Creampuff Revolution

Creampuff's Got the Cat Ears on Today

I'm pretty sure I've blogged about this already but I can't find it.

At our house, when you are sick, you have one day to be full on pathetic. Whiny, feeling sorry for yourself, being made tea and soup by the unsick, getting to chose what to watch on TV, quiet self-pity weeping, the whole nine yards. Lean into it. You are loved.

If feeling sick lasts LONGER than one day, however, the unsick spouse may require inducements to continue treating the sick with the same level of love and patience.

Enter the cat ears. Here is Emmy, modelling them.

We got these cat ears for a Hallowe'en party back in Toronto more than 10 years ago and somehow they made it all the way to Vancouver with us. And when one of us feels really shitty, we put the cat ears on and the extra cuteness of the cat ears generally delivers at least one more full day of indulgence and sympathy. It's a great system and has avoided years of hurt sick person feelings and flashes of well person irritation. All couples should try this method.

All this to say that the cold I've been fighting off for a couple of weeks seems to be winning and I needed a pathetic day. But since we're all so choked about the election still, I knew that the chances of getting my full day of sympathy was pretty slim. So today, I am full on wearing the cat ears. And I'm pretty sure that the end result is that I look like this:

SNUGGLE ME.

Creampuff Misses a Week

In my defense, we were at a social media conference in Victoria last week and when we got back, I was too busy actually working to bore you with the minutae of my daily life. But I have a few minutes now and a few photos, so get ready.

1. This cat is named Big Balls. This grainy photo was taken from across the street. Big Balls has such big balls that he will not move from this spot, no matter how apeshit Emmy Lou goes two inches from his face. 

2. I took my first panorama shot at the Empress Hotel in Victoria, where we stayed for the conference. JEALOUS? It was a really huge room with this hilariously terrible layout. Talk about your first world problems.

3. This morning, I get to Skype in to a workshop reading of Padu's new theatre for young audiences play, Outside. I feel like I am dramaturging from outer space. Look! I'm being attacked by moisturizer!! Now I know how austronaut Chris Hadfield feels.

Creampuff Forced to Downsize

It happened at the butcher. I went to pull out my debit card and pay for my delicious grass-fed beef and...my wallet wouldn't unzip. It opened this far: 

But no more.

I struggled gamely with the zipper as the hipster at the till waited patiently for me to get my bourgeois shit together. Beads of sweat broke out on my forehead.

"Ha ha...I can't seem to get this unzipped! I never have this problem with my pants!" I joked to him. He did not laugh.

Desperate, I reached into the small opening left by the zipper and tried to jimmy my debit card out of the side. The hipster began to touch his sausages as I scrabbled and tore at my stupid fucking indestructible wallet. Finally, just as the babe in line behind me started to tap her Fluevogs impatiently, I managed to extract my debit card and pay for my meat. 

"Ha ha...maybe time to get a new wallet," said the guy behind the counter as he handed over my receipt. I wanted to grab his sausages and squeeze real hard, but instead I laughed as if that was funny because his beef is insanely good and I want to go back there.

I've had this wallet since 2005, when I stole it from another shopper at the College Park Winners. In December 2010, Katr bought me a new wallet, because she is thoughtful and also, was tired of how important receipts always seemed to disappear into my George Costanza wallet. I TRIED to switch to the new wallet, but couldn't. Because when it comes to wallets, I am a hoarder.

But, the other day at the butcher, like most hoarders, I hit rock bottom. And I had no choice. It was time to say goodbye to my old wallet.

Here's all the stuff that was in it:

It turns out I was carrying:

• Paper money
• 2 pounds of coinage, mostly pennies
• My expired learner's permit from Ontario that I still use as photo ID
• My BC health card
• My medical insurance card from two insurers ago
• My current medical insurance card
• My hospital card from Grey Nuns in Edmonton, which I have not been to since the 1990s, when I was 17 and I was with my brother and they thought I was my brother's mom. He was 14 at the time.
• My 4 debit cards
• 6 AirMiles coupons for 1L of dill pickles
• My friend Hildy's business card (from the night we photographed the skunk!)
• A "sorry we screwed the pooch" free drink coupon from Starbuck's that I've been hanging on to since 2006 - JUST IN CASE
• 15 very dog-eared gas station receipts, one of which was JUST FOR ICE CREAM, no gas. One of them was from 2009.

