First Ride

I grew up surrounded by rich Taiwanese and Hong Kong kids who drove Integras and Supras and RX-7's. Well, maybe not surrounded. There were plenty of normal Canadian Asians in my highschool and university, but the unbearably spoiled ones were damn conspicuous. Maybe it's this that influenced me to get something that, under a dense fog and a few shots of whiskey, might be construed as a sports car.

Then again maybe I tried to get a sporty car because it was my first damn car and I was young and dumb(er).

It was a 1985 Honda Prelude, white. It was an SE (slow version), not an Si (not as slow), but the people who sold it to us painted the damn bumper white (only available in the Si) so it looked like, well, an ass-ugly Prelude SE with a painted bumper.

They were as shady as an Italian in any film depicting 1930's New York and were very, very Russian. They might have been Ukranian, actually. All I knew is they had a thick accent and that far away look that made every day cruelties and injustices not something that bothered them overly. Thick hide, is what I'm getting at. Like maybe they were involved in illegal military action in a country whose borders hadn't quite been resolved or or maybe their closest friends went blind drinking methanol. Something hard went down in their lives at some point. Or maybe they were just gangsters. Just hard because that's what the work required.

I'm not sure how I remember it, but I do remember my dad remarking how they were 'trying to sell quite a few cars'. Which seemed odd. If you are selling several used cars and you don't, in fact, have a Used Car Lot and a garishly sterotypical coat then you're likely operating in the gray zone of everyday commerce.

Luckily my dad was an immigrant too. Maybe not from the same part of the world but I think immigrants all over North America understand each other a little better than they understand Westerners. To wit, life is Hard. Money is money. Haggle with both hands and don't blink.

I was left in the car, sitting in the drivers seat. It sat low. Real low. Vertebrae snapping low. Low enough that one had to get used to gauging the speedbump height. So I sat there, admiring my first real Ticket To Freedom. They haggled for about an hour. Later I found out it was over about 25 bucks. I did not find this unusual.

It eventually broke down. That's how I learned about timing belts. Our family isn't much into cars, so all my car lessons are expensive and fraught with confusion.

But all in all it was a good little car. It had a stick shift, which, to be honest, was pretty much the only thing I cared about. It cornered pretty well, not that I raced it at all, or have enough skill in driving to know what a really good cornering car does. But I knew It wasn't a floaty mass of turgid springs and body roll like my uncle's Mustang, or the family Dodge Caravan, so that was enough for me. It also, I guess, went from 0-60 in slightly less than 10 seconds, but I drove that thing like your great aunt drives her Toyota Tercel, carefully, worringly, with the softest and most gentle hand possible. Because to me I realized it wasn't a SUPER RAD FAST CAR WAHOOO, it was A Way To Get Out Of The House. Which is really far more exciting.

Things My 11-Month Old Can Do That Is Unacceptable For 47-Year Old Accounts Manager Brad Diaderod Currently Enjoying a Stopover In Muskegon, Michigan

• discover leftovers in folds of clothes, proceed to eat it.
• with slow, deliberate precision, find an unidentifiable piece of lint on the ground, then contemplatively eat that too.
• drop Cheerios™ on the ground, one by one.
• be startled by vacuum cleaners.
• obsessively hold onto furniture while walking.
• hesitantly reach out to every dog he sees.
• giggle uncontrollably for apparently no reason at all.
• expect strangers to smell his head.
• eat like Robocop.
• lean violently away or towards someone, depending on his disposition to that person.
• cry when sleepy.
• slowly approach the TV until face is squished against it, ensuring 129% of daily radiation intake.
• stare at strangers, unblinking, while drooling.
• continue doing whatever he was doing when others attempt small-talk.

Things I was pretty sure everyone did until I found out no, it was just me.

Thanks metamonk, for the idea.

• Beat-box to musicals
• End every order to a waiter with 'etcetera, etcetera, etcetera'
• Mistake Halloween for Christmas.
• Flip off crossing-guards.
• Hold an undying suspicion that peanut brittle is really dehydrated peanut butter.
  
• Regularly behead all the Animal Crackers™, make a hunter's trophy room from the box.
  
