Potato Ostrich: Details at Ten P.M.

Just dozed off the other evening during a primary election victory speech. I'd been wrapped up in an afghan on the sofa wondering how Hillary could wear those pointy-heeled shoes on the campaign trail, how Dubya could keep his head so buried in the sand, and why birds' knees bend backwards.



And so, a week after making tiny hummingbird art, we switch to large flightless art. Ostriches have long legs and long eyelashes. I asked the preschoolers to touch their knees, and then to bat their eyelashes. Several of the kids tried to wiggle their eyebrows instead. Can you say "mah-mah-mah-Maybelline?"




Ostrich feet look like ugly, uncomfortable taupe high heels. Worse, ostriches run across the desert in those shoes! Haven't they heard of Nikes?



When I was really little, my dad was so skinny he could hide behind a telephone pole. When he would do his knee-swapping version of the Charleston, I really believed he was moving his knees from one leg to the other.




© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Going tightless

Not long ago I wrote about my nightmares awake and asleep with pantyhose and tights. While I was in Lincoln my sister recounted the memorable winter day when she walked halfway to the elementary school, panicked, ran back home, pulled up her dress to verify she was wearing underpants, then calmly resumed the trek to school confident that God was in His heaven and all was right in the underwear world.

We had a lovely, springlike day on Wednesday. A day for children to have lunch at the picnic table, and tired art teachers to let the sun warm their sore carry-on luggage shoulders. So relaxing and refreshing, and I was quite blindsided by the vision of a four year-old girl sitting on the folding chair with her legs up on then art room table absolutely pantie-less. Yikes! Where were her underpants? Did she leave them in the bathroom, throw them in the trash, or flush them down? Did she somehow lose them in her drama class costume? When you teach children, you really don't want their parents to arrive at the conclusion that the student has lost undergarments while in your supervision! I sent a different student to the office with a note requesting immediate assistance. An APB went out for the undies, but they were nowhere to be found.

Normally, in the abnormal world of preschool creative arts education, students will arrive at class and announce that they aren't wearing any underpants, or that they are wearing Finding Nemo underpants that they would like to show everyone. It's abnormal for a student to arrive underpantless and not broadcast the fact. Preschoolers tell all.

This time it turned out that the child dressed herself, but left off the fuzzy tights and panties due to the unseasonably warm weather. Warm, tropical breezes are all fine and dandy, but I wish she would have run home to double-check.

A Bad Night At the Opera

I take my place center front on the otherwise empty stage. The light is golden. My gown is black, trimmed in a black and white diamond pattern. My gosh! My hair has never been so long or had such body and curl! It is time for my aria. I breathe in, then exhale. Breathe in, then yank up my beautiful velvet skirt and start trying to adjust the sagging crotch of my tights. The discomfort is maddening, so even though the audience is staring, I keep struggling. There's no way to run off stage when the crotch is at your knees.

It is good to wake up and get untangled from the blankets. I've got several blankets because the temperatures crashed from the seventies to the twenties in just two days, and my body is confused. My mind has no such excuse.

Growing up we walked the four blocks to elementary school in nearly all temperatures and weathers. We wore coats with the hoods pulled up over our stocking hats, mittens clipped onto the cuffs, snow pants, and overshoes. When we got to school we put everything in our classroom's cloak hall. At recess and lunch we did all this bundling and unbundling again. The most difficult part was sliding our saddle shoes into the overshoes. The most itchy part was stuffing our full skirts and stiff petticoats against our chapped bare legs inside the snow pants, which usually had a bib and shoulder straps. It would be several grades more before stretch knit ski pants with foot stirrups became the fashion, and could be worn under our skirts for winter recess. After that came the snow boots with fuzzy linings to replace the overshoes. Then we had to carry our shoes to school in a bag.

Once in awhile we would get to ride to school because musical instruments would suffer too much in the cold if we walked on lesson day. On those days, I got to ride with the other Nancy's violin case in the space behind the backseat of our neighbor's Volkswagen since I was the skinniest, and least musical, maybe.

I wore Buster Brown white anklets year-round. Some girls had tights in black, white, or navy. Stylish girls had red. My first pair of tights were by far the ugliest item of apparel I have ever had. I've been looking at some hosiery color charts, and can't find the color. The tights were in between beige and light taupe in a color I'll call Weathered Prosthesis. They also had a tiny texture that made them look permanently goose-bumped. In the days before Spandex, tights had sags at the ankles and blobs at the knees. The overall effect of these tights on my skinny second grader legs could be called "plucked duckling".

My preschool students wear tights when it is cold, and sometimes even in the Dallas July if they get themselves dressed. The tights have lots of wild stripes and colors. The girls pull on loose threads until they create holes in the tights large enough to pull a leg out, or put an extra appendage in. They also still have LCT, the dreaded Low Crotch Trouble.



While introducing new students to each other this week, my team teacher and I spontaneously combusted into this song:

Oooooooh
Lydia, oh Lydia, say have you met Lydia, Lydia, the Tattooed Lady?



And so it is in this new year that I offer this blessing for you and yours:

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again,
may God close the curtains while you pull up your tights.