Creampuff Revolution

Creampuff Trifecta of Love!!

Act of Love #1:  I know you've all felt it. A little frisson of excitement in the air. A little extra twinkle in the barista's eye. The angry guy at the bus stop is expectorating less. And all becase it's my baby's birthday today!  Happy Birthday, Katr! I love you with all of my heart and hope all your birthday wishes come true! And that some of them involve us being naked! With cake! Naked with cake! Okay . . . now I need a moment.

If you'd like to leave my girlfriend some birthday love, feel free to head over to her personal blog - OR, go vote for My Name is Kate in the "Best Business Blog" category over at the Canadian Blog Awards. Awards make great gifts! Especially when they're presented with cake! While naked! Woooo!

Act of Love #2: I felt like I'd really dropped the ball on blogging this week - until I remembered that when she was stranded in an airport Monday, I guest posted over on Katr's personal blog so that she wouldn't miss out on her NaBloPoMo post! Because that's what we do for love. HA ha!

Act of Love #3: The third part of the trifecta is the gay marriage part. Katr sent out an e-mail t'other day from Canadians for Equal for Marriage. It seems likely that our conservative Prime Minister Stephen F(uckface) Harper is going to keep his pre-election promise to re-open the whole gay marriage debate. Possibly next week. It's an important, hot button issue. Because as we've all seen, gays gettin' married has TOTALLY DECIMATED the delicate social fabric of our nation!! TOTAL ANARCHY!! I can't even go for a walk anymore without seeing people on the street making sweet love to their dogs and flippin' the bird at kindly old ladies while having inter-species orgies among boxes of Christmas oranges!!

So if you have some time and you're Canadian and you think a) Harper's a dicksmack and/or b) you think we homos should continue to have, you know, equal rights, contact your MP and let her or him know that right wing crazies aren't the only people who take the time to contact their MPs! Phone, e-mail and letter are the preferred methods of communication, so that's put the kibosh on my dog shit o' gram. FOILED! Maybe for Harper's birthday.

So I got a busy day ahead of me! Badgering my MP, making the country safe for gays to marry, preparing for Katr's birthday evening of nakedness, awards and cake, planning a variety of other fun for the weekend - it's not going to take care of itself, people! And hey, to those of you who've made it through NaBloPoMo, congratulations!! My hat is off to you. And if you've seen the weather reports for Vancouver, you'll know what a significant gesture that is.

Creampuffs Don't Fuck Around

Thursday, November 23rd, 2:30 p.m.: Creampuff arrives in Vancouver!!

6:00 p.m.: Creampuff spends quality time in loving arms and cleavage of partner creampuff.

6:07 p.m.: Together, creampuffs in love surf apartment porn aggressively over pizza. Plans are made, like Wellington at Waterloo, but indoors and not in Belgium.

10:38 p.m.: Snuggledown.

Friday, November 24th, 11:00 a.m.: Creampuffs collate Katr's brilliant "Tenant Packages" complete with references, income letters, resumes (Roro suggests headshots and knitting samples, is denied).

11:05 a.m.: Creampuffs start to make phone calls and appointments.

1:30 p.m., 3:00 p.m., 4:30 p.m.: Creampuffs see some apartments. Creampuffs dazzle prospective landlords with their Tenant Packages, exceptional hygiene and deep, probing questions. ( i.e. "Can we grill? And what about our hypothetical pooch?") 

1:45 p.m., 3: 08 p.m., 4:47 p.m.: Creampuffs fill out applications and smile alot.

5:00 p.m.: Creampuffs go home and try not to freak out while waiting.

5:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m.: Creampuffs spend evening with crossed fingers and spend hours looking at pictures of bbq's and dogs on internet.

Saturday, November 25th, 1:12 p.m.: Creampuffs get phone call from first choice place!! The news is good, but only if Roro promises not to run her brothel out of the apartment (FOILED!) Meeting to sign lease set up. Light screaming occurs, followed by jumping up and down, followed by Roro taking an aspirin for her knee.

2:45 p.m.: Creampuffs meet with agent, sign one year lease, drink  lattes of celebration. Tears of joy . . . welling up . . . cannot stop them . . .

So these are our new balconies (Peeping Tom telescope not included - FOILED!!):

and some of the view from our balconies:

because we have BALCONIES!!!!!

Wooooooooooooooo!

Thank you all for your good apartment vibes and stellar advice and lack of judgment over the apartment porn. We're pretty effing thrilled with our new place. Although now that we've found the place, it's kinda hitting home that we have a million bins of books but NO FURNITURE. Ha ha. Yeah. Maybe I'd better lay off the dog surfing and find a BED.

