daily grind

I've been working a lot at the public charter school around the corner from where I live. My Dear Husband is the director of finance there.

I have been substitute teaching there when it fits with my schedule over the last several years. More recently, I have been working in the finance department as well. So now, I work most days at the school, either as a substitute teacher, or as a finance assistant, or as both at different times during the day.

Most days. On Mondays, I babysit for my grandson. It's a little less than an hour's drive to my son's home. It is a great pleasure- most of the time- to have a flexible schedule that allows me to do this.

Saturdays and Sundays, if we are home, DH and I usually have one day to ourselves and another day for errands or visits. When we aren't home, it's because we head out for a visit to our children in Chicago.

Evenings we go out to eat more often than not, these days. We come home and watch TV - often episodes of NCIS or Pawn Stars that we have watched many times before- each of us with our computer screen open in front of us. We comment on what we see on the computer, or on the inanity of the commercials on the TV. Sometimes I am reading- when I have a good book going. Often we have a glass or two of wine while we watch.

We go to bed. I usually read for awhile in bed.

There are some good things about this routine. It's comfortable and comforting. We are together, and this is comfortable and comforting.

There are some not-so-good things about this routine. We're eating out a lot and I am sitting on my ass a lot.

This is a marked contrast to other times in my life.

When I was a girl, growing up in my parents' home, we didn't go out to eat. At all. Ever. We had cereal for breakfast, and my mom, staggering around with sleepy eyes and bed-head hair, would pack sack lunches for all of us. We had dinner at home.

I believe my mom knew 1001 ways to fix ground beef.

If we kids had homework, we did that. Mostly, we roamed around outside, until it was dark.

The TV was on, but my dad was master of the house and we watched what he watched or we didn't watch at all. It was literally true that a kid might be watching a program and my dad would come in and change to a program he wanted.

He was home. It was his castle.

When I was 12 or 13, I saw a couple of episodes of Star Trek at some friend's house, and I fell in love with the show- and that was the main reason that I saved up my babysitting money and allowance and gave all that I had saved towards what was my main Christmas present that year- a little TV that could go in my room so I could watch Star Trek.

I felt very rich.

I went to college- I think I took my TV with me, but I'm not sure. My memory of my life is so foggy- I have often thought that either I had a terrible time and repressed it, or it was so unremarkable as to be forgettable.

In any case, the years of later high school and college and post college study in London were so consumed with theater and socializing that I didn't watch TV, probably for 6 or 7 years. I was physically active, and once I got out of the dorms, I was back to making my own meals.

Then I worked in restaurants. I made my own breakfasts, made my own whole wheat bread for toast, and eggs, and orange juice, and coffee. I ate at the restaurants where I worked. And I went out to bars and restaurants with girlfriends and others. I waited on tables, and I danced to the jukebox. I was living in Chicago, I didn't have a car, I walked everywhere.

When I met DH, he and I were both working in restaurants. We ate out at restaurants a lot, but I also cooked. When we were on oppositive schedules, I would come home from working the lunch shift, prepare delicious meals timing them to be ready at 2:00 in the morning when DH would arrive from the dinner shift. We would sit on the balcony of his condo and drink wine.

So I was physically active then, too. And I cooked.

When we married and had children, we were broke. In fact, for a number of years, I thought that DH losing his job was a symptom of pregnancy. I cooked our meals and took care of our kids.

I watched daytime TV for a while, until my Dear Daughter, age 2, while I was nursing her brother on one side and she was balancing on the other side,  announced she was going to give me a kiss "like on Love Boat," grabbed my face with both hands, and ground her lips against mine from side to side.

That was the end of daytime TV for me.