Dolls & Dreams 8/11

 

8/11

  My first dream took place in a big old school where I was working. There was a craft fair, and a woman had a table of crafts and a round basket on the floor overflowing with stuffed primitives. I had a gray rabbit in my hand and sorted through the basket finding more rabbits. An older woman behind me took three rabbits. I found another, black rabbit, with very long arms and short legs. There was a bee who had a $62 price tag on his head. There was a furry gingerbread man with a pattern stuck on his tacky backside. Removing the pattern that featured a small girl on the cover, the ginger man’s backside was covered with gingerbread scratch and sniff stickers. He was $20, and I held on to him. I found a large Holly Hobbie type of doll with a blue and red gingham gown and bonnet. Her face was soft sculpted sort of like a Cabbage Patch Kid only linen, not stockinette. Her eyes were halfway closed. She was $64. I took them both to the vendor who was busy with another customer. I waited, then put them back. I was walking down the hall where a little boy with brown hair was turning somersaults. His dad, a colleague of mine, grabbed him up, calling him sweetheart. 

  The second dream seemed like an extension of the first. Ron and I drove out to a doll show on a snowy night. The show also took place in an old school. At first, we thought that it had been cancelled, because it was dark, and there weren’t many people around. Ron was straggling, and I left him behind. I came across a family. Their boy, a preteen, said that he had gone down the hall looking for his old room, but it was vacant. The floor was dirt. I did see a big cardboard box of old dolls but didn’t want any of them.

Dana's Dreams

Dana's Dreams Two

Catch Up with the Chaos

It Just Keeps Getting Better

  Ron's birthday weekend has been a blast from the start. Yesterday we started V is for Vendetta before heading to the horse track. I lost twenty dollars on the horses and a dollar on the slots but came home with a hat, t-shirt, and stuffed horse. It was loads of fun. DOC also arrived in time for Doc Holliday's birthday, and we read it on the way to the casino and in the car today. So far I've only found three typos to fix, a missed space, a comma instead of a period that asshole intelligence missed, and a missed quote. I'll fix it. We are up to page 164 already, it's a riot. After returning home I finished V is for Vendetta which was awesome and not what I expected. Then I sold another of Mummy's Treasures on Ebay. The boys had me up until four. The Madame Alexander Mamie Eisenhower doll was in my Ebay cart, and I considered buying her. I knew I was going to get her for Ike. I had sweet dreams for Dana's Dreams Three Revenge of the Dream Hog. I'm up to page 133 in that. We got up today, and I sold an old painting, The Black Dahlia. I have heard about the doll shops in Lancaster since I moved out here nineteen years ago. Ron takes me to the auctions and shows. The Doll Outlet had Mamie. She's from 1973. I think Ike is from 1987, Enesco. I'm taking a break but IKE, another musical satire, will be sooner than later. Then we went to a fabulous fifties diner. It was better than Happy Days. It was right by where my brother and I had played pirate miniature golf. What's more, the steamboat motel, where I always wanted to stay with Purple Witch, is also there all within walking distance of a theater. There was a doo-wop concert there tonight. I wonder if that is where Purple Witch might be going to see Slayer in September. I'll have to look into it because I could get a room at the steamboat motel. Then, Ron stopped at yet another doll shop, The Doll Boutique, where I got this sweet dress for Frannie who had been wearing Marcella's dress since The Letitia Penn Doll Club's Christmas at The William Penn. That was a Schoenhut theme, but Red Witch and Little Ron will be at this year's with an early dollhouse theme. Good times! If I'm back in September I'll pick up a slicker for Frannie. TTYL...

Amazon (Books)

Ebay (Mummy's Treasures & Dolls)

My Boys

  I've been so sick, my boys must know. The two of them slept until noon with me today, sandwiched between. They are such good brothers. They did take Ike's girlfriend, Nicki, last night. Ike has been in the den watching television. Vulcan, the samurai Betta, is doing great too. He's very active and loves his posh new home. I might suspect the cats, Rosey and Tat, killed Cupid if he had any wounds, but he didn't. Cupid was a bully, and those cats are huge mates. I'd pity the fool who picked on them. My last Himstedt, Lotus, the Egyptian, is coming today. I'm watching season three of Poldark. I will be starting my notes for IKE, my third musical satire, soon. TTYL... 

 

World War II Weekends Photographic Memory Book

   Available as an ebook on Kindle, soon to be released in paperback, World War II Weekends is over a hundred full color photographs from five June World War II Weekends at The Mid Atlantic Air Museum in Reading, Pennsylvania. Join Ike the doll, avoid the sun and crowds, to see everything World War II: airplanes, tanks, cars, motorcycles, a French village, and lots more. 

Go to World War II Weekends

WWII Weekend

  Ike has been getting around this year. Ron and I also had fun as usual at WWII Weekend up the road at the airport, The Mid Atlantic Air Museum. I got some fabulous authentic WWII souvenirs too. The mermaid patch is a liberty cuff. They were inside the sailors' cuffs. When they were off duty they would roll their cuff up revealing the siren. I'm going to frame her and hang her on the wall. The bitty paratrooper is a German "pin". Children sold them to raise money for the soldiers' winter coats. I lost my yellow flower Ron got me from the French village, so he got me two more purple ones. I've got six now. Afterwards we watched one of my favorite films from 1945 Scarlet Street, starring Joan Bennett and Edward G. Robinson. I love those two. Then we went to a diner where I had disco fries. I had an orange float and a pretzel at WWII Weekend. Oh, I almost forgot the addition to my sticker collection. Schultz is another childhood favorite. Ron had got me the crochet grape doily there years ago, another thing I've admired since childhood. This is the first time we went after hours: much cooler and less crowded. Good times. 

 

From The Mallen Lot

   I try to make the best of things. Best thing about being without electricity due to the WIND the past couple of days is I quit drinking as it was turning me into Mummy. Second best thing is that I finished Catherine Cookson's Mallen series. It was so good. I've got a lot of quotes to share from The Mallen Lot. Catherine did not drink as her mother was an alcoholic. Funny that I'm finishing The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte' and Brooke Shields's There Was a Little Girl too as they are both about alcoholics. 

"Ruthie had a saying that God was good and the devil wasn't bad to his own. Well the devil she knew and the devil he knew must be running two different establishments because the gentleman over there had been less than kind" 

"How was it that no mistress, and not even the prospect of a wife, a beloved wife, could fill the void in a man who had craved mother love all his life?'

"The world had been created by a madman; God was a madman; no reasonable thing or power would create torture for no purpose. The experiences of the past months, the chaos in which the world was drowning was not, to his mind, the result of either a country's greed, or the ambition of nations; politicians of their own volition could not, he reasoned now, create such havoc, for the human mind could and would think, dissect, reason and then act in the end to preserve its own survival. No, there was a malevolent power, a mad God playing with the universe, and he was so powerful, so indiscriminate he directed his attention equally to families as to nations; he inflicted special torture..." 

"And from then, daily, without let up, she had prayed that something would happen to that sperm of hell, because that's all she was, that's all she had ever been, she had come from a hell raiser, and a line of hell raisers, and she had been a she-devil ever since."

"no one actually pitied Lawrence, for you couuldn't pity someone, no matter how mentally crippled, who continually emanated happiness; in fact the wise among them envied him his state." 

"Love is a terrible thing, Dan. No one should ever say that love is beautiful, it's a crucifixion."

"There was something building up inside her that was frightening her. It had been growing with the years, but since Christmas it had become like a great live thing gnawing at the inside of both her body and mind, and she was afraid of it, afraid that something would happen to cause it to break out."

"Well, he's dead, and as I see it there's nothing so dead as death; it's final, it's finished. And I'm as much against those who spend the rest of their lives weeping over the dead as I'm against those who make saints out of sinners once they are dead." 

"She was born to create trouble; as sure as the sparks fly upwards. Some people are made like that. Barbara was poison to everyone she touched." 

  I also have two more musical satires like Fanging with Claude in mind: DOC (Doc Holliday) and IKE (Eisenhower). I might've found my niche. Both will likely begin with cover portraits, we'll see... TTYL... ✨

Gettysburg Spring

   Available as an ebook, it ought to be released in paperback and hardcover soon. Purple Witch and I had such fun birthdays. Thank You! 

Gettysburg Spring

Gettysburg One

What a Dream

2/27

  Very different and interesting dream tonight, it started at Slippery Rock where I was living in a dormitory with Ron. I was a blonde and wore a long hot pink skirt. I had left for my night classes, either grad school or post grad, and passed a burned out recreational building, long and rectangular like a gym. I ran into a couple of brothers, white boys in their twenties with short brown hair. For some reason, unbeknownst to me, I was hiding under a tarp in a boat with the younger of the two who also now had a punched nose. Then I was back with them both. We walked across a campus green. I took two joints from a silver cigarette case from my green tapestry flood bag that I bought in North Carolina and used for years when I taught. The one joint was very loose and badly rolled which I apologized for. The older one was very friendly, and I was supposed to join them somewhere but was separated with a young dark haired woman on the lawn in front of a small office building. That’s when a woman came out, campus police, or something, and started hounding me over my id. The young woman ran off, spooked. I was amiable with the woman and digging through my bag. There wasn’t much in the bottom, just some old ids, none of which suited the woman. I joined her in the office where the younger brother with the punched nose was sitting in a cubicle getting interviewed by an older man. I rushed past them into the back explaining that I could not be seen by Mr. Punched when a heavy set man with greasy dark hair wearing a black suit and glasses joined me and another fellow saying that it was alright. It would be hush hush. I told them that I was in with Ike. Now an older woman was fussing over me. She grabbed me in the crotch. There was another girl with a buzz cut wearing black pinstripe tights and a short denim skirt. This woman did not trust or care for Miss Buzz Cut. Her grown son dressed in black and wearing a black hat came into the building led by a thirteen year old shepherd mix on a leash. I was petting the dog. Like his mother he backed into me and poked me in the crotch, only more subtly than his mother had done. There now was a big fuss about me in the back around a long conference table. I felt as if the entire ordeal was a run around, and that all of these people were inept. A blonde woman basically said that I had to go. The man in charge, slender in a white shirt and black glasses with more slimy black hair told her, “You’d be shitting your pants if Floyd flirted with you.” I was beginning to ascertain that they wanted the older brother for something, something big. Burning down the campus building? I did not know. I was losing my patience with the lot of them. Up until this point they all were very impressed by how calm I had remained. I gathered that they planned on using this against Floyd. I told them that I had missed class. I was fed up with them all and asked them if this was their usual shit show. Mr. In Charge said that did not matter that I worked for them now. He asked me who my hero was. I started thinking and becoming lucid. I told them that I had no hero or love for the Fuckers Butting In nor the Commie Infiltration Agency, that I did not like the government or the presidents besides Eisenhower when I woke up. After jotting down my notes in my dream book, (I turned on the light this time, so that I could make them out.), I fell into other little bouts of sleep where I was in the same dream, and there were piles of white paper on a desk in the same office.

Look at this silly kitty, he's been so bad. Up to page 135 in Dana's Dreams Two, already. It might be the Native American in me. I certainly am a dreamer. 🌜🌝🌛  

Dana's Dreams 

Eisenhower Soldier And President

 

  "Eisenhower wrote that "only a man that is happy in his work can be happy in his home and with his friends." He continued, "Happiness in work means that its performer must know it to be worthwhile, suited to his temperament, and, finally, suited to his age, experience and capacity for performance of a high order."  Stephen A. Ambrose

Lots to Talk About: Dana's Dreams, Books, & More...

   First, I finished the cover of Dana's Dreams Two which came to me directly from a dream a couple of months ago. They were painted on the ceiling of a dressing room where I was changing my clothes. I have put them on loads of things on ZAZZLE: 

Wallpaper

Acrylic Prints

Ladies' Denim Jackets

Planners

Pillows

  Next, and sticking to the subject, I was telling my aunt how she might remember her dreams when The GOOGLE Monster gobbled everything that I had written up like a bag of cookies. A lot of folks might be interested, so here it goes. Take a glass of water to bed with you. Take a sip and say aloud, "I will remember my dreams". Set the glass on your nightstand. When you wake take a sip. Keep a dream notebook close to your bed. When you first wake, do not stir. Lie there and unravel your dream. Write down keywords in your notebook, so that you might remember upon waking. Share your dreams, talk about them. You must get to them first thing, otherwise you will forget. Pickles and pepperoni are dream foods, pickles being #1. The dream symbolism that you find online goes back to the ancient Egyptian priests. Finally, I had shared tonight's dreams with her: 

  2/21

  First I woke up as I heard Ron yelling, “Dana!”, in my head. This is the third time this has happened lately. It was just a dream, though very real. 

  The next dream was just a snippet: turquoise ladies panties embroidered with an Aztec bird were dancing in my head. 

  The third dream was Aunt Nancy’s summer wedding. Aunt Janet was there. They wore long matching sun dresses with blue and white printed roses on a red background. We were late getting to the church and missed the ceremony. We were waiting at my grandmother’s house. There was a dark haired young man working along the side of the house who I got snippy with. He had two of Mummy’s long stemmed fake flowers that Aunt Nancy was asking about. One was just a green bud, but the other might’ve been one of those dancing daisies. My little cousin had a big naked Jane doll still in the box. I was looking out the window at Aunt Nancy and her groom lying on a patio, snuggling. I told my cousin that Aunt Nancy and I both had Jane dolls too. 

Dana's Dreams

Now, on with my readings. Tonight's quotes are taken from BATTLEFIELD and Eisenhower:

"It dawned on me that I was up against more than an inflexible rule; I was challenging a tenet of economic survival. A utility company was loath to relinquish even one customer whose lifetime of rate-paying would add tens of thousands of dollars to its coffers." Svenson

This book, that Ron got for me at The Farnsworth House for Easter, is brilliantly written by an artist no less. In Farming a Civil War Battleground Peter Svenson gets down to the bones about building his third house.

"MacArthur, the most political of generals, never succeeded in politics, while three of the most apolitical generals in American history, Washington, Grant, and Eisenhower, did. They were true American Caesars, only American soldiers to hold both supreme military and political power." Ambrose

Frankie by Firelight & More DREAMS

  
 2/8

  Terribly sick again last night, so loads of dreams to report. I have to go through my notebook and figure out the four pages of purple scratchings. The first is the hardest, of course. We must have several dream sessions throughout the sleep pattern, three or four. The first dream is usually short, and they get longer. The first dream took place in Oakland, Mummy and Daddy were there. It involved a coffee maker and maybe a woman and a desert or dry creek bed that I’m trying to remember. My coffee maker was stolen, and Alex came. My hair was cut in a short bob, shorter and darker than high school, and I wore tight faded jeans. I confronted a man, a dream person, trying to cuss him out, but the words were stuck in my throat. Only a wheeze escaped. He called me something like a dumbass of a roarer. 

  It gets better. I was in Gettysburg with Mummy, Daddy, and Susan. What I remember first is driving around with Mummy and Daddy and looking for my inn, something like Longwood Inn, but there was some confusion that I’ll come back to. We passed it, a big cream with brown shutters and trim sprawling two storey, and another grand pink brick Georgian style, maybe the Kensington Arms, or something of the like. It was suburbia; then we came to town. I realized now that it was hot, June. We boarded a scenic railway. I was sitting next to Daddy, and Mummy sat across from me. Mummy and I were discussing some up and coming Poe movie that was soon to be released. Daddy was picking at the corner of a postcard with a white carousel horse that began to play an old ragtime music box tune, Beautiful Dreamer.  I told him that Longwood, the same man that the inn was associated with, had carved the Kennywood carousel horse and written the tune. He was very impressed. We were talking about the hotels, and I told him that at The Kensington Arms you had to share a bed with two other people. He said that was not good unless you were a pervert. He might’ve remained on the train, but Mummy and I met with Susan and went to a book shop where Mummy bought me three books: a little paperback, a magazine, and a slender coffee table sized hardback with a shiny dust jacket. The paperback was pale blue with a rough cardstock, felt like, cover. There was a simple portrait sketch of the actress in the Poe film done in magenta ink. The magazine also covered the same movie that we were all interested in. I later gave Mummy back the eighty dollars that she had spent in the book shop. Going back to my notebook, I see that while I was taking the cash for Mummy out of my little leather and tapestry zipped purse, I remembered that I already had a room at The Farnsworth House, The Eisenhower suite. Meanwhile Susan was talking about all of the money that she had spent at the dentist. I told her about my ten thousand dollar mouth. Mummy was surprised. When we got to The Farnsworth House, however, the clerk, a white man in a tan, short -sleeved shirt and brown pants, told me that my room was not booked. I told him to check under Ron’s name. I woke up at this point because Frankie was throwing up. As I was sick watching Aquarius last night the Mansons were dumpster diving for food. At the same time Sir Frankie Crisp was rummaging through the powder room trash. I usually keep that door shut from him, but I was sick. 

  Now I had gone up to bed at 7:30 am, and had the third epic dream. I need another cup of coffee, so glad to have kept the first down. I was in school, post grad, only in a small golden lit posh shopping mall. It began with me in a crowded locker room where I could not remember the lock combination for my little white locker. The numbers were marked in red, and I was surprised that the lock opened only I still did not have my schedule, (a computer print-out I could see in my mind’s eye that I was trying to remember, gray block computer numbers, only three or four classes, three, I think), or my books. The problem was that I had missed some classes. It was still early in the semester. Still, I went to my first class that took place in a top notch men's suit store: nothing but dark wood shelves holding dress pants, shirts, ties, and jackets. There was a long glossed wooden table where my class met. The professor was a young woman who said that she’d wanted the fancy green tea that I was drinking. We all had special teas in swank glassware: concoctions with ice and foam. She called me a gypsy, I could tell she liked me a lot. One of my old students, Westley, was in this class, at the table, with me. At one point we got up from our seats and were standing in the shop. I dropped my brown crochet light, long sweater on the floor. A light skinned black girl with ponytails had her yellow t shirt with a pink sunflower over her face, so that it looked like she wore a lion mask. I asked if she was a Leo, and she was. The professor was delighted and impressed. The shop owner, a faceless cardboard cutout dressed in a real good suit, with a name tag was talking to me. He also was impressed. Seemed the mall had been losing business, so they started sharing classes there. Nothing seemed that big of a deal at the time. After class Westley and I wandered the mall for something to eat. First I got onion rings, really good, big fried rings on a long rectangular cardboard  tray, but it didn’t stop there. Westley got some chicken, and we also had popcorn and maybe even pizza. I had a big bag of leftovers and offered them to a boy, but said that I would take some of the popcorn and pizza, I think, home. He tried to pay me, but his cash was fake paper napkins. Westley and I walked on. He was talking about his law degree, and I said that my friend, Rick, also had his law degree but was not practicing. I saw my old boyfriend Curt, again, only this time he was dressed in brown. He was young and tan and ducked back into a womens’ clothes store. Now a Prince cover was singing from behind some colorful kiddie play balls. There was a big Asian girl who showed me a Peter Pan themed amusement that they were in the process of removing. It had an unplugged neon sign and waterfall. I was sorry I had missed it. We ascended the aqua blue plastic waterfall. The water had been turned off. There were also some leftover Caspar items. She wound a little plastic toy up, and it spun round her hand. There was another Caspar themed plastic napkin ring? I took it. It was time for my next class, and I was hoping I got it right. It was in a bigger open shop that seemed to be for Asian imports and crafts. The class wore colorful paper animal masks and were speaking in German. I was totally lost. The instructor and students let me know that I was in the wrong class, and I was starting to get worried. I wondered what I was doing there. I told myself that I already had a master’s and teaching degree. Faux Prince was still singing when I reached up to take a plush pink flamingo that was in a furry pink ring shape. There were other animals like it hanging near the play balls in a sort of net set up. When I noticed a crowd watching me, I left it, and they were singing a ditty, making fun of me for not belonging at the mall, and trying to steal the flamingo prize when I woke up.

Dana's Dreams

Happy New Year!

 

Pennsylvania Calendar
by dollsandmagic

Fuckers Butting In

😠🤮😠 

For the 98%

Dreams 8/10

 Dreamed I was visiting an old estate waiting for what, I'm not entirely sure. It might've been a cave tour or something educational. Anyway, I was sitting and waiting in a sort of sun room or parlor with a girl to my right. I was digging through my green art nouveau tapestry bag and pulled out a hot pink bag of fish tank gravel only it was very light like foam. It would float. A matching fuchsia spider, about the size of a fifty cent piece, crawled out and unfolded like a lantern. She was very pretty with yellow almond shaped eyes with black pupils and little minty colored ladylike lips. She folded herself back up into what looked like a dumpling, fortune cookie, or cupcake wrapper. I found two bags in my purse made sure they were plump with air and put her back in my bag. I said I had to go to the bathroom thinking I wanted to smoke, and a woman working there told me that it was in the cellar around the bend in the left hand corner. She said I'd see some sixteenth-century dishes stacked up. The dusky cellar was full of all sorts of old furniture and odds and ends. I thought I'd found the bathroom, there was a man with dark hair waiting there. It looked like an old cupboard, which is what it was, not the bathroom. The bathroom was at the other end. There was another employee in there, so I was thinking, no smoke. The toilet was just a green porcelain bowl filled with water that you had to stand over. When I woke I heard Kate Bush singing "Playing Canasta" in my head. 

Gettysburg Three: Eisenhower House

All of the times I've been to Gettysburg I've never made it to the Eisenhower farm. It's beautiful. He had a landing pad and putting green. The house is not open for tours, but you can see it all online. You have to drive down a murderous gravel road to get there. Hadn't thought to bring my Ike doll. He always goes to World War II Weekend with us. 

 

WWII Weekend: Reading I

My brother joined Ike, Ron, and me for WWII Weekend this year. He had a blast and got to fly in a fighter plane. I got a lot of good pictures, so I'll continue this post with a link to my locals spot where I can post more pictures. I got a nice Black Widow plane tack pin, another paper flower to match my dress, and an Eisenhower bronze bookmark that was made in the USA. Also had fried pickles and lemonade.