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chelseaheskett · 3 years

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12:14PM, TUESDAY. AUGUST 11TH, 2020.

She’d been in this situation so many times. Too many times.

The drive down to Charlotte after her second round of artificial insemination, sitting in the clinic waiting room with her Mom by her side. Holding her hand and praying. Chelsea tried not to get her hopes up, tried to bury the excitement. The first round had been unsuccessful. So much of her money and savings spent, just for it to fail. Her doctor greeted them with a huge smile on her face. Ushered them inside her office.

A pee-on-a-stick pregnancy test from a grocery store she’d never been to before. New town, new city. All the way on the other side of the country. No Mom to hold her hand this time. Chelsea shyly smiled at the checkout person when they scanned it through. Snuck it off to the nearest restroom. Washed it off and boxed it up, after the result came through.

Her doctor’s office after lots of dizzy spells. Nausea. Rocking three kids, three toddlers, in a stroller back and forth with her foot while she waited for a diagnosis. A reason for all her symptoms and sickness.

This time it was a self-service checkout. The same grocery store she always went to. She avoided the aisle with the eggs. Bagged up the test on her own and drove home. Took it into the bathroom off the entryway, so she didn’t have to run into her Mom looking after the kids. It was just a precaution. She just had to rule it out. It was impossible for the test to be positive, anyway... until it wasn’t. 'Til it wasn’t impossible and it was positive. “I gotta duck out again, I’ll be back!” Chelsea called out, already halfway out the front door. She drove back to the store, foot a little heavy on the gas. Parked the car the way Elliot usually would: poorly, and practically illegal. Shoved two different brands of take-home pregnancy tests into a bag. Just to be sure. Just to rule it out. False positives happened.

Three false positives in a row didn’t look too good. Chelsea loved probability. Tutored Jenny in Math all the time. She was a numbers person, okay? She typed them into her phone, over and over, searching for a doctor’s office with any available appointments. Drove half an hour into the city to see somebody, anybody. The guy didn’t ask her any questions. No medical or family history, nothing. Chelsea didn’t choose to tell him anything, either. Didn’t say I have four biological children under the age of four, a teenage step-daughter, and a husband who got a vasectomy. Told him about the three at-home pregnancy tests, though. He got her to pee in a cup. It was any wonder Chelsea had anything left, after all of her previous attempts. She asked for a blood test, too. Didn’t mind waiting a few days for the results, she just needed to be sure. A nurse came to draw her blood and then handed her off to somebody else. Another doctor in the clinic for a sonogram.

The urine test was positive. Chelsea refused to believe it. Got changed into a gown for the ultrasound and hitched her legs up in the stirrups. The doctor got going with the wand, making small talk. Chelsea nodded; replied like a robot. Clenched the fabric of the gown around her stomach to keep her hands from trembling. Shifted around, uncomfortable, from the pressure of the wand moving around inside of her. She refused to look at the screen until the doctor pointed it out to her, lining over the image with his fingertip.

“Here’s the yolk sac.” He said, before moving his finger out. “And the gestational sac…”

Chelsea nodded again. Quick, frantic. Grit her teeth to keep from crying.

“And this tiny white speck? That’s the embryo.” Chelsea had to squint to see it. But it was there. It was there. “I’d say you’re around five, maybe five-and-a-half weeks pregnant.”

There must’ve been something in the water. They had a barbecue on the weekend with the twins. Macy and Amy and their families. Macy balancing Ollie, her three-year-old son, on her hip while Caleb hugged her from behind. They announced they were pregnant. Eight weeks along. Their second pregnancy, with three years in between. Four, by the time the new baby arrived. That was acceptable, that was… that was normal. Four years between, like a regular person would. Unlike Chelsea, who had practically been pregnant every year over the last four. Who had four babies under the age of four.

Everything was a number. Jack had just turned three about a fortnight ago. Jenny had turned thirteen-years-old weeks before that. A teenager. It was the twins’ second birthday in two days. They were meant to have a party on the weekend. Luca was only six months old. Vasectomies were 99.9% effective for preventing pregnancy. That was one pregnancy for every thousand vasectomies. And Chelsea was pregnant again. Chelsea was about to be pregnant for the fourth time, with her fifth biological child. Five under five. Luca had only just gotten his first tooth. Only just started eating solids, when he agreed to it. Six months. Six children. Six fucking children. One in one thousand. Pregnant, again.

Chelsea felt like a robot malfunctioning. Broken and spitting out numbers. It got like this, this bad, sometimes. Fixating on numbers and figures, as if her brain couldn’t process things any other way at this capacity. This overwhelmed. When she was feeling something that couldn’t even be named or described. She took the sonogram printout and walked out of the clinic. Without paying, without even realising. Just walked to her car and stopped to sit on the curb. She eased her head between her knees, forcing herself to breathe. Birthing classes gave her plenty of practice, right? In, out. Nice and easy, the way Elliot would always say. Elliot. How was she gonna tell Elliot? Again?

The courthouse wasn’t far from the doctor’s office. Chelsea didn’t even think about it: when she got calm enough to get back in her car and drive, she did. She’d already driven into the city for the appointment, anyway. Somehow remembered to fill the meter for street parking in front of the building. She found the right courtroom and slipped into a pew at the back. Nobody noticed her entrance. Didn’t notice that she was severely underdressed in an oversized tunic and jeans. Flat sandals. Elliot was sitting up the front of the room at his bar table, head bowed and scribbling something on a notepad. Chelsea couldn’t see his face from this angle, but she’d know that hair anywhere. The shape of his body, hunched over in his seat, suit jacket pressing tight against his back. She could see the arms of his glasses tucked behind his ears, too. Chelsea got lost in the sight of him. Pretended to herself that she was just here to watch, just to see him in action, and not for any other completely life-altering reason. Nope. For now, she wasn’t going to think about that.

The other lawyer, the prosecution, was pacing around before the guy on the witness stand. Gently questioned him. Chelsea didn’t know much about the case, but it only took a little while to figure out what was going on. The man on the stand was the victim. Yeah. “Victim.” Chelsea furrowed her eyebrows, listening to the guy talk. Rehearsed and manipulative. The lawyer gave a thank you and sat back down at the bar table across the way from Elliot’s. Hey, at least something had gone right today! It looked like she had gotten here just in time to see her baby—no, bad word!—her husband work his magic.

This was a very serious assault case—Chelsea shouldn’t’ve been grinning ear-to-ear in the back row, but she couldn’t help it. Elliot stood and unbuttoned his suit jacket. Pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. Chelsea got antsy when he said lawyer stuff like objection or verdict at home… this was next level hot. Seeing him in his element. His cross-examination was smart. Completely clever. Turns out the “victim” was a wife beater. The accused, Elliot’s client, was the wife. And Elliot made sure everybody knew it. Constantly looked over at the jury, giving Chelsea a shot at his side profile. There was someone in the gallery taking photos. Yeah, how did Chelsea get a copy of that? Hey, maybe she could be a court photographer. That’d be cool.

Elliot was getting the victim, the husband, pretty worked up on the stand. Hitting him where it hurt. Asking the right questions. From the evidence Elliot was providing, the guy had a temper. A really short fuse. And Elliot knew which buttons to push. Chelsea was getting worked up, too. Flushed cheeks, a bead of sweat collecting on her forehead. This should not have been arousing, but it was, Goddammit! Hormones notwithstanding. Elliot was confident and cunning and she was so proud of him. Practically had the guy on the stand exactly where he wanted him until the prosecution, rattled, called for a recess. The judge dropped his gavel and said something about breaking for lunch. Chelsea felt like she was in an episode of SVU. She’d have to bring Jenny to one of these, one day. She’d love that. It was good. It was a good distraction. But as the gallery started to disperse, and the judge and jury filed out of the courtroom, Chelsea’s stomach twisted into knots. Time to face the music, huh?

Elliot was shuffling paper into his briefcase. His client, the wife, left the room with who Chelsea could only assume were her parents. Some support system or another. Chelsea gave the woman a small, soft smile when they crossed paths. Elliot hadn’t caught sight of her yet. She stood a few steps behind him, fingers wrapping around the thin strap of her bag, hanging over her shoulder. Chelsea cleared her throat. Rolled back on her heels. “Y’know, it should be a crime...” Talked before she even thought about touching him. Knew he would recognise her voice and wouldn’t get jumpy. “You up there being so sexy. Just out there on display for the whole world to witness.” She teased, voice slightly high pitched. Had to push through all this anxious, nervous energy. The pit in her stomach.

“Hi, handsome.” Chelsea said, breaking the distance between them by the time he turned around to face her. She didn’t want him to seem unprofessional or anything, so she caught his wrist and stroked his arm instead of giving him a hug or a kiss in greeting. Didn’t call him baby, because she was actively avoiding that word for the moment. Handsome wasn’t used nearly as much as he deserved, anyway. And standing there in his suit, hair falling over the frame of his glasses, it was fitting. Appropriate. Despite her gut feeling, Chelsea smiled up at him. Let her shoulders drop and relax with a deep, drawn out exhale. “Nothing bad’s happened, I promise.” Well. It depends how he saw it, really. Chelsea didn’t want to put that out into the universe, though—no matter what ended up happening with this pregnancy. She knew him, though. Knew he’d panic and wonder why she was here, at the courthouse in the middle of his work day, if something wasn’t wrong.

Before he could question it, Chelsea got to talking again. Ran her mouth some more. “You’re doing really great, honey. He was about to crack, I could see it!” The minimal touching thing was hard. Chelsea smoothed out the lapels on his jacket. Fidgeted with his tie. It was really for her own benefit, not for his or his appearance. “You’ve totally got this in the bag.” Her hands slid up to his shoulders, giving them a reassuring squeeze. “God, you’re so talented. You’re so good at this, Elliot.” She’d known it this whole time, of course, but now she had actual evidence. And he couldn’t argue back if she was using legal jargon!

She wished it could stay like this. Light, unserious. Chelsea tried to keep it going for as long as possible. Tried to keep the shake out of her skin, and the caving emptiness out of the pit of her stomach. Chelsea flit her gaze away from his face. Briefly, momentarily. But he knew her. He knew her better than anybody in the entire world. No matter how much she wanted to right now, she couldn’t hide from him. She couldn’t hide from this. “I don’t wanna interrupt your lunch time, hon, but... is there someplace we can go to talk? Somewhere quiet?”

#elliot #elliot 28 #interaction

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theramseyloft · 3 years

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4/9/21 Loft Notes

WARNING!!!

Todays loft notes contain an extremely graphic description of animal death.

The 'Khou demands pettin's.

Patron: "Is that not the default state of the world? The truest constant that science should use to create a reality metric?"

That and Bird-Bird demanding her daddy pet her.

House vacuumed, house pets and quarantine cleaned.

I'm hungry and mad about it.

We have an appointment this afternoon, so I have until 4:20 to bust as much ass as I can.

And of course, as I'm about to step out to the loft, the bottom falls out of my stomach and it demands I stop and make a satisfying amount of food and take the time to eat it.

Bitch, we got shit to do!

I just fed you breakfast!

Mats, mesh, and bricks washed.

Oh, wow, Houdini super didn't make it.

The body was practically liquid, like it had died last week.

Guessing Leonard and Elliot knew something I didn't.

Poor little guy...

Patron: "His lack of growth was really making me feel like there may have been something wrong"

Yeah.

Pippin and Cookie's second has arrived.

And by the look of its mostly white beak, may not be Pippin's.

We'll have to see as they develop.

TM5-2 is doing well, at least.

I checked Tandy's egg.

It's just beginning to pip, so we'll see it tomorrow.

Patron: "Why do you give some babies name names, and others serial number names?"

They all start with a number.

Dad's first initial, mom's first initial, clutch number, dash, first or second laid.

Patron: "I see, that's very organized. What's the threshold for them getting a name?"

Patron: "the ones being kept permanently eventually get names"

"the ones who are also reserved and the future owner gives a name, they also get a name so they get trained that name"

Yep

Babies available to the public who aren't claimed get a name around 2 weeks.

Sometimes a pun on their initials.

Amiga is the first hatch of PC clutch 3.

A peep out of a pair named Mia and Cara was named Escher.

Some are after family personality traits.

Lucy is named after the Avenue Q character; Lucy the ----.

Because she's Farthing's daughter.

Patron: "Thistle and his child Nettle being plant names themed"

Patron: "Well also MJ cause uh... April baby lol"

I didn't name her. XD

Patron: "i don't know what MJ is for"

Mary Jane.

Hatched in 4/20

Indica and Sativa were hatched on 4/19/20 and 4/20/20, respectively.

The eve and day of 4/20 in the year of our lord 2020.

Patch was named for the black streak on his beak that was a tiny patch on his hatch day.

He now has a white soul patch under his beak.

Nettle was named along the stinging weed you damn near can't kill theme of their Father, Thistle.

Leonard came with the nickname Leo, that his rescuer lamented wasn't as fancy as he looked.

I joked with her not to worry. It's short for Leonard. She loved it.

Ginger is a very vibrant red.

Ect.

New LE egg dropped.

Window, mirror, swing, and weight stones washed.

Mats, bricks, and swing replaced.

Dirty mesh and bricks set out.

Back third nest boxes mucked.

Thistle and MJ both took baths at the same time and left their peep uncovered...

It isn't in danger of hypothermia just yet, but it won't take long, so I'm going to be watching it like a hawk.

Patron: "when the need for feather maintenence overtakes parental instincts"

Thistle came to check on it, and then laid down in the nest box next door to dry off.

Patron: "At least he didn’t sit on the baby while he was wet"

"I feel like that wouldn’t be great"

Patron: "It depends how wet he is lol"

Patron: "At this stage, any amount of wet would probably be less than ideal."

And to be fair, they had both sat their peep in the unrecognizable mush that used to be Houdini.

I can DEFINITELY understand wanting that unspeakable rot stench off.

Patron: "I'm still trying to puzzle how did the body decompose that quickly... even without pictures it sounds horrifying"

Aaaand wanting the nest box to have a moment to air out.

I legit thought about taking some pictures.

I honestly probably should have.

But that will legitimately haunt my nightmares.

He was a grey liquid that had mostly dissolved around a distressingly intact cropload of fresh milk. The skin was the only thing holding him together.

