Monday morning things

* Still working on the gift-mitts; am about midway through the second one.

* I watched the movie version of The Life of Pi yesterday while knitting. I read the book not too long after it came out but there were a lot of details I had forgotten - that Pi's real name was Piscine Molitor Patel, some of the details of his early life, and just how long the lifeboat journey took. The story is, I guess, an allegory about faith - the central question being whether you prefer "the story with the animals" (where Pi is in the lifeboat at first with a tiger, a hyena, a zebra, and an orangutan but at the end winds up with just the tiger) or the story without (where the animals were stand-ins for humans - the tiger, presumably, being Pi himself, or perhaps his anger, or perhaps his baser nature). The idea being because Pi is the lone survivor and no one saw "Richard Parker" before he walked off into the forest, neither story can be proven to be the "true" one...

I do prefer the story with the animals, and I have to admit, that except for the carnivorous island bit, I actually find it either more believable, or more attractive to believe, than the one without. (I'd rather think of a tiger eating a hyena than a person who had been a lifelong vegetarian resorting to cannibalism....)

Also, I found the violence/sad events in the movie harder to take than in the book. Even little stuff like when the survival booklet where Pi had been keeping a journal blew away in a storm seems more painful when you SEE it than when you READ it.

* They're predicting big storms tomorrow evening. I hope they're not too bad though the Weather Channels' "TorCon" rating is worrisome. I also hope the roof patching I did got the leaks so I don't have more water coming in. I'm ready for us to be done with severe storms and especially hail.

* I finally got around to cleaning my bedroom, including going through the dresser and pulling stuff out of the backs of the drawers. I managed to find the "Luna Pops" t-shirt I thought I had lost. I need to do more cleaning yet but eventually I want to get it cleared enough that I feel comfortable getting an electrician in and FINALLY replacing the ceiling fan and light. (I have to buy one, first)

* I also pulled the various Monster High dolls (I....now own six. I bought an Elissabat in her black/purple dress and also the Paris version of Rochelle Goyle, both of them because I liked their outfits, so I probably won't be changing their clothes). I took off the woolen dresses the other four had on and dug out some thinner/lighter (all commercially made; I still have not made time to sew dresses) outfits and re-dressed them. I need to get a shelf for these. And one for my little herd of G1 MLPs. I just like having these things around, looking at them, handling them, posing the dolls. I know it's childish but it makes me happy. Years ago, I used to collect dolls. I still have most of my collection in storage at my parents' house and I suppose some time I should retrieve my most favorite ones so I have them down here - the Brickette and the old Toni with her trunk of mostly-handmade clothing and some of the recent Ginnys. And the Sindy I bought on a family trip to Canada when I was in high school - she was intriguing because she wasn't really available in the US. Sindy was like a somewhat-more-innocent version of Barbie; she even looked younger. I bought a bunch of her outfits, too - my favorite being a v. traditional riding get-up that even came with a long tartan skirt in addition to the jodhpurs, so she could be an old-style sidesaddle rider if you wanted. There was one shop in Quaker Square (a shopping center in Akron build into old silos from the Quaker factory) that sold some Sindy stuff (along with trains and Britain's soldiers) so I was able to get her a few more outfits there.

I keep thinking, I should try to see if I can rearrange/get rid of stuff/find better book storage so I could set up a shelf in my room for at least my few favorite dolls I've collected. And then maybe open up an Etsy store or something and sell the rest, though I bet I'd find it tedious to have to truck down to the post office every few days to put one in the mail (and deal with the inevitable saddlesoreness if the PO loses one of them, or if a bad customer CLAIMS one of them is lost). I know there are also people who just buy lots of stuff and then sell it FOR you on eBay, though you probably make less profit that way. I don't know. What I need to do is go through the old collection and maybe set aside 1/10 of it as "keepers" and then find new homes for the rest of it. (And my "keepers" might not necessarily be the most valuable dolls; I would keep the ones I liked best)

I don't know. At one point when I first got into it I had visions of making money off the collection one day but one thing I've learned as an employed adult is that stuff like that is a hard way to make money, and you generally don't make as much as you'd want to. And also, that the way that you keep stuff "really" valuable for the "hardcore" collectors is no fun - the letters NFRB, meaning Never Removed From Box. One thing I see on a lot of the Ponyblogs and other places is that some people are big into alteration now - oh, I'm sure the NRFB people are still out there - but it does make me happier to see people *enjoying* their collection. So people do stuff like figure out solutions for what is termed "box hair" on the new ponies. (The other night, I took the Applejack "Water Cutie" I had and washed her hair with a little conditioner, and then wrapped her mane around her neck and her tail around her leg like I saw some of the pony-people doing. It did soften up her mane and make it more smooth-looking, so I may take the Rarity I have that is like that and take care of her hair next.

And you know? There is something sort of regressively FUN about doing that - about washing your doll's hair (or "doll's," these are animal figures that play that role) and dressing her in different outfits and all that. Much more fun than having the thing in a box stored somewhere away from all natural light so MAYBE in fifteen years you can sell her at a profit. (If the market hasn't crashed, and if anyone has enough disposable income for fripperies like that....the more I look at what's going on in the economy, the more I say, "Buy yourself a few toys now, and enjoy them, because in the future you might not be able to").

Honestly, if you want an investment? Buy stocks. Or gold, Or real estate, depending on your philosophy and what the advisors are saying this week. (Though I hear those ads claiming you can make "lots of passive income" by buying real estate and renting it, and I cringe and think of my buddy Bruce from grad school, who had to make a flying trip home one week to help his dad deal with a particularly nutso tenant who wasn't paying rent, refusing to move out on the pre-agreed move-out date, and was damaging the property. Being a landlord is more work, and more confrontational work, than I'd ever want)

Also, I think it's important to remember that happiness is worth something too. You can't put a dollar value on it but maybe that's why it's so important.