Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: This is one among upcoming posts which will include purchases from a woman I found on Instagram (@MissMollysAntiques) and who commenced our relationship by selling me a nice paper mache Halloween black cat head. (A post about that can be found here.) She appears to be selling out a shop in an antiques mall somewhere in the middle of the United States and I am one of the beneficiaries. (Miss Molly also appears to be a musician, although I don’t know much about that aspect of her biography.)

As I sat writing this blog last weekend, Instagram starting sending me DM messages with photo images that were going on a sort of flash sale she was posting. I  was the right captive audience and she was on a run with me as I picked up what ended up being quite a pile of very random, but interesting, photos.

First in talking about this photo, let me start by saying I have always been fairly fixated on the idea of ermine. Don’t get me wrong, I am solidly of the camp that believes the little fellows should keep their own fur. Until I looked it up just now I never knew that these weasel-y little fellows are brown in the summer (no one seems to want their little pelts then) and only turn white in the winter, their tails supply the black bits. (They are clearly in trouble then.) The black and white pattern has always interested me though although I am sure that I would be more than satisfied with faux.

I think it is safe to say that no real ermines were injured in the making of this photo studio costume donned by our subject, the young woman here. However, she wears it well – crown perched atop her head and scepter lightly grasped. She takes to being royalty well.

The backdrop puzzles me some. It is a painted scrim of a cottage facade with flower boxes. Seems a bit disparate with the costume proffered. She is very nicely dressed under her borrowed garb. A pretty spring dress, shiny white stockings and white spring shoes all shine below the cape. Her day at the fair or carnival must have been a very festive event. This card is in perfect shape and was never mailed, nothing is written on the back. It is easy to see why it was saved.

A combination of working on this post and the precise point Kim is at in his Little Orphan Annie reading created a nexus bringing to mind a cartoon I had not seen since childhood. (Facebook folks know that Kim has been working his way slowly and joyfully through all of Little Orphan Annie, reading it on weekend mornings while I work on my blog. He’s currently on Volume 14 – 1948-’50; he’s deep into ’49 presently.)

This discussion, about treasure discovered in caves, sent me to the internet where after a few false starts we watched Bugs and Daffy in Ali Baba Bunny. For those of you who know the cartoon I just have to say, Pismo Beach and Mine, Mine, Mine! and you’ll know which one I am talking about. (Kim had never seen it! One of the rare moments when our generational difference is showing.) If you need a giggle – and really, who doesn’t? – I suggest you wander over now and watch it. (At the time of writing it was found here.)