A few days ago, I was walking and noticed what looked like a clump of oak flowers. I forget what made me turn it over, but it proved to be this girlie:
(Maybe 3" high)
I propped her up against the base of the nearest lamp post. When I next went by that spot, I looked and she'd disappeared, so I figured whatever little girl had lost her, had found her again. But today I was there again and noticed a clump of oak flowers in the ivy next to the pavement/sidewalk ... so second best happy ending, home she came with me.
This is pretty clearly a girl bear. Not only is she very petite, she has two hair ornaments, and one of them, plus the tuning end of her guitar, feature hearts. There's a flower painted around the painted hole in the guitar body. One of the hair ornaments is an ice lolly; the other is an even smaller critter, with a circular body and rabbit-like ears. The guitar and the ice lolly are multiple plastic pieces fitted together: the plate at the base of the guitar strings as well as the tuning block, the white bottom half of the lolly, even the front of its stick is a yellow piece. The hairpiece animal has black painted eye-dots and a raised dot nose; the bear herself has two eyes and a slightly smaller nose, affixed in the traditional manner for small stuffed bears' eyes, but the nose is just a little below the eyes, a snub-nose effect.
Very carefully designed to be irresistably cute, to extract pocket money from little girls—or adult collectors. I suspect she's part of a Japanese line of collectible plushies being sold at Asian malls in the Bay Area. Or maybe she's just a very cannily designed tchotchke produced in such bulk that the detailing doesn't cost too much at all.
Certainly works. Anyone with any nurturing instinct would be drawn to her. But the economic implications make me wince. Remember, she's tiny. (See the book and onions in the background.) She's small enough that she might be meant for a backpack zip or a keychain, but I don't see any sign of a torn-off attachment. And her legs and arms are rudimentary, stiff shapes under the fuzz, probably a plastic frame. This isn't a bear to hug and take to bed, but something to covet, and amass, and leave sitting on a shelf.
She'll go on my shelf now.
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