Working Together

Sue made an interesting comment yesterday. It came during the process of the new stove installation.

See, Suzie is the kind of person that won't wait for her significant other to do something if she can do it herself. It's something she has learned over the years of her previous marriages. It became clear to her quite a while back that if she wanted something done she'd better do it herself, or be very patient. Through years of learning and doing all matter of things herself, she has become a very capable person--Able to do anything she sets her mind to.

So back to the stove installation.

Naturally, with the new stove (she keeps calling it my stove) sitting in her dining room staring at her and plenty of time on her hands she wasn't about to let that project go untried. We brainstormed a bit the day I helped her bring the stove home, tossing ideas about what would need to be done. The old stove had cabinetry that needed to be cut all the way down to meet the floor, and the opening on the counter top that the stove slides into also needed to be opened up bigger.

It didn't surprise me one bit on Monday when I got home from work and saw her email. She had already pulled the old one out, enlarged the counter top opening to fit it, and was sending me pictures of the electrical connectors that we needed to buy to complete the install. Nope, very thorough. I had no doubt as to what to get when I went over to Lowe's before heading up to her house. When I got there and found out how much she had done and how well she had done it, I was very impressed. I jumped in at that point, but the brainstorming between us didn't stop. We had to try a few ideas and methods before I was finally able to get the lower part trimmed down to the floor. After the electrical changover, we plugged the stove in and attempted to slide it in a couple times, but found that there was one board still interfering along the back. At that point, however, we were finished for the day. She opted instead to just leave it where it was until the following day when she would trim the offending board out of the way. We spent the rest of the time playing with the stove and marveling at how cool it was.

During the time I was there she showed me her bandaged finger, noting that she had cut herself during her work, and didn't notice it until she had blood spots all over her pants. It wasn't long after that I started seeing blood while I was working too, and like her didn't notice I had wounded myself. While I was working, we talked about the blood on the pants and how to get it out. Because I had hydrogen peroxide and she didn't, she sent me home with them when I left. As I was leaving she noted, "We worked pretty well together on that didn't we?" Because we are both very opinionated and have our own way of doing things, it's easy to be offended at suggestions from the other, and we are both trying to be aware of that fact.

She had Keith put a new radiator hose on her car yesterday as well. She could have done it of course, but she wanted him to have something to do. Because she had been using my car while hers was out of commission she had to come down here yesterday to take me to get it. After I fed her and we got all set to go, she picked up the newly blood-free pants and made the comment I mentioned.

Ah yes, the comment--You thought I forgot about that didn't you?

I don't remember it verbatim, but I'll pretend to quote it: "We're quite a capable pair aren't we? I can install stoves and you can get the blood out of my clothes." We both thought it was pretty good. She called us both "multi-capable" people.

We're also apparently both bleeders.