I went to my first in-theater movie this week, something I haven’t done since long before Covid.
A friend and I used to go to the movies every Friday after going to a local sushi bar for dinner. That fell away when I moved to Sri Lanka.
I did go to a movie at a Sri Lanka movie house once. The price was super cheap, something like $4, or even less. The food stand sold candy and similar goods to US movies houses, but no popcorn. Popcorn was the real reason I went to the movies!
In Cozumel, Mexico I went to a theater that was packed, standing room only and no proper AC. I didn’t even last a half hour. This week’s movie theater in Lakeport could have bumped the AC up a bit. I had thought it’d be freezing so I went prepared with a sweater and a small pillow for my stupid back. Didn’t need either.
I joined the herds and I saw “Barbie.” I enjoyed it. Loved all the visuals, the colors and the popcorn! I spent the next two days picking out popcorn kernels from my teeth but it was worth it.
Not sure I needed to hear the “message” of the movie over and over again…that what Barbie needed was to become a real woman with the possibility of becoming a mother, but the entertaining dance scenes made up for the message. I particularly liked the dance scene of the Kens dancing in black outfits.
I didn’t play with dolls. Certainly not Barbie dolls. I lived out in the country, on a dirt road across the road from a cow pasture. Rather than stay inside with dolls, I walked to the cow pasture to stare down the cows. They didn’t seem bothered by me. I also walked several miles down the road to a pasture with horses and I’d visit with the horses. If my memory isn’t playing tricks on me, I think I had some plastic horses that I played with. Then there were the other kids in the two houses down the road who played horses, with the oldest girl in the group being the evil one who tried to capture us. We’d run through the apple orchard, whinnying and snorting, trying to escape.
I texted my daughter (who turns 56 soon – yikes!) and asked her if she ever had a Barbie doll. She said that she got a Barbie Townhouse purely from bribery. When she went to go get her allergy shots with with her father, he told her she could have anything she wanted if she didn’t cry. “So I got a Barbie Townhouse,” she said. “I never really got into Barbies that much because she could never fit in the furniture. She couldn’t stand up straight in the townhouse and she couldn’t sit in the van. But all the girls in the neighborhood had them and each different neighbor had different cool stuff for Barbie. When a neighbor had the Corvette, I had the van and townhouse and someone else had the airplane.” My daughter laughed and said that they also tried to get Barbie and Ken hooked up. Everyone I spoke to said the same thing!
My mother had a porcelain doll, whose head had real hair. A brunette. But her head wasn’t completely round, it was concave where the hair was woven. She was the only doll I played with. I took care of her so as to not pull out her hair as it couldn’t be replaced. Her lower arms and legs were also porcelain and the rest of her body was white leather. She was very delicate. I never gave her a name, after all she was my mother’s doll when she was young, and I didn’t think to ask her what she had named her.
That doll had a black velvet hat with a tiny bow in the front. Her jacket was black velvet and her skirt was mustard-colored wool. All handmade. As I said, she was very delicate and I was afraid to break her.
When I left home I took her with me and over the years I kept her wrapped up safely. Until much later when Husband No. 4 stepped on her and broke her leg. “Call an ambulance,” I shouted. I sobbed for a week and I never forgave him. She’s still wrapped up somewhere, waiting for someone to fix her. That was my only doll. Certainly not a Barbie, nor a Ken.
What’s a girl to do?…have a doll surgeon fix her in case I one day have a great granddaughter to give her to.
Lucy Llewellyn Byard is currently a columnist for the Record-Bee. To contact her, email lucywgtd@gmail.com
