Fourth quarter downpour

The rain started in the last quarter of the Super Bowl and continued all through the night. Tooth pain woke me several times to listen to the rain, and wonder how complicated it would be to fit a visit to my dentist into the week. A couple times I turned on the patio light to see if I should start an ark. I hoped the newspaper deliverer wouldn't slip in the mud out front.

The rain continued until mid-afternoon, after the dentist made impressions of my upper and lower teeth. I would rather eat mud than do that again!

The rose quartz in my fairy garden looks particularly beautiful, cleaned by all the rain. I've had that piece of quartz since I was a kid. It's handful size.

Posted a different view of my rainy day on the 365 Project. I like the process of deciding which photo best describes the day.



© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Daily Shoots and Leaves

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

The Itty Bitty Blogger shoots; and, feeling vexed,
She cannot figure how her cell should Text
Not camera post: nor Tweeter Twit
Fights back the fears that bubble next.

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

The Muse Knows Best

My muse offers two new projects to get my creative battery jumped. I'm in a deep funk. New projects seem like the last thing I need. My brain runs the hamster wheel, cycling and recycling suggestions, admonitions, resolutions, shoulds, and regrets until I get off the treadmill with no energy at all.

My blog muse knows me well, and she knows when I need an inspirational jolt. If I'm not creating, I don't feel much like tackling life's problems. Her timely suggestions are way cheaper than therapy. It's time for a 365 Project, and maybe a Daily Shoot.

Getting started on 365 Project was easy. I like the calendar photo, and hope it will be printable. I started with the Yahtzee photo from a current Valentine project, but want a theme for my 365 effort. The concept is to post an original photo each day for a year, learning to be a better photographer and a bit about myself in the process. I'm leaning toward a collection of photos taken within one block of my front door. It's time to pay more attention to my own spot.

When I walked down to the garbage dumpster this morning I was stunned to see the huge tree had been removed. Maybe the garbage truck had one close encounter too many with that tree, but the spot looks very strange.


Headed back to my condo, I saw a big hawk in a tree by the creek. It was sitting there yesterday, too. Got my jacket, camera, and binocs and headed down the drive. The hawk humored me for awhile as I practiced with the binoculars. A squirrel and a cardinal cooperated, too. I walked several times around the condominium complex and the little park that borders it on the creek side, without ever getting more than a block from my door.

This impressive unidentified fungus is the size of a paper plate. On this gray day it was tricky getting a photo of it on the tree at least ten feet above the ground. If I don't get poison ivy, I'll be pretty pleased with this photo.

As the muse knew, I'm feeling better already.

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

What does a hedgehog feel like?

Having survived the 100th Day of School celebration, including a visit from the Creature Teacher, I got home and found a letter saying the insurer was about to cancel Dad's insurance AGAIN. Managing things for an elderly parent is challenging, but especially so when it comes to billing addresses that differ from places of residence. Dad's local agency never got the billing address corrected with the insurer, so I never got the bill. It is all groovy now, many phone calls and phone menus later. The curse of UNCWY continues!


I did not pull out my hair, but that is only because the Creature Teacher brought a hairless guinea pig for today's presentation. Yes, there are people out there who intentionally breed bald guinea pigs that look ever so much like hippo embryos. We love the Creature Teacher, aka Robyn Wheeler. The kids have a favorite free-time game in the puppet theater where they take turns being the Creature Teacher and giving a show with the animal puppets.

For extra excitement during the presentation, the pygmy hedgehog escaped from her cage and ran across the classroom. The student who got to pet the hedgehog reported it felt like "sporks".

If today was an episode of "Let's Make a Deal" I would hope to get the sporky hedgehog behind Door #3. I don't want the insurance agent or the hairless guinea pig.

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Marmot Day, 1978

Wish I could fit in those jeans, but so glad I'm not that clueless! Considering how uninformed we were on this backpacking trek in the San Juan National Forest above Durango, Colorado, I'm glad to have survived with only the occasional recurring lost marmot nightmare.

It's Greta Groundhog Day, a silly holiday I never forget. In my elementary school class, my friend Greta celebrated her birthday every Groundhog Day.

In Alaska, today is Marmot Day. My personal Marmot Day [pMD] was in the snowy mid-summer. It was the first real vacation with my law-student spouse, and our budget for the two weeks was slightly over $200. My mom slipped me another hundred in case something broke on our puke-yellow Chevy Nova.

In the photo I'm smiling because no bears ate me through the whole night while I tried to sleep on the crunchy vegetation and steep slope. As you may note, I can see my shadow. That meant eighteen more years of marriage!

