Name that emperor!

This Byzantine emperor during the Fourth Crusade was nicknamed for his unibrow or sullen countenance.

Who was Mourtzouphlos?

This 1953 gold record about a city name change brought a  Canadian quartet its first big success.

What is "Istanbul (not Constantinople)?"

His audiobook narration of The House at the Edge of Night received AudioFile Best of 2016 Fiction notice, but his readings of Beautiful Ruins, Last Painting of Sara De Vos, and two Andrew Gross historical thrillers are all outstanding.

Who is Edoard Ballerini?

Two subjects personally revealed as almost completely forgotten by Thomas Madden's history of the city at the center of the world.

What are history and geography?

This goofy puppet variety show helped my dad in the worst of his grief after Mom died in 2005.

What is "The Muppet Show?"

Pierce Brosnan wears a giant shrimp costume spoofing his James Bond movie roles but can't quite match an audiobook narrator for these qualities.

What are suave and debonair?


© 2013-2017 Nancy L. Ruder

STEAM kit fever

If you have been living under a rock, which doesn't seem like such a bad choice some days, you might suppose STEAM kits are the carpet shampooers you used to rent at Hinky Dinky that left the rug all soggy. Spots would show back up day after next, more prominent, entrenched, and meaner than before.

My oldest called to ask the best way to deal with a spaghetti sauce stain on carpet. "Welcome to parenthood," I said. "Area rug," said my walking buddy.  Resolve not to be flip.

Apparently libraries need STEAM kits with an assembly of books, activities, DVDs, puzzles, games, and junior science equipment all on a basic science theme for patrons to check out. My views are somewhat tinged by many years of work with young children, and sleepless nights when one of the plastic chickens for the Fisher Price farm  flew the coop. None of that matters, and my current job is just to describe the contents of the kits by material types, subjects, sizes, media, vendor, price, and Dewey classification. And to pray that the pieces are all returned intact and on time!

My parents never did get the Nehi orange soda stain out of the ugly brown carpet, but they were STEAM parents. Howie and Fritz were engineers and children of the Thirties. They chose toys for us that were open-ended, extremely inexpensive, and encouraged creative use of materials. Dad would frequent the deep-discount table at the Toy Castle shop around the corner from his office, as a service to Santa.  Mom was all about open-ended creative constructions. They respected our solitary explorations, but were ready to share and support our curiosities and enthusiasms. They taught us creative reuse of materials, and solid construction techniques by example. Tonight I'm a bit teary and very grateful for my parents and their philosophy of child's play. They did not mistake entertainment for play.

Science: Prisms, rock collections, rock tumbler, gyroscopes, ant farm, butterfly nets, constellation projector, telescope, bug box, magnets, magnifying glass.
Technology: Dry cell battery, switch, and bulb, simple machines like pulleys, crystal radio, Mattel Vac-u-form with a Thingmaker converter, water rockets, hammers, screwdrivers, c-clamps, pliers, saw.
Engineering: Geodesic domes, Pinewood Derby race cars and track, Legos, basic wooden blocks, erector sets, straw connectors, tinker toys, a tree house.
Art: Graph paper, Prang watercolors, plenty of paper of all types and sizes, Eames House of Cards, original geometric Colorforms, fabric scraps, glow-in-the dark ink and paints, felt pens, mechanical pencils, kaleidoscopes, carbon paper, scissors that really cut.
Math: A five-dollar bill to purchase fireworks (nothing better for teaching mental math), Yahtzee, chalkboard, simple loom, another five-dollar bill to purchase four Christmas gifts, measuring cups and spoons, thermometers, tasks requiring folding.

© 2013-2017 Nancy L. Ruder

Goodbye to a pineapple

Christmas 2017

The Pineapple is dead. Long live The Pineapple.

Today we salute a Pineapple plant of humble origin that aspired to total apartment domination. Banished to the balcony, it turned disgustingly gooey following prolonged freezing temps.

Will there be a BBC mini-series?

As recently as New Years Day The Pineapple ruled the balcony and commanded a view of the swimming pool, belying its status as an exile from the living room. When The Pineapple was welcomed inside for protection during a Halloween cold snap, offenses were noted. The plant tried taking over the whole living room and was revealed to host unwelcome insects.

Pride and the fall : a special report

In happier times The Pineapple had served in the capacity of Christmas tree in the apartment. Tensions began sometime after a Calloways garden store cashier hinted that the plant had never borne fruit due to under-fertilization on the part of the actual apartment tenant in late November of this year. The tenant flatly denied the accusation.

Halloween 2017

Cashier recants insinuation of negligence.

