In-A-Gadda_Da-Vida igloo

discombobulate (v.) 

1834, American English, fanciful coinage of a type popular then (originally discombobricate). Related: discombobulating; discombobulation.

Wikipedia does not mention the dance in the gym of Millard Lefler Junior High with the mirrored disco ball.  A local band covered "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" while students threw chunks of cake donuts at each other under a strobe light.

Only Yinks drink pink ink. The preschoolers practiced winks and blinks, and washed up after at the sink.  Not my best art project, since the straws kept falling off the paper, but hey, a Yink's gotta drink.  Dr. Seuss's One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish is full of practical hints for learning how to read,  to manage wet pets or an ink surplus.  It helped my kiddies learn about "ink".

Teaching beginning letter sounds is very fun! It's a matter of finding illustrations and teeny-tiny objects for each letter sound that a young child might recognize.

In the line-up of difficult initial letter sounds for preschoolers we have:

• Xx--xray ... and box and fox when you are totally exasperated
• Qq--queen quilt quarter quartz
• Uu--uncle umpire ugly umbrella
• Nn--nickel nut necklace
• and Ii--ink igloo insects iguana

Elementary art students liked the Yink's hairdo.

In related news

My grandbaby has conjunctivitis so I am learning all about pink eye variations.

Dallas Morning News columnist Steve Blow bemoans the demise of winking without an emoticon.

This being January, I don't have a nickel and a quarter to rub together.  Not so different from many Americans. "Affordable health care" is basically an ice pack, bandaids, generic vitamins, and a bottle of soothing pink Pepto Bismal.

Thanks to a 365 Project photographer I discovered the possibility of building an igloo out of plastic milk jugs--428 of them.  For many years my walking buddy and I have pondered the best options for living in a  cardboard refrigerator box under a bridge.  We've planned to weatherproof the box with hot pink and leopard print duck tape.  Now we are rethinking our retirement housing options! 

© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

Sad underwing

Thank you, Judith Viorst, for your children's books. Alas, this very minute I can't put my hand on my copy of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.  It may be in Australia.

When I walked in the warm noon woods today I had to tell myself, "My mama says there aren't any zombies, ghosts, vampires, demons, monsters, fiends, gobins, or things.". It was just an itty-bitty bit scary because there were these big camouflaged moths with sad underwings flying out at me from the tree trunks along the trail.

How big? Nine centimeter wingspan, and hey, there were a whole lot of 'em! Five or six on some trees.Catocala maestosa is the Sad Underwing Moth (Hulst, 1884). Sad Underwear is Viorst's book of poems for children. It may also suggest it's time to clean out the top drawer of the dresser.

Hotter than a hub cap

Welcome to the red and blue world of sight-reading words. It's where I live, my den hut pup tent. Look, look, Dick, see Mom's cap.

My weekend was a pig mop pen sit.

Monday was a wet kid nap mat set.

I dream I can van map run hit road Jack.

Over a hundred degrees again today so it's a bug sun hot ant day.



hub and tab are 2 guys with hats and caps drinking from mugs, jugs, cups, kegs and taps.


Can Tab get a hit on his next at bat? Does Tab munch nuts? Does Tab chew gum in the dug-out?

Can Hub cook ham in a big pot?

The kids don't get hub, tab, or keg, but comprehend put hot dog in bun.

Tab is a diet soft drink.  Hub is a wheel cap, or an airline system or a communications center. A hub has spokes when you speak.

When red consonants and blue vowels work together, they make words.  You can't have one without the other.

Pop top pull tab cold can hot sun long day, oh my, what more to say?


© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

There was a WormMama who swallowed a fly

I've been fussing around trying to make a worm blog on WordPress just to learn a little bit about making a website with pages and categories. Silly me, I still haven't figured out the new version of Blogger with its options for multiple pages. For the moment my efforts are WormMama's Travelling Worm Show.  I've got another vermicomposting gig June seventh.

At this late date in the school year some of the five year old students are figuring out rhyming words! Because why? fly? guy? eye? spy?

Because why I am also reading about Buzz and Fly Guy. The kids like the one fly in Lucy Micklethwait's I Spy Two Eyes, but they LOVE Can You Make a Scary Face?, by Jan Thomas.

