wakey wakey
March 27, 2008 | Filed Under Miscellaneous | Leave a Comment
And Spring arose on the garden fair,
Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;
And each flower and herb on Earth’s dark breast
rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.
~ Percy Bysshe Shelley, “The Sensitive Plant”
manny boy
March 26, 2008 | Filed Under Miscellaneous | Leave a Comment
Manny has been part of our family for almost four years. I still remember spotting him at the SPCA. He wasn’t aggressively vying for anyone’s attention. He was just kind of quietly skulking around, his beautiful coat totally matted and muddy. When we asked to see him, he pretty much had us at ‘hello’ with his affectionate, endearing ways, and I recall he even jumped up on the picnic table to get at eye level with us, and lifted his little paw to “shake” hands with us. When I was ordering prints to decorate our home, I realized that I don’t take nearly enough photos of Manny. Now is as good a time as any to start rectifying that…
requiem for a doll
March 26, 2008 | Filed Under Children & Babies, Conceptual, Fine Art, Lifestyle PJ, Personal, Slideshow | 2 Comments
I was reviewing our taxes today when my daughter thrust her doll in my face, showing me her broken foot. “Look what happened again!” Distracted, I glanced momentarily and recalled the other times I’ve mended and glued that doll (and wondered how much longer she’d last), and waved my hand somewhat dismissively.
“I can’t fix her right this minute,” I said. “I’ll see what I can do later.”
Off she trotted, and in the next instant, I heard simultaneously a gasp and the sound of poor old Molly shattering into pieces against the ceramic tile floor. “Well, that’s the end of her,” I grumbled. Feeling fairly instantly ashamed of that utterance, I went into the kitchen to check out the damage. It was, indeed, the end of Molly, despite my sobbing daughter’s desperate last-ditch efforts to piece together her doll. It took some convincing and before she finally let go, as I swept up the porcelain shards. I asked if she would like to keep Molly’s clothes, and she nodded. So, after carefully removing the doll’s dress and bloomers, I gently placed her in the trash can. My daughter protested this crudity, and I found myself agreeing to a doll funeral and burial “like we had before” when her beta died, and we buried him in a small silver, fabric-lined jewelry-box-turned-fish-casket.
I located a shoebox and found a spot in the back yard to bury Molly (and from which place I could readily disinter and properly dispose of her remains later). My daughter wanted photos for her scrapbook, as this doll was of particularly sentimental value to her. After a brief moment of internal scoffing, an opportunistic lightbulb went off and I envisioned a cool conceptual photo documentary. So my daughter, armed with a shovel, and I, armed with my camera, headed to the makeshift gravesite to bid Molly adieu with apt pomp and circumstance.
Now, while this was undoubtedly a genuinely unhappy occasion for my daughter, it should be noted that my children happen to be exceptionally melodramatic. My son- who was barely aware of this doll at all prior to her demise- was utterly carried away, and the pathos that the two of them managed to generate was something rather spectacular- too spectacular, in point of fact, for me to resist exploiting. 
Now, lest I incite any indignation in the vein of the Greenberg outcry, let me assure you that my son’s tears were of the crocodile/”I’d like to thank the Academy” variety. Kids are resilient, after all, and the mourning period for Molly may have been intense, but it was decidedly brief. The mild weather proved much too delightful for wallowing…
