Today’s Morning Ritual (Reality in M/s)

How The Morning Is Currently Supposed To Go

…

8:13 AM.

I bolt upright from a series of strange nightmares to the sound of the doorbell.

The doorbell part is unusual, though just the other day, there to see me startle awake to the sound of my 8:15 alarm clock, Mistress asked me, “Do you do this every morning?”

A lot of them, I guess.

The doorbell part sinks in.

By protocol, I’m generally supposed to be the one to answer the door, though sometimes Mistress jumps on it. However, I’m still leashed for the night, and will be, if routine prevails, for another four minutes. Predicament protocol.

But then I realize something else—we’re having a new washer and dryer delivered and installed today. It was a major enough purchase that Mistress handled it herself, and in doing so, picked the delivery date. But she picked it before I had sent her my calendar as part of my review for that week, and picked a day packed for me with a critical doctor’s appointment and a board meeting for an organization I serve. Rather than reschedule, she’d agreed to handle the delivery. And they’re seriously early.

I hear Mistress letting the delivery people in, and shut my normal 8:15 alarm. I jot down the basics of my disturbing dreams in my dream journal, which is a part of my full journal that’s shared with Mistress as part of that weekly review. I feel groggy; several of my chronic issues are flaring up, various minor issues. I’m never great at routine changes, but I feel especially underequipped right now.

I hear Mistress heading upstairs, maybe only a minute late for her usual 8:17. I scramble into the proper position, and she unleashes me as always, but whispers that we can skip the morning maintenance discipline beating, even though the sounds of the workers downstairs removing our old washer and dryer would probably drown out the sounds of the maintenance wand, and it’s not like I make noise, at this point. She also quickly, preemptively offers me the permission to go to the bathroom that I usually ask for afterwards, which I thank her for in the right format, but she quickly leaves.

Thrown off, I exit for the bathroom, almost giving a modified curtsy to no one, and suppose it’s a decent idea to put my uniform on, since I have the feeling our whole first morning ritual is off, and I should maybe have clothes on with the workers in the house.

Mistress reappears, confirming this choice, and as suddenly as they arrived, the workers are done and gone, and I get on with the morning, washing up, so on.

I come to the movement part of the morning, which is my task for myself, not from Mistress, so I’m free to modify it by my own standards. We skipped the stretching we normally do together in that early ritual, but I can do that on my own. But today, I decide to let go of the biggest part of it—a walk through the neighborhood—because as I was cleaning yesterday, I picked up a pot that, unbeknownst to me, was sitting on a stone trivet which stuck to the bottom of it, and unstuck itself as I was carrying the pot, landing on its side on one of my toes. I have my suspicions the toe might be broken. Mistress pointed out that even if it is, going to, say, urgent care for it will probably be unproductive, since most broken toes heal on their own, and I’m inclined to agree. Still, I don’t want to push it. So I shorten my movement routine. I don’t have to notify Mistress that I’m leaving for my walk, because I’m not.

And so I’m available to see a new voicemail on my phone from my doctor’s office. They need to reschedule my appointment.

I message Mistress a screenshot of the voicemail transcript and, May I call back, please, Mistress?

She grants the needed permission, though her one word message somehow sounds as unenthused by this news as I am.

Thank you, Mistress.

I call them back. The physician called in and won’t be back until next week. Nothing they can do about it, and no sooner availability.

Okay, I totally understand that, but I’m not a functional person without the injection I must go there to receive, and I’m strictly due for it this week. Trying not to hit them with the unnerving autistic schizophrenic monotone just yet, I explain as calmly as I can that I will see any provider, at any location, at any pricepoint, at any time this week.

I am put on hold. I’m already investigating a backup plan when they magically find me an appointment for this Thursday.

I hang up. I message Mistress that I’m off the phone as required and tell her that I have a new, acceptable appointment.

I do the rest of my morning chores—making the bed, tidying, waking up the house. I notice in the latter steps that the cats’ downstairs water bowl isn’t running. They have water; their little fountain just isn’t flowing. I set it aside to fix it after breakfast, which I make and serve on time. 9:40 as always.

Table set, I alert Mistress via the Walkie Talkie app of our smart watches, then get into position behind the chair she usually grants me permission to sit in even though I can’t ask. She comes down, says, “You may sit,” and I do. We eat. The permission doubles as speaking to me first, so I can speak, since I’ve been spoken to. Breakfast is fine, the conversation is good, and then Mistress goes back upstairs.

I see to the kitchen as required, which is a little extra out of sorts because we hosted family Saturday night, then yesterday I gave a Zoom talk in the late morning, and that night, Mistress hosted an event in the house: things that generated extra dishes and cut short my usual chore times. I also frequently ended up being up—with permission and by Mistress’ doing—past my normal leashing and lights out time. Hosting has started to seem our default state to the point that my brain continued to loop the sound of people laughing and talking downstairs as a distracting hallucination until I fell asleep the night before.

Still, I’m making decent headway on the dishes when the sink stops draining. I plunge it successfully, poke around, and, optimistic, clean the disposal with washing soda, but the disposal still won’t run. I reset it properly. Nothing. I Google more possibilities, but nothing simple jumps out at me, so I message Mistress asking for help troubleshooting.

She, somehow, finds a piece of something stuck in the disposal. It appears to be a very sturdy plastic, a fairly large sliver that looks like it broke off of something, except we haven’t broken anything, and it doesn’t match anything we have in the house. Odd. Mistress ascribes my inability to find the piece to my lower than average tactile sensitivity in my hands, and, disposal running, I move on with the cleaning, and she goes back upstairs.

I get to the cats’ bowl, and again optimistically try giving it a deep clean and running it again. Nothing. Okay, I give it a second, ostensibly deeper clean, and run it again. The water mysteriously flows. I leave it for the cats.

By the time I’m ready for morning inspection, it’s a half hour till noon. I use the Walkie Talkie app to tell Mistress I’m ready, and get into position in the bedroom. She checks the chores I did downstairs and upstairs, me and the position and my uniform and so on as always, and approves, which is maybe all that matters in the chaotic morning, anyway.

It might not be exactly how the morning was supposed to flow, but it is the reality, which strikes even the best service routines, the best protocols, and the best laid plans we can have. But, we’ve built our dynamic, and its underlying principles, so that we can adapt without seriously compromising it. It is strong even without any individual detail. And, we do our best to reality proof those details; our routines and protocols have been tweaked to death, and will continue to be, because we love our overall level of detail, even if what those individual details are pivot with time. And most days, all of those details add up. And when we do have to skip the day’s maintenance discipline, or squeeze in a phone call to a doctor, or spend an extra hour on chores, it’s okay—we are still what we are to each other.

Reality cannot shatter the fantasy of our dynamic, because it is no fantasy. It is a central part of our reality, and we will bring it through whatever other realities present themselves. Our dynamic is not every detail being set in stone forever, but water that we trust can flow around any pebble or boulder that appears in the path, whether it’s only for a morning or not. We do not delude ourselves with the idea of reaching a perfect point of completion. We adapt. 

And that’s a good thing.