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For Evelyn’s first Christmas we bravely decided to return to Alberta to visit our families. We planned everything in advance in September, visiting Dan’s family, my aunt and uncle, my Dad and a few friends as well as planning a 2 day respite in Kananaskis to recover from all the traveling. First of all, let me say that traveling around the province with a baby when you don’t own a car is difficult. Second, babies need a lot of accessories and you have to bring them. All of them. As an adult packing for a trip you can make rational decisions about leaving things behind for a few weeks but babies don’t think like that. So we brought as much stuff for Evelyn as we did for ourselves (and that includes a significant part of our luggage space dedicated to gifts!).

It snowed the week before we left Montreal and the snow still wasn’t cleared from our street the night we left. There was a “no man’s land” of snow in the parking lane (with a buried car in it) and the traffic was a mess. We booked a taxi earlier in the day and it didn’t show up at the time we requested it. I called the company and the line was *busy*. Ok, so much for that. Fortunately, living on Sherbrooke street a lot of taxis pass by so I flagged one down. He had to park on the corner due to the aforementioned sea of snow and we ran back and forth with our stuff. The poor guy didn’t know what he was getting himself into. Yes, we wanted to go to the airport and yes, we had to strap in that baby car seat. Poor Dan struggled for about 10 minutes to get it hooked in. I think part of the problem was that the bars were stuck under the cushions and we just couldn’t get the clips to go in far enough. He had actually started driving when we got one clip in place but he offered to stop before we got onto the highway so that we could get the other one in place. The 20 was really backed up with cars and it took about 35 minutes to get to the airport. The taxi driver played a Leonard Cohen tape on the way and unfortunately Dan just can’t stand his style of singing so he was talking about it the whole trip.

When we arrived we had planned to buy a nice sandwich at MBCo only to find out that they had no more food. So we went through security but then found out there was only one restaurant! Fortunately we were able to get a table and hand just enough time to eat before we had to go to the gate. Before that we tried to buy a book at the bookstore but had out typical Montreal lack of customer service problems so left without the book.

The flight itself was fine although it’s a very long 4 1/2 hours when you’re holding a sleeping baby (it was an evening flight). Dan’s parents picked us up at the airport and we got to their place really, really late. Our visit at their place was good for the most part, save the puking. Yes, there was puking and I will get back to that in a moment. We roasted chestnuts on the fire, cooked and ate some nice meals and generally had a good time. To make a long story short our niece picked up some gastrointestinal virus from a family that babysat her (they thought it was food poisoning when they got sick) and she passed it on to almost everyone except Evelyn. First Zoe got sick herself, then Dan’s sisters. We didn’t stand much of a chance of avoiding the illness since it started out with us overhearing the phrase “Oh no it’s all over their stuff” on the baby monitor when Zoe threw up on our toiletries bag. We were still feeling fine 2 days later when we left for my aunt and uncle’s place but at Christmas dinner it became increasingly obvious that something was amiss by Dan’s trepidacious table manners. After supper Dan spent most of the evening trying (or trying not to) throw up in the downstairs bathroom. Finally my cousin took him to the hotel and Evelyn and I joined a few hours later. Not too far into the night we experienced what could be caleld a spectacular show. I will skip the details but let’s say it wasn’t pleasant. Fortunately my microbiological training kicked in and I knew that bleach is the best way to kill viruses so I called my aunt and she sent some bleach based cleaners and cleaning cloths over so we could disinfect the bathroom as needed. The night followed a predictable routine of “throw up, wash hands, disinfect, wash hands, repeat” for both of us. Somehow Evelyn didn’t get sick, and I’m tempted to chalk it up to our disinfection protocol although I am sure part of it was due to breastfeeding.

We spent boxing day recovering and sleeping in the hotel. Unfortunately we had requested a playpen for her and first there were none available and then they brought it to the wrong room so we didn’t have any way to contain her most of the day we were sick. We did our best to keep her safely on the bed, mostly thanks to Treehouse kids TV. By the afternoon of the 27th we started to feel better although we were not really able to eat until the 30th. My aunt suggested we go out and shop for boxing week deals so we went out with our cousins and a momentous event happened. My aunt offered to babysit Evelyn and I warned her about Evelyn’s fear of being away from mom and dad. She said she would give it a try and would call if there were any problems. Well we were gone for 4 hours and Evelyn really only got upset during the last 10 minutes or so, so it was a great success! In general she became more socialized during the trip although it was pretty hard on her at the beginning. She also took a great liking to my cousin Anna, perhaps because she kept showing Evelyn shiny silver coasters. We also learned Evelyn likes to “head bonk”. Basically you make eye contact with her and tilt your forehead toward hers and she does the same until the heads are touching. It’s pretty cute.

On the morning of the 28th Dan’s parents came to pick us up for the trip to Kananaskis. We were very happy that Evelyn still was healthy although a bit concerned when we found out Dan’s mom was still sick from the virus that morning. We all decided to take a chance on it and went to the hotel. We arrived just before check in and total chaos was happening in the lobby. I guess everyone else decided to take a weekend vacation in the hotel too so it was packed and our room wasn’t ready until half and hour after the “guaranteed” check in time. Worse, the kettle in the room wasn’t functioning (I needed to boil water for Evelyn) but when Dan’s parents got their keys we swapped and all was well. Ok, yes I know that Kananaskis is a bit of a mountain wilderness cop-out, but with an 8 month old baby we wanted something that was family friendly. And boy were there ever a lot of babies there!

At supper Evelyn was especially grouchy and we all debated about the reason (”maybe she’s getting sick?”). For about the millionth time since Evelyn was 4 months old I wondered if she might be teething so I stuck my finger in her mouth … and sure enough, there was a sharp bump on the bottom gums! Oh boy! The following night was very long, likely a combination of her teething, her congestion (apparently that comes with teething) and my inability to produce milk (since I had hardly eaten since the 25th).

The following Day we wanted to take it easy and try something fun, so Dan signed us up for a sleigh ride. Nice and simple, a good thing for people recovering from being ill. We were in a red wooden sleigh pulled by two white and brown horses which were humongous. We followed a path in the trees with a cross country ski trail on one side. We pulled up to a gorge with a river in the bottom. It was beautiful. On the way back we encountered a few cross country skiers on the track. Unfortunately some of the skiers didn’t stop when they encountered the sleigh and the sound frightened the horses. The first time wasn’t too bad and the driver was able to get them calmed down quickly but the second time it happened they broke into a gallop. Dan thinks it lasted about a minute but it felt like forever. Yes, Evelyn was on the sleigh ride with us and I was really frightened that she would get hurt. Fortunately the horses calmed down and we finished the ride without incident. Well I don’t know who had the bright idea of putting the sleigh ride and ski trail on the same path but it clearly seems dangerous to both the skiers and the passengers!

After our adventure filled sleigh ride we went for a dip in the pool. Evelyn came along for this part and I have to say she did much better than our first swimming pool adventure. I’m sure it helped that the water wasn’t as cold. She didn’t cry although she was quite nervous and clung to me like a monkey. I have never been hugged like that by her before! She wasn’t even secure enough in Dan’s arms - he was holding her and when she saw me she practically climbed over him to get to me!

Supper that night was more teething drama and another sleepless night followed. We checked out and headed up to my Dad’s place. My Dad bought a Wii so Dan burned his mind playing Mario Galaxy. We had lots of good food and a great time. We cooked a small ham and had a nice salad with lots of avocados. We stayed up for New Year’s eve and Evelyn did too. She was totally wired all night and it was pretty tiring.

The following day turned out to be “beat up the baby” day. We met with my master’s thesis supervisor in Red Deer and had a great chat. Unfortunately Evelyn was sitting in the high chair and decided to hit her head on the table. Then I was unclipping the pacifier from her clothing and by freak chance I managed to let my grip slip on clip (say that fast 20 times) and the clip caught her on the lip. Well everyone in the restaurant watched as I took my screaming, bleeding baby to the bathroom to clean up her lip. Fortunately the damage wasn’t too bad but we decided to throw out the clips and buy something with a weaker hinge to prevent that from happening again. Afterward we met up with my high school friend and her family and had a nice time. Again, Evelyn manged to find new and exciting ways to hurt herself - on the rocking horse toy and by catching her fingers in a spinning wood block alphabet thing. We had a great visit and returned to Dan’s parents place later in the evening.