I also had a few loyalty cards. Just a few. These are just the plastic ones. (Loyalty card sidenote: The only loyalty card I DON'T have is a Shoppers Optimum card, which I REFUSE to get because the government is using it to spy on me when I buy Metamucil. But apparently I do trust Safeway, Air Miles or Petro-Points not to sell my information to the Feds.) I also had several cardboard punch cards for a yarn store that moved to Abbotsford last year (not somewhere I visit often):

These are what tripped me up the last time, honestly - because while the new wallet has room for SOME of my loyalty cards for American stores I only shop at once every three years, it doesn't have room for ALL of them. SEE? It's SO SLIM AND STREAMLINED!

AAAAAAAAAARGH!!!

It was a long, arduous process, trying to decide which cards deserved slots, which I could reasonably expect to not use in the course of every day shopping and which I always WISHED I had on me when I unexpectedly ended up at the fat girl store or a certain grocery store or the gas station.

Many agonizing minutes later, the exchange was complete. And I had a new wallet.

Here's the finished product:

Like the good hoarder shows, I promise I'll do a follow up post in a few months to see if my currently pristine wallet has been stuffed full of fluffy crap. I'm sure the Ativan will help.

Creampuffs in Maui

In between adopting Lola and saying goodbye to Lola, Katr and I went to Maui. Woooo! Leis! Mai tais! The Lavender Farm, like on Modern Family! We were ready to live the dream - plus, we brought Katr's mom Patr, who'd never been to Maui and was super excited to experience island living.

When we left, Lola was just finishing up one minor health problem and had just started to exhibit another minor health problem, but we were pretty sure we knew how to fix it and our awesome friends and dogsitters Boka and Cawi were excellent caregivers and she was perky and happy, so it seemed like she'd be okay once things "cleared up". So we took off for Maui confident that things would be fine at home.

When other people go on trips and write long posts detailing their every move, I skip those and just look at the pictures. Now you know. Here are some pictures.

View from our lanai at Honua Kai

The Surfing Goat Dairy "Hopeful That You Will Give Me Goat Cheese" Siamese Cat

Cuttings and lavender lemonade from the Lavender Farm!!!!!!!11111!!!!

Katr snorkeling at Molokini crater

Fish! This is probably the only fish photo I took that included a fish face insteaf of a fish ass.

Self-portrait

Mai tais with Patr - purely for research purposes

Different mai tais - RESEARCH WAS INTENSIVE

Speaking of research, apparently this exists.

View at the luau - bring on the poi!! Just kidding, poi is disgusting.

Sunset from our awesome room at the Four Seasons.

From the lobby of the Four Seasons

Every drink has an orchid in it.

Yeah! Blow that conch!

Boka and Cawi kept us up to date on all things shar pei and for the first 10 days, things seemed pretty good at home (occasional barfing and "Emmy Lou is being a douche" notwithstanding). But the day Katr's mom went home, things took a turn for the shitty with fuzzy LolaBear and with that, any chance of actually relaxing and enjoying kinda went out the window.

We spent more time than we wanted to crying in Maui, thanks to Lola's rollercoaster ride of health problems - weeping mainly over her impending demise (she's dying! No wait...she's okay! No, wait...she's probably dyin - NO WAIT...she's doing bette - OMG! She's cured! Except no...wait...okay, not cured. One million dollars, please.) and also weeping over the immense cost of the vet bills and also wondering if we should just throw in the beach towel and come home early.

Everyone kept telling us to "enjoy our vacation" and we certainly had many many moments of "Aahhhhh. This is BEAUTIFUL PARADISE and I am the LUCKIEST HUMAN." because it was and we were! But it wasn't the rejuvenating fun fest we were hoping it would be. I know, I know...WE WERE IN MAUI. GET OVER IT. 

Who could be upset here?? Surely only losers!!

TL;DR: Maui is awesome and I would love to go again but don't go when your dog might die and also, there are a lot of kids there and it's really expensive.

