Dream Team

I have the joy of teaching a delightful, polite, enthusiastic, smart group of eight and nine year-olds right now, many of whom I've known since they were three or four years-old. All I have to do is hang an idea out there on the wind, and they are running with it. I made a few suggestions about how to make their drawings successful, and every child applied at least one suggestion. When they had questions about the rain forest animals and how to draw them, they looked up the information or images in my library books with a little help.

We started building the form for the almost life-size jaguar that we are going to papier mache. They were so pumped! I would not be surprised if they arrive tomorrow with all sorts of solutions to the problem of the big cat's ears. One of them might even research whether owls live in the rainforest. I need to check on that myself.

This is the class of my dreams!

Knights of the Texture Round Table

Been back in medieval times for a few weeks, so I've been illuminating manuscripts instead of blogging. We did a print project that involved making a texture collage on a shield-shaped piece of cardboard. We made prints of the textured surface, called collographs, onto colored cellophanes and framed them to resemble stained glass windows. Finally we painted and mounted the texture collage as if it were a heraldic banner hanging on a castle wall.

Thanks to all the noble lords and ladies who contributed cds, bubble wrap, zippers, and buttons for the project!

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.

Planning your day is so important

"If I quit before noon should I bring my lunch home?," my dad used to ask my mom across the Cheerios breakfast table. I knew that meant he was mighty tired of his job and coworkers, and probably of carrying his sack lunch on the bus. His sack lunch usually had a thermos of soup along with a sandwich, fresh fruit, and cookies, so it wasn't all the lunch's fault. Maybe indecision over whether to carry the brown bag back home or to abandon it caused him to just eat it and keep his job despite the aggravations. Many days this mustard and mayo dilemma paralysis makes perfect sense to me, and keeps me employed through another afternoon.

In a team-building/corporate-training/pass-the-monkey seminar a few years back our facilitator stressed the use of Day-Timer calendars to set goals as well as record appointments and assignments. Much of this seminar whizzed over the heads of our team of "look at all the pretty colors" art and drama teachers. Still, I've carried my Day-Timer to work and back every day since 2000 and managed not to get paint all over it. My calendar has been annotated with birthdays, soccer schedules, and zit doctor appointments for my kids all this time.

Yesterday was a busy one in Lincoln. Two bank robberies in one day! One suspect was nabbed after she walked the four blocks from the bank to stand in the long line at the Subway sandwich shop in the center of downtown during the noontime rush.

Plan your day. Should you bring the loot home if your rob the bank before lunch? Should you carry a sack lunch with a thermos of hot Campbell's soup, a roast beef sandwich, fresh fruit, and some cookies to the bank job? Order the fresh fruit cup instead of the chips and pickle? Maybe eat a late brunch so you won't be all that hungry after robbing the bank, and can just hop the first train out of town? Stop in at the Christian Science Reading Room after robbing the bank, and use the bag of loot for a naptime pillow?

My extensive reading about the James and Dalton Gangs, thanks to Nebraska novelist Ron Hansen, leads me to believe the usual routine is (1) have a hearty breakfast or at least lots of strong coffee; (2) rob bank; (3) get out of town; or (4) worse case scenario, have your bullet-ridden corpse displayed at county fairs all over a tri-state area. Again, I stress using your Day-Timer (if your fingers are too fat and your vision too poor to program your calendar into your cellphone!)

Bank robber, or robberette, Eva Fischer, spent her misguided moments in the stomping grounds of my youth. We could ride the bus downtown to swim lessons at the YWCA at 15th and N, then shower, dress, and buy a giant Tootsie Roll for a nickel. Walk next door to the main city library at 14th and N to check out some books, then continue on foot to Dad's office building at 13th and N to pick up prescriptions, have a dental check-up, and make a lunch rendezvous plan. Next walk south on 13th to Brady's Juvenile Shoes to get back-to-school oxfords and ride the giant rocking horses. Back north to the old Sears Roebuck with the wood floor at 13th and N to buy some Buster Brown socks and undies, then on over to Miller & Paine at 13th and O to meet Dad for lunch. Sometimes we ate in the tearoom on the fifth floor, and sometimes at the lunch counter in the bargain basement. The macaroni and cheese and the cinnamon rolls were the same either place. After showing Daddy our new shoes, he would go back to the office. We would cross 13th and pass the Walgreens with its lunch counter. Heading east along "O" Street we might visit the Toy Castle before proceding to Hested's to look at the bolts of corduroy in bright colors to sew back-to-school jumpers. If we ventured west instead we could windowshop at the more fashionable Ben Simons store, then pick up a Milton Bradley game or some "notions" at Woolworth's. I liked the Woolworth's store because the entrance was at a 45 degree angle to the street.

