Is there blood on the carpet?

Do you really need to call me at work? When my sons were adolescents and I was a working single mom we developed a useful guideline. I expected the boys to settle disputes and handle problems themselves up to the code level of blood on the carpet.

Tonight Dad has his undies in a bunch for no reason. Having left one phone message on my cell, he's calling and calling my home and cell phones so I can't even get a return call through to him. When I finally catch him he says he was about ready to call my brother to have him call me. What's the emergency? What's the problem? Is there blood on the carpet?!

Dad was just calling to tell me about his supper. This is our daily call. Sometimes it is the first of several evening calls. I remind him of the days when his grandsons had the blood-on-the-carpet rule. He remembers and laughs. For a second we are in the present remembering the past together in a relaxed way.

I love you. I'll call you tomorrow when I get home from work. Don't call me unless there's blood on the rug.

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Downhill combined

Dad has no patience for the Winter Olympics tv coverage. He was glad to be freed from figure skating competitions when Mom died five years ago. Now he can't tolerate any of the downhill events. Instead he wants to be scooting his wheelchair out the door to keep tabs on the hallway happenings of the skilled care floor.

Dad is assisted living's answer to Dick Buttons and Scotty Hamilton. He is all about scoring, judging, and commentating on the skilled care facility medal events. The nurses, aides, food-servers, bathers, therapists, activity coordinators, and housekeepers are all being judged on a his strict Eastern European Cold War scale.


It took three phone calls Thursday evening for Dad to fully judge and report the carpet cleaning event. One phone call was to inform me that the one-man sawed-off bobsled was actually a National Sanitation Service (NSS) Pony 20 SCA carpet extractor for cleaning the hallway.

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

A Foggy Day in Lifesize Town

It had me low.
It had me down.
The "17-day charge capacity" time and energy concept on his new Norelco rechargeable electric razor has Dad in a fog. He needs a lot of attention to talk him through. He needs more help to ponder the best way to break the safety seal on a tube of Avon hand lotion. Small projects, big worries.

Many recording artists have sung George and Ira's "A Foggy Day in London Town." I'm hearing Julie London singing from a clearance bin LP Dad brought home for our hi-fi in the mid-Sixties.



My little art students are beginning a trace-around project. I haven't tackled one of these projects for a couple years because they are joyful, messy, logistical nightmares. On the upside, trace-arounds are popular and fun to display.

Wednesday the kids took turns lying down on a big roll of brown butcher paper in a pose. I traced around forty-five kids. Seeing the outline is exciting as each child loves to know just how big he/she really is.

I hope to post photos of the completed project in April. Until then, I have my own visual aid letting me see exactly how big and ground down my teeth are. My, what big teeth you have, Grandma!

But in foggy Lincoln town my dad is shaving...


© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

How was your guilty day? Ask me about mine.

My students take a sideways glance toward me whenever they are doing something they shouldn't. Now I know how Mr. Salestrom felt patrolling East High when he was the principal of vice. As a former Cornhusker football hero, Mr. Salestrom had hallway cred. His cross-armed presence in the study hall was enough to make most mischievous deviants reconsider their plans.

My father phones me to chat whenever he thinks the aides might contact me. Dad would rather confess to a misdemeanor than be ratted on for a felony by the staff in his skilled care unit.

Cheezits! Howie got me again the moment I walked in the door after work. He was so pleased with himself because he had already had supper and his "afternoon purge". He had told the nurse aide offering to check his ear wax "at no charge" to "get the hell out" so he could have his dump. I said I was sure he was more polite, but he wasn't. Then he went into the litany of his meal menu, and said it was time to hang it up. I said, "Gosh, we can hang up, but I thought you would want to ask about my day."

"Oh. We could do that," Dad says.

I laughed, and proceeded to tell him about the girl barfing ALL OVER THE CLASSROOM, and me bravely leading the other children to the library for an impromptu storytime to prevent copycat chain-reaction vomiting. So, Dad, you don't really want to ask about my day today. But in the future it might be a nice gesture!

© 2010 Nancy L. Ruder

Eggs and eels

Life is short except when it is so long, and breakfast should be the best meal of the day. When I am old I will especially want exactly what I crave at breakfast. Don't mess with me!

We have just realized that Dad's allergy chart lists eggs, so he hasn't been served an egg--over easy, poached, or scrambled--since at least June. Somehow a very old list of allergies that may or may not cause eczema has limited Dad's breakfast choices. All this time I just thought he had developed a strange fondness for cream of wheat!

You are old, Father William, and you should have eggs cooked to your specifications! But no eel. Please do not balance your breakfast on your nose.

I'd forgotten that Father William is a creation of Lewis Carroll, and went searching for the old guy and his eel in Edward Lear's poetry.

"You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose
That your eye was as steady as ever;
Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose
What made you so awfully clever?"

"I have answered three questions, and that is enough,"
Said his father. "Don't give yourself airs!
Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs.

[Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) First publication date: 1855]

Peter Pan did not grow up. My dad is growing younger by the day. Christopher Robin had so many meals of sweetened condensed milk with Pooh. I plan to read the novel Alice I Have Been, by Melanie Benjamin, maybe even in time for the author's talk at the DMA Late Night on March 19th.

Arts & Letters Live: Melanie Benjamin
Date Friday March 19, 2010
Time 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM



© 2009 Nancy L. Ruder