On The Funway

...you're a PEZ dispenser." -- Carrie Fisher, Empire of Dreams: The Story of the Star Wars Trilogy

Only it's not Carrie Fisher or even Princess Leia on these PEZ dispensers. It's William and Kate, aka Prince William and Catherine Middleton, soon to be husband and wife.

Two hours into the 10-day eBay for Charity auction and the bidding is already at £2,061.19 ($3,365.45). PEZ rarely puts anyone's head on a PEZ dispenser, anyone real, that is. The set being auctioned with the proceeds going to Starlight Children's Foundation in the UK. It's reportedly one of only two sets made by PEZ; the other set is going to William and Kate.

I may not be famous, but I am amused. Amused and curious to see just how much it goes for.

...are now unpacked and assembled into most of the choir. I think there are fewer than 100 more to go! That's just the choir of unique dispensers taken out of their packages for display. I emptied just one of the seven bins of PEZ I moved east, which means there's rather a lot more PEZ to make a place for.

I originally planned to go to the East Coast PEZ convention in Connecticut this weekend, but dropped the idea when March brought a major health insurance rate increase scare. Even though that has since resolved itself far better than I anticipated, resulting in what looks to be better coverage for $7/month less than I was paying last year rather than $122/month more, I'm just as glad to have avoided the PEZcon temptation. There are a surprising number of new dispensers coming out these days, and conventions are also a great place to pick up older (and pricier) dispensers. Instead, I had the joy of remembering just how many dispensers I've added to my collection since packing it in August, 2003, and seeing again how big it was even then.

Thanks to staying home, the basement toy room is starting to look like something other than a storage area for lots of boxes. Better yet, the Twinzy Toy tradeshow banner is up! My great-aunts, Blanche and Bun (Bernice), were twins and ran the Twinzy Toy company from the 1920s until the mid-'50s. They exhibited at the New York Toy Fair for most of those years, and they hand-painted at 18-foot banner to use in their booth. My dad gave it to me most of 20 years ago, but until now it's been rolled up, waiting for a time when I had a good place and way to display it. Whoohoo! It looks great in the toy room! (The icon shows just a small portion of the banner...little did the twins know they'd have a grand-niece grow up to live in Toad Woods when they added a frog to their toy line!)

The weekend's accomplishments also include assembling five book cases, which means there are no shelves waiting to be assembled for the first time since last July. That's something of a good news/bad news scenario. It's great to have all the shelves in usable condition instead of in boxes, in pieces. Unfortunately, it also means I'll soon need to buy and assemble more shelves. Eep!

My paperbacks are finally unpacked; I'm down to a half-dozen boxes of other books. With luck, they'll fit on the three Mission-style wood shelves I bought last month. I have fewer books than most any fan you know. Still, it's nice to have them accessible. Just seeing them brings a comfort.

I've decided to paint all of the PEZboards (pegboard used to display MOC — "Mint on Card" — dispensers). My PEZboards are each a different color, and while little of the board shows once the pegboard hooks are filled with dispensers, none of the current colors even pretends to go with the room. I'll paint them a dark blue so they'll complement the circus fabric that Susan is going to make into an entrance to the Big Top when she and Gavi visit in June.

The toy room needs a couple more chairs, which I hope to pick up at bargain rates as soon as yard sale season begins. Fingers crossed, knocking wood....

Also on the agenda for this month: unpacking and organizing the rest of the Fanac Repository (the smaller finished room in my basement). It would be really nice to be unpacked by the time I've lived here a year! Hmm...that would also mean unpacking and hanging the art, something I've had on my calendar since December yet haven't managed to do yet. Perhaps I'm being overly optimistic here.

There will always be more projects, of course. Susan and I picked up three different fabrics for curtains and patio table coverings at SR Harris when I was in Minneapolis for minicon40, and that's in addition to the circus fabric, which I bought there most of three years ago. And I expect that the notion I'll clear the second bay in the garage ranks as pure fantasy; it works too well as a convenient, supplemental basement.

Optimism and fantasies aside, the reality of progress made these last couple of days is really quite satisfying. As are the crocus blossoms, the rapidly shrinking patches of snow, and numerous other signs of spring. (I'm not asking how the Northern Spring Peeper made its way into my basement, but having a walk-out door made it quick and easy to return it to its native habitat.)