Tiny bubbles on the floor

After last evening's Dallas Opera production of Verdi's Luisa Miller you'd think I'd be humming something more highbrow than Don Ho. Maybe I just need more sleep. I put Joy dishwashing liquid in the dishwasher instead of Cascade.

Normally this mistake isn't possible because I can't even find the Joy. My resident photographer takes it upstairs to his bathroom to perform lighting experiments, setting up a la-bor-a-tory with lamps, tripods, curtains amid the general disgusting debris of a teen male's bathroom.


I am on my third beach towel cleaning the bubble mess on the kitchen floor. That's nowhere near the number of towels used during the various cleaning adventures of the belated Batmobile, but it is significant. I finally got the needed impetus to mop the kitchen floor.

The opera was quite wonderful even though there wasn't a luxury automobile on display outside the Music Hall. The stage is set with an elegant minimalism, a picture within a picture, and successful use of light and shadow. The music was splendid, especially the mezzo voice of Mzia Nioradze as the Duchess Federica. The costumes were styled appropriately for the Austrian Alps in a pleasant palette of greens and RED. The biggest flaw in the whole production was the Sam's Club bulk buy of RED velveteen. Miles of the same RED. No wine, no rose, no scarlet or crimson. No satin or bombazine, challis or damask. I could go on, but you get the idea. And if you're curious, check out the Phrontistery word list and definitions.

Dotted Swiss doesn't appear on the list, but the bubble mess on the floor reminds me of my mom's fancy robe when I was little. Excuse me. I have to go look for more towels.

Long May It Wave

We sold the Batmobile yesterday to an auto salvage yard dealer who drove down from Ada, OK. Chris looked only slightly older than my seventeen-year-old son, but has already bought, rebuilt, and sold nineteen Nissan Z cars, and is the boss of his auto supply company. He loaded the Batmobile with amazing care and concern. The 1990 300ZX only lived with us nine months, but it will always leave an oil spot in our hearts. It was far more of a symbol of a Dream than an actual driveable vehicle. I'm thinking we should sell commemorative ribbon-shaped auto magnets...



One-point perspective is teachable in elementary art class.

Two-point is possible if the kids are older.

Three-point gives me the willies just thinking about it. My college drawing professors sent us off to the Sheldon Art Gallery and the UN-L steam energy plant to do three-point drawings, and I never fully recovered.




If you need any parts call and ask for Chris:

Dave's Auto Sales & Parts
1901 N. Broadway
Ada, OK 74820

Parts: 580 436 7149
Toll Free: 1 888 436 7149
Auto Sales: 580 436 7130
Fax: 580 436 7145
Email: dasp@davesparts.com

Chris can help you get into a Nissan Turbo that will retain its value before the 2006 Z Car Convention here in Dallas!

December

This was an incredibly beautiful sunset in Lincoln, where there is no snow.
This was a pretty strange day in Plano, Texas, where there is.

These are delightful penguins at the South Pole, by students age 3-8.

This is not a sleeping polar bear at the North Pole.It is a 1991 300 ZX in need of many expensive repairs before it becomes driveable, so it's basically hibernating.

Theme decor

My condo is not really a theme park. So why have we returned to the Automotive Living Room decor??? I got rid of the battery, and then the case of Valvoline. Yet for the past week I've had two black floormats from the '91 Beached Whale 300ZX plunked in the middle of the living room. If Architectural Digest were to feature us, they would write in glowing terms about our neo-post-demolition-modern-autodestruct repetition welding the interior to the panoramic vista outside the windows. In real life, I would say that the clearly delineated floormats on the carpet poetically reflect the enigmatic growing oil spots on the parking spaces. If that ain't feng shui, take a whiff of my shoes. They had an encounter with a crazed back-splashing nozzle at the gas station. My fashion scents complement my design sense. It's a wonder my name isn't embroidered on my shirt pocket. Maybe I could market designer candles with scents for gasoline, transmission fluid, ArmorAll, just-mopped truckstop restrooms, vinyl upholstery mildew, and well-aged fast food sacks.

Homecoming Kodak Moment

Steven and his date posed in front of the clean and shiny Batmobile. They strategically positioned themselves in front of the dent, so it wouldn't detract from the effect of the way-cool Z car. The wrist corsage of white roses looked lovely, just so you know he actually did order it in between lunches. They are now off to dinner at PF Chang in a group of five couples.

Jason, of the lunch gang, is off to homecoming in a different group of couples where all the girls are named Sarah. I've always suspected that half the girls born in 1987 were named Sarah. Baby names intrigue me, partly because I teach small kiddies and have to write their names on art projects. This year I am overwhelmed with Isabels and Isabellas. Jack is the most common boy name in my upper-class Caucasian student set. Sometimes I have three Jacks in a class of 24 kids.

My own name was in the top ten during the 1940's and '50's. There are only a handful of Nancy's born after the mid-60's. I wonder if it will ever come back into style. In my first grade class of thirty kids there were five Nancy's, so we had to use our middle names. There were a lot of Bobby's, Julie's, Debbie's, Mike's, and Carol's too. I always worry how it will affect a child when teachers have to modify his/her name. I became Nancy Lou in 1960. Would I have grown up more graceful and romantic if I had become Nancy Louise?

Steven's date had a classy, slightly retro black satin dress for the dance. The trim was a shade of pink I can only describe as Baskin Robbins Cold Duck Ice. Slam me back to 1972!

By the way, when Steven went to the Z Car Club meeting Wednesday he won a door prize. I am wondering when he will get around to reading it:

Royal pain in the glass

I have a visual memory of Humphrey Bogart riding in an elevator with a crisscross lattice door. I'm in search of that cinematic source. Okay, I'm not searching very hard, but I did decide to reserve the Bogart movies from the public library just for fun. I've seen "Casablanca", "Maltese Falcon", and "African Queen" several times, of course. I've seen the "Caine Mutiny" and "Treasure of the Sierra Madre", but it's been a really long time. I'd never seen "Sabrina" until today. It was the first of my library reserves to become available.

This hasn't been a stellar weekend except that my mom got to go home from the hospital after two weeks. My computer was attacked by a terrible case of chicken pop-ups, small pop-ups, swine, monkey, and avian pop-ups. I had to guide it through a traumatic psychic rebirthing experience known as system restore, and then reinstall and reset EVERYTHING. Now I'm teaching it to ride a bicycle with training wheels and taking lots of Polaroids. They're so cute when they're little!

When Steven jumped into his Batmobile to zoom to work at 8:45 a.m., he found the passenger window bashed in, and his CD player stolen AGAIN. I actually went out in the condo parking lot in my jammies (a first in 7 1/2 years) to help him swear and listen to him rant about getting a shotgun. Ranting in this case is healthy. Shotguns are never healthy, but I understood the feeling. A police occifer straight off "The Simpsons" arrived and took down just the facts, ma'am. He didn't actually take fingerprints or anything. Steven drove my car to work, and I spent the morning trying to clean up the glass and talking to neighbors.

In about 1976, my parents went out to Colorado to pick up my brother from Rocky Ridge Music Camp. My sister and I stayed home since we were very mature and employed. One night the tv screen just shattered and fell out on the living room carpet in a bizarre glass avalanche while we were asleep. It's amazing what a heap of "snow and ice" the glass of one front passenger-side window or one tv screen can make. The glass shards today were all over the car, down inside the door, down inside the seats, and sprayed all over three parking spaces.

In the mid-Nineties my oldest son had to make a "project" about a symbol of Texas history. Apparently the middle school teacher's expectations were of the toilet paper tube cannon or covered wagon shoebox variety. Being uninitiated, Jeff made a 2'x3' mosaic of the Alamo using stones, shells, broken tiles, and automobile glass that I carefully scavenged from the site of a fender bender on our street. The history teacher gave the project a B, and commented that it was "almost like art". Jeff was insulted and I was disgusted. We ranted, but shotguns weren't mentioned. I really liked the mosaic sky made of the auto glass shards. We still have the Alamo mosaic.

Today I managed to refrain from collecting the broken glass for future art projects. I'm getting so healthy I can even throw away the occasional toilet paper tube, which is a major feat for an art teacher. More on this topic later!

When the auto glass repair team arrived to replace the car window, they couldn't get the door unlocked for at least half an hour. After my clean-up efforts I had locked the car door, even though the window was wide open. Oops. Once they got the door open with a slim jim, things didn't get much easier. When the Bad Guy(s) popped the window, they managed to break the connectors that hold the window in place. We have to get those connectors from the Nissan dealer, and it is five o'clock on Saturday... So now we have a new Batmobile window, but it's held in place with tape. At least I got to keep the corrugated cardboard portfolio with handle that the window glass came in!

To complete the day, I enjoyed watching William Holden sit down on two champagne glasses, and have the glass shards removed from his posterior in black and white. I enjoyed "Sabrina" very much, even if Bogie didn't ride in the right elevator. My brunette bouffant Barbie had Audrey's Sabrina evening gown!

I'm not a grandmother...

...but I play one on t.v. Well, not exactly, but I am older than the statistical average age of a first-time grandparent. I teach art to itty-bitty kids, and get enough hugs to have a hint about the joys of being a grandparent. I have sons who are 17, 19, and 22, so I keep my fingers crossed that I don't become a grandmother before I'm ready, but that is a different worry. I know lots of great picture books to read when I do become a grandmother, and I suspect sharing them will be one of my life's greatest joys.

I must look like a granny. One of my condo neighbors stopped me to say what a sweet grandson I have. I was somewhat stunned, to say the least, and couldn't really get out a response. Apparently, my seventeen-year-old knocked on her door to ask about the ding on her old car. He was afraid she thought he had done it. He does park his oil-leaking Batmobile next to her car, but he had not dinged it. Statistically, I am not old enough to be his average granny!

"What would happen if grandparents would vote the interests of their grandchildren who can't vote for themselves?"

I just read Ellen Goodman's op-ed about the Granny Voter project. The project asks all of us to think long-term when we go to the polls. Click here to read her op-ed piece, "Kids the secret to this granny's vote". What do enquiring Granny Voters want to know?

• Will our grandchildren have a chance for decent jobs, good education and adequate healthcare?
• Will our grandchildren live in a world of polluted air and water and disrupted climate?
• Will our grandchildren carry a burden of debt for today's spending?
• Will our grandchildren have the same rights we have today and be able to speak their minds openly and freely?
• Will our grandchildren face rage and resentment created by the policies our government pursues?

For more information go to GrannyVoter.org. And just FYI, I am NOT planning to hide my gray hair. And yes, one of these days this blog will become CollageGrandma's Itty Bitty Blog!

New lint for old

My washer and dryer have been running continuously for about a week now. All three of my sons are briefly in residence at the tiny condo. The guys are large people now. They have work clothes, gym clothes, and leisure clothes. They have many, many towels because showering is their life. They have towels and rags from washing their three vehicles. One son has the towels he uses to plug the places where his car roof leaks. These Star Trek crew members have the dress shirts they wore to our family portrait photo sitting that need to be washed and ironed. Add in the black dress socks. Add in the white crew socks from the Blues Brothers son who was just released from Joliet.

Now add to that the rags, towels, and art smocks from work. Then the pirate costumes with the make-up stains--must have been Johnny Depp's eyeliner!

It was taking a long time for the loads to dry. Time to move all the toolboxes, hangers, small change, lonely hearts club socks, and abandoned Christmas tree decorations off the dryer to extricate the lint trap. Ooh-la-la! The thick blanket of dryer lint was layered in pastel colors. It looked like a recipe for Jello and Dream Whip that I received in a packet in home ec. class in 1968.

Aggressively tacky

Steven is recovering the interior walls of the 300ZX with new vinyl. He is doing it one section at a time, of course, and is still on section numero uno. The interior will be white instead of maroon. Right now he is translating the directions on the can of spray adhesive from instructionese to real English. We are debating the meaning of "agressively tacky", as in "the product is agressively tacky for 10 sec.-15 min." I've known dinette sets that were aggressively tacky for fifteen years...

After all the driving last week, and sewing the thirty-two giant carrots together, my essential tremor has kicked in. Any time I use my right arm to the point of fatigue, my arm shakes enough to hurt. Using a weed-whacker, handheld mixer, or the sprayer at the coin-op carwash escalates the tremor from amusing nuisance to real annoyance. My handwriting will be pretty illegible for a couple days.

Living in a condo has some downsides. Sometimes I really miss having a yard. Today I am remembering how sore my arm would be after mowing, and feel grateful not to do yard work anymore.

Who are you???

Steven had a fine lesson in auto repairs yesterday. We went to the muffler place to get a new tailpipe, and they told him the muffler was rusted out, and so the whole adventure cost $158 instead of forty. We sat around at Quiznos pondering life's questions like, "How do I know if they're telling me the truth?", "Did that estimate include labor?", and "What if I don't have enough money?" I said, "Congratulations, welcome to the Wonderful World of Adults."

I can waste all sorts of time pondering the One Stat list of visitors to this blog. It never really tells me what I'd like to know. Who are you? You out there in Ghana or Horseheads, New York, how are you? Did you relate to anything here? What search led you to this blog? I understand if it was totally a mistake. You were hoping for the secrets of cricket eradication or teaching hamsters to dance, and you ended up at this blog. Happens to me all the time. Today I will have to search for pink paper bags so that my students can make superhero pigs. Searching "Pink Bags" will probably lead me to sites for naughty Czech housewives. When that happens I probably won't write a comment, but if you have a second, I would love for you to comment on how you hit this blog, and if you know a good place to get pink bags. Thanks. Y'all come back now, y'hear.

Cosmetic Issues

We have just welcomed a 1990 Nissan 300ZX with rebuilt engine and significant cosmetic issues into our little family. It is white with a red interior. Steven is going to have to love it like the Velveteen Rabbit and Pinocchio so that it will turn into a "real" car. Right now he's sudsing and soaking it in a hot bath. Then maybe if we give it some chicken noodle soup, sugar cookies, and a bedtime story, it will look beautiful in the morning!

We also have a new coffee-maker. This time it was the on/off switch that died on Mr. Coffee. As Steven says each and every time when I bring home a new one, "Mom, you just don't have good luck with coffee-makers." I guess I ride'em hard and put 'em away wet. This time I got a "programmable" one so I can wake at 5:30 to the smell of coffee--if I can figure out the instructions. At least the coffee-maker doesn't require Armor-all.