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Oct. 15th, 2006 03:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaTonight we had our church's new Director of Religious Education - the poly one! - over for dinner, with her two partners. It was great.
I felt a little awkward at first. I knew that I liked the way Becky (the DRE) presents herself at work and does her job, but I didn't know how much we'd have in common outside of church. And I'd been introduced to Lyn and Uri twice, but certainly didn't feel like I knew them at all. The first few minutes of the evening were kind of... polite. But then Lyn said, "I see you have a lot of Larry Niven on your shelves. Isn't he Guest of Honor at Balticon this year?", and that led to a more general discussion of SF cons, and then when I said "Disclave" Becky said "sprinkler heads," and after that we were off to a good start.
I asked them how their polyamory was being received at church (resounding silence, mostly), and we had an interesting discussion about being out while still having clear boundaries about the extent to which one's personal life is open for discussion - especially important at churches for Lyn and Becky, given that it's their workplace as well as their religious community. I told them our story about coming out to our minister. It was a good conversation - I'm sorry I started it while Michael was giving Alex her bath, because it would've been nice if he could've taken part too. At least he was there later on in the evening for the extensive churchrunning geeking.
Towards the end of the evening there had been enough "oh yeah!" moments that we tried, and failed, to find a point of cultural disconnection. But nope - from Veronica Mars ("Of course we watch it, Joss told us to!") to Unitarian-Universalists for Polyamory Awareness ("Maybe not the spokespeople you want to have."), they are essentially us. Only with different experiences that make them really interesting to talk to! What a great combination.
I don't think Alex was too annoying. (Always a question when we hang out with people who don't have young kids.) She was reasonably quiet during dinner. Once she got down from her highchair, she spent a lot of time trotting back and forth bringing our guests toys and books, but she didn't insist that they pay attention to her once they'd accepted her offering. She was certainly at her best in the radiant smiles department. And hey, she went to bed at 7:30. We had two more hours for adult conversation after that.
As for the food: How would you feed six people, if one of them is a vegetarian, one of them keeps a species of Kosher (not entirely, obviously, or they wouldn't have been eating from our kitchen at all), one can't tolerate spicy food, one dislikes many vegetables and isn't fully satisfied by meatless meals, and one is a toddler?
I wound up making:
Mexican corn chowder - a mildly seasoned milk-based soup with potatoes, tomatoes, red bell peppers, corn, and cheese.
Jicama-orange-radish salad with a mixed citrus dressing.
Cilantro chicken sausages, sliced up and fried golden-brown.
Cornbread muffins.
Denver chocolate pudding (not pudding at all, but a sort of a hybrid of chocolate cake and chocolate sauce), served warm over vanilla ice cream.
Everything went over extremely well. I hadn't made the salad before, and I loved it so much that I'm going to have to seek out excuses to make it again. All of our guests had a second plate of soup. And the dessert turned out perfectly - the last couple of times I've made it, it was a bit underdone, but this time I forgot it was in the oven until five minutes after I should've pulled it out, and it was just right. (I should make a note of that.)
So, yay. I hope this turns into an ongoing friendship. All five of us are really busy, which might make it tricky... but wow, I like them.
I felt a little awkward at first. I knew that I liked the way Becky (the DRE) presents herself at work and does her job, but I didn't know how much we'd have in common outside of church. And I'd been introduced to Lyn and Uri twice, but certainly didn't feel like I knew them at all. The first few minutes of the evening were kind of... polite. But then Lyn said, "I see you have a lot of Larry Niven on your shelves. Isn't he Guest of Honor at Balticon this year?", and that led to a more general discussion of SF cons, and then when I said "Disclave" Becky said "sprinkler heads," and after that we were off to a good start.
I asked them how their polyamory was being received at church (resounding silence, mostly), and we had an interesting discussion about being out while still having clear boundaries about the extent to which one's personal life is open for discussion - especially important at churches for Lyn and Becky, given that it's their workplace as well as their religious community. I told them our story about coming out to our minister. It was a good conversation - I'm sorry I started it while Michael was giving Alex her bath, because it would've been nice if he could've taken part too. At least he was there later on in the evening for the extensive churchrunning geeking.
Towards the end of the evening there had been enough "oh yeah!" moments that we tried, and failed, to find a point of cultural disconnection. But nope - from Veronica Mars ("Of course we watch it, Joss told us to!") to Unitarian-Universalists for Polyamory Awareness ("Maybe not the spokespeople you want to have."), they are essentially us. Only with different experiences that make them really interesting to talk to! What a great combination.
I don't think Alex was too annoying. (Always a question when we hang out with people who don't have young kids.) She was reasonably quiet during dinner. Once she got down from her highchair, she spent a lot of time trotting back and forth bringing our guests toys and books, but she didn't insist that they pay attention to her once they'd accepted her offering. She was certainly at her best in the radiant smiles department. And hey, she went to bed at 7:30. We had two more hours for adult conversation after that.
As for the food: How would you feed six people, if one of them is a vegetarian, one of them keeps a species of Kosher (not entirely, obviously, or they wouldn't have been eating from our kitchen at all), one can't tolerate spicy food, one dislikes many vegetables and isn't fully satisfied by meatless meals, and one is a toddler?
I wound up making:
Mexican corn chowder - a mildly seasoned milk-based soup with potatoes, tomatoes, red bell peppers, corn, and cheese.
Jicama-orange-radish salad with a mixed citrus dressing.
Cilantro chicken sausages, sliced up and fried golden-brown.
Cornbread muffins.
Denver chocolate pudding (not pudding at all, but a sort of a hybrid of chocolate cake and chocolate sauce), served warm over vanilla ice cream.
Everything went over extremely well. I hadn't made the salad before, and I loved it so much that I'm going to have to seek out excuses to make it again. All of our guests had a second plate of soup. And the dessert turned out perfectly - the last couple of times I've made it, it was a bit underdone, but this time I forgot it was in the oven until five minutes after I should've pulled it out, and it was just right. (I should make a note of that.)
So, yay. I hope this turns into an ongoing friendship. All five of us are really busy, which might make it tricky... but wow, I like them.
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no subject
Date: 2006-10-15 03:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-15 04:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-15 05:01 am (UTC)that salad sounds good, too.
but why i am really writing is OMG, total icon love! where's that from?
no subject
Date: 2006-10-15 06:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-15 08:03 am (UTC)And I'm also curious about the salad.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-15 05:11 pm (UTC)Recipe is from the Greens restaurant cookbook (http://www.amazon.com/Greens-Cookbook-Deborah-Madison/dp/0767908236).
I peeled a jicama and diced it into fairly tiny pieces. Then I marinated it for most of the afternoon in the juice of one lemon, one orange, and one grapefruit, seasoned with a little salt and a dash of pepper sauce. The marinade was also supposed to have fresh cilantro in it, but I'm one of the unfortunate people for whom cilantro tastes like soap (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=cilantro+tastes+like+soap), so I left it out.
Just before dinner, I sliced four radishes very thin and then cut the slices into little matchsticks (tipped with red from the radish skin - they looked nice.) I sectioned an orange and removed most of the membrane from around the sections, and then chopped them small. I mixed the radishes and oranges in with the marinated jicama, and there was our salad.
It was very tasty. I think it would make an especially nice side dish for very rich, cheesy Mexican food, because there's no oil at all - just refreshingly tart citrus.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-16 09:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-15 01:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-15 07:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-15 12:40 pm (UTC)You didn't say, but I'm just dying to know how you broached the subject of *your* polyamory, and how they reacted!
-J
no subject
Date: 2006-10-15 01:41 pm (UTC)Michael laid the groundwork a few days ago. There's a new plan to allow churches to buy group health insurance for their employees through the Unitarian-Universalist Association. The question arose about what would constitute "family" for insurance policies, and Michael was of the opinion that we should honor our staff members' own definitions, and offer family coverage to whoever they think is appropriate. He ran the question past Becky, and in the course of that he used the word "polyamorous." He said she seemed surprised that he knew that word, but they kept the conversation on the professional level.
When I asked how their polyamory was being received at church, Becky commented that she's never had a negative response "from people I'm in community with," as opposed to people considering the question on a theoretical/philosophical level. I agreed that discussing poly in the abstract could be contentious, and said that I didn't think that UUs for Poly Awareness helped much. We talked about them for a few minutes. Then Becky told me how she broached the subject at church, and I told them how we broached the subject at church, and then one of them asked me about other partners.
It turns out that Becky had told our minister Phyllis that she's poly, after the job interview but before the position was officially extended. She told her in the context of explaining that she wouldn't be getting openly involved in our church's marriage equality work, because she's been told by people in that movement that they feel her involvement hurts the cause. Interestingly enough, Phyllis told her, "you won't be alone, in the congregation." So they've been wondering who the other poly folk were.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-15 02:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-15 05:04 pm (UTC)Uri and Lyn will be coming to church from time to time to support Becky. Lyn has a job with our District, which is a collection of 65 churches in Maryland, Delaware, and southern Pennsylvania - she helps congregations develop programs for Young Adults (in UU parlance, that's ages 18-35) and campus ministries. So she's usually working on Sundays, traveling to various churches in the area. Uri is Jewish, and not of the "JewU" variety - he's in the process of looking for a shul.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-15 07:13 pm (UTC)... non-poly folks worried about the "slippery slope to poly" argument?
Glad the dinner went so well!
no subject
Date: 2006-10-15 02:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-15 05:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-15 03:52 pm (UTC)1. very cool to meet folks you have so many connections with. Good luck on finding time to meet up - I found it useful to set a standing date (every other thursday we play D&D with close friends, and every tuesday I have a date with my best friend, for exmaple).
2. menu sounds yum. Salivating over here. Doubly bad since I haven't had lunch yet and my breakfast was a loooong time ago.
Okay, off to make lunch.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-17 01:01 am (UTC)Speaking of which... one of these days we should try to meet up, with or without the kids. :-)
no subject
Date: 2006-10-17 03:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-17 03:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-15 11:34 pm (UTC)