Creampuff Revolution

Creampuff Experiences the Miracle - and Circle - of Life

My good friend Reol became an aunt yesterday!! It’s a girl! Ten fingers! Ten toes! Never has a baby’s arrival been so longed for and so well timed. I didn’t want to be pushy, but I did ask if they had any names in mind. Apparently, they’re still thinking about it, so I gently reminded them that nothing rolls off the tongue like “Bosemary".

Not long after receiving the great news, I was peering into our fish tank to verify the continued existence of a baby fish we discovered in there a couple of weeks ago. He’s more of a toddler now, really, frisky and increasingly fearless. He looks kinda like this.

Now, when we first got the tank, we bought three wagtail platys to “cycle” it. After observing their behaviour, we christened them Lesbian (for she was butch-looking and ignored the attentions of the male), Low Self-Esteem (for she followed the male around constantly, while he chased after Lesbian) and Butthead (the male). Sex occurred in our tank, people, and we attempted to rescue some of the fry, but always to no avail. The ones left in the tank got eaten by the parents, the ones we took out of the tank died and the one we took out of the tank, nursed back to health and put back into the tank got eaten by the parents. Then Butthead died and there were no more little ones and that’s how we liked it. Because the circle of life is emotionally exhausting.

A couple of months ago, bored with our crochety old fish and disturbed by the suspicious disappearance of 5 of our 7 neon tetras, we decided it was time for some cute new sunset platys. Unfortunately, Jen at the pet store gave us more boys than girls (you usually want two females per male, ‘cause those guys - they rock out with their cocks out). The lack of available females encouraged some of our younger buttheads to try and make it with the old lady wagtails - a sight hilarious to behold, as Lesbian and Low Self-Esteem are both at LEAST 3 times as big as the young sunsets. Anyway - it soon became clear that the two girl sunsets, Lie Back & Think of England and Tarty, were knocked up and when we found Toddler lurking in the plants, we were pleased to see that a baby had made it to toddler-hood with no ham-handed “help” from us. It’s a giant-catfish-chews-your-ass-off world in our tank, so Toddler’s survival is pretty noteworthy. A few days later, I noticed another baby, smaller and yellower, hanging around with Toddler and was again impressed by her resourcefulness. I figured that the birthing was over for now and decided to overfeed our grownup fish just a little bit, to keep them off the kids.

So yesterday, flush from the news of Reol’s aunt-hood, I was checking out the fish. I saw Toddler, I saw the little yellow baby and then - THEN - I saw a BRAND NEW FISH. It was tiny! It was frisky! It was pinging all over the tank! It was eaten by a tetra! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! And then there was another one! Tiny! Frisky! Smarter! It dove for the plants and disappeared! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!

I scanned the tank, trying to figure out which sunset platy was the latest mom. Both of them were acting a little weird, sitting at the back of the tank, then zinging all over the place and I decided that I had better catch the mom, put her in our little in-tank breeding net and try and save whoever I could. I got the net. I got the other net. I sat down and watched as little babies came out of nowhere, enjoyed their brief taste of freedom and then were consumed by the other fish. I strained my eyes, trying to catch a sunset in the act, when Lesbian swam into my sightline. “Lesbian!” I hissed, “Get out of the way!” Lesbian looked me over, turned her back and swam away, leaving in her wake a trail of teeny, tiny baby platys. “LESBIAN!” She turned around. “What?” “You SLUT!” She just wiggled at me, birthed another couple of fry, then spun around lazily and chowed down. Clearly, when we christened her “Lesbian", we were projecting. From now on, we’ll be calling her “Cradle-Robbing Cougar".

I managed to capture two of the infant fish and put them in our little isolation net. The others were eaten or escaped into the foliage, where they were no doubt eaten later on. And now, every 5 to 7 minutes, I get up and go over to the fish tank and just . . . hover. You people are lucky that I’m never going to have actual children or even fuzzy pets. My blog would end up looking like this.

