Another special haul for that special doll, plus a scary turn of events

This post is like the one on October 21st, where I brag about stuff I've got for The Doll Who Shall Not Be Named.  This haul isn't as extensive, just a bunch of secondhand stuff and a dress set.  The secondhand lot included this sweater and fringed skirt, both pumpkin-colored, and both resembling stuff I saw on Etsy.  They look like they may be from EliteDollWorld, a shop I really, really like.

The eBay seller paired these with this hooded jacket.  I love the stripes!

The tie has pretty little beads on the ends.  See?

I almost knocked a tooth out with the weighted end of a pull string one time, but I still like decorative ends like that.  I was a child when the incident occurred, and I was running, and my pull string swung up and popped me in the mouth.  Pull string weights and active children don't always mix, LOL.  Anyway, the getup above will probably be reserved for fall.  A long way off, in other words.  But then again summer is a long way off too, and that's what these items are for.  The swimsuit reminds me of the colorblock suits that Barbie and her friends wore in the nineties...and in the seventies too, for that matter.

The swimsuit shows through the slits in the coverup.  I love that.

So that's the secondhand lot, and now this is the outfit.  It's so big that I had to divide it for photographs.  It's a skirt and top set from Noriko's Dinner Table, kinda Gothic and steampunk mixed together.  Here's the top; this first picture doesn't do it justice.

This puppy is a CORSET TOP!!!  See the laces in the back???

The ties have beads on them too.  The front ties are decorated with butterflies.

Oh, and the straps!  They have D-rings that jingle.  There are four of them in all.

The straps dangle over this very voluminous skirt, which is made of stripey material and goes clean to the floor when it's on the doll.

I'm excited for her to wear that.  That may be what she spends most of the spring in...when spring comes, that is.  Winter's not even officially started yet.  But then again, my doll will have to wait to wear this too.  It's a wa lolita dress with Hello Kitty printed all over.  jennscrochetmadness supplied this one.

Pricey?  Yeah, I admit it.  This doll was/is the most expensive doll I own now, and her wardrobe hasn't been cheap either.  I don't care.  It's fun!

On a more serious note, I'm sorry to say that my sister was ill over the weekend.  On Friday night she went to a doctor with pain in her lumbar area (Brother-In-Law had to make her go), which she blamed on extensive travel with unsupportive seating.  Well!  Within an hour she was at the ER because the first doctor (First Doctor, LOL) found bilirubin in her urine, as well as an elevated white blood cell count.  Bilirubin should not be in urine, and it means that something is off with one's liver or gallbladder.  Long story short, Sister had a CAT scan done, and they found a teratoma, something she was born with.  This particular teratoma was pressing on her vena cava and had to come out.  Sister rode in an ambulance for the first time in her life and all ended well, but things were kind of hairy for awhile.  The ER had Sister convinced that she could easily die, and as a result she was panic-stricken during the ride to the third hospital.  

The doctors ended up removing a twelve-pound, basketball-sized teratoma and Sister's left ovary, which the teratoma had consumed.  I won't share pictures of the thing since it's pretty gruesome, but it had hair and teeth in it, which is common for a teratoma.  Sister's incision thus was huge and needed a boatload of staples, but otherwise Sister feels great!  She said she'd had no idea how tired that mass was making her, but then she didn't even know she had it!  She thought she was just getting fat (her words, LOL).  So that's the story.  Sister had a huge tumor removed and thank God, she's on the road to recovery.  But it's been a scary weekend, not one any of us are eager to repeat!

Love,
RagingMoon1987

I know I've said this before, but...

...there ain't no mama like the one I got!  She got me a Tiny Tears doll!

Truth be told, Tiny Tears is as much for Mama as she is for me.  Mama owned a doll similar to Tiny when she was a child (possibly Kathy Cry Baby, as her doll's name was "Kathy"), so she has a fondness for this doll.  Plus, she and I have both been a mite unhappy lately; we both are in a fair amount of pain, I from my hip/fibroids/what-have-you, she from her sciatica, and we're both sick to death of it.  So Tiny has been something of a morale booster for the both of us.  Anyway, the early examples of Tiny Tears had plastic heads, while later versions have vinyl heads.  My doll has a hard plastic head, and it's both hard as a rock and pale as a ghost.  Her body is soft and pink.

Tiny Tears came in several different hair colors, with my particular doll having strawberry blonde hair.  That pleases me greatly, though I'd have taken whatever came.

Tiny is very pale in the face, and she has the same unusual hairline that Tam's doll does, despite having a hard head.

Very unusual.  I'd love to have seen this doll's manufacturing process.  

Unfortunately, dolls and other items are sometimes shipped in packing peanuts, and that was the case with Tiny Tears. 

As I've said before, the Doctor has the Daleks, and I have packing peanuts.  I hate these darned things!  Packing peanuts aside, Tiny Tears was not expected, but she's welcome and already very loved.  I hope Mama knows how I love her.

Cheers,
RagingMoon1987 

Fayetteville under siege

For the uninitiated, Fayetteville, Arkansas is where my sister and brother-in-law live and work.  This drama started shortly after 6:30 local time, with this hideous radar.  Both of the red polygons in this screenshot had confirmed tornadoes. 

The northern storm prompted this headline, which did not fill Mama or me with enthusiasm. 

My fur niece Louise gave zero effs.  My sister says Louise hates bad weather, but here she's chill...unlike the TV!

More Louise.  Y'all wouldn't know that she's really a psycho.

A very loved psycho, though!  She may not like me, but I like her!  

Not long after sending that picture Sister told Mama that they were crating Louise and making for University of Arkansas campus (after Louise finished taking a dump, LOL).  That's better shelter than the second-floor apartment where they live.  Apartment buildings are not the safest places to ride out tornadoes.  And right as we were receiving word that they'd arrived at campus, we get THIS headline.  Storm was headed right for campus. 

Sister says that the campus has a shelter, and that's where they hid as the south side of Fayetteville got clobbered. 

Their apartment is sadly in the path, and Brother-in-law says that the tornado is headed straight for the building.  Thank God they left.  I must say, crap like this is NOT what I like to see.

Please pray for Fayetteville, and for Fort Smith as well.  They too are in the path of a tornado. 

Yours truly, 

RagingMoon1987 

The big three-seven

Yep, it's that day again!  Since it's a Sunday Mama and I are gonna chillax and lay low.  Uncle Man-Child wanted to go out to eat, but the last time we did that it was a hundred-mile round trip of nothing but him chatter-chatter-chattering.  I'm not in the mood for that, and neither Mama nor I were in the mood to go out, so we opted to...well, NOT go out!  It's a good thing we didn't too, because I woke up in a significant amount of pain and am having a hard time moving.  So we stayed home and ate pizza and exchanged the few gifts we have.  My present to Mama isn't here yet, but I know she'll like it.  It's a wooden cutting board, and it's got a pattern burned onto it using a very dangerous technique. 

As for me, my gifts consist of some wearables, plus one doll.

How the sam-hill Mama knew I'd like this one, I don't know.  I've been vocal about my fondness for Asian Cabbage Patch Kids, but I never told Mama that I had my eye on this specific outfit.  This doll is a Jakks Pacific Kid, and she's a "Preppy Girl."

I knew that this line had a lot of cute ones, but my favorites have always been Preppy Girl and Skater Boy.

Regarding my doll, her name is Margot Madeline, and she also just had a birthday.  Please ignore the fact that I put the birth certificate in the envelope the wrong way. 

Included with Margot is this little card, stating her favorite things.  It surprised me that she likes to paint, seeing she's not Artsy Girl.  She also apparently likes playing sports and scary stories, which I can dig.

Now here's Margot Madeline out of her box and looking VERY pleased about it.  She still smells faintly of baby powder.

Look at that smug little face!  She reminds me of Coleco #15, who also has a huge smile.

I love Jakks Pacific and Play Along Kids!  All Cabbies have their merits, but dolls from these two eras have the best faces.

And as far as I know, that will be my birthday for now.  Nice and quiet without a lot of hullabaloo.  I'm thankful that I have a roof over my head and clothes on my back, particularly when so many to the east don't have those.  Helene's death toll keeps rising, and there's ANOTHER storm in the Gulf of Mexico, predicted to track right over Florida!  Y'all down there, I'd be getting outta dodge if I were y'all!  Be safe!

