Once Upon a Time In California (Time Travel)

Rosalinda, la voz melodiosa, ella canta las viejas canciones. Y sólo puedo oírola.
Debo volver a los días perdidos, los viejos tempos en California. 

Rosalinda, she of the melodious voice, sings the old songs. And only I can hear her.
I must go back to lost days, the old days in California.
 
Un día, cuando aprenda a escuchar con sólo mi corazón, su melodía una vez más me llevarás a mi amor.
One day, when I learn to listen with only my heart, her tune will once more carry me home to my love.

                        
Time travellers need helpful tour books. UCSC professor, famed journalist, and  California State Librarian,  Kevin Starr, has a true sense of California. He's more than a superb historian, he's a born story teller. Starr weaves together a tale that includes not only the appeal of the state - it's agricultural promise, natural beauties, ethnic diversity, and economic potential - but also it's historical exploitation.

 If you read only one history of the state, make it Starr's California: A History (Modern Library Chronicles) 

                 ~ ~ ~

 Other volumes on my California Favorites Book Shelf

  

~ ~ ~

Discovering a Little Delta History in Discovery Bay (San Francisco Bay)

The most recent Enchanted by Sewing Audio/Podcast is a sewing duologue between me and Susan in this glorious California Delta setting. You can download it to a mobile device, or simply listen on the web while you're doing something else.

Tule Fog has been both helping and hindering locals in the Delta
for over four thousand years

We often zip through the delta area of the San Francisco Bay, on our way to or from the mountains. This month I took my time with the rural, delta scenery on a day field trip to hangout at
 my buddy Susan's house for a chummy lunch and sewing afternoon. Susan lives in Discovery Bay, a rural-edge  community near Livermore, along the banks of the historic California Delta water system - where the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers flow into the San Francisco Bay.

When I lit on the windmill above, I knew I'd found a time travel portal back to an era of freshly plowed fields, misty skies and well-loved farm houses. It spoke of California in another age, a time before silicon when fruits and nuts reigned supreme.

Discovery Bay emerged from barley and potato fields in 1964, but it still looks very agricultural 'round about. The area is still rich agricultural land, second only to California’s Great Central Valley, which still feeds many parts of the world. You can imagine that wonderful soil being washed down the great rivers and depositing itself in the valleys here. Nowadays with a lot of land zoned agricultural, I wonder if you’d be able to convert agriculturally zoned land to housing?

Humans have inhabited the Delta for at least 4,300 years. Before European contact, the Maidu and Miwok people benefited from the rich soil, just like the later farmers. These early inhabitants harvested foods and wildlife that grew and fed here. They also gathered the native tule reeds that grew in the marshy areas hereabout. They used the tules for boats, houses, and fabric for clothing.

Next time I go for a sewing day with Susan, maybe we'll keep out eyes open for tules. I wonder if there are any Vogue patterns we could alter to sew up from tules?

When I drove to Susan’s I witnessed a mild tule fog. If you don’t live in California, you’ve probably never seen anything like this soupy fog. It’s unique to the area. Tule fog happens between November and March, after we've had a good soaking rain. The moisture then rises up and hangs in the air, where it becomes the leading cause of weather-related accidents in California. It turns out that over the past three decades, tule fogs are decreasing.

Wouldn't you think that would be a good thing?

It turns out that local fruit and nut crops, an important part of the economy, have been impacted by this lack of moisture.

Bring back the tules!

 ~ ~ ~

Web Resources

Listen in on my sewing day with Susan in the Enchanted by Sewing Audio/Podcast 

Discovery Bay

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_Bay,_California

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacramento–San_Joaquin_River_Delta

http://www.seecalifornia.com/california-cities/discovery-bay.html

Tule Fog What is it? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tule_fog
Impact of decreasing Tule fog on crops http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/As-Central-Valley-fog-disappears-fruit-nut-5496710.php

Marie Antoinette Would Wear This (Time Traveling Apron)

Nothing nicer than sewing and wearing a toile apron
Like Marie, I like to indulge in a few low-key,
agrarian pleasures - like visiting with local chickens-
 when I wear one.

You may also enjoy reading The Red Headed Chicken Apron

I'm so happy you followed up on my invitation for another time travel jaunt!

For this visit to past times, we need to visit the old merman fountain in the park down the street. They say that fountain came from the old Flood Estate, and Flood picked it up somewhere in Europe – somewhere in France perhaps? Anyway, It was an antique when he got it….

