From him: Like cats and dogs...

I am a dog person living in a cat household. That fact was just reinforced as I performed the monthly major-cleaning of the litter box.

Now don't get me wrong. I am content with the fact that I will live with these cats until one or the other of us passes on. Pets are an obligation not to be assumed lightly, and that carry with them almost as as much duty and responsibility as getting married or having kids. And as the sexy wife and I blend our households, we both brought with us plenty of baggage. If you compare the two cats she contributed to the ex-wife that I thew in the mix, the baggage scale pretty much collapses in my direction. (We balance equally in the kid contribution, which is probably for the best.)

However now that I am living with, feeding, and cleaning up after two cats, my dog side is more obvious to me.

I'm truthfully not sure why that is. Obviously at this moment cat urine is affecting my mood. One of the tricks for teaching small boys to pee in the toilet is to float cheerios there as a target (good fun had by all.) The cats have a covered litter box, and I'm pretty sure their cheerio equivalent is trying to aim right for the seam between the top and bottom of the litter box. "Hey Lars! I nailed that sucker good when I was down taking a leak right now!" Hairballs are also one of God's less well thought out moments (God:
"Hmm...lets make cats fastidious. They can clean them selves with their tongues. Cool. What can I have them do with all the hair they collect? I'll come back and fix that part later...")

Dogs are clearly just as bad. While they don't have a litter box, I can't count the number of hours I have spent walking around the back yard with large plastic bag and a shovel cleaning up. A dog has relatively few responsibilities beyond consuming dog food and turning it into turds. I have de-skunked dogs, washed them after they rolled in a delightful dead fish on the beach, removed ticks, and on one memorable occasion cleaned up after a dog who ate a bar of soap. For reference, a dog's digestive system works very actively to expel from both ends any soap it runs into.

However on balance I wouldn't hesitate to get a dog, but would be long-sufferingly supportive if the sexy wife falls for another cat.

Our life plan calls for shedding obligations to ALL kids and pets over the next few years, which should increase the amount of time we can drink wine in bed. I'm sure that life plan will be as successful as most, so I'm practicing the phrase "Hello kitty."

From him: Life

So the sexy wife is currently in a religion/philosophy class, and the first assignment was to answer a bunch of questions on her world view. Including gems such as "What is really real", and "Why is there something rather than nothing." Now personally, I love discussions like that, particularly after a certain amount of appropriate mental lubrication. And I think assignments like that are easy, because (as I keep reminding the sexy wife) there is no right answer! She, on the other hand, likes to put a lot more thought into her answers, and agonizes over what she believes and how to express it well.

I think its fascinating to contrast our answers to "What happens to a person after death?"

Him:

Not a damn thing. You live your life, you make your contribution to society and the universe. And when you die you're gone. Your impact on people and on the world fades over time. Some people fade more slowly than others. Arguably Gilgamesh (circa 2600BC) still has an effect on the world, but the impact of some child who died at age one month in 1920 is probably negligible at this point.

Her:

This is by far the most difficult question for me. I believe our soul is what makes us who we are. Our soul is made up of our emotions, thoughts and beliefs. Our bodies are simply the means by which our souls live on earth. I have been taught that after death our souls will go to either heaven or hell, depending on how we have lived our lives on earth. I have been taught that heaven is where you meet God and loved ones who have preceded you in death; heaven is a beautiful place void of pain and suffering. However, I am not convinced that our contribution to existence simply ends there.

Its a wonder we are so compatible when we're just living life together.

From him: Changing jobs

I'm starting to conclude that there are different kinds of bloggers. Some people are great at blogging in the heat of life. The more crazy life gets, the more they have the need to share it with the world, perhaps because getting it out of your head and getting it into the ether is a stress reliever. Other people blog more contemplatively, sharing the kind of keen insights that only come when you have a couple of hours and your beverage of choice (caffeinated, alcoholic, hot, cold, it seems a necessary ingredient.)

I'm still evolving as a blogger, but I think I am more of the latter. When things get crazy I'm not so good. And things are definitely interesting now.

