Creampuff Revolution

Creampuff Has Something For You To Do Over Lunch

Well, there's no way to say this without sounding like a giant dillweed, but I am kind of a big deal.

When Katr gets pulled over for her next DUI, I will be in the passenger seat shouting "Do you KNOW my NAME??" at the arresting officer and then looking demure in my mugshot. And if the arresting officer is a theatre fan who lives in Calgary and likes to be entertained on her lunch hour by witty and powerful plays, then she WILL know my name!

My one-act play Camp Victoria is WORLD PREMIERING at Lunchbox Theatre in Calgary next March - and it opens on my BIRTHDAY! Wooooo!!!

The play is inspired by real people and events - here's a photo of Faith Fenton and the VON nurses that Katr found and put up on a little Camp Victoria page, because she's the best.

I love these gals.

Left to right: Margaret Payson, Rachel Hanna, Georgina Powell and Amy Scott.
Faith Fenton of the Toronto Globe is on the right.

Margaret Payson, Rachel Hanna and Faith Fenton are the three characters in the show. I love the look both my nurses are both giving the camera, like "Really? We have work to do." whereas Faith is all "I'm looking towards my FUTURE."

Speaking of gals, I don't think I'm supposed to talk about the cast yet but they're SUPER AWESOME and I'm totally thrilled that they will be donning corsets and getting loaded onstage together for your amusement. And I'm equally thrilled that Glenda Stirling is directing, because she too is SUPER AWESOME and really smart and will make me look almost as smart. Hashtag: WINNING.

Seriously, though...let's be serious. It's not every day that an artistic director thinks that one of my funny little corset plays are "right" for their "audience" and like many writin' types, the majority of my plays have been produced BY ME, at festivals and cabarets and workshops and the like. So the idea that Lunchbox Theatre is "doing the show" and all I have to do to provide some rewrites and show up to see it is weird and fantastic. So huge thanks to the lovely folks at Lunchbox for including me in what looks to be a pretty tremendous season. I'm really excited to be a part of it.

So hey! If you're in Calgary in March of 2014, I hope to see you at Camp Victoria! And in the meantime, you can follow Lunchbox Theatre on Twitter and Facebook.

Corsets!

Creampuffs Get Dirty

Last night in the kitchen, I burst into tears because the cauliflower I was preparing for our evening meal was "insanely buggy".

(In my defense, this effing cauliflower WAS riddled with tiny bugs but by the time I was ready to give up on it, I'd already assiduously de-bugged two thirds of it and it felt dumb not to soldier on.)

Still, I don't think I was really crying about the cauliflower. I also burst into tears when, after a power outage on Monday, I couldn't figure out how to reprogram the goddamn clock on the effing microwave. (Also in my defense, neither could Katr.)

Between my own family sadness and all the other crazy shit going on in the world, it's been a pretty heavy week and a half all 'round. So while I may not be capable of Katr's eloquence, as demonstrated by her excellent post this week "Increasing our capacity for compassion", I thought I would try to focus this week's post on something equally life-affirming and, perhaps a little dirty.

Aw yeah, that's right - motherfuckin' GARDENING.

This year our upstairs neighbours and all around manly men Jaco and Jeea built each of the units in our triplex a huge planter box on the boulevard, so that we could take advantage of the sun there and grow some motherfuckin' lavender. 

There are three of these babies on our boulevard now and people are impressed. They stop to look at the boxes. They check out all the plants. They ask us how the boxes got there and where the dirt came from.

It's been fun talking to neighbours who I've seen over the past three years but have never actually conversed with. I also hope that now that they know who lives here and that we are nice people who don't like to step in dog shit, they'll quit letting their dogs shit on our lawn.

Here's the dirty part:

There was a lot of dirt. Jaco ordered extra so that we would be able to fill the boxes, but then there was a LOT left over. Katr and I wiled away a sunny afternoon slowly moving this dirt, one bucket at a time, to various dirt-free areas on our collective property. Newsflash - dirt is heavy! You're welcome.

We decided to use our box mainly for herbs and poppies and a few below-ground items (radishes, scallions). My reasoning was that if someone wants to help themselves to a handful of herbs as they wander by, I'm fine with that - but if they take my tomatoes, it's a swift kick to the nutsack. Best to keep the tomatoes in the yard.

Here's our planter - cilantro, marjoram, thyme, rosemary, lavender, chives, garlic chives, scallions, radishes, poppies, one random geranium.

