Time Travel Moxie: Speeding Up Evolution

Click on the illustration above for a MOST deletable view

Who says you can't speed up evolution? 

All a girl needs is a time portal, and the willingness to try 

...... and fly

Tarantula Tango OR The Tarantula and the Shoe Box

      As a kid I lived on two acres that my parents christened “Lizard Acres”, in what was then a very rural part of Arizona. There my folks designed and built a cinder block house with their own hands. The house was well laid out, cool in summer, and the cinder block walls exuded naturally trapped heat in the winter, but it was also full of  places where wildlife could creep in. 

     Whenever we went to take a bath*, there would generally be at least four forms of insect life. Vinagaroones were popular. They look a good bit like scorpions - which we often saw outside the house.

All prepped to take our bath, we would scream bloody murder at the sight of those bugs. Then my mother would yell out “Oh just put the shoebox over it, and I'll be in there in a minute!” She had no patience with our fussing. So I ran around stony naked (my sister being older was usually more modestly atired) waiting for our mother to come and displace the insect life to the out of doors. I think they came up the drain in the tub, and from there they sometimes migrated on to the walls and into the rest of the house.

Also tarantulas came into the house. They were most partial to my sisters bedroom wall which retained the kind of heat tarantulas liked. I don't know how the tarantulas got in. Seems like they’d have been too big for the tub’s drain. Our good old dog, Blackberry used to (I’m not making this up) play with one of the tarantulas that came regularly. My sister was particularly unhappy to find this member of theTheraphosidae family on her wall one night at bedtime. My mother finally got fed up with our screams, and killed that particular visitor.

The dog moped for days and my mother felt awful, because she realized she killed Blackberry's friend. She never killed another and we learned to accept insects as part of life.

My mother drew this beautiful tarantula a few years after we left the wilds of Arizona for the intensity of suburban life in California.

It was a good move for economic and educational reasons, but we all kind of missed the excitement of bath time at Lizard Acres.

*Where we the only folks with a tub-only-just-one bathroom back in the 60's? As a kid, I thought showers were the kind of luxury people only had in motels. 

Sewing Chronicles of Lady Lizbeth Secret Diary of a Time Traveling Maid - Meet That Rascal William Sainsbury

 Oh William Sainsbury, you rascal you!


It's all Sweet Will's fault that Liz ended up temporarily trapped in Tudor times.


He seemed so cute when she'd first met him back at the local Elizabethan Springe Flinge. And then, when he suggested a meet-up on her trip to London, well.... after all they'd been Facebook friends for over a year. It wasn't like she didn't know anything about him.


Wrong!


Will had plans for Liz, and they didn't just involve a quick kiss at the pub door. You see, Will's got needs - no not THOSE kinds of needs. His involved getting back home, and the pathway home just isn't as easy to follow as you might think. He needed a little help. And Liz was just the kind of help he needed.


So now Liz has got her needle buried in more blackwork embroidery than she ever dreamed about. 


And she's blogging the old-fashioned way.


(Co-Published with A Stitche In Time)

Just One More Cnidarian, Pulsing On Through To the Cambrian

Some of us just know where we come from. 


This Cnidarian, whom you may have been introduced to as a  "jellyfish", is just pulsing her way on back through time towards one great fandango with her ancestors in the Cambrian Explosion, the fantastic era that was.
     Did you miss your evite to that hot past-times party? It's not too late to locate your own time portal and swim on back yourself. For a little pre-travel cultural encounter planning, check out Plain, Simple, Primitive? Not the Jellyfish.

And if traveling back 540 million years leaves you a little giddy, just drop by Steinhart Aquarium in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.


Oh and click on the illustration above to get a little more up close and personal.

Sewing Chronicles of Lady Liz: The Abbots Ghost

There are those who say they've looked out the window 

to see the abbots ghost walk, just before dawn.

I say time spent looking out the window is better spent

sorting thy silks or plying thy needle.

pithy sayings of Lady Margaret Hobey

Secret Diary of a Time Travelling Maide

Welcome to the Planet

Watch Out For That Rose By Any Other Name