Sticking the dismount

It's been five years in this apartment, with plenty of odd experiences dealing with management. This is the first time I ever received a bad report card!

My plants aren't dead, I said. They are just resting up for spring. And the item I'm storing on the porch is the watering can to refresh the not-dead plants.

Between this blemish on my permanent record and my bum knee waking me to the realities of aging, I'm getting the urge to move on down to a ground level apartment.

Seemed like an old-time tv show sketch when three guys in blotchy coveralls started roller-painting the stair rail before I did my creaky descent to leave for work.

Thanks to Hugh "Lumpy" Brannum aka Mr. Green Jeans aka Bainter the Painter.


© 2013-2019 Nancy L. Ruder

MRI-induced flashbacks

Howie, who would have turned 95 this week, made me promise I would never let "them" do another MRI on him. His experience with the test in his mid-eighties brought on WWII foxhole flashbacks. My recent readings of Dad's WWII letters gave me greater understanding of this very post-post traumatic stress.

Now I would have an MRI. On my knee. And I have my own anxiety issues. And my high school Health class teacher drilled those flashback warnings into our teen minds.

"Do you have any metal in your eye?," asked the pre-procedure person from the diagnostic center. wwwww. This totally creeped me out, and it was lucky I didn't faint. I have a thing about eyes.

"Do you have any shrapnel in your body?," she asked. "Do you weigh over 150 pounds?," I heard. Well, yes, who doesn't nowadays? "REALLY?"

It seems the pre-procedure person meant 350 pounds (158.7 kilograms).  Okay, not. I will still fit in the foxhole. That's a good personal wellness program goal.

"Are you claustrophobic?," asked the persistent pre-procedure lady. Waaa haaa ha hah! Won't we all just find out!?

If King Tut and Hedy Lamarr had a love child, it would "frequency hop" in an MRI tube. I crossed my arms across my chest holding the crook and flail. Isis, Osiris, meniscus chanted in syncopated rhythm.


© 2013-2019 Nancy L. Ruder

Tattoo gushing

If you must gush, gush softly.

Standing in a long line to check out at CVS, I could not help overhearing the cashier getting all in a bubbly lather about an admittedly hunky young dude's bicep tattoo. He had you and me sister on his arm. He had Mercator projections on his arm. He had latitude and longitude on his arm.  He had the whole world on his arm.

He also had a Snickers ice cream bar to purchase. The cashier switched from admiring the "very unique" tattoo to recommending her preferred Twix ice cream bars. I had to avert my eyes and cover my ears, while fumbling for my drug store reward keytag in the bottom of my purse. The cashier's nose ring was all a-quiver.

A pirate's life is a wonderful life a-rovin' over the sea. I was glad to purchase my get-well-soon card and leave for the PG-rated parking lot.

Yo-ho-ho and a frozen novelty to go.

© 2013-2019 Nancy L. Ruder

Big black cauldron

There's a new employee noon hour book club starting up. Employees bring a potluck dish using a recipe from a book, fiction or nonfiction. Of course, they are literary lunching on their own time, just want to make that clear.

Thought about participating. I really did. It was a long day, though, and the only two books with recipes at my skill level were from the children's room.

I can throw a rock in a crockpot. Stone Soup remains a classic story of sharing even in this ugly time of the president we do not mention by name.

The first chapter book I ever read that had a recipe at the back was Ian Fleming's Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Since it is recorded on the library summer reading program log of 1966--which I still have, of course--I know when I read it. My mom wasn't supporting my desire to make Monsieur Bon-Bon's secret fudge, so I flopped on the living room carpet to read about the lost colony of Roanoke.

© 2013-2019 Nancy L. Ruder

Painting my mom

Digitizing my life is an admission that no one will ever be interested in the physical memorabilia I haul around but am not quite able to send to the landfill. Scanning just sends the items to a place where images never get sorted or become searchable.

I'm getting better at letting go,  though, so I did not scan all the Camp Fire Girl certificates in my first scrapbook. Didn't even scan the paper napkins from Sixties wedding receptions--Crys and Jim ; Jan and Bill ; Catherine and Frank. This is sooo healthy!

Mom is a different story. I had to scan Mom, the first portrait I painted from life at my little easel down in the laundry room with Prang watercolors. All the neighbor kids were making pictures of their moms for the big competition at the new Gateway Bank up at Gateway Mall on "O" Street. The competition was called, "My Mom's a Picture."

The neighbor kids made fun of my painting. My "Mom" was not pretty and she did not have glamorous lips. She looked like she was crying because the paint dripped. There was no time to draw a new picture making Mom look more like Disney's Sleeping Beauty. I wrapped Mom in Saran Wrap and glued her to purple construction paper.

The new bank awarded me the big prize of one crisp dollar bill. That was big bucks for an eight year old in 1963, a time when the tooth fairy brought a dime. The money wasn't important. My mother was the whole picture to me.

The jewelry worn by my mom in the painting.

© 2013-2019 Nancy L. Ruder

Lady Godiva and the Coinstar machine

I wish I could say that Lady Godiva was the person tipping a five-gallon Ozarka bottle of coins into the Coinstar change machine at Tom Thumb this evening. It was an impressive feat even for the guy wearing clothes. Not sure how full the bottle was when he started dumping the pennies, but he still had a long way to go when I left the store with the hamburger buns and baby carrots. Ka-chinga-chinga-chinga-chinga.

No, Lady Godiva was the gal running across Knox Street on the Katy Trail as I was leaving work. Don't get confused here. Lady Godiva was never in a remake of "A Star is Born." She rode a horse in the buff to protest taxation, or some such back in the 1300s.

My dear friend Felicia was famous for convincing a college dean to let her portray Godiva and ride a horse around the campus  promoting a Medieval Faire. She had to design sufficiently concealing attire to gain permission while also creating the historically-accurate revealing illusion. Everything required more effort and creativity in the 70s! I miss Felicia so often!

The Ms. Godiva jogging across Knox wore spandex top and bottom all of a pale dusky peach color.  Apparently she could easily purchase this traffic-stopping medieval look at Nordstroms. But WHY?


Really. ...At least in the 70s Godiva was clothed and the streakers were naked. Plus, how much would a five-gallon bottle of pennies weigh?


© 2013-2019 Nancy L. Ruder