The Peeps Diorama Contest at Marley Station Mall, March 19 and March 24, 2024

Like I wrote in a previous post, I created a Peeps diorama for contest for the first time in 15 years. In fact I used the same diorama for two contests. One was The Washington Post‘s Peeps contest. For that one I only needed to take photographs or video footage and I had the option of submitting it via TikTok. I didn’t win that one nor did I receive honorable mention.

For the other contest I had to submit it at the venue in person because all of the contest entries were being publicly displayed. This post is about that contest.

I found out via Facebook that Marley Station Mall in Glen Burnie was having a Peeps diorama contest. I had an idea for a diorama and I grew up in Glen Burnie so I thought it would be cool to have something of mine on display in the hopes that all of my former classmates who used to call me “mentally retarded” would actually see it and start to realize what assholes they were. The reality is that I don’t know if any of them had actually gone to Marley Station Mall that weekend and saw my diorama or not.

The reason why I wrote that last sentence of not knowing whether any of my former enemies actually went to Marley Station is because it’s one of many shopping malls across the United States that have gone into bit of a decline. Marley Station once had a variety of upscale stores but nowadays there are more empty storefronts than actual stores. One day I should just make a special visit to that mall just to see how empty it really is. The big irony is that Marley Station wasn’t even part of my childhood. My mother and grandmother used to frequently go to the Harundale Mall while sometimes also making visits to Glen Burnie Mall and Jumper’s Mall (the latter was located in the nearby town of Pasadena). Marley Station opened two years after I got married and permanently moved away from Glen Burnie. I visited that mall when it was in its prime but I didn’t go there too often because it was a half-an-hour’s drive from the DC area where I live now.

Marley Station’s opening with its flashy decor and variety of upscale stores drew shoppers away from Harundale Mall, Glen Burnie Mall, and Jumper’s Mall while the stores that were in those other malls would opt not to renew their leases when they expired so they could move to Marley Station. All three of them eventually closed for good.

A few years later an even bigger mall called Arundel Mills opened and it drew both shoppers and stores away from Marley Station so now Marley Station is on the decline.

I went to Marley Station during the week to drop off my entry on March 19. On my way back to my car I saw the Easter Bunny area. There were no one there eager to visit the Easter Bunny. The whole scene looked pretty sad yet appropriate for a mall that’s on the decline.

The contest ran the weekend of March 22-24. I waited until March 24 to return mainly because Marley Station Mall is located a half-an-hour’s drive away from my home. On the last day of the contest I could see the entire Peeps exhibition, find out who won the contest, and pick up my entry after the contest ended. When I returned to the mall on March 24 I walked past the Easter Bunny area again (mainly because it was on the way to the contest area). There was a mother who took her two daughters to see the Easter Bunny but that was it for people visiting the Easter Bunny. It was slightly less depressing than what I saw on March 19 but it’s still sad since there weren’t a lot of children who visited.

The entire Peeps event was held in one of the empty storefronts that dominate Marley Station these days. The decorations were pretty cheerful and were definitely enticing to people of all ages.

Inside was just as cheerful. In the middle of the room there was a giant tye-dyed stuffed animal version of the Peeps Bunny that was being raffled off. The price was only $1 per raffle. I thought the bunny plushie was cute but I didn’t enter that raffle because of space issues in my townhouse.

Here are a few more festive Peeps decorations.

The entire event was a fundraiser that was held to help pay the medical bills of two local Glen Burnie women who have been struggling with severe health problems.

There was a Kids’ Corner sponsored by a local Girl Scout troop where children could color Peep-themed coloring pages then hang them on a wall.

The winners of each category in the diorama contest (which included Kids, Adults, Organizations, and a few other categories that I’ve since forgotten) received a prize of $50 and this really cute Peeps Bunny trophy.

All of the diorama entries were placed on this long table.

Here’s my own entry, Peeper Carlson Interviews Vladimir Peepin. (Click here if you want to learn more about the story behind this diorama.)

Here’s the box that had a description about my entry and a slot where people who purchased special contest tickets could drop their ticket into the slot if they really liked the diorama. The diorama with the most ticket won the category and the Peeps Bunny trophy. I never knew how many people voted for my own diorama because the organizers took all of the boxes, went to a side of the room where the general public weren’t allowed to venture to, and opened each one to count the tickets.

Here are the other dioramas that I competed with. The creativity of those dioramas were amazing.

There was an area where one could purchase official Peeps merchandise including t-shirts, jewelry, tiny plushes, and, of course, Peeps marshmallows.

There was even a small craft show in the back of the room where local artisans sold their handmade wares.

I purchased only one thing at that event. It’s a necklace shaped like the Peeps Bunny. The letters “PDC” on the bunny’s belly stood for “Peeps Diorama Contest.”

Basically I didn’t win this contest either. Once the contest ended I picked up my diorama and headed back home.

My Entry in the Peeps Diorama Contest

It was through Facebook that I learned that Marley Station Mall in Glen Burnie had a contest and I decided to enter it. It’s been 15 years since I last entered a Peeps diorama contest and I had an idea.

I admit that part of the reason why I decided to enter that contest was due to ego. I was born in Baltimore and I lived there until I was five when my parents decided to move to Glen Burnie. I spent 14 miserable years there because the kids in school decided that I was mentally retarded and they made my life into a living hell from elementary school to high school. (Click here if you want to know what I was dealing with.)

I spent my freshman year of college at Anne Arundel Community College where many of my high school classmates also went. I realized something. The students who went to high school with me continued to look down on me like I was this lowlife inferior who should’ve been aborted. But the students who went to different high schools in different towns treated me like I was actually a human being. After a year at that school I transferred to the University of Maryland at College Park where nobody knew me from high school. They treated me like I was a human being.

After college graduation I moved back to Glen Burnie for ten months before I married my college sweetheart and I permanently moved away from Glen Burnie. I ended up living closer to Washington, DC where I made lots of new friends and I was treated like a real human being.

I only attended one high school reunion. It was the five-year reunion. I was newly married and wanted to show my hateful former classmates how lucky I was to snag this awesome person who works for NASA and he deals with satellites. I talked him into attending with me, which was a big mistake because he didn’t attend my high school, he didn’t know anyone there, and he was bored. I regret taking him to my reunion. On top of that, many of my former classmates who were there that night didn’t care about my fabulous new husband and they still looked down on me like I was mentally retarded (despite having a bachelor’s degree). I haven’t attended any further high school reunions since then.

When I found out that there was this Peeps diorama contest I decided to enter it like I was this conquering hometown hero who wanted to shove this diorama in my former classmates’ faces. I was hoping that my former school enemies (many of whom–which I learned at my five-year high school reunion–continued to live in either Glen Burnie or the nearby towns of Severn and Millersville) would see my diorama on display.

I even had an idea for this diorama. It was based on Tucker Carlson’s infamous interview with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, where it basically was little more than a glorified two-hour history lesson where Putin went back thousands of years to justify his invasion of Ukraine. (In case you’re wondering, I have only seen brief excerpts from that interview and I read articles about it online. I just can’t bring myself to sit for a two-hour interview with a murderous dictator justifying his atrocious behavior with his interpretation of historical events.)

Here is what I created, which I titled Peeper Carlson Interviews Vladimir Peepin. I used a shoebox, which I painted the walls using acrylic paint. I used white scrapbooking paper for the columns and plaid scrapbooking paper for the carpeting. I used tiny pieces of non-dryable putty to hold everything in place in the diorama, which was important since I was taking it to and from Glen Burnie.

Here are a couple of closeups of Peeper Carlson. I made Peeper Carlson using a yellow bunny Peep since yellow is traditionally a color for cowardice (I read that Tucker Carlson didn’t challenge Vladimir Putin on anything he said throughout that interview). I also used scraps of felt (for his suit) and fur (for his hair). As for the chairs in this diorama, I purchased a pair of Barbie-sized chairs from the Dollar Tree. I used the white scrapbooking paper to create a speech balloon that said, “Mr. Peepin, why did you decide to invade Ukraine?”

Here’s the closeup of the tiny table that was placed between the two. I made it from a tiny carton of Hershey’s Whoppers Robin Eggs Minis. I emptied the carton of the contents, cut the carton in half, continued to cut the side panels to form the legs, and painted it white with acrylic paint.

For Vladimir Peepin I used a Peeps blue bunny with scraps of felt. (Blue is one of the colors used in the Russian flag.) Since the real-life Vladimir Putin is close to being bald, I didn’t have to deal with fake fur scraps. He’s sitting in one of the Barbie-sized chairs I purchased at the Dollar Tree. I used the white scrapbooking paper to create a speech balloon that said, “It all started in the year 862 when Prince Rurik of Scandinavia was invited to rule over the Rus in Novgorod…”

That diorama was the most minimalist diorama I’ve ever made. I only needed two Peeps and, for the background, I only tried to suggest that the interview was done in a fancy room. (If you look at the stills from that interview, much of the room was dimmed in order to keep the focal point on the two talking heads.) I didn’t want to overthink it too much because I learned about that competition just two weeks before the deadline for submitting my diorama. In addition, the grand prize for the winner in each category was $50 and I didn’t want to put in hundreds of hours of work for only $50. ( And there was no guarantee that I would win.)

Working on that diorama was cheap and stress-free. I had an empty shoebox available and I already had much of the material I used in that diorama. The only purchases I needed to make were the Peeps, the scrapbooking paper (for the carpet, speech ballons, and white columns), the Hershey’s Whoppers Robin Eggs Minis (for the tiny table), the two Barbie-sized chairs, and the non-dryable putty. I probably spent no more than $10 on this diorama.

I dropped it off at Marley Station Mall and the diorama contest was opened to the general public a few days later. The contest ran the entire weekend. Since that mall was a half-an-hour’s drive from where I live, I decided to not show up until the last day on Sunday because in one trip I could see my diorama on display, see the competition, check out the other things they had in that same room, and pick up my diorama and any prizes that I may have won.

Basically people were encouraged to pay at least $1 for voting for their favorite dioramas. (The proceeds from that sale went to pay off the steep medical bills of two local women who were dealing catastrophic health conditions.) I didn’t win the contest. I didn’t run into any of my former classmates when I was there and I don’t know if any of my former classmates had attended the other two days of that contest.

I shot photos of the contest area itself, including the competition but I’m going to upload those at a later date.

It turned out that I entered the same diorama in two different contests. One of them was held virtually so I could have my diorama in two simultaneous contests.

Here’s some background. There was a time when The Washington Post used to sponsor an annual Peeps diorama contest. I participated in two of the previous contests. One was for Peep Floyd, which was my parody of the band Pink Floyd. I did this diorama in 2008 and it didn’t win or even make honorable mention.

You can learn more about the technical specs of Peep Floyd here.

The other was for Pop Star Peepney Pursued by the Peeperazzi and it was a parody of the intense media scruitny that surrounded Britney Spears from late 2006-early 2008. I entered it in the 2009 competition but that one also failed to win any awards or honorable mention.

You can read about the technical specs behind Pop Star Peepney Pursued by the Peeperazzi right here.

I decided to quit participating in any further contests because I learned that this contest was getting hundreds of entries each year and I grew tired of spending a huge amount of time busting my butt to come up with something cool only for it to literally get lost in the shuffle of so many other dioramas.

A few years later I didn’t regret my decision at all. I was in a since-closed local bookstore when I saw that The Washington Post had released a 2013 calendar based on the winning entries of previous contests. We were required to electronically sign a .pdf release sayng that we had to abide by all of the rules or else we couldn’t participate in the contest. I remembered that one of the rules that all contest entrants must agree to (or else they couldn’t participate in the contest) stated that the Post had the legal rights to your submission without expecting compensation. That rule enabled the Post to create that calendar without having to financially compensate the original artists whose works made the existence of such a calendar possible. It led me to write this essay about the 2013 Washington Post Peeps Diorama Contest calendar urging people to think twice before entering that contest. That post became my most-read post for the next few years. In fact it would suddenly become in my top five read posts each year in the spring from the time that the Post announced a new contest to Easter Sunday (when the contest winners were announced).

As far as I can tell, 2013 was the only year that the Post attempted to make a calendar based on its contest. I never saw any other spinoff products based on those contest entries.

The Washington Post decided to end the contest in 2017 but the free weekly alternative The Washington City Paper decided to step up and take over running the contest. This year I did a Google search to see if there was still a Peeps diorama contest only to discover that The City Paper continued to run the contest until 2019. In 2020 there was no contest mainly because of the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But starting in 2021 The Washington Post decided to resume running the Peeps diorama contest once again and they’ve been running it every year since. For this year’s entry people had the option of submitting it via TikTok. I decided to enter Peeper Carlson Interviews Vladimir Peepin for the heck of it using a video that I made and uploaded on TikTok. At least I didn’t have to electronically sign a .pdf release form before submitting so it looks like the Post is actually running the contest for fun without trying to make a buck off it at a later date.

It turned out that, once again, I didn’t win or even make honorable mention. Here’s the list of those who won the contest. If you prefer video, you can watch it here.

Would I do another Peeps diorama contest? Only if I have an idea about the theme and if I have the time and money needed to put it together. I’m not going to create a Peeps diorama just for the sake of creating a Peeps diorama because that could lead to something mediocre. I have to have an idea and the needed materials before I even begin to work on it or I just won’t do it because I will have a total lack of passion.

Check Out My Entry in the Peeps Diorama Contest This Weekend!

I’m participating in a Peeps diorama contest so if you’re in the Baltimore-DC area and you’re looking for something fun to do this weekend, come on by. The contest is being held at:

Marley Station Mall
7900 Ritchie Highway
Glen Burnie, Maryland 21061

Once you arrive at the mall, enter through the doors that are located to the RIGHT of Gold’s Gym. (If you enter through the correct doors, you’ll be at the Center Court where the Easter Bunny’s area and Curmudgeon Books are located.) When you enter the mall, turn right and the contest area will be found in the fourth store on your right, next to Finish Line. The hours are:

Friday, March 22: 5-8 p.m.
Saturday, March 23: 10 a.m.-7 p.m.
Sunday, March 24: noon-5 p.m.

You will get a chance to vote for your favorite dioramas. My entry is titled Peeper Carlson Interviews Vladimir Peepin and, yes, it’s based on Tucker Carlson’s infamous interview with Vladimir Putin.

The winners of the Peep-les Choice Award will be announced at 4 p.m. on Sunday.

Trip to Mount Vernon on Presidents’ Day, February 19, 2024

I’ve visited George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate a few times as a child. It was mostly when we had relatives visit from Ohio and my parents would take them there. I visited Mount Vernon once or twice as an adult but that was when I went with my then-husband.

I saw an ad on Facebook saying that there are only two days a year when Mount Vernon has free admission. One is on the Presidents’ Day holiday and the other is just a few days later on February 22, which is Washington’s birthday. Since the admission fee is now $30, there would be free admission on Presidents’ Day, and I was married the last time I went to Mount Vernon so I decided to spend the Presidents’ Day holiday there.

The good news was that I got to save $30 admission. The bad news was that so many other people had the same idea and that place was crowded the entire time I was there.

When I first arrived I saw a group of men put up a floral bouquet that was shaped like a Masonic symbol.

Here’s a fun fact: George Washington was a Freemason. In fact the George Washington Masonic National Memorial is located in nearby Alexandria.

I have to admit that the bouquet was pretty.

The first thing I did after I arrived was to go to the visitors center. There I was greeted with a giant bust of George Washington.

I checked out the gift shop where these George Washington dolls were on sale.

They also had George Washington-themed teddy bears on sale as well.

Th visitors center had a cafeteria where one could eat. I purchased an Italian meat sandwich (which included ham and pastrami), a bag of potato chips and a can of diet soda. The price wasn’t so bad considering the fact that I was in a popular tourist area. But I soon regretted my choice of lunch because I ended up spending more time in the restroom than actually touring the place.

Once my stomach started to settle I began to walk around outside where I found more indicators that George Washington once lived there.

I came across this really pretty stained glass window illustrating scenes from the life of George Washington.

I finally came upon the mansion itself.

The mansion was just as I remembered it from years ago.

Someone gave out timed tickets for touring the inside of the main house when I arrived in the area. I got the one for the tour that began at 3:40 p.m. I had an hour to kill so I sat outside and enjoyed the beautiful yet cold day.

I didn’t do as much walking as I would’ve liked. I grew physically tired. I began to curse myself for not bringing a cane with me because I could’ve withstood walking a bit more with some support. On top of that, there were a lot of people. Like I wrote earlier, Mount Vernon was crowded that day, which was a hassle. When I arrived at the line for the 3:40 p.m. tour one of the employees informed us that due to the large number of crowds, the tours were running behind schedule. The 3:40 tour wouldn’t begin until after 5 p.m. I wasn’t into waiting that long because the rest of Mount Vernon closed at 4 p.m. plus it was the time of the year when it was still nighttime by 5 p.m. Then there was the hassle of driving on unfamiliar roads at night and I decided to skip the house tour.

It’s been years since my last visit so there were things that I didn’t remember seeing before. One example was this museum that I didn’t recall seeing before. The museum itself had closed for the day (because I didn’t stumble upon it until after the 4 p.m. closing time). The entrance had this giant head of George Washington, which you can see below. What was really weird was that as you walked right by it, his face seemed to follow you.

I left Mount Vernon around 4:30 p.m. due to the crowds. It was great not paying the $30 admission but encountering crowds who were also taking advantage of the free day took some of the joy out of visiting Mount Vernon. On top of it, Mount Vernon has some lovely gardens but they tend to be dead in February because it was still winter.

There was another opportunity of visiting Mount Vernon for free on Washington’s birthday (February 22). Since it was on a workday there would’ve been fewer crowds. But the gardens still would’ve been dead. On top of it, the initial weather report had called for rain that day. The rain didn’t materialize on February 22 but it was cloudy and gloomy outside so I decided to just skip it.

Seeing all of these buildings have me thinking about visiting Mount Vernon again in April or May. I would have to pay $30 but the gardens would be lovier to look at. If I arrive early in the day, I could make a full day at Mount Vernon. If I actually go there again, I would go on a warm sunny day that’s not too hot. I could bring my own lunch (instead of eating another sandwich that gave me diarrhea on the day I went) and eat on a bench outside. On top of it, Mount Vernon closes at 5 p.m. from April through October.

I need to do more fun outings because I don’t know if I’ll get the opportunity if Donald Trump somehow manages to get reelected president and goes through with his threat of ruling as a dictator.

Jury Duty

Back in December I got a jury duty summons for February, 2024. I was taken aback because I could’ve sworn that it hadn’t been that long ago since I last served on a jury. Where I live if you serve at least one day of jury duty, you are excused from further jury duty for three years. But then I remembered that I had written about the last time I served on jury duty in this blog and that entry showed that I wrote it in 2016. So it’s been eight years since the last time so I had to go. I was annoyed because, as that 2016 entry shows, I’ve gone on jury duty five previous times since 1998 and, with my latest summons, it’s the sixth time of jury duty for me.

So I showed up at 7:30 a.m. (which is when we had to show up) and, just like the other times, I sat in the jury lounge for a few hours while we waited to see what kind of cases were going to go on the docket. After a while one of the jury coordinators received word that one case may be heard in court on that day. I was among the names that were called and I was given a white card with a number on it. I would be known as “Juror 44.” The only thing I knew that it would be a criminal trial but I never learned what kind of crime it was. Then we waited some more.

Meanwhile the jury coordinators received word that another court case was on the docket but, since I was already assigned to a courtroom, I just sat back and watched other prospective jurors get their numbers, which were printed on green cards. There were other prospective jurors who waited for potential assignments to a courtroom but they never received an assignment because only two trials ended up being scheduled.

The jury coordinators told us that there are times when, after jury selection, a trial would be abruptly cancelled. It was usually because the defendant changed his/her plea from guilty to not guilty at the very last minute. I honestly thought that I would have to go inside of a courtroom, disclose to a judge that I was once a crime victim (my townhouse was broken into a number of years ago while my then-husband and I weren’t home and a laptop and VCR were stolen), get dismissed by either the judge or one of the attorneys, then return to the jury lounge. That has happened every other time I’ve served on jury duty.

But then something amazing happened. At the very last minute the defendant had changed his/her plea to guilty and that trial was cancelled. Since there was only one other trial scheduled that day and the jurors had already been chosen, we were free to leave. We were even told to keep our white numbered cards as souvenirs. I took a picture of the white card number 44 then recycled it because I had no other use for it and it’s not like it was something artistic or anything like that. (LOL!)

I had forgotten that the courthouse is a total maze and I ended up walking out the wrong door, which put me in front of the courthouse. Since it was a nice day outside and since I didn’t feel like going through a metal detector yet again in order to reenter, I decided to walk around the courthouse from the outside so I could catch the shuttle bus back to the parking lot where we jurors had to park our cars. I came across this interesting horse sculpture.

The saddle had a painting of an African American woman wearing equestrian headgear with the word “pioneer.” There was no mention of her name, which wasn’t good, especially since I was looking at that statue during Black History Month.

I looked at the other side of the statue and saw the same “pioneer” word along with a stylized painting of a woman embracing a horse on the saddle.

It wasn’t until I uploaded pictures of that statue on Facebook that one of my Facebook friends had identified her. The woman’s name was Cheryl White. A few days after I learned the woman’s identity there was this post that came into my Facebook newsfeed from the town of Upper Marlboro government and it had complete information about the statue and the artist. The horse statue is titled Jetolara and it was named after the horse that Cheryl White rode. Basically on June 15, 1971 Cheryl White ‭became the first black female jockey in the United States‬ ‭at‬ ‭the age of 17. On September 2, 1971 Cheryl White rode the horse Jetolara to victory at a race in Waterford Park in Chester, West Virginia. Keiona Clark, the artist behind that statue, made this statement about her work:

“I wanted to honor her and create a spark, so that people understand Cheryl White’s contribution to American history as well as her legacy. Strong women‬‬ ‭and bright colors are ‭my ‭aesthetic, ‬‬‬‬as I ‭consider myself ‭a strong woman and I feel that bright ‭color‬‬s ‭represent happiness and a celebration ‬‬‬‬‬of life. I ‬believe ‭that public art should not only be ‬‬‬visually ‭appealing‬ ‭but ‭should also inspire and ‬‬‬educate; what better way to do that than to pay homage to a true ‭PIO‭NEER. Cheryl White (1953-2019)”

You can learn more about Keiona Clark’s art right here. As for Cheryl White, she has a Wikipedia page and apparently she had quite a career as an equestrian while being a trailblazer at the same time. I just only wished that someone had put up a sign that contains information about Cheryl White’s identity and why she was considered to be a pioneer so more people would be informed about her and her legacy.

As I continued with walking around the building I came upon this relief that was dedicated to Archbishop John Carroll, who was born on the site where the Prince George’s County Courthouse is now located.

The bottom base reads “Archbishop John Carroll. 1735-1815. Ardent patriot and champion of religious freedom. Born in Upper Marlborough (which is an older spelling of the town’s name) on this site. First Catholic bishop of the United States. Founder of Georgetown University.” If you want more information about his life and times, the Wikipedia is a good place to start.

I eventually made my way to the back of the building where the shuttle bus stop was located. I managed to take a couple of photos of the three horses statue before my shuttle bus arrived.

When I arrived back home the first thing I did was to recylce that white card with the number 44. The second thing I did was to file away my jury summons that has a stamp on it proving that I actually served on jury duty, which means that I won’t have to serve again for at least three years. I’m definitely holding on to that summons that is now a receipt because I remember when I last served in 2016 I received another summons just two months later. I had to photocopy my summons with the stamp from that jury duty session, put it in the mail, and I was excused.

With the number of times I’ve had to serve on jury duty in my life, I really can’t wait until I turn 70 because I can request that I get excused from jury duty based on my age. I have to say that it’s one of the rare times when I am actually looking forward to my 70th birthday. (LOL!) However I have many years to go before I reach that milestone. (LOL!)

My Birthday at Tysons Corner, Including Looking at American Girl Dolls, December 15, 2023

In previous years (especially since my husband left) there were times when I went to Tysons Corner Center anywhere between 2-4 times a year. In 2023 I only went there once and it was on my birthday. It seems like ever since the Disney Store went out of business I feel less inclined to go there. Yes, there’s still the American Girl Place but that store is so expensive. They sell doll clothes that cost around the same price (if not higher, depending on the outfit) as what I would buy for myself at Target or Walmart. I’m just not into going into stores where the prices are too high for my taste because they are a total waste of time.

I still like going to American Girl Place to check out the dolls, it’s just that I don’t feel inclined to do so very often because most of their stuff is out of my price range.

So my birthday came around and I realized that I hadn’t set foot inside of Tysons Corner Center in 2023 so I decided to go there for my birthday before 2023 ends in 16 days.

I took the Silver Line Metro to Tysons Corner Center and took the pedestrian bridge to Metro Plaza (which is directly outside of the mall and is the closest location to the Metro station). They had these really cool Christmas/winter-themed sculptures that glistened in the sunlight.

They had this Christmas tree sculpture with a red sled inside (so anyone can sit in there and take selfies).

Here’s the red sled where one can sit in and take selfies.

And if those sculptures looked neat in the daytime, they looked even more amazing at night. I took these photos when I was leaving the mall and I was on my way back to the Metro station.

Inside of the mall they had these artsy customized athletic shoes on display, which were pretty cool.

The display said that more of these customized shoes were being displayed on the lower level near Barnes and Noble. Except I went to that area and I found no customized shoe display, which was a bummer. At least the two shoes I saw looked cool.

As a birthday treat for myself I purchased a hand-rolled ice cream from Sawadika Ice Cream. Seeing the worker make this is just as big of a treat as the ice cream itself.

Here is what my Oreo cookies and cream ice cream treat looked like after it was made but before I ate it.

After Sawadika Ice Cream I made my way to the American Girl Place, which had this Christmas Tree.

The first doll I got a look at in detail was this limited edition Shimmering Silver Holiday Collector Doll. It’s a collaboration with Swarovski so the doll has those expensive Swarovsi crystals in her jewelry and her outfit.

The doll came in this box that is printed to suggest something sparkly.

In some ways that doll reminded me of the elf queen Galadriel from movie trilogy based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, except this doll doesn’t have pointed ears.

I took a liking to that doll. In fact, I briefly felt tempted to buy her until I saw the $265 price tag. I know that most of the huge price is because of the Swarovski crystals but it’s still a pretty steep price for a doll that was originally created for young girls to play with.

They had a Hanukkah outfit with a little menorah that’s perfect for a doll. It was pretty cute.

Part of the reason why I wanted to get to the American Girl Place before 2023 ended is because I hadn’t had a chance to see the 2023 Girl of the Year in person. It turned out that there were three years of Girl of the Year dolls. I saw that the 2022 Girl of the Year, Corinne Tan, and her sister, Gwynn, were still on the store shelves.

I wrote about Corinne and Gwynn Tan last year so I’m going to move on to the 2023 Girl of the Year, whom I hadn’t seen until my birthday trip.

For the 2023 Girl of the Year they had an Indian-American girl named Kavi Sharma. She is described as being into songwriting, showtunes, dancing, and performing. She is very pretty.

I especially loved her traditional Indian outfit, which is currently sold separately.

I also loved her furniture and accessories. I found myself wishing that there were human-sized versions because I would love to have them in my own home.

That music note neon sculpture is to die for!

Kavi definitely has a sense of style that is quite unusual for a young girl between the ages of 8-11.

Kavi also honors her Indian heritage by practicing yoga.

Here is where the Girl of the Year gets really crazy. In the past American Girl would do this: First, the company would send a representative to the ABC show Good Morning America where that rep would announce on the air who the new Girl of the Year will be. Good Morning America would air that episode as close to New Year’s Day as possible. (The show itself airs Monday-Friday so if January 1 happens to fall on a Monday, the announcement would be made on the Friday episode.) On January 1 the new Girl of the Year would formally rollout at American Girl Place stores across the United States. (I went to such a New Year’s Day rollout once. It was in 2015, the year that Grace Thomas was the Girl of the Year, and I went to the Tysons Corner Center store.) Once the new Girl of the Year doll was given the formal rollout, the previous year’s Girl of the Year doll would be retired and both the doll and all of the line’s clothes and accessories would be removed from the store shelves.

In the last few years the previous year’s Girl of the Year dolls would remain on the shelves beyond her year and seeing Corinne and Gwyn Tan still remaining on the shelves after their year of 2022 ended was no exception.

But this year had a surprise I didn’t expect. I assumed that the 2024 Girl of the Year wouldn’t be formally rolled out until January 1 so she wouldn’t be on the store shelves yet. I was shocked to see that the 2024 Girl of the Year was already available for sale even though the new year hadn’t arrived yet.

Her name is Lila Monetti. She’s described as an Italian-American who lives in St. Paul, Minnesota and she’s into gymnastics. She is a cute doll.

There was a time when the area in the next picture would have a giant poster featuring who the current Girl of the Year was and would include some life-sized prop (such as a surfboard) where people can take selfies. After the COVID-19 pandemic began the store stopped having the life-sized props because they were trying to limit any chance of viral contact but they still stuck with giant poster featuring who the current Girl of the Year was. Since the American Girl Place now sells three year’s worth of Girl of the Year, I think someone probably said “Fuck it! Let’s just put up a generic ‘AG’ poster so we won’t have to change it each year since we now have multiple Girls of the Year on sale.”

Then there are the historical doll line. American Girl has finally ditched that BeForever name. I personally never liked it because it felt grammatically awkward and it just sounded dumb, especially when pronouncing it. In any case, American Girl decided to come out with two new historical dolls that would represent 1999-2000. That was Y2K, which had all of this crazy hysteria over the coming of the Y2K bug (which never happened because computer experts had worked around the clock to prevent anything disruptive from shutting down the world’s computers). But American Girl decided to come out with two dolls to educate its target audience of girls ages 8-12 about that time when people literally became paranoid and lost their minds over the Y2K bug.

American Girl thought that it would be a great idea to not come out with one doll but two dolls as well. They are supposed to be twins. American Girl decided to make them fraternal twins instead of identical (to reduce the chances that families would try to save money by buying only one doll and get their daughter to one day pretend that her doll is Nicki and the next day she would pretend that her doll is Isabel). They also decided to give the twins radically different personalities with different senses of clothing style. That way parents can spend at least $230 getting both twins. It’s a win—for American Girl.

So now let’s meet the twins. Isabel Hoffman prefers to dress as a preppy. (She definitely reminds me of Cher from the 1995 movie Clueless.)

Nicki Hoffman is a skateboard enthusiast and her dress style reminds me of a cross between Tony Hawk and the Seattle grunge music scene of the early 1990s.

Their vintage 1990s computer equipment brought back memories for me. I still remember having to connect to the Internet via a modem that was connected to a telephone line and it made this horrible screeching noise every time you logged on.

If American Girl hadn’t decided to have fraternal twins represent the 1990s, I probably would have bought one 1990s historical girl to go with Melody (representing the 1960s), Julie and Ivy (representing the 1970s, and Courtney (representing the 1990s). But I wasn’t into spending at least $230 to get both twins. I guess I could’ve just decided on one but I couldn’t decide which twin I wanted. They both appealed to me in different ways. I decided to solve the dilemma by giving these two dolls a hard pass.

The other thing I learned is that the historical dolls no longer come with paperback books that tells the full story of the characters. Instead each historical doll will only come with a paperback journal and if you want to get the complete story about the doll’s background, you would have to purchase the official book that’s sold separately. I thought about doing just that until I learned that the only copy of Nicki and Isabel’s official book comes in hardcover only and it costs $25.

While I would love to read their book just to see how American Girl handles the Y2K bug controversy, I wasn’t into paying $25 for a hardcover book. I’m just going to check that book out of the public library instead.

I briefly checked out Claudie Wells, the historical doll who’s supposed to represent the 1920s. They had a bakery just for Claudie. It’s a less fancy version of that French bakery that came out in 2015 when Grace Thomas was the Girl of the Year that cost a whopping $500.

Claudie’s bakery cost $295. It’s cheaper than Grace’s bakery was back in 2015 but it’s still way too pricey for me.

After I left American Girl Place I took a couple of photos of that fancy Santa’s Chalet area where Santa Claus was working.

I ate my birthday dinner at Wasabi, the Japanese place that serves sushi on a conveyor belt, just like this video that I shot back in 2011.

After dinner I purchased a bag of gummi bears from Lolli & Pops. I also walked around a few stores. I found this racy Christmas sweater from Spencer’s Gifts that had a winking Santa coming down the chimney saying “I Like to Go Down.”

As I was making my way back to the Metro station I found out that the Winter Lantern Festival was being held just across the street from the Metro station. If I hadn’t been so completely exhausted from walking around Tysons Corner Center, I would’ve gone there as well. But I was too tired. The lights from the Winter Lantern Festival made the whole area really stand out in the darkness.

Washington, DC, December 6, 2023

I had decided to attend a tech oriented meetup that was held at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Library in downtown Washington, DC. What I hadn’t realized until I after arrived that the area is also the location for its annual Downtown Holiday Market. I confess that I had never attended that event even though I have heard of it for years. When I arrived I was amazed by that event and I began to kick myself for not going there in previous years.

The Downtown Holiday Market had vendor booths that were all staffed by local artisans. There were a variety of handcrafted items available for sale, including bags, clothes, and even matryoshka dolls.

There were also giant nutcrackers, holiday statues, and large light displays. It was a total feast for the eyes.

They had food vendors and there were chairs and benches available, including this picnic table that had swing seats so you could swing while talking, eating, and drinking.

I only bought one thing at that Downtown Holiday Market—a box of freshly made hot donuts. They were incredibly good, especially since it was very cold outside that night. I only ate a few of the donuts because I hadn’t eaten dinner and they weren’t exactly a substantial meal. So I went over to the nearby Shake Shack where I ate their Shake Burger with a Diet Coke. I brought the remaining donuts home with me and I ate the rest over the next week or so. Those donuts tasted just as good cold as they did when they were hot.

After dinner I walked over to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Library because it was time for my meetup. After it ended I saw that the library had a temporary holiday pop-up store of its own where people can purchase holiday gifts. They had plates and toys based on the DC Metro system.

They also had wrapping paper that was designed by a local artisan.

They also had this locally-printed t-shirt that had this cool slogan that’s clearly aimed at punk rockers: What’s more punk than the public library?

I kind of regret not buying that one but that’s life. Maybe if I ever see it on sale again somewhere I’ll buy it.

Andy Strong, Maryland State Fairgrounds, Timonium, Maryland, July 8, 2023

Last summer I attended the German Festival at the Maryland State Fairgrounds in Timonium. I drove to the North Linthicum light rail station then took the light rail to the fairgrounds. When I was on my way back to the Fairgrounds light rail station after spending a few hours at the festival, I saw this interesting little wooden statue that was perched on a fence. I took a photo of it with the intention of writing a post about it and then promptly forgot about it for a while. It was only last month when I was clearing my phone of extra photos that I came upon this picture again.

I thought it looked pretty cool with the clouds in the background. Here’s a closeup of that shot, where you can clearly see the sash that the muscular man is wearing that says “Andy Strong.” (I guess Andy Strong is the name of that little muscular man.)

The Mother and Child Statue at Sunset

I’m still playing around with the camera on my new smartphone and I’m getting used to its features. I took a test shot of the Mother and Child statue that’s located in the historic area of Greenbelt, Maryland. I took the photo at sunset and you can see the incredibly vibrant colors of the sky behind the statue.

Dacha Beer Garden, Washington, DC, April 20, 2023

I’m still on a quest to honor my New Year’s resolution to expand my circle of friends and acquaintances by going to various events that are advertised on MeetUp.com on a regular basis. So far I’m floundering on the meeting new people part (there have been times when an event gets cancelled at the last minute or an event is so crowded that I can’t find the organizer of that particular meetup) but at least I get a chance to see more of what the Washington, DC metropolitan area has to offer.

I decided to attend a meetup of the DCXR group (which consists of those who are either professionals or are just into the various types of XR, such as augmented reality, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence) that was held at the Dacha Beer Garden, which is located near the Navy Yards stadium where the Washington Nationals baseball team play their home games.

It was an unusually hot April day (temperature was in the 80’s) but it was otherwise nice weather. I passed this set of airplane sculptures that are located near the U.S. Department of Transportation.

I soon arrived at the front entrance of the Dacha Beer Garden.

It’s mostly an outdoor bar and restaurant with some areas having wooden planks (which gives it a beach resort boardwalk feel) while others have gravel flooring.

There are trees which literally grow beyond the top of the place.

People are actually allowed to bring their dogs inside of the place.

As for the bar itself, people could order from a parked vintage 1950s recreational vehicle that has been refurbished as a bar. The Dacha Beer Garden was having its happy hour when I took this photo, which explains the long line of people waiting to order the alcoholic beverage of their choice.

The Dacha Beer Garden provides breathtaking scenic views of the Anacostia River. I had arrived to the place an hour before the meetup was scheduled to begin just so I would have time to eat dinner. The next few photos show the view from my table.

For dinner I ordered this bratwurst that was served on a pretzel roll. It tasted amazing!

I was even impressed by the glassware, which included images of a woman who looked like Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

I managed to find my meetup group and I have to say that it went pretty well despite the fact that the place was very noisy with so many people taking advantage of happy hour. Our meetup ended around the same time that the happy hour ended. By that time it became dark outside. Here’s a final shot of the front of the Dacha Beer Garden with the lights on.