A Milk Can Remembers

Please click on the picture above

to enjoy more detailed milk can memories.

How many days, in her day after day never ending job, did Whilhelmina get up at 3 or 4 in the morning, to go out to the barn? The dozen patient Holsteins knew her touch so well. It was a rare day when she had to fix the stanchion in place to keep them still. Bucket after bucket filled to the brim, were poured into the big metal can. Did she sing “Springfield Mountain” to them while she worked? Or did she maybe whistle the jaunty little air she’d played on the piano the night before?

How many pounds of butter did she make? How many children on her farm, or just down the road in the new town, where people didn’t have enough land to keep a cow, flourished on the milk?

Even the metal remains of the old milk can, carry me back through time.

The Assemblage: Dawning of The Music (Part 2 of 2)

To enjoy using this illustration as a beautiful bookmark or gift tag*, click on the image, copy to computer desktop, then print on a piece of card stock paper (available at stationary and photocopy stores).

Permission is granted for non-commericial use only.

Did you miss? Part 1: Live from Polovetsia, It’s Redwood Symphony!

Part 2: The Assemblage: Dawning of The Music

The assemblage is when the music discovers itself. The term ‘assemblage’ is not in my music dictionary, but it’s the most basic and important part of the communal musical experience. Its sense of building expectation makes it my favorite part of concert time. After the pre-concert talk, and long before the concert mistress rises to her feet and calls for attention, the audience is introduced to, or reacquainted with, the players. They stroll on stage, sit down, do a little light tuning, and begin to warm-up their instruments, and practice the solo bits. This night was a particularly fine assemblage. It formed the base of a fantastical, illusory composition.

Like any great work, each instrument enters in her own time. In the case of the assemblage, that arrival is based on absolutely natural timing. Conditions of wind, rain, parking lot perambulation, and the length of the bathroom line each affected the arrival of a player on the scene. He finds his chair, greets his fellows, and begins the ritual of mouthpiece maintenance. She tightens her bow and smoothes on the rosin. The music is coming to life all around her. A flute begins to flutter in excitement, then shrieks, and suddenly drops down in a rapidly descending scale. Vigorous blasts of tooting brass, clear and warm the cold chambers of trumpet, trombone and french horn. Bows dash back and forth with no regularity of motion, each moving on its own path, creating small crescendos and evolving separate tunes out of the mass of sound. I would recognize these abundantly practiced bits later in the great works, but the sense of the individual’s hard-won, repeated effort would be missing.

A really great assemblage captures the spirit that came before the bison’s skin was stretched taut across the void, that would some day emerge as a great kettle drum. It feels the first breath from the first bow that drew across the violin’s ancient forebearer, Grandma Rebec. It is the resurrection of the dawning of music, when a welter of pipes configured itself into a horn.

Just for a moment I wished that I could be recording this. Yet the real joy of this time is that it never can be captured or repeated. The very awareness of anyone’s interest in it as a whole, would compromise the music that emerges on it’s own. The assemblage is the best piece of all. It is live music walking through the door, unstructured and unplanned. It is the quintessential chance composition. It will never be heard again.

It is the perfect jam.

* The wonderful vintage luggage tag background I used for this project is a free public download from the HauntingVisionsStock site. Thank you D-O-H!

Live from Polovetsia, It’s Redwood Symphony! (Part 1 of 2)

Want a closer look at the music? Go ahead and click on the picture above.

Part1: Live from Polovetsia, It’s Redwood Symphony!

The “Polovetsian Dances” drew me to Redwood Symphony’s most recent concert. I wasn’t disappointed. The orchestra clearly loves playing this piece, and no one seems to enjoy it more than the director, Eric Kujawsky. During this piece, the maestro handed over th podium to assistant director, Kirstin Link, and moved back to join the percussionists, at the cymbal stand. The look on his face, each time the music crested to meet those great bells, told the audience that he was immersed in the delicious bursts that reverberated when he closed his instrument in a burst of copper, red bronze, nickel silver and zinc alloy.

