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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.
I’m still going through some things that my late mother had saved and I found this old ink drawing of a tennis shoe that I did as a teenager.
Given the skilled drawing, I’m pretty sure that I did this one as part of an art class assignment when I was either in middle school or high school because my drawing skills began to improve the older I got. I normally didn’t draw mundane things like tennis shoes unless the teacher told me to as a graded assignment. I also drew this one on newsprint paper using a blue ball-point ink pen. I’m amazed that this drawing has survived all those years since newsprint paper tends to be flimsy. It figures that my mother would’ve kept it because that assignment was so mundane that I had completely forgotten that I ever did it.
I’m kind of glad that my mother had kept it because it reminded me of how far I’ve gone from the drawings I did when I was in elementary school. It also reminded me of how I’ve definitely improved my drawing skills even more since I graduated from high school.
Recently I had a friend who was doing some decluttering of her apartment and she asked me if I would like to have a pair of these slippers that she decided to get rid of. I took them. They fit my feet perfectly. They look like a pair of souvenir slippers from Holland. They even curl up at the toes just like the traditional Dutch wooden shoes. These slippers are perfect for those cold winter nights.
Triplet sister with facial defect who always concealed half her face in photos is sick of hiding.
Download free coloring books from 13 museums.
The town with a subculture of secret tiny doors.
Brazilian artist creates beds for animals from the old tires that he finds in the streets.
The history of the color red: From ancient paintings to Louboutin shoes.
High school and college STEM students build electric cars for kids with disabilities for free.
Brewery unveils 6-pack rings that feed sea turtles instead of killing them.
Adidas makes shoes out of plastic pulled from the ocean.
Ho Feng Shan: the “Chinese Schindler” who saved thousands of Jews.
Why entertainment public relations can be unprofitable despite having clients who hit the big time.
Art galleries are exhibiting the work of Grenfell Tower fire victim Khadija Saye.
Permanent Japanese residency to be possible for foreigners with anime-related jobs after one year.
XOD: A new and open source visual programming language for Arduino, Raspberry Pi, etc.
How to choose standout fonts for your embroidery projects.
98-year-old Russ Gremel donated $2 million in stock to create a 395-acre wildlife refuge.
Why the last thing open source needs is more corporate oversight.
This Ethereum-backed art could be the future of collectibles.
These crochet baby flip-flops are too adorable.
Open source documentation is bad, but proprietary software is worse.
How these crochet octopuses are helping premature babies.
Home robot Kuri can now recognize pets, see and stream in HD.
Artificial intelligence dolls and robots are this year’s Christmas must-have toys.
German breeders develop open source plant seeds.
A free tutorial on how to make fake succulents from pine cones.
Happy Earth Day! Here are some links for you to enjoy! 🙂
Cannabis industry attracts more mainstream investors as business grows.
A mass-market shoe with 3D-printed midsoles is coming soon.
Microsoft Office vulnerabilities mean that no .doc is safe.
You’ll be working with robots sooner than you think.
Google’s new AutoDraw web-based drawing tool is a better artist than you.
It may be time to say farewell to the Pentax camera as Ricoh shrinks its camera business.
Chinese doctors use 3D printing to prepare for facial reconstruction surgery.
Microsoft to offer self-service refund for digital games.
How to stop Microsoft Office hackers from stealing your bank account.
12 ways to study a new programming language.
Why Kickstarter decided to radically transform its business model.
How Steve Bannon’s multimedia machine drove a movement and paid him millions.
Microsoft will unveil the most powerful gaming console it has ever made on June 11.
Beware of “drive-by” computer scam.
Fake SEO plugin used in WordPress malware attacks.
Yes, some businesses still run Microsoft’s much-maligned Windows Vista.
Ohio inmates built and hid computers in prison using recycled electronic parts.
Dear Microsoft, stop blaming girls for not pursuing STEM careers.
Artist Hasan Elahi discusses racism in the digital art world.
Take a weirdly hypnotizing tour of America’s dying malls.
Disney files patents to bring humanoid robots to its theme parks.
Gizmodo reports on why people still use Microsoft Word.
Disney launching new animated Star Wars series on YouTube.
Black girls have been playing with white dolls for a long time.
Paper horror houses (including the Bates Motel) that you can download, print, and build for free.
How to get Microsoft Word for free.
Software engineer starts unlikely business: A weekly newspaper.
Russian startup company Renca recycles industrial waste into 3D printable cement.
Can collecting digital art make museums more competitive?
New business fad: Tripping on Ayahuasca.
“Pink Tax” forces women to pay more for gender-specific items than men.
Adobe and IBM are rolling out more artificial intelligence tools for brands.
ISIS recruiting videos hit YouTube after London attack.
Elon Musk wants to merge your brain with a computer.
A double-amputee toddler gets a doll with prosthetic legs.
Not all animators yearn to direct big studio films.
The disturbing YouTube videos that are tricking children into watching them.
Microsoft Word macro malware automatically adapts attach techniques for Mac OS and Windows.
Little girl mistakes a water heater for a robot and gives it a hug.
Easy Easter crafts that will bring an element of nature to your home.
3D printer helps revive 103-year-old Delage Type-S car.
Is YouTube turning against the marginalized community it built its network on?
Italian artists craft the world’s first 24-carat gold-plated shoes that costs ₤21,000 per pair.
The new world of 3D printing and counterfeiting.
Why Piet Mondrian could be considered to be the first digital artist.
Microsoft provided information to the British authorities after the London attack.
Google launches new site to showcase its open source projects and processes.
Open source software is for everyone—so where are the women?
Last Saturday I decided to go to Crafty Bastards again for the first time since 2014. This event was subtitled “Cabin Fever” because this event was held indoors (which makes a lot of sense when it comes to Washington, DC in February).
I took the Metro to the NoMa/Gallaudet University station then walked along New York Avenue. I assumed that the venue was within walking distance. Actually it turned out to be at least a half-an-hour’s walk from the Metro station. Along the way I took some photos, such as this structure which graces the overpass on New York Avenue.
Not too long ago it was considered foolhardy to walk alone anytime in the Northeastern section of DC, especially during the crack epidemic of the 1980’s and 1990’s. It seemed like there was at least one shooting a week in that area. I still remember when I was taking night classes in an ill-fated effort to study desktop publishing (I finished the certificate but I wasn’t able to find a job in the desktop publishing field) back in the 1990’s. One class I took included a field trip to this printing plant that was in Northeast at the time. The week before that trip we were instructed to go directly to that printing plant and, what’s more, she strongly urged us to drive there instead of taking public transportation because that area as so crime-ridden at the time. We parked in a gated parking lot. The printing plant has since closed and there seems to be a resurgence of Northeast as these pictures show.
I happened to stumble upon a really neat vintage shop known as nomad yard collectiv. I didn’t stay too long in that store because of Crafty Bastards but it sells all kinds of really cool vintage stuff.
I did some more walking along New York Avenue as I took these pictures.
After walking for a half-an-hour from the Metro station I finally made it to the venue in the Ivy City section. Hecht Warehouse once served as the warehouse for the Hecht department store chain. All that changed when Macy’s purchased Hecht and all of the Hecht stores were either converted to a Macy’s store or they were shut down (especially if the stores were located in a mall where a Macy’s already existed). Hecht Warehouse had remained empty for nearly 10 years when a developer decided to try converting it into upscale loft apartments along with building a few retail stores.
Right across the street from Hecht Warehouse is a bunch of giant storage boxes with smaller signs announcing the coming of another development known as Hecht Town.
I eventually found a sign leading to the entrance to Crafty Bastards.
Next to the Hecht Warehouse is a MOM (My Organic Market) and a sign announcing the arrival of a Petco that will come soon.
I eventually found the entrance to the Hecht Warehouse.
There were a couple of outdoor food trucks such as this one in the next photo.
The inside of the Hecht Warehouse lobby was amazing to behold. The developer took a gritty warehouse and totally remodeled it so it would look pretty upscale complete with a fireplace in the lobby.
The lobby even had a bar, which is amazing considering that the Hecht Warehouse is supposed to be an apartment complex and not a hotel.
There are a few vestiges of its warehouse past but they have been totally integrated into the new design.
I eventually made it to the area where Crafty Bastards was held. Since I arrived after 3 p.m. I only paid $5 admission fee to get in. (The regular price was $10.) Like previous Crafty Bastards this one was also a feast for the eyes and it provided a major challenge to the wallet as well. Here are just a small sampling of what went on at the Crafty Bastards Cabin Fever event.
I felt really tired by the time I managed to see each vendor booth at least once. Rather than walk for another half an hour in order to get to the NoMa/Gallaudet University stop, I decided to take the Metrobus back. Except the but I got on insisted on going all the way to Fort Totten, which was a half an hour trip. At least I got to sit down that time instead of spending all those 30 minutes just walking.
While I purchased a few things at that event, I was still very careful with how I spent my money since it’s pretty tight these days. I forgot to bring one of my cloth shopping bags from home (which is a big deal since DC has those laws where you have to pay in order to get a paper or plastic bag from any store or vendor) so I purchased this reusable souvenir bag for only $2.
I purchased this framed print from fashion designer Jay McCarroll (also known as the winner of the first season of Project Runway). I now have this print hanging in my living room.
I got this bar of fairy cakes soap from Dirty Ass Soaps, which smells wonderful.
I purchased this autographed copy of a book called Goodbye, Penguins by Greg Stones (whom I briefly met at his booth). This book is short but it’s full of twisted humor coupled with delicate illustrations.
And, last but not least, I purchased this dark chocolate candy bar from Harper Macaw, which is a chocolate candy maker based in Washington, DC. What’s really cool is that every Saturday Harper Macaw offers a guided tour of its factory for only $10 a person and it includes chocolate tastings. How cool is that? By the way, I loved that one chocolate bar I purchased.
Free Tutorials
How to easily clean a hot glue gun. That one is important for those of us crafters who frequently use that tool because that is one item that can easily gunk up with old dried glue.
29 Geek DIY’s To Make Right Now includes an abacus bracelet, a Doctor Who Tardis phone charging station, and RPG dice earrings.
What is Spec Work? is a video that describes the term and shows why designers should never waste their time with spec work.
16 Creative Ways To Give Sneakers A Makeover is a great tutorial for those who are in the mood to buy a new pair but currently own a good pair of sneakers and don’t really have the money to buy a new pair or two for fashion reasons.
Browse other free tutorials previously mentioned in this blog (along with pictures) right here.
Miscellaneous Links
David Irvine is an artist who specializes in collecting old, discarded paintings from thrift shops and adding pop culture characters like Darth Vader and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters. The results are interesting to say the least.
Here’s a clip from a 1950’s TV show that features an appearance by Samuel Seymour, who was the last surviving witness to the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. He mentioned how, as a five-year-old boy in Ford’s Theater, he saw John Wilkes Booth jump from a balcony to the stage where Booth broke his leg and he was initially concerned about Booth until he saw President Lincoln slumped in his seat. This TV appearance happened just in time because Seymour would die just a few months after appearing on that show. Seymour’s brush with history has since earned him his own Wikipedia page.
When I made my first trip to London back in 2007, I managed to make a brief visit to the world-famous Abbey Road Studios (where a lot of classic albums were made, including The Beatles’ Abbey Road and Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon) and I even walked in the same crosswalk where The Beatles were once photographed. While I saw the famous graffiti-filled walls on the perimeter of the property, inside of the building was off-limits to the general public. Google now has a virtual tour inside the Abbey Road Studios that is totally awesome and gives a fascinating glimpse of Abbey Road’s rich recording history that goes as far back as the early 20th century. There are also a few fun hands-on features as well, such as trying your hand at mixing music with the J37, a machine that was used to mix such albums as The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
I only went to one high school reunion in my life—the five-year reunion. It was held in the historic Belvedere Hotel, which has since been converted to luxury condominiums. At the time I was a new college graduate and a newlywed. I even convinced my husband to come along with me even though he never attended my high school (he grew up on Long Island while I grew up in Maryland) because I wanted to show him off as a “Ha! Ha! In your face!” message to those assholes who made my high school years miserable. We decided to rent a room at the hotel that night so we could hop on a elevator going to and from the lower level ballroom where the reunion was held without worrying about driving home that night. That backfired because my husband was bored, no one cared about the fact that I married a NASA employee who was a graduate from Oberlin College, and the majority of the few friends I made in high school didn’t go. The majority of those who attended that reunion were the popular kids (mainly the jocks and cheerleaders) who looked down on me as a retarded alien freak during those high school years and they didn’t give a damn about how I married well while they all gave off this “You’re still inferior and too insignificant for me” vibe when I unsuccessfully attempted some small talk during that reunion night. I socialized with the two or three friends who were there only to discover that I hadn’t seen them since Graduation Day and I didn’t have much in common with them anymore. The only good thing was the night we spent in that hotel room, which I recall was a very fancy room with nice bedsheets and soft towels. I haven’t gone to any other high school reunions since. I came across this post called Why I Will Never Go to My High School Reunion and it does a great job articulating on why high school reunions are overrated.
Back in 2011, the day before I was to undergo hip surgery, I decided to treat myself to a special visit to Tyson’s Corner Mall because I hadn’t been there in a few years so I grabbed my walker, got in my car, and drove myself there. Walking around that mall in a walker picked up my spirits despite the fact that my own walking had deteriorated to the point where I couldn’t get around without a walker. Among the stores I visited was American Girl Place, where I took a look at Julie, the doll who’s supposed to represent the historical period of the 1970’s. I’ve known about the doll’s existence for a while but when I saw her, something really resonated with me. I think it’s because she was wearing an outfit that was similar to one I had worn as a child during the 1970’s. I ended up picking up not only that doll but also the historical books based on that doll.
The next day I had my hip surgery and three months later my husband walked out on me. He left behind a note that basically said that my Tyson’s Corner shopping spree the day before my hip surgery was what drove him away from me. Except he hooked up with a friend of ours with serious mental heal issues and, well, that’s another story altogether. (One which I haven’t been able to get out of my mind lately because the one-year anniversary of the day I got notice that my divorce was final is coming this Thursday.)
Fast forward a few years, I decided to re-read the Julie books for the heck of it because I have an idea for a potential future Throwback Thursday entry (which I’ll elaborate on later). I began to think about getting a second American Girl doll, which would be my first such purchase since 2011. The Julie doll line has a second doll in that line who’s the Best Friend. Her name is Ivy and she’s a Chinese American who is among Julie’s closest friends. She also wears a pretty funky 1970’s-style outfit. I began to think about getting an Ivy doll while deciding that I would wait until later this year (like in October or November) to purchase that doll while slowly saving my money for such a purchase.
Except I recently learned that American Girl made this announcement where it has decided to retire four dolls and it figures that the one doll I thought about getting would be on the short list to get the heave-ho from the product line. Since the four announced retired dolls will go away as of August, I decided to move up the date when I would get Ivy.
Last Monday (June 2) I had a late afternoon appointment with my therapist, whom I’ve been seeing for the past few years ever since my husband’s abrupt walkout on me three months after my hip surgery and three days after Christmas in 2011. Since her office is located about halfway between my home and Tyson’s Corner, I decided to go the rest of the way to that mall. I’ve found that going to Tyson’s Corner on a Sunday or a weeknight from Monday-Thursday is far less of a hassle than going at other times. Parking is easier to find and there are far less people crowding the mall. I basically had a leisurely dinner at Wasabi (I love their conveyor belt approach to serving food where you can pick whatever you want off of that belt) followed by a leisurely stroll around the mall, where I took these pictures.
I’m old enough to remember when the original 1970’s-1980’s Star Wars trilogy was something totally new and exciting to see in the theaters. Now I see trendy Star Wars tennis shoes by Vans.
This next photo has brought back some memories for me. I can remember when one of the older members of my Unitarian Universalist congregation came out as gay and he began to focus their coming out with making the UU denomination more accepting of g/l/b/t persons while also making same-sex marriage legal. Both he and his partner (who later joined our congregation as an open gay man) were trailblazers and they still are trailblazers as they moved from Maryland to a Florida retirement community that was created especially for g/l/b/t retired folks. Our congregation were accepting towards this couple at a time when there was this big backlash against gay rights in the 1980’s (which was fueled by both the rise of Ronald Reagan and his right-wing agenda and AIDS) and the Unitarian Universalist faith was one of the few faiths accepting to g/l/b/t people. I was at Spencer’s at Tyson’s Corner when I saw this display catering for g/l/b/t people. Wow, how times have changed!
In the area between Sephora and the Microsoft store was this Xbox One that was set up so any passer-by can play the video game Just Dance. (I’ve played the Nintendo Wii version of Just Dance so I’m well familiar with that game.) I took some photos of a couple of guys playing Just Dance right in the mall. They didn’t draw much of a crowd because it was a Monday night and there weren’t a lot of shoppers around.
As I walk around this mall, I get reminded that this mall is way tonier and upscale than the malls that are closer to my home, such as this Under Armour store.
At last I came to the American Girl Place. I decided to focus my photos on the four dolls that are going to be retired soon. First up is Ruthie, who’s a Best Friend companion doll to Kit the Great Depression doll.
Ruthie is the dark hair doll in the photo below. She’s okay looking but I’m not really that interested in buying her or (her friend Kit, for that matter) so her retirement is personally no big loss to me.
The next two dolls are a different story. They are a pair of dolls named Cécile and Marie-Grace who are the co-stars of a story about some disease outbreak in New Orleans in the 1850’s or something like it. (For the record, the only American Girl books I’ve ever read are the ones that deal with Julie Albright and the 1970’s era that she grew up in.)
This next photo shows how adorably awesome they look. They have cute faces, great hairdos and the most awesome clothes I’ve ever seen on a doll. On top of it, they are from New Orleans, a city I have longed to visit ever since I started reading the first of Anne Rice’s vampire novels as a teenager. (I hope to see New Orleans at least once before I die. Visiting that city is definitely on my personal bucket list.) If I hadn’t fallen for Julie and her 1970’s era, I definitely would’ve gone for both Cécile and Marie-Grace.
Then there is the price. American Girl haven’t lowered the prices of any of their soon-to-be-discontinued dolls and each doll costs $110 each. In addition, most of the extra clothes, furniture, and other accessories for these discontinued dolls are still being sold at the regular full price. (A relatively plain American Girl doll dress starts at $30 and it’s not unusual to see outfits go for as high as $75.) If I wanted to buy all of the historic New Orleans dolls with all of their extra dresses and other stuff, it could cost me nearly $1,000. Basically I decided to just take close-up shots of these gorgeous dolls in their gorgeous outfits with my smartphone instead because I probably won’t buy either Cécile or Marie-Grace unless either American Girl decides on a sudden half-price sale or I suddenly come into a huge amount of money.
The last couple of photos are of the doll I actually bought, Julie’s best friend Ivy Ling. She is not only adorable but her outfit has that funky 1970’s feel. (Yes, I can remember when cowl-necked shirts were in vogue along with wearing high boots.)
I also bought the 9-inch mini-doll version of Ivy Ling. I bought the 9-inch mini doll version of Julie Albright when I purchased her 18-inch counterpart. I just find it so cute to have a doll with a lookalike miniature doll version of her.
See what I mean with having a big doll with her own mini-me a la Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers movies.
Another great benefit of getting the Ivy Ling doll when I did is that I can display both her and Julie sitting together in that doll couch I made from the broken Dance Dance Revolution dance pad controller at today’s DC Mini-Maker Faire. (It’s happening from 11 a.m.-7 p.m. so if you’re in the area and have some free time, check it out. It’s even free admission!) I made the doll couch using a pattern that was meant for two 18-inch American Girl dolls (or similar manufacturers of such dolls as Our Generation, Springfield, etc.). It’ll be pretty cool to have two American Girl dolls actually sitting in a two-seated doll couch looking splendid in their 1970’s clothes. 🙂
Sagittarius Dolly 
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