Long, strange book trips

We joke that the library has the World's Largest Collection of Travel Guides, like it should be a giant ball of string or maybe Wall Drug. We've got your Fodors,  Frommers, and Rick Steves, Insight and Eyewitness, National Geographic and Lonely Planet, Michelin and Off the Beaten Path.  We've got at least a hundred places you must golf before you die. We are branching out into Falcon Guides for hiking , biking, and waterfalls. Whether you are into glamping or food trucks, we probably have your guide.

2020 was unfortunately the year of no travel. True, my buddy kept her Jeep filled up just in case Texas did something so incredibly embarrassing she had to drive off toward the horizon. This being a frequent occurrence, just saying.

Of the four long, strange trip books I read this year, the standout is Neither Wolf Nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder, by Kent Nerburn (the 25th anniversary edition). A white writer is challenged with telling the story of a Lakota elder. How do these two learn to trust and listen to each other, and preserve the story for future generations? How can spirituality bring healing to both? By driving an ancient car off-road in the South Dakota Badlands. 

Out of Darkness, Shining Light tells how the African expedition leaders and slaves enabling Dr. David Livingstone to search for the source of the Nile carried his body 1,500 miles from the interior of the African continent to the east coast so he could be buried in his homeland. They also carried the doctor's expedition journals. The heavily researched novel considers colonialism from the Africans' viewpoint through the voice of an outspoken slave cook and road wife, and a pompous freed slave educated by Christian missionaries. Recommended by Nancy Pearl.

The Last Great Road Bum: a Novel, by Hector Tobar is an experiment that doesn't quite work, but has some good spots along the journey. It is the very Sixties tale of a real person, Joe Sanderson of Urbana, Illinois, who did a great deal of no-budget traveling, writing letters and diaries for a great road bum novel, without ever managing to learn much in the process. Tobar discovered the real diaries and in the course of his fictionalizing them the nonfiction Sanderson keeps interrupting.

Sometimes I just like the book jacket! Natural History, by Carlos Fonseca, is an even more complex experiment. Again a writer is given a packet of letters and notes, and embarks on geographical and philosophical journeys in search of truth or reality, or camouflaged butterflies and masked revolutionary guerrilla leaders. I didn't understand it, but it was appropriately surreal reading for the Covid shutdown. Oh, and there's a famous fashion designer with a mysterious disease.

© 2013-2020 Nancy L. Ruder

Having a wonderful time. Wish you were six feet from here.

Where will I be these next few days? Sadly not with my newest pandemic grandbaby and his parents in D.C.  Not with my first pandemic grandbaby either. These are strange, travel-free vacation days, but I'm ridiculously excited about my upcoming time off. 

"Don't worry that I have COVID if you don't see me around," I told the woman in the next office. "Just tell people I'm on a Buddhist silent retreat," I joked to the gal at the CIRC desk. We were wearing masks and talking through Plexiglass, plus neither of us hear as well as we used to. No surprise she thought I was going nudist skydiving.  

Bought some little fifty cent easy-open cans of pork and beans. Nothing says vacation as much as sitting on a rock and eating cold beans for breakfast. Except maybe dry Cheerios and Tang in Dixie cups.

© 2013-2020 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

Over the edge

There's one piece of the jigsaw edge very nearly fitting perfectly, except not, and it is throwing the whole framework off square. The color matches perfectly. The shape is just a sliver off.

The stand-off between our ridiculous Congress and the asinine President comes down to just one edge piece or one hammer.

Using a  hammer will not solve a jigsaw puzzle. It will just knock pieces off the table. Don't nobody vacuum!!

Young children use a combination of force and insistence on the rightness of their puzzle piecing. I expect a bit more reasoning and careful consideration of the shapes and colors from elected officials. Go stand on the other side of the table, turn on a lamp, or squint for heaven's sake.

© 2013-2019 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

Drove my Chevy to the levee

It is/isn't going to be a good year for green. I am totally over my old College View Seventh Day Adventist asparagus casserole recipe. Maybe crushing the last of the garlic rye Gardetto's and throwing them into the mix in lieu of bread cubes was not the best choice. Intuitive cooks do not achieve consistent, repeatable (or edible) results.

Don McLean's anthem, "American Pie," was a mystery within a jingle in 1972, but when it burbled to the surface of my mud geyser brain it seemed to fit the collision of Trump's pick to head the EPA and Pantone's pick for the color or the year, Greenery (green).


Well, the good news is we still have seasons for the time being. I already miss 2016 Rose Quartz.

© 2013-2016 Nancy L. Ruder

The Radish Project

Awake from two to four again, I pondered my recent radical escalating approval of radishes.

