Through the Window with Winter

It's gray. In a pretty way.

Vacation as inverted by the Go-Gos

This Entry is a little rambling, like the end of a vacation. If you missed the post about the Mushroom Soup, I highly recommend you check it out. The whole recipe is being demonstrated by the Coffee Poppets.

You see I was thinking about the Go-Gos.

Did you know they were a punk group?

Yes they were. Really.

But this silly song, made with a silly video, made them a pop girl group.

It's very hard to say "no" to material success, but you can't really lie about yourself.

I wonder what would happen to them now.

Everyone would have known that they were hard core punk, because they would have a facebook following and a rating at Pitchfork.

The video of them being quite drunk and obscene would not only have come out in realtime, it would have probably made them more popular.

But only with their niche. No crossover success. I wonder if it would have been better.

The chorus is a rousing

"Vacation, All I ever wanted.

Vacation, had to get away.

Vacation, meant to be spent alone."

But the rest of the song is someone who couldn't enjoy herself because she's pining away for some jerk. So she isn't really doing anything for herself at all.

And yet, I see the song sung as a kind of ode to vacations.

I think they're doing it wrong.

Alone time is best punctuated by time with friends.

We've had some latecomers to the house.

Poppet and Cthulu came up with the second shift.

Did you know that the Cthulu stories and Miskatonic U. and such have a bit of history in Massachusetts?

The Shadow over Innsmouth takes place in an area further north than the Shipwright's House but the landscape is the same.

Poppet and Cthulu were able to find a number of locations pleasing to their sense of style to continue their reading.
This location was right in front of the house. It's been a rather damp summer here.

This Mushroom was not harmed in the preparation of the Vacation's Mushroom Soup.

I don't know what kind it is and Cthulu likes it so it's most likely either deadly, dangerous or just Not A Terribly Good Idea.

However it does give a kind of Mushroom Theme to our vacation.

The Most Adventerous Red was able to collect a number of Poppet sized Seashells.

I believe that some of these shells will find their way into Poppetropolis.

Maybe that will be the Most Adventurous Red's new way of sustaining his adventuring lifestyle.

He really doesn't seem to spend any time in Poppetropolis. It would be useless for him to have an apartment there. He'll just stay with friends. I can't really see him endorsing the Go-Go's song for vacationing.

The Steampunk Poppets also came with the second shift and they spent some time investigating the antique tools of the time honored New England Tradition of a Well Stocked Bar.
There was a vacation several years ago where all the new recipes that tried that summer were mixed drinks. I'd never been a big drinker but I was doing a lot of party planning.

It was the most logical place to try this since it was the only place we knew that had all of the bartender oriented implements mentioned in the drink recipes. They belong to the house. I believe they are younger than the house, but I'm not completely sure.

It does amuse me to no end that this is the place where one is most likely to hear nothing being ordered at a bar besides Gin and Tonics.

We did find a recipe for the earthling varient of Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters that summer, but it wasn't worth recommending. Obviously it just isn't the same without that Ol' Janx Spirit.

So our time away winds down, but I've been away enough that it feels like it's approaching slowly.

It's at the right pace. As a matter of fact the pace is so relaxed that we are writing about it in current tense when we've all been back for a couple of days. But it refused to be rushed here in the Dreamtime. We are just as relaxed about the vacation coming to a close as we are about being on the beach. The second shift came later into the vacation and they are leaving earlier, but the Poppets who came with them are staying the full run.

There's one hike out to the observation point still to go, but for today's post it's good just to think about how much easier it is to let time pass without thinking of the things you intentionally left alone.

That's why you go on vacation, not to forget or avoid the things you left behind, but to give them and yourself some space.

I would not have wanted to be a Go-Go, defined by a song that is forever branded as upbeat by those who aren't thinking very hard. It's like they're trapped in amber until Gen X has passed and time can leave them alone.

Which may be all they ever wanted.

I will try very hard not to forget what I've learned about time on this vacation.

I have high hopes, after all I learned how to muddle during the summer of many mixed drinks and I haven't forgotten that.

The Ambassador Celebrates the Fourth with Me

Yesterday I was happy. It was a very good day and it was uncomplicated.  Light and water and music and fire danced together at the end of it. Conversation was pleasant, food was sublime, pace was unhurried, the world was Outside. My Very Dearest Friend said that was a side effect of spending the afternoon walking around enjoying Pierre Dupont's back yard.  He is an eminently wise man.

