Oooooh, boy! Long day.

Rainy, chilly, grey & gloomy. But we need the rain. Damned drought. "There's no such thing as global warming." Uh-huh. That's why South Fucking Florida is in a three year drought. We're in a fucking SUB-TROPICAL RAIN FOREST and we're in a drought.

But I digress. I've been surfing... and writing... and catching up on stuff. Had a fight with Sweet Husband. What about? Dinner. Cooking dinner. I've just decided that I will never ask him to cook dinner again. See, he thought we could save money if we didn't eat out so much and just bought more stuff at the grocery store. Makes sense. $50 spent at Outback for one dinner each vs. $50 spent on groceries to get us another four or five main courses. Fine - so I got steaks & other assorted meats for dinners. Since he works such crazy hours during the week, I told him I wanted him to grill on the weekend. I bought two cute steaks that my Publix butcher stamped 'great for cookouts' on them. It's Saturday... time to grill. What happens next....?

I get the: 'It's cold and rainy out there and I have to go out and cook' line. When I notice that one of my baking potatoes has FUZZ on it. Real, honest-to-goddess mold-type fuzz on it. When I notice that, I freak (did you know I have a debilitating phobia about molds, spores and fungus?) and Sweet Husband says, "I'll wash it off for you." Umm... like... I don't want to eat it at all! It's fuzzy! It's diseased! I can't believe you would serve me food that had, at any point, had fungus on it! We argue. Back and forth. Believe it or not.

I finally ended up telling him I would make dinner and would never ask him to do it in the future because I couldn't trust that he wouldn't serve me fungus-infected food. I said I would never, if I found a cockroach in his salad, for ex., I would never just pull the roach out and serve him the salad anyway, even though he apparently would do that to me. (But not cockroaches - fungus.) So I broiled the steaks in the oven (I don't do grills - isn't that 'man's work'?) and served it to him 15 minutes later. He pouted, sulked...

Oh. Wait. I forgot one other thing I said. I said: You said we weren't going to eat out anymore, so I thought you'd be doing some cooking too. See, I like eating out because then I don't have to cook, I don't have to clean up, I don't have to serve. It's the only time I get to just eat. You always get to 'just eat.' I wanted you to grill out so I could just sit and enjoy someone else making food for me. But even then, I know, you pull me outside with you and I don't get to just enjoy being waited on. When I cook, yeah sure, sometimes I try to keep you in the kitchen so we can talk, but if you really want to go upstairs and whatever, I let you. But you make me hang out there with you when you grill, and I get eaten alive by bugs (I have sweet blood - all the mosquitoes love me) so it isn't fun for me anyway. But you don't want to do that, so fine. I won't ever ask you again to cook. I'll just go ahead and make dinner and we won't ever have to have this discussion ever again.

And I made dinner.

Later, I apologized to him for 'starting a fight' with him. I had hopes he'd apologize, too, but he didn't. Not really. And not for anything specific. *sigh* I didn't want to apologize, but I'm keenly aware that I got away w/o apologizing when I was growing up and I don't think it's healthy to not be able to apologize when you're part of an argument. And it does take 2 people to make an argument.

So later still, he came upstairs and said he didn't like making me upset. Then he said he tried to think about when the last time he DID cook was (he's a really really good intuitive chef, btw. Can't follow a recipe worth shit but he has some dishes he makes that are OUT of this world) and he couldn't come up with a single instance. Neither could I, not specifically, not even a dish he'd made. He makes his own breakfasts, he makes his own meals when it's 'feed yourself night.' But cooking for both of us? Hmm.. that's a toughie. It hasn't been since long before Thanksgiving, I know that much! So he said he felt bad about that and volunteered to make dinner tomorrow night.

I imagine I'll be posting how 'something suddenly came up' and he didn't end up cooking. Like, something PC-wise went wrong and he needed to fix it. Like, he's too tired. Like, it's getting to be 9 pm and I'm about ready to go to bed (which has happened - he doesn't tend to remember to do things like that until REAL late). In fact... I think that's what happened the last time he was in charge of dinner - it didn't get made until 9 pm. I like to eat before 8 and hopefully around 7. [If I eat chocolate after 10, I have horrible nightmares and get sick. Seriously sick. Like throw-up sick. Don't know why.]

So we'll see. I'm not holding out much hope.

