This boy will go far!

"You got your hair cut! I like it," proclaimed the boy across the desk. I'd never seen this lad of nine or ten years old before, but I did have my hair cut quite short recently. It was a few minutes after closing time, and my goal was to move the last patrons out of the library circulation area ASAP. I gladly agreed with his observation to expedite closing. Still his enthusiastic comment tickles me.

The library staff of seven has five glamorous females with various hair shades between silver and chrome. As the substitute, I fit right in this crew. Some patrons ask if I'm the sister of another staff member.

You can't help but like a smiling young male who is even aware of the hair of 50-something women. Don't know who he thought I was, or how I might have gotten my hair cut at the library, but he could certainly teach many 50-something males the right thing to say to ladies.



© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Permanent vs. temporary

Digging into the clay soil with my garden trowel, ever so sweaty last Sunday afternoon, I pondered the concept of permanence. My two tomato plants needed bigger pots on the patio, so I went on the rampage creating space "out back".



The condo "backyard" is about 7' x 11', with maybe thirty-five square feet of dirt, and the rest concrete. When we moved in as renters, I stuck some red canna bulbs, myrtle groundcover, ivy, and wandering purple stuff into the mud around the four silly shrubs. We were "just renting," aka "temporary," but I couldn't live with the mud and dead leaves out by the patio slab. A mismatched collection of pots holding miniature roses, dusty miller, and eighty-eight cent mums and Home Depot lantana gradually encroached onto the patio slab in the years since. When you feel temporary, you don't plant things in the real ground.



"Permanent" in the early Sixties meant something briefly stinging, drippy, and smelly "given" to you by your mom to cause your hair to break off and frizz for several weeks. I received the occasional Tonette permanent wave on weekend afternoons while sitting on the tall kitchen stool watching roller derby, Mr. Wizard, Jon Gnagy drawing lessons, and Green Bay Packers games on the small black and white t.v.



"Permanent press" was an advertising phrase of the early Sixties. Women's sportswear maker Joseph Koret developed the permanent-crease process in the late Fifties. Fabrics were coated with a resin solution and baked to set a crease. Koret used this marketing phrase to proclaim the emancipation of homemakers from their ironing boards. My mom sewed our clothes, so they were not "permanent pressed". She spent two or three hours every week ironing clothes for our family of five.



Digging and sweating, my tomatoes are in the big pots, and my herbs are replanted together in a dish-shaped pot. How will the mums, dusty miller, and lantana cope with being plunked into the seriously unimproved soil around the patio?



Kelly Girls temporary services were advertised on 1960's KFOR radio. It's strange to consider the heavy load of baggage packed into the words "Kelly Girl". My gosh! Bad enough that a woman wouldn't have the time to iron her family's clothing, she might have to get a job, but not a real job, just a temporary staffing job popping in and out of offices to do typing, and having to buy permanent press clothes and nylons! Sheez! This was the sort of woman who might phone in an order to Chicken Delight, the only delivery food in town. "Don't cook tonight! Call Chicken Delight!"


In college I used Permanent Pigments paints. The Permanent Pigments Company developed the first water-based acrylic gesso in 1955, and called it Liquitex. Like permanent-press store-bought garments and temp service stenos, acrylic paints weren't considered the proper way to do things!



In Gail Butt's composition and watercolor classes we used the combination of cadmium red #2, cobalt blue, and permanent green light to solve many creations. This green paint is semi-transparent due to it's recipe of phthalo green and hansa yellow.

I've never given myself a permanent green traffic light. But I've replanted the mums into the unimproved dirt of my "out back". It's been six years since I became an owner instead of a renter, but I still feel temporary. Maybe the experience of divorce makes my inner understanding of permanent vs. temporary less clearcut.

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Great blooming blue-haired mommies!

I love the hairdos on the Mommy Seed packets. Now you can grow your own blue-haired mommy. You can even plant gray helmet hair. This next one looks like Donna Reed Show 1958 tv hair.









Cultivating real mommies is trickier than drawing mommy hair. Those thoughts will be in a future blog. Best wishes this Mother's Day weekend to all mommies and gardeners!


© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Charmed & Charmin

My annual ragweed allergies have crossed over to the Dark Side. My sinuses feel jam packed with steel wool and rubber cement. My ears have sharp twingies, and my throat is raw. My hearing is impaired by stuffed Hostess Twinkies. I'm hot, chilled, drowsy, and unable to sleep. My over-the-counter pills let me watch multicolored floating discs battle the forces of evil whenever I stand up too fast. Still, it's better than watching "Charmed" on TNT at the beauty salon.

"Charmed" airs on TNT at the afterschool hour, no doubt attractive to preteens. An alleged tale of three sister witches working for good in San Francisco, it is the only show that has ever made me wish I could change channels to "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" for something more realistic. The sisters beam themselve up, conjure masseuse demons, and battle star-throwing hypnotized hellions in bustieres.

At the beauty salon you are trapped watching t.v. while listening to AM radio full blast. The stylists speak Chinese, and the salon owner carries on about hunky Dallas Cowboy football players, jet skis, and her mother's inoperable conditions.

I long for wholesome Samantha of "Bewitched", Captain Kirk, and Hostess Cupcakes. Many parents may long for the same now that over-the-counter cold medicines have been banned for kids under the age of six.

© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Fair Day

Cultural differences can lead to confusion. There weren't any classes at my little school yesterday because it was "Fair Day".


When my eldest son started school I was surprised to find "Fair Day" on the school calendar, and a free State Fair admission in his take-home folder. Kids get off school to eat cotton candy??? I didn't get it. In my own school days, classes didn't start until the first Monday after Labor Day, after our state fair ended.


Our international families struggled to understand this strange Texas holiday:

• Was the school having a fair? No.


• Were we taking the children to a fair? No.


• What time should the children arrive on Monday? Not until Tuesday!


• What would teachers be doing? Sleeping late, eating bagels, and getting haircuts.

Many students arrived today with fresh new handsome haircuts. A few were sleeping late after a rough day on the Tilt-a-Whirl.



© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Cicada killer wasps

When one of the paper wasps managed to get into my condo I ceased being a curious amateur hymenoptera observer. A wasp MUST be on the other side of the glass! I had work to do out on my patio, so I shot the wasp nest with the water hose until it fell down, then tossed it out in the alley behind my fence. Next a cicada killer wasp went riccocheting around the patio. It was bigger than a hummingbird, but steered like a drunk teenager in an SUV with "Pinball Wizard" at full blast on his iPod. So much for playing Nature Girl! I dove back in the condo. Reminds me of when my beautician, the Scary Hair Lady, hasn't oiled the blade on her neck trimmer for awhile...or one of those bad mornings when I drop a fork into the garbage disposal!

© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Container Trials

This is only a trial. Had it been an actual container emergency, you would have been instructed to move to your patio. The current color code level is fuchsia.

Actually, the Dallas Arboretum is testing various plants for use in small patio and balcony gardens "due to the rise of urban living". You can see the spring results during Dallas Blooms.

I'm sure you are wondering about fuchsia, as it is a word that will never, ever look like it's spelled correctly. It's a good plant for attracting hummingbirds to your small condo patio or urban living balcony, though.

fuchsia
"red color," 1923, from the plant, which was named 1753 from the Latinized name of Ger. botanist Leonhard Fuchs (1501-66). Not related to L. fucus "seaweed, sea wrack, tangle," also the name of a red color prepared from it.

Haven't you sometimes wanted to make notations on your family tree that you were not really related to that Latinizia Fucus Wrack, and, by the way, that funny red wasn't her natural hair color? If she had just married Leonhard when he asked her, settled down on the container farm, and raised a couple kids, she wouldn't have gotten into that whole sordid seaweed tangle. Fucus was her mother Lucretia's maiden name. Lucretia's family didn't have a container to piss in, but all the Fucus kids got an eighth-grade education. Latinizia's father, George Noble Wrack, was the youngest son of German immigrants, and was kin to the Republican County Wracks who later had the Ford dealership. It was only a rumor about the seven toes on the left foot.

© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Tinkering with the new blog

I'm tinkering these days as I improve the layout for my visual art blog, MamaCollages. The New Blogger makes creating a blog so much easier than when I first made one right after the dinosaurs died out.

I just love Blogger's new layout widgets, and the little screwdriver/wrench icon. The icon reminds me of the times my little sons would play "barbershop" and style my hair with the tools from their Fisher Price toolbox.

The boys were also fond of playing "Braum's," because Braum's was their favorite restaurant. Playing Braums required constructing a restaurant out of the wooden blocks, then parking ALL the Hot Wheels cars at the block restaurant. Only then would they set up a table and toy dishes for their only customer. Mom would be the customer for hours at a time--ordering, receiving my order, eating, having more coffee and pretend ice cream, and paying. This type of play is so important for children learning the concept of sequence.

I never minded that the boys had the blocks, dishes, and Hot Wheels all out at the same time, as long as they tried to separate them during the clean-up. It drove my spouse nuts, though. Whether I'm creating a piece of art, a new blog, or an edible meal, I always have several types of playthings out at once! Considering and combining all the different possibilities is what collage is all about.

The Sonic DriveIn down my street has a monthly muscle car show in its big parking lot on a Saturday night. It looks ever so much like the Hot Wheels parked at the block restaurant, and always makes me smile.

© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Soft puppy dog hair

I love it! My little student came to class with a fresh #1 clippers haircut. What a wonderful sign of spring! His two big brothers had haircuts, too.

We called the #1 clipper cut "soft puppy dog hair" when my sons were little. It drives the ladies wild!! Mommies, first-grade teachers, even school principals can't keep from patting the heads of little guys with new soft puppy dog haircuts.



(Spring 1989)

© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

You dance funny!

That's what the three-year old told me this morning. "You dance funny, Miss Nancy. You dance with your body instead of your hair!"

So that's what I was doing wrong.

"What's that aftershave you're wearing?"

I'm going to a big happening tomorrow, by my standards, so I had my hair repaired last evening--sort of a lube and tune, with a Maaco $39.99 paint job. It's sad that I put beauty treatments in the same mental category as oil changes.

Under the hot dryer for prolonged periods of Hot Carnuba hair reconditioning, I got to fantasizing about a Sam and Janet Evening with Prince Charming and glass slippers. Across a crowded room Emile de Becque asked me, "What's that fragrance you're wearing?"

"What's that aftershave you're wearing?," was the slogan for Hai Karate t.v. commercials back in my Wonder Bread years. Nerdy guys wearing dork glasses required martial arts training to fight off over-sexed chicks in a memorable ad campaign. Hai Karate was up against the Mennen Skin Bracer ads involving a slap, and a "Thanks, I needed that!"

That fragrance I'm wearing is actually Aroma de Fabric Crayon Drawings. My students use Crayola Fabric Crayons to make a drawing, and I iron the drawing onto their tie-dyed camp t-shirts. After ironing fifty-six transfers, I can't get that smell out of my head..., or my clothes, or my hair! Will Emile de Becque whisper in my ear that I smell just like an unairconditioned first grade classroom when second semester used to last well into June? Grilled Binney & Smith with hints of dried bath towel! Great. I could probably attract some sixty-ish male who never quite got over the crush on his first-grade teacher!

My hair looks like it was transformed with Crayola Multicultural Washable Markers (aka brown felt pens). I've got your raw sienna, burnt sienna, raw umber, burnt umber, and yellow ochre!




The fabric crayon instructions:

Turn crayon drawings into colorful fabric art. Simply draw with these special formula crayons (on paper). Iron onto fabric for brilliant, permanent fabric designs. Works best on white fabric, synthetic blends.

Use to make personalized T-shirts, fabric quilts, tablecloths, pillowcases, banners, kites, aprons, scarves, kitchen accessories, and holiday decorations. Drawing, rubbings, stenciling and lettering techniques are easy to do.

8-count box contains: magenta, violet, burnt sienna, blue, orange, green, black and yellow.

Please have an adult use the iron.

I'm that adult.

Knock! Knock! Who's there?
Sam and Janet! Sam and Janet who?
Sam and Janet evening?

Emile:
Some enchanted evening
When you find your true love,
When you feel her call you
Across a crowded room,
Then fly to her side,
And make her your own
For all through your life you
May dream all alone.

Nellie:
Once you have found her,
Never let her go.

Emile:
Once you have found her,
Never let her go!

Collagemama:
Once you have colored it,
Never let it grow!

A Little Chat With Little Red

"Last night I thought that I had hair, and this morning I did!," a four year old speaks for her puppet-in-progress. Our Little Red Riding Hood puppets were made of the simplest materials, but the results were magical.

Last fall we were given a big trash bag full of small fake fruit that had been used in party decorations for a big event. I was delighted with the gift, but then began to wonder if my mental apple tree was full of nutty squirrels. What was I going to do with all those itty-bitty apples and pears? If you are yelling, "Just take them to the dumpster!," then you aren't an art teacher. Art teachers live by a code, much the way Disney pirates do. Art teachers don't say, "Arrgh," all that much, but they say, "I'm sure we could use that for something," several times a day.

My counselor used to tell me that anger was my best friend when I was going through my divorce. "Don't stuff it down; that anger is your motivator! It's there to push you to change your life!" She was right. You can't just keep putting that anger into black garbage bags and stuffing it into a closet forever. Closets get really full.

As an art teacher, the closet is my motivator. When the supply closet gets too full of boxes and bags of weird materials like miniature fake fruit, I am pushed to create uses for all that stuff. And so, the recipe for creativity is similar to applesauce made in a pressure cooker.

If you put one miniature fruit in a very small brown paper bag, then twist the rest of the sack tightly, you have created a living character for a small child. Even before the child draws a face, the puppet begins to talk. It's like having a conversation with a Tootsie Pop. The Tootsie Pop is both your microphone and a little character talking back to you.

Magic is Danny Kaye playing Hans Christian Andersen singing "Thumbelina." Magic is a child talking to a styrofoam apple in a bag about wanting long brown yarn hair. Magic is making pipe cleaner arms hold a basket of goodies, illustrated with ice cream cones and strawberries. Little Red Riding Hood better go quick if she's taking ice cream cones to Grandma in that basket.

One small child had drawn fruits and vegetables on her paper basket. "Do you think it would be okay to take chocolate to Grandma?," she asked me. Dang skippy! Grandma is going to be mighty disappointed if you don't take chocolate! Don't these kids know what "goodies" means???

The magic continued when we gave the Little Red puppets hooded capes made of end-of-the-bolt bargain "cherry red prom taffeta". We won't get into the deep psychological origins of the Little Red Cap folktale that I had to study in a college English class three decades ago! Taffeta just has that magic tactile quality for kids like the binding on their special security blankies.

Pretty soon the puppets were conversing with other puppets, as well as with their creators. They were not discussing Grimm concerns. They were discussing afternoon playdates, birthday parties, and swim lessons.

I'm glad I've learned a recipe for the other bag of fake fruits! And now I'm going to listen to "A Little Duet for Zoot and Chet." That would be Chet Baker and Zoot Simms, and I'll probably wish I was wearing a cherry red taffeta prom dress!

Vocabulary PLUS history and home ec. at no extra charge

These aren't exactly Thursday words because they don't come from my young students. I still rated them worthy of note:

Cosmellision specialists are the technicians who can make your automohicularvebile all dent-free and painted just as purdy and sparkly as your toenails at the salon after your car crash. I would never have known about the art and science of cosmellision if I hadn't watched the local television commercials in Lincoln, Nebraska.

In my family it is quite normal to be asked, "Was anyone else was hurt in that accident?," when you show up at the breakfast table with bad bedhead. Remember those ribcord bedspreads from the Sears & Roebuck catalog? Nothing like falling asleep and waking up with one cheek all striped!



It might be better to climb under the covers next time. As a kid I enjoyed going to bed between fresh, clean, stiff sheets that had dried outside on the clothesline. The very best were the pink sheets for the brass bed at Grandma's house.

Most of my art students have never seen a clothespin before, let alone smelled clothes, sheets, and towels dried "out on the line". Just saying those words brings the remembered fresh laundry scent to life in my memory. Research indicates that olfactory memories are both our earliest formed and our last lost in life. Olfactory memories are usually linked to emotional memories. The scent memory of the line-dried pink sheets at Grandma's house evokes a wonderful sense of being loved, cherished, connected to family and neighbors, and tuned into the constant buzz of insects outside the window screens.

To a cataloging library person, a SEE ALSO* reference is the gift of many new lamps for old. Maybe our most primitive brain functions as a SCENT ALSO reference linking good food and family memories at a level so deep we rarely realize the connections. That might be the power of steamy, savory aromas of our comfort foods. If we were under siege, the scent memory of a baked potato with butter, pepper, and garlic sour cream would make me feel safe.

A World Cup announcer informed me that one team was "under seizure". Sure hope he meant "under siege here"! Could be a case of SIEGE ALSO:

*In some cases, “See also” or “See” entries appear when you enter a search. You will most often get “see also” and “See” entries when you have entered a subject search. These entries refer to Subject Headings that help you find items of interest when there are many possible words or terms used for one topic or when the term you entered is not an official Library of Congress Subject Heading. A “See” is a heading actually used in a full record. Click on that heading to redirect your search. A “see also” is another heading used in full records for other titles that may be of interest. Click on that heading to execute the same search with this new search term.

It's been a long day. Think I'll have a baked potato with all the toppings, then crawl into bed.

"Pelota"

Watching Italy play Germany today I was nudged into mental scrolling and searching by the hair of Mauro Camoranesi. I've only caught bits of Italy's earlier World Cup games, but each time I've seen this player I've felt a blast from the past.



Camoranesi has been playing with his hair pulled back in an oxbow type bun wrapped with string or cloth. Though he plays for Italy, he is Argentine. His facial structure is reminiscent of ancient tribes and races. He could be a Mayan ballplayer playing a life or death game, a Plains Indian brave counting coup, an Eskimo hauling in a whale, or a Samurai warrior:

Samurai warriors took great care styling their hair, which they pulled back into a topknot called a "chomage." For battle, samurai warriors shaved the tops of their heads, which reduced the heat under their heavy helmets, and wore their hair straight on the sides. When not wearing helmets, they pulled the side and back hair into a topknot.

"Topknot" or whatnot, this soccer player's choice of hairstyle has been given yellow cards by many fans on web chats. Some have called it a "geisha onion bun". My middle son felt that soccer was an inferior sport because it didn't involve hats. My youngest felt it was a superior sport for the same reason. I appreciate the lack of tattoos compared to hatless basketball.

Soccer may descend from the oldest of all organized sports, the Mesoamerican ball game. Watching Camoranesi, the word "pelota" popped into my brain. Pelota? Wasn't that Spanish for ball? When I got to googling "pelota" I found one of the best educational websites ever, The Sport of Life and Death: The Mesoamerican Ballgame. You've got to check it out!

That's about when I realized that the recording cassette had run out again, and I had missed recording another game-making moment for my son. Soccer is still a life or death game for those of us in charge of the VCR!

HESP!

"So, I was doing the crossword puzzle under the dryer, and I had put in a wrong word on across. "

"Why on earth were you doing the puzzle under the dryer?," my walking buddy asked.

"Because it gets really boring otherwise, just watching 'Oprah' backwards in the mirror. Plus I can't hear or understand the women speaking Persian," I logically replied.

"Oh! That dryer. I thought you meant the clothes dryer!" My buddy gets it now.

"So, like I said, I had put in a wrong across, so the down was blank, blank, S, P, for Beatles movie. That just shorted my brain out. All I could think of was 'Hard Day's Night'."
_ _ S P!

"Help!," she says. "It's 'HELP!'"

"I know. Once I decided I would ask you for help, it came back to me." Thank heaven that's solved.

"But you know what else? Watching "Oprah' in the mirror made me forget her boyfriend's name, not that I even care about Oprah, but it's always in the grocery checkout," I continued.

"Steadman."

"Thanks."

Hesp, I need somebody,
Hesp, not just anybody,
Hesp, you know I need someone, hesp.

When I was younger, so much younger than today,
I never needed anybody's hesp in any way.
But now these days are gone, I'm not so self assured,
Now I find I've changed my mind and opened up the door to unload the dryer, and wouldn't you know, I forgot to put in the Bounce...

Use your head to choose presidential library site

In my gratitude journal I am thanking my lucky stars my name isn't Letitia Fitch. Letitia was the first wife of Iowa millionaire Fred W. Fitch, the shampoo mogul. In 1892 he whomped up a snake-oil concoction to market in hand-blown glass bottles as the "Ideal Hair Grower and Dandruff Cure". Fred and Letitia separated in 1923, and divorced in 1926, by which time Fitch was living with Gertrude, a former maid twenty-four years his junior. We will restrain ourselves from saying he was scratching that itch. In 1946 the FTC decided that dandruff was not an abnormal condition, and therefore could not be cured, improving many folks' self-esteem. *

My dad has been singing the Fitch shampoo jingle all week. Are you ready?

Don't despair,
Use your head,
Save your hair!
Use Fitch Shampoo!

If it itches
Use Fitch's!


The jingle was performed by Tommy Dorsey, Guy Lombardo, Benny Goodman, and others on the "Fitch Bandwagon" radio show. It would make a terrific campaign song for Texas' own incumbent Governor Goodhair, Republican Rick Perry. The Fitch product line was eventually sold to Bristol-Myers, the company that brought us Body On Tap shampoo with beer, and the warning not to take internally.


I brought the jingle singing on myself by telling Dad that I woke up one morning with a song from the 1968 movie version of the 1947 musical (with Fred Astaire and Petula Clark!), "Finian's Rainbow", stuck in my head:

When the idle poor
Become the idle rich
You'll never know
Just who is who
Or who is which.

Won't it be rich
When everyone's poor relative
Becomes a "Rockefellative",
And palms no longer itch--
What a switch!...

...And when all your neighbors
Are upper class
You won't know your 'Georges'
From your 'Astors'.

Ah, yes! Sylvestor McMonkey McBean of The Sneetches Star-Off Machine helps all the folks in Bush/Perry country believe they are equals down on the beaches at those frankfurter roasts. These guys are so Head and Shoulders above the rest.



Out in Lubbock folks are crying real, wet tears today because their proposal has been eliminated from consideration for the Dubya Presidential Library (with Speak & Spell!). The tears are fighting grass fires in the drought-stricken areas of west Texas. This might be the most beneficial thing Dubya has accomplished in his presidency.

...West Texans had pledged to raise more than $300 million for the library. They said Thursday they were disappointed but not particularly surprised that their bid had foundered.
"We regret it. But it's a big decision, and I respect it," said Mike Weiss, longtime friend of the first couple who served as co-chair of the West Texas coalition. "I always thought we were kind of a long shot.
"Most people knew we kind of had a geographical disadvantage and it was going to be hard to overcome."...

SMU and UD in Dallas have also made proposals for the No President Left Behind Library, but I am worried neither one has enough land available for the Brush Clearing Institute.



*Jun. 10, 1946
"You've got a very bad head condition," says the barber delicately.

"Dandruff, you mean?" says the victim in the chair.

Solemnly the barber nods, solemnly picks up a bottle. . . .

Getting a Handel on things

Dallas Opera's next production is a Baroque opera, "Rodelinda". I'm listening to a 1959 recording of Joan Sutherland, and wondering where I might get a powdered wig to wear to opening night. King of Kings, and Lord of Lords! This will be a very different experience than either of the operas I attended last weekend.

"Rodelinda" premiered in 1725. Poulenc's "Dialogues des Carmelites" debuted in 1957. Richard Strauss's "Ariadne auf Naxos" in 1912.

Attending Fort Worth Opera's "Dialogues des Carmelites" in the elegant Bass Recital Hall was the goal I set for myself last winter. Based on an historical event during France's Reign of Terror, the opera examines faith, fear, and commitment. Fort Worth's production was an achievement in form--mindful setting, mindful lighting, mindful action, mindful voices.

Dallas Opera's "Ariadne" had some nice moments, but won't be on any top ten lists. My experience would have been enhanced by a luxury automobile on display outside Fair Park's Music Hall!

I've made powdered wigs for elementary students out of quilt batting, toilet paper tubes, and shower caps. I've made young Baroque courtier hair out of shredded "suntan" pantyhose. I've even made bicolor tights for Montagues and Capulets. Tomorrow I'm taking the easy way out. I'm having another perm. My look has gone from buoyant fluff to hungover Oscar Wilde in the blink of an eye. Hope this perm will be something to sing about.

Candy Thermometer for Election Day

Got going early this morning so I could vote right after the polls opened at seven. My polling place is the middle school my sons attended. Middle schools are very scary places, so I wanted to be long gone before incoming students began swarming.

Last Friday I had my hair permed. My relationship with my hair is difficult. We are like roommates who live in the same apartment, but aren't actually friends. We cycle through phases of amused tolerance, benign disinterest, forced civility, not making eye contact, and outright loathing. About once a year we need a professional mediator and a permanent.

It's a good perm. I like it a lot. Adults seem to like it, or are very polite. My students take one look, scrunch up their faces like they are studying a flipped-over beetle wiggling its legs in the air, and say, "You look really weird. What happened to your hair?"

This afternoon the preschoolers gave my appearance a thorough appraisal, and informed me I looked "like a clown". A few minutes later the oldest girl amended that analysis. "You look," she said, "like the mother of the clown." That's harsh! And there I'd been humming a West Side Story tune to myself...

I feel pretty,
Oh, so pretty,
I feel pretty and witty and bright!
And I pity
Any girl who isn't me tonight.

I feel charming,
Oh, so charming
It's alarming how charming I feel!
And so pretty
That I hardly can believe I'm real.


After the perm Friday, my stylist convinced me I needed a product to define my curls if I wasn't going to aim for the Texas Big Hair bouffant look. For relaxed, easy shower-and-go, I definitely needed Twisted Taffy Raw Hair Goo.

The Raw Hair Goo results were pretty good Saturday-Monday. Something went way wrong this morning. The Twisted Taffy never progressed past the soft ball stage. It didn't dry all day long, let alone define curls and provided promised "textured shine."

Soft ball stage, as any Camp Fire Girl who ever tried to make popcorn balls for treats knows, begins at 234°. A small amount of syrup dropped into chilled water forms a ball, but flattens when picked up with fingers.

"You can't make fudge when it's hot," my wise team teacher quoted. Since I make fudge once every other Christmas, I did not know if this was ancient wisdom or something she made up for this occasion. We are experiencing ridiculous temps in the mid-eighties, and humidity around sixty per cent. For November, that qualifies as hot.

When my sons were young, they melted plastic toy soldiers with the magnifying glass out on the afternoon sidewalk, in the name of science. Being of a certain majestic, energized, and powerful stage in life, I can probably melt any plastic toy soldier within three feet of my scalp, in the name of menopause.

Can weather affect candy making?

Oddly enough, it can. Cooking candy syrup to the desired temperature means achieving a certain ratio of sugar to moisture in the candy. On a humid day, once the candy has cooled to the point where it is no longer evaporating moisture into the air, it can actually start reabsorbing moisture from the air. This can make the resulting candy softer than it is supposed to be.

That’s why dry days are recommended for candy making, although the effects of humidity can be somewhat counterbalanced by cooking the candy to the upper end of the appropriate temperature stage.

Cool weather is also recommended for candy making, because—generally—the faster candy cools, the less chance it has to form unwanted crystals.

My what bad hair you have, Grandma!

Salon product

Got my hair cut by an actual stylist today, with shampoo, goops for this and sprays for that, blow-drying, curling iron, and more spray. Was swirled around in the chair for, voila, the New Me with extra body. Holy moly! It's the Pillsbury Doughgirl in a Raquel Welch wig! All I need is a lavendar pique dress and matching scalloped jacket with pearlescent buttons to play the mother of the groom in a sitcom wedding.

Usually I go to the JiffyChop for the fourteen dollar/four minute haircut. The cutesy motto taped onto the chopper's mirror reads, "Mom doesn't let me play with power tools at home." Occasionally, one of those cuts goes way wrong. I had to grow my hair out a few weeks extra, then let someone try to start me fresh along the meditative path to the true coiffure.

Blondes get consumption, too.

Listened to "La Boheme" while driving to the nature preserve for a walk this Memorial Day morning. As a former cold and starving (well, not really starving, but definitely cold) art student, I love this opera of young artists living hand-to-mouth. As the mother of teen boys, I appreciate the jokes and horsing around of Rodolfo and Marcello. As a sweet, tragic, brunette embroidery seamstress who once suffered from pleurisy, I identify with Mimi.

A dearly demented friend has loaned me "La Boheme" with Jose Carreras and Katia Ricciarelli. The music is wondrous, but something is horribly wrong! Ricciarelli is blonde. Right there on the cd case, I can see that she is sweet and tragic, BUT she is blonde. That really ticks me off. Everybody knows that tragic sopranos with consumption are brunette, especially if they embroider and are poor.

Cough...cough, cough....

In the dozen years I've been teaching art with children, I've taught beautiful young ladies of many races and colorings. It makes me sad when they almost invariably draw a princess as a blonde with blue eyes. Do only blondes with blue eyes live happily ever after? Maybe my ideas about the tragic brunettes stem from early Disney indoctrination just like theirs.

Three picture books with beautiful, generous, and wise princesses of color are listed below. They are best for students six to nine years old, as they are a bit long for reading aloud to younger children. I look forward to reading them to my students each summer.

The Gifts of Wali Dad:
A Tale of India and Pakistan
Retold by Aaron Shepard
Illustrated by Daniel San Souci


The Unicorn and the Dragon
Written and illustrated by Lynne Cherry


One Riddle, One Answer
Written by Lauren Thompson
Illustrated by Linda S. Wingerten