He must have started (to rot) the night before last while he was alive.

He had grown just a little since going out...

Very literally nightmare fuel.

Aaaand speaking of that, Angel lounged next to the uncovered TM peep and thought he was gonna be sneaky about trying to attack it.

He was not.

I had to damn near throw the sifter at him to deter him, but deterred he was.

And Thistle is back on it.

No Angels were harmed in being deterred from infanticide.

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thrill-cfthechase · 3 years

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feelin’ twenty-two

tw: pregnancy, death, alcoholism, verbal abuse, creepy men

november 4th was elliot’s least favorite day of the year. it was never a day of celebration in the chase household, instead a day of forced smiles and words left unspoken. it was her birthday, but it was never preceded by a ‘happy.’ it was a somber occasion, a day of mourning. when she was young the people in her neighborhood would get her a cake and little gifts to make up for the party that her father never threw, but she could tell they were behaving differently than they did on other kids’ birthdays. she was nearly four when she found out that her mother had died after giving birth to her, and while she didn’t understand death, she knew she had done something wrong. on her fourth birthday she threw a fit. it was a nasty tantrum that the chases and all of sunset park tried to forget, but elliot would always remember the first time she remembered thinking i want my mom.

she wasn’t sure how old she was when her father stopped acknowledging her birthday, but she could tell he knew what day it was because he was always even drunker and angrier than usual and able to find new and creative ways to get mad at her that didn’t involve the death of her mother. her brothers would take her out for ice cream and she would eat her mint chocolate chip in silence while they watched her, foreheads etched with concern. some years they saved up enough money to buy her a gift, but she would never play with it. she didn’t feel like it was deserved. on her seventh birthday her brothers took her mini-golfing and they let her win. it made her furious. they never took it easy on her ever, and the last thing she wanted was for them to coddle her. she just wanted it to be like every other day. that night she found her oldest brother, tucker, crying. he was fourteen and far too proud to let people see him cry, one of many traits of toxic masculinity that managed to make it’s way into elliot. she didn’t know what to do or how to comfort him so she said nothing and went to her room, staring at the cracks in the ceiling above her bed until the sun rose the next morning.

by her twelfth birthday tucker had moved out for college, and that year her other brother, forrest, had a soccer game in a town two hours away. she got a confetti cake from her next door neighbor, mrs. casey, and spent the evening doing homework in her room while she ignored the sound of her father yelling at the tv. elliot thought she was being sneaky when she tiptoed into the kitchen to get another slice of cake for dinner, that the tv would mask any noise she made despite the fact that the la-z boy her father sat at was only a few feet away from the fridge. when he turned to tell her to give him another beer she was so startled that she dropped her cake on the floor. as she sat on the cold tiles and cleaned up the mess she’d made the drumming of her heartbeat in her ears was almost loud enough to drown out the insults being thrown at her. when forrest got home that night he made a joke about elliot not saving him any cake. she told him to go fuck himself and he called her a bitch. she still hates funfetti.

the night of elliot’s sixteenth birthday was spent in a stolen dress at a hotel bar downtown with a man twice her age. she pretended to believe he wasn’t married and he pretended to believe she was twenty-one. they talked for a few hours, with elliot at her most charming and gracious in a way that people who really knew her would find laughable. she was still new to this type of con, the kind that required her to be a lady, but it worked, and she left with his watch, two credit cards, and four hundred in cash. she was gone by the time he realized anything was missing. when she got home her father seemed surprised to see her, like he hadn’t realized she wasn’t in her room all night. he had never seen elliot in makeup before, and the fact that he was now seeing it at two in the morning didn’t seem to sit right with him. “if your mother was here she’d be so disappointed in you. but she’s not here, is she?” it might have been the most tame thing he said to her, but felt like the cruelest by far. those were the words that echoed in her head as she lay awake in bed with gus, her fourteen year old dog, asleep on her chest. he weighed twenty-five pounds but the weight on her lungs didn’t bother her - the ability to breathe didn’t seem particularly important.

elliot’s twentieth birthday was a little over two months into her first year at gallagher. she didn’t intend on telling anyone, but it felt strange to be another year older in a place that still felt foreign to her. she confided in the two people she had grown to truly trust - ellie and kass. kass even baked her a cake, and something compelled elliot to give her a hug. she wasn’t usually physically affectionate, but no one had baked her a cake in years, and she couldn’t help feeling a little sentimental. as soon as kass left she had to scrape the “happy birthday” off the cake so that no one else could see it, but for the first time she could remember, she was a little glad it was her birthday.

elliot looked at her phone. november 4th, 2020, 12:01 a.m. the two hardest things for her to say were ‘i love you’ and ‘i’m sorry,’ but on this day she felt the need to say both to her brothers.

“hey, i know u don’t like it when i apologize on this day, but it’s my birthday and that’s what i want to say. i’m sorry u lost her. thanks for never telling me it was my fault. i love u,” she texted them.

it was only nine o’clock in seattle and she immediately got a text back from her oldest brother. “you’re going to dismiss everything i say, but i need you to know that i love you. raising you has made me the man i am today, which is cheesy but it’s true. it’s not fair to you that you had to deal with all of my mistakes, but i believe that learning from them is what will make me a good father. losing mom is probably the worst thing that ever happened to me, but getting you was the best.” a single tear fell down elliot’s cheek and she quickly wiped it away and buried her face in spruce’s fur. her phone buzzed again with another text from tucker. “well, mia is the best thing now, but you held the title for a long time. i love you smelliot.” she cracked a smile and sent back a quick “love u too fucker.” it took her a long time to fall asleep, although that wasn’t unusual for her, and she dreamed of memories that didn’t belong to her.

she didn’t have any expectations for her birthday, but she was pleasantly surprised. levi wished her a happy birthday, and she only vaguely remembered telling him accidentally while drunk and wasn’t sure if she’d mentioned how little she cared for the day, but he didn’t make a big deal out of it and for that she was grateful. she was surprised when rowan wished her a happy birthday - elliot didn’t feel deserving of her kindness, but it still felt good. she got her annual cake from kass, delicious as always, and she tried to not think about the fact that this time next year kass wouldn’t be there and she wouldn’t have a homemade cake to deface. she also got a cake from asher, who had made one for her last year as well when they were dating, and a cupcake from reese. it was a lot of baked goods to explain to people, but stuffing her face with cake helped elliot feel a little better. one thing about having roommates was that they tended to know things about you that you might not want them to know, but she wasn’t too worried about ella making a big deal of things. she definitely hadn’t anticipated receiving a hamburger with a lit birthday candle in it, and it both made her laugh and tasted delicious. she was laying on her bed doing homework when alex walked in, unannounced and uninvited (rude) and gave her not only a bag of hot cheetos but also a knife engraved with what according to alex was the state flower of california (the opposite of rude). she didn’t really know what to say to him other than the thing she had managed to say all day long: thank you. it wasn’t her favorite thing to say, she wasn’t known for being particularly courteous, but she meant it. she was thankful to know that the few people who knew about her birthday had bothered to tell her they cared. on most days elliot would think of course they care, i’m me, but this day made her feel small. luckily for her, she had friends who reminded her otherwise.

elliot looked at her phone. november 5th, 2020, 12:00 a.m. it was over, and she was relieved. she wasn’t quite sure if it had been a happy birthday, but it seemed like in the past few years it had become less and less of a sad one. she was lying in bed, spruce fast asleep and snoring under one arm. “i’m sorry,” she whispered to nothing and no one. perhaps she was saying it to herself. she put her phone down and curled up beside spruce. as she waited for sleep to come she thought of her mother, of the woman who had been described to her and the woman she’d imagined she was. elliot thought back to all the times her brothers had told her how excited their mother was for elliot to be born and the time her aunt told her she was sure her mother had loved her with all her heart, if only for a few minutes. she cried, silent tears that stung her eyes and stained her pillow. eventually she took a breath and got out of bed, deciding to take spruce for a midnight walk. the air was cool and still and the sky was clear. elliot sat down on the grass by the edge of the forest and looked up at the stars. she stayed there for quite some time, looking out into the darkness and trying to remember names of constellations. she saw a shooting star and smiled, wracking her brain for what to wish for.

just some good things would be nice.

when she finally crawled into bed, the tightness in her chest that always appeared on her birthday was gone, and for the first time in weeks she slept peacefully.

#i 𝔴𝔞𝔫𝔱𝔢𝔡 people to be 𝔞𝔣𝔯𝔞𝔦𝔡 of 𝔥𝔲𝔯𝔱𝔦𝔫𝔤 me ❛ self paras ❜

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lockdownuk · 4 years

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Lockdown Diary Part 4

A personal account during the lockdown in the UK due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

23/03/2020 8:30pm Boris Johnson, UK Prime Minister, gives a live address to the nation to, effectively, put the country on lockdown to stem the spread of the deadly coronavirus strain, Covid-19.

Many of us have been self-isolating for days but this latest development within the UK in reaction to the pandemic feels very serious and very scary. I decided to keep a simple diary and where better but online.

Day91: I can’t post photos to the sister photo diary and it’s fucking me off. Using this as a place holder- last successful pic was 21/06/2020.

Day 92: Still awaiting Tumblr re: day 91′s entry. Meanwhile looking at other blog/diary sites. Very warm today, like it was throughout May. Boris announced a further relaxation in lockdown measures which includes reducing the 2m distancing instruction which paves the way for pubs, restaurants and other places to open on 4th . It looks like the Ship will open 6th July, George on the 4th. I await to see the measures put in place before deciding whther it’s a goer.

Day93: Typing on day 94 - I received an email from Deryn from RCI HR concerning placement online module attendance, thanking me for my participation. I was somewhat confused. Was this a mistake or was I erroneously not icluded in the initial communications? I fired off an email to HR and WhatsApp’d Jim. He replied that I should take it up with HR.

I am worried by this. Furlough ends this week and I know not what the fuck is going on.

Day 94: Had a few beers last night, ‘cos I was feeling deflated over work. Finished Homecoming S2, which was very good, and cancelled Amazon Prime before the free trial ends tomorrow. Got up @midday but haven’t done jack shit today as my right ankle is playing up - it was twinging last night - apart from press ups. No word back from RCI but there was a notification that the email from Deryn was attempted to be recalled. Had a spat in Co-Op wth two lads who were ignoring the one way system and social-distancing. It makes my blood boil and I had to say something which ended up making my blood boil even more…especially as one of them asked me to ‘crack on’. It’s a pretty cool response actually, since I had them bang to rights but, at the time, I thought I was going to bust a blood vessel. I walked away having told him to not speak to me like that again and that he was a fucking arsehole! Didn’t make me feel any better though. Fog’s chatting later so I’m going to have a few beers right now (just gone 8pm) - I feel like throwing caution to the wind for some reason (probably work more than anything else).

Day 95: Typing on Day 96. I had a lot of beers with Fog the night before last and felt like shit all day yesterday. Still managed to drag myself up to Foggy’s and have socially distanced beers in his garden with Noel and Lord Irish of Michael.

Day 96: Feeling like shit. Third day of no walking ‘cos my ankle is a little sore although I did walk back from Foggy’s last night.

Day 97: Two walks and my usual stair climb today. Felt good to get back to routine. Plus, no booze yesterday, even tho’ it was a Saturday, feel better for it. I heard from Sue Cockings from HR on Friday, btw, still furloughed until further notice.

Day 98: I discovered, yesterday, that today is actually day 99 of lockdown since it actually begun on the Sunday evening that Boris Johnson announced the measures being in place - I mistakenly thought it began on the Monday. Tumblr still haven’t got back to me regarding reviewing why this blog is deemed ‘sensitive’ and I can’t add any more pics. While I am typing, Northampton are beating Exeter 0-2 at Wembley in the L2 play-off final. It’s funny that their fans can’t be there to see it. Football, in general, on its return after lockdown, without fans in attendance, is shit - like watching women’s football - too many empty seats.

Day 100: I have decided to number the days correctly (See prev’ entry). It’s a good time as I had to export , delete and recreate this blog on Tumblr since they have been non-forthcoming in my request for info as to why they deemed it ‘sensitive’. So, this is a restart, altrough seemless to the reader. On top of all that, I am writing this on Day 101! After restarting the blog diary I forgot to add the day’s entry! Bumped into Roger on my second walk, at the top of Basset Ford Place. We chatted for an hour or so. It was really good to see him and talk. We’ve made a promise to interact more...it seems both he and I allow ourselves to get down in the dumps (easy in self-isolation) and, as such, we shall try to reach out as and when. He suggested a walk together every now and then.

Day 101: I heard back from a charitable services company that Barry Haddon (who, coincidentally, I spoke with today) told me about (Auriga)and answered their email questions. BNarry rates them and told me they got him some decent results like he no longer has to pay Council Tax. I tweeted Chris Hawkes on Radio 6 this morning...he was asking for examples of sames names (’cos he had Dave Gorman on) so I told him about The Redlion and the ad the ‘other’ Tim put in the ET. He read it out! I created a photo album of 101 pics I’ve taken in lockdown and put it on FB including the Oundle Chatter group. The comments were great. My right eyesight is worrying, I cannot make out close up detail i.e. reading is blurred. I am going to start doing 10 press ups after each exercise i.e. three times a day. I decided that during my second walk so today I’ve done 20. Lastly, I have new neighbours I do believe. Hmmm.

Day 102: Emailed dad and Rita to have a rant about what dad thought of the Leicester lockdown and to share a link to my 101 photo album. Had a long Messenger chat with Rog.

Day 103: Typing this on day 104. Dad called when I was out ona walk so we skyped when I got back. He looks really well! Advided me on how to cutt some branches that are hanging low (I asked him in the email yesterday). I then borrowed a saw, secateurs and green bin from Karen. I walked a long way today. My second walk was 9km.I then had loads of beers! The Co-Op car park seems to be the venue for youngsters to hang out. I was gone 2am before they finished partying. I (re)watched Steve Jobs. Wow....just wow. What a film and what a man!

