loves company

Northwest Winter weather doesn't make me dreary. Oh no, I do that so well all on my own. But it lets me be dreary. It doesn't mock my flagging moods by throwing too-bright sunlight at me every time I look out the window, something a little like interrupting some sad, sappy ballad with a boppy polka. Which is not to say that I am sad (exactly) nor sappy (very much). I just like having the option to be either. I'm well-suited, I suppose, to this climate. I appreciate the congruency. We understand each other. It's somehow a lot easier for me to be happy on a gray day than it ever is to be sad (or still or pensive or any other word that really fits better here) on a sunny one.

Today was not sunny. And for that I was very grateful.

It's good to feel like you can be quiet and still together or inspired and busy and productive together and it will be just as comfortable, just as familiar and true.

If my flowery references to the weather read a little like describing dear, old friends it is because I'm attempting, and not so much succeeding, to segue into a quick mention of our weekend of favorite house guests. We have had so much inconsistency in our little family's world, plenty of starts and stops and upheaval, that the things that last, the things that always work and grow along side (changing, but not falling away) are all the more appreciated. All the more needed. It's good to have friends who know you.

Do you know that not once, but twice, I have heard separate npr commentators pronounce segue as "segg"? Twice. It's already on my iffy list of words, words I use inadvertently but reconsider later. See, in the reconsidering of the previous paragraph, that immediate editing which occurs loosely on the fly, not so much editing as just speedily scanning to make sure I didn't lose my train of thought (as I'm prone to do while speaking. I should stop talking all together, too bad I can't seem to eek out enough time to write so often), I was blindsided by this tangent. Here we go. I won't change what I've written but I might tentatively shuffle segue from the inadvertent words list over to the so-called "Gossamer-Akimbo Category". This might have come up in wine-soaked conversation last night, which is certainly why it was floating around in my head just now and bumped smack into the memory of a mispronounced Segue. There are certain words I cannot abide by. These are not offensive words or ignorant words. These are words that, for reasons I cannot sufficiently articulate, I am unable to take seriously. Akimbo. Every time I read "arms akimbo" (because is anything else ever? legs, occasionally. but I hardly think we need a whole word for bent appendages) I groan. There might also be affected gagging noises. Gossamer. Of all the ways to describe wings and thin fabric and spider webs, so many other words could work together to paint a more accurate picture than that one. More groaning. Myriad. A legitimate word that has surely slipped by undetected plenty of times in years of reading, but probably not a myriad. Oh, you're groaning, too, now, admit it. There are better ways to say A Great Number. Those ways do not include Plethora. I much prefer Passel. A passel of anything sounds charming. Unless we're talking dark under eye circles, which we will be if I don't find my way to sleep soon.