[jdviole2]

Today I am going to expand on my descriptions of the photos and tell some short Helena stories in connection with each of those. The first one does not include Helena but relates to yesterdays post. It shows one of our Christmas's together. The hangings on the wall were hand made by Helena and I and the three angels on the right side of the picture were ceramic's that were hand painted by Helena. Looking at this picture I can't believe all the gifts we used to buy each other. (Yes those ALL are for just the two of us.) The shot is in the living room of our first house. The window behind the tree is the one that Helena was standing naked in front of in one of her nude photos. You can just see the edge of the diamond shaped mirror (on the left side of the picture) that also figure into some of her nude pictures. The couch that she posed on is against the wall on the right but was positioned under the hanging light for her nudes. The second picture today shows Helena washing her hands in a stream in the mountains. The dog walking along the stream is Houligan. We had some friends that moved to Colorado. Before they moved they ordered a dog from a local breeder. When the puppy was old enough Helena and I decided to pick up the dog and drive him halfway to Colorado. We met our friends at a reststop on the interstate and made the transfer after lunch. Helena hated to see him go. She had held him the entire 200 miles we had to drive while she slept in her lap. She had fallen deeply in love by the time we got to the reststop. Our friends already had one old dog and they brought her along. She got along great while we were having lunch but our friend told us that on the way back to Denver the older dog kept staring at our friends almost like she was saying "Hey they forgot their damn dog. Don't tell me WE have to take him". The two dogs ended up being good friends. Helena loved getting to see him when we would go out to visit and hike. The third picture is of a much younger Helena. It was taken at a local fair in Michigan where she grew up. She had once told me about having cotton candy that was half as big as she was. I, of course, figured she was greatly exagerating the size of the goodie. When her father died we took all the family pictures home with us. While looking at all the pictures I found this one and showed it to her. She looked at me with a very smug expression and said "I told you so". I couldn't argue. While not half as big as her it is awfully close. I have many pictures of her at that fair or others like it. Riding the rides, and eating of course. I even have her first "nude" photos. Taken when she was about 2 standing up in a bath tub. Of course I can't show you those. I have some others that I will post at a future time. It is interesting (to me at any rate) to see the expressions that I saw everyday on such a small, young face. The fourth picture shows Helena in one of our motel rooms (in Colorado) eating breakfast before getting ready for a mountain hike. Though we both loved to eat a good breakfast (a full English breakfast, as they say) we never did if we were planning a long hike. The round tin on the bed is full of brownies. My grandmother, and after she passed away (at 99) my mother would make brownies for us to take on vacation with us. Homemade fudge brownies, with a marshmallow topping and a swirl of chocolate frosting. We ate them at breakfast and for a snack. Helena is drinking her morning coffee. We used to take an imersion heater with us and she would have to have her cup of hot coffee every morning. I hate hot drinks and settled for a cold coke. The thought of that almost made her sick. The somewhat sour expression on her face is her normal "morning" face. Helena was NOT a morning person. (She wasn't an night person either). She functioned best from 10 AM thru 9 PM. Any other time, forget it. I, on the other hand am a night person (I always claim to be part vampire since I don't really come to life until after sundown) but am able to function well in the morning too. From waking up to full speed ahead only takes me about 5 minutes. Helena hated that. The next picture is Helena and our first cat, Scamper, when he was just a kitten. She had wanted a cat for a long time but I wasn't sure. I had two bad experiences with cats (scratching and being bitten in the neck) and really didn't want to take a chance again. Finally though I realized that she really wanted a kitten. We went to a pet shop near us (we were driving by this time). Helena only insisted on two things that the cat be a short hair and a female. The shop had a batch of kittens sharing a open pen. All of them were running around and playing, rough housing each other. All except this one cat that was sitting at the edge of the pen looking up at us. Helena fell in love. Obviously this cat was more interested in people than in the other cats. I pointed out to her that the cat was a long hair. She thought for a minute and decided she could handle that. Then I took a look. I told her that the cat was a male also. (FYI sexing of kittens is VERY hard to do. No genitals are visible yet and you are dependent on judging the spacing between two openings on the cats bottom. I know kind of gross). The owner of the shop, in a very superior sounding voice, informed me that I was wrong and it was a female. There was a lot of back and forth between the two of us. Finally I told Helena that the cat was a male and if she could deal with that then she could have him. If she really didn't want a male then we weren't going to take the cat. The owner of the store freaked out and kept insisting it was female. I told her she was wrong and should just keep quiet while Helena decided. She kept quiet but I think it was more out of shock than anything else. Helena said she thought she could deal with it. So we brought him home. She named him Scamper because of the way he "scampered" around the house. We took him for his first health check. Helena asked the question, "male or female". I had all fingers and toes crossed. The vet looked and without hesitation said "oh obviously a male". I was right. She did all the scratching post training, and other training. (Side note here: I had house broken many dogs and was not looking forward to doing the same with the cat. When I watched as he climbed into the litter box and went by himself I was sold on cats. After that I always refered to it as the cat being "preloaded with software".) He was with us for fourteen years. If this was a pets thread I could write for hours about him but I guess I need to return to Helena. The next picture is Helena relaxing in the front room of our second house. This is kind of a hard picture to look at. I am staring this very minute at the same pillow she is resting her arm on. The glass she is drinking from is in a cupboard in the kitchen. It came from her mom and dad's house. I still use it. Though the picture hanging on the wall is not there anymore it is stored in a closet in a spare bedroom and I see it from time to time. The smile is one that I have seen many times and still is the expression I most see when I dream of her, which is almost every night. One last bonus picture. This was taken by Helena's dad in the summer of 1973 the day after we got engaged. I had come over to ask his permission to marry Helena. He wanted to take our picture and I'm glad he did. I don't have many pictures of the two of us together and this is one of my favorites. By the way even though she was 22 and didn't need permission it just seemed the right thing to do. And thats it for today.