Creampuff Revolution

Creampuffs and Pooch Celebrate One Year Fuzz-aversary

What with so many of you lovely people out there celebrating big life events like buying homes or shacking up together or getting engayged (oh Viscount - that "engayged" joke really is the gift that keeps on giving), or giving birth, I somehow managed to miss an important anniversary of our own this past week!

Yes, that's right - as of June 16th, it's been one whole year since our rescued shar pei Emmy Lou trotted into our lives, bringing joy, fuzziness, outdoor activities, adorable-osity, blog fodder and a variety of odours with her.

I'm not going to lie to you - it was a stressful start for us dog-owning newbies. It was ALL of your sage advice (and several of these, accompanied by frozen drinks sprinkled with Advil) that got us through those first, crazy days.

Even now, in times of trial, I particularly remember melle's wise words: "The dog is not a crystal swan". (You are so right, melle. Emmy Lou is more of a porcelain goose.)

Thank you all so much for helping us get through the new dog phase and into this phase - the "having an hilarious lesbian dog who ignores dudes, chases rubber chickens, rolls over for rubbins, screams when you bathe her and sleeps 20 hours a day" phase.

And now, in celebration of our first year with our junkyard hound, I present a slideshow of our dog that took two smart women WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too long to do. And by "two smart women", I mean "Katr and the dog".

Creampuff Just Wants You to Realize Your Potential

We're coming up on the 2008 Olympics and it's looking like my dream - competing in the 2008 Creampuff Olympics - will have to die, chiefly because I didn't get around to actually organizing them. But all is not lost. I might be able to salvage my dream the way ballet mothers do - by forcing it on my kids. Or, in my case, our dog.

I have a casual, chatty relationship with a few of the dog owners I see on our regular walks. When I was out with Emmy yesterday, we ran into Rubber Boots McPointerOwner (none of us know each other's names. I'm sure she refers to me as Fattie McWrinkleDog). We got to talking about the Olympic village they're building across False Creek from the park where we often meet.

"It's a shame," she says, in her jaunty British accent, "that they don't have an Olympics for dogs. They should have their goals in life too, don't you think?"

I agreed enthusiastically as I watched her dog do a full-twisting double layout before catching her floppy pink frisbee. Her dog's coat glistened in the sun. I turned to my dog, who was sniffing some dirt nearby.

"What do you think, Emmy? Should we put you in the Doglympics?"

Emmy started choking on the dirt as Rubber Boots McPointerOwner and I looked on. "Better start training now," said Rubber Boots, as her dog leapt in a graceful arc over Emmy's back to retrieve the frisbee again. Emmy sneezed dirt on my pants.

I'm quite excited by the idea of Doglympics, truth be told, but I think I may have to skew a few categories to favour our hound. Sure, we can have Agility, Musical Canine Freestyle and Pulka, but I think we may also need to add the following Doglympic sports just for Emmy Lou:

Freestyle Duck-Hassle

 

Rodentia Flush Out

Synchronized Butt Sniff

Defiant Stare Relay

Kong Lick

Independent Exploration

Bath Avoidance (a sub-category of Independent Exploration)

Bed Detection

I think that pretty much covers it - our pooch is poised to take the gold!! Unless you guys have some other "sport" suggestions...

Creampuff Will Write the Lyrics

My lovely and talented friend, Toronto jazz diva Shannon Butcher, is about to release her new CD, Words We Both Could Say. You can preview four of the ten tracks on the album here and you can order your advance copy here. Do it! She is fabulous! We ordered our copies this evening and are gleefully tuning our phonograph in preparation for her fine, fine music. Can't wait to hear it, Shannon!

I was actually thinking about Shannon and her new CD (oh, and join her fan page on Facebook! Do it!) earlier this evening when I was out strolling with the hound. I'm a little worried that, with the release of her album on the horizon, she'll be too busy promoting her own brilliant work to help me out on my pet project; a CD of songs that I sing to the dog on our walks together. This could be a blessing, though - I can use the time to really hone my lyrics.

