Sunday, September 29, 2019

Smoke and Falls

Last night the girlettes held a second Shinto-inspired "Thank You, Dolls" ceremony for the departed Red Hair Girl. We'd already had one at the waterfall, but some of us still miss RHG.

This was a fire ceremony at my new place: 
The girlettes offered a Little Debbie Zebra Cake to the bonfire.
Perhaps we'll have an Earth and Air ceremony too...

I'm holding Penny Cooper as she pokes the fire with a stick--I worried she'd catch her hair on fire.

bink came for the ceremony and dinner, and she, Patti, and I sat around the fire all evening.
It's so nice to live in a place big enough for friends to hang out, including a back yard, though soon it will be too cold for that.

I don't miss my old place at all.

II. A Thing About Dolls in Public

Penny Cooper smells like smoke this morning. She and SweePo have come to the Key West coffee shop with me, the other coffee shop in my neighborhood. The bright colors are nice on this rainy day.

It's funny, taking the dolls in public.
At the waterfall ceremony, I'd lined them all up on the bridge overlooking the waterfall. They were saying the Sanskrit heart sutra I've mentioned--Gaté, gaté ("Gone, gone...")--and a woman came up and asked what I was doing. 

In her mid-thirties, this woman looked old-school Midwestern Normal--blonde puffy-poodle hair, wearing make up and a fuschia-colored top––but she didn't seem very friendly. 

I answered, "My dolls are holding a farewell ceremony for a lost doll."

"What does that mean?" she said. She almost seemed suspicious.

"Well, I left one of my dolls on the bus, and so these dolls are saying thank you to her and wishing her well on her travels, wherever she is..."

The woman continued to stand there, as if she wanted something more, so I said, "Do you like dolls?"

She hesitated. "Well...?" she said, ". . . I do."
________________________
P.S.  That's an ice-skating costume SweePo is wearing in the photo above. 
I ordered it on eBay because I have plans for the tiny ice-skates that are part of the package. I was disappointed when they arrived that the blades aren't metal, just thick silver material that won't hold a doll's weight.
I'll have to fix that. Maybe paper clips...?


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