I had one of the most happy making phone conversations today with Ruth.

Ring!

Me: Hey sugar plumb! What’s up?

Ruth: Do you want leftover veggie stew for dinner?

Me: Oh hell yes!

Ruth: Ok, I’m going to pick up some rice. Oh you need rice for fried rice too, don’t ya?

Me: Oh yeah.

Ruth: Do you need anything else?

Me: A winning lottery ticket. Oh and soda. I will clean the nastiest thing in the world for you if you buy me soda.

Ruth: Sure thing.

Now this may sound like a simple conversation between roomies who happen to like each other, but for me this is the first time since I was little that the day to day responsibility of dinner isn’t always mine. And Ruth has an esp like sense for when dinner is just too much for me to deal with.

Dinner seems like a simple thing. People gotta eat. They like to eat. But feeding yourself (and a growing boy-man, and often a large hairy boyfriend) is not exactly simple. Especially when you are super poor. I probably spend an hour everyday just planning for meals.

First- there’s the money part. Ok so I have $40 bucks till the 15th, I also have $13 on a Safeway giftcard, but Safeway is an hour out of the way by bus, plus I need an extra $3.75 to get there and back (by bus). Let’s see, $40. I need 8 days worth of dinners plus breakfast and lunch for the weekend. That’s $5 a day. Not gonna make it on that. Fuck. So let’s see what I can do that will get us close.

Second- What have we already got? There’s a leftover ham bone in the freezer. $2 worth of split peas and you’ve got soup. That’s 2 dinners. There is the dregs of a pork roast (mainly fat with a bit of crackly bits in it). If Ruth buys rice then I just need a couple of bucks worth of veggies and we’ve got fried rice. That will only do one dinner. But we’ve got 3 down and I’m at about $10 bucks. Oh and there’s frozen chicken enchiladas in the freezer. That’s 4 dinners. And leftover veggie stew tonight. That’s 5.

And that is as far ahead as i can think right now. And I’m ignoring one big problem. I need lunch and caffeine. Ugh!!!!!!!!!

Now having money makes this problem only slightly better. You still have to spend way too much time thinking about, planning, and shopping for food. It is tedious. Yet it is a job that most women do everyday for their families without anyone giving a second thought to the time and effort that goes into it. I mean we eat every day. Something that you do everyday shouldn’t be that difficult. But I have been known to snap when the Kid asks me for the millionth time at 3pm “What’s for dinner?”

Sometimes, I just want to live in a world where food shoots magically out of a tube and no one ever has to do dishes or scrub pots. In lieu of that I would like credit reflected in my social security check when I am older for all the hours that I have spent ensuring that the next generation doesn’t die of malnutrition. Just cause it’s women’s work doesn’t mean it’s not real work.