If you brew it, they will come

Dateline: Iowa--This could be the best Halloween story of the year. The economy, presidential campaign, and natural disasters have given us so many terrors that we've reached catastrophe overload. We are desensitized, and feeling pretty helpless to make a difference.

Enter the field of screams from stage right. Can't you see Mrs. Olson with those Folgers' fangs? I vont to dwink your coffee and hang upside down all night until my brains are cooked. [Not that this resembles any college student sons.]

Each morning I drink several mugfuls of coffee, then add my used filter full of grounds to the worm bin. I'm not all that awake, and I've never checked for boiled bat brains in the filter.

Cedar Rapids, Iowa used to seem like the safest place on earth. Powdered non-dairy creamer seemed like one of life's most frightening aspects.

Sending my best wishes to this unfortunate woman who had to endure rabies shots. I hope she got to watch one of Kevin Costner's better movies in the treatment room.

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) _ It wasn't just the caffeine that gave an Iowa woman an extra jolt after she had her morning coffee. It was also the bat she found in the filter.
The Iowa Department of Public Health says the woman reported a bat in her house but wasn't too worried about it. She turned on her automatic coffee maker before bedtime and drank her coffee the next morning.

She discovered the bat in the filter when she went to clean it that night. The woman has undergone treatment for possible rabies.

Health officials say that the bat was sent to a lab but that its brain was too cooked by the hot water to determine whether it had rabies.

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Cam Phone Spam Scram Gravy Ain't Wavy

Here in Plano voter interest in the municipal election is up one mild eyebrow twitch above the usual total apathy. We have a, gasp, openly gay candidate for city council. We have a $490 million school bond proposal when many families are cutting their driving and eating lots more beans.

Speaking of gas, the candidates have ALL figured out how to use automated annoying phone calls. I was home this afternoon because of school conference day, and the phone rang every five minutes with a robo-candidate urging me to vote.

Somehow, I got off the campaign track into a discussion about gravy. Growing up, it was a given that during any meal served with gravy someone would remark, "Scram gravy ain't wavy." What did it mean?

Googling "scram gravy" I learned that the expression probably derived from an old-timey newspaper comic about a fireman called "Smokey Stover". If you happen to remember anything from "Smokey Stover" about Molly freezing on the trolley*, PLEASE leave a comment! Dad and I have been as far up and down the sidewalk of Memory Lane as he can go pushing his walker, and I barely remember the comic in the Omaha Weird Herald.

As a kid in the Sixties, I believed that "scram gravy ain't wavy" was a jab at our neighbors who made lumpy gravy with flour and milk instead of using the inherently superior smooth cornstarch recipe seasoned with brown sauce. I have to laugh, but we kids must have had playground taunts like, "my mom's gravy is smoother than your mom's gravy!" It was an era of Meat and Potatoes.

Fritzi's Gravy

Yield: 2 cups


2 Tbsp fat drippings
2 cups hot water drained off the boiled potatoes you are going to mash
2 Tbsp Argo® Corn Starch
1/4 cup cold water
1 tsp Gravy Master or other brown sauce
Salt and pepper to taste

Remove all but 2 tablespoons fat drippings from roasting pan. Stir in hot water. Cook over medium heat, stirring to loosen browned bits. Remove from heat.


Put corn starch and water in a small jar with a tight lid, then shake until smooth; stir into pan. Add seasonings. Stirring constantly, bring to a boil over medium heat and boil 1 minute.

*Dad is probably thinking of Walt Kelly's Christmas classic:

Deck us all with Boston Charlie,
Walla Walla, Wash., and Kalamazoo!
Nora's freezin' on the trolley
Swaller dollar cauliflower Alleygaroo!
Don't we know archaic barrel
Lullaby Lilla Boy, Louisville Lou
Trolley Molly don't love Harold,
Boola Boola Pensacoola hullabaloo!


© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Floyd on fiscal policy fashions

Thought wandering through Kohl's might help my attitude after a long week at work, but it made things worse. Found a pair of desperately-needed basic Lee Plain Front slacks for $21.99, but everything else in the Misses Dept. was hideous, slimy, and insulting to my intelligence. When did aliens from the Planet Acetate take over the brains of department store buyers? The store is jam-packed with ugly faux-retro pseudo-maternity fashions for lifesize Bratz and MyScene Juicy-Bling Dolls by Mattel. I would rather suck a Sucrets than spend five more minutes in the store!

Checking out is as bad as browsing. A magenta-haired kid with giant pierced ear barbells was manning the register. Yikes! He used to be on my son's soccer team.

Maybe there's a good reason why a huge demographic of consumers is not shopping in a patriotic manner. Maybe it's not "the economy, stupid" ala the '92 Clinton campaign, but the repulsive merchandise of '08 that keeps us from spending! Maybe a better economic stimulus incentive would be stores stocked with items designed for real adults.

Jacquielynn Floyd, columnist for the Dallas Morning News, is staging a similar rant, but with broader readership. She has quickly found a large and angry group of female readers, aged 25-80, who are all disgusted with retail choices. Read my lips! Our purse$ stay zipped!

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

IQSC Opening

They're putting the finishing touches on the new International Quilt Study Center and Museum this week, and moving the collection. The new facility opens Sunday, March 30th.

