Htched!!!

This is a picture of us trying to figure out how to hold hands and show off our wedding rings. I feel a little obsessed with my ring. I keep looking at it and thinking about how lucky I am to have built this wonderful life with Satu. This week Satu's sister who is an Episcopal priest came up to make us legal. My sister came to witness and we said our vows here in the living room.

As informal as the whole thing was, it still choked me up. The dog was sniffing me the whole time and my nose was running and threatening to make our wedding kiss very memorable. Satu just smiled her beautiful smile and held my hand very sweetly. Still, after eight years, whenever our eyes meet it sends an electric pulse to my heart.

I do feel different somehow. I am not sure why having this ring on my finger adds depth to my feelings for Satu, but it does. When she calls me her wife it makes my heart stop for a minute. We have barely had a moment to ourselves since Saturday, but these few days have been full of contemplating Satu as my wife.

Being married makes me feel more relaxed, but not settled. I feel renewed, almost as if we are just starting to date which is odd since Satu knows me better than any person in the world. I just want to live up to this great institution that we have both become a part of and be the best wife that I can.

droids run amok

I could be updating this blog about all of the things that have happened since my last post like getting our marriage license and my awesome birthday prezzie (more on that later.) We are working on a business plan and we have a new kitty living with us. However, all of that has to take back page to the return of the droids.

As Satu will tell you, the droids made an appearance while I was at work the other day. They can often be found milling about with random objects or plotting some elaborate raid on the Naga, so it wasn't unusual to see them carrying the plastic shot glass top to a saki bottle.

 What was unusual is to find Dish Squid wearing the bottle cap as if he had been officially drafted into the lampshade brotherhood.

Though, I will admit that he looks very handsome in his new hat, and it is not unlike him to squeeze into all, or part of a bottle, this seems a little set up to me. Squid is not a trouble maker and he usually avoids the droids when they are acting out. 

If this was their only action that day, then there wouldn't be much to write about, but Squid was clearly tipsy and I am sorry to say that when squid gets drunk, he tells the most awful knock knock jokes. Toxic clocks a lot was totally over it by the time squid finally fell asleep.

These guys were found spilling out of the liquor cabinet and most of them were scrambling for bits and pieces that they had scattered about in their festivities. They tried to casually wrap things up when they were discovered, but as they weaved toward their drawer in the storage chest, this one pitched over and puked on our floor.

Not to be outdone, this one shit his pants.

Though we did get everyone tucked in safely, they have been very quiet since the party. In fact, yesterday, I heard one of them make a defeated hissing sound as he passed the liquor cabinet and turn a very pale shade of green.

Theater Ninja Birthday

     Yesterday was Satu's 45th birthday and she seemed a little down about it at first. Usually she celebrates whole-heartedly since it is a holiday that is dedicated just to her and her life, but I think she is feeling a bit isolated and down. As much as I know that she loves me, it is never enough to just have one person in your life. We haven't quite made any friends here or found something that we can do with other people. I hope that, now that it is spring we can find some excuses to do more social things.
     Anyway last night we had a lovely dinner at the restaurant that is quickly becoming our new spot. Then we went to see a local theater company do an original production called "The Turing Machine." I am kind of a skeptic about local theater, I don't want to get trapped accidentally watching a one woman show about directing traffic or something, but this was surprisingly well written, clever and interesting. Gradually over the night her mood shifted, as it usually does when she is around inventive people and visually interesting things. When we were there, Satu expressed a few times how she was interested in becoming a part of that artist space.
     I admire Satu for the way that she sees the world and how willing she is to really develop her ideas when she gets into a project. I hope that she will make a place for herself among the artists there because as much as the world deserves to see what she does, what she really does best is connect with people. She is one of those thoughtful, kind, intelligent people who can make a real difference in people's lives just by being herself. It is not like her to live in a vacuum, and as much as I can be greedy about her attention, I love to see her full of the ideas and energy that she gets from being around other creative people.

