This whale (made of thick blue rubber) arrived inside a delivery box of diapers and socks and other baby-care paraphernalia while I was visiting my granddaughter on Friday afternoon. The whale fits over the bath tub water spout and protects small bathers from receiving any accidental head-knocks against that protruding chrome fixture. While I was photographing the new whale (plus four human feet) Mabel Watson Payne was studying the large display window on the back of my camera. She recently started noticing how the images on that screen reproduce our surroundings and even our own selves, and now she very much likes to see a picture like this one, made before her own eyes out of elements she can recognize.
It was dark outside by the time my daughter came home from the office and settled in to assist with the ancient but still absorbing game of backpack-unpacking. I always wonder why it is that the evenings seem shorter after the time-change in the fall – because the darkness starts earlier and the evening is actually longer, not shorter. Still, it seems shorter, and bath time seemed to arrive sooner. It was (all the same) just as fun as ever.
