I just finished reading The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. I read in in two days because it was just so gripping, and so sad too. Amazingly written, but I don’t think I’ve ever cried that much in a book – it’s just so touching to hear it from Susie’s point of view. She watches her family from her heaven after her brutal rape and murder; only her elbow was ever found. She watches her little sister Lindsey become the woman she never would be, she watches her father become consumed with revenge, and her mother torn from her family, and her little brother grow up without her. If you can handle sad books, I would definitely recommend it.

Also, I just googled it to find an image of the cover and discovered on IMDB that there is a movie in the works for The Lovely Bones (2008) directed by Peter Jackson. Susan Sarandon is Grandma Lynn which is absolutely perfect. Lindsey wasn’t listed, but Susie was – and she looks right for it, with the “mousy brown hair”. Mark Wahlberg as the dad doesn’t seem right, I imagined more of a Paul Guilfoyle (Brass from CSI) because of how good an actor he is with his CSI-daughter. I suppose Stanley Tucci works for George Harvey (the rapist & murderer) but I imagined more of a John Turturro kind of man. I could totally see Geoffrey Rush as Detective Len Fenerman… but I think I recognise Michael Imperioli from Law & Order.

I had such an awesome Halloween Weekend with my friends! We went to see some local bands at The Media Club downtown. Rio Bent and Fuzzcat opened the show (I don’t remember who went first) and got everyone pumped up.I’ve been hearing lots of good things about The Dreadnoughts and finally got to see them play. I loved them! They reminded me of the Dropkick Murphys. The Dreadnoughts had a fiddler and a mandolin player! It was just so awesome – they were a great Celtic-Punk banks! The lead singer, Nick, also has deep Irish roots. He’s really good about the ‘between songs chatter’; bit of humour, bit of info. Afterwards I went up and bought The Dreadnoughts’ CD (which I’m trying to import right now… evil iTunes).

The Furios were the headliners, who I’d seen at the Railway Club a while back. They’ve got a good punk/reggae sound but the trombone player does this kinda “trying to be sexy” dance between playing and she ends up being distracting/slutty-looking.

Now, you must dress up for Halloween:

I was a Spiderweb, inspired by the sheer spiderweb fabric.

My mom helped ‘curl’ my hair (which ended up limp about an hour later). But she also helped pin the spiders in my hair, and apparently she had nightmares about spiders that attached themselves to flies and could fly around the room and she couldn’t catch them to kill them. Awesome.

Glow in the Dark Spider nails! How awesome are those? They were so cheap they didn’t even last the night and kept falling off before I’d even had them all on. I ended up trying to hot glue gun them to my fingernails.

Even my Henry got into the Halloween spirit!

Here we are at the club: Laura as a dead girl (Wednesday from Addam’s Family/Corpse Bride character/Nightmare Before Christmas character/the-list-goes-on), Fiona as gothic/vampiress, Rachel as Death’s Mistress/Sexy Princess Death, Pam (Rachel’s housemate) as a sexy vampire, and myself as Spiderwebs.

The mandolin player from The Dreadnoughts was dressed up as Captain Jack Sparrow!

The fiddler from The Dreadnoughts was so into it and having such a great time as well. It’s so awesome to see the band enjoying themselves too. [Edit: small world here... this is Jordana's friend Kyle.]

Some guy at the club was dressed up as the Swedish Chef from the Muppets! How awesome is that?!

Laura’s friend Francis was totally into her dead nurse costume! It was so great – Rachel thought she was on something or drunk because of how into the part Francis got. She would take the stethescope and do this creepy-search-for-their-heart kind of thing. She was so great at it too and enjoying herself so much.

Instead of attaching the suede soles as recommended by the pattern, I painted the bottom of the slippers with this lovely-toxic-smelling plastic paint. (Suggested by the lovely ladies over at the KR Forum.)

I used “PlastiDip” which is for the plastic handles of tools. Available at some hardware stores (let your fingers do the walking – call ahead). I just sort of blobbed it on and painted it around. The felted fabric really absorbed it so I was generous… in hindsight it may have been better to let the fabric absorb a small amount as a base, let it dry, and then do a second coat.

In preparation of my move, I have made appointments with my doctor, physiotherapist, bank account manager, hairdresser, and (unfortunately) my dentist. Yesterday I had a dental appointment (I feel your pain Anne!) and they told me they didn’t finish all the work possible, and gave me another appointment for Friday. They said that I have a few more minor sources of decay that they would like to fix, so joy of joys, tomorrow morning I get to go in for more drilling!

I leave in 16 days. Wow! I have not even started packing… well I have sort of. I’ve started piling things in the corner of my bedroom that I don’t use every day but I do want to bring. I also managed to find more of CW’s clothes that he left here. He left his favourite jeans so of course those are in the pile, as well as some of my yarn stash, my Kitchen Clips Cookbook, my knitting patterns book, and my pencil case.

Wanna see how my duffel bag is coming along? I like that no way is “up”… the patches can be viewed from every angle.

(From Left to Right; Top to Bottom) Yokohama, Japan; Florida Keys & Miami; Disneyland California; Montreal, Quebec; City of Manchester, UK; road trips in Alberta, Canada; road trips in British Columbia, Canada; road trip through Oregon State, USA; Canadian / USA border – BC & Washington State; Union Jack for my British heritage; road trips in/to California State, USA; home of Vancouver, BC, Canada.

The two missing patches are in the mail (Arizona and Hawaii) thanks to eBay. My dad even called our friends in Anaheim, California and they sent some Disneyland patches. They sent some from a Halloween Costume package because Disney apparently doesn’t manufacture patches anymore. I attached the one with the parrot (the only one that said Disneyland). They also sent a Pirate Mickey and Pirates of the Caribbean patch, which might make it’s way onto my new backpack. The Florida patch was ordered off eBay and I was so lucky to find one with a dolphin because we swam with the dolphins in Florida!

At the Knitting Meetup Monday night, I just kept knitting the blue ribbed scarf for my sister.

Destination: 120 inches (10 feet)
After 1 skein: 45 inches
Monday night: 57 inches (see photo)

The Math:
120 – 57 = 63 inches to go

I have 4 skeins of this yarn (Bernat Solo – “Sky”) so I’m not too worried about that. Also, the tassels will add to the length! It’s great “mindless knitting” for meetups, phone calls, CSI, etc.