10 Years After the Trash Took Itself Out

Ten years ago today my husband came home from work, announced that he was leaving, threw a few papers at me (including the first alimony check, a schedule for our eventual divorce that I had to adhere to, and a letter explaining why he had to leave) then bolted out the door before I could say anything else. In his letter he mentioned that my recent purchase of this doll had added to the clutter of our home.

That night I wrote a post expressing hope that the separation would be temporary. But I later learned from friends that he left me for a friend of ours who has a mental illness that’s so severe that she has an experimental pacemaker implanted in her brain. He got engaged to her just eight months after he left me (while he was still legally married to me) and he married her just two months after our divorce was final.

I was originally going to write about how I had lost respect for him and how I no longer think of him as among the most intelligent and honest people I’ve ever met but then I realized that I had already wrote about that last year.

Basically my husband left me just three months after I had my hip surgery and three days after Christmas. He never indicated that he was the slightest bit unhappy until the night he left home, which totally shocked me to my core.

The hardest part about the whole divorce thing was how my husband was before and after he left. While no marriage is ever 100% perfect (and anyone who tells you that is either lying or is totally delusional) he had a lot of good qualities. This year also happens to be the 10th anniversary of the time when I fell twice in over a week. Those two falls were enough to knock my hip replacement (which I originally received in 2008) out of alignment. I had to undergo hip revision surgery in order to put my hip replacement back into alignment so I could walk again without using a cane or being in pain. My husband took care of all of the arrangements for my hip problems. He accompanied me to the orthopedic surgeon’s office, he coined up a physical therapist for me after I left the hospital, and he even lined up rides for me to get to and from physical therapy once he had to return to work. He was incredibly phenomenal in how much he helped me and I think it would’ve have been harder for me without him. I had even recorded his personal caregiver’s chant whenever he helped me with putting on the special TED hose that I had to wear for weeks after my surgery. He even took care of me when he came down with bronchitis while dealing with stresses at his own job (he was working on a major satellite project) and he also served as treasurer of our church. When it came time to decorate for Christmas, he insisted on being the one to take down all of the decorations from the attic because of my recent surgery. He even cooked a wonderful Christmas meal for me and we went out looking for overdecorated houses, which I documented in this blog post.

After he left it was as different as night and day. When he returned just three days after he left to gather some furniture with a couple of movers that he hired (it was mainly a desk and chair and a bookshelf), he refused to talk to me at all. I was left with taking down all of the Christmas decorations and putting them back up in the attic (which was the polar opposite of when he was concerned about me taking them down from the attic because he didn’t want me to strain my hip). He refused to communicate with me other than to send emails demanding that we separate our finances according to his own schedule that he had mapped out. Whenever I begged him to slow down or reconsider he would threaten to sue me. What he did was cyberbullying. During a rare face-to-face meeting I told him that it didn’t have to be like this but he said that it did. On top of it, he sent a divorce petition in an email on Christmas Eve. When I consulted my own divorce lawyer, he said that it wasn’t a real petition because there was no case number assigned to it. (My husband expected me to sign it and mail it back to him. Had I done it his way, I would have had no way of knowing whether I would actually be divorced or still legally married.) So my husband had to actually file for the divorce the proper way.

In short he just became mean and nasty after he left me. For solace I read Vikki Stark’s book Runaway Husbands, which definitely fits the description of my husband. I also read Jackson MacKenzie’s Psychopath Free and Martha Stout’s The Sociopath Next Door as well as the sequel to Runaway Husbands, Planet Heartbreak. I now realize that my husband probably has some kind of a personality disorder (such as narcissism) but I can’t say exactly what kind of a personality disorder because I’m not a psychiatrist. It was through seeing a therapist that I realize that my late mother-in-law’s very volatile personality (which included frequent temper tantrums over very minor issues) had a hand in how my husband turned out. I also started attending weekly meetings of a support group for people who are separated or divorced, which had been a tremendous help to me.

I’m still mystified as to what happened to set my husband off like that. He never once indicated that he was unhappy in our marriage until the night that he left. The only clue is what my late mother told me a few times after my husband left (but before she became too ill with multiple sclerosis to do much talking and socializing). According to her, on the day we were married his father told my parents at the reception that he was pleasantly surprised to be at his son’s wedding because he thought that his son would never be married.

Why would my new father-in-law say that? I didn’t communicate with him after my husband left (other than to email his cell phone number and telling him not to call at our house since he was no longer living there) so I have no direct quotes from him on that. He passed away in 2017 so I don’t have the option to contact him about this. I know that my father-in-law met my mother-in-law when they were both students at Oberlin College and they married soon after they had both graduated. Oberlin is a small college and it’s common for students to meet their future spouses there.

In contrast, when my husband attended Oberlin, he had been in two relationships but both girlfriends ended up dumping him. So my husband was still single when he graduated. On top of it, his younger sister, who met her future husband when she attended a different small college, got married just a few months after they both graduated. So my father-in-law concluded that my husband was destined to be a lifelong bachelor until he met me when we were both students at the University of Maryland. (I was an undergraduate and he was a graduate student.) My husband was 27 when we got married so it’s not like he was married very late in life. (I was 23 at the time.)

In light of what happened, I now realize that my husband married me not because he loved me but because he wanted to prove to his family that he wasn’t going to be a lifelong bachelor.

If he really didn’t love me, then why would he stay with me instead of getting divorced early in our marriage? When we were first married my husband would say that it would be awesome if we were married longer than his parents (who were divorced). He would especially repeatedly say that on our anniversary. When his younger sister’s marriage ended in divorce, he would also say that it would be great if we were married longer than her. I would agree with him while not realizing that he was only pretending to love me so I would stay with him.

In time we managed to stay married longer than his sister. Reaching his parents’ milestone took a little bit longer but we did it. His mother died just a few months before the anniversary where we equalled his parents’ marriage so by then his father was the only one who would care about that.

In 2011, the same year that I had hip problems, our marriage finally lasted one year longer than his parents’ marriage. I guess that, at that point, he felt that it was no use to stay married to me because he had achieved his personal record of staying married longer than his parents and I had become expendable by that time. My mother-in-law was also dead so he wouldn’t have to deal with her gossiping to friends and family about how screwed up her son had become by hooking up with a severely mentally ill woman. (Whenever we visited her she used to frequently gossip about how other friends and relatives were screwing up their lives by doing something that she didn’t personally approve of.)

When I saw how nasty, distant, and hostile he had become around me, I began to question whether he really loved me to begin with. He did a totally 180 degree in how he treated me before he left me and afterwards. It was like he had an internal switch that got flipped from being sweet and loving to being nasty and hostile and there was no way that the switch can get flipped back. It was almost like he was only kind to me because he wanted me to stay so I could help him with breaking some stupid-assed family records. The fact that he emailed a divorce petition to me on Christmas Eve only intensified my suspicion that he never really loved me to begin with and he had personally loathed me all those years.

It also explains the too many nights when I was home alone throughout our marriage. At first it was because my husband was still a part-time graduate student at the University of Maryland. But then he dropped out of that program when he had a hard time dealing with the workload from the program along with his NASA job. He became involved in a few church committees over the years (such as the Board of Trustees) and he would be at meetings. Then there was the time when he and one of his NASA coworkers decided to write a book together about object-oriented programming for a small independent publisher. (Ultimately the publisher dragged its feet on publishing the book for several months after they submitted the manuscript so the book became outdated by the time it was finally published.) And the times when he had to meet deadlines for numerous satellite projects at work. And the time when he decided to give graduate school a try again through Johns Hopkins APL and he got his Master’s degree. And the time when he decided to try for a Ph.D. at the University of Maryland but he ended up dropping out of that program.

I thought that my husband’s workaholic tendencies was a factor but now I think that he also wanted to avoid being with me because he never really loved me so being busy two or three nights per week and some weekends was the best way of avoiding me.

If I had known that he only wanted to marry me and stay married because he was in some kind of a stupid competition with his parents and sister, I would have broken off the engagement. I now feel like I had wasted my life being married to a man who was only faking being in love with me so he could prove to his parents that he wasn’t destined for lifelong bachelorhood.

Come to think of it, there’s nothing wrong with being a bachelor if you’re personally happy with being one. Not everyone is meant to get married. I think it’s better being a bachelor than getting married to someone just so you can fulfill your family’s expectation for you because that decision directly affects someone else.

I have a feeling that he only remarried just two months after our divorce was final because he wanted to say to others, “See it’s true love. She’s not some extramarital mistress. It’s true love because I went through the trouble to get divorced so I could marry her as soon as possible.” He could have waited a few years after the divorce before deciding to get married but apparently he had that urge to both keep her close to him (especially since it’s harder to leave a marriage than a live-in situation) and prove to his family and friends that she’s true love. The fact that he took advantage of a severely mentally ill woman to do this is really despicable in my mind.

My friends told me that they both look unhappy these days and I have no reason to disbelieve them because of her ongoing mental health issues. I only saw him once this year and it was when he was sitting outside of a cafe looking at his laptop. I’m glad that I rarely see him because he’s become trash.

At this point I have zero desire of ever reconciling with him again even if his second marriage ends up going south. He left behind so many bad memories of the whole divorce that I would have a hard time overcoming them just so I could reconcile with him. I haven’t been in a relationship since then because I was busy with trying to find a consistent job (I have veered between periods of unemployment and underemployment) and I really want to be on my own two feet before I can even think about another relationship. I wanted to wait until after my mother died because I wanted no family drama over my choice of a mate. I also have a hard time with trusting anyone after having been married to someone who only pretended to love me so I would marry him and stay married long enough to outlast his parents’ marriage.

I also had people in my support group for people who are separated or divorced talk about their experiences with finding dates on Tinder and Match.com and they were less-than-thrilled with their experiences. For example, one woman said that she ended her relationship with a man she met on one of those online dating sites after she called his home and his wife answered the phone. (He had lied to her about his marital status.)

There’s also the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic. With the Omicron variant running amuck and my own bad luck over the last 10 years, I would end up dating someone who gave me COVID-19 and I become sick as a dog despite my vaccines.

I used to be friends with the woman with severe mental health issues before she became the other woman then my ex’s second wife. I haven’t spoken to her since I found out about her relationship with my husband. She probably thinks that she was successful in winning my husband from me. She probably thinks that she was really lucky in that he was willing to not only divorce me but also to marry her.

Well the joke is on her. Since my ex has demonstrated his preference for severely mentally ill women, her marriage to him is not safe. That’s because it would only take another woman with even worse mental illness (such as multiple personality disorder or severe bipolar disorder) to move into our area, my ex-husband deciding that he fancies her much more than his current wife, then he’ll literally run away from the home that he currently shares with wife number two and move in with that new woman. Then he’ll refuse to speak to wife number two while demanding that they separate their finances as soon as possible and do other obnoxious things (via emails and text messages) to her until they get divorced so he can marry wife number three.

In short, she’s not in a safe and secure marriage. In any case, I don’t care because it’s her problem, not mine.

Tysons Corner Center, Tysons Corner, Virginia, May 17, 2021

It was Tax Day this year but I had finished everything a couple of days before the deadline decided to celebrate the recent finishing and filing of both my own income tax and my late mother’s income tax as well. (I’ve learned that death is no excuse not to file taxes. I don’t have any children so it’d be interesting to see who ends up with filing my taxes after my death. I’ll never know who will be tasked with this and, to be honest, I probably won’t give a damn since I’ll be dead by then.)

I decided to go to Tysons Corner Center because I had heard that this year is American Girl’s 35th anniversary and there were special dolls that were released just for this occasion. I thought it would be cool to check them out in person. I had also decided to buy a few new Disney Nuimos from the Disney Store.

I arrived to the plaza that typically greets those who are arriving to the mall from the Tysons Corner Metro station. In previous years there would be stuff for people to play with, such as a giant chessboard. When I went to the mall a few times last year, there was nothing provided for visitors due to the Coronavirus pandemic. I understood why the mall was reluctant to allow people to use the giant chessboard.

On my most recent trip last month, I found that the playthings for the general public are now back. I saw a giant chessboard, table tennis, and bean bag corn holes.

It turned out that Tysons Corner Center is having something known as Summerfest where people can play games outside once again just like in the pre-pandemic years before COVID-19 arrived. And playing those games are all free, all one has to do is just visit the concierge to get the complimentary gaming equipment (such as bean bags, table tennis paddles, etc.).

The mall also had a COVID-19 vaccination clinic where people can get free vaccines. I was already scheduled to get my second Moderna shot in Maryland two days later so I didn’t walk in. I did take a couple of pictures of signs because it was an interesting way to get more people vaccinated—come for the vaccine and stay for the shopping.

I headed over to the American Girl Place where I saw this interesting display featuring Julie Albright the 1970s historical doll. There was another doll next to her, who’s supposed to be her best friend, Ivy Ling.

Ivy Ling’s inclusion had confused me because I remember when she was retired along with the other dolls that were the best friends of historical characters a few years ago. It turned out that there was a sticker on this other doll that says “Doll 64,” which means that one could buy an American Girl Truly Me Doll #64 and have her as a stand-in for Ivy. That’s a pretty good solution for those who want an Ivy Ling doll but weren’t able to get one before that doll was retired.

I found the 35th anniversary display. As part of the festivities American Girl decided to re-release the dolls that were part of the original lineup back when American Girl was an independent mail-order doll company that was founded by a woman. Some of these dolls had been long retired while others had stayed on in the historical doll lineup while they were given new outfits when American Girl decided to re-launch its historical dolls with the awkward name of BeForever. It looks like American Girl has decided to dump the BeForever name. (Which is just as well because it was just plain grammatically awkward. No one ever says “You can be forever” or “They can be forever” because it would lead to this inevitable question: “Be forever in what?” Sometimes I wonder if former First Lady Melania Trump had looked to American Girl for inspiration when she decided to take up bullying prevention as her personal cause and she called it by the equally grammatically awkward name of “Be Best.”)

So here’s a rundown of the special 35th anniversary dolls. Samantha Parkington represents the Edwardian Era of the first decade of the 20th century. She was retired but then was re-released as part of the BeForever line with a new pink outfit. She is shown wearing her original outfit. I have to admit that I prefer this outfit to the newer BeForever pink one because it seems very unique as a doll outfit and it definitely shows the era that she represents. (To be honest, the BeForever outfit didn’t look all that different from the dresses that are worn by generic little girl dolls that are sold in discount stores.)

Josefina Montoya represents New Mexico in the 1820s back when that state was still under Mexican rule (and it was also a few years after Mexico gained independence from Spain). The only difference I could tell between her original look and her BeForever outfit is that the BeForever skirt has a brighter red color. I found her original outfit to be pretty cute.

Felicity Merriman represents the American Revolution era. She was retired then briefly brought back out for the BeForever relaunch then retired again until the 35th anniversary year when she has been brought back out. I have to admit that I like her original dress better than her BeForever outfit because I really love the red floral pattern with the off-white background.

Addy Walker represents the American Civil War era, especially when it comes to the time when slavery was legal. She’s being released in her original pre-BeForever outfit. I’ll probably catch flak from any American Girl doll fan who reads this but, to be honest, I prefer her BeForever outfit to her original one. That’s because her electric blue dress looks really striking on her. That dress was what really attracted me to her so much that I ended up buying the doll. Her original pink dress is basically blah by comparison.

Molly McIntire represents World War II. Not too long ago I was reading the books connected with the historical 1986 doll Courtney and the second book mentions Courtney’s house getting a copy of the American Girl mail order catalogue. She flips through the pages and instantly falls in love with Molly and she asks both her mother and father for her own Molly doll. (It was totally meta to have a reference to an earlier historical doll like that.) In fact, the current Courtney doll line offers a tiny Molly doll for sale so one doll could own another smaller doll, which I find to be a cute concept. I briefly thought it would be a hilarious idea to buy the 18-inch Molly doll as a life-sized companion to my Courtney doll at home but, to be honest, I was less attracted to Molly than to another doll in the 35th anniversary line. Don’t get me wrong, I think Molly is cute in her own way but there are other dolls that I personally prefer more than Molly.

The one 35th anniversary doll I was most attracted to was the Kirsten doll. Kirsten Larson represents the European immigrant experience and she is depicted as living in the Midwest in the 1850s. She had been retired before American Girl launched its BeForever line so she never got a new outfit. There was something about her that reminds me of a Holly Hobbie rag doll that I once owned as a child. My great-grandparents and great-great grandparents had immigrated from parts of Europe over 100 years ago so I can relate to that part.

I seriously considered buying this doll until I checked the price. A regular American Girl doll with no accessories cost $110. The price of the special 35th anniversary dolls: $150 each.

I had purchased a few new Disney Nuimos and they definitely aren’t cheap. I just wasn’t into spending more huge amounts of money. On top of it, I had taken the Metro to the mall so I had to consider the fact that there are so much that I could carry through the Metro system on the way to taking a train. So I ended up not getting her. At this point I don’t know if I’ll ultimately buy a Kirsten doll or not. These 35th anniversary dolls are only going to be available for one year and we are already halfway through the year so I’ll have to make a decision within the next two or three months on whether to get this doll or not.

I also found a book that was also released as part of the 35th anniversary line. At $9.99 it was the cheapest 35th anniversary thing available, although I ended up not buying it. It had this cute title: Everything I Need to Know I Learned from American Girl.

I didn’t take any more pictures after my visit to the American Girl Place because I stupidly forgot to recharge my phone and I ran out of battery power. They had outlets at various points in the mall where I could recharge my phone but I left the cord at home. It’s just as well because my latest Disney Nuimos purchases really require a separate post.

Tysons Corner Center, Tysons Corner, Virginia, February 17, 2021

I recently made my first visit to Tysons Corner Center of 2021. I went to the American Girl Place where I saw the new 2021 Girl of the Year.

Her name is Kira Bailey. She is described as a girl from Michigan who travels to Australia where she stays with her two great-aunts in their wilderness sanctuary. Her story not only deals with the Australian bushfires of the previous year but her great-aunts are a same-sex couple. (In case you’re wondering I haven’t read any of the Kira books as of this writing. I got my information about Kira from this blog post.) Here’s the large display about Kira.

Since a huge chunk of Kira’s story takes place in Australia, I had written a post on a political discussion group that I currently belong to on the Discord server for the benefit of the Australian members in that same group. I was wondering what their take was. One of them said that there is currently a line of dolls that are roughly the same size as American Girl dolls that are known as Australian Girl. She said that she bought one for her daughter and she enjoys it very much. Having seen the photos of these dolls, I have to admit that they are quite cute and their clothes look stylish. Like American Girl, Australian Girl also has corresponding books but, judging on the cover, it looks like they reflect modern-day Australia.

Getting back to Kira and American Girl, there were all kinds of Kira displays in the store.

American Girl is definitely going with the Australian theme in a big way. There is a doll-sized camping tent for sale that costs $225.

There were Australian-themed clothes available for Bailey as well as a human-sized Australia cloth bag, and even stuffed koala bears and kangaroos for sale.

I found Kira to be cute but I decided against buying her because Kira Bailey looks too similar to a doll that I already own—Julie Albright. The only difference is that they have different eye colors. (Kira has green eyes while Julie’s are brown.) Otherwise, they are nearly identical because not only do both dolls sport long platinum blond hair but they also use the same face mold.

Theoretically I could buy Kira’s outfits for Julie and pass her off as Kira. Even though Kira’s outfits are really cute, I probably won’t ever get around to buying them because the prices for her clothes start at $24 (and that’s for a pajama outfit) and most of them cost over $30 each.

Over the last few years the American Girl Place has had a display dedicated to the Girl of the Year. It’s usually three-dimensional and people are invited to have selfies taken at that display. Here is what these displays looked like in previous years.

The Coronavirus pandemic of the last year has had an effect. For this year’s Girl of the Year, American Girl Place has a tall poster with no 3D display. The poster is pretty nice looking and one can still take selfies next to it but there’s definitely a loss in that no one can peek through a window or stand on a fake surfboard due to the pandemic. I can’t really blame American Girl for that decision because making sure that a 3D display is constantly cleaned and sanitized would’ve been a major hassle and they would’ve had to allocate staffers to watch that area had there been such a display.

I looked around at the other displays. I took one of the historical 1980s doll Courtney Moore. She’s wearing workout clothes alongside a small TV set that has a pretend VHS cassette recorder attached to it and a yellow beanbag chair. I was definitely getting Jane Fonda-during-her-workout-phase vibes watching that display.

I purchased one thing at American Girl Place. When I originally purchased the Courtney doll a few months ago, I got a copy of the first volume of her book with the doll. Unfortunately the second volume hadn’t been published at the time I bought the doll and it still hadn’t been released when I last visited that store on my birthday. This time I saw that the second volume had finally come out so I was able to buy it.

I was even given a cute freebie for buying the book. It came in a box that’s shaped like a cassette tape and it is titled “Courtney’s Mix Tape.”

Inside the box were two hair scrunchies. One was doll-sized and the other was human-sized. My doll and I could wear matching hair scrunchies.

After the American Girl Place, I looked around at a few other stores. I went to The Disney Store where I saw that the new Disney Nuimos were on sale.

For the uninitiated, Disney Nuimos are a line of small plush Disney characters that originated in Japan and soon spread to other Asian countries. Disney decided to just release them to the rest of the world. A store clerk told me that they had just gotten the Nuimos just a few days ago.

The Disney Nuimos also have a line of clothes. The idea is that you buy the Nuimos and the clothes then dress them up, take photos of them, and share them online. I started seeing pictures of these Nuimos coming on my Instagram feed and they looked incredibly cute. They looked even cuter in person.

I decided to splurge and buy a couple of Nuimos along with two outfits. Normally I would pick Mickey and Minnie whenever I choose Disney products. This time I didn’t and that was because I had purchased the Minnie Mouse fashion doll (it was a set that included two outfits, two pairs of shoes, and its own case) during my last trip to that same Disney Store back in December. (I’ve made a video about that doll that I uploaded on to TikTok and YouTube but I haven’t gotten around to writing about this doll until now. Yeah, I can be lame sometimes! LOL!)

Instead I decided to buy Stitch and his love interest, Angel. I’ve always liked the Lilo & Stitch movie and I even saw a few episodes of the Saturday morning TV spinoff where I first saw Angel. They both looked pretty cute so I bought them both along with two outfits. The entire purchase came close to $75. It was a splurge but I don’t know how often I will continue to buy more Nuimos or outfits because this product line can get very pricey. (Each Nuimos character costs $17.99 while each outfit costs between $12.99-$17.99.) In the future I think I will wait for sales before purchasing anything else from that product line.

After I purchased them I went to a table in the mall where I put their clothes on them because I was so eager to see them in their fashion that I didn’t want to wait until I got home. I shot a video of the process that I uploaded on to TikTok and YouTube.

Once I was done with putting clothes on them and making that video I put them back in the shopping bag and went to the LEGO store. I saw that they now have kits based on the ancient Roman Coliseum.

There was a cool looking grand piano LEGO kit that looked awesome to see in person.

I ate dinner at Wasabi, where I shot this last photo of my two new Disney Nuimos—Angel and Stitch—wearing their trendy clothes. Angel is wearing the Alice in Wonderland cosplay outfit while Stitch is wearing a cool looking leopard suit. (Yes, it’s made from fake fur. No leopards actually died for Disney Nuimos clothes.)

Pandemic Schadenfreude

Reading about that recent story about a woman who gave up her marriage and journalism career for Pharma Bro really struck a nerve with me. By all accounts the woman had a happy marriage and she seemed satisfied with her career but she willingly chucked it for a guy who had hiked the prices of life saving medicine and was serving time in prison for securities fraud. I really felt bad for that woman’s ex-husband because I had something similar happen to me when my seemingly happy marriage ended when my husband left me for someone else that was just as nonsensical as giving up a happy marriage for Pharma Bro.

Today is the ninth anniversary of something horrible that happened to me. Here’s a quick recap. I was married to a very loving man. He was my college sweetheart and we were married a year after I got my Bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland at College Park. We seemed to be totally compatible with each other and I felt that he was my best friend. I honestly thought that we would be together through thick and thin until death do us part.

He took excellent care of me when I underwent a hip replacement in 2008. In early 2011, when I underwent two falls one week apart, my hip replacement was suddenly out of alignment, which resulted in walking problems for me. I had to undergo hip revision surgery that year and, once again, my husband took excellent care of me and he did everything behind the scenes to ensure that I would have no worries at home other than to focus on getting better.

We celebrated a lovely Christmas together three months after my surgery. Things seemed to be on the up and up until three days later my husband came home from work, announced that he was moving out, threw what would be the first alimony check and two letters explaining that we were getting a divorce and I must adhere to his schedule where we were to separate all of our finances and divide our possessions.

To say that I was shocked that my husband had never indicated that he was the least bit unhappy in our marriage until the day he moved out is an understatement. My friends and family were similarly shocked when they found out the news as well.

In one of the letters he mentioned that one of the reasons why he had to leave home was because of the fact that, on the day before I had to check into the hospital for my hip surgery, I purchased something that he said added to the clutter of our house. That something was a historical 1970s American Girl doll named Julie Albright that I purchased from the American Girl Place at Tysons Corner Center in Virginia because she wore an outfit that was similar to one I had as a child during that same era. Here’s a photo of the doll that my husband blamed as the reason why he felt that he had to leave home.

I initially thought that he had simply snapped from the combined stress of my hip problems, this huge satellite project that he was working on at his NASA job, and his volunteer stint as the treasurer of my church. I wrote a post the night that he left expressing hope that he would return home soon. I had even thought about selling the doll on eBay because I felt that even though I liked the doll, no doll is ever worth getting a divorce over. I was willing to give up the doll to salvage the marriage. If someone had forced me to choose between the doll or my husband, I definitely would’ve chosen my husband.

I’m glad I had never put the doll up for sale because I found out from friends a month later that he had left me for a friend who was working two nights as a bartender at a local cafe that he and I frequented. She also has a history of severe mental illness and she had an incident where she stayed a few days at Sheppard Pratt Hospital in Baltimore in January, 2011 (a full 11 months before he left me for her). The main reason why my friends found out before me was that they told me that my husband had taken her on dates to the same cafe where she worked on her nights off within a week after he abruptly ran away from home (while I was home recuperating from hip surgery).

He told me that it was my fault that he had to leave home and start dating a mentally ill person. He rarely spoke to me in person and, instead, he resorted to cyberbullying me as he sent emails and texts demanding that I do something to separate our finances in order to conform to this schedule that he had mapped out. If I questioned anything or even suggested that we slow the pace that he wanted these changes made, he would threaten to sue me. He did this every single time I questioned him in anyway.

I later found out from friends that he got engaged to her just eight months after he left me, even though he was still legally married to me at the time. He sent a divorce petition to me in a .PDF file that was attached to an email that he sent on December 24, 2012. Yes, he did this on Christmas Eve. He said that he was sorry for the timing but it had to be done, which I think is total bullshit because he could’ve waited until after January 1 to do this. He only did this on Christmas Eve as a way of saying “FUCK YOU, BITCH!” and getting me to hate him enough to give him the divorce that he wanted so very badly. It was basically his way of showing how much contempt he really had for me all those years but he successfully hid it from me. He married her just two months after our divorce became final, which totally shocked many of our friends because that wedding was just as abrupt as the day when he left me with no warning.

At one point I wrote a post in this blog about what happened when my husband had literally ran away from home and, to date, it has become among my most-read posts of all time. I originally wrote it as a submission to another blog that was kept by someone else where she had a section that was devoted to other people’s stories about how they overcame adversity. I did everything according to the requirements of that blog (including even posting a photo of the other blogger) but I never heard back from her. That blog has since become defunct.

Over the past few years I’ve heard from friends who have seen my ex-husband and his second wife and they have told me that neither one of them looked happy.

A few months ago I saw my ex-husband on the streets. I remember it was Mother’s Day and I was driving home from shopping at the local farmers market when I saw him walking the streets without wearing a mask. (At the time masks were only required for entering stores and indoor businesses. Since then we now have to wear a mask every time we step outside of our homes for any reason.) He looked horrible. His face looked completely miserable and he looked worn and haggard.

I quickly figured out why he looked so terrible. Ever since the Coronavirus pandemic began we were encouraged to stay home as much as possible and to only socialize with others outside of our homes using technology (such as Zoom, emails, text messages, phone calls, social media messages, etc.). Since he decided that he had to marry a severely mentally ill woman, it’s obvious that he has been spending the bulk of his time with her and her problems and I think it’s starting to affect him in a very big way.

Do I feel sorry for him? Hell, no! He was the one who wanted to divorce me and marry her as soon as possible. I’ve been living alone since my housemate moved out shortly before the pandemic struck earlier this year. I’ll admit that it gets lonely at times but I’d rather be alone than to constantly deal with someone else’s mental health problems 24 hours a day,

My husband got a double major in mathematics and economics in college. He used to always tell me that looking up statistics is the best way to help you make a major decision. For all of his advocacy of always relying on statistics for deciphering information, it’s obvious that he didn’t bother with researching statistics regarding the high rates of divorce among both mentally ill people and second marriages that take place soon after the divorce.

I used to think that my husband was one of the most intelligent people I have ever met. He was an avid book reader and he seemed to have a variety of knowledge in a variety of different subjects ranging from science to military history to sports to politics. But I’ve learned the hard way that just rattling off facts and quotes at social events doesn’t mean that you’re intelligent. It just only means that you know how to remember facts and rattle them off at social events. But there’s a big difference between rattling off facts and actually talking the lessons from those facts to heart and use them in a constructive way when making major life decisions.

I should’ve learned that fact sooner because I used to watch The Apprentice reality show that was hosted by the future soon-to-be-ex-President Donald Trump, who used to spout all sorts of business advice like he was a business guru yet, in real life, he had a long list of business failures and multiple bankruptcies.

My husband was admitted to Oberlin College as a legacy student. (His father, mother, and one of his aunts had all attended that same school.) He had a father who was the vice president of a technology company at the time and his father pulled strings in order for him to work summer jobs doing various coding projects at that same company. Those summer jobs that his father were instrumental in getting for him gave him enough technical experience that he was hired by NASA soon after he graduated from Oberlin.

I knew that his family connections resulted in opportunities that gave him a huge advantage over others with more modest backgrounds who didn’t have college educated parents or family members who could provide opportunities to get summer jobs related to the person’s course of study. For years I told myself that he was so smart that he would’ve gone to Oberlin or gotten a job at NASA without any help from his family. Given the way he has acted in recent years, I’m definitely doubting that he’s really as smart as I thought he was and I now believe that he only got as far as he did because of his family’s help.

Since my husband left I’ve met a variety of other people who are way more intelligent than my ex pretends to be. The big difference is that none of them would ever look at a mentally ill person and think “Wow! That person is hot and fuckable! I gotta jump into that person’s pants as soon as possible!”

It’s not like he is between the ages 15-25, where he’s at the age of being young and foolish, so he decided to hook up with her because he felt so sorry for her and he naively hoped that love will conquer all including her mental health problems. He’s well into adulthood and he’s supposed to be old enough to know better yet here he is married to someone with a lot of problems that he knew about before he left me for her.

I could’ve told my ex that hooking up with a severely mentally ill person will lead to all kinds of problems. The stupidest thing is that he didn’t just move in with her, he decided to marry her. Which means that he’ll have a harder time with separating from her because if things really turn bad, he can’t just move out and simply leave her behind—he would have to hire a divorce lawyer, go to court, and go through the same costly legal process with her that he did with me.

He told me that he blamed me and my purchase of that doll for making him leave home and start dating a severely mentally ill woman. I wouldn’t be surprised if he blamed me (and my purchase of that doll) for somehow making him decide to marry that woman. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if he still blames me and the doll for remaining married to her while looking so miserable in public that many of our longtime friends had noticed and they told me about what they saw.

So he left me and what had mostly been a happy marriage because he couldn’t resist fucking a mentally ill person whom he ended up marrying and now he’s looking worn and ragged on the streets. He’s reaping what he has sown and I’m loving it. I really enjoy seeing him miserable because he had put me through several years of hell and I still struggle with trying to leave it fully behind me. In all this time he has never offered a single apology to me for what he had put me through nor has he ever even attempted to admit responsibility for his part in our marriage imploding in the way that it did. He has pretty much blamed me for his own actions, which is crazy considering that he had never once indicated that he was the least bit unhappy until the night that he literally ran away from home on this day nine years ago. Karma can be a bitch at times and it’s raining down hard on my ex, which he really deserves.

So I’m feeling full of schadenfreude this year and I’m loving it! And right now, as I’m typing this, I’m thinking about the song from the musical Avenue Q.

American Girl Dolls in a Music Video About Racism

So I’ve been doing something pretty creative involving video and four of my American Girl dolls and it’s a music video about racism. I’ve uploaded the video on to TikTok and YouTube.

A TikTok user known as Alex Engelberg had uploaded the original sound with this video showing the four singers singing about racism in a barbershop quartet style. That song took off and so many other users had used that same sound for their videos. I decided to put my own spin on this short song by using my American Girl dolls.

I took Addy Walker and Melody Ellison with me to Baltimore (along with a 1/6 scale Volks Dollfie Plus that I customized as an angel) when I visited my parents’ grave in Baltimore along with visiting the nearby places that my mother and her family use to go to when she was growing up in the Mount Clare neighborhood back in the 1940s and 1950s. Once I was done with visiting these places I went back to my mom’s old neighborhood on South Stricker Street where I went on a decrepit side street with boarded up townhouses and briefly filmed Addy and Melody then drove out of the city.

The following day I went to the Pasadena Toy Expo and I packed Julie Albright and Courtney Moore. Once I was done with visiting that expo I drove to the neighborhood in Glen Burnie where I grew up. I originally planned on shooting footage outside of the home I grew up in but the next door neighbor was either throwing some kind of a family get-together in the middle of the Coronavirus pandemic or working on some kind of a major home improvement project. There were cars parked on that street and people walking to and from the next door neighbor’s home. Instead I drove further down the street until I found a random home and convenient street parking so I shot footage featuring Julie and Courtney.

For the grand finale I went to a covered picnic table at Buddy Attick Park in Greenbelt where I filmed all four of them without any kind of incident.

The Fleetwood Mac “Dreams” Challenge on TikTok

This past summer a TikTok user known as 420doggface208 did this video where he skateboarded while drinking from a bottle of Ocean Spray cranberry juice and he added the old Fleetwood Mac hit song “Dreams.” Well that video went viral and, before you know it, a whole bunch of people were doing their own versions of that video and The Fleetwood Mac “Dreams” Challenge was born.

I wanted in on this trend but there’s one problem: I don’t have a skateboard, I’ve never skateboarded, and I’m reluctant to learn since I have a hip replacement. I don’t want a repeat of what happened back in 2011 when I fell twice in one week, my hip replacement was knocked out of alignment, and I had to undergo hip revision surgery and months of physical therapy. I then thought about my dolls and I thought they were the next best thing. I couldn’t find any doll-sized versions of the Ocean Spray cranberry juice bottle but I noticed that not everyone who submitted videos to that challenge drank cranberry juice. (I saw some where people drank Starbucks lattes and other drinks. I even saw one guy dressed as a leprechaun try to eat a box of Lucky Charms cereal only to have the majority of the cereal fall to the ground. LOL!)

I was at Five Below when I saw a marshmallow pop that was shaped like Olaf the snowman from the Frozen movies. I decided to buy it and use my Elsa doll, since the videos where I featured her have gotten a lot of traction on TikTok. (It’s mystifying to me since I’ve done little other than to just shoot straight footage of the doll but that’s the way it goes. LOL!)

The hard thing was the skateboard part. I tried looking in Target and other places but I didn’t find a skateboard that was big enough for a 1/3 scale doll. So what I did was to try to simulate the doll riding on a skateboard by shooting footage of the doll from the waist up while I was walking then speeding up the video. The results were okay but the hard part was keeping the Olaf pop straight. I tried attaching the pop to Elsa’s hand using artist tape while keeping the pop straight so the view would see what it is. No matter how much tape I used, I couldn’t get Olaf the snowman marshmallow pop to look straight ahead. Instead I had to settle with a sort of a side view of the pop while I used a rough stop-motion animation to simulate Elsa “eating” Olaf’s head. (I was the one who ate that marshmallow pop and, well, it was incredibly sugar-laden. I definitely wouldn’t buy it for myself again. Sometimes one has to make sacrifices for art. LOL!) I uploaded it on to TikTok and YouTube.

My video got paltry views on YouTube while on TikTok it got a pretty decent amount of views but they were a far cry from what 420doggface208 got on his channel. I wasn’t 100% satisfied with the video since I had a hard time keeping that pop in alignment despite using artist tape. (It didn’t help that it was big so it was hard to maneuver to a decent position.) I decided to try again using a different doll. This time I used one of my American Girl dolls. Since Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” was originally released in 1977, I used Julie, my historic 1970s doll, for this next video. While the original Julie books never mentioned Fleetwood Mac, she definitely would’ve heard “Dreams” on the radio in her timeline, especially if she was riding in her mom’s or dad’s car and the car radio happened to be on at the time.

I found a miniature Icee candy at Five Below that was shaped like the Icee frozen drinks that one can buy in various convenience stores across the United States and it was small enough that it could function as a doll-sized prop. Icee has been around since 1958 so Julie definitely would’ve heard of it in her 1970s childhood.

Once again I filmed the whole thing at normal speed then speeded up the video in order to simulate riding a skateboard. I used a rough stop motion animation to simulate Julie drinking from the Icee cup. I was better able to balance the Icee candy cup in Julie’s hand (while using artist tape) but the hard part was getting the straw to align to her mouth. I literally could not do it after trying over and over again. I got frustrated and I really didn’t want to spend an inordinate amount to time on this video (especially since I wasn’t going to earn any money from doing this, I was only doing it for fun) so I took artist tape and attached the straw to her mouth in order to show her “drinking” the Icee. It wasn’t the most elegant solution but it worked. I uploaded it on to TikTok and YouTube.

I got a fair amount of views on TikTok. I got fewer views on YouTube but they were more than what I got for the Elsa video.

My American Girl Doll Videos

I’ve been playing around with TikTok since this Coronavirus pandemic began. It’s literally the only thing that has given me some sense of sanity in a sea of illness, death, hopelessness, and despair. I find it incredible that I’ve gotten a lot of views where I’m doing things like opening blind box toys, showing off dolls, and doing one-minute book reviews.

Yet when I cross-post these same videos on YouTube, most of them get a fraction of the views that I get on TikTok. I can’t explain it at all.

I decided to shoot some videos featuring my American Girl dolls. Here is where it gets strange when it comes to getting views on TikTok and YouTube. My YouTube channel exploded with these videos, despite the fact that they basically consisted of short slideshows. TikTok was mixed and it literally depended on the skin color of each doll.

I shot this first video showing the historical 1970s dolls Julie and her best friend Ivy. I paired it with Sly & The Family Stone’s “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” because I remember hearing that play on the radio stations back in that decade. I uploaded it on to TikTok then crossposted it to YouTube.

Julie is a white doll with blonde hair while Ivy is Asian. (She is described in the books as being Chinese American.) This video received 294 views and 18 likes on TikTok. That’s not too bad. But on YouTube this video received a whopping 1,384 views and 57 likes. Whoa!

I decided to try shooting another American Girl slideshow video. This time I used Addy, who represents the years 1864-1865. She is described as an African American girl who was born into slavery but later escaped to Philadelphia with her mother. I paired the slideshow with Ritchie Havens’ version of “Follow the Drinking Gourd” because that song originated in the Underground Railroad and the lyrics used special codes for escape slaves to follow as they escape to freedom. Once again I uploaded it on to TikTok then crossposted it to YouTube.

Here is where things get really freaky. On TikTok this video received a paltry 41 views with only 3 likes. In contrast, this video received 1,034 views and 24 likes on YouTube. I don’t understand why it received fewer views on TikTok compared with the previous video featuring Julie and Ivy.

I’ve heard complaints from African American TikTok users about how their content has been suppressed, especially if it advocates Black Lives Matter.

I’ve also read about how TikTok has been known to suppress videos by anyone who’s deemed to be “ugly.” Is it possible that racism has nothing to do with it but it’s simply a matter that someone had deemed Addy to be “ugly” so my video was suppressed? (Personally I disagree that Addy is ugly. I don’t buy dolls that I personally find to be ugly.)

I find it strange that this video had received a fraction of the views on TikTok that it did on YouTube.

I decided to try making another American Girl doll slideshow video, this one featuring Melody the historic 1960s doll. Like Addy Melody is also African American. For this video I paired with the Supremes’ “Baby Love” because Addy’s story takes place in Detroit and there are numerous references to Motown in her book and the Supremes were among Motown’s biggest stars. Once again I uploaded it on to TikTok then crossed posted it to YouTube.

Here is where things get really suspicious. On TikTok this video had 36 views and only 3 likes. On YouTube this same video received 1,016 views and 23 likes.

So I made one last American Girl slideshow featuring Courtney the historical 1980s doll. Courtney is a white doll. I paired it with Madonna’s “Material Girl” song since Madonna was THE biggest pop singer of that decade. I uploaded it on to TikTok then crossposted it to YouTube.

This video really blew up on TikTok—It got 753 views and 83 likes. As for YouTube it received 788 views and 17 likes.

I could explain the huge views for Courtney because she is the newest of the historical American Girl doll (she was released just last month) so naturally there would be greater interest in her. But the views for video featuring the older white doll, Julie, and her Asian friend, Ivy, were still way bigger on TikTok than the views for both Addy and Melody combined.

It’s possible that there could be a reason for these really skewed views on TikTok that had nothing to do with racism. TikTok has kept its algorithm a secret so it’s very difficult to find any other non-racist explanation for this. Barring any other explanation, I have no other choice but to theorize that there is a bias against black dolls on TikTok

A Trip to Tysons Corner Mall, August 20, 2020

Earlier this year I received a huge payment from my recently deceased mother’s life insurance policy. I had intended to go to Tysons Corner Mall so I could treat myself to a few nice things. But then the Coronavirus pandemic struck just weeks after her funeral and the shopping malls were closed as a result.

But then the shopping malls started to reopen in June with limited hours and face masks were required. I decided to just limit my shopping to the mall that’s closest to my home since Tysons Corner is literally in another state. I was still working for the Census Bureau and I wanted to give them first priority in terms of giving my time to them. And my homeowners association was finally going ahead with some updating of my townhouse (which included installing new electric baseboard heaters) and I had to do some major decluttering.

By August I began to feel restless with being stuck in my local area. I saw my friends and relatives making Facebook posts about how they were still traveling despite the pandemic (although most of them were either visiting relatives or were going to less-popular tourist areas with fewer people). I had wanted to go to Ocean City but the fact that a few bars and restaurants had to close when their employees tested positive for COVID-19 turned me off of going there this year. I thought about going to North Beach only to find out that the city had decided to completely close down its beach area so even swimming in the Chesapeake Bay was out of the question. Chesapeake Beach has limited its access to the waterpark and Brownie’s Beach to Calvert County residents only.

So I began to think about going to Tysons Corner Mall again so I can go through with my original plan to treat myself nicely using my mother’s life insurance money and I went for it. I thought a change in scenery would do me some good.

I left home after eating breakfast. I decided to take the Metro because driving through Tysons Corner is crazy due to the constant construction that has gone on long before the pandemic arrived. I knew I would be spending a huge part of the day wearing a mask since that’s now required on all Metrobuses and Metrorails along with all of the shopping malls in the Baltimore-Washington, DC area. When I arrived at the Greenbelt Metro station I saw this sign that serves as a stark reminder that I’m still living in the middle of a major pandemic.

I arrived at the Metro Plaza area that’s outside one of the mall entrances. On the surface it’s the same place that I’ve been to before.

I went to the mall about a day or two after this massive heatwave had left the area so the weather was very warm and pleasant with low humidity. There were still the outdoor couches with the lit hearth in the center, such as the one in the next photo.

And there were still the life-sized bird statues that graced the area.

There was one major difference and that was the sign posted at the entrance requiring masks and social distancing while also stating that there were hand sanitizing stations posted throughout the mall.

When I went in the mall, the first thing I did was go to the bathroom, where there are now signs stating which stalls and sinks people can use so social distancing can be enforced.

I was a little worried that this mall would be crowded because it is one of the more upscale malls in that region. The good news was that it wasn’t very crowded at all so I had no problem with maintaining social distancing.

I ate lunch at Wasabi, which still had the sushi on the conveyor belts. The only difference is that there were fewer seats available, in order to enforce social distancing. The only time we are allowed to remove our face masks while we are in the mall is when we are sitting down while eating or drinking something so I got a respite from wearing my mask for a bit. For once I was able to eat a meal there where I didn’t have to closely monitoring how much money I was spending while I was choosing which sushi plate to take off of the conveyor belt. It felt so liberating! I ended up paying $25 for my meal but it was worth it since I only eat there once or twice a year.

After lunch I put my mask back on and started to tour the stores. The first store I went inside was the Lego Store, which now have new kits based on the Super Mario Bros. video game series along with Mickey and Minnie Mouse.

There was a cute Lego sculpture where this guy is wearing a shark costume, a Mario hat, and a face mask.

Lego used to have a Pick a Brick station where people can fill cups full of Lego bricks in any size and color based on the available bricks. Lego also had a station where people can design their own Minifigs. Due to the pandemic, both of those stations are now blocked off.

I went to the Disney Store where things seemed the same except they now sell a line of cloth face masks. I purchased this rainbow mask on impulse for only $6. If you look closely you can see a bunch of tiny Mickey Mouse heads, which I found totally cute.

Here’s an artsy photo I shot of a large winking Emoji outside of Nordstrom.

I decided to treat myself to an ice cream dessert at Sawadika, which serves Japanese-style ice cream treats. I had long wanted to try that place but I was too cash-poor to try it until recently. I ordered a double chocolate ice cream with coconut flakes and Pocky sticks. I was invited to see the making process, which was totally fascinating. I took a couple of still photos but I think next time I’m going to make a video because it would better explain their ice cream making process.

I briefly stopped by Build-A-Bear Workshop just so I could admire the stuffed animals that were currently available for sale, including a mermaid bear, a fairy bear, a unicorn, and Star Wars characters. I saw that they even have a line of Girl Scouts-inspired bears. Had Build-A-Bear Workshop been around when I was a Girl Scout, I definitely would’ve begged my mom to let me have my own Girl Scout bear.

I stopped by the American Girl Place where I saw this ironic window display celebrating the 2020 Summer Olympics that have since been postponed until next year due to the pandemic.

The American Girl Place has its own restrooms where it posted signs designating which stalls and sinks people were allowed to use so social distancing can be enforced. There was even a sticker on the mirror featuring Julie Albright (the 1970s historical doll) reminding people to wash their hands in warm water for 20 seconds.

Plus there were signs on the floor featuring the Wellie Wishers reminding people to maintain social distancing.

For the past few months I’ve seen the occasional parody meme announcing Karen as American Girl’s 2020 Girl of the Year, which I found pretty amusing.

In reality the 2020 Girl of the Year is Joss Kendrick and she is described as a surfer girl who also wears a hearing aid. There was a display where people can take selfies.

I found the doll to be pretty cute and I liked her colorful clothes. Her book displayed a pretty colorful cover as well.

The biggest accessory that’s related to Joss is this Volkswagen bus, which costs a whopping $650! I have to admit that it looks pretty impressive to see in person.

The one thing I noticed is that American Girl seems to have dropped its BeForever name for its line of historical dolls. I have to say good riddance to that name, which I always felt sounded awkward (it doesn’t even make any kind of sense: “You can be forever”?!? “We will be forever”?!? “She will be forever”?!?) along with its lame attempt to combine two words into one.

There’s Maryellen Larkin, a historical doll who’s supposed to represent the 1950s. My mother was a teenager in that era. When she was still struggling with multiple sclerosis, I wanted to at least purchase a Maryellen doll for her and even buy that poodle skirt outfit that’s sold separately. Unfortunately I was dealing with alternating between unemployment and underemployment paying $110 for the basic doll was out of my prince range. Instead I had to settle for showing my mother the American Girl catalogs featuring her image. I remember she was impressed by the doll and seeing those accessories did stir memories of what she saw when she was young.

My mother had always loved to read so buying the Maryellen books would’ve been the next best thing (and that’s not to mention that the books are way cheaper than the doll). Unfortunately, by the time Maryellen was released, my mother’s MS had progressed to the point where even holding a book in her hands and turning the page was too strenuous for her. At least I showed her the pictures so she knew that a historical 1950s doll existed before she passed away in February.

While I could care less about the Girl of the Year or any of the modern dolls (mainly because if I want a modern 18-inch doll, I can always buy an Our Generation doll at Target for a fraction of the price plus Target is located closer to my home than the American Girl Place), I’ve always loved the historical dolls mainly because history was always my best subject in school and I love the research that American Girl does when it comes to designing clothes and accessories that are authentic to the time that the doll is supposed to represent. If money and space were no object, I would buy all of the historical dolls along with the clothes and various accessories then I would set up a really cool dollhouse where I would post online pictures and videos of these historical dolls just like the various videos and pictures I’ve seen from other people doing just that.

But I don’t have unlimited money and space. Oh well. I can at least take pictures of the historical dolls and their accessories, such as this piano that’s made for Melody Ellison, the 1960s historical doll.

There is a new accessory for Julie Albright, the 1970s historical doll. It is a pinball machine. It looks similar to the pinball machines I used to play as a child growing up in the 1970s. (I have to say right now that now only do I have the Julie doll—along with her best friend, Ivy Ling—but I also did a bunch of Throwback Thursday reviews of the Julie books where I compared the content in them with my own experiences of growing up in the 1970s. (Click here to read them all.) The price is $150 but when I was there, American Girl Place had it on sale for $120. I thought about buying it because I thought it would be cool to play pinball on my own miniature pinball machine. But then I played around with a floor model and found that this machine had no balls! It was great that the plunger and flippers worked but balls are at the heart of any pinball machine. If you don’t have balls, then what you have is an expensive paperweight. I was glad I played with the floor model because if I had purchased it then played with it at home, I would’ve been pissed off. Yes the pinball machine looks nice but without balls, it’s a hard pass for me.

American Girl Place sold this outfit that was exclusive to this store only. Yes, I know that the t-shirt says “Washington, DC” on it and it has line drawings of the U.S. Capitol building along with the Washington and Jefferson Memorials but this store is really located in Virginia. What’s more, it is the only American Girl Place store located anywhere in the entire Baltimore-Washington, DC region.

American Girl has a line of modern dolls known as Truly Me where the person gets to choose the doll while deciding on the doll’s name and backstory. Lately American Girl has been coming out with Truly Me dolls in a variety of wild hair colors, which you can see in the pictures below.

Among the accessories available for the Truly Me dolls is a wheelchair, which I think it’s great for including children who are disabled in some way. Representation of all kinds of people matters when it comes to doll so I have to say kudos to American Girl for thinking about people who aren’t able bodied.

I walked around the mall some more while taking sitting breaks whenever possible. (Unless the shopping mall that’s closer to my home, Tysons Corner still has its benches and chairs out for people to rest.) I headed over to Lolli & Pops because it’s a cool candy store that literally sells candy from all over the world. One main feature of that store is that you can get a back of pick your own candy that costs a whopping $13 a pound. The candy includes a wide variety of gummy bears in all kinds of flavors including some that were made with champaign.

The good news is that the store still offers the pick your own candy service. The big difference is that you have to get a pair of free disposable gloves to wear while you use the scoop to pick the candy. In the past I’ve had to watch the scale very closely and severely limit myself to no more than 1/4 pound. This time I decided to just fill the bag with gummy bears. I filled it with two different flavors of champaign (white and rosé) along with a scoop of concord grape flavor and two scoops of wild cherry flavor. This bag ended up costing me $25. Since then I’ve been slowly eating the gummy bears. It’s been over a week since I bought that bag and I now have about half of the gummy bears left. I just want to eat it slowly since I paid that much and I really want to savor the candy since I don’t know if I’ll ever do anything this self-indulgent again.

Like all of the malls in the Baltimore-DC area, Tysons Corner Mall currently operates on a limited schedule where it is only open from 11 am-7 pm. After 7 all of the stores are closed with the exception of the restaurants. I decided to eat dinner at the Shake Shack, which is located outside of the mall on Metro Plaza. Even though half of the inside tables were available (due mainly to enforcing social distancing), I decided to eat outside because, like I wrote earlier in this post, the weather was very pleasant with low humidity. Here’s a photo of this nice cloud formation over the Shake Shack.

They had a local guitarist perform outdoors at the Metro Plaza, which was pretty nice. (He performed mainly covers of various folk, pop, and rock songs.) He stopped performing after 7 but it was nice to hear him while eating dinner outside.

The picnic tables outside of the Shake Shack weren’t crowded so I had no problem with eating dinner without worrying about crowds. I would’ve loved to have sat around and seen the sunset but the Metro also runs on a limited schedule these days and the subway stops running after 9 pm. As I was walking through Metro Plaza on my way to the Metro station, I saw that most of the people who were sitting outdoors were maintaining social distancing. The only place that was even close to being crowded was Barrel & Bushel, where I saw that most of the tables were filled.

Basically people sat around in very small groups while maintaining social distancing.

The only action I saw were these two boys who were playing soccer on the plaza’s artificial turf.

Happy Friendship Day!

For the last few years I’ve been toying around with the idea of writing an essay on how wonderful friendships can be, especially if one is going through some kind of personal calamity or trying times. I finally got around to writing such an essay since today is Friendship Day.

I’m old enough to remember when the original first generation of My Little Pony toys hit the store shelves and there was a TV show that served as a product tie-in with the toy line. There have been revivals of both the toy and TV versions of My Little Pony over the years and the most current television version of My Little Pony is subtitled Friendship is Magic. The first season began with a unicorn pony known as Twilight Sparkle who is sent to a small town known as Ponyville by her personal mentor, an alicorn pony who was none other than Princess Celestia, the ruler of the planet Equestria (which is an alternate Earth where ponies are the dominant species instead of humans). At the end of each episode, Twilight Sparkle was required to write a letter to Princess Celestia about what she has learned regarding friendship, especially with the five other ponies in Ponyville whom she has become close friends with. (Starting with the second season, the other ponies started to take turns writing to Princess Celestia about what they have learned about friendship.)

In real life having friends who care for you as a person and who are on your side is way more meaningful than having all the gold in the world. I’ve had many friends over the years. Some of my friends are ones whom I have known for years and I remain friends with them to this very day. Others are friendships that lasted only a few years. Each time you meet someone new there’s a risk that the person ends up not being a true friend. However, the benefits of making new friends definitely outweighs the emotional risks involved.

I don’t want to downplay those emotional risks because I’ve been through some trying times as a result of friendships gone sour. As a young student I ended friendships with two girls I went to school with because they turned out to be not the friends I thought they would be. One was a backstabber who took the side of other kids who were taunting me in the eighth grade. The other used to spend our senior year of high school calling me on the family’s rotary telephone every single day after school (and also on the weekends) to talk about the same stuff we talked about during our lunch break together. (This was long before smartphones with Caller ID came into being and most families shared only one phone line at home.) She said she wanted to see how I was doing only to rarely let me get a word in edgewise while she spoke only about herself. The latter friend even hung up on me once when I managed to share some positive news about myself because she was only interested in talking about herself and no one else. I wrote about one of them back in 2011 and the other in 2014 so I’m not going to go into any details about either one of them here.

I once considered my husband to be my best friend. We met when we were both students at the University of Maryland (he was a grad student and I was an undergraduate). We had so much in common and I always felt that I could come to him with any personal problems or issues. The one thing I loved about being with him was that he never acted like a stud or a player who had to alternate between different women. I felt like I had him to myself and I could trust him one-hundred percent.

All that changed in late 2011. He never indicated that he was unhappy at all until he came home from work, announced that he was moving out, then bolted out the door. Overnight he went from being a friendly easy going guy to someone who was very nasty who felt the need to get a divorce ASAP.

This was when having friends was the most valuable because I had all kinds of outpouring of sympathy and offers of help. Four of my friends told me the real reason why he left me: there was another woman and she was a friend of ours. When I confronted him about this during our rare face to face meeting, that he started to date her after he left me and that it was my fault that he had to leave home in the way that he did. However I learned a different story from my friends.

My longtime friends later told me that while I was home recuperating from hip surgery (that I underwent in September, 2011), he was actively flirting with her at the local cafe where she worked two nights a week. Some of my friends made it seem like he was quite aggressive about his flirting at times while they recounted how he tried to monopolized her time while she was supposed to be working behind the bar pouring beverages for customers. One of my friends later told me that she actually reminded my husband that I was home waiting for the painkillers that he was supposed to purchase for me but he then decided to drop by that other woman’s workplace on the way home from that shopping run.

I really appreciated my friends for telling me the real truth as to what happened with my husband. The night he walked out on me he left behind a note that listed grievances where he said I had essentially failed as a wife. Among them was the day before my hip surgery three months earlier, when I decided to take a shopping trip to Tyson’s Corner, Virginia because I wanted to get my mind off of my current health issues. I purchased a 1970s historical doll named Julie Albright from the American Girl store because she not only had long blonde hair like I did as a kid growing up in that same era but she wore an outfit that was similar to one that I also wore as a child. He cited my purchase of that doll as a reason why he had to leave because my purchase, in his words, added to the clutter of our home. I nearly came close to selling that doll on eBay in the hopes of getting my husband to return home because I wasn’t about to sacrifice a marriage for a doll. But then my friends told me about the other woman and it suddenly made more sense on why he left me. (Besides, blaming a doll for leaving a marriage is so incredibly lame.)

The fact that he and the other woman were engaged just eight months after he left me pretty much proved that he was having an affair with her while I was recuperating from hip surgery (and possibly before my surgery—I have no idea when their affair actually began) and he lied to me about his claim that he only started dating her after he left me. In addition, he married her just two months after our divorce was final.

In the years since our divorce, I’ve had friends tell me that neither he nor the other woman seemed all that happy. Well, if that’s the case, then I don’t feel sorry for either of them—especially him. He knew the other woman had a history of severe mental health problems but he left me for her and even married her despite that.

I’ve long since unfriended both my ex-husband and the other woman on Facebook because seeing posts from them in my newsfeed were just too painful to look at. Not too long ago I saw a photo on Facebook of someone whom I initially didn’t recognize until someone tagged him as my ex-husband. He has let his hair grown very long, the clothes he wore in that picture didn’t flatter him at all, and he has put on some weight, especially around the torso. When he was with me he always prided himself on keeping a neat appearance and he used to swim at the local pool a few times a week in an effort to keep in shape. In that recent photo he also had a very serious expression on his face, like he was feeling very grim. It’s sad to see him like that but, as far as I’m concerned, he brought all of this on himself. I began to understand why so many of my friends have told me that I’m better off without him and I really appreciate them for telling me that.

Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if he still blames that doll I bought back in 2011 for his current situation.

I had heard that many people who get divorced end up losing friends in the process because the friends in question decide to side with the former spouse. I’ve been incredibly lucky in that I’ve managed to maintain the majority of my old friendships after my separation and divorce with two exceptions. One was a woman whom my husband hooked up with while I was recovering from hip surgery and he left me for her. The other was a woman I originally met through my church.

I’m only recounting this story here because I want to advise those of you who are separated or divorced that if there are any friends who seem distant from you or start to treat you less warmly than when you were married, chances are that it’s possibly because that friend has sided with your ex. You could try to explain your side of the story with that person but if that friend isn’t willing to listen to you, then there is nothing you can do other than to cut your losses and drop that person as a friend.

I know it’s upsetting to have to distance yourself from a onetime close friend but if you don’t do this, you’ll risk becoming more upset as your friend either keeps on giving you the cold shoulder or starts to become hostile around you. To be honest, it’s a waste of time. If this person has changed his/her attitude towards you, there’s nothing you can do to change his/her mind (especially if the person refuses to even consider changing his/her mind). It’s best to cut your losses, walk away from the friendship, and just consider that friendship as part of your past. At least you’ll protect yourself emotionally and avoid a lot of upset if you do this.

The woman I used to be friendly with was a very active member of our congregation who was involved in a lot of different groups and activities. She was especially passionate about cooking and baking and she would make a variety of cookies, muffins, cakes, pies, and other treats for various church events. She even made her own cookie cutters using metal that she twisted in a variety of shapes. Her husband was less active because he was more into attending the social events than attending Sunday morning service.

My then-husband and I used to socialize with them on a regular basis and we were invited to their annual Christmas party that they held in their home. We really enjoyed their company.

At one point that friend opened her own home-based artisanal bakery specializing in bread. She began to sell her home baked breads both at her home (people would stop by on Fridays to purchase something from her) and at various craft shows. My husband and I would buy her breads every chance we got because her baking was so good.

I last went to that couple’s Christmas party in 2011, just a couple of weeks before my husband suddenly came home from work three days after Christmas, announced that he was moving out, then ran out of the door before I could even say anything. I was shocked because he never indicated that he was unhappy and he even said that he loved me up to the morning of the day that he left me. I turned to Facebook that night in an effort to find my husband because I thought his mind had just snapped and I was reaching out to friends, asking if any of them had seen him, in an effort to find him. The friend and her husband were among my Facebook friends so they soon found out that he left me.

A week later my husband texted me saying that he didn’t want to be found by me or anyone else but he said that the church friend had heard what happened, contacted him, and invited him over to her home for dinner with her and her husband. He said he accepted that invitation. I was elated that my friends had managed to reach out to him and I had hoped that, through talking with them, he would soon realize that he was rash in his decision to run away from our marriage and he would decide to return home soon.

He ended up never returning home again and I endured months of threatening emails and text messages from him that I must adhere to this separation that existed only in his head or else he would sue me while refusing to see me in person or even talk to me on the telephone. (Yes, he cyberbullied me.)

Around the same time that all this drama between my husband and I started, my friend decided to quit our church. In a way I wasn’t surprised because I had long heard her personal grievances against our church for the last few years. (Her grievances were completely unrelated to what happened between my husband and I.) Like I wrote earlier, her husband was more into attending the various nighttime social functions at our church than attending Sunday service but he ended up dropping out entirely when his wife left. From that time on I basically kept up with what she was up to via Facebook.

December, 2012 rolled around and the one-year anniversary of the day my husband literally ran away from home was coming up. I didn’t get any invitation from my friend and her husband for their annual Christmas party in the mail so I assumed that they either weren’t having a party that year or they decided to have one but not invite anyone from their former congregation.

Sometime in early 2013 I ran into a mutual friend (also from my congregation) who was among the friends I literally cried my eyes out with when my husband ran away back in 2011. He said that he was at the most recent Christmas party at that friend’s home where he saw my ex and his girlfriend, who then proceeded to have a major anxiety attack while at that party. (Which didn’t surprise me since that girlfriend has been struggling with mental health issues for much of her adult life. They became so bad that she qualified for SSI disability shorty before my husband left me for her.)

That was how I found out that my friend and her husband did have their annual Christmas party in 2012. I was miffed that my ex and the other woman was invited to her party but not me. At first I tried to rationalize it by thinking that she wanted to spare me from having to face my ex even though it led to the question of why she invited my ex instead of me. Then I rationalized it by thinking that maybe she did invite me but her invitation somehow got lost in the mail.

I haven’t been invited to any more of her Christmas parties since my husband left but I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt by continuing to purchased her breads whenever she had a table at a local craft show. I’ve always enjoyed her baking so I was willing to take the high road and continue to financially support her business whenever I could afford to purchase anything from her. I also continue to read her Facebook posts and I would hit “Like” on many of her posts.

Things went further downhill in 2015 when American Girl decided to release Grace Thomas as the Girl of the Year. This girl was described as being an avid baker and, as part of her line, American Girl released this French bakery (known as Grace’s French Bakery) with a retail price of $500. The details of that bakery were so incredible that I took a bunch of photos of that bakery in the store and posted them in this blog.

When I posted those photos on Facebook, I tagged my friend’s name while telling her that I thought she would find this miniature bakery to be interesting to look at since she ran her own bakery. I thought she would’ve been interested in seeing a miniature bakery. That same day she posted on Facebook tagging my name where she basically said, “I don’t understand why she is tagging me because I have never been into dolls.” I posted a comment saying that it was because of the bakery and I thought she would have found it cute because she runs her own bakery. She didn’t reply but I thought that response was pretty brusque and I didn’t understand why she called me out for that post since those photos tied in with her current business and I thought she would have been interested.

Last year I had another friend who works at NASA who enthusiastically posted on Facebook about last year’s Girl of the Year, Luciana Vega. He isn’t into dolls either but he posted about her because her accessories included a blue NASA outfit with a NASA logo, an astronaut outfit, and a miniature space station—which all tied in perfectly with his NASA job. He was also enthusiastic about Luciana because her character was described as being into STEM. As far as I can tell, he hasn’t purchased Luciana or any of her accessories but he was still thrilled that—as a NASA employee and father of two adult daughters—such a science-oriented doll existed for young girls to purchase and play with, along with reading the tie-in Luciana books.

So I wrote off my friend’s curt response to my attempt to show her Grace’s French Bakery as maybe she had a bad day. After all, we were friends for years so I figured that everyone is entitled to having an off-day.

I used to follow Make magazine on Facebook until recently, when it stopped publishing after its parent company, Maker Media went out of business back in June of this year. One day, a few months after that Grace’s French Bakery incident, I saw a link to an article that was posted by Make magazine about how one can now create his/her own uniquely shaped cookie cutters using a 3D printer. I thought about my friend because she used to make her own cookie cutters by twisting pieces of metal into unique shapes. I shared that link and tagged her name because I thought she would be interested in seeing this.

About a day later I got a notice from Facebook that my friend tried to reach me via chat. I looked and my jaw just dropped when I saw her response. I recently came across that old chat between me and her when I was clearing out my old chat messages and it brought back bitter memories.

Friend: My bakery sells bread only. I never make cookies for sale. This post is spam on my business Facebook page because it shows images that are not my product and have nothing to do with my product. By tagging my page you are misleading people about my business.

I should not have to police my business page for spam posts from my friends.

When I tagged her name I did type something like, “Here’s something you could use for your [NAME OF HER BAKERY] in the future” and that name I typed of her bakery turned into a live link to that bakery’s Facebook page, even though in Facebook that link to a professional page isn’t supposed to automatically go live unless you type the “@“ character before the name. (I think there was a glitch the day I shared that link.) So I proceeded to apologize to her for that error and here is what went down:

Me: I’m sorry. I never meant to spam you. I just remember when you used to make cookies using your own cookie cutters that you made. I also remember you used to make those dragon cakes as well. I wasn’t trying to hurt you or anything or make an enemy out of you. I only shared a photo, that’s all. I wasn’t trying to hurt or annoy you. If you feel that way about me, then unfriend me.

Also sometimes Facebook makes automatic tags when I type messages as well. I wasn’t trying to harm your business or anything.

Friend: I know you were not trying to harm the business. It looks to me as if you sometimes post links without thinking through the effects. My cookies and cakes have nothing to do with my business of baking bread. I am very careful to make it clear that I bake bread only and I do not have a full service commercial bakery. Facebook does try to automatically add tags, but the writer can over rule that more easily than the recipient can remove the tags.

So I apologized to her and she still scolded me. I could have understand her overblown reaction had I posted a link to a video from PornHub and tagged her name with it. But getting upset over the link to an article posted on Make magazine about how one could 3D print cookie cutters (especially since she has long been an avid baker who has baked all kinds of treats—including cookies made with metal cookie cutters that she made herself)? The spam charge really grated on me because it’s not like Make magazine and/or those 3D printed cookie cutters were my products and I would earn money each time I sent links to all of my Facebook friends. I got zero money for passing that link to her. And she was the only one whom I passed that link to because she has long been into baking.

The biggest irony about all this is that I rarely tagged her name on Facebook. In fact, I usually don’t tag my any of my friends at all unless it’s a link that I am absolutely 100% positive that the friend in question will enjoy it. So it really rankled me when she accused me of spamming her since I had only tagged her name twice in 2015 and I haven’t tagged her name at all since that year.

That incident was the last straw with me. Between my ex-husband and the other woman being invited to her Christmas party instead of me, her annoyed response when I tried to show her this really cute miniature doll-sized bakery, then that awful chat exchange simply because I tagged her name on an article that was related to baking, I soon realized that she had completely changed her attitude towards me as a friend. All these instances happened over three-year period so I was able to gauge how she really felt about me since my marriage ended.

I have the sneaking suspicion that her change of attitude towards me is the fallout that resulted from when she and her husband invited my husband over to their place for dinner a week after he ran away from home. When I mentioned this incident to people in my support group for those who are separated or divorced, they said that it’s possible that my husband might have said some things to them about me that made me sound like I was this totally horrible bitch and, instead of asking me for my version of events, my friend decided to accept what he said about me.

But I wasn’t there that night so I don’t know what my ex-husband said to them about me. The possibility that he badmouthed me in order to get sympathy from them sounds logical considering that my friend and her husband invited my estranged husband and his girlfriend to their annual Christmas party the following year instead of me and the overblown way she reacted whenever I tagged her name for something that I thought she would find interesting on Facebook.

What really hurts about the whole thing was that a week before this incident my friend made a Facebook post about how one of her relatives had come out as LGBTQ. She said that she still loved and supported her relative and she will always stand by that person. I wrote a comment praising her for that post while saying that this relative was incredibly lucky to have someone like her in the family because I’ve heard of too many other cases of people being shunned by his/her own family after coming out as LGBTQ.

So I wrote something really nice to her about her post then the following week she turned on me like I was some kind of an enemy or something while forgetting about how I made that nice comment praising her.

Had she not quit our church congregation, I would have tried to talk with her in person during the social hour after Sunday service to let her know that I wasn’t out to harass her online or anything like that. But she was no longer a member so there was no way I could reach out to her other than to either call her on the phone or email her—both of which would have risked inflaming her further and she would have really taken it out on me.

After that incident I stopped all further interactions with her on Facebook. These days, whenever I see her posts pop up in my newsfeed, I don’t bother with making a comment because heaven forbid I would inadvertently type something that she would consider spam. Heck, I don’t even bother with clicking the “Like” button at all. The only reason why I haven’t unfriended her is because I decided to keep the one line of communication open between us should she ever want to reach out to me. I rarely see her posts these days and I think it’s due to Facebook’s algorithms. Since I no longer respond to any of her posts, Facebook puts fewer of them into my newsfeed.

So I decided to just walk away from the friendship and distance myself from her. Over the next few years, whenever I saw her table at a local craft show, I would walk in the opposite direction because, heaven forbid, I should risk being called a spammer or get accused of misleading other people about her business by purchasing one of her breads.

About two years ago she announced on Facebook that she decided to close her bakery because a couple of her family members had developed major health issues and she felt that her time would be better spent caring for them. I rarely see her in person these days. The last time I saw her was last year at a party at a mutual friend’s house. We briefly made some small talk but then I went over and socialized with other friends because, to be honest, I have absolutely nothing to say to her these days.

Yes, I was sad when I decided to distance myself from her but I’ve made other friends in the years since and I’m pretty much over her. I’ll always appreciate the happy memories I have of eating her baked goods at various events (both at her home and at church) but I’ve moved on with my life and I’m busy making new happy memories with other friends.

So if anyone reading this finds himself or herself in a similar situation with a longtime friend, I would just advise distancing yourself from that person because there is little you can do about how that person feels about you. If you need more help on how to end a friendship or you have recently ended a friendship that you feel sad about, I highly recommend this article that another one of my friends recently posted on Facebook: It’s OK to Mourn the People You’ve Had to Cut Off.

I’ve lost other friends in far less dramatic ways over the years and it wasn’t related to my divorce at all. I’ve lost touch with some friends when they moved to another part of the country. Then there are the times when I’ve lost friends due to death. Some of them lived to their 70’s, 80’s, and beyond. (I had one friend, who was a longtime member of my congregation, who died at the ripe old age of 105.) There were other friends who died tragically young. In some cases, some of my friends didn’t even make it past 55. (I had one college friend who was hit by a car when he was in his early thirties. I had another friend who was brutally murdered by her boyfriend when she was only 41.) I am still glad that I had the chance to get to know all of them while they were still alive and I’ll always treasure their memories.

I don’t want this post to be a total downer about lost friendships so I’m going to write about the positive side of having friends. Good friends are people whom you can be yourself around and you don’t have to act a certain way that runs counter to your true self.

Sometimes you’ll have friends who come in and out of your life only to come back into your life. I’ve had friends who have moved out of the area only to return later. There’s another couple at my church who moved to other parts of the world for eight years because the husband works for the US AID and they were sent to countries like Mali, South Africa, and Senegal because of his job. I followed their posts on Facebook as they wrote about the interesting experiences they had in the countries they lived in. They returned to the DC area a couple of years ago and I’m now able to see them in person on a regular basis once again.

I have another friend who moved to Wyoming only to return to Maryland two years ago because living out west just didn’t work out for him.

Ever since my husband left, I’ve met a variety of new people. Some of them I probably would have met them anyway if I was still married because I met them through both The Space and the Greenbelt Makerspace (the latter of which closed earlier this year). I’ve met other new people through my support group for people who are separated or divorce and I would have never met them in the first place had my husband not left.

I am counting my blessings that I have wonderful people whom I’m glad that I’m friends with because my life would be far less happy without them. I’ve had experiences that I would never have had without them that I’ll always treasure.

Friendship is more than what other people give you. There are times when you have to reciprocate. There is a couple at my church whom I have known for many years. They are the parents of two children who were born a boy and a girl. A couple of years ago their son came out to them as transgender and the son now wants to be known as a woman. The couple initially tried to deal with their new discovery that they have a transgender child privately.

But then President Donald Trump had his administration put out new policies that were hostile to transgender people (such as banning them from serving in the military). Last year both of my friends made Facebook posts about their transgender child and how they only decided to post about their child on Facebook because of Trump and his fellow Republicans becoming incredibly transphobic.

Over a month and a half ago this couple gave a lay service in church about being the parents of a transgender child. I remember the times when I would talk to that couple (especially the wife) about how I was feeling in the wake of my husband’s abrupt walkout. I felt that I should return the favor by attending that Sunday service and hear them talk about their child. I found the service to be incredibly moving, especially since they invited a couple of other transgender people to also talk about their experiences. (Their child opted not to take part in this service but the couple’s now-daughter gave her blessing for her parents to talk about her during Sunday service.) I even stayed for a post-Sunday service presentation that was given by members of P-FLAG and they provided tips on what not to say to a transgender person (such as asking a male to female transgender person if she has had surgery to remove her penis because such questions are considered to be intrusive).

There are other times when I’ve helped friends out because I remembered when they have helped me out in the past, such as driving a friend to the MVA to get her driver’s license renewed or lending a sympathetic ear to a friend who was going through her own personal problems. Friendships where you have both give and take are the best kind of friendships.

Even though I have plenty of friends now, I’m not completely done with making new friends and having new friendships in my life. Right now there are people out there who will become my friends in the future but I currently don’t know them because I haven’t met them yet. I will meet them for the first time either tomorrow or next week or next month or next year or even five years from today. When I meet my future new friends I will have new experiences and adventures with them and I will have new fond memories of those times.

Maybe My Little Pony is right about how friendship is magic.

Trip to Tyson’s Corner Mall, April 16, 2019

Last month I decided to make my first trip to Tyson’s Corner Mall of 2019. As I was walking the skybridge from the Metro station to the mall I took this shot of the painted roadways outside of that mall.

As I was walking towards Metro Plaza on the way to the mall I saw this family where the women were all wearing traditional Muslim dress (like hijabs). These days there have been an increase in anti-Islamic bias (which has definitely accelerated since Donald Trump became president). It’s a testament to the resilience of this country when there are still people who are willing to publicly wear traditional outfits despite the Islamophobia that’s swirling around in this country.

I went inside of the mall. I briefly stopped by The Microsoft Store where I saw this kid testing out the Xbox.

I walked past this store called Aēsop that I hadn’t seen before on previous visits. At first I thought it might be a bookstore since the name reminded me of how I used to love reading Aesop’s Fables as a child. But, no, it’s a skin care place that sells expensive lotions. The store provided free samples of its hand cream outside of the door.

Of course I stopped by the American Girl Place. I saw that they had some new outfits for Nanea Mitchell, who’s the historical 1941 doll who lives in Hawaii around the time of the Pearl Harbor bombing.

The historical 1970s doll, Julie Albright, has some basketball-related accessories, which is appropriate since she managed to integrate the formerly all-male basketball team at her school. This also brought back memories of when I did that multiple-part review series of her books a few years ago.

I noticed one thing that has changed in recent years. There was a time when the Girl of the Year doll would be released on January 1 then officially retired on December 31 so she would be available for only one year. Last year I noticed that they extended the 2017 Girl of the Year, Gabriela McBride, a few months past the end of 2017 and she wasn’t retired until well into 2018. I noticed that they’ve done the same with the 2018 Girl of the Year, Luciana Vega. So, as of this writing, it’s not too late for anyone to buy her or her accessories.

I have already written extensively about Luciana last year so I’m not going to devote more space to her this time around.

As for this year’s Girl of the Year, well that’s a different story. The latest Girl of the Year is Blaire Wilson, who’s described as a girl whose family runs a farm that also serves as a bed and breakfast. She loves to cook yet has been diagnosed as lactose-intolerant. You can learn more about her story right here.

I find Blaire to be very cute and I totally adore her long reddish hair.

If it weren’t for the $115 price tag and the fact that I don’t have infinite space in my home, I might have been tempted to buy her on impulse. But I’m cash-strapped and have to make a great effort to keep clutter to a minimum so I’m going to have to pass on her. I like the illustration on the cover of her book below. Heck, I might check the book out of the local library at some later date but reading it is not really a major priority in my life.

Blaire has a variety of outfits that are sold separately with prices starting at $30. There are some matching human children’s clothing as well so young girls and their Blair dolls can dress alike.

Since Blaire lives on a farm, there are plenty of farm-related accessories sold separately, including animals. Blaire’s Garden, which is shown below, can be yours for only $50.

There is Blaire’s Party Décor, which costs $85. I have to admit that the cake looks very realistic.

The store currently has a Blaire-themed display where people can have their pictures taken.

The largest item in Blaire’s line is Blaire’s Family Farm Restaurant, which costs a whopping $300.

This set includes plastic pretend food, which looks very realistic.

This set does have very tiny details that are reminiscent of another item that American Girl Place sold back in 2015. It was sold in conjunction with Grace Thomas (who was the Girl of the Year at the time) and it was called Grace’s French Bakery. It was a $500 bakery set that had all kinds of bells and whistles. Blaire’s Family Farm Restaurant has only slightly fewer bells and whistles than Grace’s French Bakery (which explains why it is $200 cheaper) but the details are nonetheless still impressive, such as this sink, which has a tiny bottle of dishwashing liquid.

Here is how one of the plates from that set fits into my hand.

American Girl is also selling more and more boy dolls as part of its Truly Me line. To be honest, the boy dolls don’t really impress me too much, especially with that $115 price tag.

Here’s a last shot of two Truly Me dolls in a pretend pool. I briefly went gaga over the inflatable unicorn ring but, to be honest, anything from American Girl is definitely out of my budget right now.

Another place that is also out of my budget is this place called Sawadika Ice Cream, which specializes in creating Asian-style ice cream that looks incredibly artistic to look at. I took a free sample and the ice cream tasted fantastic. But I had to reluctantly pass on it because of finances.

I went to that mall before Easter. It’s normal to see Peeps in the stores. It’s also normal to see the Easter Bunny at the mall waiting to talk to kids and have his picture taken with them. This was the first time I saw the two combine to a special Peeps Easter Bunny area where kids can gaze at this Peeps-themed spring garden and have their photos taken with the Easter Bunny. That area was so colorful that it looked like a cross between the old board game Candyland. and the 1970s children’s television series H.R. Putnstuf.

I came upon this kiosk that sold something called Bliss in a Bottle. The idea is that a bottle of wine is dipped into chocolate so the bottle is coated in chocolate. The person would drink wine while eating the chocolate coating at the same time. It looks so totally decadent but it’s completely out of my price range.

I checked out The LEGO Store where I saw that they now have a LEGO set based on The Flintstones. Wow! I remember when I used to watch reruns of that show every day on TV when I was growing up.

They also had a black-and-white set based on the Mickey Mouse cartoon short Steamboat Willie, which looked pretty awesome!

They also had this statue made completely out of LEGO bricks that depicted a man dressed in a shark costume.

For dinner I treated myself to a sushi meal at Wasabi. I love seeing the food delivered on a conveyor belt and all you have to do is pick the food plate that you want to eat. The food was excellent as usual. The price is a bit on the expensive side (I spent $30 that night) so I limit myself to going there only once or twice a year. I had a job until I was laid-off recently so I felt that I was entitled to have one nice meal before I tighten my belt and start being obsessive about spending as little money as possible. If things improve for me financially I might go to Wasabi one more time in the fall or winter. Otherwise, I’ll have to savor memories of that meal until 2020 at the earliest.

After dinner I went to GameStop where I saw this mashup of Funko Pop and Pez that resulted in this unique head based on Sonic the Hedgehog.

I saw this giant sign announcing that 7Eleven is going to move into the mall soon.

I briefly stopped in The Disney Store where I saw these cute Easter plushies featuring Stitch and Angel dressed as Easter Bunnies while holding smaller plushies like a lamb and a chick. How cute!

The most unusual thing I saw at Tyson’s Corner was this sheep statue that had LED lights in various colors.

This sign was encouraging people to hop on the sheep’s back. After I took these photos, I saw a guy who did just that while taking a selfie.

The name of this statue was called iSheep and it was partially funded by the Burning Man, which is that annual festival that is held in the Nevada desert.

There were signs encouraging people to follow sheep tracks that began near the iSheep statue.

The tracks ended at this locked storefront that was called BrandBox. The doors were locked so I had to make do with taking these photos.

I later looked online and saw that BrandBox is a store where certain items that are usually available online only are available for sale on the store shelves. I guess this place is only opened on the weekends since I went to Tyson’s Corner on a Tuesday. I generally prefer to go to Tyson’s Corner either on a weekday or on a Sunday because that place turns into a totally crowded zoo on Fridays and Saturdays. Okay so there is one disadvantage of going to Tyson’s Corner on a weekday. LOL!