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I know that the title of this blog post sounds like some kind of a clickbait material. But it’s true and it’s literally the type of story that you can’t make up.
As I wrote in this previous post, I had gone to a local Jo-Ann’s Fabrics and Crafts where I saw these nutcrackers holding rainbow flags that were on sale. I thought that they were a hoot, especially since I have friends who are LGBTQ. I had a 25% off coupon through my Jo-Ann’s app on my phone so I got it for around $15. I shot a few photos and made a quick online video. Here’s a recent photo of my rainbow flag nutcracker.
A few days later I learned that Fox News decided to announce that liberals are declaring its annual War on Christmas once again (even though such a thing doesn’t even exist in real life) and it cited not only that rainbow nutcracker that I purchased but another Christmas decoration that is currently being sold in Target. It features a black Santa Claus in a wheelchair. That one had me shaking my head because, despite the fact that the onetime Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly had famously said ten years ago that Santa is white, Santa Claus was based on a real-life bishop known as Saint Nicholas of Myrna. He was of Greek descent who came from what is now Demre, Turkey. He was European but usually when people like Megyn Kelly say that someone is white, they tend to mean people from the northern European countries like Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, France, and Great Britain.
So now it’s 2023 and Riley Gaines is on Fox News complaining about the fact that not only is there something that she calls “gay nutcracker” but there’s also something that she calls “black disabled Santa” and she seems horrified that they exist. Naturally that video clip has soon gone viral with people roasting Gaines online over what she said.
I wasn’t surprised that Gaines had gone homophobic over the nutcracker since homophobia is still alive and well among certain types of people. But I was livid when she thought that black disabled Santa was also something that she said had “gone way too far.” I was born with a dislocated left hip and I had to spend the first year and a half in a body cast as a result. Had that treatment failed, I would’ve spent my entire life in a wheelchair.
My father suffered a spinal cord injury that left him a quadriplegic. He spent the last 15 years of his life in a wheelchair. He died in 2000 at the age of 65.
My mother suffered from multiple sclerosis. She spent the last 10 years of her life in a wheelchair as her illness progressed. She died in 2020 at 79, just two weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic arrived.
It’s bad enough that Riley Gaines had proved herself to be homophobic but she was also intolerant towards Santa in a wheelchair because of both his skin color and disability. So she’s homophobic, racist, and ableist.
I hate to tell Riley Gaines but just because she’s able-bodied now doesn’t mean she will always be able-bodied in the future. Both of my parents were able-bodied until they weren’t due to circumstances beyond their control. Riley Gaines, like all of us, is just one accident or one illness or one major tragedy away from being physically disabled.
So I already have the rainbow flag nutcracker that I bought at Jo-Ann’s but I was curious about the black Santa in a wheelchair that’s sold in Target. So I went to the Target that’s closest to my home and I found a whole shelf of them and they only cost $5 each. They were also small, which is great for me since I live in a small place. So I bought one. Here is what black disabled Santa looks like.
He’s made entirely from felt but he is very cute. I made a short video where I incorporated that infamous Fox News clip with my previous video about the rainbow nutcracker then shot new footage of black disabled Santa. I uploaded it on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.
Here’s a last photo of my two new Christmas decorations that Riley Gaines of Fox News absolutely hates.
Throughout the month of June I made a bunch of Pride Month-themed shorts for both TikTok and YouTube. I just didn’t get around to writing a post about this until the last day of Pride Month.
It all started when I went grocery shopping and I found that Kellogg’s had put out a special limited edition cereal called Together With Pride. The box cover featured all of the Kellogg’s cereal mascots (such as Toucan Sam and Tony the Tiger). I ended up buying that box on impulse and I’ve since eaten the whole thing. (I basically ate one bowl of the stuff a day until I ran out.) Together With Pride is basically presweetened heart-shaped cereal that’s done up in a variety of rainbow colors. The cereal tasted okay but it’s not the kind of cereal that I would want to eat on a regular basis. I shot a short video about this cereal that I uploaded on to TikTok and YouTube.
Soon after the cereal incident, I learned that a special plush Care Bear was being released especially for Pride Month and it was sold exclusively at Walmart. This bear is known as Togetherness Bear and it has a pastel rainbow coloring throughout its body. It has been said that due to the dye process during production, no two Togetherness Bears will ever be exactly alike. All that I know is that when I saw pictures of Togetherness Bear I fell in love with it. I’ve never owned a Care Bear plush before even though I’ve always thought that they were cute. (I’m old enough to remember the Care Bears’ original 1980s run.) What’s more, the official promo copy says that Togetherness Bear personifies “togetherness, acceptance, inclusivity and loving what’s unique about yourself…The bear’s motto, ‘Love all,’ furthers their passion for accepting everyone exactly the way they are.” How cool is that? Togetherness Bear’s origin story that’s currently on the official Care Bears YouTube channel is so incredibly wholesome and cute with an emphasis on friendship and teamwork.
So I purchased Togetherness Bear for only $12 and I made this unboxing video that I uploaded on to TikTok and YouTube.
I decided to shoot another short video of Togetherness Bear paired with the historical 1980s American Girl doll town as Courtney Moore. Having read the two Courtney books and saw her accessories in person at the American Girl Place, I know that Courtney is depicted as being a Care Bears fan. So I decided to put the two together in this short video that I uploaded on to TikTok and YouTube.
Togetherness Bear is now sharing space with another rainbow plush animal that I purchased a few years ago but I’m only now writing about it in this blog. Here’s some background. I used to sometimes visit Build-A-Bear Workshop whenever I happened to be in a mall that had that store. The chain has this cute concept: you pick out a plush skin, you watch it get filled with fluff plus you can also name your new plush pal and specify a few frills (such as scents and sound chips) and pick out an outfit for your new plush. Once the plush has been stuffed and paid for, you get a certificate that has the plush’s name.
I don’t have any young children in my life and I didn’t see the need to buy one for myself so I basically did the occasional window shopping then moved on to other stores. But then, about four years ago, I found out online that Build-A-Bear Workshop was coming out with a rainbow-colored lion, which intrigued me. Then I noticed something unusual about this lion. The lion has a mane like a male lion yet the lion also has some feminine features (such as long eyelashes). I thought that maybe this plush is an androgynous or transgender character. I fell in love with that lion because, thanks to belonging to a Unitarian Universalist congregation, I’ve become friends with people who are either transgender or they are relatives of transgender people.
So I purchased my first—and, so far, only—Build-A-Bear plush. I decided that my plush is a transgender female who hasn’t made the full transition (which explains the mane) but she still feels very feminine. I initially purchased a pastel fairy dress with the plush but I later purchased a couple of other female outfits that were on sale.
At one point I was going to do a series of videos featuring JoJo the Rainbow Lion. I took her to a few places and made a few short videos (that were all less than five minutes and some of them were barely a minute long) that I uploaded on to YouTube but they had never quite caught on. (This was back in 2017 before I discovered TikTok.) I even created a Facebook page featuring JoJo as a character (which has since been unpublished by Facebook because I hadn’t updated it in a long time). I thought it would be cool to turn my plush into some kind of an Internet celebrity but, after making the seventh video in that series, I lost interest because so few people actually saw my videos. I still have the original YouTube playlist online, which you can watch right here.
So I neglected my rainbow plush for the next few years until I purchased the Togetherness Care Bear and I decided to make a brand-new short about JoJo the Rainbow Lion that would feature a cameo appearance from Togetherness Bear at the end. I uploaded it on to TikTok and YouTube.
That video had received far more attention on both platforms than all of the previous seven JoJo videos that I made back in 2017 combined. Here’s one fun fact about JoJo the Rainbow Lion: When I had her stuffed back in 2017, I had a scent installed in her. The scent I picked out was birthday cake, which had a vanilla scent. Four years later that scent is still intact. I can smell the vanilla every time I directly take a whiff of her fur. It’s cool to know that the scent of a Build-A-Bear plush doesn’t fade away for a long time.
Now it’s time to move on to another JoJo. For years I’ve noticed a variety of products associated with teen star JoJo Siwa including clothes, DVDs, and dolls. She is very distinctive looking with her blond hair tied into a tight ponytail with a giant colorful bow and her equally colorful clothes, some of which have unicorn images on them. Okay, I’ve never seen an episode of her TV show on Nickelodeon or on YouTube mainly because I’m not in her target audience of preteen girls.
But then JoJo Siwa has recently come out as pansexual and she has a girlfriend whom she says she loves. I’m old enough to remember when a teen idol never dared to comment publicly on his/her personal life out of fear of a backlash (especially from parents). So far it looks like JoJo Siwa’s fame hasn’t dimmed at all since she has come out.
In fact some new JoJo Siwa products had come out just in time for Pride Month. I saw a couple of Barbie-sized dolls on sale. One was in an elaborate package where the doll had a lot of joints but it cost around $19.99. The other had a simpler package and the doll had fewer joints but it only cost $9.99. I ended up buying the cheaper doll because I really admired the risk she took when she came out as LGBTQ and I decided to support her in a small way even though I’m not a fan of her music. This is the first doll based on a real person that I had purchased since the Talking Donald Trump doll that I had purchased as a gag gift for my then-husband years ago when The Apprentice was the biggest hit TV show at the time. (My husband left the doll behind when he walked out on me. I later sold the doll on eBay just a couple of months after Trump had won the 2016 election because I had grown so disgusted by his campaign that I wanted that doll out of my house.) I did a short unboxing video that I uploaded on to TikTok and YouTube.
Here’s hoping that JoJo Siwa doesn’t end up like Donald Trump. (LOL!) Right now she’s too young to run for president (the U.S. Constitution states that a president must be at least 35 years old and she’s only 18) and hopefully she will ultimately stick with what she knows (music and dancing) and not try something that could turn out to be disastrous for this country. (Don’t even get me started on living for four years under President Donald Trump.)
I later used one of my Disney Nuimos, Minnie Mouse, as part of a short parody of JoJo Siwa that I also uploaded on to TikTok and YouTube.
And speaking of the Disney Nuimos, I did a couple of cool Pride-themed things with them too. I had dug up a tiny rainbow cowboy hat that I purchased very cheaply at Party City a few years ago and I found that it can fit a Nuimos’ head. I found a bunch of Pride flags at both Target and Michaels Arts & Crafts for very cheap and I thought they would make the perfect Nuimos accessories. I purchased a roll of magnetic tape from Jo-Ann’s Fabrics & Crafts that was also self-adhesive (all I needed was a pair of scissors to cut the proper magnet size).
I also had to look up some of these flags online because, while I was familiar with the general LGBTQ rainbow flag and the transgender flag, there were other flags I had never seen before. In any case I managed to make a video about how I adjusted these flags for the Disney Nuimos and I uploaded it on to TikTok and YouTube.
For my last Pride-related videos, I decided to have my Disney Nuimos visit The Barbie Pond on Avenue Q. I had taken them to the same place back in March but the owner of the pond had decided to do the decor based on The Wizard of Oz complete with Barbie and Ken dolls portraying Dorothy and her three friends while other Barbies with painted green skin and black hair were dressed as the Wicked Witch of the West. I thought it would be cool to have Winnie the Pooh and Tigger photographed near the Cowardly Lion doll in an homage to the scene where Dorothy, Scarecrow, and Tin Man began to become so scared of traveling through the forest that they started to chant “Lions and tigers and bears…Oh my!”
But then something happened to the Barbie Pond shortly before my trip there. Some guy decided to steal Dorothy while smashing her three friends to the ground, which was all caught on camera. That totally sucked that this display was wrecked because I thought it looked so wonderful on Instagram and I was looking forward to seeing it in person. That wasn’t all. The man who vandalized the Barbie Pond later returned and confessed to the owner on camera that he had stolen Dorothy and used the doll to wreck the display because he felt that The Wizard of Oz minimizes and insults women and gays. That explanation floored me because I have watched The Wizard of Oz numerous times and not once have I ever felt that the movie had personally insulted or uncomfortable as a female. (If anything, that movie has strong females that not only include the villainous Wicked Witch of the West but also the equally strong yet good Glinda the Good Witch of the North. Even Dorothy herself became brave at times, such as when she slapped the Cowardly Lion’s face after she became outraged at his bullying the Scarecrow and the Tin Man soon after they first met and she threw the bucket of water on the Wicked Witch of the West.)
And that movie led to Judy Garland becoming an icon among the gay community, which is a far cry from that vandal’s claim that the display insults and minimizes gays.
The good news was that the vandal had returned the Dorothy doll that he previously stolen and the pond owner decided not to press charges against him this time. This incident has led to this story being published in The Washington Post since the vandalism happened during Pride Month to an obviously gay display.
Since Dorothy was returned and since it was getting towards the end of Pride Month, I decided to take my Nuimos to the Barbie Pond before the display changes. I went downtown on the last Sunday in June and the weather was in the low 90’s with high humidity to match. (It was the first day of a heatwave that’s still going on as of this writing.) Fortunately much of the sidewalk was shaded by trees and buildings so the walk wasn’t quite as bad. (Although the few times I was out in the sunshine was pretty hellish.) I reached the pond only to find that Dorothy and her three friends were no longer on display. (To be honest, I couldn’t blame the owner for putting those four dolls away after what happened.)
But the green Emerald City backdrop was still up along with the green-skinned Wicked Witch of the West Barbie dolls. So I decided to place my Nuimos among the display, take a few pictures of them, then put them back in the bag.
As I walked closer to Dupont Circle, I took a photo of one of the Pride flags that were hanging from the lampposts because each flag was attached to a smaller banner that said “Black Lives Matter.” I had wanted to take some more photos of the Nuimos in the Dupont Circle area but I decided to cut my visit short for two reasons. One was the awful heat, which was really getting to me.
Another reason was that I tripped on one of the sidewalk cracks and I fell to the ground. I landed on my knees but one of them was really scraped badly because the majority of my weight had shifted to that knee in the fall. I tried to get myself up but I was having a very hard time. (The older I get I find that I am increasingly losing flexibility when it comes to getting down on the ground. These days I only intentionally get on the ground if I have something sturdy to help me get back up.) I was looking for something to hold on to but the closest thing was several feet away and it meant crawling on my hands and knees with one of them totally scraped up and bleeding.
Luckily I had a pair of female Good Samaritans who happened to be walking past me and they offered to help me get back up. One of them walked over to a nearby restaurant and had an employee give her a few bandages for my knee. They sat with me a few minutes while I was trying to gather my wits again. In the meantime I told them about the Barbie Pond and how it was vandalized by a guy who claimed that insulted gays and women. The two women agreed with me that there was nothing misogynous or sexist about The Wizard of Oz and that vandal should have left that display alone. I found the women to be incredibly nice and I thanked them for their help. After a while we separated because the heat was getting to all of us.
I ended up going to Kramerbooks to browse a few books and just try to cool down in the bookstore’s air conditioning. I was getting increasingly tired so I decided to just go to the Metro and take the next subway home. I managed to take one more Nuimos picture of Mickey Mouse wearing his varsity jacket with the red letter M standing next to one of the M letters on the subway car (which is the logo for the DC Metro system). I took the pictures I shot that day and made my last Pride-themed video for 2021, which I uploaded on to TikTok and YouTube.
So that’s it for Pride 2021. The celebrations were relatively low-key this year due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Unlike last year, when everything was essentially shut down, there was a parade a few weeks ago. As for the annual Pride festival, it has been moved to October this year in order for it to coincide with LGBTQ+ History Month.
It sounds good but I’ve been hearing about that deadly Delta variant of the Coronavirus that has even struck those who have been vaccinated. This new Delta variant has just arrived in the United States and it’s too early to tell how much of a disaster this latest outbreak will become and whether it will affect the Pride festival in October.
I’ll just end this post with a picture I shot outside of the IKEA store in College Park, Maryland earlier this month. The store usually flies three flags—the U.S. flag, the Swedish flag (IKEA began in Sweden), and the Maryland flag. For Pride Month, IKEA decided to replace the Swedish flag with the Pride flag, which is pretty cool.
I saw some political fabric with symbols of the Republican and Democrat parties on sale at a local JoAnn’s Fabrics and Crafts store recently.
It’s just another indication that the elections will be happening soon.
The one thing I’ve learned is that while there are plenty of people out there who are willing to provide free advice on anything, keep in mind that not all advice is always sound. And sometimes there are people who claim to be “experts” who end up being anything but real experts. I got just a reminder of this recently.
Not too long ago I was getting antsy. My money was running low plus I haven’t heard back from the Census Bureau regarding new work. As of this writing I get notices that I am now eligible to get rehired. The Census Bureau was supposed to do the bulk of the hiring for the upcoming 2020 Census between January and March. I’m still getting emails from the Census Bureau saying that they are still hiring but I haven’t received any phone calls from them since late January (when I did another round of interviews with them followed by updating and sending a few forms). It was also a few weeks before my mother died and I was dealing with the possibility of sending her to a hospice because her health had declined really bad. (She died before she could make the move.)
I had a friend tell me about a friend of his who’s a retired career counselor. When he last spoke to her he mentioned that I was looking for work and she suggested that I get in contact with her. She was offering to give me free advice, which was fantastic since I can’t afford to actually hire someone to do job hunting on my behalf.
I was hoping that she would advise me on a steady job or career that would pay me enough money that I could support myself. I was also hoping that she would point me in the direction of an employment agency or temp agency that had a great track record in placing people in work quickly.
So I wrote an introductory email and sent a copy of my resume. I figured that it would be a common courtesy in order for her to get an idea of who she was dealing with so she could provide some proper advice. Not long afterwards she contacted me and she suggested that we get together in a local restaurant. I was agreeable to this.
She was going to pick me up at my house. However the current state of my home was a bit of a mess. Much of the clutter in the living room belonged to my housemate because his really big passion is picking up used computers and related equipment off of either eBay or Craigslist, install Linux on them, then take them to a low income family where he either gives them the stuff outright or charges a low fee of under $50. So my living room was full of various desktop computers, laptops, monitors, printers, cables, mice, keyboards, etc. (Heck, given the amount of computer equipment that he not only had at my house but also in a couple of storage sheds that he rented each month, he could easily open his own used computer store.) Years ago The Washington Post published an article about him and his work, which you can read right here.
There was no way I would feel comfortable in letting her inside. I originally planned on waiting outside on the front porch until she arrived to pick me up then go to the restaurant together and talk. She told me that she was having someone come over to her place to do some kind of a home improvement project so she wouldn’t be able to pick me up until 4 pm.
So it sounded like a perfect plan, which then totally went to shit. On that actual day it rained really heavy so sitting outside on the front porch was out. I was just going to wait indoors by the front door around 4 pm until her car arrived, then walk outside to meet her.
Since she wasn’t going to pick me up until after 4 I decided to go to the nearby makerspace and art studio known as The Space because it was having a couple of free workshops that were being held simultaneously that I wanted to check out.
While I was at The Space she called me saying that the handyman arrived and had finished the work earlier than expected so she was going to arrive at the house at 2 pm. Which means that going to a restaurant was probably not going to happen because it would be too late for lunch yet too early for dinner and she hadn’t indicated the possibility of going for drinks or maybe a dessert. So I ended up having to cut my visit to The Space short so I could arrive home in time to greet the career counselor.
So she arrived and she said that she needed to use the bathroom, which totally defeated my idea of quickly darting out the door and into her car. She took one look at the current sorry state of my living room and she expressed shock. I told her that the bulk of the stuff in the living room belonged to my housemate and I explained to her about his passion for bridging the digital divide (which inspired that Washington Post article). She said, “This isn’t his stuff. This is all your stuff.”
I kept on protesting that this is mostly his stuff but she kept on saying that everything in the living room—including the numerous computers, laptops, keyboards, etc. were all mine. She said that I was a borderline hoarder.
Basically she assumed that everything in the living room belonged to me because I’m a woman whose traditional responsibility is to keep a clean house and I’m failing because, in her mind, I’m hoarding all kinds of computer equipment (that really belongs to my housemate). And it’s incredibly hard to do much housecleaning when one is trying to maneuver around my housemate’s stuff. (I know because I’ve attempted to do it.)
But, yeah, she’s basically a sexist woman who assumed that everything is my fault. I know some of you may be shocked that some women can be just as sexist as men regarding their attitude on what women should or should not do but I’ve actually met such women over the years and they are definitely not fun to be around with. Yes, sexist women really do exist and this retired career counselor was the latest example. (I have to note that it’s pretty ironic that I’m uploading this post about this sexist career counselor woman on International Women’s Day.)
She pointed to the papers on the living room table and I admitted that most of it was mine. She said that I need to spend a certain amount of time getting rid of papers in order to improve my mental health. I said, “That’s fine, I’ll devote at least 15-30 minutes a day getting the papers off of the dining room table.” She replied, “No, you’ll devote one hour a day.”
Then she said, “You’ll also go to the store, buy some Spic and Span, and use that to wash down all of the walls.” Yes, this career counselor wanted me to start washing walls when I really needed her advice on finding a job.
She told me to go outside to her car. She started her car and the radio station was tuned to NPR and she shushed me because she wanted to hear this story. So we sat there until the story was finished. Then she asked me about the nearest mall and I told her about how I tend to hang around at The Space and I explained to her what The Space is. She expressed interest in checking the place out so we drove to Beltway Plaza.
I took her to The Space where the two simultaneous workshops were being held outside in the mall itself. I brought her inside and showed her the place. She began to perk up when I showed her the sewing machines that one could borrow for a sewing project. She told me to grab a piece of paper and pencil and I did so since The Space had plenty of both.
She asked me about my past as a crafter and I mentioned that I used to make jewelry and customize used thrift shop Barbie dolls for sale. I have stopped selling in craft shows in recent years because sales were so low that it wasn’t worth the effort to even work as a vendor at these shows.
After a couple of minutes she insisted that we leave The Space immediately because the decor was “too distracting” for her. That totally floored me because I’ve been to The Space numerous times and I’ve always felt that the decor was funky yet cozy. Here are some sample photos of the interior of The Space from previous visits.
So we walked over to the center of the mall that, in her mind, was less distracting. She began to demand that I show her my past arts and crafts so I went into Google Photos and this blog pulling up pictures of various things I’ve done. She didn’t care about my drawings or paintings at all. She was slightly more interested in the crafts I had done but she criticized the knitted hats I had made for my church (where all of the proceeds from those sales went to the church and all of the unsold hats were donated to local homeless shelters) because she felt they were too “boring” and “unstylish.” She said that I needed to get back to crafting and selling my wares at various street fairs again. I told her that I had quit the street fairs because I was making less and less money as time went by and I also told her that this whole downward spiral began after the 2008 economic meltdown. Then she said that we need to go to the other end of the mall where Jo-Ann’s Fabrics & Crafts is located.
So we arrived at the store and she told me to go to the tables where the pattern reference books were located. She proceeded to go through each book and she said that I needed to sew multi-pocket bags even though they would require a sewing machine and I still hadn’t gotten around to learning how to use one. She didn’t seem to understand when I said that I haven’t learned how to use a sewing machine and most of my past sewing projects had been hand-sewn. It was yet another example of her being a sexist woman because she assumed that I already knew how to use a sewing machine simply because I’m a woman.
She told me to write down each pattern name and number of the projects that she was picking out for me in the expectation that I would sew them using a sewing machine and sell them at craft shows. The patterns she selected for me included doggie blankets and various different types of bags. She also told me that I needed to make knitted hats with floral accents for sale as well.
She drove me home and I was glad to be away from her. She was such a disappointment. I wanted advice regarding getting a steady paid day job that would pay all the bills and she only cared about my housekeeping and she wanted me to sell at craft shows even though they don’t provide a steady income. (I know this first-hand because I’ve worked at too many shows in recent years where I’ve barely broke even. It was definitely a different story prior to the economic collapse of 2008.)
But her fun and games didn’t end there. The following day, while I was at church, she called me. Fortunately it was after the service had ended and we were in the post-service coffee hour where we were socializing among each other. She asked me if I had spent an hour going through papers in the living room. I told her that I was at church and I hadn’t gotten to it yet. She then suggested that I use the plastic bags I get when I go grocery shopping to put the papers in so I could work more efficiently. She also told me to go to the grocery store and buy Spic and Span so I can begin washing the walls as soon as possible.
Yes, this was a “career counselor” telling me this.
After that phone call I decided to head back over to The Space where I socialized with a few of the regulars there. Some of them had met the career counselor the day before and they let me know how they really felt about her. The comments ranged from “type A personality” to “asshole.” These people at The Space are really laid-back and friendly and they usually tend not to be snarky about anyone. But that career counselor’s hard-charging bull in a china shop personality had alienated them in the few minutes that they met her.
I worked on the pile of papers a couple of days but I ended up devoting anywhere from 15-30 minutes instead of the one hour that she demanded. That week I also had a job interview with a place that I learned about through Facebook’s Jobs section. I basically applied, the company responded quickly, and I had the interview. There were a few things about that place that really didn’t impress me and the woman who interviewed me had the similar kind of aggressive “bull in a china shop” personality as that career counselor. I was relieved when the company decided not to hire me because there were a few things about that company that didn’t sit well with me and I probably would’ve been very miserable and stressed out had I been hired.
The following Sunday the career counselor called me again during the post-Sunday service coffee socialization hour. She began to ask if I had cleared the papers one hour a day like she wanted me to and she asked me exactly how many of those plastic grocery bags I had filled. I told her that I attacked the pile but I didn’t do as much as she preferred. I then began to talk about that job interview I had during the week. She seemed not to be interested in my news that I managed to snag a job interview, which is unusual for a career counselor. I honestly thought that career counselors tend to care about such things. Instead I was dealing with a career counselor who cared more about my housekeeping skills than finding work.
I told her that I would feel better if I found steady work that paid me a steady wage that I could support myself with. I then asked her if she could recommend any agencies and she just said “Go to a temp agency.” She didn’t say which temp agency. She just said a generic temp agency.
At that point I realized that I was getting nowhere with her. I was wasting my time with a so-called “career counselor” who could care less about my effort at finding work because she only cared about my homemaking skills and nothing else. Once I got off of the phone I blocked her number and deleted her from my cellphone’s Contacts app.
As for the friend who recommended her in the first place, when I told him about what happened several weeks later, he admitted that she wasn’t really a close friend. She was someone who was a customer at his job and he said that she once took him out to a meal a few years ago. Basically he ran into her recently, remembered that she was a retired career counselor, and he mentioned that I was looking for work. She told him that she would be willing to help me.
The biggest irony is that I’m currently helping my housemate with taking all of that computer equipment that’s currently cluttering up the living room and putting it in his rented storage shed. The career counselor will never know this since I blocked her useless ass from my life.
It’s just a well that she’s a retired career counselor because she was so unhelpful. Sometimes I wonder if her former clients found her help to be less-than-thrilling and they ended up ditching her as soon as possible. If that’s the case, I can understand why she ended up retiring from her field.
The bottom line to my story is this: When someone gives you advice on anything, keep in mind that what worked for the advice giver doesn’t mean that it will always work for you. If possible, try to get a second opinion from someone else. If that person agrees with the first advice giver, then it’s a sign that you should at least try following it.
Always go with your gut instincts on any advice that people give you. If there is any advice that doesn’t feel right or doesn’t sit well with you, then don’t follow it. Or get a second or third advice before deciding whether to follow it.
And if you get someone who’s similar to that retired career counselor I encountered, then don’t hesitate to get that person out of your life as soon as possible because you don’t need toxic people in your life.
I took part in the first-ever online collaboration with the popular YouTube channel Dollightful, which was embarking on its first-ever Internet wide collaboration of customized dolls and toys. The theme of this collaboration was tropical. The rules were pretty simple: 1) Customize only one doll or toy. 2) The customized doll/toy must be somehow tied in with the tropical theme. 3) Submit only one photo of the customized doll/toy by the deadline. 4) Do not submit a photo that has been pilfered from somewhere else online. 5) The doll/toy must be completely family-friendly with no sexual themes or complete gore.
I submitted a photo of a customized doll just a few hours before the deadline. I later learned that my submission was one of 4,000 entries. As a result, Dollightful had to resort to a format where four pictures were shown on the screen at a time, which was the only way that the video could run at a reasonable length. (The resulting video still runs nearly an hour long.) The first time I watched the video I closely looked at all the entries until I saw my doll among the numerous other customized dolls. Here are a couple of screenshots showing the exact moment when my own doll appeared on the upper right hand corner at the 41:36 mark.
Here is the video. My own entry can be found at the 41:36 mark located on the upper right hand corner of the screen. There were so many creative endeavors that were incredibly awesome in that video that you’ll probably want to watch the video in its entirety.
The rest of this blog post is devoted to the making of my own entry in this collaboration. I did a video version about how I created this doll. I was inspired to make this video after seeing Dollightful create a video about the making of that channel’s submission to the Tropical Doll Collaboration 2019. Here is my video about my own submission.
For those who can’t watch the video for whatever reason, I wrote a text version with pictures below that goes into more details about the making of this doll than the video (mainly because I didn’t want to do a video that lasts an hour or longer).
I recently have been getting more and more into getting in touch with my creative side. I’ll admit that since 2011 (when I had two falls that knocked my hip replacement out of alignment and I needed surgery to fix it and that drama was followed by my husband abruptly walking out on me just three months after my surgery and three days after Christmas) my creative output has pretty much slowed down. There was a time when I made jewelry using polymer clay and Shrinky Dinks, took Barbie dolls that I found in thrift stores and gave them makeovers into fairy dolls, and I even did the occasional painting. I had some success (such as my work being sold and receiving awards and other accolades at local art shows). But the stress from my health problems followed by my divorce and dealing with chronic periods of veering between unemployment and underemployment really had a negative impact on my creative output big time. It’s so hard being creative when you’re worrying about whether you have enough money to pay your bills.
But then I started a new job and I’ve gone through periods of being temporarily laid off only to get re-hired once there was more work. This summer has gotten really crazy for me for reasons that I can’t get go into too much detail mainly because it will make this post extremely long. There were times when I’ve gotten stressed out. The only two things that have kept me going through this crazy summer is 1) I really liked the overall goal of the work that I was doing even if the work itself can get a bit tedious at times (this company deals with making electronic documents accessible to people with various types of disabilities like blindness, dyslexia, not having the use of one’s hands or arms due to things like illness or injuries, etc.) and I felt that the work I was doing was meaningful that could provide a positive impact on someone else’s life and 2) I still have horrible recent memories when I didn’t have enough money in my bank account and I had to make horrible decisions on which bills I could pay immediately and which bills I would try to delay paying.
I simply needed an outlet or interest other than what I was doing at my current day job. I decided to try making something again. The hard part was deciding on what I would make because I have so many different interests ranging from knitting/crochet to embroidery to drawing to painting to jewelry making to customizing dolls to sewing, etc.
I subscribe to a YouTube channel called Dollightful, which is devoted to customizing dolls (especially the ones from Mattel’s recently-discontinued Monster High line). One day I saw this video announcing a first-ever Internet-wide collaboration where people were invited to try their hand at doll customization, send a photo of the doll, and Dollightful will include it in her upcoming video. I thought it would be the perfect fun/creative thing to work on. I’ve done faceups of my own Asian ball-jointed dolls in the past and, like I wrote earlier in this post, I’ve purchased used Barbie dolls from a local thrift stores and gave them makeovers as fairy dolls.
After thinking through a few ideas, I thought about doing a mermaid with a pink flamingo motif that would somehow be reflected in her tail. Of course how she would look would definitely depend on what I would find in the local stores. I originally didn’t think about things like skin tone or hair color or anything beyond having a mermaid tail that would somehow incorporate pink flamingos. Both mermaids and pink flamingos definitely reflect on the tropical theme of this collaboration. I also thought that incorporating flamingos would turn my project into some fun light-hearted kitsch. It’s the time of the year where one can easily find in stores not only the classic pink flamingo lawn ornaments that have been around since the end of World War II but also pink flamingo drinking glasses, pink flamingo plates, strings of pink flamingo outdoor lights, pink flamingo t-shirts, pink flamingo hats, pink flamingo bags, pink flamingo pool floats, etc.
I didn’t think about what doll I wanted to use other than a Barbie or similar fashion doll that would be priced relatively cheap (meaning $10 or less). I originally had no preference of skin tone. Around the same time that I decided to take part in this collaboration there was this idiotic controversy when the Internet went in an uproar after Disney announced that, for the role of Ariel in its live-action remake of The Little Mermaid, it was going to cast an African American singer in a role where the original animation had depicted Ariel as a caucasian red-headed woman with a green fish tail. I shook my head as I read my fellow white people typing messages like “ARIEL IS WHITE AND SHE SHOULD ONLY BE PLAYED BY WHITES!!!” and “BLACK PEOPLE CAN’T BE MERMAIDS BECAUSE BLACK MERMAIDS DON’T EXIST!!!” and “OMFG!!! CASTING A BLACK PERSON AS ARIEL WOULD BE LIKE CASTING A WHITE PERSON AS OPRAH WINFREY IN A MOVIE ABOUT HER LIFE!!!”
So I went from not caring about the skin color of this pink flamingo mermaid to being adamant that she would have brown skin mainly to make an “in your face” statement to all those idiots who are adamant that there never can be black mermaids.
When I went to the same thrift stores I’ve gone to in the past in pursuit of a used African American Barbie doll I could use as my canvas, I came up empty-handed. There were no individual brown-skinned dolls available for sale. The few brown-skinned dolls I found were only available bundled together either with other dolls or other small toys and these bundles cost a little bit more than the individual dolls. I didn’t want to buy stuff that I didn’t want just so I could get a brown-skinned doll.
So I went with Plan B. I went to this local store called Dollar City, which is named because it originally started out as a dollar store where everything cost 99 cents or less. Over time it began to sell certain inventory that it really couldn’t sell for $1 and still remain in business (such as kitchen utensils) so the name has stuck despite the fact that there are now plenty of items that cost $2 or $3 (yet I’ve never seen anything in that store priced at more than $5).
I looked through the store at the cheap children’s toy area until I found this generic fashion doll sold under the name “Sweet Girl” where she is the same size as Barbie and her face resembles Barbie’s but this doll only cost $2.99. She has brown skin with blue eyes. (I guess one can explain that by saying that this doll is wearing blue contacts. LOL!) She wore a yellow dress that looked so appealing that I considered keeping it to use on other Barbies and/or other 1/6 scale dolls in future projects.
I started work on the doll soon after I removed her from the box. I did some of the work at home and I did some of the work at The Space, a makerspace that’s located inside of Beltway Plaza Mall in Greenbelt, Maryland. It was pretty nice working on this doll in the presence of other makers but there were times when I wanted to be alone to work on this doll with an absolute minimum of distractions, especially when I was doing the painstaking work of gluing hair on her head (which I’ll get to later in this post).
When I removed the doll from the box I found that the yellow dress felt like it was made from tissue paper. What’s more, this dress wasn’t easily removable. There were no snaps or buttons or even velcro. It was like the dress was sewn permanently on the doll at the factory. Since the dress was made so cheaply there was no way I could even think of a way of removing the dress without destroying it. The dress was pretty in design and had the manufacturer used a more sturdy material other than tissue paper and added velcro so the dress could be removable, it could’ve been a nice dress for all Barbie doll-sized fashion dolls. But that cheaply made dress was probably one of the reasons why this doll only costs $2.99.
So I took a pair of scissors, removed the dress, and threw it in the trash. (It was made from tissue paper so it definitely wasn’t durable.) Once I stripped her naked I found that there was this black stamp on one of her front thighs that clearly marked the doll’s item number, manufacturing batch, the fact that this doll was manufactured in Shantou, China in October, 2016 and distributed by AAI of Piscataway, New Jersey. I’ve never seen Barbie with such noticeable blatant markings on her body like that. (Barbie is usually marked that she was made in Indonesia or China or some other place but it is usually marked in tiny raised letters on her low backside in flesh color so it’s not really that noticeable.) I suppose that’s another reason why this doll only costs $2.99. (LOL!)
I also felt this doll and her vinyl felt more squishy and less sturdy than Barbie’s, which is probably another reason why this doll was sold so cheaply. I have a feeling that if anyone had accidentally stepped or sat on her, she probably would be permanently flattened. (I would also hate to see what a doll like this would look like after spending time laying on the bottom of a very full toy box.)
The doll originally came with her hair in an updo ponytail. I originally thought about taking down her hair and either do a full dye or a partial dye in pink using acrylic paint.
But when I took down her hair I found that she originally wore her hair in that style—her entire head wasn’t covered with hair! She had so little hair that her bald spot was large and noticeable.
I might have kept her original hair as it and just paint the ponytail part in pink if it weren’t for the fact that I felt that her updo hairstyle was pretty mediocre due to the fact that she had so little hair. Even her hair length was a bit too short to do a decent 1950’s style updo like the original Barbie dolls in their first year of production back in 1959.
So I decided to try something alternative and cut off what little doll hair she actually had. It wasn’t too hard to cut off, much of the hair fell out at the root the minute I cut it. (Which indicates another reason why this doll only costs $2.99.) After I managed to cut off what little hair she had, I noticed that this newly bald doll reminded me of one of those female Wakanda warriors from The Black Panther movie.
I briefly thought about keeping her bald, which would’ve been a radical design idea when it comes to mermaids. (A mermaid is usually depicted as having very long and flowing hair.) But then I saw the back of her head and realized that it wouldn’t be feasible. The back of the head looked like the tip of a man’s penis.
That wasn’t the only strangely phallic part of that doll. There were times when I removed her head so I could completely remove the hair from the inside using tweezers. When I removed her head I found that, well, there was something phallic about her head joint that gave new meaning to the word “dickhead.” I guess that’s another reason why that doll only costs $2.99. LOL!
I shopped around at the various arts and craft stores until I found this pretty cool pink flamingo fabric at Jo-Ann’s Fabrics & Crafts. The pattern design reminded me of those 1950s era kitsch art that were done in a variety of bright tropical pastel colors. What’s even better is that the pattern is small enough that it could be scaled to a 1/6 scale doll. (I saw other pink flamingo patterns on sale at Jo-Ann’s but the patterns were way too big for the size of doll that I was sewing for.) What was even better was that I purchased this fabric at a discount using a coupon on my Jo-Ann’s smartphone app.
I did a web search on how to make a mermaid tail for a doll and I found this YouTube tutorial by My Froggy Stuff, which I found to be very helpful.
Here is my doll’s mermaid tail after I finished it.
I also purchased some satin pink fabric from the remnant bins at Jo-Ann’s, which were on sale at the time. I sewed the top using the same My Froggy Stuff video tutorial that I embedded above.
For the hair I decided to have a hair color scheme that would match the colors of her tail. I ended up buying yarn skeins that were on sale from both Jo-Ann’s and Michaels Arts & Crafts and they were pretty close to the tail colors. I used this tutorial that was posted on Hannah Plus Laura’s YouTube channel on how to make a doll wig using yarn.
The only modifications I made were: 1) I glued the yarn directly on the doll’s head instead of using a baby sock because I intended her hair to be permanent and 2) I used E-6000 glue instead of a hot glue gun. That’s because the quality of the vinyl felt so thin compared to other dolls manufactured and distributed by Mattel and Hasbro that I feared burning a hole in the doll’s vinyl had I used a hot glue gun. Here is what my doll looked like after I glued the first row of yarn hair on her head.
Here is what the doll looked like after I covered her head in yarn hair.
I found two pink flamingo-shaped buttons at Jo-Ann’s that I decided to use as doll barrettes. I attached them to the doll’s hair using pipe cleaners.
I was really happy with how my kitschy pink flamingo mermaid of color was turning out. I decided to add a pink flamingo buddy to create sort of a picture of a pink flamingo mermaid with her pink flamingo bird companion. I decided on Ty, the company that originated the Beanie Babies craze in the 1990s. While Beanie Babies no longer command the huge dollars on the secondary market they once did, Ty is still making small stuffed animals that are still priced low enough that children can buy them with their allowance money (which was the original idea behind Beanie Babies in the first place). For the past few months I saw many of the local stores (including Five Below, Michaels, and Jo-Ann’s) sell Ty pink flamingos and I thought one of them would be perfect for my mermaid, especially since the scale would be pretty close.
By the time I started looking for a Ty pink flamingo I saw that the regular pink flamingos that I previously saw on sale were replaced by a new Ty pink flamingo under its Flippables line. These Flippables are capitalizing on the current glitter sequin craze where a glitter sequin lying on one side would be one color but if you flip the glitter sequin, you’d see a different color. I’ve seen such glitter sequins on pillows, t-shirts, and even tennis shoes. Personally the novelty of this new craze had worn thin with me after flipping glitter for a few seconds but the kids absolutely love this.
Anyway, getting back to my story, I only saw the pink flamingos available in Ty Flippables when I personally preferred the regular plush version because I just didn’t want to deal with making sure that the sequins all reflect the pink side. But the Dollightful deadline was coming soon so I decided to just take the plunge and buy the Ty Flippables version of the pink flamingo so I would have a companion for my mermaid.
This pink flamingo looked cute. Here’s a closeup of the sequins. When you flip them one way, the glitter sequins are pink but when you flip them another way, they look like a silver color.
A few days after I purchased that Ty Flippable pink flamingo I went back to Jo-Ann’s in order to make a couple of purchases so I could finish my mermaid project and I walked past the Ty display where I saw that there was one left of that pink flamingo that I originally wanted. This pink flamingo is part of the Ty Beanie Boos line (which tend to have bigger eyes than the original Beanie Babies). I began to think that it wouldn’t be so bad for my mermaid to have TWO flamingo companions so I purchased this one as well.
When I put the two Ty pink flamingos side by side, I noticed that the Flippables one is slightly bigger than the Beanie Boos one. But the height difference was minor enough not to cause any kind of scale issues when it came time to posing them with the mermaid.
I had a few other ideas regarding my submission that I ended up not using due mainly to the looming deadline, such as having a small cutout printed on card stock showing the late actor Divine in John Waters’ cult classic Pink Flamingos. (Get it?) I wanted to shoot on location at a beach near a shoreline since mermaids, water, and beaches go together. Going to Ocean City was out of the question for me due mainly to tight finances and time issues. (I was working at the day job again so I just didn’t have a full free day where I could wake up early, take a four-hour trip to Ocean City, take the necessary pictures, then take another four-hour drive back home.) I originally planned on going to some of the closer beaches that face the Chesapeake Bay like Sandy Point State Park, North Beach, or Chesapeake Beach. Those beaches would’ve been easier for me to get to.
But then something happened in the news that made me consider another option. While I was putting the final touches on my doll, I learned that President Donald Trump had issued a serious of odious tweet that totally trashed my birthplace of Baltimore. This kind of trash talking was more suitable for a middle school kid than for someone who is supposed to represent an entire nation. I already wrote a rant about how I felt about this so I’m not going to go further into that incident.
Just as I made a black mermaid in an effort to outrage all those white folks screaming “BLACK PEOPLE CAN’T BE MERMAIDS!!!” I decided that my photo shoot would take place in Baltimore in order to outrage Donald Trump and all of his devoted MAGA followers. After all, the city is located along a major body of water. And filmmaker John Waters did film his cult classic Pink Flamingos on location in Baltimore. The only challenge is finding something that’s a beach since one can only swim in a local community pool and not in the Inner Harbor or the Patapsco River. In the meantime I added a few additional elements that made my upcoming submission more Baltimore-focused.
One evening I was at Michaels when I saw that there was a sale on these small pink flamingo-shaped birthday candles for only $1 each. I thought they would be perfect for my project. Except the majority of the pink flamingo candles on sale all had snapped necks. I found the last pink flamingo candle that was still intact and I bought it. The following evening I was at Jo-Ann’s when I saw a small bunch of six small gift bags that were on the clearance rack for $1. These gift bags were perfectly scaled for a fashion doll. I was going to have the pink flamingo candle stick out of the gift bag. But then the hashtag #WeAreBaltimore began to go viral on Twitter in response to Trump’s hateful anti-Baltimore tweets so I took a Sharpie, wrote that hashtag on the bag and I now have another item for my photoshoot that also dovetails with current events.
Then there was the issue of a place in Baltimore that could possibly pass as a beach. I soon learned that there is a place located near Fells Point known as The Sandlot that is only opened during the summer months that is not only an outdoor bar and restaurant but it has a huge sandy area where one can play games like volleyball and bocce ball, swings where people of all ages can swing on, and places where one can sit facing the Patapsco River wind its way to the Inner Harbor. It resembled a beach except for the fact that no swimming was allowed. I found that perfect spot for my photo shoot.
The challenge I had through out the entire creation process from the beginning to the photoshoot was that I had a day job so I had to limit everything to either early in the morning before work, after work, and the weekends. I was glad that the days were currently longer this time of the year so I could get more of the photography done.
A few days before my trip to Baltimore I decided to do a few test shoots closer to my home. I wanted to practice for my desired shoot and I also wanted a backup in case, for some reason (such as car trouble or serious inclement weather), I had to cancel going to Baltimore (especially with the deadline coming close).
So I initially went to Greenbelt Lake. While I initially liked the setup of my elements, what I didn’t like was that I couldn’t get close enough to the lake without risking falling in (or having my doll fall in) because of the way that the shores slope down severely. In many areas the trees and other foliage tend to get in the way of getting a shot that could encompass both the water, the dolls, and the other props. Even though I settled for putting everything on a rock, you can barely see the water in the background.
I thought about the New Carrollton Library in New Carrollton, Maryland. Last year that library underwent extensive renovations and it reopened to the public with high praise recorded in the local media. The architect decided to do an aquatic themed design and it’s reflected all over the library. I thought it would be cool to do a shoot there even if everything would be indoors instead of being on location at a beach. Here are a few photos of my doll and props near this wall that had a giant picture of a fish nearby taken from various angles.
The blue carpeting had this pattern that suggested ocean waves so I shot my mermaid and her friends at an angle that showed the carpet.
The last local shoot I did before I went to Baltimore was at Lake Artemesia in College Park. I went after work when it was around twilight. I managed to shoot this photo with the lake clearly in the background.
I have to admit that had I not been able to go to Baltimore, I would’ve submitted this picture instead because I liked the way that everything was composed. (Here’s one secret: I placed the items on top of the lid of a tall closed trashcan. You have to admit that you would not have noticed this had I not written this previous sentence. LOL!)
The deadline was fast approaching and it got to the point where if I didn’t go to Baltimore soon, I would’ve had to choose one of my alternate photographs to submit. It also was the same weekend as the annual BronyCon. I had gone to that event in 2013, 2014, and 2015 but I hadn’t gone since due to tight finances. I thought about waiting another year before I checked it out again until I learned that the organizers decided that this year would be the last time that BronyCon would ever be held anywhere. Basically it was going to go defunct after the 2019 convention.
So I was in a dilemma about whether I should continue with my plans to do the shoot in Baltimore or go to BronyCon until I came up with an idea: I would do both. I would wake up and leave early enough in the morning so I could check out BronyCon then take the Charm City Circulator bus to The Sandlot and take my photos for the Dollightful collaboration. I also had an idea that if I saw any displays at BronyCon that looked the slightest bit tropical, I would whip out my doll and her props and do some shooting at BronyCon.
It turned out that I didn’t find anything that looked like a good tropical backdrop at BronyCon. (I’ll write more about BronyCon at a later date.) So once I got my fill at that convention, I took the Charm City Circulator until I was close enough to The Sandlot.
As I was walking towards the area where The Sandlot was located, I found an empty dock that I thought would make a great alternative shot. I pulled out my doll and her props only to discover, to my horror, my cheap $1 pink flamingo candle had snapped its neck. So I ended up having to jettison that candle entirely and go with everything else. Here is my first shot on location in Baltimore.
I eventually made it to The Sandlot. I originally intended to eat dinner there then shoot my pictures at the surrounding beach. But then I found that this place does not accept cash at all and I left my debit card in my purse, which was locked in the trunk of the car that I parked at the North Linthicum light rail station outside of the city. So I had to scrap the idea of eating dinner there (I later ended up ordering takeout chicken from Royal Farms when I was on my way home from Baltimore) and just start shooting my pictures. Here are some alternate shots I made at The Sandlot that I took from different areas of the beach and at different angles.
I liked this closeup shot of the mermaid and her flamingo friends with the Domino Sugar factory clearly in the background. (That factory is part of the iconic landscape of the Baltimore Inner Harbor along with the Bromo Seltzer Tower and the National Aquarium.) The only major flaw was that you couldn’t see her mermaid tale so you wouldn’t know that she was a mermaid from this angle.
I shot the camera just a few inches away and I felt like I got the perfect shot with a body of water that’s clearly visible, the Domino Sugar factor is clearly in the background, the mermaid is along a sandy beach, and the bag with the #WeAreBaltimore is clearly visible. I was sad that my flamingo candle snapped at the neck at the last minute so I couldn’t use it but otherwise I loved this shot. I decided to sleep on it before I made my final decision. In the morning I looked at all of the photos I shot and I still chose that one. The only real flaw is that the picture had sort of a bluish tint to it and I wanted something warmer that would better reflect the tropical theme of the collaboration.
A few months ago my friend/housemate/sometime collaborator Phil Shapiro urged me to download this free app on my smartphone called Snapseed. It was developed by Google as a way for people to easily edit their photos using Adobe Photoshop-like filters except this app is much easier to learn and, unlike Photoshop, one doesn’t have to pay a monthly subscription fee. I downloaded it but I hadn’t had a chance to use it until this collaboration. I found that it was pretty easy to use. What I really liked was that I could make some edits right on my smartphone without downloading this photo to my MacBook then importing it into either my outdated Photoshop CS4 or GIMP. I managed to add some warm highlights to this picture and add my Instagram and Twitter accounts on the photo before emailing it to the Dollightful collaboration just a few hours before the final deadline.
So I basically liked the entire collaboration and I was thrilled when I not only saw my doll in that video but I saw so many other people’s submissions as well.
This past weekend a major snowstorm hit the Washington, DC area where I lived. The snowstorm started late Saturday then it stopped for a brief period on the following Sunday afternoon before it started up again and it didn’t stop for good until sometime in the middle of the night.
As a result, most of DC was even more shutdown than it was before (due to the ongoing federal government shutdown where Donald Trump is still refusing to budge on signing on this year’s budget until he gets his border wall).
Yesterday morning it was sunny with a bright blue sky. It was still cold outside but it wasn’t quite as bad as before the snowstorm. I managed to bring out my Elsa doll and placed her along a shoveled sidewalk area to give you an idea as to how deep the snow was in my area. (Elsa is about 11-12 inches tall, which makes her roughly the same height as Barbie.)
I also took a few photos of the wooded area that’s close to my home.
Later in the day I went to the local mall where I went to Jo-Ann’s Fabrics & Crafts because I needed to buy some new patches for my jeans. When I was standing in the checkout line I saw these really cute stuffed animals for Valentine’s Day that had these groan-inducing puns.
Right next to the llama on the right-hand side is The Perfect Man chocolate, which I remember actually buying from that same store five years earlier then blogging about it. I ended up not buying The Perfect Man this time around but I managed to buy a pack of glue sticks because I had a coupon (through the Jo-Ann smartphone app). The store also had a sale on a bundle of two pairs of fuzzy Christmas slipper socks. Each bundle was originally priced at $9.99 but they were 90% off so each bundle now costs $1 each. (Which meant that each pair of slipper socks only cost 50 cents per pair. Sweet!) I purchased two bundles because I only wear slipper socks in bed these days so I really don’t care if I’m wearing green and red Christmas socks in—let’s say—early March since I only intend to sleep in them and not wear them out in public.
Ninety years ago today a struggling young animator named Walt Disney released this groundbreaking cartoon called Steamboat Willie. The rest is history.
It can be pretty hard to fathom how groundbreaking it was and it can also be pretty hard to fathom a time when Mickey Mouse wasn’t the biggest cartoon character. While there were animated cartoon shorts before Steamboat Willie, they were silents, which meant that there were no recorded music or dialogue. They were played in movie theaters where a piano player or organist would play the soundtrack live in the theater, just like they did with live action silent films. During the silent era the biggest cartoon star was Felix the Cat.
Many people think that Steamboat Willie was both the first sound cartoon ever made and Mickey Mouse’s first cartoon. It turns out not to be the case on both counts. There were some earlier attempts at making sound cartoons, most notably Max and Dave Fleischer’s Song Car-Tunes series and Van Beuren Studio’s Dinner Time but they didn’t catch on in the way that Steamboat Willie did.
Steamboat Willie was actually the third Mickey Mouse cartoon ever made. His first two cartoons, Plane Crazy and the Gallopin’ Gaucho, were made as silent animation films but they had failed to impress audiences and Walt Disney was unable to get a distributor for those two. Walt Disney came up with the idea of making a sound Mickey Mouse cartoon after the ground-breaking live action talking movie The Jazz Singer was released and it became a huge hit.
Had the people behind Felix the Cat gotten into making sound cartoons immediately after The Jazz Singer was released, it’s highly likely that Felix would’ve permanently quashed that cartoon rodent upstart Mickey and Steamboat Willie would’ve become a footnote in the history of animation. After all, Felix was the biggest cartoon star in the world while Mickey Mouse was a relative unknown. It’s very likely that Felix’s animation domination would have carried over into the sound era and Felix the Cat would have remained the biggest cartoon star today. People would be spending the day at a Felix the Cat theme park, visiting related Felix websites online, and buying all kinds of Felix the Cat merchandise ranging from clothes to toys to high-end designer handbags.
But the people behind Felix the Cat underestimated the potential of sound cartoons and talking pictures in general. They felt they already had a winning formula with Felix so why alter it? The fact that studio head Pat Sullivan suffered from alcoholism so bad that it affected his decision making and it ultimately took his life at an early age didn’t help. By the time there was an effort to start making Felix the Cat sound cartoons, Mickey Mouse had already overtaken him in popularity and the original studio folded. While there were short-lived attempts to revive Felix the Cat in the 1930’s (as a series of color cartoons with sound) and 1950’s (as a children’s TV cartoon show), Felix the Cat had never quite regained the immense popularity he lost from that disastrous decision to delay making sound cartoons. Next year is the 100th anniversary of the first Felix the Cat cartoon so we’ll see if there are any attempts to put Felix in the public eye again.
Earlier this year I realized that this year was the 90th anniversary of Steamboat Willie when I saw these specially marked Pepperdige Farms Goldfish Crackers on sale. I purchased a couple of them and I wrote this blog post about these special crackers (which featured crackers in the shape of the usual goldfish and special ones in the shape of Mickey Mouse’s head).
If it weren’t for these crackers I would have completely missed this anniversary. But this is Disney, a giant multinational corporation, and it wasn’t going to let people forget that this year is another one of those important anniversaries where the number ends in either 0 or 5. Since buying those crackers I’ve seen other Mickey stuff in the stores. At the local Giant grocery store there was this display of Little Golden Books featuring Mickey Mouse.
The same store had special Mickey Mouse Oreos for sale. I purchased one of those packs for the heck of it. Here is what the outside package looked like.
I opened the package and noticed how the chocolate part of the cookies were designed. One side of the cookie had the usual Oreo stamp on it.
The other side had one of three special designs that were especially made for this package. One design had Mickey Mouse wearing a party hat.
Another design had a megaphone surrounded by tiny Mickey Mouse heads.
A third design had the number “90” surrounded by tiny Mickey Mouse heads.
The cream in the cookies was a special flavor known as “Birthday Cake.” Basically the cream tasted like vanilla frosting and I found it to taste far sweeter than the normal Oreo cream. While I found the taste to be passible, I personally prefer the regular cream.
If that wasn’t enough, Giant also had this special issue of Life magazine on sale, which was full of photos of Mickey Mouse over the years.
The closer it got to the anniversary, the more 90th anniversary Mickey stuff came out at a rapid rate. Here’s what I found at Target.
Of course there would be a Mickey Mouse Bluray DVD featuring “Steamboat Willie” and other seminal Mickey cartoons.
There were some special Funko Pops featuring cute versions of Mickey Mouse in his famous cartoon roles. While I didn’t see a Steamboat Willie Funko Pop, I saw ones based on other cartoons like The Brave Little Taylor and “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” sequence in Fantasia.
There were some large plush stuffed animals based on the opening sequence in Steamboat Willie when Mickey was steering the steamboat.
There were smaller plush stuffed animals as well, which not only featured Mickey as he appeared in Steamboat Willie but as he appeared in other cartoons.
There were special blind boxes shaped like Mickey heads.
The list on the label shows the Mickey figurines that one could get inside of blind box. Of course you won’t know which Mickey you got until after you purchased this special box and take it home with you.
If buying blind boxes aren’t your thing, you could spend $24.99 and buy the complete set of Mickey Mouse figurines.
I saw some special Mickey Mouse fabrics from Jo-Ann’s Fabrics & Crafts, some of which feature Minnie Mouse as well. You could make yourself a special outfit with these special patterns.
There were other Mickey fabrics as well but I only wanted to highlight the ones that had the Steamboat Willie-era Mickeys.
There were 90th anniversary Mickey Mouse Christmas ornaments and housewares available for sale at CVS.
A couple of days ago I made a return trip to Tyson’s Corner Mall. I went to The Disney Store where I saw this sign featuring Mickey and Minnie announcing that its Black Friday sale was going on right now. (By the way, my various store apps on my smartphone were pushing notifications all this past week announcing “Black Friday Preview Sales” and stuff like that? Is having pre-Black Friday sales a thing now in retail? God help us!)
There was a sign announcing Mickey Mouse-inspired activities at The Disney Store all weekend long. I showed up on Friday but I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Today they have a thing where the first 90 customers to make a purchase will get a special commemorative Mickey key. I’m financially struggling too much to go for something like that. Even if I could afford to buy something, I think I can live without a special commemorative Mickey key.
The back of the store was having continuous showings of Steamboat Willie with seats small enough for young children to sit on.
There was just one small area of the store that had the commemorative 90th anniversary stuff, most of which were geared towards adults, such as paperclips and business portfolio covers.
The Disney Store wasn’t the only place that had 90th anniversary Mickey Mouse stuff. The Build-A-Bear Workshop had a couple of special 90th anniversary Mickey plushies that one could have stuffed. One is Mickey wearing his “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” outfit.
The other one was a regular Mickey Mouse wearing his usual red shorts. Like the other Mickey, this one had special soles on his shoes that were marked 90th anniversary. (The Mickey in this photo was unstuffed.)
Lolli and Pops had imported Mickey Mouse candy with the packaging written in some Asian language. (I couldn’t tell which language it was. I think it was either Japanese or Korean.)
Macy’s had these special 90th anniversary Mickey Mouse Ray-Ban sunglasses.
The only thing about these sunglasses that I didn’t like was the fact that Mickey Mouse was visible from inside of the sunglasses frames—the frames that other people wouldn’t normally see. What’s the use of paying more money for something that can’t be seen by other people? I might as well buy regular black-framed sunglasses without Mickey Mouse lining on the inside.
Sugarfina is an upscale candy store that had 90th anniversary Mickey Mouse candy on sale. I thought about buying a Mickey Mouse dark chocolate candy bar only to find out that their candy bars cost $9.50 each. And that’s the starting price of the candy in that store.
There was a store that sold 90th anniversary Mickey Mouse watches, clocks, and backpacks.
There were a lot of stuff for the 90th anniversary that one could buy. I can only imagine what it will be like 10 years from now when the 100th anniversary comes up in 2028. While we’re on the subject, here’s one fact that frequently gets overlooked: This year is also the 90th anniversary of Minnie Mouse, Mickey’s longtime girlfriend. That’s right, she appeared in the first two silent Mickey cartoons and she also appeared in Steamboat Willie. She’s been a regular in most Mickey Mouse cartoons since.
UPDATE (December 3, 2018): Over a week after I wrote this post, new 90th birthday Mickey Mouse stuff arrived at my local Target that I haven’t seen before. You can check them out right here.
I arrived at church with a friend (we were carpooling together) when we saw that it was once again Tye-Dye Sunday. This is an event that’s usually held once a year during the summer. It runs in place of regular Sunday school for the kids while adults have a chance to dye their own shirts once Sunday service ends. Here are a few photos I took at that event.
I had somehow missed the memo about Tye-Dye Sunday so I didn’t bring any blank t-shirts from home. There were a few blank t-shirts lying around but the bulk were too small for me. But then I discovered this one t-shirt that was very stretchy so it could fit me. What’s more, it’s a Michael Kors designer t-shirt. I don’t know who donated that t-shirt. It was a basic blank white shirt that would have been indistinguishable from other white shirts if I hadn’t seen that label.
I took that shirt for myself, tied rubber bands around it, then put it in this vat of purple dye.
I put the shirt in a zip-lock bag then took it home with me. The following day I washed it and it looked okay. While my t-shirt was drying I decided to take a trip to the local mall and I was walking around Jo-Ann’s Fabrics & Crafts. I saw this unicorn iron-on appliqué with a color scheme that would definitely match my newly-dyed Michael Kors t-shirt. I also have the Jo-Ann’s app on my smartphone so I was able to use a coupon and pay just $2.50 for that appliqué. Sweet!
So I ironed that appliqué patch on the t-shirt once it fully dried. Here is the front of the shirt.
The next photo show the back of the t-shirt.
And, last but not least, here’s a selfie of me modeling that t-shirt.
Last year I planned on going to Baltimore to celebrate my birthday at Christmas Village in Baltimore. I had to scuttle those plans because my birthday fell on a Tuesday and it turns out that the place was closed on certain Tuesdays including my birthday. (I ended up going to Tyson’s Corner instead and I still had fun last year.)
This year my birthday fell on a Thursday so I decided to go to Baltimore, just like I planned last year. I was determined to go there despite the fact that the Polar Vortex had just arrived in my area so the temperatures plunged to below freezing. (I basically wore a heavy winter coat and a hat so I was able to brave the deep freeze.)
On the way to Baltimore I stopped off at a local Jo-Ann’s Fabrics & Crafts store to check out the recent sales. I found a bundled pair of slipper socks. The original price was $9.99, which would’ve been a decent price for two pairs of thick socks. But they were on sale for half-price, which meant that I paid $5 for the bundle (or $2.50 per pair).
I took the light rail into the city. I initially went by Harborplace where I saw this ice skating rink.
Since my last visit to Harborplace, I found that the store It’s Sugar had moved from one pavilion to another. (It is now located next to the Ripley’s Believe It or Not Odditorium.)
I purchased a few things for myself on my birthday. Here is this cute gingerbread man cookie I bought.
I purchased this Pez dispenser featuring Badtz-Maru, one of Hello Kitty’s friends.
I bought myself this Guinness Luxury Dark Chocolate Truffle Bar. It was very delicious.
I took a few photos of other items in that store but I didn’t buy any of them.
After my visit to Harborplace I took a couple of photos of the Inner Harbor area at sunset.
I eventually made my way to the Christmas Village in Baltimore.
I’ve been there other years (see the photos I took in 2013, 2014, and 2015). Some of the same vendors were there this year while there were others whom I had never seen before. I also saw some empty booths but I had no idea if fewer vendors signed up or if it was because I came on a Thursday night and some of the missing vendors only worked on the weekends. I had been looking forward to eating some bratwurst with sauerkraut for dinner followed by a Belgian waffle topped with hot fudge and whipped cream for dessert. Unfortunately the waffle place wasn’t there this year, which was a big disappointment. The German food booth was still there so at least I was still able to eat the bratwurst and sauerbraten platter.
I purchased only one item. It was a pack of incense that I got from the large Käthe Wohlfahrt booth that was located at one end of the main tent. I’ve been lighting the incense each night since then so my home can smell like Christmas. (LOL!)
On my way back to the light rail stop, I saw this homeless person laying down under a thin blanket outside the Baltimore Convention Center. Usually I wouldn’t pay this person much notice other than the fact that the Polar Vortex had arrived and the temperatures were forecasted to dip under 20 degrees Fahrenheit over night. (The following morning my AccuWeather app on my smartphone registered 18 degrees Fahrenheit.) I felt that this person should really be indoors but I didn’t know where to turn since I live 30 miles south of Baltimore.
I took the above picture and frantically did Google searches on my smartphone for homeless organizations in Baltimore. I texted the photo to a couple of organizations while indicating where the person was located. For added measure I texted the photo to the Baltimore Police Department. I even uploaded this photo on my Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts using people to forward this to anyone who could help bring this person in from the cold. I don’t know if my efforts helped or not other than the fact that for the next few days I did a Google search for any recent homeless deaths in Baltimore outside the Baltimore Convention Center only to turn up empty-handed. I guess this person somehow survived the Polar Vortex but I’ll never know for sure.
Once I reached the North Linthicum Light Rail Station (where my car was parked) I drove over to Glen Burnie. Last year I found out about this overdecorated house on Delmar Avenue and I saw it for the first time on Christmas Eve. This year I decided to check it out again and, yes, it is still just as heavily decorated as it was last year.
The only difference I could tell between this year and last year is the next-door neighbor’s lighted sign that said “DITTO” with an arrow pointed to the other house. (That neighbor’s house didn’t have any outdoor lights at all other than that “DITTO” sign.)
By the way the house on Delmar Avenue has its own Facebook page that you can view to get the latest news and photos about that house.
Last year I shot a bunch of still photos of that house. This year I decided to shoot a video so you can get a sense of the flashing lights (including an animated laser display that’s shown on the garage door) and the constant Christmas music.
I headed home after visiting that house so that was it for celebrating my birthday in Baltimore and Glen Burnie.
Even though the Disney movie Frozen has been out for over a year and it’s still available on DVD, the movie is still a big deal in popular culture. I found this latest example during a recent excursion to Jo-Ann’s Fabrics & Crafts. I found patterns that one can make for 18-inch dolls (such as American Girl, Our Generation, and Springfield) from not one but two different manufacturers.
Interestingly the Simplicity pattern (on the left in the above photo) has the official Disney Frozen logo on the front while the McCall’s one doesn’t explicitly mention the Frozen name but the clothes that the dolls model look nearly identical to what Anna and Elsa wore in that film.
Sagittarius Dolly 
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