Speaking of surfing, my lovely better half's blog, My Name Is Kate, has made it through to the second round of voting for the Canadian Blog Awards in the "Best Business Blog" category! So if you're a fan (but not a NAKED fan - that's my job), head on over and give her a vote! You may visit once a day, if you are so inclined. I know I am. Tee hee.

Creampuff's Latest Obsession

First, I got a little crazy over Neopets. Then (sweet, sweet ear frottage) it was Q-Tips. And my latest, uh, avid interest, is Vancouver's Craig's List apartment listings.

Our current place in Vancouver is in a great location but it's furnished with stuff that isn't ours and it's so small that with two of us creampuffs in there - well, it's almost pornographic. We're pretty excited to actually find an apartment where we can plunk our three remaining pieces of furniture and perhaps get one of these:

The thing is that I've been on the other side of the country for two months now and we can't really look for a place until I'm actually back in the land of "boil water!" advisories and not enough Swiss Chalet. Katr's working ridiculous hours and anyway, it's not the kind of decision you should make without your partner there. So we can't get a new apartment until I get there and it's pointless to look beforehand.

So what am I doing EVERY FIVE MINUTES? I'm looking at Vancouver apartment porn.

At first, I was just looking at apartments we might actually want. In the areas we want, the size we want, in our price range. But then I would see ads for great looking places and I would get a little too excited and start yelling "That's our apartment! That's our apartment!" And then, when I remembered the futility of my search, then would come the weeping.

Once I reconciled myself to never actually getting any of the apartments I was looking at, I started to refer to my "itchy refresh finger" activities as "Research". Which, incidentally, is the name of the folder where I keep my pictures of Gina Torres.

Since it's all a fantasy anyway, I gave up limiting myself and started to look at EVERYTHING. 1 bedrooms, 5 bedrooms. $25/day rooms and $8000/month luxury condos. Basement suites and penthouses. If there's a photo, I'll look at it. And if the photos are of the view instead of the apartment, I yell "That doesn't COUNT!" at the ad. I also yell "That doesn't COUNT!" when they list the apartment as a 2 bedroom and then the ad says "1 bedroom and den that can be USED AS A BEDROOM [emphasis added]". I also yell "Catspiracy!" when they allow cats but not dogs. And then I hit "refresh" again.

I was telling my friend Deye about the apartment porn and she comforted me by not only buying my line about "research", but by telling me that her partner, Grmi, obsessively checked the weather report weeks before their outdoor commitment ceremony. "Why are you checking?" she said to him, "it's not for 10 days!" "I know," he'd reply hysterically, "but I JUST CAN'T HELP MYSELF."

I'm feeling Grmi's pain. As innocent as I feel this apartment porn surfing is, it's certainly consuming a lot of my time. For instance, I started this post on Friday and it's now Sunday night. I'd like to think that my obsessive apartment porn surfing will lessen in the days to come but we all know that's a lie. It's only going to get worse until we actually get an apartment. And it might continue for awhile after that. Just to make sure we got a good deal and stuff.

Anyway - I'm off to Vancouver on Thursday and the search can begin in earnest. Wish us luck and puppies. And a speedy internet connection. And more pictures of Gina Torres.

Creampuff Gift Expectations

Knizzles was hosted by the lovely Clmi last night. I was looking forward to seeing her place, because

a) she has not succumbed to the Catspiracy; and

b) if it was anything like her blog, I was going to have to lick everything there. 

Fortunately, she'd made an apple cake and various other goodies, thus saving the rest of her abode from my drooling. Mostly. I don't know what happened to that collection of multi-coloured soaps in the bathroom. It wasn't me.

As most of us were knitting holiday gifts, gift-giving, gift-receiving and proper gift appreciation were hot topics of conversation. And at some point, Clmi asked us to recollect the first gifts we'd ever made or given our parents for the holidays.

I honestly don't remember the first gifts my childish hands made for my parents - I did make a lot of tree ornaments in kindergarten involving pasta and it's possible I tried to pass those off as gifts. Parents are such suckers when you're five. HA! But the question reminded me of the first time my younger brother Jaro actually bought a gift for my mom.

My mom, as I recall, had been complaining about her hairbrush and its general inadequacy. And my brother hit on the brilliant idea of buying her a new one for Christmas.

Jaro was, like, six, so it WAS quite a brilliant idea. We tried out every brush in the Shopper's Drug Mart until we found the perfect one (i.e. the one that fit our $3 budget). Jaro bought the brush and could not WAIT to give it to my mom.

Once in possession of the brush, however, Jaro became VERY concerned that, because she did have immediate need of a brush, my mom would just go buy her own and his gift would lose its impact. To guard against this eventuality, he came up with a cunning and pro-active plan. He sat my mom down and cautioned her thus:

"I'm not going to TELL you what I got you for Christmas," he said, his eyes huge behind his thick glasses, "but DON'T BUY A BRUSH."

I seriously don't know how my mother managed to keep a straight face. I mean, not only is that hilarious, but my brother at the time was adorable, cross-eyed, wore huge coke-bottle glasses and couldn't say his "R's". That's good parenting right there, people. She assured him that she wouldn't and Jaro bounced off, satisfied that he had kept his secret.

Obviously, this has become a running joke in my family. "I'm not going to TELL you what I got you for Christmas, but DON'T BUY A BRUSH" is a holiday tradition, right up there with our illegal Solstice bonfire and my mother's not-so-secret Re-gifting Closet.

It's been many a year since the pasta tree ornaments, but I still occasionally attempt handmade gifts and my parents still respond with the same delight to things like my lopsided, amateurish knitting as they did to the ashtrays I made out of clay. Maybe because, while they're thrilled that my brother and I have grown into (mostly) functional adults, it's fun to remember a time when gifts were simple but from the heart and a $3 brush was the COOLEST GIFT EVER.

Anyway - if you are so inclined, I invite you to recollect the first gift you made or gave to your parents (or siblings or grandparents or whatever your definition of family may be). And then I invite you to bake me some more of that kickin' apple cake. 

Creampuff Amazed By Charity Towards Feline

As I noted in a previous post, I am not a cat lady. But after the events of this week, I have a whole new respect for the generosity of animal lovers. 

My 3.5 week roommate, Anto, is adopting a cat. She was kind enough to arrange for lodging for the cat until I have left, because while I love a good cat, I am deathly allergic to them. No matter how much I drug up, the formula seems to be 1 hour with cat = 1 day of being sick. Five hours for Thanksgiving dinner at my two-cat-having stepgrandmother's place? Five days of being sick. For years, I attributed my singleness not to my own personal fucked-up-edness, but rather to my unsuccessful lesbianism; being allergic to cats and hating camping.

Anyway, the cat in question (working title: Bandit) was rescued after being abandoned on a subway platform and Anto, who'd been thinking about getting a cat, offered to take him. Once rescued, however, it became clear that Bandit was paying for his criminal ways (or for having ass-tastic owners) and had suffered a broken leg. Poor little cat.

So the cat needed surgery, which isn't cheap. Anto wanted to help the cat, but totally couldn't cover the $1500 to $1800 veterinary costs alone; so her 13-cat-having friend suggested that Anto put out a call to friends and co-workers asking if they would consider donating money to her "Heal My Poor Abandoned Broken Legged Cat" fund.

I thought this was an hilarious idea. Mainly because if I got an e-mail like that, I'd be like "Uh, good luck with the cat, I give to the Food Bank". MAYBE, if it was a CLOSE friend and the cat had a cute name like Belinda (seen in the photo above) or Mr. Puddles, I'd donate $10. Because I'm a cold and heartless person? Perhaps. But more likely because I have never had a mammalian pet and none of my fish have ever required surgery.

Furthermore, I must confess to being a little hostile towards this particular cat. Was I planning to stay at Anto's in February and March, for the last 8 weeks of my residency? Well, we hadn't discussed it, but in my mind I was keeping the option open. FOILED! Will I be visiting Anto a lot in the future to laugh over the good old days of living together for 3.5 weeks, like the one time we ordered Swiss Chalet together and watched crime on t.v.? Unlikely. Do I in any way begrudge her the companionship of a cat or the abandoned, broken-legged cat a loving home? Of course not. It's just that when people acquire cats, I feel like they're essentially slamming a big, fuzzy door in my face and I'm starting to take it personally. It's a catspiracy, people. A catspiracy preventing me from visiting friends and finding places to live. And I don't donate funds to support the Catspiracy.

Apparently, no one else in the free world is feeling the threat of the catspiracy. Offers of funds began pouring in via e-mail, via phone. POURING. And not just $5 here or $5 there - some people were dropping off cheques for $100. It seems that if everyone who offered actually makes good on their pledge, Bandit's surgery will be covered. Anto is teary with relief and gratitude. And I am stunned.

I was telling Katr this story over the phone the other night. I noted my lack of inclination to donate money to the cat surgery and my awe at the outpouring of generosity and cash that Bandit's plight has caused. "I just don't GET it," I said to her. "Is it because I've never had a cat?"

"YES," replied Katr instantly, who loves cats and will never have one again as long as she is with Sneezy McWheezyRunnyEyesDon'tTouchMeWithYourCatHands, "Give her $20. And quit whining and lend her your digital camera this afternoon. I want a picture of this cat."

"This cat that's USURPING ME?" I said, a little hysterical.

"I think you're being a little weird about this cat."

Sigh.

So if you've already donated or offered to donate money for Bandit's leg surgery, you're a kinder and more generous person than I and you'll be getting a photo from my digital camera and an update, including ways to hook up with Anto for donation drop-off, sometime soon.

And if you'd like instead to donate to my Sneezy McWheezyRunnyEyesDon'tTouchMeWithYourCatHands Catspiracy Research Fellowship, you know where to reach me.

Creampuff Remembers

I was coming home from somewhere last week and was waiting for my bus at Main Station. Since I'd come in from the streetcar instead of up from the subway, it took me a while to notice that standing alone in the middle of the station was an elderly gentleman; and it kinda looked like standing was a challenge for him. He had his back to me and at first I thought he was waiting for someone. But then he swivelled a little bit and I saw that in fact he was a veteran handing out poppies.

I'd seen people wearing poppies out and about but hadn't had a chance to get mine yet. So I went over to him, dropped a couple of toonies in the box. We murmured "thank you" to each other as he presented me with the poppy and I went back over to my bus corner and pinned the poppy on.

A man who was also waiting for my bus saw me pinning the poppy and then spotted the veteran. He hastily dug out some change and went over to the old man. And someone waiting for another bus saw him and started digging for change.

It was like the wave at the football game, but slower and with more change involved. Within minutes, one at a time, every person at our end of the station made their way over to the veteran. And I mean every single person; every age, every skin colour, business people, punk teens, grandmothers, little kids. Some people gave bills, others let their young children drop change into the box. People coming up from the subway saw us with our poppies and went straight to the source. No one really said too much, just "thank you, sir"; it was a sacred ritual, like receiving communion. One man saluted and the veteran saluted right back.

The old veteran pinned the poppy on every gentleman's lapel, even if the gentleman in question was 14, wearing a baseball cap sideways and had no lapel. He presented the poppy to every lady as if it (and she) were a single, perfect rose, whether if she was wearing a business suit or stilettos and a crop top. By the time my bus came, there wasn't a person there who wasn't wearing red. And it was powerful.

I imagine that it had been happening that way all day; the old soldier would stand there quietly, holding a poppy. One person would start the trend and then the station would fill with poppies, then empty, then fill again.

I've never met anyone who fought in WWI. Both my grandfathers, the one who died on my birthday this year and the one who did not, fought in WWII.  The veterans of both those wars are all getting on and I know that I wondered and worried that, in their absence, Remembrance Day might lose some of its significance. That the cynicism around current military situations would encourage us to minimize the very real sacrifice that soldiers and their families are making. That we'd somehow all forget "In Flanders Fields" and that we'd all go back to using the poppies as velvety lips, like we did in elementary school.

But as I watched my fellow Torontonians, young and old, silently and reverently pin those poppies on, I ceased to worry. We do remember. And we will continue to remember those who have made and are making those sacrifices.

So . . . I just wanted to say thank you to all those women and men who served and are still serving. And thank you to the veteran at Main Street Station last week, who enabled me to share a powerful moment with a bunch of strangers. My poppy and I salute you.

A Blog Post a Day Helps Creampuff Procrastinate

All you NaBloPoMo mofos are KILLING me.

Creampuff Requires Reality Check, Cheetos

I don't often post about writing or the process of writing, because writing about writing makes me feel like a pretentious twat. But it's also rare that I start a week with only one deadline and end up with three.

So at the beginning of last week, as my pants disintegrated, I knew I had a milestone to meet for my script on Thursday. Then I remembered that I had a submission thingy due Wednesday and then on Tuesday, I also picked up some much appreciated freelance work. With a turnaround time of Friday.

I'm not gonna lie. I was a little stressed. As most of you know, I am a uni-tasker and usually having more than one project on the immediate go is a recipe for beady-eyed, sticky disaster. But while I was indeed stressed, I was also oddly confident. Energized. ALIVE. I found the closest coffee in the neighbourhood and dug right in.

I was expecting the usual grind, the constant checking of my e-mail and your blogs, frequent trips to the fridge; not last week. It was like I'd found this well of brilliance and was merely drawing up buckets brimming with bon mots. Grunting? Yes, but minimal. As I alternated between my three projects, the words just kept coming. To quote Randy Quaid in The Paper, "This writes like butter. I mean, there is ACTUAL BUTTER coming out of my pen." I believe I actually chatted my girlfriend with a line of copy at one point and followed it up with "I AM A GENIUS!!"