Comments:

1. I really enjoyed reading your short takes on life!! Thank you for writing them, and for sharing them. I have no idea how I came to this blog site…wandered in, so to speak, but I I love your easy conversational style of writing. Best wishes, RC

   Comment by bob colgan — Saturday, April 30, 2005

2. Hey, thanks, RC! Your comments have made my day! (And I’m sorry my “comment” process is confusing . . . darn WordPress . . .)

   Comment by Rose — Saturday, April 30, 2005

A Creampuff Thank-you Note

Dear Canon Theatre,

We really enjoyed Wicked last night. The seats were very comfortable. Thank you for a delightful viewing experience.

Love,

Roro’s Ass

Comments:

1. Whoo-hoo! Defy gravity, baby, defy gravity. I cried through most of the second half. Except the ending, which was way better in the book.

   xo’s

   Comment by Berin — Thursday, April 21, 2005

2. Yeah, the ending. Between that one winged monkey who was TOTALLY milkin’ it to the . . . I don’t want to give it away, but the “ending that differs from the book", the last part kinda lost its impact. Katr and I were like “Whaa?” Freakin’ Americans and their h . . . I mean “endings that differ from the book".

   Comment by Rose — Thursday, April 21, 2005

Creampuff Gets Bruised at the Opera

To me, opera is the cultural equivalent of cod liver oil - you know it’s good for you, so you gamely show up for it, but it doesn’t always go down so well. Also, it costs more than a pair of pants, even creampuff pants, which is saying something. So I don’t often go. But when my friend Cafa, who, along with our friend Xath, has a “30 and under” subscription, offered me Xath’s ticket to Saturday’s performance of Tancredi, I jumped at the opportunity to take in a little culture gratis, much in the same way as I would have jumped at a free pair of pants. Free pants!!

The last time I went to the opera was with Katr, who took me to Die Walkure, directed by Atom Egoyan. Great music, great singing, REALLY impractical costumes and what - WHAT - was going on with the set? There were two old women sitting behind us who kept whispering “This is so STU-pid. Do you want another Werther’s, Joyce?” and then loudly unwrapping their candy and sucking it petulantly. They left after the second intermission and I took their aisle seat, so that Katr and I could have more room. Side by side creampuffs in those seats for 4 hours - even creampuffs in love get crowded.

I mention the seats because although I remember being a little uncomfortable in my seat during Die Walkure, I didn’t remember doing myself a harm merely by sitting down. This was not the case on Saturday. I saw the seats comin’ and I assumed the fit would be tight, don’t get me wrong, but when I squeezed my ass into my seat and felt the back of the chair in front of me digging painfully into my knees, I knew that there was no freakin’ way I was going to make it through the opera, lesbonic overtones or not. I turned to Cafa and said “Aaah . . . I can’t sit here.” Cafa, lithe young thing that she is, went “Oh . . . geez. Really?” and then we began to make various apologetic noises to each other as I eased my way out of the offending chair and tried, as the lights began to dim, to figure out what to do next. Cafa kindly asked the guy on the aisle if he would mind switching seats - he DID mind, but, in all fairness, the man was disabled. I shooed Cafa back to her seat and told her that I’d figure something out - or go home, whichever seemed most appropriate.

The staff at the Hummingbird Centre were nice but had NO idea what to do with a creampuff who was calmly pointing out that the chairs in the second balcony were inaccessible to fat people and asking if there was anything to be done. There wasn’t - all the aisle seats were taken and there would be no sitting on the stairs, due to fire hazard. Sadly, I called Katr and told her she’d better get her OTHER girlfriend to leave, ‘cause I was comin’ home early. And instead of Tancredi, we watched another diva - Jennifer Lopez - in Maid in Manhattan. I don’t know what was more appalling - being too creampuffy for a seat at the opera or watching Ralph Fiennes humble himself (playing a REPUBLICAN, no less - why didn’t he just smear himself with dog shit, while he was at it? Jesus.)

