#Best Chandler Walnuts

[harddelusionninja]

#Chandler Walnut #Best Quality Walnuts #Best Quality Chandler Walnuts #Best Walnuts in California #Walnuts in California #Chandler Walnut in California #Best Chandler Walnuts

[blorbfoosh]

Chapter 5 -

“Imbeciles.” He growled, hitting her across the cheek, and sending her to the floor. She gasped, putting a hand to her stinging cheek. The man standing before her leered, before walking away. “Let her example be a sign of what will happen to YOU if you were one inch short of perfection. Dismissed.” He declared, snapping his fingers. She scrambled to her feet, to walk with the other workers, when a rough, calloused hand grabbed her wrist, dragging her close. “As for you... I’m not done with you yet.” She kicked and screamed but to no avail. He was wearing her down, weighing her down, and the last thing she saw before blacking out was a silver-laced grin. Aden gasped awake, scratching at her arms and torso, where ghosts of hands handled her roughly. ..what was that? She looked at her clock. 2:46 A.M. She balled her hands into fists, forcing herself to stop scratching. Where was Fr- Oh, there he was. Her beloved strawberry cat plushie, Fraysier. She held the little deity in her arms, careful not to squeeze him too hard. He was always so comforting. She hoped to free him one day. Getting up out of bed, she opened the glass doors leading to her balcony and stepped out into the chilly January night. Resting on the metal frame of the fence, she stared at the city below her. ..what was the reason for her existence? Why was she brought here? How long will this go on? She felt like nothing changed in the eight years she’s lived in Tivers- In Chandler City. Sure, people came and went, trends grew in and out of style, and her kids grew ever older. But.. She never really changed. Never truly improved from the woman she was back on the isles. That fact bit at her insides, making her shiver. She can’t sleep now, can she? Oh, well. Best be productive, right? She went in, closed the doors to the balcony, and made her way to her office. No sleep for her tonight, it seemed. Again.

Quentin took a deep huff of his cigar, putting his feet up on his gilded walnut table. His robotic prosthetic ran absentmindedly through his curly, chocolate hair, taking care to avoid the moth clip adorning it. He was bored. Didn’t fuckin’ ask to babysit his uncle’s strip club. Hellfire. Sister companies with the restobar/nightclub down the road, the Ashen Sunset. Quentin didn’t give a shit, though. He groaned, muttering about how he could be doing much more important matters if that traitor didn't steal the mouseling from under his nose. He swore he’ll find that bitch, and tear them apart. Taking his feet off of the table, he groaned, pacing around. What to do, what to-.. The moth clip suddenly glowed, spraying a little whiff of a sickly sweet scent-.. Dragonfruit? It wafted around the air, and Quentin caught it quickly. Standing up straight, he’d gently tap his moth clip. In front of him, a neon purplish light shined, weaving around the air, creating an intricate design of what seemed to be wings. The wings slowly unfurled, making a portal. Quentin grinned, hastily scribbling a note to his uncle about his disappearance. After all, he would understand. When the great moth calls, you must answer, right? He jumped through the portal, feeling the familiar sensation of wind-.. And that slight burning, like the winter winds whipping at your face. Acid. That’s how they travel around and to him. Where raindrow is, that’s where they can go with the aid of the great moth. Big T. Torah Bellerose, god of corruption, devil of greed- Past demi-god of Karma and Fortune. His boss. Landing softly on the gravel, he stared up at the large, imposing tower that stood before him. Most knew it as the casino, but to those who walk with Bellerose… They know what lies inside. Glancing up at the stone archway protruding out of the glass-covered tower, he looked at the neon purple sign above the archway which read ‘Demi’s Luck.’ Pretty damn ironic, considering who runs it. He appreciated the smooth transition from stone to glass. Pretty fuckin’ clever, the design. Walking into the establishment, he greeted the door people and took a breath, basking in the purple light. He could smell smoke of different kinds, the faint scent of certain liquids, and that sweet scent. It was strongest-... There. He maneuvered through the crowds, passing the card-game tables, the games built to rid ya of G, the cafe and bar, walking through the ballroom and up the grand staircase, leading to his boss’s office. Knocking three times on the door, Quentin fiddled awkwardly with his hair. He didn’t usually take this long to reply…

“Come in.” A gruff voice with a slightly robotic quality answered, and Quentin relaxed, pushing the door open. The office was a bright contrast to the casino. Instead of being bathed in purple light, it’s a gentle yellow instead. The floors were of grey marble tile, and overall it looked more modern and futuristic of a sort. Bookshelves lined the walls, full of ancient history and notes of something. A tall, imposing shadow loomed over a desk, dual-colored wings folded neatly on his back, large, fluffy antennae twitching agitatedly. “Good. You’re here.” The figure turned, revealing a uniquely fashionable fellow. Chocolate skin, lush, wavy black hair cascading over his shoulders- And the clothes? A beautiful white button-up with a yellow, purple, and black splattered boa, his pants black palazzos, fading to white at the feet- And white, high-heeled ankle boots. Besides the wings, other unique features include a gas-like mask, except that the canisters are filled with a bright, colorful acid, swirling around. A purple, pupilless eye stared down coldly at him, a bright sheen seeming to emanate from it, dragging Quentin in further. To o b e y. Blinking out of the trance, he saw Torah step aside, and gesture to a holographic screen. Taking this sign to step forward, he took a closer look at what was happening. He saw a humanoid drone, with peachy, yellowish skin and wavy black hair, a bang swooped to the side, hiding an eye. He had white oval glasses and a l o n g snoot. An Addi. Spamton variant, actually. That white streak told him all he needed to know. Besides the faded, dual-colored suit and white, wide-legged pants. But that shell seemed a bit too soft-.. Like a puppet. 

He seemed to be getting ticked off by a customer in front of him, yapping on about something. Torah slammed a hand on the table, a soft growl escaping him. Seems like he didn’t like the Addi on the screen. “Quentin. I have a job for you. You see this puppet, yes?” “Yes, sir. Do you want me to-” The moth waved his hand dismissively, shaking his head.

“No, I don’t want you to exterminate him. I want you to go cause him pain in any and every way. Do whatever. Just cause him pain. Slow and sweet. Make him regret crossing me. The Great Moth.” Upon saying this, he placed his other hand on the table, leaning close to the hologram. Anger sparked in his eyes, and he gripped a fist, making Quentin step back subconsciously. He did not want to anger Bellerose. Oh, the stories told about who has angered the moth.. Quentin could go on about the blood-chilling tales for ages. But he had a job to do. Nodding at Bellerose, he’d take the file on the table and take his leave, exiting the casino. Finally, a job. Aleena curled around a ragged blanket, shifting in her makeshift bed in the fire exit of a penthouse. She spent the whole night maneuvering up, up, up the building, checking for places to sleep. Her magic wasn’t that strong, being a mere halfling- But 8 years of being alone honed her skill well. It just exhausted her. ..At least the skel she bumped into was kind enough to hand her some food. They were about roughly five feet, with bright amethyst eyelights, and a golden circlet. A plain, loose, dark purple blouse clothed his figure and black bellbottoms for his legs. Black flat ankle boots tapped nervously on the asphalt as they shared a quick chat. He wasn’t much, but he was nice. Aleena appreciated people like those. The world needed more kind souls. Groaning, she’d adjust her body again, before wiggling around. ..The fuck was prodding her- Rolling here and there, she’d maneuver her body around in the small space, trying to make her sleeping spot more comfortable. She’d pull out a rusty gun prototype out of the rags and shudder, tossing it at the trapdoor. It made a faint ‘clunk’ and Aleena winced, hiding under the mossy-colored blanket. She remembered hearing voices outside earlier.

The door swung open slightly, just a crack, letting warm orange-ish light stream through. Blinking as her eyes adjusted, she squinted, observing her surroundings. It was a nice room, with a medium-sized bed, peach covers making it look warm and inviting. A white sideboard drawer stood beside it, hosting a lamp and a few folders. But what she saw on the bed was more intriguing than the background. She saw a woman in her mid-late 20’s, cradling someone, singing softly to them. Her voice was quiet yet strong, reaching even to her ears. It was in a language she didn’t understand, yet it was familiar. Then, another voice joined along in the singing, and the two dueted in harmony. Utter music to Aleena. They stayed like that for a while, before the woman stood up, and left, bidding the other farewell. This was when they turned around, and caught eyes with Aleena, which made her swiftly close the door and turn around, burrowing under the thin blanket once more. The metal door rattled, and Aleena stayed stock still. Warm light bathed the cool fire exit, and a groggy voice mumbled. So.. Close. Shit. It caught on the blanket, and it tugged, slowly revealing a shell-shocked Aleena. Aleena, slowly turning to find the culprit and found no other, but the girl she followed(but lost), a few days ago, clad in a baggy hoodie and fuzzy slippers, her bi-colored hair running aloof and all over the place. She merely blinked at Aleena, before smiling warmly. Blue and green orbs sparked with interest, seeming to bore into Aleena and try and tug the past out and away. That feeling was odd. Like she was being scanned. ..This interested her. What exactly was this kid about? What could she be hiding? It was just itching at her, bugging her to go and get the information to carefully dissect it all. “...You’re pretty badass, miss.” Those were the first words that made her genuinely laugh in a long time. Her laughing made the other girl laugh as well, and soon, we had two gals snorting about nothing like sisters. The shorter, still chuckling, calmed down fairly easily and once again made eye contact with the hybrid skel. “My name’s Psyche. Psyche Olonor Vuidenne. And you?” No harm in trying. As long as she can crash rent-free, yeah? “The name’s Aleena. No last name.” Psyche nodded, her curls bouncing with her excited movements. “Well, Aleena, welcome to the fam. Not officially, of course. I’ll sneak you food and everything and you can live in secret cause I’m not sure if Iolus will allow it- And I can bring you better stuffing if you DO plan to stay in this neat little cache over here- Ooh, and then..”

Psyche tugged Aleena out of her hiding spot, plopping the latter on the lush, carpeted floor, as she rambled on and on. The walls were plastered with stickers, papers, and knicknacks, the shelves overflowing with stuff. It was beautifully messy and it reminded the elder of times gone past. Laying down on the floor, Aleena sighed, closing her eyes, letting the lull of the preteen’s ranting sweep her away into much-needed rest. Meanwhile, in a dark and wet basement-.. There was a poor guy strapped to a chair. He was unconsious, with a trail of blood rolling down the side of his head. Slowly shaking himself awake, he looked around, blearily trying to focus on his surroundings. Upon figuring out he couldn’t move, he panicked, moving more and causing a whole lot of ruckus, yelling for help.

“Tsk. Pathetic.”

A soft and silky voice echoed through the basement, the source close behind him. Straining to see who it was, he felt a small prickle on the back of his neck. He stiffened, and watched, as a slim figure circled his chair and come into sight. What he saw was surprising. A stunning woman, clad in a black bodysuit, approached him with ice blue eyes.

“Don’t try and struggle. He’ll be here soon, and I want you fresh and ripe for the picking. Obey me, and maybe I can guarantee your safe release.”

She leaned close to him, purring the last word, letting her wavy, red locks tumble over her shoulders. The chained man stiffened, glancing around anxiously.

“..y-you won’t hurt me.. Right?”

She grinned, shrugging, grabbing a blade that has a foxglove imprinted on it.

“No promises.”

Feet lightly tapped on the wet cement, as a figure ran, hopping across rooftops, eluding cameras and watchful eyes of the Starflame. He couldn’t afford it, getting caught now, getting caught again. He was lucky enough last time that the little stick figure- Nia, was it-? That it helped him. Now, no one would.

Cause he was late for an appointment.

Skidding across a sloped roof of a building, Knife swore softly as an edge caught on his jacket.

“Shit, I just bought that. Was quality too..”

He carefully removed the jacket from the protruding edge, and continued running, his target-shaped SOUL shining dully in the rainy night. He kept on his way, turning right and left, zigzagging all over the place.

He passed a confectionery with a pancake lollipop sign on it, a mall, the prestigious Tivers Academy, and an apartment building. He swore he saw someone standing at the penthouse balcony, but he was too busy to really care. Hopping down on the gravel, he turned to an alleyway, slowing down. Suddenly, his phone buzzed. Knife groaned, checking the caller ID. On the screen shone a lazy doodle of a grumpy black octopus, with the name set as ‘Boss Octopussy.’ Knife snorted at this, picking up.

“Heya, Boss. Whaddya need from me?”

Shade growled into the mic, slamming his hand on the table.

“Get your ass back here now. Client did a rain check- We lost them to some company called Foxglove.”

Knife blinked at this. It was rare that there was a new company to rival theirs, and one to attract Shade’s attention. Surely they must have good stuff.

“Alright, whateva you say, Boss.”

“But since you’re out, I need you to keep on looking around. Not for places, but for anything new. I’ve been picking up reports that there’s things changing around here. Look for said things and report back to me immediately once you’ve got them. There might be some ethereal bull we can take hold of.”

Knife rolled his barely-visible eyelights, sighing. He didn’t wanna be here now, that he had no one to play with. He just wanted to be at home, arguing with Ash over useless shit, or talking with Axe. Maybe pound nice and hard into a slick-

“Killian. Are you there?”

Knife snarled at the use of his real name.

“Never left, you old man.”

“...Whatever. Are you going, or not?”

“Fiiiine… But you better be paying me something,” he purred into the phone with a smirk. Shade groaned, rubbing his nose bridge and nodded.

“Fine. But you better not be gambling it all away again.”

“Deal.”

And with that, Knife turned, setting off into the night once more. Maybe he’d go and check out the penthouse.

#inspired #oc #oc stuff #original story #drmv #original au #self indulgent #utdr au #utmv #original character #The Intertwining #Weya Allix #Omnis Prime IV #ogau #references to torture

[onecallweb]

#Chandler Walnut #Best Quality Walnuts #Best Quality Chandler Walnuts #Best Walnuts in California #Walnuts in California #Chandler Walnut in California #Best Chandler Walnuts

[regolithheart]

Love In The Time of Coronavirus: Chapter Two

Summary: One pandemic, one lake house, and two people who loathe one another. Will they be able to survive the outbreak...and each other?

MASTER LIST

Read on AO3.

---------------

CHAPTER TWO:

FUCK! Fuck, fuck, fuck. 

