At our favorite Chinatown playground on Friday afternoon the sand pit was probably about as popular as all other play-locations combined. Above, Mabel Watson Payne took a break on a bench so Daddy could rid her shoes and socks of one load of accumulated sand. Then (below) she immediately began to accumulate another load. The shoes were new this week (bronze finish with leather ruffle across the instep). They represent the second pair of structured shoes with an actual semi-hard sole that this walking (and running and leaping) baby has owned. She only just just succeeded in wearing holes through the first pair.
Our old friend the pretend-train could never be totally neglected. All the same, the attention it received on this visit was scant and formal. The sand was just too fascinating. A solid that pours.
And here I must publicly thank my daughter for arranging time to meet me at her office South of Market in the early morning one day earlier this week and there coaching me through a couple of non-intuitive peculiarities of the new Blogger interface that had prevented me from formatting pictures and text the way I wished to. Like the new D-SLR, this new format will require practice, but now (thanks to the timely intervention of youth) there is a reasonable hope of improvement.