ajax_load outside of views

I'm using this in a different context, and the view's .js is not necessarily loaded.
(I think this may be important)

Drupal.settings.ajaxViews.loadPending is not defined (but used).

I tried removing references to it - and everything works as expected, but this isn't the right solution.

Could/should this just be a local variable to this file?

BTW - I checked out 'head' I hope thats the best place to be (for now) and head isn't yet D7? :-)
Cheers

Mark.