textileowl

Monday my sister was married to her significant other of 2 and a half years. But first there was the bachelorette party. Saturday night Jeff and I drove down to Middletown to stay at her soon to be in law's place for the weekend. There was a lot to do before the wedding and it just made more sense to be down there to help since I was a bridesmaid and all. His parents are reasonably nice people, a littlie more right of center politically and religiously than Jeff and I, but somewhat accepting. His mother sees angels... which squicks me a bit in a way I have trouble describing. The belief is ok, but the evanglising conversation about angels I refused to have a part in.  They breed bloodhounds, and their current round was due on my sister's wedding day. The dog was huge, at least 12 pups and immediately took a liking to Jeff. Which is unusual  but cute, to watch him enjoy petting a dog that was clearly enjoying it.

But back to the fun part, Liz and I drove up to Dayton to the Masque, one of the more well known gay clubs downtown. We get there about 9:30 super early for the club scene just  about anywhere. Though it did mean we could snag a side of the stage/dance floor for the weekly Drag show that started at midnight. The other side of the stage was already peopled when we got there by what I think was a birthday party for a dapper young man who was a bit over dressed for the club in his freshly pressed pants, suit vest and tie. He was a nice looking Jewish boy there with his mother and friends. He was fiddling with his tie and enjoying the drag show. The emcee for the night was Sinthia D. Meanor - looking at their facebook - she is a regular and I  can see why. She has a good stage presence and can keep a crowd going for more. Her first set was "Hey Big Spender!" from Sweet Charity. She made a comment about bachelorette parties coming to see drag shows and how she didn't understand why we would want to watch guys playing at being girls and why not go watch boys strip. My first thought was " You put on a damn good show that I want to see", and " We have boys wave their dicks at us all the time and we're expected to a. enjoy it and b. act like we don't/are shy. I far prefer watching people enjoy what they are doing, make a good show of it and I can show my appreciation with out there being any expectation of reward. The next was Daray Lorez who performed mostly pop songs that I am not going to remember. She was good, and upbeat but not going to remember.  Third was the most exciting, Dee Ranged - Miss Universal ShowQueen and Former National Entertain Of the Year. Her three songs were the most well thought out and executed numbers - though man, the prep work. First song was Bohemian Rhapsody dressed as Edward Scissorhands. Makeup and costume was awesome, stilted movement and expression was very good. Second was a set of duets - I had the time of my life (from Dirty Dancing) and Summer Loving (from Grease). Here, she was dressed half in a Greaser's black leather jacket and jeans, and half in a womens short cocktail dress. Hair and makeup was also split down the middle, so that as the song went from male to female she would switch sides. Beautifully timed.  Her third song was clearly unimportant because she was dressed as the Mad Hatter from the newest Alice in Wonderland. Miss Ohio AAG Niomi Onassis was the final lady for the evening and even managed to drag my sister up on stage during her last song for a complimentary lap dance.

The music was great, good dance beats, songs that I even knew. I even danced and enjoyed myself , though being in heels meant my dance sets weren't long. I am so not used to heels anymore and I like it that way. The crowd was heavily mixed, which makes sense for a Saturday night at a gay club. They get to be a place where straight people go so they can dance without social pressure of hooking up - which can be somewhat detrimental to the club as people migrate over so do the people they are trying to not hook up with eventually follow. We had a couple of creepers late in the evening but they weren't overtly pushy and disappeared to find drunker prey when they discovered we weren't going to play.

We left the club after the last show set, dropped off another Bridesmaid at her home in Fairborn and - since I hadn't eaten in 6 hours - stopped by a McDonalds on our way home. Did you know they started serving breakfast at 3? It was news to me. We drove back to the house and it took some time for me to wind down - a couple of Bahama Mamas and a shot of tequila, then the soda and food and drive back. My sister - when tipsy - talks even more than she normally does. But it was a good time, hanging out with out having to do a whole lot of actual talking or being anyone other than me. Plus my officer's coat got some good looks as I walked out of the club.

OK, it's late. Sunday and Monday will have to happen later.

This week has been sorta rough. My sister in law discovered her husband has been cheating on her. He's depressed and has been a very different person than the one most of us have known since they've been married. Thankfully, in the last couple of days, there has been a recognition of the problems and they are going to try and figure things out.

