Uff Da

Ter and I went to see the Vikings exhibit at the museum on Monday. Aside from being über-cool in general, the set up was clustered into themes rather than running a chronological sequence—describing how they operated in society, religion, war, shipbuilding, etc. I’m no sailor, but from an engineering perspective, how they accomplished what they accomplished on the water is as astounding as the Egyptians building the pyramids. Crossing the north Atlantic now is dangerous; packing the wife and kids into a longboat and trying to skim the surface to Newfoundland 1000 years ago … what’s the Viking word for “crazy”? We took a break halfway through to hit the IMAX, then finished up by pillaging the gift shop. Well, I didn’t buy anything, but I’m a cheap Scot, not a Viking. Ter maybe kinda halfway sorta is, as we suspect her maternal grandfather was of Swedish descent. They didn’t make 6' 5" Finns in his generation and he was a big dude. Mind you, Ter was a little girl when he died. Everyone is big to a six-year-old.

It was helpful to see the artifacts and whatnot, though, as we’ve been watching the TV series Vikings on History channel. The series is produced and written by Michael Hirst, whose fast and loose play with historical facts in the name of fiction made me immediately suspicious of what he might try to pass off as an accurate depiction of 10^th century Scandinavia. Turns out he’s not that far off the mark, though the series itself makes me scratch my head because the characters are regrettably either ho-hum or out-and-out unlikeable. The main character, played by Australian Travis Fimmell, consistently has me torn between worshiping him and knocking him in the knuts—and don’t get me started on the female characters. His first wife is awesome, but why he dumped her for the second still escapes me. They had princesses in Viking times, too, and I don’t mean of the royal variety.

Today is Thorsday, named for the God of Thunder, which is eerily appropriate given the headache that’s beating a tattoo against my frontal lobe this morning. I hate when life happens on vacation. Can’t let it stop me, though—I’m on a roll with the Russians, so Tylenol is down and I’m eager to delve deeper into the unfolding tale of Viktor and the royal family. The ballroom didn’t get done yesterday; the third scene took a hard left and dumped me into an unexpected and very emotional recollection. I’m at the stage where I’m wondering where this is going and it has me mildly panicked about the purpose of the piece. After much mulling and mental wrangling, I believe I see an ending—hopefully happy, but knowing my style, probably not. Best I can foresee is bittersweet. I’m trying to keep everyone alive except for the one who, ironically, is emerging as the main character. So it appears that this story is about love, loss and healing. Nothing new in the literary world, I guess, but it’s foreign turf for me because there are no vampires and no magical powers along to give it some supernatural pizzazz. It’s all about the people. Plain, normal, fragile mortals. I really hope I can do it—do them—justice.