Getting the worm out of bed

Everyday this week I've become s-l-o-w-l-y awake to a cardinal singing.  About the third time through its song, before I've got my eyes open, but after it has made me smile, the alarm clock buzzes.  If I sit up, the bird leaves to serenade a different condo's residents down the fence line.  If I hit the snooze, the bird stays and sings a bit longer until it's job is done and I face the day.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Rock and a hard place souvenir tee

The preschoolers were eating lunch.  One four year old was wearing a Hard Rock Cafe t-shirt.  The next child says to him, "I like your shirt.  It's just like the one my mom wears to bed.".  I just about snorted red pepper hummus out my nose trying not to laugh.

Then the student in the Hard Rock shirt says, "My mom got it when I was at Dad's house."  That made me sad.  So many children, so very young, shuttling between parents' homes, confused about the new significant others in their parents' lives, who maybe packed today's lunchbox.  So many small children picked up by adults who continue talking on their cellphones while retrieving child, lunchbox, and papers from the hall cubby.

I'm down.  Day after day over one hundred degrees is zapping everyone.  Disgust with Congress and media coverage is like walking in a perpetual cloud of gnats.

So hard to find a starting point for gratitude.  I'm thankful:

• My sons were older when divorce became inevitable.
• I was able to be my sons' primary caregiver and educator while they were preschoolers.
• In a backwards way, that my spouse needed to prove his manliness by providing for our little family all by himself.
• That the boys had grandparents who were consistently interested and supportive.
• We ate enough meals as a family that my kids learned some manners they still use everyday. 
• My students don't know what I wear to bed!

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

A good week for toms and tallies

Tommy can you hear me?  Although Thomas is still in the top sixty-five male baby names, I can't remember teaching any boys named Thomas, Tom, or Tommy.  I am intrigued by baby naming trends, having taught preschoolers for a ridiculously long time. I often wish I'd kept a tally of student names. The associations that accompany those names could be cautionary tales for expectant parents!  Let's just say that if you want your daughter to always wear panties to school, don't name her Chloe or Alexandra!  Statistics will bear me out on this. Should you need a kid to run for help, ask for a Jack or a Mike.


As a teen I worked in the hospital kitchen preparing special diets for diabetics and other patients.  One of my duties was tallying the orders marked on patient menus, including the special dietary requirements and special requests.  This was a good gig, sitting near the fan in the relatively cool dietary office.  Compiling this count required shortcut abbreviations:

tom jce = tomato juice

FF = fat free

SF = salt free

VW = 6 vanilla wafers

LD = 3 Lorna Doone cookies  

van pdg = vanilla pudding

crax = 5 saltines

RA cherries = Royal Anne cherries

WP RA cherries = water-packed Royal Anne cherries for diabetics

soft RA cherries = canned pitted Royal Anne cherries 

WC = whipped cream 

It's the pits when you can't have WC on your red jello cubes:  

I'm so lucky to have the promise of good toms from Janie to get me through each day until lunchtime.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Brightening your day?

Saturday morning I headed out to work and found myself following a white pickup truck with a window box full of red, pink, and white vinca.  What was wrong with this picture?  I know, I know, I'm long overdue for a visit to the ophthalmologist.


The pickup was not going very fast.  When I pull alongside at a stop light I could see the flowers were not growing in an automotive window box.  The nursery flats of flowers were sitting atop the metal truck tool box.  Alas, I couldn't reach my camera.

As little kids in the Sixties, we always drew window boxes full of flowers when we made pictures of houses.  There were required standards and conventions not all that different from the restrictive covenants of today's homeowners associations.  Never mind that there were very few Eastridge homes with window flower boxes, and none with red brick Santa chimneys.  

The drawing traditions handed down from Big Kids to Little Kids were strict.  There were standards to uphold that went far beyond mere coloring inside the lines!  All trees must have apples year-round.  All trees must have a hole in the trunk for an owl.  


All vehicles must have shining yellow headlights, day or night, even though the smiling sun is always drawn in the upper left-hand corner of the paper,  What if all pickups had window flower boxes? All cars, too?
  


What if all Sundays had a gift of tomatoes, and a page-turning murder mystery set in Chicago? A mental health lunch at Corner Bakery with a good friend?  Wandering in World Market and riding shotgun through the carwash?  Making hummus and pesto?  What a wonderful world that would be!   


© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Hot dill, summer in the city

Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty, but the aroma of the dill in the hundred degree heat is a '54 Chevy memory road trip.

The dill  has gone to seed after bringing us our fabulous black swallowtail experience.  Maybe if the children practice cutting with scissors and remove the umbel/umbrella seed heads, the dill will return to leaves and flowers.  I'm turning into a leaves/seeds/flower child flashing back to Mom's dilly bread.  I haven't made it in decades.