We don't want our fly on the guy. We want the fly off the guy, and in the air. It's a positive/negative puzzle. Paul Klee does not rhyme with knee or buy, but sounds like clay, and he's our art guy!

So just a sample of our project masterpieces:

© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

Resolution #3

You may wonder what happened to 2. It is in the comments to Resolution #1, and the bean soup is on the stove.

Resolution #3 is to sew some placemats that coordinate with  my new plates and the dining area "graph paper" wallpaper.  I am so excited to have a real set of turquoise Fiesta Ware.

"You must be a grown-up," said my longtime walking buddy.  "You have plates that match."  When she said it I knew she must be a friend.  She would probably sew a button on my overalls, just like Lisa did for Corduroy.

"I like you the way you are," she said "but you'll be more comfortable with your shoulder strap fastened." "You must be a friend," said Corduroy, "I've always wanted a friend." "Me too!" said Lisa, and she gave him a big hug.

I have a few cups and saucers in very old Fiesta Ware colors.  They won't commune with the new place-settings except for historic occasions.

Sending all of you a big New Year's hug. Wishing that everyone everywhere had nutritious food, clean water, adequate sewage disposal, and the opportunity to grow up and find sustaining work.  Is it so much to wish that every child born on Earth could be loved, read aloud to, and learn to read?




© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

At play with the English language

My boss asked, "Do you mind if I play some Christmas music?"

"As long as it isn't that rump a tum tum one," I answered, "or the twelve days."  That one always gives me flashbacks to Seventies t.v.

Long days with children who can't differentiate between pine cones, pineapples, and porcupines.  I slip off to my mental playground.

1 pear
Pair of pears
Parrot
Pair of parrots
Partridge Family

1 apple
Pineapple
Pine cones
Coneheads
Corn on the cob

Pair of mittens
Pair of peppers
Pail of peppers

Puppy
Puppy puppet
Sock puppet
Pair of socks
Pair of dogs
Prairie dog






Peacock
Peanut butter
Peanut butter and jelly


Pizza chef
[Pepperoni with mushrooms, black olives, and green pepper]

9 potatoes
Potato Head in bed



Porcupine
Bongo polar bears 
Poinsettia



Had to go forth to purchase pine cones, peppers, and pears for a photo shoot.  DFW is not a conifer-friendly metroplex, so pine cones don't just hang around waiting to be photographed.

Good grief, about a decade ago I ripped this funny illustration of Mr. Potato Head off to snoozeville out of a magazine.  Found the clipping while looking for something completely different, but it still makes me laugh.  Nothing on the page or reverse indicates the source.


© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Soup by committee

How many crockpots does it take to screw in a lightbulb?  We have three large crockpots pledged for the school "Thanksgiving feast".

After a lengthy discussion it was decided that both the Pilgrims and Indians would have multi-grain mini Club crackers to go with their soup and apple slices.  Those Pilgrims had it easy.  Kellogg's has ninety-seven kinds of crackers from which to choose.

Sometime after my eye muscle twitch became visible, the group decided to go with cheddar cheese cubes from Sam's Club instead of string cheese aka cheese sticks.  I would be thankful if I never opened another cheese stick for a preschooler to consume in disgusting dangling ways.

Edamame was chosen as the protein component of the soup several meetings back.  Corn and carrots were agreed upon last meeting, along with the veggie broth base.  Today we had a quorum to elect potatoes for thickening the soup. Garlic made the flavoring short list, but celery was voted out.  Peas, tomatoes, and onions were overruled on procedural grounds.

Baa bah humbug, have you any soup?  Yes, sir, yes, sir, three crockpots full. Pease porridge hot, pease porridge cold,  pease porridge in the pot nine days old.



© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Crackerdog and flop-bott

My hairdresser's son "collects malti-poos and doesn't want to have kids", she tells me.  Scary Hair Tammi doesn't know it has been a multi-poop week in the preschool class, and I'm unsure why anyone has kids at this point.  I keep a straight face.  She is just informing me the little girl asleep in the lobby is not her grandchild.

My art students have been creating dog art since the beginning of the fall semester.  Our grand collaboration on a Go, Dog. Go! mural was the culmination timed for Thursday's Open House Night.  I encouraged students to bring photos of their dogs to create a border around the mural. We were just starting the border in this photo, but soon memorial photos started coming in faster than photos of stoic pets dressed in doll clothes and Mardi Gras beads.

