Venting over (and went on too long - apologies for that). A good night's sleep sorts out a lot of things.

I meant to thank mg for her research - I wasn't sure how many years after the war the "Made in Occupied Japan" tag would have appeared on items before it switched to "Made in Japan." I spoke to a friend about this, and will send him photos to see what he thinks about cleaning the dolls without impacting the string, etc.

I don't know if I mentioned that while looking in the trunk I found some brand new (antique but never used) cotton and linen women's handkerchiefs. Perfect! I'm soaking them now in a mild oxygen bleach after giving them a couple of days to soak in plain water that I changed a couple of times. I went poking through my back issues of Martha Stewart Living for these instructions (June, 2010). I would have directly soaked them in the oxybleach, I think, but she said to let plain water do a lot of the work, and then once the mild O2 bleach was introduced it would work a lot better. Some of these were much whiter than others - the question is are the ivory colored ones supposed to be that color to begin with? They're all soaking together. Ms. Martha says that's okay.

I'll be doing some coming and going here today so won't plan to get any big chores finished, but there are a lot of small things I can tackle. I also have one I've recently decided to tackle in my office. There is a cracked tile and a chunk that popped out above the slab foundation crack. I decided I'll cut a new piece to fit that spot and place it and ground around it. I have a couple of spots like that, where getting the rest of the tile up is a huge job, so I'll put a new custom-cut piece down. It'll feel a lot better under my chair, and though it might be a bit noticeable, it'll be a lot less conspicuous than a chunk out of the tile floor. This is a quick fix I could do today (get out the wet saw, use cardboard to make a template, cut, mix some thinset, and put it down. While I'm at it, I have a couple of cut tiles in the hall to put down also.)

SRS