Night and day comma

You are the one dash...Dad has disturbed sleep issues with reversed night and day to go with his dementia.  At 12:45 p.m. he called to check in with me before he went to bed.  I talked him into believing that he just ate lunch, and it would be many hours before bedtime. 

While Dad is generally confused about days, dates, and time, this is the worst his sleep disturbance has been since his hip break in 2007.  During the five days and nights I spent in his hospital room, Dad went way past fruitcake in nuttiness.  He was awake most of the nights either trying to rip out his IVs or chatting with the night aides about favorite ice cream flavors. 

Finally the lowest paid peon on the hospital totem pole switched Dad's tv to a night and day cable channel.  All night it showed constellations and phases of the moon.  All day it ran photos of horses frolicking in sunny pastures.  Amen!  Dad got his circadian rhythms realigned.  Dad needs that tv channel again to get reset. 

Dad may need a dose of Allan Sherman's "Night and Day with Punctuation Marks".  I do.  Just hoping it won't take more pharmaceuticals to get Dad back on track with the sundial.

Night and day, comma.


You are the one, dash.


Only to you comma beneath the moon comma and under the sun.


Semicolon.


Whether near to me or far, dot dot dot,


It's no matter comma darling comma where you are, dash.


I think of you, comma.


Night and day, period. New paragraph.


© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

August Sasse excerpt #1

From the handwritten biography of my great great grandfather:

July 25th 1873. ---- Now we went to work with a good free will; digging a well, putting up a shed for the teams, breaking a little of the prairie sod, and put in a few acre of Corn, and the rest of the Time, I used the Armstrong machine; and put up as much prairie hay as possible. -- Of course our harvest didn't amount to much; for we planted so little -- but the pesky Grasshoppers came along, anyhow: -- and looked over the location; so as to be able to find it The following year:" -- -- --The next year, we broke out about 15 acres aond would have had a nice bit of Corn; but The hoppers Came and saved me The trouble of husking it: --- --- --- --- Then came the Year 1875, and with it our Son Adolph, on April 21st. -- -- -- Now we had on hand five hungry little ones -- a part of our happy lives!! --- --- --- --- but they had to be fed, and Clothed; and The measly hoppers Took every Thing, That we Expected to harvest:!! So There were many heartaches, of what to do in The future!!!" We kept on a planting and sowing; but even The Year 1876; our entire Crops were destroyed, when we almost had a big Corn Crop in our reach ---- at times we were much discouraged; but yet we held on and struggled for our little Band:" -- -- -- -- The Year 1877. was a blessed one for all of us, besides an abundant Corn and Wheat Crop;; we harvested a bouncing Baby girl, for on May 2nd our Cathariene was born; -- to help us, to chase the hoppers -- -- but she came too late; for The Bugs must have got scared, and They never bothered us afterwards! --- --- ---From now on, Time passed somewhat easier for The Children grew up like Sunflowers, and were soon able to help a little here and There:


© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Excavation mark!

Eureka! I've dug and sorted down to the surface of my art table! I'm so excited, I'm punctuating with what my little students call "excavation marks".

The haystacks and landslides of collage materials had reached the point where creative work at the table was impossible. I'm intrigued by the ratios of structure and chaos needed to promote learning and creativity. That's one reason I chose to work as a Montessori class assistant this year.

My theory so far is that learning happens best in an uncluttered, structured situation free of emotional stress. We master stringing beads. We match the colored nuts and bolts. We listen to the stories while we sit in the safety of a parent's lap.

Imagination, pretend play, and creativity require somewhat more flexibility, I think. They need the freedom to pull materials from more than one drawer. Building a Braums ice cream store may require using the wooden blocks, the Hot Wheels cars, AND the play dishes.

Art uses learning's structure and imagination's flexibility. Art adds in the analytic process to observe and compose. It requires an uncluttered mind for this analysis. It demands the discipline to master materials to depict, represent, and communicate the observed, analyzed, and composed material. At the artist's best moments, it feels like pure, uncluttered child's play flowing out onto the page.

Just like child's play, the excitement of creation may leave one too tired to clean up the mess. And so, the mess has been blocking artistic play. When I can't make art, I get depressed. Too depressed to tackle the mess. It's an ugly pit to be in, and so I share my progress with the excavation.

Archimedes is supposed to have exclaimed,"Eureka! I've found it!," when he suddenly understood buoyancy in the bathtub back in ancient Greece, as we East High Spartans learned years ago. I exclaimed the same in Target when I found the Sterlite stacking 12 x 12 inch three-drawer units for $2.48!

© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Hot Collage Gals

Misspellers* around the globe search for explicit photos of university coeds and stumble onto this blog. That's the problem with Boolean keyword search engines. Even during nineteen straight days of temps over one hundred degrees (Fahrenheit not Celsius), there's a world of difference in this big old Lone Star State of Texas between UT Longhorn sand volleyball bikini babes, and hot-flashing middle-aged Collin County mixed-media artists with three grown sons.

Four skills never go out of style:

1. Spelling
2. Keyboarding, or, as we warm gals call it, typing
3. Proofreading, or attention to detail
4. Punctuation (meaning cannot exist without form)

You can't depend on Spell Czech. Those Prague Mamas are probably hot, too. The Kingdom of Bohemia may be one of those European countries lacking in ice cubes, but I can't research that right now. My main concern is the age at which a woman crosses the line from girl to gal.

Wikipedia doesn't consider age connotations of female synonyms:

The word girl has many synonyms, including "belle", "chick", "doll", "gal", "lass" or "lassie", "maiden", and "miss". The slang word "gal", as in "Buffalo gals won't you come out tonight", is a variant pronunciation of girl.

In my search for enlightenment, I slogged through a mucky slough of academic jargon before finding a flicker of clarity:

In all University settings, members of the University community should:

1. Use gender equivalent construction. Equivalent or parallel construction should be used for males and females. Thus, if males are referred to as “men,” females should be referred to as “women,” not as “girls” or “ladies.”

2. Use alternatives to the masculine singular pronoun for generic singular. The masculine singular pronoun traditionally has been used as the generic singular. Such usage fails to acknowledge the participation of women in human activity unless they are specifically identified. Alternatives to the use of “he,” “him,” and “his” for the generic singular are he/she, she/he, her/him, him/her, hers/his, his/hers or one’s. Some individuals may prefer to alternate the use of the male and female singular pronoun to indicate generic singular. While some alternatives may seem awkward when they are first used, they become comfortable with usage and will, as any other language construction, become second nature in time. It is this natural incorporation of women into language on an equal basis with men that is the purpose of non-sexist language usage. [I don't have the slightest idea what this means, but it sounds kinkier** than the title of this post!]....

...6. Exhibit non-patronizing, non-condescending ways of describing and addressing women, particularly women in traditional occupations, e.g., secretaries, clerks, nurses. Both men and women should be sensitized to the negative effects which result from usage of terms such as “girl,” “gal,” “coed,”, “girl Friday,” the “girls in the office,” and the like.

I'm happy to report my discovery of Ruth Walker's "Words On the Move" column in the Christian Science Monitor***. I'll be checking in often for my language usage fix:

There are plenty of colloquialisms for "female person": They start with terms like "chick" and go on through terms you aren't going to read in this space. What they have in common is that they define women as "the other," in a way that terms like "guy" or "bloke" do not define men. When Simone de Beauvoir called her book about women "The Second Sex," people knew what she meant.

There's "gal," which isn't to everyone's taste. The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as a "vulgar or dial. pronunciation of 'girl.'" (The Compact Oxford is somewhat more forgiving, defining it as an informal, chiefly North American term for "girl or young woman." In practice, "gal" has a rather flexible upward age limit; see "Golden Girls," above.) "Gal Friday," or " girl Friday," has worked its way into the language as a takeoff on "Man Friday," itself a phrase of dubious political correctness. Nowadays "his girl Friday" may well be the executive vice president for strategy and human resources. But why was it ever OK for the counterpart of "man" to be "gal," anyway?

*Yes, I checked two dictionaries on this one! Gals, your dictionary is your friend in a way that the masculine singular pronoun for generic singular never could be. Now excuse me. I have a volleyball game at seven.

**This blog has no opinion at the moment on the independent candidacy of Kinky Friedman for governor of Texas. I've read some of his books, but didn't think them as funny as he did. By the way, that's what my dad says about the guys on Car Talk.

***Some other day we will ponder the resemblance between 2004 Inductee Baseball Hall of Famer Paul Molitor, one of my favorite players, and monitor lizards, who swallow their prey whole.

A Midsummer Afternoon's Nap

Fell asleep on the sofa after a late lunch. A nap is such a treat, but I always wake up from one all discombobulated. I gradually realized that my memory was singing "Night and Day With Punctuation Marks," a song from an Allan Sherman LP I bought in about 1966. Some voice within me kept repeating you comma you comma you*. Actually, it wasn't a voice. It was more of a beat comma beat comma beat. Wait. I was getting clearer. It was a ham hyphen ham hyphen hammering. My new neighbor in the condo to the south was hanging pictures. I sat up slowly. My torment wasn't through. My other new neighbor in the condo to the north has a young relative here doing a little hammering comma too. I don't know about you comma you comma you but I'm glad they don't do this at night exclamation point.

*Like the beat comma beat comma beat of the tom hyphen tom,
When the jungle shadows fall.
Like the tick hyphen tick hyphen tock of the stately clock,
As it stands against the wall.
Like the drip comma drip comma drip of the raindrops,
When the summer shower is through.
Some voice within me keeps repeating
Colon, quotation mark.
You comma you comma you, exclamation point.
Close quotation, period, dash.

Night and day, comma.
You are the one, dash.
Only to you comma beneath the moon comma and under the sun.
Semicolon.
Whether near to me or far, dot dot dot,
It's no matter comma darling comma where you are, dash.
I think of you, comma.
Night and day, period. New paragraph.
Night and day, exclamation point.
Under the height of me. Dash.
There's an oh such a hungry yearning comma
Burning parenthesis inside of me.
Closed parenthesis, period.
(Well, "inside of me" is a parenthetical phrase that describes where the yearning is burning.)
And torment won't be through
Until you let me spend my life making love to you. Asterisk!
('Cause there's a footnote at the bottom that tells who's making love to who.)
Spend my life making love to you.
Day and night?
Night and day, question mark.
Night and day.