Creampuff Revolution

Creampuff Plays Anachrony

Okay, so as promised in yesterday's post, back in April of this year, we tried a new game called Anachrony.

Here's the "plot" of Anachrony, in case you want to know:

"It is the late 26th century. Earth is recovering from a catastrophic explosion that exterminated the majority of the population centuries ago and made most of the surface uninhabitable due to unearthly weather conditions. The surviving humans organized along four radically different ideologies, called Paths, to rebuild the world as they see fit: Harmony, Dominance, Progress, and Salvation. Followers of the four Paths live in a fragile peace, but in almost complete isolation next to each other. Their only meeting point is the last major city on Earth, now just known as the Capital.

By powering up the mysterious Time Rifts that opened in the wake of the cataclysm, each Path is able to reach back to specific moments in their past. Doing so can greatly speed up their progress, but too much meddling may endanger the time-space continuum. But progress is more important than ever before: if the mysterious message arriving through the Time Rift is to be believed, an even more terrible cataclysm is looming on the horizon: an asteroid bearing the mysterious substance called Neutronium is heading towards Earth. Even stranger, the scientists show that the energy signature of the asteroid matches the explosion centuries ago...?"

HAHAHAHAHAHAH OKAY GREAT LET'S DO THIS.

DAY ONE: First of all, Anachrony is a large, complex game with many parts. Katr spent two full hours punching out the individual pieces.

Then Katr and Drtr watched 90 minutes of walk-through video tutorials on how to play the game. Then Katr brought the rule book to bed for some light reading.

DAY TWO: The game took a full 30 minutes to set up. Then we spent 90 minutes going through the rule book together. Then we tried to start the game and realized that, despite all of our research and walk-through watching, we still fundamentally couldn't grasp what the fuck was actually supposed to HAPPEN. Like, we couldn't figure out how it STARTED.

So Katr found ANOTHER walk-through in which a guy and his wife played the game from start to finish. "We'll just watch until we understand how the turns work," we said to each other, "we're not going to watch the WHOLE THING. It's a 2 hour and 45 minute video, for fuck's sake!" 

We watched the entire 2 hour and 45 minutes.

By that time, it was dark out and we were tired, so we ordered some Swiss Chalet, watched some Castle on DVD and went to bed.

DAY THREE: Got up. Had breakfast. Made pot of coffee. Put on comfy pants. Sat down at the table. FINALLY READY TO START PLAYING ANACHRONY.

It took us 6 hours.

I did not win.

But I did have fun. And when we played it a second time, I DID win and now I LOVE Anachrony, I LOVE it!

In case you weren't sure that Katr had TOTALLY fulfilled her nerd quotient by buying Anachrony, allow me to inform you that she ALSO bought an insert for Anachrony, which keeps the box more organized and makes for an easier set-up (one assumes - we haven't actually played since the insert was completed).

Did the insert come pre-assembled? NO.

Did Katr spend several days punching, sanding, staining and assembling the insert. YES.

Did she document the entire process in a post on BoardGame Geek? FUCK YES SHE DID LOOK AT IT IT IS GLORIOUS

Here is a look at the finished product:

I love you, Katr. Even if you're always trying to get me to "try new things".

Creampuff Does Not Hate the Player...But the Jury is Still Out on these Games

I don't know when exactly Katr's game addiction obsession boundless enthusiasm for boardgames began.

She's always enjoyed games and we had a few games around the house for the first few years we were together. And she would try to get me to play these games and I would resist, because I am secretly SO competitive and such a TOTALLY immature douche that I always want to flip the table and take a shit in the Monopoly box when I lose.

That's right. I'm a real catch.

Eventually, I fell in love with a gentle train-route-planning game called EuroRails, that allowed a style of play that I enjoy; making my own plans and carrying them out without interference from other "players". I have never ONCE won EuroRails, but I still love it...so to me, that's a great game.

Buoyed by her success with EuroRails, Katr bought a few other games that she thought I might be convinced to play, all centred around themes she knew I liked.

"Look! This one is set in the Stone Age! It's like Clan of the Cave Bear!"

"In this one, you make DRESSES for the the Sun King's court!"

"This one happens in SPACE! You love space!"

"There are a lot of swears in this one."

"This one is about magical islands!"

When we moved to Vancouver, we acquired a few friends who liked playing games and I found that in the context of "Game Night", I could let go of my Monopoly shitting rage and just enjoy the company (except for when we played a game called Therapy, which was the cause of Katr and my most spectacular post-game-night, in-the-car-going-home fight. Then we played it another time and THE SAME THING HAPPENED. Trust me...if you want to break up a couple, get them to play Therapy.)

Poor Katr wanted to play games more often than on our occasional game nights. And she wanted to try NEW games. But like the shrew I am, I often refused, or countered with an offer to play EuroRails again - OR ChinaRails, which is like EuroRails but...that's right, in CHINA! Sometimes, I would GRUDGINGLY agree to try a new game, but no one wants to feel like their spouse is saying "I love you, but I'd rather chew bees than learn this complicated game about magicians."

Still, Katr was very patient. She played me out like a trout, letting me thrash endlessly before slowly reeling me in to play games with pandas in them (so cute!) or Jane Austen-themed games (so Regency!) or games where you get to annihilate the world (disasters are fun!).

It finally dawned on me that playing games was a real passion for Katr. She had discovered the glory of backing cool new games on Kickstarter and the boardgame floodgates had been wrenched open. One year, I delighted her for her birthday by giving her a coupon book full of coupons she could use to get us to play new games or certain kinds of games. If you think the ol' "coupon book as a gift" is hackneyed, get stuffed, because Katr actually CRIED she was so happy. But I was still a little slow to agree to trying new games.

Then Drtr came to stay and he likes games and he and Katr would play games together and I didn't have to play! Woooo! Everyone's happy!

At first I enjoyed having some time to myself to watch all the weird things on Netflix that Katr doesn't want to watch. But after a while, I got JEALOUS. Because they were having so much FUN. But the only way to participate in the fun was to ALSO PLAY THE GAMES. Unnnnnnnnngh FINE FINE, I WILL PLAY TOO PLEASE.

I wouldn't say that I'm an AVID gamer yet - I still resist watching walk-throughs and will often make Katr and Drtr learn a game first before I commit to annoying them by making them teach it to me. But I am in general less opposed to games and on occasion, am actually EXCITED to try a new game, like when Katr got me the Firefly game for my birthday this year (it's so fun! And we haven't even tried the expansions yet!).

Anyway, this is the bookshelf in our office now:

Not shown: the pile of five boardgames on top of the filing cabinet. Now, it might LOOK to the gaming novice that there are 42 games on this shelf, but keep in mind that some of these boxes contain EXPANSIONS to the existing games, so there are actually only 39 games here. So.

Okay, now this is the bookshelf in the bedroom:

Not shown: the deluxe edition of Tokaido under the built-in drawers behind the bedroom door. As a side note, the garbage can is on the shelf because our dog likes to chow down on cotton pads and Q-tips. Because she's disgusting.

Anyway, here's the living room shelf. Yes, some of these are books, we're not animals:

Anyway, the whole point of this post was a lead-up to a post I was going to do about a game called Anachrony, but now I'm too hungry. So if you hate stories about boardgames, definitely skip tomorrow.

Creampuff Loves Fiona

The rumours are true. I'm having an emotional affair...with Fiona, the baby hippo from the Cincinnati Zoo.

Turn your sound on for Fiona ballet! Check the Zoo Today page before visiting to see all zoo updates for the day https://t.co/wQ6stRXxlO pic.twitter.com/BOiRat1guU

— Cincinnati Zoo (@CincinnatiZoo) October 26, 2017

Fortunately my lady wife is also in love with little Fiona, so...it's cool. When we were in Mexico in September, we avoided reading any actual news but we waited with bated breath for new episodes of The Fiona Show on Facebook.

I dare you to watch this tiny premature hippo's journey without doing the ugly cry at least once. I DARE YOU.

Fiona hitching a ride then doing an impressive dismount. Hippos can hold their breath for up to 5 minutes before pushing off the bottom to come up for air. Resurfacing for air is so instinctual that a hippo sleeping underwater will rise and breathe without waking up. pic.twitter.com/59StGzIcSU

— Cincinnati Zoo (@CincinnatiZoo) November 8, 2017

A year ago today was the U.S. election, you guys; a night that even our emotional support shar pei couldn't get us through unscathed. We've all developed our coping mechanisms to deal with the Upside Down that we unwillingly entered that day; lunchtime activism, only following comedians and Maxine Waters on Twitter, sharply increasing our ingestion of edible marijuana products.

