06 October, 2010

In Which I Name My Car

Yeah, so, I'd planned to return to the regular weekday political blogging, maybe put a little something up on science, get back into the flow.  But it took me over an hour to get to work today.  Had to drive the car around looking for an emergency kit for it, right?  And then there was the obligatory drive down Forbes Creek.

After work, it took me two hours to get back home, going by way of Monroe and Gold Bar, whilst Sean and I listened to Epica and yakked about The Ghosts of Cars Past, zombie apocalypses, and other such subjects.

And I could've caught up on some political reading between calls at work, but I spent most of my time today browsing steering wheel covers on Amazon and hitting up teh Google for Elvish sites.

You see, I'd decided last night, as I lay abed, that this car needed a name that reflected my Lord of the Rings obsession.  I'd been thinking of her as Silver - not simply because of the color, but because of a line in a Kamelot song: "Shine on silver / From the sky into the night / Gaia shivers / And I need your leading light."  So, what the hell?  Why not the Elvish word for "silver"?

Because it's celeb, that's why.   So what if it's pronounced "kay-leb" - it still looks like something out of a star stalker magazine.  Poor Professor Tolkien.  He couldn't have foreseen that indignity to his beautiful language.

Wordlist after wordlist finally led me to the right name: Silmë (seel-may).  Oh, you may laugh.  Go right ahead.  But here's why: it means "starlight," and is also the poetic word for "silver" in the Quenya (ancient Elvish) tongue.  It satisfies my desire for a name meaning "silver" in one of Tolkien's languages.  So there we are.  Silmë. 

That's her name. 

Now if only they made LOTR steering wheel covers...

3 comments:

Suzanne said...

tis beautiful.... and a reminder that i've not named my car.... which, as you know, looks like an undercover cop car from the early 90's.

Dana Hunter said...

Hee. Yes, it does. I always feel vaguely guilty of something around that car! Which is why it's one of the coolest cars ever.

This goes back a little too far, but mebbe... Carsky? ;-)

Suzanne said...

i thought of starsky and variations.. but none have felt right and i'm not sure if i really want the cop association.. after all, that's what i did for 24 years and i'm retired now.

she's so faded she's not really blue anymore and she's not a gray or a silver.

but she is a she. this i do know. she likes little skritches right between her sun visors.