And The True Love

Probably the nicest compliment someone paid my relationship with G, which is just coming up on it's 3rd anniversary (I know, I know, we're romance babies comparatively) is that they wanted a relationship like mine - where someone drives you crazy but you still love them.

I guess that's kind of the theme of P!nk's song, "True Love". Life was simpler before "Blurred Lines", when I could just listen to a song, enjoy the beat, and let it get stuck in my head, but now I listen carefully to the lyrics and choose to vote with my ears, turning the station if the song supports something I don't agree with.

The first time I heard this song, I was driving. I listened, smiled a little as I identified with "Sometimes I wanna slap you in your whole face..", and "At the same time, I wanna hug you / I wanna wrap my hands around your neck..". Okay, fair. I think that anyone who is in a long term relationship with a partner who has a mind of their own has these thoughts from time to time. 

The problematic part of this is "And you make me so mad I ask myself / Why I'm still here, or where could I go / You're the only love I've ever known..".

I would be the first to tell you that G and I have had issues understanding one another by times, and particularly when you add to it that we come from different backgrounds and also both pride ourselves on our ... (ahem, what's the nice word for 'pigheadedness'? oh yes..) resolve. But never once have I thought "Why am I still here? Oh, I have nowhere else to go." - I think it's fair to say that adults understand that when you start to have a thought like this, it is high time to GTFO and don't look back. As a reasonable adult listening to this song, I can smile and skip over the way that most young girls can interpret this part of the lyrics.

No lie, there are young girls out there who think that fighting means you're working it out and you're a grown up because of it. I don't disagree that working it out means love, but here's a handy guide:

If your fights are about situational things, that you can both change and borne of frustration - ie. money, living with your mother-in-law, money, and oh, money - working out these issues and finding a solution, like picking up a second job so you have more money and can move out of your mother-in-law's place, you're good!

If your fights are about fundamental things like how his family that he is very close to is suffocating, you don't like the hobbies that she had before you got together, she is too jealous, etc - it might not be a bad idea to GTFO and find someone who has a looser relationship with their family and is into polygamy (okay, I know that's a stretch). 

And above and beyond all of this, if one person is constantly compromising... well, it's obviously not them that is the problem...

I just worry that because a pop star said it, many girls are going to stay in relationships that are unhealthy and damaging and quite frankly, scary because 'But I hate you, I really hate you, /

So much, I think it must be / True love... No one else can break my heart like you..'.

Life was so much easier before I had to start changing the station when "Blurred Lines" came on.

And The Stuffed Peppers

G is the culinary genius in this relationship. He can take what I would consider to be a fridge that needs groceries and whip up something fancy and tasty. If I undertake "a romantic dinner", it will definitely be hit or miss (though I did roar "BEEF WELLINGTON!" with caveman-who-creates-fire type self-satisfaction when the beef wellie that I made for his birthday dinner came out beautifully), but if he undertakes "a romantic dinner", it turns into something restaurant quality and beautiful. 

He consistently encourages me to "think outside the box", but I am a poor cook for the same reason that I am a poor-lots-of-other-things-in-my-life... lack of patience. It is a virtue with which I was not bestowed naturally. I tend to first not have the foresight to take meat out of the freezer in advance and then not give it enough time to defrost once I have, at the last minute, decided to cook something. Then, I will not have the patience or have allowed myself the time to cook it and cook it on too high of a heat. Or, failing that, get bored waiting around and "just pop onto Facebook for a minute" and end up overcooking, drying out, or burning most everything. 

I am also pretty un-inspired when it comes to food. I generally follow a recipe, and, failing that, revert to the old easy protein-in-a-pan with rice or potatoes and a side of frozen vegetables. G is constantly encouraging me to make something "from scratch" but as he is not exactly forthcoming with praise (it's just a part of his personality), it is daunting to make something that, when asked, will be "okay".

AND, the last little self deprecating fact -- I suck at foresight.

So I found myself, last night, sitting there thinking "I really need to put away that giant pack of lean ground beef that I bought. And I need to make supper, and it's my only defrosted meat... but what can I do with ground beef besides hamburgers or spaghetti?..." and then "Oh, and I need to start to do something with that giant bag of green bell peppers that I bought because it was a good deal, even though nobody has a use for that many green peppers...". I was just about to head to Facebook to ask my faithful friends for a recipe that would use ground beef, when it finally came together in my brain (remember, I am REALLY not creative in the culinary sense. Not even a little bit.). I'm kind of embarrassed about how long it took me to realize I had the two primary ingredients for stuffed peppers.

I perused a few recipes but none of them were really anything that I wanted to get into (read: too intricate and didn't have all the ingredients), so I browned the ground beef with minced onions and mushrooms, cooked up some minute rice, put it all together with some salsa and black beans and slapped all that in a few green peppers and topped with shredded mozzarella (would have been better with a sharp cheddar, and maybe some cottage or ricotta cheese in the mix, I think... never enough cheese in this world!).

The end result was SO TASTY that I insisted on eating it while it was too hot and sloughed off a big patch of skin on the roof of my mouth. See what I said about impatience?

And I am as talented at photography as I am at cooking.