Creampuff Revolution

Creampuff Recap

Oh hi! I didn't see you there. Mainly because I haven't been here in a couple of months. HA ha!

I realize that while most of you are good kind people, you don't really give a shit where exactly I've been or what exactly I've been up to the last couple of months. But one of the great things about having a blog is that it operates as a handy record-keeping device for my rapidly failing memories! What follows is a brief, photo-heavy recap of what the hell has been going on.

1. My short play Anne and Diana Were TOTALLY DOING IT was published in Queering the Way: A Loud n' Queer Anthology! It's a real book - you can buy it and everything.

 They had a book launch here at Little Sister's. Thank you to our super awesome Vancouver friends who came to hear us authors read from the book and who then bought the book and then pretended it wasn't SUPER DORKY to let me autograph the book. I felt like a lesbian rock star.

Also, I got to meet Kim in real life for the first time!  I used to read her blog when she had a blog. She is delightful. It was a magical moment, caught on film. 

2. I got new glasses. See above.

3. We had my family over to eat turducken for Thanksgiving. Yes, that's right - a chicken stuffed in a duck stuffed in a turkey. Holy fuck was it ever good. Sadly, we didn't get any good photos of the unsliced turducken and once it's sliced open, it looks like an autopsy. But I DO have a cute photos of my brother Jaro and his girlfriend Trsm's dog, Jasper, hoping that a little turducken might fall his way.

As you can see, he and Emmy Lou were thick as thieves, if by "thick" you mean "avoided" and by "thieves" you mean "each other assiduously."

Jaro also brought Emmy a new toy. Thanks, Jaro. Really great.

4. I knit! Most of my knitting is SUPER SECRET HOLIDAY KNITTING but this little sweater has already been sent off to its tiny recipient, Charlotte.

5. Roadtrip! Right after Thanksgiving, Katr and I and Emmy Lou drove down to Monterey, CA, where Katr was speaking at a conference. We stopped in Portland, Grant's Pass and Fortuna on the way down and Eureka and back to Portland on the way home. I drove the whole way. With my mind. Katr did what she calls the "actual driving". I have to applaud her efforts, particularly when we visited Crater Lake, now officially the most terrifying, guard-rail free, shoulder-free, sheer-40-foot-drop-on-either-side-of-the-one-lane-road drive of my entire life.

Even though we were both sick the first part of the trip, it was still pretty fun and hilarious, mainly because of the dog.

Emmy Lou was in dog HEAVEN. Car rides! New places to crap! Back in the car! New places to crap! A lake in a crater! The mountains! The sea! The beach! The laundromat! The wharf! The lobby! Every day was a smorgasboard of doggy delight.

Crater Lake (not shown - dog)

Dog on the public beach in Monterey

Dog discovers pelicans on Fisherman's Wharft (not shown - many pelicans)

Dog peering into other people's hotel rooms at the Portola Plaza

Dog exhausted at the Vintage Plaza in Portland

6. Edmonton! After six years of sending pieces off to be performed there, I finally got to actually attend the 20th Annual Loud n' Queer Cabaret, where all of my Anne of Green Gables dreams came true!! My adorable parents came and brought their friends and it was super lovely to see some of my favourite queers in action. Sadly, there are no photos. Like Anne, you will just have to imagine it!

7. Skunk. I finally got a grainy, Lock Ness monster-style photo of the skunk from the safety of my friend Hildy's rental car one night. Look at the SIZE of that thing! It continues to terrorize the neighbourhood.

8. Anniversary! I kinda can't believe that our big gay wedding was four years ago this month. FOUR YEARS! My brother Jaro remembers it like it was yesterday...

We didn't get each other gifts this year - we opted instead to revisit our honeymoon. Stay tuned for photos of me drunk in the pool like this one:

 

 

Pwned

Wednesday, September 20th sucked a lot of wang.

It started out with Katr being sick with a horrible cough. Katr only gets sick once every five years or so, so she likes to make the most of it. Every cough sounds like aliens are trying to communicate. It is truly pathetic and I felt terrible for her.

Next on our gay agenda was some devastating health news about a family member. So that was pretty much it for the day.  We spent the entire day on the couch, staring at the TV, Katr coughing like she was literally hacking up a lung and me weeping and eating my feelings.

If all of the world's ills could be solved by ice cream and kettle corn consumption, I would have made the world a better place on Wednesday.

As night fell, we stirred and started to make a move towards the bedroom, to continue our hacking and weeping, but in a horizontal position. As usual, our patio door was open to let in the night breeze. As I got up to close it, Emmy Lou took off outside like a shot.

I assumed she'd spotted a squirrel in the yard and I was prepared to let her have her fun - she'd been trapped inside all day with crying, expectorating fatties, after all - but it turns out that it wasn't a squirrel.

It was the skunk.

In our yard.

And as Emmy Lou joyfully gamboled towards it, the skunk sprayed Emmy Lou in the face.

Chaos erupted.

Most dogs, after a skunk sprays them in the face, will leave the skunk alone. Not our dog. Our dog went in for round two. Our dog is so butch. So we're screaming at Emmy to leave the skunk alone and screaming at the skunk to leave and in the end we managed to corral the pooch but the only way to separate her and the skunk was to bring her inside the house, where she proceeded to spit foamy skunk oil all over the front hall.

It's funny that I was so worried about the skunk and yet had no skunk-begone type products in the house. It's like I didn't want to buy them in case they jinxed us. Well, it turns out that was fucking stupid.

I stood in the foyer with our foaming dog on her leash while Katr looked up what to do and then called the emergency vet, just to make sure. Then Katr got in the vehicle and had to drive to four different Shoppers Drug Marts in order to get enough hydrogen peroxide to sluice the skunk oil from our dipshit dog. We washed the dog - we threw out a lot of towels and a rug and our clothes.

We slept with our lavender eye pillows under our noses like pomanders. The dog slept the sleep of the just. And the next morning, I went to the pet store and loaded up on Nature's Miracle and then went next door and loaded up on ice cream. Because I needed both.

It's been a few days but I think that the skunk-odor remover and the constant fans have done their work - the house seems relatively skunk free! The dog only stinks when she's wet or hot! Sadly, though, the attack occurred in the garden and I fear that might be it for our skunk-oiled crop of cherry tomatoes.  

So NOW when we leave the house at night, I have to check the yard AND the boulevard for the fucking skunk. And ditto on the way back. Emmy Lou is not allowed out in the yard at night alone anymore. And really, I've had enough.  This thing is going DOWN. Stay tuned.

Seeking Simone Ep 2.3: Heat of Fashion! It is steamy.

The latest episode of my lesbian web comedy Seeking Simone is up! This one has a little bit of everything - crime, drama, passion, Audrey's bodacious rack and a cameo by the Funchico laptop bag that Katr designed. HOTNESS.

They usually don't let me hang around when they're filming make-out scenes because I'm a 12 year old and do not bring the appropriate gravitas to the situation, due to my incessant giggling. So the steaminess of the hot girl-on-girl action in this episode was a complete and delightful surprise to me. Basically, I'm just writing comedy soft core porn now. Yeah, you're welcome.

Creampuff and the Black and White Menace

I used to take our dog on slow, meandering strolls at night. Emmy Lou really comes alive when the sun goes down - the nose is working, the eyes aren't and she transforms into this stalking beast, intent on hunting down her prey. Fortunately, her prey is fleeter of foot and brain than Emmy Lou - often I will see her prey darting away several minutes before Emmy even catches the scent of the prey. Then she spends 20 minutes frantically sniffing every millimeter of grass the prey once stood on.  Our evening walks were full of whimsy and fun. Until...the skunk.

My neighbourhood is a curious mix of low rises, single family homes, big infill developments like ours and abandoned properties (including a huge, crumbling old house next door). We also live about a block from a ravine. Wildlife looking to make the leap to urban living would not find it difficult to move from the ravine to any of the available badger-squats on our street. And it would seem that the skunk has zeroed in on some prime real estate.

The first time I saw the skunk was in the alley at dusk. We locked eyes while Emmy was taking a whiz. The skunk started galloping towards me. I yanked Emmy away from the alley and we continued on our way. I was a little shaken but not too concerned.

"Huh," I thought, "I guess we shouldn't go in the alley at night."

About 10 minutes later, Emmy smelled the skunk and totally lost her mind, but by then the skunk was long gone.

The second time I saw the skunk was in different part of the alley, at dawn. We locked eyes while Emmy was nuzzling an empty tuna can. The skunk started galloping towards me. I dragged Emmy away from the tuna can and across the street. The skunk started making love to the tuna can. I hustled Emmy back to our house. I was a little disturbed because while it was early in the day, the sun was shining brightly.

"Huh," I thought, "That skunk is bold. I guess we shouldn't go near the alley at dawn."

We went a few days without seeing the skunk and I began to feel safe again. Clearly, the skunk was sticking to the rich, dumpster-filled environs of the alley and so long as we didn't invade its territory, we'd be fine.

The third time we saw the skunk was about 8 feet away from our front gate. Not in the alley. Not hiding in the bushes. Not skulking around the cedars. It was coming around the corner, walking like it owned the sidewalk, fully lit by the street lights. Emmy Lou lost her shit. The skunk  started galloping towards us. It was like a horror movie.

I manhandled Emmy through the front gate and slammed it behind us, fully aware that the skunk could easily come in under the gate. I wrestled the dog to the front door, then dropped my keys trying to open it. I finally managed to get us inside to safety, dragging a whiny, cheated dog behind me. She didn't speak to me for day. 

I started to talk to everyone about the skunk. My parents. My neighbours. The City of Vancouver. Anyone I saw with a dog. Everyone on Facebook.

I know that there are a lot of skunks in a lot of places and that my particular skunk is no different than any other urban skunk out there, except that he IS different because this skunk is living  in the abandoned house next door and is SPECIFICALLY OUT TO GET ME.

Everyone told me that I needed to relax, that the skunk was probably more scared of me than I was of it, that I should just start carrying around a giant SuperSoaker water gun (ha ha, very funny, Mom) and everything would be fine. 

Let me just clarify something here. I am not afraid of skunks. I saw many a skunk in Toronto when I used to take my 5:00 a.m. walks to the gym. But having a dog who would like to get her mouth on a skunk rachets up the peril for me. I KNOW THAT WE WILL NOT DIE IF WE GET SPRAYED. But it would be an enormous, stenchy hassle that I'm not interested in dealing with. 

The skunk's presence - and continued menace, including last week when it blocked our return to our own house, hissing and raising its tail at us while I pulled a windmilling Emmy Lou into the middle of the road to avoid attack - has severely curtailed our evening walk activities.

Now, when it starts to get dark, I turn the porch lights on. And when it's time for Emmy's last whiz of the day, we do not dawdle. I poke my head out of the gate to check for the black and white, then take the dog onto the boulevard, tersely ordering her to make while jumping at every scratching, rustling noise I hear. It's really great. 

Obviously, in the grand scheme of things, the skunk issue is in no way important - I know this. And I'm TRYING to be cool about it, I really am, except that I'm totally not cool about it. But I can't really do anything about it, unless I'm willing to illegally place a skunk trap full of Kentucky Fried Chicken on the private property next door and then pay someone to illegally go on to said private property to retrieve the skunk. 

I'm thinking about it, though. I'll keep you posted. Please leave your skunk stories in the comments.

 

R.I.P. Feisty Mustached Man

I don't have anything deep or insightful to say. I'm just so so sad about Jack Layton.

Creampuff in the Big Apple

I was pretty thrilled last fall when my childhood friend Chezza phoned me up to tell me that her charming swain Brha had proposed! Those two are so darn cute - they met while volunteering together at the Housing Works Used Book Cafe, so you know they're awesome already. Yay love!

And then, a few months later, I was SUPER thrilled when they actually invited me to attend their nuptials July 9th in the fair burrough of Brooklyn! Yay, traveling to witness love!

Since I traveled all the way to Belfast for my friend Jech's wedding, going to NY for Chezza and Brha's wedding seemed like a breeze. Plus, I already knew where to go to the bathroom in NY and how to handle being hit on by Latin Americans.

I really only had one day for New York frolic and, since I was staying near Times Square and the weather was glorious, I decided to spend the morning as a loser tourist on a double decker bus tour:

and the afternoon feeling SUPER COOL because my friend Cano lives in NY and he knows where there are restaurants that do not have "Times Square" as part of their name. We went to Westville Chelsea for lunch and I had a Cobb salad that changed my life. Seriously...and there's no innuendo-free way to say this...I didn't want to stop putting it in my mouth. Thanks, Cam.

My beloved Katr had a prior engagement and couldn't make it to NY to repeat our butter filled tasting menu adventure, so I was dateless for the wedding itself. But, ever the gracious hostess, Chezza unwittingly provided me with my "plus one" for her nuptials in the handy "out of town visitor welcome kit" that was waiting for me at my hotel.

In the kit was this:

 

What do you do when there's a mini knit-your-own-ninja in your welcome kit? Well...you knit him.

And then, you take him on a double decker bus tour with an hilarious guide named Marian: 

 

And then you take him to the wedding as your date.

In between the ceremony and the reception, the bride and groom treated guests to a double decker bus tour of Brooklyn, complete with water and delicious popcorn! And, of course, the ninja.

The reception space was fantastic - lots of space to mill around and visit and a beautiful view of the river. And, of course, there was that ninja.

The wedding was really lovely - everyone was so happy to be there and to celebrate the newlyweds. It was great to drink mojitos and catch up with high school friends and other folks I haven't seen since we were all stressed out twenty-somethings in university. Plus, cake!

Congratulations, Chezza and Brha!! It's always pretty sweet when you see a couple surrounded by love. You are wonderful, warm, generous people and Ninja and I were honoured to have been included on your big day.

Over the course of my many bus tours and the wedding, I took several photos of architectural details and wedding fun and ninja interruptions and they are all here in this handy slideshow. Enjoy...IF YOU DARE. Thanks to Katr for giving me the purple camera that made it all possible!!

Seeking Simone Episode 2.2 - Gore and Girl on Girl Action

For those of you whom I have not already hassled with this via Facebook and Twitter, the second episode of Seeking Simone's second season went live today. It's called Tippi Hedren's Slutty Daughter, as an homage to the actress who played the intrepid heroine of The Birds. Huzzah! Enjoy! Take off your pants! And if you enjoy, please pass it on!

Creampuff Goes to Cowtown

As some of you may or may not recall, one of my New Year's Resolutions for the last two years has been to "finish my stupid play that's set in the Yukon."

I am ashamed to say that I've been "working on" this tiny 30-page oeuvre since...no no. I'm too embarrassed to admit how long it has been. Suffice to say that it has been languishing in my computer's memory for several years and every couple of years, I would call up the 15 pages I had already written and remember that I really liked the play and then I would glance around, hoping to find some way to motivate myself to finish it.

Here's the thing. I am an Olympic-level procrastinator. I keep meaning to make myself a symbolic gold medal for procrastination but I haven't gotten around to it. It's a terrible cliche but I do work best under pressure - without a compelling reason, I tend not to finish anything, preferring instead to let it exist in my mind as this perfect, blemish-free project that I will one day complete.

Thus, there are only two reasons that I will ever finish a creative project:

1. I am due to perform it at a certain place on a certain date and if it isn't done by then, I will look the fool.

2. I am applying for a grant/workshop/writer's group and have to prove I don't just have "ideas".

In the case of this particular project, a one-act comedy called Camp Victoria, set in 1898 during the Gold Rush, I had applied unsuccessfully for a couple of different things over the years - a Fringe fest here, a writer's group there - but I had a good feeling that this would be the year it would get done. So I sent off a brazen cover letter and my 19 pages to Lunchbox Theatre in Calgary and lo and behold, they accepted me! HA ha! Oh shit, wait...now I have to write the rest of it.

Every year, Lunchbox Theatre has a festival of new play development called the Suncor Energy Stage One Festival, where they set you (the playwright) up with fantastic actors and a lovely dramaturge/director for five days and at the end of the five days, there's a public reading of your play. You work with the director/dramaturge/actors for a few hours every day and then spend the rest of the day frantically writing in order to have new and improved stuff to work on the next day. Basically, it's the biggest fire anyone has ever lit under my ass.

Fortunately for me, I was staying with my aunt Suki and her partner Jemi (Star Trek names) in Calgary and never has there been a more welcoming environment for the writing. It was like I was a guest in a Jane Austen novel.

I was treated to incredible gourmet, made-from-scratch meals (lunch AND dinner daily) and was not allowed to walk anywhere (which worked out, because as it turns out, Calgary is quite large). There was scotch and poppycock in my workroom (I availed myself of both) - there were gluten-free brownies in the kitchen - a generous supply of my favourite tea and wine was laid in and the company was extremely delightful.

I was also treated to a sumptuous repast at my aunt Pegi's house one night, where the salmon is planked and the home-made lattes are highly inspirational. We all agreed that was so lovely to visit with family and not be at a funeral. Score!

And my childhood friend Chma had me over so that I could finally meet the fruit of her loins, both of whom were incredibly cute. A scene from our dinner:

Chma's eldest child: You laugh a lot.

Me: (feeling a little defensive) I think a lot of things are funny.

Chma's eldest child: (conspiratorially) Me too.

Basically, I was treated like a visiting dignitary the whole time I was in Cowtown. I would come into the workshop every day and brag about how spoiled I was. I'm sure it was super, super charming.

After five days and a lot of poppycock and only a few tears (the crying means it's working!) - Camp Victoria was in a whole new place. And thanks to awesome dramaturge Pam Halstead (also Lunchbox's artistic director, who let me in in the first place!), fantastic director Glenda Stirling, and wonderful actors extraordinaire Shawna Burnett, Lindsay Burns, Julie Orton, I FINALLY FINISHED THE PLAY. Woooo! 

Well, mostly. I, uh, still have some polishing to do before I send the final draft back to Pam. But the play was read aloud, in front of an audience and no one turned around at the end and said "That sucked a lot of wang." 

Ideally, I would have blogged about this while I was actually there instead of three weeks later but I was busy actually writing the play. 

Anyhoo - that was my Calgary adventure. Next up - my trip to New York for Chezza's wedding last weekend! There will be photos. Get ready.

Creampuff on the Lamb

Just noodling around the Facebook, as you do, and this ad column came up. The third ad down caught my eye:

What the - WHAT DOES FACEBOOK HAVE ON ME?? I knew this would come back to haunt me.

Creampuff Begins the Journey of Yoga

A long time ago, I had very good workout habits. I swam, I lifted weights, I elliptercized. Lately, my workout habits include dragging our 40lb dog around the neighbourhood once a day (mild cardio, strength-training) and occasionally doing a Billy Blanks Tae Bo video. And by "doing", I mean "marvelling at how sweaty the people on the video are getting while I sit on the couch and eat ice cream" (biceps). 

Katr and I felt like it was time to step it up, but our attempts at self-directed exercise have been poor in the past (see above re: Billy Blanks) and we decided that we needed a person trainer type to actually come to our house to gently nudge us into shape. Because otherwise, we totally wouldn't go.

I also decided our personal trainer would be named Travis.

Not sure where to start, I asked our hilarious friend Elisa, who runs Vancouver studio Kerrisdale Yoga, if she knew any personal trainers named Travis. She did - but she suggested that we should do yoga instead!

I'm not going to lie to you, guys. I was hesitant. Partly because yoga is slow (which I hate) and hard (which I also hate) but also, I know that yoga is taken very seriously by purveyors of yoga and when *I* think about practising yoga, I mainly think about this:

But Katr thought yoga sounded keen and none of Elisa's other contacts were actually named Travis, so she hooked us up with ... Jane. And thus our journey of yoga began.

I knew Jane was the right teacher for us when she did NOT end her "nice to meet you" email with "Namaste". She also didn't seem phased when I told her that we were enthusiastic students but that working with us would be like "teaching yoga to fat rocks". She just brought a lot of foam blocks. 

I was prepared for the slowness and hardness of yoga - but the one thing I was unprepared for was the amount of touching involved. I don't usually enjoy people touching me - but Jane gets right in there, adjusting here, gently pushing there, and occasionally just climbing on our backs in the hopes that her meagre 88lbs will help us actually get down in that dog. If our living room was the National Geographic channel, every Monday and Thursday evening there would be an hour-long show about a tiny monkey climbing all over some hippos.

We love her so much. She is awesome. So awesome that I won't reveal her last name because she's OUR yoga teacher, OURS and you can't have her!

We've only had about five lessons and so far, we're up to The "Smell Your Pits" pose - but I'm sure it's only a matter of time before she has us doing this:

I need to point out that this isn't some random awesome photo of some babe doing yoga. I ACTUALLY KNOW THIS PERSON - it's the lovely Michelle Girouard and I stole this photo off Michelle Girouard's website (or maybe her Facebook, I'm too tired from Foot Penis Pose to go and check right now).