Here are some of the ones I'm working on:

Sometimes Pull-y Pups Don't Get To Go Where They Want

That'd Better Be Grass You're Eating

Your Kind Aren't Welcome at the Ivanhoe Pub

That Boy Dog Should Have Bought You Dinner First

Puddles

You'll Never Get Your Mouth On a Duck (So Give It Up)

It's Hard for a Girl Dog To Whiz on the Bushes (that's the country track)

That Frothy Gob Hanging from Your Schnozz is Deeply Fetching

Puddles (Vancouver remix)

These are just working titles, you understand. But I'm just getting started! And I'm not averse to turning this into a box set idea - perhaps paired with a CD of feline standards ("Your Face Got In The Way of My Claws Again") with a secret track about ferrets ("We're Not Weasels, We Just Look That Way")? What do you think, pet lovers? With Shannon so busy, I'm looking for collaborators!

Creampuff's Dog - Delicate Flower or Evil Genius?

So Katr's off in Toronto at the moment, because she's going to be on CBC's Test the Nation Sunday night! Wooo! She, along with the lovely Lex, are on the "Bloggers" team and the topic is "Trivia". Kick some Flight Crew ass, ladies! Woooo!

I must confess, I'm glad it's Katr in the hot seat and not me - the only answer I ever know in Trivial Pursuit is "Mary Pickford". And sometimes I'll just holler out "Mary Pickford!" for the whole game. We, uh, don't play often.

I always miss Katr when she goes away, but she knows I also enjoy having some fan girl friends come by for a reading of my latest installment of Gina Torres/Katee Sackoff slash fiction quiet time, hanging out pantsless, eating crackers for dinner and staying up late knitting The Sock Neverending while watching racy costume dramas and humming my new favourite song at key moments in the action.

Of course, I can't go into FULL sloth mode while Katr's away anymore, because the dog refuses to walk herself and the fuzz insist on pants-wearing, at least below Hastings St. But this trip, for the first day at least, I did get an unexpected dog-walking reprieve. Because the dog was sick. Again.

The first time the Emmy Lou got sick was the night before Katr, Jaro and I were about to take her on a 9 hour drive through the mountains to the family Thanksgiving. As she's such a stoic pup and this was the first time she'd been ill, I totally freaked out. I was sure she'd been poisoned or felled by some dog plague. There were calls to the emergency vet and yes, yes, there were tears. Everyone we talked to told us it was probably just a stomach thing and to see how she was in the morning.

The next day she was extremely tired and feeble, but seemed to have recovered enough to sleep in the car all day. So off we went through the Rockies and by the next day, she back to her old self, eating fine and annoying giant elk in the national park.

The next time she got sick was the night before Katr and I left for Toronto for our big gay wedding. Totally the same thing she'd had the last time; the only thing the two incidents had in common was that we were obviously going on a trip and she might be left behind. Hmmm . . .

Naturally we began to wonder if our pooch, who's already known among our various dogsitters as "the Canine Queen of Passive Resistance", was actually making herself sick because she thought we were leaving. We wondered what it was that was tipping her off. Were we treating her differently? Was there a word or phrase she was picking up on? Obviously, the suitcases were a dead giveaway . . . or was it really just a coincidence?

This time, Katr deliberately saved packing until the last minute, but she was no match for Emmy Lou. Clearly sensing that change was nigh, the dog was sick by sundown and the poor thing spent the evening barfing on the one rug in the house (why not the hardwood, Emmy? WHY?) and staggering around like she needed a walker.

By the next morning, she was so worn out that all she wanted to do was whiz on the median and come back inside, thus leaving my day free for hookers and blow cozy reflection. Ha ha! Poor little dog. Yet for me, delightful.

Of course, the dog is neither fully a delicate flower OR an evil genius - I think she's probably just a delicate genius. A delicate fuzzy genius who hates being left behind. Of course, now that I've deked her out by staying home with her this time, I'll be very curious to further test our theory and see if she gets sick again in February, when Katr and I take off for our annual trip to Monterey, where the sea lions await. I know you are all looking forward to a new crop of my fascinating nature videos.

In the meantime, other dog owners, if you have any dog-management tips on this topic, please feel free to leave a comment below. Because I don't think my brother's suggestion that we feed the dog some canine cannibis treats is the best way to go.

P.S. After I posted this, I realized that it kind of looks like I deliberately took a picture of the dog being sick so I could mock her on my blog. Not true! The picture is actually from the fall. And she's just SLEEPY. Okay, thank you.

Creampuff to Dog: You Smell Like Gym Socks

I can't remember the last time Emmy Lou had a bath. She hates baths like I hate the "musical" oeuvre of Fergie. I usually give her a sluicing on our balcony, where there's a drain and few witnesses. Because I am lazy and because it's been cold and because she is a fuss pot who keeps clean like a cat, she's gone bathless for quite some time. But the corn chip smell of the dog became pretty overpowering recently, plus she's been shedding like crazy, so we decided we would try something new. A self-serve dog grooming place. Which I suspected was run by lesbians. Woooo!

In preparation for The Bath, Katr and I thought it would be good to make sure Emmy had an exceptionally long walk to tire her out. Katr had a client meeting near a good off-leash park, so we decided to drive over together, play in the park/have the meeting and then meet up after for grooming and errands.

The park, like all the parks here in rainy, rainy Vancouver, was a total swamp. But Emmy is unstoppable once she locates fowl to hassle and this park is cute duck paradise. So Emmy joyously chased the ducks and sniffed things while I attempted to locate some high ground before the mud sucked my shoes right off. And it was while I was descending one slope on my way to a higher one that I felt the ground move. And then I felt my ass hit the ground. And then I slid down the muddy hill on my ass and bumped into my dog.

Me: Uhnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!!

Emmy: What's up, fattie?

I would like to point out that last week I saw some guy take a spill and I went over to see if he was okay. I was maybe 10 feet away from three people in the park who all had the pleasure of seeing me wipe the fuck out and no one so much as offered me a Kleenex. That's fine - I wasn't hurt and what were they going to DO anyway? - but I want you three to know that you make the Baby Jesus cry.

I struggled out of the mud and assessed the damage. It seemed that my jacket had taken the brunt of the mud and really only one of my pants legs were wet. I squelched over to a grove of rain-wet cedars and used their branches to scrape some of the mud off my hands while I considered my next move. Katr would probably still be in her meeting for an hour; maybe I would stand around and wait for my leg to dry for awhile, then Emmy and I could go sit in the car! Because I had the spare keys! Ha ha!

Pleased with my plan, I realized I'd lost track of the pooch. I finally located her rooting around in the underbrush at the bottom of another little hill. Mindful of my previous wipe out, I made my way cautiously towards her, inching carefully down the hill. Then I slipped on the mud and fell on my ass.

Me: Uhnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!! Fuck fuck!! Uhnnnnnnn!!!

Emmy (to other dogs): We're not here together.

This time my coat hiked up to my waist so that the muddy water I was sitting in had full access to my private areas. It wasted no time getting intimate with my nethers. Then it started to rain.

The "sitting in the car for 45 minutes or longer" plan seemed less good now, in light of my sopping wet, muddy lower half. And the dog was starting to remember how she never actually gets her mouth on a duck. But I didn't want Katr to have to leave her client meeting. So the dog and I walked the 45 minutes home, dripping mud and meeting the stares of passer-by with a glare that said "Yes?? Can I help you, FUCKO?" It's hard to walk belligerently in wet pants - hard, but not impossible.

I was determined that my slip-nanigans wouldn't put an end to our dog-bathing scheme, so once I'd showered and changed, Katr came home to pick us up and we were off to the dog-grooming place. Emmy Lou was excited to be back in the car - I was excited for her to not smell of gym socks. Things were lookin' good as we walked into the shop full of clean, happy dogs.

As it was our first time there, and because, frankly, I was on the verge of losing my shit completely, I was kind of hoping that the dog-grooming place would be run by nice, helpful lesbians, like at our vet's office. Lesbians who would take care of us. Instead, they were "here's the hose, good luck with that" lesbians whose lack of helpfulness was astounding in the face of Emmy Lou screaming like the Wicked Witch of the West and scrabbling desperately to get out of the tub every two seconds while I held her down and lathered her up. I spent as much time prying her little paws off the edge of the tub as I did actually washing her. 

Me, like I'm talking to a toddler: Emmy, if you jump out of the tub with the cord around your neck you could hang yourself.

Unhelpful lesbian (as I drench my shirt holding  the dog down with my whole upper body): Oh, did I not show you where the aprons are?

Emmy: OMFG!! Why are you DOING this to MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE?? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! It BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURNS!!!

Unhelpful lesbian: You should use a LOT more shampoo.

So basically, I paid $20 to torture my dog for half an hour when I can do it at home in half the time for free. Needless to say, we will not be returning to the dog-grooming place. Unless Emmy gets some Ativan and they get one of these.

Creampuff and Dog Have Giant Heads

 

But neither of us give "giants head", which was my original title before I noticed the typo.

I was shocked to discover during a routine stats inspection this morning that I'm a finalist in the 2007 Weblog Awards in the Best Individual Blogger category! Ha ha - wha-? Voting is open from now until November 8th and you can vote once per category every 24 hours.

UPDATED: There are ten finalists in my category and I notice that I'm currently kicking 9th 10th place ASS right now; if you get behind me on this, people, I bet we can take this thing all the way to 7th 9th!!!!! Yeeeeaaaaaaah!!

Young Cas at Bright Meadow is a finalist in the Best UK Blog category and a little bird told me that she may also have been the source of my nomination (by "a little bird", I mean "I looked at the nominations"). Thanks, Cas!! And the lovely belledame222 over at Fetch me my axe is a finalist in the Best LGBT Blog category. So head over and vote for them too - or for whomever tickles your fancy. There are countless quality blogs to vote for! Huzzah!

I am not the only one to be honoured today - we got the news earlier this week that our own Emmy Lou had made the cut for the TNT Shar Pei Rescue calendar!! HA ha! In your FACE, other rescue dogs!! Here she is, in all her inquisitive, ham-hocky glory, next to her full page spread (we couldn't decide on a single photo to submit for the calendar).

 

This year, she's Miss April, but next year, we're going for CENTREFOLD. Yeah, lick your lips like that.

Creampuff Soon to be Proud Owner of Cool CBC USB Pen

The lovely and talented Shannon Butcher tipped me off to CBC's Canada Writes contest at the 11th hour last week and I managed to squeak an entry in just before the deadline (my usual M.O.).

I was quite thrilled to receive a call from the cool folks at the CBC Wednesday informing me that I was one of three regional finalists in the contest! Woohoo!With my short piece about - wait for it - Pa Ingalls taking a dump! Yeah, that's right. I'm all class.

Longtime readers may remember the longer version of this piece from a couple of years back. I got to read the much shorter version for a broadcast on BC Almanac this afternoon. I was asked to alter the on-air version slightly, specifically the last line. They let me keep the grunting part but I guess "Pa took the biggest dumps in all of Kansas and Laura was proud" was taking things a little too far.

Check out the Canada Writes site for the other (much classier) contest entries! The contest continues next week with a new writing challenge and an interview. Will my endless repository of pioneer bathroom humour win the day?? HISTORY WILL DECIDE!! Or perhaps the judges.

In other news that shocked the world today, the dog refused to go out for her evening stroll.

Oh, she wagged her tail like crazy as I snapped on her collar. She gleefully sniffed the elevator, charged to the lobby door, got outside, saw that it was raining in sheets and immediately put on the brakes.

I pulled. She held her ground. I coaxed. I cajoled. She would not be moved.

Finally, I gave a mighty yank. Her neck wrinkles bunched up around her face as she dug her heels in.

A passing hobo called out "Hey lady - she doesn't want to go with you." I was forced to concede he had a point.

The minute I let up on the leash, the dog wheeled around and made a beeline for the door. We came back upstairs. I took off her leash. She looked at me as if to say "now what?" So I said to her: "Now what? Now nothing! That was IT, you IDIOT!"

I guess it's possible that she didn't feel like getting all wet again - I mean, it's true she no likee the water. But I suspect that she might also be getting back at me for this:

Dog Has Inherited Creampuff's Spacial Relations Issues

Before the dog came to live with us, we went and bought her a cute bed.

This bed was about 3/4 the size of the dog, as it turns out, because I am a doofus and could not accurately remember the size of the dog. Emmy curls up on the bed, but sometimes she likes to sack out sideways and ends up with ham hock legs hanging off one side and her sweet mushy face pressed into the floor. Sure, it's hilarious - but it can't be comfortable.

So a couple of weeks ago, Katr and I went to the pet store to buy the pooch a more size-appropriate bed. As you can see from the relative size of the bed to the duck, this bone bed is much bigger.

The bone was also so fluffy that it stood nearly a foot high; Emmy no likee. So Katr and I put in on the couch and sat our goddess-like behinds on it for a few days to pack it down. Then we lured Emmy Lou onto her new bed with tiny bits of chicken sausage. And eventually she decided that it would be okay to sleep on it.

Good dog.

Today's truffles: (and why can't I take a photo of these that's in focus?? I have the effin' macro setting on and everything!! What's wrong with me??)

Espresso with Amaretto di Saronno * Dark chocolate ganache infused with espresso coffee beans and Amaretto di Saronno, dipped in crystal sugar (The jaunty crystal sugar hat says "I'm not that kind of girl", but the espresso and Amaretto say "Yes, that IS my hand. And you like it there." and then you have no pants on.) 

Crispy Hazelnut * A perennial favourite, dark roasted crispy hazelnut praline and milk chocolate. (The word "crispy" really bothers me. I'll have to elaborate on that later. But the truffle was pretty great.)

Creampuff Buzz

Emmy Lou has decided that fall is her favourite time of year. She likes the piles of leaves to root around in; she likes the extra treating-carrying capability afforded by my fall jacket and she especially loves to charge at big groups of migrating Canadian geese near the muddy watering hole in the park.

For the last couple of weeks, any trip to the park has resulted in some kind of goose/shar pei mêlée. The dog gallops joyfully into the fray, her plump ham hock legs a-quiver as she scatters those majestic birds and trots triumphantly to the edge of the dirty puddle to drink from it and whiz near it.

Emmy Lou is a braver soul than I. You may recall my last close encounter with Canada geese at the tail end of my lauded sea lion appreciation video in February. I like to give the geese lots of room to move, which is why I tend to hover a good 40 feet away from the flock and enjoy Emmy's interactions with them from a distance.

Today was no different than any other - Emmy led me on a merry chase through the on-leash community garden part of the park, emerging across the street from the Animal Control office, where on-strike workers watched me try to wrangle my dog out from under a rusty bicycle frame. Lucky they don't hand out fines for calling your dog a "dumb ass". Untangled, we ventured onto the field, where I spied the geese. We split up at this point, Emmy heading towards the birds and me headed towards the baseball diamond, where I knew she would eventually join me for a liver snap and some affection. I watched her charge the geese with gusto on her way to the watering hole but was slightly disturbed to notice that the geese didn't seem concerned. In fact, aside from some prefunctory scattering, they pretty much stood their ground. Then, one of them honked and took a step towards Emmy. Then the others followed suit. Seconds later, Emmy looked up from her drink to find herself completely surrounded by belligerent fowl.

Emmy's no fool. One bird, maybe she could take. But there was no way she was going to win against NINE of them. Quick-thinking, she distracted them by shaking the water from her jowls and then taking off at a run towards me.

The geese RAN AFTER HER.

Emmy picked up speed.

The geese sped up too and then took to the air. "The air" being about four feet off ground. I froze as they zoomed towards me, honking angrily and flapping. The following went through my head.

What do I do? Duck? Ha ha - duck duck goose. Man, I hated that game when I was a kid. Especially when my brother played and we had to remind him that he couldn't just keep saying "duck, duck, duck" for an hour, at SOME point he would eventually have to say "goo -"

At that point, my musings were interrupted as Emmy whipped by me into the dugout and I nearly lost an eye while being buzzed by a flock low-flying geese.

About ten minutes into the walk home, I felt something spiny pressing against my neck. I rooted around in my jacket and pulled out the offending article. It was a feather. Fucking geese.

Today's truffle porn:

Raspberry (on the right) - Silky dark chocolate ganache paired with a thin layer of pure raspberry. (It was like the Raspberry Fairy was wearing a chocolate bra and rubbed her boobs on my tongue)

Jamaican Rum (not shown because my camera is out of batteries) - Milk chocolate ganache with Jamaican rum rolled in extra dark cocoa and sugar for a delightful crunch (The dog was so disgusted with our groans of delight that she had to leave the room and lick her crotch in the hall)

Top Ten Signs Creampuff's Dog Might be a Lesbian

Yes, yes, I lied and Padu was right. It's been two whole weeks and all I got is more about the dog.

10. She prefers ladies. 

In the elevator, on the street, in the hobo park; Emmy is an equal opportunity sniffer, but when it comes to being stroked, she prefers the touch of a woman. Preferably a woman who's been smoking pot and eating cheezies. I.e. every woman in Vancouver.

9. She won't play with balls.

8. She enjoys an "alternative sexual lifestyle".

And by that I mean she licks herself a lot. Then she looks at us as if to say "Jealous?"

7. She likes cats.

Well - she likes cats in the sense that she'd like to get her mouth on a cat.

6. She is a fan of power tools.

Katr and I decided that keeping our important business information in a canvas bag hanging off the back of the office closet was probably not going to cut it when the tax man cameth. So we bought a couple of filing cabinets last weekend. These "cabinets" (or, as I came to refer to them, "wheeled shitboxes") were not pre-assembled. The instructions indicated that a drill was not required. These instructions LIED and before long I begged Katr to fetch me the power drill (because getting up to get it myself was unthinkable). At first, Emmy feared the drill, but as I continued to work away, she became very interested in it, to the point where I had to stop her from licking it. She then proceeded to sniff or get her tongue on every other tool I was using before sitting down beside me to supervise the construction.

5. She wants to wear my sandals.

Emmy Lou can't fucking wait to get outside and she knows that my sandals are somehow involved. What she hasn't seemed to figure out yet is that if SHE is wearing my sandals, we are not actually going out. Tough break, kid.

4. Her favourite dog is very butch.

There's another shar pei in the building named Niki. If Niki was a person, she would lead the Dykes on Bikes part of the Pride parade. She's gruff and stocky and has no interest in playing with Emmy and Emmy CANNOT GET ENOUGH OF NIKI. I keep telling her "Emmy - those babes seem really attractive when you're young, but as you get older, their emotional unavailability will wear you down until your heart is not so much broken as eroded down to a sad, sad little heart nubbin." And then I tell her "Emmy! Get your face out of Niki's crotch while she's peeing!" 

3.  She won't play with bones.

2.  Like Ani DiFranco, she doesn't want to be a "pretty girl."

I was nervous about clipping Emmy's nails myself and she definitely needed a bath, so last week, I decided to take Emmy to the groomer. When the groomer called me to come pick her up, I could hear Emmy crying piteously in the background. "She no likee the bath, eh?" I said to the groomer as I collected my frantic pooch. "No," said the groomer, "she sure didn't. Maybe don't bring her again." Emmy was pissed at me for the rest of the day - but she was also very soft.

1. She can't get enough bush.

During the day, Emmy Lou's bush obsession is pretty easily dealt with, but at night she often manages to deke me out and get her face in some bush before I can stop her. I don't know what she's seeing in there  - a rodent? Crocs? An Ellen DeGeneres box set? - but she needs to get her mouth on it INSTANTLY. If I catch her early enough, I can successfully maneuvre her away, but there are other times when she launches herself into the bushes like a fuzzy rocket and I am left on the sidelines, pleading for her to crawl out and totally certain that she's going to be sprayed by an irate, bush-dwelling urban skunk.  So if you're hanging out in the Science World park at 11 p.m., the panicked creampuff yelling "Jesus Christ, Emmy Lou! No bush for you!" is me.