It looks like a lot of folks celebrated the anniversary of the beginning of the end by voting in yesterday's elections and electing some amazing non-fuckos - so that is awesome! But still, amid the chaos, sometimes it's nice to imagine that you're just floating around with baby Fiona, being adored by millions of fans, loving the world and giving gravity a great bit "fuck you".

Float, you joyful little hippo! Float!

Bibi & Fiona are outside today & care team updated that they are fine as a bloat of 2 but probably do notice that Henry’s not around. pic.twitter.com/OHO3g47bmO

— Cincinnati Zoo (@CincinnatiZoo) November 2, 2017

Creampuff's Flu Shot PSA

I confess, I don't get an annual flu shot. Because I know that whenever I get a vaccine, my dog develops autism.

But this year, Katr and I both have friends and colleagues who have come down HAAAAAAAAAAARD with the flu. Plus, last Christmas, Katr, Drtr and I were all sick as hell.

Like, we made a full turkey dinner with all the trimmings because the turkey was fresh and we had no room to freeze it, but it took us two entire days to make the meal because we kept having to lie down and cry. And then none of us could taste it. It was my Vietnam. So anyway, we're all getting the flu shot.

The last time Katr and I went to get flu shots, they were free and I just assumed that they were free for anyone with a BC Health card. But this is not so!

There are lots of ways that you can qualify for a free flu shot, but we got our free flu shots because we're fat! This is probably the first time being fat has saved us money.

Being 'Murican, Drtr doesn't have a health card, so I asked the pharmacist today at the Shoppers Drug Mart how much it would cost for Drtr to have the shot.

Pharmacist: "For him, the flu shot is $22! But it would be free for YOU, because...(oh shit oh shit...she's so fat but I can't say fat, don't say fat) you...(what do I SAY? why is she here again? medication! she's on medication! I'm filling her prescription right now! YESSSSSSSS) are on this medication! (WHEW)"

Oh, tiny pharmacist. 

Anyway, so this is my public service announcement about flu shots. They're free if you're fat and if you're not, they're only $22 at Shoppers Drug Mart. PSA - COMPLETE.

 

 

 

Creampuff is Killing This Year's Goodreads Challenge

I won The Last Tudor by Philippa Gregory in a Goodreads giveaway last month, so I've been trying to plow through it so that I can get back to books that don't suck.

TUDOR ERA SPOILERS BELOW!

I enjoyed some of Philippa Gregory's other work; I liked The Other Boleyn Girl because, while I knew the story of Anne Boleyn, I knew jack about her sister. I liked The Queen's Fool, because it was about a servant who had her own crazy shit going on and whose life was not spent waiting around. I LOVED the Tradescant series, because it was not a period I knew very well, or a story I knew at all, plus things got a little gay.

But I feel like the last few books of hers that I've read suffer from one, or both, of the following problems.

1) While we may not know the intricacies of some of these stories, we probably already know the outcome. And if the outcome is failure, then I don't really need to read about it. So, like, in The Other Queen, I already know that Mary, Queen of Scots, doesn't escape. So...I don't need to read that. But, of course, I did, because I thought maybe there was something else interesting about the story that I didn't know! There wasn't.

2) I think it's super awesome to write these stories from the perspective of the women. But women barely got to do anything back then unless they were a lowly servant, or the Queen, so if the book is not about a lowly servant or the Queen, the whole book is just the main characters waiting for things to happen. And talking about waiting for things to happen. Which is just boring as fuck. The Red Queen suffered from this problem.

I had high hopes for The Last Tudor, because I don't know a ton about Lady Jane Grey, the Nine Days Queen. And I still don't, because she is married, crowned, and killed within a few chapters. So the rest of the book is about her two sisters, Katherine and Mary, who, due to family ties, should have been Elizabeth I's heirs.

"Cool," I thought, "I have never heard of them! What happens to them?"

Well, it turns out that they both marry without Elizabeth's permission and are punished for it by being imprisoned for fucking years and never seeing their husbands again and then dying. 

The whole book is spent with the two of them waiting for Elizabeth to release them. That's it.

You're welcome.

In related news, I have noticed a theme running through all of Philippa Gregory's books, and that theme is "I hate Elizabeth I." Philippa Gregory hates Elizabeth. She HATES her. She hates her like a certain intractable segment of the American population hates Hillary Clinton. It's weird and kind of distracting. Like, ANY Philippa Gregory book in which Elizabeth is mentioned talks about what a vain whore she is, even when she's, like 3. Philippa, we get it. You don't like Liz. MOVE ON.

The annual Goodreads reading challenge is getting down to the wire, you guys. Last year I missed my goal of 40 books by a mere three books but this year, I'm three books ahead of schedule, so yeah - I'm kind of a big deal.

Are we friends on Goodreads? If not, we should be. I love creeping on what other people are reading!

Creampuff Loves Lindy West

If you don't know who Lindy West is, educate yourself. She is amazing and I love her.

She writes about a lot of political things and personal things, but I think my favourite headline of hers was My wedding was perfect - and I was fat as hell the whole time.

With all the crazy shit going on in the world right now, there are a lot of people with a lot of opinions and they just won't shut up. But as I said to Katr just yesterday morning, "I am SO TIRED of listening to people OPINE about things. ENOUGH with the OPINING. Except for Lindy West, I'd listen to her opine about anything."

Waaaay back in June of 2016, Lindy West came to Vancouver (!!!) to promote her book Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman and I was beside myself with glee.

I got two tickets to the reading because my friend Elai said she was interested in coming, not so much because she was a Lindy West fangrrrl, but because Lindy was doing a reading, a talkback AND a signing, and Elai is friends with the Globe and Mail's Marsha Lederman, who was moderating the talkback.

Elai: "Marsha's so nice. We can say hi to her after - maybe she'll introduce you to Lindy West!"

Me: ALL THE SCREAMS EVER.

A couple of weeks before the event, Elai texted with some bad news. She couldn't come to the reading, because her husband Doai's niece was "graduating from high school" or some bullshit milestone like that.

Me: But...isn't she going to graduate again from university in a few years anyway? Lindy West is only here one night!! And you know Marsha! Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!

Elai: Sorry!!

Me: quiet weeping

So I ended up going to the reading solo. It was TOTALLY packed and Lindy was hilarious and real and lovely and Elai's supposed "friend" Marsha was an excellent moderator and asked great questions. Afterwards, I bought two copies of the book and stood in line to get them signed.

I'm not going to lie. I got a little emotional. I might have had a little cry. "This must be how girls felt when they were meeting the Beatles," I thought to myself, as I dabbed at my dewy eyes with a bar napkin, "but Lindy West has WAAAAAY better hair."

To speed things along, one of the organizers of the event handed out post-it notes and pencils. You were supposed to just write your name out for Lindy West to copy into your book, so she wouldn't have to be all "How's it spelled? Got it. 'To Roko, my biggest fern' ". It was a long line, so I had some time to compose the bon mots I hoped Lindy West would agree to write into her book.

I got up to the front. It was my turn. I was no longer crying but my eye was twitching.

Me: "I'm so nervous!"

Lindy West: "You don't need to be nervous! I'm just a regular lady."

Me: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Lindy West was very kind. She signed my books as requested and laughed gamely at my nervous jokes. It was by far the loveliest fangrrrl experience I've ever had. Thank you, Lindy West, for living up to my completely unrealistic expectations.

Here is how Lindy West sign my & Kate's book:

As I mentioned, I bought a second book and that one was for Elai. I waited nearly six months before I gave it to her for Christmas.

 Aaaaaand...SCENE.

Creampuff Resurrects Shar Pei Saturdays

Our shar pei Effie Trinket turned two in August! She is beautiful and cuddly, even if it occasionally looks as if she and friends are plotting a freeze-dried liver heist.