My visit to Nebraska didn't coincide with the grand opening, but I did watch some of the installation work on the sculpture in front of the museum. I hope to get back to Lincoln before the Nancy Crow: Cloth, Culture, Context exhibit ends in August.

Until then, I'll be checking for informative stories about the new museum in the Lincoln Journal Star online by Kent Wolgamott. I wish more arts writers were as motivated to communicate clearly and to educate, instead of showing off their arcane knowledge in a certain big city newspaper.








© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Singles scene

I occasionally read those celebrity and gossip columns by Alan Peppard in the Dallas Morning News about who hosted who's birthday at an exclusive penthouse bar in trendy Victory Park downtown. Of course I also sometimes read the nutritional and net weight information on the side of the Rice Chex box at breakfast.

When we were kids my brother had an ant farm. For a few weeks we stared at the ants in their tunnels, working hard pushing things around. Then the ants all died. For many more weeks we still stared at the ant farm. Yup, not much happening again today.

A lot of real life is as exciting as that ant farm or the cereal box. But suddenly I have a trendy penthouse bar right in my kitchen. I swore I wasn't going to be one of those vermibloggers who post photos of decomposing food. So avert your eyes from the compost, and view, gossip reporter-like, the swinging scene just under the rim. Clearly, this is where the elite meet and drop hundreds of dollars on bottle service. For all I know, the worms are engaging in hermaphroditic vermisex while looking out over the midnight skyline.

I really don't have a clue why the worms hang out here. They don't seem interested in the corresponding area at the other end of the worm bin. I want them to go back down to work in the soil factory! Maybe these are trust fund worms who don't have to work for a living.

© 2008 Nancy L. Ruder

Harry Shakespeare's House of Horror

What to wear? What to wear? With a November high temp in the eighties, my dress-up grown-up wardrobe is challenged for the Dallas Opera matinee tomorrow. And now Scott Cantrell's review of "Macbeth" in today's Dallas Morning News suggests that attire for a hayrack ride and haunted house might be more appropriate.

Heard the DO's technical director, Drew Field, speak last Saturday about the upcoming production of "Salome". At the end of his talk he announced he was heading off to mix up thirty-five gallons'o'blood for "Macbeth". On the tour of the costume shop we spotted the box marked "Lohengrin Cone-heads", which brought to mind one of the low points of last season. Thank heaven each season is filled with so many highs! Each design effort gives me great fuel to ponder, and fabulous memories. It's fun to play the How Would I Have Done It Differently game.

From the word master, Mr. Cantrell:

Then there's the matter of the production, from Seattle Opera. ..Designer Robert Israel's set is a sterile institutional interior, with bluish panels and roll-up garage doors. Scrims come and go. Piles of big stones appear here and there. When Lady Macbeth laments her blood-stained hands, what's supposed to be blood oozes from the walls; alas, it looks more like streaks of printer's ink. Marie Barrett's lighting is unsubtle. ...The witches are done up half as veiled brides in white, half as veiled mourners in black. That, according to stage director Bernard Uzan, is to represent life as all about beginnings and endings. (Wouldn't have guessed that, would you?) That, too, is supposed to be the "message" of the stones: things being built and torn down. An apelike skeleton stenciled on a wall is similarly supposed to represent development. It, dear reader, has come to this.

Now if I just knew what to wear.

© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Newspapers, breakfast, & indigestion

My Dallas Morning News hasn't been arriving early enough for me to scan it at breakfast before I go to work. I need my newspaper to arrive between 5:30 and 6:30 a.m. on weekdays, and between 6:30 and 7:00 a.m. on weekends. As a hard-core lifetime newspaper subscriber, it really eats my Cheerios when the paper shows up after 6:45 on a weekday.

The day the paper wasn't delivered until 7:20, I called the DMN customer service number and told the woman I was cutting back to the weekend subscription (Friday-Sunday only). Explained to her while she smacked her chewing gum that it really sticks in my craw when the paper is late. She did not know what a craw is, and didn't care.

Waiting for a late newspaper ruins my breakfast. I might as well read the paper online, which cuts down on the recycling. The bad thing is I can't do the crossword puzzle while drinking coffee in bed with an online newspaper.

Some newspapers do more than ruin my breakfast. They cause indigestion. It's been many years since I subscribed to the Plano Unproofread. That newspaper should go straight to papier mache, just as some movies go direct to video without a theater release.

Papier mache translates as chewed paper, but a bird would find the paper stuck in its craw.

My dear old red American Heritage Dictionary has

craw n. 1. The crop of a bird. 2. The stomach of an animal. --stick in the (or one's) craw. To be unacceptable or offensive. [Middle English crawe. Old English craga (unattested). See gwere...


According to Language Log:

IDIOM: stick in (one's) craw To cause one to feel abiding discontent and resentment.

Etymology: like something you cannot swallow, based on the literal meaning of craw (= the throat of a bird) craw

O.E. *cræg "throat," a Gmc. word of obscure origin.

There must be an Aesop's fable to cover this situation... The Editor and the Early Riser, or The Crab and the Craw. I'll check my childhood copy tomorrow morning between 5:30 and 6:30 with a mug of hot coffee in bed.

