Pollen goes bowling

An unexpected delight at the 516 Arts "Cross Pollination" exhibit was an arrangement of  Jo Golesworthy's pollen grain sculptures. The size of a bowling ball more or less, each of the pollen sculpture forms was a fascinating insight into nature's geometry, economy, and beauty at the most minute levels.

When my young sons had bad allergy and asthma problems we spent a lot of time in allergists' examining rooms staring at the medical charts hanging on the walls. Those illustrations showed magnified pollen, tree-branch lungs, and constricted airways. Waiting for the breathing treatment to kick in, watching a child's face slowly get back to normal color, listening to each breath and cough, felt like being rolled over by another heavy bowling ball of parenting stress. During happier check-ups the pollen images were intriguing Bucky-balls, Nerf balls, or death stars.

View pollen grains here or here.


© 2013-2017 Nancy L. Ruder

The mummy of the groom toast and the haunted hotel

"Boodmo" (Будьмо) is Ukrainian for "cheers"  ...

Now that my brief moment of fame as the ToastMama is over, I have to admit it was fun. My ancestors were Ukrainian, Bohemian, German, Irish, and English, but I must be part ham.

ToastMama is different from MummyToast. Food Network Magazine mummy toast is made with string cheese, sliced black olives, pizza sauce and toast. When I get to the store to buy bread, I plan to make an avocado version. Sure beats those weird wax lips for Halloween.

After checking in at the haunted hotel in Baltimore's Fell's Point area it was time for serious speech practicing in front of the mirror. But the menu  on the desk for the meatball sub restaurant next door was haunting my hungry thoughts. How could I concentrate on toasts, hosts, satin slippers, and parallel parking with that distraction?

After our subs and a local brew, the groom and I walked around in the gray rain looking at boats.



Two mangled tidbits of advice I couldn't work into the speech, with fond memories of my former sister-in-law:

• If the shoe fits, buy it.

• Every hat has a silver lining.

© 2013-2016 Nancy L. Ruder

Toast-it postie notes

Fear itself. OR death, taxes. Oh! No! Public Speaking!

Maybe I'm just too ______________________ to worry. (Choose one)

• Old, crusty, cantankerous
• Proud, happy, relaxed
• Rich, famous, beautiful

Memory options:

• Teleprompter
• Writing on my arm with Sharpies
• Post-it notes
• Index cards
• Outlines with Roman numerals and indentations typed with carbon paper

Friendly advice:

1. NO potty-training stories
2. Practice in front of a mirror
3. Using sock puppets would cover up my pretty manicure

Preschool teaching experience suggests:

• Bring visual aids
• Use sensory vocabulary and images
• Ask everyone to sit criss-cross applesauce

Examples from a Toast Yoda:

• A toast is a gift
• It's not about me
• Enjoy the moment 
• Make it personal for the audience
• Make them laugh

On the third rewrite of the fourth attempt of a toast for the wedding reception of my all-grown-up youngest son and his stellar bride I had one of those flashbacks our Health teachers predicted. I think I hyperventilated.

But then Jolene Walker, my junior high speech teacher seemed pleased I've finally fought my fear of public speaking to a draw. Really, now. Would you rather debate Donald Trump on national t.v. or deliver a three-minute how-to speech about broiling T-bone steaks to a classroom of junior high smart-ass teasing tormentors?

© 2013-2016 Nancy L. Ruder

Personal hygiene -- Your fronds will appreciate it!

Waiting for the coffee maker, staring out the window at the swim pool while squinting sidelong looks for ants around the kitchen sink, the sturdy middle school guy in the black t-shirt and black shorts is duly noted. Poor kid. He's gonna hit the Coke machine for his breakfast before he gets on the schoolbus. What's wrong with his parents? Why can't they feed him a nutritious bowl of oatmeal or something for the most important meal of the day.

 

Well, yeah, my kids ate a whole lotta Honey Nut Cheerios until they got old enough to appreciate a cuppa coffee before 8:00 class. They knew not to expect meaningful conversation from Mom at that hour. She just had to get their picky-eater lunchboxes packed. Best mornings had bacon and pancakes with Aunt Jemima syrup. I apologize to their teachers for the sugar rushes.

This kid in black out there by the swim pool is not getting a Coke. He keeps pacing around, then trying to relax on a pool lounge chair, then pacing again, looking over the fence to see if the bus is coming. He hollers at kids walking to the bus stop.

Someone throws something over the fence to the sturdy kid. He's looking for some privacy. Geez. Don't let him be shooting up! I don't want to see. I can't stop watching.

