So random, November '24

Thank you, sweet Jesus, the election is OVER!!!  We won't have to do this madness again for another four years!  Recap of the month starts on October 29th with a study in opposites. 

Sachi is a fashion doll (albeit an unusual one) and Geneva is a baby doll.  Hot Looks didn't have a lot of success, and Real Baby...I think she did.  There are plenty of 'em out there if one knows where to look.

October 30th.  The work day was winding down, the weather was getting rough in the Great Plains, and the day's dolly mail was peeved at Ryan Hall's listeners.

Okay, Chou Chou was peeved.  Raspberry Herbert was trying to console her.  For context, Ryan Hall's viewers were divided on how to pronounce El Dorado, Kansas.  Even the locals couldn't agree if it was "El Do-RAH-do" or "El Do-RAY-do," and much eye-rolling was done by Chou Chou...and admittedly, by me.  Usually the locals know how to pronounce a location!

Later on that evening Herbert and Chou Chou were joined by Mama's Barbie.

They're not as cantankerous as they look, I promise!  Indeed, Herbert has a smile underneath that paint.  Y'all may be able to see it.

November 2nd.  Mar is fascinated by my newest Fashionista, Laura. 

Laura is the visually impaired Fashionista, #228; notice that her eyes go in two different directions.  Her cane is red at the bottom, meaning that Laura does have some vision (just like Xenia).  I named her after Laura Bridgman, the first American deaf-blind to be successfully educated.  Nope, Helen Keller wasn't the first, though she was one of the first to learn to talk.  Anyway, that's my new Fashionista.  Mama wasn't a big fan; I think blindness may be one of Mama's bigger fears.

November 4th.  Bae Day Monday was for blue-eyed Cabbies, so I started with one I almost forgot, Skye Kitty. 

The full-sized Colecos, Hugo Jack and Idalia Gale.

The Preemies, Cara Raelean and Stella Rae.

My blondes, Iris Evangeline and Lucey Dena.

The redheads, Karen Sheila and Valencia Rose's little Playmate, Titania Rosalind. 

And my softie, Poppy Elizabeth.  They're dark, but they're blue.

Blue eyes are fairly common among Cabbies, but not as common as a certain other color.  More on that at eleven. 

Election Day.  It should be no surprise that I whiled away the evening with my dolls.  Here's Violet and Ernest John. 

The Brady Bunch did not get watched like I said I would do, but I did get a can of orange Fanta, which in my book is BETTER than peach Snapple.  And keep in mind, I love me some peach Snapple.  I have to say, Violet is an interesting little doll.  I may have to go back on my word and review her after all.  At the very least I straightened her braids.

She looks happy about the new old 'do.  I know I always felt better after redoing my ragged braids in high school, even though it was just a hairstyle.  To hell with the raggedy, LOL.

November 8th.  Unlike Violet, Clio Teresa gives no effs about how mad her hair gets.  On the eighth she took a minute to sit in my old Horus tree.

Clio had gained a new nickname by that point.  It was the day before that I'd fried my thumb trying to clean Clio's leg, and Mama subsequently named her "Poison Priscilla."  I myself had been calling her "Toxic Dolly," a play on my sister's favorite Living Dead Doll, Toxic Molly.  As such Clio is only the second member of my patch to have a nickname; Matt the Brat was the first.

November 10th.  A random picture of Isolde. 

Lolita clothes are out of reach for me, so I'm letting Isolde strut it.  If you've got it, flaunt it!

November 11th was another Bae Day Monday, for green-eyed Kids.  This was easy since I only have five.  There's Gavin Andrew and Kory Aryan...

...and Valencia Rose, Carol Kasey, and Candela Laura.

Don't have too many with green eyes!  

Same day.  Da hoodz, LOL.

Matt the Brat, Alice Helene, and Kory Aryan rock their hoods as the temperatures deepen.  Wouldn't y'all know, I forgot Ernest John!

I freaking love Ernest John, and I can't believe I left him out of the group pic.  He looks so cute in this set Mama got!  I wish the hoodie came in MY size, because it's soft.

Also November 11th.  Lulu, one of my Magic Nursery triplets, made friends with a new arrival. 

His name is Tuggles, and he's a Taco Bell Hugga Bunch doll.  The original Tuggles was smaller (called a "Huglet" by Kenner), and his coordinating large doll was...Hugsy???  <pauses to look>  Yeah, Hugsy was the one.  Hugga Bunch dolls are kinda popular among my Cabbage Patch cronies on Failbook, so y'all might see one here in the coming months. 

November 13th was Wednesday Wearables, and my two foreign Kids got the new stuff this time.

It was a coincidence that Kitrick Randolph Fergus and Candela Laura were two of my last Cabbies in Halloween clothes, but that doesn't matter much.  Of course Mama supplied both of these.

November 15th.  Bonnie and Cancer were agog over...over SOMETHING.  These two are always in awe over something I can't see.  I don't know if I should be concerned or not.

By the way, Cancer is named after the zodiac sign, not the disease.  It's still an unfortunate name, one that I may change in the future.

November 17th.  Elmyra/Baby See 'n' Say got cozy with Vincent. 

I think Vincent would prefer to be sitting by Morgan. 

November 18th.  Another Monday, this one for Cabbies with gray or violet eyes.  I don't have too many, but I have a few.  Elisabeth Clara, Andrea Doria, and Allie Kathleen all have violet eyes.  They look blue in the pictures, but trust me:  they're violet IRL.

Alexandra Claire is my only gray-eyed Kid.  Coleco did make gray-eyed Kids, but they're kinda hard to find.

There's also Alice Helene, who has...very unusual eyes.  They look blue in most pictures, but they're part lilac.

I dunno...overall they look blue, but IRL they're...well, not!  They also look butterflyish, kinda like Tsukuda eyes.  What do y'all think???

November 22nd, evening.  I got in the mood to bring out Velvet and play with her awhile, but she tuckered out quickly.  This is the Velvet that Tam sent me, by the way. 

Notice that her eyes remain clean, by the way.  So far, my attempts to keep the mold out of Casa Pizarro have succeeded. 

November 24th.  This popped up in my Failbook memories, and was originally supposed to be in Gabby's spotlight post.  My Gabby is a rhythmic gymnast (and a dancer, LOL).

The AG spotlights kinda went over like a lead balloon, and as such Gabby, Danica, River Song, and Tequila Rose never got theirs.  I was running out of ideas for original hobbies anyway.

Okay...November 25th was for brown-eyed Cabbies and Killecrankie, do I have a bunch of them!  I'll start with the boys of color, Matthew Tommie, Esmond Brant, and Nathan Hunter. 

The Asian girls, Margot Madeline and Leslie Emily.

Miscellaneous Cornsilks, Cleopatra Chantale and Julie Emmalee.

The dirty white boys, Ernest John and Shelley Fred.

Beryl June flies solo this time. 

The little ones, Taniyah Yasmin and Sammy Sloth. 

Lastly, Gillian Ida and Kitrick Randolph Fergus are a little different from the others.  Gilly's eyes are a lovely light shade, and Randolph's are...well, they're Tri-Ang Pedigree eyes.  His eyes are murky, but at one time they were brown.

By the way, I see what Treesa meant by this bathing suit being pert near indecent, and why isn't Gillian Ida wearing her cute little retro getup???  Because I wanted to see what it would look like on Karen Sheila after I took Karen out of her witch outfit.  I'll find something Christmassy for Gilly.  She's fourteen inches so finding her something will be easy.

Pant, pant, pant...I don't feel too well...<passes out>

Okay, what day is it?  Uhhhhh...November 26th.  This is a Failbook memory from 2019.

The Patsy trio and my Ichimatsu dolls, Satomi and Hitomi. 

November 28th/Thanksgiving.  My gut was full of good food, I'd had my afternoon nap, and I was ready to cuddle with a Cabbie.  I picked Gillian Ida, because I can't get over those eyes.

The promised Christmas outfit had been ordered by then, but it hadn't shipped.  With the mail service being as crazy as it is, goodness knows when I'll get it.  Hopefully before Christmas!  

Eleven down, one to go, and then it'll be a new year!

Love,
RagingMoon1987

She might look clean, but...

...yeah.  I rooted my first-wave Lagoona Blue out of storage today.  At first glance she looks alright, with all her ghoulish glam attitude still intact.

But y'all can probably see the yellowed mess on her forehead, caused by the problem that everyone and their dog griped about during Monster High's heyday:  glue.  Here's how Lagoona looks after I cleaned her with a wet wipe.  She looks better, but that stain is there.  Mama couldn't see it, but I can.

I wonder what bright-flight egghead thought it would be a good idea to fill these dolls' heads with glue???  Did they not think that that could be deleterious to the doll's looks and value over time?  I mean, I'm not looking to resell Lagoona, but my point still stands.  I hope the brain child behind the glue steps on goatheads in their bare feet. 

Venting over.

Love,

RagingMoon1987 

Which Barbie doll are you?

Yeah, yeah, I should be doing more productive things at work, but it's Saturday and almost no one comes in so I'm browsing Reddit.  One Redditor shared a link to a quiz entitled "Which Barbie Doll Are You?"  Well, wave anything Barbie-themed in my face and I'm all over it like white on rice.  I took the quiz and got this lovely girl, the Crystal Barbie.

There was also a blurb included below, which is more a description of the doll than an explanation of my result.

Widely regarded for its spiritual and healing properties, the amethyst stone comes to life with Barbie doll dressed in a sweeping lavender chiffon gown with a glittering sash delicately tied at the waist. She emits pure energy with a genuine amethyst stone necklace, fragmented crystal-inspired bracelets and enchanting makeup. A crown resembling gathered shards of amethyst adorns her upswept, platinum ponytail with soft lavender highlights.

Hmmm...she's pretty different from the Crystal Barbie I'm familiar with, the one that has plenty of glitz and a tiny bit of early nineties cheese.  I freaking love Crystal Barbie...and Crystal Ken too, for that matter.  Whatever, I won't knock being the modern Crystal Barbie; being purple, she makes me think of my purple-loving sister.

A couple'a questions did make me roll my eyes, I'll admit.  When they asked who my role model was, the options were Michelle Obama, Pink, Jennifer Lawrence, Ellen DeGeneres, Bill Nye, and Serena Williams...and I can't stand most of 'em!  Another asked who I follow on Instagram, and I don't even use Instagram!  The only option there that I liked was hottie Dave Grohl.

The link to the quiz is HERE if you wanna give it a shot.  It's something cute to kill a few minutes, and one of the options one can get is Storm Trooper Barbie.  That doll kicks butt.

Cheers,
RagingMoon1987

Bootleg!

As y'all may remember I'm fond of clone dolls, and that sentiment extends to the Cabbage Patch.  I want a Pumpkin doll so bad I can almost taste her, LOL.  The Pumpkins' faces fall soundly into the "comical" category, and...well, I just like them.  It was during a search for a Pumpkin that I ran into today's doll, which is not a clone but a full-tilt bootleg Cabbage Patch Kid...and also something of a mystery.  Meet the enigmatic Clio Teresa.

Clio resided in Athens, Greece before coming here.  Her seller conjectures that this doll was sold by El Greco, who later sold Cabbage Patch Kids in Greece.  Yep, El Greco, the same bunch that made a very pretty and hard-to-find Sindy clone.  I thought Jesmar covered all of Europe...but then Jesmar only made Cabbies for a short time.  El Greco apparently had a license to at least sell Cabbies in Greece, but I think Clio must predate that because the El Greco Cabbie I found is a legit Cabbie, made by Hasbro and sold by El Greco.  Either way Clio is definitely NOT a Jesmar, nor a Coleco, nor any real Cabbie.  Her neck isn't even marked, though one can see where the company info was scratched off the mold.  Not in this picture so much, but she's got an indentation there.

Clio's head looks like a copy of the Coleco #1 head.  She favors Kitrick Randolph Fergus quite heavily.

Since I have Randolph here now, here's how his hands compare to Clio's.  The difference is pretty obvious.

Clio's hands are vinyl, just like her head.  No soft-bodied Cabbie has those.  It's nice, semi-soft vinyl that I love to touch, but it smells kinda nasty, making me wonder what these bootleg dolls are made of.  The detailing is nice though, with cuticles and knuckles and creases on the palms visible.  Some sort of gom on Clio's knuckles is also visible.

I'm not sure what's up with this left wrist, but it looks like there's FUR molded in.  The right wrist doesn't look like that.

A quick perusal of the Pumpkins revealed that they have vinyl hands, so maybe that's why Clio appeared in a search directed at them.  I dunno.

While Clio isn't a Jesmar she clearly was meant to look like one.  Remember that many (but not all) Jesmar dolls have freckles, and just look at Clio's freckles!  Also note Clio's wonky left eye.  Quality control was asleep at the wheel when this doll was put together. 

Oh yes, and the hair.  Can't forget that, can we???  Clio's hair is yarn like a Cabbie's and like a Pumpkin's, but it's a color that Coleco, Jesmar, Tri-Ang, etc. never used.  It's cotton candy pink and doesn't match a stitch that Clio is wearing.  Not that that bothers me much.

I must say, Clio Teresa is an interesting doll.  She's lived at Casa Pizzaro about a month now and I haven't found a single doll that's like her.  I hopped on Google Images, I browsed eBay and Etsy, and I found nothing.  A friend on Failbook told me that in a way, this doll is more special even than a Jesmar because these bootlegged dolls were confiscated and destroyed for being illegal and are thus quite rare.  I found a newspaper source confirming this...but no one says anything in the article about pink hair.  Another source I found discussed a knockoff called a "Patch Kid" who had filling that burned and irritated skin, but again I could find no description of the dolls other than that they were fake Cabbage Patch Kids that looked like the real thing and cost about the same as the real thing.  That rules Clio out, because she looks different enuff from the real thing that one can tell her apart.

End of story, right?  Wrongo!!!  Indeed, the saga of Clio Teresa is about to take a very odd turn, as she is apparently one of the aforementioned bootlegs.  Did anyone notice that Clio's left foot has some brown stains???

When I want to clean stains out of fabric I use peroxide, and I promptly poured some on these stains to try to get them lightened up (it didn't work).  I rubbed the peroxide in with my thumb...and fifteen minutes later I noticed a minor burn on my right thumb.  See the patch of white skin?

The tip of my right index finger also got a little fried, but not enuff to show.  The burns didn't hurt or itch a bit, and they healed up before the day was over, but now I know a little more about what this doll can do to me if I ever get her wet!  Thank God I didn't toss her in the washing machine like I'd planned!  This mishap officially makes Clio Teresa my most dangerous doll.

I still like her, though.  I understand now why these fakies were confiscated due to them being a hazard, but I still like my pink-haired girl!  In the off chance that any of y'all run into a doll like this, don't handle her bare-handed when she's wet and you'll be fine.

Cheers,
RagingMoon1987