I've had a bunch of different emotions about the whole mess. One, disappointment in him - that he couldn't see past his own issues to communicate them before he went to far. Two - A small teensy bit of  schadenfreude when I compare their relationship tp mine and the differences that were so abhorrent to my sister in law - being poly and open with our communication - have actually stood up to their scrutiny, and now hypocrisy from her husband - who could barely be in the same room with us and our girlfriend and be civil.

It' sounds like he has a lot of growing up to do, and if he needs to do it by himself or with his wife has yet to be determined. But thankfully, my sister-in-law may yet regain some of the relationship with us that she lost by pushing us away with her ideals and demands on who we should be. Pyralis, I think, is hoping this will happen, as not being as close with his sister has made things a bit rough and even I remember that she is a cool and fun person underneath the mask she thinks she requires to be normal.

It appears I still suck at posting.

Life has been busy enough that it is hard work enough to keep up with my friends' list.

Let's see, and try to break things down into a couple of categories

Work - White House Easter Egg Roll was insane and hot. I survived.  We will be moving later in the summer finally, since our new landlord wants to raise our rent. Thanks to the appropriate deities that my bosses are convinced that we won't go bankrupt doing so, since just today I hauled a six foot long costume crate up the stairs. I never want to see stairs in our office building again.  Also, now that the costume premiered, I built a dinosaur! Well, revamped an old design. And it still needs a lot of work but wow was it a study in how frustrating non-design minds can be. We couldn't get an executive decision to save our lives.

Social life - Jeff and I have been actively working this up more. Between Jeff's participation in Godspell and in the Magpies, we've had a busy spring that is turning into a whirlwind summer with 4 weddings ( one has passed and was beautiful). Memorial Day  was party central all afternooon but it was awesome. We've been going to ADF high days which have been really enjoyable and fulfilling in ways Christian church never had been for me. I don't have any need to go follow the druid path, attending is enough while I ponder how and why I worship the way I do.

Sewing - I've been working on a summer party dress. It's about half done construction-wise and then we need to dye it. Hopefully it will turn out fantastically.

Reading - Deadline!! In my purse! More coherency shall not commence until after I've finished reading. Stay tuned.

- Erzuli doesn't have cancer, but the vet doesn't have any other information other than keep an eye on her and bring her in to get the stitches out in about a week

- It's well and truly fall, nights in the high forties, days anywhere from high fifties to the seventies. I've dug out my sweatshirts and have noticed that I am woefully out of long sleeve t-shirts for layering....

- Now that the gloves are finished I've been working on a blackwork design for a biscornue to use as a pin cushion for what will eventually be a small somewhat period sewing kit.

- The 1780's stays are slowly progressing. I have a working pattern finally and am currently waiting for the fabric to arrive to color match the thread. I'm going to use a combination of 1/4" plastic boning and split reed caning. We'll see how it works.

What do you mean my birthday was last week?!

It's been a busy July, though there's not much to show for it.  Work ramped up in June and July to the point where I'm praying that costumes come in early or as a last resort telling  stations to charge shipping to us just to get the costumes in on time only to wash, dry and toss the back into the shipping truck. Thankfully, once August hits, the quantity dies down for a bit, though I have not yet had a costume not make it to the station on time which is better than last year for certain.

There have been a couple of opportunities that have cropped up in the "making things" world, once they decide to pan or not pan out I will probably mutter about them here.

 I discovered today, after several month of sewing virtually nothing, that I can make a new accessory in under three hours. The blue and brown dress is (finally!) having it's debut at U-Ren this Saturday. I made it two years ago and have worn it to the Ohio Renaissance Festival once, if I recall correctly. Any way, the original stomacher for the gown doesn't fit the gap that is now required to fit correctly, so today I made a new one. It looks ok, I played with a cording techique that I've wanted to do for a while and it makes me want to play some more with the effect I can get with it. 


Making the stomacher was a good use of the time alone without being stressful and reminded me that yes, having time to myself means having the table and sewing machine to myself as well! 

Now to use that time to read Feed by Mira Grant and possibly scare myself silly. I haven't decided ( I'm about 120 pages in ) how scary the book actually is yet, but the world that is built is certainly one that has me rethinking things that I thought I would never reconsider...like which pets I would want around in the next 30 years.

I keep meaning to post. So here I am forcing myself to do so.

Last week was spent in Washington DC at the DC Auto Show. The company I work for is hired to run and manage Playland. We drove down on Monday, set-up Tuesday and then did office work during the mornings and had characters running about on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday in the evenings. Saturday was slow because of the snow, but it was about a 12 hour day for us. Sunday was better, busier and we were done by 6 and completely loaded back up by 10:30.

You can see photos of the show and Playland at the official photographer's website. The hardest part of the whole week was being away from home for the whole week. 

It was rough, but worth the huge paycheck I received for it. That will go towards shelves and the continued organization of our apartment.

I haven't done a true update in quite sometime. This post is more thorough than I've been. I will try to be more open in the future, in hope that things are more clear and less on Jeff to interpret my feelings to others. This is somewhat in response to his post last week, but I hope to continue writing my thoughts down in order to be more precise.

( I didn't realize quite how long this was, so here you go. )

Well, let's see the last actual post was on.....Aug 6th, wow. 

We're completely moved out of the old apartment. We even managed to turn in the keys a day early. The managing company ended up being a little pushier than we put up with, so we didn't clean the apartment quite as well as we should have. Oh well, it wasn't as if we were getting that security deposit back, what with Evander's loving care to the door frames. He isn't as bad as a teething puppy, but wow he can inflict some damage.

So, in the new intermediate apartment, where there is very little space for people and cats for all the boxes at the moment but as we get more settled I think we can manage to make it home for the month or so it takes to finish up the actual apartment. The last thing to be transferred over is the Gas account, which won't be shut off at the old place until tomorrow, and then won't be turned on at the new place until the 3rd. 

For all the moving, we've been pushing to be more social and so several good things have come out of it.. Trivia nights down at Claddaugh, Python nights at [Bad username or unknown identity:    ] 's , and hopefully more nights at the WIld Goose Creative. Jeff and I went to a concert there, a father who plays late fifties folk music, and his son who is the lead singer for Common Shiner . It was fantastic. The music was great, the father told stories in folk fashion and his son's music was very reminescent of Bare Naked Ladies with a little more soul. I'm sure it sounds very different with a full band behind him but  Morgan Foster did a set that made me wish we had recorded it.

But back to Wild Goose Creative, there seems to be a Stitch and Bitch every Tuesday, the girls said it was mostly knitters but would welcome any needlework so anyone want to join up for a Tuesday to stitch and hang out? It'll give me one more day to work on my pocket project, which lately is only getting worked on when we go to Jeff's parents for dinner. His mom has a floor stand that makes stitching so much easier.  I'm almost done with the greens, when you do a floral scene there are a lot of greens. I'll try to post a picture before too much longer.

September looks to be a full and interesting month. O-Ren starts back up, which means Jeff loses all Saturdays since his boss helps run a booth down there.  On the fifth, we're going to the New Boston Faire out in Springfield. It's one of the larger 18th century reenactments on the west side of Ohio that aren't almost in Michigan. We went two years ago and enjoyed it, so off to see it again.  No dressing up this year though, with the sewing machines packed up. The 19th is whisperwheel 's and knightvln 's wedding (crap, I need something to wear!). The 20th is the Ohio Steampunk's Invasion of O-Ren. September is also the busiest fall month at work, we already have most of the costumes that I work with booked and two major events that are going to need some major staffing and I may get to go to DC. We hash all that out next week, I believe. OSU starts back up late September and so does Guild which means we may lose a large chunk of our social group to dealing with newbies and schoolwork.  

Ok, that was more than I had planned on bringing up but it happens when you're procrastinating.

We are home safely from Bristol. It was a good weekend with a friend and her family. I am still processing the things I learned at Bristol, since we can't go to any renaissance festival without analyzing it to death. I wish we could have gone the entire weekend - one day in nobles and the other in something less fantastic. The dynamics of our interactions with people, patrons and cast, would have been very different.

On our way home, Pyr received a call from our landlord stating that we are  moving at the end of August because they have someone interested in the apartment. So, we're moving. It's not like we weren't planning on it anyway, but since Pangolin had to move her shop there hasn't been any work on the apartments and now we have to get the one we want into a liveable state, pack, sort, throw away, and move all of our things plus five cats in 6 weeks around work and an Art festival in August where Pyr and Pan are vending. There won't be much time for sewing it seems.

On top of this, I managed to not properly balance my laptop on the couch this morning and it fell, breaking the ac dc power jack so it is currently rattling around in the case. I'm taking it apart tonight to see how bad the break is, but for now I am computer-less at home- which should be ok since I have to pack up our apartment while Pyr and his dad work on the new apartment. It's going to make for a fun rest of the summer.