Tomorrow Swan is off work. She will spend the day cleaning her side of the condos and rearranging the furniture and disguising the home so our "unaware" family members can remain in the dark about our lifestyle. I have already cleaned my side. I have already done the shopping for the feast. Last weekend Tom and his son watched football and performed the annual "Perkification during Murderation". For the uninitiated that is when the 2 of them wrestle our monster artificial tree out of the garage and put it together. Then they have to fluff, this is the "Perkification", the branches that have been smashed in a box all year. And this is all done while their favorite football team is beating their least favorite football team, this would be the "Murderation". They have done this for several years now...it is quite hysterical. I often have to leave my condo and go to Sue's just to keep from crying while I am trying not to pee my pants laughing.
Then we have "THE DAY". Swan and I will spend the day prepping and cooking and baking. All to be able to lay out a spread for about 10 of Tom's family and our friends. We will do drinks and appetizers on my side of the condos and then move to Swan's side for dinner, as she has a much larger dining table and we can all fit.
Now for the silliness.....about 3 yrs ago Swan and I started taking a medication as a preventative for migraines. It has worked wonders for the both of us, but not without some sincere adjustments. We had alot of stomach upset. And there are still some foods that neither of us can eat, that we used to love. We occasionally get tingly hands and feet...another adjustment. But the worst was the confusion. In the beginning, we really had to concentrate to do the most simple tasks. Let's say you want to change the channel on the TV. You just get the remote and do it....not us. We would have to conciously think "Locate the remote..Reach for the remote..Point the remote at the TV..Pick the correct channel.. Lay the remote back down.." You see, if we didn't do that, we might sit with the remote in our hand and never figure out why we picked it up in the first place! I cannot tell you how many times I got something out of the fridge and never shut the door, only to find the door open later. I left the water running in the bathtub and went off and did something else. Forgot all about the tub until it was over the side and half way across the carpet to the master bedroom!! Swan couldn't remember her exit off the highway to get to work!...well....it was the day before Thanksgiving....I was home and Swan was at the store. I called her on her cell and told her I was home for lunch and had started the veggie prep and the toast. You see, my Mom doesn't use dry bread, or bread cubes for dressing. She has always toasted her bread and torn it into chunks for her dressing. So I just figured everyone did it her way....boy was I ever wrong! Swan was standing at the local grocery in an aisle, staring at the cell phone in her hand saying "Toast?? Toast??" Getting very strange looks. She was thinking slices of buttered toast and had no eartly idea what in the hell she was supposed to do with that, but didn't want to hurt my feelings by not using whatever it was I was doing! Tom still asks which of us is making the toast, whenever we have dressing with a meal...the brat!
Sooooo when you and yours are working your fingers to the bone, putting out a spread for a
Happy Happy Bird Day!!
T
Minionette, we are much more discreet about our M/s and specifically our SM. Currently there is a stock whip and a signal whip hanging from the door to our bedroom, and lots of paddles and straps restraints, etc. all over our bedroom and then there are the stocks...... and well, I bet you get the picture. If you do, it's just not a picture we want to share with my folks, or my kids, and certainly not my ex, who will be with us, or one of my staff, who will be with us as well.
ReplyDeleteSo we sanitize and vanilla-size our space for these family gatherings.
It is interesting, that we go from condo to condo for these and everyone just takes it in stride. If some of our family (and I'm sure this includes my kids and my ex) have put our poly together, they simply never address it directly. They ask no questions, so we make no explanations. It is interesting that everyone has come to include sue in each family gathering we have. This past week everyone has been inquiring what to get this family member or that for Christmas and they all have included inquiries into what might make a good gift for sue.
So we continue to hide in plain sight:)
Happy Thanksgiving all. I hope it will be as joyous as ours will be I'm sure.
Tom
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined.
Sounds like a wonderful way to spend the holidays. I loved the description of the "Perkification during Murderation", it made me giggle.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure at the oddest time I'll think of 'toast' and will end up giggling out loud while everyone stares at me wondering what's up. *chuckles*
Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!
So we continue to hide in plain sight
ReplyDeleteI know that feeling well. I suppose, being the selfish person that I am (and selfish is a whole long thought process with me, suffice to say I find it a positive feeling rather than a negative one) I never worry about what others will think of the three of us. We just are, and I just continue into places without worry. If I were less selfish, I might worry and wonder about what others are thinking, but I don't. It doesn't occur to me.
THe most obvious place, instance, whatever, that the three of us got the most comments...my father's funeral. I could not have gone through it without either of them. They both were pallbearers too along with some of my boys. They both stood with me at the funeral home, they both sat with me at the gravesite.
People were a buzzing. One woman told me that she wished she were younger, she would have helped herself to any of my men. My mother would introduce me to people and say these are her men, I don't understand what the relationships are. And leave it at that. Most people were too poplite to ask anything else.
There are a few people that we interact with as a couple of one sort or another. The schools for example, mom and dad only, no reason to give them anything to ever use against us. Master's mother is another...she is 90 and in frail health, I am too well bred to ever force her into trying to accept something she could not understand or accept.
But most of the rest of the world, well, I just don't think about it. Even my lil'ones friends ask things like "Is your dad or step dad home this weekend?" An answer of 'both' raises few eyebrows and no questions. If anyone ever says anything at all, the most I hear is what a wonderful thing we do to make life easier on the children. Not sure exactly what that means, but I think they mean working together as parents as we go forward into other relationships? At any rate, it is highly unlikely that your comments were the place for me to place all these long thoughts. Hiding in plain sight though, that just makes perfect sense. I have also found that if you tell people the truth, they never believe you. (It's all in how you tell it too...)
What I really wanted to know was, who is making the toast this year?
magdala~
Nice post T, oh how I remember cleaning up for family occasions.
ReplyDeleteJust wanted to wish you all a happy Thanksgiving.
Paul.
Let me just echo -- to each of you a very happy Thanksgiving Day!
ReplyDeleteminionette, we don't so much "hide" the poly part anymore as much as just let it look sort of normal. I remember quite clearly, last winter, as T and I worked side by side with Master's ex-wife (good lady that she is) to clean and pack His parents' condo and get them moved into an assisted living situation... Hours and hours of hard, slogging, nasty work made it simply impossible to hide the depth of the relationship between us all... She'd have had to be deaf and blind to not "get" it... Talk about blended families!
I did threaten not to hide the "toys" this year, but use them as decorative items instead -- you know; hang the whips around the picture frames, drape the floggers over the lamp shades, use the paddles as trivets on the table... Somehow, Himself did not find that suggestion terribly appropriate :-p
magdala -- no toast! I am the one who does the turkey and the dressing, and the dressing does not begin, end, or at any point in the process, include the making of toast (unless of course folks intend to take a break and have a bit of tea). Nor does it include corn bread, oysters, chorizo, etc. If there is to be toast with our Thanksgiving feast, I am sure it will be offered, over glasses of champagne, by Master, or perhaps, His father...
swan