We were somewhere in the vicinity of Kennebec Pass, and about to encounter an abandoned mine area populated by a couple hundred chirping live fuzzy hand-puppets. They were watching our every clumsy move across the snow, and singing a warning that we were way off the beaten trail. I figured these creatures were a Greek chorus of groundhogs warning of impending tragedy.

Only after I returned to civilization and my library did I identify these creatures as marmots. My students are having some Groundhog Day ID troubles, too. We made groundhog stick puppets today, and learned groundhog poems. We reinforced concepts of months, seasons, cloudy and sunny, hibernation, and shadows. We talked about tunnels and living underground. At the end of the day the kids waiting for their rides in car line said the puppets were prairie dogs and brown dogs. Oh, Greta! We really tried, but it just didn't sink in.

A topo map of preschool will lead to many abandoned marmot mines!

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Mercury memories

I have a favorite childhood memory from the Sixties, back before we knew that absolutely everything is dangerous. I remember playing with mercury bubbles on the blue bathroom linoleum after a thermometer broke, chasing the bubbles, merging and separating them. It was so cool and well worth working around the glass slivers!

Friends report similar experiences. One wrote:

I did the same thing! It was such fun to collect those tiny balls together, almost like magic the way they melded into a large ball. Don't remember telling Mom that I'd broken the thermometer, just the simple pleasure of playing with the mercury.

That's probably why I can't wait for my May trip to Chicago--well, aside from Danger Baby's law school commencement and meeting his future in-laws. I can't wait to finally visit Millennium Park to see "Cloud Gate". Anish Kapoor's sculpture is like a giant reflecting blob of liquid mercury. Sounds like my childhood dream come true!

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and the EPA are busy protecting today's kids from lead and cadmium in cheapo Chinese toys, and that's a good thing. Alas, in the trade-offs between safety and wonder, wonder usually loses. In the Sixties we often got small plastic maze games containing a drop of mercury as birthday party favors. In the late-Seventies a fancier elemental mercury maze toy called "Quicksilver" was popular.

Another mercury memory from the Sixties still doesn't have anything to do with the Friendship Seven astronauts. When you skinned your knee, your mom was likely to paint the scrape with a fabulous stinging, smelly, magenta, microbe-killing concoction of mercury plus bromide or sodium. Mercurochrome and Merthiolate are now known to inhibit healing, and aren't used much. There was a strange rush to having your knee painted with merthiolate. The knee scrape and the sting were often worth it to smell the pungent odor and be decorated with the gorgeous stain. Both products were pulled from drugstore shelves late in the last millennium.

Sixties moms chose up sides based on their preferences for merthiolate or mercurochrome. Later parental popularity contests pitted Bactine against Jaohnson & Johnson's First Aid Cream and Neosporin.

Kids today have a better chance of learning about mercury at the EPA's superfund cleanup site than by breaking an oral thermometer. Practical clean-up instructions can be found at this Colorado website. I sure hope kids get to visit Chicago at least.

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Creating space

Our first elementary art project of 2010 is finally finished. We made it into space!

When a project takes four class periods, it's a relief to have it be worth the effort. I wasn't too sure we'd get past the first morning doing a reprise of the the shaving cream printmaking the kids loved in December. The second time the kids loved wallowing in the mess even more, so I need some space and a few light years to recover before I try it in a large group again. We got great marbled effects on some old, faded construction paper, though.



The second morning we did a calm color-mixing experience while painting to the space music mix cd the Woolly Mammoth made for me years ago. A little Star Wars, some Star Trek, Holst, and a final frolic with the Purple People Eater were a treat while trying for a a wide range of tints and a soft, feathery brush stroke. Using some freebie overhead transparency sheets for palettes made for easy clean-up, plus we used the last of the paint on each palette for a couple of monoprints.

By the third week, each student had several interesting papers to use, tracing and cutting circles to make planets, asteroids, and other orbs of various sizes. At ages six to nine they feel competent at tracing and cutting, so that class had a relaxed mood. They could trade their leftovers with classmates to get different colors.



Now for the tricky part--how to introduce composition to get the best space, the best illusion of depth, so the circles wouldn't be glued on like polka dots or domino spots. Our eyes and brains play such wonderful tricks on us. The small circle seems more distant than the big circle. The circle that interrupts the picture frame seems closer still. The overlapped circle is automatically more distant than the overlapping one. A small shape interrupting the edge of a large circle seems to be moving in front of it!

The kids were delighted with their results. Their planets and moons weren't just in space. Some seemed to be rotating and revolving thanks to the patterned papers. We even had a few eclipses, and we got safely back to Earth.



© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

Annore what ignoys you

That's my resolution for 2010. A month late, but still useful. The preschoolers demonstrated the concept. We have choices. We can buy into the game when something or someone is bugging us. Or we can walk away. Or we can milk the situation for its entertainment value. The preschoolers usually choose a third option. They wallow for a time with the annoyance, checking to see what diversions it might offer. Does the ignoyance have the potential to get the annoyer in trouble? Does being an agnorer promise brownie points?

What position am I playing in this game?


© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

Walking down Memory Lane in new shoes

Smell those well-worn saddle shoes covered with dust from the gravel playground? Sniff that polish used to revive them? Patent leather Mary Janes and T-straps for Sunday School have a sharper smell.

I get a headache just remembering searching through heaps of Skips tennis shoes on tables in the aisle of Montgomery Wards near the escalators. The acrid odor of rubber soles combined with sibling bickering, a flickering flourescent light fixture, and the anxiety vibes from my budget-strapped, frazzled mother complete the bad flashback.

Shoe-shopping experiences of the Sixties keep popping into my mind when Dad refers to his bank as "Wells & Frost". That was the name of a Lincoln shoe store for several decades. Aside from penny loafers, we don't keep money in our shoes.

Wells and Frost Shoe Store was on the north side of "O" Street between 11th and 12th Streets. It had big show windows with a set-back entry. Toward the back of the store, a loft overhung the shoe department. Orthopedic shoes and clothing departments were up there. My crew of memory joggers think Wells and Frost had a budget basement like many stores in Lincoln.

Wells and Frost sold Red Goose children's shoes. Kids got to spin a wheel and receive a golden egg prize after buying shoes. We didn't shop at Wells and Frost, but the Red Goose shoes tv jingle is seared in my brain. "Half the fun of having feet is Red Goose shoes!," ran often during the black and white cartoons of the late afternoons, opposite the "Open wide for Chunky" candy bar ads. Those ads showed a trapezoidal foil-wrapped candy floating through a big-eyed drawbridge.

Sitting on the cork tile floor of my neighbor's basement, close enough to the tv to ruin my eyes, I was unnerved by both these commercials. A Chunky bar had raisins and Brazil nuts. If I got one on Halloween, I definitely planned to trade for something else.

"Half the feet" got into my brain instead of "half the fun" after listening to scary Grimms fairy tales. Those Grimm Brothers were always having maidens cut off their toes or feet, dancing away until they froze to death or were roasted by hags.

Later in the Sixties, Wells and Frost had a store at the Gateway Mall. It was adjacent to and set back from the Kresges' storefront near the stairway to the lower level community meeting space.

Nowadays even little kids carry cellphones for "emergencies". Most emergencies a kid could encounter in the Sixties could be handled by retrieving the dime from one penny loafer to make a pay phone call. Still, it is better to keep ones bank account at Wells Fargo, and not in ones shoe.

© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

Deep Bath

Sitting on the child-size chair listening to the child psychologist, my mind started wandering to the possibility of a long, relaxing bath. The speaker was doing a great job explaining the emotional tasks at each developmental stage of childhood, but my feet hurt. Her outlines for promoting independence, dealing with sibling rivalry, and parenting with consistency were clear. The school parents were soaking up the information, but we were running out of time for the Q&A section of the evening.

"How can I get my 4 1/2 year-old into the bathtub in the evening? She wants to act like a kitty cat and play around instead."

What a flashback question! Not to my own parenting of young sons, though. I seem to have blocked out those memories. I can barely remember the bathrooms in our various homes, no pun intended.

Instead I remember being a child at bathtime. It probably helps that the bathroom in the house where I grew up hasn't changed much since I was three. When Mom announced our bathtime we would beg her for a "deep bath." She would remind us that we had to get ready fast if we wanted to have that treat.

A deep bath was not the norm. Mom didn't start running the water in the tub until we were in the bathroom ready. If we had dilly-dallied, there wasn't time for her to run the water more than the few inches needed for actual cleaning of children in assembly-line fashion. We could only play in the water until it got chilly.

If we had been "obnoxious" or "belligerent" during the day, there was no chance of a deep bath. We knew not to even ask.

A deep bath was a reward for getting ready quickly after a day when we didn't frazzle our mother. She kept the warm water running, filling the tub so full we could float boats, blow bubbles, and make shampoo-suds hairdos and beards. Mom would even hold the mirror for us to admire our sculpted hairdos. The mirror steamed up while our relaxed mother leafed through a magazine or filed her nails. We played until our fingers turned to wrinkly raisins and the water cooled. Washed, dried, and into our PJs, we made towel turbans and paraded to the living room to model them for our dad.

Just remembering a "deep bath" is a relaxing soak for my tired brain. "What is a natural consequence?" That's a great parenting question. Tonight I'd say a short chilly shallow bath is the natural consequence of dilly-dallying at bathtime.

And now, I need a hot soak and some relaxing time making shampoo sculpture antlers and antennae. Thank heaven my kids are grown up!

© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

MLK Day stuffed green peppers

Monday I really needed to make stuffed peppers. I have no idea what triggered this craving beyond the bag of beautiful peppers I bought at Braum's. The only recipe in my box was a vegetarian one from my newlywed days, combining brown rice and sesame seeds to make a complete protein. It mentions Diet for a Small Planet on the reverse side. I hauled out Joy of Cooking for more info, and then hit the internet.

Shifting between several recipes makes me dizzy, but the results were very satisfying:

4 beautiful, very large green bell peppers with tops, seeds, and membranes all removed. Rinse the seeds out. Have a big kettle boiling with enough water to submerge the peppers. Add a dash of salt. Push the peppers down into the boiling water and cook on MedHigh 6-7 minutes. Drain.

Cook 3/4 cup brown rice in 1 3/4 cups water according to pkg. directions. [Basically, bring them to boil, boil one minute, reduce heat and simmer covered 45-50 minutes.]

Brown ground meat (about the size of one patty) in a large, heavy skillet.* Drain grease or add oil to make about 1 T. Chop 3 stalks celery and mince 3 cloves garlic. Add to skillet with ground meat and stir 4-5 minutes. Add 1/4 cup sesame seeds. [That was the size of a bag for $1.29 in the Latino spices section at Albertsons. It was money well spent for flavor and texture. You could probably substitute sunflower kernels.] Stir the seeds and brown another 3-4 minutes. Add 3 chopped Roma tomatoes and 1/4 t basil, 1/4 t oregano, and 1 t parsley. Keep stirring. Add 1 T soy sauce or Worcestershire sauce, plus a dash of red pepper flakes. Add water just to keep from burning, or some liquid from the can if you substitute canned tomatoes. Simmer until the rice is done.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Stir the rice into the skillet, mixing well. Grease a 9x9 baking dish. Stand the peppers in it. Fill each pepper with the skillet mixture, and compress well. Cover the top of each pepper with grated cheese of your choice. Make a foil tent over the top. Bake 25-30 minutes. Let cool 5-10 minutes before serving. One pepper is enough per person, so serves 4. Reheats well in the microwave, although you might want to add more cheese.

*Obviously I'm not a vegetarian, but this was plenty of meat to give flavor to the stuffing. The rice and sesame provide the protein for the meal. You could brown chopped onion instead of ground meat.

It was so delicious that I'm trying stuffed eggplant tonight.

© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

Needlenose needs

Thank heaven we all had cell phones. How else could we call each other to enquire regarding the whereabouts of the needlenose pliers?

This Christmas the pliers were in high demand. First the headlights knob in the Buick broke, not for the first time. Visits to several auto shops failed to find the standard package of generic replacement knobs, so we were had to turn the lights on and off with the needlenose pliers. Three grownup drivers sharing one '96 Buick, plus one pair of pliers.

It was my turn to drive the Buick to Barnes and Noble when I got the call. "Mom, when can you be back here with the needlenose pliers? My key just broke off in the front door lock." I'm on my way to save the day.

My nephew is turning sixteen. Sure, he wants a car. It might be better if he got his own pair of needlenose pliers. Maybe I could have them engraved.

Sixteen is all about feeling invincible. Real life is all about breaking down that illusion, and dealing with the breakdowns.

© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

Relieving Buster

Buster needs to go out back to the patio at least twice each night. Buster is the faithful fluffy dog companion of my eighty-six year-old eccentric next door condo neighbor. In dog years Buster may be almost as old. He certainly has the frequent urination problems advertised endlessly on the Golf Channel.

In the close confines of a condo community, we become aware of our neighbors' little issues, but generally don't acknowledge them. Life works best if we create an invisible force-field of privacy larger than the actual physical space of our units.

My neighbor is the same age as my father, so I sometimes transfer my worries between the two and break down the force-field. Dad falls down often, so I fear W.B. will also. Somehow W.B. gets up in the night to let Buster out to the patio. The door opens and closes just through the wall from my bedroom. I rouse, and half-listen for Buster to go back inside through a sleepy fog.

Buster is well-trained. When he is ready to go in he whimpers a barely audible muh. W.B. is usually well-trained, too, and lets Buster right back in. As soon as they get back inside, I'm back in deep sleep.

Alas, sometimes W.B. doesn't respond to muh. As soon as Buster amps his polite request the tiniest notch up to meh-meh, my adrenalin kicks in. Where is W.B.? Has he fallen asleep?

Mehmeh! Has W.B. fallen down? Should I call him on the phone to wake him up and see if he is okay?

Mwah-mwah! Buster, is W.B. out there in the cold with you? Has he slipped on the ice?

Arrrgh-MWAH! Oh, Buster! Should I call W.B.'s daughter or 911?

Mwah Mwah Mwah!! Okay, Buster, I'm coming out there. [Door slams] I'm climbing up on the air conditioner to look over the fence.

MWORK BWORK BORK! Oh, you poor doggie! Yes, I look very scary with my bedhead hair and breathing steam in this cold.

BORK BORK BORK!!! Please little Buster, don't have a heart attack! I'll call W.B. (Please, God, don't let W.B. have a heart attack, either, or fall going to answer the phone.)

RKWARK RKWARK RKWARK!!! And please let someone be listening if my dad falls 650 miles away. Amen. And thank you, W.B., for waking up and letting Buster back inside. I'm relieved. Buster's relieved.

semper vigilans

semper fidelis

semper timmy down the wellis

© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

Fantasy Opera

I probably should have watched the Cowboys-Vikings game, but the Fox channel had annoying wavy lines through it. I couldn't identify Tony Romo in a police line-up, but Brett Favre always looks good in those Wranglers. How would Brett look in pink stockings and a toreador costume?





Instead of reality football, I was playing fantasy opera. It's a good imaginary desert island diversion, and the price is right. Yesterday friends treated me to viewing the Metropolitan Opera live broadcast of "Carmen" in High Definition at a movie theater. Today I'm assembling my own production.

In the role of the gypsy, Carmen, I can choose from Elina Garanca (Met in HD), Julia Migenes-Johnson (1984 DVD filmed in Andalusia), Jessye Norman singing sweetly on my Decca CD, or the entirely unconvincing Ekaterina Semenchuk in her 2004 Dallas Opera debut. Elina and Julia will have to fight it out in the cigarette factory. Julia is earthier--more real. Elina is just the tiniest iota too perfect, and I rarely forgot she was acting.

Roberto Alagna clearly leads the pack for the role of the naive, and then obsessed Don Jose. His chemistry with Elina Garanca in the Met broadcast was spellbinding. Runner-up is Neil Shicoff on the Decca CD. Placido Domingo has never convinced me that he wouldn't rather run home to his mama on the DVD. Mark Thomsen made no memorable impact in the Dallas Opera.

Houston native Latonia Moore gave credibility to Micaela in the Dallas production and won the hearts of the audience. Faith Esham looks and sounds wonderful on the DVD, Mirella Freni sounds excellent on the CD. Barbara Frittoli at the Met looked old enough to be Don Jose's mother.

Teddy Tatu Rhodes subbed the bullfighter role, Escamilla, in Saturday's Met broadcast, learning he would sing just a few hours before the performance. He sang the role in 2004 in Dallas, a year after he gave my heart a flutter in La Boheme. I seem unable to choose Simon Estes from the Decca CD sight unseen. I lean toward Ruggero Raimondi's arrogant rock star portrayal in the DVD over Teddy's more human if still egotistical interpretation.

I don't know if Brett Favre can sing, but Keith Miller can. I had no idea Keith Miller played football for the Colorado U Buffaloes before becoming a knockout as Zuniga on the Met stage. He has no competition. This is a fantasy opera, after all.

DVD wins with atmosphere, filmed with real dust and rocks. The Metropolitan Opera set rotates and transforms from act to act creating a unified form that is dramatic and effective in each arrangement. One of the greatest joys of the HD broadcast was watching the set changes from fantastic camera angles.

My first exciting onstage tour of a Dallas Opera set was 2004's "Carmen". I will create the costumes for Frasquita and Mercedes, Carmen's gypsy friends, in my fantasy production.

© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder

Short Buicks get no respect

Payday! Yippee! Just going to drive through the new bank down at the corner to make a deposit, get some cash, and make a mortgage payment.

Whoa. Where is the Six Flags sign about being this tall to ride this ride? My Buick is not tall enough for the Wells Fargo drive-up window. When the teller drawer glides out, it almost grazes the roof of my car. I've got long arms, but lack a giraffe's neck to see into the drawer to get my cash.

In this SUV town the Skylark needs an Americans With Disabilities Act modification. As if my self-esteem wasn't low enough already, my car don't get no Dangerfield respect. Next payday I'll have to borrow the educational periscope toy from school.

Short Buicks got no reason...

© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder