Hat hair

When Santa gets back to the North Pole, does he have a bad hat hair? Went to the Arboretum on this cold day to see the Chihuly glass installation in the snow.  And, yes, I had to wear a stocking cap.

Bad Bad Hat Hair----I'm seeing a beginning-reader book here to outdo the raccoon with the disconnected tail.  I had to keep the hat on all day because of the curse of static electricity.

And the Arboretum in the cold is fab.

© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

Danger Will Robinson

Ran out of gas before I told the whole story of Crazy Day. In the grocery store I had to settle for a bouquet of yellow daisies. The school garden has white daisies that just didn't happen to be blooming on demand. We were trying to fake it with store-bought so the preschoolers would think they "grew" the flowers. Honestly, I don't think they are that observant. But the grocery store employees and customers were definitely observing!  I hope I gave them good laugh to start their day.

As for the bank and the estate account, that has been the ordeal of the week.  Spent three afternoons after work with my personal banker, who happens to be named Chase, at Chase Bank. And believe me, there are good reasons why I didn't go to Wells Fargo!

To set up an estate account as an independent administrator you need a federal EIN (employee identification number) from the IRS. The EIN I obtained showed up in Chase Bank records as the Social Security number of a guy in New Braunfels, Texas. The bank computer system freaked out. Was the guy in New Braunfels doing something illegal with a bogus SSN?  Was I doing something fraudulent? Thank heaven Chase at Chase has known me for many years and even though he is sure I am totally nutso he is also sure I'm not smart enough to perpetrate a financial fraud or steal an identity. Heck, I can barely open the pneumatic canisters for drive-through banking!

The bank system inputs federal ID numbers without those pesky hyphens, so it can't tell a SSN from an EIN. Apparently it is possible but very rare for duplicates to occur.  But when they do occur, it is best not to have weird spiky hairdos.

© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

Wholesome fun with the kiddies over winter break?

Pair this with an electric shaver for that super stocking stuffer!

Tsutaya, Kaori. Crafting with Cat Hair: Cute Handicrafts To Make with Your Cat. Quirk. 2011. 96p. tr. from Japanese by Amy Hirschman. illus. ISBN 9781594745256. pap. $14.95. FIBER CRAFTS Japanese cat lover Tsutaya was astonished at the amount of hair her cats shed during their daily brushing, so she decided to make felt out of cat hair, then turn the felt into cute, cat-themed crafts. If hair balls come to mind, think again—most of the projects are quite subtle and feature cat-shaped cat-hair appliqués on household items and accessories. The pieces are simple enough that supervised children could make them, and the directions are clear. Tsutaya also includes fun facts about cats and plenty of cute pictures. These crafts aren’t for everyone, but cat lovers will have a lot of fun with this book.  



© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Crackerdog and flop-bott

My hairdresser's son "collects malti-poos and doesn't want to have kids", she tells me.  Scary Hair Tammi doesn't know it has been a multi-poop week in the preschool class, and I'm unsure why anyone has kids at this point.  I keep a straight face.  She is just informing me the little girl asleep in the lobby is not her grandchild.

My art students have been creating dog art since the beginning of the fall semester.  Our grand collaboration on a Go, Dog. Go! mural was the culmination timed for Thursday's Open House Night.  I encouraged students to bring photos of their dogs to create a border around the mural. We were just starting the border in this photo, but soon memorial photos started coming in faster than photos of stoic pets dressed in doll clothes and Mardi Gras beads.

When we started the mural I didn't know my dad would be trying to climb the ladder to a big dog party in his states of considerable agitation all week.    I didn't know a blogger friend would be letting go of her family pet.  Adding to the emotion, a preschooler's dog died last weekend.

I just wanted us to find good links between quality picture books, making art, and talking about art.  Interest, integration, imagination, invention... all those great i words for connecting art and stories. Now we were also processing early encounters with mortality, using art to record and commemorate.  Where did those dogs go?  Why were they going fast in those cars?  Why does P. D. Eastman's book help me in this time of stress and sadness as much as James Herriot's All Things Great and Small?

We had a lively discussion about George Rodrique's "Blue Dog" paintings in all the groups.  One of the questions is always, "How do you think Blue Dog is feeling?"  Blue Dog is often stressed but immobile, anxious and stuck.

In James Herriot's dog stories, the young vet is often torn about lecturing Mrs. Pumphrey on the hazards of overfeeding her Pekingese dog. Tricki Woo has a condition called "flop- bott", also known as impacted bowels, and experiences episodes of "crackerdog", zooming around like to a preschooler on a Coco-Puffs rush.




In the workplace stress department, we had a big flop-bott over whether to serve little paper cups of crackers and green grapes at Open House. Those dogs are not going to get cracker-grapes.

 © 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Bring the Caddie around

Dad had a haircut Monday.  That meant he had to don pants to ride in his wheelchair to the onsite beauty shop. That took a lot out of him as did seeing his reflection in the big mirror. It has been a couple months at least since he had that experience.  His hair is still a lovely billowing white straight out of a milkweed pod.

The chaplain called me Thursday, just delighted with himself  now that Howie listens to Psalm 23, mouths the words to the Lord's Prayer, and says "thank you" out loud.  Chaplain Bob spoke to Dad about heaven this week, and about how the Lord has a house there for Howie to live forever. I hope the Lord has doors on the bathrooms. 




Friday evening Dad was all scratched up.  The nurse and I worked together to cut his fingernails.  Next time I will bring Madge and her dishwashing liquid for a soak.  Those nails were shooting around the room like shrapnel.


Spent an emotionally and physically exhausting hour with Dad Saturday. Found him half off the bed.  Went to find help, and we got Dad situated back in bed.  The nurse said Dad had been agitated all day. Wondering if the pants are the mischief makers. I explained to the weekend team that they do not need to dress Dad in pants since he never gets out of bed. Pants are a lot of extra work, and maybe the pants make Dad think he is going somewhere.


I got Dad sitting up in bed enough to feed him.  All he wanted to do was point at the window.  I closed the blinds because of the glare.  I reopened them.  Raised them.  Lowered them.  Nothing was right for Dad.

He had some chicken broth, coffee with milk through a bendy straw, potatoes, applesauce, and something that might have been quiche. After the usual round of coughing, Dad started saying "first floor windows".  I raised the blind and pointed out the day care center, the other senior home, the cars in the parking lot.  He started getting out of bed again.  I put him back in twice more.  He was holding my hand so tight he was crushing my fingers.

Dad told me to "drive the Cadillac up."  Then I was to boost him out the first floor window into the Caddie.  

Right!  Right, as Bill Cosby would say to God, what's a cubit?  What Caddie? 

We went round and round about this.  I told Dad I would not open the "first floor window", and encouraged him to get ready for sleep.  He kept pulling himself half out of bed.  I kept putting him back in.  Took the darn pants off, then his shirt, and dressed him in his hospital nightgown.  Kissed his forehead and told him "nighty night".  






Dad was still ordering me to open the window.  Finally told him if he was going out the window he would jolly well have to do it himself because I was going home.  I briefed the weekend supervisor.  She asked where Dad thought he would go once he got out the window.  I told her I blamed it on Chaplain Bob talking to Dad about heaven.  Howie is either going to fly out the window with angels or take the highway to hell.  It says right there in my owner's manual that you can't drive a 1996 Buick Skylark to either extreme.



Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death from near to far, I would rather take a car!

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Ghostwriters in the sky

Having achieved a measure of success with my No More Beets campaign, I'm wondering if a similar approach might work to reach the condo recycling offenders.  I seriously don't want to have to walk door-to-door around the complex delivering my spiel about recycling as I did in 2005 when we started the program.  


There's nothing in the condominium covenants that requires residents to be whacko.  I've read it over with a magnifying glass.  Still, many are, and the possibility has been suggested that the complex was built on an ancient burial ground offending the spirits of the deceased.  Many residents don't seem to distinguish between true garbage, recyclables, and Salvation Army donations.  


I would not could not on a train or on a boat or in the rain dumpster dive. I do so do so feel a responsibility to the City of Plano to have our eleven carts filled with actual uncontaminated recyclable materials every Thursday morning.  Lately, my whacko neighbors have been putting way too many furnace filters, welcome mats, rotting carpet, chicken bones, Atkins diet chocolate shake boxes, denim jeans, and ugly lighting fixtures in the recycling carts.  Plus several bushels of family photos with scary Sixties hairdos in Kresge's frames.  


The Kresge's store at Gateway Mall predated the dollar stores of today, and smelled better.  It had a popcorn machine, a photo booth, flat-fold fabrics, parakeets, Halloween costumes and Valentine cards, toys in the right price range for most birthday parties, and document frames for your diplomas and ninth grade photos.


Still obsessing about my mismatched ankles, I am peering at photos for heredity hints.  On the left is my Aunt Shirley, the only woman I knew with painted toenails in my childhood.  Next to her, is my mom, looking an awful lot like me forty-five years later, but with symmetrical ankles. Yikes, myself in the fall of '69.  Then a bizarre, slightly tipsy-looking photo of that Christmas Day just minutes before I El-Kabonged my little brother over the head with the plastic guitar. My mom has bubble hair, but still nice ankles.  My grandmother had terrific ankles into her late eighties, although they were hidden under mauve doubleknit polyester pantsuits.


The chef at Dad's place is my new best friend.  He is working with the dietitian and the hospice nurse to provide Dad meals that are easy to swallow and easy to self-feed.  Some meals Dad is anxious to feed himself.  Other meals definitely not.  Dad's faculties have become crosswired.  He tries to feed himself with both hands at the same time.


Yippy I ay.  Yippy I Oh.  Don't even think about putting that stuff in the recycling cart!




© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Giant worm gets remote control!

Details at ten?

This old lavender twin flat sheet was sacrificed to the cause of worm education.  Great fun to be dyeing fabric again, inhaling the hot, stinky smell of RIT and vinegar on the stove, wondering how many weeks my hands will be red, ruining another plastic colander, and bleaching my sink. Joy in the moment!

Maybe the giant worms will pop out of a Rubbermaid tub at the We Did Worms event, instead of a can.  I priced giant can options at Target this morning while my walking buddy spent her gift card.  We were cooling down after one of our intense strolls around the neighborhood.






I have not yet dragged the bags of play sand, pea gravel, and $1.00 topsoil out of the Buick's trunk.  These are ingredients for worm parfaits. I'll deal with those tomorrow at terra. There's only so much I can do while remembering  when Gary Hardin put the worm gizzard from the dissection tray down the throat of Resusci Annie in Mrs. Wittemore's seventh grade Life Science class.

And was Mrs. Wittemore's hairstyle what is called "marceled"?  How old was Mrs. Wittemore in 1967?  We thought she was at least a thousand with her weird hair, sensible shoes, and frumpy green dress.  She was probably much younger than I am now in my sensible shoes, fat lady capri pants, and chrome hair.

The prototype giant red wiggler gave me many hints that there must be a better way to make the other three worms.  Life Science today, Home Ec class tomorrow.







© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Catching the bus to Pierce

Got a call early this morning informing me Dad had crawled out of bed onto the floor.  No injuries, thank heaven.  He seemed about the same when I got over to Life Care, except his eyes were only half open. 

Dad's first question was if his mother still had a telephone.  I didn't tell him Halma died close to thirty years ago.  He was worried she wouldn't know he'd be arriving on the bus.  He didn't think he had any clothes or shoes that fit, and no money for a haircut.  Dad did not want to arrive in Pierce without a nice haircut.

I was worrying about Danger Baby's inlaws in St. Louis, and tuned in the Weather Channel for tornado news.  Dad was worrying about getting to the depot on time.  It's all about needing more time, or thyme:

Just In Time 
By Jule Styne, Adolph Green, Betty Comden, performed by Dudley Moore

Just in time

you’ve found me

just in time


Before you came my time was running low


I was lost the losing dice were tossed


My bridges all were crossed nowhere to go

Thank heaven in all the tossed airplanes no lives were lost!

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Small stone #2

White rooster milkweed hair
Wild nap dreams
Transients, barber ladies, questions
Combing a way out of confusion

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Hairy caterpillar has body and luster

I'm not a Breck Girl, but it's just not fair

 when an insect has better hair.

 

It sure ain't right when I check my junk mail folder

 and find spam sent from my own email address--in Chinese! 

It's seriously wrong that the person who cleans up the most bodily fluids at work gets paid the least.

And why can't the shoemaker send those elves to my address!

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

An odd day for hawks

This hawk flew into the the low branches of the soapberry tree on my neighbor's patio. The photo was taken with the 12x zoom through my glass sliding door, and the hawk was about 25 feet away. Why was it in this unusual place?

Maybe it was hiding out from blue jays. On my slow morning walk by the creek the blue jays and crows were in a noisy uproar. Were protective parental blue jays considering me a threat to their young-uns? Was I about to be mobbed? This is an unpleasant experience. One year jays nested near my front door. Getting into the condo was a gamut.

Suddenly a hawk flew by in the bright sunlight over the water, followed by a half dozen jays. The hawk looked like a military jet flying under the radar.

On the way into Corner Bakery my lunchmate was chatting about troop withdrawal from Iraq. Heat was rippling up from the pavement, and the noon glare was intense. Off the nearest lightpost, a hawk swooped down right over us. I could see its yellow beak and underwing markings. Was it going to carry off my friend's newly-colored hair? She talked on, oblivious, while I gaped at Hawk #2 of the day.

Now, Hawk #3 stared at me through the window. If three hawks is a sign from the Cosmos that I'm supposed to color my hair, I need clarification.

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Blue hair no more

The defining look at the senior residence dining hall is white pants. Sure, there were lots of red, white, and blue tops for Memorial Day weekend, but the senior ladies' white pants stayed after the holiday.

A childhood visit to Pierce or McCook meant seeing elderly ladies with distinctly blue, and sometimes purple, rinses on their white hair. That's why I resist any suggestion by my hairdresser, Scary Hair Tammy, to hide my gray.

When we first moved to Texas, twenty years ago this month, the whole family went to Ponytail Eddy for haircuts. We started going to Tammy at least fifteen years ago when I could still order #3 clipper cuts for three boys. So Tammy knows why my hair is gray.

Returning from my week at assisted living, I thought I'd clean out my closet. Found a pair of white capris in the back that I hadn't worn in several summers. Clearly, they should go in the Goodwill bag, but first I tried them on. Amazed that they zipped, I was too lazy to change into something else. So now I've got the white pants look, and I'm ready to go to bingo!

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

#60 on the library hit parade

The latest addition to my library life list is the Pritzker Legal Research Center at Northwestern University. Danger Baby has pretty much lived in this library for the past two years, rarely looking up from his work to scan Lake Shore Drive and Lake Michigan toward Navy Pier.

"Who was this Pritzker fellow?," I asked him. Some billionaire. Indeed. Jay Pritzker and his family started the Hyatt Hotels as just one facet of their financial empire.

Danger Baby and I also visited the namesake Pritzker Pavillion at Millennium Park for my first real life encounter with a Frank Gehry design. The pavillion made me remember curling irons and hot steam rollers, not to mention carrot peelers. I'm not saying that's a bad thing.

Since I was visiting the city of Wrigley, Gehry's design also made me think of Doublemint, Spearmint, and Juicyfruit. How many foil gum wrappers would it take to make a pavillion?

This was not, but could have been, named the Farrah Fawcett Archery Range.

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

This boy will go far!

"You got your hair cut! I like it," proclaimed the boy across the desk. I'd never seen this lad of nine or ten years old before, but I did have my hair cut quite short recently. It was a few minutes after closing time, and my goal was to move the last patrons out of the library circulation area ASAP. I gladly agreed with his observation to expedite closing. Still his enthusiastic comment tickles me.

The library staff of seven has five glamorous females with various hair shades between silver and chrome. As the substitute, I fit right in this crew. Some patrons ask if I'm the sister of another staff member.

You can't help but like a smiling young male who is even aware of the hair of 50-something women. Don't know who he thought I was, or how I might have gotten my hair cut at the library, but he could certainly teach many 50-something males the right thing to say to ladies.



© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Permanent vs. temporary

Digging into the clay soil with my garden trowel, ever so sweaty last Sunday afternoon, I pondered the concept of permanence. My two tomato plants needed bigger pots on the patio, so I went on the rampage creating space "out back".



The condo "backyard" is about 7' x 11', with maybe thirty-five square feet of dirt, and the rest concrete. When we moved in as renters, I stuck some red canna bulbs, myrtle groundcover, ivy, and wandering purple stuff into the mud around the four silly shrubs. We were "just renting," aka "temporary," but I couldn't live with the mud and dead leaves out by the patio slab. A mismatched collection of pots holding miniature roses, dusty miller, and eighty-eight cent mums and Home Depot lantana gradually encroached onto the patio slab in the years since. When you feel temporary, you don't plant things in the real ground.



"Permanent" in the early Sixties meant something briefly stinging, drippy, and smelly "given" to you by your mom to cause your hair to break off and frizz for several weeks. I received the occasional Tonette permanent wave on weekend afternoons while sitting on the tall kitchen stool watching roller derby, Mr. Wizard, Jon Gnagy drawing lessons, and Green Bay Packers games on the small black and white t.v.



"Permanent press" was an advertising phrase of the early Sixties. Women's sportswear maker Joseph Koret developed the permanent-crease process in the late Fifties. Fabrics were coated with a resin solution and baked to set a crease. Koret used this marketing phrase to proclaim the emancipation of homemakers from their ironing boards. My mom sewed our clothes, so they were not "permanent pressed". She spent two or three hours every week ironing clothes for our family of five.



Digging and sweating, my tomatoes are in the big pots, and my herbs are replanted together in a dish-shaped pot. How will the mums, dusty miller, and lantana cope with being plunked into the seriously unimproved soil around the patio?



Kelly Girls temporary services were advertised on 1960's KFOR radio. It's strange to consider the heavy load of baggage packed into the words "Kelly Girl". My gosh! Bad enough that a woman wouldn't have the time to iron her family's clothing, she might have to get a job, but not a real job, just a temporary staffing job popping in and out of offices to do typing, and having to buy permanent press clothes and nylons! Sheez! This was the sort of woman who might phone in an order to Chicken Delight, the only delivery food in town. "Don't cook tonight! Call Chicken Delight!"


In college I used Permanent Pigments paints. The Permanent Pigments Company developed the first water-based acrylic gesso in 1955, and called it Liquitex. Like permanent-press store-bought garments and temp service stenos, acrylic paints weren't considered the proper way to do things!



In Gail Butt's composition and watercolor classes we used the combination of cadmium red #2, cobalt blue, and permanent green light to solve many creations. This green paint is semi-transparent due to it's recipe of phthalo green and hansa yellow.

I've never given myself a permanent green traffic light. But I've replanted the mums into the unimproved dirt of my "out back". It's been six years since I became an owner instead of a renter, but I still feel temporary. Maybe the experience of divorce makes my inner understanding of permanent vs. temporary less clearcut.

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Great blooming blue-haired mommies!

I love the hairdos on the Mommy Seed packets. Now you can grow your own blue-haired mommy. You can even plant gray helmet hair. This next one looks like Donna Reed Show 1958 tv hair.









Cultivating real mommies is trickier than drawing mommy hair. Those thoughts will be in a future blog. Best wishes this Mother's Day weekend to all mommies and gardeners!


© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Charmed & Charmin

My annual ragweed allergies have crossed over to the Dark Side. My sinuses feel jam packed with steel wool and rubber cement. My ears have sharp twingies, and my throat is raw. My hearing is impaired by stuffed Hostess Twinkies. I'm hot, chilled, drowsy, and unable to sleep. My over-the-counter pills let me watch multicolored floating discs battle the forces of evil whenever I stand up too fast. Still, it's better than watching "Charmed" on TNT at the beauty salon.

"Charmed" airs on TNT at the afterschool hour, no doubt attractive to preteens. An alleged tale of three sister witches working for good in San Francisco, it is the only show that has ever made me wish I could change channels to "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" for something more realistic. The sisters beam themselve up, conjure masseuse demons, and battle star-throwing hypnotized hellions in bustieres.

At the beauty salon you are trapped watching t.v. while listening to AM radio full blast. The stylists speak Chinese, and the salon owner carries on about hunky Dallas Cowboy football players, jet skis, and her mother's inoperable conditions.

I long for wholesome Samantha of "Bewitched", Captain Kirk, and Hostess Cupcakes. Many parents may long for the same now that over-the-counter cold medicines have been banned for kids under the age of six.

© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Fair Day

Cultural differences can lead to confusion. There weren't any classes at my little school yesterday because it was "Fair Day".


When my eldest son started school I was surprised to find "Fair Day" on the school calendar, and a free State Fair admission in his take-home folder. Kids get off school to eat cotton candy??? I didn't get it. In my own school days, classes didn't start until the first Monday after Labor Day, after our state fair ended.


Our international families struggled to understand this strange Texas holiday:

• Was the school having a fair? No.


• Were we taking the children to a fair? No.


• What time should the children arrive on Monday? Not until Tuesday!


• What would teachers be doing? Sleeping late, eating bagels, and getting haircuts.

Many students arrived today with fresh new handsome haircuts. A few were sleeping late after a rough day on the Tilt-a-Whirl.



© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Cicada killer wasps

When one of the paper wasps managed to get into my condo I ceased being a curious amateur hymenoptera observer. A wasp MUST be on the other side of the glass! I had work to do out on my patio, so I shot the wasp nest with the water hose until it fell down, then tossed it out in the alley behind my fence. Next a cicada killer wasp went riccocheting around the patio. It was bigger than a hummingbird, but steered like a drunk teenager in an SUV with "Pinball Wizard" at full blast on his iPod. So much for playing Nature Girl! I dove back in the condo. Reminds me of when my beautician, the Scary Hair Lady, hasn't oiled the blade on her neck trimmer for awhile...or one of those bad mornings when I drop a fork into the garbage disposal!

© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Container Trials

This is only a trial. Had it been an actual container emergency, you would have been instructed to move to your patio. The current color code level is fuchsia.

Actually, the Dallas Arboretum is testing various plants for use in small patio and balcony gardens "due to the rise of urban living". You can see the spring results during Dallas Blooms.

I'm sure you are wondering about fuchsia, as it is a word that will never, ever look like it's spelled correctly. It's a good plant for attracting hummingbirds to your small condo patio or urban living balcony, though.

fuchsia
"red color," 1923, from the plant, which was named 1753 from the Latinized name of Ger. botanist Leonhard Fuchs (1501-66). Not related to L. fucus "seaweed, sea wrack, tangle," also the name of a red color prepared from it.

Haven't you sometimes wanted to make notations on your family tree that you were not really related to that Latinizia Fucus Wrack, and, by the way, that funny red wasn't her natural hair color? If she had just married Leonhard when he asked her, settled down on the container farm, and raised a couple kids, she wouldn't have gotten into that whole sordid seaweed tangle. Fucus was her mother Lucretia's maiden name. Lucretia's family didn't have a container to piss in, but all the Fucus kids got an eighth-grade education. Latinizia's father, George Noble Wrack, was the youngest son of German immigrants, and was kin to the Republican County Wracks who later had the Ford dealership. It was only a rumor about the seven toes on the left foot.

© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder