Winged Whimsy and Awesome Oddities: No Matter What, Don't Lose Your Head

One of the nice things about being in quarantine is having the time and brain space to soak up and obsessively ruminate on the treasures that light up your home and/or imagination.  So, here's my latest obsession.  I mean, observation.  

I spend so much time talking up unicorns that I don't give pegasuses their due.  Except, of course, in the case of the unicorn-slash-pegasus, that, ahem, unicorn of mythological beings.  Well, that stops now.  I give you Bayala (named not by me, but by her manufacturer, Schleich), a garden-party-pretty pegasus who's been biding her time on my bookshelf for the better part of a year.  A symbol of childhood wonder (and, yes, crass consumerism, considering that I acquired her during a Zulily binge), she reminds me to never grow up and that there's beauty in the strange.  Because that's why people love fairy tales.  That is, aside from the crowns, castles, and princes (there's that crass consumerism again, this time with Prince Charming as chattel).  They like knowing that outsiders can have happy endings, that even freaks and horses -- if not pigs -- can fly.  That's why Shrek is so beloved (well, that and all of the burping), and why children and adults alike are drawn to stable-dwellers that can transmute dirt to glitter.  

So thanks, Bayala, for making make-believe magic.

If only I could say the same for the Gingerbread Man.  Instead of making magic, he makes one last plea as I bite off his head.