Full nest, empty nest, Olympic nest

Took these nest photos before I spoke with a hard-core purple martin fanatic. Shot down! These photos show a nest built by house sparrows in a martin house. Alas, the elementary students who found the nest on a nature walk were steered by me to believe it was a purple martin nest.

I'm bummed about being wrong and misguiding students. Still, I'm glad we all examined the items incorporated into the nest. The expert says martins don't add feathers or gum wrappers to their nests. A martin nest is about two inches tall, she says, while a sparrow nest fills the whole interior of a martin house.

Building a nest is the aspect of the Olympics that has intrigued me so far. When I sit down on the couch to watch events I fall asleep or think of something more important to do. What sort of enormous bird did the Swiss architects of the Beijing stadium, Herzog and De Meuron, envision when they started their design? A cross between the dove of peace and the Goodyear blimp?

Even if I don't make it past the quarterfinals in the Olympic MOBO empty nest event, I'll be glad to fling my youngest back to college like an ancient classical ideal discus mama. This long, long summer had some fun moments I will happily paste into my scrapbook when I have a day off and some psychic distance.

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Throwing rice NOT

That's exactly how I feel about weddings! I'm a MOBO, so I won't have much say when Cupid shoots with accuracy. I'm sending copies of Dan Piraro's cartoon to my sons with this note: It's the marriage that matters, not the princess-for-a-day-wedding!

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Holy Skiing Lemurs, Batman!

On the longest day of the year, it is good to have a cool mental image for refreshing inspiration. I share with you my niece's wintery slope fashion designs for a lemur.

As a MOBO, it's fun to have a niece who shares my interests in art and sewing, even if she lives very far away. I think she would like this tiny spider I discovered between two flower pots on my little patio. This arachnid fashion designer is less than a quarter inch long including legs. The crazy zigzag pattern at the center of its web is about the size of a dime. I worry that the little creature got one of its feet stuck on the pedal of the world's smallest Singer sewing machine!

My junior high Home Ec teachers, Mrs. Meston and Mrs. Starr, didn't let us zigzag, and neither did my mom. Zigzagging was considered kind of like cheating in those days. If you couldn't do it with a straight stitch, it probably shouldn't be done --decadent behavior unbecoming a young seamstress!

Maybe the little spider is just trying to fashion a cooling snowflake on this hot day.

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Blooming mommies

Growing blooming mommies can be done easily in most home gardens with the proper cultivation techniques. The preschool students love the idea of a blooming mommy with flowers growing out of her head. Today they each made a portrait of their own blooming mommy on the seed packets for our special Mommy Seeds.

The Mother's Day projects are nearing completion. Like the Little Red Hen, the preschoolers grew the plants last summer, collected the seeds last fall, saved the plastic applesauce containers from their lunches this winter, drilled holes in the containers this spring, then filled them with potting soil, planted the seeds for the flowers, and marked the flowers with plant stakes. The Mommy Seed packets are the Mother's Day cards to accompany the gift of flowers.

The children are learning about cultivation, which they define as "taking care of the things we plant". At the same time, the children are being cultivated.

I've spread out my old American Heritage Dictionary, turned to cultivate and cultivation. Preschool is all about forming, refining, educating, fostering, and nurturing. To educate, we improve and prepare, plow and fertilize, tend and till.

Cultivation can also mean "socialization through training and education to develop one's mind or manners". Preschool is a never-ending battle for acculturation, which is "the adoption of the behavior patterns and norms of the surrounding culture". We aren't talking about diversity and multicultural awareness here. That is the territory of my eldest son working with university students. We are talking about not picking noses in public, and remembering to flush the toilet, the behavioral norms of the surrounding population of human beings! It's often a harrowing experience.

Till means to prepare for the raising of crops by plowing, harrowing, and fertilizing. It means to work at, to labor. It is definitely hard work to get preschoolers to stop picking their noses and start flushing the toilet. The word "till" seems to carry the frustrations of hundreds of generations of farmers on its back.

My young sons each went through a John Deere phase of fascination with farm implements. As a MOBO, I excelled in the choo-choo railroad fascination phase, and performed bravely in the truck stop big rig phase. I could identify every Matchbox car pulled from the three-gallon tub by year, model, and color. I really knew my hook-and-ladder trucks in the firefighter stage. I was damn tolerant in the military vehicle phase, if I do say so myself, waiting out G.I. Joe. I was never very good at farm implements, aircraft ID, or motorcycles, though. If I crammed for the test I could pass, but I never retained the information!

