Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Flattery Gets You a Meme

Beach Bum got me this time. He tagged me with the following statement:

"Because her beauty and intelligence is only exceeded by writing and culinary talents."

Well, shucks, how can anyone say no to that? Although he did direct me to "cough up some inspired crap." The physiology of following those particular instructions would yield some really unpleasant results, I'm afraid.

The rules of this meme involve opening the fourth file where I store pictures and then chose the the fourth picture in that file then write an explanation of that photograph, so here it goes.


This particular picture is not in fact the fourth picture in my fourth folder because I did this very meme a long time ago and sort of followed the rules. I still have the same folders in the same order from that long ago so I am just picking the fourth picture in my most recent folder. Ok, so that wasn't very interesting either. When have you ever known me to cooperate with meme rules anyway? You want that sort of mindless lock step behavior you came to the wrong blog. I'm sticking my head out the window and shouting my unwillingness to conform! "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more!"

Ok, sorry, didn't mean to get so riled up there. A blogger could have her head explode getting worked up that much over something as silly as a meme. And by golly, isn't that the perfect segue to the story of this picture of such a lovely little doll? It's so sweet and innocent you may wonder how exploding heads (which seems like it would be a darned fine name for a rock band if it weren't so close to Talking Heads, but maybe they could suggest it means toilets that go boom. Oh, I dunno, now I am thinking of the Boom Town Rats and Bob Geldoff and good grief, if he gets a hold of this story he may go out and need to do a giant benefit concert for kids with no dolls or dolls that got blown up in mine fields...and gees, I have really digressed. Does any of this sound like inspired crap or just it just strike you as some drug induced stream of consciousness? Really, it's just a little peek inside the mind of Lime. Scary, huh?)

Ok, so exploding heads (of dolls, not toilets). Once upon a time, my mother was a little girl. Once a year she had to help her mother clean out the attic. Every summer during this ritual my mother and grandmother would come across a little china doll that had been my grandmother's when she was a child. Every year my mother would ask to have it. Every year her mother would say, "You're too young, you might break it." This went on up until the year my mother turned 10. Again she was told she was too young, she might break it. However, Christmas morning of that year she came down the steps and found the much longed for doll under the tree with her name on it. The next day she broke its head.

My grandmother had the head replaced and my mother eventually came into possession of the doll after she had grown up. Many years ago Mom was cleaning out her own attic she brought it down and showed me and told me the above story before handing it to me and telling me to be careful. I had never seen or heard of the doll before. Mind you, at this time I was a grown woman and had already come into possession of Hepzibah, the doll my other grandmother had inherited from her grandmother. I had an appreciation for how delicate these things can be. My mother handed her doll to me. I reached out to take its head in one hand and its body in the other. The doll's head immediately exploded in my hand and a shower of delicate china shards fell to the floor. The thing literally popped like a balloon when I took it in my hands. I looked up completely mortified by what I had done and my mother burst out laughing.

She put what was left of the doll away. A couple years ago she showed me a new china head and set of hands she had found that would be the right size and that looked like she wanted them to look. A few weeks ago she put them on the original body and sewed a new dress and bonnet. This weekend she came up for a visit and brought the doll to show me the finished work. Some day when I am a little older I look forward to inheriting it, telling the story of it to my own dear daughters and letting them demolish the head in their own fashion before I have it replaced for them to pass to their children who can destroy it and so on and so forth through the generations.

Tradition is so important.

18 comments:

misticblu said...

Sweetly psychotic!
I guess every family has weird doll behavior... we've been trading one back and forth for years that has mom's beautiful blonde tresses sewn on that she made in 1970.

Jazz said...

You doll killer you!

snowelf said...

Lime's Family...Blowing minds for over 100 years...

:D

--snow

Desmond Jones said...

You are simply amazing when you go sailing on the Stream of Consciousness. . . very cool. . .

And I feel like I ought to make some manner of macabre 'Exploding Head' wisecrack, but for the life of me, I can't think of one that you haven't already made. . .

I've come to wonder what the point of those porcelain dolls is, or ever was. When 1F was about five, she yearned and longed for one, and so we got her one (for her birthday, or Christmas, I forget which). And of course, before the year was out, the hands were smashed, and there was a crack in the head (which, come to think of it, could be 'allegorical' of her family more generally). In the fullness of time, we got her another one, but it has mostly stayed securely entombed in the attic, lest it suffer the same fate.

So maybe the point is just to hand them down, across the generations, without anyone ever actually touching them (to say nothing of actually playing with them; heaven forbid). Sorta like great-grandma's fruitcake. . .

g-man said...

Amazingly close to a Retro Wednesday there Trini..hehehehe

Logophile said...

Aaawwwwa, that is the sweetest little story...
you doll killers.

Anonymous said...

i'd like a new head, please....

Ed & Jeanne said...

I'd put the doll in that new heavy plastic that every product is now using; nobody can get through that stuff...

Suldog said...

As I've said before, nobody gives meme like you. Outstanding.

Hilary said...

I love how you tied it all together.. or glued it. Enough to make my head explode. Well done!

S said...

Notice, you haven't been given the doll yet because she knows you will pop the head again!

:P


When Hannah was one year old, Gary bought her a snow globe with a fairy in it. He handed it to her, she smiled, and just as I said, "Gary dont you think shes a little young for a glass snow globe?" and it slipped through her hands and crashed onto the floor.

The Zombieslayer said...

One of these days I need to get over to PA to sample some of those culinary skills. :)

One thing I loved about Gran Torino was the Hmong culinary skills, not the culture nor the exaggerated attempts at apology, was what won over the Gran Torino guy. I plan to be just like him when I get old.

The Zombieslayer said...

Btw, your doll story was interesting, but I'm sort of scared of dolls. By day, they really are fascinating. I actually went to a doll museum in Ventura, CA, which was very impressive. By night though, I literally cannot fall asleep if there's a doll in my room.

Ananda girl said...

Wow. That's cosmic. It's like your mom got relief from breaking the head as a child by seeing her child break its head and having a clear understanding of how that feels. No wonder she laughed.

BTW this makes your mom even better in my head and she seemed like a lovely person before.

Craver Vii said...

Desmond gives you credit for this stream of consciousness business. I think you had bad mushrooms in your breakfast omelette. ;-)

That reminds me though, of how some men are afraid to hold an infant. They're not quite as fragile as your grandma's china doll, really. Real babies are pint-sized miracles and I never say no, when offered to pick one up.

~Dragonfly~* said...

Mind blowing story Lime!!! Thanks for sharing... but now.. just to clarify... your mother replaced the head, hands and clothes.... so basically the only thing being passed on is a headless, handless body stuffed with old batting? Scary. :)

DF

Commander Zaius said...

Thanks for playing and I'm with Zombieslayer on having dolls in the room I'm trying to sleep in.

Stayed over at a second cousin's house many years ago who lived in Washington DC. I was sleeping in the guest room where a cabinet filled with dolls of various sizes were on display. Like some bad horror movie though one was propped on the top of the cabinet as if it was sitting on a large building. It freaked me out with its spooky facial features but what scared me was that before I went to sleep it was on the left side of the cabinet, when I woke up the next morning it was on the left. No one supposedly came into the room, I asked at breakfast. After telling everyone what I thought happened with the expected laughter following I let the subject go. Never the less I slept on the couch in the living room the following night.

secret agent woman said...

I did this meme once.

Is it weird that dolls scare me a little? In my mind, they're realted to clowns.