Maybe you can hop over the spouting turtle first and give me a hand up there on the top of this mer- fellows big tail. Oh yeah, that’s doing the trick. A nice way to travel, don’t you think ? and Versailles is lovely at this time of the year – quite roomy and so distant from that little trouble that’s been brewing out in the city. I’m sure the Parisian rabble is just a little confused about what’s really keeping them short of food. Surely it couldn’t have anything to do with the cost of keeping this place well planted and running smoothly.

If you’re a regular reader of this sewing journal or the Enchanted by Sewing Audio Podcast, you may have noticed that I’m intrigued by Marie Antoinette’s life and her wardrobe. I know she’s a hedonist and not exactly a woman of the people. I’m not saying I actually respect her, but her image as a fashion icon still has tremendous appeal.

Marie still attends public functions in the full splendor of big hair and those ultra wide skirted gowns she first donned as a young girl  when she arrived here in France to marry the future Louis Seize - when she had little choice about her garb. Like Cinderella going to the ball she’s a real presence moving along in the Versailles glide, that slithering walking style that’s de reguiere for the upper class,  clad in rustling silken sack back gowns. That Silk is produced in France, of course, and the nobilities requirements for ell upon ell of that home spun stuff, provide an important benefit to the economy. That gold Lyonnaise silk with the Roccoco chinoiserie pattern and the Berlin floss trimming that the queen is wearing today really catches the eye, non?

Of course I’m also hoping to get  in with the right people here, and score an invite offered to only a privileged few at one of her majesty’s little pied-a-terre , just down the alleyway here, at Le Petite Trianon. Does she go by her childhood name of Antonia in that little hideaway ,with her intimates, I wonder?  I find it totally chic that Marie has began to develop her own sense of style. In this relaxed setting - hanging out with a few tidy farmyard animals and her closest friends - she favors naturalistic Rousseau-inspired high waisted muslins dresses with wide ribbon sashes, and cute little decorative aprons. These gowns, about which there is a great deal of controversy (People say it looks she is going out in public in her undergarments!), will lead to a styles favored by a whole new generation of women . Unfortunately for the economy , and Marie’s reputation, that muslin is the product of her Austrian country of birth and not at all French. Two strikes against her majesty.

Despite daydreaming about recreating a luxurious sack back gown (in yellow silk perhaps? So practical for a bike ride to the park don’t you think?), or a sheer floating white muslin dress with a crimson sash – hum..... I might reinterpret that in a nightgown- The fashion that has actually most inspired my modern day fashion creations, is Marie Antoinette’s interest in promoting and popularizing the use of toile de Jouy fabric. I hear that the queen actually honored the business establishment, where this new fabric is produced, with a visit, and it’s now been proclaimed a “royal factory”.

The Jouy  (actually Jouy-en-Josas ) is, as you may already know, a place in France ten miles south of Paris. The toile part refers to the fabric popularized by Christophe Philippe Oberkampf who started a factory at Jouy to print cotton toile. Toile is, of course, a French word referring to cloth. (Linen cloth for example is toile de lin. )

Toile de Jouy is and will continue to be despite the trials and tribulations of revolution and war ,a heavy cotton fabric printed with scenes of an idyllic simple country life and stylized nature –  trees, simple vegetation, birds and other animals. The kind of romanticization that followers of Rousseau’s back to nature movement create for themselves, no matter how little connection there is between the realities of the agrarian scene and the pretty pictures on the fabric.

During Marie’s era, and for many in modern times, the ones I come from, toile is and was typically used for home dec items like pillows, bedspreads, curtains.

But, back in my own time, my favorite thing to sew up with this heavy weight, beautifully figured, story-telling fabric is an apron.

Sewing aprons, especially in toile, is the kind of thing that keeps me

Enchanted by Sewing!

~ ~ ~

Resources*

I highly recommend the lovely, and informative, book, Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution. It's a great read about what Marie Antoinette actually did wear to masquerades , grand balls, or just toddling around Le Petit Trianon with the dear little daughter, she nicknamed Mousseline, a fun allusion to the fashions that Marie herself made popular at the time. 

Since I like to keep my iPad happy, I bought the Kindle version of Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution.

 ~ ~ ~ 

* Thanks Sponsors! *

* Thanks so much, to readers who sponsor the work of this blog and the Enchanted by Sewing Podcast, by purchasing books, ebooks and other products through links in this blog.

Postcard from San Luis Obispo(SLO): Amtrak Station SLO Time Travel

Co-Published with Postcard from California

The Amtrak station in San Luis Obispo (SLO) is one of my favorite time portals. How about hopping aboard a Period Pilots time travel flight to... visit the Southern California citrus groves in 1933?

Your time travel tour allows you to checkout acres of lovely scented orange and lemon trees beneath the towering San Gabriel Mountains before the development that followed World War II. Take a Model T over to Malibu for a spot of horseback riding along the beautiful uncrowded shoreline. Your day will end with a campout on the slopes of that grand patriarch of mountains Old Baldy.  

Postcard from San Luis Obispo: SLO Time Travel Via The Amtrak Station

The Amtrak station in San Luis Obispo (SLO) is one of my favorite time portals. How about hopping aboard a Period Pilots time travel flight to... visit the Southern California citrus groves in 1933?


Your time travel tour allows you to checkout acres of lovely scented orange and lemon trees beneath the towering San Gabriel Mountains before the development that followed World War II. Take a Model T over to Malibu for a spot of horseback riding along the beautiful uncrowded shoreline. Your day will end with a campout on the slopes of that grand patriarch of mountains Old Baldy.  

A Time Portal for Arachnida

Click on the illustration above

To enlarge it

I've never seen spider webs quite like these I spied at Edgewood Park last week.


Time portals for Arachnida, perhaps?

Time Travel: The Ultimate Escape

The she-bears great paws stepped unhesitatingly into the whirling vortex of the time portal. The twenty-first century had lost one more California native. Mariah's own feet, however, seemed incapable of moving forward. There was no longer any thing, or any one, tying her to this place. What was holding her back from making her own journey back to 1893?

Very slowly, the woman reached out to part the clump of sage, behind which, the great bear’s body had  disappeared just moments before.

Take the plunge yourself. CLICK on the illustration above, 

to fully enjoy the time-travelling details.

Part 7: Sewing Chronicles of Lady Lizbeth, Secret Diary of a Time Traveling Maide

A ladye should be able with her pen

As well as with her needle.

With it, she should strive to keep her accounts well,

maintain a regular record of her devotions,

                           and record any unrighteous behavior amongst the members of her household.

Unless that behavior implicates those of  the higher orders,

            who ought not ever be discussed by their inferiors.

Pithy sayings of Lady Margaret Hobey

It might not occur to you, if you tend to stay in your own century, just how hard it was for me to turn up something like this diary to write in. There’s not much in the way of accessible writing materials around in these days. Back home if the battery on my iPad runs out of juice and I’m forced to jot down my shopping list or an idea for my blog the old-fashioned way, I’m used to opening up a drawer or grabbing a piece of paper off the printer tray. If I’m in some public place, well there’s usually a recycling bin where I can scrounge something to write on the back of.

But around here, if a woman needs a piece of paper, even assuming that woman is educated enough to be able to write her name, she’s going to have to ask for it and explain what she needs it for. And to add insult to injury she’s going to have to account for what she did with it. Lady Margaret reads all of Cecily’s letters to her grandmother out loud to her husband Sir Thomas before he puts them into the mail bag that goes into town. Reading about lack of privacy is one thing, actually dealing with it is quite another. So you can imagine how happy I was when I went to paw through that pile of linen scrap and wool thread ends that Lady Margaret had told one of the maidservants to drop off for me, and found this little book buried deep down in the pile of odds and ends. Maybe somebody as anxious as me to record their secrets hid it there, and then forgot where it was or had to leave the house suddenly. It’s old, but it will sure do the trick.

Lady Margaret also keeps a diary, but hers is public, so public, in fact, that she reads little passages out loud to us Maides when we’re stitching in the upstairs in the afternoons. My little book, on the other hand, is quite secret. Funny really when you consider that I’ve shared so many details about my life in my blog, not to mention that I plan to transcribe these entries into that blog just as soon as I get back to my own times. If I shared my diary here in the same way as good old Lady Madge, I’d be in for big trouble. I’ve seen the nasty ways they treat people who don’t fit the mainstream patterns here. Time on the ducking stool would be the lightest result, there’s a much greater possibility I’d be burnt as a witch.  Livin’ an alternative lifestyle in Tudor times ain’t , as my Aunt Grace (who was much influenced by coming of age in the sixties) used to say, “where it’s at”. Having to hide my journaling, makes me feel a little bit like the Emperor Claudius in that great book series by Robert Graves. 

This little book is going to help keep me sane until William helps me catch my ride back into the twenty-first century on the next neaps tide. The nerve of that man, putting on the big romantic-act in the museum! Did I mention he was responsible for posting all those tidbits about London and the Victoria and Albert to my blog, using different ids none-the-less? It seems he had some method for picking me out of the crowd as travel-able when he worked our spring feste last year. Though I didn’t meet him, he apparently learned quite a lot about me. And that included the fact that I was planning to come here this summer. Seems  then he just started planting  his little clues on my page when he got back to London. Then he maneuvered Gwen into that summer study abroad, and brought up the idea of oh-gee-that-blogger-needs-a-place-to-rent. Talk about manipulative! That toad-spotted malkin needed a time-able guide to help him steer through the portal because he was too weak to do the trick on his own. I was just his little time travelin’ guinea pig. Yes, ladies, I was set up!

It’s not exactly easy being tossed back in time, and I don’t just mean the getting there part. Everything’s different from peas to pottage. It’s tough not having anybody I can really let my hair down with about my sudden transition, except William that is and I’m determined I’m not speaking to him right now until I cool off. I could really care less that he stumbled out of his own slip-stream by mistake. If he can’t figure out how to stay put, that’s his problem. Unfortunately now he’s made it mine. 

* * *

Time Portal: Vertigo

Inspired by a prompt at A Year in the Life of an Art Journal

What is more likely to send a gal spinning through time than an episode of vertigo?

Time Portal Guardians: The Mystery Revealed

A couple of days ago, I posted an art journal entry titled Guardians of a Time Portal. Just what are my two cats doing when they're sleeping their time away amongst the roses on the driveway, I asked?


My friend,Judy Gosnell  was able to answer that question in a flash. That gal is a natural when it comes to time travel. What era other than ancient Egypt, when cats were worshipped properly, would a cat consider worthy of her guardianship?

Stop on by our driveway the next time you're in the mood to join Pharohs retinue. Just don't forget a little offering of mackerel to placate the guardian at the gate.

Clearly our furry companion Olivia, sees herself as a later day Bastet. It's certainly nice of her to spend so much time in the modern era when she could be chasing mice through Pharoh's graneries. I feel honored.


No, not honored enough to open up ANOTHER can of mackarel. You can wait until breakfast-time, Olivia.


I created the illustration above in Photoshop, using photos I took at the British Museum. In four trips to London we've never missed a visit to that delicious treasure trove.

Time Portal: Stopping in for a brew at The Time & Time Again

Just another British pub?

Maybe.

But have you got the nerve to open the door?

Could be a special locally brewed ale, a piece of Cheshire cheddar, and the most delicious meat pie you ever tasted.

And if you're really lucky, you might just happen by on a day when we specialize in Victorian Values, Cromwellian Conundrums or Tudor Time Travel.

Guardians of a Time Portal: Fantasy Cat Quilt

Don't think you're gonna paw past MY way

Without a little donation to the gods 

That guard your house

And keep those old mice at bay.

I used to think my kitties were just sleeping their day away in the sun. But just recently I learned that they are actually the guardians of a local time portal. In their case a little donation, of the right sort, will get me farther than just on to my back door without suffering a swipe on the ankle.

It will take me back to times long past.

Just what era would a cat be caring for?

Time Portal: Another Way to Spin Through Time

Click on the illustration above to try a spin with this portal

The Old Rose Cathedral Window 

of Durnsmuir Haugh

Most of yon stained glass winders were taken down in Cromwell's Time.
But there was somethin' about this yer 'un that did foil even the most determined of them Reformers.
They do say as three different Roundheads tried to take her down, and all three died in the trying.
It was a woman who convinced 'em to just leave her be.
The Red Rose of Durnsmuir, folks 'round here call her.


The womenfolk 'round here do say the Red Rose, she's got powers.
Codswallop sez I, tis just an old Rose winder, 
         pretty though she may be when the light shines through her panes,
       especially so on the night of a neaps tide.


And though sometimes when those days do come when there's bare a tick o' difference betwtixt the ebb and flow,
I do think I see the old Red Rose spinning with the wind,
And then, well I just puts that down to the ale at the Swallow and Dove, and I go home by 'tother road.

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)

San Francisco Illusions: Standing the Test of Time Travel

Illusions, Market Street, San Francisco

Please click on the picture above for more beautiful, illusory detail

Market Street is chock full of time travel portal potential.
If only you know where to look
And when.

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.

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.

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.