Civilization is complete at this point, plus bizarre Tuesday Morning discoveries

Due to a monsoon storm, Hayden's editor at her boutique publication, Meygan, had to borrow her clothes. Hayden, being new to Arizona, is appalled by the weather.

"That rain... it's like turning on a shower head."

Careful observers will note that Meygan is articulated and has feet. I took her out of her box, decisively pulled off her head, and forced it onto the neck stem one of my thrift store bodies. The operation was much easier when no forethought was involved. (Also, no spiky neck stems.)

I wanted to unbox and croon over something, and a new sewing machine issomething

In the wake of Sunday afternoon's sewing machine implosion, I went to Walmart's web site, ordered a new machine for in-store pick-up, and then went to pick it up.

Behold! New machine! It is a Brother JX 2517, which got excellent reviews from advanced beginners and cost under $75.

D'Laura learns to skateboard, Krys tries on wigs, and introducing... Briony!

On her way out to try skateboarding again, D'Laura is startled to run into her cousin-once-removed, Briony Shapira Barwari. Though close in age, they didn't see much of each other as children, since Briony's large family lived in another state and only showed up every few years to camp in the back yard.

It's a sure thing, though, that Briony knows how to skateboard. Briony always knows how to do anything dangerous.

"Briony, I'd forgotten your head was so... ROUND."

Briony is, of course, Ever After High's Briar Beauty, and I'm pretty sure she's Getting Fairest, which means she made it to the Park and Swap in less than a year, possibly while she's still in some retail stores.

"Here, I'll show you. This is really simple."

Boil-washing extravaganza plus new dresses to celebrate Rebecca's body transplant

It's amazing how an unexpected visit from one's landlord can suddenly make tidying and cleaning seem so much less onerous, to the point that doing it right now works extremely well. The answer to stress is always boil-washing, which is why there's now a candid shot of some Liv girls with their painted-on pixie cuts.

Alexis seems worried about what Fitzroy's going to do next.

Katie, Hayden, Alexis, and Krys are all getting their hair cleaned and shined because everybody was looking as if they'd been in Arizona for a while -- and frantic cleaning had resulted in putting most of the body farm in a bag in the closet, leaving me free counter space.

Don't go to K-Mart until yours has its going-out-of-business sale, which we all know is going to happen

The expedition to K-Mart, I blame on the cherished memory of the time I hauled my mother to K-Mart, in hope that they were so disorganized as to still have two-year-old Liv stock, and discovered the body horror of the Novi Stars.

Top: Barbie got a deal on a used PT Cruiser convertible.
Bottom: Babs drives a Chinese-made Chery.

Although K-Mart looks like a 1980s Target (i.e., before Target was fabulous) as recalled through a veil of nightmare, K-Mart is no longer a discount store. Prices suggested shameless gouging of any shoppers too poor and stressed to take the bus another thirty blocks to a Walmart.

The visit did, however, give the opportunity for a one-to-one comparison between the Barbie car (~$22) and the Just Kidz car ($10). Especially striking is how Imitation Babs' vehicle provides seating for only 1-1/2 people.

Boggled by Mystixx, discovery of the BEST FUTURE SALE ITEM EVER for dollhouse kitchen accessories, and Halloween Barbie

Faced with downright wintry weather (high in the mid-80s) and second-guessing my decision to forego the chocolate-skinned articulated body of Baby Phat Chandra, I hied myself to the newish Burlington at Arcadia Crossing to see if it had a toy section. It did -- one demonstrating much more permanence than at Arizona Mills -- and while there were no Chandras, there were some other oddities, including Mystixx Grimm girls.

Somehow, I had failed on my prior encounter with Mystixx Zombies to grasp that they all are two-faced.

Definitely a head-turner.

I also hadn't realized that, whether Zombies, Vampires, or Grimms, it's always the same four characters: Kalani, Talin, Azra, and Siva. Bird-lady is Siva the Royal Raven, looking like she's ready to go shopping with EAH's Raven Queen.

Last of the dollar-store beauties

Weirdly, CVS appears to be closing out Fairy Tale High's Cinderella and Alice in the summer seasonal section for $6.99. I was tempted for the articulation, but the faces are so flat and stamped-on that they'd always feel inferior to the rest of the girls.

Thanks to an unseasonably cool day in the 90s without rain, I can now answer the vital question of "what does the 99 Cents Only do as $1 fashion dolls?" Answer: a boxed version of the plastic-bag dolls at Dollar General, but with different hair colors and better dresses.

Red head, medium brown, dark brown.

Blond and extremely blond

Entirely missing are the DG honey blond and African-American. The closer look made possible by the 99 Cents Only staff not being paranoid allows a person to admire how scanty rooting creates the illusion of streaks.

My experience in digging through the very backs of shelves -- honed in the doll sections of Big Lots, Tuesday Morning, Ross, and K-Mart -- would be why I scored the last box of Delimex cinnamon-apple roll-up thingies, the only three pepperoni frozen pizzas, and the national-brand whack-em thwack-em rolls instead of the made-in-Mexico imitation. I hunt. I gather.

Medical science on the frontier

Miss Hanzo has brought Akilah Nichelle to watch a full-body transplant, to reassure her that it really does go fine.

Miss Hanzo's mind is more on a future with additional Warhol nut benches.

Basically, I got home and decided it was time to rip heads off fashion dolls. Fashionista Artsy is the body donor, as she's a generic shade of tan. After I swore up and down that Rebecca Essenath Chavez was not a keeper, just a temporary project... she's the body recipient.

This process did not go as smoothly as I'd hoped.

Michael's stocks dollhouse miniatures, Draculaura gets a skateboard, swap-mart beauties invade TRU, AND there's a new store in town

Once she'd witnessed people skateboarding to and from the light-rail stations, of course D'Laura wanted a skateboard of her own.

It's meant for me! It even has a skull.

This is from Party City. It costs 35 cents. D'Laura immediately has to try it out.

Hair today!

Pocahontas insisted on wearing a top while showing off her improved hair, pointing out that nude photos are demeaningly reminiscent of health inspections at the old Indian School and make her feel like the subject of an experiment.

She also prefers to be called Rebecca Esennath Chavez, after two of her great-grandmothers in the O'odham (Pima) communities here in Arizona. Her hair improvement is the result of my research after my mother suggested fabric softener, which I don't have in the house -- so I was highly motivated to look for any alternative before trying that.

Ah, the woes that hair is heir to!

Pocahontas struggles her way toward a more modern image as a contemporary Native American woman, handicapped by just having won the award for Worst Hair in the History of Hair, taking it from Experimental Subject #5.

Her hair as rescued from Goodwill was so matted and frizzy that a comb wouldn't go through it. We're not talking "long, tedious job," as Elena Rodriguez's hair was, the result of her being filthy. We're talking hair-that-is-no-longer-hair-like. The comb sticks in it, and if a comb could say 'lol, no!", the comb would do so. This is the same comb with which I remove the cat's mats (because in my home, the mat is on the cat, and not vice-versa), so it's not a wimpy comb. But it's utterly defeated by this... (image after jump because it is too horrifying for mortals to look upon)...

Bath time at the spa!

Miss Hanzo supervises the community bath at the spa. Some of the new subjects intended to pass through to other places are quite dirty.

The two at bottom left are the Sophie and Hayden from last week's trip, as they need a good scrubbing and may require the Oxy-10 treatment before moving on. A spare Katie is top left, above a Barbie slated for redonation (but I enjoy cleaning them up, so they get cleaned). Top right is a cheap Disney Pocahantas with a very stylized face, awful hair, and unmatchable skin tone, so she's scheduled for redonation, no matter how much I'd otherwise be pleased to have a Native American stay permanently. Fashionista Artsy is fully articulated but not attractive to me, so she's either moving on through the spa's relocation project or donating her body to Kayla, who has a less common face mold and the bonus of being Maori.

Goodwill was a complete zoo due to a major sale, so while I got a very good deal on today's picks, the place was crazy and I don't expect there to be any value to trying more stores in the afternoon or even tomorrow. Most of the doll wall out at 53rd Avenue was Bratz amputees.

Be careful what doors you open at the spa

When Miss Hanzo shows off an important new project, Akilah Nichelle takes it in stride, but Sophie is appalled.

Self-starter, goal-focused, and detail-oriented

Miss Hanzo is enjoying her afternoon herbal tea when she is interrupted by what ought to be a surprise... though Miss Hanzo looks more amused than alarmed.

Experimental Subject #4 has raided the clothing stash and she means business.

A group portrait for National Doll Day

In honor National Doll Day, the girls gathered for a group portrait. Of course, getting everybody looking the same direction, with their eyes open, was virtually impossible.

There is no consensus on head size in this civilization.

Below the fold, there are smaller group portraits by doll type, along with a FAQ so that new visitors know what's going on here, other than, say, utter madness.

Fruits of the Park 'n' Swap

"Girl, I'm glad to see you, but we need to do something about that wig of yours."

Alexis greets her younger sister Krystle (yes, their mother was a Dynasty fan, back in the day). Krystle has called herself Krys since seventh grade.

Having read the Monster High Arena thread on fakies until midnight, following its progress from "let's laugh at the fakies" through "maybe it's worth ordering a fakie from China, let's try it" to "beautiful fakies, must own fakies!", of course I had to take advantage of a sub-100-degree day to go to the Park 'n' Swap to look at fakies. This is what the internet is for: to inspire new, fascinating, and utterly irrelevant quests that distract from existing projects and leave a person with a kitchen counter completely covered with fashion dolls in various states of undress and un-face.

The Park 'n' Swap is basically Tijuana, and I'm sure if I looked harder, I could find a vendor serving barbecued iguana on a stick. The stalls were replete with bright pink boxes of Barbie knock-offs, with quality running the gamut from "pretty convincing" through "convincingly pretty" to "Big Lots $5 beauty" to "humanoid, but... really?" It is possible to obtain an impressive kitchen playset for $25, but I didn't have that much cash on me, and I like my badly constructed corridor kitchen. (No photos because the vendors are all right there, and being the only gringo in the place already made me conspicuous.)

I did buy some crockery for a mere $1.50 total. The mugs are nicer and smaller than anything I've seen at the Mexican Import Store in Old Town Scottsdale.

And then there was the stall with used fashion dolls and their accouterments.

Stringing people along AND the cheapest fashion doll ever

Big Head Maude's drummer, Billie, is surprised to meet a new neighbor emerging from a pod. Meet Don, who must be a professor, since he wears his graduation robes everywhere.

Zia Records has a string-doll vending machine in its lobby. One dollar in quarters gets a surprise doll, currently from the "careers" series. (So maybe Don's meant to be a perpetual student, working on his fourth bachelor's degree.) While the head is smaller and there's less detailing than on Billie, Trisha, and Maude, one dollar compares favorably to the $8-$10 each that I paid for the main cast.

Across the street, at Dollar General, I identified the absolute cheapest new fashion doll available.