What is this?

Or this?

Somebody who does not want his picture taken. 

"The kids" back then...

...and "the kids" today.

I don't think we look any different. We're still the same people we were when we were little. It's more than 40 years later and we still look like kids, albeit old kids... but definitely not a group of grown-ups (even though two of us are now in our fifties).

I remember one summer we were all sitting on my dad's deck drinking wine. Someone had found my mother's diary from 1965 and starting reading it out loud. Oh, that diary was funny. Parenting in the sixties was a lot different than how it's done now. When my mom needed some privacy to read during the day, she used to lock the doors so we couldn't get inside. True. It's in the diary. At some point the person reading the diary read about "the baby" and how good he was (the baby being Eddie). The baby's favorite thing was to lie in his stroller and watch the trees up above. After that was read, Eddie started to laugh because that was exactly what he was doing, lying on his back watching the trees.

I must have been aware of design at a very young age because my first conscious memory was getting some sort of bath in the kitchen (I think chicken pox was the reason) and staring at the Argo cornstarch lady on the box next to me. I thought she was a very unusual looking person what with that exposed ear of corn body. She made a lasting impression on 2 or 3 year old me.

It's funny. You're born who you are and you stay who you are. But I also wonder at what point you transition into a "grown-up" because some people do.

In the 80s, I used to work in a publishing company in San Francisco. One of the women in the office told me that I was too old to have long hair and that I should get it bobbed (I was 23 at the time). I was a little put out by this and went to talk to my best friend Bonnie. I have no idea how old Bonnie was at that time but she had to have been comfortably into her 60s. Bonnie told me this story (this was something we liked to do, tell stories to each other, as well as buy sheets on sale at The Emporium). Anyway, every night before Bonnie went to bed, she would say to herself,  "Tomorrow morning when I wake up, I will be all grown up." But then she told me it hadn't happened yet. Every morning when she woke up she was still the same person.

And I guess, the same goes for me........................but tomorrow morning, who knows? :-)

Willful pets

This old photo of Bert in the backyard with Violet was probably taken around 1995. There is a range of willfulness in all my pets but until this one little episode, Bert would have not been on that scale. He was such a good pet and friend (he was the one who was patient enough to endure a baby parrot's examination of his teeth, he also endured Lucy the turtle crawling all over him to find just the right spot to sleep with him). As you can see, while I was busy mowing the yard, Bert was busy maintaining his spot in the middle of it. I kept mowing. He insisted on staying put. Around and around I went with the mower...until I got to that last little square of uncut grass. Bert was not going to move. By the time I returned with a camera, Violet was helping Bert maintain his little plot of grass by claiming the lawn mower. It was two against one so I let them keep their square of grass. :-)

Something "P and D"...

...which (according to Michael, Michael Ray's namesake) is short for "precious and 'dorable."

Dick found these at an estate sale years ago. The woman who lived in the house was a portrait painter. She had boxes and boxes in her basement studio of these little painted sketches that were done on any kind of flat surface that would take paint. She painted on the back of cereal boxes, old computer galley paper, absolutely anything. 

Apparently, she used everything that came her way. It didn't even matter if there were existing creases in the cardboard before she started painting... 

I fell in love with these little girl paintings and Dick let me keep them. I was not so interested in the series she did of adolescent boys from the 70s. That's a bad age for a portrait, a bad era for fashion, and every kid back then had bad hair and lots of it. I passed on those portraits. 

However, these little paintings of the little girl are so darn sweet. I'm not sure if the photos they're based on are from the 60s, 50s or even earlier. 

This one is my favorite.