Nesta was being punished—for all the horrible things she had done in another life. Probably for all of the horrible things she had done in this life. Would things have been different if she had volunteered more? Gave money to charities? Stopped calling people idiots?

Looking at the man standing outside of her car, grinning at her, confirmed that no, nothing would have prevented the universe from deciding to ruin her life.

“I’ll talk to you later,” Nesta grumbled and hung up the phone before Elain could respond. 

She narrowed her eyes at the figure watching her, trying to assess her options. If only she’d arrived five minutes earlier, she could have gotten the worse news in recent memory and turned her car around. She would have gladly driven all night, that six and a half hour drive in reverse, if it meant she could avoid the predicament she was now in.

But there was no point in wishful thinking. That wasn’t how life worked for Nesta. So she took another deep breath and stepped out of her car. 

“Nesta Archeron.” The voice was deep and much closer than she had expected. How he got to her car so quickly, she didn’t know. 

When he reached over to help her, she slammed the door shut. It was much more forceful than she had expected it to be, but being able to take out some of her irritation in that way gave her a little relief. 

The man’s eyes were still holding her face which made her want to ball up her fists, but Nesta noticed his grin falter a fraction before he twitched his thumb towards himself.

“Cassian,” he offered.

“I know.” She turned on her heels, but caught the reassuring nod he gave himself—the slightest movement of his chin—out the corner of her eye.

She popped her trunk open. 

He followed her. Of course he did.

“Need a hand?”

Nesta grabbed her suitcase and heaved it out in one fluid motion, then grabbed her work bag and slung it on her shoulder. 

“No.”

There was that insufferable grin again. 

“Looks like you do,” Cassian said and grabbed the bag full of books before Nesta could protest and closed the trunk with a firm hand. 

Nesta ground her teeth, but he was already walking towards the house.

“You coming, sweetheart?”

Nesta’s bag bounced and kicked up the gravel as she wheeled it behind her, but she refused to walk any quicker. 

Cassian had already turned the corner and she let herself pause for a moment to take in the scenery. Past the manicured lawn and white Adirondack chairs were stone steps cut into the gentle slope that wound down to a wooden dock nestled in the water. 

Tall oaks framed her view and Nesta saw a pair of swallows skim the rippling surface. She watched as they danced around each other, dipping, gliding, pulling apart and then diving close. 

She grimaced at the thought that one single cocky male with a man-bun no less, was the only difference between her idea of paradise and her idea of hell on earth.

Turning around to head inside, she saw Cassian standing there watching her and she didn’t know what agitated her more. The fact that one of his eyebrows was raised, amusement on his face, or that he was holding the door open, waiting for her. 

Nesta marched through the French doors, ignoring him completely. 

---------------

The house in one word was…beautiful. It was so beautiful that as she looked around, Nesta was only mildly irritated at Rhys. She had hoped that she would able to turn her scrupulous eye on it and tally up all the tell-tale signs of architecture-by-numbers and she was ready to use every ounce of that as ammo against him. 

She had almost stopped in the middle of the doorway when she saw the large white cedar dining table with the 180 degree view of the lake, not the live-edge walnut table with gaudy chandler she had expected to see. And her body hummed with pleasant surprise to see that the rest of the house was decorated in the same modest way with soft muted colors as to not compete with the surrounding landscape that could be appreciated through the large expanses of glass. 

Cassian cleared his throat behind her. “Would you like a tour?”

Nesta tried her best at a non-committal shrug and was glad that he didn’t comment. 

He set down Nesta’s book bag onto the counter of the breakfast bar and gestured wide. “Kitchen and dining room,” and nodded his head past Nesta’s shoulder. “Living room.”

Nesta eyed the double-height room and appreciated the openness of the living spaces. She followed Cassian down the corridor as he pointed out the butler’s pantry and half-bath. Next to it was the office where the two side walls were lined with bookshelves, flanking the large window that overlooked the lawn.

“You can work in here…if you want.” Cassian said, motioning to Nesta’s work bag which she still had slung on her shoulder.

She hummed and shrugged again, hitching her bag higher on her shoulder.

Across the office was the media room which housed a projection screen and what looked to be a custom made sofa big and deep enough for ten Cassians to lounge comfortably. Nesta eyed the array of pillows in varying shades of purple as she ran a hand along the arm of the sofa. Mohair. 

Next to the media room, as Elain had promised was a home gym. There were some weight machines as well as a treadmill and two Pelotons, which made Nesta roll her eyes. Free weights and yoga mats sat in one corner of the room and Nesta’s jaw nearly dropped to see an actual sauna across from the en suite bath. 

Cassian chuckled at the look on her face. 

“Believe it or not, it gets used quite often.”

Nesta had told Elain this wasn’t a vacation, but she made a mental note to take advantage of the sauna as much as possible while she was stuck there. 

“And here,” Cassian said, taking long strides to the French doors that clearly opened to the outside, “Is the back patio.”

It was a sliver of space that was sandwiched between the house and the sloping hill next to it, but it was big enough for a small lap pool, an outdoor shower and a Jacuzzi. 

“If you didn’t bring your own, there are extra towels and swimsuits for guests in the linen closet. Although…” Cassian’s eyelids drooped as he eyed her up and down, the tip of his tongue sticking out the corner of his mouth. “I’m not one for ceremony around here.” 

Nesta looked at him and took two steps closer. His grin widened, showing his canines. 

She tilted her face towards him, her smile matching his. “Eat shit,” she said and walked away. She heard his bark of laughter behind her.

The only other room on the first floor was the master bedroom which was modest in size given what Nesta has need of the house so far, but it did open up to its own private patio with a spectacular view of the forest meeting the water. 

What wasn’t modest however, was the master bathroom and closet, which combined was the same size as the bedroom. Possibly bigger.

Nesta felt an odd flutter in her chest when she saw Feyre’s clothes neatly hanging in the closet next to Rhys’. She quickly left the room and almost ran into Cassian in the corridor. 

“The bedrooms are upstairs. You can have your pick,” he said.

She was surprised that he didn’t add any additional commentary when she nodded at him. 

She wanted to protest when he grabbed her suitcase on the way, but she found that her throat was dry, so she simply followed him up the stairs.

“So when are Elain and Gregory showing up?” Cassian asked. 

Nesta couldn’t tell if he was trying to make a joke or if he really forgot Graysen’s name. Either way, it was funny enough to take the sting out of the fact that Elain was still in Los Angeles and Nesta allowed herself a smile. 

“Not until tomorrow,” she answered stopping next to him on the second floor. 

He gestured to the first door which stood ajar. “This is my bedroom. Feel free to stop by anytime.” He nudged the door open further as he grinned at her.

Nesta looked at him and refused to let her eyes wander past his shoulder. That was exactly what he wanted and she wasn’t going to play his game. She held his gaze with a hard glare of her own and then continued down the hallway.

Cassian chuckled as he easily caught up with her. “Mor and Az’s rooms, but they’re not here to object if you take one. Guest bath, guest bath, guest room, and another guest room. This one actually has its own bath connected to it.”

“Great,” Nesta said, pushing the door open and dropping her work bag onto the bed. The fact that the bedroom had its own bathroom was a plus enough, but it being as far away as possible from Cassian was a little miracle that she thought the universe owed her. 

Cassian followed and set the suitcase down at the foot of the bed. “There’s one more floor…if you’re interested in seeing the library.”

He left the room and it irritated her that he already knew the answer before she even said it. 

Nesta debated whether or not to close her bedroom door and deny Cassian the acknowledgement that he knew anything about her. However small the insight was, it felt like a violation, especially since she hadn’t offered the fact willingly. 

In the end, her love of books won out and when she reappeared in the hallway, she saw Cassian leaning against the railing at the end of the corridor, waiting for her.

“Needed a moment?”

Nesta’s spine tingled with fire. “Your big ego was sucking all of the air out of the room. I needed to catch my breath.”

Cassian’s grin widened, but he didn’t provide a remark which Nesta thought was oddly out of character for him. He simply stood up, stretched his arms over his head which revealed a slice of bronzed skin between his jeans and t-shirt, and began to climb the stairs.

He was trying to rile her up on purpose and she refused to fall for the bait.

The entire third floor of the house was half terrace that looked like it doubled as an outdoor living space, complete with outdoor sofas and loungers, and even another dining table, and a library. Any wall that wasn’t lined with floor to ceiling bookcases was a window. 

The focus of the third floor, as was with the other floors, was the breathtaking view onto Lake Velaris, but Nesta was overcome by the stacks before her. Unlike the office where the bookshelves were all lined with trinkets and photos, the library was full of an extensive collection of books. 

There was all the classics, bound in leather. Some, to Nesta’s surprise were even first or second editions, just sitting there waiting to be touched. There were old Californian almanacs and all types of history books. There were large atlases spanning decades and art books featuring well-known and obscure artists alike. And a quarter of the books were in different languages. Nesta counted at least five as she scanned the shelves. 

She rounded one of the stacks and saw Cassian sitting in a window seat. His legs were stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles. His arm was slung across the upholstered back of the seat and he was looking out the window, watching the trees rustle in the breeze.

His ear twitched when he heard her approaching and he turned to look at her. “Does it please the lady?”

Leave it to Cassian to ruin the first bit of real happiness Nesta had found since she had arrived. And no longer under the library’s spell, she crossed her arms. 

“Why aren’t you in France?”

Cassian raised his eyebrow, amused, but also a little perplexed. “What an odd question to ask someone. Why aren’t you in France?” 

Nesta did not want to play this game with him. “Why aren’t you in France with Feyre and Rhys and…the others?”

“Oh.” He scratched his chin and the sound of his fingernails against his five o’clock shadow grated on Nesta’s nerves. “I was never in France with Feyre and Rhys and…the others.” 

He grinned at her, then leaned his shoulder against the shelf next to him. 

“Actually, I was in France with them, but only for a couple of days back in February. Have you ever been to Taillé? It’s a bit pretentious, but the risotto was top notch. That reminds me…” Cassian was on his feet in one graceful movement and was leaving Nesta behind as he descended the stairs.

Nesta rolled her eyes. It was rich that he would call anything pretentious considering the fact that they were currently quarantining themselves in a lake-side mansion. 

She could hear him shuffling and moving things around on the first floor so she gave the library one final longing look, with the promise to return, and went downstairs.

In the kitchen, Cassian was putting things away. It looked as though he had been in the middle of doing so when Nesta had first arrived. 

She walked slowly around the grey marble island, taking stock of the groceries and nearly stumbled over a crate of wine at her feet.

“You never answered my question,” she said, plucking a grape from its bunch.

Cassian looked back at her.

Was he really this dumb or was he trying to get under her skin?

“Why aren’t you in France with…your family?”

He shrugged. “Rhys was there because Feyre was. I think he was using the time to look for some real estate opportunities, and since Azriel’s his finance guy, he needed to be there to bless any deals. And Mor…just does whatever she wants, but if you ask her, she’d say as vice president, her role was crucial.”

“Don’t you work for Rhys, too?”

Cassian paused at putting the eggs away. “My company works for Rhys’.”

“Your company? What does it do?” She had to admit, she was a little intrigued and paused to wonder if he had told her this before. Perhaps at some gathering or dinner she had been forced to attend.

The color on Cassian’s ears made her think her suspicions were true. 

“Cyber security.” His answer was curt. 

So she could get under his skin. 

“Like in…hacking and stuff?”

“Something like that.”

Maybe not so dumb after all. 

“And your family asked you to stock the house with provisions in the anticipation of their arrival.”

“I volunteered.”

“But now they’re stuck in Europe and you’re stuck…with me.” It satisfied her to think he might be equally as unhappy as she was with this arrangement.

Cassian turned to her, closing the fridge door behind him. The tension in his shoulders was gone, or perhaps it was never there to begin with. Maybe she had misread his body language because his usual arrogant grin had returned.

“I like to think we’re stuck here together.” He picked up a box of rigatoni. “Hungry?”

There was the tip of his tongue again, poking out of the corner of his smile.

Nesta bristled. “No,” she said before grabbing a banana from the bowl in front of her and turning on her heels to march upstairs.

She hoped she wouldn’t have to deal with him for the rest of the night.

#acotar #nessian #nessian fanfic #nesta archeron #cassian #cassian archeron #feyre archeron #elain archeron #rhysand #azriel #morrigan #graysen #love in the time of coronavirus

[rhetoricandlogic]

The Thought That Counts By K.J. Parker

Issue #250, Special Double-Issue

, April 26, 2018

AUDIO PODCAST

EBOOK

“...wanted me to marry Logo the tanner. He’s got a beautiful home, she said, and you soon get used to the smell. Mother, I said, I don’t want to get used to the smell. I don’t ever want to be the sort of person who doesn’t notice the stink of sheep’s brains. She just looked at me. That’s when I knew I had to leave.”

I decided I didn’t like her mother. Priorities all wrong. Egging her on to marry defenceless tanners when she should have been teaching her not to talk to strange men in stagecoaches. Which raises the incidental question; am I a strange man? I guess, on balance, yes. Decide for yourself.

“So I went home, slung all the stuff I needed into a bag, and here I am, on my way to the big city. My name’s Sinneva, by the way.”

“Constantius,” I lied. “Pleased to meet you.”

Another lie, but she smiled. “Are you a priest?”

Two reasons why a man might be wearing ecclesiastical vestments in a coach on the four-way to Sempa Sacona. One, he’s a priest. Or two, the lock on the vestment cupboard at the Blue Light monastery is so pathetic a blind man could open it with a sprig of damp heather. “Yes,” I said. “Sort of.”

“Are you going to Sempa?”

“Stopping off,” I said. “On my way somewhere else.”

“It’ll be my first time in the big city,” she said, “I’m looking forward to it so much. All my life I’ve wanted to go there. Is it really as wonderful as they say it is?”

“Depends on what you like,” I said.

“I’m going to be an artist,” she said. “Somewhere like Sempa, you can make a living as an artist. I do portraits. I’m not terribly good at it.”

That would explain the bag full of little pottery jars nestling between her feet. I’d sort of looked at them sideways when she first got on the coach. Worth money to somebody, but rather a specialised market. Besides, I’m through with all that sort of thing.

“Funny you should say that,” I said. “I’m interested in paint.”

“Painting.”

“Paint,” I said. “I dabble a bit in alchemy, and I reckon it might be possible to make synthetic blue. Instead of having to grind up ruinously expensive lapis lazulae in a pestle and mortar.” She didn’t say anything, so I went on: “There’s definitely a demand for it. A genuine deep royal blue at a fraction of the price. A man could make a nice little bit of money that way.”

“I’ve never used blue.”

“Too expensive?”

She nodded. “That’s why I started doing portraits, you don’t have to have any sky.”

“There you are, then,” I said. “When I’ve perfected my synthetic blue, you can do portraits of people outdoors. You could corner the market.”

She looked at me. Strange man, she was thinking. At this point, her mother’s awful warning should have leapt into her mind and shut her up like a vault, but no such luck. “People like to be painted in their houses,” she said, “surrounded by all their possessions. It’s the convention. That way, you can see how rich and powerful they are, and what exquisite taste they have. Outdoors, they could be anybody.”

“Ah,” I said gravely. “I see.”

“Not that I want to be constrained by conventions,” she said, looking out of the window. “I want to paint what I really see. Does that make any sense to you?”

“As opposed to what other people see? Or what’s actually there?���

I was starting to get on her nerves. Well; it had taken long enough. “What I see,” she said. “Which may not be the same thing as what you see.”

“Because I’m not particularly observant, and may have missed something.”

“Because I see the world as it could be.”

“Ah.” I pulled a couple of walnuts out of my pocket and cracked them together in my palm. I have very strong hands. “In that case, maybe you should consider religious subjects. The spiritual dimension.”

“Women aren’t allowed to paint icons. You should know that, being a priest.”

“Sort of a priest. And I didn’t specify icons.”

“If it’s a portrait and religious, it’s an icon. So I can’t do those, it’s illegal.”

“I read somewhere,” I said, quoting myself—well, I sometimes read my own books, when all else fails— “that the object of portraiture is to capture the soul of the sitter.”

“That’s an interesting way of putting it.”

Thank you, I nearly said. “I reckon you’d have to know a lot about human nature. Do you?”

“Everybody does, don’t they? Like fish know about water.”

And still thirty miles to go until we reached Sempa. But you don’t get to choose your travelling companions on the public coach. Next time, if there’s any justice, I’ll get a couple of rich tallow-chandlers who think they’re good at playing cards for money.

Actually, I was telling the truth about blue paint. I came across the tantalising possibility a few years back, when I was making my living as a fraudulent alchemist, and I dream of the day when I can settle down and do the thing properly, in peace and quiet, not always having to jump out of windows in the middle of the night to avoid creditors, disillusioned investors, or the Watch. It’s a sad thing to say about yourself, but I’m not the most honest, upright citizen you’re ever likely to meet—which Sinneva the would-be portrait painter should’ve noticed at first glance if she was in any way suited to her chosen profession. I won’t tell you my name, because you’d recognise it immediately; and either you’d say, My God, it’s him, or, Oh God, it’s him, depending on the context in which you’ve heard of me. But you will have heard of me. Everybody has.

The reason I’d come to Sempa was to see the Polyglypton brothers. If you know Sempa, you’ll know their stall; it’s under the lime tree in the old Bird Market, and you’ve probably spent far more money there than you care to admit. They have their warehouse and scriptorium (rather a grand name for a long, draughty shed) out back of the stockyards, where the air is always heavy with the stench of blood. You get used to it, so they tell me, but I can’t imagine how.

As I walked there across the Victory Bridge I amused myself with the thought of Sinneva the aspiring artist; suppose she managed to land the job of her dreams, doing the illustrations for the extra-special-deluxe editions (no, not those ones, they don’t let women work on those). She’d turn up for her first day at work, and the smell would hit her like a hammer—a tannery is roses and lavender compared to what the breeze wafts down from the slaughteryards—and someone would grin at her and say, it’s all right, you get used to it. I stopped at the outer gate and splashed a fat blob of attar of violets onto the lapels of my coat. It helped, but not very much.

Sivia and Massimo Polyglypton receive visitors in their office, which is more a sort of hayloft over the warehouse; you climb up a ladder, for crying out loud. I’d never met them before. Sivia is tall and thin, Massimo looks like the sort of man they hire to throw undesirables out of brothels. They told me to sit down and offered me ginger tea.

“We liked it,” Massimo said, “very much. But—”

“But?”

They looked at each other. “I mean, it’s very clever,” Sivia said. “Well argued and very well written. It’s just—”

“What?”

Awkward pause. “I think,” Massimo said, “the word we’re looking for is ‘derivative’.”

Derivative. Good word; not one you’d expect to hear in a loft downwind of an abbatoir. “Derivative of what?”

Massimo pursed his lips. “You’ve read the Metaphysics, obviously.”

The book he mentioned wasn’t called that. I’ve changed the name. Why shouldn’t I? I wrote the damn thing. “Well, yes.”

“And Reflections on the Abyss and Sunrise.”

“Oh yes.”

“That’s what we’re getting at,” Sivia said apologetically. “Frankly, if He’d written this, we’d be all over it like ants on a dead donkey. Coming from you, though—”

“Someone nobody’s ever heard of,” Massimo added.

“It’s a question of authority,” Sivia said. “Credibility. To get away with the sort of thing you’re saying here, you need to be—well, someone like Him. You think all this is very startling and original, but if He says it, obviously there must be something to it. No disrespect, but you don’t carry that weight. You haven’t earned that right to be listened to. It’s not the same.”

Annoying, because the Him they were talking about was, of course, me; universally respected as one of the greatest philosophers of my generation but wanted in all the major jurisdictions for every crime in the book short of actual murder. “I see your point,” I said. “So, you don’t want it.”

They looked at each other. “We didn’t say that.”

“Ah. So what are you saying?”

They said it, and then we haggled a bit, and the upshot was, I settled for thirty angels instead of the seventy-five we’d originally agreed. Annoying, because I needed the money, but thirty angels was twenty-nine angels ninety kreuzer more than I had in the whole world at that time (that’s putting the value of one set of stolen ecclesiastical vestments at ten kreuzer), so I was, of course, pleased to accept.

Not, I reflected as I scrambled back down that ridiculous ladder, that I had much to complain about. Writing the wretched thing had kept me mildly amused through the long dreary months I’d spent holed up in a half-derelict sawmill in the hill country north of Copis City, waiting for the fuss to die down after one of my more misguided indiscretions; the parchment and ink had cost me maybe two kreuzer, so nobody could pretend I wasn’t well ahead of the game. Even so. To be fined forty-five angels for not being me when I really am me is a bit hard. And since being me is such a wretched, troublesome business at the best of times, it sort of rubs salt into the wound, if you see what I mean.

But never mind. There I was in Sempa Secona, a place where there were no outstanding warrants for my arrest and no extradition treaties with either the Eastern or Western empire, with thirty gold angels in my pocket. For once in my life, I could walk down the street without looking for places to run to if I heard someone yell my name. That set me thinking: artificial blue paint. Well, a man has to have a dream. The fact that mine is so utterly prosaic is neither here nor there.

I hired a shed not far from the bone mills, for thirty kreuzer a week. One unfortunate by-product of alchemy is the smell (you get used to it, but...); my neighbours at the bone works would be in no position to get stroppy about a few noxious fumes, except on the grounds of breach of monopoly. I managed to buy the glassware ridiculously cheap from someone’s gullible widow, with enough left over to keep me in stale bread and no-longer-perfectly-fresh salt fish for several months, by which time I was absolutely certain I’d have cracked the last few remaining problems. A life of honest endeavour; well, why not? Everyone ought to try it at least once before he dies.

I won’t bore you with the results of my researches. Suffice it to say, I proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that making artificial blue paint using certain specific ingredients and a certain method, which I won’t specify here, is absolutely impossible. As a scientist, I was pleased to have added to the sum of human knowledge. As a moral philosopher, I was able to conclude that living a pure and upright life doesn’t of itself lead to happiness or even peace of mind. The day before the money finally ran out, I did come across a tantalising possibility which, one of these days, I really must get around to following up, since it might just be the missing ingredient that would make all the difference; but of course I was in no position to do anything about it at that time, so I sold the glassware for even less than I paid for it and wandered into the centre of town, trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my life.

A number of rather unpleasant things have happened to me over the years in and around law courts, so I really can’t tell you what possessed me to drift across Haymarket and down the Snailshell into the Forum of Justice. But I did, and sure enough, it being a week-day in Middle Term, the court was sitting. I guess the novelty of the situation—a court of law in session, and me not being the unwilling centre of attention—piqued my interest; anyhow, I sat down on an empty seat in the back row, next to couple of fat rich women eating apples, to watch the show. It was a fairly slow day, interlocutories in disputes over shipping manifests and bills of lading, and I was just about to leave when the magistrate banged his little hammer and four grim-looking gaolers led out, in chains, my annoying young friend from the coach; yes, her, the would-be portrait artist.

Four gaolers; in my prime I only ever merited three, and I was pretty hot stuff, though I do say so myself. True, she was taller than average and no willow-wand, but four kettlehats, for crying out loud. What could she possibly have done? And, come to that, was it something so awful that the authorities might be interested in her known associates? I kept perfectly still and started paying attention.

It was a simple short-form arraignment, rather than the actual trial. The prisoner Sinneva was accused of treason, attempted murder, and grievous bodily harm. She had entered a plea of Not Guilty, and the prosecutor was asking the magistrates to commit her for immediate trial.

The magistrate asked if the prisoner had a lawyer. The prosecutor didn’t actually grin; none of the accredited public defenders were prepared to represent her. And therefore -

Remind me, when I’ve got five minutes, to have my legs cut off. They’ve come in useful over the years—running away, they’re really good at that—but on this occasion they got me into serious trouble, and I can’t risk them doing it again. They stood me up—I swear, I had nothing to do with it—and there I was, on my feet and listening in horror to my own voice, asking permission to approach the bench.

The magistrate looked at me, took in the ecclesiastical gown, and nodded. So, feeling incredibly bewildered and stupid, I waddled slowly down the main aisle until I was practically nose to nose with the magistrate, a small, red-faced man with thick wavy white hair. I cleared my throat. “This woman,” I said, “has no representation.”

“That’s right.”

“On a capital charge.”

He peered at me. “I don’t know you,” he said.

“I’m from out of town. Is this how you do things in Sempa?”

He sniggered. “No, not in the normal course of things. Are you a lawyer?”

“Yes,” I said—truthfully, as it happens; at least, I have four degrees in civil and criminal law, though most of my experience has been on the other side of the fence, so to speak. “Constantius of Beloisa. I have diplomas from the Studium, the Imperial Institute in Mavortis, the Purple Chamber in Scona—”

“Mphm.” He was impressed. “You don’t want to get mixed up in this, trust me.”

I gave him a polite scowl. “I make formal application to defend this prisoner.”

“Don’t you want to know what she’s done?”

“Is alleged to have done. No, not particularly.”

A gentle sigh. “All right, mister Out-of-Town, and on your own head be it. Duly accredited.” He looked at me. “Give your address to the clerk, you’ll be notified.”

I hesitated. “The fee,” I said.

“Ah.” He looked at me again, taking in the frayed cuffs of the robe, the sweatstains inside the collar. “Standard rates, one angel twenty a day. Want me to cross you off the docket?”

“It’s not about the money,” I said.

“Of course not. Dismissed.”

Naturally, I asked around. Information wasn’t hard to come by; it was the scandal of the month. This weird female had blown into town, nobody knew where she’d come from, and set up a stall in the market; your portrait painted, one angel. No takers, naturally; so she started doing portraits for free, and actually they were really rather good; you know how crazy fashions suddenly spring up out of nowhere, suddenly she was the new big thing. You had to have your portrait painted by the little peasant girl, or you were nobody. Soon she had a waiting list long as your arm.

Naturally, the best people wanted to jump the queue, started offering her good money. She refused; one angel, no more, no less. Now an angel is a tidy sum in some contexts; you could buy the farm I was raised on for three angels, including the live and dead stock, the standing crops, and my kid brother. In Sempa, you could live elegantly on one angel for a month, or any-bloody-fashion for a year. But the high class portrait artists, who were suddenly finding themselves with time on their hands ever since Sinneva showed up, routinely charged fifty angels for a cameo, three times that for a regular canvas. This curious reluctance on her part to make out like a bandit had been duly noted as significant, in the light of what followed.

The first case was Governor Scaevola, just back from three years in one of the northern provinces. There’s a saying in revenue circles; the good shepherd shears his sheep, he doesn’t skin them. Scaevola flayed his sheep alive, and was therefore nicely set up for life when he came home. He was one of her first high-class commissions; and three days after his portrait was delivered—he was delighted with it, by all accounts, and so was his wife—they found him in his study late one night, sitting in the dark, not moving at all, staring at the wall.

After that, Senator Juppito, the Friend of the Poor; the Lady Iphianassa, patroness of the arts and Sempra’s leading society hostess; Genseric, the banker; Mediobarzanes, the playwright; Massimo Polyglypton the bookseller (oh dear, I thought, never mind), and half a dozen others—all the same, struck dumb and motionless, empty-eyed and living-dead, soon after the little peasant girl had painted their portraits.

Sempa is a rational, secular sort of place. They repealed their witchcraft laws about seventy years ago, and people only go to Temple to be seen in their new clothes. Be that as it may. There’s only so much weird stuff people can take before they start jumping to conclusions. Poor little Sinneva was arrested and slung in jail, while they tried to figure out what to charge her with.

First, they had a go with administering a noxious substance, arguing that she must have poisoned their drinks. But she always painted her subjects at their houses—she didn’t seem to have a studio or anything like that, and she lived in a nasty little garret over a fishmonger’s, where presumably she was in the process of getting used to the smell when they took her away. They examined her paints and solvents, but all they found was the usual stuff that every artist uses; besides, if it was something she was using that had done the damage, surely she’d have poisoned herself in the process. The debate moved up to the Senate, where Juppito’s mob, the Optimates, tried to ram through a new witchcraft law, applicable retroactively. But the Popular Tendency talked it out of time, simply because it was the Optimates who’d proposed it, and so nothing could be achieved that way. Meanwhile, the families of the victims were howling for something to be done, and the attorney general was up for re-election. He resolved to charge her with treason, attempted murder, and grievous bodily harm, on the strict understanding that anyone who defended her would never work in Sempa again, and trusted in Justice to run its ineluctable course.