When we started the mural I didn't know my dad would be trying to climb the ladder to a big dog party in his states of considerable agitation all week.    I didn't know a blogger friend would be letting go of her family pet.  Adding to the emotion, a preschooler's dog died last weekend.

I just wanted us to find good links between quality picture books, making art, and talking about art.  Interest, integration, imagination, invention... all those great i words for connecting art and stories. Now we were also processing early encounters with mortality, using art to record and commemorate.  Where did those dogs go?  Why were they going fast in those cars?  Why does P. D. Eastman's book help me in this time of stress and sadness as much as James Herriot's All Things Great and Small?

We had a lively discussion about George Rodrique's "Blue Dog" paintings in all the groups.  One of the questions is always, "How do you think Blue Dog is feeling?"  Blue Dog is often stressed but immobile, anxious and stuck.

In James Herriot's dog stories, the young vet is often torn about lecturing Mrs. Pumphrey on the hazards of overfeeding her Pekingese dog. Tricki Woo has a condition called "flop- bott", also known as impacted bowels, and experiences episodes of "crackerdog", zooming around like to a preschooler on a Coco-Puffs rush.




In the workplace stress department, we had a big flop-bott over whether to serve little paper cups of crackers and green grapes at Open House. Those dogs are not going to get cracker-grapes.

 © 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Ninth grade English class

On the centennial birthday of Bel Kaufmann, author of Up the Down Staircase, I've beamed down into ninth grade, 1969-1970, Millard Lefler Jr. High, land of the dread One Way Hall.

This is not the semester Beverly Renee Blume (nee Austin) with the pink Coke-bottle thick glasses was my English teacher.  It must be the semester she was my journalism instructor instead.  Sniffing blue stencil correction fluid left my memories a bit warped.  In Miss Bev's English class we read The Odyssey, The Iliad, or maybe both on that wine dark sea.  Miss Austin took time off from teaching to get married to an army officer on his leave from Viet Nam and have a short honeymoon.  Her most memorable lesson is the importance of considering initials when naming our future infants, as a monogram was unfortunate no matter how curly the script: 

BRA

Instead, it is the semester I had a young spitfire English teacher named Deb Wightman first thing in the morning in the dreary dust mote-filled spare room between the Typing and Art classrooms, far from the drinking fountain, but close to the back stairs down toward the gym and the lunchroom. Miss Wightman (or maybe Miss Whiteman) had peculiar dry breakable straw blond hair in a flip, and one navy blue suit. She was part-time. She weighed about 105 pounds, wore pointy toe flats, and sat ON the desk at the front of the room!

A surprising number of secondary students get through school now without actually reading any books. Miss Wightman soon became Mrs. Ens, and was assigned to classes for reluctant readers, full-time. But that one semester Miss Wightman introduced us to Poe with "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Cask of Amontillado", and we took turns reading aloud. Then we studied The Pushcart War, The Mouse that Roared, Animal Farm, and 1984. To end the semester, we read Up the Down Staircase. She is my Bel Kaufmann nominee of excellence in English teaching in those early teen years.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Flat on our backs singing

"Bring your umbrella", my opera buddy commanded.  The weather was supposed to get wild mid-afternoon.  No way could I take that big maroon and white Plano Panther cross country mom umbrella to the Winspear Opera House.  Dug around in the hall closet just in case wishing could make a smaller umbrella appear.  Lo and behold, there was a mid-size umbrella in a black sleeve.  Tickets, binocs, snacks, umbrella, and I was off to experience Verdi's Rigoletto for the first time.

What an experience it was!  James Valenti was quite as fine as the lusting Duke as he was in '09's La Boheme, but we would prefer he not wax his chest hair.  Paolo Gavanelli was powerful as the hunchback jester.  Laura Claycomb brought tears to our eyes as Rigoletto's innocent daughter Gilda.  She stunned the entire audience with her performance of "Caro nome" sung while flat on her back.  It's about 4:56 into this video. 

This feat surpasses the performance by the early literacy presenter at Saturday's training session.  She was able to sing "Little Seed" to the tune of "I'm a Little Teapot" and then to the tune of the Beverly Hillbillies theme song back-to-back:

Here's a little seed in the dark, dark ground.

Out comes the warm sun, yellow and round.

Down comes the rain, wet and slow.

