Kay Buena's Blog

     Just as I was going to brag about how pretty “Betty Jane” looks,  now that her wig  is all new and nice, her “make-up” updated, and her new eyelashes make that crazy serious stare go away… She’s all better and those long missingeyelashes on where she lost them in that long ago explosion, were also replaced  adding to her whole new look.  Now, instead of a serious detective and companion, she simply looks like an old “tart”, or a woman of ill repute..  I was trying to tone it  down, only now I  think I waited too  long to please her.  I was, just sort of telling you of how I might have really acted in my usual “make-believe”, silly story manner (an act not with out  it’s own problem’s, here in this’ happy orderly’, ranch of  the rude, residence of  the Ageing Asperger’s Anonymous (that would be me,  and the whole crowd (betty Jane included) though all these things are true and good to talk about;  “Betty Jane”, it seems, done left the building.

      I have searched high and low for her.  But she’s gone, solid gone.  And when, I say I did the total inspection of all of our houses “areas, in which a 12” tall doll could  “hide” or be hidden; I mean just that.  All have been noticed and I am not pleased with my findings, however there could be some tye-in with  the local happenings out side my juresdiction, such as  there always are.  My complete shock about what was a really a bee’s nest of worries, plus the lost of my old role model Betty Jane, topped off  by the Global news, Wall Street’s inability to get back to a mid-line “irrational exuberance ” as it should be to better reflecting business, ‘stead of rumour,  All these things put together are  literally—too much.  Must have been that way for Betty Jane too, and with the additional ‘old tart’ attack on her person, it must have been the last straw. 

Dear reader, Don’t think of me as being nuts enough to really live an existence in which the doll 
was really speaking to me or anything resembleing 2 sick minds at work…but she was not furniture. She was a doll of a different sort.    All of her antics where allot more exciting than the  average life-term of a doll’s reach…

     What?  Someone mentioned her being with the Government Bureaucracy,  the Witness Protecton Agency where they took her under another name to Williamsburg, Virginia for a fresh start,  or a clean leave–  this could be an indication of her willing need for a change.   I could see how this would be a good thing,  until she can prove she can focus and take action on her own, like the ‘old days’ with me, as someone else’s doll ( and work her way into someone else’s web-blog).  But how ever you look at the facts, she is not  here in my house staring this screen down, or taunting the cats, as she should be.   I searched through absolutely every thing we’ve got.  I did a really thourogh examination of all our house’s storage area’s  (except-in the computer area’s, –hmmm…………..)

  …perhap’s I better check out this one little situation over here; OH< NO>OH

It’s Betty Jane’s  Monday Underpanties. Check this out ,youse, it’s all that’s left.

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    When Betty Jane (Notorious music critic, companion, and  a 58 year old doll, with a proclivity for mischief,  mayhem, and mystery) first came into my life , she was almost too pretty to be taken seriously.  Oddly enough, though — as it is for us all, her beauty was really internal, and was in the eye of this beholder.  But above all else, Betty Jane was clever, with many other virtues besides the serious look on her face. Besides her classic beauty, she was the smartest of all my dolls.  What I remember most was her wardrobe.  It was extensive, coordinated, and she had  two  pairs  of shoes. As did I at the time.   My mother had made all  her clothes while I was in nursery school, and Mom found the little “dolly trunk” at a local toy-store in Fairborne, Ohio, where we lived at that time.  The trunk was a treasure, but no longer with us.  It served her well when we had it, not only to keep her wardrobe together, but it appeared many times, having many a nefarious purpose, including hiding another doll’s corpse during the “adventures of Foxie and Betty Jane” that my brother and I cooked up in our ‘yout..’

     I’m not very sure about what happened to her hair, which is to say : I rememberize¹her hair when she was new as being long and blonde.  I do remember the unfortunate hair cut and dye job ( done with grass sheers and mercurochrome) that I do believe  was my own work.  But now that she is once again in action, her hair looks worse that arey an egret, and I was determined to change what had been done (by me) to help my old friend and equal in the food chain of this household. So I started her make-over with the hair.  Always a good choice.  “You can’t tell a book by looking at the cover,”  but a doll with a mangy old rotting wig will just plain turn off a tornado.  It also looks really bad and sad.  Fortunately, I possessed a strange hair piece that made my own mangy pony tail appear (then blonde) a whole lot better than  the reality of my own said  “-do.” 

