Household Chores.

I asked Rick to do me two favors while I was away and before I got home.
After 31 years you'd think he would just know this but as we've said before they need it spelled out.

I asked that I not have to come home and see hairballs the size of tumbleweed rolling across my floor now that Izzy is blowing her coat. 
Number 2 - please have the island cleared off. Even if just reasonably cleared off, I can live with that. I want to be able to see the island and not a pile of his stuff. This is something I ask of him each time I go away so he should get this by now. So far it's never been done. I just hate opening the door and see the hurricane that occured while I was gone and yet the first responders didn't pick up a thing. I don't think I should have to pick up after him when I return. He feels the same about his garage. Heaven forbid I put something in the wrong place or move things around. It is the same thing really. He gets it, but he pretends he doesn't and he turns on the charm. 

Sounds easy enough to me.
Hairballs - I vacuum 2x a day while she is blowing her coat. 
It has begun to slow down but it's still not great. 
I HATE seeing hair all over the floor or anywhere but the floor especially. 
An example of this was the day before I left I vacuumed in the morning around 8:00am. 
At 3:00pm I went downstairs to have a cup of coffee. 
Izzy was asleep in her bed.
I thought I would enjoy my coffee and sit in Rick's chair while it was quiet. I was wearing my headset so if someone called I could easily answer and then go upstairs to my office. 
I sat down with my coffee and I saw hair all over the floor in clumps under the kitchen island stools. It was just this morning that I vacuumed!
So instead of sitting I did it all again and went back to work.
You can imagine what I was thinking I'd come home to after 5 1/2 days.

Island - I have an 8ft kitchen island. It can be cleared of everything except a fruit bowl or flowers or some such item like that but you can see the rest of the island. Until Rick comes home.
Rick walks in and there is shit strewn about and you can't even tell what color my countertop is after 5 minutes of him walking in the door. How can he do that in less than 5 minutes and make my island invisible? 

Sunday night on the phone he tells me he's done the laundry. 
I giggled. He said what is so funny about that? I should not have laughed.
I said, "nothing at all, thank you for doing it, babe." 
(remember we had a deal I would do laundry for the rest of his life if he did it while we lived in that haunted house and I wouldn't venture into that scary basement so this was not expected)

But I knew he didn't really DO the laundry. He washed and dried a couple of things and then threw them in the laundry basket I was assuming. 
But gee, maybe I'm being too rough on the Big Guy. He did attempt to do laundry and that was considerate and nice of him. 

When I walked into the house after a week away the floor was clear of hair.  I was so happy. 
The island was pretty good. He even had flowers on the island for me.
I thanked him. He even washed the floor. I hugged & kissed him and was thrilled that he did both. So there is hope after 31 years.

The laundry - oh the laundry.
He set the items he folded into a laundry basket and put it by my bed on the floor. So if I were getting into bed I would fall over it.
There were towels folded in that basked that go into the linen closet just a few feet away. I had to laugh. This is Rick's version of doing the laundry.

Last night as I was doing some more laundry and I was folding his things and putting them away. He was in the bedroom as I am putting away his socks in his drawer. 
I say to him, "this is how one does laundry."  As I dramatically open the drawer and put his socks in it.  He laughs.

He replied, "I washed and dried them and I folded them too. 

"C'mon Rick, but did you put them away?"

"Well no. But I don't know where your clothes go."

Now I am laughing because he is trying so hard not to laugh.

I said, "you don't know where my clothes go? a drawer perhaps? you couldn't open a drawer? And what do you mean you don't know where my clothes are, you fetched me a pair of socks the other day when I yelled from the bathroom."

"Oh yea," he says. He is smirking.

"And the towels you folded, you don't know where those go? Where do you get them?"

"Well damn it, I just hate it when I see your point. Just don't go away again without me and it will all be fine."

Oh, I see this is punishment.  I think this week when I do laundry I just HAVE to leave the basket by his side of the bed with his stuff in it and see what happens. 
Wanna bet he moves it to my side of the bed?

Let the games begin.