I sent my submission thingy in Wednesday. Yes! I met with my dramaturge Thursday. Score! By the time I sent off my last piece of freelance biz-nass on Friday, I was on a high. Because I knew that everything I had written last week, from my submission thingy to the angry comment I left on some babe's blog, was pure, unmitigated gold. GOLD!

YEAH!!!

And then, a couple of days later, I went back and I read it all again.

Huh.

So, it's like I've been drunk dialling my computer all week. My script? Well, the lesson I learned there is that just because I'm laughing out loud doesn't mean it's good.

The freelance copy? Actually, I still think it's pretty good. But? The fantasy I had? About winning the Pulitzer Prize? For Best Marketing Copy Incorporating the Words "Car Wash" and "Teflon"? Not going to happen.

The submission thingy was . . . alright, but then, when I was flipping through my notebook, I found a whack of handwritten material for it I forgot that I had written in some coffee shop a few weeks ago. The stuff in the notebook? GOLD, people! The stuff I actually submitted? Sigh.

As for the recipient of my angry blog comment, she had the good grace to approve it and respond to it. And I feel like she did try, in her response, to not come off as completely clueless or condescending. Much in the same way that I attempted, in my comment, not to come off like I was foaming at the mouth. Sadly, neither of us succeeded.

What's the lesson here? More sleep? Less coffee? No more muffin IV? Too few knitting breaks? Not enough Cheetos? If only history could decide . . .

Creampuff Welt

Hey. Other creampuffs. We need to get organized. Because we're all victims of a massive (with a capital ASS) conspiracy.

I'm talking about an attack on our pocketbooks, an undermining of our ability to leave the house with confidence and a ravaging of the delicate, sensitive skin of our inner thighs. I'm talking about the planned obsolescence of our pants.

Specifically the crotchal area.

The disintegration of the crotchal area of my pants has been a constant irritation, so much so that I often, given the choice, don't wear pants at ALL. The other day, however, I had to go see our real estate lawyer. And I don't have to tell you that lawyers like it when you wear pants.

I swear I have not worn these particular pants that often. Moreover, I actually inspected the crotch of the pants before I went out, just to make sure I wouldn't be breaking on through to the other side. I was about 15 minutes into my walk to the subway when I felt it. A sudden give. A windy-ness. And then . . .  came then.

When I actually felt my pants disintegrate, I thought I was hallucinating. It went something like: "Surely . . . surely my pants did not just disintegrate. Surely the combination of anti-histamines, caffeine and moving-related muscle ache is causing me to imagine that my thighs are on the loose. Surely no one will notice if I discreetly waggle my hand near my crotch to check if my . . . [gasp] NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!"

And so it was. One minute I'm a sophisticated gal about town, kickin' it to the subway and the next, I'm the lead singer in a band called the Chafetains.

I didn't have time to go back and change into uncompromised pants. I was forced instead to mince my way downtown to the lawyer's office, surreptitiously yanking my right pant-leg up every few paces to minimize the formation of angry, fucked-up-pants welts. Am I turning you on? And then afterwards, instead of my coffee shop/library plans, I had to haul ass to the DUFFERIN MALL to spend $60 that I don't have on emergency pants. And then I was so worn out and tender from my ordeal that I gave up on the rest of my day, went home and iced my crotch.

I know that I am not the only person who has suffered in this way. I also know that Worn Out Pants Crotch Syndrome is not confined to creampuffs - it just hits us earlier and oftener. And what I want to know is why is it that we can put a man on the moon but we can't make my fucking jeans last longer than two months?

I could feed you all kinds of facts about the plus-sized clothing industry and their global conspiracy to chafe me, but then I'd have to find some kind of source for these facts and that would take away from my leftover Hallowe'en candy eating time. My point is that I understand that it is not in the best interests of the clothing manufacturers to make pants that last. That's why it's up to us to deal with our pants.

What we need are some scientifically-inclined creampuffs with some spare time and an aversion to thigh welts.  Together, these creampuffs could create a new creampuff pant crotch fabric - I'm thinking some kind of titanium/denim polymer. Would it be expensive? Possibly. Would it be worth it? DEFINITELY. If I'm already spending $360/year on jeans - that's almost a dollar a day, people! I could sponsor a child for that kind of money! - and not getting handjobs, then spending $250 for a pair of pants that last until I decided not to wear them anymore would be a DEAL. How 'bout it, Science?

Until this fabric miracle comes to pass, I think I'll be saying "no" to pants. Instead, you'll be seeing me about town in this little number.

Jealous?

The Chafetains. Heh heh.