cleolinda

So after that last entry, I leaned back in my chair, put my feet up (not on my desk, but braced against the back panel underneath), turned on my all-time favorite song (I'm weird, I don't know) and just kind of lay there for a while, not really thinking about anything at all. And then I went and took a shower and dipped into my precious sample bottle of Lush's Snow Fairy.

And then when I got out, a package had come for me. I feel like I have to disclose this in the interest of fair play--apparently the team at coraline.com decided I should be one of fifty websites or bloggers or something to receive something "handcrafted and special" (said the email I got a couple of days ago), and my first thought was, God bless them, they're going to send me a spare Coraline head. Yeah. This package was a lot bigger than a puppet head, and it... rattled.

So I open the cardboard shipping box--I had no idea at the time if it was something from y'all or what--and pull off a few handfuls of packing paper, and I see this beautiful, battered wooden box (HANDMADE IN OREGON, 33/50), about a foot wide and maybe four inches deep, and when I open it, there inside the lid is a little movie still printed on paper and tacked up like it's an old photograph: C. LOOKS UNDER BED. In the box itself there are five deep blue HAIR SWATCHES CUSTOM-DYED FOR C. (kind of thick and bristly), a bottle of NAIL POLISH CUSTOM-MADE FOR C. in the same color, and a MINI HAT (a dark, flat cap, kind of like a train conductor's or a soldier's) CUSTOM-MADE FOR... well. You know.

There's a little compartment in the front, and inside is a big, shiny, old-fashioned silver key on a ball chain (C.'s NECKLACE). I have to tell you, I have a big thing about old-fashioned keys. I don't know why, but I have this huge fixation with just the imagery of them; I have some key earrings and a couple of key pendants, a handful of tarnished old skeleton keys I keep in a box somewhere, all kinds of things. So the moment I saw the necklace, I was completely a-squee. If I can convince myself that I will not be devaluing a movie collectible, I am totally going to wear it.

The lid itself was about an inch thick, maybe more, and it also rattled, so after some fiddling I managed to get the top panel open (a lid that thick, there obviously had to be something in there), and inside was a picture of Coraline's hand holding up a little black key with the head shaped like a button--and there, inside the lid, was a little black key with a head shaped like a button. There was an envelope glued to the top of the lid, sealed with black wax and a black button, and inside was a typed letter explaining basically the same thing the email had. And there was a password to get on to the website, but I don't know if I'm supposed to share what it is. So I'll look into that a bit later and see how that goes. I'll have to find someone's digital camera and take some pictures of the box--really, really nicely done, I have to say.

ETA: Someone else's box, with different contents. My password was "buttoneyes," by the way; I think others are listed on that page as well.