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!

Too much for Twitter

I started tweeting and then realized I have several random things to say. I don't want to be like Stephen Fry and overtweet, so I'll just dump 'em all here. The first two are retweets, for the sake of posterity. (As if posterity will care.) The rest are new and happily not subject to a 140-character limit.

Feeling crabby for no good reason. Maybe mean, nasty, irritable Ronnie should go out for drinks with m.n.i. Laura...? (This is in response to a morning tweet from Laura warning us that m.n.i. Laura was pushing to get out.)

Chloe bought her bass. It's beautiful. But both girls have for the moment abandoned real guitars in favor of Rock Band. Go figure.

Frank had bridge prep done yesterday, so he is not a happy camper today. Going to the music store (normally a much loved outing) about did him in.

I should clarify: the Arizona house shopping Frank and I were doing was fantasy shopping. We have no serious plans to move, and if we did, I'm not sure we'd be homeowners. A more footloose lifestyle is attractive.

In related news, our tent trailer will be all paid off next month. We will never be homeless.

The neighbor girls came over to play with Chloe today. It's so sweet that they want to, and even sweeter that she goes along with it. She let them take their pick of some leftover Barbie stuff. Aside from a few treasured favorites and the bagful of good stuff we set aside for Effie, we are nearly Barbie-less. The end of an era indeed.

The clack of drumsticks on Rock Band drums is annoying. I'd much rather be listening to the real thing.

I want the Clean Sweep people to come and take care of my backyard. The heaps back there make me feel as trashy as they make our yard look.

I didn't go to the Goodwill today, and I really should have. The van is loaded with donations. Maybe it'll be doubly loaded by next Saturday.

The girls and I watched some Jay Walking and pseudo-Jay Walking videos this evening. People (presumably schooled people) didn't know who authored Romeo and Juliet, who bombed Pearl Harbor, whom the Palestinians are in conflict with, etc. WTF?!

Yes, my kids know those things. The one that stumped them and me was "Who was Beowulf's companion?" Frank would no doubt find our ignorance of that nearly as distressing as I found the others' ignorance of the "easier" questions.

P.S. Frank says Beowulf's pals were secondary and it wasn't a sensible question. We are redeemed. :-)