I'm doing my part to help Paul get the site stats up or whatever he's doing.:)

I am looking forward to the party, immensely. Fi will be in town-- she may have to go back down to Cortland to work a couple more weeks at her job, since her boss was out of town so she couldn't give a month's notice and she's very concerned with not offending these people on the way out, first because it's her first real job, second because she actually liked much of what she did there, and third because maybe, just maybe, they'll keep her on as an independent consultant working remotely to do the parts of her job that she actually liked, which would considerably ease her transition to her New Life In The Big(ish) City.
But, she has promised herself that she is going to really celebrate Halloween. It is her favoritest favoritest holiday, and she has not really gotten to celebrate it for the last five or so years, because of a combination of Leech Boy not being into it, and living in such an isolated place, and not having a ton of local friends, and just general grimness of life.
Z and I already had picked costumes, but thought it might be more fun if the three of us went as parts of a theme instead-- I wasn't married to the idea of our costumes anyway, because it would be quite difficult for me to actually make my part of it comprehensible, let alone convincing. (Let's just say I don't make a convincing man.)
So Fi and Z and B (shit, man, we all rhyme!) all have related-but-not-identical costumes. Fi is sad not to be able to wear her stilettos, but pretty easily abandoned the idea.

I was going to ask, if stilettos are right out for the new floors, what about roller skates???!! Those are my standby costume accessory of late, and since we skate on a lovingly hand-finished hardwood floor every day, my skates are pretty well-maintained.
But it turns out skates aren't part of my costume this year (OMG! I know.) so it doesn't matter. I will probably be wearing boots instead.

While Fi was up this weekend, moving almost the last of her belongings, we visited with some of Leech Boy's friends, who live in Buffalo. Fi and LB were in their wedding, but they were friends of LB first.
I was worried things might be a little awkward, but they were mostly annoyed and baffled by LB's behavior. They admitted they'd wanted to invite him to visit, because they were sort of worried about him, but they knew that if they did he'd as a matter of course bring along his 22-year-old New Girlfriend, and they had absolutely no interest in meeting her.

We've theorized that LB may be going through some sort of odd phase? But a lot of his reactions and things have made it very clear: He expected Fi to stick around after he'd dumped her, and expected her to continue to let him live in her apartment (let's be real, he never paid any of the rent, so it was hers), let him eat her food, and seems to even have expected her to continue to support him financially as he finished his program at school. He seems to have simply expected this as a matter of course, and is completely flabberghasted that she so quickly decided to move on in her life.
He must not have realized how miserable she was. She was sitting at my dining room table last night, as we ate dinner, and counted up how long she'd lived there. "That apartment was just a temporary stop," she said. "I never planned on staying at my job this long. Four years. We lived there four years as of next week. I hated it there, I was never happy, and all along, we were planning to go somewhere else."
She thought that over for a little while, and then said, "I'm never doing that again. If something's going to be temporary, it's going to be fucking temporary. I'm not hanging around like that, not for a man."

She didn't bring her portable hard drive this time so I couldn't steal the Skateboard Fail videos off it, sadly. So bummed.

Anyway. The only other thing really going on in my life is that I've decided to make my own embroidery patterns and learn to embroider. I'm astonishingly much better at it than I ever would have thought. I've had to re-learn how to draw, though-- I used to be super good at it, but had a really assholey teacher in high school who dissuaded me, so I gave it up and haven't really touched a drafting pencil in ten years or so.
But it comes back to you. I'll take some decent pictures and post them up in this piece, as I make more progress on the thing. It's time-consuming, because I'm being so particular about the stitches, but I'm really having a blast. I'm doing embroideries of roller derby illustrations taken from photos of my leaguemates-- the only embroidery pattern I found commercially mentioning roller derby is from Sublime Stitching, whose idea of derby is (understandably, but inaccurately) a chick with feathered hair and hot pants delivering a flying elbow -- which is cute, but for those of us who actually play, she's pretty clearly banked-track, as a flying elbow will get you tossed out of a modern flat-track meet. So I figured, I'd do up my own.

So far the best part has been my discovery that there is an existing embroidery stitch that gives the precise appearance of fishnet. It's called trellis stitch, though the Internet isn't backing me up on this. Maybe the little booklet I have is wrong! I guess I'll just claim that I invented it and call it Fishnet Stitch. Basically you take long stitches to make a grid, then you go back and tack down the junctions everywhere the grid intersects with either one tiny slanted stitch, or a cross stitch. It looks precisely like fence-net stockings. Maybe I'll call it Fence-Net Stitch instead...
Most of the fun of roller derby to me (OK not really, but a lot) is the Awesome Socks. Many of my leaguemates feel the same. There's always at least a handful of people at any given practice wearing tights, leggings, or socks that are worthy of comment. Last night our team captain showed up in a long fuschia empire-line spagetti-strap top, yellow booty shorts, and silver lam`e leggings. When we complimented her on her rather startling appearance, she looked down and said, "Oh my, I hadn't realized. This is just what was clean."

Anyway, so the Awesome Socks are the icing on the cupcake of every one of the embroideries I have planned.
This first one has sparkly gold fencenet stockings, because I have a spool of gold embroidery thread.
Yes. It is entirely made of win.

So my sister's coming to live with us in Buffalo.

Well, I should clarify. I have three sisters. I'm #2 of 4. #3 of 4, also known as Fi (rhymes with B, right? So we match), had to share Middle Child Syndrome with me. I know. I didn't even get my own syndrome. She might've had it worse than me, because she got 3 years of being the baby before this kicked in. (#4 of 4 got to sit in Mom's lap for eight years, until she outgrew it. #4 of 4 just got Surprise Married in Reno, too, so you see where being the Baby gets you. And #1 of 4 served two tours in Iraq, so there's where being the Oldest gets you.)

So #3 of 4, Fi, has always had terrible taste in friends. This extends to men. She has terrible, terrible taste in men. She picks the ones who need her. She has just spent five years, six months, and seven days (yes, she worked it out because she's kind of a worrier and a bit OCD) supporting a man my age. Literally supporting him, to the tune of him costing her about ten grand in that five years.
He's going back to school to become a massage therapist. He couldn't afford this on his own, so she agreed to support him.
He is among 22-year-olds.
Several of them are hot.
One of them, he has decided, is his new soulmate.
He promised Fi he'd never cheat on her. He has achieved this promise by dumping her, fucking the new girl, and about a week later finally getting around to telling Fi she was dumped. To put it un-gently. So technically he didn't cheat on her, as their 'breakup' took place about ten minutes before he slept with this new girl, right, even though Fi didn't know about it at the time? That's not cheating.
Right?
This new girl "knows me better than anyone," he insists. They're soulmates.
She's 22 and has never lived on her own before. (He's a little older than me, so, pushing 30 rather hard. Balding, too, I might add.)
She doesn't know that he's thousands of dollars in debt and hasn't had a real job in years.
Basically, it's not so much that she knows him better, but that she knows a better him. Only knowing the good parts of him, she's bound to be a more entertaining companion than my exhausted sister, who is a saint but not a fool and has the terrible, terrible habit of keeping track of her finances. (Mean mean woman!)

Anyway. I don't know what he expected would happen, but Fi basically said, "Well, that's a damn shame, and I'm sorry it ended this way. The only reason I was staying in this godforsaken place was for you, so I'll be out by the end of the month-- you'll have to go too, since I was the one on the lease, but maybe you can renegotiate with the landlord. You'll need a new bank account and a new cellphone account. All the dishes belong to me and I'm going to take the one cat, but leave you with your dead mother's cat and the other cat, who loves you more. The furniture is all yours, including the bed, but all the sheets belong to me and I can actually use them so I'm taking them too. Also the video store membership is in my name so I'm canceling it. Have a nice life."

He seems totally shocked by this reaction.
But me, I know. We Kelly girls, we don't fuck around. She was heartbroken for about three days, but then she realized...
She's young, she's single, she's got excellent marketable skills (she works in sales for a clothing company and has been going to trade shows for five years), she's quite pretty (we Kelly girls all look alike, but she got the nicest, most conventionally-attractive mix of our mother's chin and our father's eyes and our grandmother's nose-- pale hair, dark eyebrows and lashes, strong cheekbones)... And she's moving to Buffalo. Without the albatross of this deadbeat around her neck, she's actually got a whole lot to look forward to.

Boy are we going to have a good time. So she's sort of guilty that she's not more upset about getting dumped, but mostly she's just relieved-- she'd never have been able to dump him without being consumed by guilt, so this way she basically gets out free. He's completely broke, and screwed, and has no way to afford anything because he's taken advantage of his family so much they won't help him anymore-- he's going to starve on the street or go begging. But he couldn't keep his cock in his pants for another six months, so it's not her problem anymore!
I think he's actually a little hurt that she's so totally not torn up over his sudden but inevitable betrayal. (All of HIS friends responded to the breakup by telling her they'd always thought she could do better!! And his family all cried and told Fi they'd miss her, and told her BF not to call them anymore!!!) But what's she supposed to do? She's been enough of a chump for five years when he at least claimed he loved her. Now that he doesn't anymore, what can he expect from her? He's lucky she didn't kill him-- I would have.

So I've been helping her pack up and move her stuff, and if I never see Cortland again it will be too soon. What a GOD-AWFUL little town.

But more to the point, or to the subject of the post...
The cat she decided she was keeping is a small gray girl cat. Just like Chita. Remi is a couple of years older (Remi is short for Remington, because of her gun-metal color), a few shades darker, and quite a bit pudgier than Chita, but is much more cuddly and friendly, albeit just as eccentric in her own way.
So the two of them have been attempting to divide our house up.
This morning I woke up when Remi and Chita both decided that the bed which I was then occupying was The Place to hash out their relationship once and for all. Remi sat in the corner growling. Chita would slink into the room, pop her head up over the side of the bed, and hiss. I was between them. I was the barricade. They yelled at each other over, around, and through me. It was very disconcerting, especially since it was so early I kept falling asleep.

So my house is a battlefield, but nobody's actually fighting-- just lots of shrill cussing and guttural hissing...

Anyway. I'll see if I can get Fi signed up on this site. She'll be around for Halloween, which is her most favoritest holiday ever and which she hasn't been able to celebrate for five years because she's been stuck with Idiot McBrokeypants. So we're getting her dressed up in a good and hobaggy costume (why not?!) and taking her out on the town!!! It'll be fun! So keep me posted on any upcoming parties...

And the most amusing part of this breakup, to me, is that when she was transferring all her photos from his computer (she deleted his copy of every photo of herself, and worried that this was bitchy. Why would you worry? Don't leave yourself vulnerable to him! If later he feels bad and apologizes, you can send him a few of the photos back, but don't do him any favors. Right now, he's enough of a fucking douchebag that he might use the photos to make fun of you or something. Fuck that noise) she found all the videos of him he'd made her stand around and shoot at the skate park.
Yes, he's a skateboarder. Pushing 30-- pushing thirty hard, I might add, as his birthday's this winter-- yes, this winner is older than me and dating someone younger than our baby sister-- and he's still an avid skateboarder and makes his long-suffering girlfriend stand around at the skate park and shoot...
video after video...
of him totally failing to perform basic skate tricks.

Is it just me, or are these videos about to be remade into an absolutely fucking hysterical montage?

It's a goddamn goldmine. And I promise I'll post about it here.