Telling the kids

On Friday my daughters finished their last day of school at lunchtime, so I picked them up at 1:30. Once we were all in the car, I told them the plan: we were going to Toronto to pick up Danny djjo; and he would join us at the cottage for the weekend.

The next part should have been easier. I intended to tell them Danny is my boyfriend, but the words wouldn't come. The trouble is I have often felt guilty about the string of men—mostly nice ones—during the past few years who came into my life and spent several weekends with my daughters only to disappear. I have always gone on the principle that if they ask a question, they're ready to know the answer. They've known I am gay for eight years, but usually I didn't identify my relationships explicitly, just waited for questions. Questions never came, so the relationships kept evaporating without explanation.

Once Brenna said to me, "You sure have a lot of friends," putting just enough emphasis on the last word to indicate she knew exactly what was going on.

I have been more careful this time. I have been dating Danny almost a year and the girls had only met him once in November. It went off pretty well, and Brenna has asked several times when we would be seeing him again. I simply assured her that we would.

Now I know Danny is going to be around for some time, so I wanted to reassure them he is someone significant who they can afford to get attached to.

But for several months I have felt a quandary over the matter of polyamory. Having a gay parent seems enough trouble for any kid being raised in an evangelical home. I felt so close to losing them before, and didn't want to raise issues that might alienate them. Call me polyphobic or whatever, but I decided not to worry about it for now. Telling them I had a boyfriend seemed enough of a mouthful for now.

But that alone was more than I could handle. Friday afternoon while we joked together in the car, went grocery shopping, then went for a walk before meeting Danny, I looked for an appropriate moment, but none came.

Finally, walking along the street to his house, I came against a wall. Saying nothing seemed an injustice. All I could do was force the words.

"Just so you know, Danny is my boyfriend."

"Cool," they both said.

"But," Marian added, not missing a step, "I thought he already had a boyfriend."

"Well not really," I heard myself say, and began uttering bullshit. I couldn't believe what I was doing. I've rarely lied to anyone in my life, and never to my children. It didn't last long.

A little further down the block I swallowed my pride: "Actually Danny does have another boyfriend."

Then they wanted to know who he was and whether they had met him before. They hadn't, but were about to. I explained that Danny and Bill live together, but I feel like family with them.

"Cool," they said.

"That doesn't bother you?" I asked.

"No," they said at once.

Within minutes they got to meet Bill bitterlawngnome. I didn't want to make a big deal of it, so I didn't have a chance to explain to Bill and Danny what had just happened. I was wound like a top, feeling so much importance hanging on that casual meeting. To be perfectly honest, I was on the verge of tears for the next couple hours, feeling proud of the obstacles our love has surmounted, and what fine young women Marian and Brenna are becoming.

When we were ready to leave for our cottage weekend, Danny went to give Bill a hug, and I noticed the girls watching carefully.

A while later we were on Highway 400 at last, heading north. We would have to stop for groceries, and I wanted to know what Danny would like for a barbecue on Saturday night.

"Ribs?" he suggested.

He knew well enough, that's one of my specialties. He also knew my daughters love them.

Danny had them once before, last summer, but, "I didn't know whether you liked them or not," I said. "I knew Daniel did."

In fact I had made ribs specifically at danthered's request.

Brenna, not missing a thing, asked, "Who's Daniel?"

I cleared my throat.

"Bill's other boyfriend," I said.

Brenna said casually, "I suppose there will be more and more of them."

She is too sly.


~~~~~~~~~~


Back from the cottage this afternoon, we attended the Pride parade, then headed to Danny and Bill's house for my daughters' first experience of a Sunday night dinner. So the girls got to meet Daniel, too. koobear brought some delicious Greek treats beginning with flatbread and various dips (yummy taramasalata, tzatziki with some bite, hummus, olives, a basil dipping oil, etc.), followed by pasta with a creamy pesto sauce. My daughters seemed to enjoy the company completely and ate heartily, as if to prove me an idiot for warning our hosts beforehand: "They're picky eaters."

Many thanks to Danny, Bill, Daniel, Liakoo and Kathy for welcoming my girls that way.

My favourite Brenna-ism of the evening was when she told bitterlawngnome, "You're cute when you're guilty."

Brenna's fish

I took lots of photos this past week, but don't know how much time I'll have to post before the girls and I go back to the cottage tomorrow. This one is for Danny djjo. Brenna caught this smallmouth bass (about 12") while the rest of us were still in bed on Saturday morning. It had started to look listless and a little lopsided in the bucket where Brenna was keeping it, so she had released it by the time Danny arrived on the dock.



It's another sign my daughters are growing up. I'm too soft-hearted to fish unless I plan on eating, and although I'm squeamish about unhooking them, I have always been called upon to do so, not to mention cutting up worms and putting them on the hook. This weekend Brenna did it all herself.

Breeding Bird Survey 2004

I just finished submitting data for the Breeding Bird Survey, which I ran on June 25. I counted 53 species. You can see the list ( behind the cut. )

I have run this route each June since 2000. The name of the route has changed from Dorset to Dwight to reflect geographic alterations that occurred before I started. I need to write a note to the Ontario co-ordinator to point out that all the data I have ever submitted should properly apply to the Dwight route. The previous volunteer changed the route, but died before he documented it properly. He changed it because one segment along Highway 60 approaching Algonquin Park became too heavy with traffic, which interferes with good observations. The current route shares a segment of Highway 35 with the old one, but finishes along a stretch of Livingstone Lake Road, the main road past my cottage, which is significantly quieter.

The entire route runs through mixed forest with numerous lakes and marshes. I stop at 50 specific locations (the same ones every year) along a 40-kilometre route and count every bird I see or hear in three minutes. In such dense forest, the vast majority is identified by ear.

I had nothing particularly unusual, but this was the first time I counted a willow flycatcher on the route. American bittern and purple finch I had only counted once before. Red-eyed vireo is normally the most numerous bird, but I heard far fewer this year (24), and chestnut-sided warblers outnumbered them (29).