Poof! Cookie!

It may seem like a small thing, but I love to watch Satu eat. Her table manners are really a good display of who she is in all aspects of her life. She is so neat and perfect. Her clothes are tidy, her office supplies are arranged in containers of appropriate shapes, her handwriting is beautiful and she eats as if cutting food is an art that she has actually studied for years. She pushes perfectly portioned cuts of this and that together and piles it neatly on the back of her fork, never letting a pea or an olive escape. I like the dainty perfect way that she eats so much that I try to do it too, but I am not an artist like she is. It may be a weird thing to admire, but just take a look at exhibits 1 and 2. I feel like a caveman sometimes because she does everything so well and I am so haphazard with everything.
I think that the difference here is patience. Satu is a patient person and likes to invest the time in doing things right. I am a scattered person and like to leave my car keys in the refrigerator if that is where I happen to be when I realize that I am still holding them. Only a truly good person like Satu could live with all of this chaos and still make me feel good about myself.

Exhibits 1 and 2: My hard boiled egg debris and hers. ( note: I ate both of my eggs before she started peeling the second one.)

The most wonderful woman in the world

I am so happy to have Satu back at home. She was only gone for a few days, but as it turns out, I feel lost when she is away. I don't know if other couples experience this the same way, or even if Satu feels it the same, but she is so much a part of my life that it seems like I am not really myself when she is away. When she walked back into the home, the life came back with her.
You know those times when you feel like you can't get a full breath? You are breathing fine, but just not enough,and nothing is satisfying. When Satu comes home, or when I get to come home to her, it is like finally taking a satisfying breath.
I feel so grateful to sleep next to her. I feel known, understood and completely accepted. When she gave me the Everything is Going to Be Okay book, I felt a little overwhelmed seeing exactly how well she knows and understands me. As much as the different projects in the book show how her brain works and the brilliant connections and visual ideas that she can make, it also shows how she knows me. Every page is like someone saying exactly the thing that you need to hear at the exact right moment. I hear all of the kind words in her voice and I especially love the whimsical creatures that she included because they seem like each of them has a little bit of her personality. The seahorse has that curious and magical look on his face like she gets when she explores her world. The little bear and his friend on the top of the mountain are little shy, but kind-hearted creatures, and the blue footed boobies dance like we do.
Yesterday, Satu showed me how they dance. She did it perfectly, arching her back and swooshing the air around her with her outstretched wings. Then she settled back in to her center and bobbed just a little from side to side, gathering herself before lifting one blue foot into the air with her tail feathers pointed to the sky. It was absolutely perfect. It made me laugh and laugh. It is so wonderful to get to laugh like that, totally in the little fantasy that she created. To an outsider it probably would have seemed as strange as any two wild creatures could be, but here, in our happy nest, it is just another day with the most wonderful woman in the world.

Everything is Going to be Okay

Today I got the best gift anyone has ever given to me. Satu revealed the project that she has been working on for me for the last few months and it is better than I could have imagined. She found a book called "Everything is Going to be Okay," and has spent months adding to it little hand drawn, clever pictures and cutouts that make it about me and to me. There are too many wonderful bits in this book to cover in one post, so I plan to take it a page at a time and write about where these wonderful characters came from and how she worked to make it truly a piece of art.

Here is one of the pages she made just for me.

This is a map of my native wetlands. She knows my heart so well that she can map it from memory. Satu says that she says good night to me even when I am not home. I feel like she is the only one in the world who could know my heart like this, and wherever she is is the only home I want. 

Today is April 13, 2015 and it is now the day that should be our anniversary. I think that no ceremony or day or occasion of any kind could be more of a testament to love than the gift that she gave me this afternoon.

Everything is going to be okay.

I put this bullshit here.

Hey, hey you, what are you doing? I put this bullshit here. Right here.

I SAID, I PUT THIS BULLSHIT HERE!