Nobody Expects The Spanish Inquisition

Perhaps They Should….

Here’s your 2 or 3 Gen X cred points if you got the title of the post.

I’m all sweaty ATM, smelling of lawn mower exhaust and fresh cut grass. I’ll be bitching about the lawn come mid June (or earlier) but there’s sure something nice about the first mow of the year. At some point, I’m going to have to get a rider, but for now, the hill is good exercise.

Billie is getting bigger, tho I think she’s about full grown now. She’s 40lbs of bed hogging muscle, teeth, destruction, mayhem, anxiety, zoomies, and love. She seems to be developing a phobia of single leaves, at least during the 0300 bathroom break. Given we live in the woods, she’s going to have to get over that. Clifford and the Chow Hound Cats are merely pawns in this phase of Billie’s plot for global destruction. Clifford may yet end up on Prozac to help with Billie’s puppy era.

Billie, like Tigger of Pooh Bear fame, seems to be at least partially made out of springs. She’s got a standing vertical to rival that of any of the 3 Chow Hound Cats. Kate, one of the local grandkids and myself witnessed her go from standing, all 4 paws on the floor, to on top of the dining room table in the blink of an eye. Grab the left there piece of the grandkids toast, and off again. We were stunned.

Lots of changes and moving pieces. Kate got a promotion and is settling into a new job at work. Somehow, this involved her making a couple of “Resentment Cakes”; one as a farewell to her old coworkers, the second a welcome to her new staff. I think she just wanted to learn how to make Resentment Cake.

Resentment Cake consists of Old Black Joe cake (dark chocolate with the addition of a cup of coffee in the batter) with peanut butter icing; of course, she made them from scratch. A local farm makes these cakes in the summer. When Kate brought one home a couple years ago, we, sluts that we are, ate the whole thing in about 5 minutes, which of course lead to regret. The resentment came when, a couple weeks later, Kate returned with another of the cakes and the process happened again. So, that type of cake is no longer an Old Black Joe, it’s a resentment cake.

I had one of those birthdays recently where the number ends in a zero. Turning 30 back in the day seemed impossible and unbelievable to me, that’s dwarfed by the swapping of the leading 5 in my age for a 6. How in the wide wide world of sports am I 60? It doesn’t sound right. I don’t feel, look or act like what 60 looks like in my minds eye. It’s here tho, and I’m grateful; there’s plenty of folks who don’t make it this far.

As it happened, the second of the resentment cakes was for a surprise b-day party Kate cooked up. She told me it had to do with her first staff meeting with her new staff….she’s a rascal that wife of mine….Very low key affair, the local kids and grandkids came over for cake and ice cream and a horribly off key yet perfectly beautiful rendition of “Happy Birthday”. Life comma is good.

Last month I went out to visit Rachel and her family. A couple weeks before that, Rachels mom, my ex, was out for a visit. They went on an adventure that didn’t go all the way as planned, my visit didn’t have much of a plan; about the only set piece thing was taking the day with the now 4 year old grandkid on his birthday. While I was out there, Kate had a get together with James, Chris, and James’ live in girlfriend. The thread of commonality between the three is that they all ended up unfolding more organically than scripted, and all went really well.

Sure, there’s a time and a place for things to be planned out to the Nth degree, and there’s no shortage of things that would be an unmitigated disaster if they didn’t have a detailed plan. Before I left the house on my trip out west I had a plan for getting to the airport, had my ticket, knew the route, knew when I had to be there, all the things that smooth logistics require.

I don’t know this for sure, but I expect my ex followed much the same pattern for her getting out there logistics, as do most people on airport days. While she was out there, they had an adventure to a national park torpedoed by unexpected snow. They made the most of it and had a very memorable day sledding on an improvised hill with improvised sleds.

Beyond setting times and where to go for dinner, Kate’s night with her men didn’t have a plan, they went with where the energy took them. One of the results was semi blurry pics of a blissed out Kate swinging and dancing on a stripper pole.

Kate on a stripper pole was kindof a plot twist for me. For the record, James has a stripper pole in his living room, the prices he must pay with his live in GF, so it wasn’t a total bolt from the blue. In addition to being a poster child for the beauty of unplanned and spontaneous things, it ended up being a really solid example of how being in an ENM relationship allows freedom’s that monogamy perhaps doesn’t. I’m not talking about the fucking other people part, that’s kindof self explanatory, this is more the space for Kate to let her hair down and be free in ways she might not be if I were there.

That’s not a bad thing, I firmly believe that it makes our relationship stronger.

When we first got together, her dancing was a non starter. It was one of those things that she associated with boozing; she’d need drinks in her to be comfortable enough to do it. Well, on about our second maybe 3rd trip to a swinger club, she started dancing. It’s evolved over time and has morphed to being something she uses to release energy / anxiety to help make herself comfortable. The bonus for those of us in the crowd (I LOVE it when Kate is on the dance floor with someone else) is she looks damn good doing it.

I’m guessing that most of us have been on a tour bus, or taken a trip somewhere that featured days that were planed down to the minute. Nothing wrong per say with either, but they have a pressure to them (well, at least getting to the bus on time) that has a way of adding stress over the course of the day. Also, at some point ya seem to inevitably feel that the experience is much more fast food that gourmet meal; it fills ya up but isn’t all that satisfying.

The best adventures, be it culinary, sexual, travel or whatever, have the unexpected and spontaneous at their core.

What’s the point of all this?

Roll with it. I’m betting that you’re overthinking something, worried that something won’t be perfect, stressed about some piece of minutia. I’m further betting that you’re not getting ready to meet Miss America, or the Queen of England, so, chill. I’m not saying forget your boundaries or ethics and run Willie Nilly, be true to both them as well as the energy in the room.

Our most memorable broader lifestyle experiences haven’t been planned or scripted beyond the basic logistics required. Off the top of my head, the night Kate met James jumps to mind, as does our last night at Splash a few years ago.

Kate got a vibe from James and paid attention to that. It wasn’t planned; her starting a years long relationship wasn’t on our agenda that night at all. It’s fair to say them getting together was the catalyst for what ended up being one of the major spiritual re-alignments of my life. Also safe to say their relationship has been one of biggest sources of energy into our relationship.

The Splash experience wasn’t quite on the same level as the James relationship, but we both think of that night as kindof our peak swinger experience. We changed plans mid evening, and rolled with the energy. All 4 of us hit it off and were in sync. We went from hello to never see you again in probably 4 hours, with an amazing and unforgettable swinging experience thrown in. I’m very confident they feel the same way about that night, it was special.

At the moment, Kate is meditating on the couch, both dogs are with her, I’m on the BarcaLounger finishing this. There’s incense burning and the house is quiet. I’m thinking a cup of lemon tea is in the cards before the grandkids arrive to stay the night in about a half hour.

Thanks for reading!! Be kind to yourself and others,

Sam & Kate