Eir?

I get a lot of questions about the name Eir.  What does it mean? Where is it from?  How is it pronounced?

I know the answer to the first two, and I know how I personally pronounce it and how my parents pronounced it, but I'm thinking that most people would probably not want to have to pronounce it at all.

It is Norse.  The basic meaning is Mercy.  The origin is from the Poetic Edda and refers to one of the "maidens" sitting gladly at the knee of Mengloth. 

Eir herself is thought to be either another name for the Goddess Frigg, or originally a Valkyrie.

Ok so here's where my problems with men begin.

Valkyries went around the battlefield, gathering the souls of the dead warriors and ushering them to Valhalla, that's pretty much known.  So what would a Valkyrie of mercy do?  Let them live you say?  Think again.  It was merciful to die on the battlefield rather than live and go home disfigured and/or disabled.  So if you're a Norse warrior  and you're lying there on the battlefield, injured but not dead, and a Valkyrie comes along, the merciful thing to do to you would be to finish you off so you could go on to Valhalla.

Do you see the problem here?

I've basically been named after a Valkyrie who was possibly the Slayer of Wounded Men.

Not something good for your dating life really.

Bulldozer

I live out in the country.  There are houses near me; I'm not in total seclusion, but no one really drives down my road unless you live on it because it doesn't GO anywhere.  It starts at the main road and loops through the mountains and back to the main road again.  That's pretty much it.  So you get used to seeing the same cars drive past, or maybe "vehicles" is a better term.

I would say you get used to the same "vehicles" because its not just cars and trucks.  I've seen people tooling down my road in cars, trucks, trailers, dirtbikes, ATVs, tractors, a Bobcat, riding lawn mowers, and yesterday, a bulldozer.

Yes, bulldozer.  The first time it drove past, I thought "huh, someone must be doing work on their property".  The second time it drove past, I watched more closely and wondered if they were having trouble finding where they were supposed to go.  The third, fourth and fifth time it drove past, I knew the guy must be lost, looking for someone's house.

Then, the 7th time he drove past, he stopped.  In front of MY house.

I tried to peek out the window without looking like the creepy lady peeking out the window, except that's pretty much what I was.

After a few minutes, two dump trucks also showed up, and I swear, just like a Clown Car, about eight guys climbed out of the cab of one truck and three out of the other.  All eleven of them stood in the road watching the guy in the bulldozer.  They walked over to the edge of my property, looked at some drainage ditches, walked to the other side, pointed, talked, then watched the bulldozer guy dig a six inch hole in a random spot, stood around in the road for a few more minutes, got back in their Clown Car Dump Trucks, and left.

Yeah, I don't know either, but that's the sort of crap that happens out here.

Election Day 2012

First and foremost, I'm hoping that no one reading this blog is expecting any quality writing.  You might check my short stories, essays or poetry for that, but not here.  Here I just ramble.  Here is where I open the gates and let whatever comes, come.

When I can remember my password.

You're not supposed to keep a list of passwords, you're not supposed to use the same one for everything, you're not supposed to make it easy to figure out.

Ok, then how am I supposed to remember it?

Sure, I can go through the whole retrieval process, answer questions, give my email.  "How many toes are on your left foot?" a question only I know the answer to, and now I feel I must share that it is FIVE because otherwise you're going to think its six or four or heaven forbid, one.

Once I've jumped through the appropriate password retrieval hoops, it doesn't actually GIVE me my old password, it makes me create a new one.  Except it won't let me make one that I've used before, so every time I forget a password, I have to come up with one further and further from that "reference point" that we all use. "KittyBum21" or "KittyTushi21", etc. (disclaimer: I do not use those).  So now I have to come up with something like "DontForgetThisYouIdiot11" or "YourStupidPassword11" (I do not use these either).

What does this constant branching -out mean?

It means I'm guaranteed to forget my password the next time I need to log onto my blog, resulting in yet another festival of frustration.

*sigh*

Really, Nature?

Nature is all about survival, I get that.  We want sex so we'll procreate.  We're more attracted to people who are healthy, and blah blah.  Even our taste buds help us survive.  We like sweet and can taste sweet.  Some animals can't, like cats.  Cats can't taste sweet, and for good reason.  I mean how often is a mouse or a bug sweet?  Why would you need to taste sweet if you just eat meat?

Anyway, so we can taste things and some chemical compounds of food taste different ways; pleasing, not pleasing, all that.  Like bitter.

Bitter is what most poisons are.  We taste bitter and we go "ew" and spit it out.  Or at least, that's the theory.  Here's my problem with that: taste buds for bitter are in the BACK of your throat, so you take a bite of something poisonous and as you SWALLOW, you taste bitter!  By then, its too late!  You're already going to DIE!

Really, nature? 

Home Depot: Your One Stop Body Disposal Shop

Everyone knows that lime powder, sprinkled on a body, prevents the smell of putrefaction and discourages flies.  Its also wonderful for roses and is a commonly used soil additive for gardeners.  Its available at your local Home Depot.

