Kobayashi Maru

So tonight is the modern celebrating of all hallows eve. I am in the frickin Vancouver Airport (which if you have to be in an airport is not the worst in the world to be in I admit), but the Muppet is trick or treating all over the neighborhood and I am missing it and this makes me sad and somewhat pissed off that I am missing a major event in her life. YEAH I KNOW that halloween is hardly a major event in a little girls life, but it’s my kid and my whining session and Ferf is stealing all the good candy that is rightfully mine as the head of the household - SO BACK UP OFF ME ON THIS ONE!!!!

I’m sorry for that. That was out of line - completely justified with probably even more righteous indignation that I showed here quite honestly, in fact my restraint should be commended in many ways - but still somewhat unnecessary for my more consistent passengers on the Maru to have to put up with.

So the Muppet being female and 3 years old dressed up like you would expect her to. No, not a princess you stereotyping freak. Like a cowgirl on a pony. She’s my kid after all.

Influence:

Dad - 2 Mom - 0

The outfit looked a lot like this, except she is obviously way more cute (and by that I mean cuter) than the little girl in this photo - but it’s an ad and the little girl was probably forced to do it by her parents who are living vicariously through her and she will end up bulimic and in some form of drug and alcohol rehab before she’s 20 wondering how she ended up like Brittany Spears when she was just trying to please an over-indulgent father and over-bearing mom. And the Muppet will have her first PhD done by the same time and look cuter in her childhood pictures, while also actually having a childhood.

Anyway, here’s the photo of the costume. Pay no attention to the boy in the same costume. He will deal with similar problems as the girl while adding gender identity issues to the mix as well.

So as you can see, the outfit is cool. These children need your prayers. But the costume rocks - and we picked it up in Superstore like a month ago dirt cheap. Go me.

So the whole Halloween thing aside - well, not aside yet. I have some issues with Halloween. Not the standard religious right legalism issues wherein we try to ignore the night because acknowledging it somehow makes us condone witchcraft and satan worship and means that somewhere in our black heart stained by original sin. I’m over that. No my issue is more centered around the fact that once a year we unleash an army of panhandlers into residential neighborhoods and think this is a great thing. How is it that we despise it (yes, i am over generalizing and including you in my over generalization, work with me, I am making a point) when people come up to us asking for food, money, etc ANY OTHER DAY OF THE YEAR even when, for the most part, they are dressed differently too, and yet on this one night we not only think it is cool, but we openly encourage it. Dress up and ask me for food - I really dig it one night a year!!!! Maybe it’s just that I work with the homeless everyday. Maybe it’s the bitterness I hear spewed from people regarding panhandling in our jewel of a downtown everyday that has caused me to consider this. I am not sure, but I am positive of one thing. Halloween is the one time of the year that we tell our children that it is okay to not only approach and speak to strangers, but to actually “take candy from a stranger”. That has got to confuse the heck out of children if they stop and think about it. Of course, they are on such a huge sugar buzz that they have only fuzzy memories of things surrounding the night the next morning anyways and so that leaves me to have to handle all this deep thinking for them - and you as well. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind. After all I am sitting in a freaking airport with a 3 hour layover with nothing else to do and the kind folks here in the airport are broadcasting open wifi so I can’t really complain too much. One day we will find out that all this wireless networking stuff causes all kinds of cancers, but I don’t care about that today. Today I only care that it gives me the ability to talk with you on Halloween from Vancouver. And I only care about the fact that the Muppet is dressed up in a crazy cool costume and she’s 3 and old enough to really “get it” this year and I’m not there for that. And I care that Ferf is going to steal all the really good candy that I am by right entitled to steal from my daughter after she goes to sleep tonight! These are the things that I care about tonight. And it’s possible that they are not listed in order of importance. I’m not sayin’…I’m just sayin’.

For those deeply concerned about me, I suggest gifts of sweet tarts.

They might help. The more the better. I’m just sayin’.

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SO a few Saturdays ago I spent the day at Wal-Mart. Now this is not exactly exciting news nor blog worthy in and of itself as on average 95% of people in medium to small towns do the same thing every weekend and, well, let’s be honest (if only for a moment) some folk do it every day.

But this was no ordinary every day. This was the second annual Stuff the Bus in Kelowna. What is a stuff the bus, you ask. Good question - I am glad you asked.

The stuff the bus is the project where we ask the entire community to come together and give to others. If anyone has “extra” blankets, coats, jackets, ski pants, sockes, hats, toques, gloves, mittens, scarves, boots - anything that could keep someone wrm during the winter months - then they bring it to the local Wal-Mart (shameless sponsorship promotion) and put it in the city bus provided by Regional Transit (another shamless sponsor promotion) for those in need. We have done this for…um. 2 years (those paying attention are already aware of that). But this year, we decided to go “big or go home”. We went for a double decker bus. This thing will hold 150 people when it is full, but will hold a ridiculous amount of clothing when it wis stuffed!

I give you the following proof:

as you can see (well, kind of) the bus is truly stuffed. I am there in the middle between the bus driver and the manager of Wal-Mart. It took us 4 hours to fully stuff that dang bus. That is amazing -this I will admit, but it also makes me somehow sad.

Sad you ask? Yes sad and almost sick. I know, I am confusing some of you at this point. I have planned and walked out a fairly large undertaking that came to fruition with incredible success, so why the negative emotions??

Well, I look at it this way - 12 months ago there was enough excess clothing and blankets in this town to fill a 40 foot city bus, as well as complete a clothing drive for Telus, for the boys and girls club, for the salvation army and who knows how many other organizations. And now, about a year later, there is enough further excess to fill a double decker city bus (as well as all those other ones too).

This is a community of such extreme excess that it is almost disturbing. How can we (and I use that in the collective sense) can have so much and there can be so many in the same city with so little. I am somehow in awe of our generosity and disgusted by our excess at the same time.

How does this kind of thing make you feel? Or do you even think of such things?

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So Ferf and the Muppet were spending a lovely day together yesterday. I had the car, so they were stuck at home. This isn’t such a bad thing really as they get the car 3 out of 5 days of the workweek. The 2 homebound days are usually reserved for playdates at our house with other folks and lots of games and cuddling on the couch.

Yesterday was a lot of the latter. They played lots of games and spent lots of time just sitting together and being near each other. If the Muppet doesn’t get a certain amount of cuddle time she becomes a serious little turd. Anyway, she is climbing all over Ferf and finally starts looking at her ears and poking around them. (Keep in mind that this story was relayed to me - I wasn’t there - but it gave me a mental image of primates grooming each other)

I realize that I am going to catch a lot of shite for that particular analogy, but I’m just being honest - it’s what went through my mind…

Back to the story…the Muppet is looking in Ferf’s ears and decides that she has found a cut in Ferf’s ear. And she goes to great length to point it out and tell Ferf all about the scratch on the inside of her ear. Finally, Ferf says to her, “maybe you should go get a band-aid for me and put it on there.” This makes sense in our house because the Muppet is forever trying to come up with reasons to get a band-aid. I swear she would rather wear band-aids than clothes. In fact she would prefer to wear them instead of clothes. But the point is that Ferf tried to speak her language and engage her on her level - like a great mom would do.

The Muppet however, switches roles and looks right in Ferf’s eyes and says - in her best daddy voice - the same thing that I say to her all the time, “Mommy, if it isn’t bleeding it doesn’t count!!!!!”

On the influence scale:

Mommy 0        Daddy 1

Sometimes it is just too damn much fun being a dad!!

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So I have been besieged with demands for an update on the magic beanstalk story and how I got out of that particular mess. For those who are not sure what I am talking about I simply give you opportunity to read the original post. Really, go ahead. The rest of us will wait for you - that’s just the kind of folks we are around here on the Maru.

Ok, everybody up to date on the edamame beans and the tragic mistake I made about the magic beanstalk imagination my daughter has? Good. Well, good for you my loyal reader(s) but not so much for me. But then you are here to see what kind of twisted thing life has thrown at me so that you can appreciate your life a little more than you did this morning when the alarm clock went off and you stumbled out of bed toward the toilet and stubbed your toe on the edge of the dresser and you wanted to curse loudly, but suddenly found yourself in the quandary of realizing that (a) you toe hurt and you wanted to grab it and jump up and down a little and (b) you needed to pee and unconsciously had already unlocked the bolt on your bladder in anticipation of the ubiquitous morning pee and every time you landed after a jump you were peeing ever-so-slightly on your leg. Or maybe that was just me…whatever. You are here to enjoy my mistakes and so I shall regale you with stories of how I dealt with what was at the time (and will remain for at least another week or so) the most difficult thing I have had to overcome in my burgeoning parental life.

So, as I said before, somewhat prophetically (which turns out is easier when you know exactly what you are going to do and simply say it out loud first, that is the only kind of prophecy I have personally ever been really good at. And it’s handy when Old Testament hardliners are around at parties just looking for a reason to stone someone) I brought home the fine fake ficus that I found floundering in any functional capacity in the room where food is found at my office. Sorry, the alliteration monster came in the room and molested me there for a moment. Where was I? Oh yes, the fine fake ficus from work. It turned out that no one really was interested in claiming the ficus in question and so the Badger and I stole over in the dead of night…

Ok, let me address the “in the dead of night” portion of this post. Most of you are thinking to yourself, “if nobody wanted the ficus, no matter its fineness, then why would you sneak over in the dead of night to get it?” It’s a valid question. I bear you no ill will for asking it. Sur,e some of my other reader who wants to get to the end of the story is a little pissed cause you interrupted my train of thought and made me enlighten you with what is, as you will soon see, a very rational explanation to my usage of a line that is only somewhat less overused than “It was a dark and stormy night”. But me, I think it’s fine that you asked. And therefore I will answer it, much to the chagrin of the reader who is in a hurry to get to the bottom line of the story. In fact, I obviously am giving you preferential treatment and am comfortable with that fact too - as are you I assume.

So Badger and the Goddess are over for drinks and dinner and drinks one night, and we are up kind past out bedtimes and somebody (it wasn’t me, that’s all I can say with integrity) asks about the magic beanstalk and how that went. I am suddenly fraught with horror as I realize that I have completely forgotten about the beanstalk for far too many days and am overcome with the deep knowledge that I am a turd! Then like an addict needing a hook-up, I have an epiphany that boarders on a clinical compulsion that we (Badger and I) MUST GO NOW AND RETRIEVE THE FINE FAKE FICUS!!!! Badger being the good friend he is, as well as being 2 1/2 sheets to the proverbial wind, also thinks this is a fine idea (if not my best ever) and we simply get up and leave the women folk sitting on the couch with plenty to talk about. So at some very late and dark point in the night, we pull into the back parking lot of my office, just under a burning out street lamp that casts shadows that would make a street addict think twice before walking down that alley. I fumble with my keys and stand up straight and walk to the back gate and unlock it like it’s normal for someone to be entering the place at this time of night with a guy who I swear looked a little shisty even to me. (sorry Badger, call it taking literary license) Anyway, we get the gate unlocked and then go up the back stairs and creep into the lunchroom. I swear we were the only ones there, the back door was locked behind us, nobody wanted the damn ficus and we were still creeping into the lunchroom. It just seemed somehow appropriate. Anyways, we grab the fine fake ficus like and rush it out of there like it’s one of Brittany Spears’ children and I work for social services. We cram the thing into the car - which whoever designed the Ford Escape was totally NOT considering the headroom needs inherent in a midnight ficus raid - and drive off like we stole it. And we get back to the house and go searching for a shovel, which we find and go to digging a hole deep enough to “plant” a fake plant. It’s dark and we don’t have really good light back there, but we did the best we could and I figured that seriously, the Muppet is 3. She is not, in the magic moment of discovery of a magic beanstalk, going to look down and inquire about the nature of the disturbed earth and question the validity of said stalk. Later we wish Badger and Goddess goodnight and trundle off to bed. I am not really sure what trundling is, but I have never been more sure in my life that I was trundling off to bed. It was like Dickens was writing my life story for those five minutes.

The next morning, we got the Muppet up and sat her at the table for breakfast - with the window blinds WIDE OPEN and her chair turned ever-so-slightly towards the window. As we spoke, she cocked her head to the side in a manner that would have made Nipper proud, and pointed at the window and said, “What IS that!?” We feign the proper amount of ignorance and move over and look with her. She lights up and says, IT’S THE MAGIC BEANSTALK DADDY! I TOLD YOU IT WOULD GROW! I TOLD YOU!

We run over to the back door and launch it open and rush out like kids trying to catch Santa, and she flings herself onto the fine fake ficus magic beanstalk chanting like a Vedic over and over again, “I told you, I told you, I told you.”

And so my friends, we can all rest a little easier knowing that I have once again extricated myself from a situation that was equitable to any labour Hercules had to accomplish. And what have we learned from this lesson? That it is perfectly okay to “lie” to your three year old if you can figure out a way to make the “lie” a little more like “truth”…that you do whatever is necessary to get your child the memories that you will cherish even if they forget…that sometimes I don’t have to even try hard to think of a blog post cause my life really is this entertaining to a third party observer. Pick one. Or more. We don’t do a lot of rules round here and we don’t need no law dogs…

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It’s funny to me that we all say “Canadian Thanksgiving” up here.  Down in the states I have never heard someone say, “hey dude, Happy American Thanksgiving!”  It’s just Thanksgiving.  But here, it’s Canadian Thanksgiving.  In the States we do the whole Pilgrims thing and go back to the origins:

A collective prayer of thanksgiving was led by Captain John Woodlief in the Virginia Colony on December 4, 1619 near the current site of Berkeley Plantation, where celebrations are still held each year in November. Woodleif addressed the 38 men with: “Wee ordaine that the day of our ships arrivall at the place assigned for plantacon in the land of Virginia shall be yearly and perpetually keept holy as a day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God.” 

In Canada, the history is a bit different.

The history of Thanksgiving in Canada goes back to an explorer, Martin Frobisher, who had been trying to find a northern passage to the Orient. In the year 1578, he held a formal ceremony, in what is now the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, to give thanks for surviving the long journey. This is considered the first Canadian Thanksgiving, and the first Thanksgiving to have taken place in North America. Frobisher was later knighted and had an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean in northern Canada named after him — Frobisher Bay now known as Iqaluit.

At the same time, French settlers, having crossed the ocean and arrived in Canada with explorer Samuel de Champlain, also held huge feasts of thanks. They even formed ‘The Order of Good Cheer’ and gladly shared their food with their First Nations neighbours.

After the Seven Years’ War ended in 1763 handing over New France to the British, the citizens of Halifax held a special day of Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving days were observed beginning in 1799 but did not occur every year. After the American Revolution, American refugees who remained loyal (United Empire Loyalists) to Great Britain moved from the United States and came to Canada. They brought the customs and practices of the American Thanksgiving to Canada. The first Thanksgiving Day in Canada after Canadian Confederation was observed as a civic holiday on April 5, 1872 to celebrate the recovery of the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) from a serious illness.

Starting in 1879 Thanksgiving Day was observed every year but the date was proclaimed annually and changed year to year. The theme of the Thanksgiving holiday also changed year to year to reflect an important event to be thankful for. In the early years it was for an abundant harvest and occasionally for a special anniversary.

After World War I, both Armistice Day and Thanksgiving were celebrated on the Monday of the week in which November 11 occurred. Ten years later, in 1931, the two days became separate holidays, and Armistice Day was renamed Remembrance Day.

On January 31, 1957, the Canadian Parliament proclaimed: A Day of General Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been blessed … to be observed on the 2nd Monday in October

And so, there is some original history to the Canadian Thanksgiving, but those darn draft dodgers Britain Loyalists who came up across the boarder imported the American customs and practices.  There is some inherent amusement in that.  How on earth would a bunch of loyalists feel now if they knew that they had been among the first to become evangelists of America.  They aren’t known for taking British customs with them, but American.  They ran away and took with them that which they were trying to get away from…now if that isn’t worthy of giving thanks for, then I don’t now what is!

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving everyone!

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International Bloggers Day for Burma

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