Harrowing experiences sometimes require using a plunger instead of a farm implement. A harrow is used to break and level plowed ground. It's a farm implement with heavy disks and teeth. To harrow is to inflict great distress or torment on the mind. Or perhaps on the foot. My mom used to receive an annual Christmas letter from an old high school chum. The best year the letter recounted the farmer dropping a sharp harrow upon his foot, but having to pull the harrow teeth out of the punctured foot so he could drive himself to the regional hospital because his wife couldn't shift gears on the manual transmission pick-up truck.

Sometimes on the commute home from work I chant, "It was a tough day, but at least I didn't drop the harrow on my foot." Being a mommy is a tough job, too. There were a lot of days when I felt I'd dropped the harrow on my foot as a parent. The most difficult years were those when I felt unable to shift gears.

Fortunately, there were many more days when I felt like flowers were blooming out of my head!


© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Retirement planning

Guys,

Don't get embarrassed, and don't put your fingers in your ears. I changed your diapers, though I know you don't want to contemplate that. At this point I know way too much about your grandfather's plumbing as related to his quality of life. I'm just asking that you stay informed about prevention of prostate problems the way that women have learned to stay aware of breast and cervical cancer prevention. I don't want to talk about urology over our future Thanksgiving dinners with your lovely wives and remarkably well-behaved children. I don't want to talk about it at all, and I know you are squirming. We are all more comfortable discussing gingivitis, root canals, and preventive dental flossing. When you think about your daily (and nightly) quality of life, the way you want to live as an older person, don't just plan for your financial needs in retirement! Order the grilled salmon and steamed fresh veggies. I won't mention it again.


Diet and prostate cancer
Much of the research on prostate cancer prevention focuses on nutrition. Key factors include:

Fat. Prostate cancer rates vary greatly from one country to another, with the highest rates appearing in countries where people tend to eat a lot of fat. In fact, the number of prostate cancer deaths in a given country rises in direct proportion to the average total calories from fat in that country's typical diet.

Vegetables. Some studies link a diet high in vegetables to a lower risk of prostate cancer. For example, one study found that men who ate 28 or more servings of vegetables each week had lower rates of prostate cancer compared to men who ate less than 14 servings.

Fish. In one study, prostate cancer was two to three times more common in men who ate no fish as in men who ate moderate to large amounts of fish. Types of fish that are rich in the fatty acids that protect against prostate cancer and other diseases include salmon, herring, and mackerel.

So far, research does not support definite nutritional guidelines for preventing prostate cancer. However, you can reasonably act on these suggestions:

Eat more fruits, vegetables and whole grains.
Reduce intake of saturated fat and cholesterol.
Limit sweets and salt.
Drink alcoholic beverages in moderation, if at all.
Eat moderate-sized portions and control calories.

Your mommy said so.

© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Demolition Derby

Should you happen to need a 1999 Dodge Intrepid with peeling tinted windows which roll down but not back up, very occasional air conditioning, rear passenger interior door panels that fall off if you look at them, and a black exterior finish that has been sanded by the constant pummelling of teeny tiny asteroids that is the day-to-day unpolished gritty reality of Lubbock dust storms, please contact me. It is a big car with a huge trunk, just right for hauling all your worldly possessions to and from college. In that regard, it is not so very different from a 1961 Plymouth Sport Fury.

In Lubbock, you get small drifts of dirt on your patio, in your garage, inside your doors and on your windowsills. Back in 1987 my sons' father thought the little boys would love to see a demolition derby because they liked cars and crashing so much. The boys were four and two, and the baby was six weeks old. The derby was at night, somewhere in rural Iowa close to Omaha, and very loud. The two older boys did enjoy the smashing and crashing for awhile. Late in the evening, the wind picked up strong enough to blow over the concession tents. We were all coated with dirt from the derby track. We had dirt inside our eyes, ears, noses, and throats. Whenever the boys seemed deaf to the words of their mommy over the next two decades, and surely that never happened, I blamed it on the demolition dirt derby!

In our delightful Tech graduation weekend, the best meals were supper at Gardski's and Mother's Day "breakfast" at Freebirds. Gardski's is in a 1920s era home with a fine porch, and has an eclectic menu. We all found it hard to choose, and enjoyed our choices. Unlike the Dodge Intrepid, the a/c was on hyperdrive meat locker setting!

The Lubbock Freeb!rds World Burrito restaurant lacked the memorable visual of the guy with the tattooed Third Eye at the Austin restaurant. Still, it served up one mighty fine foil-wrapped burrito with avocado and roasted garlic on a cayenne tortilla. I love my occasional Sunday "breakfasts" at Chipotle, getting my Tabasco fix and reading the Dallas Observer. Freebirds has more choices than Chipotle for your special Sunday brunch!



When you think eye, think Intrepid!

© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Swallows and Gulps

Went along on the afternoon nature walk with the students, bringing up the rear. They have learned so much from this daily exercise. They are quiet and observant as they walk now, since they know they will see more birds that way. Each afternoon they log how long they walked and what they saw.

We passed a purple martin house, but it looked to be inhabited by sparrows. Maybe not, because a block or so on I saw several fork-tailed swallows swooping in awe-inspiring flight.

Despite having sons who all went through the airplane fascination stage, I never progressed beyond basic identification of helicopters, jets, and biplanes, and those weird surveillance planes that look like they have a revolving restaurant on top. I would have been absolutely no help to Cary Grant's Walter Eckland spotting Japanese aircraft in "Father Goose".

I'm much better at bird-in-flight identification, but I don't know if these birds were purple martins or barn swallows. They flew with such carefree precision and perfect form, I could have watched them all afternoon.

No swallowtail butterflies this walk, but a lovely lesser fritillary posing like a centerfold. As always, I am grateful for my parents who shared with me the wonderful names of butterflies, birds, fish, and rocks. Must tell the students that the swallowtails are named for the forked tails of the birds, not for any chew-and-swallow, as I believed at their age.

It's been a long time since I pondered rose quartz, snowflake obsidian, amethyst, lace agate, or tiger's eye. And if I ever write a mystery novel, the female detective could be named Chimney Swift.

© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Sherwood Forest and Emerald City

After enjoying some afternoon nature walks, we are considering the incredible variety of greens around us during art class. The children are mixing paints to make a wider variety of greens, and trying to use descriptive terms for the colors we mix. Greens vary in value, the relative darkness or lightness of the color. Greens vary in hue, their place along the spectrum between yellow and blue. Green also varies in saturation, being bright or dull. Greens can be described with these terms, for example dark yellow green or bright blue green. The color variations can also be described with more fancy specific names like lime, chartreuse, jade, swamp, pine, hunter, avocado, army…or even mint chocolate chip ice cream green!

Color adds such richness to our experience of the world. Color names add important distinctions to our descriptions of the world. Did you eat a cucumber, a pickle, or a Hot Wheels classic 1968 Camaro? I dunno. It was something green.

Growing up around Cornhusker football fanatics, it bothered me that the team colors for the University of Nebraska, and its fiendish rivals Oklahoma U, Alabama U, and Arkansas U were all red and white. We could not ALL be the best team in the known universe! We could not all yell “Go Big Red!” It was comforting to learn that NU was the Scarlet and Cream, which was clearly superior to Oklahoma’s Crimson and Cream, Arkansas’ Cardinal Red, or that dastardly Crimson Tide of Alabama.

Will it ever be important to know how to mix twelve different greens? Yes, this knowledge has a very practical application. As a MOBO, (a Mother Of Boys Only), I received many requests for army camouflage birthday cakes. The food coloring box has red, yellow, green, and blue. You’ve got a brand new package of plastic toy soldiers and flags for the cake top, but you have to frost the cake. The guests will arrive in less than an hour. Green is for GO!


© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Obama vs. Pajama

When the shrieking crowd greeted Senator Barack Obama in the House Chamber of the Texas State Capitol Saturday at the Texas Book Festival, I was in the Senate Chamber at the other end of the building. I wasn't lost, just well-rested.

On our road trip to Austin, pajama party time beat out the rising star of the Democratic Party. We three didn't get up and moving nearly early enough to stand in line for a wristband for admission to the House Chamber. MOBOs of a certain age like to wake up slow, read in bed, and have a leisurely breakfast, and we aren't crazy about crowds.

MOBOs may be an under-appreciated voting bloc. Mothers Of Boys Only like to take time to smell the roses once our sons can all tie their own shoes (or pay for their own car insurance). MOBOs get more excited about the Botanical Garden in Zilker Park than the famous Austin night life. MOBOs are concerned about responsible environmental policies, improving health care, and keeping our sons out of Bushy's Iraq.

There wasn't any shrieking in the Senate Chamber, but there was plenty of laughter. NPR essayists John Moe and David Rakoff were talking about their experiences writing humorous first person articles and books. Moe is the author of Conservative Me: How I Tried to Become a Righty with the Help of Richard Nixon, Sean Hannity, Toby Keith, and Beef Jerky . Rakoff is a contributor to "This American Life".

I'm putting this one on my To Read In My P.J.s list.

Fairy dust

"You have glitter on your chin," I told the grandmother driving the car while I played semi-competent navigator. "Stay in this lane; we don't want to exit." My borrowed granddaughter was napping in the backseat.

The three of us didn't want to leave the ethereal atmosphere of the Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth. We didn't want to exit the fairy tale world created by Texas Ballet Theater's lavish Rococco production of "The Sleeping Beauty". We hadn't seen enough of the evil fairy Carabosse's spider-monster in the forest of Act II (which is really the third act).

The young daughters, nieces, and granddaughters in the audience were tired and crabby now. It was time for the show to end. Three hours is a very long time, even in Ballet Princess Land. Tiny girls in velvet and tulle swirly skirts were falling asleep with their heads on grandmas' minks. Girls in matching sister dresses were getting seriously cranky and being carried out by their parents.

I felt lucky to visit this foreign fantasy. Raising three sons, I missed Ballet Princess Land as a mom, just as I skipped the pink aisle at Toys R Us. My nieces have never been conveniently located for auntie outings. Maybe someday I'll be a glitter-chinned grandma myself (no rush, guys!!), and get to enjoy some fuchsia-tutu-sparkling-tiara time. I wouldn't trade a minute of the cowboy/camouflage/ninja/Hot Wheels experience of raising three sons. Still, it might be nice to add some experience with little pink aliens to my resume somewhere down the line. You know, try out some cultural diversity, with or without fairy wings.

"Follow Me"

The motto of the United States Army Infantry is also the title of Bruce Wood's ballet about the service, sacrifice, interdependence, and brotherhood of infantry soldiers performed Wednesday evening at Bass Performance Hall by his Bruce Wood Dance Company. In just eighteen minutes of dance, I received a transfusion of understanding about my father's long reluctance to talk about his WWII experiences, the life of friends' sons and son's friends currently serving in the armed forces, and even the army play of my young sons.

Wood is a Fort Worth choreographer of great originality and very professional production standards. The dance's physical power, intense repressed emotion, and symbolism are still with me. I wonder if Mr. Wood created an eighteen minute dance because so many army recruits are just eighteen years old.

Mr. Wood and I are about the same age--Sixties kids too young to have been in Viet Nam but too old not to have been impacted by it. At or about age fifty, we are both grieving over the deceased hope that our generation would bring about peace, justice, and tolerance in the world.

There were many children in the audience, and they were all enthralled and marvelously well-behaved. A nice couple with two fifth-grade boys were seated ahead of me. The boys had an animated discussion after the first piece on the program, the world premiere of Wood's "Dust, Texas," mainly about the small, quirky movements of the barn dance section, the actions that resembled windmills and farm machinery, and the athletic feats of the dancers.

After "Follow Me" I asked what the fifth-graders what they thought about it. They informed me that the ballet was set to music from "Band of Brothers". They told me they really liked WWII history, but they had some trouble finding the word they wanted to describe "Follow Me". The father helped them by suggesting "solemn". The boys reminded me so much of my own sons at that age. We chatted a bit more about how to build a theater like the beautiful Bass Hall out of Legos, then laughed at the idea of little Lego people as ballet dancers.

I really regret not taking my sons to modern dance or ballet performances! We try so hard as parents to expose our children to all the fabulous opportunities. Those efforts are not wasted. Every outing or event opens a window for new ideas and appreciation. We all need the arts. They are carefully planted seeds, crisp spring breezes and cooling summer rains for our brains.

Before the final work on the program the young family had to weigh whether to stay up late just this one evening. So many students seem to not get enough sleep on a regular basis. I really respected the couple's concern that the boys be well-rested for school the next morning, but I did hope they would stay for Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue." I just knew Bruce Wood's choreography of that favorite would be fabulous. I was wishing that my mother could have been with me, and also my sister and niece. Fritzi would have loved the dancers in their blue satin, and the playful leap-frogging to Gershwin's rhythms. And I would have cried if the fifth-graders had missed the literally glittery finale and final slide through the sparkles.

The story of Wood's "Follow Me" commission and the creative process it involved is intriguing reading. There are also some photos of the dance on the web at http://www.popphoto.com/idealbb/view.asp?topicID=47834. For additional fun, watch the video clips.

Wedding?!

In the middle of Googling Herman W. Mudgett, my oldest called. "Mom, I have some questions about weddings," he said. GASP! Breathe in. Breathe out. [A soft and low voice in the back of my head started chanting, "Elope. Elope. Elope. Elope..."].

Everyday and everyday, I am thankful to be the mother of sons. A friend of mine says I'm a MOBO--a mother of boys only. MOBOism has been a good fit for me, and I've enjoyed it immensely. One of the side benefits of MOBOism is not having to obsess about providing The Perfect Wedding For My Little Princess*.

My oldest explained that the wedding in question was that of a fellow grad student. Whew. I asked if he was in the wedding party. "How would I know that?," he asked. Granted, he's been to two weddings in his life, or three if you count the one when he was two weeks old. Normally you know you are a groomsman because the groom personally asks you to stand up with him. It's not like being summoned for jury duty, I explain.

*T P W F M L P
It looks like a bad draw at Scrabble or an eye chart, but it requires weird dresses with matching shoes, fingernail polish, and lingerie showers. The good news is that games requiring attendees to make as many words as possible from the letters in the names of the bride and groom have pretty much passed by the wayside at bridal showers.

"I think you have to sit on a special side at the wedding. How do you know which side is the right one," my son asks, "and what is black tie optional?" At this point I'm printing out fourteen pages about Mudgett, America's first serial killer. Fortunately, my oldest is more adept at Googling while on the phone than I. We figure out that he can wear his suit. This is good. The last time he wore a tux and cummerbund he ruined the effect by forgetting to zip his fly. I didn't mention prom since we were having such a fun discussion.

It's a good idea to take a SuDoKu puzzle or the NYTimes crossword along when you are summoned to jury duty. There's quite a bit of waiting around. Taking a SuDoKu or crossword to a wedding is considered bad form, though. Just a free bonus etiquette tip from the CollageMama! Those of us in the jury pool who weren't selected for the trial this morning raced out of the courthouse even faster than "Just Marrieds." We didn't have to gather up our trains or throw our bouquets. We didn't have to duck the rice or birdseed.

The info on H. H. Holmes aka Herman Mudgett was not for me. "Oh, sure," you mutter, "tell it to the judge". It was really for a friend's book club reading Devil In the White City about the Chicago World's Fair.



Now where's my old cassette of David Bromberg singing "Send Me to the 'Lectric Chair"?! Oh, and maybe I should tell my son he doesn't have to take his own Minute Rice to the wedding.

V is for Chameleon...

"...because a chameleon seems to vanish."


Q is For Duck: An Alphabet Guessing Game, is the book of the week. I'm intrigued observing which kids catch on to the puzzle of the book. When they get it, the kids are so excited. One four year-old boy tells me when chameleons change color it's called "Camelotch"!

My gosh! He's absolutely right. I want to burst into song:

In Camelot.
Camelot! Camelot!
I know it sounds a bit bizarre,
But in Camelot,
Camelot! That's how conditions are.



Camelotch! What a perfect word to describe boys. My kids were addicted to camouflage from age three to seven. These were the little boys who used magnolia seed pods for hand grenades. They also carried shields and swords to battle dragons invading the fenced front patio that we called Camelot. They were partial to gleaming armor, but they called their GI Joe outfits "flage".

"Flage" sounds bad, like a mucus-producing bacterial infection. Besides the familiar pattern on the fabric, "flage" is distinguished by a surplus of pockets to hold Kleenex.

"Flage" wearers know what they like when it comes to birthday cake decoration.


The Online Etymology Dictionary guides me through my most elusive spelling word, camouflage:
1917, from Fr. camoufler, Parisian slang, "to disguise," from It. camuffare "to disguise," probably alt. by Fr. camouflet "puff of smoke," on the notion of "blow smoke in someone's face." The British navy in World War I called it dazzle-painting.

Little guys will always make me laugh. They gotta play hurt wearing their glow-in-the-dark dinosaur shirts, football helmets, and "flage".

Saying Goodbye to Sgt. Bradley

I broke it to him as gently as I could. The Marine recruiter who has left hundreds of messages on my voice mail over the past seven years does not need to call here anymore. There is no chance whatsoever that I am going to enlist.

Without Sgt. Bradley, I will have only the Plano Public Library's automated calling system, and some pesky UT alumni directory salespitchers to leave me messages. Only the Maytag repairman will have fewer Call Notes.

Generations

A solitary Christmas Day seems like a the most difficult thing to endure when you are newly divorced. This is my ninth Christmas since the divorce. I have not been alone every year, as there were a couple times my ex was off in some place like Armenia or Kosovo on Christmas. Still, I have come to enjoy this day of peace in my house, if not on earth. I've been going full tilt ever since my classes ended, so the lull is very welcome.

Growing up I often had the feeling that my backyard (so basically The Earth) was resting under a thick blanket of snow in winter. Winter doesn't ever seem like a time of death, but as a call to slow down, wrap up, and take time to rest. Last night after the gifts I fell asleep in front of the fireplace wrapped in a heavy blanket with the voices and laughter of my sons in the background. After all the Christmasses being sure to have the right batteries on hand for the new toys, it was very precious to recharge my own batteries that way.

For ten years my Christmas season has officially begun when my friend unwraps the peanut nativity scene her son made in preschool. I have my own markers of the season, but it is always reassuring to know the peanut Joseph, Mary, and Baby Jesus have survived another year. Today we archived the peanut nativity scene against the unthinkable. The shoebox is getting pretty fragile. Peanuts aren't forever. Neither are digital technology or human memory, but the meaning of Christmas is timeless. We just want the peanuts to stick around for a long time with the memories of our children as preschoolers.


When we went walking Thursday we found a credit card on the ground. Since I couldn't find the name in the phone book, I mailed the card back to Shell in Houston. Today we were surprised to find two drivers licenses for the same person on our walk. It really hit me that this man was born in 1923 like my dad. I hope he is okay. Why are the contents of a wallet lying in the leaves and snow? Was he robbed? Is he deceased? There he is looking at me in the more recent license photo. He lives, or lived in another town. I've written him a letter and sent him the licenses. He haunts the edges of my holiday.

Non-specific existential interior decorating dissatisfaction

Didn't recognize the Early Warning Signals, and slipped into one of my spells where I want to haul nearly all of my worldly goods out into the condo parking lot and set them on fire. Then I want to rip up all the carpet, roll it up, and add it to the fire.

What holds me back?

• If I rip out the carpet the cracks in the concrete slap will show.
• I'm pretty sure the fumes from the carpet would be carcinogenic, if not mind-altering.
• If I burn the furniture, the biggest spots on the carpet will show.
• If I burn the couch, where will I put the under-the-bed storage boxes full of Magic cards and role-playing game books that are holding it up?
• If I get rid of the mattress and box springs stuffed under the stairway, the terrorists will have won.

I haven't actually looked in the American Psychiatric Association's DSM-IV for this debilitating form of recurrent davenport dysthymia. If it's not there, it should be!

My ex used to say I was having one of my "Buddhist Attacks" when I had an episode of NSEIDD. He was one to talk. His idea of a clean house was a Japanese shogun's retreat built of sliding rice paper walls, with grass mats on the floor, one low table, and one vase holding a plum blossom, and absolutely nothing else. Needless to say, we had serious culture clashes over my desire to hang art work on any wall, and the Legos, toy soldiers, and Hot Wheels of three small sons.

This holiday I will have a large assembly of able-bodied males in residence to lift and move. Now if I could just find a charitable organization with very low aesthetic standards to haul everything away!

Om.....

You have entered a carrot no fly zone

The high school lunch bunch is back! My schedule finally allows me to resume feeding this gang one noon a week. Today there were six seniors, all guys. The girls haven't been joining them for lunch, possibly because the gang hadn't been able to go to homes much. Moms can't always change from summer schedules to fall at the same time as our schools (which started up on the ridiculous fourth of August)!

I'm glad Stephen can join the bunch this sememster. Steven and Stephen are a bit like Darryl and his other brother Darryl from the old "Newhart" show (or from my auto repair shop). Either of them are capable of showing up with the round-table discussion topic equivalent of a varmint in a burlap bag. The film-makers are back, and the theater techie, and the very funny physicist. They brought their appetites, too. They like to come to lunch at my house because they don't have to worry about messing anything up. They aren't slobs, and they always clear up after themselves, more or less. It's just that my condo has been more of a guys' locker room than a Martha Stewart Living home for so long it just gives off that vibe. When all my sons move out I plan to burn the carpet, the couch, the armchair, all the muddy cleats left at the front door... It will be quite a marshmallow roast.

Back on 3/26/2004 I blogged about the Carrot Bowl competition invented at a lunch bunch lunch. You can look it up, but it involved place-kicking carrot sticks toward the mini-blinds and impaling them on the slats. It was too funny to get agitated about, although I did quit serving carrot sticks for the rest of the semester. When I put out the bowl of carrots today, I just posted a sign on the mini-blinds, "This is a carrot no fly zone." There aren't any WMDs here, but two-thirds of the guys removed the dangerous cucumber slices from their grilled turkey/avocado/swiss on wheat sandwiches. I just wanted to add a little crunch now that I'm a bold jicama convert.

When these guys head off to college next year I sure hope they plan some lunch bunch reunions over winter break. I'll be sure to serve carrots.

Girl Friends

In a strange new development, Mike and I have been considering Steven's girlfriend and his posse of friend-girls. This is kind of weird/inevitable in that I am acknowledging my sons as sexual beings (and trying to recall being one!). I am all in favor of the current girlfriend, and yet terrified at the possibilities of a prolonged teen relationship. Mike is in favor of Steven dumping the girlfriend for any of the friend-girls that are skinnier and "hotter". All these girls have been hanging out in the big herd social life for three or four years now, and have done many class projects together in my tiny living room. I like the ones who will talk to me adult to adult, and to Steven as an equal. I prefer the ones who are up on current events, and who aren't drama queens whining about guys. I like it when girls seem comfortable in their own skin, and with their own wonderful brains. I'm not totally opposed to the risk-takers. I like the girls with sparks in their eyes.

My generation worked for equal rights, but got bogged down in marriages that were still confining. I don't want that for my sons and their wives. I do want them to believe raising their children is the most important task they will ever face.

Mother/Son Bonding

"OOH, SWEET!" My swim buddy's son has spotted another groovy car. Nearly 99% of cars on the road or in parking lots meet this qualification. I don't understand most of his comments about the cars, or why this fascination starts so young in males of the species. This fascination lasts forever, unlike the dinosaur, railroad, farm implement, and space exploration phases.

My youngest is seventeen now, and the world has gone very high tech. We are both vaguely curious about Billy Joel smashing his '67 Citroen. What is a '67 Citroen? It sounds like a cross between a sump pump, an aqua VW Karmaan Ghia, a roll-your-own ciggie, and a terrific investment. We have been on-line looking for photos.

I have been in the "OOH, SWEET!" phase for nearly twenty years. You talk about your longest running sitcoms! You consider the "Friends" final episode, and the one for "MASH". Remember the ninety-nine years you spent toilet-training your kids?

Definition Diva

Lately my female kindergarten and first grade students have been drawing pictures of themselves as lead singers in a band called "The Divas". Slightly older girls refer to themselves as "shopping divas". This seems like a really odd elementary school vocabulary word. The impression I get from these girls is that they identify with a personification of self-justified, self-centered mass-consumerism and instant celebrity. Is it just me, or is this a symptom of a culture rotting from the inside out?

What is a "diva"? When I told my opera friend that I liked the voice of Brunnhilde on the Metropolitan Opera broadcast of "Gotterdammerung" yesterday, he told me, "Jane Eaglen as Brünnhilde was superb. She is a grand diva. " His usage of the word is clearly positive, conveying respect for a lifetime of achievement and talent. That fits with my American Heritage Dictionary definition:


An operatic prima donna. [Italian, "goddess," from Latin, feminine of divus, god.]

So what is a prima donna? Again the dictionary:

1. The leading female soloist in an opera company. 2. A tempermental and conceited performer. [Italian, "first lady"]

The Online Etymology Dictionary (see link) defines diva as:

diva - "distinguished woman singer," 1883, from It. diva "goddess, fine lady," from L. diva "goddess," fem. of divus "divine (one)."

From online slang dictionaries:

diva n 1. goddess, queen; literally "first woman." ("She is such a diva.") Submitted by Brent Edwards, Pullman, WA, USA, 14-04-1998.

http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/wrader/slang/d.html

Noun:

Absolutely any woman, regardless of talent, who establishes a singing career and appears on television.
"...to the contrary, Pete - over the past decade we've witnessed a veritable explosion in the population of divas, for instance. In fact, our research shows that the years between nineteen ninety and the present date saw the emergence of more divas than the previous one hundred years. Ultimately, I think that reports of the death of high culture simply don't square with the numbers."
Source: Joshua B. Wright, Apr 7, 2004

A female who is doing tha damn thang. She got her shit together and she doesn't need a male to know that she looks good.Mary J. Blige


a bitchy woman that must have her way exactly, or no way at all. often rude and belittles people, believes that everyone is beneath her and thinks that she is so much more loved than what she really is. selfish, spoiled, and overly dramatic.Source: charmain, Sep 11, 2003
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=diva&f=1


When I polled my demographic group, that is Carole and Shawn at lunch today on the patio at the French restaurant, they were unanimous in voting "diva" as a negative term.

When I search Dogpile I find VenusDivas who are full-figured fashion models, and GreenDivas, who are golf women with attitude and discretionary income.


There's also a site welcoming me to the "World of Divadom" with this definition:

Half of the population of our planet are women and consequently, half of the famous faces seen on the screen and in concert halls throughout this century are women. Wonderful voices and superb acting techniques, not to mention beautiful faces, abound. But who are the tiny minority who can be considered as true divas in our Give Good Face and Sirens categories? What sets these women above all others in their particular fields? What has happened to these women to entitle them to the status of diva?
Obviously everyone has different criteria for bestowing the title of diva on their own chosen few. Our criteria (and it is that which counts as this is our site!) are simple – extraordinary glamour, mystery, a liberal sprinkling of tragedy and most of all endurance throughout the years. These are women who will never be forgotten and whose image can be conjured up immediately by the mere mention of a name, song or movie.
Qualification for the third category Movers & Shakers differs in that, sadly, women make up a tiny minority – probably less than 1% of people who could be considered as 'Movers and Shakers' – politicians and those occupying significant places within ruling houses. Nevertheless, there does exist a minority within a minority who stand out as a result of their achievements and of fulfilling the standard requirements of mystery, tragedy and glamour. Love them or hate them – you will never forget them!
Do you agree with us? Who else should be there in the upper echelons of divadom? Who should not be there? What qualities are we missing? Take a peek at our list of wannabees - aka the no-noes - and what we are not looking for will become abundantly obvious! You disagree? Then tell us by using your democratic vote!
When voting or proposing a candidate for divadom - remember - Oscars, Tonys, Grammys and the like are all fine and dandy but do not necessarily bestow the accolade of diva! Our divas are way above the mundane world of awards and prizes! Tell us now and let’s make this the number 1 site to which every woman should aspire to appear!

I am feeling lucky that I raised boys and only had to deal with Ninja Turtle nunchucks and melting plastic army men with magnifying glasses. A diva of any sort seems like a scary role model for young girls. Playing "divas" seems like acting out a dream of being self-centered, self-promoting, materialistic, conscienceless celebrities. Make sure the camera gets the pink feather boa, tattoos, and navel piercing.

My mom thought playing "Beatles' Stewardesses" was sick decadence due to watching scandalous images on "The Ed Sulllivan Show". Beatles' stewardesses had to be nice to people, anticipate their needs, and make their lives more pleasant.

I'm not saying girls should aspire to be selfless servants in high heels. There must be something between that and aspiring to be shopping divas!