We had planned to spend the day at Longwood Gardens which has a wonderful music program and world renown lighted fountains that have fireworks during the summer synched with their musical program. It is a perfect solution - there are only three thousand people permitted on the grounds, you get to spend the full day in the gardens and conservatory and there is excellent food on the premises with many of the ingredients grown on the grounds. This was our second trip for the event and for the gardens and like all things seconded, you learn from the firsts. 

Of course when you do things the second time you get new firsts too. Like fresh blueberry lemonade. It's a wonderful first. 

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We decided to start our day there at noon more or less and asked which Poppets would like to join us. The Most Adventerous Red of course was all for it but the Ambassodor felt he didn't really understand the holiday enough to know what to do at the Embassy so he'd really rather be a guest if we didn't mind. Of course we did not. Winter thought it would be lovely to look at all the flowers, maybe there would be something they could use in Poppetropolis or the garden for the House. When we got to the grounds we stopped at the cafeteria which amazed us with the food and sat down at the outdoor cafe with the map to plot our course and stake out the best spots as soon as we were allowed to put down our blankets for the fireworks.

The Most Adventurous Red was slightly distracted by the fresh berry parfait and the most amazing creme fraise I've ever had including in Paris.

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The Poppets were thrilled with the idea that there was an Idea Garden, so My Very Dearest Friend, my Perfectly Normal Husband and I all set off with the Poppets to see what the Idea Garden meant. 

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The Idea Garden was actually 14 kinds of wonderful, it was put together by the professionals at Longwood but was meant to be able to give you usable ideas for your gardens at home.  Some of the ideas were fun, like interactive water features in your backyard. You can make them yourself with some effort and some help. 

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Some of the ideas were BIG! Like sculpture and intricate hedge grooming but with minimal elements to keep it reasonable to maintain.

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Some of the ideas were small. Like potted gardens for places with concrete, balconies and patios.

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Then we wandered past ground covers and perennials, annuals and sustainment gardens. We discussed in depth the issues of entropy and irises and appreciated the immensity of the Idea Garden while moving on to the the Chime Tower, the Topiary Garden, the Flowered Walks. We stumbled on a Garden full of angles and built around Time. 

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We climbed cathedral treehouses overlooked meadows, studied trees as per our invitation to do so. We turned a corner thinking we knew what type of thing we were going to see and saw this instead:

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We decided that there are somethings that wouldn't make being ridiculously rich seem like such a bad thing. The Italian Water Garden at Longwood it one of them. Lest you think that it is a rich man paying for copies of things he aspires to you should know that Mr. Dupont was a chemical engineer and graduate of MIT and he designed and engineered all of the waterworks himself. When you go there you are participating in his version of kinetic art. He most likely inspired Disney since his waterworks predate the parks. 

We dined at the Terrace Gardens and fell in love with the Mushroom and Leek soup. If you ever have the opportunity to participate in a tasting menu with wine pairings after several hours of perusing the achievement of years of passion, planning and effort, I strongly recommend you put yourself in the chef's hands and say "yes".

It's odd, how last week I got a tiny bit of myself back in the city, surrounded with the peices of myself that get softened for people outside the city, and this week it was the gardens, not really nature but the collaboration between man and nature that Longwood represents. I wished for it to be slightly less populated so the garden could be walked through peacefully, but I loved all the languages and accents and clothing passing us in the gardens, women in saris and the new maxi dresses looked so lovely and real.

I am terribly patriotic, although I know how unfashionable it is to express it through joy instead of anger. I loved that people from all over the areas my son had studied were in these gardens in Pennsylvania waiting for sound and light and celebration for this country where me and my children are welcome, when there are many other places where we are not. Even now.

For hours the numb didn't even threaten, the peaceful joy you don't have to stretch for was there. Even the battery of the camera running out did not deter the Poppets from having their adventures. They have them even when no one records it, they find them in the least expected places living only in the memories and stories of those of us who travel with them. They found this in the conservatory . . . . 

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And then with the realization of the absence of pain, we joined our 3000 fellow celebrants. One of whom sitting near us recorded the performance of explosions and ingenuity. The music was beautiful, the sentiment was unifying and I had a day I can hold on to when the grey threatens again. 

The video is a bit long and the camera shows the smoke a bit more than we saw it live but you will get the idea of the piece, so Thank You to our neighbor on the benches.

I smiled like a 10 year old through the whole program. I felt connected, having met one of the Fireworks designers earlier in the day when we bonded over mushroom soup.

And then it was time to return home. However Winter and the Ambassador had found the very thing that had been plaguing us at Poppetroplis. We have finally found the perfect conservatory for the Skeleton for his flower shop. An epic effort was made to reclaim it from the gift shop with the press of 3000 people all trying to exit through the same area the shop was in. Our six month quest now over, it has met with Skeletal approval and is being examined for modification. He is almost as happy as the Tiny Alien was with his exosuit. It's Independence Day for him!

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I have no faith in my ability to hold one wonderful day, so I fought all my practical instincts down and composted them.  Plants need a mix of things in their soil to thrive - my PH balance may come from cities, but some of my roots need beauty and sunshine as well. I joined the Gardens, they are an hour away, but they will be worth it for more days like yesterday. 

Sometimes I really do love civilization, for all it's faults it has great good as well. And Mushroom Soup too. And Poppets on the 4th of July.

Life's not bad at all.

Passover with Poppets

It's Pesach here at the house ,and because of All Of The Things That Conspire Against Me, I have been busy straightening out other people's houses and businesses and things that require bringing forth Order from Chaos.

Interestingly enough the word "Seder" means Order. 

To get to the point where you have Order for the Seder you have about 4 weeks to get your house ready.

I didn't manage to do that in 4 weeks. I actually started about 48 hours before Pesach ( which is the real word for Passover). This is not good. I'm usually much more on top of this but the Things That Conspire were very active this year.

There were no Poppets in my life at this time last year - odd to think about, isn't it? So the little guys were very amused at the sudden spate of ridiculous cleaning and a five hour shopping trip, reported upon by The Most Adventurous Red, who accompanied me on my desperate search for the right gefilte fish jars.  Poppets, at least the ones in my house, don't really seem to have any knowledge of Judaism and while they like to hang around the ritual objects in the house and appreciate that we set things on fire every week, this looked different to them. Some of them wandered around with questions. I couldn't really help them out,since I was trying to compress time and space through frenetic action, so I gave them some books to look at until I was done with the first round of emergency clean up.

The book they started with was the Moss Haggadah which is a beautiful book of art. There were times that observant Jews felt that you couldn't make images of things that were divine, and that included people, because people were divine, but at the same time there is a commandment to beautify the items that you use to fulfill the mitzvot. (Mitzvot means commandment - there are 613 of them so that's a lot of beautifying).

Haggadot ( the plural of Haggadah) were one of the few consistent places in the history of Jewish Visual Arts that were truly reflections of tastes and talent and locality. It was important to make them beautiful and it was heavily influenced by the regions that the calligraphers lived in. The Moss Haggadah is all hand calligraphed by a single artist in that tradition, and it is a wonderful teaching tool for the history of the Haggadot. I thought they might like it.  It belongs to the Boy of the house, because he earned it and it the source of one of my great joys in life when he finds something in it that he thinks is really cool and tells us about it in his out-loud voice.

Question Everything really has a lot of doubt about the whole religion thing and certainly had even more doubts when he noticed me checking the pockets of the coats in the closet for bread crumbs. 

He wondered about all those commandments and why we followed them and why other people didn't and why I was considering vacuuming the keyholes. Since I was in the process of skipping the whole keyhole vacuuming thing I explained to him that there was a whole section of the Haggadah about asking questions and why you should answer questions and taught our children that when they wre old enough to study on their own it was their religious duty to ask questions. So  really, in Judaism that made him the Holiest Poppet of all.  And then I left him to read the whole section while I set the oven on fire. It was on purpose - it's OK.

Question Everything was pretty impressed. Throughout the whole ritual book people were asking questions, and getting answers and disagreeing about the answers, and then asking more questions. He wondered how a religion could function that way, but I was busy reading labels for signs of autolyzed yeast extract to get them out of the cabinets and then scrubbing them down with bleach so I told him to let someone else have a turn with the book. You see very much like Jack Bauer I WAS RUNNING OUT OF TIME!

Violet found a really pretty page that matched her perfectly but it was all Hebrew, so she asked what it was. I explained that it was the 10 plagues, she was standing on the section of the Haggadah where when we read the plagues that Egypt suffered we remove a drop of wine from our glasses and drop them on to the napkin beside us. They were very pretty purple plagues , but Question Everything wanted to know why, so I did take the time to tell him. Even though the Seder celebrates that we were freed from oppression, many Egyptians suffered and died because of the actions of their ruler, and God and the plauges, so for each plague we remove a drop of wine from our glass to reduce our joy and mourn their lives and suffering. We need to remember that what we accomplished came with a cost, and they need to be respected, mourned and remembered too. 

Violet decided that the plagues were still pretty, even if the whole thing was a little creepy and the Drunken Poppet called out from the mantel that it was a terrible waste of wine, but a stern look from Winter, and he apologized. 

Meanwhile, Question Everything had moved on to another book that explained how to get ready for the Holiday by cleaning in a special way, and when he got to the section that explained why I might have wanted to vacuum out the keyholes, he asked me if I was going to Hell if I skipped it. 

I sighed, and told him Jews don't really have a Hell, and besides there's a magic spell at the end that makes everything OK just in case. I had to leave them alone for a bit while we put away all the things that aren't kosher for Pesach and brought up all the things that were. You see every year we clear out all our cabinets and pots and pans and dishes and silverware that touched things that rise, and replace them with pots and pans and dishes and silverware that never touch things that rise. It's like spring cleaning on steroids. And it leads to a lot of jokes about why in hell a desert God would command us to carry six sets of dishes. But of course it's a joke, because the six sets of dishes are not part of the mitzvot, they're what a bunch of Rabbis decided to agree on after they had asked a whole bunch of questions and argued about a whole bunch of answers, and that desert God wasn't talking to them anymore so they just sort of guessed and Voila! six sets of dishes. Someday I'll talk about me and God but today isn't that day, let's just say I'm sure that God didn't ask us to do a bunch of this but I do a whole bunch of this anyway because there are better reasons than "God says so" but they are complicated so it's easier for people to think that's why I do it. 

Well, I shouldn't have left Question Everything along with the rules for leavened versus unleavened things. Leaven is chametz and you have to have a chametz free house before the Seder. So the next thing I know, I walked past the living room and there was Question Everything reading aloud to the Gingerbread. Silly preoccupied me, I didn't think anything of it until I saw that the House Reds had pulled down my How To Run a Jewish Household book.

It seems that he had wondered aloud if

Gingerbread was allowed to stay in the house because she might be chametz. Since I wasn't around they asked Spike to figure it out. Spike corrected the misconception. He's very educated. Gingerbread was a Poppet, not a cookie, so she was fine to stick around.No one was going to be able to ingest her on a bet. 

Except for maybe Cthulu or something like that, and Spike was pretty sure I wouldn't invite Cthulu to the Seder.  Actually, Spike was a little off base there. If Cthulu comes to the door and asks politely to join us I'm supposed to feed him and make him welcome because he's a stranger here and we were once strangers in the land of Egypt. Of course I'm only going to let him in after he promises to behave and tone down the whole causing insanity thing. I'm not obligated to martyr myself for hospitality or anything. So really it's all up to Cthulu, but I digress. I'm sure Question didn't mean to upset her, it was my own fault for leaving them alone with multiple books and no moderator.

They sort of were getting the gist of things now, having split the reading between them, but certainly the ones having the most fun were the Poppets who chose to read the Kosher by Design cookbook. They spent a decent amount of time wondering if you could really have dessert without cake. However since the dessert menu for the Pesach week read " merengue cookies, coconut sorbet, toasted coconut marshmallows, strawberry mousse, chocolate mousse and ice-cream sundaes",  the Pumpkin Spices, Chocos and Coffee Poppets agreed that you weren't really  suffering for desserts during Peasch and you weren't really likely to lose weight during the eight days of the dietary restrictions either. 

Now that they had the gist of things they realized that I was really rather insane trying to get everything that normally took the better part of two weeks accomplished in 24 hours with one full day of regular office work thrown in, and they decided that even if they didn't understand why I felt the need to do it, they would help. They enlisted the aid of the only actively Jewish-like Poppets in the house and began by Kashering the new kitchen that came in recently for Poppetropolis. 

When they were done they waited until I got home from work and helped me with the six hours I had left to set up for the actual seder. 

The Poppets learned alot more about the whole Seder thing then.  And our Orange Brain saved the day - more on that tomorrow.

The Ambassador Hires The Bilaterians Design Group

The Holiday break is over at last. The Ambassador's looking forward to getting on with his plans. Between the last inspection and the closing of the deal there were some nervous moments. There was a great deal of water damage and a bit of a to-do with the Historical Society about what they were, and were not, allowed to change. It seems that the metal underpinnings of the buildings rusted through, and depending on how extensive the changes were to the building, code requirements might mean that they will need to completely replace those structures. Doing so might result in full demolition, because as we all know when you open up walls and ceilings and such, you never know what else will be found inside. 

Algernon and His Poppet had performed the inspection back in December, and were quite candid with with Ambassador about the condition of the property. Given it's age and history, it is actually in relatively solid condition and quite reasonably priced, even given the current economic situation. Winter suggested to the Ambassador that he might want to hire Algernon's firm for the architecture and design. Especially since things were looking like they will be expanding. During the holiday, many other members of the Poppet community had arrived. Most of them had places to go, but some of them had expressed interest in the Sesame Street location. 

The design firm was named Bilaterians Design Group, which the Ambassador liked because it was very inclusive. He engaged them to come up with a plan and put them in touch with the Coffee Poppets so they could consult on the Cafe space. As soon as the Holidays were over the Bilaterians finished all of their measuring and specifications. They got right to work on the preliminary sketches and ideas. When they were done, they called the Ambassador over to see a presentation by the Junior Partners.

The Ambassador was very impressed by the amount of natural light in the studio. The Bilaterians told him that they were much happier when they got to work with a lot of sunlight. Unbeknownst to the Bilaterrians Design Group, the Ambassador is on the receiving end of a certain amount of pressure to consider a new building in the middle of the block specifically for the Embassy, but he is a little embarrassed about the idea and thought it might be a bit too show-offish. However there is interest in other Poppets moving into the area. Jacko's were looking for someplace to be off-season, there is a new arrival who thinks there ought to be a flower shop, two out-of-towners (not poppet)  just moved to the area and are looking at starting an music and manga shop. There is an area nearby that could be cleared out for a park or a fairground. It was all getting to be too much!

However - the presentation put all his fears to rest - the Bilaterians have figured out a way to make the apartments bigger on the inside than the out. Still keeping the project expansion to himself , he hired the Bilaterians and settled down with Algernon and Winter for an indepth look at blueprints and budgets. If this goes well he could always commission them for the other things. Maybe it would be good for the neighborhood to have a park and a new building, but he could wait. If the Bilaterians were successful with these buildings, perhaps he will stay quietly in the first building for sentimental reasons. 

As for the Bilaterians - after the Ambassador left, Algernon, His Poppet and Junior Partners get to work checking the studio's equipment, since new machinery had arrived last month.  This project will help defray it's cost and the Ambassador seemed like a good sort. Algernon could practically smell the secrets on him though.  As they were moving on with the saftey cheklist Algernon mentioned this to His Poppet.

His Poppet was not surprised. He figured that Algernon liked the Ambassador and Winter because they had avoided the very obvious pun that could have marred the meeting. Of course, the Embarrassed Ambassador would have been terribly embarrassed just for thinking such a thing. Algernon's Poppet smiled a very secret smile when he plugged in the lathe . . . . it was such a secret, no one even knew Algernon's Poppet had a mouth. 

What We've Shared

Not everyone understands or relates to Poppets, although there are a number of people at work who are intrigued by them I'm not sure that I'd gift Poppets randomly. They are cute but they sort of freaked my Rabbi out and I didn't even show her any of the "darker" ones. So it was with great joy and surprise that I found both my nuclear and extended family liked them. Some show all the signs of obsession that indicates incipient fandom and some sort of get it on the art level. So we were able to share some Poppets outside The Taunting. 

                 The little humbug flew to the east coast to be shared with my Sister. I love my Sister so much that it was more important to get one for her than for myself, so she owns the only humbug in the family. Isn't he cute?

My Nephew was also interested in things Poppety and along with some transforming magnetic Japanese ping-pong balls, we gave him a Shamrock Poppet to call his very own. It's what every Irish Jewish kid should have for Christmas!

Here is the Shamrock Poppet hanging out with Father Christmas making sure that he gets the stories straight. Father Christmas is really part of the Faerie and so are most Irishmen. 

As a member of the Magical Establishment, they are of course welcome at Grandma's house, especially when they are all attractively European about it. The Shamrock Poppet and the Nephew can now practice telling stories to each other.

Last but hardly least, is the Poppet Most Desired.

My six year old niece got the idea of Poppet right away, and some of the pictures posted in the blog have been taken with her creating the shots. But she's too little to use my very expensive camera and so she had to take pictures by proxy. The poppet my niece wanted more than any others (at least based on the oh-so-subtle hints) was a Question Dogma Poppet. We don't know why, but we do know it was a Perfectly Appropriate Aunt Gift. So if necessary, my Sister can just blame me for being a Bad Influence. It's OK, I have a really kick-ass outfit for when I'm being a Bad Influence.  But it was somehow wrong to give her a Poppet of her own, without the ability to take her own pictures - so what you see here is the picture she took with her very own Fisher Price - Damn-Near-Indestructible, Pink So-Her-Brother-Won't-Go-Near-It camera.

No, it's not very high quality. But it runs on batteries, it's digital, it's hers and she doesn't have to ask permission. Her mom has gotten her other Poppets to play with as well, I look forward to the pictures.

Of course there was also the Limited Edition Winter we gave my Perfectly Lovely but Perfectly  Normal Mother in Law. And the Gingerbread Poppet I gave Grandma. By the way - it ends up my Mother already had a house for Ginger.

So the contagion has been spread. My Sister actually called me to see if  I saw the new Steampunk Poppets, I had but not the newest listings - thanks to her I saw the newer pics. My Sister saw Steampunk Poppets and thought of me. . . . . that's so sweet. It's kind of cool to have something in common so organically. When I showed her Poppets she showed me the Blue Dog by George Rodrigue. She shared an artist that was meaningful to her the same way Lisa Snellings Clark's work affects me. 

It might possibly be the closest I ever felt to her, and we've been through some stuff together. But this was just sharing, possibly the freest most incidental sharing ever, but that's why it connected with me so much. Nothing was at stake, and I didn't have to explain because she just understood. 

I treasure that moment, because I don't try so hard to explain or justify myself to her anymore. And she can call me up now and tell me the history of voodoo dolls really being about healing and not curses. And we can both celebrate sprawling brass chandeliers.  It wasn't always the case and it's awesome (in the religious, "full of awe" sense of the term) to me that we have that sense of sharing now. That should be celebrated and treasured and ornamented with Poppets and Blue Dogs. So this year was Poppets and I'll see what I can do about the Blue Dogs in the future. 

The Taunting - Overlap

Last night was the Fourth Candle and it was also Christmas Eve, which means we had to find time for our Local Christmas Celebrating Family and still fufill the mitzvah of lighting the candles, to get ready to leave tomorrow to celebrate with our Non Local, Non Christian, Still Christmas Celebrating family.

So the Fourth Candle came after the Poppety inflection on extended Christmas Eve food and gift exchange. This winter Poppet was gifted to a Perfectly Normal but Perfectly Wonderful Grandward. She actually gifted a poppet to me!

I am now the proud owner of a Shamrock Poppet - They are referred to in the house as Irish Poppets. My Irish mother in law gave me an Irish Poppet! That was so sweet. 

We did manage to get candle lighting done between 10 and 11, but that means that we were a bit bleary eyed, and the Poppets for 4th night were up a little late too.  We have pics but we'll have to go back and do a dramatic reenactment of the opening of the Alien Poppet Playset for the son-type person and the Poppets Are Watching T-shirt for the daughter type person.  They were very happy, but we suspect after this morning that the Alien Poppet might be in league with Aunti Claus.  . . .

More on that tomorrow. Best Quote from The Taunting. "You're in a bag and you're not a poppet. You're too soft to be a brain  . . . . .what are you?"

Coming tomorrow - Taunting on Tour