• Pronounce Pterodactyl with a 'p'.
• Use cowboy placemats.
• Wonder why everyone on The Office lost their accents.
• Use the e-brake when braking foot gets tired.
• Talk to infant son exclusively in the voice of Soundwave.
• Use CB conventions when using cell phones on the road, over.
• Think PETA was a celebrity softcore channel.
• Think Kinkos was something else entirely.
• Give directions to bus drivers.
• Play Sudoku with letters.
• Watch anime muted, with Happy Days audio playing over.
• Write down favourite bumper sticker slogans.
• Drink whiskey in the shower (during the summer).
• Watch the LPGA with the volume cranked.
• Laugh during Pulp Fiction.

Keyboard Function Keys That Didn't Quite Make It

Thanks stresstwig, fount of ideas and facial hair.

"Inform Miss Penny That One Of The Vacuum Tubes Has Blown, BLAST IT" - yelling was more efficient and cleared Babbage's blood of dangerous humours.

"YELLING" - Functionality was merged with Caps Lock.

π - use of circles and any calculations with circles was seen to be a sign of a weak mind, weaker constitution, and a moral fibre that was entirely suspect.

"Definitely Nazi"/"Most Likely Nazi"/"Carrier Pigeon Error" - Enigma was a very specialized machine.

"Nuke It" - Part of the original DARPA spec, it was thought that there may be a need for more safeguards.

"Check Connection Time to BBS " - Ones parents always needed to use the phone before this became an issue.

"Power Down Memetic Cyclotron " - Can't think of a reason, honestly.

"Toggle" - Apparently in Urdu this means an imaginative way to soil ones underwear whilst balancing on an inverted sun umbrella.

My Dog's Suggestions On A More Orderly Household

Thanks metamonk, for the idea.

Just leave the food on the ground, seriously. Let's not delude ourselves into thinking I care whether or not food is in the dog dish. It could be beside, or, let's be honest here, inside a toilet, and I'll still eat it. Clinging to a rather disgusting belief that I care either way is an insult to both of us.

Accept that I will slobber on anything and everything. Especially the children. Just tell yourself it's better to have e-coli infused dog slobber on them than the spackle of mucous and food that was there previously.

Why are you throwing away dog bones? They dry out and can puncture your garbage bags, leaving a mess everywhere. Just throw it on the ground. I'm sure someone will dispose of it properly.

Invest in scented candles. Much better than dog baths. I like the way I smell, you hate giving me baths, win-win.

Dirty laundry isn't. It's a marvellous treasure trove of fascinating smells. Please pile it high and everywhere. Tell visitors it's a 'living post-humanist look at canine-hominid cohabitating symbiosis'.

You know what's better than giving yourself a manicure, which is sure to leave human skin droppings (ewww!) and various files and things scattered about the home? Scratching juusut behind my ear, my hair acts as a natural and gentle exfolia-aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh.

Take a nap.

Go for a walk.

Take another nap.

The dishes can wait.

Christmas Family Letter 2009

The year, as is the case when you get a certain age, has passed us by faster than you can "Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet was made TWENTY THREE years ago?". And so it has. This year has been slightly more eventful than others.

We've had another child on January 16th, 2009. A boy this time. A somber, serious boy who will look at you with soulful eyes full of life's regret and the eternal struggle of self-actualization until you play peek-a-boo and he kills himself laughing. He's a mystery. His birth was little on the long side, but everything came out swimmingly, we were out of there in record time because we've done it before and as much fun as hospitals are, they're no place to raise a child.

What else is there to say about him. Well, he's a baby, he doesn't have a whole lot of opinions. He likes to crawl, he likes to hold things and stand up. He's really into objects. He'll be crying bloody murder like someone has just suckerpunched him with a bag full of nickels, then you'll give him, say, a Tupperware container, and he'll be as content as, uhm, well, a baby with a Tupperware container, I suppose.

He's the quiet, understated sort. Or at least, he's quiet in relation to Owlet.

Owletis even more of a firecracker now that she can speak in full sentences. A strong enough grasp of language has lead to bartering and pleading and, more often than not, commanding. While the word 'bossy' is often whispered or just said outloud, we, proud parents, prefer to think of her as spirited! Enthusiastic! Decisive! Bossy! No, wait, not the last one.