Back in the spring, she was getting a lot of shar pei fever episodes (like, weekly) and we couldn't figure out why. We thought it might have to do with her food, so we were thinking of switching to raw, but we took her to the vet just to see if there was anything else wrong. There wasn't, but when we told the vet that we were thinking about switching to raw, he said "Oh, well, if you're thinking of switching diets anyway, you should try a plant-based diet!"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA yes, that's right. The vet suggested we feed the dog vegan.

I love this vet and he really cares about his patients, so we heard him out and took home an information sheet about turning your dog vegan. And Effie had been so sick for so long, and we were so worried about her, so we spent a lot of time researching and considering it as an option.

I bought some lentils. And some millet. And I read a lot of recipes and online accounts of people who'd switched their dogs to a vegan diet and how well it worked for them. And I talked about it endlessly with Katr, who, to her credit, did not murder me.

In the end, those lentils and millet are still in the lazy Susan because FUCK THAT SHIT, WE WENT RAW!!! Woooo! And we feel so free!

Turns out it was a good decision - Effie has been fever-free for months, her coat is soft and shiny as fuck, she's gotten her lovely fat muzzle back and she's sleek, like a greyhound. Just look at her go!

Good dog.

Creampuff Shows Up

As my bleak blogging record for the last few years indicates, I am lazy as fuck and don't show up for a lot of things (if I did...I'd have more to blog about). We all know that sometimes, nothing feels as good as blowing off plans and getting cozy on the couch with a snuggly dog. And maybe a pie.

I TRY not to be a flake about showing up for things but I'll admit, I've done my fair share of last minute emails or texting or posting on the wall of a Facebook event. Often I have a real reason for not showing up, but sometimes the reason is "I don't feel like it." Not "I don't feel UP to it", which is different. Just "I don't feel like putting on pants."

I feel like serial cancelling is very easy here in the future with our smartphones. And the laid-back attitude of Vancouver seems to contribute to a level of flakiness heretofore unknown. So I didn't really feel that my occasional blowing off of things for pantsless reasons was particularly egregious.

But back in the spring, I was involved in an event where, the hour before we were starting, fully half of our confirmed attendees bailed via text or email. I didn't take it personally because it wasn't me performing a one woman show entitled "Why Don't You Like Me??", but as our very few actual attendees trickled in, it gave me pause. 

Just to be clear, I did not JUDGE any of the cancellers from that event, because I don't fuckin' know their lives and there are always completely legit reasons for cancelling, such as:

• Physical or mental health
• Crazy weather
• Unforeseen personal or work emergency
• Dead Again is playing on Lifetime

But it got me thinking that I should be more considerate about committing to show up to things and then - and this is the key - ACTUALLY SHOWING UP.

 

At first, in the spirit of Shonda Rhimes' book Year of Yes (which I haven't read, but I feel like it's probably about how she spent a year saying "yes" to things and how it changed her outlook/life, etc.), I thought about doing a year of showing up to everything local that I got invited to. Then I had a good laugh, because I've met myself and ma'am - you are no Shonda Rhimes. 

But until I'm ready to fully Shonda-fy my life, I've decided to institute a showing up policy for myself. Here are my new rules.

1. I will no longer say I'm "interested" in an event on Facebook. I'm either going or I'm not going. There is no "interested".
   
   
2. If I say to someone involved that I will show up for their thing, either in person or online, then I'm going.
   
   
3. On the day of the event, I will ask myself these key questions:
    
   • Can I physically get there without endangering my life? If yes, then I'm going.
     
     
   • Am I ill? If no, then I'm going.
     
     
   • Would I rather stay home because it's cold/hot/rainy/snowy/my bangs look weird? Probably, but tough shit, you said you were going, so fuckin' go.

I instituted this policy at the beginning of October and I am feeling EXTREMELY superior about it. In fact, last night, I showed up to a thing that I didn't even TELL anyone I would show up to. I just WENT. Because I wanted to support my friend. As it turns out, it was a very fun play reading, even if I did want to punch a few people in the box during the talk back.

Shonda would be proud.

Creampuff Not Sure Where to Start

 So, I feel like this is probably the most important thing that's happened since last we chatted, which is that my aunt Jemi passed away last month. It was ovarian cancer (round 2) and she was only 63, so it totally fucking sucked.

This great picture is from our wedding, where Jemi was gamely participating in our group "first dance".

Jemi was married to my mom's sister, Suki and they were the lesbians you aspire to be, with their top-level hostessing skillz, insane gardening prowess and heart-meltingly adorable lurve. They were totally #RelationshipGoals, is what I'm saying.

Jemi was not interested in a traditional memorial service, so instead, her and Suki's friends organized a pub night to sing, and share stories, and eat, and drink, and laugh, and quietly weep before doing more drinking. Jemi was universally adored and they had a TON of friends in Victoria where they live and all of my hilarious aunts and my hilarious immediate family were there, so it was the PERFECT night. Jemi, you would have LOVED it.

Side note: if you're wondering where the lesbians are, the answer is Victoria. When Suki and Jemi moved there, their lesbian postal carrier was like "LESBIANS!" and introduced them to all of the other lesbians in town and many of them were in attendance that night to celebrate Jemi. I was so jealous, as our postal carrier Dave has NEVER introduced us to other lesbians. Fucking Dave. Anyway, the point is that we've located the lesbians and they're comfortingly nearby.

That night I got to share a short little story about Jemi, from the first time I'd had the pleasure of being hosted by her and Suki, back in 2011, when they lived in Calgary. This...is that story. DUN DUN.

So I was in Calgary for a week-long playwright workshop at Lunchbox Theatre. Prior to this visit, my only experiences with Jemi were at family events, where we all sat around and drank and killed ourselves laughing, so this was the first time I'd experienced the full force of Suki and Jemi's sumptuous hospitality and, as I described at the time, it was prodigious.  

The first morning of my stay, Suki had to leave for work, but Jemi had just retired a few months before. So she kept me company over a delicious breakfast (of course she'd been up since the crack of dawn's ass, taking care of some neighbour's diabetic cat). We had a lovely visit but it was a beautiful June day and she was clearly itching to get out in the garden, so as soon as I made a noise about tackling my script, she was out the door.

I sat at their dining room table, facing out on the back yard, procrastinating and drinking tea, wondering if it was too early for the scotch they'd set out in my "writing room". Out of the corner of my eye, something flashed in front of the window. A few seconds later, another flash. I looked up properly and saw Jemi running past, kind of like this, but without the snow. And the tail.

 "OH SHIT," I thought, as I leapt fatly to my feet and beetled over to the window, "Jemi's on fire! Or the shed is on fire! Or a neighbour has collapsed in the alley and she's running for help!"

I got my phone out, dialled 9-1, then took a moment to check in on Jemi again. She ran to the back garden bed. Then to the covered garden bed. Then back to the shed. Then back to the first garden bed.

And as I watched for a few more seconds, it dawned on me: She's not on fire. This is the just the SPEED at which THIS WOMAN MOVES.

She was like a cheetah, you guys. A GARDEN CHEETAH. And her hustling around the garden inspired me to get my ass in gear and get writing that day - and for the rest of the week.

I did have some early morning scotch.

Anyway - Jemi was the best kind of human and it feels so fucking unfair that we didn't get many more years with her. She will be sorely missed. 

In closing, Jemi was an ardent animal lover - my brother Jaro and his partner Trsm sneaked their large golden doodle, Jasper, into the hospital in a duffle bag to visit her during her last week, which she loved - and this video would have delighted her. Enjoy!

Here comes the fish cuddle! #Caturday #CatsOfTwitter #ThursdayThoughts https://t.co/sox0PrThQa pic.twitter.com/sF3LFse60n

— LOLBOOK (@LOLBOOKcom) November 2, 2017

Creampuff is NaBloPoMo-ing Again Because She Can't Get It Together The Other 11 Months of the Year

It's that time of year again, when I feel silly for continuing to have a blog THAT I PAY ACTUAL MONEY FOR without using it, so I use it REAL HARD for a month. HA ha!

Last year, I successfully completed National Blog Post Month (NaBloPoMo) and thought "That was fun! I should, like, do this more often!" and then after bitching about the snow in January and bragging about my lumpy knitting in May, I fucked off. Will this year be any different? Probably not.

But this is an excellent time of year to be doing this, because  you'll get to see pictures of my annual Dickens Village, which I know is the HIGHLIGHT OF YOUR LIVES. Also, the dog is still pretty cute. 

NaBloPoMo - ACTIVATE!