     So, I took my trusty pinch-nosed pliers and ripped that wig right off her plastic, egg shaped head. (“Oh,ouch, the internal injuries… etc.,”  exclaimed Betty Jane, but her expression remained stoic. That’s one thing that’s really great about having a doll with a straight face.  They generally don’t change moods.  (“yow, ouch”)–Even during painful events.

     When she came back into my life in 2005,  her hair had gone over to the dark side, and she still had her awkward posture and “baseball-hip”. (There is an injury many a baseball player has, in which the thumb is shoved into the relatively large synovial cavity of the first metacarpal joint. The  corresponding inflammation in the thumb from catching a hard ball with the thumb is liable to be followed by abscesses in the forearm from extension of the inflammation along the continuous synovial sheaths.  The particular synovial anatomy of the hand (in that the thumb and little finger, for what ever reason the Lord made those fingers a tad anotomically different from the others ) is such that the fluid can be forced from the one swelling to the other, under the ligament.  (Not that you needed to know that…).  But in Betty Jane’s case, her baseball leg had been shoved into her torso (ouch ) during an explosion prepared by my much admired brother, who was a pyromaniacal kid back then.   But I am in digression as usual; the hairdo problem with Betty Jane, must have happened in 1952, as I got her in 1951, when her contenance was much too pretty for out door work. 

      As it is now “Gray Slop” or Winter in Austin, I tend to look forward to the ridiculous and semi-improbable duties I get to perform, such as just last month,  some one else, besides myself,noticed that my  own hair-do was ‘in a yellow alert mode’, too — as the gray of my hair became a seasonal liability, a camouflage for disappearing into the scenery.  Sort of like a hunter with no red vest… Who cares if I go bald?  No one would notice except Charles.  However, going blond if gray, is one Hell of a lot easier than going gray from blond, as I remarked in the past.  Charles looks forward to these times when I am Not remarking anything at all.  That’s why I get to tell you these stupid stories (however true they are) as even HE  cannot withstand the test of time when the rubber meets the road or when a jabbering idiot is in 4th gear, even if that jabbering idiot has an artistic flare for detail. (‘Wonders will never cease’and after all, God is in the details) ha ha. 

     Betty Jane is not as fond of the Christmas season, as some of us are, in that it is her request to be boxed after thanksgiving.  Yes, she still closes her eyes when she sleeps, even though I performed cataract surgery pre-holiday ,this last year.  I tried to restructure the color of her eyes, and succeeded using fancy artsy, two-ended extra fine markers for the iris, a black perminent marker for the pupil and topped that off with some clear nail polish applied with a tiny brush in a thin coat.  The eyes have it.  All I need to do now, as I also fixed her hip problem by yanking the little plastic leg out of her torso, with great precision…is work on her wardrobe (she has one pair of underpants with Monday written next to a flower. )  That part could take a while, however you may enjoy the tale of how she achieved that base ball hip. And I will post her picture now that she is once again too pretty to go outside.

     Chapter 2 in Betty Jane’s Makeover to be continued ,until whenever Charles can’t stand to hear me (Otra Vez) .  Probably tomorrow.

We will have to wait on the picture of Betty Janes’s new look, as she has refused to cooperate. Hopefully, tomorrow –on that too.

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(1.) Mance Libscomb, “rememberize” in his introduction to “Smile on, smile on Harvest Moon”; DVD

     Once in the line of duty, *”Betty Jane”, my childhood’s favorite doll and clever female detective, associate of the master crime fighter of yester-year “Foxie” (see Betty Jane’s laundry day, where she “unplugs” that box thing (my old Dell Computer) and hangs up her wet laundry all over it’s parts and portals, for the tale of her reappearance in my life and consciousness.)  Although, she was basically an anarchist and my very most favorite doll, she was most insistant about  following proper protocol, amd intolerant of idiocy or things with no purpose.  She took great offense at the obviously offensive “modern Radio”, (I meant to offend you with that tedious word play) that she heard on one of those random Mp3 like programs coming from the box.   This “modern millennium ,” in her humble opinion, “sucked, big time.”

      Where was the music she craved to hear?  And what was this crap she heard when she came back “in there” , to the current time, when beside my computer in the down stairs Work Room, she once again took control? Perhaps the whole purpose of this music was to make one’s  rubber band break,  head and limbs detach and become one with the chaos of the in this junk room; if so, it ‘s working.    

      This music  was not a soothing, restful, spiritually satisfying  addition to the ambiance, that, in her* ever modest opinion, was craved.  But, I was so happy to have “Betty Jane” in the ” here and now” to discuss or repeat unnecessary truths. Having her here again was more or less a “freeing” experience to what-ever and which-ever direction things flew, as little is of no consequence to us both when we are quite busy.  However, all had changed in the absence of her participation and she was none too pleased with how this happened, regardless of mine or anyone elses wishes. In fact, the concept of the word Random, pissed her off , most assuredly.  And lets face it , yawls; ain’t nothing really too dang “random,”  that was ever picked out by this blankety blank computer, no how.   It occurred to Betty Jane that real music, involves the very human personal offering  by real live musicians (People not machines). And even letting that idiotic box-thing pick out what was to be played seemed, well…just wrong, in many ways.

     And music is something that everyone relates to, in their own way, with their own ears, a very personal  choice that has been made by the listener, for his or her needs at the time,  however dusty, germ infested, mold infested the needs or ears of said listener may be. But what she heard now, did not make her feel good.  And when  any doll or person does  not  “get” the locals’ music being played (particularly when it is being played constantly in one’s newly awakened and transferred assignment) all dolls and people tend to feel alone, maybe totally alienated from life, and truly sad.  Lets face it, right next to that Box thing which that old lady stares down for many a moment, next to Betty Jane’s person was a grown up and over the hill version, she thought, of who could be my former little girl and playmate (that would be me to whom she refers here) but who knows?  She could be an actor, that happens too.)   We are both a little “old-time” for that  music being offensively played here in her space, as far as musical history is concerned. Hasn’t she noticed this?   So, whats the point?:   Who needs that?   What we don’t need in this junk room, is something that makes you feel bad or out of it.   No way! It’s bad enough as it is. And incidently, what’s with all this “junk…”  Perhaps her “geezerly former little girl” had become  one of those hoarders, like that old lady who we used to visit in Arlington, Virginia, who had piles of newspapers and old bottles and cans in moving boxes lined up through out her house.  Role models, they’re  every where.  Too bad this dang geezerly former little girl didn’t get  transfered long ago.  All this extra stuff would be long gone,if so.   but who knows?  Time, however many days, months or years we were dis-involved together, had really changed her little girl, Caroline U. Hiney Hine.   

  Regardless of one’s surroundings:  What we want  here and now is music that’s up-lifting and familiar, that is like a warm bath on a very hot or cold day, or when we put on freshly ironed clean clothes and are prepared for the possibility of the Queen of England’s visit for tea… Frankly she was “antsy” in these surroundings. as it is said, ” who ain’t, ain’t worth knowing”. (1.>)

     She, Betty Jane, was used to the greats: Chuck Berry.  Little Richard.  Muddy Waters.  Hank Williams.  Ernie K Doe.  Ike and Tina;  (lets face it, there is an extreme difference in AM radio from the years 1951-2005 when she popped back into life.  But fortunately for her, that old lady was a familiar spirit, and she had the good sense  to play her entire collection of Koerner, Ray and Glover,which lasted about 2 hours.  Much better.  (“shake it on down” Dave Ray….) These acceptable three  musicians  are very good, and appear to be obvious maniacs -harmonizing in that magically rambunctious fugue- like rendition ( that they did in their ‘yout’) and it was Just the thing.  That’s a comforting experience for all.  We (Betty Jane and I) share an intense regard for the lyrics and cadence of language.  I feel a  sad presence now.  It  must be because Betty Jane fears she is “homeless” to some extent, as the usual music and havoc  going on in the here and now is beyond redemption. In that she surly doesn’t belong here; where the inevitability of  depression, stress, and sheer frustration, builds up in such a big way, in such a big silent and strange  house, until someone inevitably flips their lid.  Said Betty Jane: ” who needs this here?”