Christmas 2016

During it final year The Pineapple became increasingly unstable, and required stakes and bungee cords to remain upright even while continuing to grow. Media depicted The Pineapple through rose-colored glasses, but those close told of a prickly disposition.

World leaders remember The Pineapple

Early December 2016

Modeling career

In adolescence The Pineapple traveled to the office, flirted with daffodils, waved to fans from the apartment front door, and scandalously cohabitated with hen and chick. Spin changed this to a tale of sheltering underprivileged sedum.

Little Pineapple on the Windowsill

Beginnings in a coffee mug

Originally proud of its mission as a teaching example of kitchen scrap gardening, The Pineapple later strove to erase records of its humble beginnings and even botanical records of a decapitation-transplantation operation.

Summer 2015

Family ancestor

Tonight we celebrate the continuation of The Pineapple legacy. A new plant was found under the soggy, gooey leaves at the base of the legendary lion. This new plant sits tonight on the same window sill where its famous parent took root.

The Pineapple : The final podcast

© 2013-2017 Nancy L. Ruder

Scrabble eggs and bacon

The second grader held the plastic fork in front of his eye and squinted. His teacher suggested he wouldn't want to poke his eye out, and moved the fork away. The little boy held the fork back up to his eye. This time the teacher asked why. "I'm putting her in jail," he said, pointing at the little girl sitting on the other side of the cafeteria table.

Is that brilliant?! So very useful in these trying times.  I've been practicing for the next time I watch the news.

It would not work with a spork, the utensil of my sons' school lunch years. Glad kids get knife, fork, and spoon nowadays.

And speaking of sporks, a deceptively brilliant coworker complemented my new coffee cup while we were not riding in the elevator. "There's a name for that thing," he said. "Huh?," I said. "That thing around the cup," he said, "There's a name for it." Then he pushed the floor button, and the elevator was not as slow as it seemed.

As soon as he could look it up, he reported back. "Zarf. It's a zarf." "Is that like a spork, like a scarf for .......   for coffee?," I asked. He was smart enough to push the elevator button, but did not know the word origin.

Apparently zarfs are a thing, and way beyond Starbucks. Without knowing their name, I spotted some in an easy-to-knit book. The word is Turkish or Arabic dating from 1836 and meaning "vessel", and it's worth a lot of points in Scrabble. True, you would think many of the folks you see on the news would be in hot water. The idiom "to be hot water" may or may not date from the Middle Ages and trial by ordeal. We can be sure that watching the news is an ordeal.

I contain multitudes : unhappy macnam

Many people on this ride have been wondering how to put the President in maintenance mode today. Never imagined I'd be turning on extra lights and peering through my bifocals to find "I Think We're All Bozos On This Bus," in a stack of dusty CDs. While the chief executive is a whirling vortex of contradictions, the general sense of his messages sinks lower and lower.

On lunch break I started reading Ed Yong's book, I Contain Multitudes. It is much less upsetting to my innards to imagine my body full of whirling microbes than it is to listen to the latest news. The gut microbes are my friends. With this President, who needs enemies?

Walt Whitman's quote from "Song of Myself" inspired the book's title:

Do I contradict myself? 

Very well, then I contradict myself,

I am large, I contain multitudes.

On the gut scale between beneficial microbes and nauseating news there is the eerie experience of the remote I.T. contractor roaming around inside my work computer. I can watch the progress via a teeny tiny camera on the nose of a giant intestinal worm. Occasionally my physical effort is required to to reboot or type in a password. 

Are the billions of microbes within each of us the original I.T. department? Have they been making adjustments and corrections invisibly since we slithered from the cesspool?

I hold out small hope for Clem to say, "this is Worker speaking." If you don't know Firesign Theatre, it's not too late!

© 2013-2017 Nancy L. Ruder

Glorious day in the neighborhood

Perfect day for spending another three hundred bucks on my baby Buick. Now the window goes up, the window goes down, and the interior stayed dry during yesterday's rain. Used a variety of art supplies to wrap the gap -- clear cellophane, graphic acetate rejects, packing tape, even some iridescent "opal" cellophane. No duct tape or trash bags. This was an arty car window party wrap. Christo and Jeanne-Claude woulda been awed.

Perfect days are not usually associated with January, but we get some real sparklers this time of year. Absolutely gorgeous blue sky, bright sun, light wind, and temps roving from 45 to 60 degrees F. My walks from and to the repair shop were not walking meditations, although I paid attention to my feet, my steps, the rhythm. It was very restoring and peaceful.

 

In between the dropping off and picking up of my dear, if occasionally aggravating vehicle, I watched "Napoleon Dynamite" twice. Once didn't quite do it justice. The movie unwrapped some long buried junior high and high school memories. These were not peaceful and rainbow sparkly!

There is one positive development that might improve the teen years:

Hail to the Spartans.

© 2013-2017 Nancy L. Ruder

Trade-offs before breakfast

Ya gotta git up mighty early to wrangle with the US Postal Service about re-delivery of a previously attempted delivery of ten pounds of bird feeder seeds. Do not attempt the email query function at the website. Typing in the twenty-one digits of the tracking code before the first coffee of the morning took too many tries.  Deanna at the help phone line may have solved the problem. Or not. At least the re-delivery confirmation number is only eleven digits.

Lately the benefits of online shopping seem offset by the time suck of dealing with the post office, UPS, FedEx, Amazon, and the apartment management office that sometimes receives my packages and grudgingly releases them to me. I even had to track down the delivery of postage stamps purchased through the online postal gift store. They are really cute stamps, though, from one of my very favorite picture books, Ezra Jack Keats' The Snowy Day.

E-gift-giving seems cold and impersonal. Yet there's a lot of family togetherness during all those phone calls asking "did the gifts for Duane arrive?" The group texting about "who sent the cute hippo onesie?," was as heart-warming as caroling with cocoa.  Amazon's failure to send the witty gift enclosure forced me to speak one-to-one with a son about sentimental memories of Grandma Fritzi's joy of birdwatching.

The balance sheet was at work again when a thoughtful friend flagged me down to tell me my headlight was out, probably sparing me a traffic stop and warning or ticket. On the downside, after I talked to her the Buick side window would not go all the way back up. On the upside, we've come out of a very cold snap for Texas. My Christmas bonus will go for window repair.

Stopped at AutoZone on the way home to get the headlight bulb. Sometimes the salesperson will help with the bulb replacement, but the guys were in a hurry to eat their po'boys. Plus, it was dark. Early this morning I tried my Helen Reddy imitation again, but the bulb would not fit. Arrgh.

Did those guys sell me the wrong bulb? No, they did not, and AutoZone opens at eight on Saturday morning. An extremely polite salesperson tactfully explained that I was trying to put the low-beam bulb in the high-beam gizmo. And the high-beam bulb did not need to be replaced. By 8:10 all lights were working, and my day was on the positive incline.

Which brings me to the Blue Cheese Story, but not the bleu cheese story. One of my sons, who shall remain nameless, lives in a really nice house formerly home to a tenant who left abruptly with some unfinished financial business. It's always nice to NOT be the person with whom the IRS wants to chat, or the sheriff when they are standing on your porch.

The former resident's generous great-auntie Louise placed an online gift order of Newton, Iowa's famous Maytag blue cheese for her great niece. But, wait, auntie didn't know about the recent skedaddle. So a big misdirected box was left on the porch:

The simple thing would have been to just open it and see what was inside, but none of us were fond of blue cheese. So my son called UPS and spent over half an hour convincing them to send a driver to retrieve the blue cheese. Which they did, but they weren't pleased. When you need them, where are the porch pirates and thieves?


© 2013-2017 Nancy L. Ruder

Modern dance in the workplace

Caught. Snagged. Hook, line, and sweater. Whirling dervish with hanging file folder.

Ooga-chaka Ooga-Ooga
Ooga-chaka Ooga-Ooga
Ooga-chaka Ooga-Ooga
Ooga-chaka Ooga-Ooga

In a Duchamp-Meets-Circulation-Desk moment my attempted sneak behind a coworker resulted in a close brush with a hanging file folder on the counter. Next I knew, the folder was hooked on my sweater and spilling papers as I spun to untangle myself. At least I was clothed, unlike the nude on the staircase.

Laughter is good medicine and even an adhesive for workers still forming a cooperative relationship. Too bad we don't have a slow-mo to replay at staff meetings.

Laughter contagiously forms social bonds. The endorphin effect described above also explains why social laughter is so contagious. Spreading endorphin release through groups promotes a sense of togetherness and safety. Each brain in a social unit is a transmitter of those feelings, which triggers the feel-goods in other brains via laughter. It’s like a game of endorphin dominoes. That’s why when someone starts laughing, others will laugh even if they’re not sure what everyone is laughing about.

This time of year I remember my dad's first positive comment after Mom died: "I'll never have to watch ice skating again." Dad would have enjoyed lightly belittling my graceless performance. Perhaps tomorrow I'll move through the library with effortless elegance, but don't hold your breath.

© 2013-2017 Nancy L. Ruder