Adventures in housewifery

"I'm setting your cell phone alarm," M said to me this morning.  "While I'm gone, please scrub the colander of the remains of that evil-smelling turkey soup failure from Monday night, since you have been neglecting it, and also vaccuum up the popcorn remnants.  I'll set the alarm for a quarter to nine, because you are uselessly asleep at the moment, but remember, our stylish and put-together apartment manager and the polite, oddly diminutive bug guy will be coming to judge you and your inability to hold a bowl of popcorn without spilling it everywhere while we watch Masterpiece Theatre."

Muzzily, I told her, "Okay.  You look pretty," and went back to snoring.

Actually, that's not what she said.  What she said was, "I'm setting the alarm for 8:45 because pest control's coming, okay?  And try to get the dishwasher unloaded.  I'll be back around three.  I love you."

And indeed, I told her, "Okay.  You look pretty," and rolled over and went back to sleep.

I am not good at being a housewife, but I'm learning.  And screw Betty Friedan.  This shit is hard.  Which side of the sink should the dishes soak in?  Do they need to soak?  Which T-shirts from our shared wardrobe are M sufficiently unattached to that I can wear them while using Clorox?  How fast will I die if I Windex the floor and then wear tabi socks?  Can normal people do housework without having the iPod on so they can do frenetic swivel-hipped gyrating dances with the spatulas?  Questions arise.  No answers fulfill them.

See, learning how to do things like this:

Available here.

... doesn't leave a lot of mental space for learning how to do things like this:

Clipartguide.com.

Actually, the first time I was here in September, I sent my mother a long email detailing these questions and others.  She was kind enough to reply with her wisdom.  I expect that my mother, who is one of those brave third-wave feminists who said "Wait.  Wasn't the point here that I had a choice?" and decided that she had the right to prioritize a beautiful home and a relaxed family life over the High-Powered Career that she was told to want in college, was probably pleased to have me throw myself on her mercy and recognize what hard work all of this is.

Mom also reads this on occasion.  Maybe I should stop saying "shit" on my blog.  Maybe I should stop swearing on my blog anyway.

I could never be like Mom.  She has the patience and the task-breakdown abilities to keep a comfortable home and an incredibly gorgeous garden, and she would have brought them to bear in a day job if she'd chosen to remain in that path.  Mom is an educator without being dependent on a fragile education wage.  She actually would be much better than she thinks she would be at a High-Powered Career -- and she taught me that I don't have to have one to be happy, but I don't have to sacrifice that chance to be happy, either.  That there's no single way to be a woman.

Despite this important truth, it turns out that I have the attention span of a gnat, no ability to compartmentalize whatsoever, and am both intellectually bent and really frickin' weird, so there is no place for me but academia.  Hence the chagrin with which I regard my kitchen.

My family seems to be aware of this.  Among my Christmas presents were a second frilly apron and a number of cookbooks.  Here is a picture of me at Christmas:

While I look wholesome and competent in that photo, I assure you this is not the case.

Some of the cookbooks I'm holding there were from the 1950s.  This is awesome, because I am a Gallery of Regrettable Food addict, and also very touching, because a close look at the dates of them reveals that they're M's grandma's wedding cookbooks.

One of them is called "Dishes Men Like" and was printed by Lea & Perrin's.  It earnestly informs me that there is no better way to please my man (I'm quoting) than to get in the habit of keeping a bottle of Lea & Perrin's Worcestershire Sauce -- his familiar favorite from the country club -- on the dining table as well as in the kitchen.  This will also save me extra trips.

After I absorbed this well-meaning advice, I informed M, "You're fetching your own damn ketchup."  She seemed okay with this.

And then while I return to the breach of housewifery (not, I hasten to assure the world, in my apron and pearls) I find myself thinking, "Since we're always just over dishwasher capacity but not sufficiently to justify a second load, maybe I should prioritize items with more than one utility," and then I realize I just need to do the world a favor and stop using words, and then I go write a blog post which doesn't help with that goal while the white Formica countertops marinate in Comet, and here we are.

Being a housewife is hard.