Perhaps the late papers are a hint that I could check in with my tiny patch of nature out the back door instead of fretting about the news across the nation:

Morning has broken, like the first morning

Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird

Praise for the singing, praise for the morning

Praise for the springing fresh from the world

Sweet the rain's new fall, sunlit from heaven

Like the first dewfall, on the first grass

Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden

Sprung in completeness where his feet pass

Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning

Born of the one light, Eden saw play

Praise with elation, praise every morning

God's recreation of the new day


© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Chia Korea and Animal Rummy

Spring has sprung.
The grass has ris.
I wonder where de birdies is.


Tome Toles' editorial cartoon for the Washington Post made me think if Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez were a Chia Pet, he would grow to become Kim Jung-Il.




Played Rummikub with the afterschool four-year-olds. The game is similar to rummy, but I've next to no memory of ever playing rummy or animal rummy. The little kids have a better grasp on the game, so they are teaching me.

Animal Rummy was one of the childrens' card games made by Whitman Publishing Company. To the best of my recollection, the others were Go Fish, Snap, Crazy Eights, and Authors. I loved playing Authors and saying the names of the books aloud. Do you have "The Courtship of Miles Standish"? Do you have "The Charge of the Light Brigade"? Do you have "The House of the Seven Gables"?

Boys always preferred the interminable card game "War". They still do. Just ask Bush's own Rummy. Tole's cartoon accompanied an op ed suggesting Alberto Gonzalez may not have any more job security than Rumsfeld did. If need be, he could always get a new job selling Chia Pets on infomercials. Now then, do you have "The Prince and the Pauper"?


© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Irresponsible and frivolous

Taurus (April 20-May 20): You've worried about important things long enough. Give it a break. Surround yourself with frivolous friends and be irresponsible.

Opened the Sunday paper after a bad night's sleep. The horoscopes were right column, front page, front section. I never read the horoscopes, but there they were, just staring at me.

Got back from my spring break trip to move my dad home from the rehab/therapy hospital yesterday. My luggage arrived later, just after midnight today after a wrong turn. Woke up about 4 a.m. to worry if it was my fault that my little wheelie suitcase "failed to transfer" at St. Louis Lambert International. Woke up again at 6:30 to worry if Dad was waking up, and wondering how his first night on his own had been.

Might as well make coffee and get the paper. What's this?? Frivolous? Irresponsible?

My brother will visit Dad today, and my sister will phone him. I've been so focused on every detail of Dad's homecoming that I'm cross-eyed. It is indeed time to "give it a break". My walking partner isn't exactly a frivolous friend, but she might be convinced to understudy the role. After fifty, going to Corner Bakery for a salad/sandwich combo involving lime cilantro mayo is considered living on the edge. Running the dryer without a sheet of Bounce counts as irresponsible.

I'm popping Led Zep in the cd player and letting the important things worry about themselves for a long time--at least fifteen minutes. Please don't sue me!

frivolous
1549, from L. frivolus "silly, empty, trifling, brittle," dim. of *frivos "broken, crumbled," from friare "break, rub away, crumble."

irresponsible
1648, "not legally answerable for conduct or actions," from in- "not" + responsible (q.v.). Meaning "not acting with a sense of responsibility" is from 1681.

zeppelin
1900, from Ger. Zeppelin, short for Zeppelinschiff "Zeppelin ship," after Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin (1838-1917), Ger. general who perfected its design.

Many is a word that only leaves you guessing
Guessing 'bout a thing you really ought to know, ooh!
You really ought to know...



© 2007 Nancy L. Ruder

Folded Molly Ivins in the mail

Soon as she heard it on the news, JJ called to tell me Molly Ivins had died. So many times Dad had clipped Molly's column from the Lincoln newspaper to mail. The Dallas Morning News didn't have the moxie to run Molly's op ed, so JJ and I passed Dad's Lincoln clipping around the lunch table and tsk-tsk-ed about Shrub.

What is it about the intergenerational mailing of newspaper clippings that makes it the postal service equivalent of homemade meatloaf, scalloped potatoes, and Tollhouse cookies with nuts warm from the oven? What is to become of generations deprived of newsprint tactile experiences? Receiving an email notice with a link to an online news story with an interactive slideshow just doesn't say "I love you, but check your tire pressure" the way a clipping in the mail does.

Unfold the latest Leon Satterfield, the Calvin Trillin verse, Ted Kooser's poetry column, the obit of Velma from Avoca, or the grainy photo of the Virgin Mary image seen in an oilspot on a driveway in Valparaiso. Feel loved.

That clipping in the mail may be advice from Dr. Gott or Heloise, but it really says:

1. I care about you.
2. I want to feel connected.
3. I want you to stay aware of your community.
4. I want you to think about the future because I'm thinking about your future.
5. I can almost see you smiling as you read this.
6. I'll always be your mommy no matter how old you get.
7. I'm proud of you for trying to fix the bathroom tile yourself, but you might need this information about grout.
8. So glad I raised you to be an informed and questioning citizen of the world.
9. Baking soda has an amazing number of uses.
10. Isn't this ad for the ugliest sofa on earth?

Dad's Lincoln newspaper is being delivered to his room at the rehab hospital so he can stay interested and informed. He thought it was a silly extravagance, but I insisted that he read the paper every day. He's already wondering if he might want his Walkman, if only for Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. I think Dad realized that Molly Ivins wouldn't want him to just sit in the wheelchair and stare at his hands in his lap. I hope he'll clip a few columns using his nosehair scissors.

Liberal arts and inevitable maternal mailing

When the human genome scientists find the gene causing mothers to mail newspaper clippings to their grown children, we can set up a foundation to fund research for a cure. I'm stuffing a fat envelope for my eldest who is gainfully employed in the realm of higher education administration at a nameless respected institution in the breadbasket of the United States. Today's Dallas Morning News has two stories about students without soul and institutions without education. The first essay by Thomas Hibbs, philosopher and dean of the Honors College at Baylor University begins:

You are an Athenian, a citizen of the greatest city with the greatest reputation for both wisdom and power; are you not ashamed of your eagerness to possess as much wealth, reputation, and honors as possible, while you do not care nor give thought to wisdom or truth, or the best possible state of your soul? – Plato, Apology

The second DMN story considers the value of the classic liberal education.

Let me put it like this: I have two large books on my desk. One is The Complete Works of Shakespeare; the other is a phone book. One is a great work of literature; the other mere data. They differ greatly, despite their physical similarities.

Will I regret reading Shakespeare? Yes, if a broken pipe is flooding my basement. I might want to hold off on Hamlet and find a plumber instead. But if I want to know what it means to be human, if I want to open my heart and mind to the best that has been imagined and written, if I think that doing so is necessary to my soul – then the Shakespeare is incalculably more valuable.

Included in the first story was a reference to a book by psychologist Madeline Levine, Ph.D., The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage Are Creating a Generation of Disconnected and Unhappy Kids. I was pleased to find an online interview with Madeline Levine at Eye On Books. It was ten minutes well spent. A long excerpt from the book is available online, too. I'm intrigued enough to track down Levine's book.

Our society across all economic levels must find ways to raise children to be curious and creative, to have empathy, to be self-motivated, self-controlled, and self-sufficient. It is good to live in a country where any child can grow up to be President. I would feel better if every child grew up with some inkling into the insights of a philosopher/king.

Missing the smell of red rubber bands

What's black and white, and read all over? OR is your newspaper too red state? Feeling blue? I'm frustrated, too.

I am so close to ending my delivery of the Dallas Morning News! Not because of its political bias, poor proofreading, new format, or delayed deliveries. It's the information to recycling ratio that is bugging me. Newspapers need advertising. That is the nature of the game. Still, I'm beginning to think subscribing to paperless news sources is more earth-friendly.

I already get the New York Times headlines online every morning. I pay a small fee to see the full text of Maureen Dowd, and to have access to the wonderful video slideshows about art exhibits. What if I paid the $34.95 annual fee to get the NYTimes crossword puzzle online?

The newspaper experience has deteriorated across most of the senses over the past thirty years. Editors and art directors have been messing with the format of our newspapers for so long that I have to squint at my memories to see the glorious black and white parade of narrow columns on the stiff, slightly yellow newsprint that crackled just so when you turned the page.

I equated our newspaper's lack of color with a Joe Friday consciousness--Just the facts, ma'am.
What is it I really want from a local morning newspaper?

• The chance to sit in bed from 6:15-6:45 a.m. wrapped in a quilt, drinking coffee and turning pages.
• The NYTimes crossword puzzle
• Doonesbury
• Zits
• One Big Happy
• Bizarro
• Get Fuzzy
• Dilbert
• Scott Burns' financial columns
• Scott Cantrell's arts reviews
• The weekly Guide to events, performances, exhibits, and restaurants

How much is the quilt/hot coffee experience worth in pounds carried to the recycing cart?

A Three Hour Tour

When the Howell's finally got off the island, were they able to look back on their experiences and consider it a vacation success???? Don't millions of people go on expensive trips every year looking for a memorable experience far out of the realm of their normal day-to-day life?

What about Alice??? When she returned from her adventures in Wonderland did she feel oddly refreshed? Were her normal concerns and frets absent from her mind? Was she musing in pinafore moments about dancing the lobster quadrille with a handsome stranger who looked a bit like Emile de Becque? Like some enchanted evening you will meet a dormouse..

It's the first day of my mid-summer break. My son went to stay at his dad's for the weekend, so I slept in this morning. Got up mighty late by my standards, 7:20 or so, made coffee, and read the paper (Yes, the Dallas Morning News had one of those annoying yellow stickers on the front page today.) Spent over an hour organizing my internet "Favorites" bookmarks into more usable and alphabetical categories, a typical library junkie neverending activity.

Spent another hour plus reading about the Southern Baptist Convention president, Rev. Bobby Welch waving around a ziplock bag of roadkill frogs to encourage evangelism. I wanted to get beyond the two paragraph item in the DMN Saturday "Religion" section, and look for his recipes. Didn't get as deep in the GoldenPalace.com on-line casino purchase of a fence from the Grassy Knoll that didn't actually date from 1963. Next time I find a dead mouse or lizard out by my patio fence, I will either bag it for Rev. Welch or sell it to the casino as a religious icon. Book'em, Dano!