Love,

RagingMoon1987 

Gonna hitch a ride...

The older I get the more depressing Thanksgiving is.  When I was young the dining room table was bursting at the seams.  At our biggest gathering there was...hmm...my maternal grandparents, both my uncles, Mama, Daddy, my sister and me, my grouchy great-aunt who loved dolls, and my aunt on my daddy's side.  <pauses to count>  That's ten of us, enuff that Aunt on Daddy's Side, Sister, and I all had to sit at the card table.  During meal prep Uncle from St. Louis took us kids over to the school playground to keep us out of the kitchen, and true to stereotypical fashion the women cooked and the men did nothing.  But it was a good Thanksgiving, warm and filled with love and delicious food.  Nowadays with a lot of the adults being deceased and us kids being grown, well...y'know.  Sister, Brother-in-Law, and Uncle From St. Louis all elected not to battle the traffic and the weather, so this year it's Mama, Uncle Man-Child, and me.  Mama and I did all the cooking and all the cleaning, while Uncle Man-Child sat on his a$$, asked stupid questions, and told stupid half-truths about himself.  I couldn't say a word to Mama, even in a whisper, without him demanding to be included in the conversation.  And this guy is a few years shy of seventy!  You'd think he was still thirteen!  I suggested to Mama that we just skip Thanksgiving this year, but she wouldn't hear of it, so here we are.  Add to that the fact that I had to bury another cat this past weekend, and you've got one sad Moon Girl. 

Yep, another cat.  Week before last it was Lola, and last weekend it was Edgar, one of my mom's cats.  Edgar was solid black, and that earned him the name "Edgar," after Edgar Allan Poe.  My aunt found him at the bank when he was just a kitten, and he was a knucklehead from the word "go."  Before he was a year old he'd swan-dived off our kitchen table and broken his foot, and we had to doctor him through that.  Three weeks in a cast and in a cage, three more without the cast but still in a cage...I don't know who hated it more, him or us!  The foot healed at a slight angle and Edgar limped on it a tiny bit, but he didn't let it slow him down.  He lived to be twelve, insisted on going outside a lot even if it was raining, and last Friday night it apparently caught up with him.  I found him the next morning in a neighbor's yard.  He didn't have an outward mark on him, no blood or cuts or anything, but his spine was twisted in a way that spines are not supposed to twist, and his pelvic area was flattened a bit.  Based on that I believe that he was hit by a car and managed to drag himself out of the road before dying.  Sigh...we knew that was a possibility when he went outside, but if you've ever owned a cat then you know how difficult it can be to keep them inside.  Mama's other two cats couldn't care less about going out, but Edgar had to be the oddball.  He was always the oddball, the one who liked to run around like a wild ape, the one who wanted to be the first to the food, the one who liked to lie on his back so the sun could warm his belly.  I have a picture of him doing that.

He loved the sun.  That may have been the reason why he liked going outside; when the A/C ran in the summertime it would get cold in the house, so he went where it was warm.  Then going outside became a habit, and that was that.  We see how it ended, but thank God, I at least know what happened to him and I was able to bury him properly.  He didn't disappear into thin air like a friend's cat did recently.  But it still hurt.

All that has culminated in me being unusually depressed, and unlike times in the past I can't seem to shake it.  Even playing with my dolls has brought me little pleasure, but I do it anyway.  As always, my doll is Rita Cheryl, and today she is...decidedly oddly dressed, much more so than she was last Thanksgiving.

Pandas, Boston and Doctor Who.  What a combo.  Anyway, it's warmer today than it was at the beginning of the week, so Rita Cheryl did a little traipsing around in Grandma's backyard.  She isn't as young as Camille and thus didn't dream up a ton of imaginary games, but she did find a nice hiding place.

She also found a nice pinecone.  Dern thing was sharp, though!

I will admit that while Thanksgiving leaves me feeling melancholy, it's still a helluva lot better than this past summer, when things were so cotton-pickin' hot.  Probably by the time April rolls around I'll be longing for thunderstorms, LOL.  Right now I'm just tired and overwhelmed.  I'm ready for the mold to be gone from my house, ready for the water to be back on at Mama's, ready for spring...time for a nap!  Don't wait up!

Love, 

RagingMoon1987 

Memorial Day post

Yeah, I  know it's seven-thirty local time and Memorial Day is just about over, but here's Rita Cheryl getting in the holiday spirit anyway. 

My family members who served in the military were blessed enuff to come home alive, but all the veterans knew people that didn't.  My dad said there were two days of the year when his great-grandfather would crawl into a bottle, and both days were anniversaries of particularly bloody Civil War battles that he'd been in.  I know he'd survived the battle of Shiloh, but I forget the other one.  Either way, my great-great-granddaddy had a hard time two days of the year.  Daddy said the rest of the time he hid it pretty well.  

My own grandpa also suffered some PTSD after his experiences overseas during WWII.  Again, he functioned pretty well, but he saw things (and did things) that haunted him 'til the day he died.  Our military men and women are not wussies, ladies and gents.  I admit that I love the day off from work, the family, and the food that Memorial Day brings, but I don't let myself forget the real reason for it.  I hope y'all don't either.

Happy Memorial Day, 

RagingMoon1987 

Runs With Scissors

The good thing about silly doll names is that they make your family members laugh.  The bad thing about silly doll names is that they sometimes stick.  Meet my new doll, Runs With Scissors. 

She was a gift from First Uncle (the one I like).  He told me I won her at a silent auction during a trivia event.  Her hair needs a little TLC, but otherwise she's a fine doll.  She's got pretty eyes.

Scissors is a big girl, by the way.  I didn't photograph this, but she's taller than the American Girls.  I have no idea who made this doll, but it's entirely possible that she has a better name than Runs With Scissors. 

Love to all,

RagingMoon1987 

Cool cat boogie

Mama loves to surprise me, and I love to be surprised.  So when this odd-looking package showed up in her mailbox, she simply handed it to me and said "Open it!"

"Feels like a stuffed animal," I said.

"Oh, you're good!"  Mama replied with a big grin.  She'd gotten me a stuffed Pete the Cat for my workstation.

For the uninitiated, Pete the Cat is an anthropomorphic blue cat and the subject of several children's books.  He likes to dance and sing, and he's usually depicted wearing high top sneakers.  The illustrations in the books are fairly dark, so Pete usually doesn't have much of an expression...but my Pete is smiling.

That is typical cat!  Always chill...unless it's mealtime or three o'clock in the morning.  Then cats are batsh!t.  Anyway, my Pete has his shoes, like all good Pete the Cats do.  One is red and one is blue.

The varying colors are significant to...I think I Love My White Shoes was the first in the series.  Pete goes out in brand-new white high tops, only for them to become red, then blue, then brown, then white but wet in quick succession.  Rather than throwing a fit because he messed up his shoes, Pete rolls with the changes, singing "I love my white shoes" and changing the lyrics as the shoes change.  Simple story, but a cute one.

I love my mama, and I love the little things she does for me!  I wish she were easy to shop for, darn it!  Every birthday or Mother's Day that comes up she says "Oh, don't worry about me," but she always does nice things for me so I want to do SOMETHING.  I gotta put on my thinking cap.

Happy MLB Opening Day,
RagingMoon1987

What we get

Jaylin got a new dress...

...I got bitten on the finger by a carpenter ant...

...and Mama got to go back to the hospital!  She's having severe pain again.  We don't know why yet.  Sigh...this summer has sucked, and it's not over yet.

Jeers,

RagingMoon1987 

Take me with you!

Change, nothin' stays the same
Unchained, and ya hit the ground runnin'!
--Van Halen, "Unchained"

Like Van Halen, I tend to hit the ground running these days.  Up at seven-thirty.  Take my dogs potty, then feed dogs and cats.  Get dressed.  Run over to Mama's place to take care of her animals.  Usually then I'd head over to McDonald's for breakfast and get my happy butt to work after that, but thanks to some lovely insurance caveats, I have to flush Mama's drains.  I don't mind going over to help Mama, as spending time with her is always time well-spent...but the damn drains are FINNICKY!  Anyway, flush drains, receive threatening message from an ex-Facebook friend, and FINALLY get to work...seven minutes late, in a foul mood, with Luciana in tow because screw the rules.

Yes, Luciana.  This morning when I was getting dressed I glanced over at my dolls, some of whom are jumbled together waiting for a review, and I saw Luciana with her hand slightly out.  Pardon the terrible lighting.

I solemnly swear that I did not pose her like that.  But anyway, she reminded me of a story I saw on Den of Angels, where a young woman was preparing to leave her room, when she saw her very tightly strung ball-jointed doll.  BJDs with tight strings tend to stay with their limbs bent, but this time the doll had his arms outstretched like he was pleading to be held.  Same sort of thing with Luciana; she's a relatively new doll and her strings are still tight, but just the same she had her hands out then.  Very well, then...allons-y, Rose Tyler.

Oh well, at least my life is merely "Unchained" and not to the point of "Jump."  OMG, that song tainted my opinion on Van Halen for YEARS!!!  For real, I hate "Jump" that much, LOL.  And to the ex-Facebook friend, fool around with me and I'll tell everyone that you're not really a royal.  Seriously, the guy is deluded!

Love and box fans (stay close to one),
RagingMoon1987

The heat is on

It's summer now: the heat is on.  It's summer now all summer long. 
--Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Chapter 9/Flood

That single chapter from Ms. Dillard's book made its way into one of my high school English textbooks, and while I enjoyed the whole chapter, that single line is what stayed with me.  It stayed with me because it made sense.  Summer begins when it begins, and it ends when it ends, with no regard for manmade calendars or timetables.  This year, for my area, at least, summer began today, a full week and a half before the solstice.  After a somewhat out-of-the-ordinary winter and a mild, rainy spring, the summer looks to be a hot one, or it will be if the week's predicted temperatures hold true.  Mid to high nineties are predicted clean through to next Friday, with heat indices in the low hundreds and not a drop of rain in sight.  

Usually on summer evenings my mother and I would go out to the road by Crowley's Ridge.  We'd enjoy the cool that the canopies of the trees provided, and if it was dark enuff we'd marvel at the lightning bugs.  Alas, there will be no lightning bugs for RagingMoon1987 this summer, as I'm stuck in town, where the lightning bugs rarely stray.  I'm perfectly capable of driving myself, but with Mama still out of commission it's not much fun, and with gas prices rising such leisurely drives are increasingly wasteful.  Oh, Mama's home again, with the drains still in her stomach, and she's acting more like herself, but I'm still cautious.  If she has to go back to that hospital again I'm gonna go off on a certain doctor like Castle Bravo.

Since I have no long drives and no lightning bugs at the moment, I busy myself with my dolls...when I'm not doing laundry, that is!  LOL, anyway I went back to Wal-Mart yesterday and picked up the My Life dream team captain.  I chose to name her "Jemma."

Whew, those long pajamas and fuzzy slippers are too hot for this weather!  How 'bout a change, Jemma?

That's better.  Airy is ready for the heat too, Elton John glasses and all.  Neither of these outfits came with shoes, but that bothers Airy and Jemma naught.  Indeed I'd probably be barefoot too if my yard didn't have so many thorns.  Doesn't that dress of Jemma's match her hair perfectly?

Etsy couldn't have done better, and that's saying something because Etsy has no end of nice things for dolls this size.  There isn't much else to say about Jemma since she's everything Airy is, shocking blue eyes, tight joints, and all.  Indeed, if Cititoy hadn't started tinkering around with hair colors then these dolls would all be one and the same.  Here's a closeup of Jemma's hair; as I noted a few weeks ago she's got mostly purple hair, with some green and blue mixed in, and some yellow that I initially missed.

The roots are about the same as Airy's, but Jemma's got longer hair.  

So that's my brightly-colored little pair!  I'm glad Cititoy is stepping up their game with hair colors.  Now if they'd vary up their head molds like Our Generation has then they'll really be fun little dolls!

Love y'all,
RagingMoon1987