Relationship Harmony and Budgets

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Astrophe's Journal

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February 25, 2000 -- 8:O6 PM EST

Strange things afoot.

I cleaned out my car's backseat before letting Paul have it this week, and he got it cleaned up some more. I definitely know the inside was cleaned -- it's all vacuumed up and everything. And the outsides look washed. (!)

Took his lunch today without complaint. (!) And ate it. (!!!!)

He also told me to make him a dental appointment. I've been after him on that one for a while and let it go but he actually brought it up himself (!) this time and asked me to do it for him since he'd likely forget. So I made it.

Then he told me I'd been doing a great job with keeping up on the house even down to making our bed. He notices I make the bed? (!)

I caught a roach with the wastebasket and he came along and squished it for me without teasing me about how crunchy they are. He asked me what I did to the ants because he hasn't seen them.(!) He noticed that there aren't ants?

Paul turned down duck two nights in a row already. (!) What's up? Does he not want duck? Was he just not in the mood? Normally he's very into mom's duck. And tonight he's voted for Breakfast-For-Dinner. Which is going to be Applesauce Pancakes. Which is vegan dinner three nights in a row. (!)

I don't know, man. I could really dig all this.

Ever since the Sunday thing, we've both been ultra-kind people. Harmony. Peace. Love. Understanding. San Francisco and be sure to wear flowers in your hair stuff.

I'm not quite so grinchy about the toilet or the dresser piles. Over the course of the weekend I still have to beat back some laundry into submission and get the house squared away before I kick back and work on software and graphics and webby things but he's trying to notice what I do apart from work and he's trying to not wreck it. Not throwing his socks around or building soda can towers around his desk and washing the dishes. It makes me very cranky to work at this stuff and then have him undo everything I spent the day doing. Yah! For him this is an effort because he's very absent-minded and he's not a big noticer. Today I cleaned out the patio and did yardwork.

In return, I am cutting him some slack when he gets home and not making a huge fuss over him forgetting to take out the trash last night. It makes him very cranky to be at work all day and then have me after his ass on house junk. I'm trying to pace me eating through the day so dinner time for us lines up so we can actually eat together and talk instead of being strangers in the same house.

He noticed some scribblings on the kitchen table over dinner last night.

"'Rent?' That's funny."

"Not us, that was from talking to Holly about budgets. Her stuff. I can show you our list later if you want. Oh, guess who is pregnant!?"

"Not you!"

I laughed. "Of course not me! Holly told me a casual friend of ours from school is pregnant. Isn't that weird? I can't imagine being pregnant now, so soon after school."

"Do I know her?"

"Um...no. I don't think you ever met her. She's nice and used to hang out with us but you never met. I don't think she's really happy about it."

"Is she not close to the father or is he out of the picture or ...?"

"No, not like that. She's not single -- married and they want to have kids... I think it's one of those timing deals but I might be wrong since I haven't talked to her myself. Just got this impression that they're not thrilled to death with how it worked out because they weren't trying or planning. It just... arrived. But they are ok with it now that it's been a little bit and they got used to the idea. She's first trim. I think they were in shock at first. I'd be in shock!"

"I'd be in shock too!"

"Anyway, that 'rent' is not our rent."

"I was wondering because we don't pay 'rent' anymore. Also this loan thing. I didn't know we had a loan thing. So I was confused."

"Her student loans."

"Oh... there's power and phone and the rest of the stuff. Now that's universal."

"Yep. Everyone does those," I agreed.

"I can't believe I used to live on $365." Him thinking about his paycheck when he first quit college and lived in another city.

"You didn't." Me thinking about him hocking CDs and being broke all the time and me covering for him sometimes.

"You are right. I didn't! I feel for her though. Some of this stuff is easy. Rent. Car insurance. Hard definite amounts. Some is too varying and vague and hard to budget. Like 'food.' It's very hard to budget food for a single person."

"You only think it is hard because you haven't done it a lot. I can tell you right now how much we eat in food! Target!"

Verbal shorthand and me thinking about the guessing game. If we do the shopping together we take bets on who comes closest. Last weekend while buying house stuff and food at SuperTarget he guessed about $20-$30 off, and I nailed it to $3 off.

"Your mom is scary."

Verbal shorthand covering this other discussion about my accountant mom and her shopping who does not nail it within $5, like I can. But to the damn penny. And she raises hell at the register if it is off because then she swears up and down the cashier is messing up. It always is the cashier, not my mom.

My mom once lost a quarter to a telephone booth that ate her money and she wrote down the complaint address and sent off a letter and got a check back from the phone people for a quarter. I asked her why she bothered because the stamp for the letter cost more than the check for a quarter she got back and she said it was the principle of the thing. I pulled a dollar out of my pocket and offered to buy that check off her for a neat profit of 60 some cents and she laughed and told me I was crazy. She was going to CASH that check!

I also remember being little and her taking this chalkboard type toy from me for a second and fiddling with the abacus thing on it and I asked her if that is why she waves her hand in the air when she is thinking about money at the grocery store and she said yes. My dad challenged her to a duel with him on a calculator and her on my dinky toy abacus and she won. What a shame people don't know how to use an abacus anymore. It's a shame I am forgetting! But mom with an abacus. Whew! She's lightning on speed!

"Very scary. I found an old budget sheet of yours in one of your old engineering notebooks from back then. I am saving it because I think it is funny."

"I remember that. Right before we moved in together at the Tealwood apartment."

"Yup." We both sat there thinking about first moving in together in 1995. "I have bits of mine too -- might be fun to look at them together and see what I thought was important to budget and what you thought was important to budget."

He laughed.

"Which reminds me, I need to show you how we are budgeting right now."

"There you are. I was wondering..." he started rubbing my leg with his foot under the table.

"No footsie! We're ok on your salary, I'm going for an even split to see how that works out. 20 hours at work and 20 hours at home. If it turns out I need to work more to get us where we want I will, but then we will have to figure out something on the house thing. But I am sort of hoping an even split will work out though. Be nice for kids."

"Mm hmm." Him still rubbing.

We have this loose agreement that when/if we have kids I'll work from home for the first few years and then we will see. I guess I am sort of practicing that lifestyle sans kids to see if it is going to work out, iron out a schedule. We have this other idea that once kids are weaned and a bit older we flip. He can stay home for a few years and be Mr. Mom and work out of our home office and I can go away every day.

"Know what's really nice? Apart from you rubbing my leg with your foot?"

"What?"

"Not having my parents helping anymore. Not that I am not grateful. They bent over backwards helping us with a lot of things. But it thrills me to death not to have them anymore."

"They did help a lot, but I know what you mean."

"I want to do that for our kids."

"Me too."

Here was this whole other discussion summed up in Verbal Shorthand. My parents helped us out a lot in all kinds of ways while I was in school -- too many to list. We started talking about our parents then. But mostly it was about time and budget and work and house. That's was the conversation you could hear. Day-to-day minutia of just living.

The undercurrent was about these feelings with those things. Did he feel ok with the budget? Is he comfortable or needing anything I need to add to the budget? Does he feel ok with my dividing my attention between work and house that way? I am helping enough money wise and how important is the house junk to him? Does he feel as freaked by unplanned pregnancy as I do? If we have kids, how will our finances stretch to be able to provide them with my parents did for us once the kids are grown?

Do *I* feel OK with all that?!

I feel like a rubberband sometimes. Looking at short term things and long term things and middle term things and trying to get a clear picture of it all but not stretching too thin or snapping. I feel better about things in general if he's up to date on everything and I don't mean just when the dentist appointments is or when that baby shower is or how much is in out checking account. I mean with me.

[..]

Helpmate. Why do we call them spouse and wives and husbands and girlfriends and boyfriends. Helpmate is just a better word. I do more husbanding than he does if we are going to go by the definition of husband as being an efficient manager, frugal, etc. Wife is just a gender name. Girl. Woman. Wife.

Husband, while associated with male gender now, really comes out of husbandry, taking care of things, implied animals. So we ought to call both partners husbands.

Still like helpmate better.

[...]

Meanwhile on the fitness front... no exercise save a walk all week so far. I suck. I must get to new shoes because these "hot foots" from my worn shoes are not making fitness fun for me. I ain't gonna do unfun stuff. Sorry!

Food front is improving. I actually cook again. I might be out of this box food-cereal phase again. Although with having pancakes for dinner... this "breakfast" theme seems to be running through all my meals!

~Astrophe