Also available are small, portable sized, battery powered chain saws.  Small enough to fit into your trunk (with a bag of lime) and still leave room for other items, yet powerful enough to sever limbs (tree and otherwise).  They’re relatively inexpensive and come with a rechargeable battery.

Somewhere along the line you may need a drop cloth.  These are found in the paint section and come in a variety of types.  Roll-out, folded, canvas, plastic, clear, blue, black (I recommend blue or clear so that you can see whatever mess you are working with easily and not get it on yourself.  Vinyl and latex gloves can be found in the cleaning aisle and face masks are scattered throughout the store for when you sprinkle the lime.  Lime is an irritant to skin and is extremely dangerous to the eyes, causing permanent damage and even blindness.  No one wants that.

You will need a shovel as well.  They’re in the garden section, at the end of the cleaning aisle.  Point-tipped round spade would do. 

A nice shrub from outdoor garden could come in handy to give the appearance that the hole has some other purpose than disposal of…unwanted goods, and it is a good effort toward conservation and reforestation.  Not to mention it will discourage exploration of the site after some time.  You could sprinkle some grass seed or wildflower seed around the dig site also, to encourage re-growth of natural ground cover.

After all this preparation, it would seem that all you need now is a victim (who will provide exceptional fertilizer for the shrub and flowers). 

9-11 is what we remember it as.

Most of the country was doing today roughly what they were doing 11 years ago on 9/11; starting their day at work, driving to school, doing their general routine in the house, etc.

But 11 years ago on today's date, my family and I were doing something much different than our general routine. We had congregated at my parents' home in Indiana to bury my grandfather, a veteran.

Some of our family

was driving in from Canada, some from Ohio, the Carolinas and Virginias, some from further away. The Canadians were stuck at the border for the day, and the horrors of the Nation seemed to take place outside of our more immediate circumstances; postponing the arrival of family members, complicating the funeral process, delaying the burial until later in the week.

It was a surreal blessing to be literally surrounded by family, all staying in one house.

I remember that night, looking up in the night sky with several of my cousins on the patio and realizing that this would probably be the only day any of us would or ever had seen the night sky with no planes at all.
Only Stars.

I remember that when we did have the funeral, later that week, EVERY SINGLE CAR on both sides of the road pulled over for the funeral procession as we passed; the drivers' awareness having been heightened by the events of the week.

Most people remember the events that occurred in New York, PA, and the Pentagon today.

I mostly remember the blessings of my extended family...

And I thank God for each and every one of them.

Bird Beer

UPS Package

Cartwheels in the office

Apes in a Fish Bowl

Dreams

Dreams are weird, there's just no other way to put it.
I've dreamt of epic battles, situations at the office, I've slept with people I would never EVER want to sleep with, and attacked or killed people I love.
I also hit people in my sleep.
Boyfriends and husbands do not like this. Yes I've been married 3 times, though the second one really doesn't count, the paperwork was stalled due to a blizzard. I've had about 9 boyfriends, clearly 3 of those were husbands, and at some time or other, I've struck all of them in my sleep. One of them yelled "small, LARGE pizza!" when I did.

Canadians dream

Dreamed my house was full of my Canadian relatives.

8.11.12 dream

Dreamed I kicked a ghost named Isobel out of some guy named Simon's room. She was shaking his bed and stuff.

Spare time

In my spare time, I write.
I haven't had a lot of spare time since my son was born 8 years ago, so I sort of fell to the wayside with the whole writing thing.
Now, I discover, there's this whole self-publising thing, which is pretty cool and also pretty freaking scary.

I'll probably use this blog to write what I would normally write in my writing journal sort of thing, so don't expect anything interesting here, it will mostly be crap.

The Angry Valkyrie name comes from Eir, which is the name of a Valkyrie.  Apparently she's the Valkyrie of Mercy.  Since it was a blessing to die in battle and a curse to be seriously injured but live, I imagine my Valkyrie alter ego went around slaying the wounded warriors as they lay on the battlefield.

That's me, destroyer of wounded men.

Day Job

So really, my day job is the sort of thing you can't make up.

I walked in one day to find the wall of the reception area covered, seriously, plastered with bright orange postits.
On them were things like:

"Men have free will.
Women do not, they are too dangerous."

"Ex convicts should be discriminated against as much as homosexuals"

"Genetic diversity is needed YOU FOOLS!!"

"All you bad girls, who put this here? The boss man with his pimp hand is (unintelligible)"

"The gene pool must be broadened to survive the upcoming Solar Event"

Yeah.

My boss once asked me to sort all the papers in his office into two piles.
One for "yellow pages" and one for "everything else".
I'm shocked that he hasn't asked me to sort skittles by color.

My coworker routinely moonwalks out of my office, or does the "Dolphin Dance", which looks more like a seizure than anything else.
Sometimes he can be found playing Magic Online instead of meeting with clients.

My other boss mostly tries to get me to go to her house after work to drink a lot of beer.
I like her.
She is my favorite.