My parents would suggest that Eva stop in at the Cornhusker Hotel right there by the bank to have a Reuben sandwich for lunch. She could pop into the Sharp Building for a haircut before catching the bus back home with all her loot.

Des Moines June 1974

Dateline: Iowa State Fairgrounds 1974 Only got to see the Grateful Dead perform once, but it was a magical experience. Thanks to a computer-savvy Deadhead daddy of a student, I now have a set of cds of that exact concert. What a strange and wonderful gift!

"My" concert was thirty-one years ago, so it's no wonder it has taken on mythic proportions in my memory. We got up mighty early in Lincoln, Nebraska to drive to Des Moines for the concert that started around noon and lasted until after sunset. I sat out under the maple tree listening to locusts in the dark of the predawn, waiting for the VW microbus to pick me up.

The concert started off with major speaker problems, but the sun broke out of an overcast sky just as it always does in Grateful Dead legends. Still, the first cd is a frustrating experience waiting for the technical adjustments. It just keeps getting better after that, beginning with "China Cat Sunflower", and on through the second and third discs.

Jerry Garcia died nearly ten years ago. My student's daddy probably wasn't even born on June sixteenth, 1974. The music transcends the years and generations. I am very grateful for the cds!

The Blog Doctor Is In

The big employee lunchroom discussion was about using Coca Cola to remove car battery corrosion. We also discussed why you can't grow green mold on hot dog buns.

I sure hope the space shuttle launch and mission goes well tomorrow. Maybe the astronauts should pack some Coke Classic along with the Tang. Never know when it might come in handy.

The authblogger/blogauthor of "Screaming Thighs" needed some html voodoo. Having watched educational videos about the rainforest all Sunday, I was well equipped to perform a shaman dance with face paint, poison dart frogs, blow guns, and bromeliads. After two hours dancing around in the blog template shaking gourd rattles, burning sage, and spraying Coke on the terminals, I'm all worn out.

I'm either a flying purple people eater or a blog witch doctorette. But I never, ever leaked the identity of a CIA agent.

....Ooo eee, ooo ah ah ting tang Walla walla, bing bang
Ooo eee, ooo ah ah ting tangWalla walla, bing bang...
Ooo eee, ooo ah ah ting tang Walla walla, bing bang
Ooo eee, ooo ah ah ting tang Walla walla, bing bang

"Accuse me!"

Work can be refreshing if it's different work. I'm helping out while there's a vacant position at my former library job. Got to spend Saturday with childrens' books, and enjoyed seeing young families using the library. Quite a few grandparents came in with children to enjoy the puzzles, puppet theater, and dress-up clothes, as well as some cuddly read-aloud time together.

One little girl was having a splendid time skipping circuits of the room in her dress-up attire. Each time she passed me as I straightened books on the shelves she said, "Accuse me!" Very nice manners for such a young lady!

I got to confuse several of my art students by being in the wrong place. Why was the art lady now the library lady?

When my middle son was in preschool, we saw his teacher at the mall. He refused to make eye contact with her, because she was in the wrong place. Wonder how we learn as kids that the actors in our own personal drama exit stage right to perform other stories on stages we can't see.

Not your Oldsmobile's tuna casserole

In the Vetted Good Old Days, tuna casserole was made with "Sorry, Charlie" Starkist, Gooch's egg noodles, and Campbell's cream of mushroom soup. Crushed Weaver's potato chips were sprinkled on top to entice children to eat of the magic potion. Tuna casserole was served with carrot sticks and black cherry jello with canned Royal Anne cherries.

