#and i could just cruise around in my truck looking for stuff to take photos of

[saybees]

Ugh, my mother acts like a rich person, it drives me nuts.

She texted me a photo of her new microwave mounted above the stove and she said that now the stove looks ugly and she wants to get a new one.

It works. It works very well. It functions flawlessly aside from the little screen not showing the time anymore. It's the exact same stove we have in the house we are renting. It's older than me, but it works brilliantly.

I am SO tired of listening to my mother complain about this kind of thing. She's lucky that she has the money to be able to buy new appliances whenever she feels like it. She can repaint the whole house on a whim. My mother complains that they are always so tight for money, but they clearly aren't. They just don't always have the disposable income my mother wants so she can constantly be spending money on stuff she doesn't need to buy.

I have been poor for EVER. Even when I was living at home and I had my parents supporting me I didn't have an allowance or a job (lived out of town and didn't have a car) so I could never spend money. I was lucky to get a $100 bill from my grandmother when I graduated high school. That was a lot of money to me because I never had any. I had to rely on my parents for everything, which is fine, they provided me with what I needed and they did contribute quite a bit to my first couple tries at post-secondary education.

But I have been on my own for a long time now. I have always barely made enough money to get by with a little bit of spending here and there that I probably shouldn't have done, but did anyway because life is short and I want to enjoy things.

My mother was telling me once about how since her and my dad both retired they were only getting $[REDACTED] from my dad's investments and it wasn't enough for them to live off of each month. All I could think was HOLY SHIT because it was twice as much money as I had ever seen in a month and I could survive on it more or less fine. But that wasn't enough for my parents to sit at home doing nothing?? They don't have a mortgage anymore, that's been paid off for several years now. They both have newer vehicles that they got gently used. They have a new tractor my dad went out and got himself, real fancy. They really don't have much for expenses aside from hydro and car payments. Like it blows me away and it makes me so MAD that my mother acts like such a rich person and she can just go and spend that kind of money like it's no big deal while I'm struggling to pay for university that might get me nowhere, but I had to go and do it because I was going to have a complete mental breakdown if I stayed in retail any longer.

It just hurts, I guess, to see my mother living so frugally while I'm struggling. Even my little sister makes really good money at her job that she somehow stumbled into and I feel like such a loser because I'm the only one that's really struggling financially.

I feel like my mother put too much pressure on me to go to university and "make something" of myself. She always drilled it into me that she wanted me to be better off than she was and have what she didn't have, but so far I'm living in more poverty than she did. She pushed me to go to uni when I wasn't ready and I ended up wasting all my money and blowing through my small trust fund. I have nothing to show for it. My mother always put so much pressure on me and I have always felt like a failure.

It's just really hard. I don't want to be in the place that I am. Everyone else is doing much better than I am, but I'm the one that took risks and went out into the world. All it did was burn me.

And now that I'm in uni again I'm struggling through some of my classes and I'm probably going to fail at least one and have to redo it, which means paying another $1000 and spending another 4 months going through the same material. And that's only if I fail the one. I might fail another one yet.

Like my parents are by no means actual rich people. They're very middle class. It just bothers me that I have to work so hard to get nowhere and they have done so little and are so comfortable. I don't think I'll ever get to a place like that.

My sister struggled through grade school, but now she has a killer job that she makes fucking bank at. She bought herself a newer Jeep last year. While I have a 25 year old truck with 260,000 kms on it. Don't get me wrong, I love my truck, but if I had the money to spend on something newer I probably would.

My sister is also autistic, but that doesn't seem to affect her life at all anymore now that she's out of school and I'm here just now figuring out that I probably have autism and adhd and it's making my academic career a nightmare right now. I'm having such a hard time with everything right now because of that and I reached out for help and was completely shut down over it.

I just look at my life and the lives of my family members and I feel like I'm the only one that's ended up in such a crappy spot. Everyone else is so much better off than I am right now and it sucks. I know I shouldn't dwell on it and this is just some depressive episode triggered by a text of a microwave, which is really fucking stupid now that I put it into words, but I just feel so miserable. I feel like I'm stuck and I don't know how to get out. I thought university would help and change things, but so far it hasn't.

I just want to do the things that I love and be surrounded by people that I love, but that's such an impossibly distant goal at this point. I want more from life than this. I want to not have to worry about money anymore. I want to be free to do the things I want to do. I want a job that isn't going to drive me fucking bananas and pays well enough to fund my hobbies. Why does that seem so out of reach? Why can't life just be easier? It seems so easy for everyone else around me.

Money can't buy happiness, but it sure can solve a lot of the issues that cause me to be fucking sad.

#personal text #this turned into a breakdown oops #very long #if i had money id be the happiest motherfucker around #because i could just take photos all day and work in the darkroom whenever #and i could just cruise around in my truck looking for stuff to take photos of #that would be the cure to my depression #being able to just create and do the one thing i really love the most #like seriously if some rich dude that isn't a tumblr bot would be my sugar daddy i would legit take that opportunity #probably wont get my hands on any real money any other way #i wish i could sell prints of my photos and live off that revenue #i don't forsee that taking off though since i don't know how to market on social media #i also just really don't like social media at fucking all #anyone wanna buy some of my photos? #pretty please? #i should put together a gallery somewhere #i guess there's my instagram

[withabackpackandcamera]

June 30th, 2021

Day 5: A Day in Myvatn… And A Night in Myvatn… 

Having a home base in Akureyri the last few days was amazing. It’s always so nice to be able to stay somewhere for more than just a night. You get to spread out, get comfortable, drive less, and not have to keep moving your stuff. So this morning, it was slightly disappointing to have to pack all of our stuff again and pack the car for the long road trip ahead to Seyðisfjörður, where we’d only be staying for a single night before packing up and leaving again. But before leaving Akureyri, the family and I walked downtown to purchase some pastries and baked goods for the road from Kristjan’s Bakari. We briefly walked through downtown and took some photos before we turned back toward the house to grab the car and start our very full travel day. 

The first stop on our itinerary for the day was the Myvatn geothermal area, a place I had visited very briefly the last time I drove around the entire Ring Road. We stopped by the pseudocraters at Skútustaðagígar and briefly hiked in to see the windy views from there before driving on and making quick pit stops at the Myvatn Panoramic Viewpoint and Dimmuborgir. At Dimmuborgir, we actually left the car for a short stroll down a paved walkway through the lava rock formations before circling back out to the parking lot to continue our drive. 

Next, we accidentally drove out to Hverfjall, an old cone volcano, because the GPS led us there thinking the area was the stop for Grjótagjá, a hot spring cave that is famous for some love/sex scene in Game of Thrones (which I have never seen). But after finding the right location for Grjótagjá, we turned out of the Hverfjall area (without hiking or doing anything memorable) and drove over to the original destination of the hot spring cave. The Grjótagjá cave was a pretty neat area to see. The cave was dark but had lots of little cracks for lights to seep through. The scene created by the incoming streams of light in conjunction with the blue-appearing spring water in the cave was pretty cool. Minh and I spent some time here trying to take photos of the cave but gave up before long as all the photos started to look the same. 

As we approached the mountain pass out of the Myvatn area, I took my family over to the Myvatn Nature Baths to give them a brief window tour of the bathing area that I enjoyed with some friends back in 2017. Because we were short on time and no one was particularly excited about paying to jump into a hot spring, we decided to skip soaking in a hot bath this trip and reconsider it again if we had time later on during the trip. But it was a good thing we didn’t bathe today because the wind was crazy and that would’ve made for a subpar bathing experience. 

After we left the Myvatn Nature Baths, we made one last geothermal stop at the Námaskarð Geothermal Area, an rotten-egg-smelling area well known for its geothermal activity expressed in the forms of colorful landscapes, bubbling mud, and natural vents of sulfuric gases. Because it was so ridiculously windy and sandy in this area, we didn’t stay for very long. At first, the family wanted to skip the area and move on with our trip given the wind conditions. However, because of the uniqueness of the site, I made a very real effort to get Cynthia and my dad out of the car to quickly view the area. And I was successful in doing so. With the wind howling and throwing sand and dust everywhere, we quickly ran through the area as we shielded ourselves from the violent wind and the sand it was pelting at us. But it was worth it as my dad and Cynthia got a chance to see some very unique sights. It wasn’t long before we ran back into the car to get away from the elements and braced ourselves for the start of the long leg of the day’s travels: the 3.5 hour drive to Seyðisfjörður. 

With a big dust storm slowly blowing across the landscape in front of us, we drove for about 10-15 kilometers from Námaskarð before the unthinkable happened. Our car started to go haywire before breaking down completely… in the middle of the road… in the middle of nowhere. 

So, let me paint the picture of the situation for you. About 30-60 minutes prior, while driving, I noticed that some random warning lights (namely an A symbol with a circle arrow around it) on my dashboard had started blinking and I couldn’t figure out why that was the case. So after some quick troubleshooting (and not figuring it out), I didn’t think anything of it and continued to drive. Then, after we left the Námaskarð area, I noticed that the engine light had turned on, which is a very, very strange occurrence for a brand new car with just over 2000 kilometers on the odometer. And that was slightly concerning. But after consulting my handy-man dad, we carefully continued our drive. 

Until I started hearing not-normal sounds coming from under the hood of my car. Something that sounded like it was not spinning the way it should under the hood of the car. Like, in the engine or something. At this point, I got very concerned. And things only got worse when, in conjunction with the weird spinning sound, I saw more dashboard warning lights start to light up and blink. Not good. That then quickly spiraled into an actively malfunctioning car. First to completely go nonfunctional was the gas pedal. Oh no, not good. Because the gas pedal died while we were cruising at a speed around 70kph, the car just slowly and surely lost its speed as it kept rolling along on the highway. 70…60...50...40...30...20...10… Zero. 

At one point, as the car was slowing down due to the road’s friction and its nonoperational gas pedal, I looked out to find a safe gravel turnoff to steer the car into. The first turnoff I noticed was slightly dangerous and not ideal given that it was sloped down from the road into the lower area beside the highway. Wouldn’t want to get a dead car stuck facing downhill. So I pushed our luck and kept waiting, since we still had some momentum left. But eventually, the car died JUST before we reached a safe, spacious gravel turnoff/lot that was a much better option for parking a dead car. Because we didn’t make it there with just our momentum, my dad and brother had to quickly jump out of the car and push the car 20-30 meters while I steered it off the road. Once we were situated in the gravel lot, the car, for the most part, died on us. The engine no longer worked and the steering wheel no longer turned. 

But the family and I stayed very calm under these distressing circumstances. Everyone kind of knew what needed to be done. We briefly checked under the hood of the car to see if there was anything we could diagnose. Nope. Then Cynthia quickly called Blue Car Rental with our (luckily strong enough) 3G cell signal to notify them of the situation and get directions on the next steps we should take. All the while, the dust storm in front of us was blowing by and, fortunately, not toward us. 

Once the rental company was contacted and our screenshotted location was emailed over to them, all we could do in the car was sit there and wait for a mechanic and tow truck to make their way out to us in the middle of nowhere next to a dust storm. And given combination of the protocol of needing a mechanic to first diagnose the car problem, the lack of a Blue Car Rental office anywhere outside of Reykjavik/Keflavik, and the fact that another car could not quickly be made available to replace our car, we weren’t sure how long it would take to get things resolved so that we could hit the road again. So we sat there. We waited in the car. We briefly spoke with one random passerby who had stopped by to make sure that we were OK. We took some hilarious modeling photos with the car. And we watched the sandstorm blow by. 

Then, Martjin the Polish Mechanic came to our rescue! And it was unexpectedly fast! Within about 30 minutes of our initial contact with Blue Car Rental, they were able to get in touch with Martjin, who works/owns a car shop (Six60?) on the edge of Myvatn near the Myvatn Nature Baths and was contracted by the car rental agency to help out in these situations, and send him over with his excessively huge (and fittingly American) Ford truck with a tow bed behind it. It was while I was photographing Minh modeling next to the dead car that we saw the big truck and big, burly mechanic approach. 

Once he was out of his car, we introduced ourselves and I explained the situation to him. And the first thing he (basically) told me as he was assessing our red 2021 Kia Sportage was….”This is the fourth car of the same make and model from Blue Car Rental this week alone that I have had to tow for similar reasons.” It was the fourth car that he had towed because the car (a brand new Kia Sportage in all instances) had died all of a sudden despite a full fuel tank, good oil, and with everything else checking out OK on initial investigation. 

It was only while he was preparing to tow our car that he received a call from Blue Car with the answer to the car problem he had been stumped by for the last week. The crankshaft sensor in the car was not working in these models and that it was a manufacturing issue, an issue he himself could not figure out, solve, or fix with his mechanic skills alone. With that new information, he pulled our car onto his tow bed and loaded us into his car to take everyone and everything back to his shop. 

Along the 30 minute drive back to Myvatn, he presented us with several options (some doable, some not so doable) for how to proceed with our situation. Normally, Martjin has two spare Blue Car rentals at his shop for these exact situations. But unfortunately, given that this was the 4th issue this week with Blue Car Rental, there were no spares left to offer. So that wasn’t an option. The other options were to try to get a car rental here as soon as possible (and it wasn’t going to be that soon since Blue Car had to find a replacement car, load it up, find a driver to tow it out to Myvatn, which was 6-7 hours away) to continue the trip later this evening (but actually, in the wee hours of the morning) knowing we had an AirBnB already booked in Seyðisfjörður OR to stick around the Myvatn area for the night and restart our trip in the morning with a new rental that would be towed ALL THE WAY from Reykjavik and arrive by morning. After he made some quick calls to assess all other options and my family and I had discussed the options, we ended up making the safest decision, which was to stay the night in a hotel in Myvatn, take it easy, and make up lost ground once we had our car delivered tomorrow morning. 

Once that decision was made, Martjin made a ton of calls to all of his contacts and quickly made a three-room booking with the relatively fancy and expensive Sel-Hotel Myvatn for the night. We made a pit stop to pick up his “little blond devil” of a son from the nearby kindergarten and then stopped by his shop to wait for him to finish up some things before he dropped us off at the hotel. While waiting at the shop, we met a nice couple, Will and Mary, from Miami who had also run into some car issues and were also on their road trip around Iceland but driving in the opposite direction of us. We had a nice conversation with them and even shared our trip experiences and trip tips as we passed the time. 

Before long, Will and Mary were ready to hit the road again after their flat tire was replaced, and we were ready to head to our hotel with Martjin. A short ride later, we were dropped off at Sel Hotel Myvatn, where we spoke with and checked into our hotel with the very nice and welcoming front desk lady named Kate. After we were given the keys to our three rooms, we moved upstairs to our rooms to get situated and get Cynthia ready for her work day. We hung out for a bit in the hotel rooms before heading down for a relatively early dinner in the nice hotel restaurant downstairs.

At the hotel restaurant, we treated ourselves to a nice and relatively expensive dinner (assuming that we’d get reimbursed for it by the rental car agency as part of the hotel stay). We ordered their Northern Diver Pizza with bacon, ham, and pepperoni, tiger shrimp scampi style scallops starter, lasagna, trout dinner, and pulled pork sandwich. It was so yummy! Though I wish we had gone haywire and ordered even more yummy food to fill up on! I guess we did the responsible thing… for the car rental agency, hahaha. 

With stomachs filled with delicious food, we went to chill upstairs while waiting for our hotel sauna shed/room to be prepared. It took about 30 minutes for the hotel staff to ready the sauna room but once it was ready, the family minus Cynthia sat in a steamy, hot, humid, and very uncomfortable indoor sauna for about 30 minutes or so. My dad and I were the first to exit since we couldn’t deal with the heat and steam anymore. I guess it was slightly cleansing… Once everyone was done with the sauna, Minh and I headed to the hotel lobby to play a couple games of pool before my dad and I did the same. And funnily enough, in-between games with my dad, a little Iceland kid on his way to the Westfjords with his family wanted to jump in and get a game with me. So we played a couple of turns before he had to leave with his mom. Funny kid. By this point in the evening, the family was getting tired. So everyone except me and Cynthia headed upstairs to turn in for the night and get some much needed rest. 

As for me, I hung out downstairs with Cynthia while she worked before going out and exploring the area right across from the hotel that we had briefly stopped at earlier called Skútustaðagígar, where all the pseudocraters were located. I left the hotel around 10pm and hiked along the different paths leading around the pseudocraters before I came across a nice wildflowery slope with the sun setting in the background. With very few, slow-paced moments to do landscape photography on this trip, I wanted to make the most of this particular scene. So I ran back to the hotel to grab all of my photography gear and headed right back out to the flowery slope where I spent an hour watching the sunset while attempting to capture a photograph worth writing home about. 

After freezing outside in the Myvatn wind for an hour or so, I headed back into the hotel to clean and wash up before going to bed. Cynthia wasn’t yet done with work by that time so I went to bed first because I knew that recharging for tomorrow would be a smart thing to do given the ground we had to cover due to the unfortunate circumstances we ran into today. 

Looking back at today’s debacle, our impromptu back-up plan wasn’t too bad! But here’s to a more reliable car and a more productive day tomorrow! 

5 Things I Learned/Observed Today:

1. The Myvatn area is named after the large lake in the area and there is no associated town called Myvatn town.  

2. Lake Myvatn is a bird-watching haven for tons of tourists. If you see heavily-armed photographers with huge lenses and camouflage, they’re probably there to take photos of birds. 

3. Much of the Myvatn area is formed from the interaction of lava and water. For example, the lava rock formations at Dimmuborgir formed when lava spilled over water-filled depressions or marshlands forming a lava lake. Due to the overlying magma and lava lake, the sub-surface water layer heated up and created steam that escaped to the outside through vents that eventually became surrounded by solidifying magma. Over time, the results of this process were lava pillars, columns, and ridges like the ones at Dimmuborgir, which are the remnants of the steam vents of old. Similarly, you have the pseudocraters of Myvatn which were formed from a similar process. When molten lava flowed over water or wetlands, water became trapped underneath the lava field and started boiling. The pressure caused explosions where the steam escaped to the surface. Over time, the repeated explosions ripped apart the lava, which piled up around the steam vent, forming a pseudocrater (per the infographic sign at the site). 

4. Brand new car rentals are not fool- and fail-proof. Always be on the lookout if your engine light turns on randomly and unexpectedly. It’s never a good sign for a new car. And when things like that happen and the car company needs to send a mechanic out to inspect it and tow it, it’s really expensive for the car rental agency. Per Martjin, it costs about 1000 Euros to send him to check out and try to diagnose the car issue at hand. So that’s for the service. On top of that, it costs approximately 3000 Euros to tow a rental car from Myvatn back to Reykjavik. VERY VERY EXPENSIVE. Luckily, if it’s a manufacturing issue, it’s not on us, the customer, to pay any of that. Thank goodness! 

5. Lake Myvatn is considered the land of midges. They are everywhere. And they are a nuisance. Luckily, when it’s super windy outside, they pose no problems at all because the wind sweeps them away. Per the hotel, if the midges fly into your rooms due to open windows, just leave your windows open as they will attempt to fly out right away, thus causing little issues. An issue only occurs when you close your windows and they’re trapped inside.

#withabackpackandcamera #huyphan8990 #travelblog #travel #blog #Akureyri #Myvatn #Dimmuborgir #Skútustaðagígar #Námaskarð #Grjótagjá #photography #landscapephotography #travelphotography #worldtravels #wanderlust #deadcar #geothermal #Iceland #NorthIceland #june #2021 #familyvacation #sunset #wildflowers

[fanfics4all]

Gabby

Request: Yes / No 

Don’t be shy, request things! <3 Have a nice day/night

Spencer Reid x Fem!Male!Reader 

Word count: 4794

Warnings: Child abduction, Murder, Ya know Criminal Minds stuff

Y/N: Your Name 

Y/N/N: Your Nickname 

Y/L/N: Your Last Name

A/N: I’m doing this whenever I feel like it honestly lol 

PLEASE DO NOT STEAL MY WORK, I WORK HARD ON MY FICS AND IT’S NOT COOL TO STEAL SOMEONE ELSE’S WORK! 

If you want to be on the tag list for anything (My series fics, specific character fics, or just all of them) All you have to do is send me an ask and I will add you! 

Masterlist 

(Not my photo, credit to whoever made it!)

We were on the jet quickly for this case. We were racing the clock for this one, something none of us loved doing. There was a lot of pressure with cases like this. A little girl was missing and Garcia was telling us the rundown. 

“It is now three hours and counting since four year old Gabby Hoffer was abducted from her cousin Sue Walsh’s car.” She said. 

“Why would anyone leave a little girl alone in a car at night?” JJ asked. 

“Sue told local authorities that she was a couple blocks from her house, she didn’t want to wake Gabby up, she was in and out of that mini mart in under four minutes.” Garcia answered. 

“That’s a pretty tight window of opportunity. Whoever took her must have been stalking them.” Morgan said. 

“Is there a history of child abductions in this area?” Alex asked and everyone looked at Hotch. 

“No, but the local registry shows a high concentration of sex offenders. We have no time to waste.” He answered. 

“We do have an eyewitness, but his recollection is limited to a dark van that he saw pull up next to Sue’s car.” Garcia said. 

“That’s pretty vague. So we don’t have a color or know who was driving.” Rossi said. 

“Are there cameras that we can look at?” I asked. 

“Yes, there is one camera, it’s in the store, but it’s ancient, but the footage is being sent to the lab right now for enhancement.” Garcia answered. 

“SSA Canning is on the scene with the southeast regional card team. They’re conducting neighborhood and roadblock canvasses.” Hotch informed us. 

“We all know what to do. If this is a stranger abduction, we’ve got fewer than 24 hours to bring Gabby back alive.” He added and I looked down at the tablet. Gabby looked like such a sweet girl, what monster could want to do anything to a child? Everyone ended up separating and working on their own theories, while looking over the little information we had. I was sat on the other side of the plane and Spencer came over. 

“Are you alright?” He asked and I looked up at him. 

“Yeah, cases like these always make me a little on edge, you know that.” I answered. 

“I think it makes us all on edge.” He said and I nodded. Spencer reached over and gently grabbed my hand. 

“She’s in good hands with us.” He said and I gave him a small smile.

“I know.” I said and gently squeezed his hand back. 

It was still dark out when we landed. We immediately hopped into the cars and went our separate ways. We had Garcia on the line to give us any more information we needed. 

“Garcia, where are Gabby’s parents?” Alex asked. 

“Away, but not together. They’re divorced. Mom, Kate, is coming back from a caribbean cruise with her new boyfriend. And Doug, Gabby’s bio dad, is a long-haul trucker who is on the road. And this is where bad turns to worse. Dad has a history of drug problems.” She answered. 

“Since Gabby’s under five years old and her father’s whereabouts are unknown, statistics say he’s more likely the offender than a stranger abduction.” Reid said. 

“He could have been the one who stalked them and grabbed Gabby.” Rossi said. 

“Morgan, you and JJ head over to Sue Walsh’s house. See if any of the neighbors have seen Gabby’s father lurking around.” Hotch ordered them. 

“Alright, got it.” Morgan said. They went to the house, while we went to the mini mart. The local PD had a set up of pretty much everything they needed. 

“Five hours and twenty-three minutes since Gabby was taken. Witness pulled up to pump number two here, saw the van parked there. Blocked his view of Sue’s car. Said the brake lights were on.” SSA Canning said as soon as we got out of the car. 

“The driver could have kept his foot on the brake while someone else used the sliding door to grab her.” Hotch said. 

“It’d be smart to use a partner out in the open like this.” Alex said. 

“We have nine registered sex offenders within three miles. Sometimes they work in tandem, we have teams going door to door now.” Canning said. 

“That’s good, cover your bases. But it’s the ones we don’t know about who are the most dangerous.” Rossi said. 

“What’s the word on the parents?” Spencer asked. 

“Mom and boyfriend Rodney are confirmed off conus. They’ll be at the P.D. soon.” Canning said. 

“What about the father?” I asked. 

“Still not answering his cell phone. It’s not pinging off any towers either.” She answered. 

“So he shut his cell phone off. That’s odd for a trucker.” Alex said. 

“Unless it’s a countermeasure. The dark van could have just been a transport vehicle to get Gabby to his truck.” Spencer said. 

“You’re thinking he waited for the opportunity to take her?” SSA Canning asked. 

“But would he really want to look suspicious like this? You’d think he’d be smarter since he took her out of the car and drove off in under four minutes.” I said. 

“He has motivation given that he lost custody. We should check rest stops for his truck as well.” Hotch said. 

“The problem is, interstate 59 is just three blocks away, and it goes to Louisiana, Alabama, and Georgia.” Rossi said. 

“We’ve got the borders covered. Nobody’s getting out of here without a fight.” Canning said. 

“Agent Canning, can you get video footage for us from a five mile radius? We need to see if there’s any video of this dark van coming or going.” Hotch asked. 

“Not much hope there, Katrina took out a lot of the security and traffic cams. They haven’t been replaced.” Canning said. 

“Is Sue inside? We need to talk to her.” Rossi said. 

“An Agent drove her home and is staying with her in case there are any ransom demands. She’s a wreck. Not sure you’ll get anything new. Excuse me.” Canning said and walked off. 

“Alright, Blake, you and Reid stay with Canning’s people. If Gabby was a victim of opportunity, then the unsubs didn’t have a plan and they could still be in the area. Dave and I will go to the police station and interview Kate and the boyfriend. Y/N, we’ll drop you off at Sue’s house, I want you to talk to her.” Hotch said and walked off with Rossi. I went to follow them, but Spencer stopped me. 

“Be careful.” He said quietly. 

“I will, you be careful too, okay?” I said and he nodded with a smile. I quickly followed the two men into the truck and we were off. 

Hotch and Rossi dropped me off and I knocked on the door. I noticed a woman looking at me from the house next door, but ignored it. The cop that was staying with her answered the door and I noticed Morgan and JJ inside. 

“Y/N?” Morgan asked and nodded at the cop to let me in. 

“What are you doing here?” JJ asked. 

“Hotch wanted me to talk to Sue, him and Rossi went to the station and Spencer and Alex are with Canning and her team.” I said. 

“Alright, well, we’ll go ask the neighbors some questions, you got this?” Morgan asked and I nodded. 

“I’m good, you guys go.” I said and they nodded. 

“We’ll wait for you outside when we’re done.” JJ said and I smiled. They left and I turned towards Sue. 

“Hi, I’m Special Agent Y/N Y/L/N, may I sit?” I asked and she nodded. 

“I’m sure you’ve answered these questions already, so I’m sorry, but I have to go through them with you again.” I said and she nodded again. 

“Was there anyone related to you that could have done this?” I asked and she shook her head. 

“No, Kate’s the only family I got. She’s more like a sister to me than a cousin.” She answered. 

“Her parents took me in after mine died.” She added. 

“I’m so sorry, were you young?” I asked and she nodded. 

“I was eight.” She said and started crying a little. 

“I’m sorry.” She said. 

“It’s okay, this is a hard time right now.” I said and gently placed a hand on hers. 

“Is it okay if I ask you some more questions?” I asked and she nodded. 

“Did anyone take a special interest in Gabby since you’ve had her? Like did anyone ask about her alot, or offer to watch her for you, anything like that.” I asked. 

“No. No. I always had her right by my side of me… except… I was only gone like one second! I got her to sleep finally and I didn’t want to wake her.” She cried. 

“I understand, but there’s nothing you can do about that now, okay? You just need to focus on helping us find her.” I said and she nodded. 

“So think back, was there a delivery man? A service worker? Anyone?” I asked. 

“No.” She shook her head. 

“A neighbor?” I asked. 

“No, nobody. I don’t know, maybe everybody. I mean she’s so nice. She smiles at everybody.” She answered. 

“What about her father? Have you seen him? Has he tried to contact you?” I asked.

“No, he’s always on the road. He never calls.” She answered. 

“Did he know that you were watching Gabby?” I asked. 

“I don’t think so.” She answered. 

“Okay, Sue. Do you know anyone with a dark van?” I asked. 

“No, no. I’m sorry, I just can;t even believe this is happening right now.” She said crying a little harder. 

“I know, but that’s all I need to know right now.” I said and got up. 

“Just stay here and call me if you remember anything else that could help.” I said and left my card on her table. 

“Thank you.” She said picking it up and looking up at me. I nodded with a smile and walked outside to see JJ getting in the car and calling someone. I quickly walked over and got inside. 

“She’s seen a van.” JJ said as we both got inside. 

“Please tell me she’s safe.” Garcia answered. 

“Not yet, but we’ve got a lead on a dark van. It could belong to a plumber, check local businesses.” JJ said. 

“Well, that’s hardly anything.” Garcia said. 

“You’ve had less.” JJ said. 

“True.” She said. 

“Come on, baby girl, we need an I.D. and location right now.” Morgan said. 

“Uh, there are four plumbers in the immediate area. I’m pulling registrations. Eh, white minivans are all the rage. There’s the little family plumber, they have a bluish van that’s dark.” Garcia said. 

“Run employee background checks.” Morgan said. 

“That won’t be hard. It’s only the owner and his nephew, Ian Little, 25. He was released last year, for slinging bennies and heroin.” She answered. 

“Where is he now?” I asked. 

“Sleeping, I imagine. I’m sending you his home address. There it is. Morgan started the car and we were on our way. 

“You find anything out Y/N/N?” He asked. 

“Nothing much. She was really stressed about everything. She couldn’t remember things very well and I didn’t want to push her too hard.” I said and checked my phone. Spencer had texted me and asked if everything was okay. I answered and told him everything was fine. 

Morgan, JJ, and I walked into the station with Ian Little. Morgan had him and his face was blood, but not from Morgan. Hotch and Rossi watched us take him in the back, but Hotch stopped me. 

“Anything from Sue?” He asked. 

“No sir, nothing.” I said and he nodded. 

“What is he doing here?” A woman asked walking out of a room followed by a man. I could only assume this was Gabby’s mother and her boyfriend. 

“What the hell happened to his face?” She asked. 

“You know him?” Hotch asked. 

“Yeah. Doug used to buy drugs from him. Do you think Ian helped him take Gabby?” She asked. Rossi walked off to follow Morgan and JJ into the interrogation room. 

“Y/N, go help Reid.” Hotch said and I nodded. I walked into the room they had set up for us and smiled at Spencer looking at a map and trying to figure something out. 

“Need some help?” I asked. 

“Hey, how did it go with Sue?” He asked with a smile. 

“Nothing really helpful, but we just brought Ian in.” I said and sat down near him. 

“The father wasn’t with him?” He asked. 

“No.” I said with a sigh and started off into the distance. I’m not sure how long I zoned out for, but Spencer had come sat next to me and placed his hand on mine. 

“Y/N.” He said and I shook my head. I looked at him and he looked back at me with concern. 

“Are you alright?” He asked. 

“Yeah, I’m fine.” I said. 

“Really? Because I’ve been talking to you for the past ten minutes and you looked like you weren’t hearing anything I was saying.” He said and I blushed. 

“Sorry, I guess I zoned out.” I said and he gently squeezed my hand. 

“What’s wrong?” He asked. 

“Nothing, come on, we have a girl to find.” I said getting up and started looking through some papers. Before Spencer could protest, Morgan and Rossi walked in. Morgan called Garcia. 

“Talk to us baby girl.” He said. 

“There are no calls, but Ian’s cell pinged off three cell phone towers outside of town on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. I sent you the locations.” She said. 

“Cell tower range and directionality can be dramatically influenced by atmospheric, electromagnetic, and traffic capacity variations.” Spencer said while drawing on the map. 

“Meaning?” Rossi asked. 

“He means a cell phone can travel to the same location but ping off of different towers on different days due to independent outside variables.” I said not looking up from the papers. 

“Garcia, can you see what’s at this intersection point?” He asked, making another mark on the map. 

“39-30 latitude, negative 89-42 longitude.” He said. 

“Uh, that would be the old little farm. And that’s little, not like diminutive, but little family. That’s where Ian grew up.” She said. 

“So Doug went missing three nights ago and Ian’s been at that farm each night since then.” Morgan said. 

“Holy crappy childhood.” Garcia said getting our attention. 

“You can’t make this kind of sadness up. It’s also the place where Ian’s dad killed his mother with a shotgun and then turned it on himself.” She said and I covered my mouth in shock. 

“Oh my God…” I whispered. Rossi took the map and went to go tell Hotch to try and get information. It was morning now and the team had found a body. Canning, Morgan, Spencer, and I were sent out to take a look at it. They set the body down in front of us and Morgan ripped open the bag. It was a man. 

“Who the hell is that?” Canning asked. 

“It’s our main suspect.” Morgan said. I shook my head and sighed. Spencer gently grabbed my hand and squeezed it. He usually didn’t do things like this while we were on a case, it wasn’t profesional. We all got in the car and headed to the farm to search for anything that could help us. 

“Searched the entire property. We found Ian’s van in the barn. No sign of Baggy anywhere. What have you got?” Canning asked us when she came back after half an hour. 

“Coroner says Doug died from blunt force trauma to the head. Then it looks like Ian tried to burn Doug’s body here, which, of course, was harder than he thought it would be, so then he dumped Doug's body in the water.” Spencer answered. 

“Sounds like rage followed by just about every disposal method that we know of.” Morgan said. 

“Even wrapped the body, weighed it down with rocks. Could it be remorse?” Canning asked. 

“It’s more like concealment. We see it alot when there’s a connection between the vic and the killer.” Morgan said. 

“Coroner says Doug’s been dead for at least 72 hours.” Spencer said and Morgan looked at me with a raised brow. He knows I’m never usually this quiet. 

“That would be the same day he got here.” Canning said. 

“So what did this guy do to get himself killed?” Morgan questioned looking at the burnt dirt that we stood around. Canning left soon after to go back to the station. 

“What’s up with you girl?” Morgan asked and I looked at him confused. 

“What?” I asked. 

“You’re never this quiet, what’s up?” He asked. 

“Nothing, I was just thinking too much, sorry.” I said and started my way to the car. When we got back everyone was in the room they set up for us. We were going to go over what we know. 

“We know that Ian picked up Doug on Sunday, then he was killed. What if they surprised Sue at the house?” Rossi asked. 

“And Doug was threatening to take Gabby.” Morgan said. 

“They could have been trying to protect Gabby from him and he was killed by accident.” Spencer suggested. 

“Except they went to extravagant lengths to cover it up.” Alex said. 

“Okay, that may be true, but it still doesn’t answer where Gabby is or what anyone’s motivation is in hurting her.” I said and everyone looked at me. 

“We can keep theorizing, but every minute we do is a minute Gabby is out there.” JJ said. 

“Dave.” Hotch said and he and Rossi walked off. 

They came back fifteen minutes later and informed us that Ian told them what happened. That Sue killed Doug because he was trying to see Gabby. Morgan and JJ were sent to Sue’s house to see if it was true. One they found the proof Hotch, Alex, and Rossi went in to see how she reacts. 

“Kate’s right. Sue’s never gonna tell us where Gabby is. It’s her final move to punish Kate.” Hotch said walking in the room with Rossi and Alex. 

“Sue wants to inflict maximum pain upon Kate.” Spencer said. 

“So you’re thinking she’ll do whatever it takes to make Kate suffer and keep on suffering.” Rossi said. 

“Not knowing what happened to your child would be the ultimate torture for any parent.” I said. 

“But if Sue killed Gabby, chances are eventually we’d find the body.” 

“She’d need to find a way to get rid of her permanently, without killing her.” Rossi said. Everyone went their separate ways to try and figure out how to find this little girl. Spencer had pulled me over to the side, but before he could say whatever he wanted to say, his phone rang. 

“It’s JJ and Morgan. Hello?” He answered and put it on speaker.  

“Nothing’s out of place. In fact, all of Gabby’s things are packed up as if she was preparing to go back home.” JJ said. 

“That’s strong evidence of a false allegation.” Spencer said. 

“So all of this was arranged by Sue for what? To get back at Kate?” Morgan asked. 

“You should have seen her with Kate. She was relentlessly sadistic.” I said shaking my head. 

“So, Sue planned this with whoever was in the dark van. But there doesn’t seem to be any paper trail of it here.” JJ said. 

“And there’s no electronic trail either. There’s no computer or cell phone. Outside of a landline, this girl’s living tech-free.” Morgan said. 

“That’s because she’s hiding something.” Spencer said. 

“Yeah, Alright guys, thanks.” Morgan said and hung up. 

“Before any other interruptions come up, what’s wrong? And don’t tell me nothing because I know it and so does the rest of the team.” Spencer said and I sighed. 

“I didn’t see it…” I said and he looked at me confused. 

“I didn’t see through her act.” I said and he sighed. 

“It’s not your fault Y/N, people like her are good at hiding what they really feel.” He said and I shook my head. 

“If I saw it earlier we wouldn’t have wasted so much time!” I said and he pulled me to him. 

“It’s not your fault, none of us saw it.” He said. 

“But I’m the one that really talked to her. If I wasn’t so distracted I could have maybe seen it!” I said. 

“What’s got you so distracted?” He asked. 

“We found something.” Alex said before I could answer him. 

“Sorry, did I interrupt something?” She asked. 

“No, we were just talking, we’ll be right there.” I answered and she nodded. She left and Spencer let go of me. 

“Tell me what’s wrong.” He said and I shook my head. 

“It’s not important now, finding Gabby is.” I said and walked off to join the rest of the team. They caught us up to speed and then we were going to tell Canning.

“Disrupted adoptions?” Canning asked. 

“That’s what the people involved are calling it. They’re also referring to it as re-homing. And it’s been happening underground for some time now.” Spencer said. 

“Until now, it’s mainly been overwhelmed adoptive parents of problem children from overseas.” Alex said. 

“Good people go on the site looking for guidance or services, but bad people offer to take problem kids off their hands as a last resort.” Spencer said. 

“So they just give them away to some random couple?” Canning asked. 

“Calling them couples is a bit generous.” I said. 

“The article talks about these people who pose as families, but really they’re just freaks looking for access to kids.” JJ said. 

“And no one’s keeping track of them…” I added. 

“Why isn’t this illegal?” Canning asked. 

“Well, ‘cause it’s a relatively new practice, and unsurprisingly, no legislation’s been written yet.” Hotch said. 

“So how did Sue manage to give Gabby away?” Canning asked. 

“She posed as Gabby’s mother and gave her to a woman who claimed she knew how to deal with troubled kids.” JJ answered. Garcia had been working on a list of possible people while we were talking. 

“Garcia, we’re out of time, we need something.” Hotch said. 

“Okay. There are three families who responded to Sue’s post.” She answered. 

“Do any of them own a dark van?” Rossi asked. 

“There’s a Nicole Jones. She owns a blue ‘03 caravan. She lives in a shack twenty miles south of where you are off interstate 59.” She answered. 

“Let’s go.” Hotch said and we were on the move. We got to the house, guns out and ready. Spencer, Alex, and I went around back where we found a barn. We walked inside and found her hide. 

“Guys!” Reid called as she slowly rose up with her hands in the air. 

“D-don’t shoot me.” She said. 

“Where’s Gabby Hoffer?” Spencer asked. 

“She’s gone.” She answered and we cuffed her. She wouldn’t say anything more. 

“She must have panicked and gotten rid of Gabby.” Alex said. 

“This poor girl…” I whispered. 

“Garcia, who else from the area answered Sue’s post?” Hotch asked. 

“Uh… There’s one woman, Michelle Fader. She ran in the same sick circles. And she owns an old van. This Fader’s a real winner. She was evicted from her last known address.” Garcia said. 

“They probably won’t risk going back towards the abduction site, which means they’re headed southwest. Let’s go.” Hotch said and we all went back to the cars. 

“Okay. The woman I hope you’re about to arrest had all her biological kids taken from her five years ago because another child died while in her custody.” Garcia said while we were on the road. 

“She was never charged?” JJ asked. 

“Oh, no, she was, but for neglect. She didn’t spend a minute in jail. Social workers haven’t come by her house at all because none of her kids are in her custody.” Garcia answered. 

“They have no idea she’s been finding new children online…” I said shaking my head. 

“Those poor little darlings are being treated like trash. They don’t know that anybody cares. We care. We care.” Garcia said. 

“Garcia, widen your search to any known male associates of Michelle Fadeer.” Hotch said. 

“Yeah, will do.” She answered. 

“Oh… I got a picture of Fader with some guy who could win sleaze of the century award. And he’s got his arm all possessivey around a sweet little girl.” She said. 

“Run facial recognition software and get an I.D. on him.” Morgan said. 

“Okay, I got a match. Micheal Feehan. He is the perv in the picture with Fader. He’s not in any registries, but he has got a list of accusations. None of them were proven because all of the victims were too young.” She said and I had to hold back tears. 

“Garcia, did you get the address?” Hotch asked.

“Running it now.” She said. She sent it to us and we got there as quickly as possible. 

“Please, give me a reason.” Rossi said pointing his gun at Feehan. 

“What the hell is goin’ on!?” A woman shouted coming out of a room. 

“Michelle Fader, you’re under arrest for staging a child abduction.” Hotch said and put his gun away. 

“I didn’t do nothin’. Look, I was trying to help that girl.” She said. 

“You have the right to remain silent.” Hotch started reading her, her rights.  

“I have only tried to help that girl. She wanted a fresh start. She couldn’t take care of her own babies anymore.” She shouted as Hotch and Spencer took her out. JJ and I walked further in the house trying to find Gabby and possibly the other kids. 

“We’ve got Gabby. And there are other kids back here.” JJ called. 

“Are you okay?” I asked, bending down. 

“Can you take me home now?” Gabby asked and I smiled at her. 

“Yes, sweetheart. We’re gonna take you to your mommy.” I said and she smiled. Spencer had come over and smiled at me. 

“Okay, come on.” I said and lifted Gabby up. The other two kids followed and we took them back to the station. 

“Mama!” She shouted as soon as she saw her. I set her down and she ran up to her mother. 

“Oh, my sweet baby!” Kate said and held her in her arms. 

“I missed you, mama.” Gabby said. 

“I missed you so much.” Kate said. 

“Why are you sad?” Gabby asked. 

“I’m not sad.” Kate answered. 

“So those are happy tears?” Gabby asked, wiping the tears off her mother’s face.

“Yep.” Kate answered and I walked back to the team. 

“Y/N… you okay?” Morgan asked, placing a hand on my shoulder. 

“They don’t have anywhere safe to be…” I said looking at the other kids. 

“It’s not ideal, but they’ll be in foster care. Until they find a family.” Alex said. 

“Yeah, but how many more kids like that are out there?” Rossi asked. 

“That’s a good question.” Hotch said and Spencer pulled me into another room. 

“Are you better now that we found her?” He asked and I nodded. 

“Yeah, a little…” I said. 

“Now will you tell me what’s had you so distracted?” He asked, grabbing a hold of my hands. 

“I’m pregnant…” I whispered, looking at the floor. 

“W-what?” He asked, shocked. 

“I’m sorry.” I cried, but Spencer pulled me to him. 

“How long?” He asked. 

“I found out last month. I didn’t know how to tell you.” I cried. 

“Shhh, it’s okay.” He whispered and tried to help me calm down. 

“I’m going to be a father?” He asked, making me look up at him. I nodded with a slight frown and he furrowed his brow. 

“What’s wrong? You’ve always wanted kids.” He asked. 

“I know, but do we really want to bring a child into this world? I mean just look at how many monsters are out here and that’s just the ones we know of…” I said and he gently grabbed my face and kissed me. 

“Yes, the world is messed up, but we help make it a better place.” He said. 

“I know, but-” 

“But nothing Y/N, you’ve always talked about how badly you want kids and although it’s a little earlier than I thought it would be, I’m excited to be a father.” He said and I smiled. 

“It’s not too early for us?” I asked. 

“We’ve been together a year, I think it’s okay, if it’s okay with you.” He said and I smiled. 

“We’re gonna be parents.” I said and he kissed me again. 

“We’re gonna be parents.” He whispered back. 

Tag list: @les-bio-lie​ @tashy-bear​ @xrosesareredx​ @ashwarren32​ @hollie-blogs​ @schisbro87​ @lover-of-books-and-teas​ @nerdygaloresposts​ @alex--awesome--22​ @teenwolfbitches2​ @genius2050​ @drw0301bieber​ @softgamerking​ @lady-of-lies​ @simonsbluee​ @ravenmoore14​  @pettyjayy​

#Criminal Minds #criminal minds imagine #criminal minds season 9 #spencer reid #spencer reid imagine #spencer x reader #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #spencer x fem!reader #spencer reid x fem!reader #fanfic #criminal minds 2020 bingo

[wolfywordweaver]

Celebratory One-Word Prompt One-Shot

Hello beautiful people! While this was finished by last week I had RL stuff that kept me busy enough to not be able to post this until now. It’s short, sweet, and I got all the one-word prompts in! XD

Many thanks to @felicja-j, @narrowredoubt, @prussian-bog-monster, @curlyy-hair-dont-care, @pan-and-ready-to-stan, @lov-lyness, @peace-wisepenguin, and @kingfoxjellyfish

Prompts: island, rain, angelic, blush, pineapple, tea, and penguin  Bonus: Tomarry in a dungeon cell

[now here on AO3 if you prefer to read over there]

----    -----    ----

"I can't believe that we're really doing this," Remus murmured as he ran his fingers through his unruly grey-streaked hair.

"Damn, Moony; you make it sound like I never take you on vacation." Remus shoot a look towards his husband. "Okay, okay, this is the first time I've taken you on vacation."

"My income contributed to this too, you know," the shorter man huffed as he glanced at the mirror once more. 

How was a middle-aged man vacationing on a beach on a whole different hemisphere supposed to look for a casual walk? His usual professor-esque uniform of sensible slacks and well-worn jumpers had been vetoed by Sirius but he felt almost too touristy in the cargo shorts and plain white t-shirt. He was showing far too much pale skin and worried that he would be the laughing stock of the beach if he left the house like this. 

"We wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you too, my love," Sirius stated breezily before pressing a wet and scruffy kiss to his husband's cheek. "And don't overthink the outfit. You look great."

"Easy for you to say," Remus murmured back as he stared at the reflection.

Sirius Black looked good no matter what he wore, regardless of how ridiculous it was. In fact, he was currently leaning onto Remus' shoulder casually while wearing denim hot pants and a pink t-shirt with little pineapples screenprinted all over it. Ridiculous for a man with grey hairs starting to make an appearance at his temples, but the tall man wore them so confidently that no one would even bat an eye.

"C'mon," Sirius groaned as he dragged Remus away from the mirror. "What's the fun of spending years saving up for an island vacation in the Caribbean only to get there and spend the whole time holed up in the hotel room because you're feeling self conscious of your outfit? You look hot, and my opinion as your husband is the only one that counts."

Taking a deep breath, Remus nodded. "You're right. We've only got a week here and it would be foolish to waste it away in the room." Sirius beamed proudly and Remus couldn't help but feel that twinge of affection that only Sirius could stir in him. "Should we go walk to the aquarium today? I think that the pamphlet said something about a penguin exhibit."

"Yes!" Sirius cheered as he rushed out the door. "Penguins!!!"

By the time they made it to the beach, Remus was already feeling better about his outfit. The tourists coming fresh off the cruise ship were wearing all manner of strangely gaudy outfits, and Sirius had a grand time giving his scathing reviews of their clothes. A short walk through the beach and up a hill and they could see the aquarium in the distance. The men entwined their fingers as they walked down the street with Remus chatting away about the most recent literature review he'd written and the work of two of his students who were trying to get published in an academic journal. A large raindrop splashing against his nose broke the conversation and soon they were huddled together under the metal awning of a food truck to avoid the downpour.

"Dang it, I hope my phone didn't get too wet," Sirius grumbled as he pulled the device out for inspection. His sudden barking laugh made Remus look over the top of the screen.

"Oh Merlin, not again," he groaned with a smile.

"Wait, listen to what James wrote. Ahem, 'Padfoot I think that we're going to need to stage an intervention for my boy when you guys get back. Is there like a gay code or something you can use to get through his thick skull that getting repeatedly stuck in compromising places with the same boy is not a coincidence?'"

Remus was outright laughing and he smooshed into his husband's side to get a better look at the accompanying photo. "That must be that theater stage set they were working on," he chuckled.

"What kind of play has a fucking dungeon?" Sirius shot back in amusement.

"Phantom of the Opera, I think." He squinted his eyes at the picture and just shook his head. "How long did James let them stay stuck in there?"

Sirius bit down on his lip as he tapped away on the screen before snickering at a message that came through. "Ooh, Lily wouldn't let him rescue them for over an hour. She was hoping that would be enough for the boys to work out their sexual tension."

"Let me guess," Remus chuckled as he looked back at the picture with a highly annoyed Tom and a blushing Harry, "that didn't work. And I'm sorry, but bringing the pining idiot and the oblivious idiot to talk to their son isn't going to help much either."

"I wasn't oblivious for that long," Sirius defended weakly before grinning sheepishly. 

"Sirius. It was over three years of overt flirting on my part before you realized that I wanted to date you."

"Yeah, well, we've been together for over 13 years so that's like a drop in the bucket of time! Now we're just romantically in love idiots."

Remus glanced up into that stupidly angelic face and sighed happily. True, three years had seemed like an eternity when he was in the midst of trying to woo his best friend but he would do it over again in a heartbeat if it meant keeping these years together.

"Best 13 years of my life," Remus murmured before leaning forward and pressing a soft kiss to those smirking lips. "Do you think they serve tea anywhere around here?" he asked when he pulled away. The soft rain reminded him of home, although the still hot temperatures reminded him that they were half a world away. 

The tall, dark-haired man was absolutely beaming down at his husband and gave him an affectionate squeeze. "I'll find you some, love."

Thirteen years down, and forever to go.

#wolfy writes #fanfiction #one-shot #wolfstar #sirius black #remus lupin #one-word prompts #reader's choice #celebration #fluff #hint of tomarry #exasperated Lily and James #gay intervention

[anonymousponywriter]

Long Day, Short Night

The drive home to Sweet Apple Acres had been the longest half hour of Applejack’s life. Taking on a job at the juice bar in the food court had been a good idea at first, but with the school’s out for summer and the sweltering heatwave that had just landed, Applejack felt like she hadn’t had a break all day. Her feet ached in her boots, her hand blistered from all the fruit she’d cut up and her head, it felt worse than the sugar hangover she’d get after a Pinkie party. All Applejack wanted to do was crawl into her bed and sleep the rest of the day away...too bad, Granny Smith had other ideas.

From the moment she stepped foot out of the family truck, the oldest Apple family member had sent the tired girl out to help her brother with the evening cider deliveries. To Big Mac’s credit, he had insisted that Applejack stick to driving duties and leave the heavy lifting to him, but Applejack wasn’t the kind of girl to let a man do a job that she was more than capable of doing herself. So, the stubborn farm girl had forced her aching body to lift and unload a few dozen crates of cider to various stores around town, all the while she fought to keep her eyes open as they cruised through the quiet roads home.

“Do ya think that yer should have a lie-down fore dinner, AJ?” Big Mac questioned worrisomely as they pulled up to the farmhouse.

“Ah d-” Applejack started but was quickly cut off as the tell-tale sound of her girlfriend’s motorbike grew closer. An excited smile overtook Applejack’s sleepy frown as she hopped out of the truck to meet the rainbow-haired athlete at the gate.

“Ah guess not.” Big Mac chuckled to himself as he watched his little sister impatiently wait for Rainbow Dash to cruise up the dirt path.

“Well, aren’t you ah sight fer sore eyes.” AJ teased as Rainbow pulled up, shut off her bike, and pulled her helmet off that allowed her rainbow locks to fall down her shoulders.

“I always am.” Rainbow shot back as she jumped off of her bike. “It’s good to see you too, by the way.” She blushed, still not entirely comfortable with the intimacy that came with being in a relationship. Taking a quick look around the area for any possible witnesses, Rainbow was happy to find that the couple was alone. Slightly more comfortable, she leaned forward and placed a small kiss on the farmgirl’s lips. “Strawberries?”

“I cut up too much at work.” Applejack explained without Rainbow Dash having to inquire further before she pulled the shorter girl into a loving embrace, not satisfied with just one kiss.

“Put er down, fore yer put da pigs off yer dinner!” Granny Smith called out affectionately, causing Rainbow to jump away from AJ like she was on fire.

With beet-red cheeks, Rainbow shot the oldest Apple a small wave before whispering, “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look her in the eye again.”

“Don’t sweat it sugar cube. She’s seen a lot worse.” AJ rolled her eyes as she reached down to take Dash’s hand and lead the embarrassed girl towards the family home.

“Still, I think we should keep stuff like that to a minimum,” RD spoke absentmindedly, only realizing how her words might have hurt her girlfriend when she saw a small frown fall upon her face. “At least around your family.” She corrected herself, “I don’t think I could live without kisses like that.” She teased, planting a passionate kiss when they had made into the privacy of the empty Apple home.

“Aww, when’d ya get so romantic.” The taller girl teased as she pulled away ever so slightly but still made sure to keep her hands threaded through Rainbow’s surprisingly soft hair.

“Shhh, you’ll ruin my rep!” Rainbow blushed as she moved forward to plant her lips against AJ’s neck, littering her smooth skin with dozens of kisses. Moving the pair towards the old couch, Applejack let out a playful chuckle as the two fell over the arm of the couch. With Rainbow Dash comfortably nestled into AJ’s side, she quickly continued her attack on her girlfriend’s neck, while Applejack allowed her hands to begin their exploration under Dash’s shirt. Seeing Rainbow like this was a welcomed sight, so often the shorter girl would keep intimacy like this to fleeting moments where she was sure they wouldn’t be interrupted or caught, never had she even dared to kiss her out in the open of the Apple family home. It wasn’t that Dash was ashamed of their relationship, far from it. It was just as she’d said, she had a reputation to uphold and, in her mind, anyone seeing her all loved up would tarnish that.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Applejack let her eyes close happily, as she relaxed into Rainbow Dash’s touch. As Dash moved up Applejack’s neck, the farm girl found herself gently drifting off to sleep, every kiss from her girlfriend bringing her that much to the land of dreams.

“AJ?” Rainbow paused her shower of kisses after a few moments as soon as she noticed Applejack’s hands had stopped tracing random shapes on her stomach. “Applejack…” She tried again, her voice a little louder than before. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” She chuckled as a soft snore filled the air. Pulling out her phone, Dash cuddled into Applejack’s side and snapped a few photos of her sleeping beauty. A small yawn escaped from Rainbow’s lips as she put her phone away, ‘maybe AJ has the right idea’, she thought to herself as she draped a lazy arm around Applejack. She knew that anyone could walk into the Apple family home and see her in this position, but for the first time, she didn’t care. Applejack’s arms were just too damn comfy to remove herself from.

***

When the Apple family entered the small farmhouse that night, a smile could be seen on each of their faces when they came across the sleeping couple. Carefully, Applebloom placed an old knitted blanket over the cuddled-up girls and snapped a few pictures of her own - ones that she’d later use to blackmail the rainbow-haired girl into giving up her extra portions of dessert - and flipped the small lamp off.

#Appledash #Applejack #Rainbow Dash #Apple Family #Prompt #MLP Prompt #Applejack x Rainbow Dash #equestria girls #Really getting into writing mlp fanfiction #send me a prompt #Please

[ginalover]

Jennifer Tilly and Gina Gershon Revisit Their Lesbian Neo-Noir “Bound”

By Maureen Lee Lenker

Photos By Austin Hargrave for ET

June 06, 2019 

Gina Gershon and Jennifer Tilly aren’t fans of watching themselves on screen — but they’ll make an exception for their 1996 film, Bound.

The Matrix masterminds the Wachowskis made their directorial debut with this noir about two women — femme fatale Violet (Jennifer Tilly) and ex-con Corky (Gina Gershon) — who fall in love and team up to steal $2 million from Violet’s mobster boyfriend, Caesar (Joe Pantoliano).

Bound only made $3.8 million domestically upon its release, but it quickly became a cult classic in the gay community — long before each of the Wachowskis came out as transgender — and it catapulted the siblings to the highest echelons of directors.

We got Gershon, 57, and Tilly, 60 back together at Bibo Ergo Sum, a swanky bar with all the art deco vibes befitting these two femme fatales. There, the actresses vamped it up for a photo shoot, including recreating the iconic Sophia Loren-Jayne Mansfield shot, and had the time of their lives reminiscing as they rewatched the movie together. The enduring warmth of their friendship and their outrageous, heartfelt memories left us fit to be tied.

In the first scene, Violet and Corky share a sultry glance in an elevator, and a palpable connection is born — in fact, it’s still present today in their offscreen friendship.

Gina Gershon (Corky): My agents didn’t want me to do it. Literally, I was told, “You are ruining your career doing this movie. We will not let you do this movie.” I never get to play the hero and to get the chick. I mean, it’s the typical part that I’ve watched my whole life, and it’s never been a woman. I left my agents over it. Jennifer Tilly (Violet): I wanted my hair to have a violet sheen, so it’s black but if you see it in the correct light, it’s very dark. I got this nail polish. It had just come out, and I went into Chanel and they said, “Oh, we only have one bottle. We’re saving it [for] somebody, but they were supposed to pick it up yesterday. We’re going to sell it to you.” It was called “Vamp.” All my makeup is like shades of violet, like my lipstick is purple-y. Gershon: I was coming right off of Showgirls, and I was so ultra femme in that. [I cut] all my nails and my hair off, and I started boxing. I had been dancing for five months, so I was so floaty and I wanted to be in my body more like a boxer…Marlon Brando, Monty Clift, Robert Mitchum. I went to all those guys. There’s a certain quietness. I wanted to be like all the guys I project [my ideas of heroism and masculinity] on to. Tilly: It was a classic film noir, except instead of the lead being a male, it was Corky. A studio offered the [Wachowskis] a lot more money to make the movie, but they said that they had to make Corky a man. Gershon: As soon as I met Jen, I thought, “Oh my God, all I have to do is watch her.” She was so amusing and so fun. It’s just so easy to watch her, like her butt and her legs. It made my job easy to kind of objectify her. We liked each other as soon as we met. Tilly: Once they got the two of us in the room, I thought, “This is a girl that I can really see being in a relationship with.”                                                      Gershon: You’re the really, truly the only real actress I’ve stayed friends with… 

Rattled by her attraction to Violet, Corky goes to a lesbian bar to try to pick up a date as a distraction. It fails though, and Corky stews at home alone while playing her Jew’s Harp.

Tilly: This scene here it was all [advisor and feminist sex writer] Susie Bright’s friends. That’s why the bar scene is so authentic — it’s all lesbians. Gershon: Susie Bright, she was supposed to take me around. The Wachowskis thought it was important that I meet her. She was an authority figure, and [a writer] in the lesbian community. I was really excited to talk to her. Tilly: I never met her. She was pretty much advising Gina. And the thing is, Gina’s character is a lot more hardcore lesbian than Violet. Gershon: We [Gershon and Bright] were going to go cruising around San Francisco. When I got there she couldn’t do it, so she pointed me in the right direction to go to certain bars [on my own]. I just went out and felt the vibe and met people. I actually had a really fun night [Laughs]. I’m definitely not talking about what happened. Just that I felt a lot more confident by the time I got back to L.A. Tilly: She’d come in and she’d be like, “Uh, you know, we need to come up with a new pick-up line. I tried that pick-up line on some chick last night, it didn’t work.” Gershon: I just thought I’d be inspired. I certainly was inspired with tattoos and stuff. I ended up choosing my own tattoos and where I wanted them and all that stuff. Tilly: Somebody said, “Oh, you know, females don’t have any sex organs.” [Susie] goes, “Yes we do; it’s called a hand.” So they did do a lot of shots of hands. Gershon: I really liked the hip [tattoo] that wrapped around my hip and crept up. You saw the top of it coming out of my pants sometimes. I thought that was really sexy. I had seen that on some girl at a bar, and I was like, “Oh that’s hot.” Tilly: That’s also her Jew’s Harp.                                                            Gershon: I’m always trying to get my Jew’s Harp in anything! It was the only movie I’ve ever actually had it in there…I needed something in my hands, and I liked the idea of when she’s thinking about the plan, to have something in my hand.

Violet asks Corky, who is at the apartment complex doing plumbing work, to help her fetch an earring she dropped down the sink. It turns out to be a seduction ploy and the two share a steamy first kiss.

Gershon: I’m doing the pipes. I was a little paranoid. I’m definitely not good at any of that stuff, so I just needed to be convincing…I kind of got into it. It’s so dirty and messy, and you’re shoving this thing in the plug. It was fun. I just wanted to look cool, like I knew what I was doing. I liked all the physical activity. It just made me feel like I was doing all the things that I wish I knew in real life. I remember my mom said, “You’re a really good actress.” I asked, “Why?” She said, “Because I believed the plumbing stuff.” Tilly: Look at this, we’re like equals. You know I’m full of s–t; I know that you know I’m full of s–t. We both know what you’re here for. Gershon: Look at your body. Honestly, whenever I wasn’t sure of what I was doing I would just stare at your chest. Tilly: Method actor. [Laughs] The Wachowskis wanted [an] extreme close-up of our lips. We finished shooting the scene, and the Wachowskis had to get a special camera that cost an extra $10,000. The dailies were coming in looking so good, [producer Dino De Laurentiis] finally got [it for them]. So, we went back and shot that — just a close up on our lips. We were a little nervous. I remember Gina was like, “The camera’s going to look up my nose!” But it’s such a beautiful shot. Gershon: I’m so comfortable feeling your boobs. Tilly: This scene where I take her finger — I just thought, “Oh, [I’ll] put it in my mouth!” I improvised that. She’s like, “Oh, where’s this finger going? Oh, it’s not going south, it’s going north. Ok, now it’s going south.” 

Later that night, Violet comes to Corky’s truck to apologize for all the things she “didn’t do” to Corky that afternoon, and they kiss again.

Gershon: “I hate women who apologize for sex” — That’s a truthful line. I do hate women who apologize for sex. Why should they be like, “Oh my God, I’m sorry I really like this.” I thought it was a very smart line, because it was truthful, you know? Tilly: [Of all our romantic scenes together, we filmed this kissing scene first.] I had never kissed a girl before, onscreen or off. And I was a little bit nervous. Gershon: I brought her tequila and chocolate before our first scene that we were fooling around. Tilly: I was in my trailer like “an actress prepares,” and I hear, “Knock-knock, I got tequila and chocolate.” Gershon: I said, “Here’s your preparation.” Tilly: We actually had to reshoot that scene, but they said, “Not because you girls were drinking.” There was a problem with the camera work.

They go back to Corky’s apartment and have sex.

Tilly: A lot of times, as a young actress in Hollywood, you read the love scene, and it seems like the writer is just getting himself off. Like writing three pages of porn. When you’re reading this, it was very matter of fact. Gershon: [The Wachowskis] knew every angle, every cut. They came from doing graphic novels so they really had it in their heads. Tilly: They didn’t want it to be a man’s version. There’s a male version of what lesbians are, and you see it in the soft-core porn movies all the time. They really wanted to get it right. They wanted to be very respectful of the lesbian community. They wanted it to be very, very authentic and raw, not pornographic. Although it was pornographic because we’re hot. [Laughs] Gershon: It was like the four of us having sex. It was like: “Foot! Wall! Head!” It was so choreographed. The camera [is] moving around, and you have one wall go up, another wall went down. Tilly: They wanted to do it in one long continuous shot. They had guys pulling at the walls. It was like a ballet between the Wachowskis, the crew, [and us]. [They’d be] yelling through the megaphone, “Breast!” and then we knew the breast was in frame. Gershon: I knew I had to curl [my toes] on cue. I think it could have been a little bit more connected to an orgasm or to a sexual feeling. I felt it was more a mechanical thing. [But] it was very fluid. No pun intended. Tilly: Gina is like the coolest person to ever do a love scene with. She was playful. I would be like, “Can you put your hand here so my cellulite doesn’t show? Can you prop my breast to make it look a little more plump?” Gershon: In between takes, we’d talk about shoe [shopping], and we were laughing so hard. Tilly: Gina had weights on the set, so before a scene she would work out [with] weights to make her muscles [bigger]. Gershon: Every guy actor I’ve ever seen on set does pushups and stuff if he doesn’t have his shirt on. I was like, “Oh this is what the dudes do, so this is what I’m going to do,” because it kind of pumps your arms up. It’s all very macho too. You know Corky had a lot of armor on, she was very protective of herself. The more I could feel that, the better I felt as Corky. Tilly: We had a lot of problems. We almost got a NC-17. Gershon: There was one take that all four of us were like, “That’s the one.” It was like a real love scene. You didn’t see a boob. You didn’t see anything; it was all suggested. It really played on our face more than anything. Tilly: You can see my fingers on her crotch. You see nothing; you see a hand! Gershon: It was the emotionality. Tilly: [The rating board] said, “It looks like they’re really doing it.” And the [Wachowskis] go, “Let me get this straight. If the girls weren’t such good actresses, you wouldn’t have a problem?” They were embarrassed, and they said, “Yes.” Gershon: God forbid we have these two women actually in love. We had to go with the “f—ing” scene. In the “f—ing” scene, they were really going at it, and it wasn’t as emotional. They were okay with that, which is bulls–t. Tilly: The Wachowskis said, “It’s homophobia, pure and simple.” The shot that we used was so much more elegant. This one’s a lot more graphic. They sprayed more sweat on us. In the last part of the scene, my boob accidentally fell into frame, like, “I want to be on camera too!”

After making a connection, Violet floats the idea of stealing $2 million from her mobster boyfriend Caesar (Joe Pantoliano), which he has left drying all over the apartment after a job gone wrong doused the money in blood. The scene cuts between Violet and Corky as they plot and the action of their plan unfolding in real time.

Tilly: There was a scene where Corky’s putting in all her little burglar tools [in her ears], and they intercut it with me putting on my lipstick and my mascara. The Wachowskis said, “Those are your tools. Those are Violet’s tools and [those are] Corky’s tools. This is how Corky gets by, by stealing, and this is how Violet gets by, by painting her face.”…Afterwards, they sold all the stuff. You go over to Joey’s house, and it’s like the set. He even bought the wallpaper and put it in the hallways.

Violet convinces Caesar that fellow mobster Johnnie (Christopher Meloni) stole the $2 million, leading to a sudden bloodbath in their apartment, as he kills both Johnnie and mob boss Gino (Richard C. Sarafian).

Tilly: There was also another shot that they wanted — when the head of the mafia gets shot, they said they wanted him to fall like a mighty oak in the forest. The stunt person said, “Nobody can fall that way, it’s too dangerous.” They had to get another $20,000 dollars from Dino De Laurentiis. They created this machine that was like a lever. So, they put him on the machine and then the lever went backward so when he falls, he falls straight back…Christopher Meloni and everyone, they’re shooting [the place] up, the [Wachowskis] wanted me to duck behind the bar. And I thought, “Oh, here’s where she can show ice water doesn’t run in [her] veins.” So I was going to do a thing like, “Oh she’s remembering when she was three and her mother shot her dad.” I thought This is a really good time for me to lose it. Like, “Oh my God, oh my God!” And they peak behind the bar, and they go, “What the f–k? Jennifer, what are you doing?” And I’m like, “Oh, I feel like I should be very upset here!” And they go, “No. Everything’s going according to plan. You planned it. You’re waiting for it to be over so you can move on to the next step of your plan.”

After Caesar murders his associates, including a mob boss, he realizes Violet has two-timed him and finds Corky next door. They fight; he ties Corky up and dumps her in the closet. But eventually, in the most metaphorical shot, she busts out, and the trio face-off in a final showdown, which Violet ends by shooting Caesar in cold blood.

Tilly: You’ve got to really adore your costar and have a good relationship and a trusting relationship because it’s a really violent scene…[Gina] sprained her wrist or finger or something like that. But you got to go for broke. You can’t be precious, you know? You’re doing fight scenes. You kind of have to go for it. Gershon: I definitely got whacked, and it hurt, but it was an annoying thing because I was just like, “I just need some ice.” But then there’s all this brouhaha on the set with insurance. They’re like, “Oh no, you have to go check it at the hospital.” I didn’t want to leave the set. It definitely hurt, but it would have been fine with ice. I didn’t need stitches or anything. I guess they needed to check that I didn’t break anything, which I didn’t. I just felt really guilty having to leave the set, and I was like, “We don’t have time for me to leave the set right now.” You’re bound to get a little bruised here and there. Not a big deal. Tilly: Oh! She explodes out of the closet! Gershon: I kick out the closet door. It was symbolic for so many women. The whole idea of coming out of the closet. It was very satisfying and very heartwarming. Many girls have come up and said that it helped them come out. It helped change their lives, and that’s really meaningful. Tilly: [The moment where I kill Caesar], they were saying like, “This is a Terminator, ‘I’ll be back’ moment.” Caesar goes, “You don’t want to hurt me. I know you don’t.” And she goes, “Caesar, you don’t know s–t.” They consciously put that in to be like an “I’ll be back” moment and they said, “That’s the Terminator moment when she says that.” It’s also really interesting in terms of some of the underlying themes that men think they know what women want.

Violet and Corky’s plot succeeds, and they ride off into the sunset together in the brand new red truck Corky bought with their money. All to the tune of Tom Jones’ “She’s a Lady.”

Tilly: That was my dress. Those are my earrings. That’s my watch. I wore pretty much all my own clothes…After the movie, I gave some of the clothes to my sister. The dress, in the last scene, she shows up wearing it [one time] and I’m like, “You know how many lesbians would love to get their hands on that dress. That’s an artifact! It should be in a museum!” She’s like, “It’s my favorite dress!” Gershon: I love the end. I get the chick. I get a car. I get the money. You know what I mean? I was like a real hero. It’s not often, especially at that point, that the women get to be heroes. Those are always the guy’s part. I was just psyched. I’m like, “Hey, I got my girl. I’ve got a new car. We’re gonna go off into the sunset.” It was very satisfying. Tilly: When Gina goes, “Beep-beep” [and we see her new car]. In the audience, everyone laughs. I’m like, “Why is everyone laughing?” And they’re like, “That’s what every guy does when they get some money; they buy a red truck.” Gershon: I was pushing Sinatra, “The Best Is Yet to Come”. I was hearing that in my head, and I think they were toying with that, but then this is what they went with which was great. I mean you can’t go wrong with Tom Jones. Tilly: We had to reshoot the last scene too because, when they were driving away, you could see palm trees reflected in the windshield. Gershon: We always joked about what happens with the sequel. I think they had to split up when the mob was on them, and Violet ends up with some other rich guy at some point. Corky had to leave in order to protect Violet. They struggle, but I think they always come through, you know? Tilly: Everyone’s positive that they’re so in love, and they’re going to live happily ever after, but I really think in Violet’s nature, she’s a predator. I do not think it’s going to end well. Violet’s in love with Corky, but she’s very damaged and I just don’t think it’s going to be like one of those, “50 years ago, we met cute,” you know? Gershon: I’m really proud of this movie, probably more than any other film I’ve done. These women are sexy and they’re smart. They outsmart the bad guys. And they’re funny and witty. They were into each other; they didn’t need a man to help them. That was all a combination no one had really seen before. These parts weren’t around a lot. Tilly: I did have so many girls come up to me — and so many drag queens saying their drag name was Violet. It really made me feel, in a weird way, like I had a responsibility when all these girls would come up to me and say that they came out of the closet and realized they were gay after they saw this film. Gershon: [When we were making it], I kept thinking, “What do you guys, [the Wachowskis] know about being women? How did you write this thing?” And little did I know, at the time, they were really feeling something. They really were feeling bound up inside. So, it became that the metaphor had a deeper meaning. It wasn’t like, “Oh, aren’t they clever writers.” I thought, “Wow, they were going through this, and the world didn’t know.”

Celebrate 50 years of gay pride with Entertainment Weekly’s special LGBTQ double issue, on stands Friday. You can buy all six covers now, or purchase your individual favorites featuring Anderson Cooper, Wilson Cruz, Melissa Etheridge, Neil Patrick Harris, Janet Mock, and Ruby Rose. 

#gina gershon #jennifer tilly #bound #PRIDE #entertainment weekly #are you kidding me look at these queens #please please make that sequel i'm begging

[abthepoet]

All my friends are dead.

Something strange is trending in my life.

All my friends die.

At the beginning of my sophmore year in college, my roommate from freshman year died tragically in a single vehicle car crash. Her name was Allison Lynam. We called her Blake. She was sassy and funny and I wish I would've taken more time to know her.

The rain was torrential the night she died. I swear I've never seen it rain that hard ever again in my life. She drove to the store along Highway 36 in Long Branch,NJ. She had off campus housing that year and had to use the highway often. The road was terribly flooded the night she died. Im told she hydroplaned, spun, and T-boned the driver side smack into an electrical pole. Her family still decorates it.

At that very same moment, in my dorm room nearby, I was watching TV when the lights suddenly flickered and dimmed. A brown out.

I had no idea but that was my friend crashing into a pole and dying. She was 19 years old.

I know this because that accident happened near the mall. That accident killed the power to nearby businesses.

I later found out that the road she died on was so badly flooded, the police intended to close it. Why they didnt get to it in time, I'll never know. Maybe that's fate.

Then there was Jessica Blain. Jessica Blain was a firecracker of a human being. She was 100% unmistakable. One of the loudest, funniest, most loyal people and friends I have ever met. She was also an incredibly gifted singer and I was lucky enough to have Chorus with her. We, along with a small group of friends, founded a new greek organization on our campus, Alpha Xi Delta. We were paired up as Twins. (you can't have Bigs & Littles when you're just starting the Family Tree). We named the family we formed Fuck Up Your Shit. Because that's what we'd do for a friend. I miss her laugh most of all. It was loud and unapologetic. She was there for me, supportive, and encouraging without me ever having to ask. The night I officially finished college we all went out to the local gay club, The Colosseum. I got wasted, of course. But Jess was the person who when I shouted 'I have to pee' on the ride home, she stopped and knocked on strangers doors and asked to let me use their bathrooms. Nobody said yes so she held my hand while I peed on a fence instead. I remember the last time we spoke. She was at a concert with a mutual friend. We hadn't spoken much since I graduated, she was still in school.

She died in her dorm room bed on Halloween as a result of asphyxiation during an epileptic seizure. She was 20 years old. The news was broken to me that very same Halloween night as I floated along in NY on a concert cruise. The World/Inferno Friendship Society decided to host Hallowmas, their annual event, on a boat this year. Nothing like being trapped on a musical boat while you grieve. I had messaged her AIM late that night to say hi. She had an away message up. I may have sent a message to a dead person. I miss her friendship more than I realize sometimes.

That brings us to James Padden. James was a warm, snuggly bear of a guy who always tried to do the right thing and let me steal his hoodies. He insantly became my best friend in a Stepbrothers-esque manner. I met James working overnights at Wawa in Leonardo, NJ. I forget how it started now, but we were standing in front of the deli and I think I tossed him a broom or he already had one. . . I cant remember now.. . . but he just took one look at me with that mischievous little twinkle that I quickly returned and we instantly began sword fighting with our brooms. Like two little boys playing pretend and having a ball. He was sweet and silly and kind. I needed a ride, and he loved to drive. Our first winter as friends, we went out doing donuts in the snow. I barely knew him, but I felt safe. We smoked a ton of weed and had so many adventures trying to procure more. One time, we got so high driving to a Dropkick Murphys concert in NY we kept going in circles, missed almost the entire show save for the last 3-5 numbers, and had a blast. I can barely remember the night, but I remember laughing hard in that car. No one could talk to me like James. We were both insecure being chubby kids and adults, but so charismatic and grandiose that I sometimes thought we were the only two who would put up with listening to each others wild ideas and ridiculous banter. We would smoke joints and take adderall and talk about everything and anything. I miss the safety and closeness I felt with him. We were always 100% platonic, but we could nap together, I could walk into his house and jump on him in bed and wake him up. Then we would cook ourselves a breakfast feast and hit the beach. He taught me to always take the back roads. I gave him advice on the ladies. He taught me about fixing cars. I helped shave his back. He called his new pick up truck, a pick'um up truck. We could wax philosophical all damn day and not get sick of each other.

It wasnt just driving he loved, it was going fast. Like so many young white men, he had tendency to be a little reckless. The universe gave him a pass only so many times.

I'll never forget when he got his motorcycle. It was the last time I saw him. It was a bright green crotch rocket. He loved lime green. I was doing yoga in the living room when I heard this obnoxious engine rev down my street. I asked myself, who the hell is making this noise?! And it was James, grinning from ear to ear with a matching helmet on his shiny new toy.

before he left I said, 'you die on that thing, I'll bring you back to life and kill you." I remember giving him this very long and intentional hug and not knowing why I felt compelled to hang on.

When he left and hopped back on the bike, I felt compelled again and took a video of him riding away from my driveway until he was entirely out of sight.

That's my very last memory of him alive. James Padden died on Thanksgiving five days after his 25th birthday. He went out for a joyride on his bike before dinner, opened up to 100mph around a curve where he couldn't see a car pulling out around the bend in time. They called a medevac, but he died on scene. I loved James dearly and I regret drifting apart after we both left Wawa and I started a new relationship. He had stuff too, but in hindsight it never seems important.

Then there's JB. I will always remember JB for his kindness and generosity. The very first time I finally worked up the nerve to go to a poetry slam, I was alone and terrified. I had no idea what to expect. JB was the very first person to turn around, introduce himself, and welcome me. He made me feel like I belonged. Years later, when I won the title of Grand Slam Champion, he immediately offered to help coach me for national competition. Except, I didn't see the messages and left them unanswered, which I deeply regret. When I started hosting my own open mic a few years after that, JB would be one of the only people to consistently come support the show both as an audience member and participant. It was at a pizza joint and he would sometimes buy me food when I had no money. He wrote beautiful poems about his two young daughters and how much they inspired him. JB always tried to make people laugh but you could tell he carried a sadness. I did not get details, but from what I have gathered he made a choice to end his life. I wish I would have gotten closer to him and appreciated him more as a friend and person. I wonder if he felt no one cared about him and I feel like I should've let him know more.

Which brings us to Crys. Crystopher Anthony Diaz was a Scorpio with a big heart and a big personality. I met him on Myspace back in the day and started Web camming. We became friends and eventually fell into this gray area of friends, together, but not. It wasn't long before I was spending days at his place, killing hours at a time downloading music, making Wawa runs, and smoking weed with his roommate at the time, Syd. You know, the whole reason I worked at Wawa was Crys suggesting it. And Wawa is the reason I met James. Crys was unlike anyone I'd ever met. He was poetic and artistic and loved animals, especially pit bulls. He loved to draw and write and had this very out loud style that favored Earth tones. He taught me about fashion and insisted on getting dressed even if it was 1am and we were just going to Wawa because you never know who you might see. We would buy new clothes at Walmart and have photo shoots. That boy drank his weight in coffee daily. If it's one thing I'll always remember him for, it's the dancing. Dancing was a passion of his and always used to talk about wanting to form a dance crew. Eventually, we ended up living together for four years. My first apartment was with him in this piece of shit duplex rented to us by a slumlord in Keansburg,NJ. My relationship with him was always defined by our Aries/Scorpio dynamic and he never let me forget it. His birthday was October 30th, mischief night. One time, after we had moved into a new place, we decided to get revenge on our old downstairs neighbor by taking a finished lobster carcass and throwing it on his lawn. . . . . . . Keansburg had a terrible stray cat problem. 😁

I have so many memories with Crystopher. Unfortunately, towards the end of our relationship things became too tumultuous. We had too much unresolved baggage and trauma to find a healthy place emotionally together. We were so financially strained for a time we hardly ate. And then when he met his new girlfriend Laura, she introduced him to her good friend, Roxy. As in Roxcicet. aka Blues. Neither of us knew what that even was at the time. But he sure learned quick. He started using them pretty frequently as time went on, and things only got more complicated. My mental health took a nose dive. By the time I moved out our relationship was trash. I basically left. At the time, I didnt have a choice. things had gotten so bad between us, the money, the using . . . we didn't act like friends anymore.

I saw him a couple times at his new place but that was years ago. Since then, he went through a lot, including homelessness and more struggles with addiction to opiates. He reached out to me and sent me a message apologizing for everything a couple years back. I never responded. I was afraid I would let him back into my life and let the all the problems back in. I didnt trust where he was at in his life. We lost touch and stopped speaking.

His ex, who used to live with us and became my friend, messaged me and told me he died a few days ago. He was 35. I'm still waiting for information, but it may have been drug related. I'm not even sure where I'm at with how I feel. I know why we stopped talking. It was the right thing to do at the time. But he didnt deserve to die so young, having spent the last god knows how many months homeless. It's fucking with me so hard because we never resolved anything. I loved this person so fucking much and we never made peace. Of everyone I've lost, he was the closest to me. I've had a lot of people die on me but none that I lived with and shared a life with. I have more memories with him than I can handle and while I know we hadn't spoken in years and why, I still wish I would've said something. Done something. Yes, i needed healthy boundaries but he needed somebody. when is being firm too firm? If we would've helped, could it have been different? But we didn't want to help at the time, you try to be tough and draw a line. Be firm. Not let yourself be taken advantage of. But is that a defense? Did that defensiveness leave a human being who's head i used to scratch until he fell asleep out in the cold to get sicker and die?

What am I supposed to learn from all this Universe? Why do you take my friends so young and so tragically? I'm only 35, I'm too young to have this much loss.

Because these are just the major players I've lost. It doesnt include my cousin Jared, who died being reckless on a motorcycle at 21 two years ago. I was 15 when he was born. I loved that baby, he used to bite my nose. But his family lived far, so I rarely saw him growing up. Last time I saw him was at my grandfather's funeral. He didn't remember me and the nose biting.

And then there's Marcos who we used to chill with. He worked delivery for our favorite chinese food place. He was a nice kid who lived with his grandparents. We would get food, smoke weed, hang out a little. Even used to buy it off him for a while. Eventually he got into the opiates too, he even wound up being good friends with Crys and being Blue buddies. But eventually Marcos died from an opiate overdose. He was in his mid twenties.

I didnt want to include Ricky because he was more of an acquaintance for me, he was more my partners childhood friend. But god damn, in the time I knew Ricky that kid was a riot. He was loud and funny and definitely marched to the beat of his own drum. Drugs took him too.

Thanks for reading all this if you've made it this far. It's taken me about two hours to type this out on my phone. but i needed to. Thanks for coming to my TedTalk

#death #story #story prompt #grief #friends #loss #love #dying #grieving #sad #lessons #life lessons #writeblr #writing #compose

[buckyscrystalqueen]

Quads: Part 3

Pairings: Jason Momoa x Reader

Warnings: All tooth decaying, sickeningly sweet fluff. Maybe a swear word or three. But just straight up fluff.

Word Count: 5,747

Part 1 / Part 2

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Is that him?” Your mom asked as you pulled into the marina that housed the pontoon boat Jason was borrowing from a co-worker since his speed boat didn’t have enough shade for the kids. You smiled as Jason, in all his shirtless glory, looked away from his mom, Coni, and waved.

“That’s him.” You said with a wave back as you pulled your SUV next to his truck.

“That’s just not fair.” Kiki said from the back row of seats as she leaned around Sherry to get a better, in person look since all she had seen were photos of his face or him with the babies. “Shit should be illegal.”

“Damn it.” Your dad said as you put your car in park, and unbuckled your seat belt. “I wanted to hate him so much but I just… I can’t.” You laughed as Jason pulled open your door for you with a wide smile.

“Aloha, ke keiki.” He said softly as he gave you a chaste kiss. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas, baby.” You returned as you slid out of the car. “We got lots of stuff.”

“I figured as much.” He said as he pulled open the back door to start getting babies out of their car seats. He smirked as he watched your dad reach back between the two front seats, and jokingly push your mom’s jaw closed.

“My mom, Sherry.” You laughed as she whacked your dad’s arm a couple times. “My dad, John, and Kiki is in the back seat.”

“Nice to finally meet you.” Jason said politely as he lifted Scarlett’s car seat off the base. “Merry Christmas. Welcome to Hawaii.”

“It’s so nice to finally meet you, too.” Sherry said as she grabbed the bag of towels you had stuffed behind the drivers seat so she could get out. “We’ve heard so much about you.” 

“Uh oh.” Jason laughed as he pulled the shade over Scarlett, and took the bag from your mom. “All bad I hope.”

“Oh, of course.” She laughed as she moved the middle seats to get Kai’s car seat so Kiki could get out.

“We don’t like you.” John said with a small smirk as he came around the car with Willow and the bag of life jackets, hats, sunglasses, and sunscreen for the kids. “Not at all.”

“Well, here’s to hoping I can change that, sir.” Jason said as he shook your dad’s hand. John mumbled, ‘damn’ under his breath and glanced over at your mom.

“He has manners, too!” He whisper yelled as Kiki passed you Celeste’s car seat.

“I sure hope so.” Coni said as she came up behind you. “I’m pretty sure I raised him right. Who knows though.” You laughed as she gave you a hug, since you had already met her when you went with Jason to pick her up from the airport. You did quick introductions with her and your family as Jason grabbed the cooler of drinks and food for everyone out of the trunk.

“Does he have a brother?” Kiki asked only you as she watched him walk away to get the cooler on the boat. “Or better yet, a twin?”

“Only child.” You said with a glance over at her. “And I so dibbed the fuck out of him.”

“Hate you.” She growled as she tilted her head the slightest bit to stare at Jason’s ass when he bent over to put the cooler in the boat.

“You’re drooling, sweetie. And I think you’re even turning a little green.” Coni joked to your sister as she grabbed the bag of towels for you.

“Worth it.” Kiki laughed as she picked up Kai’s car seat, and smiled at Jason’s mom. “Woman kind thank you for gracing the Earth with that man.” Coni, and Sherry burst out laughing as you grabbed Celeste and locked your car. It took a little maneuvering to transfer all your belongings, all four babies, and your family into the boat, and after a little bit of fussing from all of the quads, you got them slathered in sunscreen, in their life jackets, and passed out amongst the adults.

“Alright, let’s go to the beach.” Jason said as he untied the boat, and pulled away from the dock.

“Not to fast, please.” You reminded him as you sat with Willow on your lap.

“I know, ku’uipo.” He said as he sat down in the captain’s chair and reached our for your daughter. “Lemmie see her.” With a small nod, you got up, and passed over your little girl as Jason made his way out of the harbor with practiced ease. You crouched down beside him, and fussed with her pink sun hat for a moment, causing him to chuckle. “Relax, baby girl. It’s all good. Go get some sun.”

“Relax isn’t in my vocabulary.” You said as you stood up, pulled off your bathing suit cover, and went to sit with your sister in the sun at the front of the boat. Your parents and Jason’s mom were already talking about what a difference Christmas was without snow, since you were originally from Northern California where your parents still lived, and Coni was currently in Iowa while they each held a baby in the canopy’s shade.

“Man, I could get used to this.” Kiki said as she turned on the front bench seat with a content sigh. You nodded as you looked back at Jason with a smile as he sat, and taught your ten month old how to drive a boat even if she did have no idea what he was saying. All the same, she answered back with ‘dada’, which all of your children called every man they saw except your dad, who was ‘pa’, ‘up’, ‘mama’, and ‘no’; her favorite collection of words.

“Yea, it’s a great life experience.” You grabbed your phone from the towel bag, and took a few pictures of everyone before sitting back, and getting some sun like you had been told.

——

“Look at them.” Sherry said to John, Kimi, and Coni as they all watched you and Jason sit right along the shoreline each with two kids standing in the sand against your chests, while they laughed, and screamed with each small wave, and stomped and kicked at the water.

“I haven’t seen him this happy in years.” Coni said as she smiled at her son. “Lisa destroyed his heart when she slept with his best friend.”

“Same thing with (Y/N) and her fiancé.” John sighed as he looked at the giant smile you had on your sun reddened cheeks. “Though, at least she found out before the wedding he was gay.”

“No!” Coni gasped as she looked over at your parents.

“Oh, yea.” Your mom said with a nod as she turned on her chair to gossip. “It was a huge scandal. That’s how she met the kids’ dad. She went on her honeymoon cruise, and he was there for a bachelor party or something…”

“Guys trip high school reunion.” Kiki interrupted. Your mom nodded and pointed at your sister before continuing.

“Yea, that. So they were like… sex friends for a while, and then she got pregnant. He was just supposed to be a rebound…”

“Yea, ‘cause that guy is a low-life piece of shit.” Your dad growled, angrily as he kept an eye on you to make sure you weren’t over hearing them talk about you.

“Oh, I’ve heard all about him from my son.” Coni said with a shake of her head. “It’s so sad for those poor babies, and (Y/N). It just breaks my heart.”

“Well Jason has helped her out so much.” Sherry said as she glanced over as you and Jason walked a little deeper in the calm, warm water with a kid on each hip. “He’s so good to her and those babies.”

“Oh, those kids have him wrapped around their little fingers.” Coni laughed as Jason moved Kai and Scarlett so that they were in front of him, and so he was the deepest in the water just in case. “He talks about them as much as he talks about his own kids.”

“Aren’t you worried about it though?” Sherry asked. “I mean, it’s a big, big responsibility to raise someone else’s kids especially when you have your own. It just worries me that he’s trying to replace his kids since he doesn’t see them as often as he’d like. Don’t get me wrong, I know he cares for her and those babies…”

“I know what you mean.” Coni said with a nod as she glanced at her son. “But that’s not my Jason. He’s falling in love with your daughter. I have no doubt in my mind on that one. And he loves those kids, too. But he’s not trying to use them to fill a void. I’ve asked him about it because I was concerned, too. He said it just feels like his heart has just grown to love all six children equally. He actually can’t wait for his son and daughter to meet them. He’s just waiting until he’s one hundred percent positive (Y/N) is the one. He’s concerned that if he does the introduction too soon and she’s not, that it will hurt his kids if they break up. But I don’t see it happening, not the way those two look at each other.”

“It’s like something out of a movie, isn’t it?” Sherry asked as she looked out to watch Jason splashed the water with his hand softly. You both laughed as all four kids mimicked the movement much harder, and burst into peels of giggles.

“It takes a special man to be a step parent.” John said as he smiled at his grandchildren. “Especially to quadruplets.” The three adults nodded in agreement as Kiki got up off her towel to get in the water and cool off and play with her nieces and nephew.

“I think he’ll be the one to do it.” She said as she stretched her arms over her head. “I’d put money on it, actually.”

——

“God, they are so tired.” Jason said as he helped you get the kids changed into pajamas after Christmas dinner and a bath so it would be easier for you to put them to bed when you got back to your house.

“They had a big day.” You agreed as you struggled with Scarlett to get her foot in her pj’s. “A big day, and no naps. I’m surprised they made it this long without a major meltdown.”

“Same.” He agreed as he picked up Willow off his couch to put her in her car seat. The moment he put her down, she screamed ‘dada no mama’, burst into tears, and stretched as far as she could toward him to be picked back up. “I know, baby girl. You’re gunna go to bed soon.”

“Come on, Scar.” You sighed as you zipped up her onesie and picked her up off the couch. She too, started to cry, and reached for Jason, nearly throwing herself out of your arms in a desperate attempt to get to ‘dada’ as well.

“Hey J.” Coni said over the cries of all four kids as she watched from the kitchen where she was helping your mom, and Kiki put away the left over dessert. “Why don’t they just stay here tonight? That way the kids can just go to bed, and they don’t have to get woken up when they get home.” You started to shake your head as you looked up at Jason but your mom cut you off before you could even say a word.

“That’s a great idea! We’ll just take your car, and come get you in the morning.”

“Well…” You said as you looked back and forth between the women in the kitchen and your boyfriend. “I mean, I don’t have clothes for them in the morning, or anything for them for breakfast…”

“How ‘bout I drive them to your place.” Jason offered as he took Scarlett from your arms so she would stop trying to throw herself toward him. “And I’ll grab whatever you need.” You nodded at him as you looked back over at your mom.

“Are you sure? I mean, it’s Christmas…”

“Oh, honey. I’m sure.” She said with a nod.

“Look, what she’s trying to say is she’s on vacation and she wants to sleep in and not get woken up at 7 am by the babies.” Your dad, who you thought was napping in the recliner, said as he opened one eye to look up at you. “Because Willow has a set of freaking lungs on her.” You huffed and nodded in agreement as you picked up the daughter in question from her car seat.

“OK.” You agreed as you looked up at Jason. “Wanna help me get them to sleep before you go?” He nodded as he took Willow from you since she was still reaching for him anyways.

“You got the pack and play? I’ll get these two down while you get the other two ready for bed?”

“I’ll help with pj’s.” Kiki said as she came around the kitchen island to kiss her nieces good night with Sherry right behind her. You quickly pulled the half dozen toys from the bottom of the currently childless, pack-n-play and closed it enough to carry it down the hall to the master bedroom. You set it along the wall under the window on the far side of the bed where you now slept and sighed, tiredly.

“Hey, baby girls. It’s alright now.” Jason said softly as he sat down on the bed against the headboard, and laid your daughters on his chest so they would calm down and go to bed faster. Letting them fall asleep for the night on you or Jason or in your arms wasn’t something you typically did because you didn’t want it to become a habit, but with how tired they all were, you were willing to make an exception.

“She must really like you.” You said to him as you kissed your daughters good night. “My mom. I wasn’t allowed to even sleep over at my fiancé’s house on Christmas night but then again, she was never a huge fan of his.” You kissed his cheek and stood up to get your other kids ready for bed with a tired smile. “She must really like you.”

“Well don’t I feel special then.” He chuckled as he rubbed the two girls’ backs and started to sing ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ to them like he did every night.

“You are to me and the kids.” You informed him on the way out the door. “And that’s all that matters.” You headed back out into the living room to find Kai and Celeste already in their pajamas in your mom and sister’s arms.

“Here you go, baby.” Sherry said with a smile as she passed you your daughter. “Get them to sleep. We’ll just see you in the morning, OK?”

“Sometime after… say 9?” Kiki said with a laughed as she passed you Celeste.

“I think we can make that work.” You giggled as you gave your sister a kiss on the cheek. “Merry Christmas, guys. I love you.”

“We love you, too, sweetheart.” Sherry said as she kissed your cheek and gave you a slightly awkward hug. “Sweet dreams.”

“Where is this going, (Y/N)?” John asked as he folded up the other pack n play and picked it up.

“Back here.” You said before saying good night to Coni as well. You headed back down the hall and pointed with your foot to where you wanted your dad to put the second temporary crib.

“Merry Christmas, sweetie.” John whispered with a smile so he didn’t wake up the girls Jason was still singing to as he kissed your and his grand kid’s foreheads. “See you in the morning.”

“Night, daddy. Merry Christmas.”

