The weather outside is frightful

Capris in January unsightful.

Inside the night is fitful

Might have to turn on the air conditioner

and let it blow, let it blow, let it blow.



Okay, it's a bad rhyme, and unsightly, too. It's been HOT here, for winter, and the condo has heated up to 77 degrees. It's been very windy, too, blowing all sorts of sneeze-makers around with the old leaves, so the windows have to stay closed. Makes for bad nights' sleep, what with those nightmares of walruses in capri pants and crop tops. And then the trouble falling back to sleep worrying about the plural of walrus. I had to chant this little mantra, "Walri don't shave legs, walri don't shave legs..."

Inflected Form(s): plural walrus or wal·rus·es
Etymology: Dutch, of Scandinavian origin; akin to Danish & Norwegian hvalros walrus, Old Norse rosmhvalr



© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

A Three Hour Tour

When the Howell's finally got off the island, were they able to look back on their experiences and consider it a vacation success???? Don't millions of people go on expensive trips every year looking for a memorable experience far out of the realm of their normal day-to-day life?

What about Alice??? When she returned from her adventures in Wonderland did she feel oddly refreshed? Were her normal concerns and frets absent from her mind? Was she musing in pinafore moments about dancing the lobster quadrille with a handsome stranger who looked a bit like Emile de Becque? Like some enchanted evening you will meet a dormouse..

It's the first day of my mid-summer break. My son went to stay at his dad's for the weekend, so I slept in this morning. Got up mighty late by my standards, 7:20 or so, made coffee, and read the paper (Yes, the Dallas Morning News had one of those annoying yellow stickers on the front page today.) Spent over an hour organizing my internet "Favorites" bookmarks into more usable and alphabetical categories, a typical library junkie neverending activity.

Spent another hour plus reading about the Southern Baptist Convention president, Rev. Bobby Welch waving around a ziplock bag of roadkill frogs to encourage evangelism. I wanted to get beyond the two paragraph item in the DMN Saturday "Religion" section, and look for his recipes. Didn't get as deep in the GoldenPalace.com on-line casino purchase of a fence from the Grassy Knoll that didn't actually date from 1963. Next time I find a dead mouse or lizard out by my patio fence, I will either bag it for Rev. Welch or sell it to the casino as a religious icon. Book'em, Dano!

Decided it was time to get going, shower, and have breakfast about 10:30. Constructed a plan for errands:

1. Half Price Books in Richardson to seek a VHS "Pirates of the Caribbean", and a tacky world music calypso CD with the limbo song.
2. The nail salon to have my painful broken toenail and frightening cuticle helped and beautified. A student stepped on my toe yesterday, and four weeks of clay, paint, and dye have ravaged my hands.
3. A run by the library.
4. A massive grocery expedition at Kroger's.
5. Return home to spend the afternoon reading Elmore Leonard's latest, The Hot Kid, by the condo swimming pool.

Bet that was what The Professor had in mind for the rest of his day after the three hour tour on the Minnow. Sometimes a vacation day doesn't go as planned. Ask anyone who has ever locked the keys in the rental car at a July fourth fireworks display at Kirtland AFB, had to have the divers retrieve their son's molded plastic arm splint from the bottom of a water slide pool at Wet'n' Wild, spent time being questioned in the ER of some vacation town's hospital about their child's black eye and broken arm, knocked the oil pan off the bottom of their Chevy Nova driving on a gravel road in the San Juan National Forest, or had the transmission go out on their 1961 Pontiac Catalina on the drive down from Pike's Peak. Need I mention the jellyfish stings, impetigo, food allergy reactions, corrosive diaper rash due to overdosing on Gerber Baby Cherry Juice, claustrophobic toddlers who refuse to sleep in tents, and traumatic misplacings of "The Special Bunny"?

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale
a tale of a fateful trip,
that started from this tropic port,
aboard this tiny ship.
The mate was a mighty sailin' man,
the Skipper brave and sure,
five passengers set sail that day,
for a three hour tour,
a three hour tour.

The weather started getting rough----It was nearing one hundred degrees in the Metroplex, and hotter than Hades on the strip mall asphalt parking lots. On my fourth stop in search of music and video I entered the twilight zone of the Barnes and Noble music department. The first clerk listened carefully to my three Sphinxy-Jinxy questions:

1. What is that cd being played overhead with the singer who has an even smaller vocal range than Robert Earl Keen's three note, and makes me feel like I've swallowed sandpaper and many cups of truckstop coffee from styrofoam cups then banged my head repeatedly against a concrete block wall outside a rundown cinemaplex with rotting cricket-infested concession garbage and flickering neon?*
2. Is there a soundtrack cd for "Riding Giants"?
3. Where would I find a cd sort of like this Putamayo World Music recording of traditional calypso music, but way more tacky and K-Tel-ish with the limbo song and that one about the lime in the coconut?

This young, spiky-haired, pierced fellow was gently entertained by my queries, and gave me some guidance. He even explained the wonders of the headphones and search systems, sensing that I might be a middle-aged woman who doesn't get out much. Unfortunately, he went off on break. I spent over an hour searching for surf music, luau party cds, Chubby Checker's "Limbo Rock" recordings, calypso, Jamaican steel drum bands, pirate and Errol Flynn movie soundtracks, all of which is actually pretty cheap entertainment. I think my dad needs to go to his Barnes and Noble, and listen to the Brubeck cds. Anything I can do, he can do better!

One of the goodies I found was the Ventures' Greatest Hits**. This cd includes the Hawaii Five-O theme, but I wish it had Wipe-Out. Doesn't matter. I'm one with the big waves. I went on to the nail salon feeling like Gidget.

* (Don't try this at home!)

** ***

...the tiny ship was tossed.
If not for the courage of the fearless crew
the Minnow would be lost.
The Minnow would be lost.

Just as I was starting to think I could be Ginger if I just had a peel and stick beauty mark, fake eyelashes, and a Barbie gold lame dress, a crisis of Vesuvian magnitude struck. The gal doing eyebrow waxes tripped and spilled her pot of hot wax all over my new special [groovy black and lime green nearly perfect] purse, and over my sandals. All the nail salon ladies, and even their elderly male manager, collaborated and commiserated on efforts to remove the wax from my purse, but finally they had to concede the purse was a goner. My purse contents were placed in a plastic grocery bag, my salon services were on the house, and I was off to DSW to purchase a new purse while impersonating a bag lady. [This is a cautionary tale. Always zip your purse at the nail salon. That way a hot wax accident won't ruin your phone and everything else inside!]

No phone, no lights, no motor car,
not a single luxury
like Robinson Crusoe
it's primitive as can be.

Strange day in an alternate galaxy, but I am oddly unperturbed. I feel like Steve in Daniel Pinkwater's Wallpaper from Space***. I feel like a space explorer mountaineer tobaggan team mouse looking for gumballs and cornflakes, and I haven't gone five miles from my house. Time to write a Travel Guide to Disasters, Ointments, and Copays for Under $50 a Day.

One Step Ahead of the EPA

If I had a good car, I would live in squalor. The only time I deep clean is when my car is in the shop. I can't go anywhere today, so I've been sweating with the moldies, and the dust bunnies, and the greasy cobwebs. I've even sandblasted the microwave, and that's staying the course! It's exhausting and disgusting work, and keeps me from pondering the hideous cost of the repairs and maintenance.

A CollageMama Serenity Secret: Cleaning the upstairs bathroom of teen sons is an effective way to banish fearful thoughts about expensive car repairs.

Sometime this week the Buick odometer will turn to 100,000.0 miles. So the Buick could celebrate and have a little ego booster, I wanted to send it to a day spa for a tirecure, and some chamois pampering. Can't you see the cucumber slices over the headlights while it has a relaxing soak in hot carnuba wax? Instead it is getting front and rear brake jobs, lube, transmission service, and some kind of bolts that broke off when Darryl and his brother Darryl were evaluating the brake situation. Even for a '96 Buick Skylark this doesn't sound like the equivalent of kicky hot pink sandals and a matching handbag. So I am getting the Skylark a flirty new driver's side window motor so it can pull up and roll down next to graphite gray Mercury Cougars at stoplights and say, "Hey, Baby!"

After driving the rental car for a week, I forgot that my window could be rolled down but not back up. Oops! I hope to have my car back tomorrow with brakes that work, and even a window that I can roll down at tollbooths for a change! After that, I will check out the gently-used record store for a recording of "Don Giovanni". Of course I will have no money once I have working brakes and windows. It is a vicious cycle. Let's diagram it this way:

IF
car works >>> condo is a pit >>> can go anyplace >>> have no money to do anything when I get there,
BUT IF
car doesn't work >>> condo is fit for habitation >>> can't go anywhere >>> have no money anyway
BUT
desperately want Domino's to deliver a sausage pizza.

I've never had a toll tag, mostly because I've never gone anywhere. [See Diagram A.1 above] Lately I've realized that I will probably have my arm ripped off when I'm hit from behind in the toll lane should I actually get to leave the condo. There I will be, trying to throw the coins into the basket-chute with my car door ajar in the narrow lane. Some impatient pick-up driver or momentarily distracted SUV parent will ram into the Skylark. My arm will fly off into the basket. This will tie up the toll lane, and bring the radio station traffic helicopters. It will be inconvenient for metroplex motorists, to say the least.

The non-functioning driver's window is a major nuisance in parking garages and the drive-thru bank, too, but it does cut down on my drive-thru fast food consumption. And, yes, I want fries with that.

Lost Wax

(No ear wax! This is a hoity-toity fine arts blog!)

I've been traveling with four invisible vicarious companions on this solo trip. My parents love frequent updates, and my bosses want juicy details. Enquiring minds want to know, don't ya know? I feel like the star of my own reality show!

Have you gone to the Shidoni foundry?

Yes. It turns out my mom's sister granddaughter has large kinetic wire sculptures in the Shidoni Sculpture Garden. I arrived at the Sculpture Garden pretty early for having had four hours of sleep after the opera, plus a Denny's Original Grand Slam breakfast. I wandered around, but didn't find anything that fit my misguided preconception about this second cousin's art. When I found the gallery guy and explained that I needed help finding her sculptures, Dave went into an absolute rapture about Reven. (I haven't seen her since she was three--at least thirty years ago.) I will put up a link since I was very excited about Reven Marie Swanson's sculptures. They were bright, joyful, playful kinetic wire sculptures of flying women. I felt an immediate artistic kinship stronger than any shirttail family relationship. This woman ROCKS!

My new buddy Dave also gave me info about a fabulous sculpture by Joe Barrington of a giant bass loaded into an ancient pickup truck. Since my students had just finished the papier mache shark, I thought they might like information about the giant bass! I'll try for some links here, too.
Dave made sure I took a tour through the Shidoni foundry. That's where the lost wax comes in. The foundry is working on a thirty-six foot-tall equestrian conquistador statue for the El Paso airport. I could park a rental Kia Rio in the helmet! It's time for me to plan the fall session of art classes, but I don't think my little students will be doing any bronze casting!