Pulling together

Yeah, I know I posted earlier today, but Tropical Storm Francine pulled herself together.  These screenshots were taken approximately twenty hours apart. 

She's predicted to be a hurricane by the time she makes landfall, and she is predicted to make a direct hit on the Bootheel.  Landfalling tropical systems usually mean at least one tornado, so I'll have to keep a sharp lookout.

If the cone of uncertainty holds true, then Ohio may get a taste of this too.  So my friends up there, be vigilant!  Run to the grocery store for some non-perishable grub, just in case the power goes out.  We certainly will.

Unfortunately my current budget will not allow for the purchase of another popcorn Cabbage Patch Kid.  I've done that twice now in the face of a hurricane, thus why Idalia Gale and Beryl June are named what they are.  Hmmm...if I were to add another girl...what would I use as a middle name?  "Francine September" has a certain je ne sais quoi, but I can hear what Mama would say.  She'd dry heave, just like she did when I suggested that Beryl's middle name be "Tempest."  As usual, Booful Beans thinks my names are a riot.

I'm being a good girl and not buying anything, but I can still goof around.  And who knows, maybe I'll find a popcorn at the local secondhand store!  Yeah right, dare to dream!

Batten down the hatches, y'all, and pray for the Gulf Coast!

Stormy love,

RagingMoon1987 

Forty-two hours

According to one of Mama's weather apps, that's all it took for Beryl to strengthen from the first screenshot to the second.  Pardon the repulsive advertisements at the top.  I'm a straight-leaning asexual, and yet I get advertisements of scantily clad women.

Beryl has not yet hit land, but she's already broken several records.  She's the earliest major hurricane on record, and I think she may be the farthest east as well.  Since she's NOT predicted to hit land for some time Beryl may stay a Cat 4 for a good stretch of time.  LOL, my mother knows of my penchant for naming dolls after hurricanes, and she had a bit of a dry heave when I told her Idalia Gale could've been Beryl Tempest instead.

Booful Beans fell over laughing when I told him.  Booful and Idalia love to tease each other.

As for me, Malden has been hot and humid, but the passage of a front has meant milder temperatures for today.  Sometimes tropical systems give the Bootheel a ton of wind (like Ike did in 2008) or rain (like Dennis did in 2005), but right now Beryl is tracking too far south to be of any consequence to my neck of the woods.  Barbados, though?  I'd batten down the hatches if I were them.

Love,

RagingMoon1987 

A hill of beans

Some of y'all might've heard about something "not amounting to a hill of beans."  I know I did.  I'd be worried about something (usually a bad weather forecast) and Daddy would say "Oh, it won't amount to a hill of beans!"  Anyway, I knew a package from Barb the Evil Genius was en route, and when I opened it it WAS a small hill of beans!  Specifically, Booful Beans!

Y'all do a fabulous job of paying attention, I must say!  Whenever I mention a fondness for a certain item, someone remembers, even if it was clean back in...<pauses to look> Bedsie Beans made his debut on the blog eleven months ago tonight.  It was then that I said I liked Booful Beans the best due to his happy smile. 

These dolls' genders are a hair ambiguous, but I keep calling Booful a "he" so I guess he'll be a new brother for Bedsie!  Bedsie, as usual, is ready to hit the sack.

I freaking love it!  I especially love how their colors jive, though I would've happily taken whatever Barb had to give.  Gift horses are not to be looked in the mouth.  Thank you for sending him, Barb!  He made my day!

Love, 

RagingMoon1987 

Homeward bound?

Got up this morning, threw Bedsie Beans in Sandy McCall's lap, and the results were...quite cute!

It's a yucky-blucky rainy day today, and I'd much prefer to be in bed relaxing, but Saturday is a work day so I left Sandy and Bedsie and the other kids behind.  Yes, the room my mother and I share has quite at Uncle Man-Child's house has gained quite a few dolls, because I've been working on reviews and because I'm not truly at home without at least one doll in the vicinity.  A lot of 'em have been new purchases and Mama hasn't been thrilled about that, but oh well.  Not her money I'm spending.

Despite my griping about the weather, the rain means the passing of a front, and in this particular case the passing of the front means cooler temperatures.  The highs next week are predicted to be in the seventies, with nighttime lows around sixty or so.  That means that Mama and I can go home, at least for a little while.  This is August, after all, and it NEVER stays cool in August.  But I'll get to sleep in my own bed for the first time in I-don't-know-when.  I've got a lot of stuff to move, LOL!  And Sandy isn't exactly the easiest doll to move due to his size.

Much love,
RagingMoon1987

He's here!

Whew, been a busy week at Casa del Luna!  I hit the ground running when Sandy got here, and except for a break on the weekend I haven't looked back.  That said, this post is for you, Tam!  You shared your picture of your Baby Beans doll with me, and now I'm sharing mine with you.  I didn't even know I wanted one of these goofy dolls until I saw that MeTV list, but...well, y'know.  My doll's name is Bedsie Beans, and Ghost of the Doll says he is harder to find than Booful (my personal favorite) and Bitty, the other two Beans in the first wave.  Ghost also implies that Bedsie had a shorter run than the other two, as they weren't able to find packaging for the years 1972 and 1973 (Booful and Bitty did come in this packaging).  I seem to have a knack for finding the harder ones, don't I?  Sandy all but landed in my lap, and now I've got this little guy.  Here's my Bedsie Beans; he came in several colors, with mine being the orange variant.  He's about as different from Sandy McCall as night is from day.

I do have to admit that Bedsie's mouth looks a bit like the grille of an Edsel...and I won't say what people often compare that to!  As Bedsie's name implies, he's sleepy and in mid-yawn, kinda like I tend to be in the morning.  Hey, 9 a.m. is still early for my lazy rear, especially on a Saturday!  Anyway...I presume Bedsie is a boy, but I'm not 100% certain due to that lace around the neck.  Ghost of the Doll calls this one a "she."

These dolls could probably be any gender you like, so I'll call my doll a him because I like boy dolls.  Like all of the Beans Bedsie is a glorified rag doll, with a soft, floppy, plastic pellet-filled body and a hollow vinyl head...my bad, his hands are vinyl too.  Some of these dolls have cloth hands.

The advertisements for these dolls says they can "flip and flop into almost any position," and indeed Bedsie can do just that, though he'd prefer that I just leave him alone.  He can also sit up if I balance him just right, as Bean heads are supported by a peg of some stripe (it feels like plastic).  The My Twinn Cuddly Sisters also relied on a mechanism like this to keep their heads up.  Such a mechanism tends to work the best if the doll is mostly a beanbag; regular old stuffing has too much give.

Bedsie doesn't have a rubber butt, but I was amused to learn that some Beans have vinyl rear ends under trapdoor pajamas like Baby Love 'n' Touch (a.k.a. "Naked Butt Baby") does.  These Beans were called Bare Bottom Beans.  Then of course there were Beans in bonnets and Beans that talked, Beans in cans (I love those), Shoe Beans (I like those too, but WHYYYY???), and even some that represented nursery rhymes.  Tam's lovely green-eyed girl was one of those, representing Little Bo Peep.  As fond as I am of green eyes, I may have to seek Bo out for myself.  I also like the pastel-haired, dimple-cheeked Feijaozinho Colorido dolls and their friend Emilia, but those were Brazilian releases so goodness only knows where I can find one of those.  One can admire though, right?  Besides, those Brazilian dolls don't have quite the character that Bedsie Beans does.

I think Bedsie is about pooped out!  I guess a spin in the washing machine and a spin in the drier will do that to you.  For the record, Booful, Bitty, and Bedsie can be tossed in the washing machine and the drier as long as things aren't too hot; indeed, their original packaging says they're washable.  I tried tying Bedsie up in a pillowcase, the way they say to do if Cabbage Patch Kids need a bath, but the knot came undone, LOL.  Bedsie is no worse for wear except for being sleepy, so I'll leave him to relax while I work.  To Tam, I promise I'll work on a post for Sandy McCall.  You wanted it, you asked for it politely, and you'll get it.  It'll just take a little time, because he's a big boy and I'm not used to handling dolls as big as he is.  He also ended up having more of a backstory than I thought, but I'm workin' on it!

Hugs,

RagingMoon1987

Live from MeTV!

