Some Miscellany

Thank you to Kimmee for the moving comments she made after I postedon 9/11. It is amazing how we, as one human family, can reach out to each other after such a horrific tragedy. We have had a week of ups and downs at the museum; we sold our first book on Amazon, and a big thank you to that customer! I spent Sunday doing some reorganizing and arranging of tenants, and I went to a yard sale that may have been comprised of possessions of my 7th grade math teacher. My husband sums her up well,"she was a nice lady, but a terror in class. I still have the scar on my hand from where I drove the pencil point into it out of fear." I was scared to death of her, but she liked me, and used to talk to me about cradles and making doll clothes for her granddaughter. What did I find? I wicker doll carriage, and a wooden doll crib, among other things. I just missed out on a set of plastic dollhouse furniture.

My thoughts are random tonight; I finished one book on collecting from my Borders stash, "The Error World," about stamp collecting, my other love, and various relationships and collections. I am no reading "Finders Keepers," about the seamy underworld of antiquities collecting, museums, and archaeology. It is very cool now, and the days get dark earlier; I have mixed feelings about that. Halloween looms over us, and the harvest moons are coming, and do indeed shine very bright.

I like to sit outside and drink coffee, book, or doll restoration project in hand, and just think. Summer isn't summer anymore; it seldom is for us who work all year, but there is still something elegiac and deathly poetic about the changing leaf colors, and the flowers that begin to wither away.

I will post some new photos along the side, just things to look at. The conference where I am reading papers about dolls is coming in November, and we are very excited. I found a small beanie doll for everyone who comes to the panel.

Recently, I picked up a copy of Lewis Sorensen's scrapbook, containing many news articles and ads about his dolls and waxworks. I found many interesting thins about him and his work. I remember reading about his death, and also seeing dolls and figures he had created in California. Kimme might remember the old Indiana Antiques on 2nd Street in San Jose, where they used to carry a pricey but fantastic collection of antiques. They had the pumpkin head he restored. I nearly bought her, too.

Happy dolling as September fades. For those of us who are inveterate collectors, the temptation to pick up a leaf to fold in the pages of a book is now and then overwhelming. But, give into it, live life, enjoy, and remember that dolls, like other artifacts of our lives, can survive after us, and tell our stories.