Mountains of Laundry

I hate doing laundry. I’m not one of those totally undomesticated females for I do love to cook. I will clean if I must. But laundry is my nemesis and nothing, absolutely nothing except running out of underwear actually motivates me to do a load of laundry. In college I owned hundreds of pairs of underwear limiting the necessity of doing laundry to once a quarter. I would throw a few select pieces of clothing in my college boyfriends basket and this extended the not doing laundry period by even a few more weeks. These days the fiancé usually does the laundry but we have been extremely busy lately. Our dirty clothes were crammed into the closet and were starting to sneak out. I would walk downstairs, look down and see that an extra sock had stuck itself to the bottom of my shoe in an honorable attempt to escape from the mountain of laundry. Both the fiancé and I realized something must be done to fix this situation. He needed to do the laundry.

The fiance worked from home yesterday. Nothing like getting up at 6:45am, showering, getting pretty and looking over and see your beloved still lounging in bed. I’ll admit at that moment I hated him and his flexible job. When I got home last night, all that jealously evaporated because he had done load, after load, after load of laundry. We suspect from the smell it was omitting last night that he might have killed our dryer from running it continuously for 8 hours. I had the unimaginable luxury when I got up this morning of a whole lovely closet full of clothes to choose from. I picked out one of my favorite shirts to wear that hadn’t been clean for a good 6 months.

I walked into work this morning to the following email from the fiancé: “I’m going to do laundry all the time if you’re going to look that cute everyday.” Wow. I just hit the laundry jackpot. I won’t do laundry but I can definitely do cute.

Billy and Bob

I just purchased a brand new chest freezer from Lowe’s. The freezer sits in my garage and mocks what it hides inside by shimmering perfectly white and clean. My sister and my brother-in-law raised two steers named Billy and Bob. Recently those steers met their predetermined fate and I purchased what anyone in the know refers to as a “side of beef”. I packed my frozen solid and wrapped in white paper side of beef into my shiny new freezer.

My sister lives close enough that I occasionally helped feed those boys. I helped herd them from pasture to pasture. I knew their names and could tell them apart. But I fail to feel guilty or even queasy about my yummy white packages. One of those packages turned into a delicious Shepard’s Pie last night and I ate two servings. Growing up on a ranch must have permanently warped me. It reminds me of the Far Side cartoon pictured above that my parents sardonically hung on our refrigerator while I was growing up. And now I really have just one question – who is in my freezer – Billy or Bob?

Just be Nice. For Once.

On Friday night, in a complete rage, I called my mom. The fiancée had failed, completely failed to call churches and get information for the impending wedding ceremony this week after promising to do so. He had tried the weekend before to convince me that getting married in a large, ostentatious catholic cathedral would be a good idea. This caused me to have a complete and total meltdown because I felt he was completely ignoring anything that was important to me in regards to the wedding. After spending two weeks researching reception sites and finding one we both liked, he then nixed that because all of a sudden his priest wasn’t available on the date that the ballroom was available. We yelled at each other. We said nasty things. But in the end we somewhat made peace and he promised to help with the planning. He spoke of making sure what we wanted was in sync and of not just insisting on doing what he wanted. He also promised me that he could call churches in the downtown area and get information. At the end of the week his progress was zero. Nilch. I was livid. The one thing he had promised me he would do to help, he hadn’t made the effort to do. This is where I hung up the phone with the fiancée and called my mother. I knew my mother probably wouldn’t support my anger. But I figured she might have some suggestions on where to go from here. She has made it through over 35 years of marriage and still likes her husband, an amazing feat if you ask me. Her suggestion floored me. She told me to be nice to him when he got home. To make him a nice dinner or to give him a shoulder massage or just do something NICE. I’m not a nice person. My mother once told me that I needed to break up with a boyfriend in college because (her words) “He was just too nice for me”. I did indeed tend to make that boyfriend cry on numerous occasions but that is a story for another time. I’m not good at being nice when I’m angry. I’m not good at being nice when I’m hurt. But after fighting on and off for the last two weeks I was ready to give it a shot. I couldn’t drum up the enthusiasm to give him a massage and he brought dinner home but I did greet him cheerfully. Or well, at least nicely. I even gave him a hug. And you know what? Shockingly, it worked. We got along for the rest of the weekend and had a great time on our trip to the stormy coast. Nice. So not me but worth a try in a pinch…

Cats

The fiancee moved in this week, requiring the first introduction between his cat and my cat. That was fun... I have the scratches to prove it. Instead of doing the reasonable thing and introducing them with his cat in his arms, the fiancee just put his cat down and called over my cat. My big tom cat understandably decides this cat is an intruder, must be dealt with immediately and attacks her. I have to intervene and pull him off. As soon as he realized she was supposed to be in the house, he proceeded to try to become friends with her and play. She still hates him and tries to attack him when he comes near her.
My cat is a friendly, five year old male and is used to living with another cat. His cat is a 2 year old female that hasn't been exposed to other cats at all. She is being a total bitch to my baby. Fine. I'll forgive her. She is frightened, in a new house and there is this huge cat trying to get her to play with him. I get the intimidation factor. Yet, this introduction has forced me to admit that deep down my cat is and always will be my favorite. Everything he does is adorable. Everything she does annoys me. Now these are just cats but when she glares at me or attacks my bare feet at night, I know she knows. She isn't my favorite. I don't love her nearly as much as my baby. Cats somehow just know. But these are just cats. Can you imagine raising a stepkid with your kids? That poor stepkid has got to know that she isn't as special to you as your own kids. Years of therapy probably don't heal those wounds. Maybe we will have to send the fiancee's cat to pet therapy. Or maybe a pet psychic. I've always wanted to meet a pet psychic.