And also Apple's dropping of Rosetta translation for legacy
software is forcing me to find replacements, and the mediocrity of
software is kicking my firm Danish ass. Thank you to those faithful readers who write to me and remind
me that they miss the newsletter.
Eolake Stobblehouse
Dear DOMAI
I had my best DOMAI moment this week. But first, a flashback: ten years ago my wife Debra and I hosted a young Finnish girl on a school student exchange to New Zealand. As an 18 year old, Marija exuded charm and poise, and we enjoyed her company as she attended school with our daughter. Over the ensuing years, we hosted many other students, both girls and boys, from many parts of Europe. We have visited a few of them before, but never before had made the long trek to Finland to see Marija. Until this week. Our anticpated Christmas-time trip to Europe was in the early planning stages,when Marija chatted with me on Facebook. “I’d love to show you my country” she typed, “as you showed me yours ten years ago”. But, it’ll be winter, I thought. “How easy it to travel about then?” I asked. I am from New Zealand, where it snows on mountain tops only and we have summer Christmases. “No problem” she said. "We are Finnish. We invented winter! We know how to cope with it." So, we travelled overnight by ship from Stockholm to Helsinki and Marija met us at the ferry terminal. Straight away, I felt a re-kindled affinity with this now mature woman, as she showed us around the city, half-buried in the snow which still lay in heaps on every street, covering cars and buildings. Marija took us to her apartment in a small town, an hour by bus from Helsinki, quite close to a wilderness area. A friend of hers built a small cabin away up there in the woods. After driving as far as the snow would allow, we trekked about half a kilometre through the trees to the cabin, built on the edge of a small lake. No electricity. No TV. But a sauna. A Finnish speciality. After getting it fired up, and whilewaiting for it to heat, we chatted about the past ten years. The things Marija had done since leaving New Zealand: finishing school, going to university, planning one day to return to New Zealand to re-visit old haunts. Me: hosting more exchange students, seeing both our daughters married, turning 60! Soon, it was time for the sauna. She suggested I go in first, before it really heated up, as she liked it a little hotter. So, after undressing and wrapping myself in the towel she gave me to sit on, I opened the sauna door. Wow, the heat! Marija showed me how to ladle the water on to the stones to create the steam which gives the sauna its health-giving benefits. So I sat there on my own for maybe five minutes, getting hotter and hotter, the sweat running down my neck, my bare back, my legs. Then the door opened again, and there Marija stood, wrapped in her towel. As I looked from the top seat, she gave me a wink, slowly removed her towel, and threw it to me. Standing at the door, naked and proud, she looked at me watching her, and then slowly pirouetted so I could see her entire nude body. Tall, well rounded, easy on the eye. Nice full breasts with prominent brown nipples, nice bottom, beautiful smile. Unshaved pubic area, trimmed around the bikini line. She gave a mock curtsy, stepped into the sauna, shut the door behind her and asked “Can I come in?” I blinked, shut my mouth and held out my hand. She took it and stepped up to join me on the top seat. I spread out her towel so she could sit beside me. “I hope you don’t mind seeing all of me”, she said with a cheeky smile. “Likewise”, I said, sitting there on my towel, in the same state of undress as she was. "I don't mind at all!" I said, grinning back at her. We sat there for a minute or two, not talking, just accepting each other’s nudity, enjoying the heat, and the quietness. Then, Marija scooped up a ladle of water, and leant forward to tip it into the stones. As she did so, her breasts dangled delightfully forward, swinging slightly in the humidity, and a few droplets of sweat ran down over her nipples and dropped onto the lower step. She smiled at me watching her, and I said “I couldn’t have sat here like this with you ten years ago, unless my wife was here too.” She shrugged her sweaty shoulders. “In Finland, it’s quite acceptable” she said, splashing a bit of cold water over my head and shoulders, “to sit in a sauna with anyone you know, And you sure don't need clothes.” So we both sat there naked, talking, splashing a bit of water on each other now and then, and on the stones, and as the heat increased, I got hotter and hotter! And then, the surprise of the day, the door opened again, and in walked my wife, Debra. Also naked! She’d been preparing some food in the cabin’s kitchen, and had told Marija that she wasn’t that keen on saunas. But she decided, she told me later, that she’d better check up on her husband and our former exchange student, and felt it would have been a little bit silly to go into a sauna fully clothed. So, if she wanted to see us, she’d have to join us! And so she did. Marija and I moved over so Debra could share the towel. The three of us sat there, for another fifteen minutes, side by side. Just talking, splashing, and singing our respective national anthems, there in the sauna! But soon, I had had more than enough heat, so I stepped past them, out into the snow to cool down. It was nice just standing there in the coolness, letting the minus five degree air temperature take its course! Two minutes later, the two women emerged, both content to remain naked, the steam rising in clouds from their lovely nude bodies. My wife and my exchange student, bare-breasted and bare-bummed, the rising steam framing their smiling faces, watching me pad through the snow towards them! A DOMAI moment that will stay with me forever. High fives all round, as we headed to the kitchen for a feed of Finnish sausages. No need for clothes, as the kitchen was warm, and our bodies were too, from the sauna. A perfect way to have a breather before returning for another warm-up. The Finns sure know how to live! Roger p.s. I searched through a few hundred DOMAI images
looking for a Marija lookalike – what a tough chore that was! The
closest I could come up with was |
Pictures are available in 6X size for
members, and forty times the numbers for the newsletter period!
. |
