Remembering Why I Married This Man

We've been having "little skirmishes" in this house for the past month or so.  Mainly they are about the cleaning up process -- and moving "his things" without asking permission.  Of course, if I asked permission, I assumed he would NOT graciously grant it -- so I move the "crap" and live with the consequences. 

Three weeks ago we had a really bad Sunday dinner  when I told Hubby he was blaming me for everything wrong that happened in the house.  And I claimed that NONE OF IT WAS MY FAULT.  We were dining out and at that point I refused to eat and he refused to talk.  We brought my dinner home in a doggie bag and the pups were delighted.  Then I checked on the item that "wasn't my fault" -- and darned if it didn't turn out that it was my fault.  But I never admitted it -- because that was just one item in the hundreds I claimed Hubby was blaming on me. 

We've limped along since then, Hubby giving me the dirty look but wisely keeping his yap shut.  Me mostly not talking, but why talk to a scowled up face?  When we did talk, it was over very elementary things -- like the weather.

Friday I got the lecture on how crowded the computer desk was becoming.  Hubby said I'd better figure out some place to put things other than on the desktop.  Instead of saying what I really wanted to ("You figure it out yourself, damn it, I'm off to go swimming), I said I'd work on the problem as I kept cleaning up in the room. I asked him to give me some time.  

Saturday I worked on the problem, cleared off two shelves across from the desk and moved out the "offending items."  

Today we went out to dinner at our favorite chicken restaurant - neither of us ever eats the fried chicken, though I do eat the chicken livers while Hubby always has pork chops.  Wanting a little validation, I asked Hubby if he was pleased with the new condition of the desk. 

"If you start filling it up, I'm going to empty out the desk and you won't have to worry about it again," was the response I got. 

"You are becoming impossible to get along with," was my reply. "We share that desk.  If you want to empty it out then go ahead and do it.  You can clean it up yourself.  I don't even had a tray top for my side of the desk -- and you fill the one we have with all your junk which I have to maneuver around every day."

"You really want me to take care of this?" Hubby threatened.  "I only have two drawers in that desk .. . " and at that point I put up three fingers -- which he saw.  His face became a thunder cloud.

Once upon a time I would have been cowed.  But my mother, who could pull these I'll-make-you-sorry stunts with regularity, is no longer around -- and I just don't have to take it.  "Absolutely, clean it all out and make sure we share it equally.  Hey, you have one half of the desk -- it's got four drawers.  I have the right half and it has three drawers because one is the big deep file drawer.  We share the middle drawer."" 

"I only have two drawers!" snarled Hubby.

Luckily our food came right then and for some reason, maybe because I've been on the "you are impossible to live with" kick, Hubby shut up.  We had a nice dinner together, equally sharing the mashed potatoes and gravy.  We talked inconsequential things, like politics, on which we both agree completely this time around. The desk remained a lingering problem.

Back home I went back into the computer room and scrubbed that desk -- a task I had promised to do because it was covered with soda rings and sticky hand prints.  And I looked into the four drawer vs three drawer situation -- and both of us had been wrong.  Hubby only had three drawers (not the two he claimed) because I had one of his drawers partially filled with stationary.  Tons and tons of stationary.  Clearly I had forgotten about it -- because who uses stationary any longer?

So after I washed down the desk and replaced the mouse pad and filled up the pencil and pen jars with all the pens, markers, and mechanical pencils we had stored in the desk, I removed all the stationary from his side drawer and re-purposed it into  my greeting card files (if you get Easter or retirement cards from us now and there is no sentiment inside, you will know why).

Hubby had taken himself out to exercise while I puttered.  On returning home, he found me reading the newspaper so he trundled into the desk and I could hear drawers opening and things being moved all around.  "Oh, lordy," I though.  "He's actually emptying out the desk, probably dumping everything on the floor, just to prove his point."

I waited a good two hours but I eventually wandered into the computer room to ask if he wanted the remains of his pork chop in a sandwich.  By then I had calmed myself down and decided whatever he had done to the desk I'd just ignore.

Proudly, he opened the drawer I had removed the stationary from -- and there was all the junk he had been keeping on the tray side of the desk.  All neatly filed.  His drawers had all been sorted and cleaned, which he opened and showed me, grinning like the Cheshire cat.  He had even taken the slide top off his side and rearranged it on mine -- so I now had the self all to myself.

Marriages are ying and yang propositions.  If you're lucky, you marry a smart man, one who can be prickly and domineering, but has the good sense to know when it's time to compromise and make his wife happy.  "You want a sandwich?" I asked.  "Yeah, and a kiss, too," was the reply.   

Kitchen Diaster

After cooking every meal since I've retired, I thought it only fair to request one of Hubby's best dinners -- one that he has done so often, he could do it in his sleep.  He agreed, but rather reluctantly, I thought.

Saturday I got a family pack of drum sticks for him and one of wings for me, as well as bag of Yukon Gold potatoes for some buttery mashed. About 11:00 Sunday morning he ambled to the kitchen and started paring potatoes.

The smells for the next hour were rather strange.  But I hadn't had his fried chicken since Christmas, so maybe I had forgotten the smell of bubbling grease.  About 12:15 Hubby came and sat next to me, turned the TV down, and growled, "You bought store generic chicken, no vegetable oil, and generic flour.  How many times must I tell you to buy good food products?  The flour wouldn't stick to the chicken and I could only find olive oil to fry the chicken in.  I did six wings for you but I just couldn't finish up anything else because nothing worked right.  Why didn't you buy what we needed when you went to the store?"  He then proceeded to give me a long lecture on the benefits of Pillsbury flour as opposed to generic flour which would never stick to the surface of chicken.

What could I do?  He was probably right -- it could well have been generic flour, though once it was in the flour container I had no way of knowing just what brand it really was.  I listened, told him I was sorry, and agreed that when he cooked next he would have Pillsbury flour.  But the vegetable oil was under the kitchen cabinet on which sat the microwave -- where he had kept it since 1973.  "Why didn't you ask me if you couldn't find it?" I queried.  That question didn't seem to sit well. 

Hubby, in a huff, told me my potatoes were ready and the six wings had been fried -- in olive oil and probably wouldn't be edible..   I could plate up what I wanted to eat.  I wandered into the kitchen, and the Yukon Gold potatoes were perfect.  But the chicken wings were sticky and burned black on the skin.  I turned them over a couple of times and looked at them awhile, and finally I took a taste.  And light dawned. 

I reached up over the frig and took down the big canister of white powder and took it, along with the vegetable oil into the computer room where Hubby was still scowling over his favorite compute game.  "Here is the full bottle of vegetable oil" and I showed him the container. "Is this the canister you used for flour?" I asked next.  "YES!" Hubby huffed. So I opened it, stuck my finger in - and brought him a whiff.  "Sniff it," I commanded. 

After Hubby looked at the powder and then sniffed it -- he was even more angry.  "For Pete's sake, why did you switch containers on me?"

"Because you bought five huge bags of powdered sugar - and it was going bad just sitting in the cabinet.  It needed to go in an air-tight container If you had just looked at the sticky mess in your bag of shaken chicken, you could have easily seen this was NOT in any semblence or form, flour!  Now, what am I to fix you to eat, because clearly you did not make yourself any dinner."

"I'll just have a sandwich," Hubby mumbled. 

I went to the kitchen, fixed him a sandwich and some fruit -- all of which he ate without even a "thank you:" uttered.  I  gave the dogs a chicken wing each, and took the remaining four wings that Hubby hadn't fried, floured then, seasoned them, and cooked them up in vegetable oil. 

After my dinner, I took in the flour container, showed it to Hubby, who gave it his most evil glare, and we didn't speak to each other the rest of the afternoon. 

My question is (which I admit I haven't had the courage to ask Hubby):  if you've been flouring chicken for at least 70 years, how come you couldn't distinguish confectioner's sugar from all-purpose flour?  Once I tasted the chicken, once I looked seriously at the gooey bag of shaken chicken -- I knew immediately he had used something other than flour - and I'm not the seasoned cook of this outfit.

A New Computer & New Software

Hubby decided, against my better judgment, to purchase a refurbished Dell computer with all the newest operating systems (Windows 7).

Last Sunday we went computer shopping together. I’m not the hardware nerd but I do have a pretty good idea of what software I need to be run and if we could find a good salesperson, they could steer us to the right machine. We found a PC we both liked with ultra high end graphics, but I just couldn’t see making a purchase this summer while we still haven’t optimized the Mac.

Yet like coveting a new car (which thankfully he never does), Hubby wanted the sweet computer we found at MicroCenter. He managed to get through Monday, but by Tuesday, the computer bug just couldn’t be overcome. That night he came lugging home the CPU, took a little nap, and then at midnight woke up thinking he wanted to access the new machine and see how it ran. He sat up all night, installing Office and virus protectors and registering the computer, while I slept blissfully unaware of the havoc he was causing. Without notice, he had unplugged my five year old Sony with all my files and email and he nearly caused a divorce in our once happy household.

Today we ran out and bought a 16 gig USB drive and he has promised to set Sony back up to a monitor so I can at least get all my documents off the machine (I have soooo many pictures and graphics that the files will be huge). I need to get this done before summer school starts. I HAVE to have all my Pittsburg State files intact just so I can feel productive and safe.

As an aside, two summers ago Hubby had all my files transferred to the MAC. But that still leaves two years of grad school files and updated contact lists and bookmarked web sites that need to be saved. Not to mention lesson plans and vocabulary lists and teaching strategies for the novels I’ve taught. And the passwords I’ve completely forgotten!

Today I was rooting around on the Dell when I found that the new Office / Windows has a Blog Writer called “Windows Live Writer” that automatically connects to blogspot. This is my test run to see if: 1) I like it; 2) it’s easy to use; and 3) it actually does work. If this looks weird, that’s why.

For the geeks, here are the specs on the new PC (purchased because of its graphic capabilities – otherwise we’d have never gone Dell): a Sudio XPS 7100 with a 6 core processor featuring vision ultimate technology perfect for movie/photo editing and advanced multitasking. I must say the gaming on this machine is really, really spectacular. Which is currently all I’ve done with it. I’m not as dumb-founded by the new office as I thought I’d be (except I have no real idea what to do with Access). I do love the full Outlook features.

The poor Mac, though, now sits unattended once again. And I had such good intentions this summer. And it’s such a pretty machine.

Spring Break

A much needed week away from school, student problems, and district money issues is what spring break is providing me this year. Tuesday night I got the "stomach flu" -- that 4 hour misery of vomit and diarrhea and 18 hours of exhaustion that nearly everyone dealing with the public gets at least once a year. This however is my second bout in the last month. I can't really complain because I've not had colds or flu, just the stomach problem twice. Anyway, I'm exhausted -- and I was beastly tired before I got hit. So . . . my goal for the next week is to cook a little, clean a little, do all the wash, and take plenty of naps.

Hubby and I took in The Green Zone on Saturday -- his birthday movie of choice. It was very loud. Honestly, you felt like you were in the middle of the war zone in Iraq. I'm divided in my opinion of the movie -- I believe in the premise but the actual movie plot was just kind of "hum." Otherwise we waited to do the fun birthday celebrating today with friends. His presents had been arriving all week from Amazon and he liked his books very much (all business manuals and tour books -- nothing that the literary crowd would ever want to read).

I cooked a nice big breakfast this morning -- hash, scrambled eggs, toast, sliced bananas, hot tea. And then I got busy and made Martha Stewart's mac and cheese for the party this evening. Twenty-five dollars of sharp white cheese and Gruyere went into that dish. The darned stuff had better be delicious. The fancy cheeses had to be shredded and lately I've just been in the habit of buying pre-shredded cheese in those convenient packages but these fancy cheeses required actually grating. And darned if I discovered I didn't own a cheese grater any longer. I finally decided to haul out the Cuisinart and sorted through all the lovely blades I had for it. One looked a lot like a grater but I had to get Hubby to install it -- and voila! it was a grater and the cheese came out perfectly. The white sauce came out thick and gooey and seemed just the perfect accompaniment to the elbow pasta -- except that the sharp white cheddar made the dish very pale in color. I like my mac and cheese a golden yellow. Still I think it will be a hit.

You're Only as Old as You Feel

On March 13th, 2010 Hubby turns 75. How the years have flown! How grateful we are that he is healthy and happy and here to celebrate with us.

No big party, of course. Hubby would hate that. Dear, caring friends are throwing him a special dinner party -- not at a restaurant but in their home with food made by loving hands.

His present from me was a truck-load of books from Amazon, things he couldn't find at the discount bookstores around the city.

I look at the pictures of him from our 37 years together. We have been a couple since 1973 -- and I'm amazed to see that he has suffered only a few alterations. On a day-to-day basis, I just don't notice it. He seems exactly the same to me as he was when he was only -- my stars! 38 years old. I think, inside, he feels exactly the same, too. It's just the knees that have gone bad, the hair that is much sparser and grayer, and some of the stamina is no longer there.

Here's looking for at least another 37 years, my love.

Happy, happy birthday!