Day 104: It was gone 1:30pm when I got up feeling the worse for wear. A chilli, chorizo and cheese omelette really sorted me out but no beer tonight. How my Saturday frame of mind has changed from just a few years ago. Elliot and Camilla dropped off a jar of japaenos (that Mil had WhatsApp’d me about) and, among other things, we chatted about a photo Tracie Garrett circulated featuring Ell, me her and a few others who met up to have a drink at The Haycock for Ron Gambling. In it was Cath and someone called Ross (who I don’t remember) who have both passed since the pic (July ‘99). I feel strangely saddened by it all. The pic itself is such a reminder of days past - it conjours up shit loads of different feelings.

Day 105: A few beers again last night so another late one (5ish) but up before noon. Finished watching a series called Condor. Pretty good - bit of a messy ending that is the norm with telly nowadays in that it is a little bit of a cliffhanger.

Day 106: The Ship reopened today. I left a nice message on the Virtual Pub group page wishing them the best plus said thanks to Rach. I think it will be the end of the laugh we’ve had on the virtual site now. I expect to go through a bit of a miserabel time with people now venturing out down the pubs.We were once all united in lockdown - that will no longer be the case. Met Rog for a walk - did over 7km oncluding through Barnwell Picnic Park - I don’t remember it being that pretty. defo going to go there again. Got an email from RCI asking for all furlough workers to join a Zoom meeting tomorrow with Paul (MD) and Deryn (HR). Ominous! Went shopping in Asda and Farm Foods. £100 with NO BOOZE!

Day 107: The zoom call today didn’t tell me much other than we are being furloughed still, until further notice. It was susggested that we have a zoom meeting every 2 weeks and that RCI recognise we’ve be left out in the cold somewhat. I appreciate that very much.There were 30 of us on the call plus Paul and Deryn were in the office since they had to make peopel redundant today. Mark was in the office earlier to take receivership of the IT kits from those that left.

Day 108: I am well on the way to doing 1,000,000 steps in theree months (July, August & September) but at what cost. I’ve done well over 11,000 steps each day in July (actually, a lot of days in June as well) apart from one (8k) and I am feeling it. My right leg/ankle is sore! Day 109: I had another mention by Chris Hawkins on Radio 6. He asked for Brian May moments - apparently when he met Brian May he was so starstruck that all he could say was ‘thank you for the music’. I tweeted my story of telling Felicity Kendall to have a good life. Today, both my walks have resulted in me getting fucking soaked. Hanna S2 is on Amazon Prime. Time for yet another free trial (number 4 or 5).

Day 110: I have walked 144,448 steps in 10 days, well on the way to a million steps in three months. The Heist of the Century - an Argentinian film based on true events - watched it last night (well, over two nights, actually). A real life Ocean’s Eleven (but with 6). Brilliant film, brilliat story. I had issues signing up to another Amazon Prime free trial last night so I set up another gmail a/c just now and I think I’m in. I used Danny’s Gmail (which I created over 15 years ago!) and it didn’t like it - I think I must have used it before. I reckon I have probably had loads more free trials than I care to remember. Anyway, off to watch me some Hanna!

Day 111: Very tired as I type. Bed at around 5am, up at 13:30, normal exercises, cleaning kitchen cupbaords and I’m done in. It’s 10:30pm now, just cracked open a beer and about to watch a new Netflix film “The Old Guard”. I would continue with Hanna but Amazon Prime keeps fucking erroring. I will try to go to bed before it gets light (which seems to be my w/e norm nowadays!

Day 112: I have got into the habit of eating dinner far too late. It’s 10:30pm as I type and I am just about to have something eat. I’m not sure why I feel it’s wrong to eat so late but I do, I shall be trying to address it. Late night again last night (gone 4:30am) so today was a lazy day. Only on ewalk but it was 10km and I get up the above 11,000 steps needed for the 1m challenge. My stair climb, at around 9pm, fucking killed.

Day 113: Boring Monday.

Finished watching The Old Guard on Netflix. A Highlander-esque affair with Charlize Theron kicking ass like she did in Atomic Blonde. It was OK. Haven’t manage to lick the late night eating. It’s 10:05pm and tea’s still cooking.

Day 114: I have been looking at planning persmissions on the ENDC site for questions posed on the Oundle Chatter group on FB. There’s going to be two sites with 130 new houses on each and it’s causing concern. And so it should - the planning docs are very revealing. Objections are dismissed in such an off-hand way. It’s really quite insulting. I was awfully down today, during my first walk. I mean, really despondant (too difficult to describe here), which is a lower version of the norm - it’s been a good couple of weeks since anyone’s even asked how I am! A week since that post on my main blog. But, I powered through and am back to the usual depth! I ate at @9:30 pm tonight. Told ya!

Day 115: I am typing this on Day 116 - I ended up hainga couple of beers last night and forgot to post. I had the most ridiculous toing and froing on FB and Messenger with Rachel (Harris) - it was piss funny. She is the first person in days, actually weeks, who has asked how I am! I watched ep3 of Hanna S2. Absolutely superb. She kills Marissa! Did not see that fucker coming...mind blown! Day 116: I have finally finished the thorough clean of the kitchen. Fucking drama. I am typing at just gone 10pm, about to eat (curry I made yesterday). It’s been a strange day, timings wise, last night’s drinking meant I wasn’t up until just gone noon which obviously didn’t help. I had a call from DSM group - I applied for an IT tech role, they want to see me tomorrow (Friday) for an interview (in Sibson). Interesting! (Although the contact, Helen, hasn’t sent the promised email!)

Day 117: Despite not getting a confirmation email, I attended the interview at DSM. It went OK (I was there for 90 mins). I went booze shopping in Tesco’s afterwards. Spoke to dad today also - he and Rita are well, as usual! I am feeling really knackered and achy today. I do hope it’s not anything to worry about.

Day 118: Up at 1pm. 9.79 km walk. Cooking meatballs, drinking beer, listening to The Blaze about to watch Deepwater Horizon. All good today!

Day 119: Similar to yesterday, up late, bloody long walk, watching Saving Private Ryan (which I started last night).

Day 120: Typing on day 121. Received an email from someone that works at the BBC for Shaun Keaveny’s show - they want me to do small claims court on August 5th. I’m becoming obsessed with getting my steps in - my second walk was extended to round Barnwell Country Park - over 17.5k steps - not the most I’ve done in one day but, for example, most in one day last month (June) was 14.7k. More importantly, I am finding that I can walk further (and for longer) and not have a hypo; not a great deal further, but over an hour.

#diary #Tumblr diary #lockdown #covid19 #lockdownuk

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thelittlestcheshire · 4 years

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Hello! I’m Katie, and this is my muse Ches. If any of you were in Luxor over the summer, you know this pain in the ass so I’m probably gonna do a quick “here’s where this brat was” recap at the bottom, along with anything I’ve changed between that Ches and this Ches! I’m really excited to be back, and I’m really looking forward to roleplaying with everyone.

I also have the habit of writing crazy long bios when I do bother to write them so there’s a tl;dr for that, also some wanted connections at the bottom. I love plotting so if you ever have any ideas, feel free to come excited scream with me here or on Discord! So without further ado ♥

TWs: Gun Violence / Murder / Death (not by Ches), Blood, Abuse (Relationship), Cheating, Mental Illnesses, Drugs/Alcohol, Overdoses (also not by Ches / did not result in death)

Is that HAILEY CHESHIRE “CHES” ELSWOOD? Wow, they do look a lot like KATHERINE MCNAMARA. I hear SHE is a SEVENTEEN EIGHTEEN year old SENIOR who originally attended CARNIFEX Academy. Word is they are an ARISTOCRAT student. You should watch out because they can be IMPULSIVE and STUBBORN, but on the bright side they can also be ENERGENIC and LOYAL. Ultimately, you’ll get to see it all for yourself. [KATIE, 23, EST, SHE/HERS]

Last Edit: 8/26/2020

♥ basics; Full Name: Hailey Cheshire “Ches” Elswood Preferred Name: Ches Elswood Age: 18 Birthday: July 19th, 2002 at 03:22 am Sexual Orientation: Biromantic bisexual Relationship Status: It’s complicated ( @ Elliot ) Occupation: Student Nationality: American [with French dual citizenship] Ches’s Car

♥ classes;

Anthropology

Shakespearean Studies

Linguistics

Latin

Music

Advanced Sociology

Advanced Psychology

World History

♥ extracurriculars;

National Honor Society

Theater Club (Actor)

Concert Band (Piano)

♥ background; Place of Birth: Paris, France Hometown: Manhattan, New York, New York Health Issues: Borderline Personality Disorder and PTSD, not that she likes to admit to it, however. She’s also highly allergic to the Perciformes family of fish (tuna, mackrel, perch , and bass). While she’s okay with the salmoniformes (Salmon and Trout), she really doesn’t touch fish outside of... literally salmon she makes herself since that’s all she trusts ok. ((Shellfish is fine though) Traumas: Watching her mother die (mugging gone wrong/shot to death)

♥ physical; Face Claim: Katherine McNamara Eye Color: Green Hair Color: Red Height: 5′3 ½” (not at fc height quick side note) Weight: 115 lbs Tattoos, Birthmarks, Scars, etc: Mole above her belly button, a few moles on her thighs, freckles and face moles. (Face Ref 1, Face Ref 2, Body Ref 1, Body Ref 2) . She also has a tattoo now.

♥ zodiac;

Tropical

Sun: Cancer Moon: Scorpio Mercury: Cancer Venus: Virgo Mars: Leo Jupiter: Cancer Saturn: Gemini Uranus: Aquarius Neptune: Aquarius Pluto: Sagittarius Lilith: Aries N Node: Gemini

Placidus Orb

I ASC: Gemini II: Cancer III: Cancer IV: Leo V: Virgo VI: Libra VII: Sagittarius VIII: Capricorn IX: Capricorn X MC: Aquarius XI: Pisces XII: Aries

♥ relatives;

Father’s Full Name: Edward Valentine Elswood Father’s Status: Alive Father’s Occupation: CEO/Owner of a multi-billion dollar luxury goods conglomerate (net worth of 50+ Billion in fact - in turn, Elswood kids do NOT bat an eyelash at prices) Mother’s Full Name: Julia Andrieux Elswood Mother’s Status: Deceased [shot by a mugger on the twin’s 8th birthday] Future Step-Mother: Rebekah Carroll (soon to be Elswood, watch this space lol) Step-Mother’s Occupation: Siblings: 6 brothers and sisters (family page here) Elswood-Carroll Children Oldest to Youngest:

Logan Elswood (24)

Jamie Elswood (22)

Emmett Elswood (19)

Cade Carroll (19)

Jonah / Ches Elswood (TWINS)

Flynn Carroll (16)

Effie Elswood (14)

Ella Elswood (10)

She also has a niece named Isabella (Belle) who’s now almost 8 months (DOB: 07/10/2019). Belle belongs to her oldest brother, Logan (and Belle’s mother isn’t in the picture).

This is a link to the Elswood family page if you’d like to know more about her family.

♥ relationships; Ex-Significant Other(s): Probably a handful of people tbh, hit me up if you want this as a WC Reason for Separation: Stuff not working out, Ches getting bored before she got attached, so on - she’s a flirt tbh, it takes her wanting to get invested for her to stay Current Significant Other: N/A

♥ misc;

Hobbies and Talents: Ches’s main hobbies are playing piano and archery (she forever misses her bow and arrow while she’s at school), as these are also the two things that are best at calming her down. She has an intense love for acting, so it’s not uncommon for her to be one of the first people to sign up for auditions, and she tends to sing a lot so musicals are truly her shit. It’s not uncommon to see her in the library, reading a book late a night.

However, a talent she doesn’t exactly own up to often is her talent for forgeries and lockpicking. While she doesn’t use these skills as they’re intended for often, she does tend to practice them a lot, so she’s not rusty for when they are actually useful.

Pinterest Section // Musings Tag // Playlist (it’s an in general Ches playlist tho)

Ches speaks English and French fluently, her mother was born and raised in Paris so she learnt them both at the same time

DO NOT CALL HER HAILEY unless you really want to end up on her shit list, it’s her biggest pet peeve, she will glare at you for hours.

She’s the mom friend if your mom friend also goes “I HAVE THE BEST IDEA” and drags you into trouble. Literally, the one who frets over you and proceeds to get you into trouble.

This muse does what she wants, I just write it down I apologize always for her

Doesn’t really... seriously date too much because of past situations (Her older brother slept with the first person she truly loved) and she tries to avoid falling in love

That being said platonic I love yous are her shit, she loves her friends a LOT

Ches is very serious about her studying (and wanting to be among the best of the best because - this girl has Ivy league college dreams and she has no intents on fucking those up), so like expect her to do shit like read an entire textbook at the start of school and study at midnight when her insomnia is kicking her ass.

She’s a bit of a closet nerd - if you look under her bed she has a chest of comic books, she’ll just lie if you ask her about them

Ches left Luxor due to a family emergency in October, it was a really hard decision (and it was a really hard decision to come back). She is just now coming back to school.

She got her tattoo while she was away from school, using a forged note of parental consent in New Jersey.

♥ bio;

TWs: Gun Violence, Murder, Death, Blood, Abuse (Relationship), Cheating, Mental Illnesses

Growing up as an Elswood means two things, you have a lot of siblings and a lot of money. Her parents had decided to raise their children in Manhattan, New York, where they could keep a close eye on their multi-billion dollar conglomerate. Her mother, Julia, would take them on trips constantly too - when she wanted to get the children away from the hustle and bustle of the city they’d go to their vacation home upstate, or their private island, or even to visit their family in Paris. At that point in life, Ches was happy. She had a solid group of friends, she had the best friend she could ever imagine having in the form of her twin brother, she had a loving and warm family, and she had a parent who would tell her no.

When she thinks back to her life before the incident, it feels like a completely different story. A fairytale even, perfect and happy in every way compared to her life now. However, it wouldn’t last, after all, fairy tales didn’t exist and reality was a much crueler mistress. One could say Lin-Manuel Miranda described it best; “life doesn't discriminate between the sinners and the saints. It takes and it takes and it takes.”

Everything changed on her eighth birthday when her mother took her out shopping to get a present for twin brother Jonah at Palisades Mall. A man came up with a gun while they were in the parking lot and asked for all of their money. Julia Elswood compiled but she made one mistake, the simple utterance of “Cours, Ches” as she gave the man her purse.

Ches might have gotten out of the event alive, but not she was not unscathed. Julia Elswood was pronounced dead when medics finally arrived on the scene, her blood coating her daughter’s hands and clothing from Ches’s attempts to stop the bleeding. She might have survived the event without physical harm but she was never the same child she was before after that.

One day she had an intact family, the next day the Elswoods were in ruin. Her father completely shut himself out from the family, only coming out for birthdays and holidays. Her oldest brother stepped up as their parental figure, first starting out with homeschooling before he eventually dropped out to ensure his siblings were getting as much of his time as they possibly could. He tried his hardest to make the loss of their mother easier on the younger girls especially, given how young they were at the time. She helped him with the girls as much as she could (and overtime she slowly started filling the role as their second parent). Because of how busy the younger Elswood children kept him, sometimes Logan didn’t have the time to comfort Ches when she woke up in the middle of the night, haunted by their mother.

That was when Emmett stepped in. It wasn’t uncommon for him to sleep on her floor so he’d be there when she woke up terrified out of her mind, and he was there when she just eventually stopped sleeping like people tended to. Over time she realized that Jonah and her weren’t truly two peas in a pod the way they used to be, that Emmett was the only Elswood who truly got her. He wasn’t perfectly normal either, his thoughts and feelings were flawed like hers.

In a family that made her feel so broken at times, Emmett was a saving grace - a reminder she wasn’t alone.

Going to school in Carnifex was an easy decision when you felt so alone at home, at school she found a close group of people she loved and cared about - she felt less alone and less like her family were judging her, and when the feeling came up - she could always toss herself back into her schoolwork and pretend that maybe, just maybe, she was just a normal kid living a normal boring life. Family issues easily bred vulnerability though, and it was that vulnerability that was exploited not long before she was set to start Carnifex.

Long-distance relationships weren't’ supposed to be easy, but when she fell in love for the first time. At the time, she had thought she was as fucked up as she could ever be, that at this point she was just focused on healing the wounds her mother’s death had left in therapy and after that, everything would be fine. James Ruth quickly showed her how mistaken she had been, even now she doesn’t like thinking about everything he had done to her. She doesn’t discuss everything he had put her through in the time they were together nor does she have any intentions on truly discussing the worst of the abuse she endured while dating him and she was home - even in therapy. It did, however, have an effect on her, it made her terrified of truly falling in love with somebody again. (Note: James is also a massive reason why she doesn't get along with her brother Jamie, the two Elswood siblings never recovered from Jamie sleeping with Ches’s boyfriend. It causes a good deal of tension in the Elswood home but Ches can’t just forgive him, her brother never even apologized for his actions, she wasn’t going to pretend he didn’t hurt her because her father wanted them to get along for his own sake. They were on the rocks before this and afterward, the tension just got a whole lot worse.)

Going back to Carnifex her sophomore year was a key factor in helping Ches get away from her relationship, and it became as much of a home for her than her actual home was the longer she attended. Sure, she still misses her younger sisters, she misses Emmett and Camellia, and she misses her friends in the city. She also dislikes just how restricted she truly is when it comes to Instagram and trying to grow her influence while she attends Carnifex. Networking had to wait until she was home and sometimes she questions why she decided boarding school was a good idea. And then Ches looks at her friends, at the education she’s receiving, and all the fond memories she’s developing. Carnifex, and now Luxor, was well worth the fear of missing out she feels.

If you had asked her at the start of this school year, she would have told you nothing could have gotten her to leave school for any amount of time her senior year, she had spent the whole summer at Luxor (even after hearing about her baby niece, that meant a lot) - she finally settled in, she couldn’t imagine anything happening that would cause her to leave the academy. And then, on October 16th at two am in the morning, she got a phone call from Ella. Their oldest brother, Logan, had overdosed. While his drug addiction had never been a secret to the family, his relapse had been a surprise to Ches. Her brother had sworn up and down he was fine, that everything at home was okay. Going back to New York was a no brainer, her family needed her - and she needed them.

Logan, who’d been the closest thing to a parent she had since her mother died, almost died - she almost lost all the parental figures she ever knew. It was hard, getting adjusted back to New York City, she threw herself into her school work and did her best to fill the shoes Logan left open as he went through rehab, and then, adjusted back to being home. While she stayed in touch with the people she had at Luxor, she wouldn’t come back until her brother way okay - until she felt safe about leaving him with his daughter and their siblings without her as a backup. Coming back to school this time was really hard on her, the homesickness is worse than ever and she’s constantly trying to check in on her siblings (because mom!Ches is truly in full force and she’s trying to get it back down) but she’s glad to be back. She’s missed being at Luxor, a lot, so she’s glad to be back.

TLDR / quick important notes bio recap for rereads:

Ches’s mother was murdered on her 8th birthday in front of her

She was raised by her oldest brother, Logan, and is NOT close to her father really. She also helped raise her younger sisters and is very protective of them.

The Elswood she is closest to is Emmett, Jonah and her grew apart after her mother’s death.

Ches’s first real love was James (an NPC), they dated (entire)Freshman-(mid)Sophomore years, it was abusive (much more than Ches will ever discuss unless she gets majorly close to someone and they HAVE to know (cough still hasn’t happened though cough)) and Ches is now terrified of falling in love again. Her messy as fuck relationships & exes all start after this point.

Ches’s history at Luxor is pretty much in-tact, changes will be below in another section!

Ches left Luxor because of her oldest brother, Logan, overdosing. He is alive but she stayed in NYC until he was out of rehab / stabilized in order to take care of her younger siblings and her niece, Belle.

Notable Luxor Notes:

Anything relating to Thomas (for those of you who know what I mean) really hasn’t occurred, so if you mention it she’ll just be like “who?” This seems like the easiest course of action given how things were left off

Other muses of note I’m not going to account for are: Asher (more will be added as needed).

Ches isn’t a member of the Churchill Circle (I’m leaning towards was never one either just because the reasons she joined are no longer a factor so... she probably wouldn’t have ever joined)

If anyone wants to change history and/or keep it intact, feel free to dm me to let me know and I’ll update this accordingly.

Wanted Connections:

Exes (when Ches dates it’s not for long, but she’s definitely the type to be like “I’ll go out with you” if asked and then... dump you if she thinks she’s getting too attached. So her exes are either on good terms, neutral terms, or they probably dislike her a lot)

Former friends with benefits - while Ches is no longer taking on new ones because of Elliot (and is starting to wean off her current ones), I’m always willing to headcanon past things!

FRIENDSHIPS (I am weak af for a good friendship plot, never be afraid to be like “hey can our muses be friends” the answer is legit always yes)

Enemies (Ches can... be a lot so it’s not unlikely she’s pissed people off ok)

#luxorintro #so yeah pretty much have a Ches and I am SO FREAKING EXCITED TO BE BACK OK #sorry this is so freaking long too ♥#also I was excited I revamped the bio and drafted it #it's about my bedtime right now though so not sure how far I'll get with replies I'm gonna try but it's legit the time I pass out right now

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justanoutlawfic · 5 years

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The story of Nicole Joaquina Vasquez “Nikki” Swan-Cassidy

Nikki was born on April 28th, 2020 in Storybrooke, Maine. Her biological parents were Serena Vasquez-a chef-and Michael Elliot-a former thief that had been kicked out of the Merry Men long ago, she’s half-Latina on her mother’s side. Serena died when she was a baby and Michael fell back into his thieving ways. They bounced around a lot to avoid the police (by then Emma had left to go help Henry in the NEF). Eventually, Michael found it too hard to keep up with Nikki and thieving, so he dropped her off at the local group home, promising to come back...but he never did. Nikki was 5 years old at the time.

Over the years, Nikki would be placed with potential families but she had a lot of baggage and no one knew quite how to handle her. She ended up running away often and landing back in the group home. Blue-who ran it-often called her a problem child.

When the realms merged, Neal wanted to put his old social work degree to use and make the group home a lot better. Snow and David lived on their farm, so they donated their castle for him to use after the coronation. Nikki hated moving into the castle and pitched a fit about it. She gave Neal a hard time at every turn, but he wasn’t discouraged. He asked Emma-who had returned to working at the sheriff’s department-to come help her out.

At first Nikki snarked at Emma and tried to steal from her, but Emma knew how to talk to her and soon they were trading jabs and actually getting along. Emma started volunteering more at the group home to help Neal out and got to know Nikki even better, understanding her story and hating that Blue didn’t do much to help her. She even eventually convinces her to start sessions with Archie.

Emma, now invested, decided that she would try to find Nikki a forever home. In the meantime, she and Neal (along with their daughter, Tallie) decided to take her in so she could get used to being part of a fuctional family. There was lots of trial and error, but overtime Nikki really flourished with them and got closer with Tallie and the rest of the Charming-Swan-Cassidy-Mills family.

After about 6 months, Neal and Emma had a talk and realized that they might be the forever family that Nikki needed. After talking with their family, they asked her if she wanted to be adopted. She was hesitant for a bit, thinking that it might ruin things. But after a long talk with Henry about his own adoption, she agreed.

Nikki was adopted and became a member of the Swan-Cassidy family, though she kept her biological mother’s maiden name as a second middle name as tribute. She also wears her biological mother’s old necklace, which has a Saturn charm on it, so she’s always close to her. Ella and Regina have helped both her along with Emma & Neal keep her close to her Latinx culture, something her biological father nor Blue ever did.

Nikki:

#swanfire #swanfire au #nikki swan-cassidy

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dorigvbcorvis · 3 years

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The Letters: A Glee Short Story

'The Letter' and 'The Letter Reprise' are two pieces originally written by Elton John for The Billy Elliot Musical in 2008

My short Glee story was inspired by these two songs and because Billy Elliot and Kurt Hummel share a lot of parallels this is one of the major similarities they both had lost a mom. Copyright infringement not intended

This is dedicated to my own Mother who I lost last year to cancer

September 9th 1928 - September 16, 2020 RIP Mom

The Letters: A Glee Short Story

Scene 1 The Letter

Late October 2010 McKinley Hallway. Last bell of the day has rang and Kurt is on his way to his after school Glee Club. They are having rehearsals for The Rocky Horror Musical and his book bag with a bald cap and wig are already in the choir room. - Which is why he carried his books from his last class in hand and not in his book bag. In the hallway Tina is several feet behind Kurt and she calls to him.

"Hey Kurt wait up" she calls out. Tina has brought in her pair of freshly bedazled tap shoes for her Columbia role and she anxiously wanted Kurt to see them.

Kurt turns with his body to face Tina his back is now turned from the direction he was heading and so doesn't see who has now come up behind him. It is at this exact moment Kurt feels his body lunge forward he falls nearly face first into a row of lockers all his books crash hard against the metal lockers so hard that he drops his books and a cascade of papers fall to floor.

Kurt knows it was Karofski he doesn't have to look up to know it was him- Looking up to confirm now wouldn't matter anyways Karofski wasn't one to stick around once he had done this to some one.

In the immediate area Tina was now horrified she knows this is at least half her fault - her call out took Kurt off his guard.

"I am so sorry Kurt I didn't see him coming," Tina sighs. She feels badly.

"Nobody seems to," Kurt admits; he angry but not at Tina. He squats down to start picking up papers.

"This must get old" Tina quips in an attempt to make sympathetic light.

"It does," Kurt says, admitting this too.

"Here let me at least help" Tina kneels down and starts helping pick up the stray papers she spots an envelop it looks misplaced among the schoolwork.

"What's this?" Tina says picking up an old envelop yellowed at least a decade with age.

"It's a letter" Kurt says, and he abruptly snatches the letter out of Tina's hand.

"I can see it's a letter" Tina quips, a little shocked at how Kurt just took the letter away from her.

Kurt softens he sees how in shocked Tina seems. He hands it back. "You can open it if you want."

Tina of course does and she takes the letter and excitedly the pulls the letter from its envelope "Because yeah, the suspense is killing me now"

"It's from my mom," Kurt then adds.

"Your mom?" Tina asks, she's suddenly now reluctant to proceed.

"She wrote it for us for when I turned eighteen, only I found it way before then. It was in her nightstand I used to opened it just so I could smell her perfume. Gardenas

"I see," Tina said softly.

"Anyways, You can read it if you want," Kurt said, then clarified "Read it out loud"

"Dear Kurt," Tina begins,

"I must seem a distant memory..." Tina stops again; she realizes she's about one those private letters nobody else should read but the intended...but it is not only that she knows how this type of letter only ends in tears.

"Which is..." Kurt said, with a nod like he has the whole letter memorized which of course he has. But he encourages Tina to continue

Tina does.

"Which is probably a good thing"

"And it will have been a long..,."

"...long time" Kurt finishes the line for Tina. He then gives a sigh. Then instead of listening to Tina read back the whole letter to him Kurt starts to sing the contents of the letter.

♫ And I will have missed your growing ♫

♫ And I'll have missed your crying ♫

♫ And I'll have missed you laugh ♫

Tina watches on with a bittersweet smile.

♫ Missed your stomping and your shouting ♫

♫ I have missed telling you off ♫

♫ But please, (Know) Kurt ♫

♫ Know that I was always there ♫

♫ I was with you through everything ♫

♫ And please, Ku-urt ♫ Kurt said his name with a flourish

Tina joins the singing

♫ And please, Ku-urt ♫ she sings using the same flourish that Kurt had

♫ Know that I will always be ♫

♫ Proud to have known you ♫

♫ Proud that you were mine ♫

♫ Proud in everything ♫

♫ And you must promise me (my angel) ♫

In Kurt's mind he imagines a ghost image of his mom with darken eyes from illness and her head wrapped in a Chemo scarf. She seems so real like he could reach out and touch her. She kneels down to sing to her son. Kurt want so badly to touch his mom but is too frighten doing so would spoiled the illusion

♫ In everything you do ♫ Kurt's mother sings. Then another like

♫ Always be yourself, ♫ and then a third line

♫ And always to youself be true ♫

Kurt now joins in with the ghost vision of his mom. Singing the song like a duet with his mom.

♫ And I will have missed you growing ♫

♫ And I'll have missed you crying ♫

♫ And I'll have missed you laugh ♫

Tina even joins in with the singing and yet somehow Kurt still hears his mother's voice.

