Wednesday, Nov 25, 2020
Thanksgiving was rapidly approaching, just one more day. We were all looking forward to it, our very first ever on-the-farm Thanksgiving. Fourteen people, that's how many of us were going to be there: Dani and me, both our sets of parents, Jenny, Jodi, Jon and Tammy, Alan and April, and Janet and her husband, Jason, quite a crowd.
Jon and Jodi hadn't even known the farm existed, we took them out the weekend after giving the key to Dani's parents. Talk about surprised! The look on their faces that first time was priceless. Maybe not quite as much so as that October day when we took parents out and given them the key, but damned surprised, nonetheless. They were quite impressed, and I thought about future grandkids, how much they'd enjoy their great-grandparents' farm. Who knows, someday, either Jon or Jodi might even end up living there. We hadn't even thought about after Dani's parents were gone, that seemed far, far away (at least we hoped).
We'd found a store in Seattle that specialized in old-style, rustic furniture, mostly log and leather, all free shipping. It was expensive, but we told Mom and Dad that it was all part of the gift, that with Dani's four-percent royalties on the movie, we'd certainly be able to afford it. Amanda, Dani's agent, had assured us that within a month of the movie's opening, we'd have more income than we'd ever imagined. The furnishings turned out beautifully, like the house had never been before.
Besides, we still had over a hundred-thousand dollars extra in our checking account from Dani's initial salary (not even accounting for how well the stores were doing), even after buying the farm and the remodel. Gotta spend it somewhere, we reasoned. I was starting to understand how someone who suddenly had a huge windfall, like a lottery, suddenly found themselves broke and bereft. Thankfully, though, it sounded like Dani's windfall would be ongoing, at least for a while.
I reasoned that once Dani's royalties started coming, we'd contact Mark in Seattle, the financial guy we'd met in Reno (the guy who'd made that original phone call to Amanda, Dani's agent), and talk to him about investing for us. And maybe...? Nah, I was getting just a little too perverted. I did wonder, though, if he'd found a woman since then. When we met him, he was still despondent about losing his wife... and stuck on Dani.
The other part of the housing arrangement was that Jon and Tammy moved out of their little apartment and into their grandparents' house, win-win all the way around. Jodi would have a nice nest egg, too, once she finished her schooling and became a working woman, one more year.
Dani and I did discuss that premiere night, the spanking part of it. We learned some things about each of us; namely that we'd liked it, both of us... a lot. "Yes, it hurt and was a shock that you did it, but the orgasm after was..." and she rolled her eyes, "just mind-boggling," she said.
I had no clue when or if such an opportunity might arise again. Just have to make it happen, I figured, wondering, 'what else'. "Yeah, was, wasn't it," I agreed.
I helped Jess (Dani's mother -- Jessica) with her turkey. It was twenty-three pounds, thirteen ounces, put in a five-gallon pail of iced brine. It'll soak until probably around eight in the morning, then into the pellet grill. Sarah (my mom) had three pies baked plus another chocolate pudding pie, hopefully enough for fourteen.
Alan and April, I was still in a bit of shock at that, not that I should have been. She wasn't the significant figure as in my dreams, but her real-life involvement in our lives was beginning to materialize, nonetheless.
Thursday morning, Jake (Dani's dad) put the turkey in the pellet grill, set it at 275 degrees, and left it to cook, anticipating six hours. Sarah and Jess set to work making all sorts of goodies.
Dani and I helped tidying up, and at eleven left for Pasco to pick up our guests, about a fifty-minute drive. First, we went by Jenny and Richard's to pick up Jenny. Richard had traded with another doctor for Thursday's on-call, so he'd have Friday night and the weekend free for the movie and whatever our wives had planned afterward. The only problem with the plan was that Richard would be alone Thanksgiving Day and the next day until evening, not that he hadn't done it before, one of the minor annoyances of being a pediatrician in a small community.
Jenny had been hinting that the 'after' might be a little risquΓ©, and we were looking forward to it. Dani had feigned ignorance when I asked her about it. I was just a little nervous about how Janet and her husband might react to 'risque', as nothing in my dealings with her had been even remotely suggestive. She'd seemed as strait-laced as they come. To be honest, I was a bit nervous about Alan, too, after what Dani did to him on premiere night. Dani was acting apprehensive as well, acting like she truly didn't know what Jen was planning.
Anyway, after we picked up Jenny, we headed to Pasco International Airport (ha, the runway isn't even big enough to fit an international-sized plane). Their (Alan and April, Janet and Jason) flight had left Tampa at about nine, about an eight-hour flight with the layovers, but with the three-hour time difference, scheduled to arrive at two-fifteen on a commuter-sized jet after changing planes in Boise. We were hoping it wouldn't be late as our parents were planning on dinner at three-thirty (if the turkey was done).
Thankfully, their trip didn't turn out like it had for John Candy and Steve Martin in 'Planes, Trains, and Automobiles', and their plane arrived at promptly two-fifteen, with lots of hugs and thank-yous for coming and inviting them. The hugs between Jenny and Alan were a bit more, umm... pronounced. They'd known each other in high school and hadn't met since. With how attractive both were, there were quite a few extended 'looks' from others between them.
Dani introduced Jenny to the rest of the crew, we picked up their luggage, then the car rental at Hertz, and we were soon on the way back to the farm, Jenny riding with Alan and April, Janet and Jason with me and Dani.
When we got out of the car at the farm, Alan looked around, at the barn, the corrals, the house, "So this is the farm you've been talking about so much," he said.
Dani smiled, "It is, 247 acres, was my gramma and grampa's. Mom was raised here and I spent so much time here as a little girl. We were so thrilled when we discovered we could buy it and get it back in our famiy."
The farm's terrain is flat, the grass winter-brown, so unlike the ranch in Montana, but it's beautiful to us, especially the house and barn.
"Needs some critters on it, doesn't it?"
"Uhuh, I want a horse, actually a couple," Dani said. From what she's said about her horse in Montana, I had a pretty good idea which horse she was thinking about. Unfortunately, that wasn't happening, but come spring, we'd see what we could find. There are lots of ranches with horses in the area, no doubt we'll be able to find a couple good ones. We'd have to repair some fences first, though, maybe build a board or log fence, it's safer for horses. That was something Wade hadn't touched, the fences around the pastures.