Neither Julie nor Julia but...

While visiting my sister and extended family last weekend we watched Julie & Julia. For me, again.

I really like the movie. I almost never watch a movie twice but there are a few notable exceptions. Anything Star Trek, Benny & Joon, and most Robin Williams movies.

Now Julie & Julia.

As I've been wandering around the "spouse of a diabetic" world - trying to figure out exactly *what* my role in all of this is supposed to be and trying to be a much better person than comes naturally to me - I've taken up cooking.

This is not the first time I've taken up cooking. The last time was when I joined Weight Watchers and had to admit to my then husband of 10 years and the rest of my family that I'd been keeping a secret. I can cook beyond a baked ham or cookies.

Chris knows I can cook. He also knows that that I firmly believe the requirement TO eat is one of the greatest jokes God ever played on mankind.

In the movie Julie & Julia there is clearly a great love of food. I do not share that in common with them. Although I do believe that butter makes everything better. And butter with lemon? Or butter with brown sugar? Oh yum.

At night I send Chris to the gym. Then I put on some music and pour a glass of wine. I spend the next 30 to 45 minutes concocting.

I've discovered the creativity to be had in cooking. Color. Smell. Taste. A little this, a bit of that.

This morning Chris was comparing our cooking. On a scale of 1-10 he says he's at most a 5. Occasionally a 7. But me? I'm occasionally a 5 but usually in the 7 to 9 range. He reserves 1's and 10's for those really extreme moments. So 9 is as good as it gets.

He likes eating what I cook. He says that at some point it just "turned on" for me. It did.

When I got angry with him I took to my kitchen. I rewarded his not telling me about his diagnosis and pill decision by baking all weekend long. Food he could not eat. Food I deliberately taunted him with. I found comfort in baking. I never find comfort in eating so I was happy to throw out everything I made. I just enjoyed making it knowing he wanted it and couldn't eat it.

In a way, I was cooking for him. And it turns out that I *like* cooking for him. I like that he genuinely enjoys what I make, knows I never know exactly what will happen but somehow it is flavorful and good for him (having gotten over the punishing him with food he can't have business.)

I bought a diabetes cookbook for him for Christmas. Diabetes recipe software for me.

I read through the book. It is uninspired.

Unlike last night's dinner of baked ham, baked sweet potatoes, southern collard greens (which he had three helpings of - the secret is bacon grease!) and mexicali cornbread. A meal that in balance was really good for him. Oh, and very very southern.

So last night I bought the two volume set "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" and I'm going to give some of the recipes a whirl. Not all of them. Julia Child had too great a fondness for mushrooms and seafood - neither of which I can eat. But the rich, creamy, lemon-buttery sauces the French and us southerners are known for.

Screw diabetes. I'm going to cook for the shear joy of it. Somehow I don't think it will hurt if I apply a bit of creativity to Julia Child's recipes - and maybe end up with things healthier as a result.

NL

Battling Death in the Season of Light

So God has a sense of humor.

Just when our relationship got to the point where I wanted to run and run and run...he dropped 20 inches of snow on us and made sure I could run absolutely freakin' lutely NO WHERE!

What do two adults do when they are facing serious questions about where they are going and whether they are going to try going there together? I don't know. Because last weekend was not two adults. It was many adults all stuck in the same, thankfully large, house for a couple of days.

(BTW, the bright spot was a wonderful visit with my sister - whom I love beyond measure, as well as my brothers and my sister-in-law.)

So we fought. For several days. In whispers. We got hardly any sleep. We dredged up every issue we could think of and when we ran out we invented some. There came a point in the midst of this that we decided that we were ended. We could not continue. We were done.

Then we looked out the bedroom window at the acres and acres of pure white snow and we realized that of all the things that felt wrong, splitting up felt the most wrong of all.

We ended up staying a day longer than planned which turned out to be a good thing because we were able to take my father to the hospital for his hip replacement surgery. As Chris sat there quietly, patiently, with me and my mom and my dad I realized that he's a good guy. Not perfect. But good.

Good because he knows that in the world of places I hate above all others, the hospital is right at the top of the list. And we were there for HOURS waiting for dad to go into surgery, get out of surgery, come out of recovery. Even with a lunch break in the middle (Cheesecake Factory - Red Velvet Cheesecake!) it was too much time for me. So when I said "I want to check out the gift shop" what he correctly heard was "I need retail therapy NOW!"

I walked through the doors of the gift shop and made a beeline for the jewelry counter where I scored 3 pairs of absolutely fabulous earrings.

I slept like a baby Monday night/Tuesday morning. 3 days of fighting, several hours in a hospital, a trek across still not great roads, and still no freakin' clue what what happening next with us - I was exhausted. But while the fighting was done the talking was not.

It is a week now since the worst of our battle and what we have to work with are a bunch of analogies because we aren't broken, we:

1. Are like several beautiful necklaces all tangled up. Time to tackle it one knot at a time.
2. Like a car stuck in a rut. We need a fulcrum (he had to actually explain to me what one of those is - I understood the intent but had no idea it was a tool!) to help us get unstuck.
3. Are able to work through much of the junk we gunk up between us BUT need to occasional poke to make sure we actually DO it.

At the end of it the visit to the counselor was a good thing - not because the visit went well but because it forced us to decide head on if *we* are worth working on.

We have a long way to go before we are anything approaching perfect - or even completely comfortable with where we are or where we are going. I still don't know if we're going to end up together in the long run. But then, does anyone?

My favorite quote in all of this was from Chris. He said "You are so rational when you are dispassionate. I like it when you are irrational because at least you are passionate." In short, he needs me to be as committed to us as I need him to be.

Meanwhile on our left hand ring fingers are two white gold & diamond rings. Our Christmas gifts to each other. We picked them out - he for me and me for him - with no input at all from the other. We weren't together.

And oddly the designs are lovely, elegant, and very similar. Eerily similar.

They are promise rings. A promise of a commitment to each other - to us. They are the visible reminder of the decisions we made out of last weekend's "fighting." Because what I realize now was that we weren't fighting each other...we were fighting *for* us.

NL

Huh?

So yesterday Chris and I visited a couples counselor. The plan was to discuss with her ways to improve our communications so that when we have our tiffs, we do it more constructively. We find ways to build up and not tear down.

We have hurdles. It seemed like a grown up thing to do.

This is what really happened.

We went in. We sat down. She asked me to talk. I talked for 5 minutes. She asked Chris to talk. He wouldn't. I said "you want to talk without me here?" She said "that sounds like an idea. Go wait in the waiting room and I'll come get you in 10 minutes."

So I waited for more than 30 minutes.

When she finally came back to get me I was on my way out the door. Furious.

I went back to her room, sat down, and listened to what she had to say.

She said "Chris needs to get clarity. You will need to be patient."

I said "how do we pay you. Chris. Pay her. This was clearly a session for you."

We left. I was so angry I couldn't be in the car with him. So I walked/cabbed home. He was blissfully unaware.

I'm still mad. He thought it was a good session. I thought "did we not have the same goal here?"

Then I told him....for the 400th time. "GET OUT!"

He won't. Now we are at my sister's house, trapped in more than a foot of snow (expecting 2 feet) and somehow it is supposed to be okay. Because he still doesn't see the problem. Here's the problem. He either works with me on this or he gets out. Because I'm not really interested in working on a relationship that is one sided.

And somehow this counselor completely missed that point.

So I'm more confused and less helped than ever.

Because I don't know how to make this man either decide to work on us or get out. I am tired of him sitting on some imaginary fence.

Which sucks because other than this quirk, he's a wonderful man and deeply loved by every one I know...including me.

NL

It's A Lot To Process

My father is having his hip replaced on Monday. A friend "in the know" says that she wouldn't be surprised if he wakes up post surgery in less pain than before the surgery. Apparently hip pain can be

JUST

THAT

BAD

So he's going in and they are replacing his bad hip. And I am hoping, hoping, hoping that he gets some of his mobility back. Because in the past two years he's been in so much pain that he has barely wanted to live.

Which, as his daughter, makes me sad.

Meanwhile I am pondering Facebook, lovers, and The Spectrum's really interesting question about relationships. Sometimes bad relationships are like bad hips - they just need replacing. But how do you know?

Hoping to get some insight on that tomorrow.

NL

Little Happy Pills

No doubt about it. The past week has been a trial for me.

There are a few things in my life I have a lot of trouble with. Lying and dependency are the two big ones.

I learned early on in life that lying gains you nothin' but trouble unless there is no way in heck you are going to get caught and only if the lie is for good (I love this sweater Aunt Flo!)

Dependency is a whole 'nother issue. I was on the roof one day at the tender age of 17 and I was BITTER. I'd been invited on a picnic with then boyfriend and my father, for some unbeknown reason, decided that it was high time I learned to fix a roof. So up there I was, in the hot sun, pounding nails and bitchin'. But nicely because I was never sure if my father, pushed to far, might be inclined to throw me off the roof.

"Why do I HAVE to do this Dad?" I whined.

I'll never forget what came next. Instead of exploding he looked up at me and said "because no daughter of mine is going to be dependent on a man."

My life lessons included stacking and loading hay, chopping wood, repairing a car, and fixing a roof. Except for repairing a car, none of those other lessons have done me a whit of good...except this: they reinforce in me the sense that I do not have to be dependent on anyone or anything.

There is good to that. There is bad to that. The good is that I am pretty competent in most things AND I can have alcohol and Ambien in my house and know that I will never become reliant on either of them. Amen.

The bad is that I am extremely resistant to any drug which may become a lifelong requirement - including those for which prescriptions are written by a doctor. This resistance extends to my beloved, who I think should have my same unwillingness to be bound to the pharmaceutical industry.

But one of the best things about Chris is that he is not me. We make different decisions and when we are in disagreement we fight like crazy until we find a spot in the middle. And sometimes one of his decisions turns out to have an unexpected benefits.

(Dad, if you are reading this you might want to stop now.)

So it was that after a week of fighting over a lie and decision it occurred to me that if he was going to go the pill route for life management there might be something in it for me. As a result Chris found himself in the doctor's office in which the conversation, as relayed to me, went like something like this:

"Deb says if I'm going to use pills there may as well be something in it for her. Can I get a script for Viagra?"

She laughed. She said "Did she really say that?"

Chris said "she did." (And I did.)

So he came home with some little blue pills. And I can honestly say that while he's never been a slouch in "that department" these are a *wonderful* addition to his medicine cabinet.

Which makes me wonder about all of the other doors that might be opening up just because Chris is a lot more open minded when it comes to medicine and doctors. I could learn a lot from him I suppose.


NL