Food and Money

Carl's hours have been cut -- now it's something like 3-4 days a week, 4 hours a day. A couple of days ago we went food shopping and I ended up having to bail him out with a dollar - he underestimated the $26 total.

We've been together 11 years now; our food philosophies are so very different, but it really only becomes apparent when the money gets tight like this.

-He's extremely underweight; has virtually no body fat. Since getting dentures last year and discovering that they don't fit properly, he's eating even less. He also smokes about a pack a day, maybe more. And yet, he's as strong as an ox. When we moved to NYC for a year, he moved most of our furniture up 3 flights of stairs to our ancient apartment, most of the time with a Marlboro clenched in his teeth.

And, he eats Little Debbies like they're going out of style.

-I, on the other hand, continue to pack on the pounds, mainly due to lack of exercise, since I'm not a big eater. I think I have a condition called myoadenylate deaminase deficiency, but have never taken the time to have it diagnosed or to invest in a supplement. That's for another day. Honest!

-Carl was raised in a household with six siblings and one working mom. They often went to school with their shoes duct-taped together. I don't think any of the kids finished high school. So we're not talking about a worldly bunch. Very salt-of-the-earth, very meat and potatoes. The type of mentality that says "Well, we're not officially poor because we can still afford to put meat on the table."

Carl is completely entrenched in that mindset. Any time I sit down to a meal that does not include meat (such as a spinach omelet or a cheese sandwich, or baked squash...) he'll look at my plate and say "No meat?" In our 11 years together, the one and ONLY area in which I've had the tiniest influence on him is in the area of flavorings. I can't count the number of times I will reach for the sage, or rosemary, or vinegar, only to have him say "Momma never put that stuff on anything...she worked 10 hours a day and raised six kids; she didn't have the time or the money for anything more than salt and pepper." But he doesn't complain about it anymore, even when I reach for the garlic. He still finds it odd that I use more than one pan and one spoon when making anything; he complains that I "mess up" his kitchen when I experiment, so most of the time I stay out of the kitchen (and on the computer) and he takes care of meals.

I was raised differently. My parents weren't rich or worldly by any stretch, and Dad was also a high school dropout, but they had lived together in NYC for a number of years before I came along, and made it their business to learn about various types of cuisine. Back in the 1960s, I stood out among my classmates because I knew the difference between Moo Goo Gai Pan and Baked Clams Oreganato. We went out to eat fairly often. Once my parents got into a loud argument with an obnoxious waitress in a diner we liked, who insisted that a seven-year-old (meaning me) would not eat brook trout and should order from the kids' menu. I not only got my fish, I ate it right down to the bone. She grudgingly gave me a lollipop (a green, broken one) and grumbled something about me being "spoiled." In my teens I subscribed to Gourmet magazine and liked to peruse cookbooks. I didn't cook much; just found food to be an interesting subject.

I like a steak as much as anyone, but could be a vegetarian if I needed to. I am not the least bit fussy about any food. Store brands, for the most part, are just as good as national -- another area where Carl and I differ. He thinks most vegetables are alien invaders from another planet, mushrooms in particular, and the ones he likes, he prefers southern style: boiled to oblivion with some sort of pork flavoring. One of the few instances where I will say "yuk." In fact, I've learned that when Carl mentions "vegetables," he exclusively means the kind you need a can opener to get to. If I'm talking about fresh veggies (the healthier type), I always have to say "produce."

Carl believes in a full, sit-down meal, with a beginning, a middle and an end. I will randomly graze -- heat up a can of green beans, throw a pat of butter on it, and call it a meal...then an hour or so later decide I'd like an egg. To me, food is food. I eat because I have to; try to make semi-healthy decisions, and then get back to the computer. That's why, when he says "There's nothing to eat in the house," I'm silently thinking, Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Willis? There's pasta [which he hates, more on that later], rice, canned soup, plenty of canned veggies, frozen stuff that's open [another taboo with Carl: once it's been opened, he won't touch it a second time. It falls to me to make all-gone with it].

So, when we got to the grocery store the other night, his first stop was the frozen food aisle. Stouffer's, Marie Callenders, Swanson Hungry Man. And here we are with $25 to spare. I made a snap decision: I told him to get whatever he wanted and not to worry about me, then picked out one large potato, a few cans of store-brand soup, and my one indulgence: a can of Underwood turkey spread, which is apparently a new product. Carl ended up having a bowl of cereal for dinner and the turkey spread the night after that.

It irks me that veggies are now so damn expensive. My mom used to give me a bowl of green peppers, carrots & celery to eat while I read in bed at night. She cut and peeled the carrots herself, by the way -- they didn't have the pre-packaged stuff back then.

In the two years between divorcing Doug and meeting Carl, I fell into the classic single-mom eating pattern: Pasta, ramen noodles and processed stuff. I didn't even think about what I was feeding Wally. As long as he had something to eat, I figured everything was fine. We both liked pasta. So a couple of weeks after Carl and I started keeping steady company he came over for dinner and asked what we were having. As soon as I said "pasta," his eyes rolled, and I suddenly realized that yes, I was serving pasta in some form or another nearly every night. I didn't mind him pointing this out to me. But now, it seems the shoe is on the other foot, because if we're not having meat loaf, it's hamburger helper, or quarter pounders from Mickey-D's, or his favorite rice & hamburger concoction...he says he doesn't like chicken very much; he no longer cares much for pork. It all seems to have narrowed down to hamburger at least 3x a week. Seafood occasionally -- not fish, God forbid, unless it's beer-battered, and shrimp almost anytime.

Side note: To Carl, "pasta" does not include spaghetti. Spaghetti is fine; he just doesn't like ziti, rigatoni, spirals, bowties or other shapes. Go figure. If I ever suggested "couscous," he'd probably either burst out laughing or call 911.

So I guess the point of this rambling monologue is, I'm trying to figure out a workable strategy to eat healthy and save money. With the huge differences between Carl's eating habits and mine, it isn't going to be easy.

~I've edited this thing at least a dozen times since starting it Friday morning. New thoughts keep popping in. Click Here to Read More..

I Had Almost Forgotten

Carl came home from work early, having been slightly injured in a mishap. Yes, it's a legitimate, visible injury. This is an improvement over previous occurrences, where on his first day back at work after two days off he'd be almost frantic to find some reason not to go in. Ever since I've known him, the first day back at work has been the day when he's most likely to get up feeling sick, or to spend an hour at work and then go home not feeling well. Re-entry after 2 days off is really, really difficult for him.

Today was the first time in a long time he'd come home early on the first day; hope he's not getting back into that habit. The last place he worked, it was almost a weekly thing. Click Here to Read More..

I am a liar

In yesterday's post I said I had "no idea" what the problem is, and of course that's a dirty lie. I know perfectly well what the problem is.

Every time Carl or Wally gets some emotional twitch they go and make some drastic change in their lives that ends up COSTING ME MONEY!!!

• 1999: Carl and I visit NYC. Carl's never been there; he is in awe and sees muchos opportunidades for employment in his field. Conclusion: We have to move to NY ASAP. Sure, sez me. I always wanted to live there anyway. So I quit a nice, secure, good-paying job and sell the condo that I could actually afford, and pack up like a Gypsy and move to NYC. Get an apartment that costs me a ridiculous amount per month, take a job I hate, and meanwhile, Carl never gets off the ground with this dream job he thinks he'll get. He can never see past the short-term. The extremely short-term. As in, somebody pisses him off today, and he's outa there. At least that's what he did in NY. I suppose that would have been a good time to break off the marriage altogether, but having just been through a divorce a few years before, I couldn't get my head around doing that again.
  
• Similar impulse a year later. Carl is miserable at work, as am I. The only one of us who was happy was Wally. But Carl gets upset because someone makes a disparaging remark about the place we moved from. He misses his family - the one that makes him miserable. At any rate, we buy a house "back home" and move there a year after moving to NYC. I didn't have a job; I didn't even have the reasonably nice car I'd sold before moving to NY. I finally found a used one I could barely afford and it lasted three and a half years before finally dying. I was so despondent during the first month or two, I began to think about killing myself.
  
• On 9/11 I was at least working. It was a temp job but permanent hire was a certainty. But I was very preoccupied. Wonder why? So I applied myself very little to my job, even after getting the permanent gig. My performance was truly crappy and I got fired. It was the first time in my life that had ever happened. Not the first time I'd left a job with less than favorable reviews, but certainly the first time I'd been flat-out fired. That led to more than a year of temp work, and it wasn't always steady. Perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, later in the year I ditched religion and things started looking up the tiniest bit. I got a long-term temp job that did me pretty well. But it wasn't the answer to everything. The depression started to lift just enough to get me out there on the job hunt again. Finally - a good break, and that led to the job I had from '03 to '06. Great benefits (even though I had to ultimately take Carl off my coverage because the minute I got insurance coverage he started having his phantom stomach and chest pains that no doctor could ever find a diagnosis for).
  
• Since I've known Carl, he's worked for: OHH, S&S, TB, RHG, TMG, CPRV, PH, a couple of other places in NYC, back to RHG, GC, BSP, CCD and now CB. That's at least 14 different jobs, and we've only been together for 10 years. My track record isn't great either: JRA when we met, then BHRV, BHRNP, CPUN, temp jobs, PST, PH and the place where I am now.
  
• Together, we've lived in 4 different places. If it weren't for Carl, most likely I'd have stayed in the condo and might even still be there, who knows? The BHRV job might or might not have lasted. I can't blame Carl - entirely - for my less than stellar work ethic over the years. But without some of the strife between him & Wally, and the money worries, I might possibly have been less preoccupied and scattered, and may have done a better job. Thank the ordered universe I've finally gotten it together to the point where I'm not late for work all the time and have the ability to assess the consequences of an action before I commit to it.
  
• But it's still difficult to buckle down and move ahead because of all these constant changes that cost me money.
  
• As for Wally, I can't blame him directly for a lot of that. Much of the situation we're in right now is because of Doug. Doug, who kicked Wally out when he could have hung in for another year or two until Wally finished high school. But no, he sent Wally back to Carl and me, just as things were going pretty well. Then he cuts off the child support, which I don't have the time or energy to go after. And at about the same time, Carl gets another of his "let's move to a better place" impulses, and as usual, I go along. I don't regret moving to this town. It's much better suited to me; I feel like I've flourished, at least socially. I like the job I do and the company I work for. But bottom line, we should be doing better, rather than struggling. We wouldn't be struggling so much if Carl had just behaved like a grownup. He was making good money and all he had to do was ignore the owner and the manager of the company. He knows he had a good thing going and was better off there, but doesn't want to admit it yet. True, the place could go under; they were in trouble with regard to taxes and other issues, but other than a late paycheck once in awhile, that didn't affect Carl directly. Week to week, he made GOOD money. True, the place he's at now has benefits. But here's the thing: Carl NEVER stays in one place long enough to make insurance a reality. He's had insurance twice and either dropped the coverage or quit the job shortly after getting it. If he dies, I'll have to go to his family to afford the funeral. If something happens to me, Carl and Wally will be substantially enriched. Of course, Wally would blow the money immediately; Carl would save it but not find any way to invest or supplement it.
  

Enough bitching (for now, anyway...). I have decided, while writing this, that I am going to do one thing. I'm going to hand Carl the bill for the carpeting at the old house, the carpeting we bought to make the house sellable, and tell him I want him to take care of it, and I don't care how he does it. I just want it done. Maybe it will spur him to do something about his income. Click Here to Read More..

Home again. Home. AGAIN.

I got up at 6am to drive Carl to work. The buses don't start running until noonish and why call a cab when I'm here. Dropped him off and went home. I had no intention of going back to bed -- it was an hour and a half or so before it was time to get ready for church, and I had some things to catch up on from last week. Got settled, started my work, and then the phone rang.

It was Carl.

"They had too many people in, so they asked me if I wanted the day off. Come get me?"

OH, I was mad, on so many levels. This is the second Sunday in a row he's taken off, both times for stupid reasons. Why couldn't he have said no when they asked him if he wanted the day off? And of course, nothing I have to do at home is important, all I have to do all day is run my ass back and forth for him. Just so he can come home, take out his dentures, throw on his robe & pj's and lounge in front of the tv, taking occasional breaks for coffee and smokes? And naps, of course. Mustn't forget the naps. And of course, if I should happen to vary MY schedule and be off during the day, oh, that's different. I'm invading his fucking precious space and disrupting his routine. But somehow it's supposed to be a great treat for him to be hanging around the house cramping my style when all I want is a day to myself when I'm not feeling like shit. And then his "normal" weekend is tomorrow and Tuesday anyway. He offered to switch with anyone who wanted the day off on Tuesday, but no one will take him up on it. Nobody ever does. I now get paid for days off, provided I don't take more than 5 and provided I announce them in advance. But he doesn't get paid unless he works. I'm so sick of being poor. But every time I talk about getting a second job, he protests. "I don't see enough of you," he says.

I don't share the sentiment.

So, how do I show my wrath? Well, first I almost wrecked the car going way too fast on the interstate when it had started to pour rain. I slowed down ... When I picked His Highness up I demanded that he put gas in the car, since it had already started getting low with all these trips I've been making for him. Then he asked me what I wanted for Mother's Day and instead of giving him the usual "Oh, I don't care..." crap, I said "I need money. Put some in my account." He agreed readily. Good. But I still ought to kick his ass out once and for all. One day I believe I will.

Mother FUCKING slacker.

My father NEVER missed a day of work in 25 years. Not even when he'd spent the entire weekend getting shitfaced. Click Here to Read More..

An Era is Ending

Actually, less than 2 years, but it felt like an era. Carl has gotten the job he's been after for the last month. He starts in about 10 days. Hooway.

If he doesn't sign up for the medical insurance, I may have to kill him.

[edited the next day] On the current job, he's been told not to come back next Monday -- supposedly the day he took off for the interview was a no-no ...
We'll see. There are other back-up options before he starts at the new place.

***

Two posts in one day? I'm getting BLABBERY again. The real reason for the loquacity is that it feels like Friday. One more day, one more day.

I'm in a month-long feminine theology workshop. A bunch of us femmes sat around talking about our earliest impressions of sexual issues (menstruation, relationship, childbirth, menopause, etc).

It occurs to me that EVERY WOMAN I KNOW feels she comes from a home environment where these matters were treated with secrecy and embarrassment to some degree or other. Is this inevitable, and is it universal? I would say yes, it's universal, and in some cultures it's downright pathological (FGM, for example). I think my mom wanted to pretend that it wasn't that way in our home, and I must give her credit -- she boldly went where other moms dared not go. She did the best she could, she really did.

I still haven't figured my mother out, and I suppose I never will. Click Here to Read More..

So much for the night shift

Well, to no great surprise, Carl is already home and in bed, when he was supposed to be working until the wee morning hours. He usually works 1st or 2nd shift but the schedule was changed. He's been complaining about it for days but I drove him in this afternoon so I'd have the car. He made it to almost half the shift, but then bent down to pick up something and when he straightened up he was dizzy and shaky and his pulse was sky-high. They called an ambulance right away but because it wasn't an injury, which would be covered by worker's comp, he refused it and instead let them call me. He told them he just needed to sit down for a few minutes, but they apparently wanted him out of their hair to avoid liability or whatever. I don't know what his problem is. He had a headache and didn't eat much before going in; I imagine some extra fortification might keep him on a more even keel. He just hates being there; I understand that. He's got another interview later in the week, on what would normally be his day off, but he was scheduled for that day. Again, he thinks his boss is doing it deliberately, either to provoke him into quitting or to block him from going on interviews. If he loses his job we are going to be in serious trouble. Click Here to Read More..

Oh, Carl, Wait Until You Get Home!!!

Carl got his schedule changed this week and has to work a very different shift 2x. He is so pissed. He thinks his boss deliberately changed his schedule because she got wind that he's actively looking for another job. I think he's paranoid, although granted, she is a biotch. But at any rate, he's been discouraged because first he had to delay going for an interview several times last week due to things being extremely busy where he works now, and then when he finally got over to the place, a person he didn't know blew him off by saying they weren't hiring at all. Well, today the answering machine had a message from the same place he's been trying to get hired at, and they are interested.

I wrote him a note and stuck it on the fridge for when he finally gets home.

---
Marilyn is now my next-door neighbor. She's been catty-corner from me since last May when we moved to our new office space. At first she wanted a window cubicle like mine but was afraid the windows would produce too much glare. By the time she realized she was wrong about this, it was too late. She was already ensconced in the aisle-side cube, and the IT guys were very busy with everyone else's installations, so she stayed put. But after Miss K left a couple of weeks ago, Marilyn saw her opportunity and got permission to move. Now I'm sure she'll be peeking around the dividing wall to talk to me several times a day.

Maybe she'll bypass me altogether and talk to Linda, who sits on the other side of me and is also the gabby type. Click Here to Read More..

Carl is Still at Work. This is a good thing.

He called and woke me up to tell me that his boss cursed him out in front of the employees and customers. It wasn't that Carl had done anything wrong -- this seems to be a normal occurrence at that place. Carl's boss is a crude, low-class man with a loud voice. Carl (IMO) should be used to it by now and just blow it off, but it upsets him every time. He said if it happens again, he's quitting a looking for another job on Monday. He always tries to get me to encourage him whenever he threatens to do this.

He's over 50 and has never done any other kind of work. His job prospects are very shaky. I hope he won't quit. He has a very juvenile side to him that always ends up costing money. I wish his aunt hadn't said anything about being able to loan him money. He keeps talking about it. He needs to get his shit together.
Click Here to Read More..

Monday conversation

During the week that I did not speak to my son (he didn't return my calls or e-mails), it occurred to me to ask what became of his possessions. He had a mini-fridge, a nightstand, a desk, and a computer. The bed, I think, was a hand-me-down or maybe loaned to him by a friend. When we spoke yesterday I asked him about it. His things are in a friend's basement. He's staying with various people night to night and still sleeping in his car when there's nowhere else to go. He has a part-time job.

His closest friend's father still won't let him move in. He must be a hell of a lousy houseguest. i know he was a perpetual slob when he lived with me, from the earliest age. I have enough trouble keeping my own space orderly without nagging someone else about it. But overall, I'm really not that messy. I let it get to a certain point and then it has to be straightened out. But Wally goes way past that point. And then he wonders why half the time, he can't find his things. I tried to tell him, you don't have to be compulsively orderly. Just designate "zones" for things. For example, make a decision that when you take your billfold out of your pocket, it will go somewhere on the "left" side of the room, or somewhere near the window, etc. That way you get used to finding something in an approximate place, and as time goes on, it will become a habit to put things in more specific places. I don't know that he ever caught on to any of this.

Carl never had a problem being a constant nag; it's the kind of thing he lives for.

--
I've decided to start adding in the stories Carl tells me about the establishment where he works.

He calls me most mornings from there after I get up, often with a quick sound-bite describing the goings-on there.

This morning:
"So I go into the bar area, and there's the night manager, sucking on some girl's titty for 13 bucks. And she's on top of him, like some kind of...
"I can't go on working in this place. It's so fucking stupid. And none of the work has been done. I come in after two shifts, and they leave it all for me to fix. I just can't stand this place; I am so over it!"
Click Here to Read More..