What Being a Grown Up Means

One of the ways I think my in-laws screwed up my husband (get used to hearing that) is that he's a grown man and he still does a lot of things that he's "supposed" to do but that he doesn't want to do. I think it's kind of bizarre although maybe this is just the way my parents screwed me up... Nah, it's definitely them.

 File photo. My husband (center) and In-Laws.

Not sure if you can tell, but seriously, my husband is HOT!

I was raised so that I would want to do things that I'm supposed to do.  Maybe this isn't true 100% of the time but doesn't that just make me human. I guess there are the occasions when I take the high road even though I don't want to but that's just good social skills.  Sometimes I don't do things that I'm supposed to do because I don't want to.  Here's the weird thing, the world keeps turning and the birds keep chirping.  Weird.  

So, last night, we watched The King's Speech. Not because he or I wanted to see it but because he thought he was supposed to see it.  It won the Academy Award for best picture last year--that's always a big one for him.  See, we're not exactly the intellectual type when it comes to our movie watching and we often do not like the movies that get all the critical acclaim.  Some of our favorite movies are Anchorman, Waiting, Bad Boys, and Iron Man.  That's not to say that we don't like our occasional heavy drama--The Departed is up their tied for my favorite movie of all time with Forrest Gump. It's more to say that we're not likely to go see some artsy-fartsy movie by choice.  But there we were watching this slow, dialogue-heavy movie (the cinematography was incredible. The photographer inside me found it distracting).  Now it wasn't bad. In fact, I have a mini-crush on the royal family, so I was definitely more interested when I realized it was about Queen Elizabeth's father.  But still, I could have been happy the rest of my life having never seen it.

Internet Photo. This is a still from The King's Speech.

This is how the movie was shot.

The whole movie could have been still after still and then you watch the movie with a flip book.

Beautiful photography. I found it distracting in a movie.

Now this doesn't just happen with movies.  If that was all, it wouldn't be a topic worth typing about now would it?  The big one is with food.  Yes, I am chubby.  But my husband is a skinny twig with poor self-image issues (I assume just another way my in-laws screwed him up. Because as you've read, my self-image issues are most certainly attributed to my parents).  Folks, the truth is I live with a Food Nazi.

My husband one time brought home Brussels sprouts from the super market when I left the side dishes up to him.  I don't like Brussels sprouts. He doesn't like Brussels sprouts. He said we're supposed to eat them because they're good for us.  Let me take a moment to point out that I eat a lot of vegetables.  These were not brought home in place of some non-balanced meal that we would have otherwise eaten.  No, he brought them home because we're supposed to eat them.

We're also not supposed to eat non-breakfast foods for breakfast.  Some days I don't feel like eating breakfast food. I was never a big fan of waffles or pancakes.  Once in a while, I can go for some eggs. I usually eat cereal. But some mornings, I don't want any of that. So I'll eat some left overs from dinner the night before or a Lean Cuisine. This is not allowed when the husband is home. Side note: Breakfast food can be eaten at any time of the day.

One time when I was still living in NJ and he was living in TX, he called me at dinner.  I had just sat down with my stuffing and green beans.  Horrified, he told me, "Those are just sides!" Yeah, I know. But that's what I like so that's what I made.  Needless to say, since moving to TX I've only had "just the sides" for dinner on nights he didn't make it home.

He also does this weird thing with family.  Here's my thing about family.  As I mention in my About Me section, I come from two pretty dysfunctional extended families.  To me family isn't defined by the blood that runs through your veins but by the relationship you have with these people.  I have a lot of blood-family that I could run into on the street and never know it.  I also have a lot of friends that I consider family--far more of them than blood-family that I consider family.

My husband has some distant relatives that lives in Houston.  He doesn't know them at all. I'm pretty sure that they never met. They certainly weren't at our wedding although I am uncertain if they were even invited.  He's been talking about how we have to go see them because they're family.  Essentially, what I've been hearing is that we have to go meet these strangers.  They've never had a relationship before and I'm sure this wouldn't spark one up.  So, my husband has been telling me that we "are supposed to" go have one terribly awkward night.

I tell him constantly that being an adult means you can do what you want.  We're in this glorious time of our life between living with parents who are telling us what to do and living with children where we have to set good examples.  If I want to have a bowl of ice cream before dinner, Hell, if I want a bowl of ice cream FOR dinner, I can have it. I'm a grown up and I can do what I want.

 Internet photo. Yeah, I would definitely have that for dinner.

I almost titled this post Ice Cream for Dinner but changed my mind because I thought it gave away the ending. But then I realized I think that would make an awesome band name. I CALL IT!

Tuesday Doesn't Have Much of a Feeling, Does It?

When I was a teenager, I used to say that Tuesday was my favorite day.  But to be honest, it was just because I felt sorry for it.  Every other day has a feeling to it--even if it's like Thursday and just mooching off of the next day's feeling.  We all know Thursdays are better because we know that tomorrow's Friday. But Tuesday, it's got nothing!  So to be different and to give it a shot, I used to say Tuesday was my favorite.  It didn't stick though.  I'm having a BLAH day on a BLAH day.

I went to the eye doctor earlier who I strongly dislike. He's a know-it-all and a sexist--a lethal combination.

My boss has been getting on my nerves.  Apparently she thinks that I can't handle the 2 jobs she's given me and she keeps bringing in reinforcements.  I HAVE TWO THINGS TO WORK ON! And 40 hours to work on them. I find this frustrating especially since I'm not too big of a fan of this Brit that she has reinforcing me. He's another know-it-all.  And who knows, maybe he's a sexist too (the jury's still out on that one and I have zero evidence to back that up).

My boss is one of those people that is really overworked and frazzled all the time.  When I first met her, I felt really terrible because trust me, she's one of the sweetest people in the world that you'd ever meet.  In fact our first conversation was over the phone and it felt like I was gossiping with one of my girlfriends.  Plus, she's a dog person and I love me some dog people!

Well, after working with her for some time, I've realized that she makes herself overworked and frazzled. I am aware that the owners at my company are not blameless, BUT trust me when I tell you, she does a lot of it to herself.  I get these emails where she's done my job rather than emails telling me to just do my job. I'm torn. I feel sorry for her because I know she makes her work her life and that her personal life is in shambles. But then, when I stop to think about it, I don't so much because I think every person is responsible for drawing his/her own line in the sand and saying, "This is as much as I can do." If she doesn't do that, does she still get my sympathy?

Speaking of personal responsibility, the hubby and I watched 60 minutes this week and saw a story on a company whose sole purpose was to forge mortgage documents. It's bizarre to me that this is a company and even more bizarre that the banks thought it was a good/legal idea to do this. But what really baffled me was that they were interviewing people who worked for the company and whose job was to sign other people's names onto these forms. I repeat, these people were hired to sign someone else's names on documents AND to notarize them. Whaaaat? Then, they sat down to be interviewed about it. On national TV. Isn't forging documents a crime? Why didn't the people actually carrying out this "work" suffer any consequences? Weird.

Perfect time for you to learn something about me: I LOVE rules! It's sick, right? But I was raised by a cop and I tend to abide by nearly all laws and rules--I don't necessarily agree with all of them but I try to stick to them as best as I can. So as I share my misadventures, you'll probably see a lot of opinions similar to the one above: "Why weren't they arrested?" "Why weren't the cops called?" etc.

And finally, here's a delicious recipe I made last night: Tilapia With Dijon and Panko Coating. I'm not a big fish eater (although having been raised in NJ and now living on the gulf, I do love shellfish) but this was delicious. You should probably be warned that I do randomly love Panko crumbs though.

Well, I know I'm just warming up here and I hope you hang in there. My life rarely has a dull moment and I have all sorts of issues. But today was just another BLAH Tuesday, so you probably got a BLAH Blog.

LYM