I'm Baaaaack...for a bit anyway!

My friends, I am beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel! I've actually begun to work on my doll/sewing/writing room. Is that amazing? Is that fantastic? Are the clouds clapping their hands in glee? So okay, probably not. But I am at least beginning to have some hope that I will see the floor again in here, perhaps e're this year ends even. Then we shall see what comes forth, shall we not? No, no. I am not promising dolly stuff. Not at all. Don't you remember? It will be when it IS. That is Cryptic for "when you see the picture in your e-mail on the dolly lists, then there will be actual stuff for sale right here on Dolly Diva Designs, which you can then purchase for ridiculous prices." I'm not saying which way ridiculous, mind you. It depends on how needy I am at the time! Or how much it cost me to make or put forth or otherwise procure said merchandise. But I do promise that I will entertain all offers as I want to get rid of some stuff around here. I do NOT want to die with all my toys. I want them to be scattered about across the land in good homes with responsible parents, you know?

Okay. What else has been happening around here? Well, I have written a piece of fiction. Can you imagine? ME? Fiction? Who woulda thought it? I do have a small amount of literary imagination. I have, for example, imagined that I would be deep in Merchandising Land by now, making and selling doll clothes, doll clothes patterns of my own design, thinning the mass of dollhood in my garage by offering the ladies for sale—NO! Not THAT way! They would be adopted by above mentioned responsible parents, etc. etc. etc., and be beautifully clothed. Also, there would be wonderful designs flowing from my pen and paintbrush, making them whine and pule to their new mothers—and fathers too, of course—about how if they really were loved and adored they would have lots more clothes like the ones on Shirley's blog, and like that. You know how they are, those doll girls. Always wanting this trinket, that outfit, those shoes, a couple handbags to match, hats, gloves, and on and on. Not to mention the occasional boyfriend with an extensive wardrobe of his, uh, their own. Let's not even mention the sports equipment they would need....

So I'm still dreaming. So maybe someday those dreams will come true. Keep looking, folks. You may soon be ... Now, Shirl. Do NOT get the hopes of these people, their dolls, and the rest of the civilized (and uncivilized too why not) world—where was I oh yeah—up! Remember? Picture on Doll List? 

Heh. Okay. See you guys later. I've got some work to do!

Tah!

Back again, better late than ...

write when I have nothing to say! 

So here I am at the (almost) beginning of a new year. My Gummers has not appeared and I am becoming used to life without his sweet presence. Not resigned to it yet, but at least used to it. So I will go directly into dolly mode now and stop public mourning. I don't know when, if ever, private mourning will dwindle to levels that will allow me to stop constantly missing him. But I really don't want to stop remembering his amazing little self. He is really the first of my many animals that has affected me this way. The closest to come to it was Henry, my first pet as an adult that did not belong to my family of origin! What a lovely cat he was. I lost him to illness at age seven, but by then I had other animals and it was necessary for his welfare to put him down. I could be with him till the end. It is difficult in the extreme to realize that the Gum died alone. My only comfort is to think it was instantaneous. So, you, dear Reader, will be spared my further grieving. Thanks for listening so long!

onward to the land of Dollydom:

I am now the proud owner of a couple of Urban Vitas, joining the lovely American Model 2011 Gothic, various and sundry 16" ladies from Tonner, and the ladies who started all this--my MANY Genes, Madras, and Violets. 

As for dudes, I recently got a very Clark Gable-esque Rhett Butler. He is 21" tall which is a tad too tall for my Tonner and Franklin Mint Scarletts while being an inch shorter than the Gothic beauty. However, I can put a 2-inch platform under him and stand him behind the American Model so that she will be shorter.  Also standing her in the foreground with him a few inches upstage would work as well. I'm thinking of photos here rather than display.

In addition to Rhett, I also have a Michael Jordan who is quite tall (not in proportion to his human height unfortunately but as tall as Rhett at least!) with a permanent outfit (shorts and shoes) painted on but so what. He can still wear a suit. I have the Tonner Batman set, dressed in his tux but provided with his Batman suit too and he also is taller than say my Basil, Brenda Starr's mystery man. I have as well an Effanbee Humphrey Bogart who is very short, shorter even than my one lonely Trent Osborne. 

At any rate, I am planning to design outfits for all these ladies. I don't know if I will be able to do any designing for the gentlemen. I'll leave that for others. I will probably be scaling patterns I already have for them. 

As the first order of business, I'm working on my dedicated doll room and have already changed my ideas about what will work best about 10 times. However, it has finally settled down as of last night with my best greatest last final idea yet. I think.

I'll keep you all posted.

Bye for now, Dollings!

This is my beautiful Gummers, formally Mortimer Montgomery Miaouzalot.

He was just about a month and a half past his sixteenth birthday when his sweet voice was silenced forever. 

I'm devastated. Here in our "new" house, as in the one we just moved to but is not in any way actually new, it seems the front door latch doesn't catch easily. The door was ajar long enough for the Gum to take a stroll outside--bad news because he was strictly an indoor fellow. My husband didn't realize that Gum was outside and shut the door. We missed him an hour or so later. By then, it was dark and he was nowhere to be found. We searched and searched but found no trace of him. I slept in the living room on the couch with both the front and back doors open enough for him to come in but he didn't. 

After searching for days and plastering this lovely picture all over town, the online local newspaper as well as the print edition, and Facebook lost pets page, we got a call with the worst news possible. As she was taking her kids to school, the lady had seen his little body on the street which intersects the street our house is on the morning after he had disappeared. We hoped against hope it wasn't he, but he hasn't been seen by anyone in our neighborhood or any of the surrounding neighborhoods. Neither has he been picked up by the local animal control people. 

We are forced to believe it was he indeed who met his end in a collision with a car...whose driver probably never even saw him or realized he had been hit. The little body was sighted on October 4 so it has been nearly a month since we lost him. I don't weep as often as I did at first, nor as violently, but it is difficult to bear all the same. I'm missing him desperately. It seems so odd not to have him here. Every once in a while I will see him asleep on a chair or on the couch and realize it isn't the Gummers but just a discarded sweater or my knitting or something. 

He was such a wonderful little creature, very intelligent and loving and funny. He constantly nagged us to play...he had his favorite toy which my husband would try to keep from him. He always caught it and would carry it away to his "lair" under one of the living room chairs, tail and head held high in triumph. 

Please forgive the long paean in memory of my little animal friend, nay, my beloved animal child surrogate. He was the last of our five cats and I had decided that he would be my last animal altogether. I am becoming more and more chronologically enhanced and would not like to pass on and leave a little creature wondering why he or she had been abandoned!

Thanks for listening! I just wanted to memorialize this beautiful loving little creature, hoping to work out some of my guilt and grief not only for his loss but also for the pain of knowing I failed him by not missing him sooner and failing to find him before he made the fateful decision to cross the street.  

Goodbye, Gummers. May you meet me in joy on the Rainbow Bridge in the not too distant future.