♫ Missed your stomping and your shouting ♫

♫ I have missed telling you off ♫

♫ But please, my angel ♫

♫ Know that I was always there ♫

♫ I was with you through everything ♫

♫ And please, Kurt (Please) ♫

♫ Know that I will always be ♫

♫ Proud to have known you ♫

♫ Love you forever ♫

The ghost of Kurt's mom embraces her son before fading away.

"Mom," Tina concludes the letter. She wipes away the tears she had forecast would come and hands back the letter and envelop. "Oh Kurt, I don't know what to say."

Kurt pulls out his wallet to show Tina a picture of three girls and from the fashion the girls are wearing ii the picture it looks like the photo was taken in the 80s.

"That's mom in the middle next to my late aunt Elisabeth and younger one is my aunt Mildred"

"Sorry, Kurt but did you said your aunt is dead too?"

"Breast Cancer Same as mom I guess Aunt Millie had it too but they caught it on time" an odd seemingly misplaced smirk came over Kurt's face. "Don't laugh," Kurt was now saying.

"Why would I?" Tina questioned

"No, what I mean is because it's hereditory there's now this 50/50 chance that I might get it. If Santana found out I could get breast cancer I would never hear the end of it."

"That's horrible why would I laugh even then?" Tina at least knew she wouldn't.

"Some people might"

I wouldn't. I am so sorry Kurt...sorry too that you already have enough on your plate without Karofski and all the others making it harder"

"That's probably one of the nicest thing anyone has said. Thanks"

Tina gives Kurt a long hug

"Ah....We should probably get to class Rocky Horror awaits"

"Yes, and I have taps to break in"

Scene 2 Letter Reprisal

After the Rocky Horror rehearsal Kurt is passing the trophy case on his way out of the school. Kurt eyes the 1989 Ohio State Championship Girls Softball trophy and a newspaper clipping that reads:

>>> Fairbank Sisters Kate and Liz prove they are a twin force to be reckoned with as their efforts beat Akron to secure state title win Go Titans!

The Kate, in the picture is Katherine Delorus Fairbanks, Kurt's mom. And the Liz, is Elizabeth Anne Farebanks his aunt. An aunt he never knew except she was his mother's twin and his middle name. She died two weeks before he was born.. he hid his middle name from nearly everyone... sometimes telling people the E stood for Edward but this wasn't true. His mom loved her twin sister born 3 minutes ahead of her...sorry mom sorry aunt Elizabeth calls through the glass case.

Kurt hears the clicky clacky of tap shoes he knows it's Tina.

"Who's that? - That's not... ?" But Tina already knows who it is...it's Kurt's mom

That's my mom and my aunt" Kurt confirms and he does a side glance over at the softball trophy "and that's their trophy."

"I had no idea your mom went here," Tina says with a smile.

"In the late 80's In fact I think they were seniors when Schuster was a Freshman"

Really? Do you know if they knew each other?

"I don't know," Kurt said then quickly changed the subject. "I was thinking about my mom's letter. When I found it I had written a reply...I thought since you read her letter you want to hear mine

I'd be honored" Tina answers with a smile

♫ And please, Mommy... ♫ Kurt stops and sheepishly looks at Tina. "I was still a kid."

Tina nods likes she really isn't bother in fact it is almost too cute.

Kurt starts over

♫ And please, Mommy ♫

♫ know that I will always be ♫

♫ proud to have known you ♫

♫ proud that you were mine ♫

♫ Proud in everything... ♫

♫ And I promise you this, Mommy, ♫

♫ In everything I do, ♫

♫ I'll always be myself, ♫

A ghost of Kurt's mom reappears sing her son's lined like a from the heart order Kurt must obey.

♫ In everything you do ♫

♫ Always be yourself ♫

Kurt gulps twice now he has seen his mother and he doesn't know if any of this is real yet he continues to sing to the ghost image of his mom.

♫ Mommy. And I always will be true ♫ Kurt sings to her.

♫ Love you forever, ♫ Kurt's mom sings back to her son.

♫ Love you forever, ♫ Kurt repeats the lyric.

♫ Love you forever, ♫ Kurt's mom echoing the lyric back to her son.

♫ Mom. ♫ Kurt sings wistfully concludes his song too fearful that the image would soon end too.

Tina is silent. She watches Kurt stand facing the trophy cabinet singing to it like his mother had been there the whole time. Maybe she had.

"Tina?" Kurt finally calls out.

"Yeah?" She answers.

"I'v been lying to you Tina...my middle name the E it isn't for Edward...it's for Elizabeth; after my aunt because she was my mother's twin and she died before I was born...just two weeks before"

Tina lightly pressed her lips together. It was a rare moment Kurt was ever this candid he normally didn't just volunteer information like this but when he did it was always bittersweet.

"So, I never met her," Kurt continued. "All I have to remember her by is a cream colour half sweater that was found in the attic of her house."

"Well, your collection of sweaters is epic!" Tina boasted. She imagine any sweater to find itself in Kurt's collection would be a valued thing.

"It's all I have to remember her by"

"And her name," Tina added.

Kurt nodded "Which is why I don't want to hide it anymore I owe it to the both of them not to hide it anymore" Kurt was stern.

"The guys are going to razz you for it" Tina warned.

"Let them," Kurt retorted. "and if they find out how I might also get breast cancer,...So be it"

"I think you are probably about the bravest person I know. You came out last year and now you're coming out to me about this?- It means a lot - that you trust me and all"

"D'You really think this or are you just saying it?" It is a question Kurt regrets asking because it says the either of two things; that he doesn't trust Tina or he doesn't deem himself worthy.

"I do mean it," Tina stresses. "even in Glee when you stand up in front of everybody and then you let go and just sing you're amazing" Tina says frankly. She smiles at her friend she knew it was more the doubt in himself. "Come 'on Kurt let's get out of here. I don't like this school after everybody's gone home...way too may ghosts."

"Why, did you see one?" Kurt suddenly asks wondering if Tina like him saw his mom.

Tina pauses before saying anything more. Kurt finds this pause truly haunting.

"Don't freak out but I sometimes think I see Mrs. Adler in the choir room" Tina admits.

But it's an admission that's still enough to make Kurt shiver. Kurt looked back at the trophy case. For a third Kurt sees his mom there but he also sees his aunt this time. His mom no longer looks sick as she did before but more like a young Carry Anne Moss with fair skin cropped black hair and glasz coloured eyes his aunt is a spitting image of his mom.

They both fade away and Kurt is spooked and yet amazed if any of that might have been real. His heart says yes the skeptic in him want withhold judgement.

"Need a lift? Kurt asks, he's still a little bit freaked out.

"My dad is picking me up but thanks for offering" Tina says.

"Tina?" Kurt asks.

"Yeah?" She answers back.

"Thanks for letting me share today" he says.

"Anytime Kurt Elizabeth Hummel, anytime" And with this they walk the remainder of the hallway to the main exit doors.

#glee #kurt hummel #tina cohen chang #fanfic #ghosts #season 2 #howkurtgothismiddlename #halloween #kurtina

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spinwrites · 4 years

Text

agent e, part II

Danny Phantom fanfic. Summary: Who is Elliot, before and after his time in Amity Park?

The freshman left him.

Now that she was gone, her absence didn’t bother him, but the way it had ended was irritating.

He should’ve known Clarisse wouldn’t mind her own business. Snooping around with one of his exes, talking to his new girl behind his back, whispering rumors that planted doubts into her mind. The relationship lasted longer this time - two months - because this round he had picked her more intelligently.

Alicia, a student who walked to classes with hunched shoulders, who sat alone in the school courtyard during lunch, who wanted help with her work but was too shy to ask. She was pretty, a beautiful wallflower who seemed eager to please, and this was the extra push he had needed to walk right up, drop an offer for tutoring and pluck her off her feet.

Turns out, all she had needed to grow her own set of thorns was to be inducted into a pack of girlfriends. Led by Clarisse, of all people. He had done his due diligence to warn Alicia of her, so no doubt the former had reservations about his ex at first; she was crazy. Who the hell spent this much time socializing with the other girls he had dated?

If dumping him in middle of the hallway wasn’t enough, both were culpable in the way his reputation had nosedived among the student population- he just knew, because one’s image wasn’t decided by the individual in question. It wasn’t just among the girls too. While a couple of his male friends initially stuck around, they were learning one by one what staying by a social pariah did to their own standing in school.

The teachers couldn’t care less because he was a pretty good student, but the ostracization got old. If he was to bear the rest of his high school career here, he needed a way for people to forget. Time, for the other students to become reabsorbed in their own lives.

How can I do that?

As he passed by a bulletin board, the brochures pinned on them fluttered. He stopped and studied them, and in his mind, a plan formed.

—

“Casper High?” His mother squinted at one of the crumpled papers she had picked up from the coffee table. Behind wire-frame glasses, her tired eyes flicked over the text. “Wherever in the world is that?”

On their couch next to her, he leaned into her and their shoulders touched. “Amity Park.”

She repeated the name in a murmur. “Is that a city?”

“Yeah, Mom. In Illinois.” At her hesitance, he pressed. “It’ll look good on my portfolio. Colleges like it when we have experiences beyond where we came from.”

“College?” Hope was written over her face when she turned to him. “You’re intending to apply after all?”

I am now, he supposed. “Yeah. That’s still a ways to go though, but no harm preparing early. So I wanted to run it by you.” He gathered the papers, most of which were clipped together, and flipped through the paragraphs of information to arrive at the final page. One finger tapped at the bottom, where a dotted line lay.

A parent’s signature.

It was the only thing he needed. His mother scanned the page, though she was reading it too quickly to have understood it completely. A phrase stood out from the print, and her face brightened. “You were nominated by the school?”

The truth was nobody else had applied for that position. Casper High wasn’t a popular place, but it meant he had automatically received a nomination, but it wasn’t a confirmation. That depended on today. He nodded.

“Even with hair like that?”

His hand ran through his freshly-bleached strands. He had gotten it done yesterday, in an impulse of desiring a fresh look. “Mom, that’s- it’s just a trend. It’s normal nowadays.” Her lips began to droop in disapproval, so he thought quickly, and added, “My teachers probably put in a good word for me. My semester’s been going well so far.”

It was enough to appease her. The pen was by her hand, laid on the table when he had first sat her down. She picked it up and poised the tip over the paper’s surface. Satisfaction began to pool in Elliot’s gut.

“If you get to college,” she said, “your father would be so proud.”

His pulse jumped. He nearly snapped, but he reigned it in. It wasn’t what he needed right now. “I guess,” he said.

“We just wanted you to do well in school.” His mother smiled at him, one that showed teeth and deepened the wrinkles in the skin about her eyes. “Make friends, maybe find a girl you like.”

“Mom.” He forced a smile, trying to mirror her expression. If only you knew. “I’m doing great.”

A laugh, and she scrawled her agreement on the form. Finally, he couldn’t help but think, as she handed the paper to him, her signature in shiny, black ink.

“I know,” she replied. In that moment, it was as if her fatigue had evaporated from her figure. Her hand, calloused from housework, reached over and covered his arm. Her touch seared, hot and numbing. “I’m so proud of you.”

Just like that, Elliot submitted the form. A week later, the school got back to him with a confirmation letter, and the semester exchange to Amity, his one ticket out of the pits of his school, was his.

Written: 26 Feb 2020

(part 1)

#one shot #agent e series #sideliners collection #dp elliot #fanfiction

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t-baba · 4 years

Photo

Which JS projects got the most GitHub stars in 2019?

#470 — January 10, 2020

Read on the Web

JavaScript Weekly

Snowpack: A 'Run Once' Dependency Builder/Modularizer — An interesting project (formerly known as pika/web) from the folks behind Pika. The idea is that you run Snowpack once after npm install and it prepares your dependencies as ES modules that can be loaded dynamically by the browser so you don’t need to rebundle on every code change you make. This isn’t good if you want to target old browsers, but for the 90% of cases, this could change your dev process.

Fred K. Schott

2019's JavaScript 'Rising Stars' — If you don’t like popularity contests, skip this one, but it’s the latest annual roundup of which JavaScript projects did well in terms of gaining GitHub stars in 2019. Vue took the top spot for the 4th year in a row, but the subcategories are more interesting.

Michael Rambeau and Sacha Greif

Get Best in Class Error Reporting for Your JavaScript Apps — Time is money. Software bugs waste both. Save time with Bugsnag. Automatically detect and diagnose errors impacting your users. Get comprehensive diagnostic reports, know immediately which errors are worth fixing, and debug in minutes. Try it free.

Bugsnag sponsor

Dan Abramov on What JavaScript Is Made Up Of — Dan (of React core team and Redux fame) reflects on his mental model of what JavaScript is in terms of raw concepts.

Dan Abramov

How to Move a Project to TypeScript - At Your Own Pace — We’ve recently commented how 2019 seemed to be the year of many people ‘switching’ to TypeScript.. but if you’re intimidated, you might like this guide to moving an existing project in a gradual way.

Dominik Kundel

The State of Storybook at the End of 2019 — Storybook is a popular tool for developing and showcasing UI components (originally just for React, but now supporting Angular, Vue, and more). 2019 saw even more growth for Storybook’s ecosystem and community.

Michael Shilman

⚡️ Quick Releases

Ember 3.15

date-fns 2.9 — Modern date utility library.

Johnny Five 1.4.0 — Robotics and IoT framework.

Handlebars.js 4.7 — Classic templating library.

Pickr 1.5 — Responsive and hackable color picker.

💻 Jobs

Full-Stack or Front-End Engineer - Rails/React (Remote/NYC) — Got 2+ years of experience? Come help build the next iteration of our growing digital recovery platform centered providing alcohol abuse treatment.

TEMPEST

Find a Job Through Vettery — Vettery is completely free for job seekers. Make a profile, name your salary, and connect with hiring managers from top employers.

Vettery

📘 Articles & Tutorials

An Abbreviated History of JavaScript Package Managers — This post explains why npm, Yarn and pnpm were created and the problems they’ve set out to solve over time.

Matt Goldwater

Understanding Async/Await — A straightforward and easily accessible tutorial on using promises and how async and await can make the resulting code more straightforward.

Sarah Drasner

CFP for ForwardJS San Francisco and Ottawa now OPEN — Submit your proposal to speak at ForwardJS Ottawa (May 26-29) or San Francisco (July 20-24) Ticket sales begin Jan 15.

ForwardJS sponsor

Off Main Thread Architecture with Vuex — Inspired by Surma’s articles on using Web Workers to take work off of the main thread, Abdelrahman was inspired to see how this could help with Vue and Vuex.

Abdelrahman Awad

How To Create And Deploy an Angular Material App — This article will help you get started with a new Angular project from just a thought to deployment (on Netlify, in this case).

Shubham

Things I've Learnt Optimizing My Build Time — Things a developer has learnt implementing some build time optimization techniques at the company he works for.

Eldad Bercovici

Why I Avoid Nesting Closures — “A little tendency I have to reduce cognitive load for readers of my code.”

Kent C Dodds

A Basic Example of the Web Share API — The Web Share API enables native sharing (via other apps/social networks) on pages.

Dillion Megida

Breaking Chains with Pipelines in Modern JavaScript

Dan Shappir

Comparing the Different Types of Native JavaScript 'Popups' — window.confirm, window.onbeforeunload, etc.

Elliot Goldman

Top GitHub Best Practices for Developers - Expanded Guide — Implementing these best practices could save you time, improve code maintainability, and prevent security risks.

Datree.io sponsor

▶ Why GitHub Actions Is One Developer's New Favorite Programming Tool — While Github Actions is commonly associated with deployment and pipelines, it’s ultimately an engine for running JavaScript in the cloud, and that opens up some neat use cases as demonstrated here. 17 minutes.

Kristian Freeman

🔧 Code & Tools

Craft.js: A React Framework for Building Drag and Drop Page Editors — It’s a bold move to make the landing page for your project be a text editor itself, but I like it :-)

Prev Wong

Code to Graph: Visualize JavaScript Code as a Network Diagram — An interesting idea and fun to play with.

Vincent Lecrubier

Faster CI/CD for All Your Software Projects Using Buildkite

Buildkite sponsor

Mocha 7.0 Released: The Popular JavaScript Test Framework — Mocha has been a popular go-to test framework for both Node and the browser for years now. 7.0.0 isn’t a huge release but drops Node 6 support and makes enough changes and deprecations to warrant the version update.

Mocha

Postgres.js: A Fast, Full-Featured Postgres Client for Node — Claims to be the fastest even (at 2-10x faster than the popular pg module) but we’ll let you be the judge of that :-)

Rasmus Porsager

scalajs-react: React, but for Scala.JS — Feeling brave? Scala.js provides a way to build front-end apps using Scala (which is then compiled into JavaScript) and scalajs-react brings React into the mix too.

David Barri

😂 Last but not least..

The Size of a node_modules Folder When Installing The Top 100 Packages — We’ve all heard the jokes about the size of node_modules directories, but I found it neat that someone’s actually tracking this on an ongoing basis. And if you really want to clean up those folders, check out npkill.

Koen van Gilst

by via JavaScript Weekly https://ift.tt/30aVFPq

#Javascript Branding #Javascript Weekly

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splitshortsyeah · 3 years

Text

Mac Miller 'K.I.D.S.'

-Matt Duelka

Progression. That’s a good place to start in 2010. I did a lot of ‘progressing’ leading into ’10. I’ll give a lot of credit to the college experience (not so much the college itself) for the shape and calcification of my being. Since ’10 – minor progressions, but the details have been important. More fine tuning of who I should be. But before we get too into 2010, I need to talk about 2008 (a MAJOR progression the likes of a King Crimson album) because without 2008, there is no 2010, and certainly no 2020.

[So, briefly, here it goes.]

As a current 33 year old in 2020, rap music takes up a pretty calculated 93% of my musical intake. In 2008, not so much. More like weird metal, emo pop-punk – regular 20-year old white boy stuff. But I WAS 1 year into being a ‘urban music’ radio DJ (What? Why? How?) and my crash course had been hitting quite the peak. Classics and hot-off-the-stove EmCees were covered but anything in between – was very much all or nothing.

“Yo, you see the new Gucci tape dropped?”

“Wait, who? Gucci? Is there a new album out? I didn’t know it was getting released?”

“C’mon. You didn’t see the new mixtape drop on Nahright?”

“Nah what?”

“Man, catch up.”

And I did. The internet is a deep ocean of untapped resources, until you start “tap, tap, tapping it in”. Gucci’s 36 mixtapes in 6 months were something to behold, but to me was pretty flat – all temporary ear candy but nothing that held water. I was 14 pages in – searching Nahright.com, 2DopeBoyz – and felt I was now in a 400 level classroom. And then came a banger – Wale ‘A Mixtape About Nothing’.

I was smitten. The tape basically Batman punched the life back into me and I considered uncovering this gem, a passing grade into rap graduation. Hours were now spent uncovering quality tapes and collabs that I could talk about to whomever who keep listening to me. In ’09 I took over the reins on the Rap Radio airwaves. My musical trajectory was skyrocketing. Rap music should have been my major.

[Ok. Now 2010]

Internet. Internet. Blog Site. Search. Blog Site. Search. Download. Listen. Share. Refresh. Internet. College is in the rear view. Career is in a holding pattern. Retail for the time being. New music is what’s up.

“When you’re young, not much matters.”

Oh what’s this?

“When you find something that you care about, then that’s all you got.”

Is this from that movie…?

“When you go to sleep at night, you dream of *music* “

You have my attention.

KICKIN’ INCREDIBLY DOPE SHIT (K.I.D.S.)

A white 18-year old kid from Pittsburgh comes out with a ‘KIDS’ movie sample and then just. Goes. In. Like, bangers from the gun. Heavily KIDS influenced, heavily sampling dope beats (Lord Finesse took a little offense to that, but we’re past it), but that’s what a mixtape is about! Get your ears and eyes focused. Someone is looking to get on the map.

Progression. It’s what got me here so far, but it’s also what this kid, Mac Miller, was after. Mac put out this album specifically to show people what he could do with his words. Not to say that he had A LOT to say, but he wanted to talk, and tell people about what he knew (not making up a persona just to sell a rap to the streets). Drugs, drinking, ladies, and having fun. “Kool-aid and Frozen Pizza” ain’t trynna be anything that it’s not.

Mac Miller was a fun ass High School graduate putting out fun-ass rap tunes for people to smile to. Whether a banger or a smooth ride, I found a good time in this tape from beginning to end. It was different, definitely. Not to say ground-breaking, but it’s hard for me to put a doppelganger to his flow. I remember someone trying to tell me it seemed like he emulated Drake’s delivery – slow yet catchy. But something about Drake always has me thinking he didn’t really ‘flow’ in any way, and just spoke to you ‘in a rhythm (a rhythm I cannot actually describe)’. Mac had a delivery, a great one. And it was simple, yet smart. He just really understood who was listening, and who he wanted to get across to. I assumed as a 23 year old retails associate, I was smack in the middle of that venn diagram.

I’m a sucker for a ‘Boom Bap’ sound (just say it enough and you’ll get it) and even though Mac isn’t a definition of the style, there’s a lot of that east coast flare in there (especially with the samples he chose – definite *eye emoji*). I also had a pretty intimate experience with the movie laced into this mixtape. I wrote an 8 page final paper on the movie (more specifically, the last line of the movie, which he so happens to use on the last track, with tunes of Elliot Smith slowly fading out to close up shop on the tape). So you have to believe that my intrigue and HOPE for this tape from the get go was at a 17 out of 10.

“Get ‘Em Up” had me nodding straight out the gate. Mac, if he was trying to showcase some wordflow talent, had me at least glued to see if this would get better with this track. By now I’m cranking the volume up a few notches and thinking I might have found something. Again, this isn’t groundbreaking, but no 18-year old should be (SHOULD BE). But Mac didn’t need to deliver complex lyrical stanzas in and out of classic Pete Rock beats to make an impact. I’m on my feet. I want to hear more.

And then we transition to “Nikes on My Feet” and, you see what I did there? This was as tasty of a track as you could have hoped for. Not knowing anything was a good way to go into this, because the unexpectedness of a Nas sample on this Pittsburgh kid’s mixtape was a treat. And it could have been a more ‘World Renown’ tune – including the all-familiar bass line and chorus -- but he chose a piece within “The World is Yours” and went in, to further push the “this is what I know, and this is what I’m gonna rap about” bit. “I don’t know about Nas’ life in Queensbridge, but I know about these Nikes on my feet” is what I imagine he said while thinking up this song. And if you can’t tell I was sold by now, well then, I’ve wasted a thousand words on you.

“Cream cheese and a bagel. Have a glass of milk and an Eggo. Rocking PJs and no shirt. I smoke weed, eat yogurt.”

Progression, right? There was a time where “The Spins” would have intrigued me because of the Empire of the Sun portion – ala Gorillaz with Del tha Funky Homosapien. But now I’m sitting thinking, man what a compliment they are to Mac Miller. He’s still the star of the track and in 2010, on the festival circuit, this made the KIDS bump, bump, bump. Even walking down the street 3 weeks ago, I was re-listening to the tape and couldn’t keep from trotting, singing, and just enjoying myself. Banger. In 2010, this is what I NEEDED. I wanted a song that just got my blood racing and FUCK did this song do it. Being that Mac might not have been heralded by the rap world right away, a track like this made sure he at least meshed between a few crowds, and I’d say the music festival demographic was probably an ideal spot for him. That’s where I found myself as well. At least, as a 23 year old. Because, again, we are still progressing.

We move into “Paper Route” and “Good Evening” and we’ve moved away from booming and banging, and now we are cruising. We got the radio on, or we got the headphones in, and you got your head nodding along. BOP BOP BOP. Going back to Mac’s intention for this tape, I feel like these tracks are in the realm of Mac puppeteering his way along, showing the world how he could move swiftly and intelligently – yet simply and endearingly – through a track.

For anyone who ever blog, probably heard my name Hip-Hop's underdog, you wanna win the game I'm sick of hearin' how music change never be the same And these dudes who think they everything and never pick a lane Call yourself a vet, but haven't won a single game Mad, every girl got my name imprinted in her brain Boy, I'm a beast, match the style in bars Find me smokin' weed where the wild things are

For anyone who doubted he’d be able to cut it on the rap scene, I’d say that verse was a slight flex, in retrospect.

As much as “The Spins” was able to bring thousands of folks off their grass stained tight jeans and onto their feet during a July summer on Governor’s island (I saw it happen in person) – “Knock, Knock” was the jam of the album. This was the tune that made Mac be able to stand tall and say “This tape was worth it.” This followed me through many-a-car ride, too many drunken after parties (not at hotel lobbies – but more so at post-collegiate apartments with unfortunate furniture choices), and just being the soundtrack to my walks through the Manhattan summer. I have a soft spot for over the top “epic” sounding choruses that you can blast on better than average speakers, and this fit the bill. It’s hard for me to find a song that defined “Fun” for me more, in 2010, than this song did.

It’s hard to imagine 2010 without this entering my life. Because it was fun. So very fun. And it brings great thoughts just writing about listening to this album back then. Great weekends, and epic tabletops, and the content we were able to create! Even if most of it only lives in our heads, it was worth it].

And then it ends, like it began. “Jesus Christ, What happened?”. The movie ‘Kids’ brings us back and we fade out. Of course, I would “bring it back” many a time in that day. It became a fixture on the playlists, a constant on the headphones. I even slipped a few songs on the retail store speakers.

But we all PROGRESS. We all want more eventually. And do I mean more, like “that wasn’t good enough – give me more!”? No. I mean. We want more, like, I’m changing, and so is everything around me, what do you offer me now? A better job? More money? More substance from the ones you spend your time with? And with that, you also tend to want more from your music.

So ‘K.I.D.S.’, even though I have thrown it on the que recently and been able to jam along, I can’t keep it on the podium that it was prominently placed on in 2010. For what it represents, it will forever be held high, but it won’t be the same as the first experience and I don’t think that was ever the plan. Do tracks still SLAP, sure, but they weren’t meant to be ‘timeless’. It was meant to live in the moment and do what it needed to do. Mac made it known this was a proving point for him. This tape was meant to show he belonged.

And so as we all need to do, we PROGRESSED –

Blue Slide Park

Watching movies with the Sound Off

GO:OD AM

The Divine Feminine.

You can say what you want about those albums that proceeded, but you can’t say Mac Miller was stagnant.

“Yo, I listened to them and they just weren’t what I expected.”

“Well what did you expect”

“I wanted K.I.D.S.”

“But you got K.I.D.S”

“Yeah, but I wanted it – well – again.”

“I don’t think he did.”

‘K.I.D.S.’ was never meant to sustain, and Mac moved on from it like he should have. He had more to prove. Could he have continued to make music for the festival crowd? Sure? Would he have been successful? Probably. But even though I don’t even pretend to know him as a person – it’s obviously not what he intended to do. Because even though the albums I mentioned above may not have caught the listeners’ attention like ‘K.I.D.S.’ did, you could see the progression that Mac was going through.

[Can we jump to 2018? Good.]

Even though you may have found your footing, there are always ways to improve your steps. At this point it isn’t major adjustment after major adjustment, but more like “Hey, those shoes didn’t work because of the minor shape difference in the heel to toe ratio, maybe these slightly less aggressive ones will be better” (IYKYK). Mac Miller put out ‘Swimming’ in ’18 and to say it’s his best work is an understatement, but to also say that “This is a throwback to his most comparable work to date, ‘K.I.D.S.’“ would be a catastrophic failure in comparison. Through the steps he took in with minor adjustments on his other studio albums, Mac developed a sound that was unlike anything that was produced on ‘K.I.D.S.’, BUT, without ‘K.I.D.S.’, ‘Swimming’ never exists. Weird how that works.

I used to rock epic rap anthems like it was them or nothing. I needed to hit be hit hard or it wasn’t hitting enough. But I learned that there was a different way to be ‘touched’ by hip hop. I learned, what I define as ‘asymmetric’ beats – where a song may not have a chorus, or a looped sample, or anything typical of a conventional or traditional track. My ears were genuinely intrigued by the angles that existed within the songs, and I started to see the beauty of them. I wanted rappers who could also take a rap track, and put a live band to it – Let’s hear some live ivory tickling under them verses, huh!? – OR maybe have a rapper croon a little bit? Why not. Why they always gotta be so hard? Lets get sensitive (but please – no Drake).

So ‘Swimming’ did that – all of it. We got Mac pouring his heart out. Where ‘K.I.D.S.’ had bangers and catchy choruses and classic samples – ‘Swimming’ had live bass (Thundercat! Woot!), off-kiltered bars, singing and swaying, and stuff I didn’t imagine Mac had in him. But they were as visible on this album as the tattoos on his sleeve. I mean, I’m FULL SEND on The Foreign Exchange, Tyler The Creator, Black Milk, yadda yadda yadda, and Mac is now RIGHT THERE in the conversation.

SIRS AND MADAMES WE HAVE PROGRESSED!

Mac and I didn’t have tickets on the same trolly train of progression, but we both got here. Maybe he saw it coming -- I definitely didn’t plan this Musical fandom path for myself. Maybe Flying Lotus had something to do with it?

I think it has a lot to do with getting from the prove yourself phase to the phase you actually want to be in. We all have to do it at some point. We all have to be in a spot that isn’t exactly where we’d like to be – but without it we can’t get to where we WANT to be. The problem is, how to convince others that this is the right way to go. Not to say “Everyone, please follow me – this is the right AND ONLY way this will work”, but more like “Hi everyone, this is the right way for me, can you please join in helping me proceed and giving me the confidence to move onto the next chapter of this progression.” To be honest I wasn’t following along with him fully – a mix of not understanding and not believing he would get there. I feel like I made it through to where I wanted to be a little sooner than Mac did – but when “Swimming’ came out – I knew we both made it. Or you could assume we both made it. I assumed we both made it.

But then it was over. In September of 2018, Mac passed away. And it fucking sucked. As happy and fulfilling as his music made us – made ME – feel, it’s hard to believe he wasn’t anywhere close to feeling the same. Malcolm McCormick should have been with us for a long time, and because things just don’t work that way, he won’t. ‘Circles’ eventually came to us in 2020 – and recorded entirely while ‘Swimming’ was, so everyone got to witness the feelings again that they did with ‘Swimming’ and remember, unfortunately, how we won’t be able to continue to feel like this again.

Some music makes a dent in your life, and it takes a while for you to understand why. ‘K.I.D.S.’ did that for me in 2010. I was too busy to really try and figure out why my bumper got scuffed, or how to fix it. But in 2020, I know it was never meant to be fixed. My 33 year old ‘Toyota Corolla’ of a self thinks the dent looks good these days. Why try and progress through that.

0 notes

andrewmawby · 4 years

Text

September 6, 2020 AsktheBuilder Newsletter

Greetings and salutations! Are you one of the nearly 100 new subscribers in the past seven days? Welcome! I reserve this top spot in the newsletter to honor your presence.

You, though, might have been with me so long that you remember the mind-blowing column and illustration I created that caused your jaw to drop. Come on, I know you remember!! It was the one about lumber shrinkage. CLICK or TAP HERE to discover a question you can use to win a bet or a game of Trivial Pursuit!

Where Was I?

I like to take photos. I was a member of my high school yearbook photography team spending hours in the darkroom producing contact sheets and final black-and-white photos. I also volunteered to work in the largest darkroom at the University of Cincinnati as a geology undergrad.

I'm going to try to share an interesting photo as often as possible of things and places that cross my path. Here's one I shot this past Wednesday. There's a clue in the photo, if you strain your eyes, that will allow you to pinpoint where I was. I'm looking for you to share with me the exact name of the beach.

I'll let you know the answer in the next newsletter. Watch for it next week to see if you were spot on.

Oxymoron ALERT

You may have been one who teed up and took a swing at me last week about the clever oxymoron I included in the insurance alert piece.

Peaceful protestors don’t loot and commit arson for goodness sake!

Robert’s Stinky Hats

About ten days ago Robert, a contractor subscriber to this newsletter, reached out to me with a STAIN SOLVER success story. You’ll love this one:

“I'm sure you get lots of messages touting wonder and amazement over your Stain Solver. I was just so amazed I had to share my story. I'm a contractor in central Illinois, often working on projects that are not air-conditioned. I keep a hat for such occasions to catch my sweat.

A month or so ago, I noticed my hat smelled quite badly, and upon wearing it, my head smelled bad. I wondered how to clean it, talking to my wife and mother-in-law. They suggested a dishwasher with a plastic cage to help the hat keep its shape.

Well, I remembered an email you sent about the lady who cleaned her son's baseball cap, and I decided to give it a shot. (CLICK or TAP HERE to see the photos of the hat Robert is talking about) I mixed up a gallon of warm water with STAIN SOLVER per the directions, grabbed my hat, dropped it in, and the fizzing started.

I used a plastic spoon to agitate for a minute or so, and then rinsed it out. My hat was clean and good as new. The water was unbelievably gross. I couldn't believe how dark and dirty the water was. Now my hat looks clean and smells clean again. I went ahead and washed about a dozen hats. Thank you, Tim.”

If it were me, I would have allowed the hat to soak for about 30 minutes. It seems Robert had it in the solution a much shorter time but he was still happy with the results.

CLICK or TAP HERE now to order your STAIN SOLVER now.

Revive Cedar Chests or Closets

Ron emailed me last week. He wrote, “I have a storage room with cedar walls. How can I get the cedar smell back?”

Well, all Ron had to do was type the following two words into the search engine at AsktheBuilder.com to discover his answer:

cedar smell

Look:

CLICK or TAP HERE to discover how easy it is to make the cedar aroma so strong and pleasant that you’ll want to stay in the closet or cedar chest all day!

STOP Getting Lost

Have you ever had an issue with Google Maps where you enter in an address, navigate to it, and then discover you’re not exactly where you’re supposed to be?

Did you know you can HELP IMPROVE Google Maps? They have a very responsive team that works on your suggestions.

Just last week, Google Maps was off by about 500 feet for an address on a main road here in NH. I submitted a correction and they’re working on fixing it so others will navigate to the correct driveway.

Look at these two screenshots to see how to start the process. The FIRST text link you need to click is Send feedback. It’s in the lower RIGHT CORNER of Google Maps:

After you click that link, a new window opens giving you choices of what to do. Select the one that best fits your correction or suggestion and follow the easy step-by-step directions:

How To Create Mold In Your Home FAST

Elliot emailed me last week. Here’s what he wrote:

“In a recent article of yours about exhausting moist air from bathrooms you mentioned that if you were in a snowy area you may have to extend the pipe up higher. Why not use that warm moist air in the wintertime to make your home feel more comfortable? Perhaps consider using a small fan to blow the air out of the bathroom into the rest of the home.”

CLICK or TAP HERE to see why you MUST NOT do what Elliot suggests.

Random Question(s) Feature

I’m thinking of creating a new feature in the newsletter called, Random Question. Let’s see how it goes.

Scenario: An orchestra is playing a song. The musicians all have sheet music in front of them on their music stands. You can see this exact scenario in the opening 15 seconds of this video. CLICK or TAP HERE. Just about all of them have to use two hands to play their instruments, especially the violin players.

How in the heck do they turn pages and NOT stop playing? They’re all playing the same notes and if what they’re playing spans several pages, how is it the music doesn’t stop? What keeps them from turning to the wrong page? Why don’t we hear sheet music hitting the floor?

Fear - It’s Paralyzing

Did you know that the emotion of fear automatically blocks the part of your brain that performs critical thinking and reasoning?

I’m sure you’ve experienced this before. It’s happened to me and I can confirm that when fear has overtaken you, your ability to think clearly is severely impaired.

It’s one reason why basic training in all military branches tries to squelch fear to show recruits that they can survive any situation.

Cleaning Cutting Boards

This morning I decided to clean and purify my kitchen cutting boards. Do you have ones like these?

CLICK or TAP HERE to see how I did it. I also have a #HACK to get out deep tomato sauce stains.

Bill's HAPPY Email - Over the Top!

Several days ago, I received an email from Bill just before dinner. It had been a tough day for me and Bill put a smile on my face wider than the airplane hanger door for a B-52 bomber!

CLICK or TAP HERE and look just below the bullet list to read Bill's message.

That’s probably enough for a Sunday.

Tim Carter Founder - www.AsktheBuilder.com CERTIFIED ORGANIC - www.STAINSOLVER.com Dihs and Dahs - www.W3ATB.com

Do It Right, Not Over!

P.S. Planning on sealing concrete before winter? CLICK or TAP HERE to see what sealer I feel is best.

The post September 6, 2020 AsktheBuilder Newsletter appeared first on Ask the Builder.

from builders feed https://www.askthebuilder.com/september-6-2020-askthebuilder-newsletter/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

0 notes

thegregorybruce · 4 years

Text

September 6, 2020 AsktheBuilder Newsletter

Greetings and salutations! Are you one of the nearly 100 new subscribers in the past seven days? Welcome! I reserve this top spot in the newsletter to honor your presence.

Where Was I?

I'll let you know the answer in the next newsletter. Watch for it next week to see if you were spot on.

Oxymoron ALERT

You may have been one who teed up and took a swing at me last week about the clever oxymoron I included in the insurance alert piece.

Peaceful protestors don’t loot and commit arson for goodness sake!

Robert’s Stinky Hats

About ten days ago Robert, a contractor subscriber to this newsletter, reached out to me with a STAIN SOLVER success story. You’ll love this one:

If it were me, I would have allowed the hat to soak for about 30 minutes. It seems Robert had it in the solution a much shorter time but he was still happy with the results.

CLICK or TAP HERE now to order your STAIN SOLVER now.

Revive Cedar Chests or Closets

Ron emailed me last week. He wrote, “I have a storage room with cedar walls. How can I get the cedar smell back?”

Well, all Ron had to do was type the following two words into the search engine at AsktheBuilder.com to discover his answer:

cedar smell

Look:

CLICK or TAP HERE to discover how easy it is to make the cedar aroma so strong and pleasant that you’ll want to stay in the closet or cedar chest all day!

STOP Getting Lost

Have you ever had an issue with Google Maps where you enter in an address, navigate to it, and then discover you’re not exactly where you’re supposed to be?

Did you know you can HELP IMPROVE Google Maps? They have a very responsive team that works on your suggestions.

Look at these two screenshots to see how to start the process. The FIRST text link you need to click is Send feedback. It’s in the lower RIGHT CORNER of Google Maps:

After you click that link, a new window opens giving you choices of what to do. Select the one that best fits your correction or suggestion and follow the easy step-by-step directions:

How To Create Mold In Your Home FAST

Elliot emailed me last week. Here’s what he wrote:

CLICK or TAP HERE to see why you MUST NOT do what Elliot suggests.

Random Question(s) Feature

I’m thinking of creating a new feature in the newsletter called, Random Question. Let’s see how it goes.

Fear - It’s Paralyzing

Did you know that the emotion of fear automatically blocks the part of your brain that performs critical thinking and reasoning?

I’m sure you’ve experienced this before. It’s happened to me and I can confirm that when fear has overtaken you, your ability to think clearly is severely impaired.

It’s one reason why basic training in all military branches tries to squelch fear to show recruits that they can survive any situation.

Cleaning Cutting Boards

This morning I decided to clean and purify my kitchen cutting boards. Do you have ones like these?

CLICK or TAP HERE to see how I did it. I also have a #HACK to get out deep tomato sauce stains.

Bill's HAPPY Email - Over the Top!

Several days ago, I received an email from Bill just before dinner. It had been a tough day for me and Bill put a smile on my face wider than the airplane hanger door for a B-52 bomber!

CLICK or TAP HERE and look just below the bullet list to read Bill's message.

That’s probably enough for a Sunday.

Tim Carter Founder - www.AsktheBuilder.com CERTIFIED ORGANIC - www.STAINSOLVER.com Dihs and Dahs - www.W3ATB.com

Do It Right, Not Over!

P.S. Planning on sealing concrete before winter? CLICK or TAP HERE to see what sealer I feel is best.

The post September 6, 2020 AsktheBuilder Newsletter appeared first on Ask the Builder.

from Home https://www.askthebuilder.com/september-6-2020-askthebuilder-newsletter/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

0 notes

williamccreynolds · 4 years

Text

September 6, 2020 AsktheBuilder Newsletter

Greetings and salutations! Are you one of the nearly 100 new subscribers in the past seven days? Welcome! I reserve this top spot in the newsletter to honor your presence.

Where Was I?

I'll let you know the answer in the next newsletter. Watch for it next week to see if you were spot on.

Oxymoron ALERT

You may have been one who teed up and took a swing at me last week about the clever oxymoron I included in the insurance alert piece.

Peaceful protestors don’t loot and commit arson for goodness sake!

Robert’s Stinky Hats

About ten days ago Robert, a contractor subscriber to this newsletter, reached out to me with a STAIN SOLVER success story. You’ll love this one:

If it were me, I would have allowed the hat to soak for about 30 minutes. It seems Robert had it in the solution a much shorter time but he was still happy with the results.

CLICK or TAP HERE now to order your STAIN SOLVER now.

Revive Cedar Chests or Closets

Ron emailed me last week. He wrote, “I have a storage room with cedar walls. How can I get the cedar smell back?”

Well, all Ron had to do was type the following two words into the search engine at AsktheBuilder.com to discover his answer:

cedar smell

Look:

CLICK or TAP HERE to discover how easy it is to make the cedar aroma so strong and pleasant that you’ll want to stay in the closet or cedar chest all day!

STOP Getting Lost

Have you ever had an issue with Google Maps where you enter in an address, navigate to it, and then discover you’re not exactly where you’re supposed to be?

Did you know you can HELP IMPROVE Google Maps? They have a very responsive team that works on your suggestions.

Look at these two screenshots to see how to start the process. The FIRST text link you need to click is Send feedback. It’s in the lower RIGHT CORNER of Google Maps:

After you click that link, a new window opens giving you choices of what to do. Select the one that best fits your correction or suggestion and follow the easy step-by-step directions:

How To Create Mold In Your Home FAST

Elliot emailed me last week. Here’s what he wrote:

CLICK or TAP HERE to see why you MUST NOT do what Elliot suggests.

Random Question(s) Feature

I’m thinking of creating a new feature in the newsletter called, Random Question. Let’s see how it goes.

Fear - It’s Paralyzing

Did you know that the emotion of fear automatically blocks the part of your brain that performs critical thinking and reasoning?

I’m sure you’ve experienced this before. It’s happened to me and I can confirm that when fear has overtaken you, your ability to think clearly is severely impaired.

It’s one reason why basic training in all military branches tries to squelch fear to show recruits that they can survive any situation.

Cleaning Cutting Boards

This morning I decided to clean and purify my kitchen cutting boards. Do you have ones like these?

CLICK or TAP HERE to see how I did it. I also have a #HACK to get out deep tomato sauce stains.

Bill's HAPPY Email - Over the Top!

Several days ago, I received an email from Bill just before dinner. It had been a tough day for me and Bill put a smile on my face wider than the airplane hanger door for a B-52 bomber!

CLICK or TAP HERE and look just below the bullet list to read Bill's message.

That’s probably enough for a Sunday.

Tim Carter Founder - www.AsktheBuilder.com CERTIFIED ORGANIC - www.STAINSOLVER.com Dihs and Dahs - www.W3ATB.com

Do It Right, Not Over!

P.S. Planning on sealing concrete before winter? CLICK or TAP HERE to see what sealer I feel is best.

The post September 6, 2020 AsktheBuilder Newsletter appeared first on Ask the Builder.

from Real Estate https://www.askthebuilder.com/september-6-2020-askthebuilder-newsletter/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

0 notes

manuelclapid · 4 years

Text

September 6, 2020 AsktheBuilder Newsletter

Greetings and salutations! Are you one of the nearly 100 new subscribers in the past seven days? Welcome! I reserve this top spot in the newsletter to honor your presence.

Where Was I?

I'll let you know the answer in the next newsletter. Watch for it next week to see if you were spot on.

Oxymoron ALERT

You may have been one who teed up and took a swing at me last week about the clever oxymoron I included in the insurance alert piece.

Peaceful protestors don’t loot and commit arson for goodness sake!

Robert’s Stinky Hats

About ten days ago Robert, a contractor subscriber to this newsletter, reached out to me with a STAIN SOLVER success story. You’ll love this one:

If it were me, I would have allowed the hat to soak for about 30 minutes. It seems Robert had it in the solution a much shorter time but he was still happy with the results.

CLICK or TAP HERE now to order your STAIN SOLVER now.

Revive Cedar Chests or Closets

Ron emailed me last week. He wrote, “I have a storage room with cedar walls. How can I get the cedar smell back?”

Well, all Ron had to do was type the following two words into the search engine at AsktheBuilder.com to discover his answer:

cedar smell

Look:

CLICK or TAP HERE to discover how easy it is to make the cedar aroma so strong and pleasant that you’ll want to stay in the closet or cedar chest all day!

STOP Getting Lost

Have you ever had an issue with Google Maps where you enter in an address, navigate to it, and then discover you’re not exactly where you’re supposed to be?

Did you know you can HELP IMPROVE Google Maps? They have a very responsive team that works on your suggestions.

Look at these two screenshots to see how to start the process. The FIRST text link you need to click is Send feedback. It’s in the lower RIGHT CORNER of Google Maps:

After you click that link, a new window opens giving you choices of what to do. Select the one that best fits your correction or suggestion and follow the easy step-by-step directions:

How To Create Mold In Your Home FAST

Elliot emailed me last week. Here’s what he wrote:

CLICK or TAP HERE to see why you MUST NOT do what Elliot suggests.

Random Question(s) Feature

I’m thinking of creating a new feature in the newsletter called, Random Question. Let’s see how it goes.

Fear - It’s Paralyzing

Did you know that the emotion of fear automatically blocks the part of your brain that performs critical thinking and reasoning?

I’m sure you’ve experienced this before. It’s happened to me and I can confirm that when fear has overtaken you, your ability to think clearly is severely impaired.

It’s one reason why basic training in all military branches tries to squelch fear to show recruits that they can survive any situation.

Cleaning Cutting Boards

This morning I decided to clean and purify my kitchen cutting boards. Do you have ones like these?

CLICK or TAP HERE to see how I did it. I also have a #HACK to get out deep tomato sauce stains.

Bill's HAPPY Email - Over the Top!

Several days ago, I received an email from Bill just before dinner. It had been a tough day for me and Bill put a smile on my face wider than the airplane hanger door for a B-52 bomber!

CLICK or TAP HERE and look just below the bullet list to read Bill's message.

That’s probably enough for a Sunday.

Tim Carter Founder - www.AsktheBuilder.com CERTIFIED ORGANIC - www.STAINSOLVER.com Dihs and Dahs - www.W3ATB.com

Do It Right, Not Over!

P.S. Planning on sealing concrete before winter? CLICK or TAP HERE to see what sealer I feel is best.

The post September 6, 2020 AsktheBuilder Newsletter appeared first on Ask the Builder.

from Home https://www.askthebuilder.com/september-6-2020-askthebuilder-newsletter/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

0 notes

theheaterishotjournals · 4 years

Text

06/16/2020

Statuses

Me: Alright, I guess? Feel stupid? I dunno. Numb? Depression numb? Sunflower Charlie: So tall. Daniel can’t even reach the top. 7′ now?? Gonna bloom soon. Sunflower George: Almost reaches Charlie. Rivals. Sunflower Miriam: 4 blooms! Gonna get more. Bees all the time, so cute. Yellow jackets, less cute. But good for pest control. Tomato: They’re starting to grow. More flowers coming. Needs pruning. Mint: Needs pruning. Keeps getting eaten by bugs. Money plant: After the sun burning, growing so many buds now. Growing nicely. Bigger pot?? Rubber Plant: Doing well. Pachira: Better now that the fan isn’t pointing at it. Palm: Surprisingly alive. Succulents: All good. Đậu Đen: She’s doing good. Healthy. God, I hope she ain’t pregnant.

Dear you,

Today I went to work, still depressed. Elliot was kind enough to ask how I was doing and give me advice. I love Elliot. I don’t care what the rest of the crew says. I’m thankful for him.

Ervin told me he had to call out on Friday as well. He has hypertension. He keeps eating red meat though. I’m worried about him. I wish he could stay forever but come August, a new rotation.

Jeff wore a new hat today. It was, like. A golf cap? Instead of his usual cowboy hat. It looked good on him! I also appreciate Jeff.

Did runs. Easy day. Picked up Hydrogen Sulfide detector. The jambalaya Daniel made was so delicious. I love that he helps me get my lunch ready. I love Daniel.

Daniel kept sending me pics of the kitten today. I was so excited to see her. The second work ended, I drove home and ran straight to her (after dealing with mail). She seemed so quiet and lazy. It got me worried. It surprised me to roll her over and see 12 toes on her hind legs. Daniel said not to worry, she was probably napping. I couldn’t help but worry. Worry’s my middle name. Thanks to anxiety. He was trying to get me to calm down and convincing me to eat.

While eating, I tried to calm down. Told him to put on spongebob. But I kept thinking about what I had read online. The lethargy. Kittens were supposed to have energy. Her gums looked white. She meowed weakly.

Daniel could tell I was worried. He went out and got Đậu Đen and brought her inside. We had her and her kitty meet. It looked like the kitty kept trying to rub up on her and Đậu Đen kept walking off. It made me cry, I thought she was trying to abandon her. Daniel calmed me down, saying I was just being reminded me of my childhood. Eventually, the kitten kept rubbing up on her mom and Đậu Đen kept licking her like crazy. I felt so much relief.

We watched the two. The kitten kept weakly going up on her mom. Đậu Đen licked her, ate, and would walk off. I was wondering if we should get the kitten back to Đậu Đen but she wouldn’t take her. We called a hospital earlier, the hospital said hard to tell if it was an emergency and that walk ins would end soon.

I still didn’t feel right. I looked up a 24 hour animal hospital. I told her she was weak. Then I thought about it and told Daniel to tell them the kitten seemed like she was breathing hard. They said it didn’t sound right. We loaded her up in the cat carrier and took her to the car.

Đậu Đen walked with us, we tried to see if she wanted to come in the car with us. She didn’t. I figured ‘cause she had the other two kittens to worry about. We made off to the hospital.

There was a car there before us. A white couple with a beagle. I noticed the girl wiping away tears. It was hard to see. I wondered if we were taking up valuable timer with our kitten.

The hospital staff quickly came out and retrieved the kitten. We waited in the car. They quickly called us and said they needed a $500 deposit to get some vitals up. No info on what was wrong. I took a deep breath. I made a lot of money now but $500 was still nothing to sneeze at. I looked at Daniel, he said it was my money. I thought about how I had $2200 in checking and $3k in savings. I said to go for it.

I took out my embroidery. We joked around. I listened to a podcast. I felt bad joking around while the girl in the car next to us was crying.

Daniel and I had decided to name the cat. Noticing she was polydactyl on her hind legs, she had 12 toes total. Daniel decided to dub her Doce, the Spanish word for 12. I had named Đậu Đen so it only seemed fair to have one with a Viet name and one with a Spanish name.

Another call. They took down some info, transferred me to the doctor for the low down. The doctor explained Doce had been infested with fleas. She was a tiny cat, less than 5 weeks. With not much blood to spare, the fleas had sucked her down to nearly nothing. She asked if I had fed her. I told her just sugar water that we fed with a plastic syringe like thing we had used to give Đậu Đen her antibiotics. Then some salmon/water cat treat. I was on the verge of tears telling her this. I thought the doctor was gonna get mad I couldn’t feed her enough.

The doctor merely asked if she ate those things. I told her she did, the cat had licked at them. I think it was a good sign, that it meant Doce still had some energy. The doctor said the kitten was in critical health, knocking on death’s door. It was a good thing we had brought her in. They asked if I was willing to care for the cat, I said I was. She transferred me to billing.

While we were on hold, I joked with Daniel I hope it wasn’t $2k, knowing how much I had in the bank.

The billing went down.

“The doctor would like to do this test, that is $200. Then a fecal test for parasites. Another $200.”

As she listed the items, my stomach dropped.

The kitten had to be in an oxygen tent. $500. Luckily, she was small so IV would be cheap. Cheap as in $130. Another several hundred for transfusion. Another several hundred for blood test.

It went on and on and my stomach was clenched.

“Total comes to around $2,008. Not including the $500 you had put in as deposit earlier. The complete total is $2,508. What would you like to do?”

Was it expectations? Was it my inability to turn people down? I said yes. But I mentioned that I did not have enough in the bank. The billing lady said I could apply for carecredit.

I immediately remembered the first time I applied for carecredit. I was making $9,000 a year. I had severe dental problems and the dental bill was $1,200. I cried at the dentist’s office. I couldn’t afford it. CareCredit gave no interest for up to two years if you could pay within then. I was so thankful, I thanked them profusely even if they had nothing to do with it.

I looked at Daniel. He shrugged and told me it was my money.

With no hesitation, I went on my phone and applied. We called billing. It was all good. The nurse loved Doce’s name. Everyone marveled at the credit limit I was given. I felt somewhat good and happy about that.

The hospital said we could go home. They handed us the bill. 4 weeks and 3 days, they estimated Doce’s age.

Daniel went to go get the bill. The couple next to us, I guess they were finally called to bring the dog in. The guy opened the girl for the girl, banged the door on my car. I saw her cradle her dog and hurriedly left. I couldn’t care less they banged my car. I was mad, briefly, like, hey, wtf. Pay attention. But I saw the dog. Remember my car was dinged up anyways. Felt bad I was upset. Told Daniel. He also didn’t care, he also saw how they felt about their dog.

On the way to get gas, I realized by the time we got home, I’d have nearly 0 hours to relax. I told him he couldn’t tell anyone I spent this much. He agreed. He could tell I felt ashamed. Told me it was my money. Not in a way he didn’t care. But that this was what I wanted to make money for. I wanted to care for others. I wanted to donate most of my money. I’m saving a cat and I was looking for a pet. This is perfect. I asked what if the doctor says the kitten belongs to her mom? He said he’ll try to ask the vet if there’s any way we can keep her. Since it seems she got infested with fleas. We’ll find a way.

I hope so. I hope we can keep her but I just want her to be happy and healthy.

I felt dumb and stupid and insane for dropping this much money on a stray cat I’ve just met. I had to talk to Nevi. Nevi calmed me down, said it wasn’t a waste. 12 years of a cat’s life, this was nothing. I saw my money and knew it wasn’t completely necessary for now. I budgeted for it. I saw the value of the money going toward the cat. He helps me so much. I love Nevi with all my heart as well.

I watered my plants. I couldn’t sleep. I should be sleeping right now for work tomorrow but I’m too energized and nervous.

I don’t believe in God, but Daniel saw me do the sign of the cross in the car waiting to hear back on the news for the cat. Even being an agnostic, I find comfort in believing in a higher power.

I told him he knows I don’t believe in God but does he think God sent the kitten to us? Knowing we could help her? That’s why Đậu Đen tried ot get us to see her kittens. That’s why she left the kitten with us? ‘Cause after the antibiotics, she felt better and she knew we could help her? Did she know? Did God send her right when we were looking for pets, not having one yet, so we had extra money to care for her?

Did believing in God make me feel less guilty about spending the money on her? I think it did.

I donated money earlier this week to grassroots organizations that supported BLM. I hope to keep donating more money to those organizations per paycheck.

I hope that everyone stays happy and healthy. That there’s more community resources. I hope Doce survives and we can take her home and show her to Đậu Đen and Đậu Đen can see how happy and healthy she is. I hope we can be a happy and healthy family.

I love Daniel. I love Nevi. I am going to stay up and do some craft work. I love Daniel even though he’s making me shower in fear of fleas and I hate him for that.

I go to tomorrow with hope things turn out well. And work goes out well. And Ervin stops listening to conspiracy theories and takes care of himself. I hope BLM works out and we get changes we need. I hope I get enough rest tonight so I can work well tomorrow so I can make money for the cats and for Daniel and for my future pet dog.

I hope for everyone’s health and happiness.

-Vi

#mental health #cats

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