I had my last scheduled demo lesson / interview today, and came out with an offer. It is a good one, and I'm probably going to accept it barring major changes in the situation or my brain over the weekend, so all my job-search~ma is released. Thanks all.

My mom does most of the cooking, though my dad is perfectly capable, just because she's a stay-at-home wife. My dad does a lot of the cleaning, though mom (and all of us, when we're there) help, and we have somebody come in for the large-scale stuff (in a 5 bedroom house, there's a lot of cleaning, and my mother has pretty severe health problems that make it hard for her to do too much physical work at any one time.)

Improbable Girl and I split the cooking and the cleaning, but not with any specific system. Sometimes we do-dishes-as-we-cook. Sometimes we leave them for a few days. Sundays tend to involve vacuuming, swiffering, bathroom-scrubbin, and other large-scale stuff - at those times I tend to take the kitchen and living room while she takes the bedroom and bathroom, but sometimes we do it differently. Anyway, it all works out.

Yay, Gris!!

After my parents separated when I was 11, all three of us kids split the Saturday chores up even more than we already had. My brother (16 at the time) took over the outdoor stuff and my sister (13) and I split the indoor stuff, and sis and I were already doing a lot of the cooking (usually casseroles or burgers on the broiler) so dinner'd be ready when Mom got home from work. When Kip went off to college a few years later, I did the outdoor stuff and my sister handled all the cleaning inside, and then when she went to college, I did everything (allowances went up each time we took on more chores).

I had a buffista dream this morning. billytea and Wallybee and Ryan came for a visit. I held Ryan on my lap, and bounced him up and down, he was half standing up on his own, half supported by me - obviously this was a few months in the future, as he seemed to be 5-6 months old. What a charmer. Except that I had to pee really badly and he kept planting his foot right over my bladder. Then I woke up and noticed Harvey standing on my abdomen, adamantly not moving as I tried to get up to go to the bathroom.

This describes my mother. She has never been that great of a cook. As a kid, she was raising three of us alone, and had multiple jobs, so we kids learned to cook at a young age. She never really used spices. I did. It was like chemistry class. One time, when I was visiting from college, she made me some meatballs and said "I know you like them with some spice, so I added extra flavor for you". Ya. That pinged the radar. The meatballs were saturated with a TON of garlic powder. Even worse, garlic powder that had been sitting over the stove for YEARS and was clumpy and far from fresh. She could see from the first bite, and was like "ooo, too much??" um, ya.

Hee. I did once come across someone who never used spices in her cooking, who decided to be adventurous one night and try a dish that called for (I think) two cloves of garlic. Well, having never used it before, and not knowing what a clove was, she put in two bulbs.

I got told I was a "great wife" because I went on this motorcycling trip with Jason. Now, I don't think I would go motorcycling if I didn't know him in the first place, but I wouldn't go on a week long trip if I didn't like it on my own. Exploring his interests is like a bonus with purchase for me--being with him brings along cool stuff for me to explore. I know he feels the same.

This is the thing. There's this other person in your life, bringing in all their history and interests and outlooks. It's like a whole new wing of the library. You get to browse through for the interesting stuff. (For the record, Chinese: extremely interesting. China: ditto.)

I read a thing once (no idea when or where) that talked about how most "women" jobs tend to be things that had to be done at certain times and/or frequently (cooking, dishes, laundry, mending) and most "man" jobs tend to be projects that can be scheduled (gardening, mowing, painting...). I found this interesting.

This even goes back to the hungter/gatherer lifestyle. In such cultures, the men generally were/are the hunters (glory projects), the women the gatherers (actual staples, needed every day).

I had a buffista dream this morning. billytea and Wallybee and Ryan came for a visit. I held Ryan on my lap, and bounced him up and down, he was half standing up on his own, half supported by me - obviously this was a few months in the future, as he seemed to be 5-6 months old. What a charmer.

t adds "Astral Projection" to Ryan's resumé

DH is frequently told how lucky he is when people find out I'm a scifi nerd. Which is funny on several levels, but mostly the one where he never read any non-comics SF at all before he met me.

I can cook (a little, still learning).

S would cook for me almost every night, because she wanted to. AND, even though she's vegetarian, she would cook meat for me pretty regularly. She kept offering, in fact. She never had a problem handling meat, she just didn't eat it.

Aims, we have that one! Actually, I'm fairly sure we own all of them (for obvious reasons).

erika, sorry about the drama and the wussy ending to your assistant's relationship. After two years, you'd think she could tell you in person.

The thing that always gets me is when other guys ask S. how they can persuade their (sometimes theoretical) partners to like nerdstuff. Especially when I'm standing Right There.

His response is pretty much, "how should I know how to get your wife to like comics (sf, fencing, video games...)? Mine came that way."

Heh. I'm NOT a vegetarian, and I hate handling/cooking meat...