Syvo's planter is a lovely mix of lettuces and flowers, with an aspiring peony in the middle.

Kico and Jaco's planter is like the Versailles of planters - pansies, tulips, ferns and lettuces.

A few weeks and a lot of rain later, things are sprouting! Radishes!

Poppies!

Katr also got the peas going in our yard and they're sprouting too. Peas!

The kale is sprouting too, because we're Vancouver douchebags now and must grow kale. But that doesn't mean I have to photograph it. 

That's all the gardening news - FOR NOW. I know you'll all be DESPERATE to know when we get the beans and tomatoes in the ground!!!!111!!! so I'll keep you posted.

In the meantime, when shit gets real, it's nice to be able to look out my office window and see these:

Pretty.

WTF Universe??

My little cousin Keena was killed in a car accident Sunday morning just outside of Calgary.

The weather was crazy, there was black ice, it was no one's fault...she's just gone and that. Is. CRAZY.

These things are always unfair, but this feels extra stupid unfair, because Keena was a really lovely person who was barely in her 30s. She had so much going for her and had so many things that she was working towards and looking forward to.

It's so awful and just really really sad. Many many handkerchiefs have been soaked through at my house this week; the whole extended clan is devastated and I can't even imagine how her parents and brothers and her partner are feeling.  

I'm headed to Calgary for the service on Friday and I plan to spend the entire time trapping my remaining cousins in uncomfortably long hugs. Because they're my family and I love them and oh my god, NO to dying!!! No more!!! Seriously, Jesus. Enough.

Creampuff's Skunk Habitat Update

One year ago Saturday, I posted about how the skunk habitat next door had been torn down to make way for a new housing development like ours.

While I wasn't thrilled about the upcoming noise and endless dustiness, I WAS pretty thrilled to have an actual dwelling next door instead of a fire hazard hovel where skunks and badgers partied into the wee hours and then fought with raccoons outside our bedroom window. The developer, Ken, was very friendly and assured me that it would be finished in six months.

HAHAHAHAHAA!

Even then, I knew that was bullshit, but at first, I really thought he might make it. The initial digging and cement pouring and framing of the house went pretty quickly. I actually went out to take a photo of it every day, because I am a dork who is excited by creation! So here's a short little construction slideshow (if you can't see the damn slideshow, here's the set on Flickr):

Ken was SO zealous that we often heard him working well past the 8 p.m. city bylaw deadline for "construction work" and once, on a Sunday, we actually called the bylaw officer to shut 'im down, because IT'S THE LORD'S DAY. But he remained civil to us - in fact, one time, when I complained to him that our garbage didn't get picked up because one of his trucks was blocking the alley, he beetled over and put our garbage in his truck to take to the dump.

I liked Ken. And I wished him the best with his box-y house.

And then...I don't know what happened. But I know what was happening next door - big fat NOTHIN'. Maybe he ran out of money? Probably he ran out of money. For months on end, aside from a little random hammering after 5 p.m., there didn't seem to be anything going on at the house (inside OR outside). I stopped taking my daily photo back in September, because it was just the same damn photo. In the interim, here are the exterior developments I did not photograph:

1. They put tar-paper up.

Fast forward to March 2013. It's been a year! And it's still not finished. But I was still holding out hope that soonish there would be a sweet, modern-looking pad next door. Until last week, when it started to look like this:

Ugh.

I was excited when I saw the red flashing around the roof, because I love red. And I was also excited when I saw the dark blue panelling (on the ground floor - you can't really see it in this shot, because the 2-5-10 Home Warranty sign that's not tied down and likes to blow up and whap passerby in the face is in the way), because I thought it looked niiiice.

But I was not excited when a bunch of tiny rocks started pinging off our back windows last week and I came out to discover that instead of using that nice wood panelling all over the house, Ken has opted for incredibly ugly sort of pebbly stucco finish instead.

Oh, Ken. WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYY??? I'm sure it's just cheaper but it just looks so terrible, Ken! 

I honestly don't know why I'm so distressed about Ken and his stucco decision. I'm thinking about it A LOT...just, way more than anyone should. And why?

It's not my house. I don't have to live there. I barely have to see it from my yard. I guess I'm just worried that prospective buyers will be as shallow as I am and won't want to live there either and then THE SKUNKS WIN.

Further bulletins as events warrant.