Fellow Time Traveller: Crotalus cerastes

Please click on the illustration above to enjoy all the lovely details 

involved in Crotalus cerastes passing through her chosen time portal

The rains are over, the rabbits and gophers are out and soooo is sommmmebody else. Isn't she lovely? And she was ever so polite about letting me know she was there, about a foot up the side from the trail. I was irritated that I left my audio recorder in the car. Her conversation with me, would have been such great audio for my next podcast. 


I knew when I created this  background, that it was somebody's idea of the perfect time portal. I just hadn't realized, until I stopped by Edgewood Park* for a short hike on the way to a music lesson, that it was the preferred time portal for Crotalus cerastes (a.k.a. one beautiful California rattlesnake).


* Edgewood Park Preserve, San Carlos, San Mateo County, San Francisco Bay Area. Put your snake proof boots in the car, Take the Edgewood Exit off Highway 280, meander down the hill. Parking is just off Edgewood Road. Part of County Park System . No dogs (but just across the road is a Mid-Penninsula Open Space Region trail that permits dogs)

Part 2: Cradle Songs & Distant Melodies- Information Technology Runs In the Family

To read Part 1, please click on the following link
Part 1: Cradle Songs & Distant Melodies, "Where are you from?"

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Part 2: Cradle Songs & Distant Melodies

Information Technology, Runs In the Family

To begin with, the ‘where do you come from’ question had a lot to do with my parent's life. In the sixties, seventies and eighties they followed a variety of programming jobs through the midwestern and western United States. So for a bit, as children, we came from Vandalia Ohio, Lansing Michigan, Seattle Washington, and Sierra Vista Arizona. Then later, for a time, we came from Claremont and Camarillo, and Ventura California.

Following in our father’s footsteps, my sister and I both applied our university degrees to writing software as well. It seemed rather quaint to think that we were second-generation programmers at a time when the field was so new. In point of fact we were following a familiar path. Family involvement in information technology was nothing new. My maternal grandfather, Charles Herman, his sister, my great-aunt Mabel, and their father, also Charles, were all telegraphers. Telegraphy, like software development, had been the latest, newest way to make a good salary and be caught up in the newest thing. It also meant that my mother’s family survived the Great Depression without missing a paycheck. Being a telegrapher in Chicago was a good way to remain employed.

So, information technology means we’ve been off the farm for a long time. Except that my father, his mother and little brother survived the thirties by going back to the farm. While my paternal grandfather went on the road as a traveling salesman, his family bunked around with whomever in the family would take them in. And those best equipped to do that, were farmers.

Farm life taught my father how to work hard, something he continues to do in his mid eighties. He developed a fount of really corny family jokes. He also learned to make a mean dish of hash browns on top of a griddle. So, I guess if you’d met him during the Depression, you would have said that my father came from a farming culture. Except of course he didn’t.

Back in Deerfield Illinois my mother was exposed to another culture, something that had nothing to do with her family. She had a card at the local free library and there she met the librarian who suggested that anybody who read as much as Peggy, ought to go to college.

Nobody in Mama’s family had ever gone to college, but it sounded like a good idea to her. Though she had enjoyed small-town suburban life as a child, she rebelled against it as a teenager. When Peggy Herman graduated from high school, she took a train into Chicago and got herself a job at the stationary company, H.R. Donnelley. Then, when World War II broke out, she got an even better paying job in the war plants. And a few years later, Mama had managed to put herself through college paying for it entirely, with the money she had earned herself. So if you asked Peggy Herman where she came from, she’d say, the University of Chicago.

Next Time: My Old Neighborhood

Listen to this entire story in the April Edition of "Unpolished Performances", a free podcast in the iTunes Store. Download it by clicking on this link.

Part 1: Cradle Songs & Distant Melodies- Where are you From?

Part 1: Cradle Songs & Distant Melodies

“Where are you from?”

You can LISTEN to this entire story in the April Edition of "Unpolished Performances", a free podcast in the iTunes Store. Download episodes, by clicking on this link.

That question starts off so many conversations. I’ve never known how to answer it. It comes up about the time we get down to brass tacks, when it comes to really knowing something about each other.

I can see the wheels turning in the other woman’s head, just as they are spinning in mine. Did her parents come from some other shore? What was her school and home life like? Does she come from a rural, suburban or urban environment? Once I know those things, the answers will lead, rightly or wrongly, to some kind of judgement call when it comes to the opinions she is likely to have.

