ch-ch-ch-changes

after being delayed by tropical storm fay, i arrived at my new home in florida on sunday. three days later, we have the place sorta-kinda unpacked (the kitchen is fully operational, the bedroom and bathroom are almost there, and...well...we have a lot of boxes to deal with everywhere else), and are beginning to settle into life together. things have been complicated by my having coughed myself into a strained rib, which is a minor injury that F*CKING HURTS!

school has started for us both. right now, loaf is in the living room putting some final touches on her teaching plan for tomorrow, and i am in the bedroom, avoiding math. yesterday math was so exciting, but today we got into decimals and percentages and...and...*begins rocking back and forth*. sigh. i am determined to get an A in math. that this hasn't happened since, oh, third grade will not deter me! anyway, i did some english and psychology stuff today, and plan on re-tackling the math tomorrow. sometimes taking a breather from difficulty is all you need. that, and a cookie.

huh!

the trampoline is an olympic sport. who knew?

life in haiku

scratch on my glasses
they'd have to replace the lens
i no has the cash

lying on my bed
kitteh snores across the room
why does my side hurt?

after all this time
being missed, loved, and held tight
was what i needed

really, though, my side
feels like i pulled a muscle
under my left breast

loaf is on the road
en route to tallahassee
see you saturday

i love my new ink
right now it's red and tender
the pain is my friend

must eat more clean food
today breakfast was some cold
leftover pizza

exercise would rock
but healing from bronchitis
means a lot of rest

so much packing! yikes!
hope that what i bring will be
enough til christmas

i said "i'm reformed"
she said "re-formed...i get the
poetry of that"

sigh.

car unloaded, laundry in progress, four boxes of pots/pans/dishes/kitchen stuff sorted and packed. progress, yes? thanks to E for keeping me company and sharing pizza.

Still To Do:

- pack clothes, massage table and lamp

- spend quality time with friends

- get tattoo

and myriad other things that i can't think of right now.

holy fuck, this is my last weekend in detroit.

it's hard to type with a kitteh passed out on your left wrist.

home. sick.

72 hours ago i was still in my tent.

what a week. never have i worked so hard, and never has it been so worth it.

anne's challenge to us all was to "do one thing this week that scares you".

i did one every day. making new friends, admitting ignorance, continuing towards closure...driving unfamiliar vehicles, climbing ladders, climbing towers straight up into the sky...

and moths. if you know me, you know i am terrified by moths. of moths. it really did not occur to me that hanging and focusing lights in the woods meant HUGE GIGANTIC MOTHS. imagine being way up a ladder at night, trying to get a stuck light unstuck so you can point it where you want it, when surprise - there are moths crawling on your arms and neck, moths flying at your face...i even had one purring in my ear. yep. got over that fear pretty dang quick.

got bronchitis two days in, still recovering but feeling much better!

learned to say "luckdragon" in sign language.

learned that i am incapable of not loving.

learned that the universe is really quite witty.

today has been rough. i have a bad case of re-entry blues. i'm also overwhelmed by how much has to be done in the next week. florida will be fine once i'm there, but right now i am so not looking forward to going.

i miss well water. i miss bobbing flashlights and smiles on wooded paths. i miss cuddles (my follow spot), the Tower of Power and its inhabitants, and hot showers in dappled sunlight. i miss the drumming. i miss the milky way lighting me home, bumpy shuttle rides, and lemony ice water with every meal.

i don't miss the tofu.

<--- slacker!

it's been a very busy summer! this month alone:

- i joined loaf in her hometown for her brother's wedding and met her family for the first time

_ loaf and i did a walk-through of our reception site and had a cake-tasting/general plannning session with our caterer

- i graduated from massage therapy school (this was thursday and hasn't sunk in yet)

_ i was able to sub in a few games for the women's summer hockey league here, which was great fun

- i discovered a new craft project and have been going to town with it, lol...

loaf is coming back to town on sunday. monday we're shopping for a dining room set and getting our engagement pics taken, wednesday we're crossing the border ("canada has such a great theme song", says loaf) to meet with our minister, and friday we're heading to fest! well...i'm heading straight (ha!) to fest and loaf is camping nearby with some friends for the weekend. i'm a worker and have to be there early. light crew light crew light crew!!!

ahem. in an attempt to regain some butch cred, i just bought this awesome little multi-use tool:

http://www.amazon.com/Leatherman-70202003K-Pocket-Multi-Tool-Orange/dp/B0007UQ16U/ref=pd_bbs_sr_4?ie=UTF8&s=hi&qid=1217053747&sr=8-4

it has pliers, a corkscrew, a bottle opener, wire cutters, a knife, and 4 screwdrivers! and it's orange! it was pricy, but has a 25-year warranty and it's like a little hand-held toolkit, you know? it's coming with me to fest, along with a cordless screwdriver and a crescent-wrench-on-a-shoelace.

ok. off i go to look up herbs that will bring on periods...this month's first bleeding day needs to happen sometime before next friday, because cramps render me pretty much useless, and i can't be useless at fest. too much to do!! oh, and did i mention that this week we also have to load some of my stuff into loaf's car for the move to florida?

big wheel keep on turnin'...

wasn't it just october last week? seriously? no?

the summer is flying by, and it's been a busy one so far. school, part-time work, and the craziness of trying to spend as much quality time as possible with my friends, family and cat before i move to florida on august 18th. i've also spent some quality time with my beloved Tiger Stadium in the past couple weeks...the demolition has officially begun. not that they've done anything more than knock a garage-door-sized hole in the wall (which we - and by "we" i mean metro detroiters, myself included, who were not about to let them tear down our building without claiming a few precious pieces for ourselves - almost managed to do on another side of the stadium, lol)...but still...these last 9 years have been like having a terminally ill relative. the spectre of death has hovered and retreated, hovered and retreated. i've said my goodbyes over and over again, every time destruction looked imminent. urgh. i don't feel like crying right now, so i'll revisit this topic another time.

it's been a long day.

a week from today, i'll be flying to iowa for loaf's brother's wedding. this is both exciting and terrifying...i'm way overdue on meeting her folks, but financially it just wasn't possible before now. i'm really nervous about it...excited, for sure, but waaaaay nervous. which is perfectly normal, and maybe even more normal under the circumstances, lol...they've never met their daughter's lesbian lover before, after all...

i luff it!! i luffs it soooo mush!!!

more cat pictures


finally, someone who loves bologna as much as i do...maybe even more!!

it's been a long week. last friday i secured the caterer for our reception - an amazing restaurant, gay-owned and operated. it was a really fun meeting! we um...really got off topic and started discussing the blood type diet, lol, and he sent me home with a stack of HUGE cookies. loaf and i were worried that they would be out of our budget...it's a very popular restaurant...but bill said that with our budget, we could "do pretty much anything you want. seriously." so YAY! when loaf is here this summer, we're going to schedule a cake tasting and go over a possible menu. i'm excited!

in other news...hmm. is there other news? OH! there's a possibility that i may get to do something amazingly wonderfully fabulous this summer, but i haven't heard for sure yet so i don't wanna get all excited (the friends to whom i freaked and gushed all just gave a collective *SNORT*). trust me, either way i'll be blogging about it. good thoughts please that the next post will be one of delirious excitement and not one long BAROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

oh yes, and tuesday i'll be boxing at a strip club. for money. no, i won't be topless. i know what a disappointment that must be. did i mention that i've never so much as been in a fight before? but it's against a similarly amateur classmate, it's three 1-minute rounds, and if i LOSE, i'm guaranteed to make $150. for three minutes of "work". that's gotta be better than prostitution, right?

ok. let's try this again.

thanks to my beloved loaf, i might now be able to post the pics from last night! so...without further ado:

here's the cat outside comerica park. (note: he's cool and all, but comerica park is a blasphemous, wobbly stain on the city. that being said, enjoy the pic!)



here's the episcopal church (built in 1858, i think) next to comerica park:



here's hockeytown cafe (i'm using E's pic, mine came out blurry):





intersection of woodward and jefferson:




aaaand the wayne county building:




more to come, if we can catch another great night for it! i love my city very much and need lots of pics to get me through the time away...which may be the rest of my life, but i'm trying not to think about that...

WINGS WIN!!!!

THE DETROIT RED WINGS HAVE WON THEIR 4TH STANLEY CUP IN 11 SEASONS!!! *insert victory dance break here*

it was an awesome game. the puck dropped at 8:15; i left school at 8:30 (having skipped entirely on monday, i thought i should show up for half the class last night) and headed back over to my friend J's house. we've now watched all four of the recent Cup victories together! in 1997, they won it the night we graduated high school...a couple days later, we were invited back by our marching band to join them in marching the victory parade down woodward avenue. in 1998...well...actually, i have no memory of that game. J tells me it's because i was really sick and on lots of cold meds at the time, lol. in 2002, we watched the game on the big screen tv at a local bar. J was roughly a month pregnant with her now-5-years-old daughter. and last night, we watched the game at her house and ate pizza.

i can now move to florida with my head held high.

you know, detroit has a really rough reputation, but i'll say this - our sports fans are quite polite! the pittsburgh fans...yeah, not so much. call it sour grapes, call it whatever you want, but if the circumstances had been reversed and the penguins had won the cup at the Joe, you can bet our fans would've been more mature. chanting crosby's name at zetterberg when he was awarded the conn smythe trophy? and booing the Wings in general? please.

and let me just say that after the triple-overtime defeat on monday night, i couldn't bring myself to write about it. i drowned my sorrows in a cheeseburger and fries, and have been mildly depressed for two days. yes, it's THAT important!

so after the game, i headed to downtown wyandotte, where everybody was going CRAZY, to meet a friend. i called loaf and let her hear what it sounds like when a team wins a championship - the screams, yells, and car horns blaring. my friend E and i , after videotaping the madness, decided to head to downtown detroit and see what was up. so after a quick detour to get my new (to me - thanks, baby!) digital camera, we struck out for the city. in the rain. and the fog. we were hoping to hit Hockeytown Cafe, but they were closed to new customers. we did wander around and take a few pics, though - one being the tiger wearing the jersey at the top of this post. except i didn't mean to put him up there and can't figure out how to put him somewhere else. huh. us luckdragons aren't always very technologically proficient.

did i mention that this year's victory parade is friday morning at 11? the same time i'm supposed to be north of detroit, meeting with our prospective caterers? that's going to be an interesting trip...

where has my head been?

how in God's name did i manage to start a blog in the middle of the Stanley Cup playoffs and not write a single post about hockey and my beloved Red Wings?!

quickie recap: the Wings beat out nashville, colorado, and dallas to face pittsburgh in the Stanley Cup finals. game 4 of said finals was last night, and detroit now leads the series 3-1!!!! YES!!! YESSSSSSSS!!! game 5 is monday night, here at joe louis arena (the Joe), and since a team must win 4 out of 7, and the Wings in all probability will win that 4th game on monday...the Cup will actually be there! at the Joe! ready to be presented! there is no better drama than an arena full of hockey fans (and two teams...hell, an entire city!) high on feeling the presence of the oldest championship trophy in sports. detroit has won the Cup three times in the last 11 years. you can bet your sweet bippy i'll be skipping class on monday night.

so yesterday was also my cousin j's wedding. i had a lot of mixed emotions...joy for my cousin and at seeing my dad's side of the family, for sure, but also a fair bit of envy. why? two reasons: a) her wedding is legally recognized, and (this is going to sound awful) b) my straight younger sister got engaged about a week after i did, is getting married 21 days before me, and...well...all she had to do was stick out that left hand and everyone squealed. i have a ring too, and i love it more than i'd ever love a diamond ring because it is so personal and so symbolic to loaf and i...but i spent the evening waiting for the excitement to die down and saying "by the way, i'm getting married next summer too." i missed loaf in the worst way. not that my family was any less excited about our engagement than my sister's - they were totally pumped, can't wait to meet loaf, and i am beyond blessed to have such awesome relatives - but it really bites to feel like an afterthought. i adore my sister, and we're so excited to have each other to bounce wedding ideas off of, and a therapist would probably say that this has more to do with my feelings of always having been outshone by her (to the extent that i'm continually surprised that my niece gravitates toward ME...i've never been the cool one!), and of frustration at having a sibling so close in age that it has made me territorial about what is MINE and what is HERS, than with being a lesbian. but still. it hurts to feel like you're on the outside looking in. it hurts to feel like a second-class citizen. it hurts to know that my marriage won't be legal in this country for quite some time. add to that my being extremely physically uncomfy (strapless bra and girly dress do not a happy luckdragon make...all night i had lines from Ever After running through my head: "you look like a girl!" "that's what i am, half-wit!" "yeah, but today you look it!"), and it made for an interesting internal mindscape. oh yeah, and when my niece and i were in the buffet line, a table full of people were openly staring at me and whispering and laughing to each other. apparently they'd never seen a dread-headed dyke dragon before. MY family thinks i look great, and wouldn't judge me if i showed up covered in purple feathers from head to toe. which brings me to the night's other three emotions - love, gratitude, and pride. i love my family so much, i am so f*cking grateful to have been brought up in an environment of unconditional love and valuing individuality, and i am beyond proud to be a part of their clan.

it's thursday!

thursday has always been my favorite day of the week. mostly that's because nothing has ever gone majorly wrong in my life on a thursday. (heh.) and today has been as pleasant a thursday as i could wish. i slept in, made $60 doing massage, worked out, ate a yummy healthy salad (baby spinach, tuna, shredded cheese, and tomato-bacon dressing), had a glass of chocolate milk, rotated the laundry, unloaded the dishwasher, and now i'm hanging out on the couch with the cat, watching Golden Girls before getting ready for class. thursday means lab day, which means i get a massage, and then after school it's date night with my baby. whee!
more on the working out - my friend v turned me on to bodyweight calisthenics, and i've been doing them since monday. hindu squats, hindu pushups, t-squats, and bridges. and they are hard-core kicking my ass! already my arms feel more solid, and my legs are sooo sore, lol. to warm up, i'm doing the "chairman mao" exercises that my theatre class used to do...and for ab work, i'm hula-hooping. still nursing an injured right deltoid from last friday's charity hockey drop-in (stupid 14-yr-olds and their stupid slapshots!), but it feels about 90% healed. i've decided that it's time to get serious about getting into better shape, especially since fest is just 2 months away! naked-time in the woods! whoopee!

the slow cooker

loaf is an herbivore. i am an omnivore. this has already made life interesting. especially since my definition of "omnivore" means something like "i eat most things, but not mushrooms if i can avoid them, and neverNeverNEVER tofu!*" i am very suspicious of not-meat products. boca burgers disgust me (though Amy's brand texas burgers are AMAZING), and it'll be a cold day in hell before i try another not-meat hot dog. there is one company that makes a tasty chicken "alternative", and that's Quorn. even my cat will eat Quorn!
anyway, while i've always been able to enjoy vegetarian fare, i never really cooked it until i was faced with the reality of a vegetarian wife. but since i love to cook, the last 9 months have been a fun and tasty adventure...i've tried new recipes, and found ways to make some of my favorites veg-friendly. (but not all of them. we're already referring to the weekends loaf will be away from home as "chicken weekends", in which the cats and i will have a roasted chicken all to ourselves!)
surprisingly, until yesterday i had never used a slow cooker. for anything. ever. but several months ago i bought this great book by Robin Robertson called Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker, and promptly dog-eared most of the pages. there are so many great recipes! the one i chose to make as my intro to slow-cookery was Pesto-Infused White Bean and Sundried-Tomato Stew. i picked it because i heart all things pesto, and because we convieniently had a jar of sundried tomatoes in the fridge. :o) i didn't get to try it before running off to school, which was sad...but let me tell you, once i got home and had a bowl, i was NOT disappointed! this is some hella good soup! and here is the recipe, for your nomming enjoyment:

Pesto-Infused White Bean and Sun-Dried Tomato Stew
--------------------------------------------------------
1 Tbs olive oil
1 large Vidalia or other sweet onion, chopped
1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
3 large ripe tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped (actually, i used a jar of tomatoes canned by my mom last summer)
1/4 Cup chopped sun-dried tomatoes
2 cans cannelinni beans, drained and rinsed
1 1/2 Cups vegetable stock
salt to taste
1/4 cup pesto (homemade or store-bought; i did store-bought)

1. Heat the oil in a medium-sized skillet over medium heat. Add the onion, cover, and cook until softened, about 5 minutes.

2. Transfer the onion to a 4-qt slow cooker. Add the bell pepper, both kinds of tomatoes, the beans, and stock; season with salt, cover, and cook on low for 6 to 8 hours.

3. Just before serving, stir in the pesto. Taste to adjust the seasonings.



(* the exception being the nutloaf at the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival. i can't find the tofu, and can't taste it...)

unsolicited movie review-type-thing

my entire family loves to read. as a kid, i especially got into The Chronicles of Narnia, a love that my mother shares wholeheartedly. so today, as a belated mother's day gift, i took mom to see the movie Prince Caspian. (it was not entirely unselfish, i'd been dying to see it too!)
overall, i was really pleased! there was some artistic license taken, of course, but it stayed fairly true to the book. i was impressed that some of the minor details (apple trees at the ruins; the chess piece; the moss-covered descent into the gorge exactly as described) were included...but i thought the exposition could've been handled just a bit better. and never to say the name of trumpkin the dwarf? when he's such an important character and figures in two more books? but to include the werewolves' speech word-for-word? sigh. and i gotta say...as much as i love what they've done so far with the movies...the Trees continue to fall short of my expectations. the whole point is that they're alive, they have spirits, and in the books they're anthropomorphized - the Trees talk, they walk, they eat, and they look human. so far, the movies have just given us moving trees. it also would have been nice to show the all-night feasting and dancing of the Old Narnians in the book. oh well. i guess they can't keep everything.

in other news, i spent the weekend plying my trade as a mobile massage therapist and did rather well! it's a bitch sometimes to drive all over God's green earth, especially with gas prices, but the fun part of doing outcalls is that you meet so many interesting people. yesterday, one client showed us a few of her pole-dancing moves! it looks like so much fun, but maybe i'd better build up a bit more upper-body strength first...to the gym! awaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

whee! inaugural post!

so i'm not your typical butch girl...more of a butch in tomboi's clothing, i suppose. i love sports, jeans, boots, and wrestling with large dogs; i also enjoy sheets with little flowers on them, cute half-aprons, and drinking what my grrl calls "cheerleader beer". calling myself a housewife (or, rather, housewife-to-be, since loaf and i won't be living together til august) doesn't feel quite accurate - after all, i'll be the one killing bugs and dealing with the occasional dead thing as well as baking cookies and cheesecakes (and making killer spinach dip) for potlucks and dinner parties.
follow along as loaf and i shack up and prepare for our wedding next summer! thrill to tales of near-death as i learn to navigate a new city! get your vicarious adrenaline rush as i train for roller derby! try new recipes! it's all here, just for you!