It’s common knowledge that often, when you fall in love, you get fatter, ‘cause instead of going to the gym in the morning, you’re getting it on and feeding each other grapes and instead of going to the gym in the evening, you’re going for drinks with your friends to introduce the new love interest and then going home to get it on and feed each other grapes. Or a pie. Whatever. My friend Padu’s sister Madu refers to it as “happy fat” and happy it has been.

Katr and I were both built for comfort rather than speed when we met, so we didn’t give much thought to our joyous union’s effect on our collective fatness. We have, of late, begun to recognize that eating for two has certainly taken its toll over the past couple of years. Oh, we’ve taken some half- or occasionally three-quarter-hearted steps to get back down to our respective slightly leaner, meaner singleton weights but these efforts have essentially come to naught. With the onslaught of spring, we’ve become more active and more interested in vegetables, but clearly it was too little too late for the Hummingbird. The thing is that we have REALLY expensive tickets to Wicked tonight and are now terrified that the asses we fed with our love will no longer fit comfortably into the Canon Theatre seats. We saw the shitty Producers there with Katr’s brother last summer and were quite comfortable but a year is a long time in creampuff love land.

Am I ashamed of my love ass? Hardly. Am I inconvenienced by my love ass? Clearly. I hate to say it, but there’s no other way - gang, it’s time to lay off the cheetos. And now, if you’ll excuse me - there’s an ellipterdactyl at the Y with my name on it and I hate to disappoint the wild life.

Creampuff Gets Busted by the Man

Well, they’re onto us. It only took a year and two months for the condo board to notice that the covering on our bedroom window is in contravention to Section IV, Subsection 3(b) of the Corporation’s Declaration, which states:

"The owner of each dwelling unit and the tenants and residents of each dwelling unit shall install a backing material of a white or off-white colour on each curtain or drapery which may be visible from outside the unit through a door or window of the unit.”

So, guys . . . no tinfoil, then?

We didn’t set out for our bedroom window to look like a trailer park. But when we first moved into the place, the only window coverings were these curling, fabric, completely ineffectual vertical blinds that fell off if you breathed on them. We’d just bought the place and renovated it and bought a bunch of new furniture and we were tapped out financially, so blinds fell to the bottom of the list, after things like “food” and “tequila".

Living downtown, the light pollution is like a kick in the head, especially with the new t.v.-showing billboard nearby, splashing gold, crimson and tits, TITS!!! all over your face as you attempt to sleep. Because I am a sloth, I still managed to sleep most nights but poor Katr couldn’t cope. She tried sleep masks. Then she tried other sleep masks. Then she tried sleeping pills. Then the “somnea” line from Fruits & Passions, all to no avail.

So one evening last February, I was putting together some more IKEA furniture while watching Bridget Jones (because her bumbling makes me feel all competent and butch while I’m building something) and it struck me that a suitably bumbling Bridget Jones thing to do would be to take the smooth white packing paper from the IKEA box and tape it up on the window. And then, and ONLY then, would I cover the paper (on the inside, you understand) with tinfoil. Well, it was harder to do than you would think and it looked TERRIBLE, but it worked like a dream!! Katr had her first good night’s sleep in months.

The tinfoil was only supposed to be up for a couple of days, until the weekend when we could go get some blinds. But you know . . . stuff happened and it didn’t look too bad from outside and it was working so well the way it was . . . so we left it! Ha! Even last spring when we bought new blinds for the living and dining room, we thought “Fuck it - we’ll do the bedroom when we can afford it.” Meanwhile, gang, the once-pristine paper was yellowing in the sun. Condensation on the paper caused it to sag in an unmistakably papery way. And in order to get the window open, Katr had peeled back some of the foil, so on my way home the last few weeks, I’ve started to notice a tell-tale hint of silver glinting from that window. I knew the end of our time with the foil was nigh.

The angry letter from the condo corporation says that we have 10 days to comply with Section IV, Subsection 3(b) or else . . . what? Part of me, the rebellious creampuff part, wants to engage in a game of chicken with the board but I know that the keener part of me will win out. Don’t bother calling this weekend. We’re going to buy blinds.

Comments:

1. I think the Condo board could use a little ‘Sic Soc’ action - if you know what I’m sayin’.

   Comment by Berin — Thursday, April 14, 2005

2. I DO know what you’re sayin’. Hmmm . . .

   Comment by Rose — Thursday, April 14, 2005

3. Maybe if you coated the street facing side of the foil white…

   Comment by d — Tuesday, April 19, 2005

Creampuff Attends a Mandatory Information Session

As a grateful beneficiary of this fine country’s system of . . . well, let’s just say it rhymes with “bemployment binsurance", I got to attend a mandatory “how to get your ass back to work and off the government dime” information session presented by the government. The following are some of my notes from the session. Some of them are useful in a career planning sense and others of them are useful in a . . . comedy sense.

* The session starts with all of us filling out a yellow sheet of paper which outlines our basic skills for HRDC stats collection. They tell us that filling out this form is “voluntary” but when Bonica tries to exercise her right not to fill the form out, she gets the smackdown from Trainer B or “Napoleon Complex". Her rebellion crushed, Bonica fills out the form, but proceeds to spend the rest of the day actively and obviously not paying attention.

* I know that you can be prosecuted for fraud if you falsify your bi-weekly reports, but having Trainer A, “Steely Government Employee", look me in the eye like she already knows I’m a reprobate really drives it home. I decide against asking my “hypothetical questions” about reporting and vacation pay, because SGE knows where I live.

* Authority figures make me nervous. I like to think that I’m tough, but if the cops brought me in on a trumped up charge, it’d take, like, an hour before I was giving up your mother. My tendency towards keenerness in these situations identifies me as a narc. After the break, no one sits next to me.

* At the break, I notice some flirting going on by two of the younger, more attractive attendees at today’s session. I also see the EXACT moment the flirtation fizzles, when the girl realizes “Wait a minute. This guy doesn’t have a JOB.”

* Napoleon Complex delivers the next part of the session - how your appearance affects an employer’s impression of you. Being a creampuff, I try not to criticize the appearance of others, but looking around the room - Bryan, the sullen ponytail guy who clears his sinuses every few minutes, Bary Boyce, who’s wearing too short shiny plastic pants, a t-shirt and runners and Batthew, who’s actually sleeping - guys, this part’s for you.

* Searching for jobs on the internet has a 4% success rate. 4%!!! Who knew? Cold calling out of the Yellow Pages, however, has at 69% success rate! NC tells us we should practice making these cold calls, before we allow ourselves coffee in the morning. We all stare blankly back at him and the guy behind me whispers “blow me".

* The most successful job search method is networking. I want to ask if they had any stats on “nepotism” but I don’t want to draw any further attention to my keener narc self.

* There’s this one woman, Barie, who keeps answering NC’s partially rhetorical questions REALLY seriously. As an example - NC is talking about how when Hypothetical Guy makes a New Year’s resolution to work out, he goes to the gym and runs for an hour, then does an hour of weight training and then does an hour aerobics class! How’s he going to feel after that huh, hahahahahahahahahahah!!!!! (NC laughs at his own “jokes"). We all laugh quarter-heartedly, except Barie, who says, very seriously, “Well, after that much exercise, he would hardly be able to move. He would be very stiff.”

* Interview techniques - many employers now (including the government, I believe) are employing this behavioural interviewing technique during which you may be asked to recount a tale of a time when you faced a challenge, what you did about it and what the results were. The acronym - CAR (Challenge, Action, Results) - was quite helpful. The CAR example given by NC, however, was of a fat man who, after being teased at work for being fat . . . confronted the teasers? Launched a grievance? Stood up for his rights as a HUMAN BEING? No. He OVERCAME HIS FATNESS SO THAT NO ONE WOULD TEASE HIM ANYMORE. You know, I think it’s great when people do things to make themselves healthier and happier. And if the story about about an out of shape guy who wanted to run a marathon and he did it, then that would be a good CAR story. But to hold up the story of a guy who was discriminated against, who then decided that as a fat person he DESERVED to be discriminated against and lost weight, as an inspiration tale of challenges faced? Fuck you, NC. In the words of the guy behind me - blow me.

* Tiger Woods’ game really went downhill after he married that supermodel.

* Resources - the government offers lots of cool resources for people in “job transition". And once I write my angry creampuff letter, I plan to take advantage of as many of them as I can! Yeah!

Obviously, there was other knowledge gleaned from the session and I didn’t even mention Trainer C, “Patient Teacher", who was very nice, had a good presentation style and knew that none of us wanted to be there. But overall, these are the things I remember. At a later date, I’ll no doubt be posting an entry about the government-presented self-employment workshop I’m planning to attend, where I hope to meet people with crazy small business ideas, like mail order meat or sweaters made from pet hair.

Creampuff Confessional

So I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Pope John Paul II took the long, richly-robed dirt nap this past weekend and all you hear on the t.v. and the radio is people talking about how he touched their lives and inspired them to “be the light". JPII’s been the pope since I was 3, so when I ask an obvious question and someone answers “Does the Pope shit in the woods?", JPII’s the pope I think of. We had many similarities, the Pope and I - we were both pasty white people, we both believe that all of the world’s religions should just get along and we were both playwrights (slightly different subject matter, obviously. Although I did write that play about a nun one time. Well, a lesbian nun and there was girl on girl action in the play, but still - nuns are Catholic. Like the Pope.) It may surprise you to learn, however, that the similarities end there.

I wish I had a good “meeting the Pope” story to share, but I don’t, so here’s my version of Padu’s instead. I don’t remember all the details, but then, neither does he, ‘cause he was 7 at the time.

The Pope was visiting Canada in the year of our Lord 1982 and Padu’s parents, devout Catholics at the time, went out to Lac St. Anne (I think) with all of the other faithful to catch a glimpse of His Holiness. There was camping involved, which Padu likely did not enjoy, but his parents had found them an ace spot on the Pope’s route so that the kids could see the Pope (or Il Papa, for the multilingual among you) go by in his Pope-mobile. The excitement was infectious and little Padu was very worked up about seeing the Pope. But just as the Pope was about to roll into view, a Polish nun pushed Padu roughly aside and claimed his place on the sidelines, shouting to the Pope in Polish, just to prove how COOL and POLISH she was. A mere few feet from the Pope, Padu was forced to spend his precious potential Pope-viewing time completely blinded by SOME NUN’S ASS IN HIS FACE. No wonder he turned out gay.

Anyway - in the spirit of such online resources as CNN and the Toronto Star, I invite you to comment on Pope John Paul II’s life and death - how his anti-war stance or religious inclusivity inspired you and/or how his constant shitting on women’s rights, gays in general and potentially life-saving condom use in Africa appalled you.

As for me - I thought I was experiencing JPII’s first church-mandated miracle yesterday morning when I detected the image of Mary, Mother of God, on my grilled cheese at Fire on the East Side. It turned out to be Mary Stuart Masterson instead. I was disappointed at first, but rallied quickly. Mary Stuart Masterson is a FOX.

Comments:

1. Amen, sister! Let’s not forget how backward and authoritarian this guy was just because he died. Oh, and the Polish nun had a big Polish FLAG which she unfurled at the moment of truth. A big flag which blinded us all from the Pope’s view. I love you Roro.

   Comment by Padu — Monday, April 4, 2005

2. Oh my god, the FLAG. How could I forget the Polish flag?? That’s, like, the best part! Thanks, Padu. And hey - I love you too! Even if the Pope thought you were an irredeemable sinner.

   Comment by Rose — Monday, April 4, 2005

3. Good lord, If I have to see another G.D, picture of that embalmed mofo I’m gonna hurl. Love the polish nun story. See - there was a reason he had to die. It was so that I could hear this story and LAUGH.

   Comment by E-dawg — Tuesday, April 5, 2005