Making Friends (and Influencing People)

Well, maybe not so much influencing, but by my limited standards, I have been a social butterfly as of late. We had real live (grown up!) people over to dinner last Saturday evening, and while I may have resembled Cinderella in her coal pile at the end of my cleaning frenzy, no one turned into a pumpkin (or frog or whatever) at nine o'clock. We had pleasant conversations, enjoyed a decent Oregonian pinot noir, and ended our meal with a lovely lemon sponge cup. Our guests even said they might like to return, so that counts as a success, doesn't it?

I have also stripped away one more layer of my Luddite tendencies, and joined facebook. I've avoided almost all such social networking sites (except for Ravelry & Book Thing), but I was finally persuaded by the chance to connect with some very long-lost friends from my time in Finland as an exchange student. You see, I am a very bad friend. It isn't that I don't care for people, but I simply don't keep in touch. If you are a friend of mine, I probably think of you quite often, but might contact you only a few times a year. I've given up trying to analyze this trait, and now just accept it. It's occurred to me the facebook and the like are perfect for socially lazy souls such as myself, as it makes it very easy to find folks you've lost track of. I still have reservations, and perhaps an etiquette question. What do you do when someone you do not want to be "friends" with tries to "friend" you (is that a verb)? Is it acceptable to simply ignore an email or an invitation? It is this sort of question precisely that has kept me off of these sites until now. I do think the benefits of being able to find people I genuinely would love to talk to again outweighs this potential drawback, but I admit that I need a bit of help. So, "Help!"

Perhaps I should just suck it up like a big girl and be rude.

Otherwise, thirty-five is nifty so far. (See, you get this old and start using "quaint" expressions. Gosh darn, it's past my bedtime). I've ordered myself a passel of books from Powell's that I'd been lusting after, primarily some venerable knitting tomes and The Gay Uncle's Guide to Parenting (see the blog roll at right for a link to Brett Burk's blog). Poof! goes the birthday cash.

School anxiety has popped up for The Young Man, resulting in several late nights and the occasional screaming fit (not me, I swear). This too, shall pass, but I really wish it would pass a lot faster and with less drama. I am posting from dial-up again, and hate it. Maybe we can swing the faster Internet connection, but my inner miser knows that we shouldn't.

Still trying to write a few reviews, although not tonight. The Hubby is still holding the sleeping baby, and there's a pile of dishes next to the sink. We celebrate our tenth anniversary this weekend, and treating him well is probably the least I can do.

Ta Ta for now.