a few photos

 Today was the herbaceous vegetation lab. I was hurting a lot - it's suddenly got very humid here, and Monday afternoon I think I pulled a hamstring a little bit while stretching - but I managed. (Oh, how ready I am for the pain/stiffness/limitation to my gait to be gone. I have good days where I think it's better and then I do too much and I'm worse again the next day).

I did grab a few photos

this is Castilleja indivisa or Indian paintbrush. I think when I took systematics it was in the Scrophulariaceae, but it's now been put in Orobanchaceae, which kind of makes sense, given that it's hemiparastic (it taps into the roots of other plants and grabs a few of the nutrients they've taken up - this is more common than you might think)

There's also another form/species of this that is all cream colored.

And this is Baptisia australis, or blue false indigo.. It's a legume. I don't know if you can dye with it but it's a common prairie plant (there are several species across the US, and also B. leucophaea, which is cream colored)

The last one is a blue-eyed grass, genus Sisyrinchium. I'm not sure (I didn't bother to key it out) if it's campestre  or angustifolia. These are super common here this time of year

***

Something else that came in the mail. I had almost all of the Creatable World dolls (I remembered buying them in 2021, but I think that's when the line ended - I think I first got them in 2019.)

This was a small Mattel line, they were roughly Skipper-sized, but designed to be pre-pubescent kids and the unusual thing about the line was that the dolls came with a short haircut and a longer wig that fit over, and a mix of "boy coded" and "girl coded" clothes. The idea was, the kids could make the dolls be whoever they wanted - boy, girl, nonbinary, whatever. 

The line wasn't popular. I think part of it was it was an odd size - while the big kits of the dolls came with lots of clothing (several tops, a couple pants/shorts/skirts, and usually 2-3 pairs of shoes), most standard doll clothes don't fit them (I've had some success with the shorter Barbie dresses on the girl dolls). I've also seen some collectors complain the wigs were too bulky, and I don't know, maybe? 

I think there was also some upset over the whole "they can be a boy or a girl or neither" though I didn't hear/read a lot of think pieces on that. 

They also weren't super-widely available - I never saw them at the wal-mart here, and it was a few months after they came out that the Target got them. They were more expensive, probably because of the details and amount of clothing the big sets included. And the quality of the clothing is very high; I wish most Barbies sold now had clothes so detailed, with real closures like zippers, and made of a variety of fabrics (I have a pair of swim trunks that are actually that sort of meshy fabric on the inside).

At any rate - I got a few early on, and then added a few more. Eventually I had all but one - the blond doll with a partly shaved head (for the short hair style) or a curly blond wig (for the long hair style). Part of it was I didn't like the look of the blond wig on the doll in the photos I saw, and the short haircut frankly made the kid look like the stereotypical "d-bag" type.. 

But the more I thought about it, my desire for a "complete" set got to me, and I wanted one. As I said, the line was discontinued a couple years back, and so they're not easily available any more. But I found a toyshop in the UK that had the blond doll in the "stripped down" set (just the doll, dressed in the little shorts and tank top that serve as underwear and the wig - not even shoes, which is a shame, as they have odd sized feet and no other doll shoes fit). But it was fine, I have a lot of clothes and shoes.

He - because I decided he's the third boy out of the eight I have - came today

I tried the wig on but no, really didn't like it.  And I had a name for him - his name is Duncan. (I had already thought of Kip or something similarly preppy, but I like Duncan better). Duncan because of the minor character who's been in a couple episodes of Bob's Burgers - a funny exchange student from New Zealand. Duncan is fairly sweet (compared to the rest of the King's Head Island crew, who are the typical unpleasant rich kids) and kind of dim, but Tina does have a crush on him (probably partly his accent, which I admit, that kind of thing worked on me at that age - I remember having a crush on an exchange student from the UK, partly because of his accent but also partly he was one boy who would talk with me, though I was aware enough to realize he didn't reciprocate how I felt)

Anyway, this Duncan is a bit similar: he's from a Commonwealth country (Britain instead of New Zealand) and he's a sweet kid but maybe not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Maybe even a bit of what they call a himbo, or the phrase I've heard is "pure of heart, dumb of @$$" which makes me crack up a little every time I think of it. (And I'd rather have someone like that as a friend than someone who was smart but was always snarky and sarcastic)

This Duncan is in clothes from the Creatable World line - the khakis (which even have tiny pockets!) and a t-shirt with a monkey and a green jacket with a real zipper, and the little high tops.

So now my little collection is complete; I have all eight. Five girls and three boys. (I am too hidebound and traditional to pick one to be NB, I guess). Several of the girls (like Mary-Margaret) are pretty GIRLY girls, too - she always wears dresses or skirts, as does Theophani.