We spent the next day trying to pack and last minute shopping at the Superstore in Airdrie (which as really nice super cheap baby clothes) and watching a Bollywood movie. The next morning we were off for our flight home. It was even longer than the flight out since Evelyn was awake for most of it and holding a bouncing, squirmy baby that drops her toys every 2 minutes is even more tiring than holding a sleeping baby.

When we arrived I waited for a very long time for the stroller and car seat to come through the oversize luggage belt because apparently everyone decided to go skiing in Calgary and there were about 50 pairs of skis to be sorted out before our stuff came out. Then we got in line for the taxi and discovered that there was a line of hundreds of people! Even with about 10 taxis coming in every few minutes it still took about 30 minutes before we got into one. And the roads were not even bad, it was just because there were so many people coming back from Christmas trips. But we made it home in one piece and the only thing we lost were a pair of mittens and a pair of earmuffs. Not bad considering all things.

The Quebec government seems to be considering some rather disturbing policies with respect to religion. In the same article of a local newspaper I read about two plans (one imminent, one proposed) that seem heavy-handed and pointless. The first policy involves a proposed ban on public employees (such as teachers and doctors) from wearing religious symbols including hijabs and skullcaps. Apparently following in the footsteps of France, this policy is described as addressing a gender issue because such symbols promote female submission which is unacceptable for such public employees. Ridiculous. It’s clearly an infringement on the right to practice one’s religion. The thing about symbols, especially religious ones, is that they often have multiple meanings and many people, Muslims included, wouldn’t reduce the wearing of a hijab as a simple show of female submission. I suppose banning a male headcovering (i.e. a skullcap) prevents the display of male superiority, then? Honestly, some people need to spend their time doing useful things other than garbage like this.

The second thing which is slated to start next fall is a mandatory class on ethics and religion for grades 1 through 11. I find this disturbing because I firmly believe it is the parent’s role to instill ethics and demonstrate their religious beliefs to their children, not a third party. The potential for abuse and misinformation is enormous, considering children are required to take this type of education starting at age 6. As a parent who holds religious beliefs I find this rather ominous. One wonders what the motivation is, who has designed the syllabus and what information will be covered. Having a philosophy/ethics/world religion course in high school, at which age students are (or should be) capable of independent research and having a reasoned discussion is one thing, but 11 years of “Quebec brand ethics” is something else altogether. One wonders what kind of ethical dilemmas these 6 year old children will be discussing. “Don’t hit?” “Share with others?” It’s not necessary to have a class about this. As for the overview of religions, this can be taught to young children through a simple book “This is a Bhuddist monk, here is a Synagogue” etc. Oh, but don’t expect to see “Here is Amil, she wears a hijab” if the Quebec Coalition on the status of Women has their way. Talk about mixed messages.

On the other hand, this whole veil/voting issue is ridiculous to the other extreme. Nobody should be allowed to vote without proper visual identification. If the full face veil issue is as important as it is made out to be, a woman working at the polling station can go behind the voting booth with the voter in question and verify their identity without the voter exposing her face to men. Or introduce the iris recognition technology used for the Canpass Air program. There is simply no need to create an exception to the law over this.

Two governments, two silly policies at opposite ends of the spectrum which are detrimental to all of us.

Yes, I am still here. Still waiting. This past Tuesday was D-day and so far I have had quite a few Braxton-Hicks contractions but nothing else. These past few days have felt like they have lasted forever! Kicky has dropped, finally, although it’s hard to tell from looking since she liked to be quite low most of the time anyway. I saw my doctor on Tuesday and if Kicky doesn’t make an appearance on her own we are scheduled for an induction next Wed or Thurs. The word on the street is that induction is much more painful than regular labour, but I’m still seriously contemplating forgoing painkillers. I was a bit worried what would happen should some emergency procedures (caesarian, assisted delivery) be required but my doctor reassured me that she can give me a spinal or local anesthetic should that happen. As long as Kicky stays low I don’t have to stay in bed, which should help a lot for pain management. We will have to be monitored at all times, though, to make sure she isn’t stressed. I’m still scared. Well, anyway she still has 4 1/2 days to do this on her own, so let’s hope she does!

I found a wonderful online store this past week: the Playstore, located in California, sells high-quality, renewable & non-toxic nautral sweatshop-free toys, made mostly out of wood and cotton. They sell a good selection of the wooden toys made by Plan Toys. I was searching for a baby brush with nautral bristles and decided to buy a wooden vegetable toy set (so Kicky can cook when we’re cooking!), a super-cute carrot rattle and the brush, which is so incredibly soft it feels like it’s made out of feathers. They shipped to Can for only $7 US via post (no stress for missing UPS delivieries) and were very friendly. So I highly recommend this to anyone who has kids or is buying presents for kids. I think the wishlist will have a few things from this store added to it in the next few years!

I scanned and uploaded three drawings my mom did.

Yesterday Dan’s mom and I visited Jean-Talon market and mostly avoided the sleet. The market is still indoors but I was able to buy some oranges, ground cherries, avocados and strawberries. We also ate lunch at the restaurant and had Polish donuts for dessert.

For something on the serious side: we bought the Gazette last saturday and I recommend reading this story (warning, it’s graphic) - it’s something that shows the worst and the best in people. It’s a horrifying example of how vulnerable women are in times of war and conflict.

Well it’s Easter weekend. It has been a very busy week. Dan, Dan’s mom and I did a very thorough cleaning and re-organization of the kitchen, including moving all the cleaning supplies to an upper closet and making space for the recycling under in the cupboard. Dan’s mom also undertook (voluntarily!) the heroic task of cleaning the stove and oven - sans oven cleaner. I don’t think this appliance has been this clean in at least 10 years. I also cleaned the bedroom thoroughly and most of the bathroom too. We played around with re-arranging the living room but it still needs work. We put up a shelf by the crib and I have sort of organized everything for Kicky.

Last Sunday our friends at Curieux had a wonderful baby shower for us. There were super-cute baby socks hanging on the wall attached to papers for the people there to write advice for us and even though we told everyone we had everything and didn’t need anything, they still found a way to give us some great presents. We received many excellent books for all ages and some handy odds and ends.

We also received some very nice things from Dan’s family (via Dan’s mom’s suitcase). With all the clothing we have received from everyone, I think we officially have enough pink clothing to last for a very long time now!

We had a lovely Easter meal yesterday. Dan’s mom hid eggs for us to find and then we made glazed ham with cloves, soup and artichokes. The artichokes were a lot of fun, since there was an almond sauce to go with them and we had to go through all the leaves before we could get to the heart (the best part). Here is the recipe:

Artichokes with almond sauce

4 large artichokes
juice of 1 lemon
2 onions, peeled
2 cloves of garlic, peeled
Almond sauce
½ cup sliced blanched almonds, toasted
½ cup sour cream or plain yogurt
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon honey
salt and pepper
Cut the top quarter and the stem off each artichoke. Using scissors, cut the thorny tips off the remaining leaves. Wash if there is dirt or sand remaining. Place the artichokes top down in a large saucepan and add the lemon juice, onions and garlic. Cover with water and season generously with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer until the hearts are tender when poked with a knife, about 15 minutes. Drain.
Meanwhile, make the sauce. Grind the almonds in a small food processor (or coffee grinder) and mix well with remaining ingredients.
To serve: pluck the leaves off the artichoke and dip in sauce. Use teeth to scrape the pulp off the leaf. Once all the leaves have been eaten, scrape the hair off the heart and dip pieces of the heart in sauce.

I’m 1 day away from my due date and feeling a bit apprehensive. Specifically, I would call it Fear of Being Induced - with good reason (see this description). I haven’t had a full night’s sleep in a while, partly due to that and partly due to a strange inability to fall back asleep after getting up at 2 or 3 AM. It’s quite a hormone cocktail I am on right now and a lot of feelings are coming out (including a rather embarrassing crying incident at the Frites Alors on St. Laurent) but I am trying to stay relaxed and positive.

Some interesting facts:

• My waist size is now the same as Dan’s
• Kicky is 20 cm head to bum, not counting those long, strong legs of hers. That’s awfully big if you measure it out in a ruler! She also weights about a pound now, only 5-6 left to gain.
• I have gained a net of 2 pounds so far. Not bad! The doctor thinks this is right on, nothing to worry about either way. Let’s hope the trend continues.
• We will be 23 weeks this week, leaving 17 to go. Yes, if you can believe it, that’s all. Oh crap, it’s too soon!
• She gets the hiccups at least once a week

I finally feel like I have started to catch up on things. There was, believe it or not, some time for relaxing and socializing this weekend. Tony and Julie had a “worst movie ever” contest last night, to which everyone but us dutifully contributed. Everything from ninja cheerleaders, a Vanilla Ice in love movie, to a horrendous bum-shaking dance scende with Jean-Calude van Damme. The winner ended up being Tony’s entry of … yes, you guessed it … the “Star Wars Christmas Special” which nobody associated with the Lucasverse wants to admit even exists. He was able to get a copy off the net that someone videotaped back in 1978. Not only was the movie painful to watch but the commercials were just as bad, with a particular fixation on underwear but in the most embarassing way possible. Did I mention this was the year I was born?? Anyway, it was also great to see people that we hadn’t seen since September, especially since we hadn’t connected in person since we announced our big lifestyle change.

We had freezing rain on Friday night and by 8:00 the power was out in our nighbourhood. I had been nervously anticipating it all day and fretted uselessly that we would be without power for the whole week and that all our food in the freezer would go bad and that Dan wouldn’t be able to do his homework. Well 23 minutes later the power was back on and everything was back to normal. By Saturday morning there was no evidence of a any ice or water in our neighbourhood. Everything that was encased in ice (cars, bicycles, trees, signs) the previous night had been freed. Today it was the first real snowfall and it was warm, windless with big fluffy flakes falling, like how American TV producers imagine winter to look like. It raised my spirits tremendously.

Dan was quarantined for about half an hour this week. It never made the news, but a “white powder” apparently “exploded” at his school on Wednesday and as he was leaving his building he was stopped by a firefigher who said he “may have been contaminated”. In the end I guess they decided it wansn’t something serious and let everyone go.

So we received our new fridge, thanks to our landlord. Dan happened to be home the day of the switch so he was able to clean behind/underneath the old one before plugging the new one in. When I called he answered the phone with a sneeze. Let’s just say he found a nickel from 1964 and it seems there is a good chance it has been there since then. The new fridge is really low and the fridge part is a bit small. Also the doors open the opposite way which means it hits my chair. But they are reversible, so we will switch at Christmas. And instead of being a “disposable Danby” it seems to be a quite decent quality fridge. It’s even staineless steel! Now we have tons of freezer space.

Kicky now has a gallery. More will be added later.

An hour and a half after publically announcing our good news we got a call from one of my close family with some bad medical news. We’re waiting for more tests (we should get the answer Tuesday, the outcome of which could be “very bad” or “treatable”) so it’s been a rough 24 hours, about half of which I have spent crying or trying not to. It seems like in my life major events like this always cluster together - the year we graduted and moved away from home Dan’s older sister got married and I lost 3 relatives to cancer. Then nothing for a few years, followed by Dan’s parents moving, us moving to Montreal, Dan’s youngest sister getting married and his oldest sister having a baby. So now it’s starting again - on top of these two events I know someone else is expecting too, so I guess there will probably be a few more major things happening before the year is up.

Depending on what happens I might be coming back home to visit very soon or before the end of the year. I have a week of vacation time left so it’s not a problem.

Last night after we got the news we went out for a walk (to get out of the house and also to buy some “comfort food”). We ended up getting tea biscuits and my vote was for potato chips with dill pickle dip (my #1 craving but I’ve been avoiding fries and potato chips because of all the fat) only to find they don’t make dill picke dip anymore, or at least they don’t sell it in Quebec! Back when I was a kid that was our special treat and I think they only made two flavours of dip, the dill pickle being the far superior choice. So I ended up with just chips, which was still ok.

In the meantime life continues as best it can. I’ve been feeling less tired lately since the “other half” of me has decided to start pulling it’s weight a bit more (i.e. the placenta is producing some of the hormones now, thank goodness). Also I feel like I’ve grown really big over the past week. I decided to go to work today since paying attention to everything there helped distract me from the news we got and gave me some time to put things in perspective. I’m just taking it easy tonight and at 9 the next episode of LOST is on (the only thing we watch on our “TV”, aka commodore 64 monitor), so that should help for relaxing too. Ok no wait, watching LOST isn’t relaxing at all, maybe I should say “distracting”?

Its been a busy week so far. This past weekend I did a lot of errands and made my first trip to Marché Jean-Talon for vegetables and fruit. Its mostly still indoors but nice to get good produce at good prices. Yum.

I took a half-day off work today so I worked late Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and have just about made up all the time. There’s about twenty things I’m doing right now which makes me incredibly busy. I’m supposed to be spending 1 day a week doing computer analysis but so far since I’ve returned from TO I’ve spent about a day and a half doing so. Must try to make time!

Today my new assistant (who is really great) commented that I type really fast. I guess I do … after all, my first computer was a 286 with WordPerfect 5.1 and I didn’t even use a computer with a mouse until 1995. I’ve always been a fan of the keyboard and it’s so much faster than clicking. For example, making things in Flash has always seemed to be really slow to me and back when I was doing my internships there was a lot of clicking and very little keyboard use. I see newer versions have more keyboard shortcuts, but more please!! And it seems that most bioinformatics software is either hard-core unix text-only or completely point & click - it would be nice to use some software that does a bit of both and in a way that makes working with the astounding amount of data I handle reasonable.

Our friend David Backhouse played at a café on Sherbrooke last night. It was really good - he is an excellent song-writer, guitar-player and singer. Nice café too, but Dan wasn’t happy with the coffee. And at the café last night I found out another one of our friends who lives in the Plateau started biking to work … in Laval!! I’m seriously impressed.

So I just found out our friend Tyler has a girl-friend!

Today Dan went to get bombarded by x-rays at the hospital so I went along and it was all over really soon. He had taken time off school but it was so quick that after we went out for lunch/supper, he went back to school for his last class! We ate at Jolee restaurant, a southern Indian restaurant in CDN that Lisa has been telling us about for a year. I had a nice Lassi (yogurt drink) and we had thalis and pakoras. Yum again.

On the way home I waited about 20 minutes for the bus. This would have been ok if was 11 at night or something, but it was at 4:30 PM in the middle of rush hour. I was the first in line and the line was so long that it went almost half-way around the metro station! Finally two busses came and we were off. And then we passed one of the streets in my hood and there were 4 police cars there and a whole bunch of people standing out in the street. I’m wondering if that affected the traffic or not. I don’t know what happened yet - nothing on the news. But this week there was a potential homicide in my hood! Um, july can’t come soon enough.

…or does everyone in these photos look demented or weird with the exception of Layton? Honestly, I don’t know mow Martin, Harper and Duceppe can make those faces so many times on film! (top image from here).

Sorry I haven’t been in touch with many people lately. I am sick with something chronic but (fortunately) with a good chance of being cured. The only problem is that it will take a while to get a proper diagnosis (3-4 weeks) and then there will be probably another month or so before we can move on to other things including the treatment. The good news is that I while I was in a lot of pain last week, I am now taking some medicine which is a “stopgap” to deal with most of the symptoms including the pain and I am able to sleep, eat and work (unlike last week). Dan’s also having a hard time with his health and so is my Dad, so we’re all in rough shape!

Sunday:
Grey Cup party at Martine’s with a spectacular victory by the Edmonton Eskimos. What an incdedible game! Half the people cheered for Edmonton and half the people cheered for Montreal, so every time one team took the lead the interaction between the two sides was very funny. Dave was totally tense about the game and said he liked the overtime rules (he is American so it was the first time he saw CFL overtime). Go Esks go! In other news: Paul Martin was booed by the crowd during the coin toss and the half time show sucked (more on that below).

Monday:
Long day, Dan got home at 7 and we ate at 7:30. Tired.

Tuesday:
Laundry at Dave and Sanan’s with yummy squash soup and a good move (A Day Without a Mexican).

Wednesday:
Supper from Pushap, Dan had a masterclass at school (where the voice students sing in front of the voice teacher and the other students), then everyone went out to the nearby Lebanese restro for supper (Dan and I just had something to drink as we were still full from curry goodness).

Thursday:
Finally a night off, time to slow down. I decided to cook a roast chicken and get some groceries. Kitchen is a diaster zone due to not being home for two days but I got it under control while the chicken was cooking. Dan studied for a test on Friday which he later found out is postponed. Dan was also sick with the flu and had a fever.

Friday:
We’re so tired we ate ramen noodles for supper! Dan worked on OpenMusic and made a chord randomizer.

Saturday:
Dan is studying for crazy week full of exams next week. I’m procrastinating on finishing the Christmas presents and doing the ironing. We went out to get groceries and found Dan’s mysteriously missing mittens frozen to the ground in front of our apartment! I hate having to go to malls, and malls on a Saturday before Christmas are even worse. Groups of slowly and aimlessly wantering people get in the way and blather about nothing either to themselves or their cohort, while someone plays fricking Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer on the flute, live. For goodness sakes! Its enough to trigger a psychotic episode!

So, about the grey cup halftime show…
A jorb not well done.
I have heard some of the songs by the Black Eyed Peas (BEP) on the radio and I haven’t really liked any of them. The “Don’t phuck with my heart” song was just annoying, but the “Lady lumps” one is in another category altogether. The worst part was that I didn’t quite get the context of the “lumps” before seeing the halftime show, during which a very clear and graphic demonstration of exactly what they are was done over, over and over again. BEP girl, I don’t want to see you shake any of your humps or lumps! O my virgin eyes!

If that wasn’t bad enough, it became very clear that these people have no talent. They can’t dance, they can’t sing, (no, they can’t walk either, those who remember Genesis) and they have no stage presence. I have seen high school choirs and garage punk bands who are more talented and less clumsy than these people. And the lyrics for that hump song are absolutely inane. Whoever wrote that song should be forcibly exiled to Nunavut to clear out his or her brain from all that “junk in his trunk”. Wretched.

So my question is, when did we lose the whole female empowerment thing in popular music? I remember being in high school and listening to Lisa Loeb (and yes, I admit it, Alanis Morisette) and the Lillith Fair album was out. Now its all about sex and bling and I have to wonder why the whole “objectifying women” thing is back. Have we actually regressed culturally in 10 years?

My guess is that it is due to a combination of so-called “urban” youth culture and the stupid marketing people in record comapnies. Urban kids want cool music with a good beat and recording companies find people like BEP who have just enough talent and so few standards that they can be put in a sound studio with a crew of sound engineers who bust their asses mixing the music to make them sound good. The group comes up with “edgy” lyrics that are supposed to be all about “urban” culture and then the kids are like “I wanna be a gangsta” and “gimme yo’ bling” and buy the album. The whole thing is artificial! So somewhere along the line, the idea that women are only sex objects gets re-introduced (maybe it was always there; I don’t claim to be very aware of popular music). I guess people like BEP would say they are just telling it like it is, but they are also contributing to the way it is because all those 13 year old girls and boys are hearing this message. I’m sure at least half the kids in Montreal would like the BEP, and I have to say this worries me a bit. What kind of culture will the children of my generation be facing when they grow up? Wait, who am I kidding, people from my generation are not having kids.

Its very strange to be my age. There are various demographic theories and groupings you may or may not subscribe to, but here’s my take on it. I was born just after or on the trailing end of genX during a time when fewer people where having children (some call it “Generation Y” which is so lame I just can’t use it). In the mid to late 1990’s however, lots of so-called baby boomers were having children, leading to a large cohort of children with lots of purchasing power (the so-called echos or perhaps the iGeneration). As is always the case, these children grow up in a different environment and have different values from their parents and precdeeding generations. The end result of all this is I can’t for the life of me understand what is so funny about Spongebob and I can’t tolerate bands like the BEP. When I’m on the bus I feel like an grumpy old fart compared to the kids who wear Juicy or Sean John and are constantly yapping on their cellphones, and who almost never are even aware of the people around them, partly because they’re all listening to BEP on their MP3 players.

So, my grouchy old-person response is to listen to MagnaTune and sometimes Club977 and to not own a TV.