Up comes the little seed,

Grow, grow, grow!

I cannot sing lying on my back, not even to the tune of "I'm a little teapot".  Not in the thunderstorm waves of lightning and rain beginning about 1:30 this morning.  [And not in a boat or with a goat.]  Sure, I'm stiff and creaky, but mostly I was being still, soaking up the sounds, and being grateful for the rainfall.  So glad I didn't have to open Dad's freebie Munsingwear umbrella in the elite opera crowd. 

Had my bone density scan after work.  It was nice to be still, just lying there letting the machine collect evidence to present to my doctor.  Her lectures about blood pressure, weight, and osteoporosis are still a few weeks off.

Dad is flat in bed when I get to his room, but he wants to get up.  The hospice nurse left me a message that Dad was up and self-propelled in his wheelchair much of today.  Seems he was a bit sad, "not feeling like" himself.  At two he was ready to get in bed, but after a nap he's ready for action.  This is such a treat!

The aide who changed Dad from clothes to hospital gown for his nap does not want to get him back up.  Dad is adamant, so I change him back into clothes myself.  We insist on the help of the aide to put Dad in his wheelchair, and then we
go outside!

For ten minutes Dad is energized in the fenced courtyard, watching traffic on Park Boulevard, bombing around in the wheelchair smashing into the sidewalk edging,  and looking at the rose bushes.  The wind gives him an open milkweed pod look.  Suddenly Dad is too chilly.  We head back inside for his supper.  I mark the calendar for Dad's first time outdoors in Texas.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

PLEZ CNOKE IF AN RNSR IS NOT REQID.

A friend gave me a bottle of homebrew porter, a beer, along with these instructions:

If you want to drink @ room temp. be careful upon opening so you don't lose any.

Alas, I was too busy wondering about porter and trespassers w to be properly careful.  After I cleaned up the little mess, I found the porter to taste sort of like A and W Root Beer.  This reminded me of the time Judy Anderson brought root beer lifesavers for Blue Bird treats when we went on a field trip to Lincoln General Hospital in second grade, except that they weren't really Lifesavers, but some different brand, but we each got a whole roll to eat in the station wagon.  And before I could say "trespassers w" the porter was consumed without making much impression on my tastebuds.

I can remember useless information about Blue Bird meetings better than I can remember my own name sometimes.  I grew up under the name of Porter.  The door knocker on our blue front door had P O R T E R engraved on it.  We were the only family in the neighborhood with a door knocker, a point of some pride.  The Porter family was the original owner of the house.  Although, of course, a bank owned the house and the Porters just lived there.  Much as I argued for having a new knocker with our name engraved on it, my parents just left us living under the name of Porter.  Since my family owned the house for fifty-two years, I still believe a new door knocker could have been justified.

 My sister painted this picture.  See the gold door knocker?

It is Owl who has the door knocker* in the 100 Aker Wood, but Piglet who lives under the name Trespassers w.  This is useful information, so I had to look it up, along with the not-Lifesavers root beer candy which was made by Reed's.



Without crossword puzzles, I would remember nothing about beer, other than to pick some up after a rough day at work.  The crossword spaces are usually for three, five, or seven letters:

ale
lager
stout
pilsner 

As a non-native Texan, I know Shiner Bock.  Now with porter, I'm set for four and six letter beer clues.

*  Owl also has a bell-pull that is really Eeyore's tail, so PLES RING IF AN RNSER IS REQUIRD.  I saw Eeyore, the tailless squirrel, down by the creek twice during our ice storm.  My Eeyore father is a little happier today, and I should probably take him some root beer.
© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Yowling and howling

Day two of our Inclement Weather School Closing, so I knew I could sleep as late as I wanted.  Instead I woke before seven to a horrible howling.  Not the wind like yesterday.  Wolves?  Unlikely, as this isn't a Laura Ingalls Wilder book.  Not even Jack the brindle bulldog alerting me my elderly neighbor had fallen and could not get up. 

What was that horrible sound?  Tires unable to get traction on ice.  Somewhere a driver was seriously stuck.  By the time my way-back prairie memory kicked in, I was wide awake and needed coffee.  That's when the power went out.  Please don't make me twist cornstalks together for fuel like in The Long Winter.  Two days is a long enough winter for me, and my hands are already chapped.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

"It's gonna be okay, maam," the kind officer said.

O-o-o-ostrich.  O-o-o-onomatopoeia.  O-o-o-o-otter.  Olive!  O-o-o-omelet.  O-o-o-orange.  O-o-o-occupant.  O-o-o-o-o-o-Osterizer.  Octagon!  Opera.....

"Don't worry, folks, she's not choking.  She's not off her rocker.  She's a preschool teacher," said the officer.  "Step back everybody, give her some room.  Make way! Clear a path! Short vowels coming through!"

"The phonetimedics are here, ma'am.  We're gonna start you on an IV drip of initial letter sounds right away.  Get you some oxygen, too."

Thank heaven the emergency phonetimedics made it through the snow and ice.  I survived to live another snow day.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Relaxing in a _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Friday's preschool napper storytime group gave me a good reminder for mental health.  I pass it on to you hangman style.

The kids all knew where the green dog was in Go, Dog, Go, but only one had an idea about the yellow dog.  That dog is reading in a panic.  Been there too much lately.  It's time for a mental health break.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

In This Style 10/6

Oh, Lordy, what's our Howie been smoking with that caterpillar?  When I approach Dad down the long hall, he tells me I am taller than I think.  "She," he says," is six two and five eighths.  And you are even taller."  Yikes.  I'm Tall Alice.  My high school health teacher warned us about flashbacks!

I enticed Dad to nibble a bit on a personal pan slice from Pizza Hut.  He tells me again I am six two and five eighths.  He's tall, also, he says.  I input that he always used to be five ten or so.  Nope, now he is "nine six". 

I'm glad Dad wants to be out wheeling down the hall toward the dining room.  I walk behind and give occasional course corrections to his tacks.  It must be hard to steer when one is suddenly so much higher in the clouds.

When we get to the dining room Dad settles in, staring at the aquarium without seeing, hearing the monotones of the blind lady without getting stressed, listening to the cd of big band hits played by some woman at a chicken restaurant organ.  I can almost, but not quite, latch onto a lyric here or there.

"The first evening I was here," Dad says, "they brought me a big glass of cranberry juice with ice.  Now that was living!"  Is this real?  Is this tea time in Wonderland?  Dad's nurse tells me it is okay to get him some cranberry juice.  His aide tells me that must have been the evening he hit her.  Geez.  Off with his head.  Dad schlurps cranberry juice through the straw like a man possessed, momentarily clear-headed, satisfied, and hydrated. 

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

My Two Eeyores

My dad is not very how.  He doesn't seem to have felt at all how for a long time.  Although he gets some stimulation from backing his wheelchair into the wall, he is not a happy animal. 

Today Dad says he feels "weird" and "goofy" and that he doesn't know what he is doing.  I tell him the doctor is trying a new medication, and that might be the reason for his weirdness.  I don't want to argue about whether or not Dad needs an antidepressant/appetite stimulant.  Dad does grin when I tell him the facility will probably bill me for the damage he is doing when he smashes into the wall.

I'd like to nail a tail on the back of Dad's wheelchair so he would feel more like cavorting, or popping wheelies.  In fact, I saw a lovely orange-brown tail in the parking lot of the condos just the other day.  When I got home from my visit with Dad and a side trip for groceries I met the rightful owner of that tail.  Hauling the bags out of the car trunk, I caught sight of a little orange person standing straight up with his hand on his hip glaring at me.  Slowly my brain did the "what's wrong with this picture?"  That tiny orange person was a squirrel with no tail, and not much fear either.

Eeyore seemed to be enjoying tailless life, and had a good appetite as I got close enough for a photo.  When he finally fled, he hopped like a rabbit.  I'll be keeping my eye out for Eeyore in my hundred acre wood.












© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Bedside book chat

The stack by the alarm clock grows alarmingly.  My Kindle is loaded.  Roadtrips with audio books should be fewer in 2011 now that my dad is nearby. 

Wait!  I Have a Blog tells of all the books Kathleen and her bookshop customers are reading and why.  I feel like a literacy slug.  Sure, I read lots of book reviews in Library Journal and ALA Booklist at one job.  I try to read Medicare handbooks for my unofficial job.  I read children's books aloud five days a week, reminding me of the power of that experience for all participants. 

Maybe I need to read aloud to Dad.  He is bored.  His eyes can't track print across a page now, so he can't read.  He is tired of all television, even sports.  He never had any patience with fiction.  He can't hear very well.  I'll sleep on this idea.  If I ask him what he'd like to hear, he will say "nothing".  I will have to just begin.



What do I read, and why?  I read Clive Cussler, Dwell magazine, and the NY Times on airplanes.  Why?  Because that's what I was reading when I realized I wasn't nervous about flying anymore.  Same reason I always drink tomato juice or Bloody Mary mix during the on-flight beverage service, too.  Silly, but still.


Organized by Danger Baby's fiance and Speech-Debate's wife, my sons and their loving ones, gave me a Kindle last spring.  I like it, and will use it even more with my new Mighty Bright MiniFlex LED eReader Light.  Read on Kindle in '10:

• Following the Water:  A Hydromancer's Notebook--Why?  Because the Woolly Mammoth's girlfriend knows I like nature writing.
• The Poisonwood Bible--because I always planned to, but never got around to it.
• Moby Dick--because my curiosity was piqued by the Dallas Opera's premiere of a Moby Dick opera.
• Elmore Leonard's Djibouti--because I don't want Leonard to go off and die like Donald Westlake and George MacDonald Fraser.  That boy can write dialogue.  A great for-no-reason gift from Danger Baby.
• King Solomon's Mines, by H. Rider Haggard-- because it was free, plus Amelia Peabody, Indiana Jones, and Howard Carter are some of my favorite people.

What's loaded into the Kindle for '11? 

• Last Call, by Daniel Okrent
• The Alexiad, by Anna Comnena--gifts from Speech-Debate and his wife.
• The Count of Monte Cristo
• Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
• The Prisoner of Zenda--Freebies for filling in the gaps in my education.
• Anna Karenina--because of the hedgehog.

The last two books I read were Nora Ephron's I Remember Nothing from my sister, and The Hare With Amber Eyes, by Edmund de Waal, from the library.  The first was lightweight name-dropping, and not as funny as hoped.  The second was slow-going and worth every minute in gaining a new understanding of art history, Europe in the 20th Century, anti-Semitism, attention to detail, and memoir-writing.  Highly recommended.

This is the year I will read:

• King Lear--because of elderly fathers and daughters and Stephanie Kallos at work on Novel #3
• New World Kids: The Parents' Guide to Creative Thinking, by Susan Marcus and Susie Monday--Why?  We've got to change the way we teach because children are increasingly low-initiative and low-empathy, even as they over-stimulated and over-scheduled.  And because Mr. and Mrs. Danger Baby gave me an Amazon gift card.
• Sightings, by Sam Keen--spiritual discovery through bird-watching found on the donation shelf at the library!
• More cookbooks and books about cookbooks.  Arto der Haroutunian's classic Vegetarian Dishes from Across the Middle East spent months on my kitchen table inspiring my meals with new flavor combinations.  Cooking for one can be very dull without fresh inspirations.  Field guides to birds, insects, trees, butterflies, and geology will continue to linger on several desks.

Memorable fiction held in my hands in 2010:

• One Amazing Thing, by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
• People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks
• The Given Day, by Dennis Lehane
• Mink River, by Brian Doyle
• The Last Dickens, by Matthew Pearl

Fascinating audio books in 2010:

• Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery--because Steph knew I would enjoy it! 
• Lacuna, by Barbara Kingsolver--Some parts more interesting than others. 
• Homer and Langley, by E. L. Doctorow--Intriguing while I cleaned out my father's house.  How do you spell "hoarding"?
• Shadow Divers, by Robert Kurson--Suggested by Esther at the library, I found myself driving down the highway breathing along with the scuba tank regulators.  Check it out for your next trip.

© 2010 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

"Stopping By Woods" drawings

 

After one reading of this book of Robert Frost's classic poem as illustrated by Susan Jeffers, the kindergarten students made these drawings on their own: 

 

The kids were waiting for their turn to do styrofoam printmaking at the "teacher table".  The teacher can claim no credit for their creations.

 

Jeffers' illustrations obviously pulled the children into a snowy world of woods and animals. 



This is Texas. The kids have little personal experience with snow, although last winter was snowier than usual.



This is all the snow I need until after New Year's.  I'll be driving down here from Nebraska, bringing my dad all bundled in buffalo robes.  We will look for that hollow tree with five owl holes!

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder