Housewife!

I'm leaving on the train for NC at 10:55, and I woke up with big plans of what to accomplish before I left.

I wanted to finish packing, print out some things to read on the train, get ready in general, and make a spinach and red pepper pie and pesto mashed potatoes for D to eat for dinner any myself to eat on the train. (I'll be on the train till 6:32, longer if it's delayed...)

It's 9:19, and I just took the casserole out of the oven to cool. For the past few hours, though, I've been in a hurricane of housewifery.

I came downstairs, made coffee, brushed the cat, and went back up to shower. I packed, wrote in my journal, and listened to NPR. I came back down and began to chop peppers and squash, heat oil in a pan, and put together D's lunch at the same time I threw fruit in the blender for a smoothie. At any pause in the cooking, I washed the dishes. D grated the cheese for me in a hectic moment. Once the casserole was in the oven, I chopped and boiled potatoes, then mixed them up with the pesto we made a few weeks ago.

Whew.

But I really had fun. I-- sometimes-- really enjoy that sort of kitchen flurry. It's fun to try to beat the clock.

I've had an interesting relationship with housework this summer, anyway. When D and I moved in together, he cooked and I washed dishes. End of story. We divided chores very equally. Gradually, though, I began to cook some. Flash forward to this summer, when I could not find a full time summer job and was spending a lot of time doing nothing. Two things occurred to me-- one, that cooking would be fun and take up some time, and two, that if I cooked dinner, Dean's summer could be a little more like mine-- he'd have a little more free time. So I began to cook dinner, and sometimes even wash the dishes too (I am a much faster dishwasher than D).

It's interesting how relationships evolve beyond equal division of labor. It's kind of like thinking about "our money" when one person makes a lot more money.

It's a similar situation with D's lunches. I began making his lunch for him when he worked at a big law firm and was totally miserable. He was not eating much and I put together these fancy lunches full of fruit and snacks to try to tempt him to eat. He got a better job, but I still make his lunch. To tell the truth, I just like to. It's fun to come up with something creative and tasty.

Interesting stuff for a self-proclaimed feminist... in college I would have refused to do most of this stuff on principle. Men should make their own lunches, or go hungry!... and so on. Seems more like empty principle now... It seems more about love, or the ebb and flow of give and take.

What do you think?