Little Monsters and a Brave Knight

The kids arrived just before 9 am, with their parents of course. The adults needed to buy a new car after their old one was written off in an accident. They brought a giant box of air clay filled with all kinds of colours. It’s kept the kids busy for quite a while and they keep coming back to it.

I baked them some chocolate chip cookies and Robyn made them some Mac and Cheese for lunch. A Disney movie is always a good idea when the young ones are around, so we put on Big Hero Six, a well-loved movie in our house.

Then it was followed by Beauty and the Beast. Summer, the youngest passed out while cuddling with her Aunty Robyn and Jack the eldest hasn’t sat still for the entire day. He does occasionally go into the next room and play with some Lego.

He’s been getting everyone to make him 1 cm squares out of the air clay. A few minutes ago, he offered to sell the cubes to anyone that was interested, for a dollar a piece. Future entrepreneur? Maybe. Or possible a con artist, the line is very thin between the two.

We momentarily mesmerized them with a giant stuffed Panda bear, maybe three times the size of them. That was until the Jack decide he could use it as a ladder to reach a series of book nook miniatures that are currently on our mantle place. Miniature shops and greenhouses filled with fussy little bits. The temptation for him to pull then down was irresistible. Some how we managed to dissuade the young lad at least for a few minutes.

Sounds like my sister-in-law and brother-in-law managed to find a car that they liked, not sure what brand or model yet. They called to offer to bring back some of our favorite shawarma from The Chef’s Door. I’ve yet to have a better version of the shawarma.

A red brown squirrel has been begging at the back sliding doors again. If we let it, it would waltz right in and make itself at home. It’s staring at me and I swear it is aware of how to pose for maximum cuteness.

They bought a Volkswagen Atlas which will be useful as their kids grow up. It has a third row of seating which I am sure will be used for ballet or soccer teams. Not to mention being able to travel with their grandparents.

After a quick meal and visit the kiddies were bundled off into the car, crying that they didn’t want to leave. And then a few minutes later we were sent photos of the two of them passed out in the car. Mission accomplished!

We watched a Real Time with Bill Maher and then Robyn went for a walk with my stepson. I should have taken that time to take a well-deserved nap, but instead I wasted it on YouTube videos, most of which weren’t even all the interesting to me. Just before Robyn returned from her walk, I started chipping away at this blog post.

We decided to watch a few episodes of Forensic Factor: A New Era. We both loved to watch the original series on A&E back in the day. The new series has a female narrator and we both decided we miss the John Robinsons narration from years past. He added a certain gravity to the episodes that this new narrator doesn’t. But otherwise, it’s the very much the same type of programming it was in the ‘old days’.

I’ve been making or nearly making my 2026-word quota by writing this blog for the past six days. If I continue that trend tonight it will be an entire week of just blog writing and no fiction. Therefore, I am going to write a story this evening. I may not finish the whole thing but there is no need to. I think I’lll write a story about a knight. Something small, not too complicated. The inspiration coming from the George R. Martin’s ‘The Hedge Knight’ from the Legends Collection, which I had a copy of for years. I thought it might be a collector’s item because my copy attributed a story to the wrong author. I feel like I may have thrown it out because it got water damaged, but maybe it would be worth while to dig it back up and give it a re-read.

But anyways, I just feel like writing something simple and easy. I like the sense of purity you get about the character Dunk in this story.  A hero you can actually root for, something that has been missing in a lot of our fiction for the past few years. I think it is why many of us feel this sense of absence in our television shows and movies. Heck even in our world leaders.

It something to think about. Is the rest of society craving stories using the old archetypes. Are we programmed to want those stories in our lives. Do we still dream about being like them? As a child we had heroes we wanted to emulate. Not sure what heroes the kids of this current generation are enthralled with.

Still, thinking as a writer, I expect there is a market for stories that return to the older archetypes, maybe in a new and refreshing way, but with all the familiar signposts. The human brain does seem to enjoy it when the expected arrives at the correct moment. We get a dopamine hit when it lands, like when the chorus of a song arrives or when Phil Collins gets to that drum rolls in “Something in the air Tonight”.

But I should stop writing this blog and get on with the fiction part of the evening.

Adios Amigos.