I'm changing jobs after being with the same (big blue) company for almost 22 years. That is a scary thought, but I'm excited as well. I feel exactly the same way I felt when I bungee jumped in New Zealand. And the sexy wife has been really supportive. Change is not really her thing, but she's been happy for me, and very calm about things like me dropping out of a trip to San Francisco I was going to go with her on.

Its been especially interesting telling all my co-workers I'm leaving. They too are universally happy for me, and its a bit telling, I think, that there is a degree of envy. Many of the people I work with have been here for a long time. 30 years is not unknown. And part of that is the sense of (perhaps false) security in a nice big corporate environment. So I feel kind of like the lone warrior stepping out from the walls of the village and exploring the big bad world outside. We'll see whether I come scurrying back to the walls in terror when I see what's out there.

From her: Little Things become Big Things

Soooo, here's some advice. Don't bring a glass of port to the bedroom and then spill it all over your clock radio. Do call your husband and tell him you'd like to have phone sex, and follow through of course (he gets all crazy happy and more in love with you).

From her: Monday night

I can't sleep so I might as well write a post, accompanied by a glass of port. Maybe contributing will relieve a bit of stress and maybe the port will make me sleepy.

I have to wonder why we're doing this in the first place. Do we have too much time on our hands? (I can tell you I don't!) Is it to entertain each other? Is it a way to tell each other what we want to say without having to say it out loud or face to face? Perhaps it's a way to see the comedy in our life, or just how much we drink. As you can tell, it wasn't my idea. And I'm fairly certain its birth was out of procrastination of something more important Husband needed to do.

So here we are. I certainly don't want to be the Debbie-downer and not go along with the fun. But in reality, I am. I find this new form of interacting to be very stressful. So much expectation associated with it; and subsequent guilt when I don't keep up, or am not as witty. In some ways it feels like a competition of cleverness and writing skills. But that is a statement reflecting my mood, because when I'm skipping through life (yes, it happens occasionally), I love being clever and recording my thoughts.

Tonight, however, all I really want to do is eat the homemade chocolate chip cookies currently sitting on the kitchen table. All of them, all at once. With another glass of port.

From him: Saturday night

Saturday night was a really good night. The day was long and hard. It would have been easier to handle 9 hours of home improvements if we hadn't been good and done some running and working out first. Needless to say, by 8pm we were totally wiped out. We spent the evening at home, having dinner, and then drinking wine and port and playing Gin by candle light. Josh Groban, Diana Krall, and Michael Buble on the stereo.

We played until the sexy wife could no longer recognize three-of-a-kind in her hand and then called it a night. It was really nice having a romantic, kid-free evening with just the two of us.

Having the 23-year-old wake us up at 1:00am because he was locked out of the house only put a small damper on the relaxation.

From Him: the tipsy blog

Originally I was thinking this blog could be a back and forth kind of thing. Think Jane Curtain and Dan Acroyd. Possibly without me saying "Jane you ignorant slut." Having some kind of pressure to write a blog (e.g. your partner wrote their post, where's yours) seems like a good way to stop a blog from fading away through inactivity. However the sexy wife has been eyebrows deep in an accounting class for the last couple of months (see the previous post), and adding more pressure is just likely to make her go completely postal. Not pretty, and not good for either of us. I'll just use this forum to unload, and eventually, following the last accounting class and accompanying alcoholic unwinding (several gin martinis should do it) she can probably join back in.

On the subject of alcohol, I was feeling a little cooped up in the home office, which consists primarily of of a desk, printer, and kitty litter box. I can't really complain, since the sexy wife worked there for years, but come Friday afternoon I really needed to get out. I was happy to discover that the local Buffalo Wild Wings has both Bass Ale (which I already knew) and free wireless (which I did not.) I decided to work the remainder of the afternoon here, consuming of both. Though between the beer and the blogging, "work" is perhaps a stretch.

My other excuse for the beer is the deep thinking required on the subject of my employment. I have worked for the same large blue corporation for the last 21 years. And in the next day or so I'm expecting a job offer from a much smaller company. The trade off is basically boring stability against a much more challenging job that should either have much greater rewards, or crash and burn spectacularly. Unfortunately for the sexy wife (who is much more conservative) I tend to prefer even spectacular crashing and buring to boring stability, which should give you an idea of which way I'm leaning.

From Him: Web 2.0

Apparently mentioning it on the blog is an excellent way to convince the sexy wife to skip out of work and head up to the room.

God I love Web 2.0

From Him: Looking in the mirror

Regardless of who is better at working and playing, we sat outside on the deck last night having drinks with a nice group of people. Other than a very cliche "I'm not drinking any more" from the sexy wife this morning as she stumbled out of the room at 8:00am to start work, it was a lot of fun. The sexy wife loves gin at night and regrets it in the morning.

There is another couple at this event who have only been together for about five months. Both have their own kids (as the sexy wife and I do), and he is still in the middle of the ugly part of ending a previous marriage. Talking to them was kind of like looking back at the sexy wife and I a couple of years ago. Including the fact that whenenever they look at each other you can tell that heading back to the hotel room is high on the list of things to do next. Which, now that I think about it, isn't a bad idea.

What is interesting, and a little spooky, is that he mentioned us to the new girlfriend before coming down here as an example of relationships-in-action. Now I do think we do the whole couple thing pretty well, but I had no idea we were someone else's poster child for second relationships. This blog notwithstanding, the sexy wife and I basically go about our lives without a lot of fanfare, so its surprising to find out we're the source of scrutiny we never even knew about.

On a related note, I started this blog referencing the drunken housewife blog. I did that because she is funny, happy, loquacious and entertaining. The very next posting she made after I did that involved difficulties in her marriage. Which obviously makes for a less funny and upbeat blog. Sigh. Relationships are hard. Hopefully having this venue as another way to interact is a good thing.

Now, how do I convince the sexy wife to skip out of work and head up to the room...

From Her: F*ck Florida

So here I am, in our hotel room doing the "school" side of my life while fun-seeking husband is out to dinner with the conference group. I spent the day working (if you call sitting around with fellow conference staff creating a blog, work). He slept in, went out for breakfast and laid on the beach with some sort of slushy rum beverage. Tonight, instead of going out for "relaxation", I'm doing homework and listening to the delightful screams of vacationers splashing in the pool just outside our balcony. Where is the balance in that, I ask?

And in the midst of all this fun I'm having in my balanced life, Child #2 calls in great distress. She is visiting her father's side of the family and hating it. She always hates it, but this time she called me crying hysterically. "Grandma and Grandpa just yelled at me.....and no one stuck up for me, not even Dad." I counseled her to just give up on the whole lot of them and live her own life the way she wants to live it. At least then I won't have to be involved in all that ex-family drama. (Is parental counseling centered on selfish goals the sign of a good parent?)

So, balance. I think fun-seeking husband meant to say that I am better at working before playing, and he is better at playing before working. As we are well establishing in our posts thus far.

From him: Florida

Happy in Florida for the week away from home and kids. Its not a vacation, exactly, since we're both working, but the hotel is beautiful, the beach is great, and there is alcohol and good food. The sexy wife is doing an awesome job (better than I) of balancing work and school and relaxation. The red wine with dinner last night definitely helped.

The Chicago kids were hilarious when we told them we were going away for a week. Both independently said to me "Its going to be hell living with my brother/sister for a week with you gone." Oh well, they'll survive.

Child #2 never sleeps in her room due to the large amounts of personal belongings (aka crap, and I'm tempted to use a stronger word) that came back from college with her for the summer. Normally she crashes out on the couch, but we removed all the sheets and covers from our bed in a (probably vain) attempt to prevent her sleeping in our bed for the week. That probably seems a little passive aggressive, but I like to think of it as good old-fashioned messing with your kids.

From Him: Makeup sex

The sexy wife made that previous blog entry before the evening got worse. Fortunately for me, or there would have been a much more verbose oration on my failings as both a human being and a husband. The evening out with the guys stretched late into the night, and I was perhaps a little more terse in some of my responses to the sexy wife than I should have been. This left the impression that hanging out with the guys was of greater importance than spending a few minutes talking to my better half. To the point that the word "a**hole was used in reference to this poor blogger.

I like to think of the whole thing as a demonstration of how deep and solid is our relationship. While the next couple of days were not entirely pleasant ("Get your hands off me!"), we worked things through and the make-up sex was (as always) great. The sexy wife is a great believer in motivating her husband to work on resolving issues, and ensuring that EVERYTHING is worked through before moving on to the make-up sex provides for significant motivation.

You hear the phrase "lingering resentment" thrown around, and I really believe that if there is "lingering resentment" after you have made up from a fight, it is a bad sign (I'll have to consult blogger to see how to further emphasize bad.) So even though I was an a**hole, I don't think we have any lingering resentment. I think that is hugely important. We've both been married before, and certainly in my previous relationship "lingering resentment" was a constant fact of life, like a bad tattoo.

I'm sure if I'm wrong about there being no lingering resentment, I'll hear about it here if not elsewhere.

On a completely unrelated note, if you're into blogging its worth reading What Thomas Edison Can Teach You about Blogging. Some of the more interesting conclusions are that most blogs are abandoned after a month or two, and the average time that it takes a blog to rise to the top of the pile is around three years.

From Her: He's out getting drunk

While I was at work today, he was off at a company outing. A sunny, warm, afternoon baseball game complete with burgers, dogs and of course, beer. How else does one do baseball?

It was all very nice and I enjoyed his noble attempt at fitness by riding his bicycle to the field, only to "forget" the lock combination long enough to walk home, drive to the hardware store, purchase a bolt cutter, rip off the packaging, throw away the receipt (as if he would return it anyway) and drive all the way back to his lonely bike at the ballpark. Entertainment at its best considering he is usually the astute one.

It was all very nice and entertaining, until I arrived home after my hour commute to cat puke on my laptop (luckily it was closed), and the air conditioning cooling the house on its way out the windows. How silly of me to think a 20 year old would have more sense. Suddenly, the phone call from my spirited husband, now drinking al fresco at a posh little place downtown, with his guy friends who-ha'ing in the background, was much less amusing. "I'll call you later," he said. Good idea. And it only got worse when he did.

I was working out with the girls and suddenly realized the need to rush to the bathroom to deal with the untimely, bursting reminder that I still produce unwanted eggs, when he called from his guy friend's deck. I blame myself for even answering the phone; then I turned it off.

Let's just call it a night sweetheart.

From Him: The first post

I have to confess that this blog is shamelessly motivated by The Drunken Housewife. I have always been envious of people who can blog consistently and entertainingly, which she invariably does. Her blog is fueled by precocious small children, innumerable pets and a suitably ironic husband all lubricated by appropriate (or sufficiently inappropriate) amounts of alcohol.

Unfortunately I have to conclude that someone with a similar amount of alcohol, but living on the opposite side of the gender divide will never be as entertaining. For some reason it is "cute" to read about women struggling with life. When a guy does it, the same story comes across as pathetic. Thus even though I too have children (older, but equally entertaining), pets, and a spouse with enough foibles to provide daily inspiration, it is unlikely that anything I write would capture the interest of the Internet as a whole.

The nice thing about being a couple is that you can compensate for each other's inadequacies. Even though I haven't quite mentioned it to her yet, this blog is a couples blog, wrapped in just enough anonymity that we can talk about subject that would most likely offend the children (who aren't really interested in knowing what we do in the bedroom with the door closed), or parents (some of whom refuse to use a computer, and therefore aren't really a worry), or friends (whom we would like to keep.)

When I was looking for a title for this blog (and ended up with the shameless rip-off of the drunken housewife) I tried "couplelife". That one was taken, but I laughed out loud because the current title of that blog on blogspot is "Frustrating Relationship". I guess we'll have to figure out who gets to control the title of this blog.