Okay. I’m not a happy camper today. Not by a long shot. Actually, I’m at work, and at present, I’d RATHER be at work than at home. It was NOT a pleasant weekend. I think most of you (or most anybody who ever reads this blog) knows that my DH (and the “D” is not for “dear” right now, trust me. Use your imagination) is retired now. What this means, of course, is that while I schlep back and forth 40 miles on the ‘pike each way and WORK five days a week, he stays home where he can do pretty much as he pleases. He paints his pictures, writes his stories, does a little sculpting, and does household chores like throwing in a few loads of laundry, taking out the trash, cleaning the litter boxes, etc. Nothing that’s exactly labor-intensive or terribly time-consuming by any means. Please keep in mind that five days a week, I leave my house at 6:30 in the morning and get home at 5:30 at night. Usually, I make supper when I get home. (He loads the dishwasher and wipes up the counters & stove). So, I’m gone 11 hours out of 24, and I’m in bed asleep for 6 or 7, so that leaves, say 6 hours a day that are spent - well, an hour and a half getting ready to leave in the morning, so 4 1/2 hours home in the evening before I go to bed, a few hours of which is spent making supper, eating supper, taking a bath, getting my clothes out for work the next day. So, this man - this “DH” - has 11 hours while I’m gone every day to devote to his little projects, and just in the interests of fairness, wouldn’t you say he could keep up with a majority of the housework? Like dusting and vacuuming on a regular basis, maybe? Like sweeping the kitchen floor and even maybe washing it once a week? Like wiping out the refrigerator and throwing out stuff that nobody’s going to eat? Now I’ve gently pointed this out to him from time to time - just gently; just a suggestion, you understand. And each time, he’s responded very positively, and has actually vacuumed - and dusted - at least once before letting it all fall to sh*t again. I should note, of course, that on those occasions when he has called himself “dusting” - well, we have several rooms with floor-to- ceiling, wall-to-wall bookcases. Also, on the book shelves (in front of the books) I have some pictures in frames, some small pieces of sculpture, this and that. So what does he do? He wipes AROUND the pictures and such, and just in FRONT of the books. He doesn’t take a book - or a picture - or anything - down, he just haphazardly wipes around it. AND HE PROUDLY POINTS OUT TO ME THAT HE “DUSTED” TODAY! Blah!

Well, Saturday took the cake. We had plans to go up to a little get together with some friends in New Hampshire. I was planning to bring one of my “Smart” (low calorie, high fiber) Penne Pasta dishes. I make it with Italian flavored turkey sausage, ground turkey meat, chopped green, red and yellow peppers, onions and sliced black olives. Oh, and tomato sauce and diced tomatoes flavored with garlic. It takes a bit of preparation time. But, as I was leaving to go to the grocery store, DH (and remember - the “D” isn’t for “dear”) suddenly “remembered” that he’d had a phone conversation with one of the women during the week and that he’d promised her that he would *make* Boxty cakes - some kind of Irish potato pancakes! Huh? Irish potato pancakes? I’ve never even heard of Irish potato cakes, never mind made any! The only potato pancakes that I’m familiar with are Jewish potato pancakes (served with sour cream and apple sauce - yum!) So, I remain pleasant enough, even though I’m beginning to feel just a tad taken advantage of, here. I mean, I’m bringing 20-freaking pounds of pasta. Why would I need to make potato pancakes (which, mind you, I’ve never even made in my life!) as well? Because HE promised? What kind of woman calls and gets your HUSBAND to promise you’ll bring something, anyway? This is ridiculous. I get to the market and can’t find potato pancake mix. The only thing I can find is a box of potato-something-or-other mix for making potato dumplings. So I buy three boxes of that, finish my shopping and head home. Now, it’s 12:30, and we need to leave by 3:30 in order to get there at 5:00. Hell, yes, I’m disgruntled. I’ve got four burners on my stove and I’m supposed to fry up the sausages and meat for the pasta sauce, have the rest of the pasta sauce warming on another burner, have water heating for the pasta itself on another burner, and of course be frying this freaking potato pancake mess on the fourth and last burner while DH hovers about watching the clock and worrying about leaving on time. I am getting more and more irritated with each passing moment. Finally I reach up to the shelf over my stove where I keep my spices to get  down a bottle of red pepper flakes for the pasta sauce, and the damned spice bottle has about an eighth of an inch of dust on the top. I had to freaking wipe it off in order to use it!!!!! So, at that point, the dam burst, and I let it all out. NUMBER ONE, I am NOT going; NUMBER TWO, I am not going to live in this PIGSTY any longer, and NUMBER THREE, if you know what’s good for you, you’ll trot your a** up to New Hampshire, leave me ALONE for once in my life, and DON’T TALK TO ME when you get back.

So he went, and I spent the evening in blissful solitude in the big chair that we call the “ocean liner” with my feet up on the ottoman, watching a season’s worth of that British sitcom “As Time Goes BY” It was heavenly.

Then, yesterday, I got up and started cleaning the place from top to bottom. And completely ignoring him. He started taking books down off the shelves in the master bedroom, wiping them individually, and doing this meticulous job of attending to each book and each picture frame and each doodad. IT TOOK HIM THE BETTER PART OF THE DAY. And while he was in the bedroom wiping down books, I cleaned the kitchen from ceiling to floor and wall-to-wall, did the same in the dining room, living room, bathroom, and spare bedroom. I did NOT talk to him. I have NOT talked to him. And this morning, I got out my own lunch things, helped myself into my own coat, and left without saying goodby.

And, I’m still annoyed.

I have NOT overeaten - I’ll be damned if I’m going to let HIM push me into eating to feel better. Nope. In fact, all I ate yesterday (because I was SO angry that I flat out wasn’t hungry) was a pear. Period. Today I’ve brought some of the leftover pasta for lunch. Healthy stuff. Yesterday I even went out in the afternoon to WALK. And I managed to do something to my knee. Don’t remember slipping or twisting it or anything, but last night before I went to bed, it was really sore, and I have pouches of swelling underneath and on each side of my kneecap. I can walk on it, but it’s sore. So, I’m annoyed about THAT, too.

Things will get better, of course. This is just the first time in eight years of being together that I’ve had a big blow-out with DH. And it wasn’t even a blow-out, really. I didn’t talk to him at all after that initial declaration about not going, etc., etc. Since then, he’s attempted to talk several times, tried to help with my lunch, tried to help with my coat, but I am just ignoring him. So it isn’t a blow-out. It’s more like an implode than an explode, I guess. But my implodes can be dangerous. They come after many months of self-restraint.

I don’t intend to work on the job AND at home while he does the bare minimum. Nuh-uh. Nope.

AND I will be skinny soon. Skinny and mean. Really.

Sorry for the rant.

Hugs,

Z