    By the by, the secret to a good one-on-one relationship is, often, simply making sure you take turns blowing one’s top.  Do that in such a manner as to make sure the “flip out” does not happen in duality; but if it does, it is best that the “two head explosions” not happen at the same time. Things get messy, but that’s the way it goes, life.  and all that.   OK.

   As has been Betty Jane’s and my experience, when the  “lid is flipped’, this is best described as a nervous breakdown, or can be so serious as to be suspected of being a sociopathic fit;  when what’s really going down, is merely  that ones temper is  completely lost.  The cadence is broken, and attention spans differ, no question about that;  It is normal to express your self when you  need something or someone badly and all you get is the side of a box.  I don’t care what your circumstances are or who is running the show.   Even if they look like her little girl, Caroline U Hiney Hine, it is possible but not probable that that person is she who once was that little girl.  But little girls come and go, and in this family those little girls have come, and gone, and went way over the top, and beyond the great divide for some time, as a great tradition never needs to  change, but that does not matter here.   And It is always really hard to remember a name, if It’s way too long.   Who does?   Not this doll, but some instinctual voice is telling Betty Jane that this old hag is indeed that playfully fair kid that was hers in the first place.   Sure it is.  Oh, and her little girl would answer to “Shorty Mentally.” (S.M, for short) as she was frequiently also addressed as such. 

      But whomever she is or what she was called, perhaps finally she will begin to realize she has responsibilities, that she is NOT the only person in the world.  Maybe these thoughts or  actions of a disconcerting nature, could transulate our feelings into familiar experiences that we have shared?  This is a difficult thing to do, however it is possible. The years seem just across the street when old familiar eyes connect  after a period of rest and reflection.  Like 55 years, is nothing when paired with the stone age, or when Jesus walked the earth, that was long long long ago, in a land far away. (And perfect ?  Her little girl(geezer that she is today) she aint.  Even Betty Jane “recollected” what happened to that old boy in 33 B.C.)  But we all know that.  No need to establish given facts if you believe and are patient. However 2005 years after Jesus’ birth in some way leads up to now, and fantasy is not an accepted “given” in some people or dolls. (2.)  Not everyone would know or understand this girl – doll relationship thing, anyway.  However, she will, if that really is my little personage, Caroline U Hiney Hine, of the given Jungle.  So I, the every wise and honest Betty Jane, said plainly: ” Hey, Shorty Mentally, what’s wit dis dang musack?”  Her former little girl just  focused on her old doll with her mouth open in supprise for a very long time.

     If I can just reach over and hit that “Esc” key on that new fangled typewriter, that will undoubtedly cleanse the pallet.  It is important to gain the attention of the aspergian idiot connected to this here box, with out question, before one’s point can be made with a facial expression or even an exclamation.  Betty Jane squinted her glassy eyes, and pursed her very red lips.  This is a simple procedure that can be done by anyone with the nerve to interrupt one of these fiends, so don’t try this at home unless you’re really on good terms with the computer user.

 Ah, hah! That worked: what a shocking experience, however one with results.  And look who She brought here for me to meet? :  James Brown, the hardest worker in show business, and “he feels good” too.(although he is a tad repetitive.)  So Betty Jane and James Brown had excellent company together and I am sure, will be engaged in many an odd and amusing adventure as one can imagine them to interact.  Click on the picture above for a closer view.  Notice how nice and clean Betty Jane’s clothing is today.  All is well.  Well, except for that box thing was annoying the absolute ravings out of both Betty Jane and her new friend, James Brown. 

      I noticed the plug had been pulled out of the wall when next I went down to observe their progress.  Good play, yawl… Next adventure?  who knows?

AS ever,

KayBuena  of the here and now

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(1.) I said that, Caroline Abbitt Sauer  AKA     Kay Buena (who done dreamed the impossible dream one too many times.)

(2.) Betty Jane sprung into action and verbalization in 2005, after a somewhat lengthy hiatus.  She came into my life on my 4th birthday, some 35 years ago–(just kidding..Lord help us all, it’s been 58 years ago when Betty Jane arrived !aaaahhhhhhhggggg…)