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

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

The History Mystery Tour is waiting to take you away

Thanks for the input and questions after part one of this story! I assume the "H" in the center of the needlework book cover is for my dad, Howard. Here is the back of the cover:

As for the "Three Musketiers," I have a group of photos:

The dates in November 1945 match with letters written from Wunsiedel and Waldsassen, Germany. During this period Dad was shipping home nailed crates of glassware to use for Christmas  and wedding presents in the future. Some of that glassware graces my dining room now.

What else was he doing? Staging small raids on small villages looking for evidence of weapons or black market activities. Playing ten different versions of solitaire. Going to  a nice beer hall in the center of town with a good four-piece band. Going a little mad after three years in the service. Wiring the florist in Norfolk, Nebraska to send hydrangeas "to the most wonderful mother in the world." And apparently walking around "our lake" at 5 p.m. with the "Three Musketiers."

On December 12, 1945,  Dad left for transfer to the 15th Tank Battalion attached to the 80th Infantry Division, the first step in his slow return to the States.

© 2013-2018 Nancy L. Ruder

Goodbye to a pineapple

Christmas 2017

The Pineapple is dead. Long live The Pineapple.

Today we salute a Pineapple plant of humble origin that aspired to total apartment domination. Banished to the balcony, it turned disgustingly gooey following prolonged freezing temps.

Will there be a BBC mini-series?

As recently as New Years Day The Pineapple ruled the balcony and commanded a view of the swimming pool, belying its status as an exile from the living room. When The Pineapple was welcomed inside for protection during a Halloween cold snap, offenses were noted. The plant tried taking over the whole living room and was revealed to host unwelcome insects.

Pride and the fall : a special report

In happier times The Pineapple had served in the capacity of Christmas tree in the apartment. Tensions began sometime after a Calloways garden store cashier hinted that the plant had never borne fruit due to under-fertilization on the part of the actual apartment tenant in late November of this year. The tenant flatly denied the accusation.

Halloween 2017

Cashier recants insinuation of negligence.

Christmas 2016

During it final year The Pineapple became increasingly unstable, and required stakes and bungee cords to remain upright even while continuing to grow. Media depicted The Pineapple through rose-colored glasses, but those close told of a prickly disposition.

World leaders remember The Pineapple

Early December 2016

Modeling career

In adolescence The Pineapple traveled to the office, flirted with daffodils, waved to fans from the apartment front door, and scandalously cohabitated with hen and chick. Spin changed this to a tale of sheltering underprivileged sedum.

Little Pineapple on the Windowsill

Beginnings in a coffee mug

Originally proud of its mission as a teaching example of kitchen scrap gardening, The Pineapple later strove to erase records of its humble beginnings and even botanical records of a decapitation-transplantation operation.

Summer 2015

Family ancestor

Tonight we celebrate the continuation of The Pineapple legacy. A new plant was found under the soggy, gooey leaves at the base of the legendary lion. This new plant sits tonight on the same window sill where its famous parent took root.

The Pineapple : The final podcast

© 2013-2017 Nancy L. Ruder

Gifts for taste buds

Inspired by Claudia Leon, a blogger who has lived all over the world and shares amazing photos, I got curious about preserving Meyer lemons in the Moroccan manner. Eight lemons for $1.99 at Trader Joe's was another deciding factor. Kosher salt and a pint jar, check.

The Daring Gourmet recipe I used only called for lemons, salt, and water. I've since found recipes with cinnamon sticks, peppercorns, bay leaves, fennel seeds and coriander seeds.

Yesterday was so dark and rainy that spicy soup was on my mind. It's time for eggplant and sausage stew! Steamy tonight, and it just gets better by freezing it for future lunch breaks. This is how at looks before it cooks:

You can see the tomatoes, andouille sausage, spinach, eggplant, celery, and white beans, but you can't see my addition of a parmesan rind. Take that, Blue Apron!


© 2013-2017 Nancy L. Ruder

OJ with Fritzi

Smile

On special Sunday mornings we would beg our mom, Fritzi, to use her "roly poly" glasses for our orange juice. I have the few surviving roly polies in my cupboard, and they still put a smile on my face, with or without vitamin C.

Roly poly on the counter

A Thursday car chase news flash involving a possibly stolen orange juice-colored Chevrolet naturally reminded me of the OJ Bronco chase.

OJ

In other orange juice smile news, I'll be breakfasting at Frontier Restaurant across from the UNM campus later this summer. The Frontier squeezes the best orange juice on the planet. I will lift my glass to toast Fritzi and smile.


© 2013-2017 Nancy L. Ruder

Orange library bizarre

Glanced at the Harper's Bazaar issue on the cart of recent periodicals every time I walked up the stairs and thought (in a sherbet-colored bubble) "Orange Julius." Every trip down the stairs my glance registered as "peeling carrots." Being "old enough to peel the carrots for supper" was a developmental milestone out there on the prairie. It was a primitive time, indeed, and few remember when carrots were a root vegetable that did not come in a ready-to munch-bag.

As the last kid on earth to taste an Orange Julius at the Westroads Mall in big city Omaha, I was mortified to be so terribly delayed in popular culture. Now hopelessly estranged from popular culture, and happily, it took me many flights of stairs to notice the name of the model on the Harper's Bazaar cover -- Kendall Jenner. That added another layer of orange and confusion to my glances! No consumption of carrots will improve my vision enough to comprehend the Jenner-Kardashian phenomenon. And that's a good thing!

Sometimes pausing at the top of the stairs I have an odd flashback to watching a Houston Astros game on tv in an Irish tavern on Dodge Street in Omaha. The Astros were wearing their orange Jello parfait uniforms. I was in love with my husband. We were young, poor, and enjoying life.



© 2013-2017 Nancy L. Ruder

Sunshine daydreams

Odysseus Dreams of Home

E I  E I exam O

Dali Doesn't Order Dominos

© 2013-2016 Nancy L. Ruder

A measure of control

a gauge of rainfall
a measure of anxiety
a tiny bit of breathing room

walnuts

strange growths on the balcony
mushroom swelling beneath mint and trumpet vine

gnats
eye of newt
a blast of trump
spores galore but better every day
gaining

© 2013-2016 Nancy L. Ruder

Primed for disappointment

We have been seriously facilitated lately, with the pyramid of accountability, communication skills, Glenn Parker's Team Players, and True Colors. Are you most:

• stressed by appearing incompetent?
• stressed by disharmony?
• stressed by disorganization?
• stressed by lack of excitement?
• stressed by forgetting to cancel free Amazon Prime trial before 30 days were up?

Just before the lunch break in the all day team-building session I realized I had missed the deadline to cancel my 30-day free Amazon Prime membership before being charged $99.99. Oops. Not sure I can make that membership a financial win. It would be better if Prime included a year of free socks to meet your every need. Amazon knows absolutely everything about me, so drones could deliver perfect socks to my front door. I hate buying socks! 

• Why do they cost so much? 
• Why can't they be more fun?
• Why are they never quite the right color? 
• Where is the mate?

What have I learned, besides the socks? I seem to be a private, planning, punctual, slow-processing cynical idealist, telephone-phobic contributing challenger uncomfortable with conflict, easily annoyed, amazingly curious but never bored, Put me in a closet and I will make art out of coat-hangers. Put me in the kitchen and I will use my knowledge of historic migrations with my appreciation of texture and color to make many interesting dishes, two-thirds of which will be edible, and 80% unrepeatable. Put me in a long departmental strategic planning meeting, and I will be unable to find a comfortable position on those chairs. Tell me I can't take notes, and I'll be itching for a fight. Don't hug me, and I won't hug you.

© 2013-2015 Nancy L. Ruder

Windshield wipers for googly eyes

"What do you know about emotional intelligence?," the trainer asked us bright and early. 153 probably wasn't the answer she was trawling for, but it's pretty close to the Dewey decimal shelf location for Daniel Goleman's book, Emotional Intelligence. Stephen Covey is upstairs too, just a few library shelves over at 158.

"Would you eat anything with eyes?," a coworker asked. I had a flashback to rainbow trout dinners in Estes Park. No, I would not eat the eyes, but grilled trout was served with the head as proof of freshness. And grilled rainbow trout with a loaded baked potato is very fine dining.

So, while setting out the brunchy-munchy emotional food for the team-building session the devil made me set a few googly eyes on the apples, strawberries, and cheese cubes. It was not my intent to cause a coworker to choke to death on a googly eye, but I could put that into my never-to-be written mystery, first in a compelling new series, as we say in the book review biz. I was expecting a different coworker to have a severe reaction to the non-GMO crunchy peanut butter on the apple slices, and maybe swell up like a Macy's parade balloon before suffocating.

Forgot to factor my unfamiliarity with the venue kitchenette when planning these Deaths by Departmental Meetings. My fiction is no pulp, like the OJ.

Thirteen hours of survey data, strategic planning, goals and objectives, signage text, visions and mission statements, personal strength and weaknesses, drought-tolerant landscape design, and an emotional intelligence trainer using her index fingers to be pretend teeny windshield wipers in front of her eyes could drive a usually sane person to open the Hatch.

So thank heaven for those Hatch chile cheddar cheese cubes from Market Street, and for the coworker who knew where the coffee was stored--right next to the bodies in the freezer!

Okay, no bodies. No apple corer/divider in the kitchenette drawer, either.

Just balloons and funnels drawn on the white board with scented markers. The balloons were the emotional (big and stretchy) and rational (little and rigid) containers in our brains reached by stimuli that have made it through our funnels and filters.

What behavior change or action did I take following the emotional intelligence team-building training session? I went right home and filed an apartment maintenance request for a change of furnace filter. The super installed a new thermostat, but left the dirty filter in place.

That's okay, because I can use my index fingers like teeny windshield wipers to clean dirty stimuli filters. I can reset my new emotional thermostat.

© 2013-2015 Nancy L. Ruder