As accredited counsel for the defence, I had the right to make certain investigations. So there I was, with two kettlehats making me nervous, climbing the stairs to Sinneva’s rotten little lodgings and wishing, really wishing, I’d never got involved.

The kettlehats were along to make sure I didn’t touch anything or interfere with evidence. They had a really quiet morning. It was a tiny little room under the eaves; bed, chair, second-best dress hanging behind the door, plain plank table with half a loaf of stale bread and a pitcher of badly gone-off milk, and a copy of Human, All Too Human open at the bit about the immortality of the soul (which nearly made me smile; I remember writing it, with a murderous hangover and the rain dripping through the roof), and that was it, nothing else whatsoever. Evidentially neutral; no hit list or subversive literature, correspondence with fellow-conspirators, jars of poisonous chemicals; no evidence that the stupid girl had been spending her new-found wealth on anything nice, which is what any normal, innocent person in her circumstances would surely have done. No money, come to that. Her known commissions must have netted her at least forty angels; the rent on the garret was three kreuzer a week—she was robbed, if you ask me—and bread and milk, ten kreuzers a month, tops. Where was the rest of it? In a bank? Or was she sending it home to her poor impoverished parents? Unlikely, I thought, given the terms on which she’d parted from them, but I wasn’t going to tell the prosecutors that. Even so; I felt like I’d been dealt a piss-poor hand with which to defend the stupid child. Served me right, I suppose, for sticking my nose in.

It was what wasn’t there, of course, that interested me. For that, I could see no alternative but to visit my client, something I really didn’t want to do. Also, if the hypothesis I’d formed about five seconds after hearing the facts in the case was true, there was nothing she could tell me that would be any use to me in getting her neck out of the noose. No, the hell with that. I was going to have to wing it, make it up as I went along. So happens I’m good at that—very good indeed, which is how come I’m still alive and writing this. Actually, I told myself, I’d had so little experience with positive favourable evidence (because I’ve always been guilty as charged), probably this wouldn’t be a good time to start trying to learn how to use it. Stick with what you know, is my motto.

I took a deep breath. “Your honour,” I said, “I’ve listened with great interest to the facts in this case, so ably presented by my learned friend. Imagine my surprise, therefore, when he stopped where he did. I was expecting so much more. I was waiting patiently for evidence—hard evidence—connecting my client in any way to the tragic events we’ve just had described to us. Surely, I said to myself, there must be something. But apparently not. My learned friend has just told you that he rests his case. Being a fair-minded man, I would like to give him one last chance to add to what he’s just said. No? Sure? Very well. But please, don’t say I didn’t give you every opportunity.

“Let’s consider the facts. My client, an innocent country girl, comes to this great city to fulfil her lifelong ambition. She is a naturally talented, I may say quite brilliant, artist; entirely self-taught, I might add, she’s never had the benefit of any formal education—unless my learned friend would care to tell us about it, the schools she’s studied at, the masters she’s been apprenticed to. No? Are you absolutely sure? Very well. No formal education whatsoever. She grew up milking cows, churning butter, sweeping floors, and dreaming of a better life.

“After only a week or so in this uniquely cultured and appreciative city, her talents were recognised. Despite her disadvantages of class and gender, this plucky and determined young woman starts to make a name for herself. Clients besiege her door with commissions. My learned friend has tried to make her refusal to gouge her clientele for large sums of money into something sinister. I see it as evidence of the purity and integrity of her artistic nature. This poor innocent child, living only for her art, wasn’t interested in money, or status, or any of the glittering distractions of the world. All she wanted to do was the one thing she’d always wanted to do. What, I ask you, could be more natural?

“And so she painted portraits, at least forty of them that we know about. And of these forty clients, a dozen have—most unfortunately—fallen ill. I feel sure that nobody has more sympathy for them and their families than my client. But what the prosecutor has signally failed to do—because it’s impossible—is establish any faint thread of a connection between these misfortunes and my client. Unless and until he can do so, I honestly believe there’s no case to answer.

“Consider the so-called victims. All of them are in late middle age or older. All of them—how can I put it delicately?—have enjoyed to the full the delights of the table and the wine cellar. All of them are men and women of great spirit and passion, with a tendency—a perfectly natural, indeed laudable tendency—to express themselves fully, to take matters to heart, to get excited and passionate about things they feel strongly about.

“In my hand, I have a copy of the standard work on diseases of the heart and brain, written by no less an authority than—” Well, modesty forbids. “In the passage in front of me, the distinguished author describes the causes, symptoms, and effects of a stroke. I won’t take up the court’s time by reading it aloud, the matter is common knowledge. A stroke is an affliction of the brain, caused by an interruption of the blood supply. It leaves the victim paralysed, unable to speak or move. It is caused by excessive eating and drinking, combined with violent exertion of the body, mind, or spirit.

“Consider what you know about the alleged victims in this case, all prominent members of society. They all ate and drank to excess; they all were involved in public life, in politics, government or the arts; they lived passionate, stressful lives. They were, in short, prime candidates for the terrible illness I’ve just told you about. That this scourge should have come upon them, cutting them down in their prime, depriving us of their talents and their usefulness to our society, is to be deeply regretted. For once, the word ‘tragedy’ would scarcely be an overstatement. But to ascribe these disasters to my poor young client—on what grounds? I have heard none today, and once again, I call on my learned friend to enlighten me. Nothing more? Nothing at all? Well, then.

“Just in case you still aren’t convinced, let me point out a few more relevant details. This comprehensive and universally respected book in my hand contains no mention of any poison, drug, or artificial stimulant capable of deliberately causing a stroke. Leave aside the fact that no chemical apparatus was found in my client’s possession; ask yourself this: could this simple country girl have discovered or invented such a poison, on her own, uneducated, brought up among the cows and goats? I think not. As it happens, I know a little about alchemy. It would take a genius a lifetime of research to come up with such a complex toxin. My client is nineteen years old. Draw what conclusions you wish.

“As I’ve already mentioned; as the prosecutor himself admits; my client has painted at least forty portraits, almost certainly more. Twelve from forty leaves twenty-eight. If my learned friend’s allegations have any substance at all, there should be at least twenty-eight other helpless victims in this city, sitting in chairs, staring helplessly at the wall. If so, we haven’t heard about them, and their existence is therefore not admissible in evidence. In fact—I’ve made my own enquiries, since the prosecutor seems to have neglected to do so—all twenty-eight are in perfect health. Among them, please note, are senators, members of the aristocracy, leading figures in commerce, business, and the arts.

“My learned friend made a perfunctory effort to connect the status of the alleged victims to their dreadful fate, as though my client had sought to strike down the flowers of our society. The fact is, all her customers came to her clamouring to be painted; she didn’t choose them, they chose her. Twenty-eight rich, famous, influential, talented men and women were painted by my client and have suffered no ill-effects. Once again, the facts don’t simply speak for themselves, they shout at the tops of their voices.

“Recently, the wise and distinguished Senate of this city ruled unambiguously that there is no such thing as witchcraft or sorcery. But witchcraft and sorcery, I put it to you, are precisely what my client is accused of; tacitly, because to say so openly would be to invite ridicule. Therefore, for consistency’s sake, if for no other reason, I call on this rational, truth-loving court to dismiss these ridiculous charges and let my poor, long-suffering client go free. I rest my case.”

God, I’m good, though I do say so myself. The magistrate shook his head, blinked a couple of times like a dazzled rabbit, and said the magic words: case dismissed. You could have heard a pin drop.

I left, quickly.

Having done what I’d set out to do, I rushed off down West Street, through Absolution Square, short-cut through the Shambles, up Pin Street. I’d known from the outset that the wretched girl had to have a studio somewhere, or where else did she keep her paints, her easel and her money? I’m good at ferreting out stuff like that, so it hadn’t taken me long to discover where it was. I hadn’t gone there, because—well, like I said, nothing helpful to my case to be learned there. Now that I’d won, however, I had no such compunction. I wanted, make that needed, to know.

Stupid cheap lock, I don’t know why anyone bothers with them. Inside, I saw a chair, facing a shuttered window; two shelves lined with little pottery jars; two easels, on which rested two portraits of the same man, almost but not quite identical; a cheap earthenware plate; a pestle and a mortar; a tinderbox.

Oh God, I said to myself. Here we go again.

I thought; this time, I’m not involved. Nothing to do with me. True, I stuck my oar in, but even so, none of this is my responsibility, my job, my fault. I can just go a long way away and be free and clear. Above all, I owe no duty of care to the truth—me, of all people, perish the thought.

More to the point; if I interfere, what can I possibly achieve? Nothing.

I walked down to the Flawless Diamonds, where the stagecoaches leave for Mezentia and all points west. I had just enough money for the fare. The stage pulled in. Mezentia is lovely in the spring, when the cherry trees are in blossom. All aboard, they called out. It left without me.

Truth is, despite ferocious competition for the job, I am and always have been my own worst enemy.

Let me take you back a few years; I won’t specify how many, because I don’t suppose you’ll believe me. I was a student at what was at that time the finest university in the world, though it’s gone downhill a lot since then. I wasn’t the smartest kid in my year, not by a mile. I did my best to make up for my shortcomings through diligence and determined effort. You have faith in stuff like that, when you’re young.

I don’t know when I first noticed her. She wasn’t a student (no women at the university in my day) but she wasn’t a local’s daughter. She hung around in the square and the library forecourt, sketching in inks or charcoal; she wore a big straw hat which shaded out her face, and there never seemed to be anybody chaperoning her or keeping an eye on her, which was odd enough in itself. I can’t say I remember any of my fellow students making any sort of play for her whatsoever, which was stranger still. It was almost as though she was invisible and only I could see her. Now there’s a thought.

I have my faults, but chivvying unattached females isn’t one of them. Besides, in those days I was desperately earnest, and I knew exactly what I was going to do with my life: graduate, join a respectable Order, teach, research, write papers, win a chair, tenured professor by the time I was thirty-five. It was all I’d ever wanted.

But things weren’t going all that well. I was smart but not quite smart enough. I could feel the boundaries of my abilities, and I knew that what I wanted to achieve was just the other side of the rope. I could picture myself getting stuck somewhere in the middle, like a man stranded halfway up a mountain, unable to go further up or turn back. I could see myself scraping a doctorate; then what? Fine if I had private means; I could spend the rest of my life floating around the university, taking twenty years to write a modest paper on some peripheral issue, adding a footnote to the great book of human knowledge. But I had a living to earn, and for that I would have to be good enough, not just quite good, and there were so many better men than me. So, in due course, the scholarship money would run out and then it’d be back on the coach, back home, to the farm, or else a job as a clerk or a tutor to some rich man’s loathsome son. It’s a dreadful thing to be twenty-one and realise that you have no future after all.

Which may go some way to explain what I was doing on the bridge (not the famous one; the other one, about half a mile downstream), one foot on the parapet, staring down into the water. Whether I was thinking about jumping, or using the thought of jumping to force things back into perspective, I really don’t know; anyway, I was too preoccupied to notice someone walk up behind me until I eventually took a step back and trod on someone’s toe.

“It’s quite all right,” she said, grinning at me. “I’m just glad you decided not to.”

I looked at her. “That obvious?”

She had the enormous hat pushed back on her head, so I could see her face. Not beautiful exactly but striking. “You’d be amazed how many boys your age come and stand on this bridge, thinking what you were just thinking. Hardly any of them actually do it. What’s the matter? Debts, exams, girl trouble?”

You know how easy, how fatally easy, it is to tell things to a stranger you wouldn’t dream of telling anyone else. Also, unlike anyone I’d ever met in my entire life, she sounded interested. So I told her, the whole story, everything. She didn’t interrupt, and when I finally ran dry, she smiled at me. “Is that all?” she said.

I pulled a face. “I know,” I said, “it does all sound a bit stupid when you say it out loud. And of course there’s millions of people in the world far worse off than me—”

“I didn’t mean that,” she said. “You have a real problem, a very serious one. I’d be suicidal too, in your shoes, if there wasn’t a perfectly simple way out.”

She’d lost me. “What?”

And then she’d linked her arm through mine, and we were walking side by side, down the broad steps to the towpath. “You come here a lot,” she said.

“My lodgings are just down there,” I said, pointing vaguely. Poor Town. Well, she’d probably guessed that from the deplorable state of my shoes, if she was even remotely observant. “I take the short cut through Long Meadow to the Schools.” I stopped. She grinned.

“I’ve noticed you,” she said. Curious way of putting it, I thought at the time. “You’ve got an interesting face.”

Of course, she was an artist. “Interesting,” I said. “That’s not actually a compliment.”

“It’s a statement of fact.”

“Ah,” I said. “One of those.”

When I left my room that morning, I hadn’t decided what I was going to do with the day; either a short drop and a splash, or go to the library and read Psammetichus on essential transfiguration. What I hadn’t anticipated, one little bit, was a stroll along the riverbank with a girl in a straw hat. “What perfectly simple way out?” I asked her.

“I’ll tell you, if you’re good,” she said. “Later,” she added. “Right, here we are. Now stand under that willow-tree over there and look thoughtful.”

Out with the slate, the sheet of paper, and the stick of charcoal. Ah, I thought.

“You’re going to be Parthenius,” she explained, “and the river’s the Aurus, and somewhere over there out back of the charcoal sheds is presumably violet-crowned Olessa, though of course that won’t be in the picture. No, keep still, you’re no use to me if you keep moving about.”

Keeping still isn’t one of my strong points, as various law officers have discovered the hard way over the years. But I tried my best, and eventually she said, “All right, you can breathe now.”

My left foot had gone to sleep. “Can I see?”

She turned the slate to her chest. “It’s only a sketch.”

“What on earth is the point of a picture if people can’t look at it?”

“It’s not terribly good,” she said. “Now turn that way, and look melancholy. No, that’s not melancholy, it’s heartburn. That’s better. Hold it exactly like that.”

We ended up spending the rest of the day together, and the next day, and the day after that, but still she hadn’t told me the perfectly simple way out. I tried reminding her tactfully, but she changed the subject. Besides, I’d sort of figured it out for myself by that point. The simple way out of my frustration and despair was to fall in love with a wonderful girl, which apparently I’d now done. Silly me for not having thought of it earlier.