In these days of Hamilton mania, I remember how Gore Vidal's version of Aaron Burr informed me sleep would become a precious commodity at an advanced age. Consciousness of internal organs and aching joints in the middle of the night are what I remember about the novel thirty years on.

As my parents aged, the number of condiments in their refrigerator mushroomed. Why on earth did they need four kinds of mustard? Hmm. In the middle of the night I realize my fridge holds three.

How did life get so complicated? When did there become so many vegetables? Why does kale taste like grass clippings + styrofoam packing peanuts? And why have I never figured out how to make charts and graphs?

My former supervisor was a graph artist. She could make Venn diagrams and splatter graphs and info graphics I could almost understand and could have hanged over the sofa.

No data was harmed in these chart attempts. Plotting the complexities of historic breakfast preferences finally lulled me to sleep for another few hours.

© 2013-2016 Nancy L. Ruder

"I just want to play store."

Last week the preschoolers played "Have you got the bags!?" This game was about reminding parents to take the reusable bags into the grocery store. We played grocery store with plastic veggies, a toy cash register, and a bunch of fabric shopping bags.

Afterwards, I had to pack up the plastic vegetables, little shopping baskets, and cloth bags in the big Rubbermaid tub. It was sad. My coworker stood looking wistfully at the most realistic of the toy carrots. "After a long day," she said,"I tell my husband I just want to play store for awhile." It's their code for needing some relaxing imagination refueling time.

No pressure. No goals and objectives. No metrics. I just want to cut and paste sometimes, with round-tip safety scissors and the white paste from the big jar. Paint samples from Glidden, bits of rickrack, a bit of fuzz. It was enough to get the paste on the scrap of fabric or paper, turn it over, and stick it down on the faded construction paper.Any aesthetic decisions were only to please myself. Any story I told to adults asking, "What did you make, Honey?," could be short, cryptic, and changed for the next time. "It's a big brown bear." "It's a slippery slide." "It's my baby brother." But you don't have a baby brother, Honey! Doesn't matter. "It's my dad who never ever takes a bath..." Ahhh. The grown-ups looked at each other knowingly.

So this week, I'm bringing back the plastic veggies. After we read Growing Vegetable Soup, by Lois Ehlert, we will harvest vegetables from the pretend garden, "wash" them in plastic colanders, chop them on cutting boards, and stir them in big stew pots. Then we will do potato and pepper printmaking on kid-size paper chef hats to take home. I don't know about the kids, but it feels therapeutic to me.

Good vegetables, good soup, good pretending, good Earth.

Fresh plastic veggies from and imaginary garden are bound to taste better than plastic veggies from the "gorphries store."*

* Pronunciation from my real baby brother.

© 2013-2015 Nancy L. Ruder

New Riders of the Raspberry Salvia

Had an actual paying gig taking photos of flowers today. Got some good ones for the upcoming landscape tour, but got better ones with crazy unidentified insects.

No matter how stressed I feel about juggling part-time and short term employment, or the Tetris income tax challenges of subsidized health insurance, the actual pixels of an interplanetary bug can salvage my outlook on life.

Taking my one-woman litter awareness show on the road to elementary schools for the next month or so. I'm terrified as the presentations approach, but know I'll turn into a major ham given the opportunity to tell a knee-spanking story to the right audience.

Looking through the photos, I'm stunned at the tiny kingdoms and major battles I rarely notice. Slid a New Riders of the Purple Sage cd in the player. Grateful for the remedial course in wonder.

 

© 2013-2015 Nancy L. Ruder

Springing forth from cleaning

Inspired by Kathleen and a friend's impending visit, I finished the sewing projects and did a major apartment cleaning. Once upon a time this intense episode of housekeeping would have occurred twice a week. Now I'm doing good if it happens twice a year! And I mean doing good in a very positive sense,

I have the amazing inability to see clutter and grime. It didn't come from kryptonite or a freak chemical accident. I had to go through perfectionist cult deprogramming and then work for years with Jedi masters of selective vision.

The Eightfold Path of Anxiety-Free Housekeeping:

• "It will never be seen from a galloping horse." I received this insight in a twelve-step program long ago, and it opened new doors of perception. If you grew up in a perfectionist family, you learned that every decision was critical, and every flaw was magnified. The realization that everybody is too insecure about their own appearance to notice yours, especially at the speed we are travelling is very freeing.
• Creativity is a messy gift that should be celebrated with gratitude. Creativity happens over time, and often requires tools left out. Inspiration may come from the juxtaposition of unrelated items.
• Accumulating artistic materials is not really hoarding. It's the warehouse for the gift of creativity even when you don't know at the moment the reason for saving the items.
• Adults should not disrupt kids' constructive play without darn good reasons. Kids need to build large, complex arrangements, often using seemingly unconnected items. They are learning to create and solve problems. They are creating stages for role-playing. They are learning social and cooperative skills by collaborating with playmates. Your living room is not a messy disaster. It is the embryonic infrastructure of the future. The play does not need to be packed up and shelved everyday at five p.m. Get over it.
• Dust is for writing reminders to yourself. It saves paper.
• Squalor is unacceptable. Apathy in unhealthy. Empty the cat litter box.
• Repetitive mindless tasks can be relaxing. I am particularly fond of therapeutic steam ironing.
• Cleaning products are mostly unnecessary except to the companies who sell them.

© 2013-2015 Nancy L. Ruder

No cake for breakfast

At least no red velvet cake before noon. Never mind about red states and blue states, the United States can be divided into two groups:

1. People who think eating red velvet cake is like dying and going to heaven.
2. People who find red velvet cake aesthetically alarming and too sweet. It's kind of like watching Boise State play on blue astroturf. Just plain wrong.

Until 1996 I had never been exposed to red velvet cake, but office birthday parties on that new job seemed to always feature this flavor. Coworkers would rub their hands together and say, "Ahhhh, uuuummm, there will be red velvet cake at three [p.m.]." And I would remember reading Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown. Eye of newt...tincture of beets.

Just recently two Texans have whispered to me that they also find red velvet cake creepy. One is from Kansas, the other from Wisconsin/Illinois. I'm from Nebraska, that bastion of sanity and good taste. So there you have it, or not. Please comment with your region, opinion of red velvet cake, and preferred cake flavors.

Oh... I do like pink lemonade cake, spice cake, and Sara Lee orange cake.

© 2014 Nancy L. Ruder

Geese Police Espy Sasquatch

I spy with my little Care Bear eye something that is red and blinking on the Buick dashboard:

 LOW  COOLANT 

 LOW  COOLANT 

 LOW  COOLANT 

Boo, hiss, we do not like this! WE are not amused.

The dash warning light first came on after my Friday visit to Pigment School of the Arts, a very wonderful space. You just feel like you are floating in a pink bubble in the Pigment classroom. Alas, back outside the Buick is more red alert.

So, the Buick is in the shop. The biography of Red Cloud, The Heart of Everything That Is, is in the car. The book on cd by John Straley, The Big Both Ways is in the car.

Geese sneeze. All day students were wiping their drippy snoots on their shirts. It's

 FULL CONTACT ALLERGY SEASON 

I have to thank my 365 Photo friend Richard for the idea of geese police.

es·py

iˈspī/

verb

literary

1. catch sight of.

   "she espied her daughter rounding the corner"

   synonyms:

   catch sight of, "  "he espied a niche up in the rocks"

My youngest son, formerly known as the Woolly Mammoth, has returned to civilization after camping in Shenandoah National Park. He promises to send photos of creatures he swears are black bears and not a pair of sasquatches, but there's no proof yet.

ObamaCareBear

The bear went over the mountain to espy what he could espy. iˈspī/ with my little eye ObamaCare being a good thing for people in my demographic. So nice to have no out-of-pocket expense on a mammogram and annual.

A friend has returned from Barcelona after visiting the Benedictine Abbey on Montserrat. That mountain is sometimes called "la cuchador", meaning "the spork" unless Wikipedia is pulling our legs. And there for a sec our unreliable narrator espied a nacho up in the rocks.

I'm having trouble with singular/plural. Marc Trujillo's oil paintings remind me that when a child brings a single-serving plastic container of chips and dips, that product is called a "Lunchables". So what is the plural of "Lunchables"? Lunchabli?

And what about sasquatch? The plural is sasquatches according to Wikipedia, but then it gets worse. The plural of Bigfoot can be Bigfoot, Bigfeet, or Bigfoots.

Thanks to the 1946 Caldecott Medal winner, Miska and Maud Petersham's The Rooster Crows we have these wonderful rhymes stuck in our heads even when the coolant is low:

A chick in a car and the car won't go
That's the way to spell Chicago.

A knife and a fork and a bottle and a cork
That's the way to spell New York

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear.
Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair.
Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't fuzzy, was he?

And thanks to church camp we have:

As one black bear backed up the butte,
The other black bear backed down.
They were only playing leapfrog.

Maybe my son is selling his sasquatch photos to a grocery check-out tabloid with geese police.

© 2014 Nancy L. Ruder