Creampuff Revolution

Creampuff Completes NaBloPoMo, Knows that Nobody Cares, But She Did it For Pride and is Proud Indeed

Today's is Katr's birthday and she FINALLY received the gift she's been waiting for since she first heard that it existed.

That's right - it's Hudson's Bay Barbie.

Katr does not collect dolls in general or Barbie in particular. She also does not collect Hudson's Bay items, although she does own an iconic Point Blanket. But something about this Barbie made her heart sing. She saw it. She loved it. She made its image the wallpaper on her iPhone. She HAD to have it. And today, all her Barbie dreams came true!!! She is so happy.

Happy birthday, Katr!!!! Every day I am thrilled that you were born!!! Katr...you are MY Hudson's Bay Barbie.

So. I have reached the end of National Blog Post Month. The daily blogging, while not 100% PURE GOLD, was super fun and, while I hate few things more than blogging about blogging, I have to say that the experience has reminded me why I still have this blog and that I should make time to keep it current, if only as a record for myself. Because no one laughs at my jokes more than I do.

It takes a village to make Creampuff Revolution happen. I would like to thank Katr and Drtr for supplying me with ideas when I had none and for giggling at my posts and for waiting to eat dinner until I'd gotten my daily post done.

I'd like to thank my BFF Padu, for telling me, when asked, that my post about having no ideas and not wanting to reimagine theatre might come off as bitchy and whiny, so I probably shouldn't share it on FB.

And finally, I'd like to thank my most faithful commenter, Solitary Diner, who responded to many a post with her usual encouragement and panache. You would do well to check out her blog, Table For One, as she is a very engaging writer, seems like a very cool person and obviously has great taste in blogs. Thanks, Solitary Diner!!

Creampuff Knows that When One Blog Door Closes, Another Opens. Drunkenly.

It's the second last day of NaBloPoMo and I'm a bit short on time, PLUS my ocular herpes is acting up and it's hard to concentrate with Katr and Drtr in the test kitchen, prepping their extensive booze stash for the beginning of their annual cocktail advent calendar. So this post is about them.

The two of them will be starting this year's calendar on their blog, A Bitter Spirit, starting December 1st. Last year, because Drtr arrived after the start of Advent, they did a 12 Days of Christmas collection instead. The Three French Hens was my favourite.

2014's theme was Christmas carols and I was partial to Here We Come a'Wassailling, because I love a hot drink and kumquats are the shit.

The inaugural year, they named their cocktails after Christmas characters and got my whole family drunk on Sugar Plum Fairies.

I'm not 100% sure what this year's theme is but here are a few phrases I've caught floating down the hall from the Bitter Spirit Test Kitchen tonight.

"Why don't we have Galliano?"

"Try this. This is hilarious."

"I'm starting the radish infusion."

"Marzipan is almond. Frangelico is hazelnut."

"Ah HA! Chinese Happy Wine!"

"We're gonna need to find some of this paste."

"I'm just doing shots."

"I definitely want to try it with the tea." 

"They made balls of glutinous rice that had some kind of filling."

"There's the osmanthus and then there's the kassia lime..."

"OH MY GOD THAT IS SO GOOD."

"What's the brand name again?" "I don't know, check the spreadsheet."

"It's toasted tea infused in creme de cacao."

"If you ask, they should have the jelly."

"What if we just put espresso in it?"

I don't know about you guys, but I am PRETTY JAZZED FOR DECEMBER.

Creampuff's Bits Could be More Fit

Katr and I both got Jawbone Up bands a few years ago as a fun way to keep track of steps and sleep. And it was fun for awhile. But then all of our friends also got them and we became "friends" on the app with our Up band friends. I suppose the social aspect of these fitness trackers are meant to encourage healthy competition but I found myself mainly feeling hatred for everybody. Then I left my Up band at home when we went to Mexico one year and when I came home, it wouldn't recharge and I thought "Great!" and didn't get a new one.

Then last year we got the puppy and suddenly I was walking A LOT more than I did with non-walking Emmy, the non-wonder dog and I thought that since I was walking ANYWAY, I wanted to know how MUCH I was walking, just for my own amusement. So I ordered a FitBit One. This time, I kept my information allll to myself and it gives me a little thrill every day, especially on the days when I reach or exceed that 10,000 step goal. 

Last week, I was sick and Drtr did the lion's share of the dog walking, so my daily step average was in the 4,000 range. But on Friday I was back out on pei patrol with Effie and we ran a lot of errands and I got 10,438 steps.

On Saturday, we took Effie to the park and ran a lot of errands and I set up my village and got 10,322 steps.

Then, on Sunday, I walked Effie around the block once, was driven to dim sum, then sat at my computer and bragged about setting up my village and I got...11,252 steps.

Wait so...what?

Obviously, the FitBit is misreporting. Probably just a technical glitch. But then this morning, I woke up and my left lower eyelid was puffy and bruised-feeling, like someone punched me in the face and I'm starting to wonder if maybe I took a long walk and got into a fight IN MY SLEEP.

Aaaaaaaaand scene.

Creampuff's Urban Planning for 2016 Complete

I was thrilled to announce last week that I had a new addition to my ridiculously large collection of Department 56 Dickens Village buildings but I was too sick to actually put the village together.

Not this weekend, motherfuckers.

Village planning...is an art. There are a lot of things to take in to consideration when you have been blessed with a huge variety of edifices and occupants, but have very little space in which to display them. This year, I had one windowsill in the living room to work with and in the office, I had two windowsills AND the top of the large filing cabinet.  To work!

First, I got all of my buildings and accessories out and put them on the bed to contemplate them.

(Just FYI, you can click on any of the following photos to enbiggen. I know you don't want to miss a single detail.)

I started with the one windowsill in the living room - I had room for two buildings there, but nothing REALLY matches my lovely Victorian house. The Bluebird Cottage is too humble; the Observatory needs more space; and there's no effing way rich people are going to live that close to the Molasses Factory. Serious NIMBY issues.

In the end, I decided to place the Village Well and Holy Cross next to the house and wrapped the well's gazebo with some cute little LED lights from Welk's that our friend Boka tipped me off to. They look blue in the shitty picture, but they're white in real life. Then, of course, I added a straight couple about to make out while some lesbian nuns caroled nearby. SEASONAL. Wintersea planning - complete!

 

The much larger metropolis of Rosewood Cross took a lot of planning this year. I decided to go with a municipal/commercial/education theme this year and tried to create a vignette with a variety of shapes and levels, you know, for visual interest.

On top of the filing cabinet, we have the water tower, the Royal Carriage and Cartwright Coach Builders, who - you guessed it - service the Royal Carriage!  The Queen is a very demanding client but they enjoy the prestige. 

Here's a close-up of Cartwright's - such great detail. A lot of the newer Department 56 Dickens Village pieces have weird, fake-looking colours that I hate - this piece has that classic look historical fiction nerds prefer.

On windowsill #1, I decided that a little shopping and entertainment were in order - after marvelling at the animated photographs and Egyptian museum at Piccadilly's Finest Gallery, residents of Rosewood Cross can dabble in the occult by picking up a little something from Lily Bros Gazing Balls (heh heh). To round out the afternoon, the gentlemen can buy their ladies a posy from Eliza Doolittle's flower cart. All she wants is a room somewhere. But don't worry, she's shacking up with the head wheelwright from Cartwright Coach Builders, so she's getting hers.

Windowsill #2 was a big challenge. I technically had room for two buildings. But kids need room to roam. So I decided to put the Boarding School there and surround it with happy youngsters taunting birds.

I like how the little boy in this close up looks as if he's hitting himself in the face with the birdcage.

This afternoon, my old friend Mami stopped by with her adorable daughters to drop off their awesome shoeboxes and when I found out that one of them knits, I brought them into the office to show them my stash (NOTHING WEIRD). They were horrified by how much yarn I had, but they were very keen on the village and spent a lot of time looking carefully at the vignette and politely not touching it. I explained the logic behind all of my building choices and the older one nodded thoughtfully, as if she appreciated my attention to detail.

Then the younger one said "I wish we could see your village!"

Confused, I replied "This IS the village."

"No," she said, eyes aflame with the burgeoning fire of a village zealot, "I mean, your WHOLE village, with ALLLL the buildings."

Ahhh, grasshopper. You have learned well. And Mami, I'm sorry if your kids suddenly want a village real bad.

I'm very happy with my choices this year and am pleased with how it turned out. But this morning, I woke up and found that I was already thinking about next year. And I am already SUPER EXCITED.

Village nerds!!!

