Twenty-seven years ago today

My dad has a twenty-seven year old grandson today, and I have a son half my age. I'm bunny-sitting a rabbit that weighs more than my son did on August 11, 1982. Just sitting here feeling like a very lucky lady all round.

© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

"Birthers" and other conspiracy theorists

In February I wrote about our childhood fascination with the two pages of presidential portraits in our grocery store encyclopedia.

The presidents were in the middle of volume fourteen, Pil-Raf, of the Golden Home and High School Encyclopedia, copyright 1961. (LCCN 61-13292). Mom began collecting the encyclopedia set for us about the time I began learning about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln in school. Of course, we pronounced it "Worshington". The Safeway grocery store ran this promotion about the same time our Conoco gas station began giving out pastel thermal coffee cups, tumblers, and pitchers.

I don't know what year I finally convinced Mom to get rid of the worn-out plastic tumblers, but it was probably in the late-Eighties. I never would let her get rid of the outdated encyclopedias because of the Great Assassination Conspiracy.

This was not a JFK assassination theory. It was the fascination of children trying to get a handle on cosmic order, destiny, and fate. The presidents who had been assassinated when we got the encyclopedia, Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, and Harding lined up in one column of the portraits. We did not know why Truman had not been assassinated, but thought it might be due to FDR's four terms.

After November, 1963, we struggled to understand how our president, John F. Kennedy, could have been killed by Lee Harvey Oswald. Unlike the rest of the nation, we felt something had gone horribly wrong because JFK's portrait was not in the "assassination column" of volume fourteen. We worked out a grim reasoning that 16-14=2. Lincoln was the sixteenth president. It was volume 14. That was why Kennedy was two pictures away from the column.

Once in awhile it helps me remember the sort of magical rationalism elementary students do. When the whole world seems out of order, blame it on the encyclopedia. In case you are wondering, Obama would be in the column with FDR and Woodrow Wilson.

I admit trying to sell my neighborhood playmates on my theory, but I was nine at the oldest. After that I didn't go into either politics or broadcasting. Now I wonder what grocery store encyclopedia Lou Dobbs, Fox News, and the other "birther" nuts have been studying. Same for Sarah Palin with her fictitious "Obama death panels". As Timothy Egan writes in today's New York Times, "quit makin' things up." None of their theories make as much sense as 16-14=2.

© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

Time to create new passwords

Farhad Manjoo did not tell me to use lemon juice for invisible ink to make coded spy documents. Farhad Manjoo is a technology columnist for Slate, but he may not have been a Cub Scout. Farhad convinced me to make new user names and passwords for online accounts today, by way of his column reprinted in today's Dallas Morning News.

I've had fun creating file names ever since my first computer math class at East High in 1972 or so. Back then we did our programming assignments by typing a punchtape. The computer was somewhere in a big room up the Interstate in Omaha, and I can't remember how our punchtapes got to Omaha to be run. I do know Mr. Beckman was our computer math teacher, and he wasn't properly impressed by my witty file names.

Spent several hours today working for a friend of a friend building a filing system. I tried to create logical file names for him to access his teaching materials, but old Mr. Beckman was on my mind. Could I understand enough about how this friend of a friend thinks to make a filing system that fits his retrieval process?

According to Farhad Manjoo, automated systems can analyze our computer and online activity to discover all our account passwords. Pretty amazing since I can't figure out the way my Dad's memory encodes things for future recall. Tonight Dad is watching baseball and trying to get his mind around the proper spelling of Andy Pettitte's name. I don't understand why this is important to his personal filing recall. I can't hack into his system.

So much of teaching preschoolers involves asking questions to help kids realize they already know their own answer. How do we help them build their inner filing and retrieval systems?

What are the questions we ask to create our own mental organization? What do we ask to decode another person? How can an automated program uncover our secrets?

Farhad Manjoo recommended a technique for creating nearly-uncrackable passwords that are still memorable enough when we want to log on:

1. Begin with an original, personal, memorable sentence.
2. Turn it into an acronym.
3. Add some symbols, numbers, and capital letters.

To that I would add in vintage American Bandstand Rate-a-Record style:

1. Make sure it has a good beat.
2. Dance to it.

© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

Etiquettiphobia

That would be the fear that Emily Post, Amy Vanderbilt, and Letitia Baldrige are going to swoop down from Mt. Olympus in their perfect plus-size mother-of-the-groom attire hurling lightning bolts at me for my glaring errors. This week I am trying to avoid their wrath as I address the envelopes for my son's wedding.

My son and his lovely fiance don't have the same concern about Mr. and Mrs., Master, Miss, and Ms. They are busy young professionals who have grown up in the email generation. To them an address includes first.last@.

Choosing the proper pen with Letitia's guidance was a treat, though I worried Amy and Emily would be jealous. You know how those goddesses are.

It's nice to use the dying art of handwriting for a good cause. So soothing gliding the pen in lovely curves and curls on the large envelopes. Just please don't let the three goddesses of wedding protocol get me in their sights. Was that thunder I just heard?


© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

Choosing baby names

Twenty-seven years ago, nervously lumbering around our inadequately air-conditioned starter home in Omaha, I sweated the details choosing a name for the baby I was sure would be a boy. I did a lot of lumbering and sweating and wondering as I chalked up the ten days past my due date.

I worried how our baby's name would look and sound in future situations. I'm pleased to say his name looks very handsome in a major situation--in fancy script on his wedding invitation.

© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

I need recharging

For several months now I've been awakened by phantom beeps. These completely realistic auditory dreams are a by-production of our 24/7/365 high-tech civilization colliding with our solstice-equinox prehistoric low-tech subconscious survival system.

Nighttime phantom beeps sound like the signal for a received text message,or possibly the low battery alert on my cellphone. They could be the tone that indicates a blocked pop-up window on my computer. Maybe a truck is backing-up and about to smash into my condo after midnight. Could a spider be living it up inside the smoke detector? Is the microwave reminding me about a Tupperware container of reheated lentil soup? Are permanent press clothes staging a wrinkle fest in the dryer?

Please tell me I didn't fall asleep on the job scanning returned book barcodes at the library? Did Norton Antivirus just restart my computer after downloading updates? Hope I'm not flashing back to those nights in my dad's hospital room across the hall from the elevator. Heaven help me if I'm sleep-walking through the self-check at the grocery store. Am I supposed to record my message after the tone?

Each phantom beep leaves me groggy, and groping for the digital clock on the bedside table. It's 3:33 or 4:58 a.m. and adrenalin has kicked in. Wide awake now, I have bonus hours for adventures in anxiety!

These auditory dreams or hallucinations don't seem fair after all the years being awakened by crying, hungry babies and frightened toddlers. Not to mention all the teen parenting years subconsciously listening for sirens, car doors, and keys in the lock. My nest is empty, but I've got a nighttime brood of demanding beeps. Maybe I'm just a tad over-stressed.

© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

Miraculous Samsung sausage cellphone cure-all

After many minutes dealing with reasonably pleasant customer service and tech service personnel at AT& T Mobility trying to solve the Woolly Mammoth's cell phone problems I remembered that I already knew the cure. I have a five-year old Samsung flip phone. When my sons complain that their up-to-the-minute cell phones aren't working right, I offer (or threaten) to mail them that flip phone. Next thing I hear, all their problems are miraculously solved.



This phone is just slightly smaller than a Little Smokie/Pillsbury pig-in-a-blanket, and rates the same Donna Reed score on the Dork-o-Meter. It is garlic to a vampire when it comes to ridding flashy phones of their bugs.

Being a dork, I never could flip the phone open to answer my rare call. I had to get a less calisthenic cell phone. The Samsung just sits in a shoebox of abandoned gizmos, unwanted and unflipped, in my junk drawer. I'd be happy to send it to you should you have problems with your cell phone...

© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

Frijole Anole Catches the Waves

I couldn't quite visualize the surfing dogs I heard about on NPR Saturday morning. The Frijole Anole must have heard the story, too. He's working on his surfing technique. He's spent the last hour wind-surfing on a canna leaf in a good breeze. He's ridden the leaf forwards, backwards, sideways, and even managed to hang ten.

When I popped my Dick Dale surfer music in the cd player and opened the patio sliding door, the lizard worked on his style points.

Have I mentioned how much I miss my camera?


© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

Fabric of memory

Sometimes the fabric of memories is actually fabric, the textures, colors, and designs imprinted long ago. Memory is much on my mind this summer as we clear out the basement of the house where we grew up. Because Mother was an excellent seamstress, we kids spent many hours in fabric stores, and measuring hems. These are not necessarily favorite memories, as they are among the most tedious experiences for youngsters.

On the other hand, Mom's sewing results were often gems. If the angels ever need plaid outfits for a choral event, my mom will be call upon to create perfection for the heavenly hosts.

The orange dress at the top was my first-day-of-kindergarten dress. My scanner has made the gold too pale and cold of a yellow. This is the sunniest, happiest dress possible for that fabulous day.

My sister and I found remnants of the fabric Mom used for our bedroom drapes (perfectly lined and pleated). I will always love these colors.

My niece is modeling one of Mom's masterpieces. We aren't sure if the fabric was an irregular Marimekko piece that Mom found at the Miller & Paine Budget Store. The results were as dramatic as any Sixties graphic fashion design. My niece will have to get a bit taller to wear it, though.

© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

Have I mentioned how much I miss my digital camera? The poor baby has been sent off for repairs after I dropped it on Dad's basement floor and jammed the lens.

Today a student found a caterpillar on our crispy, dying tomato plant. It was rather striking in a rockhound way, like a crawling banded agate. Mainly black, the caterpillar had two prominent lengthwise stripes the color of split pea soup. Lower to leaf/tummy level, it had a series of brown stripes in decreasing values.

You never know with caterpillars. The most flamboyant, outrageous, drop-dead gorgeous ones turn into nondescript moths like aging punk rockers with adjustable mortgages. On the other hand, a small, drab specimen may metamorph into the moth equivalent of the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. You wish you'd been nicer to it back in high school.

The caterpillar is in the bugbox with plenty of tomato leaves to get it through the night. With luck it will make a chrysalis and turn into David Bowie.

© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

Free Spirit

Thank heaven the Martian winds have cleared the solar panels on "Spirit", the long-running Mars Rover. Now Spirit can receive instructions from NASA engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory on how to get unstuck from a sand dune.

Since Spirit may or may not act on the engineers' instructions, I feel their frustration. It's the frustration of MOBOs everywhere, when grown sons choose whether to acknowledge receipt or actually implement maternal suggested guidelines. Once sons and Martian rovers reach a certain age, moms can't dictate their behavior. No remote control can steer guys out of a rut they've dug themselves into, but moms can occasionally suggest driving options.

Moms wait for the moments when sons' energy collectors are blown free of dust by the Martian winds. Perhaps we can sneak a message in before the system shuts down again without seeming to nag.

This weekend one son is driving to the White Sands National Monument, his seatbelt buckled, I pray. Another is sailing off the coast of Massachusetts, and he better be wearing that life jacket! The oldest is navigating wedding plans and true love. They all have selective reception from my maternal wavelength.

The words I don't want to hear--"I'm sorry Mom, I'm afraid I can't do that."

© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

Four more for Library Life List

Who's counting? I've added four more libraries to my Life List on trips this summer, and two were design doozies. My sons were excited to show me the new fine art/architecture libraries on their campuses.

The Woolly Mammoth spent much of the spring semester in the Fine Arts and Architecture Library on the top floor of the new School of Architecture and Planning at the University of New Mexico writing papers. He knew I would get a kick from the the quiet study rooms, each with a different Herman Miller chair. I liked how the entrance to Pearl Hall provided a impromptu amphitheatre for sidewalk performers, and how the building offered many display spaces for student designs.

While the UNM architecture library seems stream-lined and air-filled, the cozy new architecture library at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, invites hunkering down with books. The lighting fixtures and shelving of the Wertz Art & Architecture Library in Alumni Hall are reminiscent of my grandma's old Carnegie Library in Pierce. Perhaps that is because the domed Alumni Hall was constructed in 1910 as the university library with the assistance of Andrew Carnegie and alumni funds. Alumni Hall was renovated in 1997, but I believe the Wertz Library addition is more recent. The comfy feel doesn't sacrifice any up-to-date technology or services for library users.

Again at Miami, I enjoyed displayed projects by architecture students, such as this hanging over a connecting walkway. Both architecture libraries featured exposed building materials and fixtures with successful study spaces, although the results were very different.

Miami University's main King Library has an inviting computer area open for use by campus visitors. This was a big plus, as I had an op-ed column to write during my trip. This is a link to some nice photos of King Library:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jenwaller/sets/72157620689820341/

I'm not sure my son and his fiance considered the downtown Cincinnati Public Library a must-see on our walking tour before the Reds game, but I was intrigued to explore. The library was being heavily used late on a Saturday afternoon. Two buildings are connected by a walkway over a street. Each building has a pleasant reading garden, something I'd never seen before. Wilbur the Pig welcomes readers to the Children's Garden, a great place for library programs or individual reading.

Four vacation libraries bring my total to fifty-eight.

© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

Edge of Assisted Living

What do we really know about the nurses and aides taking care of my father? A coworker asked me that question on a rough day. I'm riding the wild roller-coaster that goes with long-distance squeeze generation responsibilities. That ride comes with extra guilt some days.

What if Matthew Sharkey was Dad's aide? What if Beth Bryson was his nurse? What if Dad was being kept in a full-body cast at the Rexford Clinic as the prisoner of a criminal plastic surgeon like Dr. Kenneth Bryson episode after episode? What if those evil chauffeur twins, Gunther and Bruno Wagner drive the assisted living van?



Yes, I was having a soap opera flashback to 1980. The names crept to mind first. Long repressed images from the final years of "The Edge of Night" began seeping to the surface, giving reality the tinge of antifreeze. The plots didn't make much more sense after three decades and an hour of Googling than they did when aired in the 3:30 p.m. time slot.

I rarely speak about my years of soap opera viewing. I'm not proud of spending so many hours with tv and needlepoint before motherhood took over. At various times I followed "The Guiding Light", "Days of Our Lives", "Another World", and "The Edge of Night" through snowy, gray Omaha afternoons. Perhaps my current worry is a payback for those wasted-hours.

© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

Keep cool!

http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2009/07/power-failure-i.html

This is the link to my guest post on the Dallas Morning News Opinion Blog in which I worry about the North Texas electric power grid.

I belong to a triumvirate of mama worriers. We have divided up the woes of the world so as to share the burden and be better informed for our fretting.

The word "triumvirate" poses some problems. The vir means men. I'm not sure that you could find three men who could do the quality worrying we do, and we are not even wise Latina women. Changing the word to triumvirettes doesn't help, but it would present interesting costuming and choreography challenges.

triumvir
"one of three men in the same office or of the same authority," 1579, from L. triumvir, from Old L. phrase trium virum, genitive plural of tres viri "three men," from tres "three" + viri, plural of vir "man" (see virile). Triumvirate is from 1584.

We considered calling ourselves the Three Musketeers of world worries, but none of us carry guns. That led us to the Three Mouseketeers. We would look great in Annette's ears and sweater, with the pleated skirt and saddle shoes.

Annette Number One worries about the U.S. economy and employment. If she has extra time she worries about the global marketplace.

Annette Number Two is in charge of diseases, plagues, and health care. She's got a full load with swine flu, bird flu, mad cows, food poisoning, insurance, and pharmaceutical recalls. Her bonus category is Florida.

I am Annette Number Three. I am in charge of worrying about the environment. Global warming, energy conservation, toxic landfills, the disappearing honey bees and family farms, migratory birds, and drought.

In case you are having that dream about the final exam for a history class you never attended, the First Triumvirate refers to Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey. The Second Triumvirate was Marc Antony, Octavian (aka Caesar Augustus), and Lepidus.


© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

Potato salad

All my recipe googling did not lead to actually following a recipe. Made some good potato salad, though:

Boil red potatoes in their jackets

In a skillet brown fresh rosemary, fresh thyme, pine nuts, and 2 cloves of garlic

Cool potatoes and cut into bite-size chunks

Make a vinaigrette with 3/4 c olive oil, 1/4 c fresh lemon juice, 1 t lemon zest. Smash the browned garlic and add it to the vinaigrette.

In a large bowl place potatoes, thyme and rosemary, pine nuts. Stir in vinaigrette. Let sit overnight. Serve cold garnished with crumbled feta cheese.

The jicama salad was not worth repeating. Vinaigrette is very hard to spell correctly.


© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder