Day 19: Stuff on my Shelves Part One

When we lived in Gardena I was given a yellow and white bedroom set. (My sister's was blue, and hers included a desk, but I already had my mom's old desk in my half of the room.) There was a hutch with shelves on top of the chest of drawers and I used the shelves mainly for books. When we moved to the John Street house I had my own room. It was and is tiny and narrow, but my dad built a bookcase for me that stretches to the ceiling. So ever since I have used the shelves mainly for displaying objects.

I don't believe I have any photos of the shelves in years past; people my age might remember the difficulties involved with photographing small objects (our early 70s attempts at Barbie displays come to mind), not to mention the need and problems with flash! But here are the shelves as they stand today.

This shelf still has a few of the original books on it; those were my father's childhood books, animal stories by Burgess. The poodles are new. In front of the McDonald's Barbies someone gave me is Ken the Baptist. I bought the head for one dollar at a doll show, and the silver platter at Poundland. You cannot see the dried red nail varnish the head sits in from this view - sorry! There are also a few mini Penguin books, a Midge ornament and a Barbie goes shoe shopping ornament.

And the Kit Kat Klock? No, that isn't original, although in the 60s my friend Jill had one in her bedroom which I coveted. They were on sale again from the mid 90s and I bought this one at the same time I bought one for my brother's wedding present. I don't think either lasted very long; I'm talking about the clocks here, although... ;-) The tail got lost somewhere but at least it sits nicely on this shelf.

Mostly classic Barbie ornaments; the black cats I got at Patty Duarte's yard sale in the early/mid 80s. There's a tiny one too but you can only see its ear behind the Solo in the Spotlight (black gowned) Barbie's butt.

How many little girls had a jewelry box with a spinning ballerina inside? That's what this is; I got it for Christmas when I was about 8. I wanted to live in that house! Even though it had rocks on the roof. The ballerina has long stopped spinning to "The Lonely Goatherd."

That Barbie case in another ornament, as is the 57 pink Chevy. The /Barbie Dictionary I bought on eBay in the 90s. It's atop a mini cedar chest from a gift shop at Zion National Park, 1969 or so. The rabbit creature is from Mexico I think and the round thing holds tiny earrings; I think it's from Little Tokyo. The Florida snowdome/storm/shaker is from my vast collection. I think the thimble (in a tiny glass case front left) is from Neuschwanstein, 1990, but I'll have to check. And finally, the Moomins, who used to live on my desk at Investis, are relaxing in front of the cabin.

Here is an assortment of shakies, as I used to call them; not necessarily my favorites, but ones I had on hand. (The majority of my collection is boxed up, both in London and in a closet in this house. I have no idea how many I have, but it is a lot! I used to spend time cleaning up the ones I found in junk shops and replacing the water, but then came the Internet...)

I also have collected quite a few Day of the Dead dioramas, and here's one. I don't recall where I got Thing 2 - might it have been a McDonald's toy that someone gave me? - but I love it. I also don't remember who gave me the painted egg, but it was long ago. Probably my mom, from her travels. The cat is from Mexico and I think the brown creature in the middle is from Peru, though I'm not sure.

However, you are probably wondering why I have a box of Farrah Fawcett doll heads. The answer is, in the late 90s there was a fantastic web site called Stupid.com. This was the time when every other web site was offering free email so for a while I had addresses @stupid.com (as well as @IHateClowns.com), and you didn't have to buy anything to get an email address but I did anyway, a lot of stuff. They sold Farrah heads singly, in threes or by the box. Around the same time they reissued the Jack heads at Jack in the Box which you would stick on your car's antenna. ("Car's antenna?!" I can hear the young people asking. Yes, cars used to have sticky-up antennas. My first car didn't, as it broke off, but a wire coat hanger did the trick nicely, and served double duty as a means to break into my own car when I locked my keys in it (which I did so often I started timing myself. But I digress.) Anyway, by the Jack head reissue time I was driving a Dodge Daytona that had an embedded antenna, which is just as well, as the Jack heads always got stolen, and I stuck him in the box where he looks very happy.

The Farrah heads were very popular when I had them on display in my cubicle at FutureKids, and they've been on this shelf ever since.

More to come in Part 2!