Cyber-challenged art teachers for $500, Alex

Without a teenager in the house, this cellphone account function defies comprehension by an aging Baby Boomer.

What is downloading ringtones?

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Composers for $500, Alex

This composer created an opera about a hot-blooded gypsy and a matador, but the downloadable ringtone was too subtle to be answered in a timely fashion by middle-aged bloggers.

Who is Bizet?

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Flat Stanley Goes Smockless

International celebrity Flat Stanley, visited my preschool art class today for the very first time. We were painting our fish tank projects, but Flat Stanley did not have a paint shirt so he had to stay inside a plastic sandwich bag. You can see that he resembles a French mime in a "box".

Like Tom Cruise, Flat Stanley is smaller in person than you would expect. He listened politely when I read Lucy Cousin's Hooray for Fish, and was interested in the preschoolers' work.

Flat Stanley has logged millions of travel miles visiting classrooms and families around the globe. His intense work schedule helps keep him trim. I read in some newspaper or newspost that F. Stanley was in this country to help Michele Obama with her project to prevent Puffy Stanleys and Chunky Stanleys.

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Sweet pea in a bag

It was confusing for Sixties kids sitting too close to the tv in the dark basement. It was sort of "Don't ask, don't tell." We couldn't figure out how Popeye and Olive Oyl got Swee'Pea. The mystery added to our storky worries about the source of babies. Swee'Pea did not seem to have legs. He/she/it crawled around in a bunting jammie bag wearing a goofy bonnet or a captain's hat.

Without help from me, my Sweet Pea Seed Kit is growing on the window sill. I forgot all about it for at least a week. Thank heaven the vines haven't started weaving upward through the mini-blind slats.

Pre-adolescents on the loose at Gateway Mall in the mid-Sixties used to nab freebie datebooks at the Hallmark Card Shop. These month-by-month calendars were about 4" square, so too big to be magazines for our Barbie dolls. The calendars were just big enough to write in names on the birthdates for friends and family. The calendars were also a much-studied source of information about birthstones and birthmonth flowers, plus traditional wedding and anniversary gifts. We expended great effort memorizing this information, and a whole generation of female shoppers was trained to buy birthday gifts and cards OR feel very inadequate.

I read another horror story of bullying in the newspaper this morning. A young teen hung herself after months of bullying. I know of only one case of true bullying in my growing-up, and I occasionally wonder how that incident impacted the victim and the perpetrators over the decades.

Teasing was rampant back then, if bullying was rare. I was a victim of birth month flower teasing, if you can comprehend this offense! Due to my April birthday I was scorned for my sweet pea birth flower by playmates jealous of my diamond birthstone. These were the years when diamonds were a girl's best friend, gentlemen preferred blondes, and sweet peas were assumed to be stinky pee-you!

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Old furniture, furniture, furniture

I'm sure I should know which bird sings the "old furniture" song. It's not the cardinal's "cheer, cheer" call, or the "chick-a-dee dee dee" of the black-capped chickadee. Thanks to Hot-Air Henry, I know the red-winged blackbird sings, "Okalee; can't catch me."

Killdeer say "kill deer". Bobwhite quail say their name, which was the name of a kid in my high school class. Bill White is running for Texas governor against Rick Perry. Bill White's song is still getting out to Texans. We already know Rick Perry's song to his conservative good hair base.

The hawk that oversees my condo complex says "keck". Just "keck".

At the Heard Nature Sanctuary I learned that a tufted titmouse calls "peter peter peter". The Carolina wren sings "tea kettle, tea kettle, tea kettle".

Now I'm going to read James Thurber's story about the effect of a whip-poor-will on an insomniac. Please don't make me wax my furniture.

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Cedar Brake Loop

"Cedar Brake Loop" suggests a modern dance creation for spring in North Texas. I wonder what became of my favorite choreographer, Bruce Wood. The Cedar Brake Loop trail at the Heard Nature Sanctuary near McKinney, TX calls for percussion musicians and a modern dance choreographer of Wood's abilities.


Any moment I expect Hansel and Gretel to tiptoe along the trail, scattering bread crumbs and imagining a witch's whispers as the cedar bark rustles.



It is cool and shadowy down in the Cedar Brake area of the nature preserve. The trail is primitive compared to the Eagle Scouts' swamp boardwalk project on the Wood Duck Trail. I can't advance far on the mud trail, but it is a sufficient distance to be caught in the wind-blown sounds of stick rattling against stick.


Hansel and Gretel can't get very lost. They are more likely to leave the plastic wrap from their juice box straws on the trail than bread crumbs. Even the most jaded child would have a few moments of Grimm anxiety in the Cedar Brake darkness.

Far overhead the cedars are green. Sunlight quickly reaches my squinted eyes. Down here on the trail it's removed to a black and white woods with tiny hints of spring green.

The branches rattle and clack in waves of percussion. I can't wait to go back!



© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Goatweed leafwing

My one-block walks are solidified in my MWF afternoon routine. The walks take close to an hour now, since I'm drawn to both sides of the creek. Wednesday afternoon I finally got a photo of the illusive orange butterfly. My knees are complaining about the scrambles up and down the creekbank.

I've lived in subdivisions as flat and "earth tone" as a camouflage leafwing butterfly in a pile of old leaves. The streets had names like Bankside, Creekside, Parkside, Whispering Creek, Stone Creek, Ripple Creek, Sandy Creek, Timbercreek, Timberview, Stepping Stone, Hickory, Shadybrook, and Edgewater.

None of these street names have hinted that boys wading in the creeks would stain their socks a rusty red no amount of Clorox could remove. Even the most rustic appellations did not suggest there was a six-lane street two blocks over.

This vanishing artist is also one block from a six-lane thoroughfare. Maybe somewhere there are streets named Goatweed and Leafwing. When the Goatweed Leafwing flies, its wings are a bright and velvety rusty orange.

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Repo Man

My dad's wheelchair has not yet been reposessed. I'll make another call to Lincoln's best-known home health supply store at 8:30 a.m. confirming our intent to purchase the wheelchair. I've given my dad strict instructions to bite the leg of any person who wants his wheelchair and to NOT LET GO.

Should you happen to watch a tv commercial for a powered wheelchair store, stay skeptical. Dealing with Medicare and wheelchairs is not a done deal. Dealing with it all long distance is a royal bite in the ankle.


© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Not that Green

Mylar balloons have joined juice-drink pouches on my Most Wanted List of litter criminals. This St. Paddy's Day balloon snared along my shallow creek of moss and Mr. Mallard Ducks makes me crabby.





© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Playground pronunciation update

"Cardinal" pronunciation remains unsettled. The staff was pondering this on the playground. Do we pronounce the i? Is the pronunciation the same for birds, baseball teams, sins, and ecclesiastical hierarchy? I do know the birds are named for the red robes, not the other way around.

The mama cardinal was pleased I hung a birdfeeder just before our First Day of Spring six-inch snowfall. The cardinal couple and some married ringneck doves are enjoying sunflower seeds this week. Ringneck doves are only slightly smarter than mourning doves. They are always surprised that the feeder swings and swirls when they land on it. Perhaps because the doves seem like black and white television birds, I've started thinking of these two couples as the Kramdens and the Nortons from "The Honeymooners".

Cardinal Cushing? Cardinal Richelieu? St. Louis Cardnals. There is no i in "team", of course! I say Car di nal Cushing, but Cardnal Richelieu. How 'bout you?

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Return of the purple heart

Thirteen years ago I moved my home, my sons, and some bits of this plant to our new condominium. A few years later I broke off the stalks of "purple stuff" aka "purple heart" and plunked them into the mud behind another condo.


The plant is popping up at our first condo, but not yet at my current home. The shoots remind me of demanding, hungry baby bird beaks.

Learning differences

This is a quick update on themes in recent posts or maybe the things that never got written. My one-block walks continue, providing mental health at no cost to taxpayers:

Teen groups could also apply to cedar waxwings. They move as attention-deficit flash-mobs from tree to tree. I'm collecting images for a future textile collage of waxwings in the soapberry tree.

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

If you drive, don't draw

Cellphone use is already banned in many school zones. Soon they will crack down on pencil use. Scrawling on scrap paper and post-it notes will become a criminal offense. And then how will I remember the highlight of the day?

The most hilarious sight of the morning was a middle school boy traveling to school on his metal scooter. He was loaded down with the typical two-ton backpack. Dangling from the backpack by its handle was the boy's violin case. With each leg-kick push of the scooter, the violin case bounced on the sidewalk.




This is much more amusing if you are not the parent making revolving payments on a dang orchestra or band instrument for a middle school student.

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Jump Up Dance Around

It's got a good beat. You can dance to it.

I'm having great fun displaying our latest art project and explaining the importance of lifesize art to kids and adults. Unfortunately this wonderful moment has caused an annoying song to be stuck in my head. I'm having to jump up, jump up, and get down like I haven't since Danger Baby was home from college one summer. Danger Baby was totally into House of Pain's "Dance Around".

Each of my sons has an interest in music that overlaps with mine. Each is different. House of Pain is not in an overlapping area. I will not say "Jump Around" is a "low point of American music", as I can understand the energy. Plus, I wouldn't want to repeat a memorable dinner table pronouncement from my dad thirty-five years ago when he was annoyed by my music.

Enjoy the energy in the art. The little students are jumping with excitement.

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Montessori Teen Insight

I was working with a four and a half year old girl studying teens and place value. You know, eleven is one ten and one unit. Thirteen is one ten and three units... So, I asked this little girl in her black crinkle patent go-go boots, "What does teen mean?"

"It means you are in a group!" Very true words from a little girl Teenagers are all about groups!

Besides her go-go boots, this little person has more interpersonal intelligence than I can comprehend. You've heard of Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences?

I can zip my boots, and I'm mighty glad I survived parenting teenagers. The teens mean many ten groups vs. ever-tired parental units.

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder