7-3-17

Half asleep mundanity in People suck. Cats are awesome. Dogs are alright.

•  July 3, 2017, 1:10 p.m.
 
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• Public

The sedatives that I take to sleep haven’t completely worn off yet, but after my last entry, I wanted to provide some sort of an update, if only a groggy one; and I have a lot on my To-do list today, so I may not have an opportunity later.

He’s been extremely quiet. To the point of grunts and nods in answer to direct questions.

With one exception: He burned his foot pretty badly with boiling water last night, (not like rush to the ER bad, but he’s going to have a nice sore there for a while), and I chuckled. I said, in passing, “You hit my dog, then you burn your foot. I have no sympathy at all.” He said gruffly: “Do we have anything to put on a burn?!” I said “Yeah. It’s on your desk already. That neopsporin that we got for Pumpkin.” I told him to let it air, don’t put ice or water on it, and that he wants the blisters to pop and dry as fast as possible; and that maybe it’ll feel better tomorrow. He yelled, “It won’t feel better! It’s a second degree burn!” I said “I know. I’ve had a lot of them. Don’t you remember, me peeling the skin off my arm at Buy-Low? (I worked in food service most of my life.) It’ll turn into a scab. You’ll be fine. But if you get it wet it’ll take a lot longer and hurt longer. You want to put neopsporin on it and let it get plenty of air.” - And that was the extent of our interaction. I was helpful, in a tangible sense, but not in an emotionally supportive one. I think that’s fair, since he continues to cook dinner, and that’s how he burned his foot.

Before we finished watching T.V., (Which in our case is stuff I download and play on a big monitor, because !@#$ paying for cable), I told him that I had a thought: “I look at the dog the same way I do the cats. I have a maternal sort of feeling about her. You’re going to have to treat her the same way you do the cats.” He said “Have to !@#$!” I said “Well, yeah, you could just ruin our relationship forever, because THAT’S a big improvement. Look at it logically. When she was really little, and screamed all the time, and I wanted to get rid of her, you didn’t have the gumption to take her to the pound. Neither one of us had the heart to take her away to certain euthanization, when neither one of us wanted her here. So we’re stuck with her, barring some horrible, unforseen thing, for the next nine to fifteen years. It’s a WHOLE lot easier to be stuck with something you like, than something that you hate.” - He said absolutely nothing. I said “I don’t expect you to love her, just stop disliking her.” - After that he was in his room.

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And it occurs to me that there’s been a major shift of responsibility, along with the increased income. For the entirety of our relationship, I’VE done the budgeting; because I’m just better at math and he never knows what to buy.

Hell, our very first evening together, I asked him what restaurant we should go to, and he didn’t know. We ended up drawing names out of a hat. Seriously.

And we’ve been so broke that there was always a lot of stress about whether things would get paid, so to alleviate that stress, I always kept a written budget.

Now, for the first time ever, we’ve got money to pay all of the bills, with enough to do it again almost twice, left over. So I don’t need to budget. All I do, as far as money is concerned, is ask him before I buy myself something, because I’m spending his money. (Don’t be jealous, people. I lost everything I owned, my family, and I was homeless for a long time. I’m buying things to try to make myself feel better for the irreplaceable things that are gone forever.)

So this is a major responsibility shift. It’s all on him, all of this income, and deciding what to do with it. - Thus far he’s just letting it accumulate, to spend on home improvement on his vacation. (With the exception of some Wall paper he bought online.)

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I’m trying to get the old tack strips pulled up and the floors super clean for the new carpet, along with the usual housework. So that’s my day planned. Onwards.