House Rules

Ok, I'm a rule person. And I'm learning that following my own rules can be, and I dread to say it, somewhat subjective. It's fine for me to make the rule "this is a no-drinking household" when the kids are obnoxiously drunk. But it's a far different story when I've had a stressful day at work and all I want is a glass of wine with dinner. The better rule is, "do as I say, not as I do." I'm not proud of it.

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.