Barbies and Bikinis

Growing up, I had all kinds of dolls: a plastic baby crocheted into her own afghan, a hot water bottle wrapped in a washcloth; a drinking and peeing baby; a “lifelike,” ceramic-headed infant with a rounded fabric body and bum weighted with five pounds of little beads; a black-yarn-haired cotton doll the size of a 5 year old that my mom made for me (including her lavender pioneer dress and handbag and white bloomers).

However….

I did not have Barbies. My mother was opposed to the impossible figure they would inspire me to attain, which is fair, because I am a long-waisted 5’3″, which means I have Very short legs. I can wear capris as long pants.

My mom was also opposed to bikinis, because young girls shouldn’t be sexualized or show too much skin. I also didn’t get to wear much  black, because kids should wear lots of happy colors.

Once, when I was nine, my mother’s sister (Aunt Delores) came to town from 2500 miles away. She took me to a bunch of yard sales on Saturday morning and bought me several Barbies with frazzled hair and arthritic knees. She laughed and laughed when she found and bought for me a tall, busty German doll with erect nipples. That one was a non-standard-size doll of impossible figure, so she never got any clothes.

I felt terribly scandalous, then, when I used my sister’s eyeliner to paint one of those Barbies with a black bikini. Twenty-six years later I still remember my mortification when my mom found it under my bed. I thought she’d be furious, so I swore up and down that I hadn’t painted it, that it had come that way.

I wonder if I was a better liar then than I am now? Perhaps when you’re a parent, you just get used to finding strange things in your kids’ rooms. Zach told me he once spent weeks collecting his urine in empty soda pop bottles in his dresser drawer, to “see what would happen.” I’m sure his mom had an absolute fit about it.

Thanks Jane Brocket for reminding me about dolls and pretend play. Also, I had a fun time reminiscing about the toys of the 80’s at this website.

A gift from Alexis

Look what arrived for us yesterday! Well, I say us, but I know who Alexis had in mind when she picked this out…

Alexis knows my weakness for cooking gadgets! This is adorable, and it goes really well with the Matryoska dolly that my friend Sonya gave the Boogedy for Christmas!

When Zach and I first moved in together in San Francisco (near Japantown), Alexis was our sweet, smart, funny upstairs neighbor who befriended me and Zach, and claimed to love Zach’s guitar solos that snuck into her apartment by wafting up the light shaft and floating through her open windows. He even wrote a song to encourage her to try online dating titled “Meet me at Hot or Not.”

That was nearly 5 years ago, but we’ve kept in touch with Alexis and we always visit her when in SF, and we all admire her classy personality, fashion, and swank apartment with the best view of SF anyone could ask for. She has a cool, witty husband, too, who I still think of as her “new boyfriend”.

Now, it’s her turn to come visit us so that I can use these measuring cups to make her some green curry with jasmine rice!

Alexis found this cool present at Dream in Plastic.

Medusa’s Locks

Two weeks ago I reinjured my back (after throwing it out horribly in December and thinking I was fully recovered). Last weekend, Zach piled of huge stack of laundry on our bed to get it out of the construction zone downstairs. The idea of folding laundry, or even pushing it off the bed to lay down, was excruciating…it hurt just to climb into bed. I burst into tears when my sister Jeaka called to see how I was feeling. She picked me up and took me and the Boogedy to my mom’s to take a nap, then she came back to my house and folded and put away all the clothes.

She deserved a little present.

Mini Medusa tosses her head as if to say “No, I can’t go out tonight, I have to wash my snakes .”

This petite gorgon (mabye 2 inches high) is from Creepy Cute Crochet, a book that Jeaka had checked out from the library, and then loaned me with the intent that I might take a hint! The patterns in the book were super simple, and I learned a few new techniques! I used Koigu, of course. I love that yarn, I would have every color, if I could. And I’d never get sick of it.