Hello Autumn

I got at least 8 messages this morning to remind me that we’re now in autumn — apparently as of 2:49AM — and everyone seems to be hurrying to find and wear all their orange, pumpkin-themed clothing and drench themselves in pumpkin spice drinks.  (Not a fan.)  I did get a recipe from my long-ago and still deeply missed cooking classes of a pumpkin spice chocolate lava cake, which was not bad but definitely not amazing to me.  It was another nice day, and apparently it will be for a few more days before rain puts in an appearance.  The leaves are beginning to turn, and will be even prettier in about a week, but I can wait.  Jerry wants to play, and I feel horribly guilty that I can’t take him on long walks to play in the leaves.  He keeps me company when I do anything, and I wish that I could do more activity with him.  Don continues to be not well, although he seems to have somewhat less pain.  I hope that’s real, and not just me being hopeful, because he’s still struggling to stand and walk, but his appetite is unaffected, thankfully.

I slept until almost 11 this morning.  Literally, I was awake during the night for maybe an hour in total.  I just reached out, drank, went back to sleep.  Jerry tried waking me earlier, but then went on a zooming fit and hid under the bed, so I went back to lie down until he jumped on me at 10:45 and I got up.  I had a couple of decent meals, took my meds, and feel pretty good.  I’m happy about that, and I’ll have to do some cooking soon as I’m about out of prepared food.  I’m invited out tomorrow afternoon, so that should be fun; it’s for the birthday of a friend of a friend and it’s a family I’ve known since I came to Canada.  Except for Don, all the other patients (the small people and my other friend) are all doing well and are back enjoying themselves so thanks very much for all of your thoughts and prayers.

I think that I may have mentioned before about reading Enid Blyton as a child — and rereading them as an adult.  She’s identified both as one of the most prolific English language writers and vilified for presenting a number of sexist, classist, racist themes in her writing.  I’d agree with that if she had written later than when she did (1930 - 1968) or if she’d written stories that were otherwise unapproachable.  She wrote mainly for young children — pre-teen, in the main — and many of her stories are classic.  I’m not here to defend her reputation; there are several sites arguing both sides.  What I wanted to talk about (and it’s appeared in some articles as well) were the children’s adventure series that she wrote.  Everything from Famous Five to the Mystery series, the Adventure, Secret, Barney, etc.  The children are in situations that today would be beyond unthinkable.  They are left to go on multi-day, unsupervised outings where the eldest is maybe 13 or 14, the youngest is often 10 or 11.  They all have floating ages, although none so egregious as Julian of Famous Five fame, who stays 14 for approximately 8 years in-universe.  I was reading a couple this week in which a group of children disappears for 6 months to live on an isolated island; and another where they meet a strange man, persuade him to let them sail his boat unassisted and they find a gang of counterfeiters.  Reading these now, I have visions of the children being severely injured, molested, shot, or perhaps killed.  Her child heroes don’t suffer more than a bruise, even when faced with Nazi officers — instead of killing them outright, the Nazis provide food and shelter, planning to keep the children hostage… I’m also awed that the 10-year olds are able to cook full meals, know how to forage for food (despite having grown up with servants and attending boarding schools) and can manage to cleverly outwit criminals that the police haven’t been able to find.  Fictional police are really the most clueless characters on the planet, and apparently only solve crimes when they’re presented neatly resolved by neighborhood “pesky interfering” children, resident mystery writers, the local priest or nosy library assistants…  In these days, their parents and guardians would be facing multiple investigations for child abandonment, neglect, improper supervision — in fact, even in my childhood I’d never have been allowed to go camping for weeks without supervision.  Also, and this is a question for all children’s literature— where and how do they use the bathroom?  The lists of supplies they carry never includes things like towels, toiletries, TP, shovels (for digging holes) or changes of underwear.  Are they mini-Ken dolls?

They’re escapism.  No arguments with that.  It’s just that the rule-enforcer in me pops up to wonder why the kids aren’t disciplined for their criminal actions — breaking into houses, stealing items (“borrowing” they called it), endangering the lives of adults around them, etc.  Then it dawned on me that at the time these were written, children had very little actual freedom.  They were often seen as undeveloped adults, and there seemed to be a prevalent belief that they’d “punished themselves enough” or that their success in solving whatever eliminated the trouble they were in or caused to those around them.  It’s bled into a lot of especially Disney movies and I’ve volubly complained about those before.  OK, just tell me to stop being a buzzkill and go to bed… Good night!