What’s In Your Shopping Cart?

Feb 062010
 

I believe I am a champion grocery shopper. Fresh organic veggies. Check. Fresh basil for pesto. Check.  Salmon on sale. Check. Husband’s favorite cereal? Check. A case of wine (because you really want to earn that 15% discount, right?). Check.

Six bags later and we could open our own gourmet restaurant.

When I was single, I sucked at food shopping. It is hard to cook for one person. It’s even harder when that one person (me) travelled a lot for business. Add living in major city with abundant restaurants along with lots of single friends to hang out with and lots of single men to date, well, you could say eating in was the exception and not the rule.

But now married, the whole food business has been turned on its head. I learned how to shop. And, cook. (And, basically gained 10 pounds on the spot. I hear this story often from former single people now married and cooking most nights.)

However, getting married later in life adds to the change-up. For one, we have very definite ideas about what constitutes real food. We’ve had about 40 years to declare our different tastes. Nothing spotlights this more than around Super Bowl time. (Someone reallly needs to do a study about how much more food is sold due to football.)

This particular Super Bowl Sunday weekend also was special. We were expecting 28 inches of snow (which is about 28 inches more than we ever get).  I – along with the rest of the town – descended upon our various and sundry food stores a few days in advance to basically wipe them clean. I came home with, oh, about eight bags. This is a lot. Remember, there are only two of us. Oh, and one puppy.

But, apparently, I did not get all the right food. This is because yesterday, as the 28 inches of snow began to descend, Husband announced he was going food shopping.

What do we need? I asked.

Snacks for Sunday. He said earnestly. And, out the door he went into the blizzard to hunt down and drag home two tubs of hummus, one tub of guacamole, a bag of  chips, six boxes of various crackers, grapes, more beer (we were down to a measly six), three kinds of gourmet cheeses, a bag of carrots and broccoli for dipping, various fruit drinks, bananas, and I don’t know what else. It was three bags of snacks. For the two of us.

(He also proudly told me that, when he arrived, there was no guacamole anywhere. But, he tracked someone down who was unloading a truck to get the “just-shipped-in” fresh tub.)

We now could be snowed in for about three weeks and never have anything twice. I do believe we have more food in our kitchen than the Harris Teeter has left on its shelves.  I’m not exactly sure what the correlation between football and a sudden surge in appetite, but it’s there. Good thing it’s snowing. We’re gonna need some shoveling exercise.

 Posted by on February 6, 2010 6 Responses »

Shifting Financial Roles in Today’s Marriage

Feb 052010
 

I’m not sure how I feel about this. A new report from Pew Research Center came out this month that shows Husbands around the country are making financial gains by being married. This is new, apparently. Wives are bringing bacon to the table like nobody’s business and men are, economically-speaking, the better for it.

Historically, women had to get married to reach certain economic thresholds. But, now due to women making their own money (and sometimes lots of it), they are actually adding to men’s financial status (versus the other way around). Also, as of December 2009, women account for 47.4% of the workforce – a new record.

Yeah, for us.

I am cheering inside that women are finally making gains in the workforce, being paid higher (though still not equal) wages, and having more choice than ever around career, motherhood and marriage. (Another threshold has been hit: a marked decline in the number of Americans who are married at all.  Among U.S.-born 30- to 44-year-olds, 60% were married in 2007, compared with 84% in 1970. In other words – if you want to get married, go ahead. If you don’t, don’t.)

Another part of me grew worried about this economic trend. And, I think it has to do with the way the news is being reported. It all sounds like men and women are, once again, being pitted against one another. Like who is winning and who is losing, who brings the most and who doesn’t. Ick.

Don’t get me wrong. I was raised by a feminist (seriously – she was part of the League of Women Voters and everything). I appreciate the gains made in male-female relationships and roles. So do a lot of people – men included.

About million years ago (being facetious), my college poetry teacher talked about the women’s movement one day in class. He said he was so relieved. It meant the full burden of being the breadwinner, the strong one, the everything in a relationship was being lifted. He could finally share “the load.” At the time it sounded quite enlightened. (He was interested in my roommate at the time, so there may have been some other intentions there, too. But, I digress.)

However, I do believe, if I was single I would have heard this news in one way. (Again, yeah, for us.) Now that I’m married I hear this news under a different perspective. I am thinking – how can I make sure Husband – who also has heard of this news —  continues to be empowered to 1) do fulfilling work and 2) bring home lots of bacon for it? I mean, I don’t want him to feel emasculated. (He tells me he’s not that delicate.) I also don’t want women to feel the pressure either. Something more equal would be nice. I really only want one leg of the marital pants – not the whole garment.

This Pew report was carried everywhere (newspapers, on Good Morning America, online, you name it). Some of the headlines simply talked about how marriage was becoming more equal, economically speaking. Other headlines were waving a flag like we’ve won a war or something. “Marriage Benefits Men More Than Women,” “The Rise of Wives,” “Modern Marriages: The Rise of the Sugar Mama,” and “Women’s Earning Power Shifts Economics of Marriage” to name a few.

In society we have rewarded men for their ambition. They must all want to be CEOs to be considered valuable. (Personally, I take issue with this. Ambition comes in all forms.) But, we may have created an impossible scenario for them, leading us to believe that this news (women actually adding to the marital pot of gold) is actually really, really big news. Not only should they all be CEOs, but they all should watch out because women are hot on their tails (economically speaking, that is).

I’m not so sure it’s nice to imply a group (in this case: men) are falling behind. And, that someone else is winning. I want equality, not overtaking.

Am I being oversensitive?

Below are some reports, research and commentary on this whole topic, if you’d like to read more:

 Posted by on February 5, 2010 1 Response »

I Have a Puppy! Sort of.

Feb 032010
 

Well, actually, she’s not mine. We’re puppy-sitting for two weeks while friends are on vacation.  And, I have been told, under no uncertain terms, by all parties involved (including Husband) that she is to return to her family upon vacation’s end. Ooooo-kay.

I am sure Husband has ulterior motives for this puppy stint. He is hoping it will cure me of my doggie desires. Ha. I have made no secret of my puppy lust. But, he continues to try to steer me in the direction of believing this is a lot of trouble. Subtly is not Husband’s strong suit in such matters, so I saw right through his veiled attempts at turning me off to puppy motherhood.

Puppy is a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel with a baby face and sweet temperament to match. She loves to play, yet sleeps a LOT. These traits make it hard to not want one of your own. Husband still tries to stay neutral.

For one, the first time she “doo-dooed” (outside), she promptly decided to clean her butt (once inside) on the carpet. Husband picked her up, stuck her cute little tush in my face and said, get out the baby wipes. This is your job. (Subtle.) Husband sorely underestimated my resolve for puppy care, however. Wiping a butt the size of a teddy bear is not hard at all.

She slept through the first night with us, easily. Then, in the morning, she awoke at 5:30 a.m. needing to go outside. Husband poked me. She needs to go out, he announced and promptly rolled over. I could “feel” him smiling. I am sure he was hoping this early-rising to do puppy pee duty was going to turn me off immediately, given I am not a morning person. No such luck.

Puppy didn’t exactly want to be out in the new 12 inches of powder snow that we got the day before, either. She walked out, did her thing, and walked right back in. And, while earlier int he day her favorite pee spot at Chez LBB was the middle of the road in front of our house, she was easily persuaded to visit “out back” to claim a new spot that early, early morning. (We’re hoping once the snow melts and the asphalt reveals itself, she’ll also decide that’s not the best place to squat.)

Back into her crate, she was snoring again before my head hit the pillow. About two hours later she let us know she had enough of her crate and promptly crawled into bed with us. (Well, okay, I picked her up and assumed the snuggle position.) She was snoring again before I had a chance to rearrange the bed covers. She slept until 8:30. My kinda girl.

Husband was not amused. He thinks a Puppy-Wife conspiracy is being developed. Heh-heh-heh. We girls stick together.

 Posted by on February 3, 2010 5 Responses »

Book Recommendation Part Two: Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert

Feb 012010
 

I wrote earlier I’d have to discuss this book in parts (part one), but I didn’t realize it would take me this long. It’s just that after getting half way through this book I needed to do something. I realized by page 201, I needed my mother.

One of my favorite parts of Gilbert’s book is where she recounts her conversations with her own mother. At that point, I simply had to stop reading to talk to my own mom about her experiences. I never outright asked my own mother about her thoughts on the subject at hand. Pieces of advice would float between us, but I never really asked the question: What is it about marriage that you like so much? I mean, my mother is the most optimistic person I know around this institution.

(She is now married to her fourth husband, “the one” who had not been married before. She lovingly describes their situation as, I am the first wife of my fourth husband. My mother has a great sense of humor.)

Also, I believed she would have lots to say because she went through some of the most tumultuous times around marriage – the 1970s. And, things were vastly different in that decade compared to today.

My mom grew up with the 1950s decree: Marry. And, soon.  Additionally, her father would write “MM” at the bottom of his letters to her in college. The “MM” stood for Marry Money. This was typical when growing up in the 1950s.

Instead, she married for love, at the ripe old age of 20, to a college professor with whom she had three children (myself included) through the 1960s while the hippies raged war on convention. The 1970s and 1980s brought the women’s movement, her own divorce and remarriage. I suspected she has much to say about how one should, can or might view marriage. She did.

First, I learned my mother was sold on the idea – as so many baby boomer women were – that your marriage would be the single most important thing in your life. That is the first myth that gets busted, said mom. But you do learn, she says, that it’s a game – it has rules, obstacles and if you are lucky and work on it – rewards. When people break the rules, marriage is the saddest place to be. But, when the rules are adhered to – it’s the happiest.

I asked about what she gave up, being married. (As an LBB, I simply had to believe there were moments of her wishing she was single in there.) She said there were times she would have done things differently, if single. But, overall, she had no regrets. Being married so young she never had the luxury of setting her own agenda without having to take account of someone else. Women who get married in life, however, need to learn how to take into account another’s wishes and desires at a level they have never experienced before. I asked mom how she did it. I mean, didn’t she just want to bust out sometimes? Yes, she did. But, she still loved being married. She said “the title of that book – Committed – that’s what it’s all about.”

In the end, I concluded much of what Gilbert did. There are no conclusions. It’s a messy business, this marriage stuff. There will come a time in every woman’s life, where she will need to make peace with her choices – to marry, to not marry, to marry later, or not at all. And, having mixed feelings about your choices is not only natural, it should be expected.

And, everyone’s reasons for coupling are different. One of my friend’s favorite quotes is Nobody knows what passes between two people…nobody. And, that may be just it. It’s different for everyone – the rules, the obstacles, the work, the prizes.

As Gilbert says, “every couple in the world has the potential over time to become a small and isolated nation of two – creating their own culture their own language, and their own moral code, to which nobody else can be privy.”

There is so much more I could say about Committed. But, I won’t ruin it for you. Rather, if you are a woman who has married after age 40, read this book, cover to cover. In order. The last 30 pages or so were important for me. But, I’m sure I wouldn’t have gotten it by skipping ahead.

Happy Reading!

 Posted by on February 1, 2010 4 Responses »
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