Random thoughts on Commuting:
1.Bruce Cockburn is the most amazing guitarist – despite the rather awkward spelling of his name.
2.People in their natural state are essentially polite and well behaved. When the trains are on time, and everything is running smoothly, then people take turns in line, respect one anothers' space, and are generally well mannered. Once that schedule starts to break down, people panic very quickly - “I'm going to be late and get fired”, “I'm not going to make it to the babysitter's on time, and it will cost me a fortune.” One school of thought would be, “Why fret over something you can't control?” The truth is that this flies in the face of human nature. People by their very nature tend to worry (that's why we so revere those who don't). But worry turns quickly into hostility, and when people are angry, they take it out on anyone they can. That's when it's a good idea to flip your GO Transit ID badge over so nobody can see it. As Seth Godin wrote recently, Emotional Intelligence is a rare and wonderful thing.
3.For years I had heard about people who “struggle to get to work, slave away from 9-5 in a little grey cubicle under bosses who don't get it, and are essentially unable to determine their destiny. Then they struggle home and collapse. Now that I am ostensibly one of those people, and on the eve of Seth(there he is AGAIN)'s new book, “Lynchpins”, I find myself contemplating what one does to make a relative grind of a job enjoyable. Is the secret in Tom Peters' “Personal Service Firm”? To make yourself so bloody amazing at what you do that you are utterly indispensible – at which point you (so the theory goes) get to play a greater part in the decision making process? Years ago I went for lunch with the Rt Hon. Joe Clark, and someone around the table (it was a group of students), rather rudely asked Joe how he felt about all the battles he had lost. “It's not whether you win or lose” replied Joe patiently. “It's whether or not you had influence.” Brilliant. That's all 90% of people reallly want: To be able to influence the outcome.
4.Technology is crucial for a long commute. Whether it's a good book (yes, books are a form of technology, just not a high-tech form), an iPod, or some other electronic device, a crossword/sudoku, or the like. People who didn't come prepared tend to have a terrible blank look in their eyes. Either that or they nap. These are the people who probably aren't going to influence the outcome today.
5.The focus of everybody in the 2.0 guru world these days is on creativity. The problem is, that modern society (as they are all quick to observe) does not reward particularly creative people. Think of the 10 acts at the top of the music charts, or the 10 most popular novelists – and they are for the most part creatively bankrupt. Society for the most part views creative acts as a product to be consumed – Piers Anthony and his 'Extruded Fantasty Product'. And the response is to treat the creative process as more like that of manufacturing. This is not going to change, and there is nothing anyone can do about it. It's just an observation.
6.If you have a choice between public transit methods for getting home, whichever one you choose will take longer than the other would have. I officially declare this “Allen's 2nd Law”
7.Allen's First Law was: “The less that's at stake, the nastier the politics.” Think about it. On Parliament Hill, they rip each other's throats out in question period, but for the most part (personal grudges against Stephen Harper notwithstanding) are able to go out for beers afterwards, and generally get along. Meanwhile, have you been to a Home and School Association meeting recently? Or, God help you, a meeting of a Provincial parent volunteer organization dedicated to improving the lives of special needs children? Just sayin'.

Vancouver (Laddies Home Journal)
The Braidwood inquiry into the death of Robert Dziekanski was abruptly cancelled today on the grounds that "nobody cares anymore."

"This bloody thing has been dragging on for, what, a year and a half? Two years? Really, who gives a shit anymore." said Chief Inquiry Justice Thomas Braidwood to a nearly empty courtroom.

Despite an expected surge in media interest due to a BC Court of Appeal ruling that Braidwood could declare a verdict of misconduct on the part of RCMP, nobody seemed to really give a rat's ass.

"Nearly round the clock media coverage for over 18 months has probably sucked what little soul was left out of the news consuming puclic" said media consultant Thomas Drucker. "At first, the issue being carpet bombed across nearly all print and broadcast media served to highlight the importance of increasingly questionable conduct among Canada's national...damn... What was I talking about?"

In protest over the cancellation, a candlelight vigil was being held tonight by the the dozen remaining reporters assigned to cover the story who could suddenly find themselves downsized due to the inquiry's cancellation.

"At first I wrestled with the decision," explained Braidwood. "But then, I was, like, if there isn't a single person in Canada left who cares other than a bunch of reporters, and Robert's mom, I figured, What's the point?"

Braidwood is rumored to be scheduled to return to private law practice, where he will specialize in residential mortgages in an effort to "breath some excitement back into [my] life."

A Brief Rant.
So explain to me what goes through a person (usually, though not always, a middle age + woman) when they are standing at the check out line, seeing a LOooooong line of their items going through the scanner - invariably more than the suggested 8, 10, or 12 - and then the clerk announces the total, and they get this 'deer in the headlights look'.
Why isn't your wallet ready?
Why don't you have a couple of large bills, or your debit/credit card already in your hand, ready to give to the young lady to pay her?
Why?
Are your surprised that you are suddenly being asked for money in return for the large selection of processed and frozen objects you are going to poison your body with?
Often, I look closely to see if the person in question is barefoot, wearing nothing but a loincloth, and carrying a spear thrower. You never know when someone from a remote hunter/gatherer tribe might stumble into the Dundurn Ave. Fortino's, and decide to grab half a dozen Michelina's.
But invariably, no. They are always reasonably dressed, and for some reason have imponderable amounts of change in their little purses.
The best reason I have ever heard, is that they are "Beige".

Beige is a term that a very bright speaker at a training seminar I went to 20 years ago used to describe people who seem to have no awareness of the world around them - who seem totally oblivious to the fact that there are oh... I don't know ... another 6 BILLION OR SO other people out there who would like to get on with their day. Yes, Beiges are everywhere. They are the ones doing 90 Km/hr in the fast lane. They are the ones who stop halfway through scanning their items at the self serve check out to take a lengthy cell phone call. They are the ones who walk four abreast down the main hall of the shopping mall at the height of the Christmas rush.
They are everywhere out there.
So if you see a beige this holiday shopping season, don't bother screaming at them until you have popped a blood vessel in your eye - it's pointless, they don't get it. And if you are one, don't take offense when I roll my eyes at you and exclaim under my breath: "Beige!"

Dora The Explorer
So, Sam is totally addicted to Dora. Not just a casual "I only watch Dora on the weekends, or when I'm drinking" kind of addiction, but a full on, slinking through the alley "Yo, B, can you score me a nickel bag of Swiper. What man? All you got is VHS? Yo, that's whack!"

In the last few months, I have discovered what it is about Dora that I really dislike. Not her "fingernails on chalkboard" voice, or the fact that she teaches kids that every time they accomplish something, they have every right to expect a musical fanfare. It's the fact that Dora teaches kids that even in moments of extreme crisis and emergency, that they have unlimited time to deliberate their options, and make a decision.

"They're just kids", I hear you say.
Well, sometimes that's when it's most important to think fast.

'Backpack, backpack, backpack backpack, anything you want or need, I've got inside for you...backpack backpack...yayyyyy!
Hola! I'm Backpack! Johnny is about to get his ass kicked by a 12 year old in Grade 3. Let's look inside Backpack and see what can help Johnny keep from getting his ass kicked.
Will his Go! Diego, Go! pencil case keep him from getting his ass kicked? (Long pause)...NOoooooo.
Will his Spongebob Squarepants lunchbox keep him from getting his ass kicked? (Longer pause) Nooooo...
Will his ... Oh! Too late! Johnny's getting his ass kicked! Ooh! Ow! Oh my! Yikes! Ouch! Oooohhh, that's gonna leave a mark! Oh well, better luck next time! Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum...delicioso!"

See?

Some Vignettes of life in the Allen Household.
1.
"A is for apple, Isaac, and B is for Ball."
"And G is for Google!"
"...uh...that's right. G IS for Google."

2.
While playing "snow plow" (a game in which Isaac pretends to be the giant crane and load the salt into the salt truck (the couch) and Daddy pretends to be the plow driver, which involves reclining on the couch and pretending to be a snow plow driver on "take your extremely squirmy baby to work day"), Isaac announces that there's "Big trouble up ahead."
"There's been an ice avalanche, and we'll need to rescue them. We'll need 200 helicopters, Two hundreds of thousands of planes, and two hundred hovercraft."
"Wait a minute," I interrupt. "Hovercraft?"
"That's right, 200 hovercraft!"
"Do you know what a hovercraft looks like?"
"What?"
"No, I'm asking you, do you know what a hovercraft looks like?"
"...no."
So we proceeded forthwith to that great sort of live, noisy movies about all things mechanical (to say nothing of eruptions) YouTube.
"Wow!" says Isaac, shouting over the roar of the Channel Hovercraft getting ready to leave from Dover, "Hovercraft are NOISY!"
3.
While I have always known that were he to become a Hip Hop star, Isaac's stage name would be Noy-Z (pronounce the 'Z' the American way), I have always struggled with what Sam's stage name would be. I have decided he would be Fussmaster Flex. Which raises the question - does anyone remember Funkmaster Flex at ALL? I know all I have of his is a couple of voiceovers - one on a Quincy Jones album, the other on a KRS-ONE album, so not exactly a startling body of work. But I do like to pay my respects to the old school (skool), so Fussmaster Flex it is.
4. Sam is, (see above) teething. And BOY does he not enjoy it. The problem is, that he's been teething for a year and a half now, and only has half of them. When talking to other parents of kids with DS, this is normal, but still unpleasant. Also, Sam is no longer a lamb, he is a Monkey. In fact, he's more than that. The other day, while out with Sam, I referred to him as "Captain Monkey of the Monkey Patrol," and Isaac loudly corrected me - "NOoooo, he's Crown Prince of the Monkey People." So there you have it.
5. Auntie Sib, in the great tradition of "Mixed Tapes" of old, gave me a mixed CD of music when she was here featuring Belinda Carlisle (ahhhh...Belinda), Madonna, George Michael, and a wide variety of modern Top 40 songs that I had either never heard, or had only heard in passing. So while driving to get Isaac Skates on Saturday, I was playing it, and halfway through the chorus to George Micheal's I'm Your Man, I realized that Isaac is REALLY good at picking up repeated lyrics. Too late, as I turned it down, I looked in the rear view Mirror and found him singing "If you want to do it, do it right - RIGHT, do it with me..."
Which wasn't as bad as us getting home and him singing "All the single ladies, all the single ladies..."
6. Years ago I worked in a high end shoe store in Calgary, and one boxing week, we did the usual put one of each pair of all of our close-out stock on a table, so a) people could see what we had to offer, but b) couldn't wander off with a complete pair without paying (we were in a moderately dodgy stretch of 7th ave). So a gentleman wanders in, and after a minute of rumaging around three 6x4' tables of shoes, looks up very quizzically and says "Is this all you have then?"
We were taken aback, and replied "Sir, I think if you'll look, there's quite a selection there."
He replied "Just lefts then..."
So on Saturday I went to buy skates from a used sporting goods...well...guy...who advertised in Kijiji. We showed up at his house, and he let us in, and in the living room were probably 20 different golf bags, and then he took us through one locked door, down a flight of stairs where there were three more locked doors, unlocked one, to reveal probably 100 pairs of skates, and 200-300 golf clubs all laid out in a wire rack with the club heads facing forwards. "This is about 1/5 of it," he said, as if to comfort us. Meanwhile, I'm looking around for Clarice's body.

Anyway, we try on some skates for Isaac, and he finds a pair that fit, and Al says to us "Make sure they're the right ones, a right and a left." So I do a cursory glance, and all seems good. Then about 3 hours later, we get to the flooded outdoor rink near our house (about a 6 minute walk - 10 if a little boy stops to jump into every snowbank) and realize...."Just rights then." So back to Al's place the next day to get the other one.
Long story short, Isaac needs a whole lot of practice, and when the big boys aren't using them for goal posts, they are more than happy to give him a traffic Pylon to hold onto.

Daddy, however, who has been on skates on just one other occasion since he was 8 years old, and who could not hold on to a pylon (a), it was too short, and b) there was considerable ridicule to be had should I have tried), and had no boards to cling to, did fairly well.

Supper Time Battles
So Isaac has been waking up in the middle of the night every night for the past two weeks, and that strain on Noelle is starting to show.

Now, I should say, in my defence, that I have offered on several occasions to get up and see to him should he wake up, but the truth is that Noelle just wakes up a hell of alot faster than I do, and she doesn't think to shove me and say "Go get 'im."

So we started thinking about what we might do to help him sleep through the night.

One theory was that because every supper for the last month or so has been a pitched battle between government forces and the "Eating a good supper resistance army", it might be contributing to a sense of unrest when he goes to bed.

So we made a conscious effort tonight to go with the flow, and let him eat what he wanted, and I tried to constantly praise when he was doing something good - eating nicely, eating his meat, and not just filling up on rice, etc. In the end, it was one of the most peaceful suppers we have had in ages.

SO then Noelle took him up to bed, and read him his story, told him the Oopik story, and then he asked her to stick around, while he started nattering on about Friendly Ghost, and how she (did I mention that his imaginary ghost friend is a girl ghost) had forgotten to ask her mom to stay with her that night.

Then it dawned on Noelle. If he lies here in the dark and composes stories to himself about ghosts, be they friendly or not, no wonder he is waking up in the middle of the night with nightmares.

So she stayed with him until he dozed off. I'll report later as to whether or not Noelle has to get up tonight, but sometimes the simplest answers are the right ones.

A Husky Little Boy.
Years ago, in Calgary, I had a friend who had a husky. The dog. This dog was so in love with being outside, that it considered it some form of punishment to have to come indoors. Especially in the winter. No matter how freakin' cold it got, the dog was happy to be outdoors.

Well, now that we have a proper back yard, Isaac is showing his true husky ways. He wants to go outside a) as much as possible, and b) for as long as possible.

When he gets out there, he wants to build the world's largest snowfort. Today the batttlements went up, and then Isaac started talking all crazy about a roof...that's when the wind picked up, and I decided it was time to come in.

Isaac would have none of it. Forget that his cheeks care bright pink, and his lips are so frozen that he's slurring his words, he wants to stay outside. Even if we're not going to put a roof on it, he wants to just stay out in the snow as long as possible.

The only unfortunate drawback to this is that he won't stay back there on his own yet, so one of us (read: me) has to be outside freezing his little hiney off with said Husky.

Usually it's a good excuse to have a pipe, but when that's done, there's only so much freezing I'm willing to endure.

Meanwhile, an eerie calm has descended over the house now that Auntie Sibavaughn has left. She was here for just over a week, and it was glorious. She watched the kids, and bought them (and us!) gifts, and did lots of dishes. I'm just wondering when she can move in. :)

Getting ready, both physically and mentally for my upcoming trip to Honduras. I am committed to taking more photos this time, and posting them somewhere that everyone can see them...although I have been warned that the hotel I am staying at is NOT to be left at night...apparently it's right on the corner of the Transvestite stroll. Ahh, Business Travel. Never a dull moment.