 

Creampuff is a Horrible Person

Recently, a popular lesbian blogger whose work I have read lo these many years decided to start a Kickstarter campaign because her elderly computer was dying. She was trying to raise, let's say, $2,000. 

I try to support my fellow lesbians - and while her blog is not my favourite, I certainly appreciate the time and effort she has put in to her almost daily posts and she doesn't make money from ads or anything on her blog.

So, in the lesbian sister spirit, I went over to her campaign to make a contribution and saw that she had already raised over $4,000!

"That is AWESOME," I thought, "she must be really feeling the love! And with that kind of jack, she'll be able to buy a fantastic computer! Huzzah!"

And then I left without contributing, because obviously, things there were well in hand.

Things continued on and she didn't post about her campaign again until last week, when she thanked everyone profusely for their overwhelming and awesome donations. And THEN she went on to say that in light of the overwhelmingly awesome response, she was going to send everyone free puppies!

Just kidding. She actually decided to increase her goal to $13,000 so that she could get a new computer AND pay off some personal debt. Soooo...you know...that's great.

When I saw this post, I checked out her campaign again and saw that before she posted about increasing her goal, she'd already raised a whopping $10,000 - five times her original goal. Clearly, many people joyously continued donating long after her goal was exceeded, because they love her and love her work and this seemed like a very sweet way to show that love. And that is super amazing.

Which is why I found it really weird and off-putting that instead of just accepting this windfall and feeling lucky that her community had been so generous (and maybe waiting to see how high her generous fans were willing to go on their own), she decided to...ask for more. Which seems...tacky.

I don't know that I'm alone in my disgruntlement - it seems that since she asked for more money, donations have slowed down a little bit - but she might still make her new goal. HISTORY WILL DECIDE. 

This incident got me thinking about the whole Indiegogo/Kickstarter phenomenon and how in some ways, I TOTALLY LOVE IT and in other ways, it is driving me crazy.

I like to fling Katr's cash around, so I'd describe my donations to the various Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns I come across as "frequent".  I like helping out musicians who are self-producing, or indie filmmakers making short films (partly because that usually means I get an awesome CD or super-secret link to cool short films out of it).

And I am thrilled to pop a little in the tip jar for some of the bloggers I love, particularly when they need help, because even though we've never met, I have been following their stories for a loooong time and feel like I am part of their community and that's awesome. 

But I do feel like I'm seeing more and more random fundraising campaigns lately (perhaps because these new fundraising platforms are so easy to use) and a lot of these campaigns are poorly planned and/or seem real grabby and it's chapping my ass.

I have NOTHING against trying to simultaneously spread the word and get funding for a project that you're passionate about (particularly when your "over $25" contributers get something out of it besides "good karma"). However, I feel like some of these campaigns are trying to fund things that, in a pre-Kickstarter world, the fundees would have gone ahead and paid for themselves. But hey! Then they heard about Indiegogo! And decided to try and "crowdfund" their juicer!

Some of it is kind of asstastic, is all I'm saying. Obviously, if I don't feel a project is worth funding, I can loudly voice my opinion by withholding Katr's money from these campaigns. And I can also rant about them on my blog. 

And then I can really have a good think about trying to crowdfund a juicer. Because that would be pretty sweet. 

Creampuff and the Black and White Menace

I used to take our dog on slow, meandering strolls at night. Emmy Lou really comes alive when the sun goes down - the nose is working, the eyes aren't and she transforms into this stalking beast, intent on hunting down her prey. Fortunately, her prey is fleeter of foot and brain than Emmy Lou - often I will see her prey darting away several minutes before Emmy even catches the scent of the prey. Then she spends 20 minutes frantically sniffing every millimeter of grass the prey once stood on.  Our evening walks were full of whimsy and fun. Until...the skunk.

My neighbourhood is a curious mix of low rises, single family homes, big infill developments like ours and abandoned properties (including a huge, crumbling old house next door). We also live about a block from a ravine. Wildlife looking to make the leap to urban living would not find it difficult to move from the ravine to any of the available badger-squats on our street. And it would seem that the skunk has zeroed in on some prime real estate.

The first time I saw the skunk was in the alley at dusk. We locked eyes while Emmy was taking a whiz. The skunk started galloping towards me. I yanked Emmy away from the alley and we continued on our way. I was a little shaken but not too concerned.

"Huh," I thought, "I guess we shouldn't go in the alley at night."

About 10 minutes later, Emmy smelled the skunk and totally lost her mind, but by then the skunk was long gone.

The second time I saw the skunk was in different part of the alley, at dawn. We locked eyes while Emmy was nuzzling an empty tuna can. The skunk started galloping towards me. I dragged Emmy away from the tuna can and across the street. The skunk started making love to the tuna can. I hustled Emmy back to our house. I was a little disturbed because while it was early in the day, the sun was shining brightly.

"Huh," I thought, "That skunk is bold. I guess we shouldn't go near the alley at dawn."

We went a few days without seeing the skunk and I began to feel safe again. Clearly, the skunk was sticking to the rich, dumpster-filled environs of the alley and so long as we didn't invade its territory, we'd be fine.

The third time we saw the skunk was about 8 feet away from our front gate. Not in the alley. Not hiding in the bushes. Not skulking around the cedars. It was coming around the corner, walking like it owned the sidewalk, fully lit by the street lights. Emmy Lou lost her shit. The skunk  started galloping towards us. It was like a horror movie.

I manhandled Emmy through the front gate and slammed it behind us, fully aware that the skunk could easily come in under the gate. I wrestled the dog to the front door, then dropped my keys trying to open it. I finally managed to get us inside to safety, dragging a whiny, cheated dog behind me. She didn't speak to me for day. 

I started to talk to everyone about the skunk. My parents. My neighbours. The City of Vancouver. Anyone I saw with a dog. Everyone on Facebook.

I know that there are a lot of skunks in a lot of places and that my particular skunk is no different than any other urban skunk out there, except that he IS different because this skunk is living  in the abandoned house next door and is SPECIFICALLY OUT TO GET ME.

Everyone told me that I needed to relax, that the skunk was probably more scared of me than I was of it, that I should just start carrying around a giant SuperSoaker water gun (ha ha, very funny, Mom) and everything would be fine. 

Let me just clarify something here. I am not afraid of skunks. I saw many a skunk in Toronto when I used to take my 5:00 a.m. walks to the gym. But having a dog who would like to get her mouth on a skunk rachets up the peril for me. I KNOW THAT WE WILL NOT DIE IF WE GET SPRAYED. But it would be an enormous, stenchy hassle that I'm not interested in dealing with. 

The skunk's presence - and continued menace, including last week when it blocked our return to our own house, hissing and raising its tail at us while I pulled a windmilling Emmy Lou into the middle of the road to avoid attack - has severely curtailed our evening walk activities.

Now, when it starts to get dark, I turn the porch lights on. And when it's time for Emmy's last whiz of the day, we do not dawdle. I poke my head out of the gate to check for the black and white, then take the dog onto the boulevard, tersely ordering her to make while jumping at every scratching, rustling noise I hear. It's really great. 

Obviously, in the grand scheme of things, the skunk issue is in no way important - I know this. And I'm TRYING to be cool about it, I really am, except that I'm totally not cool about it. But I can't really do anything about it, unless I'm willing to illegally place a skunk trap full of Kentucky Fried Chicken on the private property next door and then pay someone to illegally go on to said private property to retrieve the skunk. 

I'm thinking about it, though. I'll keep you posted. Please leave your skunk stories in the comments.

 

Creampuff Perspective

Is it just me or does everything seem really fucking dire lately?

Earthquake, tsunami, revolution, de-evolution (that's for you, Wisconsin) - it's like every time we turn on anything electronic, we get the news that something else is really sucking. 

I don't have anything particularly deep to say about these things - I mean, do I ever? - and I'm not a religious person but do still believe that sending good vibes and also money can help, where appropriate. So you know...I'm trying to do that.

All this to say that really, in comparison with everything that's going elsewhere - people losing their lives, their loved ones, their homes - NOTHING IS ACTUALLY WRONG IN MY LIFE. And I need to remember that on days like today, when I'm super super furious about a particular project that, ultimately, does not actually matter.

Here are the questions I ask myself these days when I'm foaming-at-the-mouth frustrated:

1. Will anyone die? If not, just...just dial it down a notch.

2. Will I have to kill someone? Not "would I LIKE to?" but "will I HAVE to?" There's a difference, people.

3. Is that smell the dog? It's always the dog.

 After going through these questions, I find I'm still mad - BUT I feel like more of an ass complaining about it. PROGRESS!

I hope you are all well and that you have lovely weekends. I plan to spend the rest of the day dragging my recalcitrant dog through the rain, sending good vibes to the people of Japan and Libya, counting my many blessings and trying to get it up to put pants on. It's really the least I can do. We're having guests later.

Gluten-free Creampuff

First of all, apologies to anyone who came here thinking they'd find a recipe for gluten-free creampuffs. Please carry on with your Google search. You'll find no such recipes here. Move along.

So it's been several months since I gave up the gluten (among other things). It's actually been a less painful process than I imagined, mainly because now I only eat ice cream.

HAHAHAAA! Just kidding. I'm down to one ice cream meal per day.

I've made adjustments - switched to gluten free cereal, making my tuna melts in a bowl instead of on toast, crying more. I really only find it problematic when I'm out and need a quick snack. On a recent trip, I had a rice krispie treat for breakfast, because that's the only gluten-free thing they had (and I was happy to have it).

But the biggest adjustment I've had to make is letting go of hope that I would be able to fill the donut gap with reasonable facsimiles of same.

I like to bake. I was on the protein diet for years and have stomached many a pseudo-carb meal. But after six months of barfingly disappointing gluten-free home baking, I've come to understand that unless certain items are in the hands of master bakers (i.e. NOT ME) they will not taste good. 

Simply put, when you replace wheat flour with gluten free flour, there is...A TASTE. I do not like The Taste. And it's made worse because I have real problems managing my expectations about what things will taste like.

For example, if I make pancakes out of eggs, milk and almond meal (a protein-diet staple), I expect them to taste like almond-meal pancakes. If I make pancakes from a gluten-free pancake mix, I expect them to taste like regular pancakes, even though I know the mix is gluten-free. And then, when the pancakes taste like 10 kinds of ass with syrup on top, it's like getting kicked in the mouth AND the nuts. 

So I'm officially giving up trying to bake with gluten substitutes. That way lies heartache. Instead, I'm going to focus my baking efforts on items that don't call for flour in the first place. Like cheesecake. Sweet, sweet cheesecake.

But there are some gluten-free products that I actually enjoy and I thought I'd compile a list for the afflicted among you - or if you have gluten-free friends and you don't know how to feed them breakfast or dessert. You're welcome.

Mi-del gingersnaps: They actually taste pretty great - we used to get them before the gluten curtain fell - and they're not too bad as cheesecake crust, particularly when you mix them with almond or some other nut meal (but not hazelnuts for me, because apparently I can't have those).

Nature's Path gluten-free cereals. They're crunchy, corn/rice/amaranth-based goodness. And the Crunchy Maple Sunrise in particular is delightful.

Nature's Path wildberry gluten-free waffles. We actually used to get these before the gluten got me. They are very light but don't taste weird. But DON'T GET THE MESA SUNRISE WAFFLES. Or the Flax ones. Those ones taste like warm cardboard.

KinnickKinnick personal pizza crust. These are supposed to be "thin and crispy". I find they're actually little doughy for my taste but overall I enjoy them, because they mean I get to eat pizza.

KinnickKinnick graham cracker crumbs. These are effing great as cheesecake crust. Great texture, very firm and unless you eat a big mouthful of crust without cheesecake attached, you wouldn't be able to tell it's gluten-free. High praise indeed.

Red Mill cornbread mix. ONLY OKAY IF YOU ADD EXTRA CORN AND YOU TOAST IT WELL BEFORE EATING and slather it with margarine and dip it in your chili. Otherwise, you get "the taste".

Red Mill shortbread cookie mix. These taste only a little weird. But they are also very buttery. Consume with restraint if you don't want to end up in the ladies' shitter all ding dong night.

I have a Red Mill cinnamon raisin bread mix and brownie mix in my cupboard right now but am afraid to try them because I made some gluten-free Mercer lemon and ginger cookies last week with Red Mill gluten free flour and OH MY GOD THE TASTE! THE TASTE! Blarg.

In completely unrelated news, Katr and I were in the Vancouver Sun today - and not because we got arrested at a Justin Bieber concert. It's a serious news story about the big telcom companies in Canada trying to screw us over internet bandwith caps. Which is why we look so serious. Sign the petition! Fight the man!

 

No More Creampuffs for Creampuff

Well, it’s happened. I’ve become one of those annoying people who “can’t eat things”.

I knew this day was coming. My brother and my mom both have moderate to severe food sensitivities around many delicious foods, such as wheat, dairy and anything else that tastes good. They appear to still be living rich, full lives but I’m not buying it.

I assumed that one day, I too would be struck down and was waiting for that slow transition to take place at a leisurely pace over the next several years. But instead, it happened over a couple of weeks! HA ha!

My downward spiral started about a month ago when my stomach, working overtime due to stress, Advil and caffeine, just kind of got pissed and decided to fuck me up for life.

I started to notice that about once a day, depending on the meal, I would have increasingly crazy nausea. At first, it was just an uncomfortable stomach ache but as the days went on, it became “sweaty, shaky handed, I need to lie down and moan about my life” nausea, culminating in one horrible, horrible day I spent doubled over barfing nectarines.

I called my brother, who’s a doctor. Well, a PhD in Poli Sci, so…same thing. I described my symptoms and he spoke to me knowledgeably about the likely causes of my newfound inability to eat food I like and what I should do going forward to avoid feeling like I’d been eaten by a wolf and shit off a cliff.

I’m not going to lie to you. I didn’t not handle it well. In fact, I may have shed a few tears when he said “But hey! You can still have rice!”

I hate rice.

After a few days of eating nothing but chicken broth and bananas, the nausea cleared and I was in a whole new world. A world of total fucking shittiness.

The weird list of things I can’t eat includes:

• Wheat (or anything with gluten, which is almost everything good in the world)
• Caffeine
• Sugar
• Alcohol
• Milk chocolate
• Nuts
• Zucchini
• Tomatoes
• Nectarines
• Citrus fruit
• Certain spicy foods yet to be fully determined but definitely everything delicious from the Thai place

Fortunately, I can still sneak a little dairy in there, so I’m not putting that on the list. YET. And all is not TOTALLY lost. I can still eat Swiss Chalet. But that doesn’t stop me from being excessively sorry for myself whenever I see anyone eating a muffin.

Stay tuned for part II of this whiny rant, where I will talk about how fake things that are substitutes for real things taste like 10 kinds of ass.

In other news, it appears Bloglines is shutting down on October 1st. Why do you care? Well, because Bloglines powers my blogroll! So if you’re here on October 1st and you notice the link to your blog is gone, don’t take it personal! I’m trying to figure out a blogroll alternative!

A Morning in the Life of Creampuff’s Wife

Katr’s morning:

5:53 a.m. Gets up.

5:55 a.m. Checks in with east coast clients via email.

6:00 a.m. Phone call with east coast clients.

6:02 a.m. Industriously works on PowerPoint presentation

6:15 a.m. Comes back into bedroom where I am still in bed

6:17 a.m. Asks me to hand her personal grooming item

6:17:32 a.m. Meets unusual resistance

6:17:38 a.m. Nicely asks what is wrong

6:25 a.m. Sincerely apologizes for her poor behaviour…IN MY DREAMS LAST NIGHT

6:26 a.m. Brings blubbering spouse glass of ice water

6:26:30 a.m. Says comforting things

6:30 a.m. Goes back to work

My morning:

5:53 a.m. Wake up feeling annoyed

5:54 a.m. Notice that Katr is getting up

5:55 a.m. Make the decision the “guard the bed” in case ninjas are about

6:00 a.m. Hear Katr on phone, suddenly remember why upset

6:00:30 a.m. to 6:15 a.m. Seethe over dream in which Katr has wronged me

6:17 a.m. Act like pouty child when Katr asks for innocuous favour

6:18 a.m. to 6:24:59 a.m. J’ACCUSE!!

6:25 a.m. to 6:29:59 Rage diffused by caring spouse

6:30 a.m. Make coffee

Dear Katr – you are forgiven. Also, YOU CAN NEVER LEAVE ME.