“What would you like,” she asked me, at some point, “most of all in the whole world?”

We were watching the swans on the river. Apparently they mate for life. “That’s a good question,” I said.

“Pretend I’m a goddess or a witch and I can grant wishes. Money?”

“Money isn’t everything,” I said. “No, what I’d like is to be clever.”

She pulled her poor-baby face. “You are clever.”

“I wish I was the cleverest, wisest man who ever lived.”

“Mphm.” She nodded. “You’re sure you wouldn’t rather have the money instead?”

“The wisest man who ever lived would never be short of money,” I said. “But a lot of rich men are idiots.”

“All right, then,” she said, and threw a crust for the ducks.

“Can I ask you a personal question?”

She frowned at me. At that precise moment I was being Teudra dividing the upper and lower heavens, which is a confoundedly tricky pose to hold for more than ten minutes. “What?”

“It’s a very personal question. You may not want to—”

“Keep still. What?”

I couldn’t draw a deep breath without wobbling, so I just made myself say it. “Where does all the money come from?”

“Oh, that.” What had she been expecting me to ask? “I’ve got a rich uncle in Permia. I’m all he’s got, and he wants me to enjoy myself. What do you want to do most in the whole world, he said, and I told him, this. So here I am.”

“Ah.”

“Talking of which.” She appeared to be peering past my ear, looking intently at something that wasn’t there. Painters do that. “What do you want, most in the whole world?”

“Right now? To itch my nose.”

“Tough. What else?”

“To stay here like this, with you, forever.” Well, it seemed the thing to say at the time.

“I see,” she said clinically. “So as far as you’re concerned, this is the perfect moment.”

“Apart from the itch. Look, do you think I could just—?”

“No.” She took a step back and looked at me, or at the god creating the firmament through me his temporary proxy. “I once read that if there’s a moment so perfect that it couldn’t possibly be improved upon, it could never ever be any better than this in any respect whatsoever, then Time would stop still, everything would be trapped motionless like a fly in amber, and that would be the end of the world.” She squidged the end of her brush between her fingers. “That’s what made me want to paint.”

“To bring about the end of the world? A bit antisocial.”

“The perfect moment, captured for ever,” she said. “A painter can do that. No more old age, no more death. In a painting, you can be forever young, beautiful and happy. There would be no later, no decay, no decline, no consequences.”

“I don’t see a future in it.”

She clicked her tongue to acknowledge the wordplay. “All right, relax, before you fall over. Take the weight off your feet, I’ll make us some tea.”

She made the most wonderful tea, full of obscure, delicate scents and flavours. I sat on a chair, massaging the calves of my legs. She perched in the window-seat, with the light behind her.

“And that’s not all I can do,” she went on. “I can make people what they want to be. I can make old women look young, poor men look rich, sad people look happy.”

“Stupid into clever?”

“Piece of cake.” She turned the easel slightly. “See for yourself.”

She really was very good. Teudra, not only as the Creator, but in his aspect of bringer of wisdom; perfectly represented, a whole college of theologians couldn’t have found fault with it. And yet it still looked just like me; weird.

“Anyway,” she said, turning the easel back. “How are you getting on with Induiomarus?”

“Going through it like a knife through butter,” I said cheerfully, and it was true. Ever since I’d met her, the standard of my work had improved dramatically; all my tutors had commented on it. Hence Induiomarus; we weren’t supposed to get on to him until third year, but there I was, soaring through the notoriously obscure and elliptical Shadow Analects like an eagle. “Actually, I don’t see what all the fuss is about.”

“Is that right?”

I nodded. “He says everything in this really cryptic, mystical, up-himself way, but actually what he’s saying is pretty obvious. And I think I’ve caught him out in a false premise.”

“Ooh,” she squeaked. She was alarmingly well-read. “Which bit?”

“Book seven, the clockmaker analogy. I don’t think it works, because if the clock is found lying on the seashore—”

“How’s it supposed to have got there? Yes, I wondered about that, too.”

I gazed at her. Talk about your perfect moment. “I’m so glad I met you,” I said.

She was excited. She’d gotten a commission to paint a portrait of the Professor of Alchemical Theory. I was stunned. As far as I was concerned, the man was a god. “How on earth did you manage that?” I asked.

“Through my uncle,” she said. “He knows all sorts of people.”

“All the best portrait artists do it,” she explained. “Move, you’re in my light.”

She was sitting in her studio, with her back to the window. Before her were two easels, on which stood two almost but not quite exactly identical paintings of an old man with a bald head and whiskers. “You paint two pictures,” she said, “precisely the same. But one of them will be perfect.”

“The one on the left,” I said.

“You see? It works. It’s an old trick. I read about it in a book somewhere.”

“Twice the work,” I said.

“That’s why the best artists get paid ridiculous sums of money.”

I studied the painting for a moment. “I’ve never met him,” I said. “But I feel like I’ve known him all my life.”

“Euphronius says the job of the artist is to capture the soul of the sitter.”

I smiled. “Well, you’ve done that all right,” I said.

“I’ll make us some tea.”

Three days later, the Professor suffered a devastating stroke. He was found in his study, surrounded by his books, mouth lolling open, eyes fixed on the wall. He never moved again.

“Just as well I got cash on delivery,” she said. “For the painting.”

That struck me as a bit insensitive. “At least his family will be able to remember him as he was,” I said. “Thanks to you.”

“When he was perfect.” She smiled at me. “That’s the point,” she said.

She went to bed early. I sat up finishing an essay. As I sprinkled it with sand to blot the ink, I remembered that she’d left the lamp lit in her studio. That would never do; smoke from a guttering wick, with all that drying paint. I went in to put it out.

There was a distinct smell of burning; not just the lamp. I noticed a little brass stove, the sort that elegant people use for making omelettes at the table. There was something in it, smouldering. I investigated. The charred ends of splintered limewood board, the stuff she used to paint on. I looked round and saw the two easels. On one of them was a finished portrait. I recognised it at once; my tutor, Lacasta, the most amazing likeness. The other easel was empty.

Three days later, Lacasta had a stroke.

(I only found out how she did it years later, in a digression in a book about witchcraft among the Permian nomads. To steal someone’s soul, apparently, you paint a picture of the victim, burn it and grind the ashes up fine, into dust, which you seal in a small pottery jar. When you want to consume the soul, thereby adding its wisdom, force of character and other virtues to your own, you mix the dust with certain herbs and make an infusion; a bit like tea. All complete nonsense, of course, said the book I read; there’s no such thing as sympathetic magic, and probably just as well.)

I was out of there like a shot, as you can imagine. I ran up the street in my nightshirt, hammered on the door of a good-natured friend, borrowed a change of clothes and two angels, and caught the night mail to Solitene. From there I wrote to my supervisor explaining that for urgent personal reasons I could no longer continue my studies at the university; however, I would be eternally grateful if he would write me a letter of recommendation to the faculty at the Golden Hook. The letter arrived by return, and it must have said something nice because the Dean of the Hook gave me a place on the spot. A year later I graduated top of the class, was awarded a fellowship, assistant professor eighteen months later, all the rest of it. Some bad stuff happened after that, but it’s not relevant to this story.

She was in her studio when I got there. She looked different. She reminded me a lot of someone I used to know. “Hello, you,” she said.

“You again,” I said.

She smiled at me. “I’ve missed you,” she said.

Behind her, the shelves were empty. On the floor, about a dozen little pottery jars, with their lids off. She had a little brass stove, on which sat a silver kettle. She’d just made a pot of tea.

“It wasn’t a coincidence, was it?” I said. “You being on that coach.”

“It was awfully sweet of you to defend me,” she said. “Did you know it was me?”

“No.”

“Fibber. Of course, they couldn’t have hurt me. Nobody can hurt me, physically. Would you like some tea?”

“No, thank you.”

“I made it for you.”

I stood there rooted to the spot. “How did you find me?”

“Very easily,” she said. “I only started looking recently. You see, I was very much in love with you back then, and when you ran away I was heartbroken, but then I met someone else and we were very happy together for a very long time. And then he ran away too, and I remembered you. Sure you don’t want some? It’s good for you.”

I felt sick. “You ruined my life,” I said.

“Rubbish.” She had a nice smile. “I asked you what you wanted, and you said, to be the wisest, cleverest man who ever lived. And you said money wasn’t everything, and you’d always be able to get some from somewhere. I gave you what you wanted, because I loved you.”

I managed not to scream at her. “You made me a thief,” I said. “A con man. Some days I wake up and even I can’t remember which name I’m using.”

“You can be anyone you want to be. That’s another special gift.”

I looked at her. “I don’t think I’ve got anything more to say to you,” I told her. “I don’t ever want to see you again. Don’t come near me. Just leave me alone.”

She shrugged. “You don’t mean that.”

“Trust me.”

A little sigh. “You won’t know it’s me, the next time, and the time after that.”

“Yes,” I said. “I will.”

“You didn’t in Blemya.”

Oh God, I thought. But she’d died, surely. “Keep away from me,” I said. “Do you understand?”

She didn’t say a word, just carried on smiling like an angel. I reached the door.

“Cobalt,” she said. “It’s what you’ve been missing. For the blue paint. I love you,” she said.

“See you in Hell,” I said, and slammed the door.

Knowing her, I probably will. One day I’ll be sitting there, burning quietly, up to my manacled ankles in molten sulphur, and there she’ll be, smiling, holding a bunch of keys and a teabowl.

Draw your own conclusions about the doctrine of the perfect moment. For me, the world ended a long time ago.

#K.J. Parker #The Thought that Counts #short story #actually long story

[perfectirishgifts]

Holiday Gift Guide 2020: Best Travel Gifts For TV Fans

New Post has been published on https://perfectirishgifts.com/holiday-gift-guide-2020-best-travel-gifts-for-tv-fans/

Holiday Gift Guide 2020: Best Travel Gifts For TV Fans

In a year like no other, many people have discovered their new favorite TV shows or experienced great joy in reliving a classic show they grew up with. TV fans can be very passionate about their favorite shows, so what better gift to offer them than a present that celebrates their fandom? You may also want to offer a gift that helps them get more out of their TV-watching experience. Consider these gift options for the travel-loving TV fan in your life.

IGLOO ‘Friends’ Cooler

IGLOO Friends Playmate Elite 16 Qt Cooler

As Chandler Bing might ask, “Could it be any cooler?” Friends is one of the most beloved TV shows of all time, and its partnership with IGLOO gives fans a chance to bring their fandom on the road. Road-tripping fans can show off their love for Friends anywhere they go with this fun and functional gift. This 16-quart cooler is versatile and can hold up to 30 cans. it’s spacious enough for plenty of food and drinks for a road trip or simply a picnic in the park. Its tent-top design allows for easy access to what a beverage or snack when you want it, and it’s also very easy to carry. Price: $49.99 from IGLOO.

‘Little House on the Prairie’ Minnesota Bonnet

Walnut Grove Little House on the Prairie Bonnet

As the original mean girl on the hit 1970’s TV show Little House on the Prairie, Alison Arngrim played Nellie Oleson to perfection. In real life, the actress is quite the opposite of her character, and she goes out of her way to communicate with fans and enhance their ongoing enjoyment of the show. She has a shop where fans can get Prairie-themed merchandise called Not Your Mother’s Mercantile, and one fun item is a bonnet like the prairie girls and women wore on Little House on the Prairie. You can even get one autographed by Alison Arngrim herself! They are made by hand in the real-life Walnut Grove, Minnesota, and come in a variety of vibrant colors and patterns. It will be a great addition to any Little House collection. And, when travel is safe again, they can wear it to visit the real Walnut Grove. Price: $25 from Alison Arngrim’s Shop Not Your Mother’s Mercantile.

Moleskine Film and TV Journal

Film & TV Journal

The Film & TV Journal from the Moleskine Passions series is a terrific way for TV fans on the go to keep track of all the shows they like to watch during their travels. Whether the television enthusiast uses the journal for writing down memories of special cliffhangers or jotting down notes on a good miniseries they streamed during a plane ride, it will allow them to easily look back on their first impressions on the TV-viewing experiences they’ve had. They can also use it to record who was their companion for viewing each show, what they liked and disliked about each episode, and which TV shows were their favorite for each year. Price: $29.95 from Moleskine.

Pillow Pad Tablet Stand

Pillow Pad Travel Tablet Stand

Travelers who love TV may find themselves watching their favorite shows on airplanes or hotel rooms. The Pillow Pad tablet stand can help them easily watch their favorite streaming TV shows on their tablet with comfort and ease. The Pillow Pad is made of lightweight, heavy-duty foam that is crafted to rotate to three different viewing angles. In addition to being the perfect stand for a tablet, it easily serves as a stand for a phone or book. Price: $19.99 from JOANN.

D’Andra Simmons Hard Night Good Morning Collection

D’Andra Simmons Hard Night, Good Morning Collection

D’Andra Simmons is known for The Real Housewives of Dallas, and the dynamic TV star is a very successful businesswoman. In 2008, she started the wonderful Hard Night Good Morning line of skin care products, and the entire line is cruelty-free and vegan. The Hard Night Good Morning collection would be great for any Real Housewives fan, and they just may discover their new favorite beauty products. Price: $388 from Hard Night Good Morning.

‘A Very Brady Christmas’ DVD

A Very Brady Christmas on DVD

With A Very Brady Christmas, Lloyd J. Schwartz and Sherwood Schwartz created an uplifting holiday film that’s become a modern Christmas classic. When it first aired during the 1988 holiday season, it became the highest-rated, stand-alone TV film of the year. With stellar performances from Jerry Houser, Ron Kuhlman, and the original cast, it’s easy to see why it is so beloved and successful. It’s an endearing, sweet, and genuinely hilarious film. As a cool thing to watch for, this movie somehow manages to weave subplots involving each of the now-adult Brady kids and many of their spouses around the main storyline. Most of the original cast comes back, and Jennifer Runyon Corman is a wonderful addition to the cast as an adult Cindy Brady. A Very Brady Christmas is finally is available on DVD, and it makes a great present for any fan of The Brady Bunch, classic TV, and holiday flicks. Price: $7.99 from Amazon.

Cheers Green Long Sleeve Hoodie T-Shirt

Cheers Green Long Sleeve Hoodie T-Shirt

The exterior of Cheers that you saw each week on the 1980’s mega-hit sitcom Cheers was actually the exterior of an actual bar on Beacon Hill that had inspired the show. It was then called the Bull and Finch Pub, yet has since changed its name to Cheers to match the beloved show’s bar. They have been making officially licensed merchandise of the show since the 1980’s, and they are still going strong. This green, long-sleeved hoodie T-shirt would be a great gift for any fans of the show. You may also opt to get a picture frame or key chain from the site to go with it. And, when travel is safe again, they can wear it for a visit to the real Cheers in Boston. Price: $36 from Cheers Boston.

Cubii PRO

Cubii PRO

If you’ve ever binged a new streaming TV show, you know how easy it can be to sit in front of the television for hours at a time. Inspire the TV fan in your life to enjoy some fun movement while watching their favorite shows with the thoughtful gift of a Cubii PRO. The Bluetooth-connected compact, seated elliptical was created to help people get fit while they sit and enjoy TV or other activities. Price: $349 from Cubii PRO.

‘Friends’ Pattern Tervis

Friends Pattern Tervis

Friends is remembered with great affection for its zingy one-liners, undeniable chemistry among the cast members, and colorful characters. It also has a wide variety of cool merchandise options, so the show makes its second appearance on the list with this easy-to-carry travel tumbler. In fact, Tervis offers a dozen different Friends-themed tumblers for your loved one to carry during their travels. It’s sure to spark conversations with fellow fans. More importantly, it’s sure to help them reminisce on their favorite episodes and memories of times spent watching the show. This gift is both practical and enjoyable for any Friends fan. Price: $16.99 from Tervis.

More from Travel in Perfectirishgifts

[harddelusionninja]

#Chandler Walnut #Best Quality Walnuts #Best Quality Chandler Walnuts #Best Walnuts in California #Walnuts in California #Chandler Walnut in California #Best Chandler Walnuts

[thekindbean]

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#nobetterwaytostarttheday #kindbean #chandlerbakery #chandleraz #gilbertaz

[garr9988]

Ilvermorny OCs: Students

Since I’m an impatient one, I decided I’d unveil what I currently have of my newest OCs. Took several days of researching etymologies, woods, cores, and animals for hours and hours on end, burning myself out and giving myself headaches on multiple occasions, but it was worth it!

Putting it under a Readmore line since it’s a long post.

Philomel “Philo” Fiegel - The Performer

Philomel Fiegel loves attention, and his biggest ambition in life is to become one of the greatest magical performers in all the Wizarding World, having been inspired by the great Singing Sorceress, the Witch That’s Always on Pitch, Celestina Warbeck! He enjoys showing off, but isn’t a snobby prick about it, and most of his spells are colorful and showy, stuff he could use to put on a great show. Having a mother interested in fashion certainly added to his flair for the dramatic, and he enjoys wearing clothes that get him noticed. The second to accept Ulysses into the group, whether he feels a certain way about that tough brooding bruiser, he won’t say.

House: Thunderbird

Wand: Spruce, Dragon Hearstring, 13″, Swishy

Patronus: Wire fox terrier

Parents: Chandler Pippin and Iris Fiegel 

Ulysses Whippor - The Bully

Ulysses Whippor was one of Ilvermorny’s punks. Still is, if you look at him funny. But after getting threatened with expulsion from Ilvermorny after one incident too many, Philomel and his other two friends took it upon themselves to help him clean up their act. Well, Ulysses pushed them, it was Gelos who agreed to it first. He tends to keep to himself and at first didn’t much talk to the others, but he slowly started to warm to the attention and soften up. Just don’t mention it, or he might jinx your mouth sewn shut. He does actually like having friends, it’s a welcome change from the loneliness at home. And if you enjoy having a jaw, I suggest you don’t bring up the fact that he watched Philo leave the dinner table a little longer than what’s considered normal.

House: Wampus

Wand: Black Walnut, Rougarou Hair, 12 3/4″, Slightly Yielding

Patronus: Doberman Pinscher

Parents: Damien Loveday and Dicy Whippor

Renault Cyress Markwart-Hogue - The Official

Renault sort of reminds me of Hermione Granger and Percy Weasley. His father works at Ilvermorny and his mother works at MACUSA, so of course he aims for a high legal position. No nonsense (mostly), and despised Ulysses the most; mostly because he was the one who started the trend of people calling him “Hog”, and of insulting his father. His main goal is to try and stamp down on discrimination in the Wizarding World, a big issue even today. But, until he gets there, he has to find a way to live a little, and his friends know just how to help. Although the third to join the official friend quartet, he and Gelos were decent friends beforehand given Gelos’ father used to be married to Renault’s mother.

House: Horned Serpent

Wand: Beech, Unicorn Hair, 10 2/3″, Pliable

Patronus: Hedgehog

Parents: Hedgenettle Hogue and Limia Markwart

Gelos Ruth Tristan - The Clown

Gelos is the most accepting of everyone, and he and Philo were the first two in their quartet to become friends, probably because their personalities and goals are so similar. He’s one of the class clowns of Ilvermorny (having started a well-meaning underground club of clowns with the intent of “Livening up every day in some special way.”), and arguably one of the best. Like Philo, he likes attention in the form of laughter, and loves seeing people smile, and when they became friends, they agreed to work together as a performing duo, bringing smiles across the nation and beyond! He’s almost always happy-go-lucky, though you’d be wrong to assume he doesn’t understand the less happy things in life, he’s not daft. He’s just used to having to use his comedic talents to bring people out of serious funks, so he does it whenever he can for students having a rough day.

House: Pukwudgie

Wand: Rowan, Wampus Hair, 11 1/2″, Whippy

Patronus: Hyena

Parents: Acheron Tyburn Tristan and Kelly Leclair

#ilvermorny #ilvermorny oc #harry potter #harry potter oc #thunderbird #wampus #horned serpent #pukwudgie #hp #my oc #garr9988 #original #philomel fiegel #ulysses whippor #renault hogue #gelos tristan

[my-open-when]

Open When... You’re Hungry

Oh, man. I’m usually the one who feels hungry. I know that I’m most likely out of the country for the moment, but I did my very best to take care of you anyways. Enjoy your various gift cards and know that I like you very much. I also wrote down a bunch of restaurants and fast food places in your general area. Hopefully, you find my suggestions helpful in this time of great need. 

Applebee’s: Right in your neighborhood! How convenient.

Panda Express: Apparently, it’s one of your favorites! Order your honey walnut shrimp on me.

Taco Bell: I’ve listened to you talk about your love for this chain for years. It’s only fair for you to consider it at least a little bit. 

Texas Roadhouse: Man, I never get good service when I dine here but hey, at least the waiters are cute. It’s relatively close to your house and I know a guy who could get your thirty percent off. I don’t really want to talk to him to ask though. *he works there*

Jimmy John’s: Highly underrated. Plus, they bring food right to you, just like me! 

Raising Cane’s: Always a good idea! They’re open really late and their tea is almost as sweet as I am. 

Lo-Lo’s Chicken and Waffles: You and Cody have breakfast here all the time, so I can only assume they have amazing food. 

Chili’s: Our holy grail of double date locations. I feel like we end up here more than we intend to.

IHOP: The perfect place for us to have a breakfast date since we split everything! I love us. 

Cheba Hut: Let me take you here for lunch sometime! You’ll love it. I promise. 

Panera: Oh, boy. I heard the location in Chandler has the most adorable salad maker, not that you eat those. I just found it extremely relevant. *I work there*

Spinelli’s: You absolutely loved this place! I’ll take you back sometime when I’m back in the country. 

Well, I hope you enjoyed my somewhat serious dining suggestions. I know chocolate isn’t necessarily your favorite either but I thought it would be a quick solution to your hunger. Plus, it looks cute and sweet, just like me. Anywho, I’m missing you while I’m away indulging in Belgian waffles, chocolate, and beer. 

-Sky

#open when #letters #open when letters #mine

[yourtvvn]

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[networkingdefinition]

Tractors Quotes

Official Website: Tractors Quotes

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• All middle-class novels are about the trials of three, all upper-class novels about mass fornication, all revolutionary novels about a bad man turned good by a tractor. – Christina Stead • Art is no longer snobbish or cowardly. It teaches peasants to use tractors, gives lyrics to young soldiers, designs textiles for factory women’s dresses, writes burlesque for factory theatres, does a hundred other useful tasks. Art is as usueful as bread. – Azar Nafisi

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'Tractor', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '68', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_tractor').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_tractor img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • Cows provide approx 100 million tonnes of dry dung a year costing Rs 5000 crores which saves 50 million tonnes of firewood which again means that many trees saved and more environmental damage prevented. It is calculated that if these 73 million animals were to be replaced, we would need 7.3 million tractors at the cost of 2.5 lac each which would amount to an investment of 180,000 crores. In addition 2 crore, 37 lakh and 50 thousand tonnes of diesel which would mean another 57,000 crore rupees. This is how much we owe these animals, and this is what we stand to lose by killing them. – Maneka Gandhi • Happiness is the twinkle in your grandmother’s eye as you reverse the tractor off her legs. – Hugh Laurie • He (David Beckham) does have a huge one, though. He does. You can see it in the advert. It is all his. It is like a tractor exhaust pipe! – Victoria Beckham • His herding instinct is so strong that he confuses tractors on a baseball field for sheep. He was hospitalized twice. Once by a line drive and once for attacking a tractor tread. – Tom Hayden • How much courage does it take to fire up your tractor and plow under a crop you spent six or seven years growing? How much courage to go on and do that after you’ve spent all that time finding out how to prepare the soil and when to plant and how much to water and when to reap? How much to just say, “I have to quit these peas. Peas are no good for me, I better try corn or beans. – Stephen King • I bought an ant farm. I don’t know where I am going to get a tractor that small! – Steven Wright • I buy a tractor two years ago, and four-fifths of the tractor manual is about not tipping over, not raising the bucket high enough to hit high-tension wire… not killing yourself, basically. And in that manual, I found out – and it cost me a thousand dollars – that when the tractor is new, 10 hours into use of the tractor, you have to re-torque the lug nuts. If you don’t, you will oval the holes. This is buried between the moron warnings. I never found it. I take the tractor in for its regular servicing, and they say my wheels are gone. How am I supposed to know that? “It’s in the manual.” – P. J. O’Rourke • I can’t write on the road. I have to be home. I have to be around all those rusted tractors and dilapidated fences and things like that, because it just grounds me in a way that I can’t find in a hotel room. – John Fullbright • I did as much as I could: raising chickens, pushing an ice-cream cart, bagging walnuts, driving a tractor on a beet farm, working on the railroad. I think this eclectic career helped me a lot in life. – Charles R. Schwab • I didn’t get much peace, but I heard in Norway that Russia might well become a huge market for tractors soon. – Henry Ford • I do not like football, which I think of as a game in which two tractors approach each other from opposite directions and collide. Besides, I have contempt for a game in which players have to wear so much equipment. Men play basketball in their underwear, which seems just right to me. – Anna Quindlen • I don’t know of a better argument in favor of farming with horses than trying to start an old tractor in the winter time. – Gene Logsdon • I dont know how the other senators see me. I hope they see me as a farmer. Thats really what I am. But I dont think they see me on a tractor or fixing equipment. I hope they see me grounded, as somebody who has common sense.- Jon Tester • I drove a tractor almost as soon as I could reach the pedals. – Sheri L. Dew • I had no idea ‘Big Green Tractor’ was going to be as big a hit as it was. You just can’t predict those things. – Jason Aldean • I had to jump on the tractor and do my chores. I would have just killed to be in town, to be able to Rollerblade hand-in-hand with somebody I had a crush on. I just wanted to get off the farm, to find my outlet. – Garrett Hedlund • I have a 60-acre farm in North Carolina, and I have a tractor and a farmhouse. As soon as I groom the land, I want to put cabins around and have a place where people can write and hang out. It’ll be either that or an all-black nudist colony. – Zach Galifianakis • I haven’t seen a tractor working all day. The country has gone sane and got back to horses. Farmers all look worse, but they feel better. – Will Rogers • I remember driving the tractor on our farm, and Tim McGraw would be on the radio. I’d find myself walking out of class, singing his songs. And then Tim ended up playing my father in ‘Friday Night Lights.’ It was surreal. – Garrett Hedlund • I said I would do all the films about the commercials, and the films about ball-bearings and Ford tractors and so on, if once a year they gave me money for a free film. – Karel Reisz • I spend hours mowing the lawn in absolutely straight lines on my tractor. If it’s not right, I do it again. – Britt Ekland • I take my vacation on the combine and tractor. – Jon Tester • I used to help my grandfather on the farm, driving tractors, raising crops and animals. I used to feed some of the baby cows and pigs, and I had to be no older than 7 or 8. Then at about 9 or 10 I started driving tractors. It showed me at an early age what hard work was all about and how dedicated you have to be, no matter what you do. – Tyson Chandler • I used to own an ant farm but had to give it up. I couldn’t find tractors small enough to fit it. – Steven Wright • I was working on the farm to get in shape, about a mile away from my parents. You know, I did everything as a kid to stay in shape – jogging, work on the farm, driving the tractor. I’ll never forget. – Guy Lafleur • I welcome opposing viewpoints, but I should warn you that you’ll be facing off against the 2nd-place finisher at the 1981 Charleston County High-School Debate Tournament. And whatever became of that county champ who argued in favor of tractor safety modifications? Last time I checked, she didn’t have her own show. – Stephen Colbert • I would say my first golf memory was asking who Arnold Palmer was when he was always on the Pennzoil commercials. When I was a little kid I watched a lot of sports, but I didn’t watch a lot of golf, and this guy was always on a tractor. – Mike Greenberg • I’d rather do manual labor than sit behind a desk. And as my grandparents got older, I’d fly out there and help out around the farm. We’d tear barns down; we’d build barns. I’d rather be outside rolling hay or driving the tractors. – Kellan Lutz • If I hadn’t become a golfer, I doubt I’d be wealthy, because I don’t have the sort of ego that drives a person all day long. I might have wound up driving a tractor. – Fuzzy Zoeller • If we were to go back in time 100 years and ask a farmer what he’d like if he could have anything, he’d probably say he wanted a horse that was twice as strong and ate half as many oats. He would not say he wanted a tractor. The point is, technology changes things so fast that many people aren’t sure what the best solutions to their problems might be. – Philip Quigley • If your stomach blocks your view of your feet, cover it up! The only people who should be wearing belly shirts are people who don’t have bellies. Now those little baby spare tires are kinda cute; tractor tires aren’t! Especially if they’ve got hair on them! – Jeff Foxworthy • I’m an outdoor nut. If I’m not working, I’m on a tractor on my farm, hunting, fishing or climbing a mountain. – Jeff Foxworthy • I’m working on a second cookbook and am working on my love story, ‘Black Heels to Tractor Wheels. – Ree Drummond • It is unthinkable to have a British countryside that doesn’t have actual functioning farmers riding tractors, cows in fields, things like that. – Bill Bryson • It’s as if the whole notion of growing soil is something only lunatics would think about. But why not grow soil? Does anything make more sense than growing soil? Isn’t that more important than tractors, trucks, silos, barns, county fairs and country music? Of course it is. And yet to the lion’s share of American farmers, the very notion of growing soil is just plain silly.- Joel Salatin • It’s good way to relax when I come home from the road. When you’re out there on the tractor there’s nobody to bother you. – Sterling Marlin • It’s like if every single male artist dressed up as farmers. In every video they were on a farm. Whether it was Jason Derulo or Oasis, they’re always on a tractor, they’re always surrounded by sheep and always in boots. And all the songs are about enjoying farming, and this is all you’ve had for 10 years – you’d think you were going mad. – Caitlin Moran • It’s us fun being a horse when the tractor comes along, or the blacksmith when the car comes along. – Warren Buffett • James Davison took me out to show me where Karl is living right now and where hes going to build. Karl wasnt at home. He was out there somewhere in the woods riding on some Caterpillar or some kind of tractor. But I figured wed at least knock on the door to see if he was there. His wife answered the door. So we got to meet Kay before Karl. – Terry Bradshaw • Let the Black man go – stop lying to us that you love us. And if you really love us, let us go and give us some of this territory that we can call our own; and give us the billions of dollars that we can get started with land and with tractors and the things that will make us an independent nation. – Louis Farrakhan • Lincolnshire is the Idaho of England. You were either going to drive a tractor for the rest of your life or head for the city to work in a factory. – Bernie Taupin • Maybe I should just go home and ride my tractor. – Chuck Grassley • Most of us stand poised at the edge of brilliance, haunted by the knowledge of our proximity, yet still demonstrably on the wrong side of the line, our dealings with reality undermined by a range of minor yet critical psychological flaws (a little too much optimism, an unprocessed rebelliousness, a fatal impatience or sentimentality). We are like an exquisite high-speed aircraft which for lack of a tiny part is left stranded beside the runway, rendered slower than a tractor or bicycle. – Alain de Botton • My father did get enough money to buy mules. We didn’t have tractors, but he bought mules, wagons, cultivators and some farming equipment. As soon as he bought that and decided to rent some land, because it was always better if you rent the land, but as soon as he got the mules and wagons and everything, somebody went to our trough – a white man who didn’t live very far from us – and he fed the mules Paris Green, put it in their food and it killed the mules and our cows. – Fannie Lou Hamer • My father kept me busy from dawn to dusk when I was a kid. When I wasn’t pitching hay, hauling corn or running a tractor, I was heaving a baseball into his mitt behind the barn… If all the parents in the country followed his rule, juvenile delinquency would be cut in half in a year’s time. – Bob Feller • My mother told me I said to her, at age three, ‘I’m going to go to Italy and get my father in a tractor.’ ‘You’ve never seen quite so fierce a little boy as you were,’ she told me. She tried to explain that I couldn’t get my father in a tractor. Apparently I looked at her and narrowed my eyes and said, ‘In that case, I’m going in a double-decker bus,’ and stomped off. Which is kind of funny, but it’s very sad, as well. – Roger Waters • Of course, it’s always bad to lose, of course it’s always a hardship when you lose to yesterday’s miners or yesterday’s tractor drivers. But life is life. It’ll surely go on. – Vladimir Putin • One of the first sights that shocked me, when I came to Israel in 1921, was an Arab turning over a field with a very primitive plow; pulling the plow were an ox and a woman. Now, if it means that we have destroyed this romantic picture by bringing in tractors, combines, and threshing machines, this is true: we have. – Golda Meir • Programs that pay farmers not to farm often devastate rural areas. The reductions hurt everyone from fertilizer companies to tractor salesmen. – Dick Armey • Some of the environmental lobbyists of the western nations are the salt of the earth, but many of them are elitists. They have never experienced the physical sensation of hunger. They do their lobbying from comfortable office suites in Washington or Brussels. If they lived just one month amid the misery of the developing world, as I have for fifty years, they would be crying out for tractors, and fertilizer, and irrigation canals, and be outraged that fashionable elitists back home were trying to deny them these things. – Norman Borlaug • Sometimes I feel people think I live on a commune but I don’t. We are all solar, though. There are no power lines. It’s mostly farmers, so everyone who has tractors uses bio-diesel. – Woody Harrelson • Technically speaking, you drive like a rabid chicken who has hijacked a tractor. – Sarah Rees Brennan • That stupid saying “What you don’t know can’t hurt you” is ridiculous. What you don’t know can kill you. If you don’t know that tractor trailer trucks hurt when hitting you, then you can play in the middle of the interstate with no fear – but that doesn’t mean you won’t get killed. – Dave Ramsey • That’s life. We all go through the tractor blades now and then. We all get bruised, and we all get cut. Sometimes the blade cuts deep. The lucky ones come through with a few scratches, a little blood, but even that isn’t the most important thing. The most important thing is having someone there to scoop you up, to hold you tight, and to tell you everything is all right. – Vicki Myron • That’s the great thing about a tractor. You can’t really hear the phone ring. – Jeff Foxworthy • That’s where I live, a junkyard in a neighborhood of junkyards. We have three tractors from the 1940s and ’50s, several old pickup trucks, and a pile of scrap metal. – Bonnie Jo Campbell • The basic thing a man should know is how to change a tyre and how to drive a tractor. Whatever that bearded dude is doing on the Dos Equis beer commercials sets the bar. That’s your guy. Every man should be aiming to be like him. The beard is just the tip of the iceberg. – Timothy Olyphant • The infantryman slithers in the mud, while many teams of horses are needed to drag each gun forward. All wheeled vehicles sink up to their axles in the slime. Even tractors can only move with great difficulty. A large portion of our heavy artillery was soon stuck fast… The strain that all this caused our already exhausted troops can perhaps be imagined. – Gunther Blumentritt • The only difference between men and women is that women are able to create new little human beings in their bodies while simultaneously writing books, driving tractors, working in offices, planting crops – in general, doing everything men do. – Erica Jong • The things that don’t happen to us that we’ll never know didn’t happen to us. The nonstories. The extra minute to find the briefcase that makes you late to the spot where a tractor trailer mauled another car instead of yours. The woman you didn’t meet because she couldn’t get a taxi to the party you had to leave early from. All of life is a series of nonstories if you look at it that way. We just don’t know what they are. – Anita Shreve • There are only three things that can kill a farmer: lightning, rolling over in a tractor, and old age. – Bill Bryson • We know that urban farms require less fuel for tractors and transport, but community gardens don’t plant themselves. – Van Jones • Well, I have a farm in Vermont that’s my main residence, where I do lots of digging and mowing, and ride tractors – just so you don’t get the wrong idea that I’m too girlie! – Tim Daly • When a country is in harmony with the Tao, the factories make trucks and tractors. When a country goes counter to the Tao, warheads are stockpiled outside the cities. There is no greater illusion than fear, no greater wrong than preparing to defend yourself, no greater misfortune than having an enemy. Whoever can see through all fear will always be safe. – Laozi • When I was still at school, I’d help Dad at the concrete yard he had prior to the garden centre. I was doing things there, like driving the tractors and forklifts, that most kids my age couldn’t. – Rick Astley • When will they make a tractor that can furnish the manure for farm fields and produce a baby tractor every spring? – George Erik Rupp • Why does a three-year-old, and it’s usually boys, want to drive the tractor or have machinery and be in control of it? I don’t know. Why wouldn’t you ask to boil a kettle or something? Maybe you would, I dunno. – Michael Fassbender • You can tell this by the program the federal government had to train 2,400 tractor drivers. They would have trained Negro and white together, but this man, Congressman Jamie Whitten, voted against it and everything that was decent. So, we’ve got to have somebody in Washington who is concerned about the people of Mississippi. – Fannie Lou Hamer • You know, when Arnold Palmer came on TV with an old tractor and told me to buy Pennzoil, I bought that, and when Dale Jarrett advertises UPS, I can go along with that, too. But I don’t think having an 18-year-old, somebody who’s probably gotten five packages in his life and they were all ‘Girls Gone Wild’ videos, tell me what delivery service I should use would have much effect on me. – Kyle Petty • You might be a redneck if on your first date you had to ask your Dad to borrow the keys to the tractor. – Jeff Foxworthy

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jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'a', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_a').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_a img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

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jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'i', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_i').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_i img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

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Tractors Quotes

Official Website: Tractors Quotes

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• All middle-class novels are about the trials of three, all upper-class novels about mass fornication, all revolutionary novels about a bad man turned good by a tractor. – Christina Stead • Art is no longer snobbish or cowardly. It teaches peasants to use tractors, gives lyrics to young soldiers, designs textiles for factory women’s dresses, writes burlesque for factory theatres, does a hundred other useful tasks. Art is as usueful as bread. – Azar Nafisi

