Things to remember in 5 years

I haven't posted in a while because I just spent some time in the desert without internet or phone access. My time at Camp Wilson can only be described as 90% hot and miserable, 5% windy and miserable, 2% cold showers with strangers, 1% boring brief about the endangered desert tortoise, .1% HOLY SHIT! IS THAT AN ICE CREAM TRUCK? and .9% Do you think the ice cream lady will come back?
So I have had some time to reflect on the little moments with Satu that make up our lives and since we are coming up on our 5th year together, I thought I would list a few of those moments. This way, in another 5 years, when I still can't remember if she is allergic to almonds or walnuts, we can both look back on this time and have some place to start.

Remember.

1. Satu's post for a dinner group started it all.
2. Brown pin striped pants made me late for work more than once.
3. Our first kiss was at the top of the stairs and Satu inexplicably said no right before she leaned in for the kiss. It was September 4th, 2008.
4. My color identification system has been mis-loaded.
5. Princess movies stop panic attacks and so do middle of the night car rides.
6. At this moment Satu is 43, she looks 33 and worries that her size 2 jeans are getting too tight.
7. The first time I came over to Satu's house I hid behind her dog for comfort. He was a good sport.
8. I listened over and over and over and over to the CD she made last Valentine's day.
9. Cookie! Poof.
10. I can fix it! Snap. Oh what do I do now!? freeze.
11. Satu has posted 70+ times on tumblr in the last 3 days about the hotness of Mary McDonnel.
12. Unium is the delicious wine that she got for my birthday because it has an eagle on the label.
13. Because of the already want to.
14. We went to Costa Rica where Satu got scuba scars on her feet and took pictures of plants and reptiles.
15. Last year we went to Key West where we had Cuban coffee and Satu took pictures of reptiles and plants and birds.
16. Satu leaves notes for me on my mirror.
17. I once left little notes in flowers.
18. Satu took me for a drag on the carpet on Christmas and it made me laugh like a child.
19. Shane Hylleberg had the happiest basement in the world.
20. Right now, neither of us can manage to keep food in the house because we don't do well living in separate places.
21. Fatty Happenstance has just learned to sit on laps.
22. Satu has peppermint trees on the kitchen table.
23. Lately we hang out at Lucky's because they have beer, dogs and battered artichokes, but we also like Seed because it has a horses neck with a kick.
24. Neither one of us knows what we are going to be doing in three months, but we will be doing it together at long last.

I wonder what we will be doing five years from now, and where we will live. My life with Satu is so much better than I ever would have guessed life could be. I can't wait to see what's next.

We miss you Little Hedge Fund

This past weekend was a sad occasion for our little family. Satu's sweet and lively kitty Noodle succumbed to a sudden illness and left this world.

Noodle was a little stray scrappy kitten when Satu rescued her from certain dehydration seven years ago. She joined Satu's family before I did by climbing up onto Satu's lap and pronouncing herself at home. She had a cozy little place there her whole life after that.

The hardest part about loving anyone is that to truely do it, you have to give up protecting your tender heart. You can never know how much time you will have to love someone or if you will be loved in return. If you are loved, it is the most precious gift in the world, but it comes without any guarantees. I think that to love and be loved by an animal is one of the most meaningful connections people can make in life. It is a bond you make without negotiation and it comes without any expectations or strings attached.

We both loved that little cat. For the past year she began to take on the shaggy quality of a kid's favorite teddy bear. Her fur was licked away in spots and one of her eyes didn't work at all, but she didn't throttle back on life. She still attacked the bed sheets and caught little rodents in the basement. When she curled up to sleep with you, it made you feel special. She liked to chase Satu around the house and leap up into doorways. When she ran down the hallway, it sounded like that little six and a half pound cat had a thousand feet.

I have a hard time imagining a heaven usually, but I can easily imagine one for her. The door would always be open to a lush green yard where Noodle could go roll around in the grass. Little chipmunks and birds would be everywhere. Fresh sheets would always be hovering just above the bed ready to fall as she runs wide legged beneath them . The windows would always be open and the plants could be up-rooted or pissed on at her leasure. Most importantly, God's hand, red from being kissed by Noodle's rough tounge would rest gently on her when she naps in His lap purring.

We love you and miss you little Noodle Kaboodle,
aka Little Hedge Fund,
aka Kaboods,
aka Five and Dime
You brought us so much laughter and love.

The well cared for Sims

So Satu has taken her love of unwinnable games to the next logical level. SIMS. In her every day life, Satu will take care of the birds, make sure the cats feel included in the family and give a wayward fern the best new home she can. She routinely places the little armor beetles back on the curtains where they prefer to live and she will hold nightly nightly stake-outs if her frog is in the neighborhood. Now she is nurturing computer people when the real world is taken care of. Here is why living in Satu's SIMS world would be awesome.
1. She worries about them and only wants to play versions where they won't die.
2. She makes sure the dog gets loved enough ( and rewards him when he digs up money)
3. The girls fall in love, but she wants them to have a healthy relationship, so they don't move too fast.
4. Everyone gets invited to the party and everyone gets to dance.
5. She won't let them be mean to each other.
6. They stay sparkly as much as possible.
7. They make time to talk and be romantic even if they are tired.
8. She won't buy them ugly furniture or clothes.
9. They have a VERY well kept garden where there are no weeds and all the plants are lined up.
10. She is concerned about the UFO and as God, she takes the issue seriously.
11. She doesn't make commandments or disasters, she just wants them to be well cared for.
I feel  well cared for in her arms too, and though in my world, people don't just stop working and dance, when I come home, the world she makes for us is just about perfect.

Once upon a time...

Today actually. There is a beautiful princess. She is kind and funny and curious and smart and very, very beautiful, but she doesn't know how wonderful she is because she can't see what everybody else sees when they look at her.
One morning the beautiful princess saw a tiny wrinkle on her cheek from all the time that she has spent laughing in her life. Laughing is a good thing and there is seldom a kind person in all the kingdom with a smooth face, but the princess worries and worries that the wrinkle makes her look ugly. It became the first thing that she sees in the mirror even though it is not what anyone else would notice. To everyone else, the princess is the most beautiful woman in the world. Her smile makes worried people feel hopeful. It makes birds sing and the sun shines brighter when she laughs. When she isn't smiling, the tiny little wrinkle is there to hint at her smile. It is evidence of her nature.

The princess worries about all kinds of things. She fears that people don't like her because she has known a few wicked witches in her time, but the truth is that almost everyone who knows her is charmed by her. She makes people laugh and can be the gentlest soul in the world if you are in need. Even wild animals want to be around her.
Sometimes the princess feels like people think she is a failure because she is not the most famous princess in the land and she doesn't know what the fuck she is doing with her life.
The truth is, we are all lost and don't know what the fuck we are doing. I bet even the queen has to pretend sometimes that she has it figured out. Even prince charming knows how to fake a smile.
Believe me when I tell you that the most perfect thing about the princess is that she is a real person with all the little quirks that real people have. She is warm and has been known to lend an ear to the troubled and a sweater to a trembling friend. She will even find a kind word for a witch when she sees one in need.
The value of life is not in how you make a living, but in the smaller moments you may never even think of again. The princess brightens the world just by being a part of it, and she doesn't even know that she is perfect.

A lit candle

The whole nation is reacting to the terrorist attacks in Boston, but our household is reacting in it's own way.

Satu is a remarkable woman. It is hard to know how sensitive she is because when she grieves, she does so in private. She is so controlled with her expression that heartbreak has no outlet except to cause her physical pain that she has to deal with. I am talking about the Boston Marathon, but I am also talking about who I know Satu to be because of the way she processes events like this. She keeps vigil.
Satu reads the September 11th bombing victim's names because she says that we have to remember not just the events, but the people. We have to remember that the lives lost will forever mean lost sisters and fathers and friends.

Satu reads names on memorials and reflects on the roadside offerings of strangers who have lost loved ones. When the Boston bombing happened, Satu began searching the pictures for meaning and she kept the news playing at great cost to her emotional welfare. She believes you shouldn't distract yourself from these things, as if sharing the horror and grief over and over again is somehow lightening the burden of others who are grieving. She doesn't give up. As her stomach twists into painful knots and sleep eludes her, she presses on trying to understand.
You should care. We should all care, but is also important to know your limits and when to lay down the burden, light a candle and give thanks for your life.

It's going to be OK

This might help.

Satu showed me pictures of dogs underwater when I felt like I was a tiny thing in the ocean. It helped. It amazes me how she can show me such understanding no matter how stormy her own ocean is. I wish I knew how to find the right thing for her when she feels overwhelmed.

I think we both struggle with uncertainty about how to make a meaningful and fulfilling life. Satu struggles more than I do though because she has a vision for her life that keeps getting set aside in order to do the responsible, grown up thing. I think I have always seen work as something that I do in order to pay bills so that I can live my life with her. I want to be good at what I do, but it doesn't define me. Satu is different because a bad work life is destroying her creative life and that erodes who she is and how she measures herself.

I think it is ok to quit when you don't want to be where you find yourself.  In fact, I think sometimes you have to cut your losses in order to keep afloat. Quitting a job is not the same as giving up. To me, it doesn't matter how many times you start over in life as long as you are the kind of person who will start over and over and over. I have taken many steps backward and I don't know for sure that those choices were right, but I am inclined to believe that they were because they were right at the time. There is really no winning the bigger game. There are going to be good times and bad times if you are a millionaire or if you live pay check to pay check and no one is really measuring your success except you. Even people that you admire for what they have achieved are just people like the rest of us. They have proud moments and dark times and not everything they do is golden.

Satu is a good person when she is happy, but she is also a good person when she is struggling and that, more than anything, is why I think that she hung the moon. She keeps trying.

Full of surprises

For as much as Satu likes to delay gratification, she also seems to delight in surprising me. Often I will turn a corner in the house to find her squatting on her haunches, hands over her head making a little troll face at me. It makes me laugh every single time. If she did it ten times in a row, I would laugh every single time. Here are some other things that surprise me about Satu.

1. She likes twizzlers.
2. She is fascinated with teeth.
3. She is an incredibly feisty driver.
4. She is shy about the neighbors and delivery men and the mailman.
5. Her favorite cuss words are "horse shit."
6. She still asks me for fashion approval.
7. She thinks Aerosmith's "Rag Doll" is a sexy song.
8. She walks at a jogging pace.
9. Her boot knife matches her outfit.
10. She knows what to do when there is a bat in the room.
11. She has shoes from 1982 that are still in good shape.
12. Plastic hampsters, cardboard boats and fake crickets appeal to her.

and just to make it a bakers dozen,

13. She prefers childrens games because you can't win them and there is no pressure that way.