Big black cauldron

There's a new employee noon hour book club starting up. Employees bring a potluck dish using a recipe from a book, fiction or nonfiction. Of course, they are literary lunching on their own time, just want to make that clear.

Thought about participating. I really did. It was a long day, though, and the only two books with recipes at my skill level were from the children's room.

I can throw a rock in a crockpot. Stone Soup remains a classic story of sharing even in this ugly time of the president we do not mention by name.

The first chapter book I ever read that had a recipe at the back was Ian Fleming's Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Since it is recorded on the library summer reading program log of 1966--which I still have, of course--I know when I read it. My mom wasn't supporting my desire to make Monsieur Bon-Bon's secret fudge, so I flopped on the living room carpet to read about the lost colony of Roanoke.

© 2013-2019 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

Lady Godiva and the Coinstar machine

I wish I could say that Lady Godiva was the person tipping a five-gallon Ozarka bottle of coins into the Coinstar change machine at Tom Thumb this evening. It was an impressive feat even for the guy wearing clothes. Not sure how full the bottle was when he started dumping the pennies, but he still had a long way to go when I left the store with the hamburger buns and baby carrots. Ka-chinga-chinga-chinga-chinga.

No, Lady Godiva was the gal running across Knox Street on the Katy Trail as I was leaving work. Don't get confused here. Lady Godiva was never in a remake of "A Star is Born." She rode a horse in the buff to protest taxation, or some such back in the 1300s.

My dear friend Felicia was famous for convincing a college dean to let her portray Godiva and ride a horse around the campus  promoting a Medieval Faire. She had to design sufficiently concealing attire to gain permission while also creating the historically-accurate revealing illusion. Everything required more effort and creativity in the 70s! I miss Felicia so often!

The Ms. Godiva jogging across Knox wore spandex top and bottom all of a pale dusky peach color.  Apparently she could easily purchase this traffic-stopping medieval look at Nordstroms. But WHY?


Really. ...At least in the 70s Godiva was clothed and the streakers were naked. Plus, how much would a five-gallon bottle of pennies weigh?


© 2013-2019 Nancy L. Ruder