Other than that... things are pretty okay. My story's going well. The surfing has been extremely interesting. The music has been fun. I have a candle burning and it's cozy inside 'cause it's raining outside and I have the love and comfort of all my bears.
posted by SPowers at 11:09 PM | Remember It!

Awww! Sandra - I knew you'd love this next class just as much as your last one! I'm so happy, too, that you're starting a blog. Now I can keep better tabs on you, my across-the-world-Aussie friend! Oi! Oi! Oi!

And Deb!!! So glad you're back! (and even gladder that you got a mini-vacation!) Can't wait to hear all about it. :-)

What's up with me? My tummy hurts. :-( I've been reading The Fellowship of the Ring to Sweet Husband. That's been fun. Chapter 3 tonight. At some point, too, I need to watch some of the TV shows I've been loyally taping... *sigh*
posted by SPowers at 1:49 PM | Remember It!

My mood? Kinda embarassed. See, Deb called me last night from the hotel after Jenni left. Deb sounded SO pumped & happy - it was nice. :-) Apparently, the two of them had a super-fantab time and Deb's been getting a LOT of reading done. It's nice to have a mini-vacation every now & then, you know?

So - we're talking and just as I'm about to start chatting about the boards & gossip & stuff, she has to put a quarter into the phone. No sweat. Then we continue talking. I ask about Katie (she's doing fine, just as we thought she would) and then... she's hit up for another quarter. "Hey, Shana," she says. "Can you call me back? That way I don't have to keep feeding the machine."

"Sure - what's the number? I'll get a pen." See, I was reading in bed when the phone rang. I don't keep pens in my bed. Handcuffs yes, pens no. Call me cuckoo. I scramble out of bed and grab a pen off Sweet Husband's dresser. It has no ink, but I press down really hard, thinking I can just read the scratches and hope for the best where my short-term memory is concerned. Deb gives me the area code and exchange... and the phone goes dead.

ACK!!

Thinking and moving quickly, I race into the PC room and pull up Deb's email where she told me the phone # for her hotel. I call it - get the front desk - ask for Deb's room - and it rings into the answering machine.

ACK!!

Stupid me! She was calling from a payphone not her room phone!! So I leave a message and tell her I'll call her on Friday. I hang up. Phone rings. It's Deb.

(pant pant pant) "I had to run to get more change!" (laughter)

"Oh, um... Deb..." And I explain what I did.

"Umm.. Shana?" she asks politely. "I'm in the lobby. On the first floor. My room's on the 19th. How fast do you think I could get up there?"

Well... she is Wonder Woman, ain't she?

So I'm calling her on Friday. She went to the bar. There wasn't much going on anyway.
posted by SPowers at 12:16 PM | Remember It!

What? I'm only 33% bitch? That's crazy!!

I mean... look at the picture (over to the left)... I've cut my Barbie's hair before! You'd think that would count for something. (pout)
posted by SPowers at 6:16 PM | Remember It!

Well.. the Super Bowl is winding down and my interest has waned. The squirrel commercial was worth every penny of admission. DQ my dear, you are on to something! (but then... when have I ever doubted you? I mean, seriously?)

Made stew today. It simmered all day long as I cleaned part of my bedroom (I finally put away the Christmas tree. Can you believe Sweet Husband actually suggested we make it a 'holiday' tree and decorate it for Valentine's Day? like... YUCK!) and the living room. I did the living room during the pre-game show. It made the whole thing more bearable. How many whiny millionaire athletes could there possibly be? Oh - I get it. All of them!

Oh - and Dilfer's a wuss. I'm in Tampa. I know. I remember how he treated us when he was a Buccaneer. The world revolved around him and he made NO secret of that fact to the local media. Then he gets traded and... what... now he knows how to play football? Course... once he's back at the ol' stadium, poor Trent went and hurt his little finger. Awww! He actually left the game to go get it x-rayed. It was not broken. It was just scraped. It was his left hand! He throws with his RIGHT.

Otherwise... I'm going to start counting down the days until The Lord of the Rings gets released. Well, part one anyway. Sweet Husband and I are going to start re-reading the books in anticipation. We want to be prepared when we see it on Opening Day. I'm thinking of saving a vacation day for it, and I know Sweet Husband had best call in sick!

Also, I finally got Sweet to set up the tape player correctly so I could make my mix tape for my Aussie penpal. I only promised it to her five or so months ago. Did I ever indicate to anyone that I was a punctual person? I didn't mean to...
posted by SPowers at 9:33 PM | Remember It!