It's just the pits

This is not part of the core curriculum wherein we teach little kids to eat down to the core of apples by giving them the incentive to feed the core to classroom pet rabbit, Norton.  This is the pit curriculum which is tougher and has no rabbit tie-in reward.

Our pit instruction is mostly by demonstration.  Describing the process for eating bing cherries on the preschool level is verbally unworkable.  Students want to eat the cherries as if they were miniature plums, a very messy plan of attack!  Should you be personally bing challenged, click here for instructions.

Perhaps you are wondering why parents send cherries in kiddies' lunch boxes if the said kiddies don't have a clue how to consume the fruit.  You would not be alone, but it might be best to applaud parents sending fresh fruit at all.

Should you wish to ponder creation of a flow chart, you might surely find 2Amys Neapolitan Pizzeria near the National Cathedral in D.C. conducive to clear and illuminating thinking.  Try the San Remo olive starter to practice your pit technique.  After your meal share an order of the citrus honey sorbet with your friends.  After that a nap might be the best use of your time.


© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

Who's bringing the car around?

I hope someone will take pity and give me a hint as to the identity of this small ornamental tree now having these rather exotic looking blooms.  The central part resembles small yucca blooms, while the long red thingies look like mimosa eyelashes gone extreme.  I'll be pretty embarrassed if the answer is something obviously Texan, like a mesquite.  One nurse said she thought it was a mesquite, but she wasn't a native, either.

Dad was very anxious to go outside today, although he insisted on two blankets on his chest and legs.  The temp in his room reminded me of erupting sunspots, but he was chilly.  He self-propelled his wheelchair until he ran aground in the grass.  The sun felt good to him.
"Okay, I'm ready.  Let's go.  Who's bringing the car around?"

"Aaaaauuuuhh, nobody.  We aren't going in the car."

"I'm ready to leave.  NOW."

"I understand, Dad.  I do."

"What's the plan?  Who's bringing the car around."

"Well, Dad, we just are where we're going to be, so let's enjoy the sun."

Ever since Dad decided he was adopted and living in the parsonage, he's been trying to find a way out.  He kept phoning me at work Monday wanting to know when I would come pick him up "at the church".  By the time I arrived at 3:45 he was about to come out of his skin, furious, violent, endangering himself and others.  If I'd had a taser, I might have used it.  Cooler heads gave him some Adivant. 

Over the hour and a half it took Dad to relax and become dopey/groggy, he kept asking me the name of "that retreat on 70th" where I used to meet him.  Mystified, I went through names of golf courses, parks, pizza restaurants, hospitals, churches, assisted living, and high schools in Lincoln to no avail.  My seeming unwillingness to reveal the answer really ticked him off.

Unlike my time with Dad in the hospital after his second hip break in 2007, he was delusional, but not hallucinating.  He's come unhitched in time and space, and he is manic and aggressive.  He wants to sit at the bus stop and wait to be picked up, getting seriously pissed because I'm so inconsiderately late, but he just thinks we are all blocking him from getting to the bus stop.  He's not the charming yet suspicious guy who saw the little girl sneak into the picture show and steal all the candy just before he ripped out his IVs and chatted up the aide for a 2 a.m. sandwich.  These are distinctions I'd gladly have gone forever not perceiving.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Domino Boy and Dot Girl Save Dallas

Don't know what I was thinking when I decided the preschoolers could make superheroes out of dominoes. Inspiration is like that. It's difficult to say where ideas arise, and how long they've simmered. Found two incomplete sets of dominoes in a box. Added a visit to the Bent Objects blog. Turned in a vague plan for six weeks of art based on one illusive idea.

Adding to the mix, the kids started playing Duck Duck Goose on the playground. It is hilarious watching the cogs turn as the preschoolers grasp the rules and highly advanced strategy of Duck Duck Goose.

My dictionary says the plural of domino can be either dominoes or dominos:



Today we built a set for our downtown Big D photo shoot with the domino superheroes to the rescue. Our city set is like a skyscraper puppet theater. The end result won't be a movie, but probably a class scrapbook for parents to see on conference day, and then for the school library.



Next week we'll be choreographing some downtown dancing worthy of the Ed Sullivan Show and a little bit of Gene Kelly with umbrellas. Now if only our dynamic dot dudes could really save downtown Dallas by resolving the convention hotel and Trinity River debates. Delivering a pizza would be nice, too.

© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

Blog of virtues

This Thanksgiving I'm grateful for the entertainment value of honesty. The students have been writing or dictating their gratitude lists:

I'm thankful for cookies without raisins.

I'm thankful for my bothers. (From a girl who lives for opportunities to pester her male siblings.)

I'm thankful for pizza.

Amen, and please pass the stuffing!




© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Superman's Supper

Sunshine, finally! Kids running, running on the playground, after a week of rain. Coats flapping behind them in the crisp wind, they chase each other with glee. They are Superman, they say. Out of the dull suit, hat, and specs. Out of the confining telephone booth. Blasting out to save the day.

Panting, they stop to gather playground pebbles, and carry them up to the play fort. They make little circle piles of pebbles.

"Is that kryptonite?," asks the bundled, shivering playground lady.

"No! It's pizza tonight."

Pizzatonite! Get me some of that fictional element. Kryptonite may be Superman's Achilles heel, but Pizzatonite is far more powerful to earthlings.




Mark Alfred explains:

As Superman tells us in 1959's "The Curse of Kryptonite" (Superman #130), "Kryptonite is my Achilles Heel -- the only substance in the universe that can harm me! It was originally formed years ago when the planet Krypton, the world on which I was born, blew up! A nuclear chain reaction converted every chunk of the exploding world into Green Kryptonite!"

Occupational Outlook Handbook

In high school I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up. I still don't, but that's a different story. My high school counselor, Mrs. North, gave me a pep talk about attending Bryn Mawr, and sent me home with a book of career choices the size of the Los Angeles white pages. Mrs. North thought I should become a medical illustrator. She didn't understand that I fainted whenever I had blood drawn. Let's just say my middle name is Queasy Louise. Drawing accurate colored pencil innards illustrations was not my destiny. Neither was Bryn Mawr. To this day, if someone says, "Bryn Mawr", I get a colored pencil mental diagram of the inside of the human eye, then get noodly in the knees.

My students are much more focused about their career plans. The three-and-a-half year-olds discuss their futures while munching on popcorn.

"I'm going to be a Pizza Girl," says the dark-haired girl.
"Well, I'm going to be an Alien," responds the red-headed boy.

Stay tuned for the 3D classic Pepperoni Original Crusts From Space after these messages from our sponsor. Instructions for making your own 3D glasses come from the U.S. Geological Survey Terra Kids web site.

Winning word for the week

Comanical is a preschooler word used to describe the giant mechanical rat and other animals in the automated Chuck E. Cheese pizza show. It perfectly captures the maniacal quality of the allegedly comic or child-friendly mechanical characters.

My first visit to a ShowBiz Pizza Place, the early name for a Chuck E. Cheese's, was before I had kids. My friend loved to take her two preschoolers there for lunch, and I was just along for the ride. What a terrific place! First you could overstimulate the kiddies on miniature carnival rides with flashing lights until they were queasy or crabby, then order some bad pizza and watery pop. Take your tray into the darkened Show Room where your shoes stuck to the carpet. Park the youngsters in their booster chairs just in time for a "show" of lifesize animatronics with a rockabilly bear and a nightmare-inducing cheerleader mouse. Take two Excedrin, bundle the kids into their snowsuits, and fasten them into their carseats. Pull out of the parking lot onto Dodge Street, and the chain-reaction barfing begins. The night terrors won't start for a couple nights.

Received a videocassette in the mail when my spouse's nephew was born. Ack. It was a video of his delivery! Thank you so much for sharing.

Received another videocassette a year later. A birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese's for a one year-old freaked out by the comanical rat, the blaring music, and an uncomfortably loaded diaper, and a large collection of aunts and uncles forced to eat bad pizza and Excedrin.

I used to worry about the part in the black and white televised Nutcracker ballet "where the mice come in". It wasn't as scary as the Oz flying monkeys, but very worrisome when I was a preschooler. I would have to really squint, or even leave the room, when the mice came in. The cheerleading Mitzi Mozzarella mechanical mouse was way scarier, and I was in my late twenties by then!

This is just to let my sons know that if they ever get married and procreate, I would prefer that they not celebrate special occasions at Chuck E. Cheese's. Let's just say this future grandma would rather watch a delivery room video while have dental work done in the downtown Greyhound bus terminal than ever see the comanicals again.

Consistency is all I ask. Immortality is all I seek.

This is a season for my favorite plays. A few weeks ago I saw "The Importance of Being Earnest" at the DTC. I knew the play inside and out, but I had never seen a professional performance.

Next weekend I'm going to see another favorite, "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead", by Tom Stoppard. It's a production of the Risk Theater Initiative. I've seen the movie with Tim Roth, Richard Dreyfuss, and Gary Oldman, but I've never seen Stoppard's play on stage. I claim an ownership in this play. Good grief! Thirty-one years ago my best high school pal and I did a readers' theater of a coin-flipping scene for our senior English class. Because our last names were Papenfuss and Mastalir we related to the interchangeability of the names Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Because we both had a love of words and writing, we savored Stoppard's wit and philosophical pondering. Because we were both frustrated with English class busy work assignments, we relished the chance to complete our project by performing a reading during class. Because we both had names too difficult to spell, we ordered our take-out pizzas from Valentinos under the name of J. Stewart, for Jackie the race car driver. Do not ask me about Milton, Spenser, or Chaucer! Those were the good old days of Billy Jean King, Chrissy Evert, and Martina, Bjorn, Ilie Nastase, McEnroe, and Connors. I doubt that life was really simpler in those olden days, but at least we didn't have tattoos and visible piercings.