I also encountered a new, to me, favorite composer, Lee Actor in the rambunctious piece ”Dance Rhapsody”. My ear heard stories from different individuals, bustling, strolling and interacting in a variety of urban social patterns, in this modern work that combines waltz, tango and fandango rhythms. I’ll be looking for the Redwood Symphony take on this in iTunes.

I could make comments about every piece on the program, such as the lure of Peter Stahl on the English horn in Sibelius’ “The Swan of Tuanela”. Not only could I easily envision the swan craning her neck, but Peter’s music told me just the sensation I’m searching for, when I draw the air up from the base of my spine, past my larynx, into the upper reaches of my soft palette and beyond. That's just the feeling I’m reaching for to get the true flavor of the high G in that Alessandro Scarlatti aria I’m working on. First soprano tutorial , whodda’ thunk it?

But…. my very favorite bit of the concert came before the program began. It came, in fact, during the assemblage.

Tomorrow – Part 2: The Assemblage: Dawning of Music

Even a Stopped Clock Shows The Right Time Twice a Day (Cut-Fold-Make your own Stopped Clock)

PLEASE click on this clock project picture to bring up the fully detailed

print'able migonette clock

I was inspired to create this migonette clock after my friend Marilyn and I went to see the Cartier exhibit at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. Though we enjoyed taking in the wealth (no kidding!) of glorious and exotic luxury items on display, after a while we both felt a little jaded. It's an odd feeling to think of such a concentration of money being in the hands of such a small group of people.

My favorite items were not the lavish necklaces and opulent rings. They were the clocks. I was particularly struck by a collection of tiny migonette clocks all made, of course, from precious gems and layers of pricey stone. One particular gem-of-a-clock was sheeted in blue and white stripes.

It doesn't really matter to me whether a clock is made from alabaster and pearls, or resin and simple beads. With their obvious time portal abilities, I just like timepieces. So I designed and created my own blue and white striped masterpiece from card stock, using the box-outline template that Victoria magazine artist-in-residence Olivia Kanaley, used to create little fall-themed boxes in the October issue of Victoria. Olivia kindly granted me permission to use her box-shaped template in this project and make it available to others on this page.

Keeping in mind, as the poet says, that 'even a stopped clock shows the right time twice a day' (a lot of people seem to be in disagreement about which poet said that), I hope you enjoy constructing your own stopped migonette clock. Feel free to use it either as a time portal or a little container for treats, for you or a friend.

My newly constructed migonette clock is sitting temptingly on my desk. That Henry Purcell piano piece has been rather challenging. I'm thinking that a quick trip back in time, for a Baroque era music lesson with the maestro is in order.

The Simple Romantic recommends that, after your click on the picture to bring up the full view, that you then print this project on a piece of card stock paper. You can get card stock at an office supply store in packages, or often you can buy individual sheets at a large photocopy store

Time on My Hands:Whither Shall I Wander?

Please click on the door above,

to better acquaint yourself with this California time portal

If I step through this Californian Spanish-colonial doorway, an obvious time portal, where will I land? I might expect to end up like Isabella of Castille (of Ferdinand and Isabella fame) in the palace at Segovia shortly before 1492. Yet, I’ve found time travel, like it's mainstream cousin, often drops me off in spots other than those I’d expected.

Like the rabbit that comes out her back door while I'm sitting glued to the entrance she went in, I tend to start out on one simple project and end up in a totally unexpected place.

a) I was supposed to fly to Texas and ended up spending five hours in the Mexico City airport. Every word of Spanish conversation I’d ever employed ABSOLUTELY deserted me as I wandered around in circles attempting to understand how to acquire two tickets to Costa Rica, nearly ending up in Nicaragua. I’m sure there were English speaking people in that airport, but I never found them. Which shouldn’t have been a problem, because normally, my Spanish speaking confidence is high.

On that day, I was reduced to drawing pictures to communicate my needs.

b) In the ‘midst of beginning vocal skill study, the solo voice class accompanist encouraged me to start studying piano, and do so right away. It’s not that these skills are unrelated. I just wasn’t expecting to need to go out and buy a piano. Six years later I am still studying piano, and voice.

Oh - and I ended up studying Italian as well. Again, it's not that it isn't related. It just wasn't in the plan book.

c) I took an intensive class in Photoshop last spring and that led to a fascination with writing apps, for which I’m having to learn a programming language I didn’t know before.

* * *

Think I’ll just open that red door, and see where it takes me. Segovia in 1492, perhaps? Then again Peron’s Argentina, or Cuba in the 1960’s may be just on the other side.

The Dasher: Playing at Past Times

When it comes to European time travel, my forays generally tend towards the world of the nineteenth century English Regency era, with it’s music making (think Paganini), poetry swooning (think Byron), and novel reading (think Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, Fanny Burney). I must admit that there’s another side to these times that occasionally sounds somewhat intriguing.

No I’m not talking about the pastimes I’d have been statistically most likely to have engaged in - legging it up and down freezing cold stairs with cans of hot water, sweating over the cook stove to prepare meals for the middle class family that employs me for little beyond bed and boards, and a few pounds a year, or going blind sewing at piece work for the gentry.

No I’m imagining the fascinating pasttime of (gasp!) high stakes card play. Drifting back to courtly western European society of the eighteenth (think King George III, Marie Antoinette, and Allessandro Scarlattti) and nineteenth century, there’s little other entertainment for a more dashing type of woman. It in’t as though I’d go to work each day or need to devote time to my children or household. Over time, balls loose their luster. A woman who’s been on the town for some time, particularly a matron of certain standing, is likely to disappear into a discrete little card room once she becomes ennuyé with the same partners and conversation.

Beyond the shops, what is a lady to do with her pin money if she doesn’t bet? Of course ones vowels from play, must be paid. Those are debts of honor, of course, and certainly nothing like paying your milliner, mantua maker or sempstress. Those bills from tradesmen and women can be so provoking! But of course, a lady can also always stake her jewels. And if she pawns a family heirloom there’s a good chance her husband will redeem it for her, even if she has outrun her allowance, just a bit.

In a world of extremely limited transportation without television, radio, movies, raves, adventure travel or public restaurants what is a lady to do? Languid tea at a friends over the same old gossip, or a cosy little card party with stakea of a-pound-a-point? And if you and your husband practice looking the other way, maybe your current cicisbeo will even stake you at whist, piquet or quadrille.

With so many forms of entertainment available nowadays, I don’t actually play cards in the modern era. Gambling meccas like Las Vegas and Reno have little appeal for me. But, just for one evening, I’d adore to shrug into my hoops, tie on my coliquot ribbons, spread just a touch of that rouge my sister brought me back from Paris, on my cheekbones, place the patch called ‘lover’s kiss’ just so at the edge of my mouth, and sit patiently while my woman sculpts and powders my hair in the latest chiene couchantestyle.

Those diamond encrusted heels were a little dear, but they make all the difference when it comes to the confidence with which I approach the tables.

Tonight, I’m sure my luck will be in.

A Stitch in Time

Please click on the picture below

for more timely details

* * *

Time Portal Identification Made Easy

I added this Alley Portal in Menlo Park California

to my own Portal Life List, just last week

Even experienced Time Travelers may have difficulty recognizing a time portal when they encounter one. When is a train not just a train? How does a B.C.E. transporter differ from a run-of-the-mill station house? Which alleys lead to Never Land and which only provide the quickest path to the household garbage cans?

I recently caught up with Biding Mytime, a senior staff member with the well-known time travel service "Portal Pilots". Captain "Bide-a-wee", as she's known to her colleagues, who consider her a woman ahead of her time, was happy to share some of the characteristics that will help even a newbie observer, such as myself, spot a few portals to add their Personal Portal Spotters Life List.

The Captain was just folding up a report from maintenance when I entered the Portal Pilots Millbrae BART Station.

