A Visit to the Doll Hospital

[mallorys_camera]

Spent yesterday traipsing about Cold Spring, a day trip by train or car from NYC, and thus, teeming with people and dogs on a bright and balmy day like yesterday.



Cold Spring used to be filled with the most fascinating junk shops, but in the five years since I was there last, that had changed.

Now it’s filled with restaurants and a smattering of antique shops—distinguished from junk shops by higher prices and better-vetted inventory, meaning you are far less likely to find hidden treasures like Italian silk ties for two bucks apiece and a Dior-label pink linen jacket—alas, too small for me!—for $50.

Cruising antique shops isn’t as much fun as cruising junk shops. I get it, though: Antique shops are far more lucrative for the locals.



I was looking for one particular shop I had always loved—a junk shop that specialized in toys and miniatures.

I’d all but given up on finding it when I blinked three times. And suddenly, there it was!

This Way to the Doll Hospital, read the sign on the smudged window.

“Oh, I’m so glad you’re still here,” I babbled nervously once inside. “I keep thinking I want to bring in my old Franklin Mint Jackie Kennedy doll for a spa treatment.”

The man behind the counter looked just like Santa Claus in dirty overalls. “Made in the 80s, was she?”

“Yes. Yes, that would be about right.”

“My wife done the doll repairs,” he said. “She passed.”

So, my Jackie has missed out on her big chance for rejuvenation.

I kept looking around for something I could buy. A sign of good intentions!

But everything was covered with a thin layer of dust, and it all looked so peremptory and uncared for.

My good intentions could have dealt with the dust. But not with the lack of love.



I’d driven up to Cold Spring partly to check out the new Italian art museum, called (what else?) Magazzino Italian Art.

But I’d ended up spending so much time in Cold Spring it was too late in the afternoon. Didn’t make sense to pay the entrance fee for the museum. So, instead, I hung out with the Sardinian donkeys for half an hour.

I have no idea if Sardinian donkeys are different from Equus asinus holding other passports.

###

Tomorrow, I take off to Vermont for five days.

What should I bring you? I asked Aimee.

A loaf of real (for which read “Jewish”) rye bread, she replied.

Alas! There are no Jewish bakeries on this side of the Hudson, though there are some passable French and Italian ones.

The request is rather like the request Beauty makes of her merchant father, no? My heart’s desire is a single perfect rose.

Except in my version of La Belle et la Bête, La Bête is a rotund, forelocked bread maker who lives in one of those Hassid housing complexes outside Swan Lake. But I ain’t driving up to the Catskills today! Aimee will have to make due with some homemade pesto from the last of my basil harvest.

I’ll have to give some thought to presentation!

Aimee is particular about things like that.

Comments

[adoptedwriter]

I love all the vintage stores!

[mallorys_camera]

I like vintage stores, junk shops, and thrift stores.

I'm not a big fan of antique shops.

[asakiyume]

I remember a doll hospital featuring in some picture book I read as a kid--and I remember my mom actually sending away a doll for repairs and us getting it back. Probably not that place though. Although who knows?

[mallorys_camera]

Cold Spring is only about 100 miles south of the Capital Region. So, it might have been.

[wayfaringwordhack]

My love of vintage stores has been so tempered by my sense of practicality and now the repeated international moves that I no longer get the same thrill when I go in them. Instead of possibility I now see my "lack of follow through/energy" in the vision the coveted item(s) used to give me.

I hope you are enjoying your Vermont trip! And that Aimee likes her pesto. :D

[mallorys_camera]

I don't buy much anymore in those kinds of stores either. Though I will buy small gifts if I see a whimsical object that's just perfect for someone I know!

[smokingboot]

I find the dividing line between junk shops and antique emporiums numinous to say the least.

Do you remember that thoroughly haunted combination of the two we visited in Edinburgh? I've never found it again you know 😄

[mallorys_camera]

I do remember that shop! I loved it! Were I to make a list of my all-time favorite junk-shops-cum-antique-emporiums, it would rank high!!!!