Retirement, When You Do Nothing

 It has been a few days since I have been able to get into my blogger account. Am I being punished? Maybe! I tried to open a new account with a different email address and that failed miserably. I followed the "easy" steps provided and got stuck and could not get out. It was like an electronic jail holding my account hostage.

Anyway, here I am. We celebrated 49 years of marriage this past Sunday. We went out to eat at an outrageously expensive restaurant. Still recovering from the the tooth extraction and now dizzy again, I wasn't all that enthusiastic about going out to eat. I went because the man I married, who now sports cow veins in his legs, wanted prime beef and they do not serve this on Sunday. Ignore the fact that rare beef is not supposed to be a part of his diet. I chose to eat the "special". It was steak and I ate about 1/3, bringing the remainder home. HeWho loves beef ate my leftovers yesterday. I did have a serving of She Crab soup that was excellent and I enjoyed that. No drinks for me, as I was still swallowing the hateful penicillin. My digestive system does not like prolonged antibiotics.

You would think after 49 years the man would know me. He is apparantly clueless when it comes to reading my mood. He sits, feet up, totally absorbed in his phone. A big fan of U-tube, he seems to be able to watch it all his waking hours.

We will be on the road on the 23rd, traveling south to spend Christmas with my daughter and her family and her friend's family. I have my orders for my contribution for dinner. Things I could make in my sleep and really don't need a recipe for. Two pecan pies,one with chocolate and a big casserole of mac and cheese. Easy enough. Today I will make cookies and I will just take what I need to make the pies and mac and cheese at her house.

My grandson, Gavin loves my mac and cheese and I love Gavin. In return I will be asking him to help me make a video for his Papa, telling him about all his wife's moods and how to read them. At least Gav and I will have fun. Papa will, no doubt be watching his phone (unless we decide to hide it).

HeWho has been my mate for 49 years has always insisted on a fan blowing in order to sleep. In my never ending battle with dog hair, I was vacuuming and picked up said fan to move it and noticed that despite my nagging, It was full of clumps of dust and dog hair .....

So I asked the man who thinks retirement means you do absolutely nothing all day, if he could take the fan apart for me to clean it. The deep sigh and unpleasant look I got just set me off. It is not like I asked him to lasso the moon and bring it to me! I cannot count the number of times he has said, "If you need help, all you have to do is ask." Like it is my own fault he does nothing to contribute to the day to day running of a household. This happens everytime I ask, so I normally just do it myself. It is easier on my blood pressure.

When he saw what a mistake he had made he attempted to grab the drill from my hand before he saw the look in my eye. I then told him if he touched the fan I would be happy to get the axe out of the shed and demolish it. I meant every word and he knew it. Upon taking the front and the back off the fan I noted that there should be 6 screws on each side and it was 4 screws short. This accounts for the rattle that keeps me awake at night. He was mumbling and saying that it was too cold to take it outside to clean it (and lose the remaining screws in the yard I mow, setting me up for another screw to be caught in the blades of the mower and possibly shooting myself in the leg again). 

I told him that all I asked him to do was to take the front and back off, so that while I had the vacuum in hand I could suck all the dog hair out. No, I was not very pleasant when I spoke. I reminded him that he had told me I should just ask if I needed help. He then adopted a pained, put-upon expression that he uses when he thinks he can turn things around to make it be all about my "attitude". He failed miserably. I took the fan apart and cleaned, then hunted down some screws to put it back together properly. I AM my father's daughter!

And, just like that, my clean house has brought back my sweet and pleasant attitude! Butter is sitting in 3 mixing bowls, softening and awaiting other ingredients to make cookies. I have showered and applied a good bit of Biofreeze to my back and will soon be up and in the kitchen. It was 27 degrees this morning and won't be warming up all that much, so this is a good day to have my oven on for several hours. I plan ahead.

Just wondering if I will ever retire ..... I doubt I would be happy doing nothing.