Reading: Iris Murdoch, Under the Net, and Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children

Moving: Hiked 3.6 miles

5 August 2001: Taboo

Jessie wrote about it. I have pictures.

At Bear Lake starts a 1.8-mile trail to three lakes. The first one, Nymph, is pretty but all lilypaddy and wee. This second one, Emerald, is the best. That bit way in the distance over RDC's head, where it's all flat and dark, is shallow and so warm that I wanted to go for a dip, though I expect swimming's illegal. Also I had no towel and if there's anything worse than putting on socks over wet feet, I don't know what it could be. Also for your viewing pleasure, a yokel.

Just a little farther up is Dream Lake. It's right under the cliffs, fed all summer by melting snow. Though you can't see the base of the waterfall that feeds it, you can hear it. It's the midpoint of the hike and therefore lunchtime.

It was our lunchtime (don't be scared of the Baron with knife--hm, as a weapon, was that illegal in the park?), and therefore the Steller jays and Clark's nuthatches thought it was theirs too. They were wrong, but their ubiquity meant I got this great shot of one's furry little underbelly.

I think we've only been up here in the winter before. The first time we came to the park, in May 1996, it was still snowy enough that the snowshoe hares were all in white, and we were nervous enough about getting lost that we didn't even get as far as Nymph. Although I think we were headed for Glacier Gorge that time. Anyway, I hope someday to come up here on an August weekday, when less crowding (everyone and their cousins, first second and third, were here this day) might enable a swim.

The sun was out strongly only for a few minutes, those few minutes lakeside when I so wanted to swim. It was more weakly sunny when we lounged and ate and drank at Dream. Rain also sprinkled a little bit, and I expected a downpour that never materialized. Instead we just lounged around for while and I think I drank something Alice-y in my waterbottle there, because I don't know how else I could have become so foreshortened..

On Jessie and GB's fridge is a photograph of them on a beach somewhere.You can't see their faces or even that they're looking at each other (as far as I remember), but it's really expressive and I like it. Jessie said one of their mothers took it and it's one of the few that she likes. Or she's less enamored of her own image than I am, whatever. Anyway, I wanted to get something similar, and this is what I came up with. You can see a little of Jessie's pink-tinged hair.

Besides the brain and the books, I discovered another reason I enjoy Jessie's company. She is one of the few people who out-louds me, laugh excepted. I'm a delicate flower, really.

---

When the rest of us were playing Taboo, RDC listened to the voicemail. Nisou had called. Twice, and we don't telephone often. So twice made me very hopeful. Once would have been about our upcoming trip; two made me think something much bigger was in the offing.

And it is, something much bigger that is. I finally talked to her Tuesday morning. This thing started out small and now it's started to grow, though it's otherwise not Grinchlike. Je ris, je pleures. Je vais être une tante en fevrier. I get to meet the Bulge in six weeks.