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

Recommendations needed?

Ask me what book to take to the beach.  Ummm?  A history of con artists?  A family memoir of assimilated Jews in Berlin mixed in with North Carolina potters? The overwhelming world of garbage or the pretty strange lives of math prodigies? I'm just not your source for sunburned chick lit. Not good with fiction fluff either, but I did read all about Feathers last year.


When did we start asking others to make our choices? Are the stakes really too high to just pull a book off the shelf based on the spine design and the amount of dust on the edges? Do we really need expert advice about such minor matters? Do we need a concierge to tell us whether to go with the hash-browns or the sweet potato fries?

And when we get expert advice, do we pay attention? When children started demanding white owls for pets because of Harry Potter, the experts said "not a good idea".  Parents obtained owls anyway!

Duh. Owls are nocturnal, need a lot of space, have sharp beaks and  talons meant to tear flesh and bite through bone. Owls don't want to be cuddled, and cough up pellets of mouse bones and hair. So now who can those parents blame?

Wander the dimly lit stacks.  Smell the worn bindings and disintegrating paper. Read reviews if you must. Sniff out your own reading material and just let the librarian stamp the date due. If you don't like the book by page twenty-five, return it. In the big scheme of things this is not a major deal!

Lean green scene

Monday's strange hike got lost in the drama of Tuesday's weather.  Wednesday's Buick is fully loaded, but not with accessories.  We just don't have room in our small school to store the various sections of the spring music festival backdrop as they are completed, so the new car's trunk and backseat have become a dramatis mobilis storage vehiculosis.  Yes, a very bad case of the aforesaid!



This is a very green scene.  The goal is a leafy forest feel without any free-standing pieces for the kids to trip over or knock down.  The stage will be very full of children and Orff instruments.

The scene is being set without spending much green.  So far the costs have been limited to one jar of green fingerpaint, one roll of wax paper, and one roll of strange lime green netting from World Market.  The netting was in the gift wrap department.  Total under twelve bucks.

Other material include a bushel of toilet paper tubes, fabric from two donated Indian saris, mesh-cut corrugated packing materials, donated prints and papers, used tissue gift paper, leftover wire, and some burlap found in a closet.  How is that, Mother Earth?




© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

The hero or the goat

You blog long enough and you eventually write about goats.  Yesterday on a whim I pinned my mother's silver goat pin on my shirt, just thinking the preschoolers might like it.  Plus, teaching preschool is a whole lot like herding goats or cats or turtles on a rainy Monday.

The children were entirely too busy smearing snozz on every surface to notice my goat pin.  By naptime I was sooo glad to sit in the dark room and listen to the gurgles and snurgles of wee noses accompanied by one of our favorite/effective nap cds.  Gather Round is a Starbucks recording that includes Willie Nelson singing "I'm My Own Grandpa".  Trying to sort out the family relations in this song always makes my brain drowsy.

Speaking of family relations, I am still trying to make the decision to move my dad into a double room.  "Good grief! How did I ever get into this?"  I ask this question every time I have to deal with Dad's finances, feeling like Charlie Brown standing out on the pitching mound in the downpour.  Will I be the hero or the goat?  I'd be glad just to not be the troll under the bridge.


But back to goats, I've temporarily lost my copy of Gregory the Terrible Eater.  Gregory is an average goat except he doesn't like to eat tin cans.  Gregory would be a model recycler.  He could even advise the condo complex residents about proper recycling practices.

Spell Check has been giving me grief about my spelling of "advisor".  My eldest son has been a college adviser/advisor for several years, and he explains that institutions of higher learning make their own spelling rules for this matter.  My Big Red Dictionary reminds me that advice is a noun and advise is a verb.  Good grief!  It seems to be a vulgar transitory desiderative with past participles:

Go placidly amid the noise and haste and remember these items should not be placed in your condo recycling carts:

• paint cans
• rubber welcome mats
• greasy Kentucky Fried Chicken leftovers.  Ewwww!
• Styrofoam cups, egg cartons, and packing "peanuts"
• dirty furnace filters
• moldy, disintegrating carpet padding
• ugly chandeliers
• pet poop
• light bulbs
• curtain rods
• documents that included credit card and Social Security numbers.  Oops!
• clothes and toys
• wire hangers
• dead houseplants
• bamboo wind chimes
• hundred dollar bills

Let the goat eat them instead.  (And that goat is a classic Provensen illustration for The Color Kittens. It convinced me for a dozen years of childhood that goats really ate tin cans and ONLY tin cans.)

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

My what big i

The Occupy Alphabet owl protesters have made their point. Now it is time for them to move on and work within the system.