She's in a whole whack of activities. Dancing, gymnastics, swimming, and a few hours of preschool. It's fun to see her flail about at different activities and discover the joys of sport and athletics that her parents never quite got a grasp of.

Everything now is pink, princess, fairy, purple, ballet, butterfly, chocolate, and tea. Often times all at once. As much as I'd hoped she'd be kinda agnostic towards the entire 'Princess' thing, she's gone full bore. Hopefully when she's older and rebelling against the perfect image that Media and the Disney Conglomerate try to brainwash into young girls she'll remember the time I took her down the aisles of boy toys and she looked at me blankly before racing towards the aisles of pinky, fluffy, toys that seem to make her oh so very happy.

Owlet loves her brother a whole lot. She's adept at making him laugh, and they'll often sit there laughing and laughing and laughing and I know not too far in the future they'll still be laughing and laughing and laughing but it'll be at me and I'll grumble something incoherently before making shoddily constructed bird feeders in my wood-shop. But what's important is that they seem to be hitting it off. They both find each others pretty darn interesting.

Molly is going with me to work now, which mean she gets to have naps outside the home, which is a nice change for her, I suppose. I'll take her upstairs from the bowels of the building where I stare at a computer all day, to the clerks and program officers and whatnot who all love her to bits. Echoes of her name will ring through the offices as people realize she's come for a visit, "Molly!" "Molly's here!" "Is that Molly?". Course, I've worked there coming on 9 years and I'm sure none of them know my name. I wouldn't have it any other way.

I'm still at Corp. ABC. At some point they'll try and nail a plaque on me and declare me a heritage building. I'm still doing programming. Let's move on before you fall asleep.

Mrs. Owl is almost done her maternity leave. She feels as if she hasn't done anything this year. And besides birthing our second child; caring, feeding and clothing and entertaining a baby and a toddler; not having a complete night's sleep in a year; and putting up with me, she's completely correct.

She keeps herself busy taking Owlet to all her activities, having play-dates and tea-time with her friends, and dreading the time she'll have to go to work. At least it's part-time. Which will be good since she'll spend most of her time chasing around two energetic small children and counting the hours until she can go into work and take a breather.

And that's all the news that's fit to print for this year.

May the new year find you all healthy and wealthy and wise, and if not that, at least under the influence of a full night's sleep.

Things I Would Do For Fun If I Had More Moxie

• Buy a security guard outfit, stand in the foyer of a very swank theatre, wait for the opera intermission, then bustle about, pushing people aside saying, "Move along, move along."
• Sneak into a gynecologist's empty patient room, then scream at the top of my lungs, "The baby's going to come outta WHERE?"
• Drive at exactly the speed limit. High-beam and honk at others that don't.
• Make a buncha mix-CD's featuring Grandmaster Flash and the Funky Bunch, New Edition, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, and Cannibal Corpse, put a barcode on them, and sneak them into the library CD section.
• Sing the national anthem at the top of my lungs, with a few incorrect words, give a ribbon to the first person to correct me.
• Put 2 chairs and a desk, interview style, on the street. Put a camcorder on a tripod. Interview any and all people who sit with me. Alternate between an interview for a legally suspect and highly dangerous job, a celebrity interview (with questions intended for John Voigt, circa 'Deliverance), naturalization interview for Luxembourg.
• Go to McDonald's, ask to see the manager, order Combo 1, haggle.
• Get on a bus with a ghetto blaster blaring Bing Crosby's White Christmas at full volume.
  
• Wear a utilikilt, stand in front of the women's washroom, pointedly refuse entry for anyone who doesn't not, in fact, have a skirt.
• Get a three-piece suit, get a haircut, briefcase, better posture. Go shopping at the local organic co-op. Complain about the prices.
• Protest Greenpeace, just cuz.
• Stand in the middle of a busy street, offer free hugs, ask for tips.
• Go to a Volkswagen dealership, try and get as much info as I can about the current Jetta, try and drop the word 'Nazi' as casually and as often as I can.
• Buy a moleskine notebook, strike a conversation up with a hipster, try and find an excuse to bring out my moleskine and open it up, revealing pages after pages of pasted in Cathy comic strips. Ask him which one is his/her favourite.
  
• Open up a stall selling peanut butter jelly sandwiches.