Why do people always have to die on my time? Someone always dies who knew someone who’s doing a job of some kind for me or for us, not that I don’t sympathize with Ricki. I decided to email her to ask how Haiku’s coming along, knowing how cursed I am with getting dolls to me. I knew there had to be some other delay and that things could be running that smoothly. Sure enough, she replied from Chicago saying her mother-in-law died and that it would set Haiku back a bit, and that she’d be in touch when she returned to North Carolina. She said Haiku should be shipped the week after next which is when I was expecting or at least hoping she’d be shipped so maybe there won’t be another delay. Not until the UPS truck breaks down anyway.

I decided I’d be okay with selling Ciara, my big 38” doll. If I can’t sell her I’ll at least keep her gown. Tom’s going to look into consignment shops which may be a better place to try to sell dolls.

Tom now has some coins and some baseball cards up for sale on eBay. He’s positive they’ll sell, saying that’s the kind of thing that sells successfully on eBay, versus porcelain dolls.

When I glanced out the bedroom window yesterday afternoon, I was delighted to see 4 p-dogs! Yes, they’re up now for the year. I gave them some old bread and lettuce.

Although I miss woods and oceans, I’m kind of glad we’ll be staying in Arizona. I mean, yes, the laws make me a bit uncomfortable, and yes, it makes me uncomfortable to be a white Jew in this state, but I really do like Arizona and I definitely prefer hot over cold.

Since we don’t have $50 extra right now, we’re just going to make a small wholesale order and pay the $5 service fee for not meeting the $50 minimum just so we can get started with learning to make our own. We’ll probably order the smallest quantities they have, like 500 punks, 250 bags, and a quarter pound of the cutting agent, plus the oils of my top 5 favorites which are pretty much Angel, Jasmine, Chocolate, Butter Rum and Vanilla Musk. These are the. Paula just may get her prank blank after all!

Then again, I may get White Shoulders rather than Jasmine, and Brown Sugar rather than Chocolate. The idea is to create my own scents. If I’m going to try to sell any I may not have as much luck if my scents are the same as other people’s. With Brown Sugar, I can maybe make Vanilla Sugar Musk, by combining the Brown Sugar and Vanilla Musk oils.

With the White Shoulders, I want to see if I can adjust it so I can smell it better. Their White Shoulders ever so barely smelled like White Shoulders.

Later…

The supplies have been ordered. I had to substitute Angel for Black Pearl as Angel wasn’t on their list, to my surprise. Black Pearl is a lot like Angel. We’re getting a ¼ pound of that, Butter Rum, Brown Sugar, Vanilla Musk and White Shoulders. The White Shoulders was a little more expensive because it’s a designer perfume that they had to pay the company with the rights to the scent a fee in order for them to use it, so it was $4.50 while the others were $3.50. We also got 100 2x12 zip-top bags for $2.50, a ½ pound of cutting agent for $1.50, and 500 natural 11” punk sticks for $3.00.

I wonder if I can take my Love Story perfume and make it into incense. We’ll find out soon enough.

If God will ever let me sell any of this stuff, I’ll stay away from the trademark names and use name variations on their scents. In other words, if I sell Angel, I’ll call it something like Heavenly Angel. If I sell Vanilla, I’ll call it Vanillalicious.