To get home eventually

The first traffic jam on my commute after over two months without jams and without traffic  and mostly without commutes was an alternate reality ninety minutes. Nearly all the drivers were staying at safe distances and signalling their need or intention to change lanes. Where was the typical panic to change lanes in any direction? Where were the arrogant pickup drivers plowing to the exit ramp or driving on the shoulder? What had occurred to shut down most of the freeway lanes? I felt an abnormal lack of Need-to-Know.

Every driver save one I observed seemed pretty calm, although that one woman did look harried. How odd to be wondering where she needed to be, who she needed to pick up at an appointed time.  I did not seem to need to be anywhere but where I was. I bet she was finally going to a haircut appointment!

No big lighted signs alerted us to the coming traffic slowdown, or to take alternate routes. I'm still blissfully ignorant of traffic apps or the cause of the shutdown.  Why were there so many white semi-trailers? The cars all seemed to be white or silver. The sky had that late afternoon cloudy gray glare so typical here.

Strange sense of floating for a very long time on a very slow river, probably getting sunburned with my arm roasting on the black inner tube. Tubing on a Texas river of traffic.

My personal inconvenience, my individual delay, my normal aggravation were next to nonexistent. Just floating along. Check my blood pressure. Am I even breathing?

Maybe we could come out of this tragic pandemic with a brief and temporary sense of being part of a grand organism that works together, that allows space between beings,  that breathes in and out. Maybe we will improve our ability to wait, and not take it as a personal affront.


© 2013-2020 Nancy L. Ruder

Risk assessment haiku with generous tip

Not safe Safe No mask
Mask Cut hair myself Just don't
Salon Sane Not sane

© 2013-2020 Nancy L. Ruder

Harrowing haircuts

... or Fiskars and sickles. We visited Harold Warp's Pioneer Village in Minden, Nebraska a few times as kids, and wandered through the huge shed of farm implements. I was a city kid in a rural state. As a mom I was great with all the types of railroad cars and different trucks, plus the dinosaurs (who mostly have different names now). I even knew my logging and construction vehicles, but I hadsome sort of block with the farm implements. Old McDonald had a tractor, EIEIO, was as far as I went.

Somewhere in my hundreds of untitled, unidentified scan files there's a classic Christmas letter my mom received from her high school friend who stayed on the farm. The friend's husband dropped the harrow on his foot, but his wife could not drive a stick shift. So the farmer had to drive himself to the hospital. When the going gets tough, the tough heave the harrow off their foot and put pedal to the metal.

One of my most vivid memories from teaching summer art programs was the girl who showed up for performance day (in August in Dallas) in her green velvet Christmas dress. She had played connect-the-dots of the mosquito bites on her legs with black Sharpie marker. And she had cut her own hair so it looked a cornfield with rows of stubble, thankfully not when I was handing our the Fiskars scissors. I have been leaning toward the same style. It's so hard to resist the Fiskars when my bangs are in my eyes. 

Thanks, Wikipedia for this image of the agricultural tool.



Brush up on your farm implements here at Toy Tractor Times.

Paintings links to click on while you are NOT cutting your hair:

"Brush Harrow" by Winslow Homer link
"Reaper" by Eastman Johnson link
Van Gogh's "Wheatfield with a Reaper" link
"The Sower" by Jean-Francois Millet for Nebraskans link
"Harvesters" by Pieter Bruegel the Elder link
Thomas Hart Benton's "Ploughing it Under" link

© 2013-2020 Nancy L. Ruder

Who owns the zebra?

Like you, I've been home mostly working, but also watching, aware of even the slightest happening outside my window. When there's so little to see, we really want to see it! I haven't yet reached the desperate need to create a matrix to figure out the relationships of apartment dwellers in my small nook of the big rental complex, but know that day is approaching. In this Time of Curious Social Distancing you might want to answer the classic deduction puzzle linked below.

For now, I just have questions. So many questions:

• Why does Pacing Woman always wear saggy pants and who's she talking to on the phone?
• Where are the parents of the little boy playing in the big puddle? 
• Who orders Grub Hub from Panera, for heavens sake? I mean really, just make yourself a PBJ sandwich!
• If I go to the store to buy toilet paper will I ever get a parking space again? 
• Why does Day-Glo Wizard T-shirt Man eat all those pork rinds from the bicycle seller?
• Is the guy upstairs auditioning for All Star Wrestling with a kangaroo or just clog dancing? 
• What days of the week does Fleece Pajama Pants Man babysit the little girl who pretends she's driving the minivan? 
• How many days can Purple Polo Shirt Man spend topping up the fluids in his car?
• What's wrong with the German shepherd wearing the cone of shame?
• Will the Red-headed Girl's roommate succeed in taking away her car keys while she's "in this condition?" 
• Is Scrubs Gal with the red Ford Fiesta still caring for the elderly on the night shift in a nearby nursing home? I salute her!
• When will High School Drum Major practice his routine on the bank of the flood control canal again?

Short on statements:

• The classic Who Owns the Zebra puzzle is a series of statements. 
• A second test to try is READ EVERYTHING BEFORE DOING ANYTHING  

Nope. Still nobody twirling banners out there, but I keep watching for the return of the drum major.

© 2013-2020 Nancy L. Ruder

Fifty mile field trip with phonetic spelling

It's getting trickier to see any fields on a drive north in Collin County. In celebration of sunshine after a miserable gray week we went for a little road trip up Texas State Highway 289 aka Preston Road all the way to Celina.  As we drove, we kept saying, "This used to be way out there." It all used to be WAY OUT THERE, but now it's not.

Between the sprung-up subdivisions, the Sinacola and Komatsu heavy equipment scraping away, and restaurants lined up to the horizon, there are a few longhorn cattle. Not sure if the longhorns are there for real, or for faux Western ambiance. I'd just had a dream that I was smoking a Meerschaum pipe while sitting on a buffalo wearing a Disney princess costume, and Monday's sunlight was preternatural. 

*To clarify, I was wearing the Disney princess costume and smoking the pipe. The buffalo was not wearing a costume or smoking. The dress was yellow. I had slept straight through sixteen hours due to a sinus headache, and the dream was extremely vivid.*

Celina, Texas, is a pronunciation problem. According to the Texas Pronunciation Guide, Celina is pronounced suh-LI-nuh. But Salina, Kansas is pronounced sal-eye'-nuh (i.e. singular, with a long I in the second syllable), as distinguished from the city of Salinas CA, which is pronounced sal-ee'-nus (i.e. plural, with a long E in the second syllable). 

If you need to say, "This used to be way out there," it is ðɪs juzd tu bi weɪ aʊt ðɛr. 

Gawking at the subdivisions filled with two-story, tall-roofed houses a song fragment bopped me on the head: 

They're all made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same.

Whuh?  Sparing you the googling, the song is "Little Boxes," by Malvina Reynolds, most notably recorded by Pete Seeger, not Burl Ives , Roger Miller, or the Kingston Trio.  The houses sprouting from here to the county line are not cheap ticky tacky, but they do look all the same. For safety sake, we waited to google until after the fifty mile field trip.

And because it all used to be way out there, if you can remember the Viet Nam draft, I recommend Richard Russo's Chances Are....

© 2013-2019 Nancy L. Ruder

The plastic solar lotus Buddha next door

Love my new apartment. Been here a couple months. It has good vibes, maybe because of the guy next door.

My neighbors have a solar-powered LED lighted lotus Buddha figure by their front door. Sadly, the little solar collecting panels have been ripped out of Buddha's knees. I feel compassion for the Buddha, as my knees often feel powerless.

The neighbors with the Buddha hauled a couch to the dumpster. First they tried to get it out the dining room window. Then they took it out the back siding door, over the railing, and all the way around the building. 

One Sunday they loaded up a U-Haul, but they left the Buddha, a floor lamp, a green lawn chair, and a bunch of trash bags out front. Eventually the floor lamp and trash bags disappeared. Management sent workers to install new window blinds, carpet, and paint the place. Peeking in, I could see new black appliances waiting for installation. A van of women came to do a make-ready cleaning. Still Buddha sits out front. 

Since then a college student in a Yogi Bear costume has moved into another apartment. A family has moved out leaving a toy kitchen beside the dumpster. That delighted a crew of barefoot, unsupervised kids for a couple days.

A young woman hospital worker arrives home each morning about the time I'm waking up to do my knee exercises before breakfast. When I head out the door I smile at a woman in an orange sari sitting on the steps leading upstairs. She looks drowsy, but the infant in her lap is bright-eyed and surveying the world.

 

© 2013-2019 Nancy L. Ruder

Scanning self-compassion

The person I was 25 years ago went through an outer ring of Hades, and I am cutting her some slack.

Mother's Day is a time to appreciate our moms, and thank the daughters-in-law who are amazing moms for our grandchildren. Today I am also sending a little cosmic white light and pink bubbles to the young woman who raised my three sons to be responsible citizens of the world. She made many mistakes and had some skewed priorities. She let the guys eat way to many yogurt-covered raisins and watch an excessive number of Ninja Turtle cartoons. She did not shield them from current events. She let them wear camouflage and play with toy guns. Worst of all, she didn't keep them up-to-date with dental check-ups.

Today I've scanned another two photo albums and a vacation album from the years of her mismanagement. Some pages bring up pain, and some bring up accusations. Over all, though, I see a mother who needs a big dose of self-compassion.

© 2013-2019 Nancy L. Ruder

Time-shifters and singing crawdads

If you check out a library book today, it won't be due until Spring. When will Spring walk in and drop your book in the return slot? In a couple weeks, but beware, Spring, in its toga togs,  must pass the Ides of March first to slide any DVDs you have borrowed into the book drop. I bet even Brutus, whom you knew et tu, was sometimes tardy with his graphic novels.

The library will be open two evenings a week beginning this Tuesday. That's one hour sooner than necessary due to Daylight Saving Time. Going to work later on Tuesday adds more time for my annual vehicle inspection which is on some completely altered space-time continuum. I swear I just sat there in that grungy waiting room with its moisture-damaged Field & Stream magazines holding my "new" purse on my lap just a week or so back while my Buick was inspected.

Back behind the curtain with the man to whom you pay no attention, I was shifting time on behalf of the singing crawdads. Delia Owen's book, Where the Crawdads Sing, is in high demand with book club members. Our little library has fifteen patron requests for four copies. Et tu? Are you on queue?

Cue the crawdads!

Crawdad choir director

© 2013-2019 Nancy L. Ruder

My tails of woe-lets

My problems are too little to be capital W Woes.  They are just woe-lets. Therefore, my tales of woe are just tails of woe-lets, especially since the doctor asked me to draw a spiral, but I thought she said spider. Well, sure, I can draw a spider, but the real problem is the ants.



What ants? The tiny ants displaced and irritable about the foundation repairs to the apartment building.

Hmm. The doctor made notes on the chart, and scheduled a hearing test, even though I have a vision appointment next week between the mammogram and the dermatologist.

  

I can draw spirals on the ends of my toes to look like the tails of woeful piglets. It's not so easy, though, to take toe self-photos of those tails of woe-lets.

   

The front end of a pig looks like a snorting button, but the tail end is a spiral in a circle. The best diagnosis is I've forgotten my problems by writing my petty piggy toe woes.

© 2013-2018 Nancy L. Ruder

No user ID, no password

"Excuse me, ma'am. Can you show me how to open this newspaper?'

The polite young man wanted to "access" the Dallas Morning News editions from April first and April fourth. He needed to write about Martin Luther King for English class, and cite the page numbers in his bibliography.

We found an empty space on the counter where we could unfold the newspaper and turn the pages. I explained he could either photocopy the news stories about MLK's legacy or scan them and email to himself. "Thanks, but I will take photos with my phone," he said. 

When he was finished taking photos he brought all the sections back to me to reassemble the issues and reshelve them in the Periodicals Room. I felt like a prehistoric flintknapper. What's black and white and read all over? Not any more.

© 2013-2018 Nancy L. Ruder

Omelet with mushrooms

The Renwick Gallery has become one of my favorite DC destinations, and the current installation of "No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man" is every bit as exciting as "Wonder" for the gallery's reopening in 2015-2016.

As an art teacher I emphasized the fine motor skill of paper folding and the transformations from two to three dimensions that this basic action could create. FoldHaus pushes the limits of size and kinetic movement, and I wish I could have beamed my former students into the exhibit with me.

© 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

Sedum and weep

Sedum was already growing on the rock retaining walls when we moved to Eastridge in 1958. My parents didn't have the time, money, or inclination for gardening, although they had a knack for  danndelions and clover. We did have a few sorry, thorny rose bushes baking against the south side of the house, some violets, a pussywillow, and forsythia in early spring. Lilacs, iris, and peonies for decorating graves, and lilies of the valley struggling on the north side were all planted by the original owner of the house  Still, we were a wasteland compared to the gardening neighbors on either side.

One neighbor sneered at our deficiency The other shared their bounty and contagious enthusiasm for flowering plants.

Cuddling

But sedum clung to the rock, flowering and attracting butterflies beside the driveway where we played jacks and hopscotch. At some point I figured out that a straggly bit could be broken off and stuck between the rocks on down the wall, and it would probably grow. Cool! What a hardy, cooperative plant! It preferred crowded spaces and neglect. I've broken off bits from that rock wall in Lincoln and planted it in new cities and states.

Huddled beneath that pineapple planat!

That crazy pineapple plant

  

My mom, Fritzi, with her non-green thumb would have turned 89 this week. How I would love to sit in the shade visitng with her, watching my sons play on her driveway by the old rock wall.

Stonecrop behind the truck

© 2013-2017 Nancy L. Ruder

Four years plus or minus a week

Arrived at work this gloomy, hot, muggy, windy, pollen soup of a morning to find a striking moth on the red tile outside the door.  Haven't we met here before? Same door. Same floor.

75205 04/29/17

75205 05/07/13

At lunch I stepped out to see if the moth was still hanging around. Yes, but what's that goo? Did somebody step on it? No. I'm pretty sure it was laying a great gob of round yellow eggs.

Why would it lay eggs on the red tile? Red-green color blindness? Returning to the ancestral home?

After work the eggs were still there, but the moth looked more than a little deceased. Do mother moths die as soon as they lay eggs? So many questions!

Beginning to find hints  with my recent treat, Peterson Field Guide to Moths of Northeastern North America with its clear illustrations. The best match is a "Salt Marsh Moth" or Estigmene acrea.

Do not worry about the salt marsh name. Yup, the moths emerge, mate, lay eggs, and die, looking very sharp for the whole 4-5 days. Kinda makes me feel better about my situation!




© 2013-2017 Nancy L. Ruder

Me & Paula Dean quiche

Me & Bobby McGee

Kris Kristofferson

Busted flat in Baton Rouge
Waitin' for the train
Feelin' nearly faded as my jeans
Bobby thumbed a diesel down
Just before it rained
Rode us all the way to New Orleans
I pulled my harpoon out of my dirty red bandanna
And was playing soft
While Bobby sang the blues
With them windshield wipers slappin' time
I was holdin' Bobby's hand in mine
We sang every song that driver knew
Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose
Nothin' ain't worth nothin' but it's free
Feelin' good was easy, Lord,
When he sang the blues
And feelin' good was good enough for me
Good enough for me and Bobby McGee
From Kentucky coal mines
To the California sun
Bobby shared the secrets of my soul
Through all kinds of weather, Lord
Through everything I done
Bobby baby…

Spinach and Bacon Quiche

Total Time:
1 hr
Prep:
15 min
Cook:
45 min
Yield:8 servings
Level:Easy
Ingredients
6 large eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
Salt and pepper
2 cups chopped fresh baby spinach, packed
1 pound bacon, cooked and crumbled
1 1/2 cups shredded Swiss cheese
1 (9-inch) refrigerated pie crust, fitted to a 9-inch glass pie plate
Directions
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Combine the eggs, cream, salt, and pepper in a food processor or blender. Layer the spinach, bacon, and cheese in the bottom of the pie crust, then pour the egg mixture on top. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes until the egg mixture is set. Cut into 8 wedges.
Recipe courtesy of Paula Deen

© 2013-2016 Nancy L. Ruder

Upside of an unbearable campaign

Can't listen to the radio on my long commutes. The news makes pledge drives seem delightful by comparison. Best audiobooks of this excruciating presidential campaign:

    

  




© 2013-2016 Nancy L. Ruder

Forty stories

 "Vertiginous" is the word Lonely Planet uses for the 654 steps down to the Grotta di Nettuno. The cave at the bottom is totally worth the descent, as are the views during the many rest breaks on the trip back up. I want to thank my heart, lungs, and legs for joining me on this experience. I especially want to thank the dear friends who lagged behind keeping watch in case they had to drag me part of the way!

  

A little dog barked from the boat.

Definitely Whoville.

Nearing the grotto entrance

Rainbow rock at the gathering point for tour.

 
Cave photos are challenging with low light and spatial ambiguities. These are the "keepers" of my batch. The shot of Aladdin did not turn out!

© 2013-2016 Nancy L. Ruder