Losing my mind? No just my brisket!

To thaw or not to thaw? That is the question for GrillMama, or whether it would be nobler to finish the brisket and black beans I made in the crockpot before I try to make teriyaki pork chops.

Now where did I put that brisket?  I took it out of the crockpot Saturday and put it in some Tupperware and it should be right--  No!

• Is it behind the lettuce or that darn honeydew melon that makes me sneeze?  No.  
• You gotta be kidding.  Did I stick it in the freezer?  No.  
• In the veggie crispers or the cheese drawer?  No.  This is getting weird.  
• Check the trash.  
• Check the cupboards for canned goods, Tupperware, crackers, First Aid. No! 
• Laundry room. No. 
• Recycling bin. No. 
• Car trunk?  Well I once did forget a bag of groceries with a nice rump roast in the trunk of the Skylark. It took awhile to get rid of the smell. 
• Repeat searches except for the car trunk. 
• Check the cupboard of doom that holds a weird mix of parmesan, cottage cheese, hummus, and yogurt containers. No.  

Oh! There wasn't any Tupperware that fit the leftover brisket so I put it in the vanilla yogurt container. Phew. Glad I didn't buy any blackberries to go with that vanilla yogurt. Let's just put the honeydew in the dumpster and not have an allergic reaction that might cause further memory loss because we've got bigger questions.

Wonderful visit with good friends sitting around at Cafe Brazil. [My daughter-in-law makes better empanadas, though.] Then a noon-ish walk at Arbor Hills Nature Center. Good to see so much water in the mossy pond, and look, there's a blue heron, and another!  Put the camera on zoom. One has a blue bill. One is short. Wait one has a black and white mask with goofy head plumes. One is writing words in the mossy surface of the pond. It's spelling:

   K I S S  T H E  R E S T  O F  Y O U R  A F T E R N O O N 

B Y E  A N D  G E T  O U T  Y O U R  F I E L D  G U I D E S 

Who knew herons could write and predict the future?

• Field guides out. Check.
• Enlarging photos. Check.
• Online sources bookmarked. Check.
• Afternoon shot. Check.

The heron with the blue bill seems to be an adult Little Blue Heron, possibly with brighter breeding season colors.

The short blue heron with yellow legs, blue body, and purple throat is illogically a Green Heron.

The heron on the other side of the fallen tree that I didn't even see at the beginning is not either of those two.  It is a Yellow-crowned Night Heron, only the second one I've ever seen.

That's all the mysteries I can handle for one day, even if I'm on vacation from school. Maybe a nap now and some leftover brisket later!

Crockpot Brisket with Black Beans
(Because you've got bigger mysteries to solve):

• Dump a bag of black beans in 3 cups boiling water. Turn off heat, cover, leave overnight. Drain. 
• Put an eight-dollar beef brisket, trimmed of most fat, in a big crockpot. (Packaging removed, but then I don't have to tell you that!)
• Might be smart to plug in the crockpot
• Add 2 stalks chopped celery, 2 cloves smashed and chopped garlic, 1 can of beer, 1 chunk of pineapple from a teacher appreciation edible bouquet (At this point eat the grapes, raspberries, and strawberries from the bouquet and write a thank you note)
• Juice of one lime or not.
• Lots of chopped cilantro since what are you going to do with it otherwise?
• A peeled and diced potato
• Maybe an onion, chopped
• Three sliced mini sweet peppers or one-half sliced bell pepper
• Maybe another can of beer
• The rest of that can of Rotel and half a can of diced Hatch chiles (Hot).
• What the heck, peel and chop that last carrot. 
• Add 2 cups water
• Dried parsley--Note: Is shaker lid securely on parsley jar? Oops. Not a problem, just fish out the plastic lid
• Tablespoon of molasses
• Add water to fill the last of the bottle of Sweet Baby Ray's Honey Barbecue Sauce. Shake. Stir in

Set crockpot (already plugged in) on Low overnight, then on High when you wake up. Try some over a flour tortilla, but it's not just for breakfast anymore. Add more Sweet Baby Ray's if you've got it. Turn crockpot to Warm. It kind of perfumes the whole house, and smells lots better than potpourri.  

© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

depredations and depravity

This week's duel between book and audio book is almost as strange as last week's.  My choices are unusually gory for me, but work as restorative escapism seriously needed.

I can't seem to quit reading The Hypnotist even though there are no likeable characters, the crimes are incredibly gruesome, and the writing makes me feel like I have a groggy flu.  That could be the effect of a collaboration read in translation, or maybe I should take my temperature.

In the car, I can't log enough miles listening to Empire of the Summer Moon.  Since the audio book has eighteen cds, it may run longer than my old Buick has miles left.  The history of the Comanches and Quanah Parker is also full of  torture of captives and horrible cruelty.

Both books are full of depredation, deprivation, and depravity.  I hauled out the Big Red Dictionary, but to save time this morning I'll go with the Online Etymology Dictionary information:

• depredation   late 15c., from M.Fr. déprédation, from L.L. depraedationem (nom. depraedatio) "a plundering," from pp. stem of L. depraedari "to pillage," from de- "thoroughly" (see de-) + praedari "to plunder," lit. "to make prey of," from praeda "prey" (see prey).
• deprave   late 14c., "corrupt, lead astray, pervert," from O.Fr. depraver (14c.) or directly from L. depravare "distort, disfigure;" figuratively "to pervert, seduce, corrupt," from de- "completely" (see de-) + pravus"crooked." Related: Depraved; depraving.
• depravity   1640s; see deprave + -ity. Earlier in same sense was pravity, from L. pravitas.
• deprivation   mid-15c., "removal from office or position," from M.L. deprivationem (nom. deprivatio), noun of action from pp. stem of deprivare (see deprive).
• deprived   1550s, "dispossessed," pp. adj. from deprive. As a euphemism for the condition of children who lack a stable home life, by 1945.

So, in this literary week of plunder and perversion, I will close with two lighter notes.  First you may need the lyrics for "Dear Officer Krupke" from "West Side Story".

DIESEL: (Spoken, as Judge) In the opinion on this court, this child is depraved on account he ain't had a normal home. 

  ACTION: (Spoken) Hey, I'm depraved on account I'm deprived.   

Second, it pleased me no end to hear that my neighbor's little girl somehow got her Halloween wig stuck in a ceiling fan. These things happen!

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

"It's elementary, my booby Blab"

Today's main mystery involves my dad, Howie.  We were having our usual suppertime failure to communicate.  I sought to ascertain if Dad desired more of the mac and cheese, asparagus, milk, or ground ham.  He had already stuffed the entire brownie into his mouth, and had driven the fork tines repeatedly along the edge of the asparagus spears with his left hand in a strange ritual while holding his spoon vertical in the mushroom soup with his right. Dad grabbed my arm with his very cold, skinny, white fingers, and said clearly, "Let me show you what I want."  He proceeded to tear his paper napkin into thin strips.  He was sharp enough to know that the napkin, like all paper, tears best from one particular edge.  He had found that edge.  Sometimes he held the strips of napkin and seemed to roll the paper.  Was he rolling a cigarette?  He hasn't smoked in four decades.  Did he need confetti?  A ticker-tape parade?  Toilet paper?  Bandages?  Noodles?  A shredder?  Comic strips?  Strips of bacon?  A stripper?  A fresh drinking straw and ice water?  For all I could tell, Dad wanted Gypsy Rose Lee to bring him another brownie and realign his hospital bed to true north.

When I finally gave up, Dad was creasing a Kleenex for an origami clue.  My brain hurt.  I had to turn him over to the detached professionals.

I'm reading The Sherlockian, a middling mystery jumping time zones between Arthur Conan Doyle, James Barrie, and Bram Stoker trying to solve serial Whitechapel murders, and a modern Baker Street Irregular obsessive doofus trying to find his inner Holmes.  Them that can't shouldn't criticize, I guess.  And I can't write or solve mysteries.  My inner detective is defective.

For over five decades I've been saying, "It's elementary, my booby Blab."  Why, Watson?  Because Dad and I were fond of the Quick Draw McGraw* cartoon show by Hanna-Barbera in about 1960.  So fond that I  El Kabonged my little brother over the head with the brand new plastic guitar he received from Dad's boss, Mr. Schaumberg, for Christmas.  This was a bad big sister thing to do.  Thanks to Wikipedia for helping me sort out the Snooper & Blabber cartoons, if not the napkin strips.  It feels good to own up to my transgression.

*The series featured 3 cartoons per episode, one each by Quick Draw McGraw & Baba Looey, father and son dog duo Augie Doggie & Doggie Daddy and cat and mouse detectives Snooper & Blabber.


© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Fighting the annual bronchitis

Dump in crockpot one can each:

• Crushed tomatoes
• Black beans
• Cream-style corn
• Diced Hatch hot chiles

Add:

• 1 big box reduced sodium chicken broth
• 2 cloves chopped garlic
• fresh cilantro and sage from the patio pots, chopped
• the rest of the grocery deli-roasted chicken, pulled off the bones and chopped

Cook covered on high the whole live-long soggy, gray day.  Go to Walgreens for Tussin DM.  Listen to weird sounds made by lungs and wonder about humpback whale tunes.  Read a Donna Leon mystery on Kindle.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

The Case of the Juggling Anole

She entered the condo with turquoise purse, lunchbox, and grocery sack slung over her left arm, holding her father's dirty laundry in that hand. Keys and mail were still in her right.  She nudged the twelve-pack across the entry rug with her left foot while bumping the door shut with her right hip.  It had been a day, let me tell you. 

Plunking the groceries and mail on the table, she popped open an unfortunately warm brewski, and shelved the cans of reduced-sodium garbanzos in the cupboard.  The lemons had gotten warm enough in the Buick's trunk to threaten citrus explosion.  Later, much later, she would remember to mix the good hazelnut coffee in with the Maxwell House basic caffeine source.

Any day that starts with a snake in the bathroom is going to be tough.   Snakes are not deathly afraid of tile, despite what Fritz told Eunice.  Snakes are nonchalant about linoleum.  The lizard had been partial to miniblinds.  Shake it off, she told herself. Reptile interior design is unlikely.

Kicking brown clogs under the desk, she turned on the computer and tried to mentally exit the lengthy patio evaluation of her father by the hospice nurse.  Interview conducted in the hot wind.  Her dad trying to remember that he was in Texas on West Park Boulevard in 1930 or 40 or 50 or admitting he didn't know.  He didn't know either that he'd been fighting the aides, slapping and insulting them for two days, ever since he returned from Mulberry Hill.  The RN keeping the session relaxed, picking up on hints, suggesting meds for the most agitated moods and aggressive behavior. 

Maybe she could rest some, breathe a bit, realizing the nurse was sharp, much better in person than on the phone.  Processing it all slowly, she began to sense something was off.  The picture was wrong.  Retracing steps through the grocery, the mail, emptying the lunchbox, unloading the dryer, adding the wrinkled slacks and blouse to the ironing pile on the couch. 

There it was again.  Knowing someone was in the condo, but not knowing how she knew, she stood.  Still.  In the living room looking at the sweaters machine wash gentle cold reshape and dry flat on the old bath towels.  Sunlight filtered through the miniblinds sketching designs on the carpet next to.  Next to.  Next to the Christmas ornament from the elementary students.

Why was the ornament on the carpet?  Why was a Christmas decoration still out on income tax day?  Nevermind.  The ornament hadn't been there, she knew, when she left.  She had waited until water sprayed in the dishwasher, and the snake had slithered west under the hedge before leaving for school.  The sweaters had been arranged, and knew their task.  There had been no silver ball.

The silver ornament sat next to the MOG ornament she got from the MOB--mother of the bride.  They were in front of the photos of Halma as a young girl and a young wife.  The Woolly Mammoth sat nearby on the mantlepiece.  That's where they had been for months, well-settled in the dust, but now the ball was on the floor.

Floor.  Floor.  Fl...FL... fl... fl... flizard.  The anole had been on the mantlepiece, just as sure as she knew her consonant blend sounds.  The anole had been juggling the Christmas ornaments, but now the silver one was on the floor.  The jig was up.

She knew what she would find, but she needed to see it.  Anole toes.  There.  Hiding on the miniblind slats.  "Slats".  Halma's nickname since she was so darn skinny.

10.  the jig is up, Slang . It is hopeless; no chance remains: When the burglar heard the police siren, he knew the jig was up.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Red Hot Bad Napper Chili

My temper tantrum student brought a most appropriate gift of Firehouse Chili mix.  She has come a long way in our consistent environment since entering school, but she is still red hot more often than not. 

When she is bad she is horrid, just like the little girl with the curl.  She resists napping even though she is smart enough to know a good nap would make her feel better.


As a mom, I read the Mother Goose rhymes with certain personalizations.  Once you do that, you have to use the same personalizations every single time you read the rhyme.  Who knows how "smack dab" became part of the reading?  It must be pronounced like a hissing/chomping reptile with a backhand to the forehead:

There was a little girl
Who had a little curl
Smack DAB in the middle of her forehead.


And when she was good
She was very good
And when she was bad she was horrid.

Just what does "smack dab" mean? 

In essence, the phrase means "slapped precisely in the center." According to the Oxford English Dictionary, smack-dab showed up in print in 1892: "He hit him smack dab in the mouth" [Dialect Notes I, 232].

The "at" symbol, @, always looks to me like the curl smack dab in the middle of a forehead.  The chili is looking mighty fine simmering on the stove.  Not a bit like a tantrum...

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Vision, focus, lighting, heat

I spy with my gecko eye the reason why in this digital age we still need poetry. Does the camera lie? Is vision not from our eye? Does the subject defy the abilities of our camera?  Are tweaking efforts doomed to fall short of reality?

Leaving school on a blazing afternoon at five p.m., the North Texas sky was dramatic.  Thunderheads were building like weightless popcorn, but the chance of real raindrops from those clouds was next to nothing.  The camera image is way too chilly of a blue, and the clouds look too dark to taunt me with no measurable precipitation.  The photographic image just doesn't match my experience, no matter how much I Photoshop it.

After a recent Girls Night Out/Opera Lecture, but before our Baba Ghanoush buffet at Fadi's, we saw a splendid Maxfield Parrish sunset over Mockingbird Lane from the North Central Expressway.  My Texas sky feels like a super-saturated Hollywood musical picture show with Gordon McRae bursting into song.  There's a bright golden haze on the meadow, but there's nothing like a dame. There's no place like home, either.

 

Humphrey Bogart, Mike Hammer, Guy Noir and I were looking out the patio window the other night. The security lamps had turned on to illuminate sidewalks between condo buildings. It only took a minute for the geckos to come out from their hiding spots to await tasty insects drawn to the light.

I haven't mastered the photography secrets to capture shady reptiles in deep shadows near intense artificial lights.  Only poetry can explain both the subtleties and the glare.


© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Antlers of Death

During a recent flight I read Betty Webb's zookeeper murder mystery, Anteater of Death. Good title, plus I learned that anteaters have blue tongues and are partial to bananas. Also, I remembered why I quit reading mysteries. Nice as it was to have a zookeeper heroine instead of a private detective, bounty hunter, or overweight police officer from a wealthy/dysfunctional family, the book still could have been outlined by any four third-grade girls using only an origami "fortune-teller".



If you have forgotten how to fold a fortune-teller, Enchanted Learning has clear instructions. The same week it came to my attention that most of the kindergarten students don't know about antlers. They seem to think an "antler" is a big pile of ants, and that reindeer have "cantaloupes" on their heads. Plus, they think blue tongues are caused by Otter Pops and cupcake frosting. At least that part is true.

© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

Charley Harper at The Public Trust

Attempted a lunch hour visit to The Public Trust to see the vintage Charley Harper serigraphs and original paintings. Due to central Dallas' disregard for the rightness of ninety degree angles and North/South and East/West axes, I managed to get lost while listening to Thunderstruck on cd.

Chief Inspector Dew of Scotland Yard was solving the murder at 39 Hilldrop Crescent faster than I was finding 2929-C Commerce Street. He had Harvey Crippen as trapped as Charley Harper's "Last Aphid".

Once I arrived, I adored the prints. The raccoon works were my favorites. "Barn Owl and Harvest Mouse" with its milkweed pods fit well with my students' seed studies this week.



© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

Minty fresh fix-o-mysteries

Caught a few segments of NPR's Crime in the City series interviewing mystery authors and the cities they know and love. Authors have laid claim to a huge range of locations, occupations, and avocations to reel in niche mystery readers: caterers, car-poolers, PTA moms, crossword puzzle addicts, genealogists, sled dog mushers, cat lovers, English teachers...

I've yet to see the beautiful dental hygienist (and amateur sleuth) with her latex gloves, sharp tools, and sharper wit, Floss Dailey, solve perilous periodontic puzzles. With a ghost writer and some technical advisors, I think we could milk this for twenty titles at least:

• Root Canal in which Floss discovers the naughty inspiration for her husband's tooth whitening overdose.
• Can You Feel This? Still numb from the divorce, Floss meets a cute neurologist and dreams of comfortable shoes.
• Baby Teeth Floss's duplex neighbors have teething triplets.
• Bite Down Please A "Shark Week" on cable t.v. inspires Floss to decorate the ceiling of her exam room with National Geographic shark pictures.
• Keep Wiggling Floss's boss, The Great Gummy Bear, a rotund dental softy, finds his personal cause, founding No Baby Tooth Left Behind, to provide cute plastic containers for low income kids whose teeth fall out at school.
• Canines & Molars Floss's ex, "The Glare," nicknamed for his serious overdose on tooth whitener and blazing inability to pay child support on time, gets a pit bull.
• Brush Three Times Floss wins a hygienist's convention door prize, a vacation to Las Vegas to see Tony Orlando and Dawn.
• Grit Your Teeth Floss accompanies her boss, The Great Gummy Bear to a dentists' convention in Atlanta.
• Swish & Spit Floss becomes friends with a gay novacaine sales rep.
• Overbite Floss starts selling her original line of hygienist scrubs on her website--in TRex, Arctic Wolf, Crocodile, Chained Pit Bull, Amazon Piranha, Shark, and Ankle-biter Toddler print fabrics, but finds she has no time left for her children.
• No Cavities Floss's precocious preschool daughter becomes the star of a rainbow sparkle gel toothpaste ad campaign.
• Panoramic X-Rays Floss cleans Tony Hillerman's teeth while taking a well-earned vacation across the American Southwest.
• Waiting Room Fish Floss finds dentures buried in the aquarium gravel.
• No Candy "The Glare" begs Floss to get back together so a sweet someone will pick up his suits from the dry cleaners.
• A Little Sensitive Floss's best friend from high school, a sculptress working in conceptual orthodontic wire, is arrested in a gallery murder case.
• Deep Pits Floss meets a mysterious informant when she calls the PayPal tech support 1-800 help number.
• Gingivitis Floss's ex remarries, but not to Mary Ann.
• Receding Gumshoes Floss cleans the teeth of a former police detective now suffering from Alzheimers.
• Plaque Fights Back Receiving an award from the National Dental Fashion League starts Floss on a race to prevent copycat designs from flooding the scrub market.
• Partial Plates Cleaning the teeth of a geologist leads to a seismic weekend in California with an underscoring tectonic romance. Carole King has signed to write the "I Feel the Earth Move Under My Teeth."
• The Fluoride Treatment Floss has to deal with an unethical, scandal-mongering tv station when she solves her latest mystery.
• Impacted Wisdom Floss communicates by a system of nods and blinks to help an elderly stroke victim solve a dental mystery.
• Caps & Crowns Floss's sullen adolescent son graduates from high school.
• Drilling for Gold Floss learns her ancestors filled cavities in the California Gold Rush and Texas Wildcat oil fields.
• See You In Six Months Soon to be a major motion picture with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.
• I'll Love You for Efferdent A made-for-tv movie about high-school sweethearts who meet sixty years later in their dentist's waiting room.

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Shelving mystery series

Grafton's got the alphabet, and Evanovich has the numbers. Nevada Barr can write her way through the entire National Park System if she tries hard. What sequence is still unclaimed? Maybe I could kill off frat boys and sorority chicks with the Greek alphabet:

• Pi in the Sky With Diamonds
• I Tau Whodunnit
• Chuck Upsilon the Carpet
• Iota Bookie

No, that won't work unless I do my research as a Greek housemother on a campus at a major Midwestern party school...

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Story-starters, fagot-finders, and flame-broiled whoppers

"Did you attach the key onto the outside of the Buick with a Band-Aid?," I asked the Woolly Mammoth. It wasn't a good start to the morning. He had left the car at the train station for his brother in the wee hours by my standard--after eight p.m. The three of us are sharing one working vehicle, one non-working vehicle, and a mass-transit system that leaves something to be desired for these few summer weeks. Our jobs and schedules are not yet braiding together in seamless harmony like the warf and woop of the cosmos, but the candle of hope flickers still.

In the evening, waiting for the charcoal to reach the perfect degree of orange and gray to cook the marinaded chicken, I drift into a Camp Fire Girl reverie:

Burn fire burn
Burn fire burn
Flicker flicker flicker flicker flame

My baby Weber is still six briquettes short of a flame-broiled whopper. Should I feed it tinder or kindling? Should I paint the heads of wooden matches with nail polish, and store them in a metal Band-Aid box? That was one of the survival skills I learned in Camp Fire Girls in the mid-1960s. So far, I've never needed a waterproofed match to survive, although I did fantasize once or twice about painting my spouse's head with nail polish and then stuffing him in a metal box.

I have a fondness for vintage metal boxes, Band-Aid and other. It's funny what sticks, and what doesn't. What sinews bind us to things and to people?

At one a.m. I fret. Did my son collect the Buick at the train station? To ward off worry I try to remember the girls in my Camp Fire Girl group so many years ago. The names sound so old-timey compared to my students' names:

Nancy, Nancy, Nancy, Prissy, Julie, Julie, Judy, Jody, Wendy, Wendy, Hilde, Debbie, Laurie, Donna, Janice, Dee-Dee, Linda, Susan, Margaret, Pam...

Margaret's mother taught us the "Burn Fire Burn" song:

BURN, FIRE, BURN!

(Adante moderato)
Burn, fire, burn! burn, fire, burn!
Burn, flicker, flame!
Whose hand above this blaze is lifted
Shall be with magic touch engifted,
To warm the hearts of lonely mortals
Who stand without their open portals.
The torch shall draw them to the fire,
Higher, higher, higher, By desire.
Who so shall stand by this hearthstone, flame-fanned,
Shall never stand alone;
Whose house is dark and bare and cold,
Whose house is dark and cold;
This is his own!
Flicker, flicker, flicker, flicker, flame!

Such tiny diversity within our group! One girl with a divorced mother, one girl living in an apartment, one Jewish girl, one Unitarian... Five daughters of engineers, two daughters of doctors plus one veterinarian, one daughter of a minister, at least five daughters of university professors. All of us save two walked home from school for lunch with our moms everyday, and then walked back for the afternoon class. When school dismissed at 3:15 we walked together to our Camp Fire meeting at one of our homes.

Camp Fire Girls worked their way up from Wood Gatherers to Fire Makers and Torch Bearers. The way was perilous, hidden under tinder and kindling, fraught with fagot-finders, and mired in the classic contest between wiggly loose front teeth and homemade popcorn balls.

WOOD GATHERER's DESIRE (1914) (spoken)

As fagots are brought from the forest
["Fagot" here means "a bundle of sticks tied together."]
Firmly held by the sinews which bind them,
So cleave to these others, your sisters,
Wherever, whenever you find them.
Be strong as the fagots are sturdy,
Be pure in your deepest desire;
Be true to the truth that is in you;
And--follow the Law of the Fire.


The five year olds are beginning to write stories. They choose a photo from the box of story starters, then make two to four sentences about the picture. Usually they write who is in the photo, what they are doing, and where. Sometimes they tell when, but rarely why. I keep trying to get them to spice up their stories.

Surprise me. Tell me something I don't already know. Tell me something exciting. Make me laugh. What did the flamingos play?

WE BIRDS
PLAY NOW
FLUTE AND CELLO?

And no, the Woolly Mammoth did not use the Band-Aid to stick the key on the Buick. The Band-Aid wrapper was left on the car seat because he cut his finger while hiding the key.


© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

To hold their pants up

Dad wants to know why crews have spent many hours working on each fire hydrant in the neighborhood just to paint them bright red again. Why red?

This is a good meditation while walking around the neighborhood. I wish Bennett Cerf could stroll with me. I've driven through towns where somebody decided it would be fun to paint the fire hydrants to look like dalmations, or circus clowns, robots, elves, or old-timey policemen.

My theory is that bright red hydrants are invisible to all except those who are looking for a place to connect the fire hose. Hydrants painted like dalmations are cute for the first week, then annoying for the next five years.

What's your theory?




Q. What time is it when an elephant sits on a fence? A. Time to get a new fence.

© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Swallows and Gulps

Went along on the afternoon nature walk with the students, bringing up the rear. They have learned so much from this daily exercise. They are quiet and observant as they walk now, since they know they will see more birds that way. Each afternoon they log how long they walked and what they saw.

We passed a purple martin house, but it looked to be inhabited by sparrows. Maybe not, because a block or so on I saw several fork-tailed swallows swooping in awe-inspiring flight.

Despite having sons who all went through the airplane fascination stage, I never progressed beyond basic identification of helicopters, jets, and biplanes, and those weird surveillance planes that look like they have a revolving restaurant on top. I would have been absolutely no help to Cary Grant's Walter Eckland spotting Japanese aircraft in "Father Goose".

I'm much better at bird-in-flight identification, but I don't know if these birds were purple martins or barn swallows. They flew with such carefree precision and perfect form, I could have watched them all afternoon.

No swallowtail butterflies this walk, but a lovely lesser fritillary posing like a centerfold. As always, I am grateful for my parents who shared with me the wonderful names of butterflies, birds, fish, and rocks. Must tell the students that the swallowtails are named for the forked tails of the birds, not for any chew-and-swallow, as I believed at their age.

It's been a long time since I pondered rose quartz, snowflake obsidian, amethyst, lace agate, or tiger's eye. And if I ever write a mystery novel, the female detective could be named Chimney Swift.

© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Sudan

What I know about the long conflict in the Sudan would fit on a grain of rice. Had not a clue that the country has been destroying itself the entire time I've been a parent. So much for the image of myself as an informed citizen of the world!

Sudan meant nothing more to me than some vague Egyptology concepts of Nubia, Meroe, Khartoum, Coptic Christians, the kingdom of Kush, and the 19th century search for the source of the Nile. Reading many Amanda Peabody mysteries by Elizabeth Peters didn't seem to help.

Sad to say, I'm more comfortable with cosy mysteries and ancient cultures buried under the sand than learning about modern genocide. Two things are pushing me to be more informed. First, I'm reading Prairie Bluestem's blog about her nephew volunteering in the Sudan. Second, I saw a wonderful, uplifting movie about three Lost Boys adjusting to life in the United States. It's called, God Grew Tired of Us.


© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Positive ID

Brought a bunch of gourds to Elementary Art class. I love the variety and color of gourds. Even more, I love teaching children to notice that variety and color.

What's the same?

What's different?

Gourds teach color, pattern, shape, and texture. I just facilitate the lectures, like the person who makes sure the big electric coffee urn is gurgling at an early morning workshop.

The kids were having trouble with the idea of different. I don't know if each gourd in the cornucopia has a different fingerprint or DNA. I do know the kids are aware of tv cop show lingo:

1. You witnessed a burglary. One of these gourds committed the crime. How will you describe the gourd perp to the police detectives?
2. You are asked to go down to precinct headquarters to view a line-up. What distinguishing features will you look for?
3. Please help the police artist create a sketch of the squashish criminal.
4. Be sure to draw both the face and the profile.
5. Which gourd looks like Harry Morgan on "Dragnet", and which looks like Art Carney on "The Honeymooners"? Okay, I didn't ask the kids, but I've always gotten these two confused. Harry Morgan was on "M.A.S.H." Carney was in "Harry and Tonto".

The kids got it. They started looking for each gourd's birthmarks and scars. They compared the weights, widths, and heights. They named each gourd. Their drawings improved. It was intriguing to find they automatically divided the gourds into presumed innocent or presumed guilty categories based on physical differences. Some thought the bumpy white gourd could never commit a crime. Others thought "Cauliflower" was a nefarious mastermind.

It wasn't elementary, my dear Watson, but I was grateful for this artistic trip down to precinct. We named our drawings "C.S.I.: Gourd Squad."

I was left wondering why I could instantly name the "Mod Squad" actress, Peggy Lipton, even though I never watched that late Sixties tv show.

I just finished reading Eleanor Updale's teen novel, Montmorency and the Assassins. Professor Cesare Lombroso is fictionalized in the book. Lombroso is considered the father of criminal anthropology, although his theories about the facial characteristics of "born criminals" are no longer accepted. You can't tell a criminal gourd just by looking at its face, but you can remember its identifying features!

Step aside, Brad!

The leading men who lure me to the movie theater for a Saturday matinee are Will Shortz and Al Gore. Much as I enjoyed "An Inconvenient Truth," and was moved to become DARTmama, "Wordplay" is my favorite of the two. Yes, I'm a New York Times crossword puzzle junkie, and, yes, I do them in ink. I'm not lightning fast, though. My day doesn't feel right if I can't started it with the puzzle, although I do force myself to read the paper (Dallas Morning News) before I start the crossword or the Sudoku. One of the advantages of becoming DARTmama is extra puzzle-solving time in the mornings.



"Wordplay" has a delightful mix of information about puzzle construction, famous and surprising puzzlers telling why they do puzzles, features on several championship level puzzlers, and the high stakes American Crossword Puzzle Tournament--with no wardrobe malfunctions or bad "interpretations" of Our National Anthem.

Remember Henry, the retired baker/neighbor of Kinsey Milhone in Sue Grafton's alphabet mysteries? He's a charming character, makes great cinnamon rolls, and he's a crossword puzzle constructor. What a sexy combination! He should be played by Sam Elliott in a movie version! Parnell Hall's series of Puzzle Lady Mysteries didn't have any such delights, but I did learn about competitive puzzle tournaments from those books.

Maybe the mystery is why I've never tried constructing puzzles, especially given my love of graph paper and dictionaries. Is it too late to start?

In the early 90's our family Sunday morning ritual involved clambering into the minivan and going to the Parker Station Cafe for breakfast. Most Sundays the drive coincided with Liane Hansen's chat with The Puzzlemaster, Will Shortz, on NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday. We tried to solve many puzzles over our breakfast specials and short stacks. In my mind, Will Shortz' voice is linked with steaming sausage, pancakes, maple syrup, and family togetherness.

Seems to me each "Wordplay" movie ticket should come with a Weekend Edition lapel pin and two eggs over easy.

Too many answers, not enough questions

I have an idea that kids need mysteries as much as they need answers. They need unstructured time to ponder the mysteries, to let their questions steep like a jar of sun tea on the front step. Mysteries fuel our imaginations, spur our studies, and add layers of richness to our human experience.

As parents it is often easier to give a snap answer to a child's question than to ask, "What do you think happened?," "What ideas do you have about that?," or "How would you fix that?" We often feel like we have failed as parents when we see our kids lying on the floor staring at a sunbeam, or digging a canal in the dirt with a stick. We rush to enroll the kids in yet another adult-structured activity to "better use their time".

My third grade teacher read a chapter about Howard Carter's discovery of King Tut's tomb to the class every day after lunch recess. She was reading a chapter when we learned that JFK had died. My curiosity about ancient Egypt helped me through that difficult time, and I may have linked JFK with the "Boy Pharoah" for several years. I wondered if other tombs and treasures awaited my patient and meticulous discovery in Egypt. I still read both fiction and nonfiction about ancient Egypt over forty years later, even though I didn't become an archaeologist. Maybe it is a romantic notion, thinking that our life is enriched by a sense of wonder about other places, other times, but I think it helps us find both our life's work and our most restorative leisure.

The mysteries that intrigued me as a child were not very scientific or mechanical. They were mostly historical or mythical, with an occasional dose of biology--Atlantis, Knossos, Incas, Easter Island, Odysseus, Roanoke Colony, wagon trains to the West, cave paintings in France, Viking exploration, the Anasazi...butterfly cocoons and praying mantids, family trees. Finding out for myself how many different greens I could mix with a simple set of watercolors, or how many ways I could rearrange a set of square tiles set me off on my path as an artist and teacher. Reading narratives and journals of women pioneers headed west colored the way I look at our modern lifestyle and conveniences.

This week I got to chat with a group of kids about the Anasazi cliff-dwellers of the Four Corners region. The kids had so many great questions. Their brains were really storming! They are obviously aware of hurricanes and flooding, but quickly latched onto the ideas of drought and irrigation. They got intrigued by the ideas of the wearing down of teeth by the sand and grit in the corn flour diet, and of the T-shaped doorways for people carrying backpacks or heavy baskets on their backs. They have questions about why people used to be so much shorter (5' 4"), and only lived to be forty or so. They wondered if cancer killed the Anasazi. They began imagining mesas--teeny tiny people living on table tops! They liked the "camoflague" stone buildings and wondered about how the Anasazi trapped food, and why they grew corn, beans, and squash, because ew-ick they don't like those vegetables. And they loved the idea of standing at the corner of four states.

I intended to tell them about the Wetherill family finding the cliff dwellings in the late 1800's, but I'm still reading a biography of Marietta Wetherill. ...Then I need to read Nebraska author Willa Cather's novel about Mesa Verde, The Professor's House. In about 1964 I read a story in National Geographic, or maybe National Geographic School Bulletin, about Richard Wetherill riding off looking for stray cattle on the mesa and discovering Cliff Palace. The image I created in my mind of that moment of discovery is still there, even though I know it probably didn't happen quite that way. I also have a strong memory that I read the story while lying on the living room carpet with sunbeams pouring through the window. I'm betting I had Grofe's Grand Canyon Suite playing on the hi-fi. I'm thankful that my parents gave me that time to wonder and hear my own questions.

There's are hummingbirds, lizards, and butterflies out on the patio. It's time to do some restorative recreational wondering.

Come Fly With Me: Reserve Your Armchair Now

Sinatra and Smetana color my mental travel brochures. Captain Kangaroo used to run a video of river photos with Smetana's "The Moldau" that made me proud to be of Bohemian ancestry. Another video with Grofe's "Grand Canyon Suite" might have ignited my interest in the American Southwest.

Fly me to the moon
Let me play among the stars
Let me see what spring is like
On a-Jupiter and Mars

Where would I travel if money was no object? An interesting evening's pondering, and well within my entertainment budget!


Not having been much of anywhere, this is where I would go if money and time were irrelevant:

Ashfall State Park in Nebraska

The whooping crane migration along the Platte River in Nebraska

The cliff dwelling sites of the Four Corners region. Got hooked on the Anasazi reading National Geographic story about Weatherill Mesa in 1966.

On a riverboat cruise up the Mississippi

New York City to see the art, theatre, dance, and opera, and look for sites in Donald Westlake’s Dortmunder books.

Crete and Santorini—I have wanted to visit the island ever since reading a juvenile nonfiction book from my local library in about 1966. Knossos, Minotaur, frescoes

Michoacan, Mexico to see where Monarch butterflies spend the winter.

Valley of the Kings in Egypt. Tut, Tut. My third grade teacher, Mrs. Alhschwede, was reading aloud to the class about Howard Carter when JFK was assassinated.

Botswana because of Alexander McCall Smith’s No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency books

A trip through the Ukraine, the Balkans, and Eastern Europe, especially Prague, Split, and Kiev

Krakatoa and Java because of The Twenty-One Balloons and one of the worst movies ever made

Australia, thanks to Bill Bryson

Boston because of Make Way For Ducklings

James Herriott’s England

Thanks for the mysteries!

Winding down often requires a good mystery to take one's mind off the normal stress and routine. I seize on one author and read through all the titles. At eleven I remember sitting on the bench in the children's section of my grandma's little library under the single bulb hanging light fixture on dark, cold winter evenings, or at the big "grown up" table on hot summer afternoons reading two Nancy Drew mysteries at a sitting. At my other grandparents' apartment I would scrunch myself as small as possible in the most remote corner and read about Cherry Ames, the intrepid flight nurse.


Sometimes the mental vacation mysteries were non-fiction. I read books about great archeaological discoveries sitting up in our backyard treehouse; Troy, Tut, Mesa Verde, and especially Knossos. I still love a good Elizabeth Peters excavation season in Egypt. When my little students get messy I think of Peabody exclaiming, "Another shirt ruined!"


The mystery of King Tut is forever linked in my memory with the assassination of President Kennedy. My third grade teacher, Mrs. Alschwede, was reading one chapter to our class about Howard Carter each day in November of 1963.


In the tough years before my divorce Jim Chee, Lieutenant Leaphorn, and Kinsey Milhone probably kept me from going off the deep end. They gave me courage to put on my own little detective hat and figure out what was going wrong.

This winter break has lots of stress with my mother's illness. I hate to admit I read this blog's statistics daily. And that is the source of this vacation mystery distraction. Someone in Ploiesti, Romania hits this blog twice a day. What a gift that person gives me! I've had to get out maps, and read WWII history. Ploiesti has a population around 250,000 which is not far different than my city of Plano, Texas. Ploiesti has a Clock Museum and oil refineries. I still don't know how to pronounce Ploiesti, but I hope it fits into Burt Bacharach's song, Do You Know The Way To San Jose?

Do you know the way to Ploiesti?



Do you know the way to San Jose?
I've been away so long
I may go wrong and lose my way
Do you know the way to San Jose?
I'm going back to find some place of mind in San Jose
L.A. is a great big freeway
Put a hundred down a by a car
In a week, maybe two they'll make you a star
Weeks turn into years, how quick they pass
And all the stars there never were
Are parking cars and pumping gas
I've got lots of friends in San Jose
Can't wait to get back to San Jose
Do you know the way to San Jose?