Miss Chrissy and The Man have a vast and varied library. There are so many volumes, it has taken us Whimsies this long to just go through and read all the titles on the book spines! Well…truth be told, as we’ve been making our attempt to read just the titles, we’ve gotten distracted many times, stopping to read a novel (or two…), or simply turn pages, looking at pretty pictures. Well, I am here to report that today is a momentous day! I have at last come to the end of the very last bottom shelf, and now I sit back on my rear, thinking…”My goodness! What a vast and varied library!”
Before I get to the good stuff, let me first mention that there are plenty of titles in this library that don’t interest us Whimsies at all. For instance, The Man is a Big Fan of Horror Movies, which don’t really appeal to us that much (except a little bit, at Halloween), so we really have no desire to look past the titles. But believe me, there are plenty of books about horror movies!
Also, Miss Chrissy has quite a number of cookbooks, but since we Whimsies don’t eat…much…we really don’t care about recipes for crockpots, or What to Do with Vegetables. She does have one or two beautiful books about Christmas treats, and we’ll probably share those with you someday soon, but for right now, it’s been my goal to pick out two books that show exactly how varied this library is.
So here is what I came up with. First, let’s take a look at Dulac’s the Snow Queen and Other Stories by Hans Christian Anderson. Well, we all know who Hans Christian Anderson is! He’s one of the main writers of what we generally think of as “fairy tales.” And this book is full of fairy tales! The Snow Queen, the Little Mermaid, and The Emperor’s New Clothes are just a few. The words belong to Mr. Anderson, 
but the pictures are all by Edmund Dulac, who is this artist who draws simply beautiful pictures in very much a “fairy tale style.”
Just take a look at some of these gorgeous pictures! They’re so quaint, and yet also so…ethereal. I didn’t know what “ethereal” meant, but Tillie suggested the word, which she learned from Jennifer, who learned it from her Professor parents. It means delicate…eerie…otherworldly. And this IS otherworldly, because when you read these stories and look at these pictures, you go directly to this other world, which is so unlike our own. At least for a little while, until you pick your head up from the book and stop reading.
And when you pick your head up, if you happen to glance over just a shelf or two, you’re likely to find this book in your field of vision—(and now for something completely different!)—Solve It With Salt, by Patty Moosbrugger.
***Tee hee***
Sorry. But I can’t help laughing at that author’s name. When I first saw it, I read it as Mooseburger. Haha! Could you imagine having a name like Mooseburger? I bet any kid who had to grow up with a name like that would get teased a lot in school. Getting teased so much, that kid might go home and cry and mope, but when they’re older, they might buy a gun and go back to school and shoot everyone who ever made a joke about their name. Brrrrr…it’s scary! And it makes me glad that I never had to go to school, because when you think of it, school could be a pretty scary place, with all those crazy people running around doing whatever the heck they want.
On the other hand, our imaginary Mooseburger kid might simply shake it off and join in the laughter, and then they would actually be pretty popular with all the other kids, and when they get older they would join a rock band, and everyone would come to their concerts, and the name of the band would be Mooseburger, and they would throw out mooseburgers to the audience during intermission. Well, they might only be little $1 hamburgers from McDonald’s because I’m not really sure where you would actually get real mooseburgers. Miss Chrissy likes to watch that show about people who move to Alaska, and from that she has learned and shared with me that you can’t actually BUY moose meat, you have 
to go out and kill the moose yourself if you want to make a mooseburger. Or, you have to know someone who’s a hunter and likes to hunt moose, and doesn’t mind sharing their moose meat with you. I mean, you would probably have to be very good friends with someone if you wanted them to share their moosemeat with you.
But I digress…
Getting back to this lovely little volume about what you can do with salt, we read here on the cover that you can relive dry skin, clear sinuses, eliminate odors, polish copper and brass, etc. etc. etc. I don’t really have a lot of those problems, since my skin is never dry, and my sinuses are fine, and I don’t own any copper or brass. But my ears perked up when I read that salt can remove odors.
You see, there’s a section in here about smelly shoes. As you know, we recently got a whole bunch of new shoes from the Ebay Boutique, but they are all second hand, and one of the pairs in particular (I won’t tell you which, because I wouldn’t want the shoes to feel embarrassed…) have a bit of an odor to them. Miss Chrissy put a little baking powder inside them for a couple of days, and that helped somewhat, but now I’m wondering if maybe she should have used salt instead!
Well, it’s certainly worth a try, isn’t it? I mean, salt is so plentiful and so inexpensive, why not? In fact, reading some more in this book, I’ve decided that if we ever plant a garden, I’m going to remember that we can use salt to prevent cabbage, worms, kill slugs, and relieve any beestings we might get, working in the great outdoors.
So there you have it! Everything from fairy princesses to slugs. In the Library, you can travel to enchanted underwater kingdoms, then discover a salty recipe to relieve any jellyfish stings you might get in that world of enchantment. In the Library, the fantastical meets the practical, time after time. You never know what you’re going to find next.
