You've been hit by.. you've been struck by... Cold Genitals.

Since moving into our new place here in the city, we have given up our tiny little back yard and have had to walk our poor little dogs several times a day. This time of year that means getting all bundled up and skiing behind Gimmie in hot pursuit of squirrels and bunnies. He apparently hates small furry animals. There can be only one!

My idea of bundling up involves putting a sweatshirt over whatever I slept in and finding dry shoes. Satu on the other hand has a process. There are layers that have to go on in a certain order. Sweatpants will never do. There is a scarf wrapping process so elaborate, it must have its roots in some ancient Japanese ceremony and there are choices to be made concerning hats. Usually the dogs and I wait at the back door for a few minutes getting acclimated to the freeze and tangling and untangling ourselves while the process wraps up.

I did not know that sometimes layering involves the construction of an extra warm layer called the vagina guard. Satu explained that the key to a warm heart is a warm hoo hoo and belted out a chorus of her new theme song. You've been hit by... you've been struck by... cold genitals. We laughed and laughed all the way around the block with our untrained, poorly behaved, but very sweet dogs singing that classic Michael Jackson tune and holding each other up.

Winter has come way too early this year. We still have warm weather projects to finish and I am a slow study with the fireplace. Satu however can coax a roaring fire out of ashes that have been sitting overnight. I honestly think that she just wills fire into being. She is trying her best to keep me warm though and I can honestly say that her embrace is the warmest place in the world. There is no where in the world that I would rather be.

Never not funny

My girlfriend has an uncanny ability to take any situation and find the dark humor somewhere within it. I find everything about her amusing even, unfortunately, her anger. Don't get me wrong, it is scary when a little fireball like Satu gets angry, but it is also hilarious to see a 100 pound woman stomp as if she was any ogre or raise both her eyebrows into a withering, soul burning, piercing stare.

This has been a very busy week, When Satu hasn't been up early to let the floor guys into the house, I have been up late having unreasonable panic attacks. One of the things I look forward to the most is the little moments when she looks at me lovingly and strips down to her socks and moon walks.  Those are the moments that I know are just for me, but make me so proud to be with the most wonderful, sexy, beautiful, funny, sweet, loving woman in the world.

It's been too long

It has been three busy months since I last wrote about my happy little family. In that time our little house has started to become the house of my dreams. Satu sold the Atlanta home and set about making a new little nest for us. She is like the most dedicated little birdy in this regard.Shiny things arrive and become part of our dream while things that don't fit us anymore get thoughtfully set aside. She has been working so hard to get the floors ready and to make the space uniquely ours.

Here I am eating the world in my grungy work clothes with my witch hair. I am so happy!

A couple of weeks ago, Satu and I were out looking for curtains when I stumbled on a beautiful dresser in the store. It was blue with inlaid shells. I kind of casually mentioned how much I liked it, but didn't consider it seriously because it was really expensive. Satu went back the next day and bought it. The next time I went to the new house with her, it was there in the bedroom. When I saw it I think I squealed with surprise and happiness. What a wonderful, perfect present. It was so thoughtful and sweet of her to get it for me. She really does listen and care for me and I can tell that she truly wants me to be happy just like I want to make her happy.

Satu is a true partner in every way. She shares her laughter and also her fears with me. It is something that I think is very rare and special. If there is one person in the world who has probably never, ever in her whole life committed the crime of over-share it is my sweet little song bird, yet she is honest and unguarded with me. I always feel close to her in a way that I have never felt before.

Right now she is sleeping peacefully beside me. She is always bone tired because she works so hard. Everything she does, she works hard at, not just the house, or our family, but all of the details of life. I have never met a harder working, more earnest, more sweet or a more kind person than she. Our house will be full of laughter, music, happiness and love as long as she is in it. But then, Satu could make a woodshed feel like a wonderful place to come home to.

Houses, paperwork and summer colds

Today should be a great day for me and Satu, we just closed on a house. Unlike most lesbians, who generally shack up within days of their first flirt, Satu and I waited over five years. It's not that we didn't love each other, or want to live together, we were just never able to do it until now. Now we are moving out of our rental into a home of our own that we can make ours in a way that we have never been able to before.

Here is the new place from the outside. It has had some landscaping done since, but still pretty much the same. Most of the houses in the neighborhood are similar. We opted for the good neighborhood with very high taxes and good schools so that we could hopefully find an established and friendly community of people like us.

So, as you can see by the pictures, we should be spending tonight celebrating our awesome new house in an awesome new neighborhood where we are going to make lots of friends and have a happy life with our strange little family of animals. Instead, we are in bed blowing our noses on toilet paper and toasting with nyquil.

This is what is causing Satu to feel miserable and to hate me a little for bringing into our home. It's also in our ears, chests and throats. Right now it is probably fucking up our credit scores too. It is that bad.

We have made it through this whole process, the paperwork that never ends, the hemorrhaging of money and personal information. Through it all, Satu has been her usual, worried yet optimistic hard working, level headed self. We should be toasting to her and shopping for tile, but I guess it will have to wait until next week.

Here are some major differences between how Satu handles illness and how I handle it.

1. As long as I am not nauseous, I think it can't be that bad.
    Satu can handle nausea without losing her cool, but she worries about odd things like arm tingling and flesh eating bacteria.

2. When I am sick, Satu feels sorry for me and does sweet things like makes soup and feels my forehead empathetically.
     When Satu is sick, I do my best, but mostly I pace, worry and check in on her from the doorway like a child.

3. Satu heals patiently, suffering with perfect poise.
    I sneeze and whine about it to the dogs and strangers. Little known fact, infirmity also loves company.

I hope that by next Friday we both feel better and can raise a toast properly in our new house. For now, we'll just curl up here and try not to let our germs mingle.

Here comes the sun

It has been a long semester for me at school and I have missed out on a lot going from work to the books and usually about a day behind on everything. I am a couple of months behind on posting, but Satu hasn't stopped being wonderful even for a second. Here is a quick list of some of the things that she has done since my last post. She makes my heart swell with happiness.

She brought me tea in my own little kettle while I was studying. Satu has a lot of different types of tea and can always seem to pick the right one for any occasion. Who knew that fortnum and mason (fort-num-num-num) was for statistics finals? My girlfrang did.

We a spontaneous game of hide and chase where she scurried away to hide and I patiently tried to lure her out of her hiding spot with some goldfish crackers. This is a technique that I saw Satu use just tonight with a raccoon and an oreo. It worked better with the little backyard bandit than it did with her. I did eventually get her to take the crackers, but she just retreated back to her spot behind the chair and spit them at me one at a time. She didn't come out until I sang my mating song, and even then it was just to stare me doing my very odd song and dance.

There were Easter presents. Lots of them and a basket full of really good chocolate. One of my favorite things is how she takes the time to draw on wrapping paper and make little notes on cards with sweet little drawings all over them. When Satu gives you a present, she presents you with it and she makes it for you. It really made me feel loved.

She made cookies for the guys at work. Twice. It was like watching 5 year olds try to wait two minutes for an oreo. No one looked at the powerpoints during the meeting. It was just a room full of guys squirming in their chairs with eyes darting to the cookies and then at each other. You could actually see the deliberation going on within them, torn between wanting more delicious cookies and not wanting to seem greedy. The cookies were all gone at the end of the meeting.

This whole time while I have felt overwhelmed by work and school, Satu has kept things going. Even though she hates talking on the phone and interacting with strangers, she has managed all of the daily things that come up. I haven't had to worry about any of that stuff for a while.

Now that spring is here and we are able to venture out in the world, I am really looking forward to explorimg our city together.

The rest of us are shitty...

But we're hers.

We all love to be around Satu. She is so magnetic and sweet to the little animals. Here she is watching birds with Gimmie and Josie. Gimmie wants to eat the birds and squirrels, but Satu just keeps the backyard feeders wildlife friendly and keeps the little hunter company. Just look at her bathed in sunlight like a saint.

Now look at the rest of us.

Snaggle-toothed and snoring,

With our bellys hanging out

Getting into every thing,

Not even knowing when we have chocolate on our teeth and glitter on our lips.

Indeed!

Beautiful on the inside

I mean really, just look at that strong jawline and beautiful brain housing group. Like many beautiful things, this is also a little fuckered up. I don't know anything about anything, but Satu explained to me that those ones that look like top hats are supposed to look like squares, and the one at the bottom that looks like it is sharp and poking into something is actually sharp and poking into something.
This is the source of much of my sweetheart's constant pain. When I say constant, I mean every second for the last 20 years, no matter what, various levels of pain that she just deals with because she doesn't like to take too much Advil. Really, there are still a few people that strong in the world. Well, at least one person, I suspect that she is her own category.

Lately we have been working out together in spite of all the injury that Satu deals with, it drives her crazy to sit on the sidelines. I have been trying to get to the second level of Insanity for a year. Usually, I get through the first month, but can't quite drag myself through the level 2 workouts and I have to give up for a while. Satu, who has never worked out in her life, just tossed aside the beginner program I bought her and jumped right in the deep end with me. She figured work around angles for things that her fused spine and cramped wrists won't do and gets through the workouts much better than I did the first three times I worked through the level. Her participation means that I spend about 50% less time face down on the floor too, so that she doesn't think I am weak.

Satu is one of those folks with great genes who has always been slender and fit. It is a new thing for her to have limits, and I must say that it's kind of impressive to watch her just keep going and going and going. I just hope that she can let herself heal enough and give herself the same kind of love and acceptance that she has always shown me when I am pushing too hard or too fast for my own good.