Decided it was time to get going, shower, and have breakfast about 10:30. Constructed a plan for errands:

1. Half Price Books in Richardson to seek a VHS "Pirates of the Caribbean", and a tacky world music calypso CD with the limbo song.
2. The nail salon to have my painful broken toenail and frightening cuticle helped and beautified. A student stepped on my toe yesterday, and four weeks of clay, paint, and dye have ravaged my hands.
3. A run by the library.
4. A massive grocery expedition at Kroger's.
5. Return home to spend the afternoon reading Elmore Leonard's latest, The Hot Kid, by the condo swimming pool.

Bet that was what The Professor had in mind for the rest of his day after the three hour tour on the Minnow. Sometimes a vacation day doesn't go as planned. Ask anyone who has ever locked the keys in the rental car at a July fourth fireworks display at Kirtland AFB, had to have the divers retrieve their son's molded plastic arm splint from the bottom of a water slide pool at Wet'n' Wild, spent time being questioned in the ER of some vacation town's hospital about their child's black eye and broken arm, knocked the oil pan off the bottom of their Chevy Nova driving on a gravel road in the San Juan National Forest, or had the transmission go out on their 1961 Pontiac Catalina on the drive down from Pike's Peak. Need I mention the jellyfish stings, impetigo, food allergy reactions, corrosive diaper rash due to overdosing on Gerber Baby Cherry Juice, claustrophobic toddlers who refuse to sleep in tents, and traumatic misplacings of "The Special Bunny"?

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale
a tale of a fateful trip,
that started from this tropic port,
aboard this tiny ship.
The mate was a mighty sailin' man,
the Skipper brave and sure,
five passengers set sail that day,
for a three hour tour,
a three hour tour.

The weather started getting rough----It was nearing one hundred degrees in the Metroplex, and hotter than Hades on the strip mall asphalt parking lots. On my fourth stop in search of music and video I entered the twilight zone of the Barnes and Noble music department. The first clerk listened carefully to my three Sphinxy-Jinxy questions:

1. What is that cd being played overhead with the singer who has an even smaller vocal range than Robert Earl Keen's three note, and makes me feel like I've swallowed sandpaper and many cups of truckstop coffee from styrofoam cups then banged my head repeatedly against a concrete block wall outside a rundown cinemaplex with rotting cricket-infested concession garbage and flickering neon?*
2. Is there a soundtrack cd for "Riding Giants"?
3. Where would I find a cd sort of like this Putamayo World Music recording of traditional calypso music, but way more tacky and K-Tel-ish with the limbo song and that one about the lime in the coconut?

This young, spiky-haired, pierced fellow was gently entertained by my queries, and gave me some guidance. He even explained the wonders of the headphones and search systems, sensing that I might be a middle-aged woman who doesn't get out much. Unfortunately, he went off on break. I spent over an hour searching for surf music, luau party cds, Chubby Checker's "Limbo Rock" recordings, calypso, Jamaican steel drum bands, pirate and Errol Flynn movie soundtracks, all of which is actually pretty cheap entertainment. I think my dad needs to go to his Barnes and Noble, and listen to the Brubeck cds. Anything I can do, he can do better!

One of the goodies I found was the Ventures' Greatest Hits**. This cd includes the Hawaii Five-O theme, but I wish it had Wipe-Out. Doesn't matter. I'm one with the big waves. I went on to the nail salon feeling like Gidget.

* (Don't try this at home!)

** ***

...the tiny ship was tossed.
If not for the courage of the fearless crew
the Minnow would be lost.
The Minnow would be lost.

Just as I was starting to think I could be Ginger if I just had a peel and stick beauty mark, fake eyelashes, and a Barbie gold lame dress, a crisis of Vesuvian magnitude struck. The gal doing eyebrow waxes tripped and spilled her pot of hot wax all over my new special [groovy black and lime green nearly perfect] purse, and over my sandals. All the nail salon ladies, and even their elderly male manager, collaborated and commiserated on efforts to remove the wax from my purse, but finally they had to concede the purse was a goner. My purse contents were placed in a plastic grocery bag, my salon services were on the house, and I was off to DSW to purchase a new purse while impersonating a bag lady. [This is a cautionary tale. Always zip your purse at the nail salon. That way a hot wax accident won't ruin your phone and everything else inside!]

No phone, no lights, no motor car,
not a single luxury
like Robinson Crusoe
it's primitive as can be.

Strange day in an alternate galaxy, but I am oddly unperturbed. I feel like Steve in Daniel Pinkwater's Wallpaper from Space***. I feel like a space explorer mountaineer tobaggan team mouse looking for gumballs and cornflakes, and I haven't gone five miles from my house. Time to write a Travel Guide to Disasters, Ointments, and Copays for Under $50 a Day.

APB out for Maureen

Every morning I wake up, wipe the goo out of my eyes, start a pot of coffee, bring in the Dallas Morning News, and sit down at the computer to get my email while the coffee brews. Then, satisfied that the world is still more or less revolving and rotating the same as yesterday with Dallas under an orange Ozone Alert, I scroll through the New York Times online headlines all the way down to the op-eds at the bottom. If I'm lucky, there's a column by Maureen Dowd. When I don't know what to think about the outrageous state of the country, I appreciate Maureen's take on things. If I know exactly what I think, and am wondering why-I'm-not-in-charge-of-the-world [???], it's nice to see that Maureen backs me up.

That's why I'm so worried. Maureen has gone AWOL for several weeks now.

WANTED
Reward Offered

Come back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean...
Come back to the New York Times, Dowd Maureen, Dowd Maureen!

Crabby start to the day

Shame on the Dallas Morning News for placing yellow adhesive advertising stickers on the front page banner many mornings in the past month. I cannot believe the newspaper really wants to annoy and alienate so many subscribers. We don't have to subscribe, you know. We can get our news online. For a small price I could get my New York Times crossword puzzle online, too.

I happen to like waking up early, but slowly, with the newspaper and hot coffee enjoyed in bed. So every morning at six I sneak out front to snag the plastic bag containing the DMN. I pour my first cup of coffee, and head back to bed to open the paper. Dagnabbit!! There's another one of those yellow stickers assaulting my eyes.

Newspapers have always had a silent contract with readers. Both sides know that "All the news that's fit to print," really means "All the advertising they can possibly squeeze in." Everybody got along more or less, as long as the front page was only news reporting. In the latest redesign of the DMN, we got a far left column (not politically of course, just on the page) advertising features in the next day's paper. It's the equivalent of t.v. news teases that say "Cows close four lanes of freeway. Details at ten."

This month, the DMN voided the contract with readers. It started slapping yellow stickers on the front page making sure we all know that advertising is king. The stickers are clearly marked with the 3M trademark. 3M is the maker of Post-It Notes, those ubiquitous "stickies" that contaminate recycled paper and gum up the works of deinking and recycling machines.

The American Forest and Paper Association defines contaminant:

Any item or material that reduces the quality of paper for recycling or makes it unrecyclable. Contaminants include metal, foil, glass, plastic, stickies, food, hazardous waste, carbon paper, waxed boxes, and synthetic fabrics. Collecting paper co-mingled with other recyclables may increase contaminants.

Today's yellow contaminant advertises Troy Aikman's car dealership. If you would like to call Troy and tell him this advertising is proof those concussions on the field caused major brain damage, the number is (214) 361-8100.

Dallas Morning News, a subsidiary of Belo Corp.
508 Young St.
Dallas, TX 75202
Circulation (214) 745-8383
Main number (214) 977-8222
Viewpoints (214) 977-8494
letterstoeditor@dallasnews.com
Fax (972) 263-0456

American Forest & Paper Association
1111 19th Street, NW
Suite 800
Washington, DC 20036
Phone: (202) 463-2700
Email: info@afandpa.org

Urgency

Drove into the 7-11 down at the corner to get a local suburbia newspaper. In the spring there's more to read about students, awards, soccer, and craft shop sales of plastic Easter eggs and fake flowers. Whipping in right behind me was a small vehicle propelled by a nearly explosive male driver of about twenty, in a leather jacket, Converse All-Stars, many earrings, and a "Bad Religion" cap. He spent nearly a minute making his choice, which I thought was mighty studious under the circumstances, before heading to the check-out with his Trojans. I was happy to allow him to go ahead of me in line, and he zoomed off in his beat-up compact car. Nothing in my life has that sense of urgency any more. I like it that way.

I chatted with the cashier about the chill of the wind, and the pretty sunset we had earlier. As I got back in the Buick another young male screeched his old Ford Escort to a halt. I couldn't read his backward cap. I couldn't really understand the hurry anymore.

Better Living Through Billiards

My youngest managed to fit time for billiards practice in the UNM Student Union into his campus visit yesterday while waiting for his academic interviews and departmental tours. Alas, he forgot to take his own cue. It would have been an easy carry-on.

My dad enjoyed hearing about his grandson's trip to Albuquerque, and also about the senior high school billiards club's adventures. Looks like Steverooni may get to travel to a tournament in Michigan next summer since he's the high scorer on the newly-formed team. Yes, Minnesota Fats and Texas Slim battling it out in Michigan...


While the Friday Lunch Gang was here this noon for roast beef sandwiches and tomato soup he got a call from a reporter for the school newspaper. Since half of the Mens and Ladies billiards teams, including the founders, were sitting around my dining table there was a lot of raucous "helping" with the interview. Most of the quotes won't be printable! As Howie says, it's all in the angle of incidence. I'm glad his grandson got that gene, since it definitely skipped me. The closest I get to a Billiards Room is with Colonel Mustard with the lead pipe.

Hovering Parents

The L.A. Times and many other newspapers printed a story this week about Hovering parents. Why do parents my age want to keep micromanaging and superhero rescuing their college kids? Are we creating into a new generation without self-sufficient adults? Didn't anybody read Laura Ingalls Wilder books like Farmer Boy and By the Banks of Plum Creek to their kids? Didn't the kids wish heartily to be the protagonist of My Side of the Mountain, living in a hollow tree and teaching his falcon to hunt?

I love my kids. I am enormously proud of the way they are planning and conducting their lives and even doing their own laundry. They are grown up. I don't get a rush from wiping their noses or paying their library fines.

My oldest will have to deal with Hovering and Swooping parents in his chosen field of higher ed. admin. My younger guys will NOT have to deal with a swooping mom of their own. I don't do it. They are big guys. I let them go hungry when they forgot their lunch boxes in fifth grade. I let them answer to teachers when they failed to study for middle school math tests. I let them be cold when they didn't take a coat to school in January. I worry now about my son who has moved to a northern Yankee state. I hope he will throw a coat in the backseat when he comes home for the holidays. I hope he will put a container of sand in his trunk, and an ice scraper in the glove box. Surprises and blizzards crop up in life, especially when you aren't expecting them. Still, I'm going to let him check Weather.com all by himself.

Went for a walk Friday through my neighborhood and back home down the busy street past the Firestone, 7-11, Sonic Drive-In, and Calloway's Nursery. Slowly became aware of a blur of blue and orange each time I passed a power pole. A small bird with running mascara and a groovy retro outfit was moving from pole to pole along my route. I love it that we have the smallest North American falcon just down the street. I love it that the book says the Sparrow Hawk aka American Kestrel weighs the same as a McD quarter-pounder with cheese.


AMERICAN KESTREL (Falco Sparverius)

COMMON NAMES: Sparrow Hawk

RANGE: Most of North America, excluding the far north

HABITAT: Open savanna-like areas with a few trees, forest edges near open areas, farmsteads, suburbs, city parks, desert areas with cactus

SIZE:
LENGTH: 8-11 inches
WINGSPAN: 20-24 inches
WEIGHT: 3.4-5.3 ounces (equivalent to a quarter-pounder with cheese)

LIFE EXPECTANCY:
WILD: 3-5 years
CAPTIVITY: Up to 14 years


DIET:
WILD: Snakes, lizards, bats, smaller birds, mice, voles, and insects (beetles, grasshoppers, cicadas). Kestrels will feed mainly on mammals and birds during the early parts of the breeding season and lizards and invertebrates later in the breeding season. They concentrate on hunting invertebrates when readily available.
CAPTIVITY: Chicks, mice, and crickets

BEHAVIOR: Kestrels like exposed perches such as telephone poles, wires, fence posts, and dead branches on trees. They are swift, erratic fliers, and in a flat flight they may travel at up to 39 mph, and they can dive at speeds up to 60 mph. They pump their tails and bob their heads while perched, especially when agitated. Kestrels are capable of hovering when hunting, and this behavior is seen frequently over highway medians. They will dive feet first when hunting insects and usually capture them by pinning them to the ground rather than capturing them with their beak. They will dive for other prey items head first to gain additional speed and force.

REPRODUCTION: Kestrels prefer to nest in natural cavities found in trees, cactus, or cliffs, but they will use man-made nest boxes and building cavities. They are dominant over most cavity nesting birds (woodpeckers and flickers), chipmunks and squirrels. Kestrels compete intensely with screech owls for nest sites, and eggs of both species have been found in the same nest. They prefer to nest in sites that are protected from the weather, and in areas where storms come from the south and southwest they nest on east facing slopes with the entrance holes almost always facing east. Their average clutch size is of 5 eggs laid at 2 day intervals. The female is responsible for most of the incubating, but the male does 3-4 hours daily. The incubation period is of 29-31 days, and the fledging of the young occurs at 29-31 days. Because of efficient parental defense, there is a high survival rate for fledglings.

POINTS OF INTEREST: Kestrels are the daytime counterparts of screech owls, and the two species will compete heavily for resources like prey and nesting sites.

Kestrels are the only North American raptor with circular nostrils.



Falcon Characteristics: Kestrels are the smallest and most common falcon in North America and are often incorrectly called “sparrow hawks.” They have the long, swept back wings that are typical of falcons. This design is very special and allows the Kestrel to be very maneuverable in the air in pursuit of prey. The US Air Force designed fighters using the falcons' wing design to gain that same ability to maneuver quickly in the air. The upper mandible of the Kestrel also possesses a notch like other falcons. Called a “killing tooth,” it fits perfectly over the spine of vertebrate prey and allows the tiny falcon to quickly dispatch its catch.


Plumage: Kestrels are one of the few sexually dimorphic (males and females are different) raptors in North America. They are similarly marked, but males have slate blue wings while the females’ are brown and black barred. The dark hood on the Kestrel’s head is characteristic of a falcon, and it is believed to work in conjunction with the malar stripes beneath their eyes to reduce sun glare, much like the shoe polish that football players put under their eyes. The black spots on the nape of their neck are called "false eyes," and they are thought to be protective coloration. The "eyes" deter predators by making it appear that the Kestrel is watching them at all times.

Eyesight: If a Kestrel could read, it could read a newspaper lying on the ground from the top of the Empire State Building. To aid them in keeping their keen eyes on their prey, Kestrels are able to keep their head in practically the same position even while perching on a moving object, like a branch or power line.


Caching: Kestrels will cache food year round, unlike other falcons that only cache during breeding season. When incubating eggs, the cache of excess food ensures that the chicks can be fed even if the male does not return with food. After the breeding season, Kestrels may maintain several sites in places ranging from hollow trees to utility-pole switch boxes. Generally the food will be retrieved within a few hours or days. One female was seen killing and stashing twenty mice provided by scientists.


Pair Bonding and Courtship: Pair formation begins soon after the male has established a territory. Often, the same female will return to a male’s territory to mate, or she will otherwise “visit” males’ territories and eventually begin to associate with one worthy male. Courtship includes dive displays, curtseying, bowing, and courtship feeding. A male will climb 10 to 20 meters into the sky before diving down to swoop just above the female in a dive display. He will also often gather and offer food to the female while chittering during courtship feeding. Once a female associates exclusively with one male, the pairing is complete, and often is permanent. The pair will begin to search for a nest site; the male always leads the female, sometimes enticing her with calls or with food. Females will not seek out nest sites on their own.


STATUS: In general, the Kestrel is the most common North American raptor. There are an estimated 1.2 million pairs, not including the Neotropical component. However, the southeastern race paulus has been listed as "threatened" in Florida. Those populations have declined more than 80 percent since the early 1940's due to habitat loss.

Jazz Sneaky Smock Attack

My dear, demented friend sent me a link to the Daily Nebraskan today about a university opera production of Madama Butterfly. I spent many years in Lincoln reading The Daily Nebraskan aka The Rag. That is how I became a NYTimes crossword puzzle junkie. The Kimball Recital Hall, where the opera will be performed, is a nice hall. I saw many music and dance performances there. It sits on the south side of the sculpture garden. The art department building, Woods Hall is on the north side. My dear watercolor professor's classroom windows looked out on the garden and toward the Kimball. I made countless drawings and paintings outside in the sculpture garden. The front of the Kimball Hall is designed to be a band shell for outdoor concerts in the sculpture garden, so it looks like it has a Neanderthal forehead. The third side of the rectangle is the simply elegant Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery designed by Philip Johnson.


The building is far more beautiful than his Amon Carter Art Museum in Ft. Worth, Texas. The last side of the rectangle is formed by the oldest building on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus, Architecture Hall.

This very funky 19th century building shows up in the movie "Terms of Endearment". It was while Debra Winger was in town to film the movie that she and our governor, Bob Kerrey, future member of the 9/11 commission, began their affair. At that time my boyfriend lived in a third floor apartment that overlooked the patio of the governor's mansion, and the driveway to the gubenatorial garage. The highway patrol officers would chauffeur Ms. Winger to the mansion.....the grill would be hot.....

The last time the boys and I drove up there, in 1999, we went to a Jazz in June concert in the sculpture garden. We got a t-shirt at the concert that is now the star of the Smock Sneak Attack. It sports an image of a giant mosquito playing the trumpet.

Nowadays that mosquito t-shirt provokes a new buzz. After years of expecting preschool kids to don a paint shirt without complaints, and having my expectations drowned in a sea of whining and resistance, I started a new game. I just have to announce that it is time for the Smock Sneak Attack, and each kid quivers with excitement about having a t-shirt popped over his head while he is pretending extravagantly to not expect it. The t-shirts are becoming costumes and characters! The jazz shirt from Lincoln is the star. Many kids also groove on my sons old soccer and baseball uniforms sporting the number three.

Coo Coo Ca-Choo

Last Sunday Dave Barry wrote about that tasty paste we ate in kindergarten and at Sunday School. Robert Fulghum explained that all we really need to know we learned in kindergarten. Today I'm laughing about the equally important things I learned babysitting.

In sixth grade in 1966 I discovered pop music. I moved beyond my red crystal radio kit to a little transistor radio in its vinyl case. Every Saturday afternoon I would listen to the top 49 countdown on KLMS, 1490 AM with my earphone that looked like my grandmother's hearing aid. I could listen while I dug dandelions in the front yard. Any time we complained of boredom, my mom told us we could chose whether to darn our socks or to dig dandelions. That was excellent incentive to learn to entertain ourselves. [Imagine that! We didn't even have a VCR in the backseat of the Chevy. Heck, we had just gotten seatbelts.] And, thank heaven I had a mom with a constructive cure for boredom!

Cue the memory soundtrack:

• Georgy Girl
• To Sir With Love
• What's It All About, Alfie
• Penny Lane
• Ruby Tuesday
• I'm a Believer
• Don't Sleep in the Subway
• I Dig Rock and Roll Music
• I Think We're Alone Now
• Feeling Groovy

I bought 45s for eighty-eight cents in Kresges at the only mall in town. My allowance for four weeks was enough to buy a 45. I put those plastic swirly adaptors in the record centers so I could play them on our hi-fi. I wore Yardley white lip gloss and blue eye shadow, and read both Sixteen and Seventeen magazines. My PaperMate pen was designed by Marimekko, and I was introduced to pizza and Doritos.

The next year I started babysitting for a couple with two daughters during all the Cornhusker home games and the chamber music concerts. This is significant in that

1. I began developing my skills entertaining and educating kids which have served me well as a mom and art teacher
2. I was introduced to the lifestyle of a more affluent socio-economic group
3. I was the beneficiary of football tickets when they couldn't attend
4. They convinced my mom that I was old enough to see Franco Zefferelli's beautiful Romeo and Juliet
5. I developed the ability, now long lost, to visualize the action of a football game from the radio announcer's descriptions
6. I was paid a whopping seventy-five cents an hour, when most of my other "clients" paid thirty-five or fifty cents
7. I had the opportunity to read their copy of The Graduate, or I might still not have a clue what sex is.

Slow down. You move too fast. Got to make the morning last.