Meet Flossie (Nanea's Pet Chicken)

Trudy here. It seems like a lot of news is getting posted, but none of it ever mentions pets. So, we're adding a new column! Everyone on Islandshire loves animals. They all want a pet. Zaida and Bessie have an Adopt-a-Pet shop and rescue all sorts of animals --- from dogs and cats to skunks and pigs. In fact, everyone on the island is getting ready for the big Adopt-a-Pet event set to take place very soon.

The Islandshire market was open this weekend, and lots of crowds came by for the Grand Opening of Pete and Jerri's (a fantastic vegetable market). Even Nanea's pet chicken, Flossie, came out to sample the corn bread. Flossie is no ordinary chicken.

This brings us to our first "Spotlight on Pets" feature. Flossie is a very special chicken. No one has ever seen a chicken quite like her, in fact. Nanea says that it is because she comes from China (so the tag said) and is a special Chinese chicken. Flossie is covered in furry white feathers and has a black face and beak. She's very friendly and hardly ever makes noise! Every morning, she lays three eggs (quite an amazing chicken, like I told you) and clucks when they are ready.

Nanea loves Flossie. That chicken gets treated as well as we girls and boys do! She has her own little area in Benny and Nanea's house. It's a nice green box with her nest in it, and she shares a green food bowl with Benny's pet skunk (Flossie's food is the white half). Nanea has even planted some purslane in a pot and put that right next to Flossie's box. Purslane is very edible and a favorite snack for chickens.

Not only does this chicken have her own box and nest inside the house, but she also has quite a wardrobe! She has a little blue ruffled skirt and a fancy green pineapple skirt . . . and, she's leash-trained. Her little collar is all different colors and has a plastic flower tag hanging from it. This is no ordinary chicken.

Nanea giving some corn bread to Flossie.

 Flossie appeared at the Market on her leash. This proved to be quite an attraction to the other visitors --- particularly to George. He had never seen a chicken on a leash before! He and Eloy offered to babysit while Nanea shopped, and Flossie was treated to the best of care. She was given a temporary crate (which proved so comfortable that she laid an additional three eggs), a glass of water and some excellent chicken food. George became quite attached to her and has decided to offer chicken babysitting services on any Market Day.

George climbs up for a better view of a chicken on a leash.

 Another member of the household here has formed quite an attachment to Flossie --- though not as friendly a one. Henry the Kitten (now 1-1/2 years old and real terror to dolls . . . he would like to chew vinyl) has decided that Flossie is the more amazing cat toy in the world and considers her quite a prize. Just how he has managed to climb onto desks and shelves to find her is a bit of a mystery, but she has now been carried as a special prize four different times! She has to stay in the closet in her house when not being watched by Nanea, because Henry loves her. We even found her right in the middle of a bed pillow one day --- having been deposited as a special prize in a perfect sitting position!

Flossie has certainly found a nice home at Nanea and Benny's house. She gets along wonderfully with their pet parrot, Coucou. Even their turtle, Stanley, likes her. Benny's pet skunk will be arriving soon, but I'm sure they'll get along really well, too.

Nanea and Flossie inside the house.

Check back again soon for more pets at Islandshire!

Decision Made: Meet Bix and Phoenix

Okay, as I was saying in the last post . . . we brought home two really cute Truly Me #77 dolls. This was for Mom to look at them and decide on a replacement for her Nachito. Well, she decided to keep Doll #1 with the tightly-curled wig. She's leaving him in the box until later this Summer --- that way, if the dolls come out with the "good" eyes, she can exchange him (if she finds one that she likes better -- if not, she keeps him).

Well, that left Doll #2, who was just the most perfect-cute-irresistible little chap you could look at, going back. After two days of contemplating him, he was just too cute . . . and then my sister did it! She suggested that I name him "Bix" and give him a record collection and some sheet music. I'd been trying to plan a doll that liked Bing Crosby and all kinds of the 1930s music for a year. The plan had been to use a girl doll and call her "Dinah Lee", after Bing's song. She'd get mini copies of a bunch of my Bing sheet music collection, I'd make new labels for the three records from Rebecca's phonograph set and turn them into some Bing and Dinah Washington records, and she could play an instrument. She just never seemed to work out, though.

