Domesticity And The Hulk

I did an amazing amount of cooking yesterday. HUBS and I needed something we could eat for dinner, plus we'd run out of bread so I could make sandwiches for him to take to work and there weren't any interesting sweets in the house. So, at around noon, I just decided to make everything.

The bread was first. I'd been wanting to try making Irish Soda Bread for some time, and since we currently had no bread and no extra cash to buy a loaf, this was the perfect opportunity. One big round mass of bread cut in half makes two loaves perfect for sandwich slices. It's also good warmed up and dipped in my mix of olive oil/cracked pepper/balsamic vinegar/grated Parmesan.

After the bread success, I decided to start on dinner by cooking a small pot of red beans. I have never done the whole soak-beans-overnight-first thing because my mom never did it. You sift through the dried beans to get the crappy ones and any rocks out, set it to boil and leave it for hours. Adding water so they never dry out or burn. Does it take a while? Yeah, I think this pot took roughly six and a half hours. But, if you're like me, you've got plenty of other things to do with that time.

Then I jumped into cleaning lettuce. What's that you say? Why am I cleaning lettuce? Because...It's from my garden! I grew that awesome butter lettuce you see and I'd cut some of it last Friday and needed to get cleaning so it wouldn't wilt to death in my fridge.

Can I share a secret with you? I got tired of washing lettuce long before I finished the gig. Also? There's still a shit-ton of lettuce in the garden. I'm afraid we won't be able to eat it all before it starts to bolt and turns bitter. I don't want the only real crop I have to go to waste! And even if we do eat it all, eventually it will turn cold and I'll have to buy lettuce again. Blah! Unnecessary fears!

My lettuce work turned into a scone making adventure. Back when I was living with my mom I made scones all the time that used yogurt. We don't have any yogurt and I wouldn't have felt like tracking down that recipe anyway, so I used one from Ms. Martha instead. I used half whole wheat flour and added the zest from one lemon to the mix. They turned out superbly and are already on their way to being all ate up.

Then I started on the sofrito. This was another thing I'd been meaning to make for months but hadn't. Since I was trying to think of something different for dinner, this was as good a time as any to jump in. The recipe didn't call for any seasoning other than cilantro (I used dried), so I added some salt and some hot madras curry powder. That did the trick, and you can use sofrito on just about anything.

While the sofrito cooked I watered the garden and pulled some weeds. HUBS came home after I finished my shower and I made noodles while he cleaned the litter boxes. We ate and I felt tired but good. I'd put in an honest day's work and got a lot out of it. Then, it happened.

I was putting the food away so I could go to bed and watch Craig in Scotland. I had a good two cups of sofrito left after using some for dinner. I put the lid on it and was about to walk it over to the refrigerator when...the container flew out of my hand, landed on the floor and spilled half of my sofrito.

Friends, there is nothing I hate more than wasted food. Add to that the fact that I'd used almost all of our tomatoes, my only red pepper and a whole onion...I was irate. I became so angry that it would be fair to say I Hulked Out. I threw a roll of paper towels and accidentally hit Tux. I crumpled up a pie pan and a platic storage bowl. I cursed and screamed and acted like a complete fool. And I couldn't quite stop myself.

At least, I felt like I couldn't. My rational mind, which I guess had worked enough for that day, was totally checked out. My immediate thought was That's what I get for working hard. You work hard and you get shit on anyway so why try?

See? Completely screwed up.

What's worse is that I got so angry I made myself sick to the stomach. Plus, I woke up angry today and had a horrible cuss-filled morning because of it. And that bout of glowing ire literally wore me out. I feel fuzzy headed even after a long nap. I've got a dull ache in my brain that a good meal couldn't even take care of, and it's all because of ONE CUP OF SPILLED SOFRITO.

I am nothing if not a teensy bit fucked up.

Fit

I wish the title of this post referred to my firm inner thighs and tight abs, but unfortunately I'm talking about the kind of fit you have instead of are.

For a while earlier this year I was having a lot of these, throwing things and yelling and such. I had one again last night. This time, though, I hit HUBS in the stomach and when he said "Hey, what the fuck?" and backed away I threw a bag of crackers at him. Dammit.

Why did I get so upset? He'd just come home, right before 9pm, after saying he'd be home at 5:30 and then saying he'd really be home at 7:30. I had just finished eating without him (I hadn't had anything but toast all day; I tried to eat soup after I found out about the liver thing, but I think I was too worried to eat. So, after getting sick to my stomach I took about a 4 hour nap.).

I was mad that even though I'd called him and told him about the medical stuff, he didn't seem worried, or to care that I was worried. I was really hoping that he'd be home early so I could talk to him and be comforted and such. Plus? My computer keeps crashing and had just done so. So I wasn't able to get started on the story I'd been procrastinating on, like I'd wanted to.

It was one of those feelings like nothing is ever going to be right again. We literally never have any money for anything other than bills anymore, and are dangerously close to having no credit left either. We even had to take a cash advance from one of my cards last week to avoid getting overdraft fees in our checking account and to have some money for something. I really just can't seem to find a job. I put in four applications for retail places on Monday and no one has even called.

Nothing feels right. And, yeah, I was taking some undeservered stuff out on HUBS when I hit him, but I also feel like he hasn't been caring for me like he should. We've talked about this at least 3 times since I've been sick this month. I know he's been working insane hours to make overtime money for us, but when I was sick he still had to be asked and told to do things for me.

I mean, I got dizzy everytime I bent over and I still had to request that he do a little laundry. Do you realize how hard it is to go down a flight of stairs (to the basement) when you're weak and dizzy? He wouldn't so much as load the dishwasher without my prompting. Until I yelled at him. Got angry and told him to "help me dammit!"

Do you know he wouldn't even go get me a hamburger? Just a plain McDonald's hamburger. He didn't come out and say no, it was more like "Well, let's just wait and see after I finish this and we can go together blah blah blah." Fuck, I didn't feel like leaving the house. Basically, after a hard, long week at work he was finally getting to goof off online like he likes to and didn't want to deal with me (which he actually said to me, though not in so many words) when I asked him a whopping 4 hours later why he didn't just go get me a God damn burger already? Oh, and I happened to confront him about this when we were finally on the way to getting my burger, after I'd been hungry for, yes, FOUR HOURS.

I don't think I'm being outrageous here, to expect a little care from my husband when I get ill. Especially since I literally do everything for him when he's sick, and he gets sick A LOT. I even stuck by him when he got some flu-like thing a few months after we got together, when he thought he, wait for it...MIGHT HAVE AIDS. Yeah, and honestly, I think he deserved to get hit a little, though not for everything I hit him for.

This no-job-no-money-no-credit pressure is too much after 22 months of unemployment. I think we need counseling.

Dammit Summer!

I think the sun hates me right back.

Oh fuck, here we go. Yesterday when I went out to feed the cats at 9am it was already 83 degrees outside. All hot, heavy and sticky. We are now officially in summer. No more cooling down at night and then getting ridiculously hot during the day, oh no. It will now be ass-the-fuck tropical damn hot 24 hours a day and seven days a week. Joy.

My deep hatred for summer is well-documented on this blog. I literally cannot stand it. Yesterday morning's heat sent me into a deep, summer-is-here related funk. I had things to do, but couldn't. All I could think was "Jesus' ass, it's hot out there!" I took a nap three hours after waking up because of it.

Summer just takes the life out of me. I can't concentrate. I want to move even less than I normally do. The very idea of things makes me tired. Anything other than sleep is exhausting. It's a miserable way to live.

Really, can't we stagger the heat? You know, have an 85 degree day on Monday and then a 65 degree day Tuesday. Wouldn't that make more sense? I bet less people would kill and be murdered during summers if we worked it like that.

Easter Sunday

To my absolute horror.

I hope everyone out there who celebrates Easter had a good one this year. Especially since mine kinda sucked.

I was up early, trying to get some things done before HUBS and I had to leave for the two hour trip to his folks in mid-Missouri. I could have sworn we should have some cash in our account left over from his last paycheck. I looked at our account. Not only did we not have anything left over, there wasn't enough to cover all our bills until his next pay day.

We'd be about $400 short. Having already paid some of last months bills with one of my credit cards I felt absolutely desperate and panicked. I called the only person I could think to: my mom.

I called on the pretense of only wishing her a Happy Easter, just so I could back out of asking for money if I needed to. She asked how I was and I broke down. I told her about not getting unemployment for the past 6 weeks and that we had no money to pay our bills and that we've been living off my credit cards and that we never have money for groceries. Stuff I had been avoiding telling her because I was hoping it would get better; hoping it wouldn't come to this.

PT told me it would be ok and to stop crying. She asked how much I needed and I told her. She said to calm down and come over.

I didn't feel like putting on clothes, but I knew this unplanned trip would make us late for HUBS' parents, so I did. HUBS was still in bed, I told him I was running to my mom's, kissed him quickly and left. I cried most of the way there.

PT hugged me when I got there. And, I started crying again. Shit, it was days ago now and I'm crying again thinking about the fact that I'm 34 and married and had to ask my mom for money.

She gave us far more than the 400 bucks I asked for. I protested, but took it anyway when she kept counting money out to me. PT tried to cheer me up by telling me that everybody goes through hard times and that right now this is just what I need to deal with. She also revealed that she was without a job for 2 years in the '70s. I figure this was when she was still at home with my grandmother but basically grown.

I thanked PT a lot and left about a half hour after getting there. I cried on the way home, then put a large portion of the cash in the bank.

All of this is a long way of saying that my Easter felt totally fucked. I then had to go to HUBS' family and pretend to be happy that Jesus was risen and I was with his folks, even though all I wanted to do was scream and curl up into a little ball and cry myself tired.

How Could I Have Known?

How I feel: I'm stuck in a tree with my tail in the air and I'm flashing my big orange balls to the world.

Remember how I said I made a huge mistake last Wednesday, without any clue it was going to be a mistake? Well, not only did I not realize I was about to do something stupid, I actually thought I was going to be helping our financial situation. Here goes...

After calling Citibank (they still haven't called me back, by the way) I was feeling bold and decided to do something I'd been meaning to do for a couple months. I called our bank to see about lowering the interest rate on our credit card with them. The only reason we even have the card is because we kept overdrawing our bank account due to my unemployment and getting the card was the only way to have overdraft protection. If your account gets low, they give you a cash advance from the card to cover your checks/payments/bills/what-have-you.

So, this card now has an almost $2500 balance. We pay $20 a week and the interest rate fluctuates between 20% and an astronomical 65% (no, I am not exaggerating). Here, much to my dismay, is what happened:

citygirl: Yeah, I wanted to see if we could lower our interest rate.

credit card bank lady: Ok, let me ask you some financial questions.

ccbl: (after questions about our jobs and income) Alright, I can't lower your interest rate right now because you're only using the card for cash advances. But, I have to tell you that I did lower your credit limit to $2500.

citygirl: Ok...Wait...What?

ccbl: I had to lower the credit limit on the card. With your lack of income right now I can't justify having any more money put on this card. If things change you can always call and ask to have the limit raised.

citygirl: So...Wait. You're saying we now only have $84 left on this card, because you reduced our $8000 limit to $2500, which is right near our current balance. So we have no more cushion?

ccbl: Yes. I'm sorry, it's just not good business for us to have you use this card any more.

citygirl: Ok. Ok...Bye?

I think she may have apologized again before hanging up. So, let me break down what just happened. HUBS and I used to have a cushion if we were running out of money in our bank account to pay for stuff. Now...We don't. All because I just wanted to lower our ridiculous interest rate. That bitch at the credit card took away the cushion. Now if we overdraw our account it'll be just like old times: a $35 charge for going over + whatever the amount is we were trying to pay. Yay!

I managed to remain calm until I got off the phone. And then I started to panic. I called HUBS to let him know what happened and apologized, "How could you have known?" he said.

The more I talked to HUBS the angrier I got and the more I wished I had cursed out the ccbl. No, it wouldn't have done any good, but what did I have to lose at that point? I have literally been daydreaming, all week since then, about the things I should have said to that heifer. Times like these are exactly why God did not give me the power of a witch, because that woman would now be newly unemployed and homeless and if she has a husband he'd be unemployed too. Also, I think I'd make her bald and fat and toothless for good measure.

Holy Jesus, my heart is racing now thinking about it again. All of our credit cards are almost maxed out and now if we overdraw the account we'll just be totally fucked.

Wednesday Was Bad

This is how my mind feels. See those bright spots? That's my anger.

I have now gone two weeks without getting my unemployment benefits. HUBS and I have no money, he got paid on the 13th and after bills (which hit within a few days) we had $50 left in our account. I reluctantly moved most of the money I've been scraping to save ($10 a week since last August, which amounted to almost $300)into our account to take care of the mountain of additional bills that we'll need to pay before he gets paid again.

Why am I not getting my UE money, even though I have a balance in there, you ask? The short answer is that when I filed to get this new extension I fucked up ONE GODDAMN QUESTION. The UE people freaked out, called me twice (in conversations that totalled almost an hour) with bullshit questions I'd already answered and now my case has to go to committee before I can get anymore money.

The first UE conversation was Monday. I talked to that heifer for half an hour. Then Wednesday another chick called me with even more questions. She was trying to explain something to me, but it made no fucking sense so I told her that. Then I began to cry, curse and screamed something to her like "I've been unemployed for 14 months so give me my fucking money so I can pay my fucking bills!" and hung up the phone.

HUBS had been sleeping in (he took a sick day), but he came out to try to comfort me. After he kissed me on the head I threw my mug filled with ice water across the room and smashed a ceramic coaster against a bookcase when I threw that too.

I then went into the bedroom where HUBS had retreated to protect himself from flying objects and screamed. Louder than I've screamed since I had my nervous breakdown in college.

"Do you know I applied at Target," I asked HUBS in the scariest voice ever. "And they sent me an email turning me down? I worked at the same company for almost 10 years and I can't get a fucking job at Target. But every fucking 15 year old in the fucking country can walk into the store and get a job. What the fuck did I do wrong? This feels personal. Like the universe is really, specifically fucking with ME."

I'm starting to wonder if I'm supposed to be doing something special with this time, and that's why I can't get a job yet. It's as if the powers that be have given me this time, but I can't get over, you know, not having enough money for food and bills and stuff to get out of my head and figure out what I'm supposed to be fucking doing.

I seem to have a knack for doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. And not being able to make the best of it. At. All.

You Win Some, You Lose Some

HUBS when I'm not scaring him.

I have had a mildly interesting January 2009. After constructing my giant to do/to buy list, I've been trying really hard to step up on a lot of levels. I've made some strides, had some "events" and, as is my tendancy, completely chickened out in some areas.

Let's start with the not-so-good. I've been having periodic (about once a week) spells that HUBS calls my "tire fire". He got the term from an episode of King of the Hill where Hank is trying to explain how to deal with angry women to Bobby. Only I can honestly say, in my case, angry almost doesn't cut it. I've become enraged to the point of screaming/crying/throwing things four times this month, and the first two were over relatively small things.

First, it was the toilet. We just put on a nice new seat a couple months ago. It was so pretty and white and very sturdy. I cannot explain how deeply irrational my love for this toilet seat was, except to say that our old one never came clean anymore and was broken, so that if you moved the wrong way on the toilet you were libel to go flying off and this made it very hard to fully take care of business at times. I had already noticed that the paint on the seat was starting to come off, leaving two brown spots where the wood was showing through. You can guess what that looks like on a toilet seat, right? So, me no happy.

Then, one quiet Sunday I saw two big yellow blotches on the seat near the exposed wood. They wouldn't come off. I started to yell, and HUBS tells me he thinks he spilled bleach on the seat and that's what the yellow is. I. EX. PLOADED. So now it looks like we routinely shit and piss all over our toilet? Great, we can never have people over now! Why can't I ever have nice things anymore? Why do boys mess up everything? What the fuck is wrong with them? Does HUBS not care anything about our home at all? Is this my life now? We should just go live in the woods and shit on trees! I threw a bathroom towel into the living room and left it there. HUBS picked it up the next day, along with flowers, my favorite coffee and a snack from Quick Trip.

The second time was after our lovely HellCat Tux bit me one night. We have never been able to completely stop him from attacking us. He does it blissfully less than he used to, but the biting is still random and fierce. This time really set me off. I chased him around the house spraying him with a water bottle. Usually that's the end of it. But I guess I hadn't punished him enough, so I began to throw clothes off the drying rack in the hall at him as I sobbed uncontrollably. I finished with picking up the drying rack and throwing that at Tux too. I know, you guys. I didn't hurt him, he's a fast little bastard.

At some point late last week something made me angry while I was making a sandwich. Do you know what I did? I threw all the sandwich fixings on the floor of the kitchen and the hall, and for the third time picked nothing up. HUBS had to do it again.

All of these incidents have one thing in common: I realize I'm overreacting but cannot seem to stop myself. And, in the Tux case, the realization that I'm going too far makes me angrier and want to go even farther. So, I do.

The most recent occurance was Saturday night, and I'm sure this is what all the other enraged spells were about. HUBS and I decided to try out to be extras in a George Clooney movie that's going to be filming here, so we had spent the early evening taking pictures of each other for the casting directors. His were fabulous; he's thin, looks good in his clothes, and cute. I, looked like hell. I thought my hair was ok; it was shit. I thought I looked nice in the clothes I picked out; I was fat and lumpy in everything. And to top it off there was some blotch on my forehead that I didn't see when I looked in the mirror.

After seeing the results I was devastated. I couldn't stop thinking about how fat I am and how worthless I feel and how nothing is the way I want it to be. I cried for hours, this time without throwing anything, but massive crying nonetheless.

By 1 a.m. I was sitting up in bed (still crying) telling HUBS everything. How hard it is for me to watch him eat Taco Bell at midnight when I'm trying really hard not to eat after 10 p.m., how I don't feel anything anymore when we have sex, how hard it is to be married to someone who's never had to worry about his weight, how I hate staying at home everyday but hate the idea of going to an office, on and fucking on. I woke up with a headache and very swollen eyes, like I always do when I sleep after crying.

Today I left messages to make two appointments, one with the social worker I used to see every week, and one with a sex therapist. I really still don't know what I'm doing; with my life or work or anything else. Maybe talking will help like it did once before. But I absolutely refuse to go back on crazy pills. And that's the end of that.