h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

incomplatible!

That's a question without a definitive answer, Irv. Some people know immediately, or so I'm told. F and I had been dating for around a year when we got married. I think couples should wait long enough for them to see the other in different moods, since in a new relationship we're always on best behavior. You need to see someone crabby to know if you really love them or not.

I agree in that I'm not sure marriage is about love vs infatuation.

And sorry, Kerr, that was a bit flipant. I do worry about turning into my mother, who, as her daughter, I have occassionally thought errs a bit on the wrong side of maintaining her self vs being available for her family. We tend to be a bit fitted in around her other interests and always have.

[p]

Witty said: You can love someone but be seriously incomplatible on many levels.

That makes sense.

Hyp said: You need to see someone crabby to know if you really love them or not.

How true!

* doing a Santra from Heathrow Airport, en route to Lyon

After all the work I put in over the last thirty years to 'train' a husband, one year of being out from under my beady eye has caused a relapse.
Further training needed!

* half-joking

Enjoy your time in Lyon. I've been there once (nearly 30 years ago) for three weeks, but I don't remember too much. I liked it, though.

[BB]

Not doing a "Santra" as I'm only posting from a train heading out of Euston.

Since I'm still feeling rather punk, I decided I needed something to cheer me up. So I decided to add to my hat collection. How many people do you know who can write off a flying pig hat as a legitimate business expense?

http://www.kipptoys.com//ProductBrowse/ProductDetail.aspx?TID=225&SID=321&PID=15893

"How many people do you know who can write off a flying pig hat as a legitimate business expense?"



646 Members of the House of Commons

S and I started dating when we were 17. And we dated (long-distance) for five years before we moved in together. And then we lived together for six years before I proposed, ahving THOROUGHLY road-tested the man. We'd seen each other crabby, sulky, sick, depressed, foul-tempered, despairing, elated, getting fatter, getting thinner (less of the latter, alas), unemployed, re-employed, dirt-poor, reasonably-well-off. I'd gone off the rails and had a two-night-stand, and S had not only NOT forgiven me (having a martyr in a relationship usually kills it stone-dead), but realised it was in part his own damn fault for treating me badly for a good two years. We fought, split up, got back together again. We'd observed each-other's house-keeping standards, heard each other snore, fought over duvet-hogging and sex. We'd seen each other through family crises, funerals, hospitals, and car-accidents. And THEN I married him.

Love, real love, you see, is a verb. You can do anything and everything for someone you FEEL loving towards, because it won't really be an effort and you'll WANT to please them. If you feel like slapping someone's fool face off, dislike even the very way they brush their teeth, and think if they play Enya once more you will kill them WITH the stereo, but still make them dinner, take the garbage out for them, and give them a neck-massage, because you know you loved them last week, and might well love them next week, and in any case they love you, and more importantly you made promises, that's love. And it pays off. And you get through the hard times and find you are full to the brim with delight and joy in each other. Not to mention gratitude, respect, and a strong desire to live up to those promises.

If you can't do any of that, and it seems too much like hard work, or if it seems unthinkable because you're still in the pink fluffy land of This Person Is Perfect And Loving Them Could NEVER Be Hard, for Bob's Sake don't get married yet.

That's not to say short engagements DON'T work. Sometimes they do work, and work beautifully. But again, I think because the two brave mad people concerned make promises they intend to keep.

It also helps if you fancy each other like mad, I must say.

Here endeth the lesson. Weeks of silence followed by Thought For The Day, Twice The Sententiousness edition. I am sorry.

Hyp, you knew that was coming, right?!

I got married after knowing my X for almost 3 years. It wasn't until after D was born that things went downhill--rapidly. Largely because I realized the necessity of growing up, while he realized the necessity of alcohol to his mental well-being.

Thus, perhaps, the end of our marriage.

<>

MR, I'd have been disappointed if it hadn't.

Ag.

>> For those in the Salon who are married, how long would you say is reasonable to wait to make sure you're in love, and not just infatuated?

Same thing. And the answers are as follows:

Infatuation - a month or so - ie long enough for a sperm to hit pay dirt, or for the bloke to cut his losses and run.

In love - 3 years or so - so the child can be raised by two adults to the point of self-feeding and independent mobility in a stone-age society.

Couple love (for want of a better term) - 12 to 15 years - long enough for the child to reach adulthood or near adulthood with two parents and presumably a higher degree of mental and physiical health in said stone-age society - possibly long enough for there to be a grandchild

Love is a product of evolution. Makes the earth move and the world go round and the moon shine in June and all that, and very nice too, but ultimately it's just a by-product of successful child-raising.

I like the idea that love is something you do, not something you feel, that it is more closely allied to commitment and nurturing than hunger or fear. I sound flippant, but I do in fact take it rather seriously.

B

'g'

Well said Ag!

My kitchen fan gremlin is back, after having been gone for months... but now, for the second evening in a row (always evenings, never mornings) I can hear a distinct tock, tock-tock, tock, tock-tock-tock, tock from my kitchen.

The first time it happened (years ago), I thought a small bird might have gotten into the ventilation shaft, and dismantled most of the fan - only to find nothing at all. Zip. Nada.

Sometimes turning the fan on stops the noise, and sometimes not.

> Since all of you insist on going on and on about how wonderful your dishwashers are, could someone here please lend me one?

Hah. I wish. Our cabinets are ancient, and constructed in such a way that to install a dishwasher, we'd have to get new cabinets. So we wash them by hand. Mostly me, actually.

> Favourite kitchen appliance. Hand held blender. Splendid thing.

I have to say that I enjoy the heck out of my immersion blender. I have to be careful not to use it on soups that are still boiling, though

> In cold weather I use my crock pot a lot

I use my crock pot in warm weather, because cooking things like beans heat up the kitchen too much. In fact, I whipped up a pot of red beans the other day, with big chunks of bacon. Then cooked onions and jalapeños on the stove, then added andouille sausage, and poured the whole thing back into the crock pot. Whoo-eee! It was delicious.

Speaking of introverts, I am especially introverted - I can spend days without talking to anybody, if hubby isn't home. Hubby's also an introvert. But we like spending time with each other, even if we're doing introverted things.

Ag, you have a talent for explaining things in just the right way. Well said indeed.

note to self, do not put plastic plates in the microwave, they melt a bit. Oops.

mini

I forgot to mention my Wrapmaster 1000 . It holds cling film and cuts it to leangth beautifully . Before buying this the air would turn blue as I strugled to wrap a packed lunch for work every day .