or hips)

2. to bind or secure with or as if with a belt to gird on one's armour

3. to surround; encircle

4. to prepare (oneself) for action (esp in the phrase gird (up) one's loins)

5. to endow with a rank, attribute, etc., esp knighthood

[Old English gyrdan, of Germanic origin; related to Old Norse gyrtha, Old High German gurten]

Can't play anymore.  Off to the daily grind.




© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Miraculous Samsung sausage cellphone cure-all

After many minutes dealing with reasonably pleasant customer service and tech service personnel at AT& T Mobility trying to solve the Woolly Mammoth's cell phone problems I remembered that I already knew the cure. I have a five-year old Samsung flip phone. When my sons complain that their up-to-the-minute cell phones aren't working right, I offer (or threaten) to mail them that flip phone. Next thing I hear, all their problems are miraculously solved.



This phone is just slightly smaller than a Little Smokie/Pillsbury pig-in-a-blanket, and rates the same Donna Reed score on the Dork-o-Meter. It is garlic to a vampire when it comes to ridding flashy phones of their bugs.

Being a dork, I never could flip the phone open to answer my rare call. I had to get a less calisthenic cell phone. The Samsung just sits in a shoebox of abandoned gizmos, unwanted and unflipped, in my junk drawer. I'd be happy to send it to you should you have problems with your cell phone...

© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

Acrobats add to "Turandot"

The news story of a Chinese acrobatic troupe stranded at DFW Airport tugged at our collective ravelled memories. Now these very young performers were adding to the exoticism of the fairy tale Chinese court of the ice-hearted princess Turandot. Fort Worth Opera's 2008 Festival-goers loved this happy addition to the already fabulous production.

The youthful gymnasts, flew into Dallas after performing at a casino in New York at the start of what was to be a nine-month tour of the U.S. Members of the Guanhua Acrobatic team from Shanghai spoke next to no English. The man who had arranged their trip was not there to meet them. They had no money, no job, food, shelter, and no plane tickets that day last February. After spending time in homeless shelters, they found a temporary home with a circus acquaintance living in Kauffman County.

The Fort Worth Star Telegram story of May 27th explains how the acrobats became "featured supernumeraries" in Puccini's opera directed by Kurt Howard. I only wish "Pagliacci" had also been planned for the Festival to give the acrobats more work!

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Nancy Lou and the East German judge

Talk about Olympic pressure! I did fine on the compulsories in the Albertson's self-checkout: carton of OJ beep; Ragu beep/bag; can of beans beep/bag; Rotel beep; bag of little carrots beep; bag-o-frozen-tilapia beep; dishwasher detergent beep/bag.

Just when I started my free-style performance of the choreographed items with their much higher degree of difficulty, the East German judge showed up behind me in line. He announced is disgust with my technique with loud "hvrumvphs" and steroid-packed sneers. I could do nothing to please him.

The roma tomatoes lacked a sticker so I had to Look Up Item. I stuck the birthday card into my purse, which set off demands from the checkout machine to bag the item. The plastic bags developed static cling and refused to open. The beer required store approval, and the attendant was off somewhere in la-la land and slow to key in the code. My purse bumped the machine, setting off the Unexpected Item In Bagging Area complaints, and then my debit card wasn't scanning right. That must be the grocery store equivalent of failing to stick the dismount. From the corner of my eye it was obvious the judge was marking down my scores and bristling with Cold War animosity. One more "hvrumvph" and I might have Tonya Hardinged the guy with my balky grocery cart.

Stick: To stick a landing is to land, and remain standing without requiring a step. A proper stick position is with legs bent, shoulders above hips, arms forward. Sticking consistantly takes regular practice. http://www.drillsandskills.com/definitions

Sticking a landing with two full grocery bags in each hand consistently takes nerves of steel. Now there's a reality show for the writers' strike! "Where are they now?'' Vote for your favorite Olympic skaters and gymnasts as they duke it out for charity dollars in the Albertson's

Check-Out With The Stars:

Mary Lou Retton

Michelle Kwan

Dorothy Hamill

Nancy Kerrigan

Olga Korbut

Nadia Comăneci

Peggy Fleming

Jayne Torvill

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder