Living on Bodie Time

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Romancin' the Cabin

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for more homey details

Mountain Laurel: Romancin' my Namesake

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to fully enjoy the romantic details

You might not think I'm descended from a line of romantics, as down-to-earth as my parents are, unless you happen to know that I was named after the Mountain Laurel of the Pacific Cascades. 

A Fairy's Favorite Flower: The Fritillary

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to enjoy full-fairy's eye view details

What do you mean how do I know where the fairies hang out at Windy Hill?


You only have to look.

Spring in my Driveway: Days of Bees and Wisteria

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to fully enjoy the bee bounty

The bees that patrol the wisteria in my driveway, are actually bumble bees. But those girls zip back and forth too quickly for my camera to catch. I wonder what bumble bees do with the pollen if they don't make honey. And do they help pollinate they way their apian buddies do? I'm sure there's an answer out on the web if I wanted to google all day. 

That sounds like a song doesn't it? 

Google in the mornnin'

Google in the evenin'

Google at suppertime.

Cuz of my bumble bee darlings I'm googlin' all the time.

The bees I included here (much-altered from the original) originate from an obliging honeybee I found in the park near my house.

Hail to Jennie and Forgotten Fairytales

Cradle Songs and Distant Melodies, the Simple Romantic's April Episode of Unpolished Performances,  has been published in the iTunes store.  

Click on download the show from the iTunes store or just search on the phrase 'unpolished performances' if you already have iTunes up.

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In a journey to fairytale land

I'm working on learning to play the first of the four pieces that make up Edward MacDowell's "Forgotten Fairytales". My current practice sessions involve the  two page piece called "Sung Outside the Prince's Door".

At this point, I'm working on developing some comfort with the first four measures. Sung Outside the Prince's Door is a lovely tune. I have no idea when I'll be able to play through even the first page, but it's a nice relaxing thing to do after a day of thinking about Objective-C's classes and objects.

I learned to play MacDowell's To a Wild Rose a couple of years ago. In fact it's the lead in piece I play for my iTunes store podcast, Unpolished Performances. I know I play it more slowly than it's usually performed. Still, I feel elegant and very turn-of-the-twentieth-century parcticing MacDowell on Jennie Strong's (my grandmother-in-law's) 1903 Chickering parlor grand piano. That lady died in the 1930's and her piano was a little lonely until we inherited it a couple of years ago. 

We have a lovely larger-than-lifesized photo of Jennie up in the dining room, on the other side of the wall from her piano. I hope that she enjoys listening to me working on MacDowell.  Very likely she played To a Wild Rose, as it was one of the most popular pieces in the country at the turn of that century. From all the heavily annotated music that turned up in her piano bench, it's clear she was a very regular piano practicer.

Thanks for a turn at your piano Jennie.

......

Cradle Songs and Distant Melodies, the Simple Romantic's April Episode of Unpolished Performances has been published in the iTunes store.  Click on download the show from the iTunes store or just search on the phrase 'unpolished performances' if you already have iTunes up.

Crocodile Dreamin'

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to get up close and personal with this denizen of Costa Rica

Aqui Hablamos Time Travel

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An Die Musik (Tribute to Schubert)

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to enjoy all the musical detail.

I've been working on learning to sing Schubert's An Die Musik. 


Gee, it looks so simple!


Har, de har har.


It's a lovely praise of art itself, and the pleasure it gives us to simply be caught up within the music.

Soup's On: Fitzgerald Marine Reserve, Half Moon Bay California

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to fully enjoy the soupy details.

Soup's On!

People aren't actually allowed to collect algae or seaweed at Fitzgerald Marine Reserve, in the northern outskirts of Half Moon Bay, California. On my recent tidepooling trip there, the vegetation reminded me of many a plate of japanese-restaurant food with my friend Kim. 


During these mid day work escapes, I  happily slurped down the, what always seemed to me to be, exotic miso soup. Kim, on the other hand looked at it with total disinterest. She grew up in Hawaii with her mama telling her to, "Eat your miso soup, it's good for you."


Kim's living back home, on the Big Island of Hawaii now. I visited her one day for lunch when I touristed nearby, three springs back. Homegrown macademia nuts, white pineapple and  home-smoked turkey.


Not a drop of miso soup.

Bird's Eye View

Once I called another land home

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To enjoy all the homey details

Doll Playing Memories and a StoryBook Cottage (Carmel CA, The Doll's House)

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to fully enjoy the lovely playtime details

Back in the 1920's, as you may know,Hugh Comstock built a fairy-tale style house in Carmel California, for the collection of  Otsy -Totsys ragdolls that his wife made and sold. Though the house in the illustration above is called, "The Doll's House" it's not that cottage.

Here's a nice blog page by Linda Hartong called "Once Upon a Time" that tells the story of the house that Comstock built for those dolls and named "Hansel". Linda and I might just have been out photographing on the same day! Marilyn and went to Carmel just this last Monday (April 4) to hunt out the famed Carmel storybook cottages. 

The Doll's house is actually yellow, but you know me. I like to use my imagination, like every good doll's player does.

Nothing I loved better as a little girl than to play dolls. I had a lovely well-used collection of Barbies, and two Kens (their main job was to look manly around the house). My mother built me a large freestanding bookcase and fitted out the inside of it with magazine picture windows and doors and Contact paper fireplace (faux brick) and floor (wood grain).

About thirty years later I did the same thing for my daughter, using two free-standing bookcases I'd curbed. We found the same style Contact papers. Together we cutout picture of doors and windows from "Country Living" magazine and other recycled publications. My favorite addition was an L.L. Bean ad for a magazine with a big dog enjoying a rug. That rug graced Barbie's country style entryway for several years. My daughter also enjoyed simply drawing in any missing architectural elements that were missing. 

Do people curb where you live? You put items you're sure somebody will enjoy out at the edge of the house with a big 'free' sign on the them. It's similar to putting things on the freebie page of Craigslist, (but can be rather more exciting from the finders point of view).

When my daughter decided she was done playing dolls, I put the dollhouses on the Craigslist freebies page (less exciting for the finder, a surer thing for me). A parent came by and said they were just the thing for his daughter.

I do my doll playing with my camera and imagination now. But I'm still up for a game of dolls. Stop by and don't forget your Barbies.

Part 6: Cradle Songs and Distant Melodies, The Highwayman's Daughter

 Part 6: Cradle Songs and Distant Melodies, 

* * * The High Toby * * *
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.

Somehow Da had acquired a horse for Dolly and her brother to ride into the country. She hadn’t known, at the time, how they could afford a horse of their own, and such a magnificent beast as well. 

She knew now. 

The two children had called the animal, Shrugu, because of the patches of white that appeared mysteriously on it’s dark coat. Eventually her father had taught her to apply the dark brown dye that helped to turn Shrugu into a shiny black horse instead of a gray. The coloring had served to protect the horses’s identity when her father had first taken him from among his fellows. It also made Shrugu nearly invisible, when it came to hiding beneath a tree on the toby.

Fion well remembered the promise he’d made to his wife. He’s sworn that he’d leave his old lay behind him in Ireland. Never again would he order the hapless carter or coach driver to ‘stand and deliver’. But he’d promised to care for their children as well, and some vows have more power than others.

With those children well hidden beneath a screen of bushes or trees, he would approach a lone vehicle on Shrugu’s back, his pistol at the ready. Excitement and fear pulsed as one, for this could be the moment when a hidden pistol would emerge, and take him down with a lucky shot. Then there was the bully, well-beloved moment of excitement when, with pockets heavy with coin and a still racing heart, he and the horse lit off with a great woop and a yell, well in advance of the mark. What that mark didn’t know was how shortly Fion and Shrugu would pull up beneath another tree, only a few yards away.

Soon his well-born victims would struggle off down the road to resume their interrupted travels, fuming and wailing over the loss of watches, rings and money. The children, as Da had taught them, waited quietly in their secret abode. For they knew that Fion would soon double back to put them up on Shrugu. Then, once more, they traveled masquerading as itinerant tinkers with a box of ribbons and a few spools of thread to give them a reason to always be moving onwards along the hard high road.

Fion had chosen his marks carefully, never too many on the same stretch of road. He’d taken only enough to feed himself and his children and to pay for shelter during the cold months. The MacLiams had been tobeymen for generations, and he knew well that a highwayman didn’t have much chance of a long life. Yet, with care, he could provide for his children until they were old enough to fend for themselves. He’d heard there was farmland to be had out west. Owen and Dolly were old enough, now, to set to work ploughing and planting.

* *

The highwayman’s daughter patted the horses muzzle softly and murmured into the great flickering ear. “Hsst, Shrugu,” she whispered. “Do you want them to hear us? Dinna gie us away.”

The carriage jingling down the road was pulled by a pair of fine plump grays. The coachman was well togged out in fine livery. Should she take a chance? Da would have said ‘no’, but Da was gone now. He’d been taken and hanged when he tried to rob the mail, thinking it a worthwhile risk for two men. So, Owen had gone with him. Luckily for her brother they needed young soldiers in Ameriky more than they needed corpses. Owen was stationed now, not so far away, in the Allegany mountains. 

Jenny had taken up with Johnny Hodges, the butcher’s son. But town life for an unmarried tinker’s daughter was no sinecure. She was wise enough to know that life with Johnny would continue only as long as his head wasn’t turned by a trimmer ankle or waist. And she was skilled enough to know what she had to do to make the money she needed to build that farm that they'd always dreamed of.

Dolly fumbled for the pistol at her belt. That belt held up a pair of Owen’s old trousers. Clad in men's clothes and with her hair stuffed beneath her brother's old hat, no one would ever suspect that Dolly MacLiam had been the tobeyman this night.

She thought back to the last time she’d lain in wait for Fion. Just that once, he’d decided to take his son along . “Just this once so we can get enough money to build that farm.” Da had never meant for Owen to take to the family lay. And he’d certainly never meant for his daughter to find herself pointing a pistol down the road and calling out, ‘stand-and-deliver’.

But the coach was clearly a rich one, a noble family’s(*) vehicle perhaps. Just this once, she’d take the chance. For Owen wouldn’t be a soldier forever, and there was still a farm to build. 

She lifted the bridle rein and a song, that seemed to come from very far away, rose unbidden in her throat.

As I was going over the Appilachin’ mountains


I met with captain Farrell

and his money he was counting. 


I first produced me pistol,

and I then produced my rapier.


Said stand and deliver!

For yeh ‘air a bold deceiver,

musha ring dumma do

whack for the daddy 'ol


whack for the daddy 'ol


there's whiskey in the jar

I counted out his money,

and it made a pretty penny.


I put it in my pocket and I took it home to Johnny.


He sighed and he swore,

But said he never would deceive me,


Oh the devil take such menfolk,

for they never can be aisy.


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.

* Dolly MacLiam's victims were English aristocracy before the American revolution 

Part 5: Cradle Songs and Distant Melodies, The Highwayman's Daughter

part 5: The Highwayman’s Daughter

“So we can do a touch now … as well as you grand gentlemen on the high toby.”—Boldrewood: Robbery under Arms, chap. xxvi.

Back in Ireland Dolly had not been old enough to question the source of the sparkling coins that had filled her Da’s pockets. She had one vague memory of a time when Mam fed Dolly and Owen their supper early, then flitted back and forth to the door in a constant state of agitation. Even thought she was quite a little girl, only four perhaps, Dolly had known that something wasn’t quite right.

Later, tucked up beneath a pile of quilts, she’d woken to a small explosion as the door banged open. Fion MacLiam had burst in laughing and calling to his wife. Peeking around the blanket that hung from the ceiling to separate the cot where she and her brother slept, from the rest of the tiny house, she’d seen Da pouring a stream of golden guineas into his wife’s hands. But Mam was not looking at the coins. 

“I thought you’d been taken, Fionn!” Her voice was thick with unshed tears.

“It would take a brave legion of muskro to capture your man, Rudju.

That was all there was to the memory. She must have gone back to sleep. Dolly often wished she could recall more of her mother, beyond that once scene and some snatches of a song about a highwayman.

Mam had died on the boat to America, and the tiny baby she carried inside her had gone with her. That left the sole care of Dolly and her little brother to Fionn. It had been no easy feat for Da to get work in the great city where they landed. And it had been even harder for a man burdened with two small children. There had been attempts to find a woman to care for them, and even one horrible day when he left the six year old girl to care for small Owen alone. He had returned after a long day of backbreaking labor, to find them shaking with fear from fighting off the rats that had invaded the tenement room and hiding from the drunkard next door, who’d pounded on their door after knocking down his wife.

Fion had sat holding his children on his knee, close to his heart for a long while and then he’d packed their few possessions and the three of them had left the filthy little room behind, and headed off to follow the footpath out of town. Da was not only a tender-hearted man he was no fool. His children would never survive city life without two parents.


Next Time: The High Toby


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 4: Cradle Songs and Distant Melodies,Whiskey in the Jar

Cradle Songs and Distant Melodies

Part 4: Whiskey in the Jar

Any customer of Period Pilots (serving the needs of the Time Travel Community since A.D. 476) knows that the best way to help answer the commonly-asked question, “Where do you come from?”,  is to step a little farther back in time.

As I’ve said previously, in this journal, my background isn’t only dependent on my bloodline. It’s a collage of experiences from all the people who have influenced me and mine. Some of those folk came from within the family circle and others, just as importantly if not more so, stood outside of it. Because of this, my cultural background includes Henry and Stan in the 1980’s. It includes a Midwestern librarian and farm folk in the 1930’s. And today, with a little help from an old song, I learned a little more about where I'm from.

* * *

I was singing a tune I’d thought was from times long gone, when I was reminded that some times have never truly vanished. There’s more than one way to be carried along back through time, and there’s nothing like a song sung in the right mood to take you there. This one carried me along to one more of the places it appears I’m from.

As I was going over the far flung Kerry mountains


I met with Captain Farrell

And his money he was countin’.

I first produced me pistol,

And I then produced my rapier.


Sayin’ stand and deliver…..

I was humming the old melody to “Whiskey in the Jar” as I trotted along a little hiking path through Edgewood Park. The original song, celebrating the prediciment of the ‘oft times admired highwayman, was widely sung in the Ireland of past times, and continues, I’ve been told, to be a pub favorite today.

If you give me the once over you’ll be pretty sure that many of my ancestors must have graced those emerald shores. The land of Éire didn’t provide enough in the way of sustenance however, so they lit out for Ameriky as soon as they could find the passage money. For all I know, they may have collected the guineas and shillings they needed for that, from the pockets of the passengers they stopped when they held up coaches on the toby roads of the Emerald Isle.

When the path headed downhill into a heavily forested hollow in the terrain, I began to sing that song, I’d learned a long time back. I learned it so long ago that, in fact, I don’t remember having been taught to sing it. Perhaps it was just born in me, that song.

Maybe it was the intense grassy greenness of the little dell I was passing through at the moment, or perhaps it was that the frolicsome water in the creek below, bubbled up and joined me in the refrain.

Musha ring dumma do damma da 


Whack for the daddy 'ol


Whack for the daddy 'ol


There's whiskey in the jar.

Time travel on a song turns out to be one of the more pleasant methods of transport I’ve found to date. It has a way of pulling you straight into the melody. Before I knew it, I was part of the story of that old ballad. But it was a song somewhat different from the one I’d sung so many times before.

One thing I knew for sure. I wasn’t in Edgewood Park anymore.

…..Next Time: The Highwayman’s daughter


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.

Another view of the universe

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Another view of the universe 

Fitzgerald Marine Reserve, 

North of Half Moon Bay, California

Part 3: Cradle Songs & Distant Melodies- My Neighborhood

Part 3: Cradle Songs and Distant Melodies

 My Neighborhood

My young adulthood in our first house has a lot to do with the ‘where do you come from’ question I've written about in the first two parts of this series. That house sat in an unincorporated zone known locally as ‘The Avenues’. My nearest neighbors came from Samoa, Colombia, Iran and Minnesota. And those were just the people I was closely acquainted with. I’m not sure where the guy on the corner, we called the ‘Christian Biker’ came from. A heavily muscled, tattooed, ancient car-fixin’ veteran of the Vietnam War, he took in a variety of woebegone characters, fed them and got them back on their feet. He was also the fellow who explained to me that the gunfire we heard periodically in the neighborhood was ‘automated weapons fire, Honey’. Eleven years in the house on Twelth Avenue means I’m from The Avenues.

The people I worked with, shaped my ideas as well. There was Henry, an African-American man who’d just moved to San Carlos by way of Georgia. He scorned the custard pie in the cafeteria as not being fit for pig food.

And there was Stan, whose Latino ancestry was stamped plainly on his face. Stan had worked his way up the career ladder, from an assembly job in Detroit. He’d heard about an early programmer training opportunity in the sixties, and taken advantage of it. Stan walked like a toreador and he dressed like Saville Row. One of the supervisors once looked scornfully at Stan’s beautifully tailored three piece suit and told him, “You know you don’t need to dress like that”.

“I’m comfortable,” Stan replied proudly.

Stan, Henry and I were a little outside of the group of other programmers. We were non-standard. I, because I was the first female programmer hired in. Stan and Henry for the color of their skins, and their accents. The two older men could have shunned me and made fun of my general naivete. I was only twenty-three years old, there was an awful lot I didn’t know about people and work, and I was so young it didn’t occur to me to hide the fact. Instead Stan and Henry took me under their collective wings and taught me how to survive at work, how to stand up for myself and, most importantly, how to laugh up-my-sleeve at the local customs.

We had a supervisor named Joseph. Joe was only a few years older than me, somewhat pretentious and pedantic. He walked a bit like a pigeon with his chest stuck out a little farther than normal. Joseph would ask us questions like ‘Now do you think of your job as just a job, or as a career?’ “Gee,” Stan laughed after Joe walked away with his characteristic strutting walk, “I wonder what the right answer to that was supposed to be?”

Joseph liked to walk in unexpectedly, and sit us down for motivational talks. These included little chats about team work. Periodically he’d consult a magazine article in which he’d underlined items he clearly thought were winning phrases.

Henry thought I was responding a bit too much to Joseph’s pep talks. “Hey it’s Little Joe!” he said when I came back in from one of our supervisors supposedly impromptu and friendly, one-on-ones over coffee. I learned a lot about attitude and what team work really meant, from Henry.

In a small, but very decided way, I’ve come from the places that my neighbors and co-workers are from.

Next Time: Whiskey in the Jar

... And yet I've always preferred Wildflowers (April Calendar, with Passover and Easter dates printable)

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Or for printing

And yet I've always preferred wildflowers. 

I was terribly disappointed when I checked the pages of  Jane Austen's novel Sense and Sensability to find that Marianne Dashwood never actually uttered those words. They were only spoken in one of my favorite movie versions.