A Holiday in Cuteness

Fun fun fun till Daddy takes Belindy away!

Tonight I am going to express my displeasure with the shenanigans that marked the Synod of the Family by reading Familiaris Consortio. And for the rest of the week I am going to take a break from all Catholic news, especially Vatican news, by reading nothing on the internet that is not about The Cute.

Would readers kindly suggest blogs that collect and celebrate cute, fun, girly stuff for our amusement? My cute interests include ladybugs (and Polish songs about ladybugs, aka biedronki--isn't that a cute word?), polka dots, vintage fashions, Paris in the 1950s, babies, grandmothers of all kinds, very small houses, gypsy caravans, impressive jewellery, shoes, expensive perfume, recipes for cakes, pies and cookies, ornate stairwells, classic children's picture books,  rag dolls, central European folk design, ballet (I am out of my thirty year anti-ballet snit), alphabets, wooden toys and hagiographies for children.

My Great-Uncle Art of blessed memory (born c. 1900) gave me a very cute broom that was also a black rag doll, which I called Beloved Belindy after Raggedy Ann's black friend. Both this broom and my Raggedy Ann book were confiscated by my parents as appallingly racist. I wonder where they are. My mother never throws anything out, so possibly my Beloved Belindy broom still exists in some box. At the time (1975) I hadn't the slightest idea what was wrong with sweeping the floor with a simulacra of a black woman. And in later years when I heard about the need for black dolls, I was even more confused as to why my parents had taken mine away.

Oh dear. Now even my post on cuteness has depressingly political overtones. To soothe any frazzled nerves, I should point out that the only black people I ever saw in 1975 were Gordon and Susan on Sesame Street, who were also the only married couple on Sesame Street, which rather confused me, and David. Oh, and Uncle Ben of Uncle Ben's Rice and Aunt Jemima of the pancake mix. All much better  role models than Beyoncé and Jay-Z.  I hadn't the foggiest clue there was something called racism and that my poor Belinda was a symbol of it. My childhood Toronto neighbourhood was still rather Anglo-Saxon, with Germans and the occasional Italian to liven things up. Oh, and "Uncle" Waldemar, of course, exuding Slavic glamour all over the place.

Update: Cute rag dolls!