The aromatic bucket-o-dill seed rejuvenated Norton the elderly Class Rabbit.  He was hopping all over the classroom like a bunny half his age in search of a fix.

So while I was collecting dill seed to bring home, a small bug hopped out of the dill and onto the table.  It was just the size of a dill seed, and handsomely striped.  I had to take its photo through the plastic of a bug catcher, but it is still impressive in its striped outfit.

Mom's dilly bread recipe probably came from  this Pillsbury bake-off.  There's no kneading.  It's especially good with leftover Thanksgiving turkey.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Like toenails on the blackboard

At circle time my lead teacher lifted the live cicada from the bug box.  She let it crawl around in her hands, then offered it to the first student to hold.  All the hairs on my arms stood up and screamed, "No way!" Visceral revulsion, the same as I feel whenever our Texas governor is proposed as a presidential candidate. Well, not quite that bad.

Part of my job is to model for the students the response expected by the lead teacher.  This time, though, I couldn't do it. Holding the cicada was as desirable as prolonged drilling for my dental crown.  Less expensive, but ....

All the kids except one were game to hold the cicada.  Sometimes it fell out of their hands and made that grinding sound.  Sometimes it tried to fly.  I was ever so grateful when we took it outside to return it to the wild!

The drone of the cicadas is omnipresent, cancelling out the back pocket tingling notification of my vibrating cellphone.  The wound care nurse has cleaned and dressed Dad's toe where the latest nail pulled off.  His bath aide was there, and the hospice RN was aware.  Dad has enough feeling left in his toes that this was very painful.  Dad kicked and struggled when the nurse showed me the toes earlier this morning.  My toenails screamed in sympathy.  The hairs on my arms went berserk.

This evening I'm watching a hummingbird at the feeder, and enjoying a chilled adult beverage.  Recent mornings I can't take my coffee cup out to the patio because I have a spider.  [I've known several people who claimed they could not go to work because they had a cat on their lap.]  My spider started out making little practice webs behind the pepper plant.  Now it makes a perfect web between "my" hummingbird feeder and the lawnchair or tomato cage each night.  The spider and I have a time-share agreement.  I don't smash through its web while it is eating breakfast.  It packs up its circus and leaves me unensnared in the evenings while I get myself unspun!

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

The Woolly Mammoth's eggplant birthday party

8
No eggplants were ate.  I didn't know diddly about eggplant in 1995, and I still don't.

Why do young growing eggplants wear purple Charlie Brown t-shirts?
They are just hanging there on the plant like third-grader monkeys at an eighth birthday celebration.

Oh my baba ganoush!  Aren't those the cutest, smartest, funniest, best-behaved kids you ever met?  I am cherishing the memory of all those funny extra sons who used to hang out at my house.  I know the current status of three of these goofs, and wish I knew the other three.

Because I had designed and made the costumes for a production of "You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown" along with the the promo t-shirts, the birthday gang headed to the performance.  First, we made an important stop at 7-Eleven to concoct bizarre Slurpees.  If you are an eight year-old male, Slurpees are sport championship, art form, gross-out competition, and beverage.  This phase is harmless in the long run, and is not a gateway drug to tattoos and visible piercings.  So go ahead and celebrate 7/11 with a free Slurpee:  

Monday, July 11

Happy 7-Eleven Day
Our Birthday, Your Bash

Stop by for a FREE 7.11 oz Slurpee drink, general merriment and a one-man dance party should you choose to start it. 

When: Monday, July 11 12:00 AM until 12:00 AM

Not imagining Slurpee eggplant flavors! Just wondering why our garden veggies wear those little aubergine shirts with the zigzags.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Breathing arctic air in, one, two, three, and out, one, two, three.

I am the walrus.
The very calm, serene walrus.  
No one comes near my ice floe.  
I drift.  


My big flippers are at rest beside me on the ice.  
They do not need to move.  
They are totally relaxed.  


My ice floe is separated from other ice floes and other walrii by cold, clear water.  
We walrii are uncrowded.  
Serene.  
Our marine mammal beauty shines with the Northern Lights.  


We breathe in through our nostrils, one, two, three as our whiskers shiver and shimmer.  
We breathe out through our tusks, one, two, three.  


I am monumental.  
I am imperturbable.  
I am unflappable.  
I am cool.  
I am invincible, but not Helen Reddy.


Feeling much better.  Much.  


The preschoolers who stayed up very late watching fireworks are drifting away on their own little ice chunk.
My father who tried to run over me because I wouldn't let him pull himself out of his wheelchair and fall on his face on the floor is drifting toward the Midnight Sun.  


I am surrounded in cool white light.  Cool.  White.  Light.


I open my email.  The Dallas Morning News asks, "Do you want Rick Perry to run for president?"


That would be a cold day in hell. 


© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

A very fine day two of the three-day weekend

After using my Saturday off to get a grip on life maintenance tasks, I slept the clock around.  Must have needed the dream time, as I sure felt better, mentally sorted and filed.

Took Dad a cup of coffee, and convinced him to get one arm out of the blanket to hold it.  He was having a non-talking day, but I held the phone so he could listen to my brother's voice.  By the time I convinced Dad to get his other arm out to hold the phone, my brother had said goodbye.  I sympathize, as these one-sided conversations can be draining.  My sister is the only one who can really keep the monologue patter going nonstop.

Dad's become accustomed to holding his arms in the King Tut pose under the blankets.  It's probably bad form to compare ones parent to a sarcophagus, but the description fits.  Dad's pose is partly due to poor circulation and cold hands, so I started thinking about ways to make or get a muff.  When I worked at the hospital (just after the Civil War) there were lots of fuzzy pads and booties.  Then Danger Baby had a fleece to sleep on when he was little.  Don't know what happened to it.  Maybe he took it to the dorm!

So just a warning here, gentle readers.  Should you want to Google for sheepskin muffs, use the alternate word "fleece".  Otherwise you will get a million hits for lambskin condoms!  For now, Dad will have to keep his arms crossed under the comforter.  Indeed, I may shop for a crook and flail instead.

Next a lovely, long catch-up visit and vent with my walking buddy.  What a delight to be friends so long we know each other's backstory, share our temporary rants and long-term frustrations. We don't offer fixes, just unconditional support.

It seemed silly to want a nap, so I headed to the free Basically Beethoven concert by the Fine Arts Chamber Players at Texas Discovery Gardens. Spent an hour in the Butterfly House, and finally got photos of a blue morpho butterfly.  I saw an owl butterfly in flight, another first.  The photos aren't good, but I sure understand  the owl experience.  The butterfly in flight is almost as big as my two hands (not under the comforter), and whooshes by like a bird, or a stealth bomber!

An hour with brass Sousa and Karl King marches, armed forces salutes, and young families learning how to behave at a concert brought back good parenting memories.  I tried to be a good example for a new generation, but like the little kids I joined most of the adults riding Silver through the William Tell overture.

Then an hour spent in the the native plant, butterfly garden, and demonstration gardens with other concertgoers speaking an amazing number of languages.  We all ooh and ah about the same.

 

Happy Independence Day!

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Hitting for the cycle in the preschool class

Although my last post was about a hat trick, today we celebrate hitting for the cycle.  In baseball a single, a double, a triple, and a home run constitute "hitting for the cycle".  When a player hits them all in one game, the cycle is complete.  A team can collectively hit for the cycle by hitting one of each in a single inning.
Our preschool class hit for the cycle this summer session.  That would be the life cycle of the black swallowtail butterfly.

Yesterday marked the completion of the cycle with the emergence of a butterfly from its chrysalis in our classroom.  From the discovery that the chrysalis was wiggling to our actual release of the swallowtail on the playground, this was a total thrill.  I held my breath as it pumped fluid into its wings and became stronger.  I don't expect to be that excited again until the birth of a grandchild, and there's no rush on that!

Earlier this week many of the kids got to see a raggedy black swallowtail lay eggs on the dill plant in the school garden.  

We watched many caterpillars on the school dill, and learned that nature is rough.  Red wasps killed most of the caterpillars, although some may have crawled away to form a chrysalis elsewhere.  In other years our caterpillars have been stung by fire ants, eaten by a praying mantis.

Some lucky students even got to see a caterpillar extend its orange horns to give off a bad smell to an incoming wasp.  Sure wishing I was at that photo op!

We fed two caterpillars brought from my lead teacher's home dill plant. They lived in a jar at the Science Table.  We saw the caterpillars attach themselves to plant stems with thread and we moved the chrysalids into a net for hatching.  

We looked for changes each day, and voila, the first butterfly emerged before the three-day weekend.  The lead teacher took the other chrysalis home since it would not survive emerging in the net during the long weekend.  She can release it in her garden to really complete the cycle.

It has been nearly four years since we had a successful butterfly cycle with caterpillars found in the garden.  Those were small checkerspot butterflies, cute but not nearly as thrilling as this perfect black swallowtail.  Before that we hatched some mail-order red admirals with mixed results.  Last spring we had the emergence and traumatic release of a monarch from its chrysalis.   

While I was shuffling through the disorderly stacks in my brain attic, I first thought of "hat trick", the expression from British cricket referring to three wickets taken by a bowler in three consecutive balls.  This feat was allegedly first achieved by the legendary Sir Harry Flashman in Flashman's Lady.  I do so miss Flashy!  Hat trick can also mean three consecutive wins, hits, or goals  in any sport.  A preschool class hat trick would be getting through three consecutive months with no cases of head lice!

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Andy Warhol with a bunny on his head

I can do many things with a bunny on my head, but I cannot post photos of my students.  Therefore, these photos have all been approved by the Witness Protection Program's Warhol Anonymity Division.

1.  

2.  Set children to work coloring nice hot dog-shaped pink inner bunny ears.

                              

See example below.

3.  Constructing the paper plate bunny was ridiculously easy .

4.  Match the edges of opposing plates and fasten with three staples above the bunny's nose.

5.  Pull the central sections across each other and fasten.

 

6.  Position bunny around headband, stapling center front and at back edge of each plate.

7.  Position ear piece and staple to each plate.

8. Glue pompom to center back of headband for bunny tail.

9.  Add a triangle nose if desired.

10.  Now you have a bunny on your head.  What can you do?

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Mary in Ohio With a Bouncing Bunny On Her Head?

Recently reawakened to my strange sensory connection to my college friend.  Why is it that whenever I tear the sheet of Bounce in half and throw it into the dryer load I think of Mary?  To the best of my memory Mary and I never did laundry together, or sniffed anti-static dryer sheets, although we were college students in those crazy mid-Seventies.  The brain is so weird.

I've been making a series of photo collages connecting student artwork with my photos.  Sometimes the photo experience inspired the art project. Often the connection of the two images is a moment of, "Oh, ho!  Didn't I just see that somewhere else?"  Construction, collage, and Hartfield-Jackson airport runway:

Our new favorite picture book in the preschool class is Sean Bryan's A Boy and His Bunny.  The boy has a bunny on his head.  He names it Fred.

When I saw the illustration my brain, which was lounging on a park bench and eating a ham and swiss sandwich  at the time, immediately said to me, "Cheap paper plates."  Now that I have the plates from the Dollar Store I'm starting to doubt my brain.  How did it sense I should have the students make bunnies to wear on their heads out of these plates?  Cross your fingers that my brain and I will reconnect in time to make a successful art project/surprise birthday party.  Thanks.  One of us will report back on the results.

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

My daddy don't tolerate

Lyle Lovett in the player tonight.  Found this cd when I was looking for something else, but it is exactly what I need.

My daddy don't tolerate my assistance eating his ground-up barbecue beef supper with cooked cabbage and a sugar cookie.  He's slapping at me to cease and desist, and trying to push his tray onto the floor.  I know when I'm not welcome.  Adios, I'm out of here.

Brought along Dad's comforter to wash out the spilled tomato juice.  It was just a V8 insult added to aesthetic injury.  My sister had to buy this dreadful star quilt in a hurry at Target when she moved Dad from assisted living to skilled care a year and a half ago.  Countless industrial launderings have only made it uglier.  Something snapped and I pulled the Buick over to toss the comforter in a dumpster.  Dad probably doesn't care, but I can't look at that comforter one more day.



On the good side, a black swallowtail laid eggs on the dill plant in our school garden late this afternoon.  We keep hoping..  I'll take Dad a well-worn bedspread that used to belong to the Woolly Mammoth tomorrow.



© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder

Off the Map, on the trail, missed the mouth, monorail

This oddly rejuvenating weekend began while I stood spoon-feeding Dad his blueberry pie Friday.  The local news was on tv, but the sound was muted.  My eyes had an end-of-the-school-week glaze on a segment about Zumba Gold dance exercise, but suddenly I recognized one of my favorite library patrons being interviewed.  I smeared blueberry mess across Dad's chin as I grabbed the remote to turn on the sound.  Dad grabbed the remote away, smearing the blueberries even more.  Zumba is probably a cult, but my eighty-something patron has a zest for life that is contagious.  

Friday evening I made a nice sauce for pork chops and pasta with roma tomatoes from the school garden, basil and sage from my patio pots.  Saturday I received a wonderful brown bagful of homegrown tomatoes from a library coworker.  Today I bought bacon to make BLTs...ummmm-good.

Grasshopper monorail above the roma tomato plants.




Bag of tomatoes resting & ripening on my counter.

Reading while Dad dozed, I loved the "Tomatoes" chapter in Joe Henry's Lime Creek.  This section is beautifully created in a crystalline collision of Emily Dickinson and Larry McMurtry with  the Berenstain Bears.  Other chapters vary in power and clarity, but the short novel is worthy of a read.  

If Emily and Larry were to collborate on a fence it might look like my favorite home on Euclid in Highland Park, TX.  I walked over on my lunch break just to see the clear blue glass.  Then I went down to Lakeside to look at the blue dragonflies above the lilypads.

Watched "Off the Map" on DVD last night to get a New Mexico fix.  Although I wanted to go live off the grid and the map, I managed to spend forty dollars at the new Market Street grocery store at Park and Preston.  I'd been for a long walk at Arbor Hills Nature Preserve in west Plano, taking a map with me this time so I could find the hidden Pond Trail.  

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder