January 3, 2010

Jeff does not boast or complain much. He leaves that to me. He can also be a little sneaky. He’s the type who will promise you that he’ll swear off chocolate for a month and hide milky ways in his shoeboxes. So, at this time of the month – day three – I start to get suspicious. Is he blowing me off and going to Starbucks twice a day? Is he eating from our own food rather than picking up sandwiches?

I started poking around for clues.

I heard him grind coffee beans this morning as I woke up. The Starbucks thermos is missing. I suppose he is being good and carrying his own coffee to work. Good man! But what of his lunches? Often I will make him a sandwich to bring to work, and it will sit in our fridge for days until I eat it for dinner. The endless array of frozen meals sometimes sit idle while Jeff either starves through his work day or buys something on his own.

I can not blame him entirely for this behavior. For years, he managed restaurants. There was never a reason for Jeff to pack a lunch, grab a to go cup for his coffee, or pick up an ingredient to complete dinner on his way home. We always had access to everything. On one occasion, I was making a recipe that called for cumin, and we were out. With other things to do besides go to the store, I called him at the restaurant and asked if he would bring home a little of the spice for me. All I needed was a teaspoon, and he brought me a container the size of a can of coffee. That was about five years ago, and I am still rolling with that thing.

Since moving to Austin, Jeff has left the restaurant business. We both had it. A dozen years of tomato stained ties, really late nights, uneven eating patterns, and having split schedules did not seem so tough on us at the time. Now that we have fairly similar work schedules, and therefore spent more time together, we are having such a good time. We wonder what we did for the first twelve years besides chase down dates, visit him at the store, and have him come to shows in which I performed. With the excpetion of our vacations and about one weekend per month, we functioned as two single people rather than as a couple.

As a result of this new found togetherness, we hit the gym at the same time, plan days off for spending time, and I even let him into the kitchen during meal preparations.

I concluded that due to the missing thermos and square space in the freezer that use to house two Amy’s natural meals, Jeff is not cheating. He’s actually going with another one of my Lucy-esque schemes. He’s making it work for the good of the project and for the good of the budget.

Tomorrow, I return to work after about nine days off for the holidays. Usually, when I am home from work, I spend much more money by deciding we need a new accessory, developing a new bed in the garden, generally shopping, and the like. Even though it was still December, the wild days of spending, I kept cool and prepared for January by organizing some shelves in the garage, putting hardware back in its proper place, consolidating cleaning supplies.

With work starting tomorrow, I thought I should get some house projects complete that I get easily distracted from while working. As far as the gardens were concerned, I really wanted to plant daffodil bulbs around a new tree we planted this spring. The ground was nice and cool, bulbs were available in great supply at the home depot, and I already had some soil. With the gift card that my mother sent us for Christmas, I could buy $25 worth of bulbs and still play the January game well. Then I realized that while cleaning those shelves in the garage, I came across a bag of wildflower seed I bought about over a year ago while driving the Hill Country. It cost me $9.95 at the time. I run the idea by Jeff.

“Do you think I should buy the daffodil bulbs and plant them where I planned, or should I use up these seeds in the same spot and hold on to the Home Depot card for another purchase later in the month?”

“Does Home Depot sell milk?” He asks.

“Smart ass.”

Off he goes to work, and off I go to the yard. Twenty minutes later, he ‘s arrived at Louis Vitton, and I have successfully planted our bag of wildflowers with the seeds I uncovered and the bag of soil that was taking up space in the garage for four months.