The doll, Susie, the doll!

Susie likes to tease me about my doll, Aubrey. Yes, if you've followed me from the start, that name should be painfully familiar. Or if you know me really well...

I love to make dolls. One spring day, 2004, I got out this cloth and began to make a doll. My original thought was to name her Ana Magdelena after J.S. Bach's second wife. Never mind. I was just getting into Atwater-Donnelly at this point, so I changed my mind and decided to call her Aubrey after Aubrey Atwater, a (need I tell you?) folk musician from Rhode Island. See here.

At first I was really embarrassed about it. So everybody went around calling my doll Ana Magdelena. I had other dolls, Sue (after Sue Niemann) and Eva (after Eva Moon). They called them Clara and...um...Constanze.

Eventually, the secret came out, right before we were to leave for Illinois to see Grandma and Grandpa, and we were also going to see Atwater-Donnelly in concert. Mum asked me, "Are you going to show the real Aubrey your doll?"

"What?" I said, "Why, no! Why would I do that?"

"I bet she'd be thrilled."

"And I would be embarrassed down to my socks!" my face was already turning red. Either that, or I had accidentally splashed chili over it.

I never did show her the doll...then. That November I don't know what I did, I mean, I wrote this fan letter to them and got this response on a postcard with a lovely picture of Sakonnet, RI on it. Talk about thrilled. I was thrilled, and I mean thrilled.

Fast forward to January--late December, actually. Mum and Daddy were looking at this performance calendar, and they noticed that Ms. Atwater was doing a school program in Bothell, which is by the Lagan. Mum wrote her an email and asked her to dinner. I mean, she'd never been to Seattle before, and this was pretty cool. Of course we'd want to see her.

But she was too busy, and she said as much. She added, "You can come to the school program."

So we made plans to do that, but Becky got sick and only Mum and I went (more about that much later; it's a long story). But I took Aubrey-the-doll, just for the car. I said as much and I meant it. It's a fairly long drive to Bothell. And Aubrey-the-doll is really my best friend after Evonne. I left the doll in the car and we went into the carpeted school gym. Mum and I and this other guy had to go to Jack-in-the-Box to get take out for lunch--then we'd go back to the school and all eat lunch together. I picked up the doll and put her in my pocket (my coat has big pockets) to make room for drinks in the place where she was lying. On the way back, I decided to take the doll to show Ms. Atwater--maybe.

My way of going about it was so transparent. "Oh, dear! Mum, I left my doll in my pocket and she might get lost!!!"

"Oh, come on. Show Aubrey," Mum said, seeing completely through my ideas. I ended up showing the doll to Ms. Atwater, not mentioning the doll's name. Mum took care of that. I don't think I have been redder in my life!

And, according to Mum, she was thrilled.