Oh! One more thing, which I didn’t even realized until I wrote this entire post: Not only is there a “Moose” reference on the cover of the Salt book, but there is also an actual MOOSE on the cover of the fairy tale book! How weird is that? Not planned that way at all, I just pulled two random books from the shelf, supposedly as unalike as possible, and yet…so very alike in this one particular way.
Woooo-OOOOOO-ooooooo! Yeah, life is like that sometimes.
But now we have shoes…lots and lots of shoes! So we know that whatever outfits we might put together, we would be able to add some appropriate shoes to finish off the look, and make us able to safely and comfortably walk those long distances past the gates of Whismieville.
Tillie played around with the pirate outfit, and with all her crazy hair, we just had to laugh and agree that she makes the perfect pirate! Doesn’t the eye patch look absolutely adorable on her? Adding the brown suede boots even gives the impression of pirate boots…well…sorta. It was the best she could do, and she spent most of the evening clomping around, shouting “Yo ho! Yo ho! A pirate’s life for me!” So those poor little boots really got a workout!
Now as for me, I end up with the pumpkin outfit, which suits me just fine. I always wondered what it would feel like to be fat, and this gave me an opportunity to try it out. But it’s a most peculiar feeling I don’t particularly care for! It’s very difficult to stand upright when your belly is this big! I kept wanting to fall forward, and had to pull myself upright at the last minute. Luckily, my black patent leather shoes gave me some good footing, and as we traveled the concrete and asphalt roads to the Neighbors’ Houses I was even able to get off a little tap dancing! That made the Holiday feel extra festive!
Oh my! Isn’t this funny! The funny part for me is that this is the way I remember Miss Chrissy, because this is what she looked like when we used to live together all those years ago, before I got taken away by wolves. I don’t remember Halloween, or trick-or-treat, from back in those days, because back in those days young Whimsies didn’t do such things. But I do remember Miss Chrissy like this. Of course she’s much older now, and does look different, but we Whimsies are really good at seeing past the superficialities of age, and seeing the person inside. So when I look at this picture of Miss Chrissy, I remember who she was when we first knew each other…but at the same time, I can easily see that she’s exactly the same person.
(During our recent bad weather, Tillie fell in love with the flameless candle and decided it would work just perfectly to create an eerie mood for her scary story.)
The Peter Max poster was taken off the wall in the den, and a big white sheet was hung up in its place. (Jennifer’s Professor parents were very modern, so their walls were never white, they were always some strong, almost psychedelic color, and the way I remember it, the walls of the den were some shade of….gold…) Anyway, I’d been to the movies before with Jennifer and her parents, so I was no stranger to BIG movie images, but never before in our own house! And it was also strange to be watching a movie in grainy black-and-white, rather than Technicolor. Add on top of all that: it’s a silent movie!
Of course, the creepiest thing of all about this movie, is Nosferatu himself. Nosferatu is a vampire, and if I’m remembering this right, he is the first vampire to ever appear in a movie. And he’s nothing like the vampires from movies that we’ve seen since then. Frank Langella in the 1970’s was absolutely handsome, as was George Hamilton in Love at First Bite (which doesn’t really count, because it’s a comedy, and boy! Is that movie funny!) Even Barnabas Collins from TV’s Dark Shadows looks better than Noferatu! This first movie vampire has a huge bald head, pointed ears, dark eyes, long fingernails, bad teeth—nothing you would consider even remotely attractive in a vampire, never mind a human being! Add to all this the dramatically creepy background organ music, the black-and-white, he doesn’t even talk so you have no idea what he’s thinking, and frankly…he’s absolutely terrifying!
As for that laughing, I have a theory. I think the other partygoers, the Grown-Up Professors, were also frightened by Nosferatu, but too embarrassed to admit it, so they chose to cover their fear with laughter, so nobody would know how they really felt. People do that sometimes, you know.
(Trixie puts on the Halloween pajammy to cuddle up with several dozen scary movies! Here’s what she has to say about them.)
I say three, because one of them is really two: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Dr. Jekyll himself is not scary, at least not the way he looks. But it is kind of scary when you think about a man who is a scientist and wants to mess around with human nature. Sure, human nature is not always the best, but everything in books and movies paints a pretty convincing argument that trying to mess around with human nature never makes it better, it only makes it worse! So why keep trying? All you get is this monster, who’s ugly, and rude, and very scary. Not the sort of fellow you’d like to run into in the grocery store…never mind in a dark alley at midnight!
That was a very bad time of my life, having to live with them, and I’m not going to dwell on it. Let’s go back to the movies. How about this one: Is anyone really in love with the Frankenstein monster? Talk about scary-looking! Flat head, scars all over, bolts in his neck! There’s never been anyone like him. He’s sort of alive…but also sort of dead. What is he? A monster? An ogre? But he’s nice to the little girl, he doesn’t want to hurt anyone. Like Hulk (who is also scary-looking) he just wants to be left alone. Of course, it’s his creator, Dr. Frankenstein, who’s the real monster. But that’s a whole ‘nother story that I won’t go into here.
(Tessie feels nothing says “Halloween” better than a black cat! So here she is with our resident black cat—Mr. Squee!)
I could tell you all about mummies, ghosts and ventriloquists, but the most unsettling thing I’ve ever seen in the movies is a “comedy” team called Abbott and Costello. The big one, Abbott, is domineering and mean, and the short fat one, Costello, is just plain stupid. He’s always doing things that get them in trouble. These two have run into Trixie’s Frankenstein AND Jekyll and Hyde in their movies, as well as Count Dracula, and every time, they muff it up big-time. It’s supposed to be funny, but to me it’s just frustrating, and the scary part is that there might really be people in the world as dim-witted as the chubby guy in the goofy hat. 
I’ll go first, since I think my shoes are the fanciest. They are white patent leather, tied up with great big white bows. If you ask me, these look like “tap shoes,” which are for dancing, and if I had a video camera, you would see that I did quite a bit of dancing while wearing these shoes, and they dance very well, except that they don’t actually have taps on the bottom. But if they did, I would be tapping up a storm!
Now let’s take a look at Tessie. She’s got a bit of pink and white stripes going on, to help show off her new shoes…which are most peculiar, because really….what the heck is going on with these shoes? I mean, they’re clearly sneakers, which are the upmost in casual footwear, but not only are they pink, they’re covered with sparkles!! Sparkly pink sneakers! Oh my! The Fashion Diva in me is left absolutely breathless. I can’t wait to put on these sparkly pink sneakers with some of my favorite pink outfits. Not only do they look super sharp, but Tessie reports they are absolutely as comfortable as you would expect any pair of sneakers to be. 
And oh…now…at last we come to the very best of all. Because I think no one can top how totally stlish and gorgeous Miss Tillie looks in her fancy outfit with her fancy new golden shoes. Did you hear me? Can you see? GOLDEN shoes! But really, they’re more like slippers, almost like ballerina slippers, slip-ons with a simple X strap across the top. The shoes are great, of course, but look at the outfit Tillie has put together to show them off! That skirt she’s wearing…well, I’ll let you in on a little secret: it’s not really a skirt! Actually, it IS a skirt, but it’s a “tree skirt” for a very tiny Christmas tree. It just so happens that the size of the base of a very small Christmas tree is exactly the same as a Whimsie’s waistline, so Tillie has simply tied this “skirt” around her waist, and doesn’t it look festive, paired with a simple black turtleneck? 
We always have so much fun when we get new clothes (and new shoes!) and get to rummage through our wardrobe to put together new looks to share with you here. However, as we prepared for this photo shoot, one thing was very obvious: our Wardrobe is getting so BIG, it’s totally out of control!! It’s almost impossible to find anything anymore. Well, we can find anything we need, it just takes a long, long time, because there are so many clothes to go through! So our next project, here in Whimsieville, is to do a total reorganization of our Wardrobe! All our shoes together in one place, all our hats together in another, all tops, all bottoms, all dresses, all socks, etc. etc. I’m imagining this could take all day. But that’s okay, because we have the whole day ahead of us. Miss Chrissy is making some hot chocolate with mini-marshmallows and whipped cream, and with that sweet treat to fortify us for the task at hand, we’ll get right down to business. And, with any luck at all, the next time you see us, we should be Totally…Organized…Whimsies!
Tillie here! And I’ve got a little story to tell you…
around quite a bit, but that’s all. Still…you never know when weather might get dangerously bad, so it’s a good thing to know what you’re going to do in case it does.
In the Safe Place there is a radio with batteries, in case the electricity goes out and the TV won’t work anymore. If we can’t hear the TV Weatherman on the TV, at least we can listen to him on the radio. There are also flashlights and a couple of “flameless candles,” which are really cool, because they look just like a candle, but there is no actual flame that might burn you. 
Miss Chrissy and The Man have a couple of bicycle helmets tucked away in a corner of the Safe Place. If the Weatherman ever said the weather was getting REALLY REALLY bad, they would put those on. They would also put some money and some Important Papers in their pockets, and keep it all safe there pinned down with a safety pin.
In fact, last night, we just mostly listened to the rain and the thunder and the TV Weatherman, and watched the lightning, and stayed alert, ready for anything. We were ready, ready for anything…and nothing happened. And that’s a good thing.
Except for poor Tessie. She’s a bit sensitive. Sometimes, I would even say she’s timid. I think maybe the possibility of bad things happening reminds her too much of her experiences from years ago, when she was abducted from Miss Chrissy’s clubhouse by wolves, and they bit off her earlobe. It was a terrible, terrible time for her, and even though she usually doesn’t think about it (she doesn’t ***dwell on it) sometimes the memory can come back pretty strong and make her feel more afraid and anxious than she actually needs to feel.
Last night, Trixie wanted to stay in the Safe Place all night, and listen to rock and roll music on the radio, and use the flashlights to play games with Mr. Squee. She kept wanting to try on Miss Chrissy’s bicycle helmet, which of course doesn’t fit her — not even close! She went rummaging around in the boxes and running through all the hanging clothes, thinking this was all one big lark.
