Spiked hair with errands and SSNs

Crazy Day is a favorite tradition for the final day of class. Most of the children arrive in their PJs wearing mismatched shoes and socks. Some wear tutus over their PJs. Some pee all over the floor as soon as their parents drive away. Sigh. A tutu is a soggy thing with waste. I think Dan Quayle said that.

Good thing I saved that tube of Got2b glued spiking goop from my sons' bathroom drawer when I threw out all the other guy stuff. Since the downstairs shower faucet is broken, I use the former guy bathroom each morning. This is all good, since the orchid in the upstairs shower window is still in glorious bloom.

My Mohawk hairdo looked great for Crazy Day. It was drying in all its water resistantness when I got the call from my boss. Could I please please pretty please with a cherry on top stop by the grocery store and buy a bunch of white daisies for the staff appreciation bouquets? Sure. What the heck. Live dangerously!

Tom Thumb at 7:45 a.m. with not a white daisy bouquet to be had. All the daisies were used in red/white/blue Memorial Day arrangements. The checker paged the manager, and the manager checked the back room. No daisies  Everyone checked the security camera. Fifty-seven year old woman impersonating marine iguana in Aisle 4...

And after a fun-filled day with product in my hair, the banker wants to meet with me about Dad's estate account. Sure? Maybe a quick shampoo before that fiduciary moment is in order!



© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

Choreographing a swallowtail ballet

Inspiration plus perspiration plus going where angels fear to tread into the thistle meadow in search of the dramatic black swallowtail photograph.  The butterfly always one more giant prickly weed beyond the range of the sun-dazed photographer with her tiny camera. Digital click click click zoom point zoom out of focus tangled on thorns wondering about snakes click click swing zoom. Percussion mostly.  Vertical stripes pink black glaring white yellow greens.  A Seventies disco floor flashing backdrop. Exaggerated prickly prancing silhouetted photographer sharp shadow dancing spiky.

Corps de ballet in pink tutus.  Male corp in shades of green-- vertically striped tights. Photographer frames shots larger and smaller circles. Lighting changes from soft to stark contrast.

Floor a glowing pink light projection.  Back a bokeh of greens and bright whites. Dancers in yellow leotards and tights with black markings, orange and blue spots on the floor.  Legs open close angle point pivot from floor. Small shifts to other pink circles of light.

Solo.  Black swallowtail prince.  Slightly battered.  Short movements between vertical green translucent banners.  Sense of confinement.  Needing nourishment.  Corps returns in front with windy shielding and frustrated photographer.

Sphinx moth interlude.  Low to floor. Two moths with three fading thistle flower dancers.  Hovering with strobe.  Rosy hues and browns.

Color invert dance.  Black light effect.  Sharp wire sculpture wings with pearls and jewels.  Neon edges glowing.  Sphinx moths, dragonflies, damselflies, hornworms, wheelbugs, tiger beetles, orb spiders, weevil, caterpillars, praying mantis.  Grand, triumphant, dark. Sousa meets Pink Floyd.

Brown.  Roly-polies.  Millipedes. Snails--how to leave a sparkling silver slime trail??  Worms slightly pink by comparison. Cicadas. Dark background and floor.

Grand finale starring fabulous black swallowtail male in dances with strong, leaping yellow swallowtail female.  Occasional entrances of small groups of female yellow swallowtails. Prolonged threesome frolic with black swallowtail and two yellows.  Exit into dark woods.

Finale--Black swallowtail emerges from shadows and flies weightlessly toward the glittering crystal sunlight on the creek.  Ode to Joy?

© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

DIY mystery on the playground

Who is making this fortification out of mud balls?  And why?

Standing around staring at the mudpile at the tunnel opening we were guessing the builder was a misguided crawdad. Instead, it seems to be a cicada nymph emerging. In the second photo the critter is pushing a mud-ball into place at the top of the tunnel.

But why would an emerging cicada bother enlarging its tunnel and making a fort around the entrance?  Is it planning to flip this remodeled home? We watched the critter come to the surface many times and push a slimy mud ball into place.  Then it would disappear back down into the tunnel for a long time.


Nature is just so very weird!





© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

Hairy Raindrop

This is the hairy raindrop. The project was simple flower forms for the very youngest students, the threes and fours. We use raindrop shapes often, along with baked potatoes, in our drawings.

I talked about a bud, a flower just starting to open, but the kids only remember the hairy raindrop. Tomorrow I'll have to show them some photos of flower forms. But they will probably just remember the hairy raindrop.

If they remember anything at all. What a long, discouraging school year this has been!

© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

Titanic going down

"To Ms. Nacy [sic] from Sophia"
reads the note on the back of the drawing placed in my teacher mail box. Nothing like a seven year old's drawing of the Titanic listing at a 45 degree angle and sinking fast in red, blue, and black crayon to summarize my week. Going down with the band still playing and the lifeboats overcrowded.

Yes, teaching is so rewarding! Dang, if I don't feel as perky as Debbie Reynolds in "The Unsinkable Molly Brown". Or else not.

This has been a draining school year. My lead teacher and I have had so many major personal, life, automotive, and health stressors it is a wonder we can slap the snooze buttons on our alarm clocks, let alone get up, dressed, and to work each morning.

Four more class days, not that I'm counting.

© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

There was a WormMama who swallowed a fly

I've been fussing around trying to make a worm blog on WordPress just to learn a little bit about making a website with pages and categories. Silly me, I still haven't figured out the new version of Blogger with its options for multiple pages. For the moment my efforts are WormMama's Travelling Worm Show.  I've got another vermicomposting gig June seventh.

At this late date in the school year some of the five year old students are figuring out rhyming words! Because why? fly? guy? eye? spy?

Because why I am also reading about Buzz and Fly Guy. The kids like the one fly in Lucy Micklethwait's I Spy Two Eyes, but they LOVE Can You Make a Scary Face?, by Jan Thomas.

We don't want our fly on the guy. We want the fly off the guy, and in the air. It's a positive/negative puzzle. Paul Klee does not rhyme with knee or buy, but sounds like clay, and he's our art guy!

So just a sample of our project masterpieces:

© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder

My three minutes in court

Having done printmaking in art class Wednesday morning I was dreading the swearing in oath part. The palms of my hands were bright magenta and orange. Do you solemnly swear that you can't get your hands any cleaner than that?!?


The reason I was coming before the county probate court judge was to be deemed sane enough to be the independent administrator of Dad's estate. Friends and family had cautioned me against mentioning my side career as a vermicomposting edu-tainer aka Worm Lady.  


The lawyer just told me, "Oh, by the way, you are sworn in now," before we ever went in the courtroom.  No raising colorful hand.  Not one bit like on Perry Mason.


Then we sat at a table with the judge, and I said yes or no (as appropriate) to questions like:  

• Did your dad have or adopt any children after 1996?
• Have you ever been found mentally incapacitated?
• Does your family still have that meth lab down in the holler?
• Will your brother Darryl or your other brother Darryl contest this will?

Raise your right hand and repeat after me ...  No, your other right hand.

I kind of wanted to stay and watch the probate judge's final hearing of the day as it was going to be a doozy. The old lady had already cussed out her court-appointed attorney in the lobby for never having contacted her, for arriving late with no necktie and no yellow legal pad, and for limping with a torn knee ligament.  She was scattershooting her disgust with the over-air conditioned courthouse. Her husband and daughter were with their attorney who had a mouth like Martha Raye trying to get some kind of guardianship over the woman so she wouldn't do something financially wacko.  


Maybe I just haven't watched Judge Judy since Dad died.

No, that is not me. That is Elena Kagan being sworn in. And Midge being sworn in to Barbie's court. And a magenta zebra puppet ready to tell the whole truth.  And some lady who is the new health commissioner of the US Virgin Islands. And an altered photo of Michelle Obama's glove on Inauguration Day.

© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder