I Say This With Nothing but Kindness: I Hate You

I'm sitting here after a shower, hair dripping and still smelling like a bonfire, with another headache and in the midst of doldrums.

Wedding day is less then a month away now. Grendal and I are both nervous, as are those in the wedding party. Everything is just about leveled away and should go on without a hitch. We even bottled our mead on Tuesday after a speedy delivery of bottles:

Such pretty colors. Most of them are basic batches but we have some cherry, 2 blackberry, a pear, and strawberry. Grendal insisted we make a batch for his manager at work who was kind enough to postpone his week off so we could enjoy a simple honeymoon. The one he received was rather sweet, which made me happy. We were both a little upset we had to part with it but knew he'd be happy. I think I'll demand a sweet blackberry batch next time.

The reason for the title isn't due to the wedding or the mead but towards some general things. And I honestly don't hate the people! It's more 'Oh gods, that is so awesome. Bravo! I hate you so much.'

One of the girls from the bakery is off in Chile right now for a week for school stuff. She's double majoring in Spanish and Anthropology. When I heard all of that, I told her I hated her and she laughed. She knew where I was coming from. Such an amazing opportunity and she is taking it all in. She also plans on heading to Spain one of these days to take in that culture and further her studies, which is just freakin' amazing.

Then there is one of our gaming buddies (we'll call him Boxy). He works for a nice company, makes(I assume) a decent amount of money, lives with his parents on their farm, and they all travel throughout North America, possibly even Central and South. Why? I don't know. Boxy is an awkward sort but very talented and very smart. One gaming session he made us sushi, which was wonderful, and then another he made us batched of spaghetti, ravioli, and all the fixings.....from scratch. I've been wanting to make homemade pasta for moons but haven't the means to do so, nor the time at the moment. Everything tasted beautifully and, again, I told him in between gushing about the tasty food that I hated him for doing this. He took in stride and a compliment.


It's honestly times like these that I mentally take a step back and look at what I've done. I came close to being able to travel outside of the US my senior year, either with my french class or theater class. I opted to join the theater group and my parents agreed to pay the fee. We'd be in England for a while and then off to Paris for a day. I talked the teacher into agreeing to let us see Stonehenge and even the Paris Opera house. That was the year 9/11 occurred and, understandably, all trips outside of the US were canceled.

Grendal and I have wanted to go to Japan. I did research, figured out prices, found places to stay, and agreed that we'd check out Tokyo once. We planned to save up for a year and we'd have enough money to spend about a week abroad. That never happened. Life happened. Bills cropped up, we had to help his parents thanks to his sister and her family mooching off of them. And now we enter the world of me actually getting close to hating a person. I don't like it, to be honest. Thinking about it makes me feel horrible but I'm not the only one creeping to that conclusion. Our relationship with his sister and her brood is for another time. I don't need THAT much angst in one post. :P

But yes, money was and has been tight ever since. I don't think his family realized it until the 18th. Everyone was over for a impromptu Mother's Day lunch. Grendal was talking about buying a moped. His siblings and brother in law started talking about how he should get a bicycle with a motor, and then prices were being tossed around. I piped in and told them "That's not going to happen any time soon. All of the money we have is going towards the wedding." It's true. I think it made a bit of an impact because I'm usually quite during get togethers (too many people make me nervous). They were quite after that. None of them knew any of that and I felt a bit better once they did, though nothing has changed.

So yes. Here I am, finally dry from the shower, and looking at my life. While I never really had a plan of where I would be, I just have to shrug. Things could be a lot worse then they are. The two of us are trying our damnedest to work our way out of this hole but it's slow going. We may never be able to travel abroad but we'll be happy and together.

-Djarfskald

Of Wights, Mead, and Bike Rides

I had my first bike ride of the season/year yesterday. Rather than burden someone for a ride to work I had Grendal look over the bike the night before to make sure everything was good. After decking myself out in a backpack, a leather jacket, gloves, and a scarf, I was off. While it's only a 15 minute-ish ride it is still kinda chilly in the mornings, so that sort of bundling up was needed.  It was nice to ride again. My legs disagreed with me by the end of the day but I loved it. Set me off to a good start too. Healthy sort of breakfast, after ride munch, and a nice salad with an avocado(with a side of yogurt and some blah bread pudding) for lunch! While I may not need to drop any fat, I do need to tone up in general.  Though, I don't think my legs need the work. A couple years of martial arts and hula mixed kinda does that to the legs. It's my stomach and upper body that need to shape up. So, it looks like yoga and what not for that.

The mead should be reaching the point of racking. This also means that Grendal and I need to figure out what fruits we're putting in for half the batch. He knows he wants blackberry and cherry, while I'm kinda leaning towards apples and strawberries. If we stick with those, that just leaves two more that are undecided. Who knows. The book I have (The Compleat Meadmaker) suggests a couple of different fruits to use so I may stick with that.

I've been bothering Grendal with the idea of coming up with names for our different meads because, well, I'm hoping we continue to make it and possibly make it for others. I suggested 'Allfather' for the classic mead, which he responded with 'The Allfather's Eye Drops'.  I think I can compromise with 'The Allfather's Eye' and we both can be happy. I also had the idea of doing a mixed berry version in hopes that it's yummy and call it 'The Bifrost'.  And while Grendal doesn't like carbonation, I think he liked the idea of a sparkling mead to be known as 'Mimir's Well.'  I do know the apple version will have some reference to Idunna and we joked about a really red mead being a reference to Tyr, though I wonder if that would be in bad taste.

Speaking of the happenings of the past few days, Grendal and I had a little 'spook' moment the other night. Now, we have a tendency to misplace our combs. He blames it on me and while I misplace it more often then he does, I'm not the only one to blame. Anyway, we had lost our good one a few weeks ago and no amount of cleaning seemed to help. Hell, we cleaned rather well because we had a friend showing up and NOTHING! Well, the other day I came home to find our combs lying together on the bed. Of course I figured this meant Grendal had found it and was showing me as such while he was at work. So, I just put it over with the brush we had and left it at that. Later that night he goes to brush his hair with the comb and the following happened:

Grendal- Where did you find the good comb?
Me- It was just laying next to your pillow. I thought you put it there.
Grendal- Uh, no.
Me- What? *skeptical stare* You're not shitting me, are you?
Grendal- You're not shitting me?
Me- *stare*
Grendal- *stare*

Usually by this point one of us would confess to the other if we had been fooling around. I have a tendency to be easily duped in certain situations and was honestly expecting Grendal to be all 'Haha, fooled you'  yet there wasn't such a response.  He just had an uneasy look on his face and I went downstairs to do whatever it was I was going to do.

We've had spirits (both nice and grumpy) in the house before, but they seemed to either have quieted down or moved on over the years. While I do believe in the little folk, we've never had an indication of them being around. With my increased work in the world of Asatru I've begun offering foods to the Land Wights in the area. It made me wonder if I have a House Wight and they're making themselves known by doing such a thing. I'll set up another offering dish for the House Wight on the off chance we have one. Maybe that will make the atmosphere in the house a little more happy.