So random, July/August '26

I bought too dang many dolls during May and June, and I hit July running too.  July 5th.  Carola (from June) poses with one of July's first newbies.  The newbie's name is Ilse (pronounced "ill-seh").

Here's a full-body shot of Ilse.  She is a Revalo doll from Gebruder Ohlhaver, thus another German girl like Liesel and Ethel.  She's smaller than Liesel,and I suspect her wig may be original. 

I think I got her for a steal because she's not one of the big-name dolls.  Not a Kestner, not an Armand Marseille, y'all get the point.  She's got a sweet face, with lovely gray eyes...

...but if I don't position her just so, she can look kinda vacant.  She shares that problem with Queen Elfriede. 

Also July 5th.  This is Daisy.

Daisy is one of those ily 4EVER dolls, and she's inspired by...well, by Daisy Duck!  My mom likes Daisy Duck, and Donald Duck too, for that matter.  Their tempers match sometimes, LOL.  I have a further incentive for liking this doll; besides the hippie dress, she's got gray eyes.  Hey, just like Ilse!

Okay, Daisy's eyes are more bluish-gray, but my point stands.  I love dolls with gray eyes, and I love finding a doll of color with eyes that AREN'T brown.  Mind y'all, I like brown eyes, but not all Afro-American people have brown eyes.  Thus I like it when I find a doll of color who doesn't have brown eyes.

July 6.  Elias and Joyita Emilia get comfy on my pillow.  Cleopatra Chantale and Andrea Doria are partly visible behind them. 

Later that same day a package arrived, containing a Jesmar dress for Joyita Emilia.

I owe Candela Laura one too.  I feel like any Jesmar I own should have at least one Jesmar outfit.  I've since covered Joy's elastics with bows, by the way, as Kirari-chan was partially held in her package with white cotton ribbons.

Oh yes, Kirari-chan!  July 8th.  Kirari-chan is the orange-haired poppet, and her companion is a Famosa Expressions doll that I hadn't yet named.  I was leaning towards "Angelica," per my mother's suggestion.

Most Cabbage Patch enthusiasts picture Cabbies with butterfly eyes when they think of Tsukuda, but Tsukuda made other toys too.  Kirari-chan is one of those.  She's a hair-and-makeup doll, and she has a couple'a interesting features that make her worthy of a review.  I'll get to that...someday.  As for the Famosa doll, y'all may remember that I'm fond of Famosa dolls (examples here and here), and I'm also always on the lookout for dolls with "comical expressions."  Famosa Expressions dolls are new critters to me, but I like 'em a lot.  Squeeze their tummies and their expressions change a little.

Kinda like Tiny Cheerful Tearful, or full-sized Cheerful Tearful, take your pick.  I kinda wish I could lock her mouth shut, because I like that goofy grin.

July 14th.  This one is Whoopsie.  I may choose a different pet name for her.

Whoopsie is an Ideal doll and a squeeze toy.  Squeeze her and she makes an obnoxious squeaking sound, and her pigtails pop up.  I just like her cute little face.  I also like that she's semi-local; Horseshoe Bend, Arkansas is not exactly a hop, skip, and a jump away from Malden, but it's closer to Malden than Fayetteville!  

Another new arrival for July 14th is Georgette, a Clodrey doll.

I'd heard of Clodrey from Crissy and Beth (they produced a version of Crissy and a very pretty dresser doll), but I'd only heard of them until I popped the name into Google.  Georgette is a "Coucou" doll, which I think may be a named line like the Revalo dolls are.  I largely bought her for her outfit, which reminds me of my favorite vintage Barbie dress, "Fancy Free."  But Georgette has a pretty face too.  Notice that her eyes follow the camera.  Georgette trusts no one!

I must say, the French dolls are a lot more serious than the Italian dolls I own!  I prefer the exuberant Italian dolls, but obviously the placid French dolls are welcome in my group too.  And there are always exceptions to the "French dolls are serious" rule.  Right, Praline?

Right, Sheena?

Sheena arrived on the 20th.  She is also a Clodrey doll, and she belongs to a wave called "Funky."  The Funky dolls were more punky than funky...or maybe they were both!  Anyway, I don't know of too many punk dolls that were/are geared towards kids, but here's this one at least.

We jump back now, to July 18th.  My cats (particularly Tommy and Chessie) had developed a sudden interest in knocking my dolls from hell to breakfast.  That morning Carla Jennifer (Cabbage Patch Preemie, left) and Mikey (Magic Nursery baby) were my latest victims. 

Good thing Tommy and Chessie haven't been able to reach my porcelain kids.  If that were the case then war might be declared. 

July 19th.  I put my resident ponytail Barbies together. 

The brunette is, of course, Mama's #3, and the blonde is the #4 that Treesa sent me in June.  As far as I know, Barbie wasn't a redhead until the sixth wave of ponytails came out, but if I can find one of them then the color trifecta will be complete.  Note, by the way, that Mama's Barbie is wearing "Fancy Free."

It's not a dead ringer for Georgette's dress, but the colors are bang-on.

July 21st.  It was balls soup hot, as my sister would say.  Temperature was 96 at 2:30 p.m., and the heat index was 120.  

Ayla and Lady waited patiently, for a new friend of their own.

Why they are relevant will become obvious later.  For now we go to July 26th, approximately 8:15 p.m.  It had been ridiculously hot all day (heat index of 118), and it was still stifling by nightfall.  I put Yuka in her bathing suit...

...but to quote one of my favorite library patrons, it was too damn hot.

July 27th it was STILL too damn hot!  Our A/C spent much of the night flashing an Error 34 reading and thus didn't cool the house like it normally would.  Mama and I slept poorly and woke up grouchy, and some of my dolls here appeared to feel the same way.

From left, they are Wendy, Chou chou, Mika, Nora, and Mali.  Mali and Nora retained a bit of optimism, as they knew Wednesday would bring cooler temperatures.  As for Wendy, she's ready for fall.

Wendy doesn't have her hat yet, but she's gonna be a witch this Halloween. 

Hot temperatures make me think of hot, neon colors, and my new Cry Baby fits the bill there.  This is Charlie, and she arrived on the 27th as well.

Sigh, every time I look up Cry Babies for the sake of reference, I find one I can't live without.  Charlie pairs a deep skintone with bright, splashy colors (just like Whoopsie does), but her eyes are green.  That's a nice change, as Ayla and Lady both have blue eyes.  

August 26th.  Yes, I spent August doing something else.  Paid almost ZERO attention to my dolls, but the Cry Baby Trio did manage to get my attention.

Rub-a-dub-dub, three kids in a tub!  Even though Charlie, Ayla, and Lady look a lot alike I still enjoy having 'em along for the ride of life.  Or the walk of life, take your pick.  Sometimes life crawls and sometimes it blitzes, so I guess both the ride and the walk are applicable terms.

August 28th.  I'd just told Mika that it was gonna get hot again. 

I know, sweetie, I'm not excited either.  Seriously, the first week of September is looking to be miserably hot.  At that stage NWS was showing temperatures in the high nineties clean through to the following Thursday (September 3rd), and neither Ryan Hall nor Max Velocity nor our own local weatherman had any words of comfort.  BUT...we'll make it through.  Mama and I have weathered hot summers with ZERO A/C at all, so we can survive one with a malfunctioning A/C.

And that's the past two months in a nutshell.  My promised focus on nail polish has come to pass, and I've become more obsessed with that than with my doll's, thus why August was so lean.  I'll try to do better in the weeks and months ahead.  The medication my neurologist prescribed is an anti-spasm med and has done wonders for my pain, so I may be able to complete some reviews soon...but no promises.  I love y'all, though. 

Cheers,

RagingMoon1987 

Sunday randomness: the year's first scorcher

In years past my neck of the woods might've already had a couple'a days (or multi-day stretches) of exceedingly hot weather, but today is the first time this year that it's going to be honest-to-God hot.  The high is predicted to hit a hundred, and I don't dare look at the heat index.  On a day like today I usually keep cool by staying in my pajamas and doing as little as possible, and that appears to be what Joss plans to do.  Behind her, River Song and Arista are plotting a day outside in the shade.  

Watermelons for the win!  I love these My Life As outfits; once upon a time they didn't fit the American Girls...or the sets I had didn't.  But these newer sets fit the newer dolls just fine.  I think these pajamas would be too tight for my Pleasant Company girls, and indeed they're a hair snug on Joss.  But I didn't have to fight them to get them on.

As for me myself...well, I actually have an escape at hand.  Uncle Man-Child has functioning air conditioning, and Mama and I plan to pow-wow there today and do laundry.  Up until now the nights have hit the high sixties or low seventies and thus I've thankfully been able to sleep, but that may come to an end this coming week; the low on Thursday night is only supposed to be seventy-eight.  Le sigh...I'm doomed.  Oh well, I've survived summers without A/C before and I can do it again.

Pray for rain,
RagingMoon1987

The blonde bunch

Juneteenth means another long weekend for me, and that means sleeping late and being delightfully, ridiculously lazy.  I also spent some time with my mama and Uncle Man-Child, which wouldn't be a big deal...except that all Uncle Man-Child talked about was prepping, prepping, prepping, with plenty of blather about himself added in.  I know that in this day and age prepping is kinda important, but I'm so sick of hearing about it I could scream.  

Great time to futz around with my dolls!  In the past month I've gotten three large ones...and wouldn't y'all know, they're all blonde.  The first one doesn't need much introduction, since she's an American Girl.  She's Just Like You #115.

She bears a passing resemblance to Alex Kingston and that bitch she plays on Doctor Who, so I named her River Song.  Riv has a long Bob Geldof-style name like Silver Bird does, but I just call her "River Song" or "Riv."  I think this my...third?  No, River Song is my fourth AG doll with hair this curly.

#115 is a fun doll to own, kids!  I bounce her and her curls go boing like in Ramona the Pest.  Unfortunately my problem cat Tommy likes River Song's curls too; I've had to pull the little jerk out of her hair twice, and I've only owned this doll three weeks. 

Then last Friday I got a Failbook message from a friend saying she had a porcelain doll who needed a home.  I volunteered to adopt her, and the next day I did just that.

Lady Diana Spencer, in a knock-off of the blue velvet dress she wore to the White House.  My doll's dress isn't velvet, but oh well.  She came with her box, but it was pretty well smashed.  It's not like Lady Di will ever be worth a ton of money anyway.  These "collectible" porcelain dolls never are.  But they're pretty, and that's what counts to me.  This friend that gave Diana to me is the same one that gave me Belka/Lucy, by the way.  I didn't NEED Diana, but then I didn't need River Song either.

Nor did I need Arista.  I bought her with my own money, just like I did River Song. 

Arista is one of those ily 4EVER dolls that has been semi-trendy lately.  Unlike Diana and River Song she will be getting a review, but that won't be for quite some time.  I feel a little stupid ordering an ily 4EVER doll that looks so much like River Song...a measly three weeks after I got River Song.  

So much for cutting back on dolly purchases!  I did say I was doing that last spring, but as usual I lied.  I didn't buy Diana, but I did buy River Song and Arista, so that's twice that I lied.  Add Terri Lee to the mix and I triple-lied, LOL!  What can I say, this is how I get my pleasure out of life!

Cheers,

RagingMoon1987