These hand puppets were a happy accident preschool art class project.  If you haven't drawn across corrugated cardboard with a Magic Marker lately, you owe yourself some sensory fun.

My blog muse donated a craft pack of corrugated cardboard and a how-to book with a basic puppet plan.  Never thought of cutting places for the little kids' thumbs, but I can see clearly now how that improves the design.

Already had a roll of wide wale corrugated paper.  Also the bag of tiny paper cups that fell on the floor months ago.  Too dirty for drinking, but too good to throw away, the cups became "art supplies".  The playing cards for wings just happened to be in the same bag with the cups. Beaks are Styrofoam grocery trays, but of course!  The great horns for the owls should have been shorter strips of paper, but they add to the owl personalities.

Blackland Prairie Raptor Center will present a program with birds of prey tomorrow.  That's always a highlight of my school year.  Glad the owl art helped the little kids get psyched.

Last evening I attended the condo homeowners  annual board election.  Whoooo was elected?  Thankfully, not me.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Ghostwriters in the sky

Having achieved a measure of success with my No More Beets campaign, I'm wondering if a similar approach might work to reach the condo recycling offenders.  I seriously don't want to have to walk door-to-door around the complex delivering my spiel about recycling as I did in 2005 when we started the program.  


There's nothing in the condominium covenants that requires residents to be whacko.  I've read it over with a magnifying glass.  Still, many are, and the possibility has been suggested that the complex was built on an ancient burial ground offending the spirits of the deceased.  Many residents don't seem to distinguish between true garbage, recyclables, and Salvation Army donations.  


I would not could not on a train or on a boat or in the rain dumpster dive. I do so do so feel a responsibility to the City of Plano to have our eleven carts filled with actual uncontaminated recyclable materials every Thursday morning.  Lately, my whacko neighbors have been putting way too many furnace filters, welcome mats, rotting carpet, chicken bones, Atkins diet chocolate shake boxes, denim jeans, and ugly lighting fixtures in the recycling carts.  Plus several bushels of family photos with scary Sixties hairdos in Kresge's frames.  


The Kresge's store at Gateway Mall predated the dollar stores of today, and smelled better.  It had a popcorn machine, a photo booth, flat-fold fabrics, parakeets, Halloween costumes and Valentine cards, toys in the right price range for most birthday parties, and document frames for your diplomas and ninth grade photos.


Still obsessing about my mismatched ankles, I am peering at photos for heredity hints.  On the left is my Aunt Shirley, the only woman I knew with painted toenails in my childhood.  Next to her, is my mom, looking an awful lot like me forty-five years later, but with symmetrical ankles. Yikes, myself in the fall of '69.  Then a bizarre, slightly tipsy-looking photo of that Christmas Day just minutes before I El-Kabonged my little brother over the head with the plastic guitar. My mom has bubble hair, but still nice ankles.  My grandmother had terrific ankles into her late eighties, although they were hidden under mauve doubleknit polyester pantsuits.


The chef at Dad's place is my new best friend.  He is working with the dietitian and the hospice nurse to provide Dad meals that are easy to swallow and easy to self-feed.  Some meals Dad is anxious to feed himself.  Other meals definitely not.  Dad's faculties have become crosswired.  He tries to feed himself with both hands at the same time.


Yippy I ay.  Yippy I Oh.  Don't even think about putting that stuff in the recycling cart!




© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Tilting at paper wasp nests

Dad grinned. He was clear-eyed and engaged in my tales.  When I said I was so glad he was in a better frame of mind, he slowly got out, "I am in a better frame."

He was grinning at my Pancho Sanchez role in a playground quest to remove wasp nests from the roof above the sandbox.  My boss loves all nature to the extent that she practices catch and release with wasps.

She loves nature so much she collects the Sunsweet Ones cannisters from her elderly mother and other residents at the independent living center for the express purpose of catching and removing wasps from the school playground with the cannisters.


I collect peanut butter jars for worm shows, but consider prune can collecting for wasp relocation borderline insane.  I am not nearly so charitably inclined toward wasps, and only eat prunes in kolaches.

Usually I can remain undrafted for wasp removal efforts by supervising children on a far end of the playground.  Having sounded the warning about the diggity-dog wasp nests, I felt obligated to assist in this catch and release effort.  Two big dang nests high up in the pointed roof, each with many wasps fanning the nest equal a bad situation on the playground.  

Temp around ninety-eight, and did I mention my boss has one arm in a sling recovering from a fractured shoulder?  "How brave are you?," she asks.  

So, yo, Pancho Sanchez hauls the stepladder and prune cannisters out to the playground, and offers to spot for Ms. Quixote on the ladder.  Cue the "Impossible Dream".  We shoo the kids to the other end of the playground and plan our mission.  My goal is to keep Ms. Quixote from falling down the ladder and refracturing her shoulder.  

Her first two attempts at tilting the wasp nest into the prune can are near misses.  One wasp clings to the outside of the can each time.  We regroup and make a final effort, but the wasps are ticked off now and ready to counterattack.  I keep Ms. Quixote from rebreaking her shoulder, but she ends up with four superficial stings.  For a sec it seems like a wasp flew in my mouth.  The kids are rushed back into the school.

Hearing the tale, Dad shuts his gaping mouth to keep wasps out.  Then he grins.  It is a sweet Tom Swiftie moment. The blind carpenter picked up his hammer and saw that wasps are not to be messed with when you are a one-armed paper hanger.  Next time I hope to stay pure and unchased from afar!

To dream ... the impossible dream ...
To fight ... the unbeatable foe ...
To bear ... with unbearable sorrow ...
To run ... where the brave dare not go ...
...
To fight for the right, without question or pause ... 
To be willing to march into Hell, for a Heavenly cause ... 

I'm pretty sure Hell has lots of wasps.




© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Double wide world of worms

An army marches on its stomach.  Napoleon I

True for worms, too.  The traveling worm show will be marching out Wednesday, and it won't be going light.

1. Large laundry basket full of sixty peanut butter, mayo, and spaghetti sauce jars.
2. Turquoise ten-gallon Sterlite storage tub with air holes, drain holes, and a catch tray.
3. Fifteen-gallon Rubbermaid storage tub marked, "Dave".
4. Paper bag holding two "worm castle" jars filled with layered soils and including nightcrawler tunnels.
5. Book bag containing Doreen Cronin's Diary of a Worm, Harriet Ziefert's Class Worms, and Wendy Pfeffer's Wiggling Worms at Work.
6. The Sneetches, by Dr. Seuss.
7. Lid with air holes for #3.
8. Large bucket of ninety-eight cent topsoil from Home Depot.
9. Large UTZ pretzel jar full of sand.
10. Large UTZ pretzel jar full of pea gravel.
11. Coffee can full of Miracle Gro organic garden soil.
12. Seven tie-dyed giant fabric worms.  (Six adult and one hatchling)
13. Photo flashcards of food to feed and not to feed worms.  (No pizza)
14. Bedding materials for a worm bin (egg cartons, newspapers, tp tubes, smashed eggshells, shredded classified documents).
15. Tie-dye fabric strips for the craft project.
16. Large parakeet food jar full of rich homemade humus.
17. Bucket of scoops, spoons, and trowels.
18. Plastic drop cloth.
19. [Not pictured] My active vermicompost bin full of red wigglers.
20. [Not pictured] Bag of organic material.
21. [Not pictured] Magnifying glass.
22. [Not pictured] Emergency back-up sand and gravel in the Buick trunk.

Yes, I keep asking myself, "What was I thinking!?"

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Chain, ladder, web

Belated photos from Wednesday's art class wire construction collaborations.  The project took its final shape when a Chinese dragon was hung from the lunchroom ceiling just before art class.  We already had a big blue dolphin helium balloon floating in the air.  Our construction had to add to the overhead excitement, or be defeated by the distractions.

Time to thread, twist, and shout (quietly). Get those fine motor fingers moving. The three and four year olds made links for a chain construction, and sketches to document the creative process.

The second group of four and a half to seven year olds worked together on a ladder structure.

The last group made a web structure, but we didn't get nearly as far on it as I had anticipated. Next week we will start large paintings inspired by our collaborations.  We've had fun popping back and forth between 3D and 2D the past few weeks.

The next two photos are a previous week's Giant Mystery Construction collaboration by the students in all three classes.  The kids drew written "clues" telling them what kind of object to find--round, flat, wood, plastic, bumpy, hollow, sectioned, clear, soft... 




I packed up the last of the recyclables and put them out for the recycling truck. I'll have to sort and bag the other goodies for another year.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Triple C 3-D darn Dubya

C

construction

cup

cave

cuddle

cluster

C

concentration

careful drawing

finding calm

clasping our hands

behind our backs

observing our constructions
from last week

@


I'm so immature

I still get a thrill

typing the AT in my email address

drawing the treble clef

curling an ampersand

circling the covered wagons

cooking chicken chili in the crockpot of letter sounds and fonts

uncapping the colored markers to write on the white board

C

collage

composition is improv, says the ballet student

in art composition is the play

the arranging

the dance with the elements I did not tell the kids

Sometimes you slide your whole collection of shapes off the paper and begin to create again.  

C

Self-publishing has a

concentric


convenient

lack of constructive criticism.

C

There are crocodiles in the moat.

C

calls today

from the care center

Maybe Dad was always a crabapple cluster bomb

I thought he was the master of self-control

critical he was of couse

but combustible not

kicking the bath aide in the abdomen and

throwing his shaver across the room

I just bought him the darn shaver last November

C

The cradle will rock

Considering various theories

tonight about just when

Dad got so angry.

W

When

Why

I blame it on Dubya.

Dad his old self would approve

Tonight Dad careemed

himself down the hall

in his wheelchair to shake a skinny

blue finger at the nurse and yell,

"You're a damn liar!" 

The supper trays weren't there yet.

He used to save that up to scream at Bush on tv

"You lied!  They died!"


© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Blue bag blues

I do a lot of walking along Plano's creeks in my neighborhood, in city parks, and on our trail system. I am disgusted by all the trash, but particularly bothered by the amazing number of bright blue bags littering the banks and water.

Plano doesn't have "blue bag recycling".  What's the source of all these blue plastic bags? Are they left on front doors for used clothing collection? Do they blow and then end up in storm sewers? Bags are never left on doors in my condo complex, but you can find a blue bag every twenty feet along the creek behind our units.

Yes, I'm a crabby CollageMama.  Having just succeeded in convincing a county judge to collect his large fallen campaign sign in a nearby vacant lot, I'm ready to take on my next eyesore. 



This dusk I wore the boots to scramble down the creek bank, but not the gloves to clean up the mess.  Untangled some bags and didn't break my ankle climbing back up.  Sad to say, the blue bags are from a very worthy organization, the Children's Advocacy Center of Collin County.



Now how to convince the organization to use a better method for distributing and attaching bags on doorknobs?


© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Recycling in the wheel

Not being confrontational, I still wanted to speak with my new neighbor.  I knew her name and address because she put a giant box with a shipping label into the recycling cart.  Inside the box was a styrofoam cooler of the sort used for shipping holiday hams.  Inside the cooler were strange thawed and leaky cold-packs and bubble wrap, plus the soggy remains of some form of food.

Back in 2004-05, it was a struggle to get the condo homeowners to accept a recycling program at the complex.  The city was going to provide recycling collection at no cost to our complex, something no other multifamily complex, apartment or condo, received. 

Over the years participation has grown for this completely voluntary effort.  We started with four carts emptied biweekly, and now have a dozen carts emptied weekly.  Many enthusiastic residents help move the full carts into position for the weekly collection by the city truck.  My responsibility is still making sure the carts are in position, and keeping track of holiday schedule changes, plus educating residents about the city's accepted materials for recycling.  It's a way to serve my community that sure beats a three-year term on the condo association board!  It's also self-serving, because I would otherwise have to save and haul my recyclables to a central city collection point. 

Deep down I know that people don't read signs.  Still, I was perturbed that the new neighbor hadn't noted any of the recycling requirements listed on the cart:

• Flatten boxes to conserve space. 
• Make sure lids on the carts can close so paper stays dry and doesn’t blow.
• Only clean, dry cardboard.
• No plastic wrapping, toys, or bags in the carts.
• Styrofoam is not recyclable. No packing materials, “peanuts”, or cups.
• Glass, metal, and plastic should be free of food.

Psyching up, I gathered the styrofoam cooler, a recycling flyer, and the shipping label.  I ordered my thoughts about welcoming the neighbor and explaining our recycling program.  This would be a pleasant chat, and then I would happily take her nonrecyclables to the trash dumpster. 

Part of me worried I might receive a classic playground challenge like, "Says who?" or " Gonna make me?" or "So what?"  Guess I'm still the littlest kid at recess.

My new neighbor has at least two preteen daughters.  The one who answered the door never stopped talking on her cellphone while I explained my wish to talk to her mom. 

The door closed, then reopened.  The daughter, still on her cell, said the mom was "working on her wheel" and "on the phone".  I handed her the cooler.  Could she please tell her mom these items were not recyclables?

Many questions come to mind:

• Is my new neighbor a potter?
• Is she a hamster? 
• How can a person working with clay on a wheel use a phone?
• How can a hamster in a wheel use a phone?
• Can hamsters throw pots?
• Why can't a preteen set down her phone to talk to a real, live human?

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Christmas of the birds

Our pencil holder is scrap wood, adding machine tape core, red felt, black bead, pipe cleaner, black acrylic paint, and a bit of pine greenery. 

The card is a Charlie Harper print. 
© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder