Ike warnings

Perhaps it is fortuitous that we are waiting this weekend to see what an Ike will bring. "Ike" should call to mind a warning this election year. A hurricane named "Ike" can remind us that much of tv weathercasting is hype designed to get all of us a tad hysterical. An earlier Ike warning would alert us to look behind the facades and sound bites of both campaigns to examine their real strategies for the serious problems we are facing in our families, communities, nation, and world.

I'm insulted that the campaigns have regressed to pigs and pitbulls, with or without cosmetic products. It's like being trapped in a high school pep rally watching cheerleader skits and the chanting adoration of the jocks. Could we please, as individuals and as a nation, grow up?

The earlier Ike warned us that "only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing" of government and business interests for the security, peace, liberty, and democratic process to flourish. President Eisenhower was speaking about the dangerous influence of the military-industrial complex at his farewell address in January of 1961, but his warning applies to every aspect of our national life today.

The real "change" that must come about in this election is not a buzzword, but an electorate demanding more from it's politicians than it does from the grocery check-out aisle magazines. We must show that we can understand ideas, ask difficult questions, and recognize the difference between a "reality show" and reality. We must show our understanding that we as a nation are playing for keeps.

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

President Dwight D. Eisenhower

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Country pickin' fingers

Don't park your double-wide in the Rose Garden, Bill. You weren't a horrible President, especially compared with Dubya. Nothing you and Monica did under the desk was any worse than what millions of good old boys and girls do in offices, Ford F-150s, and tacky motels every day. I just don't want another Tag Team Clinton mud-wrestling administration.

Should Hillary become the Democratic nominee by some weird twist of soap operatic amnesia fate, I will root for her greased pig in the 4-H grandstand against McCain's Hundred Years' War hog. But even then, Bill, please don't set your trailer up on cement blocks out there by that reflector pool!

I'll fix your flat tire Merle
Don't ya get your sweet country pickin' fingers all covered with erl
Cause you're a honky, I know, but Merle you got soul
And I'll fix your flat tire Merle

So, Bill, just set your Lazy Boy recliner out there on the lawn of your library and amp up the Pure Prairie League song. Leave the busted out washing machine on the porch. Don't make me cross state lines to explain it any clearer!

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Worming Its Way Into Snack?

Fresh vegetables were a tiny fraction of our diet back in Lincoln in the early Sixties. Except for carrot sticks and corn-on-the-cob, I thought the Jolly Green Giant and Del Monte put all veggies into tin cans. I willingly ate canned green beans, wax beans, niblets, cream-style corn, sauerkraut, and diced beets. Under duress I ate the minimum amount of canned peas. Sometimes Fritzi would serve canned lima beans or butter beans. Those were always suppers that led prematurely to bedtime. At Christmas and Thanksgiving we ate fresh celery sticks.

Nearly all my little students eat a wide range of fresh vegetables on a regular basis. Lunchboxes often hold sliced peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, tomatoes, edamame, broccoli, cauliflower, bean sprouts, sugar snap peas, and jicama.

In the upper elementary grades after 1964, I learned to eat chopped iceberg lettuce with Kraft Italian salad dressing, stewed tomatoes, and canned spinach with lemon or vinegar. It was high school before I ate baked squash. In college I pushed the limits trying fresh spinach, asparagus and mushrooms in some quiche/crepe fern-decor restaurant downtown. It was a wild and crazy time!

Sometime after I got married, but before I had kids I encountered eggplant and avocado. The charms of eggplant still escape me.

Tomorrow will be a challenge. My little students harvested the garden broccoli heads today. I've expended much attention removing the green caterpillars known as Imported Cabbage Worms from the broccoli plants over the past few weeks. The caterpillars are fiendishly camouflaged. When the broccoli florets are served with a dip of Ranch dressing, I will want to holler to the caterpillars, "I know you're in there! Come out with your hands up!"

Barbara Damrosch writing in the Washington Post, 7/5/07, calls those green larvae of the cabbage butterfly, "unintended garnish" and says they are harmless if accidentally consumed:

The green worms hide so well in the broccoli heads that you rarely see them until they are cooked, at which point they turn a conspicuous, incriminating white .... But there will always be a moment when you've just served an honored visitor a beautiful plate of homegrown broccoli and there's that little extra ingredient. Proper etiquette requires a guest to move it inconspicuously to the side of the plate and exclaim "Good protein!" if caught in the act .... Soaking produce in a sink full of salt water before cooking will send most worms flocking to the bottom.

Fritzi told me over the phone long distance that a salt water soak brought all the little creepies crawling out of a broccoli head. I can't recall why she actually began to use fresh broccoli in her kitchen. I was already married and living in Omaha, but we still had to live through Reaganomics before the first President Bush would proclaim his dislike of broccoli. By then my dad had decreed that he would not eat any salad that didn't have at least two ingredients besides the iceberg lettuce. That would be not counting the cabbage butterfly larvae.

"I do not like broccoli. And I haven't liked it since I was a little kid and my mother made me eat it. And I'm President of the United States and I'm not going to eat any more broccoli." George Bush, U.S. President (1990)

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Tom Howard

Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck give haunting and completely convincing performances as the title characters in "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford", a very long movie I'll remember for years. Broke my own rule and saw a movie based on one of my favorite novels. I can't recommend it to just anyone, though, because:

• It is nearly three hours long.
• It has a bad case of time-lapse cloud photography.
• If you're not an outlaw junkie, you can't tell the players without a program.
• At moments you may feel stuck in a cross between "Hotel California" and the History Channel.
• It's not Marshall Dillon's wild west.
• There are no good guys in white hats.

I can recommend it to people interested in the highly unsanitary 1880's, to photographers, and to folks who still wonder how John Hinckley, Jr.'s mind worked when he thought shooting Ronald Reagan might impress Jodie Foster. The photography is gorgeous:

• Rocking chair shadows on a wood floor.
• A locomotive's headlamp through the Missouri trees.
• Cold pump water in a stoneware bowl.
• A betrayer through a frosted window.

When everyone knows how the story ends, it is difficult to know where it should start or conclude. The movie needs more back story to understand the familial and psychological ties between the gang members. It needs either more or far less focus on the Ford brothers after Jesse's murder.

If you have the patience and endurance, this movie drags you into its world to observe the psychological drama between two legends in their own minds. If not, you might be better off borrowing a Hansen novel from your public library.

© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Neapolitan Sky

This evening's storm was short, but a doozy. The electricity went off twice, so the LEDs are blinking their irritation. Walked outside afterward. The sky to the north above the Walgreens store's red neon glowed as a dessert delight. A little bit neapolitan ice cream, a big blast of patriotic bomb pop, and a just-washed fresh fruit parfait, completely harmonious, but each competing for the spotlight. If I were the slightest bit meteorological, I'd say that the ions were tingling.

Just above the Walgreen's the sky was a cut glass trifle bowl of homestyle vanilla ice cream scoops just the teensiest bit melty. The next layer was a thin band sometimes watermelon pink, but changing to raspberry sorbet the next glance in my rearview mirror. On top was the widest band of tingling velvet blue frosted with lavendar like a close-up photo of a blueberry, or a lush, gorgeous, itchy mohair sweater designed by Mark Rothko.

Here in Dallas, we are really tired of television weather personalities talking about "upper level lows". To separate the problems, I'm tired of the weather allegedly produced by "upper level lows", and I'm sick of weather personalities on television news programs. The weather segment of the news keeps expanding to fill in for the absence of actual news reporting. Now we have to hear about "dry lines" and be broadcast live from somebody's backyard picnic.

Top Ten List of what I want from my local weather report:

10. An honest family guy writing with chalk on a blackboard map who can pronounce city and county names correctly. Bowtie optional
9. One brief report of somewhere in the world having a hideous weather calamity so I can say, "Thank heavens I don't live in _________."
8. That the phrase, "ask your doctor if _______ is right for you," doesn't arrive in any of the sponsoring commercials.
7. A Doppler radar map in purdy colors.
6. An air quality/allergy/ozone report summarized as "Don't inhale."
5. Rainfall total for the month
4. Expected overnight low temp
3. The current temperature
2. Do I need to take cover for the approaching tornado right now?
1. Will it be a school snow day in the morning?

I became a cloud watcher in the summer of 1973 at Ten Mile Lake near Hackensack, Minnesota. After my first airplane flight I spent a couple extremely rainy weeks at a friend's cabin on the lake. The days of rains chained together, braided with the Senate Watergate hearings and Johnny Miller's win at the U.S. Open on the black and white tv screen.

Never mastered the names for the clouds, or any of the science. It's only as a painter that I'm interested. The painter, and the kid sitting in the grass eating a ten cent bomb pop.



© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Thank you, Lady Bird!

It's a six hundred fifty mile drive from Lincoln, Nebraska to Dallas, but possible for the solo driver. With the cruise control, good music, and cooperative weather it's a very relaxing day for me.



Summer of 1962, our family made the same trip taking two full days to reach Dallas, and three to go back to Lincoln. We three kids sat in the backseat of the '54 Chevy with our little sweaty legs stuck to the car seat and dust blowing in the open windows. We were fussy, irritable, and asked endless "are we there yet" questions, I'm sure. It's possible that we were also having chain reaction carsickness. I don't think we were spilling our grape snowcones that particular trip!



My parents were tense. The demands of any road trip with little kids was aggravated by the stress of two-lane highways and the oppressive visual clutter of roadsigns and billboards right up to the shoulder of the road. It was an ugly scene.

On my drive south on US 81 from York, Nebraska, and through Kansas, the four-lane divided highway was edged with masses of wildflowers in almost every color. I love driving I-35 through north central Oklahoma, imagining the wildness of the country at the time of the Land Run and the Territorial years. As I cross each river I scan for places bandits might have hidden to elude lawmen, and I appreciate not having to look past tacky, dilapidated, and misspelled signs. Passing through the Arbuckle Mountains and Ardmore as the lush raspberry twilight deepened into violet iris evening the view was unmarred by lighted billboards except around the Indian casinos.

Lady Bird Johnson did much to elevate public expectations for pleasant driving experiences across our beautiful country. That the Congress passed even the flawed compromise Highway Beautification Act of 1965over the objections of the powerful outdoor advertising industry was a gift to future generations from Lady Bird and LBJ. Her influence is in those roadside banks of wildflowers, and in our landscaped highways. I would be hard pressed to name a contribution by any other First Lady in my lifetime that impacts as many people on a daily basis.


© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Oh, Gorsh!

My youngest student, when reminded to flush and wash, says, "Oh, Gorsh!," with his hands on his face. He mutters, "Goll durn it," while he tries to straighten out his jeans that got turned sideways in the stall, then marches back in to push the handle that causes that loud, scary flushing noise.



Oh, gorsh! I remember the coin-operated bucking bronco at the Hinky Dinky gorshrey store. Occasionally Mom would give us money to ride the horse while she pushed her shopping cart around getting the Campbell's cream of mushroom, Weaver's potato chips, Sorry Charlie tuna, charcoal bricquets, and shattered wheat cereal for my Dad. Usually we just rode on the metal railings between the checkout lines near the display of mittens, ice-scrapers, and accordian-folded clear plastic rain "bonnets" in their handy carrying cases.

Mom got the huge round cartons of All detergent for the worshing machine. We used the cartons as horses when we played cowboys in the basement while Mom sewed and ironed. We slapped the backs of our pretend horses because the Father of Our Country had a "slapping stallion". It was very embarrassing when I learned to spell and found out George was Washington, not Warshington. And so, spelling became a civilizing force in This Great Country of Ours.

Of course a horse is a horse. Maybe Mr. Ed should run for president, and corral that bunch up in Warshington:

Go right to the source and ask the horse
He’ll give you the answer that you’ll endorse.
He’s always on a steady course.
Talk to Mister Ed.


There was Captain Washington
Upon a slapping stallion
A-giving orders to his men
I guess there was a million.

Yankee Doodle, keep it up
Yankee Doodle dandy
Mind the music and the step
And with the girls be handy. *

For decades I've been confused thinking the Marx Toy spring-action riding Mustang was "Marvo". The Sixties were a groovy, marvy time. The mangled ad jingle pops into my mind whenever I watch Dubya down at the Crawford ranch:

Marvo the Mustang; he's almost For Real!

I'm set straight now. It was "Marvel the Mustang". Marvel has his own virtual online museum. The current retro remakes don't get very good reviews from toy-buying grandparents. Seems things get less "for real" all the time. Oh, gorsh!

* (Sounds like a Viagra ad!)

Flag-folding

Seeing the U.S. flag draped over a casket is such a powerful image that the Pentagon banned photographing military caskets returning from war since 1991. Experiencing the ceremony when Marines in full dress uniform fold the U.S. flag from over a casket stays in the mind's eye and in the heart. I witnessed this ceremony at the Dallas-Fort Worth National Cemetery over a month ago, and I remember it several times a day. That flag is burned on my brain in a way I'm sure The W Team would wish to ban.

I don't know if the experience is so powerful because I have seen the ceremony only a few times. Would it lose its meaning if I saw it everyday? If so, perhaps the Pentagon's ban is actually keeping Americans from losing their outrage over the senseless loss of life in Iraq and Afghanistan. I need to believe that U.S. soldiers are the epitome of respect, honor, duty, and sacrifice. I need to see the flag-folding presentation ceremony as a beautiful expression of gratitude by all of us to the widows and families who have experienced the ultimate loss for this country's and the world's good. I want the ceremony to represent the best of our nation, not the throw-away attitude of a greedy oligarchy.

Perhaps I'm still the third-grader watching the Marines in their dress uniforms and gloves folding the flag that covered JFK's casket, then solemnly presenting it to Jackie. I watched the funeral procession on a black and white television. My memory was colorized by LIFE Magazine images in red, white, blue, black and pink. It remembers John-John saluting and the riderless horse. It recalls a nation's hope for a government of ideals and chivalry lost to an assassin's bullets.

As an art teacher, I wonder if my fascination with folding spatial exercises was inspired by a President's funeral. Can the orderly transformation of a rectangle into a triangle reconnect any of us with higher aspirations, peaceful methods, a respect for other peoples and nations, or a resolve to prevent the squandering of a single American soldier's life? If a child's brain can grasp the process of changing a two-dimensional surface through a three-dimensional manipulation, could our elected officials grasp a process for changing the world without destroying it?

Fold carefully. Fold mindfully. Fold with sorrow, grief, respect, honor, courage, hope, gratitude. Match corners to corners. Use one hand to keep the corners together while the other hand creases from the center out to the edges very neatly and precisely. Fold with calm and peace and breathing. Fold each new piece with the same clarity of purpose and respect for the paper as you did the first time. Have patience. Refold the map the way it was before. There is a reason for doing things this way. Find the reason in your heart. Act the reason in your life everyday.

Hansel and Griddish

I've been brainstorming and writing lesson plans related to the theme of maps, so it was funny that I got lost Sunday afternoon. I was driving to the Dallas Arboretum, a place I've been several times over the fifteen years I've lived in Plano. This time, though, I was taking a different route from a different starting point. I was following posted directional signs instead of trusting my gut directional guidance instincts (the low tech GDGI system in my Buick). A sign to turn right from N. Buckner Blvd. onto Garland Rd. was missing, so I went on straight ahead into the unknown territory of East Dallas.

Hoping to get back to where I should have turned, I hung a Ralph on Ferguson Road, the first street name I recognized. Then I hung another Ralph onto East R. L. Thornton Expressway. I've listened to traffic update folks in helicopters for fifteen years without ever linking a place to the highway names.

My goal was to hang another Ralph from R. L. Thornton onto the N. Central Expressway a.k.a. "75" so that I could hang yet another Ralph onto Mockingbird Lane to eventually find the Arboretum on Garland Road. I wasn't thinking at that point about the one hundred thousand plus people headed to the immigration reform rally in downtown Dallas via R. L. Thornton or 75. Big oops!

It was impressive to look down from the elevated interchange and see all the cars and all the gathering marchers dressed in white shirts. Immigration policy is extremely complicated, so I worry that it is being tackled by the current Congress and administration. No amount of grids, maps, and bread crumbs can magically solve this human and economic problem. Maybe I should loan out my Buick's GDGI system.

Dallas freeways frequently have two names, and some have more. It makes those radio morning commute reports slightly poetic and quite distracting. It's a rare traffic update when I can stay focused long enough to hear the conditions on the southbound North Central. When I hear "C. F. Hawn," I think Goldie Hawn on Laugh-In. "Julius Schepps Freeway" always registers as Julia Child's Freeway. "Westbound LBJ" provokes If congested I will not move. If irritated I will not merge. Loop 12's multiple monikers (Northwest Highway, Buckner, Walton Walker Blvd., Ledbetter) are like mental Yahtzee dice spilling out in different combinations, made worse when mixed with Woodall Rodgers , R. L. Thornton, Stemmons, Marvin D. Love, George Bush, Tom Landry, The Tollway, and The Canyon.


You think the High Five is a complicated interchange? Try untangling Marvin Gaye**, Roy Rodgers, Will Rogers, Keebler elves, billy goats, Bear Bryant*, GHWB ralphing on the Japanese prime minister, Thornton Wilder's "Our Town", Hitchcock's "North By Northwest", stamens and pistols, and the untethered punchline to a long forgotten joke, "Would I? Would I?" Julia Childs would add a little more wine to the sauce at this point.

If the radio helicopter lady tells me that traffic is moving slowly through The Canyon, I'll drift into Joni Mitchell memories about big yellow taxis and "Ladies of the Canyon." Thank heaven for the Arboretum in this paved paradise!



Remember, four Ralphs do make one right.

*I get Bear and Tom Landry mixed up. Didn't one of them wear a hat?
**Okay, I get Barry White, Marvin Gaye, Isaac Hayes, and Al Green mixed up when the helicopter lady reports on traffic on 121 in Grapevine.

Unaware of the drilling

Parenthood and the demands of job and family act as an anesthetic that keeps the bulk of Americans too numb to stay informed and angry about the direction the U.S. is taking. This is not meant to be an excuse for an uninvolved citizenry, but just an observation. Being fifty is a good thing. It gives me fewer anesthetic demands on my energy, and allows me more time to be informed and angry. Being fifty also gives me more time in the dentist's chair.

After the early morning dental appointment my face, mouth, and brain were pretty numbed, plus it was raining. I felt too drooly to accomplish housework, and almost drooly enough to fit in with the unusual characters who attend movies on weekday mornings. So I figured it would be a good time to go see Eugene Jarecki's documentary film, Why We Fight.

The film is informative and detailed, but done well enough that it doesn't feel like a junior high filmstrip (except to that one guy who was snoring. I wanted to put his ponytail in the inkwell.) Mr. Troester's eighth grade social studies class is where I first heard of the "military-industrial complex". The complex has only grown in the decades since. The military-industrial complex controls our elected representatives, and dwarfs our president (who is not exactly fighting back against Mr. Tooth Decay). It keeps citizens numbed on propaganda and platitudes. We don't really feel the grinding away of our beliefs and values, our rights and representation, our respect worldwide.

Chris Vognar's review in the Dallas Morning News.

From President Eisenhower's Farewell Address, January 17, 1961:

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

I Meant to Do My Work Today

but Al Gore's Web got in my way...

I've got a song in my head, but the tune in my mind is "I've Got the World On a String". It only took me two searches to figure out that "I've got a song in my head" is not one of the verses to that song. Not bad, really. Under three minutes.

Another two searches to find the poem that doesn't go, "I didn't do my work today..." Another five minutes.

The reason I didn't do my work today was that the song in my head was the theme from "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly". Admit it. Can't you already hear the opening strings and the vague grunting chant? What is it they are grunting? There must be lyrics somewhere. There must be lyrics, and I must find them, if only to save other poor unfortunates from having this song stuck in their head with no relief. I will spare no effort, leave no Google unchurned!

I first heard the theme in 1967 over the earphone of my transistor radio tuned to the Top Forty-Nine countdown on KLMS. Then a skinny kid named Randy brought his 45 to church, and we played it on the Sunday School gray institutional phonograph. Eventually it became one of the two unofficial theme songs of my junior high youth group, the other being Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love". I know, I know. Not exactly "Onward Christian Soldiers", but there you have it.

I remember being confused in 1967, and thinking that Sergio Mendes and Brasil 66 had something to do with "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly". We were just learning about South America, and the music sounds strange enough to derive from some lost tribe up the Amazon. But why were they singing, "Uh wonko, Waco"? What did it mean in their language? Why didn't Sergio Mendes change the name to Brasil 67? Why didn't he spell it with a "z"? And why was the movie in the Sergio Leone Mountains in California?

In 1967 we had the World Almanac, a Webster's Collegiate Dictionary and the encyclopedia set from the Safeway grocery store. All other research involved going to a public library. Enquiring minds did not feel it was a black mark on their Googling skills if they couldn't find the lyrics to the song, if the grunts could actually be called lyrics. Enquiring minds needed to finish their math homework so they could go babysit the neighbor kids for thirty-five cents an hour. If they survived three hours of that they could walk to the mall on Saturday to buy a 45 rpm record after they finished digging dandelions and listening to the KLMS countdown.

The Webster's was useful when Mom told us we were being "obnoxious and belligerent". We shaped up a bit, but knew she really loved us. It was vacuuming my brother's room that shortened her patience with us.

Sometime between "obnoxious" and "obstinate", my research obsession got out of control. The subject matter was never a cure for cancer or world peace. It was usually identifying butterflies, locating word derivations, or finding pop culture trivia. What exactly did Al Haig say when Reagan was shot?*

When my spouse told me I was being "obstinate and recalcitrant" on a vacation, I knew he didn't really love me, and I wasn't crazy about him anymore, either. No vacuuming was involved. The vacation was already hitting bottom with one son needing stitches, and now I didn't even have a dictionary. It's probably best I didn't have one, or I would have bonked him over the head with it and said, "Uh wonka, Waco!"

And so, I meant to do my work today, but I spent over an hour on an unsuccessful search for the meaning and correct spelling of "Uh wonka, Waco!" I learned that Ennio Morricone composed the soundtracks for Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Westerns. As far as the lyrics, I did not pass Go, and I did not collect a fistful of dollars.

I Meant to Do My Work Today
by Richard LeGalliene
I meant to do my work today,
But a brown bird sang in the apple tree
And a rainbow held out its shiny hand—
So what could I do, but laugh and go?

I never did see the Clint Eastwood Spaghetti Westerns. Mom wouldn't have approved, vacuuming or not. I did see one really strange Sam Peckinpah movie in college about bringing the pasta Alfredo or something. And what was the name of that boyfriend???

I'm exhausted, and the condo is still a mess. I feel like I've been trapped in Tom Robbin's Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates. You're just going to have to track that down by yourself!

*This is a freebie: "As of now, I am in control here in the White House." (3/30/81)

Gluten-free cooking

This recipe has been awarded the Picky Mama Seal of Approval.

Stuffed Potatoes

Scrub and bake a bunch of potatoes at 450 degrees until they are squeezy. It doesn’t matter if they are huge or tiny.

Take them out and let them cool until you have time to deal with them.

Slice them in half the long way. Use a soup spoon to scoop the insides into a mixing bowl. Line the empty “shells” in rows in a Pyrex casserole.

In a skillet heat 1 T vegetable oil. Saute lots of chopped green pepper and celery. Depending on your mood and available food, add chopped mushrooms, onions, browned ground beef, or crunched cooked bacon. Do not drain off cooking oil. Add all of this to the mixing bowl, along with garlic powder, dried parsley, oregano, black pepper. If your blood pressure is good you can add some salt, but don’t go overboard. Stir in 4 oz. or more of warm milk and 4 oz. plus of plain yogurt. Stir in your favorite grated cheese. Sometimes you may want a lot of cheese, and other times not so much. Scoop the mix back into the potato skin “shells”, and sprinkle with paprika. Bake at 300 degrees for half an hour for small spuds, and an hour for the big ones that look like Richard Nixon. This can be anywhere from a tiny appetizer to a main course. It is excellent winter comfort food. You can freeze the leftovers to nuke later. You can also dream up new and different versions.

Getting the sympathy vote

The kindergarteners got into a shoving and shouting match at five p.m. during the popcorn snack break over which presidential candidate was The Real Liar, Liar [Pants On Fire]. Just before I outlawed the discussion topic for the rest of art class, one girl told me she had voted for George W. at school. I asked why, and she explained that she felt sorry for him because his teeth hurt so much. What??? You, know, Ms. Nancy! They are made of wood.

Dang. I didn't realize Rummy chopped down the cherry tree on the ranch in Crawford. We all know Karl Rove has been throwing a lot of silver dollars across the river.

Don't ask about mustard!

Flashback to 1981 The Reagan administration calls for cuts in the school lunch program, prompting the USDA to allow ketchup to be counted as a vegetable.

Flashback even further to those fiendish SAT analogy questions that went:
X is to Y as
(a)Z is to Q
(b)C is to D
(c)Q is to M
or
(d)K is to J?

Well, I propose to you that Catch-up is to Vacation as Ketchup is to Vegetable.

I have a week off. That is not the same thing as a vacation. I have so many things to catch up on, and tasks I have just postponed until this week. During summer classes my schedule doesn't allow for doctor appointments, comparison shopping of colleges for my youngest, deep-cleaning, major financial considerations, rejuvenating treatments for chlorine-damaged hair, chatty phone calls or long-overdue letter-writing. Most evenings by the time I get home from doing my dancing art fairy routine and buying groceries, I am pretty tired and brain numb. Big jobs like watering houseplants, feeding the aquarium fish, and toasting a bagel take the rest of my energy. So, I set even greater challenges aside...

And now, VOILA! It is Catch-Up Week! I don't want to catch up. I want to lay around reading fluffy fiction, or sunbathe on a pool float. I want bronzed natives to bring me cold beer, although, in the interests of health, I am willing for it to be Lite beer. I think other bronzed natives should vacuum the condo, do the ironing, and balance the checkbook so I can just drift off into my island fantasy. Maybe I will ponder what books and music I would like to have with me on my desert isle...

Today's Vocabulary Question
If I clean up something disgusting, have I de-disgusted it? We are talking about teen boys here. Is de-disgusting a double negative? Have I actually gusted? Or maybe even regusted? And who was this Gus anyway, and why can't he ever clean up after himself???

A Cautionary Tale

In the mid-Seventies I worked in a hospital kitchen and wore a white uniform. In the summer I either worked the six a.m. to 2:30 p.m. shift, or went to work from 3:45 to 7:30. Once, after a leisurely morning and sunbathing all afternoon in my bright blue bikini, I had to go to work at 3:45. I needed to iron a uniform. The ironing board was in the basement, and it was comparatively dark down there after sunbathing. Somehow I managed to iron my stomach. The burn was about four inches long, and right where all my bell-bottom hip-hugger waistbands hit. It took weeks to heal. Please be careful when reality intrudes on your island fantasies, especially where small appliances are concerned.

Now put the lime in the coconut and shake it all up!

Seventy-six trombones

Went to a brass chamber music concert Sunday afternoon for that Fourth of July bandstand feeling without bugs and sweat. The concert was in the delightfully air-conditioned Texas Discovery Gardens building at the state fair grounds. The concert hall is walled in glass, so you look out at all the gorgeous trees and gardens behind the musicians while you listen to the music. I toured the hothouse conservatory of exotic plants after the concert. Even took a very slow walk through the gardens, and enjoyed the swallowtail butterflies.

Part of the concert was serious, and some was silly. The quintet played "The Flight of the Bumblebee", but in the middle it morphed into the theme song from the Flintstones. Yabba-dabba-do. Raising the boys I've often felt I was the Wilma of a modern Stone Age family.

Judging from the conversations in class today, my students had busy, patriotic weekends. Boys tried to out-do each other with the number of hours they had spent in the swimming pool. Girls did the my-country club-is-better-than-your-country club,-and-my-lakehouse-is-bigger-than-your-lakehouse routine.

I was glad when the kindergarten kids began to discuss presidents, even if they were deceased. Their first topic was Ronald Reagan*:

"One of our presidents died. His name was Ronald Reagan."
"Ew! He's the mean one. In the war!"
"No, that is Donald."
"No. Someone shot him."
"But he didn't die."
"But he's dead."
"The first president ever shot was John F. Kennedy."
"A guy shot at Reagan, but he aimed too low."
"He didn't hit him."
"But he's dead."
"George Washington is the president now."
"Did someone shoot him?"
"If George Washington dies in office, who will be president?"
"Chang. P.F. Chang."
"Ch-ch-ch....?"

We are planning a write-in campaign in November for P. F. Chang.

*Didn't anyone but me read in the newspaper that it is time to stop flying flags at half staff?