“Now look around you,” the good captain intoned with an expansive gesture. “From the outside, you might guess this place is nothing more than a metro station. But you’d be dead wrong!”

I studied the assorted time travelers waiting in the Comman Era (C.E.) terminal. Clearly this was not the typical Bay Area Rapid Transit station. A Roman matron was dangling a squalling toddler, who’d clearly traveled way beyond his comfort era, over the edge of the escalator hand railing. A medieval monk in the corner was chanting to himself, or maybe into his Blue Tooth device, while a surcoated devotee of Joan of Arc, clearly waiting for the next transport back to the crusades, engaged in a little light-sword practice in the corner. I moved gingerly away from the knights combat-zone-of-choice and offered to buy the captain a beverage.

Over a friendly cappuccino, latte, double foam, hold-the-pease-pottage Captain Bide-a-wee explained some of the spotters tricks she’s picked up over the years.

“It’s like this, Hon. Time friendly transport mechanisms abide by certain rules.” She wiped some foam off her metal breastplate, and took another long thoughtful swallow. “See first off, you gotta remember that time is of the essence.”

I nodded, trying to look like I was understanding the lesson.

Then she pointed to a large digital clock on the wall. “So you might think that would take you some where.”

I nodded again, actually thinking I was getting somewhere with my studies.

“So, is that clock a time portal?”

She snorted and choked on her drink. “Well of course, that thing is no portal.” She studied it for a moment, clearly turning over in her mind, the best techniques for instructing the utterly clueless. “Fair to say there are clocks that’ll get ya’ where you’re going. But that ain’t one of ‘em. And why? Can you tell me?”

I studied the large, ugly gray time piece in a bemused fashion. “No, I suppose it’s not-“

She thwacked one leather covered knee pad. “That’s right, Hon. ‘Cuz after you stare at that awhile, you can’t say you had a lovely time, can you?”

I agreed I could not.

“But this place, “ she pointed to the station walls. “Is a legend in it’s own time. So,” she turned one palm up indicating the obvious, “here we have an obvious portal.”

I took another sip of my own drink and considered her explanation. “I’ve got an old carriage clock at home. It doesn’t run anymore, of course, but I’ve always had a feeling about it.”

She thumped her cup on the counter and gave me a broad grin. “Now you’re thinkin’ straight, girl. That somethin’ that’s stood the test of time.” She unfolded, and spread out, the report she’d tucked into the capricious leather bag, tied belt-like to her waist. Now look-a here at the portal types our gals will be inspecting in the area this week.”

I studied the maintenance engineers list.

bridge

canyon

ladder

path

alley

creek

Standing Stones

cave

trail

painting

mirror

clock

train

station house

“How many Standing Stones do you find in the San Francisco Bay Area?”

She grinned and tapped her nose with a knowing wink. “You’d be surprised!”

I was just about to suggest I buy her another drink when the voice of the gate agent came over the loud speaker, announcing, “Time is ripe.”

The captain jumped suddenly to her feet with a clash of breastplate against the back of the metal counter, that resonated throughout the station. “Well, Hon, there’s no time to lose, time and tide wait for no woman. Good luck with the spotting. Just remember to take your own sweet time.”

A woman ahead of her time indeed! A few minutes later she disappeared through the doorway marked Time Flies, Staff Only. I was a little disappointed not to spend more time with Captain Bidingtime, but time, after all, is money.

Mabel's Really Bad Idea

Please click on the picture above for the full story

Families: Dear Martha

Please click on the picture above to see the whole story

Oh! Hard Times, Come Again No More....

Stephen Foster

Short Shot of Beethoven's 9'th

Turkey’s in the Pot and All’s Right With the World

for a little more turkey'liscous detail, click above

My husband’s idea of Dante’s Inferno is being forced to smell a turkey cooking. It’s not that he’s allergic to it. He just doesn’t like it. He will consume some white meat once a year on Thanksgiving. After that he may be convinced to down a little stir fry with leftover meat. Pretty much the rest is for me. I happily make myself a big pot of soup from the carcass and slowly consume it, remarking every few days on the delights of real turkey soup.

For the time being, I’m the supper-cooker in our house. My husband is a good cook, but his work is over-the-top right now. So, temporarily, I’m anointed. As long as nobody complains, I don’t mind. Y’all remember the Moose-Turd-Pie joke, right? (Good though!)

Last week, when I was feeling no end special recovering from my root canal, nothing suited me but turkey soup. Real evocative-of-my-childhood turkey broth, made from the bones of the fowl. OK, I make it in the microwave which never seems quite as real as the way my parents did it in a pressure cooker. My husband ate other things during my root canal recovery stage.

The challenge is that having made myself turkey soup with real bones, I have leftover turkey meat. I was MUCH too special to chew the meat while my mouth resumed it’s functions. And, being the children of depression-era parents, we can’t bear to feed the cats entirely on cooked turkey, not that they haven’t benefited.

There is one other thing Dave will eat made from turkey. That is turkey pot pie. I make it like a savory cobbler with a biscuit topping. He is quite partial to the buttermilk biscuit recipe ( substitute a little parmesan for the sugar and cinnamon) I use. In fact, I bet he would happily consume the substance my father delicately refers to as “horse pucky”, if it had a biscuit crust on top.

Being as it’s not actually Thanksgiving, Dave can’t bear the thought that he is eating turkey. So, tonight, we are having CHICKEN pot pie.

Hold the chicken.

High Speed Rail: Train is a Comin’

Train is a comin’, oh yeah.

Train is a comin’, oh yeah.

Train is a comin’, Train is a comin’, Train is a comin’, oh yeah.

African American Spiritual

High Speed Rail (HSR) sounds great to most of us. Who can ignore current and future challenges when it comes to transportation? But must we recreate problems from the twentieth century?

Urban planners across the country work, to resolve the problems created by elevated rail structures typically, built between the early part of the 19’th century up until the 1980’s. Citizenry in places like Boston and Chicago, deal with problems created by these wide platforms that appeared like the tentacles of a giant squid from a Disney movie. Massive walls and roofs divided once flourishing communities, where trees and fresh air once flourished, children walked to school and neighbors of all ages walked easily to the grocery store, or socialized on an afternoon stroll. This past-times scenario sounds familiar, in fact it sounds like my own community today.

Of course these days, sane analysts and engineers don’t favor these type of urban constructions. They’ve learned from experience that these type of comparatively cheap, monstrosities lead to urban blight of the worst kind. It isn’t only the individual property owner who suffers when her backyard or entire house is consumed by the gaping maws of elevated rail tracks, it’s the entire society. Children and elderly neighbors can’t walk to school or the grocery store safely, or easily, anymore because walls below the elevated tracks have changed the outline of the town. Besides you wouldn’t want to anyway. The cops don’t have the resources to police the danger zones that flourish beneath the shelter of overpasses. Want a good place to meet up with your gang or shoot up? These constructions are the place for you! High track rail doesn’t tend to deposit a large, long-lasting fund for perpetual cleanup services needed within the area, and history has shown us that cities have typically lacked the resources needed to deal with the results. Could you design a better spot to attract garbage and vermin? Local business and industry suffers too. People don’t want to shop or work in a place like this.

As a matter of fact, communities across the country, like this one in New York, http://www.good.is/post/high_line_gets_off_the_ground/, are working to tear down, cleanup and rededicate these symbols of urban blight. It’s taking tremendous community efforts to turn these dangerous and unbeautiful community eyesores into parks and greenbelts. It’s clear that commercial, industrial and residential users have suffered where elevated tracks grew. But surely we’re a lot smarter than that now? I mean – we must have learned from experience, right?

Apparently not. The California High Speed Rail Authority thinks they know better. Out of four original plans for constructing a system for fast trains between San Francisco and Los Angeles, they simply chose the cheapest. The Feds put seed money on the table, and we need to grab it, and do something with it, while the grabbing is good. Seductive images of High Speed Rail, just like they’ve got in Europe!, will streak residents down south in two and a half hours. It’s only those NIMBY’s (not-in-my-back-yard-ers) whose houses back up on the new elevated tracks – five freeway lanes wide up and down the peninsula and eight wide at crossings - who aren’t willing to sacrifice for the common good. Ridership estimates? Sure everybody will be jumping on board, no matter what we charge ‘em! And the funding we still need to pay the lowest construction costs we can come up with? It’s in the bag!

Hey, you can count on us to know what we’re talking about. Our best people told us so. Just ignore that study released in June by the Institute Of Transportation Studies University Of California, Berkeley at the request of the California Senate Transportation and Housing Committee, “Review of “Bay Area/California High-Speed Rail Ridership and Revenue Forecasting Study” http://www.its.berkeley.edu/publications/UCB/2010/RR/UCB-ITS-RR-2010-1.pdf

Better public transportation - we need it. But we need it good and we need it done right. If we destroy the vibrant communities of the Peninsula in order to get it, then just who are we serving?

. . .

* Peninsula residents know it can be done better http://www.peninsularail.com/main/Call_for_Common_Sense/page63.htm The Peninsula Cities Consortium (PCC) If you want to stay on top of ideas and activities involving local people, sign-up to get the PCC newsletter. http://www.peninsularail.com

* Another regular e-newsletter is available from CC-HSR. Current “Hot Topics” at the Community Coalition on High Speed Rail (http://cc-hsr.org/) include: financial risks of HSR, report on HSR activities, and update on litigation. This group’s efforts to involve * Peninsula citizens in the Environmental Impact Report for High Speed Rail, led to it’s decertification. An excerpt from their site (http://cc-hsr.org/) reads, “The program-level EIR for the SF Bay Area was decertified in December as a result of the successful lawsuit. CHSRA had to re-do this EIR and accept new evidence and public comments. CC-HSR coordinated with peninsula cities, rail advocates, and the general public to make sure we built the strongest possible case under CEQA for a routing decision that didn't destroy our communities or undermine our economy.”

* A recent San Francisco Chronicle article talks about where we stand now in regards to building and funding

“San Joaquin award helps set high-speed rail's path”

o “…state high-speed rail officials say the decision on where to start building the 800-mile high-speed rail network has yet to be made.”

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/10/28/BAH11G3J0L.DTL#ixzz150dAb7Dj

Caveat Emptor

Please click the picture above to enjoy consumerism at it's best

Searching for Csilla: The Library in Part 4

Please click on the picture above to enjoy the details of this library,

an illustration in the serial story, Searching for Csilla

Once she’d confirmed that the lovely, Romanesque style red brick building two blocks down, was indeed 1229, Ezther was ready to move on.

“Wait a minute.” I scurried up the steps to read from a brass plaque bolted to the wall. “The sign says it’s the original library and it was built in 1917.”

“Oh you and your old buildings!”

Catchup on the story, Searching for Csilla

Searching for Csilla: Part 4

Did you miss any previous episodes in this serial?

Searching for Csilla: Part 1, Searching for Csilla: Part 2, Searching for Csilla: Part 3

The old mission buildings had been restored about five years before. I stopped to run my fingers over the rough walls and admire the bits of gravel and ancient straw that had been left sticking out of the plaster.

My daughter passed the time while I admired the building, checking her incoming text messages.

“Really Ezter, you ought to look at the color of this stucco. Isn’t it gorgeous? Can you imagine the people who did all this labor? I wonder what they talked about when they were working and what they thought of it when it was done.”

“Umm. We had to listen to a whole lecture on it in my class. Do you know what the population of native people was estimated at before the friends-of-the-inquisition arrived and forced the locals to build this place? And do you know how many of them died from the diseases the Spaniards introduced?”

“No. How many before and after?”

“Unh, well I forget. I learned it for the midterm, though. And if you recall, our people didn’t hold up so well in that era either.” Ezter slipped her phone back in her purse and gestured down the street. I think the numbers go up if we go that way. I’m looking for 1229.”

I took one glance back at the red tiled roofs, sent out a brief wordless message to the people who’d built them, as well as those who’d been compelled to create buildings from the monuments of Rome to the great white buildings in Washington D.C. , and followed after my daughter.

Once she’d confirmed that the lovely, Romanesque style red brick building two blocks down, was indeed 1229, Ezther was ready to move on.

“Wait a minute.” I scurried up the steps to read from a brass plaque bolted to the wall. “The sign says it’s the original library and it was built in 1917.”

“Oh you and your old buildings!”

“It’s one of your old buildings, isn’t it? Didn’t you say this is where your field trip is? It’s probably to do with the library.”

“No. It’s something about a time capsule that was buried in the yard when they built this. One of the humanities profs is opening it tomorrow. And there’s some guest coming from somewhere in Europe I think. I’m not sure.”

“If it was built in 1917 that was just a year after my great-aunt and her husband moved here from Hungary. You remember what I told you about your Grandmother and her twin? They were so close. And her sister left before things got so terrible for Jewish people during and after the war. But then Csilla died here and Grandmother survived to come later.”

“Un huh,” Ezther was clearly unimpressed. At this point in her life, her interest in history didn’t extend back much beyond how many pounds she’d pressed the day before, and how long it had been since she’d eaten apple cobbler.

I moved around the brick porch and read the rest of the plaques, using the light of my phone to pick out the letters under the dimness of the overhanging roof. I learned that the library had been built using money from one of the Carnegie grants, and that the original site had been something to do with an area called ‘Las Pilitas’.

By the time I finished reading the plaques and descended the steps, Ezther had found a flat square of grass and was doing some kind of abdominal exercises. They looked painful. There was an old walkway of colored mosaic tiles that wandered around past the steps and disappeared on the other side of an ancient growth of prickly pear cactus, that was covered in beautiful apricot and yellow buds .

The path was clearly a lot older than the library. I followed it around to the back of the building. It looked a lot like an old television show from my sixties-era childhood, called ‘Old Mission Days’.

There was a circular courtyard of terracotta pavers complete with a bubbling fountain, well stocked with algae but charming non the less. An adobe bench had been shaped out of a crumbling wall topped with more of the mosaics. The broken shards shimmered in the afternoon sun. Just as I’d been attracted to the walls of the mission, their very age made me want to touch them. I sat down on the old seat and slid a hesitant finger over the plaster, enjoying the rough texture and the warmth that rose from the old material after a day of absorbing the sun’s energy. Something swished past the fountain and a large, marmalade tom cat advanced slowly across the pavers in my direction. I wiggled one foot encouragingly

The motion raised some loose gravel that shot back under a gap in the bench and I felt a whiff of warm air rise up from underneath. There was a kind of faint snuffling sound and something rustled along beneath my seat. I’d had one or two encounters with mice that I hadn’t particularly enjoyed. I rose up quickly as the marmalade gentleman shot across the patio, his chubby cheeks aquiver with interest, and disappeared under the ledge of the stucco bench.

To Be Continued

Csilla's Story: Part 3

Please click on the picture above for more clues-following detail

Did you miss any previous episodes in this serial?

Searching for Csilla: Part 1

Searching for Csilla: Part 2

As I reached behind the art deco lamp and drew out the antique secretary box that Hilda pointed out, something inside me quivered. There was a something in this box, that was meant just for me.

The sensation reminded of a popular British mystery series my mother likes to read. The detective is an antiques dealer who has a sixth sense for the truly valuable, the one in a thousand true finds. She always feels a sudden tingling in her flesh when she touches something old that is truly unique. And of course that same little bit of e.s.p. always led her to discern who-done-it. I had tried one of the books and found myself unable to buy into the fantasy of the psychic reaction. Now my own skin was prickling.

I was sure I could feel something pulsing as I began thumbing through the old ivory edges in their plastic sleeves. The light was so dim in my corner of the shop, that I could barely make out the images of European castles, outsized pieces of fruit and scenic wonders of the western United States.

