Who needs Heloise?

With Chelsi at Charlie's apartment in Port Hueneme
2004

Boy, how time flies. This May will be three years (2008) since Charlie retired from the Navy. It will be four years (2007) since I stopped (I refuse to say I retired) working.

Captain Bell

I’m glad I had one year to be “home alone”. I was able to spend quality time with our dog, Chelsi. She had been diagnosed with inoperable cancer in March of 2007. The vet had given her only a few months, but she went on to live until September 2008. For the most part, until the last couple of months, she felt pretty good and had a good quality of life. I used to take her with me when I went shopping or ran errands around town. She loved riding in the car and being with me. I always knew where the shady parking spots were.

A couple of times I took her out for lunch. Yes, I went through the drive thru of “Long John Silver” and got us some fish and chips. Then I found a shady spot to park and she and I had our lunch. Those were our times together.

In years earlier, I would drive up to Thousand Oaks to get my hair highlighted and/or cut. I always took Chelsi with me. I would drop her off at her groomer, “Indiana Bones in the House of Groom”. They kept her while I went off to my hair dresser. Usually she wasn’t ready when I got out, so I had time to go shopping or meet a friend for lunch before picking her up.

One time, I picked her up and before driving the three hours back home, we needed some lunch. I stopped at Arby’s. When I got out of the car, I saw some coupons on the ground. They were for 6 sandwiches at a very cheap price. Well, I couldn’t turn that down so I bought 6 roast beef sandwiches. Then I found a shady parking lot of a building which was closed. Chelsi and I sat on the curb and ate our sandwiches. This was before Chelsi was sick, so she really enjoyed her share of those sandwiches. This was my favorite lunch with Chelsi.

Later, when she started losing weight, I tried the fish and chips to tempt her to eat more. It worked a couple of times, but then she really didn’t want much to eat. I missed our times together when she passed away.

Charlie and I have gotten into a routine now. At first, when he was home all of the time, I felt like I never could get anything done. He really wasn’t in the way, but just knowing he was in the house made me put things off that I would normally just do. I usually stayed busy around the house. I could always find something that needed to be done. Now, I don’t do much of anything, but my days just fly by.

After the first year or so, I thought maybe since Charlie was home, he could help around the house. Things that I had always done and thought that I was the only one who could do it, no longer were sacred.

It started with me asking him to vacuum the upstairs and then the stairs and bring the vacuum down and I would do the downstairs rooms. Then it got to “Can you vacuum the house today?” Well, there was a reason. We got a new Dyson vacuum cleaner which is very heavy, compared to the little Kenmore’s I’d always used. Usually Charlie will vacuum while I’m out for my morning walk.

One of his other jobs is putting the garbage out every week. Our garbage pickup has been on Thursdays since we bought this house in 1999. The boy next door puts his cans out on Wednesday mornings like clock work. Thursday morning comes and I say to Charlie, “Did you put the garbage out?” He usually says, “No, I need to do that” and he does it. Then I usually say, “We (meaning YOU) should probably put the cans out on Wednesdays and then you wouldn’t have to go out in the cold”. He agrees. The next week comes and I say..........well, you get where this is going. Sometimes though, he surprises me and when I ask if the cans are out, he says “Yes”. When I recover, I say “Oh, good!”

Charlie’s closet is upstairs in his computer room, which is usually where Charlie can be found during the day. I used to go up to his closet and get his dirty clothes basket when I do laundry. Then I started yelling up to him, “Can you bring your dirty clothes basket down and leave it in the bedroom for me to sort?” Then when the clothes are washed and folded, I either put them in his clothes basket or if I don’t have that, I stack the clothes on the stair steps for him to take up and put away.

He would usually just bring them up and stack them on top of his chest of drawers. After seeing them stacked there a couple of times, I would say “You need to put your clothes away” and he would agree. If they were still there the next time he wasn’t in his room, I would put them away. I just stuck them in any drawer that had room. I knew he had a certain drawer for everything. He would always have to look for shirts to wear, etc. and would tell me that he never could find anything when I put clothes away. But, inevitably he still would stack his clothes. So, then I started threatening him that if he didn’t put his clothes away, I would do it. The threat worked. He’s pretty good about putting the clothes away now.

Yesterday I thought, instead of getting him to bring his clothes basket down, I’d just have him put his clothes in the washer for me. So, I asked him to do that, “Put your clothes in the washer and I’ll take care of the rest.” He said “Okay”.

A little while later I went out to start the washer. The washer was empty. I knew Charlie had taken his clothes out because I heard him come downstairs and go into the garage earlier. The dryer door was open. I had some clean clothes in there from an earlier wash. Sure enough, he had put his clothes in the dryer instead of the washer. Both are front loaders, so it could be an honest mistake I guess. I was amused.

I came back in and yelled upstairs, “Hey, you put your clothes in the dryer instead of the washer!” His bathroom door was closed and he couldn’t hear me because he was in the shower.
I forgot about it until now.

One of Charlie’s longest and I think, favorite, jobs is unloading the dishwasher. He has done that for as long as I can remember. I never asked him to do it. When we both worked, I could hear him at 5:00 in the morning, quietly putting the dishes away. I didn’t mind at all because that is one job I do not like to do myself. Sometimes though, he forgets and I start getting the dishes out. If he hears me, he says “Stop, let me do that”. If I’ve just started, I say “Okay”, but if I’m almost finished, I say “I’ve got it”. I know he makes a mental note to pay more attention to that little green light on the dishwasher next time. That is definitely job security for him!

My Favorite Domestic Engineer

More later............