So, here we are, sitting here staring at this adorable #77, and Elizabeth suggests that I call him Bix after the great Beiderbecke himself! That did it. I took him out of the box, put Logan's "Play Loud" shirt on him and there was Bix! He's getting a trumpet and a squeeze-box . . . not to mention the other stuff. This same weekend, I finally finished restoration work on a doll that has been a real TLC project. She was a #31 who was in such terrible condition that we weren't even sure she'd fix up --- but I wanted to try! We got two TLC dolls (#31 and #47) sold for parts on eBay at a total of $30.00 shipped for the pair. Glitter makeup had been put everywhere on them. This was back at the end of Summer. I managed to save all but the wig of #31 and the body and limbs of #47. After a lot of baking soda, Magic Eraser, compressed air, laundering and re-stringing, the #31 looks really amazing. She had to get a new hair style, so she's wearing an AG CYO "black, long, natural curly" wig. Mom came up with the idea of naming her Phoenix, since she really did rise from her own ashes!

 

With both dolls now sitting there, it seemed a great idea to have a brother and sister duo. And they both have "x" in their names! They both like to read and are going to help make screenplays for the Islandshire Drama Club. Phoenix likes to read about astronauts and space stuff, so she has a flight suit, a space suit (which Bix also likes), a stellar outfit and a mini Luciana doll of her own!

They both like music, and Bix is always playing records or practicing his instruments. Together, they've adopted a dog from Bessie and Zaida's Islandshire Animal Rescue --- a black and white French Bulldog. Her name? Dinah Lee!

So, a new duo has moved into Islandshire. This is good, since so many just moved out. The boys were getting pretty worried there for a bit about their numbers dwindling. These are just some preliminary pictures of Bix and Phoenix, so I'm sure they'll feature in some more posts later on!

Picking a 'Truly Me' #77

We went down to AGP Columbus on Friday to see about finding a replacement for Mom's TM #77. This is one of the four current boy dolls, and one of the cutest of all AG dolls . . . in my opinion.

Thankfully, there were a lot of dolls to look at, and I think we had eleven different dolls to pick from. Still, it's hard to find a replacement doll. It's also hard to make a final decision in a busy store. Mom plans on leaving her choice in the box until the "good" eyes come out later this year --- that way, if she finds one then that she prefers, she can always return this one. But, if she doesn't care for the changes that happen (should anything but eyes end up changing), then she wants to have a doll that she'd be happy with.

After going through all those boxes of dolls, it came down to two of the little fellows that just looked so cute! Part of the problem was that Mom seems partial to thinner-faced #77s with tightly curled wigs. I seemed partial to rounder-faced dolls with the "picked out" bushy wigs. And we found a really cute version of each. In fact, I think that Doll #2 down there is about as perfect a #77 as you could get! So, we decided to just buy them both, bring them home, and take a few days to make the decision. Here are the photos of the two dolls, and they look more different in real life. They photographed a little more similar than I'd have guessed!

Doll #1 (Tightly-curled Wig)

Doll #2 (Bushy Wig)

It's really amazing how different these little fellows are when you start to look at them. Which one would you choose, if you had to decide?

Introducing the All-New Harriet (aka: Bunty)

Customizing dolls and creating personalities for each doll character is a lot of fun. Somtimes you hit it right on the head from the start! That's what happened with Benny. I bought a wigless Nanea doll, unpacked it, tried on about ten different wigs and knew the minute that dark brown "Johnny" wig went on that I had a perfect little boy sitting there. And it didn't take more than three minutes to come up with his name, because he looks just like my Dad's really cool cousin, Benny!

But sometimes it can be a very long journey with a lot of stops along the way. Such has been the case with one of my very favorite dolls, Harriet. Any of you who have been following this blog probably remember a previous entry about her and know that she's undergone quite a change since arriving last Summer. Well, here is a final change (yeah, I know . . . it's been final a couple of times, but I have now bonded with her and really enhanced her character) that took quite a while to come about.

This shows Harriet #4 with some of the paintings that inspired me to make this doll and character.

One of my very favorite American Girl dolls is Rebecca. The doll only, that is. I can't stand her clothes, but she's a really beautiful doll. For a year, I tried to buy one, but it was one failure after another. You never knew that so many bad things could happen in the mail to a doll! Finally, I gave up and decided that Rebecca was not for me. Months went by, and we ended up with a TLC Rebecca in a lot of dolls. Her wig was bad, but she cleaned up very nicely and has the dark hazel eyes that I love. I decided that I'd try to re-wig her and make some kind of addition to my collection.