The kid in black's climbing between the palm fronds of the swim pool landscape that is intended to make the complex exude exotic luxury vibes. Crap. He's not gonna get undressed, please Jesus! I've seen a lot of things out by the pool from my kitchen window. That bobcat drinking that one time, the annual meeting of the mallard males, kids doing their best to get hit by lightning making me really nervous, a wise shaman barbecuing ribs on the gas grill...

This kid in the fronds, though, is reaching up under his shirt to first one pit, and then the other. He is putting on deodorant. He steps out from the fronds and walks to the fence, tossing the deodorant to someone. He arranges himself, then heads out the pool gate. Maybe he will get to sit by the cute girl with earbuds and violin case.

I think I can I think I can get moving. The coffee is ready. Life is good. My job is not driving a school bus full of sweating hormone-exploding middle school kids on ninety degree days.

Tomorrow the coffee maker will chug and gurgle again. Tonight I stare out the kitchen window at the Coke machine down at the pool. Did the sturdy kid do some homework? Did he have a chance to shower, squirt some Frebreez in his shoes? Will the bus driver be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed pulling up to load the kids Friday morning?


© 2013-2016 Nancy L. Ruder

Flora, fauna, and Cheerios in the stroller

Did the first waterlily sunprint this morning. My fascination with waterlilies preceded my awareness of Monet, Claude. In my imagination, my mom Fritzi, Monet, Claude, and I would sit on a stone bench by the lily pond in the Depression era public works Sunken Gardens in Lincoln, Nebraska, munching dry Cheerios and watching dragonflies. Fritzi would have been 88 on her birthday yesterday. Claude died two years before Fritzi was born, but he is still sitting with us in the morning sunshine watching clouds reflected in the lily pond. I'm in the stroller, my Cheerios on its little dashboard tray wearing a little yellow sweater with an appliqued giraffe.

Monet, Claude did not join us those mornings Fritzi and I had Animal Crackers at the old Lincoln Zoo. Sometimes Rousseau, Henri would wander out of the humid zoo stench to distract me while Fritzi cut my fingernails with those roseate spoonbill baby scissors.


© 2013-2016 Nancy L. Ruder

Peripheral sprinkles

Write your name at the top and number your paper from one to ten. Handwriting will count on this spelling test.

1. peripheral
2. silhouette
3. pastiche
4. squirrel
5. kitchen
6. blue jay
7. sweetgum seed pod
8. fritillary
9. toroid
10. vet

Bonus words: business ethics, Ricola

I challenge you to pronounce "business ethics" with a Ricola cough drop in your mouth. Say it again, three times fast!

Spell check will not like two Ts, or two Rs, or two Ls in fritillary. If I ever captain a pirate ship, I will name her The Gulf Fritillary. Robert Kurson's Pirate Hunters is proving interesting, but not as spell-binding as his 2004 Shadow Divers.

When we check out the sources and data in a story, are we vetting it like a Corvette or like a veterinarian. The stories are going to be peripheral, but for the life of me I could not spell paraferal for the minutes. Contemplating paraprofessional felines got me through a long stretch of the meeting. If you can't get your pet an appointment with the vet would you be interested in seeing the paraferal?

As a kid I could not spell "kitchen" or "squirrel". Those two evil words kept me from being a sparkly gold stellar speller award winner. This week we are studying compound words, and struggling with bluejay, sweet gum, and seedpod. No matter which way I merge or split, I am wrong.

And shouldn't a pastiche be an savory, crusty French stuffed egg dish? But, no, that was the opera within the opera in the bel canto style. Please don't make me write an essay question or use this word in a sentence!

Silhouette is next to camouflage on my personal spelling nemesis list. And we must not forget the donuts. We will not diverge on the road not taken when the asiago bagel caught fire in the toaster and made me late for work.

My granddaughter can sit up now and play with the Fisher-Price donut ring Rock-a-Stack, just like every kid born since 1960. Some things stay the same, thank heaven!









© 2013-2015 Nancy L. Ruder

"as an ook cometh of a litel spyr"

It's Day Four of the acorn cap/pretty leaf gathering, and I'm feeling the effects. This workout involves walking around with a big tote bag selecting optimal acorn caps, bending down to pick and inspect, standing up and putting acorn cap in the bag. Repeat for one-half hour, with variations for sweet gum leaves and spikey balls, bur oak acorns, twigs with tiny yellow leaves attached, any red leaves, big leaves, variegated leaves, dry umbel stalks, bark, dry coneflower and Mexican hat flower tops, and hopefully no ants of any type. The follow-up/cool down portion of the workout requires a great many more bends, plus taking a Dustbuster to the office so Alice the cleaning lady will not get mad at me about the autumnal craft class prep mess.

Little kids will like making our nature "fantasy islands". The armless clothespin person on the paper plate island is not shouting, "De plane! De plane!" .

As for the little acorns from which those mighty oaks will grow, I report the following conversation between a first grader and a pre-K student.

1st:  Is that noise bothering you?
Pre-K:  No.
1st:  It's not bothering me either. As you get older you don't hear stuff so well, and I'm seven.

The little girls proceeded to tell me their life stories which involved an island, Maui, but not a nature island on a paper plate sea. Then a little guy not much taller than the desk where I worked walked up and asked me, "So how're y'all doin'?"

I'm good. Darn good. Just a few aches and pains from my exercise program.

Eh? What's that you say? When you get older you don't hear stuff so well, and I'm....

© 2013-2015 Nancy L. Ruder

Career options under consideration due to long underwear

Cold.

Brrrr.

Brrrr again, but this time with feeling!

New occupational vistas have opened all because of this ridiculous Dallas November cold snap. Within the week I'll probably have to turn the air conditioner back on, but right now it's dang chilly for working outside. So I bought some black polyester/spandex thermal undies at the sporting goods store.

And suddenly my whole occupational outlook was transformed! [Insert rainbow cosmic enlightenment clip art here]. I now have the outfit to be a cat burglar, a recycling ninja, or an interpretive dancer. Maybe even all three at once! It's Martha Graham meets John Dortmunder on America Recycles Day.

 2014 Nancy L. Ruder

Toasty sea oats

Chatted with a visitor from the Carolinas who asked about one of my favorite ornamental grasses. She wanted to know if we called it "sea oats"? Yes. "It's growing everywhere here," she said, "but back home we have a Save the Sea Oats campaign because they are endangered." Obviously, this required a bit of research.

I just love the shape of the seed bracts, and the way they look braided. The design would make beautiful earrings. But since I see these grasses along many trails and in the beds at the garden, they don't seem endangered at all.

That's because my "sea oats" are inland sea oats also known as wood oats, Chasmanthium latifolium. This grass gets two feet tall, grows in shade, and prefers riparian areas. It's useful in preventing erosion along stream beds.

The Carolina coastal sea oats grass is Uniola paniculata L. Whether or not it is endangered is disputed, but it is definitely desirable. The grass gets six feet tall and its root prevent dune erosion. The seeds are apparently tasty.

One of my favorite rants is that children don't know that food comes from farms and gardens. I am humbled to admit I know nothing about where or how oats are grown, even though I ate Cheerios for breakfast six mornings a week during my Wonder Years.

And, if I embroidered a design from this photo, I would be sewing wild oats....

© 2014 Nancy L. Ruder

Lucky Charms

Thinking green thoughts for friends planning travel to Ireland. Green thoughts, too, for the Martian alien weirdness of spring! Nature is jam-packed with so many bizarre ways for life forms to grow, feed, reproduce, and conserve energy.

So this post is only about green weirdness and wonder close to home.

Not a stegosaurus

Prickly pear duet

Oak gall

Ruffle design inspiration

Ooh! Design a hat for derby day?

Like the leaf shape

Probably poisonous

Beetles are not for breakfast

They're magically delicious!

© 2014 Nancy L. Ruder

Digitizing my wedding

Want to get fit stair-climbing and lifting weights? I've got a deal for you! I'll let you haul boxes filled with photo albums and scrapbooks out of the rental storage unit, and then up the stairs to my apartment. You will, I say YOU WILL feel the burn!

The weight of memories, archives, anecdotes, ephemera, and yellowing photos is enough to sink my second floor apartment below ground. And so, let the scanning begin!

If you were at the wedding, I'll send you a digitized souvenir. But the photo that really gets to me is this one of our first apartment with the harvest gold appliances, the yellow Copco tea kettle, and the lovely macrame plant hangers. Ooh. I still miss that Quaker Oats cookie jar!

© 2014 Nancy L. Ruder

A L P H A - B I T S

Not   P E T S

Nor   P E S T

Vermicomposting seems so normal to me after seven years with red wigglers, that I never considered the wiggly questions involved in moving my little garbage-eaters into an apartment. I need my red wigglers to be healthy for a worm program at the Flower Mound Public Library this summer. Still, I can't really afford to pay a pet deposit and pet rent for the little guys. Also, I'm worried about the regular pest control measures in the apartment complex exterminating my living visual aids.

Wrote up an informative note for the apartment managers. I did not mention that my red wigglers crawl through Lego mazes and spell words for children. Just focused on the garbage reduction in the dumpster, the lack of odor, and not attracting pests.

No   S H I R T

No   S H O E S

No   S E R V I C E

S U R F I N G
W O R D   B I R D S

Right before the norovirus kicked in, I was making a "Mystery Word Bird" game for my students. Having dropped out of popular culture way back, I didn't know the "Word Bird" song was a recurring theme on "Family Guy". I didn't even know about "Family Guy". Kinda clueless, I know.


My opera buddy and I bonded reading campaign yard signs for a Dallas City Council candidate back in 2005. This year Linda Koop is running for a seat in the Texas legislature. She'll always be kinda loop to Jeannie and me.

K I N D A    L O O P

L I N D A   K O O P

Close to my once and future homes there's a barber shop called

E L I T E    K U T Z

No matter how many times I drive by, the sign will always remind me I'm an elite sort of klutz.

P O S T   N O   B I L L S

Alpha-Bits was a Post cereal in the Sixties.

A B C   D E L I C I O U S

C. W. Post created the town of Post, Texas in 1907. It's a cute town, but I've never gotten to do more than a quick drive through.

E N T E R

E X I T

E M U   A R E   Y O U?

W H O ???


© 2014 Nancy L. Ruder

A house of cards, a condo of drips

Idioms for $500, Alex:

A shaky foundation or a classic building toy. 

What is a "house of cards"?

The images on Charles and Ray Eames' "House of Cards" deck belong to my earliest memories. Talking about the images, and nicknaming them with my parents built my memory. The early exposure to good design shaped my aesthetic preferences for life. Early play constructing card houses built my spatial vocabulary, but I won't rant about that this evening!

The surviving pieces from an Eames' "Giant House of Cards" are locked away with that other classic building toy, the Legos accumulated by three sons.

A house of cards -- an organization or a plan that is very weak and can easily be destroyed Their partners began to suspect that the company was a financial house of cards.

Classic card house

KERA, my local NPR station is presenting a special series on families facing financial difficulties. It's called "One Crisis Away", but could easily be called "A Financial House of Cards".

Found a fun photo of the condo where we lived in the late Nineties. It was taken the day after a supremely bad night downpour with a leaking skylight.

Cell phone played its tune from deep in my jacket pocket while driving home from the storage unit. Neighbor Betty's name showed on the caller ID when I finally fished the phone out to the light. Stopped by her condo to ask why she called, but she didn't call and didn't even have my phone number. But Betty was waiting for test results and worrying about colon surgery. Strange cell phone voodoo, or one of those higher power occurrences. It brought on a sunshine/leaking skylight song from above -- or at least from Ella Fitzgerald and the Inkspots:

Flashback fifteen years

Into each life some rain must fall But too much is falling in mineInto each heart some tears must fallBut some day the sun will shine

Some folks can lose the blues in their heartsBut when I think of you another shower startsInto each life some rain must fallBut too much is falling in mine




© 2014 Nancy L. Ruder

Triple word score

The Scrabble dishtowel at Whole Earth Provisions is to blame.  That and seeing real English language words in the CAPTCHA boxes for screening blog commenters. Why no numbers? Why real words? Is this a case of monkeys typing Shakespeare?

accomplished

name

I am not-a-robot, and I'm proud! Do I get a triple word score? A hot bowl of delicious alphabet soup maybe? And then a lecture on de-evolution! Click the LINK for DEVO's classic Jocko Homo video.

© 2013 Nancy L. Ruder

O Glowful Day

Unlace my corset and let me swoon on that little couch right here. Might need to dab my forehead with this lovely embroidered handkerchief. I haven't been this glowy since my only visit to New Orleans. Loved visiting those historic homes with their itty bitty fainting couches!

It was a rare couple days of utter freedom for a young mother. My three sons were in the capable care of their grandma. My spouse was busy at the legal convention. I had a fascinating city to explore at my own pace, troubled only by having dropped a library's travel guide into the relaxing bubble bath. Jackson Square, the Pontalba apartments, Cafe du Monde, the Hermann-Grima House, the Gallier House, and the Beauregard-Keyes House are all bright snapshot memories. After the trip I managed to read Frances Parkinson Keyes'1947 mystery, Dinner at Antoine's, not to be confused with "My Dinner with Andre". 

The library where I am lucky to be employed part-time no longer has any of Keyes' books in its collection, but I did check out "Django Unchained" there. After a sweat bee morning removing ugly old caulk, rust stains, and crumbling grout in the condo bathroom rehabilitation effort, I watched the Tarantino movie. Oh, did I mention making many more air holes in the demo vermicomposting bins for the upcoming worm show? That was using my dad's Fifties electric drill, so I'm always relieved when sparks don't fly.

Once at work we all rushed to return the entire Young Adult collection from temporary shelving to its regular shelves. I felt the burn in my wrists, hands, and lower arms as we lifted stacks of books onto upper shelves, then shifted all the books a couple times until they fit. The a/c wasn't working well, so we all felt the glow of a Hunger Games and Twilight workout!

Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.--Thomas Edison

Horses sweat, men perspire, women glow.--Victorian etiquette admonition

Feel the burn.-- Jane Fonda workout video

The D is silent.--Django

© 2013 Nancy L. Ruder

Kirkus Kix

"...the tale sags as it lumbers toward its foreordained conclusion."  

Dang, don't we all!  This aging business is ugly. While having a realistic view of mortality is useful, and occasionally motivating, sagging and lumbering are not what we look for in summer fiction. A visit to any beach has enough realistic sagging, so bring on the light summer read.

I get a kick out of Kirkus Reviews, the karate chop of book reviews. The quote above comes from the June first, 2013 issue. If I told you what book was being reviewed, I would have to take you out with a flying roundhouse kick.

Tomorrow I'm brunching with a friend who reads and rates obituaries for style, clarity, occasional humor, sincerity and form. Her tales' sagging and lumbering make my book review addiction seem upbeat.

Visited my former neighbor at the nursing/rehab home on D-Day. This WWII vet will be ninety in July. I'm afraid he is fighting vainly the old ennui, staring at the muted t.v. and wondering if there will be a ballgame on. Cole Porter was not really writing a song about life in long-term care facilities, but there's truly no kick to be gotten there. Walking back to my car, the rain hid tears I could never cry for my own WWII vet dad trapped in long-term ennui.

en-nui n. Listlessness and dissatisfaction resulting from lack of interest; boredom.

When all we baby boomers hit the long-term care age, facilities could use the Kix slogan for advertising.

 Kid Tested, Mother Approved

Before you sag, lumber, or maybe shuffle off to bed, I leave you with Ella Fitzgerald singing Cole Porter's "I Get a Kick Out of You" and this simply splendid elephant pajama costume.

© 2013 Nancy L. Ruder

Happy Puffs for Breakfast

[No, not those aging hippie happy puffs.  This is a responsible grown-up blog!]

This little piggy ate gluten-free sweet potato Happy Puffs for breakfast.

By the time I got my camera, Mr. Short Stack had plucked all the crisp and cheerful puffs off the highchair tray and popped them into his mouth.  He was equally adept at grasping tiny sliding bits of banana and scrambs of scrambled egg.

And so, I will only show his happy piggy toes. Swish- swashed with the dreaded washcloth, de-crumbed and de-goobed, my grandson hit the floor running as soon as released from the highchair.  Organic Os seem to pack as much "Go Power" as the Cheerio finger food of previous toddler generations.

This little pig went to market;
This little pig stayed home;
This little pig had roast beef;
This little pig had none;
This little pig cried,
"Wee, wee, wee," all the way home.

I did not cry "Wee, wee, wee," on the way home. I was very grateful just to have an airplane departing without maintenance issues, delays, or gate changes. Annie Prouxl's Bird Cloud was easy reading that gradually became annoying. The skinny guy in the next seat was reading Jack London's sci fi tales.

This morning was another story altogether. I cried, "Wee, wee, wee," but still had to get up and go to work. Our new student, age three, is from France, but has been living in Germany, and mostly speaks Spanish. Oui, oui, oui.

This little piggy had coffee, black
This little piggy ate toast
This little piggy better get to market
or it's gonna be a long week of PB&J
Oy vey!

© 2013 Nancy L. Ruder

Place setting

I am setting the table for this new blog, after a day of working with preschoolers learning place setting. The kids cut out templates of forks, knives, spoons, and cups, and usually get the paper napkin globbed up with the glue stick.

My efforts are similar, and a bit stuck to the glue stick, too. My elements are labels, gadgets, lists, and links. I've tried using pages as tabs, but pages don't connect to labels or do much to get breakfast on the table.

© 2013 Nancy L. Ruder