ricki's backstory

i wanted to take a moment to tell you more about ricki. like i said yesterday, ricki was one of my favorite guys when i was a little girl. (i'm going to look for some photos of us together when we're at my parents' house, because i don't seem to have any here.) bebe has been interested in ricki for a few months now but the true love affair only began recently.

here they are in march:

sometimes after a hard day of play, ricki finds herself abandoned in some strange places. i came upon this scene one night after bebe went to bed:

here they are yesterday morning (bonus fuzzle shining in the morning sun):

and here they are hanging out today:

though ricki is black (nowadays we'd call her african american, of course, but this was in the mid-70s), she was named, interestingly, after a character in a chinese story, riki tiki tembo no sa rembo chari bari ruchi pip peri pembo, a little boy who nearly drowned after falling into a well because his name was so long that when his brother went for help, it took too long to explain what had happened (the story is supposed to explain why chinese names are so short).

i learned a couple of interesting things today while looking up some details to provide ricki's backstory. first, the character in the fable and the children's book is actually named tiki tiki tembo no sa rembo chari bari ruchi pip peri pembo. i'm not sure where we got ricki from. second, in looking for a picture to show you what ricki originally looked like, i learned that the doll's name was actually elizabeth, which probably explains why someone gave her to me in the first place. so, without further ado, i give you ricki, née elizabeth:

this face looks familiar, but check out all that hair!

and i learned from some random doll-collecting website that the lavender elizabeth was an alternate, rarer version.

however, i don't think ours would be worth much today:

it doesn't matter to bebe though, she loves ricki. and what a lucky doll to get so much love from two different generations!