Some time ago, we had been able to buy a variety of AG CYO wigs in a variety of styles and colours. They are great wigs, and the "red, short, curly" wig was particularly appealing. It is the same type of curly hair that you get on Rebecca (in red), but instead of being the longer length, the hair comes just to the shoulder. So cute! So, I put that on the Rebecca doll and decided that Harriet could have a cousin called "Bunty". The doll was adorable, and making a character for her fell into place almost immediately. She likes wool, knitting, felting and sheep. She particularly likes rare breeds of sheep that have been place on the Conservation lists and enjoys fund-raising to help with the protection of these rare breeds. Everything was falling into place, and I was bonding with Bunty way more than Harriet. In fact, she was heading right up to the level of Nanea, Benny and Eliot --- my three super-special dolls! But there was one hitch . . .

The red hair caused the vinyl tone on the Rebecca doll to look very green. This can happen when putting red wigs on AG dolls, and it was very obvious in this case. Her vinyl doesn't look green at all when wearing a brown wig, but the red really didn't suit her -- plus, she looked very similar to Harriet (one just being a Marie Grace face mold and the other a Josefina mold). The green tone hampered the doll, because she looked pretty bad in almost any coloured clothes I tried. We dug around through the wigs some more, and there was a beautiful "brown, medium, curly" wig in there. Basically, that's just a Rebecca replacement style (without the thin areas common on the character doll wig). She looked great and the green effect disappeared. 

You can see the original "green" Bunty at the far right.

By now, I was really bonding with Bunty, and Harriet was fading away a bit. But Harriet is a key character for some of the story and pieces that are my favorite parts of the doll collection, so dropping her character was out of consideration. Mom and Elizabeth came up with the great idea to combine the characters! One doll named Harriet but called Bunty. She could like the family history, dressing up and sheep, all together. She could organize little fund-raising bazaars and would make a great sister for Eliot. Bunty is very outgoing and energetic, which is the total opposite of Eliot! They make a good team. The idea of combining the characters was so great that it only took me a couple of hours to do just that. 

While we were talking about all of this (I think we were washing dishes, actually . . .), Elizabeth throws out a passing comment that she thought Harriet (being the Marie Grace with a "red, natural, curly" wig) was the most gorgeous doll in the house. It so shocked me that I didn't even say anything. Right then, though, I knew I would just give her the doll. While I liked it and thought it was beautiful, it certainly wasn't my favorite. And if something appeals that strongly to someone else, then it's my pleasure to gift them with it. 

That left me with the Rebecca-style Bunty, now wearing the Rebecca-style wig. She's an adorable doll, but I couldn't get away from the fact that Harriet/Bunty needs red hair. The girl she's named for had the brightest red hair you could imagine, and it was a family characteristic. To be truly Harriet, she needed red hair. Boy, it's hard to try and get a doll with the exact personality and colouring you want.

Everybody reading here knows that GOTY 2019 Blaire was a disappointment to me. I'd been hoping for a much more unique doll and theme. Luciana seemed like a really unique package, but Blaire is rather run-of-the-mill. That said, I really liked the doll and think it would have been a great addition to the regular Truly Me line-up than a Girl of the Year. But as far as a doll goes, she's lovely. Her wig is quality, her skin tone is the new shade of pale vinyl, and her eyes are a grey-green. The problem with her (in my mind) was that she looks like a red-headed Rebecca, which makes her too similar to another named doll in the AG stores and current collection. But it hit me, after giving my red-headed Marie Grace to Elizabeth, that what I needed was a red-headed Rebecca! And Blaire was made with a special vinyl tone that handles red hair without looking green.

The two photos above show Bunty when she arrived (left) and dressed but still wearing her original wig (right).

Mom and I went to the AG store in January and spent a while looking at Blaire. I didn't want to buy another doll that I just wouldn't bond with. Harriet/Bunty needed to be perfect, because I already knew she'd be one of my very favorite dolls. We held up all kinds of outfits to the various display Blaire dolls, and she never looked green. Perfect! I decided to wait and order her with my Rewards certificate this month (having since been through the miserable AG Customer Service experience outlined in the previous blog entries, I'm so glad I didn't wait --- because I would probably not have purchased her). Waiting seemed irritating, but it would make her a better price. Then, we found out that the Navy Exchange had a great coupon that applied to AG dolls! My Gramma was willing to order her for me on her NEX account, and the total price was $84.00 shipped! 

Bunty arrived on one of the coldest days of the year, but she looked beautiful! In fact, it was really thrilling to get a doll that looked so cute right out of the box. I really wanted her to wear the CYO "short, red, curly" wig, but the idea of taking a wig off of a brand-new doll seemed scary. I dressed her up and let her sit around for a week, but she really needed shorter hair for her personality. So, just this past Sunday afternoon, I decided to go for it. I got out a spoon, disposable gloves, non-acetone nail polish remover and some cotton balls. Quite amazingly, her wig was one of the easiest that I've ever removed! They did not use much glue at all, and there was already an area at the bottom back edge that was coming up. The wig came off in less than twenty minutes -- without a tear or stretch on it! Bunty put on her new hair-do, and she's just great!

So, Harriet has undergone a final change here, and she's very happy. She has a lot of personality and all kinds of accessories. She wants a pet lamb, so I am in the process of needle-felting a lamb for her. One of the conservation breeds that she loves is Leicester Longwool. With some serious looking and e-mailing, I was able to purchase Leicester Longwool locks, so her little pet lamb will be made of the authentic wool!

Check back in the coming weeks for more photos and fact about Bunty!

Closure to the Ruined Doll Situation

Well, here's a final update to the frustrating situation with American Girl and our six dolls that they ruined. It's closure to the poorly handled mess, anyway. In the end, we were able to get a refund to our credit card of a discounted amount of $740.04. This is not quite the full price of the dolls, but at least it's over.

For anyone trying to figure out the exact numbers, here's the short version:
Our sales tax is 7.5%. The total refund for six dolls should have been $741.75. The manager of the Doll Hospital came up with the total of $741.48, and it didn't seem worth quibbling over twenty-seven cents. The promise was a refund for that amount via a check that would be mailed on Wednesday (Feb. 6).

Come Wednesday, we get a two-line e-mail saying that we're getting $740.04 on a credit card refund that would be posted on Thursday. One more lie. On Friday (Feb. 8) we got an automatic e-mail saying a credit was issued to our AG account and could take a week to arrive. We called the manager and left two messages on her phone saying that an account credit was unacceptable. Never heard back, but this morning a refund for the discounted amount of $740.04 has appeared on the credit card.

The original promised amount of $741.48 is the price of the dolls and tax (minus 27 cents). It means we have to drive 150 miles to replace them at our expense and can't order them online, unless we want to pay shipping charges. In the end, we got $740.04. I know on paper it sounds silly to be upset at being cut out of another $1.44, but it's just one more irritation and example that American Girl (and the people we dealt with there) doesn't honour their word and really didn't want to fix this situation and replace our dolls. In the end, right now (a week and a half after receiving our six ruined dolls), we're out the dolls, we're out gas money or shipping charges to get them back, and we're out a stupid $1.44 as a sort of cherry on the cake. But at least it's over.

This has certainly left a sour taste for all three of us about the company. Had they just replaced the dolls, apologized and dealt with this in an upright and honourable way the day or two after we got the horrible dolls back, we'd have all been thrilled and gotten used to replacement dolls. If they had come, we could have chosen to keep the ones shipped or swap them for our own choices of the same dolls at the store. As it is, after this whole frustrating and disturbing situation, we can barely talk about those dolls. We'll never deal with the Doll Hospital again, and I would tell anyone thinking about it to find another option.

Thank you to everyone who has been encouraging through this whole awful experience, and I hope I can just get back to blogging about our dolls and their activities.

Update to Situation with AG Doll Hospital

UPDATE ---- Today is DAY TEN. No dolls. No credit on our AG account. No credit on the credit card. Nothing new.


A lot of people are asking me for an update, and I thought this would be finished and done by now. I want like to set the record clear about our intent in this situation. From the get-go, we repeatedly asked for dolls to be REPLACED and did NOT want a refund. This was NOT about money for us. We wanted the people at American Girl to behave honorably and ship six new dolls to us. This was NEVER about money. We asked them for DOLLS. We wanted our dolls REPLACED -- not returned.
My Mom has kept notes along the way to document this, so I'm just going to post them below. This is everything that's happened so far.

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NINE DAYS AND STILL WAITING
(written on 8 Feb 2019)

Six new dolls (numbers still in production) were sent to the Doll Hospital for the comp eye exchange. Two weeks later (nine days ago), they arrived back home -- in destroyed condition, needing to be replaced (see previous blog entry for photos and descriptions).

FIVE phone calls to the Call Center (only place you're allowed to go with AG). The first two (DAY ONE, Thursday) said they were too busy to deal with this, since the weather had set them back, and that I should try calling on a later day.

The third one (later in DAY ONE) told me should would make a report but that the CompEyeSwap was not being done by the hospital staff but had been put somewhere else and that they had to be sent back for assessment by "professionals" who would decide whether the like-new dolls had indeed been ruined by them. She said that a pick-up order would be issued that night, and I told her that she could pick these dolls up as just as soon as she shipped six replacement dolls to us. She basically left it that the burden of proof was on us and that we weren't qualified to assess damage to dolls. She admitted that no existing-condition remarks had been noted upon the dolls' entry into the system, thusly verifying that we were talking about like-new dolls here.

The fourth call (DAY TWO, Friday) got a really nice girl who stated that if she could she would fix it but that all she could do was pass it along to the right department. She said that she couldn't guarantee that it would be fixed, because she wasn't the one with the authority to do that. It was around the noon hour, and she said not to give up on receiving a tracking number for a box with replacement dolls in it before the day was over. (It was Friday, and I was worried about this issue having to sit until the following week to be resolved.) She was going to call me back four or five days later to make sure that everything had turned out all right. Never heard from her again.

The fifth call (DAY FIVE, Monday) netted the same kind of response as I got on Day Three. The rep for the third call had noted "dolls have some scuffs" after our phone conversation (no mention of melted wigs, flattened heads, bad eyes, vinyl cuts and scratches, or any of the other damage which we had detailed), and this new person said that they would not be replacing the dolls. If I wanted to, I could send them back to be assessed (must be a buzzword at AG) by "professionals". When I told her that we had sent links to detailed photos and descriptions to them THREE TIMES already, she said that photos were of no value and would not be acceptable. At this point, I insisted on replacement dolls, vouchers for six dolls, or a merchandise credit (physical not digital) for six dolls. She talked to me like I was the biggest scam artist who had ever called them and offered nothing but the same "gonna pass this on to the right person". Said that someone would eventually get back to me but that they have a lot of customers to service.

That evening at about 6:15pm (still Monday), I received a call from a woman who identified herself as the Director (or Manager or something like that) of the AG Doll Hospital. We talked about a lot of things, and she seemed pleasant to talk to. I told her that we had handpicked each of these dolls (the one boy alone took seven months of looking to find the face we wanted with passable new eyes), and that we wanted dolls or vouchers that we could take to the Columbus store and return for the dolls of our choice. I was upset that we'd been five days without even so much as an "I'm sorry, and I'll look into this." She apologized and said that she'd received the information on Friday morning (beginning of Day Two) but hadn't thought it needed an immediate response. She told me that the trained staff (15+ years of experience in many of them) of the Doll Hospital was doing these eye swaps, and that it was the same people who'd done such a good job in the past for our other Doll Hospital issues. She had no idea why it was going around that the work had been contracted out. She admitted having read through the AGPlaythings forum thread and laughed about some of the (what she called) wacky or far-out responses. A friendly and hopeful one-hour phone call ended with her wanting to pick the dolls up and a brief mention of a "refund" and being "within the two years". Not our first (or even second choice), but I was getting tired of the fight and figured closure would be better than resolution. I told her repeatedly that we wanted dolls or vouchers that we could take to the Columbus store and return for the dolls of our choice, but it was becoming obvious that we were not going to get anywhere expecting fair treatment from American Girl. I requested an e-mail from her stating what was going to happen, and she said she preferred to do things by phone. She ended by saying that a pick-up call would be issued for FedEx to pick the dolls up, and I got off expecting to receive a refund and shipping instructions the next morning. She left me with her phone number (which is good, since their e-mails just reply back to a general CS address), in case I needed to get in touch with her.

The sixth day (TUESDAY), at nearly 2:00pm, we got a short e-mail saying that a pick-up call had been ordered for the next morning and that she'd be in touch with us after she got the dolls back. Signed it "Doll  Hospital Manager". No mention of a receipt for how many or which dolls, why they were being sent, timing for replacement, or anything else. No notice of a refund having been issued. No proof that I was going to send back six expensive dolls or how they were going to handle the replacement.

A quick message from me on her voice mail that we wanted some kind of proof that they were taking our dolls back and that we would be refunded for the same. I said that I was uncomfortable letting FedEx pick these up the next day without some kind of proof that we had an agreement or that we were even sending them to her. I wanted an e-mail that I could print out.

Jump to 7:20 the same night, and another phone call from her. This time, not so friendly. She felt that we were holding the dolls hostage and stated that she never mentioned "refund" but that I had said that. She said they don't do business like that. In order to get the dolls back, though, she said that she was willing to make an exception. I turned the offer down and said that I didn't want to be an exception but wanted them to do the right thing within their policy. They needed to replace, doll for doll, what they had ruined. She insisted on the refund, though, and had prepared a way to close this off. She was going to send us a check by mail, since the credit cards are "so encrypted in their system" that she didn't think they could do a refund straight to the card. I assured her that they'd done it before, but she really wanted to mail a check. I then told her that someone had to break this Mexican standoff and trust the other person and that I'd be the one to take the first step forward in trust. Since she was giving me her word that a refund check would be issued, I was willing to let AG pick the ruined dolls up before we received anything in return.

The conversation devolved from there. She had been going through our account, she said, and could only find five of the six dolls. She was adamant that it wasn't there, but we had the date of purchase and quickly resolved that "issue". (Did you know that for the last month or two, when you purchase something at a store, only order number, order date, status, and total price paid are what anyone can see? When you click "View Details", which should show you each item with its price, you get a blank screen with an error message of "The store has encountered a problem processing the last request. Try again later. If the problem persists, contact your site administrator.") Okay, here comes the rub . . . She then started to tell me that she noticed we'd hit a good sale for several of these dolls, and SHE WAS ADDING UP WHAT WE PAID AND WAS GOING TO REFUND US FOR ONLY THAT AMOUNT! I have to say, I was finally ANGRY. I told her that we no longer had access to that coupon or that sale and that it was their responsibility to REPLACE SIX DOLLS. If she would give us permission to take the discounted price to the Columbus store and purchase SIX dolls with it, then I would need some authoritative proof for that in writing. If AG wanted to send six new dolls to us (that's what we'd been asking for from Day One), she could still do that. Since a refund was the only thing she would discuss now, I told her that she had to issue a refund for the full price of six dolls so that we could go to the store and buy all six again. I then had to insist that the TAX we'd paid be included. It totalled, according to the AG Manager, $741.48. She claimed that she would delegate the refund to another person first thing the next morning and that a check would be mailed out to us. I again told her that I wanted something in writing, so that we could let FedEx pick them up the next day. The rep was upset that the FedEx man might have to drive all the way to our house and be refused access to the box. I again told her that I would trust her to issue the check, if she would send something in writing. She prefers to do things by phone. The conversation ended.

The next morning (DAY SEVEN), we received a very short e-mail from the same woman stating that $740.04 (????) would be refunded to our Credit Card ending in XXXX. It's the credit card on our account, and -- frankly -- I was tired of arguing and figured that they could have their $1.44. The message said that it would be posted the next day (DAY EIGHT). That's it. No proof of us sending our dolls back, any conversation, any problems, nothing. Minutes after this, the FedEx man showed up and took the box. He didn't leave a receipt or tracking number or anything. We now have no dolls and no replacement. Just a promise of a refund the next day for less than their value.
DAY EIGHT arrived and passed. No refund posted to our credit card. No phone call. No e-mails. Nothing. We decided to exercise patient for one more day.

Today is DAY NINE. This morning, an e-mail arrived that said a CREDIT HAD BEEN ISSUED TO OUR AG ACCOUNT AND WOULD BE AVAILABLE IN A WEEK (for the DISCOUNTED VALUE, of course.) No refund on the credit card,  no negative balance on our AG account. Nothing. I made two phone calls this morning to this woman's phone. Just had to leave voice mails. So, here we are, they have our dolls now, and we have to wait another week to see how they're going to credit our account. We'll let you know when this is finally done and over.

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[ADDED 11 Feb 2019]:
Update to the end of this mess is posted here: 
https://islandshiregazette.blogspot.com/2019/02/closure-to-ruined-doll-situation_11.html