matryoshka...

here's a little known fact about me: i love matryoshka dolls, those little wooden russian nesting dolls. you may remember them from those old stop motion shorts from sesame street.

i love them. i don't know what it is about them. i'm sure we could all come up with our own psychoanalytic theories about why these little dolls have found their way into my heart, but i'm content with knowing that they make me happy.

now, lest you think i love all russian nesting dolls equally, i do not. a lot of them are a little too cartoony for my liking. i'm a simple girl with simple tastes -- anything too flashy makes me feel confused. but the ones that manage to meet my weird standards are ones that will forever have my love.

there is one set of nesting dolls that i love more than all others. this particular set was given to me by my parents when i was a little girl. my mom and dad got it somewhere on some trip for something that i was too young to remember, and they brought the set of dolls back to me as a souvenir. i forgot all about it when i went off to college, and only in recent years has it drifted into my mind again.

but there have been many events that have transpired since my pre-college days that could have led to the demise of my beloved matryoshka dolls: my dad moved to a different house, lots of stuff (and all of my old stuff) got put into storage, big bad hurricane katrina destroyed a lot of that stuff in storage. i had basically given up on the hope that my little dolls and i would be reunited...

but on a lark, the other day i sent my dad an e-mail asking if he knew where that little doll set had gone, and, if it was around, could he send it to me.

tonight i got an e-mail from dad with this attached:


isn't she fantastic?!?! she's just as beautiful as i remembered her!!! dad's going to pack her safely and mail her to me! somehow just knowing this still exists brings great joy to my soul. hooray!