Sweet Peas! It's me, Ginger, feline reporter extraordinaire with

The Chairman has not been at all happy lately - what with the Kreatrix' work schedule.

Soooo...he decided to run away from home!!

I helped him pack his bag….

It’s a pretty bag, too! Kreatrix designed it a few years back.

I thought it looked a little, um, girlie BUT he likes it.

Kreatrix says he won’t get far because it took him the whole day to drag the suitcase to the sidewalk. He’s also called twice “just to chat.”

Now he’s sitting out there waiting for people to drop money in his cup. Hmmmm.

Not much foot traffic on our street. No traffic for that matter. No buses. No trains. Nothin.

Ok, ok. So that's not our street. I'm a reporter. You know DRAMATIC LICENSE????

Hey, did I mention he penned a letter to Kreatrix’ client?

Wowy. The Chairman knows words I’ve never heard of. He got in trouble for writing it even though he didn’t send it.

It started out with a very nice compliment:

Dear Mister Know-it-all,

See? Nice.

Who do you think you are?

Well, here’s where I got confused because didn’t we already state he’s Mister Know-it-all? Anyway, then he continues:

Just what in poopy-pooh-baby wee wee (my words – not The Chairman’s – those are “off limits”) were you thinking giving this amount of work in so short a frankfurter (again, my word) amount of time?

I agree with him there. Too much work but Kreatrix seemed to understand the situation.

And if that wasn’t frankfurter enough, you say she doesn’t need to complete the first fist-pump-fanny-slap-give-yourself-a-whack until you get back from the other side of Planet Earth so she can complete the new go-sit-on-a-charred-frankfurter assignment.

Whew.

AND THEN, you send an inflated-gaseous-flame-throwing email the next day asking her to upload ASAP the aforementioned delayed designs!!! Ya know….designs she didn’t frankfurter have to complete for another run-over-you-with-a-spiked-steam-roller week. YEAH, THOSE DESIGNS.

Hang on a sec, Sweet Peas! My cell phone is ringing.

It’s the Chairman…he wants to chat again. Gotta go, lovies!

The 7 days a week variety...week after week

Whilst I sit waiting for my client to call after his big pow-wow with his client (it's the phone call that will impose my next unrealistic deadline BY SATURDAY May 10th) I decided to Google "deadline".

dead·line

noun \-ˌlīn\

: a date or time when something must be finished : the last day, hour, or minute that something will be accepted.

BORING!!!!! How can such a calm little sentence impart the sheer insanity of deadlines?

NOT TO WORRY. Here's where it gets interesting:

Full Definition of DEADLINE

1.  a line drawn within or around a prison that a prisoner passes at the risk of being shot.

Well butter my buns and call me a biscuit, that would be the line outside my front door. I’m sure clients hire marksmen to position themselves around my house.

I swear the other day I went out to get the mail and there was a red dot on my chest the whole time.

GET BACK IN THE HOUSE WOMAN AND GET TO WORK!

Here is a helpful little chart to show the love affair we're developing with deadlines.

I'm not sure why anyone would want to know what rhymes with deadline but these internet sites are just so darn helpful. Let us examine a few they offer.

Rhymes with DEADLINE

assign, beeline, benign, bloodline, blush wine , feline, waistline, white wine, shoreline, tumpline,

Oh, I get it:

1. Assign: as in you are getting assigned another deadline. I'M A FREAKIN' POET!
2. Beeline and bloodline: as in my blood/line is making a rapid beeline through my heart valves and driving my blood pressure up.
3. Benign: as in there is nothing benign about a deadline. sigh. Pure poetry.
4. Blush wine: as in enough of this softens the blow of crossing the deadline outside my front door.
5. Feline: as in you thought I'd forgotten this blog was also about cats!
6. Waistline: as in the thing that expands when you sit too much due to deadlines.
7. White wine: as in the thing that gets consumed too much due to too many deadlines.
8. Shoreline: as in the thing I haven't seen in months even though I live a few minutes from it.
9. Tumpline: as in the definition of this makes my head hurt just like deadlines do.

tump•line

a sling formed by a strap slung over the forehead or chest and used for carrying or helping to support a pack on the back or in hauling goods.

WHAT? Oh come on...you know I'm gonna Google images for this.

THIS IS WHAT DEADLINES FEEL LIKE!!

Here's a tip buddy:

USE THE DARN AX AND CUT YOURSELF FREE!

Why is this man smiling?

This one just makes me sad. Someone needs to show him Harry Potter so he can flee his captors on that broom.

If I don't get out and cross that deadline outside my front door, my legs will cease working and I will have to be carried around with a tumpline.

 

 

 

 

But with good reason…

The head tom cat of the household, The Prof, is a director, writer, professor and all-around fabo person. And maybe…just maybe…the Kreatrix met him when she was cast in a show he was directing. Maybe.

He has been directing this musical

at a Civic Arts Plaza just outside of Los Angeles. ARGH! Fuzzy photo I had to grab in lobby before audience crowds descended.

I choose seeing his show…maybe more than once but less than four times…in the past couple weeks and missed a post Friday…deadlines, shows, blogs oh my!

Spring Awakening won Tony awards on Broadway a few years back and The Prof directed an awesome version here in California.

The musical is about young people coming of age and the harm that can come to them without adequate guidance. The music is breathtaking.

I’ve seen many of The Prof’s shows and I gotta say…this cast (so young they are) has some Broadway level talent in it. I call it the American Idol and The Voice effect. Kids are exposed to singing in their living rooms at such a young age.

So many dreams on that stage. Wish I could follow them and hold their hands through all the ups and downs.

My Prof rocks! So talented…

Thanks for letting me bust my buttons on this post.

NOW BACK TO DEADLINES (and hopefully my gang of crazy cats)!

 

 

What does this:

And this:

Have to do with this:

I shall explain.

Whilst I, the Kreatrix, was slaving away on 30 product designs and getting thoroughly stressed, exhausted and ugly – the Chairman heard me talking about my client and where this client was  while I was working on said product designs.

Yup. Client was here.

Does said client have the right to go to paradise? AB. SO. TOOTLY. Can I be ENVIOUS? Red-eyed weepy dripping-nose ugly kind of exhausted envy? Sure. Why not.

The Chairman witnessed my exhaustion.

Sooooo

I heard a tremendous amount of cursing coming from the other room yesterday. I go to check it out and see the Chairman in the photo I took above.

He would explode with ------!!!! and drop a quarter in the curse jar. Explode with an entire phrase and stuff a dollar in the curse jar.

I calmly say

“That is some scary language, young tom. What are you doing?”

The Chairman:

“Raising money so you can go to an enchanted Island and get your head together.”

Methinks I’ll spend that money on his car. He earned it.

...whilst this pooped Kreatrix struggles to meet her deadlines

Details soon. It involves a romantic getaway to a beach in Thailand.

Oh...you didn't think I was the one on that beach, did you? No no...

In the meantime...

Massive Deadlines Mean Nothing

Especially if a client wants you to physically go to the store and see a competitor’s product.

Given the chance to actually step away from the computer, SOME OF US GET SIDETRACKED. Just sayin’.

With a great deal of eye rolling and under-the-breath cursing, I drag myself to a major chain store to procure “competitor product”.

Lookey what I found:

My stuff, people!

BUT my, oh my, what a mess.

So I settle down on the floor  (crossed-legged) and proceed to organize MY PRODUCT! I’m humming along, oblivious to the outside world, when a woman’s voice says

“Where would I find bath powder?”

Me (slightly peeved):

“I don’t work here.”

Woman looks confused and says

“Oh. I thought…you were stocking…um…”

To which I reply…

“These are my bottles!”

Yup. Could’ve said other stuff like I DESIGNED THESE…but NO. I had to sound like a psychotic freak.

She backed off slowly with a look on her face like

“Oh lord, this is a respectable store. Should I call security?”

Instead she swiftly removed herself from ME, the woman who was organizing her: quote, un-quote bottles.

I procured the competitor sample before I could finish organizing "my bottles" and ran for the safety of home and my massive deadlines.

Send help.

(From time to time, deadlines will dictate I take you along on my crazy journey towards pleasing clients and meeting their deadlines. Just know that I'm thrilled to be making a living artistically but still frustrated to be pulled off course from my new journey with Catberry Tails. Hope you'll forgive and still enjoy my life in pursuit of these goals!)

A client backed a truck up to the house and unloaded lots of work!

ok. NOT a truck. A BMW. A big BMW.

Here are boxes I designed 3 years ago.

Don't remember which store they were sold in BUT a brand new national chain store (can't mention who yet...oh, espionage...oh top secret...oh exciting) wants to run a huge series of products with this look.. FIrst up are storage boxes that look like books.

My client left me book box samples to assist in my own design process.

Here is my adaptation using the basic design elements from the storage boxes I designed years ago.

(ignore the little blue lines and where it says FRONT - those are dielines used by the printer)

P.S. Had to ditch the girls that were on the older boxes. This particular company has a very diverse ethnic demographic. Can't just feature only white women on packaging. So we went with a travel (Eiffel Tower) theme. Had to gather vintage images and some of my own stock of hand painted backgrounds to place the Eiffel Towers on.

I'll continue with the process this coming week. I hope to keep you entertained even though the Chairman is NOT happy. More on that later.

Then this happened.

"Stop the massive deadline you are currently working on and do this EVEN MORE MASSIVE DEADLINE!" says the frantic client with sweat beads pouring through the phone onto my desk.

"We need labels for liquid hand soaps infused with scented oils! NOW!"

These were fun to design! Modern with a twist. STILL...it's hard to be interrupted on one assignment and switch gears to be creative on a completely different brand, with a completely different look.

The Chairman, per my suggestion, is watching the grass grow. Not sure if he's having fun but does claim he's becoming enlightened and now wants to take Yoga classes with me on Thursday nights.

Purrs from the land of art and Catberry Tails. I hope you all had a fabulous holiday weekend!