Creampuff Enjoys Another Shar Pei Saturday

When she was just a puppy, Katr and I decided that we wouldn't let the dog sleep in our bed, because we are not weirdos.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA

(NB - this is not our bed. It's a bed at a vacation rental we were at this summer. Telling that we didn't even bother to bring a dog bed. Because we ARE weirdos.)

Creampuff Meets a Very Important Deadline

My erstwhile roommate Skip LOVED Star Wars and when the newly remastered original trilogy came out in theatres, we went the first weekend. I was excited too but I didn't realize that Skip had NEVER seen Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi in the theatre - she'd only seen them on VHS at home. 

"So wait," I said to her, "so you watched them all at once? Like, back to back?"

"Oh yeah," she said, "like a marathon!"

"So you're telling me that, unlike the rest of us, you didn't have to wait those agonizing three years between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi to see what happened to Han??"

"Oh, no way. I don't think I could have handled it! HOW DID YOU HANDLE IT?"

The answer was that I was 8, so I had a lot of other things on my mind, but I always felt like she'd cheated a little, watching all three movies at once without having to weather the fallow periods between like the rest of us did, wondering what happened to Captain Solo and growing your hair out so that you could do Cloud City Leia hair. I felt pretty superior in my suffering, is what I'm saying.

All this to say that I feel like a pretty big hypocrite, because last night, we finished the final season of the Gilmore Girls, literally the day before the new Netflix mini-series that TRUE Gilmore Girls fans have been waiting for since 2007. HA ha!

Sorry guys. And sorry, Skip.

As I mentioned in my earlier Gilmore Girls post, Katr did not get on the GG bandwagon with me. She felt that the characters got too yell-y about things that were dumb and that people on the show made stupid choices. So, for the first few seasons, I generally watched Gilmore Girls by myself. But as time went on and my ardour didn't fade, Katr would occasionally join me on the couch of a Sunday afternoon (doing stuff on her iPad, of course) and she would occasionally chuckle. Sometimes, when I had watched an episode without her, she would ask what had happened in Stars Hollow.

Sensing that she may eventually be drawn in to the charms of Stars Hollow, I played it cool, as one would with a skittish horse; never pushing my Gilmore Girls agenda too hard but suggesting it occasionally. And while she never truly LOVED the show as I did, she tolerated more and more episodes as the Netflix event drew nigh.

And then, last night, she (and Drtr) spent the entire last two episodes of the series quietly weeping. VINDICATED.

 After we finished the series and had our cry, we watched the trailers and a featurette about the new Gilmore Girls and I do not think I was the ONLY one on the couch who was excited.

We all had to work today and after making Katr and Drtr watch 6 episodes of GG in two days, I don't know if they're going to be down to clown in Stars Hollow tonight. But that's okay. I can wait. OR CAN I??

BE COOL, RORO. BE COOL.

In the meantime, I'm enjoying gentle, spoilery tidbits I'm seeing on the Twitter.

I loved Jess even when he was a little shit & everyone hated him. That he's grown up to become a voice of reason? Perfect. #GilmoreGirls

— kaitlin thomas (@thekaitling) November 25, 2016

What I am hearing you say is Logan is still around and Paris is still not gay?!???!!?

— Heather Hogan (@theheatherhogan) November 25, 2016

The most amazing thing about @GilmoreGirls is that Emily held on to one maid for a whole year. #GilmoreGirls #GilmoreGirlsRevival

— Giuliana Carr (@GiulsCarr) November 25, 2016

Have you guys watched it yet? Is it good? Just tell me if it's good! No spoilers!

Creampuff Wishes You a Happy Thanksgiving!

I was chatting with my beloved brother-in-law Drtr about memorable Thanksgivings and I realized that this year was the 20th anniversary of my favourite non-traditional Thanksgiving, which I spent with my BFF Padu in Toronto in 1996. Obviously, it was Canadian Thanksgiving but whatever, same diff.

It was my last year of university. My roommates has gone home for the weekend and Padu had trained in from Montreal. We were set for a magical celebration.

To kick off the day, we went to see a matinee of a play called Gulag by Robin Fulford. You can tell from the title that it's a cheery little number. Gulag is the sequel/companion piece to Robin Fulford's earlier play, Steel Kiss, which is based on the true story of a group of four teenagers who beat a gay man to death in Toronto's High Park and the sensationalistic trial that followed. We'd seen Steel Kiss at the Fringe in Edmonton a few years before and Padu was OBSESSED with it, probably because it's a really excellent and very compelling play. Gulag is about what follows - it takes place four years later, and we see the teen boys time in prison and a little bit about their lives once they're released. Spoiler alert - things aren't going well and it's, as the French say, un petit peu le downer.

After seeing some prison rape and hopelessness, we went to Wendy's for turkey burgers, because Thanksgiving.

Then it was movie time! Definitely important to see something light and fluffy after the pathos of Gulag, so of course we chose to see David Cronenberg's film Crash.

The Crash I am talking about is not the Oscar-winning movie about horrible racism and guns and cultural misunderstanding and car accidents. David Cronenberg's Crash is about people who get horny over car crashes.

For real.

Here is the trailer:

WHY DID WE SEE THIS MOVIE?? Oh god, it was so terrible. Maybe that's why we saw it. I just remember this one moment where Rosanna Arquette bends over and reveals a giant, vulva-like scar on the back of her leg and we're both like "OMG DON'T FUCK THE WOUND!" and the film did not oblige us.

UPSETTING.

After two hours of watching slightly bloody James Spader boning people in wrecked cars because it's the only way he could feel alive, it was obviously time for some shopping, so Padu and I hit the giant HMV store on Yonge St., where he LOST HIS SHIT because the original 1980s sci fi series "V" was on sale, so he bought it.

Padu: We should go back to your apartment and watch 6 hours of V!!!

Roro: Ha ha.

And then we went back to my apartment and watched SIX HOURS OF V and I will never be able to get this image out of my head:

And now, neither will you!

Thanks, Padu.

Anyway, I wish all of my American friends a happy, delicious, car-crash-sex-fetish free Thanksgiving.

Creampuff Can't Believe There's Just a Week Left

As horrified as I am by the fact that December is approaching and I feel woefully unprepared for the holiday season, it occurred to me today that November is almost over and I only have one week left of NaBloPoMo!

I felt a little happy, because that means I might have more time for frantic holiday knitting but also a little sad, because it meant that I wouldn't be blogging anymore. And then I thought "Wait a minute. NO IT DOESN'T. You can blog as often as you want, dipshit!"  

 Basically, I blew my own mind.

Creampuff's Found a New Obsession

I was working today, as one does for money, and work today involved a polar bear warning sign from somewhere in Norway. I had to write a little something about it and I wanted to make sure I was including the right information, because I am into facts and shit. And that's when I fell down an internet rabbit hole into Svalbard.

Svalbard is an archipelago located between Norway and the North Pole. Like, seriously in the middle of fucking snowy nowhere. Here it is on the map.

About 2000 people live there year round, making it the northernmost permanent settlement on the planet. They have a lot of polar bears there and you're not legally allowed to leave town without a rifle for protection. Svalbard is also home to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which is super cool (ahahahahah cool, DO YOU SEE WHAT I DID THERE).

I don't know what it is about snowy wastelands that I find so compelling hahahahaha just kidding, I grew up in Edmonton. But when there's a frozen wasteland on offer, I can't look away. And in my poking around, I found out about a BBC Earth series called Ice Town: Life on the Edge, which follows some inhabitants of Svalbard through the seasons for 10 episodes. It JUST started to be available here and after watching the preview, I immediately bought a season's pass on iTunes.

I haven't had a chance to watch any yet but I am a little too excited. In the meantime, check out this hypnotic video about Svalbard that is free.

 

 

Creampuff's Village Hit by Highly Localized Plague

As all 2 of my devoted NaBloPoMo readers may recall, about 10 days ago, I was feeling under the weather. I had had a really bad sore throat for a few days and lots of aches and pains. I put the cat ears on. I neti-potted and gargled and Emergen-C'd and Cold FX'd and I somehow managed to not get FULLY sick!

Until yesterday.

I woke up allll set to have dim sum with an old friend and then set up my village and instead, I had to cancel all my plans and sit on the couch feeling SUPER sorry for myself instead.

But I did still get my annual village expansion permit!! And here is the new building that's going in! Isn't it handsome? It's about time we got some coach builders in town, everyone was just walking around like idiots!

And that's not the only addition to Rosewood Cross this year. For my birthday back in March, my friend Chezza sent me this gem:

I love a touch of the occult. The simple country folks of Wintersea won't know what to do with themselves.