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

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

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

Motivational seekers

Nobody expected the flurries would stick or go on so long. The TV weather guys said there was a 10% chance of  waltzing snowflakes. How did each snowflake feel about getting up, lacing on those toe shoes and going to work knowing the gig might never happen? 

These are not the star snowflakes, mind you. They won't get the frozen sparkly glory. These are just the corps of interchangeable snowflakes making slightly over minimum wage. Did these random snowflakes ever get the overhead view of a June Taylor Dancers kaleidoscopic production to find their little roles in the big production?

Word rippled in drifts through our workplace. The boss and his #2 were outside sweeping the snow off our cars, cleaning our windshields for a safe drive home. How chilly awesome is that?  I felt appreciated and acknowledged. My personal life and safety seemed valued. I was amused by two men of a certain age out playing in the snow in the guise of cleaning our cars. 

Motivation is the unplanned theme of the week. Reading Payoff on lunch breaks. Listening to Norbert Leo Butz's terrific performance of Phil Knight's memoir, Shoe Dog, on my slow commutes.

What motivates me? Being able to get that big occasional view of the grand scheme and my place in it. Having my ideas acknowledged. Being in the loop. Verbal thanks.

Knight quotes General Patton several times, and this may be my long-term takeaway from the book:

'Don't tell people how to do things, tell them what to do

 and let them surprise you with the results.'

© 2013-2016 Nancy L. Ruder

Apricot-filled Alghero

After breakfast of warm cornetti all'albicocca, espresso, meat and cheese on the cloister terrace at Hotel San Francesco, a walk in Old City Alghero provides wonderful images:

 

Upcycling

More research needed into the best shoes for cobblestone walks!

© 2013-2016 Nancy L. Ruder

It started at the end of May

Often noting the month of acquisition on library materials, I write month-'year. So May was 5-16. Right? Right.

Much as I can't make Excel dance through hoops to repeat or generate a sequence, I can't get my brain to stop doing the month-year jig.

So for half of June I kept writing 6-17, then backing up to correct to 6-16. By the end of the month I got my head straight, just in time for July.

7-18 was wrongo, wrongo! The oft-reinforced error was gaining strength and momentum, but I almost broke its will by the anniversary of Neil Armstrong walking on the moon on Janice's birthday in 1969.

Then it was August and Alan Shepard used a six-iron on my mental lunar landscape. 8-19 is not correct, but it's difficult to stop writing it on the labels.

When I get back from Sardinia I'll probably write 9- ? ...Maybe I will finally break the habit!

© 2013-2016 Nancy L. Ruder

Petal dancer

On this, her nineteenth birthday, I celebrate my niece with blossoms and dance and petals, not for the first time. She is a poised, strong woman who acts on her convictions, lives comfortably in her own skin, and moves with style and grace. Clearly she is not related to my college freshman self!

 Geographical distance has limited our niece/aunt connection. Sad to say, when we were together it was often in high stress situations. I'm hoping she wasn't scarred for life.  She has an artist's eye, and I've always wanted to send her gifts for making art or of my creations. This year the gift is finished, but not yet in the mail.

Through sloggish commutes the audiobook, Art of Grace, by Sarah L. Kaufman plays on in the Buick. Its many good points are diluted through excessive repetition. Much as I love Cary Grant movies, is the actor really a saint?


Life maintenance tasks were shoved to the back burner this day off. Peony buds were blooming--

© 2013-2016 Nancy L. Ruder

Snail's breakfast after thunderstorms

Commanding cracks of thunder jolting me out of sleep and nearly out of bed sounded like titans were cracking Roc eggs on the peak of my roof at 2:30 a.m. Is Sinbad out and about?

The next wave of the storm had impressive examples of "rolling thunder", with the sound seeming to approach down a long tunnel then traveling on past me.  All my life I just thought "rolling thunder" was the same as "thunder rumbling". This was a completely different auditory experience. And since I was wide awake at three a.m. it was time to wonder which Indiana Jones movie had the giant marble rolling down the tunnel--or sewer--to squish our hero.  Or do all Indie movies have a variation of that theme? What was Operation Rolling Thunder? What was the Rolling Thunder Revue?

When would I get back to sleep? Shouldn't work be called off on account of scrambled Roc eggs?

Work was not called off, so the morning moved forward with the speed of stop-action clay animation filming. One might say it moved at a snail's pace. Stepping out of my car in the post-storm sunshine, the first snail seen on the sidewalk seemed to have only one eyestalk. The second snail had been stepped on, but was still moving. My boss moved it onto damp soil where it would surely die soon. The third snail was slowly stalking tiny insects on the damp wood armrest of a patio bench.

Are gastropod eyestalks retractable? And doesn't this snail's brocade jacket and pleated chiffon skirt look like a lovely mother-of-the-groom ensemble? I could slime up the aisle on the usher's arm.

Sinbad's crew discovering Roc eggs--By Columbia Pictures - Trailer for the film, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=40492354

© 2013-2016 Nancy L. Ruder

White out

Unprepared for the sudden snowstorm on a weekend trip to Grandma's house, we fashioned booties of aluminum foil and plastic bags to get out in the snow, 1967. A chronically "special" visitor to the library wear hats, foil helmets to protect from space rays, plastic bags like shower caps. Toilet paper bandages wrap around Jacob Marley's toothache. A Salvador Dali mustache of twisted Kleenex, 2016..

We are all in our assorted mental blizzards and white obsessions. Sometimes digging out. Other times hunkering down. Staying in touch with my family members in the East Coast blizzard this weekend. Watched the cell phone video of the bulldog running in the snow. The bulldog is sometimes running upside down or sideways.

Family vehicle owners shovel and shiver. Those who rely on mass transit play Monopoly, take artistic photos, and run low on wine. A good reason not to own a car!

I'm not making much progress reading Edmund de Waal's White Road : A Journey Into Obsession about porcelain and white clay. The book reviews didn't mention it was nap-inducing!

Cutthroat Monopoly : That sibling with the evil landlord gene. Piling on the houses and hotels, Park Place .Boardwalk. Making you PAY. What do you remember about blizzards? I spy with my little eye a lot of white:

White-haired great aunts and spinster schoolteachers doing jigsaw puzzles at folding card tables. Popcorn shooting from the air popper; potato soup with homemade egg noodles; wind-sculpted drifts overhanging roof eaves; staying under the quilt with Kerouac's On the Road and a bottle of port. That wine stain is still on the white quilt. Being trapped with the dorm roommate who played Nights in White Satin and A Whiter Shade of Pale over and over. The world covered in clean white snow before it all gets ring around the collar.

© 2013-2016 Nancy L. Ruder

Flanless in the kitchen, six p.m.

My walking buddy complains her flannel pajamas are no longer warm, cheery, or comforting on these very long nights of early winter.. The thrill is gone, as is the flannel fuzz. We long to don our happy jammies about 6:27 p.m., or maybe earlier after a rough day. Being flannel-threadbare is bad news, indeed. It's discouraging to be flanless.

Tis the best time of year for waffle suppers, Boy Scout troop pancake feeds, or German egg pancakes--eggy, soft, warm, crusty. Eggy, but not a custard, so the French "flan" is not the chilly word of the evening. So what is flannel? The origin is Welsh. It could be wool, but I'm thinking of this:

...a soft, warm, light fabric of cotton or cotton and another fiber, thickly napped on one side and used for sleepwear, undergarments, sheets, etc. 

Thickly napped! Sounds like a lifestyle!

When the fuzz has departed your grannie-style nightgown, is the right term for the garment "deflanned"? "Disflanned"? "Unflanned"? Doesn't sound good, but it might be better than being fleeced or defleeced.

Dr. Seuss characters all look like they are wearing delightfully saggy jammies of flannel , fleece, or knee-stretched Walmart sweatsuits. My tiny granddoggy sports a new Schnorkie Nordic parka with reflective stripes and red fleece lining. 

Stay warm. Read under the quilt.

© 2013-2016 Nancy L. Ruder

Odd topics on two-week loan

The bad thing about having two 3/5 FTE jobs is forgetting where I'm going when I get in the Buick. The good thing is having 6/5 FTE peculiarities to observe, record, and celebrate.

19.21 years ago when I first started working at the library, an old-timer told me she only worked there to gather material for her novel. Clueless, I marked her down in my mental spreadsheet as:

Paula       Frustrated writer     From Minnesota      Malnourished      Hyper  

Over those 19.21 years I'd like to believe I've developed a more mature, nuanced, open-minded, and appreciative outlook. The grid of my mental spreadsheet is hazy, and rarely filled. It's clear I'll never write a novel, or even anything longer than a blog post. Still, I look at days on the job as paid opportunities to collect material for that novel.

Did Paula ever write a novel? No clue. She drove off in her tiny blue pick-up for points unknown. That took guts. A new category to add to the spreadsheet or not.

We've been discussing celery at my other job due to my family presentation about vegetable gardening. Two co-workers vote celery as the worst, most worthless vegetable on earth. They both grew up in the era of fresh and appealing frozen vegetables. I grew up in the salty canned vegetable era, post-WWII, post-Great Depression, hearing tales of scraping plates for pig slop, but not actually growing anything ourselves. Until I was about ten years old the only fresh vegetables we consumed were carrot, celery, and corn-on-the-cob. Pulling the strings off celery sticks was a suppertime amusement akin to making mashed potato gravy volcanoes. We could braid them, but not macrame.

Smart phones are a big change in the library circulation desk employee experience over these years. Patrons now share phone photos of sentimental verses on tombstones, or swish through screen lists of recommended books in very tiny print to find the title they want reserved.

thwunk--The sounds of the bookdrop are a constant: squealing opening in a minor key, swish of items, and reverberation of books and videos hitting the floor inside the tiny closet under the stairs. The teen volunteer doesn't know how to open the mailbox on the corner to deposit the envelopes. Good that he knows how to return books, but strange that he's never dropped stamped thank-you notes to Grandma in a mailbox.

I won't enter any mental judgmental data in the imaginary spreadsheet as long as this teen has no visible tats. Don't push me over the open-minded edge! And thank your grandparents.


© 2013-2015 Nancy L. Ruder

Reptile risk management with Monty Python

Nobody expects the venomous Texas reptile.

Nobody expects the venomous Texas reptile because our governor is busy anticipating a federal military takeover of the Lone Star State.

The biggest dang snake I've ever seen outside a herpetarium was the Texas rat snake on my condo patio, going about its business eating rodents. I should have sent a lovely handwritten thank you note instead of obsessing about the snake getting into my dryer vent and eating my laundry.

Plano parks may now have laminated printouts posted suggesting prudence with regard to snakes. And that should be enough. Yes, a pretty teen was bitten by a snake in a Plano park, and we should protest and ...

• Get out there wearing appropriate footwear and enjoying our amazing parks.
• Remember you are the outsider, and respect the creatures in their environment.
• Be in awe of their natural camouflage and how perfectly they are suited to their habitat.
• Don't blame the snake.
• Worry about fracking, global warming, blue plastic bags caught in trees and fences, and black widow spiders in old-timey outhouses with Nancy Drew, Ned, Bess, and George. 
• Worry about identity theft because of a data security breach at Park'N'Fly. 
• Fret about giant mutant rodents in your dryer vent with teen sleuths.

Sweet dreams!


NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise!... Surprise and fear... fear and surprise... Our two weapons are fear and surprise... and ruthless efficiency! Our three weapons are fear, and surprise, and ruthless efficiency... and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope... Our four... no... Amongst our weapons... Hmf... Amongst our weaponry... are such elements as fear, surpr... I'll come in again.


© 2013-2015 Nancy L. Ruder

The Dress or not

While rummaging in the closet for tax info and ancient baby books, I found The Dress. No, not that dress that made it viral on social media this week. This was The Dress my mother made from Marimekko fabric in about 1971. You can choose the colors depending on your vision, but the actual color scheme is pretty radical.

© 2013-2015 Nancy L. Ruder

Dense fog on Memory Lane

Sitting there in America's best airport staring at the carpet while my Kindle recharged and my fish tacos digested, I gradually noticed folks in my gate having way more fun than usual. Their jackets said "The Spinners", and their guitars gave my brain a little poke. Musicians. What decade? What hits? What recent casino gig? Headed back home to Detroit by way of Dallas. Couldn't just walk up and ask them. If I had a smart phone I could google, but deferred gratification is a sign of maturity.

So back to my eBook, Olive Kitteridge. It was fitting to read about old married people and old widowed people, especially blunt and abrasive ones this month. And you know, that amazing actress was in a tv show I didn't watch based on the novel. That "Fargo" pregnant actress who was married to Bill Murray and in love with Bruce Willis in "Moonrise Kingdom", but I kinda think is married to a Coen brother. Can't google her either, so I'm feeling more mature by the moment. I might even wait until I finish the novel to google the actress!

I sense an S in her name and a Mc slowly rising from my deep subconscious. The Magic 8 Ball says It is decidedly so. About the Spinners all I get is memory fog, Oregon drizzle and, "Your call is important to us, please stay on the line..." 

So I'm working my way back to the answers:

Seventies

Could It Be I'm Falling In Love 

Spirit Mountain Casino January 18

BONUS: Yes, I had suede sandals this color that year

 (and even double-knit wide-cuffed bell-bottoms)

© 2015 Nancy L. Ruder

Weevil wonders while waffles wander

Whoa, Nellie, my waffle iron is away without leave. It has to be here somewhere, but I haven't seen it since my move. Oh where, oh where could my waffle iron be?

Judging from the trail through the dew, the weevil had been wandering in loops across the car roof. Perhaps it was reenacting the drifting of the USS Jeannette trapped in the ice pack. Listening to Hampton Sides' In the Kingdom of Ice helps when Dallas is still setting record high temps in the nineties.

A clearer weevil on a different Buick 9/10/2010.

Wee Willie Winkie found the waffle iron.

If weevils and waffles aren't enough, maybe it's time to go with Waylon and Willie and the boys. Having my "weekend" on Wednesdays is wacky.

© 2014 Nancy L. Ruder