In the 1980s Oldsmobile had an ad campaign with Ringo Starr and his daughter called, "This is Not Your Father's Oldsmobile". About that time I was perfecting my new-fangled tuna casserole. Charlie Tuna and the mushroom soup were still in, but the noodles were now spinach noodles. The soup was jazzed with 1 tsp lemon juice and 2 good shakes of Tabasco, 2 T of sliced green olives and pimento, a shake each of dill weed, garlic, and paprika. Top the casserole with grated Monterey Jack.

Squirrels jumping into transformers

Now that I think about it, the whole explanation seems unlikely. During snowstorms back in Nebraska in the late-Seventies the electrical transformers on power poles would sometimes explode quite loudly around our neighborhood of small, older apartment houses. We believed that the explosions were caused by cold-crazed squirrels leaping into the transformer units. This was twenty years before I heard the term "suicide bomber". Our lights would flicker after one of the explosions.

Whenever I make pork chops and Spanish rice, I get a visual memory of looking out to the northeast from our apartment balcony window toward the alley, the parking lot, and the power pole with the transformer all covered with four to six inches of snow.

The one-bedroom apartment had bright Husker red shag carpet. The kitchen was one corner of the living/dining room. The fridge and range were harvest gold. We were the newlywed managers of the 8-plex, so our rent was $145 a month! Our phone bill was $7/month. We didn't have a car payment on the banana yellow rusty Chevy Nova. Our black and white t.v. was about 12" diagonal.

Our crockpot was avocado green. And yes, we had macrame plant hangers.

We got up early to use the snowblower and shovel so the residents could get their cars out of the lot and up the gravel alley to go to work and school. I would brown the thick pork chops in a heavy cast iron skillet. Didn't have to add oil to the pan then because the chops weren't trimmed of all their fat.

Put the browned chops into the crockpot. Add a can of stewed tomatoes with green peppers, one canful of water, 1/2 tsp. dried parsley, 1 tsp. chili powder, 1/4 tsp. sage, 1/2 tsp. salt if you are young and don't even know about blood pressure, and 1.5 cups uncooked rice (not Minute Rice). Stir. Plug in crockpot, and set on low. Go to work and school. Come home and shovel the lot and sidewalks again. Collect rent checks. Vacuum stairway. Serve pork chops and Spanish rice with Gallo Hearty Burgundy. Wash dishes by hand. Listen to Miles Davis.

Comfort Food for Parole

One of these days I'll become a maven convicted of insider trading and sentenced to house-arrest. I'm looking forward to the house-arrest part, except for the ankle bracelet.

One of the ways my former spouse thought I could save our marriage was by wearing an ankle bracelet with a little heart charm. Usually when people think "romance" they don't think "Montgomery Wards", but that was where my ex charged two identical ankle bracelets. He brought one-stop shopping to a whole new level. I read the credit card statement with interest.

During my house arrest, I plan to eat macaroni and cheese like my mom used to make.

You need a three quart saucepan with a lid and a double-boiler. You also need a three quart Pyrex or Corning Ware casserole dish, and a colander.

Fill the saucepan 2/3 full with water. Cover and heat to boil. Add a teaspoon of cooking oil, and a package of large elbow macaroni. Boil 2 minutes stirring and watching. If the water starts to boil over, lift the pan off the burner and turn the burner down a bit. After two minutes remove from burner and cover saucepan with lid. Set timer for ten minutes.

Use this time wisely to grease the bottom and sides of the casserole dish. Cut or slice 16 oz. of Kraft Deluxe American cheese (one small box). When timer dings, drain the macaroni in the colander in the sink and rinse it with cold water. Put the drained macaroni in the casserole dish.

Put two cups of water in the saucepan, and set the double-boiler pan into the saucepan. (You don't have to wash the saucepan first.) Turn the burner on High. Melt a 1" chunk of butter or oleo in the boiler pan with 1 tablespoon flour, two good shakes each from a Worchestershire bottle and a Tabasco bottle. Add a pinch each of dry mustard and garlic powder. As it heats, stir ingredients into a paste. Turn the heat down to Medium-Low as soon as steam starts escaping from under the boiler pan. The double-boiler keeps the sauce from scalding, and is a very energy efficient way to cook.

Stir two tablespoons of milk into the paste until smooth, then two more, and two more. Stir occasionally as the mixture begins to thicken. Add a cup of milk into the boiler pan and stir until smooth and the consistency of sauce. Then add a few slices of cheese. Stir.

Add two and a half more cups of milk and the rest of the cheese a little bit at a time, stirring occasionally. When it's all smooth, pour it over the macaroni in the casserole dish. Add more milk if the sauce isn't up to the top of the macaroni. Sprinkle grated cheddar cheese on the top, and shake paprika over it. Paprika makes it brown pretty.

Bake in a 350 degrees preheated oven for 50-60 minutes. If you want to get fancy, take casserole out of oven after 40 minutes. Put tiny dabs of butter (1/4" cubes) on the top of the cheese about every two inches, then sprinkle bread crumbs lightly over the top. Finish baking.

Cover and refrigerate leftovers. Individual servings can be frozen to nuke in the employee lunchroom.

The yummiest way to reheat leftovers is in a small skillet on a medium burner. Melt 1T butter or margarine in the skillet, or heat 1T vegetable oil. Add the mac and cheese. Chop and turn the mac and cheese with a spatula as it heats and gets a bit crispy. The aroma will overcome existential angst and urban alienation in the Post Industrial Age. Serve with ketchup or chilled cranberry jelly.

Come Fly With Me: Reserve Your Armchair Now

Sinatra and Smetana color my mental travel brochures. Captain Kangaroo used to run a video of river photos with Smetana's "The Moldau" that made me proud to be of Bohemian ancestry. Another video with Grofe's "Grand Canyon Suite" might have ignited my interest in the American Southwest.

Fly me to the moon
Let me play among the stars
Let me see what spring is like
On a-Jupiter and Mars

Where would I travel if money was no object? An interesting evening's pondering, and well within my entertainment budget!


Not having been much of anywhere, this is where I would go if money and time were irrelevant:

Ashfall State Park in Nebraska

The whooping crane migration along the Platte River in Nebraska

The cliff dwelling sites of the Four Corners region. Got hooked on the Anasazi reading National Geographic story about Weatherill Mesa in 1966.

On a riverboat cruise up the Mississippi

New York City to see the art, theatre, dance, and opera, and look for sites in Donald Westlake’s Dortmunder books.

Crete and Santorini—I have wanted to visit the island ever since reading a juvenile nonfiction book from my local library in about 1966. Knossos, Minotaur, frescoes

Michoacan, Mexico to see where Monarch butterflies spend the winter.

Valley of the Kings in Egypt. Tut, Tut. My third grade teacher, Mrs. Alhschwede, was reading aloud to the class about Howard Carter when JFK was assassinated.

Botswana because of Alexander McCall Smith’s No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency books

A trip through the Ukraine, the Balkans, and Eastern Europe, especially Prague, Split, and Kiev

Krakatoa and Java because of The Twenty-One Balloons and one of the worst movies ever made

Australia, thanks to Bill Bryson

Boston because of Make Way For Ducklings

James Herriott’s England

Anti-Spandex

Spandex exercise requires changing clothes and taking showers, and often driving to a gym or pool to work out. It's not that I dislike exercise, but that I'm opposed to excessive clothes-changing and showers.

When my walking buddy phoned this morning, I croaked and snarled that my throat was raw and I was going back to sleep. Once I did get my motor going an hour later, I considered driving over to the mall for some air-conditioned dork-walking. Wandering out to the kitchen to make coffee and poached eggs, I discovered that the package of chix boobs I was thawing in the fridge had leaked all over. Gross! My mom would be horrified. Time to clean and disinfect!

An hour later I had taken all the food out, and removed and washed all the parts of the fridge, even ones I never knew were removable. Stood on the stepstool and cleaned the top of the fridge.

Another hour, and I had pulled the refrigerator out. Mopped the floor underneath. Vacuumed the fuzzy dust off the back and pulled off the back panel to vacuum the dust-packed innards. Emptied the beverage storage cart next to the fridge (one of the best $21.95 purchases I ever made), and washed it in the shower. Started the self-clean cycle on the oven, and washed the burner drip-pans. The Ventures and the Spencer Davis Group were in the cd player, and I was doing the Swim, the Pony, the Frug, and the Limbo as cleaning fumes altered my reality.



Another hour for cleaning the counters, the inside and out of the microwave and toaster oven, and removing the glass globes of the dining area light fixture to wash. Up stepstool, down stepstool. Feel the burn!



By now I had entered that rare primitive berserko cleaning rhythm where no grime is safe. I vacuumed baseboards and under the oven. I cleaned the counter backboards (or are they backsplashes?) with Clorox disinfecting wipes that work better than anything I've ever used. I was in The Zone! Don't stop me now! I put Old English on all the cupboard doors. Hauled trash bags to the dumpster. Swiffered Dry and Swiffered Wet. Cleaned the exhaust fan.

Would I clean more often if it required a day-glo Spandex outfit? Hardly. Do I feel ten pounds lighter? You bet!

Movie Ratings

For several weeks I've been listening to groups of children chant "I like to move it, move it." On the "Who let the dogs out?" scale of annoyance, this is only a 6.5. Still, I was mildly curious if the movie "Madagascar" had any redeeming qualities. Thank heaven I'm not trying to find a summer movie for little kiddies these days! "Madagascar" is either creative, delightful, and so harmless that parents can park the kids and go see an adult movie in a different theater at the megaplex, or a totally offensive brain-rotter that will poison even the minds of adults, depending which site you read.

Just thinking about that island the size of Texas off the east coast of Africa reminds me of Flashman's Lady. And what has become of Sir Harry Flashman and his creator, George MacDonald Fraser? Thank heavens there's a twelfth installment in the Flashman Papers! The U.S. publication date is November, and I would stay up until midnight and put a temporary tattoo on my forehead for this British invasion release. Fraser is in his eighties now, and some U.K. reviews suggest Flashman on the March is not the best in the series. Any Flashie is better than no Flashie at all! I need some Fraser footnotes!

Bioluminescence

Playing with papers and shapes last weekend, a collage gradually emerged that sent me off in search of images of the bioluminescent creatures in the deepest parts of the oceans. Hadn't heard about the movie "Deep Blue" at that point. My "March of the Penguins" movie buddy knew we had to go see "Deep Blue", though. The cinematography is impressive, the soundtrack perfect, and the enormous cool wetness of the subject makes it an excellent escape from the hot Dallas afternoon for adults and teens.

Reviews of the movie clearly explained that Nature is a violent, gory, orca-eat-seal place. Mother Nature is concerned with survival of species, not the fate of individuals. While the movie is rated G, it is not appropriate for children. Still, there were many freaked youngsters in the theater, and someone is going to have to sit up with them when they have nightmares! The movie also requires an attention span not found in viewers addicted to massive doses of car chases, bathroom or bedroom humor, or blasting special effects. I noted, too, that watching all the water sent many more audience members out to the restrooms than any movie I've ever seen!

"Deep Blue's" footage of jellyfish and the bioluminescent life in the deep abysses is mind-blowingly beautiful. I couldn't wait to tell my photographer son with his interest in Dale Chihuly's glass art. The hay-bale swirling schools of fish are like underwater tornadoes. Night in the coral reef is far more terrifying than I ever imagined. My awareness of Earth's oceans is greatly enhanced, and I may even have a nightmare or two. Still, it is impossible to get emotionally involved in "Deep Blue", unlike "March of the Penguins".

Dumping the Shark

The Art Teacher Wore White: Clearly a Mystery

Why would a practical, sensible, Type A fifty year-old art teacher who scored a 39 on Dr. Phil's alleged personality test wear an all-white outfit? Why would she worry the whole day about resembling an albino manatee? Why would she think this was a good day to take Larry the Shark to the dumpster?

And just who was this Larry fellow?



It is easier to boost a sawed-up couch into a dumpster than it is to chuck a nearly toothless one year-old papier mache shark.