Raider of the left sweatshirts

Cue the Indiana Jones theme song.  I've uncovered clues to three relics, and rescued two.  Sadly, the Hoosiers hoodie was beyond help. Worse, the goofy hat I found in the closet doesn't look like Indie's, but there you go.

Why am I searching for these relics in the empty nest closets? Because it is so chilly at the library. Most of the building has been gutted and/or demolished for a major renovation.  The library remains open, but without the luxuries of central heating, hot running water, or gas fireplaces.

These days it's so wonderful to have a paying job that I enjoy, that I gladly work around  inconveniences. But sixty degrees F is nicer for a hike than sitting at a computer cataloging or reading book reviews.

And so the search for sweatshirts. Now I regret nagging my grown sons to clean out their closets and drawers every time they came home for a visit.

Those sons were graduated from the University of Texas, Texas Tech University, and the University of New Mexico.  Found one Longhorns sweatshirt, but no Red Raiders or Lobos.

Said sons went on exchange and study abroad programs to UMass-Amherst, Paderno del Grappa and Viterbo, Italy. No souvenir sweatshirts. Bummer.

By grad school their laundry habits still included lengthy composting of dirty clothes followed by overloading washing machines and underfunding dryers, then another epoch of soggy strata. The U of  Indiana sweatshirt could have been found in a melting glacier next to a meal-ready mastodon. Saber-toothed tigers had ripped the drawstring out of the hoodie.

No sweatshirts from Georgetown, Northwestern, or George Washington U. This positive note--I found a never-worn navy hoodie from the school of Reebok, and it fits.

Happy New Year!


© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

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

Andy Warhol with a bunny on his head

I can do many things with a bunny on my head, but I cannot post photos of my students.  Therefore, these photos have all been approved by the Witness Protection Program's Warhol Anonymity Division.

1.  

2.  Set children to work coloring nice hot dog-shaped pink inner bunny ears.

                              

See example below.

3.  Constructing the paper plate bunny was ridiculously easy .

4.  Match the edges of opposing plates and fasten with three staples above the bunny's nose.

5.  Pull the central sections across each other and fasten.

 

6.  Position bunny around headband, stapling center front and at back edge of each plate.

7.  Position ear piece and staple to each plate.

8. Glue pompom to center back of headband for bunny tail.

9.  Add a triangle nose if desired.

10.  Now you have a bunny on your head.  What can you do?

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Frills

Far too tired tonight for a major attack on the rearranging/unpacking dislocated interior decoration of my condo.  Instead I've been reading about the new dinosaur species identified by paleontologists in Utah.  It is named the Kosmoceratops.  And yes, it reminds me of Go, Dog, Go!  And now do you like my hat?

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

What is a bonnet?

Go placidly just a bit east of the noise and haste of Custer Road, and a little north of Spring Creek Parkway. Sit your bizoozy right down amidst the bluebonnets, unless, of course, it has been raining.

It is spring, time for commencement addresses, and other urban legends. I've been feeling my Bohemian prairie girl ancestry lately while listening to Willa Cather's My Antonia on cd. Cather celebrates the grasses, the flatness, and the horizon I love so well.

The preschoolers are learning about Texas plants and animals. The wild bluebonnets hold a magical power in this Lone Star state far surpassing the Nebraskan's appreciation of the Western meadowlark. I will never consider myself a Texan, but I definitely claim the bluebonnet as my inner state flower.

The preschoolers are vague on the concept of bonnets. Bonnets are hats for sun protection, I tell them. Each floret of a bluebonnet stalk resembles a teeny tiny pioneer girl's sunbonnet.

Cather's Antonia is as full of life as Laura in Little House on the Prairie. Antonia and Laura both resist wearing the bonnets that would protect their skin from the sun. Which brings me to that fabulous, fictitious commencement address* never delivered by Kurt Vonnegut at MIT in 1997:

Wear sunscreen.
Pick a bluebonnet. Just don't overdue it. One or two, max. Otherwise Mother Nature will be pissed even if it isn't illegal. That's another urban legend.

The commencement speaker at Texas Tech in 2007 told me to play chess. A month from now I'll be listening to the University of New Mexico commencement address. Willa Cather will be there. I may need to reread Death Comes for the Archbishop.

*Mary Schmich, Chicago Tribune, 6/1/97

© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

What will you orbit for Halloween?

"I wanted to be Superman, but I have to be the Incredible Hulk," my student says. I commiserate. Mick Jagger said it best. You can't always be what you want, but you still get a big bag of candy.

"What will you be?," he asks. [My student, not Mick Jagger].

Ah, good question. "I'm going to be Outer Space," I reply without much thought.

"Whoa! Cool!"

At that particular moment, being "Outer Space" sounded very appealing--even better than "Being John Malkovich." Ever since, I've been pondering how to make my galactic costume without investing a lot of time, money, or effort.

I have four panels of rust-dyed and bleach-discharged fabric. Think they can be made into a simple broomstick skirt. Perhaps when I twirl, I'll look like the Milky Way!

Took an old black knit top from the box destined for Salvation Army. Used a bunch of rubber bands to wrap it, then misted it with bleach. The discharged fabric is orange, and the shirt will go with the broomstick galactic skirt. I have some crescent moon earrings. Now, if only I had Hector Dowdy's motorized model solar system on my beanie to complete the ensemble!

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Every hat has a silver lining

This men's hat interactive learning tool for the chapeauly-challenged will use the same format as the electric quiz board I made for Camp Fire Girls in 1966, but without the dry cell, peg board, wires, and lightbulb.

Round #1

1. Many people born in the late Fifties name this flat cloth cap worn for driving on the road or golf course after which long-time Mattel Barbie boyfriend?

2. In Esphyr Slobodkina's classic children's picture book, the peddler demands that what animal give him back his caps?

Round #2

1. What two movie stars looked great in eight-panel newsboy caps?

2. A bucket cap can be worn with the brim flipped up or down. It can be worn while singing, "There is Nothing Like a Dame," or on a fishing trip with Colonel Henry Blake of the M.A.S.H. 4077th. Name two other famous and clueless bucket cap wearers. "Who are these people?"

3. Because of its shape, a bucket cap is often referred to by the trademark of what disposable paper drink holder?

Round #3

1. Usually a light, straw hat with a stiff wide brim and a flat shallow crown, but not necessarily named for the most common and colorful order of the dragonfly family, what silly plastic hats are worn at political conventions?

2. While similar to the hat worn by Mary Poppins' significant other as played by Dick Van Dyke, what different term designates the stiff straw hat with a flat crown worn by Renoir's lunchers and the young Bob Dylan at Woodstock?

3. "Who are those guys?" What hat convinces Butch and Sundance that Joe Lefors is on their trail?

Round #4

1. I'm too old to remember Buster Keaton wearing this hat style named after a thick-crusted pastry filled with chopped meat. What man's hat style having a low, flat crown and a snap brim is sadly invoked in Charles Mingus' elegy for jazz saxophone great Lester Young? [Listen free.]

2. Named for an 1882 work by French playwright Victorien Sardou, what soft felt hat with a brim that can be turned up or down and a rather low crown creased lengthwise is a symbol for both Frank Sinatra and Indiana Jones?

3. A slouch hat is a soft hat with a flexible wide brim and chinstrap most commonly worn as part of a military uniform. The Australian slouch hat is sometimes called a bush hat, and is worn with one side of the brim turned up or pinned to the side of the hat. What golfer joins Crocodile Dundee and the Man From Snowy River as familiar Australian hat wearers?

Round #5

The Daily Double! Sean Connery as Captain Marko Ramius wears the traditional Russian fur cap called a Ushanka in what 1990 movie?

1. Perhaps you missed the NPR segment about Basque sheepherders and Dutch ovens in the western U.S. What round, visorless cloth cap originally worn by male Basques has a name derived from the Late Latin birrus, "hooded cape"?

2. Lyle Lovett would rather you steal his girlfriend than touch his John B. hat having a high crown and wide brim of what brand?

3. Hamid Karzai , known for his handsome peaked hat made from the aborted fetuses of Karakul sheep, is the president of what country?

Final Round

1. Not to be confused with a homburg, this stiff felt hat with a round crown and a narrow, curved brim is named after what event at Epsom Downs?

2. Having nothing to do with pins and strikes, this hat made by Thomas and William Bowler was a frequent symbol in the surrealist work of what artist?
I've got Sherlock's thinking cap, but need new flashlight batteries before we can consider trilbys, panamas, and gimmes.

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder