Anoles of the King

Watching the spring lizards appear on my condo fence to show off their rosy neck flaps, I kept hearing my internal narrator announce, "Annals of the King by Alfred, Lord Tennyson".

Yes, I played the Whitman card game of Authors with my younger siblings, crouched under the high brass bedframe in the "pink bedroom" at Grandma's house. I can see her chenille bedspread hanging down all around our hiding place.

Alas, Alfred, Lord did not write "Annals of the King", or even "Anoles of the King". Tennyson wrote something called "Idylls of the King". To collect all the Tennysons in the game of Authors you had to get:

• The Brook


• The Crossing


• The Charge of the Light Brigade


• Idylls of the King

I'm pretty sure Tennyson's work had something to do with King Arthur, but my education never filled in the blanks. Everything I know about the Light Brigade's charge in the Crimean War comes from George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman novels. No patio lizards in those, but plenty of reptilian characters...

Doing the NY Times crossword puzzle this morning, I knew that Thackery was born in Calcutta. "My head is full of such trivia", I told Alfred, Lord, as I sent his card into my scanner.

Next time:

Louisa May Alcott's Little Anoles--(small lizard sisters eating apples in the attic).

Robert Louis Stevenson's A Condo Patio of Verses

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Chicken cups and songs

Listening to the students practice their chicken songs for the music festival, I remembered that Dad's chicky cup and cereal bowl were now high up in a kitchen cabinet.

The "chicky bowl" has lost much of its decoration due to generations of spoon scrapes. The "chicky cup" has a small crack, but the exterior images are clear. Filled with daisies, the cup would make a good still life for the elementary art students to use for a quiet line drawing.

The cup and bowl date to my dad's childhood in Pierce, Nebraska in the 1920s. There are no markings on the undersides to indicate origin. The baby chick images matched perfectly with the collection of nursery story books on the bottom shelf in Grandma's living room. I wish I had those little softcover books of the Billy Goats Gruff and Little Red Hen. It was a special event to eat from the bowl and cup on a weekend visit to Pierce when I was a child.

The children are singing a song called "Chook, Chook". It goes like this:

Chook chook
Chook chook
Good morning, Mrs. Hen.
How many chickens have you got?
Madam, I have ten,
Four of them are yellow,
And four of them are brown,
And two of them are speckled red,
The nicest in the town.

I don't remember that from my childhood nursery rhymes, but I did know two versions on another song:






Ever since Gene Hardy's "Childrens Literature" class in the UNL English Department in the mid-Seventies, I've been alternately annoyed and intrigued by those deep, hidden meanings in nursery tales. Is this Hickety Pickety rhyme an easy one for skipping, singing kids just learning to read with simple phonics? Or is it about racism and prostitution?

I'm teaching children who don't know that milk comes from cows, eggs come from chickens, and veggies grow in dirt. Did you know applesauce doesn't begin in handy three-pack individual servings?

I hope to post some of the elementary students' line drawings of daisies in Dad's old breakfast cup soon. The children liked hearing the history behind the cup.

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Corks, quirks, and saving the world

In my escapist fantasies, I see myself living in a small cabin with a screened porch. The cabin interior is decorated in college town bar decor, but without the peanut shells on the floor. Every surface is covered with collected items--keys and license plates, especially, but also hardware, newspapers, vintage board games, maps, buttons. Tabletops and counters become an ever-changing collage of vintage sewing patterns, postage stamps, and magazine photos suspended between layers of clear polyurethane. The ceiling is hung with papier mache insects, wire sculpture lizards, origami, mobiles, Christmas ornaments and retro lamps. The floor is cushioned by mats made from thousands of donated wine corks.

My current abode has boxes, baskets, and jars full of wine corks (and no peanut shells). Friends and relatives have been saving corks for me for many years. Corks are useful for building art project palm trees on fantasy desert isles. Supply has exceeded demand in recent years, but I'll never turn down a bagful of corks. I appreciate the sacrifice that has gone into drinking the wine so artists can create.

Horror vacui is the abhorrence of empty space. Most art history students first learn about it when they study ancient Egyptian tombs in the Valley of the Kings. Tut and Nefertiti couldn't agree on wallpaper, so tombs are covered in wall-to-wall writings.

Tut was pondering large 3-D lotus sculptures entirely made of corks. Maybe Howard Carter should be my condo decorator. Tut. Stone. Silence. Inscriptions. Collections. Possessions. Overload. Alabaster canopic urns...

In my imagined abodes visual over-stimulation replaces excessive auditory noise. Since my sons have moved out, it is very quiet here. Quiet is good. In fact, I may have to track down George Prochnik's book, In Pursuit of Silence: Listening for Meaning in a World of Noise. I heard an NPR "Fresh Air" interview with the author. He said studies show people eat less when the volume level increases, but they drink more alcohol...

When I went a-googlin' for other cork uses, I found an artist who covered her car with corks. The Skylark could be transformed into a CorkMama-Mobile.

With enough hot glue and corks we could aspire to far greater good. We could build shelters for earthquake victims in Haiti. We could mulch our organic gardens. Huh? I saw it on Google, so it must be true.

Spelling for $500, Alex

This super-spelling but techno clueless blogger needed help from a salesperson at the AT&T store to get loud 1812 cannons on her cell phone.

Who put the "tch-ai" in the "Tchai-tchai-kov-sky"?

Somewhere on my permanent record there's a check mark for spelling "Tchaikovsky" under techno-cyber stress, even if I couldn't get my phone to ring.


© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

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.