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.

Meals on Wheels

Been digging out black and white photos of childhood in the GI Bill suburban tract housing of the late Fifties and early Sixties. I've gotten myself into a project writing neighborhood history items for the neighborhood association newsletter where I grew up. What a blast from the past it's been so far. I'm so busy driving up and down Memory Lane that I'm barely functioning in the here and now!

I'm still stunned to live in a culture that dines out so often. As a family we ate out about once or twice a month back in the Sixties. My dad sometimes ate at lunch counters near his office. Family birthdays were celebrated at a restaurant where the waitress delivered a cake with a burning sparkler, and Dorothy, the organist, played a medley of "Happy Birthday", and "How Much is That Doggy in the Window?" That was also the site for celebrating passing Red Cross Beginners swimming lessons.

Recovering from strep throat was celebrated at a drive-in where orders were sent from the counter to the kitchen by pneumatic tube. I thought that was soooo high tech! Forty years later I still need mustard and pickles to bring closure to a headcold.

Rare, spontaneous meals out were at the A&W Root Beer Drive-In with the roller-skating carhops. I have to tell you that anyone who can roller-skate with a tray of burgers and full, frosty mugs of root beer, and then give correct change with a chucka-chinka coin machine belt, is my epitome of skilled labor. The spectacle was a poor kid's version of Ice Capades.

Do you remember hamburger restaurants with a telephone in each vinyl-upholstered "space-age" booth so you could call in your order? Sometimes the booth also had juke-box playlist capability! Our town had a Kings restaurant hang-out for each of the local high schools. Visiting another school's Kings could lead to fights in the parking lot. Kings would be above-capacity after every high school football or basketball game, win or lose, with the girls in cheerleader and pep club uniforms, knee socks and saddle shoes, and everyone ordering cokes and onion rings. Just imagine having to call your dad on the payphone when it was time to be picked up, and talking over the sound of a couple hundred classmates. Cellphone users are wimps!

One of the Kings' specialties was a sandwich called the "Tuna Frenchee". Yes, it sounds kinky. Imagine a tuna sandwich with Velveeta and Miracle Whip on Wonder Bread. Dip it in batter and deep fry it. Bite into this crunchy/creamy sensory delight!

I'm not sure when our college town discovered pizza, but our family didn't get the concept until the late-Sixties. Tacos followed in the early-Seventies, along with Chinese food. Before then, my neighborhood considered ordering from Chicken Delight a form of domestic dereliction of duty. Scandalized people gasped when the radio played the jingle, "Don't cook tonight! Call Chicken Delight!", as if it was Janet Jackson's breast, not the chicken's.

This little reverie of hot grease was partly provoked by a sight on the way home from Steven's dermatologist appointment today. He will corroborate my story. We saw a man riding a bicycle with a wheelie office chair perched over the front basket and handle bars. Are you wheeling in the years? Having a french fry basket?

Diets for Pets

Overweight American couch potato pets have been much in the news this week. As with people diets, there are always conflicting opinions. Alas, I am sad to report that the Petsmart on the east side of town has opposing views to our westside Petsmart's zucchini diet for aquarium fish. There's going to be a rumble between the Jets and the Sharks over this, and my fishies are going to be terribly disappointed if I cut them off from zucchini cold turkey. They have been sooo happy with their veggie. Perhaps TOO happy! Maybe zucchini should be a controlled substance.

The soccer monsoons have begun. The first game was set for 8:30 tonight, but it's been pouring since noon. It's also the height of ragweed and cedar elm pollen season, and our ozone level is dangerous, no thanks to the previous governor of the Lone Star state. The sunrises are an intense red due to all the particulate matter in the air. It's a scene right out of Don DeLillo's "White Noise".

Struggling with national economic employment issues. Is it cruel to pizza delivery guys to expect them to drive here in this weather? Is it more cruel to deprive them of the tips that make it possible for them to put oil in their leaky old cars, buy a six-pack, and go to the laundromat?

Steven's car has a blown engine, and now has a salvage value of forty bucks. He used it to get to his job. His job helped him buy the '91 Geo and insure it so he could get to his job... Since I have that extra zucchini the fish can't have, maybe I should let Steven have it!