NaBloPoHalfMo: Play of the game

I'm bored with football. This might have something to do with the lackluster season the Seahawks are having and some weird coaching decisions they've made (trading Housh?! those challenges two weeks ago?!). It also might have something to do with my moodiness, which has coincided pretty distinctly with the football season. (Blame it on football? Sure, why not.)

Frank is not bored with football at all. He, um, encourages the players and coaches through the television screen and likes to spend most of Sunday with the NFL. Days when we get to watch the Saints and the Seahawks are especially good days.

Even he is quite content to do the watching from the livingroom rather than from the stadium. We've got our tickets to all of the Hawks' home games up for sale on the NFL Ticket Exchange. We're leaving it to Fate: if the tickets to a particular game don't sell, we'll go down to Qwest Field and shell out $20 for parking and cheer and listen to Blue Thunder and eat stadium food. So far, we haven't had the opportunity; our tickets have been selling nicely—we've made back almost half the cost of the season.

Play of the game: The arrival of a "Your Tickets Sold" email in my Inbox.

Chit chat

After a long Twitter-free spell, I have been tweeting again the past couple of days. My desire to communicate minutiae seems to come in waves, and for whatever reason (etiquette?), I do not wish to use Facebook for these tweetish communications. (My status updates on FB tend to be about chunks of time—e.g., "Ronnie Maier has her kids back!!"—rather than random moments here and there—e.g., "I am trimming my toenails.")

But what do I do when my desire to blab details exceeds my tweet tolerance level? I write a megatweet blog post, obviously. It probably makes for pretty boring stuff, but I suppose Blogging Without Obligation means I'm not obliged to be especially interesting.

I read "The Five Languages of Love" tonight. I first heard about this book from Beth Fuller and have been enjoying a broader appreciation of all Frank does for me since then. It's been lovely to take every clean dish as an "I love you." You know? But now Frank and I have both figured out our official Love Language profiles, and it turns out that "Acts of Service" isn't his love language any more than it is mine. Oh, well, I still appreciate those clean dishes.

Interestingly, Frank and I scored almost identically for our profiles, with "Physical Touch" and "Quality Time" tied for the top position. Gary Chapman, the author, says partners don't necessarily enjoy such fluency in each other's love language, so this might be a contributing factor to why Frank and I get on so well. It also seems possible that one of us started out with one of those as primary and the other with the other, but that after more than two decades of adjusting to each other's needs, our priorities have been adapted.

The other two languages are "Affirmations" and "Receiving Gifts."

Chloe and I went to the library this evening and each brought home huge armloads of books. Hers are mostly about getting into college, something that is very much on both girls' minds right now. Mine are mostly about geology, just because.

I missed House and Castle last night. (Monday is "guys named after buildings" night on TV.)

Our house still smells like bacon, 14 hours after breakfast.

After a surprisingly pleasant couple of days, the damp is rolling in again. MJ has been hogging the "We're season ticketholders and don't you forget it even if we might want to after that game against the Cardinals" Seahawks throw blanket, so I'm sitting here wrapped in the dragonfly-dotted fleece blanket I won in the LIFE is Good silent auction last May. Cozy! All in all, though, I'd rather be in Arizona with Uncle Scott. (But I still wouldn't root for the Cards.)

If I'm still not working in November, I'm thinking about doing NaNoWriMo. But I might settle for NaBloPoMo. Both girls are also contemplating NNWM, so we may find ourselves entering into some serious computer negotiations. Anybody got a laptop we can borrow for a month? If not, I'll have to encourage Chloe to resume her nightowl thing. ;-)

Not being that much of a nightowl myself, I'm done now. Good night!

Score!

After two years on the waiting list, we are now season ticket holders for the Seattle Seahawks! I'm very excited and have been posting whoots all over the Internet. Here's another:

WHOOT!
Our seats are up in the nosebleed section, between the 20- and 30-yard lines on the west end of the stadium. But we're under the roof, the value of which can't be overestimated in the Pacific Northwet.

We remember

Changing loyalties
Once upon a time, the Seahawks were part of the AFC West. We enjoyed rivalries with all of the teams in our conference, especially the Raiders and the Broncos, but the Chiefs and Chargers earned some of our enmity, too. Despite my constant loyalty to the Hawks, I've always had a soft spot for San Diego, because of my familial ties to and time spent in that city. In a couple of my summers there, I hung out with and was influenced by some neighborhood guys who were die-hard fans of Dan Fouts, Kellen Winslow (the First), Charlie Joiner, and the like.

Anyway, fast forward a few years. These days, the Hawks are part of the NFC West, and we try to be as excited about watching the Hawks play our current conferencemates. Still, I miss the old matchups, and I admit to now having soft spots for all of our old rivals except (blech!) Denver. So, when I have a chance to root wholeheartedly for the Chargers, I jump at it.

Today's game is providing just such a chance. Pittsburgh is probably oblivious to how much we hate them here in Seattle, and I know our hatred is not entirely reasonable. I don't really believe the refs were bribed in that Super Bowl, after all. Much. But the Steelers suffer our resentment of things like East Coast media bias, horrible refereeing, and a sadly unfair Super Bowl.

Enter the Chargers. They have my sympathy as the snow falls in Pittsburgh and the terrible towels fly. I hope they kick some steel butts and win a little redemption for all of us.

Update 5:00 p.m. -- Suddenly I find myself a Ravens fan. Imagine that!

Friday fill-in

1. I must have a lot more time with my kids (and grandkids?) before I die.

2. You can't stop bureaucracy or the snow in the Pacific Northwest evidently.

3. I wish I never had to buy car repairs and dental anything again.

4. Frank has helped me change my life.

5. I know the song Rocky Raccoon by heart because I sang it to the girls about a gazillion times when they were little.

6. If I weren't so afraid, I would be able to be a little less polite to the people who are rude to me. Just a little.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to putting the finishing touches on MJ's Christmas (she wants to go shopping with the rest of the world), tomorrow my plans include laundry and maybe some time curled up with a good book, and Sunday, I want to watch the Hawks win their last game of the season and with Mike Holmgren as headcoach!

Hawk Yeah!

Seahawks 34 Vikings 17

The Seahawks are looking good! A couple of the rookies seem pretty exciting! I can't wait for next week's game!

NaBloPoMo "T"

T is for Team Transitions



I'm still waiting to hear whether my team at work will be able to open up a full-time position for their favorite temp (me).

The Seahawks have released Shaun Alexander. I can't say I think it's a mistake, but, given the track record for Seattle trades, I wonder if we might live to regret it.

Mariners closer J.J. Putz is back on the roster. Frank and I were there for the action Tuesday night when he strutted back onto the field and got the job done against the Orioles. Unfortunately, the M's dropped the second game in the series last night.

The Sonics are leaving town. (yawn)

Cardiovascular workout

Did you see that Seahawks game?! It's been over for two hours, but Frank and I haven't recovered yet. As loyal Seahawks fans are all too aware, when things start to go bad for the Hawks, they go really bad.

So imagine our shock when their latest "tanked game" turned into an impressive victory!

Seahawks 35
Redskins 14

Marcus Trufant is our hero of the day. His perfectly timed interception for a touchdown turned the game back around and kept us in the hunt. (video)

Now if the Jags can beat Pittsburg, our joy will be complete. (No, we will never forget.)

And for next weekend: Look out, Green Bay!

Doings

Well, we've had a little time to settle in and settle down after the Christmas rush and now we're gearing up for the next round of fun. Up first on the agenda is, of course, the Seahawks' final regular season game tomorrow morning. We'll be watching with great interest to see if the running game really is coming alive, just in time for the playoffs. Shaun Alexander must know the entire region is ready to fall in love with him again with very little provocation.

After the game, we do our last bit of making our house moderately presentable before an airport run to pick up the girls' camp friend Harper (17). He's coming up from California to stay for a few days before he works his way back down the I-5 corridor, visiting other campers.

He's arriving just in time for our Crazy Cousins New Year's Eve Bash. MJ did her best to warn him, but can he really know what he's in for? It'll be eight girls and Harper, the poor lad. We'll definitely have to trump up a few sanity errands for him and the older girls, and we might yet get Hunter and Logan over here to balance out the numbers a bit.

After Harper starts south again, we will start getting ready in earnest for Non-Con North, the very informal gathering of unschoolers that we are hosting the first weekend in February. We can't wait! If you're planning to attend, drop me a line!

And we got green gloves

I said: "...and Sunday, I want to bond with my buddy Lori as we scream ourselves hoarse and generally have a blast watching the Seahawks demolish the Cardinals—AT QWEST FIELD!!!!"

Well, not only did all that come true, but the Hawks clinched their division AND Frank and I each got a pair of these:


Oh, happy, happy day!

That's my boy

Lofa Tatupu, our valiant center linebacker and the player whose number I'll be sporting on Sunday, has been named the NFL's Defensive Player of the Week.

Here's the ballot writeup about his performance last Sunday:

"Tatupu totaled 11 solo tackles and three interceptions in the Seahawks’ 28–24 win over the Philadelphia Eagles. Tatupu intercepted Feeley's first pass of the day and his last one to help lock down the Seahawks' win."

It's very cool to see "my boy" getting the recognition he deserves. :-)

Catching up

Well, I've certainly let this thing get out of date!

All right. As I'm sure you all heard, the Seahawks were not the declared winners of the SuperBowl. We all hold them as the winners in our hearts, though! (A friend of mine here at work is a Pittsburgh fan and feels pretty outnumbered, so we'll leave it at that.)

Big gigantic news: Chloe has been accepted at Summerhill School, an alternative private school in -- get this! -- England. Oy! She leaves us at the end of April and will be gone for THREE MONTHS. Her "mum" is just a bit distressed, but also happy that Chloe will have this wonderful experience. If you want to check out the school, you can look at their website, but I'll warn you that it is not a very good site. (Read A.S. Neill's book _Summerhill_ instead!) The site is http://www.summerhillschool.co.uk.

So, we've been busily filling out forms and filing for visas and trying to adjust to the idea of losing her.

This past weekend, we had a little spur-of-the-moment baby shower for my sister, whose baby is due in March. It was very fun to buy boy clothes for a change! ;-)

Marjie is pursuing life as an extreme sports enthusiast. She bought herself a snazzy Tony Hawk skateboard and signed up for a Spring Break week of field trips to rock climbing, paintballing, skateboarding locales. (A combination of those three sports would make quite a triathlon, wouldn't it? But they're separate in this case.) She is also campaigning for a dirt bike but finding her parents a bit too Summerhill-strapped for cash at the moment.

No movement yet on the sale of the ZP, but spring is coming.

Anyway, we're all happy, healthy, and living life. Hope you all can say the same. Drop us a line!

SEAHAWKS!!!!

We never thought we'd see the day.

The Seattle Seahawks are going to the Super Bowl.

Grown men cried. Fans took hours to leave Qwest field. Pioneer Square rocked through the night. And in the Maier household, voices were lost, rats were frightened by all the noise, and sleep was hard to come by.

Our favorite sign in the crowd: "East Coast Media -- How do you like us now?"

Hats off to the whole team (but especially the defense)!!

See you in Detroit!!

Manhandling Rampage
Detroit Ticket Packages