Ég Lima is a band name inspired by an autocorrect incident. I was texting with a friend, commiserating about how exhausting life can be, especially under the constant stress of this era of plague. I responded, or at least tried to, with ég líka, the Icelandic for ‘me too’, but it was autocorrected to ‘Ég Lima’. Why did the AI seem to think, keep the ég ditch the líka? Only our ever benevolent sky-net overlords know for sure and I’m sure they know best. Anywho, I made a joke that it sounded like the name of a Reykjavík-based imaginary Peruvian, punk-new age band and immediately made a band t-shirt.
The convo:
Months later, I was lying in bed, when my youngest offspring hopped into bed, as he is want to do on a school-day morning, for a little snuggle and chat. He had just gotten his second shot of the plague vaccine the day before and his arm was still a bit sore.
“It sounds like dead cells,” he said.
“What do dead cells sound like?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Crinkly,” he replied.
“The sound of dead cells. That would make a good band name,” I said.
“Or name of a song,” my husband chimed in from his side of the bed.
“Or an album,” I offered.
“Or maybe just an EP,” said the youngest offspring.
And that’s when it hit me. ‘Sound of Dead Cells’ would be the perfect name of the breakout single of my imaginary band Ég Lima. I can just see the blurb about them now:
Ég Lima Erupts onto the Icelandic Music Scene
Ég Lima is a Reykjavík based punk new age band with Peruvian roots and they’re pumping new blood into the heart of punk with their first single, ‘Sound of Dead Cells’. On the surface ‘Sound of Dead Cells’ is just another “back to basics” punk song. Lead singer and guitarist, Pablo Puddin’ screams the names of his favorite Paleolithic animals over sawed guitar riffs and impressively violent drums. But a deeper listen reveals layers of traditional Peruvian flutes, flutes Pablo says are made using replicas of the fossilized bones of ancient sloths recently discovered in the Peruvian Andes. The sounds of the Paleolithic pipes weave in and out of the echos of handbells and the strumming of synthesized harp to create an eerily pre-historic soundscape. First time listeners may find the discordance unsettling but don’t be deterred, because once you get it, you get it, and your ears will never be the same.
It’s my most fervent desire that some whimsy-filled Peruvian musician will read this and become so inspired that they turn Ég Lima into a reality. Will this actually happen? No. Will I continue to think up song names and possibly even lyrics? Yes, yes I will and you should feel free to do the same.
Update on The Viking:
Regular readers of my highly inconsistent blog will remember The Viking from two of my earlier posts. For those who don’t know and/or have forgotten, this is The Viking and this was the last we had heard and seen of him…until now.
While at one of the nearby swimming pools, the husband and youngest offspring ran into The Viking in the locker room. His locker was right next to my husbands. They strike up a conversation in Icelandic but his Icelandic isn’t up to full on conversation and they soon switch to English. If you’ve read the previous posts on The Viking, you’ll know that we’ve heard, or at least thought we’ve heard, him speaking Danish. I propose, dear reader, that my husband, being some distance away in the big hot tub in Vesturbæjarlaug (Westside swimming pool), mistook his wonky Icelandic for Danish.
It turns out, his parents are Icelandic but he grew up in, drum roll please….Texas! Of all the places. How weird is that? Maybe it was his fellow Texan vibe that set my spidey sense all atingle. He’s an Icelandic Texan and I’m a Texan in Iceland. The next time I see him I will probably stare at him, trying to remember where I know him from and then hours later, say out loud”He’s The Texan Viking!”
That is all.
Good morning, Kettle Talkers. It is 9:09 am and the sky is just beginning to lighten a bit. The dawn is less than half an hour away. In these dark mornings, I find myself waking up in stages. I get up to wake the boys and get them moving. I pack the youngest’s lunch, make sure they eat, brush their teeth and get dressed and in between I retreat to the soft, cozy embrace of my bed which has never before felt so fluffy and divine. I feel myself falling into the haze of half sleep but catch myself in time to get up and check on the boys’ progress and keep them on task. Once they’re out the door I retreat to be bed for a few more minutes, closing my eyes and, if I can manage it, roping the husband into a snuggle. He claims he doesn’t need the extra snuggle time but takes it all the same. Surprisingly, my boys aren’t any harder to wake up than usual in the mornings and aren’t any easier to get into bed at night. Eventually I feel the need to eat and get to work by which time the sky is lighter and it feels more like morning. I eat, I Facebook, I drink my tea and prepare for a day of writing, laundry (there is always laundry) errands interspersed with YouTube videos (mostly vlogs and drag queens). 
Since Icelanders don’t have a Thanksgiving, November is pretty much the beginning of the Christmas season. Lights are going up in storefronts along with holiday displays and the grocery stores are already rolling out their “Gleðileg jól” (Merry Christmas) shopping bags. Because I am of a certain age, I find Christmas decorations going up before Thanksgiving distasteful. I’m pretty sure the shift to putting up holiday decorations just after Halloween has been a thing in the States at least since the 90s, but it had already become a habit of mine to feel annoyed by it by then. But you know what? I think I’m a changed woman. Here, in the darkness, I’m thankful for the premature fairy lights, giant glittering snowflakes and red yarn stacked up in the shape of Christmas trees. It’s difficult to work oneself into a funk in the face of sparkling things, shiny red and gold tins decorated with Christmas goats, and tiny Yule Lads with long white beards and wearing little pointy red hats. Be grateful for the light, wherever you may find it.
A week or so ago I was pondering this question: Do I get a power adapter for my cute, little, orange tea kettle or do I get a new tea kettle? You see Kettle Talkers, me, the husband and the kids are moving to Iceland this summer and some difficult decisions regarding packing will have to be made. No sooner had I written about my adapter conundrum than the kettle up and died. It began turning on by itself and then wouldn’t turn on at all. Such a good kettle, making things easy for me in this time of transition. I loathe transitions of all sorts. I hate the saying, it’s more about the journey, than the destination. The journey can be fun, yes, but often it is uncomfortable and it takes too damn long. If transporter technology were to become a thing tomorrow I’d be the first in line. Beam me up, Scotty. One for transport, O’Brien. Scratch that. Transporter travel would probably do something weird to my body rhythms and I’d break out in hives and have insomnia for days. It’s much too sudden now that I think about it. These processes are uncomfortable yet necessary, like mosquitos. They’re little biting, disease carrying jerks but if they disappeared from the face of the earth everything would be thrown out of balance.