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'Tractor', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '68', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_tractor').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_tractor img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • Cows provide approx 100 million tonnes of dry dung a year costing Rs 5000 crores which saves 50 million tonnes of firewood which again means that many trees saved and more environmental damage prevented. It is calculated that if these 73 million animals were to be replaced, we would need 7.3 million tractors at the cost of 2.5 lac each which would amount to an investment of 180,000 crores. In addition 2 crore, 37 lakh and 50 thousand tonnes of diesel which would mean another 57,000 crore rupees. This is how much we owe these animals, and this is what we stand to lose by killing them. – Maneka Gandhi • Happiness is the twinkle in your grandmother’s eye as you reverse the tractor off her legs. – Hugh Laurie • He (David Beckham) does have a huge one, though. He does. You can see it in the advert. It is all his. It is like a tractor exhaust pipe! – Victoria Beckham • His herding instinct is so strong that he confuses tractors on a baseball field for sheep. He was hospitalized twice. Once by a line drive and once for attacking a tractor tread. – Tom Hayden • How much courage does it take to fire up your tractor and plow under a crop you spent six or seven years growing? How much courage to go on and do that after you’ve spent all that time finding out how to prepare the soil and when to plant and how much to water and when to reap? How much to just say, “I have to quit these peas. Peas are no good for me, I better try corn or beans. – Stephen King • I bought an ant farm. I don’t know where I am going to get a tractor that small! – Steven Wright • I buy a tractor two years ago, and four-fifths of the tractor manual is about not tipping over, not raising the bucket high enough to hit high-tension wire… not killing yourself, basically. And in that manual, I found out – and it cost me a thousand dollars – that when the tractor is new, 10 hours into use of the tractor, you have to re-torque the lug nuts. If you don’t, you will oval the holes. This is buried between the moron warnings. I never found it. I take the tractor in for its regular servicing, and they say my wheels are gone. How am I supposed to know that? “It’s in the manual.” – P. J. O’Rourke • I can’t write on the road. I have to be home. I have to be around all those rusted tractors and dilapidated fences and things like that, because it just grounds me in a way that I can’t find in a hotel room. – John Fullbright • I did as much as I could: raising chickens, pushing an ice-cream cart, bagging walnuts, driving a tractor on a beet farm, working on the railroad. I think this eclectic career helped me a lot in life. – Charles R. Schwab • I didn’t get much peace, but I heard in Norway that Russia might well become a huge market for tractors soon. – Henry Ford • I do not like football, which I think of as a game in which two tractors approach each other from opposite directions and collide. Besides, I have contempt for a game in which players have to wear so much equipment. Men play basketball in their underwear, which seems just right to me. – Anna Quindlen • I don’t know of a better argument in favor of farming with horses than trying to start an old tractor in the winter time. – Gene Logsdon • I dont know how the other senators see me. I hope they see me as a farmer. Thats really what I am. But I dont think they see me on a tractor or fixing equipment. I hope they see me grounded, as somebody who has common sense.- Jon Tester • I drove a tractor almost as soon as I could reach the pedals. – Sheri L. Dew • I had no idea ‘Big Green Tractor’ was going to be as big a hit as it was. You just can’t predict those things. – Jason Aldean • I had to jump on the tractor and do my chores. I would have just killed to be in town, to be able to Rollerblade hand-in-hand with somebody I had a crush on. I just wanted to get off the farm, to find my outlet. – Garrett Hedlund • I have a 60-acre farm in North Carolina, and I have a tractor and a farmhouse. As soon as I groom the land, I want to put cabins around and have a place where people can write and hang out. It’ll be either that or an all-black nudist colony. – Zach Galifianakis • I haven’t seen a tractor working all day. The country has gone sane and got back to horses. Farmers all look worse, but they feel better. – Will Rogers • I remember driving the tractor on our farm, and Tim McGraw would be on the radio. I’d find myself walking out of class, singing his songs. And then Tim ended up playing my father in ‘Friday Night Lights.’ It was surreal. – Garrett Hedlund • I said I would do all the films about the commercials, and the films about ball-bearings and Ford tractors and so on, if once a year they gave me money for a free film. – Karel Reisz • I spend hours mowing the lawn in absolutely straight lines on my tractor. If it’s not right, I do it again. – Britt Ekland • I take my vacation on the combine and tractor. – Jon Tester • I used to help my grandfather on the farm, driving tractors, raising crops and animals. I used to feed some of the baby cows and pigs, and I had to be no older than 7 or 8. Then at about 9 or 10 I started driving tractors. It showed me at an early age what hard work was all about and how dedicated you have to be, no matter what you do. – Tyson Chandler • I used to own an ant farm but had to give it up. I couldn’t find tractors small enough to fit it. – Steven Wright • I was working on the farm to get in shape, about a mile away from my parents. You know, I did everything as a kid to stay in shape – jogging, work on the farm, driving the tractor. I’ll never forget. – Guy Lafleur • I welcome opposing viewpoints, but I should warn you that you’ll be facing off against the 2nd-place finisher at the 1981 Charleston County High-School Debate Tournament. And whatever became of that county champ who argued in favor of tractor safety modifications? Last time I checked, she didn’t have her own show. – Stephen Colbert • I would say my first golf memory was asking who Arnold Palmer was when he was always on the Pennzoil commercials. When I was a little kid I watched a lot of sports, but I didn’t watch a lot of golf, and this guy was always on a tractor. – Mike Greenberg • I’d rather do manual labor than sit behind a desk. And as my grandparents got older, I’d fly out there and help out around the farm. We’d tear barns down; we’d build barns. I’d rather be outside rolling hay or driving the tractors. – Kellan Lutz • If I hadn’t become a golfer, I doubt I’d be wealthy, because I don’t have the sort of ego that drives a person all day long. I might have wound up driving a tractor. – Fuzzy Zoeller • If we were to go back in time 100 years and ask a farmer what he’d like if he could have anything, he’d probably say he wanted a horse that was twice as strong and ate half as many oats. He would not say he wanted a tractor. The point is, technology changes things so fast that many people aren’t sure what the best solutions to their problems might be. – Philip Quigley • If your stomach blocks your view of your feet, cover it up! The only people who should be wearing belly shirts are people who don’t have bellies. Now those little baby spare tires are kinda cute; tractor tires aren’t! Especially if they’ve got hair on them! – Jeff Foxworthy • I’m an outdoor nut. If I’m not working, I’m on a tractor on my farm, hunting, fishing or climbing a mountain. – Jeff Foxworthy • I’m working on a second cookbook and am working on my love story, ‘Black Heels to Tractor Wheels. – Ree Drummond • It is unthinkable to have a British countryside that doesn’t have actual functioning farmers riding tractors, cows in fields, things like that. – Bill Bryson • It’s as if the whole notion of growing soil is something only lunatics would think about. But why not grow soil? Does anything make more sense than growing soil? Isn’t that more important than tractors, trucks, silos, barns, county fairs and country music? Of course it is. And yet to the lion’s share of American farmers, the very notion of growing soil is just plain silly.- Joel Salatin • It’s good way to relax when I come home from the road. When you’re out there on the tractor there’s nobody to bother you. – Sterling Marlin • It’s like if every single male artist dressed up as farmers. In every video they were on a farm. Whether it was Jason Derulo or Oasis, they’re always on a tractor, they’re always surrounded by sheep and always in boots. And all the songs are about enjoying farming, and this is all you’ve had for 10 years – you’d think you were going mad. – Caitlin Moran • It’s us fun being a horse when the tractor comes along, or the blacksmith when the car comes along. – Warren Buffett • James Davison took me out to show me where Karl is living right now and where hes going to build. Karl wasnt at home. He was out there somewhere in the woods riding on some Caterpillar or some kind of tractor. But I figured wed at least knock on the door to see if he was there. His wife answered the door. So we got to meet Kay before Karl. – Terry Bradshaw • Let the Black man go – stop lying to us that you love us. And if you really love us, let us go and give us some of this territory that we can call our own; and give us the billions of dollars that we can get started with land and with tractors and the things that will make us an independent nation. – Louis Farrakhan • Lincolnshire is the Idaho of England. You were either going to drive a tractor for the rest of your life or head for the city to work in a factory. – Bernie Taupin • Maybe I should just go home and ride my tractor. – Chuck Grassley • Most of us stand poised at the edge of brilliance, haunted by the knowledge of our proximity, yet still demonstrably on the wrong side of the line, our dealings with reality undermined by a range of minor yet critical psychological flaws (a little too much optimism, an unprocessed rebelliousness, a fatal impatience or sentimentality). We are like an exquisite high-speed aircraft which for lack of a tiny part is left stranded beside the runway, rendered slower than a tractor or bicycle. – Alain de Botton • My father did get enough money to buy mules. We didn’t have tractors, but he bought mules, wagons, cultivators and some farming equipment. As soon as he bought that and decided to rent some land, because it was always better if you rent the land, but as soon as he got the mules and wagons and everything, somebody went to our trough – a white man who didn’t live very far from us – and he fed the mules Paris Green, put it in their food and it killed the mules and our cows. – Fannie Lou Hamer • My father kept me busy from dawn to dusk when I was a kid. When I wasn’t pitching hay, hauling corn or running a tractor, I was heaving a baseball into his mitt behind the barn… If all the parents in the country followed his rule, juvenile delinquency would be cut in half in a year’s time. – Bob Feller • My mother told me I said to her, at age three, ‘I’m going to go to Italy and get my father in a tractor.’ ‘You’ve never seen quite so fierce a little boy as you were,’ she told me. She tried to explain that I couldn’t get my father in a tractor. Apparently I looked at her and narrowed my eyes and said, ‘In that case, I’m going in a double-decker bus,’ and stomped off. Which is kind of funny, but it’s very sad, as well. – Roger Waters • Of course, it’s always bad to lose, of course it’s always a hardship when you lose to yesterday’s miners or yesterday’s tractor drivers. But life is life. It’ll surely go on. – Vladimir Putin • One of the first sights that shocked me, when I came to Israel in 1921, was an Arab turning over a field with a very primitive plow; pulling the plow were an ox and a woman. Now, if it means that we have destroyed this romantic picture by bringing in tractors, combines, and threshing machines, this is true: we have. – Golda Meir • Programs that pay farmers not to farm often devastate rural areas. The reductions hurt everyone from fertilizer companies to tractor salesmen. – Dick Armey • Some of the environmental lobbyists of the western nations are the salt of the earth, but many of them are elitists. They have never experienced the physical sensation of hunger. They do their lobbying from comfortable office suites in Washington or Brussels. If they lived just one month amid the misery of the developing world, as I have for fifty years, they would be crying out for tractors, and fertilizer, and irrigation canals, and be outraged that fashionable elitists back home were trying to deny them these things. – Norman Borlaug • Sometimes I feel people think I live on a commune but I don’t. We are all solar, though. There are no power lines. It’s mostly farmers, so everyone who has tractors uses bio-diesel. – Woody Harrelson • Technically speaking, you drive like a rabid chicken who has hijacked a tractor. – Sarah Rees Brennan • That stupid saying “What you don’t know can’t hurt you” is ridiculous. What you don’t know can kill you. If you don’t know that tractor trailer trucks hurt when hitting you, then you can play in the middle of the interstate with no fear – but that doesn’t mean you won’t get killed. – Dave Ramsey • That’s life. We all go through the tractor blades now and then. We all get bruised, and we all get cut. Sometimes the blade cuts deep. The lucky ones come through with a few scratches, a little blood, but even that isn’t the most important thing. The most important thing is having someone there to scoop you up, to hold you tight, and to tell you everything is all right. – Vicki Myron • That’s the great thing about a tractor. You can’t really hear the phone ring. – Jeff Foxworthy • That’s where I live, a junkyard in a neighborhood of junkyards. We have three tractors from the 1940s and ’50s, several old pickup trucks, and a pile of scrap metal. – Bonnie Jo Campbell • The basic thing a man should know is how to change a tyre and how to drive a tractor. Whatever that bearded dude is doing on the Dos Equis beer commercials sets the bar. That’s your guy. Every man should be aiming to be like him. The beard is just the tip of the iceberg. – Timothy Olyphant • The infantryman slithers in the mud, while many teams of horses are needed to drag each gun forward. All wheeled vehicles sink up to their axles in the slime. Even tractors can only move with great difficulty. A large portion of our heavy artillery was soon stuck fast… The strain that all this caused our already exhausted troops can perhaps be imagined. – Gunther Blumentritt • The only difference between men and women is that women are able to create new little human beings in their bodies while simultaneously writing books, driving tractors, working in offices, planting crops – in general, doing everything men do. – Erica Jong • The things that don’t happen to us that we’ll never know didn’t happen to us. The nonstories. The extra minute to find the briefcase that makes you late to the spot where a tractor trailer mauled another car instead of yours. The woman you didn’t meet because she couldn’t get a taxi to the party you had to leave early from. All of life is a series of nonstories if you look at it that way. We just don’t know what they are. – Anita Shreve • There are only three things that can kill a farmer: lightning, rolling over in a tractor, and old age. – Bill Bryson • We know that urban farms require less fuel for tractors and transport, but community gardens don’t plant themselves. – Van Jones • Well, I have a farm in Vermont that’s my main residence, where I do lots of digging and mowing, and ride tractors – just so you don’t get the wrong idea that I’m too girlie! – Tim Daly • When a country is in harmony with the Tao, the factories make trucks and tractors. When a country goes counter to the Tao, warheads are stockpiled outside the cities. There is no greater illusion than fear, no greater wrong than preparing to defend yourself, no greater misfortune than having an enemy. Whoever can see through all fear will always be safe. – Laozi • When I was still at school, I’d help Dad at the concrete yard he had prior to the garden centre. I was doing things there, like driving the tractors and forklifts, that most kids my age couldn’t. – Rick Astley • When will they make a tractor that can furnish the manure for farm fields and produce a baby tractor every spring? – George Erik Rupp • Why does a three-year-old, and it’s usually boys, want to drive the tractor or have machinery and be in control of it? I don’t know. Why wouldn’t you ask to boil a kettle or something? Maybe you would, I dunno. – Michael Fassbender • You can tell this by the program the federal government had to train 2,400 tractor drivers. They would have trained Negro and white together, but this man, Congressman Jamie Whitten, voted against it and everything that was decent. So, we’ve got to have somebody in Washington who is concerned about the people of Mississippi. – Fannie Lou Hamer • You know, when Arnold Palmer came on TV with an old tractor and told me to buy Pennzoil, I bought that, and when Dale Jarrett advertises UPS, I can go along with that, too. But I don’t think having an 18-year-old, somebody who’s probably gotten five packages in his life and they were all ‘Girls Gone Wild’ videos, tell me what delivery service I should use would have much effect on me. – Kyle Petty • You might be a redneck if on your first date you had to ask your Dad to borrow the keys to the tractor. – Jeff Foxworthy

[clickbank-storefront-bestselling]

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jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'u', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_u').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_u img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

[s4g2]

What To Look For In The Customized SEO Packages India?

No matter how close the domains of operation are, still every business has its own journey. One fact that cannot be denied in this regard is that what might work great for one, might not be effective at all for the other. Keeping this in mind, it has become extremely important to understand that the significance of customized SEO packages India is unbeatable.

It is understandable that business professionals alone cannot think of something that will definitely prove to be successful all the time. Hence, seeking professional help is a must so as to make the most efficient use of one's hard-earned time, energy and money.

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One of the most significant step to make the best of the customized packages is to engage in a good amount of research. Just gathering the facts is not enough and it is equally important to analyze the facts so as to draw a clear picture of the strengths and weaknesses of the competitors. This acts as a good foundation for making the work strategy and acts on it in a time-restricted manner.

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[nasimabbas]

Getting the right coffee table for your couch requires careful deliberation, as does choosing which coffee table books to adorn it with, whether they’re essential must-haves, travel-specific, or focused on the art of science fiction. And while we’re fans of several furniture retailers, we felt we had to show some love to the coffee table universe over at Amazon, where you can get any of the styles you like with the two-day shipping and easy returns Prime members are used to. So we compiled some of the best-selling and top-rated coffee tables we could find on Amazon to inform your responsible and convenient journey to a new member of your living room.Yaheetech’s Adjustable Lift Top Coffee Table, $90 on AmazonYaheetech’s Adjustable Lift Top Coffee Table, $90 on Amazon: Hidden storage can be everything when you need extra space (and a very nice-to-have when you don’t). The effortless and noiseless mechanism in this table makes it one the top-rated choice for coffee tables with an adjustable and liftable top. Whether you want to use the movable top for storage only or to also create a workspace in seconds, there’s a lot of function in this analog mainstay furniture piece — and the espresso style is nice on the eyes.Emerald Home’s Chandler Rustic Industrial Coffee Table, $158 on AmazonEmerald Home’s Chandler Rustic Industrial Coffee Table, $158 on Amazon: The combination of distressed solid wood and industrial steel makes this coffee table a stable staple for your living room and a companion piece for years to come. Nearly 1,300 reviewers left the Chandler a 4.7-star average rating.Mecor’s Rectangle Glass Coffee Table, $89 on AmazonMecor’s Rectangle Glass Coffee Table, $89 on Amazon: Sleek and elegant, this highly rated glass coffee table gives you a unique-yet-functional appearance. The undercarriage is perfect for storage that is still visible, which means more room for books or laptops or last week’s Sunday edition. This easy-to-install coffee table garnered a 4.3-star average from more than 100 reviewers.GreenForest’s Round Coffee Table Round, $130 on AmazonGreenForest’s Round Coffee Table, $130 on Amazon: The water-resistant and durable top on this coffee table shouldn’t fool you — there’s great style here. The round style is great for allowing better access to the table and couches around it. This table’s reviewers left it a 4.5-star average rating and you can get it in an oak or walnut style.Vasagle’s Coffee Table with Storage Shelf for Living Room, $86 on AmazonVasagle’s Coffee Table with Storage Shelf for Living Room, $86 on Amazon: Though sparingly designed, this two-layer coffee table gives you two full-sized surfaces for storage and for coffee activities. It’s perfect for couch diners and lazy evenings when you keep a computer or tablet on the coffee table while you surf for something to watch and want your essentials nearby. It’s a new release on Amazon but that hasn’t stopped it from earning a 4.5-star average rating from more than 500 reviewers.Best Choice Products’s Round Tempered Glass Coffee Table, $90 on AmazonBest Choice Products’s Round Tempered Glass Coffee Table, $90 on Amazon: The elegant gold trim on this glass coffee table is a perfect accent for a glass coffee table, in my opinion — and I’m not a huge fan of glass coffee tables. The design opens up your room and accentuates the table’s surroundings. A plant and a small display or candle will perfect your living room.Scouted is internet shopping with a pulse. Follow us on Twitter and sign up for our newsletter for even more recommendations and exclusive content. Please note that if you buy something featured in one of our posts, The Daily Beast may collect a share of sales.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

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