By the time I got to the very last card in the box, my hand was actually shaking. The card had fallen over onto it’s face and lay wedged against the back of the box. I’d known all along that this was it, the quest for this object had drawn me to this shop.

Was it a mistake that had positioned the card like this, I wondered? Or had some unseen presence hiding the image from a chance glance placed it there, just for me to find? Carefully, I dug the card out and, still keeping it upside down, I walked across the store to lay my find atop a red lacquer table that stood beneath an art deco skylight. Very slowly, I turned the plastic wrapped image over.

A beautiful, ribbon bedecked pig smiled up at me. So much for my spiritual quest.

“Did you find something, you liked?” Hilda was at my elbow, eyeing the red lacquered table in an appraising manner.

I picked up the card and pointed to it’s $3.95 tag. “Yes. My daughter has a collection of vintage Lucky Pig cards. She ought to like this one.”

“Oh yes? Did you look through that whole drawer? I just got that batch of cards in a few days ago. Maybe whoever brought them in was a collector as well. I’ll tell you what, you write down your name and email and I’ll keep my eyes peeled for you.”

As I followed her back to the counter I guessed that any future lucky pigs were going to cost me more than a nickel short of four bucks. Really the mystical spirit that moved me had been my daughters pig collection! Did I not have a life?

The two dealers were examining an old Raleigh bike in the front of the shop when I went up to pay for my solitary card.

“They just never believe me when I tell them I can’t pay more than forty or fifty dollars for an early twentieth century bike! It’s ninety years old and it works. Must be worth a fortune!”

“Especially since that article in the local about that Sudbo that turned up. Didn’t somebody pay ten thousand for it? Well you never know, Gail. Maybe somebody will bring us in one of those next. After all, he did build a hundred of them. There might just be another one in a shed somewhere that didn’t make it to the scrap yard.”

“Stranger things have happened. Hey, speaking of hot finds, did you hear that “County Pickers” got-“

I tuned out the two dealers fond hopes, and went on my way with my solitary pig card rattling around in it’s paper bag. Ezter had better appreciate it. I was starting to laugh at myself for putting together my fantasy discovery story. I’d wanted to see my daughter and made up an excuse to make it happen. I wondered what specials were on the menu at the Bear Valley Diner.

Over a a late lunch for me, and a very early supper for my daughter, I heard about Ezter’s three new clients at the gym. Two had asked for her by name. She had changed her major from business to sports nutrition that semester, and the new job was about all she seemed to think about, or at least it was all she was willing to tell her mother about.

I remembered the lucky pig card, midway through the apple cobbler à la mode. My daughter examined it briefly and dropped it casually in a plastic envelope in her purse. “Don’t lose it I snapped I paid $3.95 for it. When you decide to sell that prize collection of yours, in twenty years it could be worth $4.50.”

“Why are you being crabby, Mom? Bet you didn’t get enough exercise with driving down and all.” Besides, she added practically, they don’t put out the free cookies in your hotel until 4 o’clock.”

My daughter, the personal trainer was probably right. A walk after a big meal was always a good idea. And I still had that deflated feeling, as though something, but what I didn’t know, hadn’t panned out.

“Where do you want to go? Monterey?”

Monterey Street contained three of Ezter’s favorite clothing stores.

“I knew what’ll happen if we go that way. Let’s shop for you tomorrow morning before I leave. You probably need two new pairs of workout pants and at least three of those sixty dollar lace bras that last about four months.”

She wrinkled her nose but gave in.

“What about that area around the mission? I’ve got to drive down there on a field trip for my architecture class tomorrow afternoon, and I need to figure out where we’re going and if there’s parking.”

“Field trip on a Saturday?”

She shrugged. “It was the only time everybody could go. We’re not weekend slugs like when you were in college, Mom. You have no idea how much harder it is to be a student than it was when you were one.”

I kept my mouth firmly closed, having heard it before.

To be continued