Story in lavendars and blues

Here I am at the Monterey Bay in 1983. This has always been one of my favorite photographs of myself. I am wearing a big loose lavendar shirt and a dark blue wraparound skirt which was made out of that heavy, coarsely woven cotton fabric from India that is so comfortable and used to be ubiquitous in those lightweight bedspreads useful to hippies. No polyester, nothing except the comfort of cotton. I was surprised when this photo, taken by C.J., my foster daughter, repeats the lavendars and blues of my outfit. It was taken on Kodachrome; this scan is from a print I sent my mother, which she taped to her wall. My friend Paul had one framed in his apartment when he died of AIDS in 1990. My brother, who died of cancer in 1997, told me he taped his to a window, so he could feel like he stood behind me looking out at the beach, even in hot Texas weather. All of these loved people are now dead, and I no longer know where C.J. is. The me of this photo also no longer exists, except in this memory thread. I still think I would like to decorate a room in these colors.

I went to the Gee's Bend quilt exhibit in the Boise Art Museum in Julia Davis Park yesterday. The park was filled with city geese, you could tractically walk up to and pet. When I finished at the museum, I took more pictures of them, The wheels of my car just show in this picture. I had just missed the parking ticket person who ticketed me for parking 2 hours and 4 minutes in a 2 hour zone. Not even a 5 minute grace period, Boise City??? Could it be because I had California plates? No other cars were in sight.
A row of geese was using the gutter as a drinking fountain. Notice the rings in the water below the goose with a blurred head who has just taken a drink and raises his head to swallow. Some of the geese stood on the curb and some facing the curb. Here's a video, showing the odd, balletic grace of their drinking postures.

The beaver's handiwork

I think I wanted to buy this house
because of the beaver--it seemed so wild and free!
A couple of weeks ago he moseyed up in the night
and took out my next-door neighbor's
Golden Delicious Apple. A shame, really, but look at the classic beaver technique demonstrated in this photo. The chiseling to a sharp point!

My aunt Marjory

I never got to know her very well; she died in 1950 when she was only 40 years old. I was fifteen then and she lived in Arizona, while I was in Schenectady growing up. She was always my ideal for female beauty and elegance. I think this was her dog, but I don't know the name. She was also a horsewoman and looked great in jodhpurs.

A picnic I cannot remember

That's me at the far right. I'm paying close attention to the food item in my hands. Since I would not have been there without her, I assume my mother is taking the photo. This picnic must have taken place during my mother's visit to Arizona to show her oldest child to her family in April, 1937. This is very much how I looked (center part, two little bows) in the newspaper photo accompanying the report of our visit. I suppose we came on the train. The boy in the front near me is clearly my cousin, Rae Brimhall, and the boy at the left end is almost certainly his older brother, Dwayne Brimhall. That means the baby is probably their sister, Marilyn Brimhall. Much, much later, she married John Hales and became the mother of many children whose names all start with the letter K. I do not recognize their parents in the adults in the picture. The woman in the dark dress and hat at the far left is my maternal grandmother, Susie Butler, who grew up in Colonia Juarez, in the Mormon Mexican colonies. She and her husband and the two oldest children left Mexico during the civil unrest at the time of the revolution. She was pregnant with my mother at the time. My Aunt Louise Butler [Rickel] is in the center looking at the camera and wearing a dark sweater. I am going to ask her to identify the other adults; she is probably the only person living who could do so. I found this picture in the boxes that had been in storage since my mother died; I don't remember seeing it before. Where were YOU in 1937; I was here.

Far snowcaps

Just one more--it is quiet in the Bozeman Holiday Inn and the snowy bed linens are very inviting. Good night.

Montana in black and white

And here is another one.