It’s all about the polka dots, peeps — Rosie the Riveter and Minnie Mouse know fashion.

Those of you who follow this blog with any regularity will know that I am a planner.

A sometimes fasitidous list maker.

An occasionally ridiculously anal nth degree detailer.

But then, there’s the other part of me (which The Bloke has been known to attribute to my left-leaning political stance) that quite enjoys the long view. The Five Year Plan, for example. The kind that might be set down in a notebook (red, of course) along with an outline of how the means of production and communal — er, sorry, I mean family — income might be channelled into attaining whatever Big Goal I have determined will best serve the Common Good.

And while it may be true that I studied Russian history at university and have copies of The Portable Karl Marx and The Encyclopaedia of the Russian Revolution and A History of the Soviet Union (Final Edition) — amongst other salacious titles — on my bookshelf, The Bloke has insisted that these be hidden behind an armchair so as not to offend the sensibilities of my in-laws.

I’m totally OK with that.

Really — I’m broad minded.

(And — for the sake of my inlaws’ sanity — I’m not Communist either).

Which is probably why our most recently completed Five Year Plan abandoned any remotely leftie sentiments and culminated in a family vacation to the cultural heartland of capitalist consumerism: Disneyland!

Maybe Walt was a kindred spirit too…

Seriously, we had a ball.

Yes, I might have planned out each day of our holiday (as best as I could) in advance, making sure we took advantage of Park Hopper Tickets and Magic Hours and Fast Passes and every other trick and time-saving contrivance I could research and/or think of, but as a result we saw and did just about everything we wanted to — and still had time to shop for souvenirs.

Because those Disney dudes know that it’s all about the merch, my friends!

(Though I suspect even Rosie the Riveter — who, as a wartime icon of American feminism and women’s economic power — could have told you that, despite pre-dating the die-hard Disney era by a decade or more).

So, despite my somewhat communist approach to vacation planning — or perhaps because of it?! — we have returned to the Great Southern Land with multiple sets of mouse ears, numerous magnets and keyrings, several caps (Star Wars ones, of course, thanks to Lucasfilm being aquired by Disney for the bargain price of $4.06 billion back in 2012 — which may or may not equate to about two week’s worth of ticket sales to the park), along with three new lightsabers (two of them custom built) and Mickey Mouse only knows what else.

And now that this Five Year Plan has been completed — which probably revolved more around Marvel Girl and Miss Malaprop being just the right age to revel in the magic of the Happiest Place on Earth than anything else — I can honestly say that I’m so glad we did it.

The Common Good, I think the whole family would agree, was well and truly served.

They might even let me come up with another Five Year Plan…

Main Street USA, all decked out for Halloween. Planning ahead meant, to misquote the most famous Disney Princess of recent years, Elsa of Arendelle, “the crowds never bothered us anyway”.