The best answer I can come up with is that I’m a Californian. Much of my education was here. I came of age, married and began my adult working life in the San Francisco Bay Area. So many of my opinions might be typecast as a California point of view. Yet, those opinions were influenced by the wide-ranging backgrounds of the people I lived with in college, neighbored with in my first house, and worked closely with in my profession. I’ve also been affected by all the other places I lived, even those we only passed through on our way to California. And, of course, I was affected by my parent’s experiences in the Midwest, during the Great Depression and World War II. The historical record before that is dim. No doubt I’ve been influenced by a wide-ranging web of ancestral experiences and memories, and not all of them come directly through my bloodline.

Surely there are a number of places I’ve come from. The real question is, where am I going?

Listen to this entire story in the April Edition of "Unpolished Performances", a free podcast in the iTunes Store. Download it by clicking on this link.

Sewing: Maui Star Flower Quilt

A GOOD mother would slowly and painstakingly craft this quilt stitch by stitch over a year sacrificing all to complete it, her only pleasure the knowledge that her darling child is warm at night. A BAD mother creates a digital version in less than an hour, and then gets on with her own homework.

Please click on the Maui Star Flower Quilt illustration above 

to enjoy all the wonderful starry details

Pele Dreams of Waking in Haleakala

Please click on this illustration above  

to enjoy all the glorious details

Someone near and dear to me has been visiting the island of Maui this week.

Don't be wakin' Pele up, Darlin'!

Russia Bound: My Heart Beats Faster in Past Times (Full Story - Free Audio/Podcast Download)

The illustration details are even more fun if you click on the the picture above

A Time Travel Short Story

copyright L.Shimer, 2011

Russia Bound: My Heart Beats Faster in Past Times

sprang from the pages of this art-journal

In Part 1: Trip Planning  Larisa found her old spiral notebook from Russian class  ..That notebook had a Peter Max design on the cover....Remember the poster of his we put up when we were freshmen, and what that gross boy down on the second floor wrote on it? 

Part 2-The Samovar's Story: 

Note To Self:Keep a low profile. Do not cheese the Empress off

Part 3-The Winter Palace: 

I put up one hand to the gaping bodice of my Worth-like costume, in almost a parody of feminine modesty, feeling suddenly breathless, and not only from the corset. It was as though an electric current had passed through me with the entrance of this man.

Part 4:  - My Heart Beats Faster 

I returned the stare, for a little longer than normal. What could there possibly be in a pair of eyes and a deep bass voice to make me feel a sense of immediate connection to a man I knew nothing about. The cool air of the church hammered against my lungs.

Part 5: - A Spot of Tea in the Winter Palace I'd never before seen a table spread with as much food as that one in the Winter Palace. While the hard-working peasants were struggling to grow enough food to content themselves with black bread, and the cabbage soup known in Russia as 'shee', the imperial court of the Romanovs, were- well now I know where the expression, 'eating royally' comes from.

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Did you begin to read this serial and wonder what happened next?
~ ~ ~
I've recorded the *complete story* as episode 5 of The Simple Romantic's podcasts, "Unpolished Performances", You can download it (it's free) at the iTunes store, by clicking on this link.

If you prefer, you can listen live on the web by clicking on this link.

Sewing: Cliff Rose Dreamin' Quilt (Lady Lizbeth's Sewing Chronicles)

~~More from "Lady Lizbeth's Sewin' Chronicles~
  The Pithy Sayings of Lady Margaret Hoby"

The comfort of mankind, should be your aim.~ Towards gentle folk, of course, should your product be directed, as they are fitted by a higher power to receive that which you sew.~ Very occasionally, however, the deserving poor might also be worthy of your gifts.

Please click on the illustration below to better enjoy the details of Lady Lizbeth's Cliff-Rose Dreamin' Quilt

Romancing the Job: Makin' A Buck

Just Makin' a Buck?

 He LOOOKS like a regular working man from the Andes but in truth he's...

Romancin' the Job: The Dairy

 The Dairy
Please click on the illustration above
for a fuller appreciation of a job enjoyed 

Bird in the Bush (Green Movement Humor)

Go ahead and click on the illustration above,
 to fully enjoy the details


~~~


 Recent Letter to Japan: 
  
 Nature can be a tough friend 

Letter to Japan, March 11, 2011

Sister far island

I live on the edge here too

Sleep Pacific plate

Befuddled by Baht: Sherlock Holsemn’ the Coin

 Please click on the illustration above to enjoy the lovely details

Befuddled by Baht

Sherlock Holsemn’ the Coin

It’s a baht coin (฿) from Thailand.

Sherlock Holmes could, no doubt, have told you that in less than a minute. It took my husband, who spent the off hours of his childhood collecting coins, about a half an hour to find the coin’s primary origin.

But how did it make it way, way down the far reaches of our driveway? More precisely how did it turn up just in front of our back gate?

It’s extreme cleanliness told us that it hadn’t lain there long.

Besides, my husband is a geologist who spends much of his life looking for anomalies under foot. He was absolutely sure that it hadn’t been been there the day before.

Who do we know that’s been to Thailand? Nobody. There are several different different neighborhoods with asian flavors in our area, but as far as I know there haven't been a lot of people immigrating from Thailand. A few restaurants in the area are the extent of our connection. We have some vague sense of a faraway exotic locale full of  elephants, orchids, shrines and curry. Sherlock Holmes would have pointed out, however, that the photo of Bangkok on the web, doesn’t look like there’s a lot of room for large mammals.

Sherlock would have considered the possibility that it resulted from automatation. Our garbage, recycling and compost bins live near the gate. Did the great arms of the Recycling Works truck pick up the coin at somebody else house and deposit it on the lid of one of our bins? Then perhaps it flipped off when we banged the lid? You'd think dimes, quarters and pennies would be raining down if it worked like that.

Holmes might decide that someone came looking for us at our back gate, stood there uncertainly for a few minutes fingering the coins in her pocket, and then changed her mind. He’d know it was a woman, of course, because of something to do with the distance between gate and door. Don’t ask me to explain that.

Personally I think the baht coin is a sign. A sign that it’s my turn to do elephant duty.

฿

Sewing: Annhhh Just Bag It! Bribing Us to Be Green (Green Movement Humor)

 

Them Bags, Them Bags

Sung to the traditional tune, ‘Dem Bones’

Head bone connected to the shoulder bone

Shoulder bone connected to the arm bone

Arm bone connected to the wrist bone

Wrist bone connected to the hand bone

Hand bone connected to the finger bone

Finger bone holding them bags!

Them bags, them bags, gonna walk around

Them bags, them bags, gonna walk around

Them bags, them bags, gonna walk around

Oh HEAR the word of the Green!

The Green Studies Handbook

for Down-To-Earth Romantics

Did you miss the last Green Movement Humor Piece in this Journal?

Annnh, Just Bag It!

Bribing Us to Use Our Green Shoppin’ Bags

All us environmentally conscientious types know the problem. We acquire giveway bags or maybe we buy or sew some really great ones. Then we forget to take them to the store and end up staring blankly at the clerk when asked, ‘Pastic or paper?’.

Here’s what worked for me.

Bribery.

Remember a long time ago when you said you would never bribe a child to do something? That’s right. Children should be motivated by the pleasure of the activity and the righteous feeling that comes with well – doing!

If you nodded your head vigorously, then I bet you haven’t had or cared for a child in a long time, have you? Next time a young child comes over, be prepared with a few of those I-Voted stickers you got handed the last time you went to the polls.

~

Once I too forgot my bags. All those charming tote bags that I sewed from remnants, recycled bits and even brand new fabric. I was really into sewing bags for awhile. And all of them stayed tucked away at home when I walked, biked or, very occasionally, drove out for groceries.

My neighborhood Trader Joes started a little bribery campaign that did it for me. Every time we remember our own bags and don’t take one of their bags, we get to fill out a little drawing slip, and pop it in the bucket by the managers desk. It’s on the honor system. If I think I saved two bags, that’s how many tickets I put in. Once a week somebody at the store pulls the tickets (they just have our names and phone numbers – no nobody collects it for their database) and calls the lucky winner.

I know it’s going to happen for me any day now! I’ve been doing this for about three years, and I walk to Trader Joes at least five days a week to pick up maybe some yogurt, a box of cereal or a loaf of bread. This also satisfies any gambling yearnings I may have ever had. It’s pretty clear to me that I can save my money when it comes to going to Las Vegas or Reno.  Even though I’m sure I will win every time I put the slip in the bucket, it hasn’t happened for me yet.

The prize is a $25 gift certificate at the store. Trader Joes makes a good chunk of change off shoppers. They can afford twenty-five bucks. Not only that, they may be making money off their greenness. One of the cashiers told me that the very first week they put this system into place they saved an entire palette of bags. In terms I can relate to, he told me, that’s 25% of the bags they used to buy. Trader Joes uses only paper bags for carryout – no plastic- and I think he said those cost them a nickel a piece.

Maybe you can talk a few vendors in your area into doing something to reward people for bringing their own bags. A small store wouldn’t have to give away a great big credit as Trader Joes does. Maybe they could give out the free prize of the week – something they got a lot of or they got a good deal on. Maybe they could have the drawing once a month instead of once a week. Maybe they can figure out a way to save themselves a few bucks by giving out less bags and make it fun.

It worked for me.

Post Script

Whole Foods is a longer walk for me, and I don’t get there as often. They have a system whereby you can donate the nickel or two cents, or whatever the cost of the bag you didn’t use, to one of several charities. This is tied into the automation in the cash register system, but I don’t know why a regular small store couldn’t have one of those little donation jars for earthquake relief or something similar out, with a big sign encouraging you to donate the savings from your bagless use to the jar. The store could have a special campaign (a poster) up on the wall and say something about encouraging ourselves to be green and, at the same time, help out somebody. Oh, you marketing types, you get the idea.

Romancing the Rose (Green Movement Humor)

please click on the illustration above, for more rosy detail

The gentle rose bud

What could be more natural?

Soft soul of the earth

The Green Studies Handbook

for Down-To-Earth Romantics

Romancing the Rose

Coming back with a bike basketful of roses from the farmer’s market, I was reminded of the nineteenth century urban romantics fascination with the natural scene. I was admiring some of the great landscape art that came out of that era just yesterday in the Cantor Art Museum over at Stanford University.

Improved agricultural methods combined with the industrial revolution in places like England, and later in the Americas, sent people to live in towns and cities from the mid 1800’s on into the later part of the century. Food could be produced in greater abundance by less and less hands. Rural lifestyles for the common woman, like my great-great grandmother, Anna Sherman, and her sisters became a thing of the past as they moved off the farm and into downtown Chicago.

Fortunately for Anna, she was able to qualify as a telegrapher. Not for her the daily struggle at loom or in a factory. As they joined the new breed of white-collared workers, her descendants could romanticize the rural life Mama and Grandmama had left behind. The landscape painters and photographers whose works I was studying yesterday, captured the dreams of these new Romantics.

Forgotten was the manure pile, the backbreaking hours of pitching, lifting and straining, and the despair of drought, insect plagues and other natural elements that led to crop failure. We recalled  a fantasy world of  wide-open vistas, rolling hills and an earth of perpetual flowers, sunshine and fishing anytime we wanted it. We imagined walking out into our own gardens to harvest a head of still-growing lettuce or freeing a carrot to crunch fresh from it’s earthy compost-rich home.

Like the properly modern day Romantic I am, I carry on this fantasy tradition. On Sundays, I trot over to the farmers market on foot, or wheel over by cruiser bike. Often, of course, I  imagine that I am tripping gaily down the path on market day, with my basket dangling from one hand and my long skirts bunched up in the other. There I will buy farm fresh lettuce, rainbow hued chard and deep crimson or pale pastel colored roses cut just this morning and trucked in behind the farmer’s slow moving horse. Of course that horse is always named Old Dobbin. I think that was required.  I will feel just like I plucked these farm fresh products myself. 

And as an added benefit, I can feel smugly environmentally conscious arriving at the downtown market under my own power to buy locally grown products.

Today I stopped to talk to the farmer who sold me my roses at the downtown Farmer’s Market. The vendors are often happy to chat, especially when it’s a little rainy out and there are few shoppers taking their time. My roses came from his neighbors greenhouses in Watsonville. They are grown there in greenhouses throughout the winter months. Though these flowers came over the grade in the back of this gentleman’s truck, along with his spring greens and bok choy, the majority of the roses his fellow farmer grows are sent by big freight trucks or air plane to other parts of the country.

When the flowers arrive, still fresh in New York or Santa Fe, they must still look as though they’ve just stepped off the farm. We discussed the elaborate, expensive and resource consuming containers that are required for those shipping methods and wondered about the costs of fuel in contrast with the fuel this farmer’s Old Dobbin truck consumed on his way over from the coast. Once the flowers arrive at their destination, the florists arrive to eye these emigrants who have flown 3,000 miles away from California, or perhaps 2500 miles from Colombia.

So fresh, so natural. It’s almost as though we stepped outside our own back door and plucked the tender buds from the vine with our own dainty little fingers.

In the March Calendar- Podcasting from this Journal: Unpolished Performances

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The Discussion 

or 

Time To Fly 

For a better view of the discussion, click on the picture below

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Podcasting: Unpolished Performances

An Extension of The Simple Romantic

I've been publishing my monthly podcast, Unpolished Performances, since November. The podcast show is an extension of this art journal. Each month I focus on one theme that has come up here, and take it a little farther. Episode 4 for example expands on the piece I wrote about Jane Austen as the quintessential romantic. (Did you miss that? It was , Hey Even Jane Austen needed to perform!)


The first three months previewed on youtube. Episodes 1 - 4 of the the podcast are now up on the iTunes store. Click on this link to  download the show from the iTunes store or just search on the phrase 'unpolished performances' if you already have iTunes up.

Go ahead and click on this screen from the iTunes store 

for a little more detail about recent episodes