Okay, it's not so live since I'm sharing it, but while looking for information on Ideal's Lazy Dazy I found a list of thirteen dolls from the Me Decade that were listed as "funky" and "bizarre."  Granted, some of 'em were a little on the odd side; one of 'em was a talking Redd Fox doll.  Too bad he didn't ask his young owners "How would you like one 'cross yo lip?"  Lazy Dazy was there too, for reasons I'll never know.  Maybe the fact that you had to "spank" her to get her to work added to the bizarre bit.  But mixed in with Redd and Dazy were a few friends I've shared here in the past.  The Rock Flowers were on the list.  Remember Heather?

I went through a brief period where I wanted to find every Dawn competitor I could think of, but thankfully that phase didn't last too long because those tiny dolls lose their shoes too easily!  Anyway, music was amazing in the seventies, ranging from Glen Campbell's smooth country baritone to Deep Purple's proto-metal wailing.  There truly was something for everyone, and...well, I hesitate to say that ALL the toy companies got in on it, but Mattel certainly did!  Heather and her Rock Flower friends were essentially Live Action Barbie and her friends shrunk to Dawn's size and given a stand that could fit on the spindle of a record player.  Seeing as lots of little girls of the seventies loved both music and dolls, I fail to see what's so bizarre about this bunch.

Softina, on the other hand, I get.  Here's Softina; mine looks a little different from the one in the article, and indeed the article shows their Softina as being eleven inches.  Mine is bigger than that.  Pardon the honking watermark, by the way; the blog was having trouble with photo theft at the time.

Okay, Softina herself isn't so bad.  She's essentially just a foam-filled baby doll that was and still is good for cuddles.  No, what landed her on the list was a swaddling that was available for her.  It was...a shoe.  Not just any shoe, but apparently a Converse-style sneaker, the kind that I often wear and the kind that the Tenth Doctor loved a bit too much!  WHYYYYY would anyone put a baby in a shoe???  That's...that's just weird.  I guess that a shoe is kinda tame compared to the ice cream cones and bumblebees that swaddled the Baby Born Surprises, but it's still pretty out there.  

The Sunshine Family also made the list, and I've talked about them in the past.

The list called them the most seventies dolls of the seventies, and...yeah, I agree.  Stephie, Steve, and their revoltingly-named daughter Sweets were hippies to the core, living in a motor home and selling handmade stuff.  Now I'm not knocking that.  I love handmade stuff, and if folks want to live earthy-like, the more power to them.  The Sunshine Family did that without being repulsively preachy about loving the Earth, reducing-reusing-recycling, all that jazz.  There's just something kinda...since I'm a modern-day woman there's just something kinda weird now about all that.  Probably back then it was NBD since just about everyone was doing it.  More concerning to me about these dolls is how they're aging; Stephie's feet melted to her shoes, and their Southern belle friend Rosa Lee Linden had to have a new body altogether.  But these were sweet, wholesome dolls that put some emphasis on family and togetherness, something that a lot of folks take for granted nowadays.  They're dated, I suppose...yeah, that's it!  They're dated!  They're not all that weird, they're just very, very, VERY old-school.  I wouldn't mind finding their truck, by the way!  I've got the family, so why not give 'em wheels?

Lastly, there was Baby Beans.  This doll is NOT mine, though I do have my own Baby Beans doll on the way.  This one belongs to Tam, and this photo was used with her kind permission.  The link to this doll's post is HERE.  Thank you, Tam!

Again, I can kinda see where the article was coming from, but the only weird thing about the dolls is their name.  And even then it makes sense, because they're full of plastic pellets or "beans," just like Beanie Babies were and are.  Some of the individual dolls also had goofy bean-themed names like "Green Beans" or "Navy Beans."  Thank goodness there was never one named "Kidney Beans"!  Oh, and guess what?  Some of them came packaged in shoes as well.  I fail to see the connection between shoes and beans, but at least Softina isn't alone.  Besides, I'm working on a post that involves two small dolls that reside in plastic fruits, so it's all good.  Baby Beans were ridiculously popular and came in a wide assortment of colors, expressions, and sizes.  There were even Mama Beans and Daddy Beans, each with a small Baby Beans of their own.  Daddy Beans was the one who made MeTV's list, by the way.  Wait 'til y'all see the one I picked; he's pretty goofy himself.

Do any of y'all remember these?  Did any of y'all own any of 'em?  Do you still have any?  Discuss.  As for Lazy Dazy, she will come to live at Casa del Luna someday, but it won't be anytime soon.  She's expensive when in good shape!

Love to all,

RagingMoon1987