“I’ll be out in a few minutes to drive you guys home.” Jason said as your dad walked over to the bedroom door. He nodded at your boyfriend and pulled the door closed behind him as you crawled onto the bed, and laid down with your kids in your arms. He started the song over again for Kai and Celeste, and a small smile spread across your face as you let your eyes fall closed so you could just listen until it was over.

“I’ll just sleep in one of your shirts, and I’ll steal your shower stuff since I have deodorant and a toothbrush here anyways.” You whispered as you glanced at your sleeping pride and joys. “So I just need day clothes. I don’t care what. I need an outfit for each of them, diapers, I’m good on wipes, and stuff for breakfast.”

“Want the sound machine?” You sighed and looked over at him.

“I don’t know.” He smirked and nodded his head.

“I’ll grab it. I’ll bring the towels and stuff back with me, too. I’ll just leave the left over drinks in the cooler for tomorrow.”

“That’s fine.” You said as he stood up slowly so he didn’t wake up Willow, or Scarlett. “Can you grab the car seat strollers, and leave them in the trunk, please?” He nodded as he laid the girls down on either side of the divider that separated your pack n play into two sleeping areas.

“Anything else, baby girl?” You shrugged as you glanced down at the two sleeping kids in your arms.

“I’m too tired to think.” You huffed as he came over to take Kai to help you out. “If you think of something I’m missing, just grab it. But I’m sure we’ll be just fine for the one night with those few things.”

“Alright, I’ll be back in twenty minutes.”

“If I’m already asleep, I’m sorry.” You giggled as you leaned into his chest and wrapped your arms around his waist. He took a deep breath, wrapped his arms around your shoulders, and rubbed his hands on your back.

“I love you, (Y/N).” He said softly as he leaned down and kissed the top of your head. You looked up at him with a smile as tears welled softly in your eyes.

“I love you, too, Jason. So much.” A full smile spread across his face as he moved his hands to cup your jaw and gave you a long, deep kiss. You both pulled away entirely too soon for your liking for air, and you laid your head back down on his chest as he hugged you tightly. 

“Alright, I’ll be right back.” He said after a moment as he pulled out of your arms and gave you another kiss. “Love you.”

“Love you.” You replied as you stood on your tiptoes to give him one more chaste kiss before he left. “Drive safe.”

“Always, ke keiki. If you wait for me, I’ll jump in the shower with you.”

“Ooo. I like that offer.” You said as you headed over to his dresser to grab a shirt to sleep in. “Wake me up if I pass out before your back.”

“I will.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You stood in Jason’s living room in a flower patterned, twisted front, tube top, and a matching sarong, smiling at Celeste, and Willow, who looked adorable in their first birthday hula outfits, and Kai in his bandana, white muscle shirt, and floral bathing suit bottoms that made him look so much like Jason on his days off, it was ridiculously cute. You rocked your hips back and forth, trying to get your daughters to dance while Kai simply stood, leaning on Jason’s thigh while the latter changed Scarlett’s diaper to get her dressed for their party.

“Hula, hula.” You said in a sing song voice to the Hawaiian music you had playing all morning while you decorated Jason’s house. “Hula, hula.” Willow scream laughed, and shook her hips like you did, making her grass skirt shake back and forth.

“Wait, not you.” Jason laughed at Scarlett when she tried to dance on the changing table as well. “You can hula your butt off when you get dressed.”

“Hula, hula.” You laughed as you moved were Scarlett could see you so she would continue to wiggle. 

“Will you quit?” Jason laughed as he quickly taped the diaper and fought to snap the onesie. “No hula!”

“Hoo.” Kai said as he started wiggling his hips as well. You laughed, and grabbed your phone to record your babies dancing.

“Yea, buddy. Hula hula.” You laughed as you crouched down by your kids.

“Hoo!” Willow squealed as she walked over to be the center of attention in the video.

“OK, go hula.” Jason said as he put Scarlett down so she could finally dance like she wanted to. 

“Your turn, baby.” You said as you stood up, and took a step back to get all of your little family in the video.

“Not happening.” He laughed with a shake of his head. 

“J, you gotta hula!” He sighed and quickly shook his hips back and forth for a few moments, causing you and your kids to laugh even harder in joy. “Yay!” You cheered as Jason came over and gestured for your phone.

“Your turn, mama.” He chuckled as he turned the camera on you. You happily got down on your knees between Willow and Celeste and shook your hips with a giant smile.

“Hula, hula.” You sang as you reached for Kai to bring him over to you so he was in the shot, too. “We got this down, don’t we babies?”

“Hoo.” Was the only response you got from your son as Jason watched on, fondly. His heart filled with impossibly more love as he watched you slow your hips to match the new, slower song, and you used your hands to make little waves. It took your kids a few moments of watching before they caught on awkwardly to the new hand movements.

“God, you’re so damn beautiful.” Jason said as he looked at you over your phone with a smile.

“Thank you, baby.” You smiled as you looked up at him. He turned off the video, and set your phone down before calling you over with a wag of his finger. You smiled and let him spin you in a small circle to slow dance for a few minutes before your guests arrived, causing your kids to lose interest in dancing since they didn’t have your attention.

“I can’t wait for my kids to meet you.” He said softly as he rocked back and forth. “They are excited, too, but you can tell they are more excited to meet the babies cause there’s four of them.” You giggled as he reached up to adjust the flower headband you had on your head that matched the ones the girls were wearing.

“They’re staying all weekend, right?”

“I have them all week since it’s spring break, remember?”

“Oh, that’s right.” You said with a nod.

“And I was thinking that you guys could stay here tonight. And maybe we could take all the kids to the aquarium one day this week. Maybe go to the zoo and to those tide pools I was telling you about another day. That way you can get to know them, and they can get to know you for a few days. I mean, I did promise I’d take them hiking, and I know Lola wants to see if she can finally tackle the rock wall out back…”

“Honestly.” You said, interrupting him from the rant he was about to start on to try to politely tell you he wanted to spend alone time with his kids as well. “That sounds great. How about we’ll stay until Tuesday morning? That way you have five baby free days to do all the things we can’t do with them yet. Hiking, rock climbing, jumping off those rocks from the picture in the hallway. Oh, I can see if I can get ahold of Max and see if we can go out on the research boat whale watching. I know HBJ pod should be over this way by now.”

“That’s actually a great idea.” He agreed as he pulled out of your arms to answer the door for your first of many visitors. “I don’t think my kids have ever gone out whale watching so they’ve never seen wild whales up close. And I know Wolf will love all the facts you know about them. He loves whales.”

“Well, I have enough knowledge to entertain him for hours. I love my whales… and I miss them a lot.”

“Well I think this sounds like a perfect spring break for all of us.” He said as he opened the door and said high to one of the professors that worked in your department, his wife, and their kids.

“Alright, babies.” You said to your kids as you reached down, and grabbed Scarlett’s hand. “Wanna go bounce? Let’s go bounce in the bounce house.”

——

“Man, do you go all out, or what?” Your mom asked as she looked around Jason’s backyard at the birthday party, and everything you had spent nearly an entire month organizing. You glanced up as you used baby wipes to clean Celeste’s hands of the remnants of her smash cake while Jason quickly hosed off Willow in the baby pool so she could continue to play.

“They only turn one once.” You reminded her as Jason passed Willow to Kiki to get dried off, you passed Celeste to Jason, Sherry passed you Kai after she had pulled all the cake pieces out of his hair, and taken off his cake covered diaper, and your dad at the very end of the line, was responsible of putting the girls in onesies with the number one and ribbon skirts while Kai was going in a clean diaper and a collared onesie also with the number one on it.

“I think you went a little overboard.” Kiki laughed as she gave her niece a birthday kiss.

“I don’t.” Jason said with a shake of his head. “This is perfect. You have to figure, there’s nearly a hundred and fifty people here. But you couldn’t tell, could you? Not with the way we have everything spread out.” Your family glanced up at your back yard, and you could see them almost trying to count the people that were milling about in your boyfriend’s backyard.

“Why do you think we have a bounce house, and a slide?” You asked as you passed off Kai, and took Scarlett. “And why do you think they are spread out on either side of the visible yard? So that parents watching their kids aren’t piled in one spot.”

“Back doors to the house are open.” Jason said as he turned Kai in the pool, and sprayed off his back. “Gives people the option of going in, and out freely.”

“The food is back by the shed… 

“…which is open for rock climbing.” Jason finished for you as he passed off Kai, and took Scarlett. “I know my ATV’s are out on the trails at the moment because Lola asked if she could take them.”

“She is already back.” You said as you pointed to his daughter on the inflatable slide. He nodded and continued anyways.

“All I’m saying is I have eight and a half acres of land. Bought it fresh out of college when land was still cheap here. I spent years clearing out paths and fencing the whole damn thing in. The floor of my house, and the fence were done with the trees I knocked down, the house was built by the guys I knew in school. I expanded from two rooms to five when I had my family.” He stood up after passing over Scarlett to Kiki and glanced out at his property with a shrug. “I’m just happy it’s seeing love again.” With a small smile, you stepped over to him and put your arm around his waist.

“Well then I take it back.” Kiki said as she toweled off Scarlett. “You guys didn’t go overboard at all. In fact, you’re slacking. Get your shit together.” She said with the straightest face possible as she glanced at you and Jason. “And I call an ATV ride after the party is over. I wanna see the best view you got.” Jason nodded as Lola came running over with a giant smile.

“(Y/N), can I bring the kids down the slide?”

“Sure you can.” You replied as you pulled away from her father. “But you’re gunna need an extra pairs of hands to help them get up the stairs. Want help?” She nodded and ran over to where your kids were waiting some what impatiently for Scarlett to be dressed, too.

“Wanna go slide?” She asked as she held her hand out for Willow’s hand. Your daughter nodded, not understanding what she was signing up for.

“Come on, kiddos.” You said as you began to corral the birthday babies toward the slide with Lola’s help. “Let’s go slide. Yay!”

“God, I love that woman.” Jason breathed as he stood back to watch you play with your and his children.

“You’re not alone there.” Kiki said as she grabbed all the wet towels off the ground. Your boyfriend quickly grabbed them from her hand, and gestured toward the slide with his chin.

“She said she needs extra hands.” He teased. “Go on. Spend with with your nieces and nephew.”

“You go, too.” Sherry said as she took the towels from Jason. “They are basically your kids, too.” He looked over at her with a small smile, and nodded.

“Thank you.” He replied softly as his heart nearly melted in his chest in joy. He quickly moved the kiddie pool off to the side to dump later so the ground wasn’t even more soaked than it already was, and jogged off to help you get the kids up the slide so you would have an extra lap for them to ride down on.

“I approve.” John said as he took a step over to help his wife clean up so you didn’t have to later. “I like him.”

“You and me both.” Sherry agreed as she collected dirty diapers to throw out. “He makes her smile.”

“As long as he only makes her smile.” John laughed as the two of them watched you and Kiki with Celeste between you, and Jason and Kai slide down the slide after Lola and Scarlett, and Wolf and Willow.

“Jesus, John.” Sherry laughed as she turned and head inside. “Sorry to break it to you, but your little girl is in no way, shape, or form innocent any more.”

“Shut up, Sherry.”

——

“Man, what a day.” You sighed as you closed the door after your last party guests. Jason nodded as he tossed the last bag of trash beside the overflowing trashcan in his garage to take it to the dump in the morning so you didn’t have to wait for trash pick up day.

“It was totally worth it.” He said as he went over to start on the dishes before you could.

“Where are the kids?” You asked as you leaned against the counter with a sigh. He shrugged and turned to glance in the direction of the hall that lead to the two kids bedrooms and the two guest bedrooms, one of which was currently set up as a nursery.

“Well I put the babies and their birthday toys in their room with the gate up so my guess is Wolf is playing his Playstation, and Lola is probably either with the kids in their room or watching a movie in her room.” You nodded slowly and pushed yourself off the counter with a tired groan.

“I’ll go get the babies into bed. It’s late so I’ll just worry about baths tomorrow.” You heard Jason huff in agreement as you headed down the hall way toward the nursery first. Your stomach dropped when you noticed the baby gate was wide open and you were just about to yell out to Jason when the sound of Willow’s little giggle came from Lola’s room.

“… and he huffed, and he puffed, and he blew that house down.” Lola nearly whispered to Willow, who blew a small puff of air toward the book and giggled quietly again as you pushed Lola’s bedroom door open. Her once clean bedroom was covered in what seemed like every pillow and blanket in the house and she and Wolf must have dragged the quads crib mattress onto the floor to make a giant pillow fort bed. She and Willow both looked up at you, and Lola shushed you softly.

“She’s the last one awake.” Lola told you as she pointed at Scarlett, and Celeste, who were curled up next to each in a tight ball fast asleep in the middle of the makeshift bed, and Kai, who was sleeping on Wolf’s stomach. “Please can they stay in here tonight? I promise, I’ll keep a close eye on them, and I’ll come get you if anything happens.” You smiled, and nodded your head.

“Don’t stay up too late, OK? Light out after for her this story.” She nodded her head as you crouched down to give your youngest daughter a kiss. “Night baby girl.” With a smile you kissed your fingertips and laid them gently on Lola’s forehead. “Good night, sweetheart.” As Lola continued reading, you backed out of the fort they had made and pulled your phone from your back pocket. You took a couple quick photos of the room and everyone grouped together, before quietly pulling the door closed behind you.

“Look at this.” You said to Jason as you turned your phone toward him with tears in your eyes. “They’re having a sleep over.”

“My God.” He breathed as he dried of his hands to take your phone. He huffed and shook his head with a giant smile as tears welled in his eyes as well. “This…”

“I know.” You responded as you moved to his side.

“This is our family.” He whispered as he put his arm around your shoulder. “Our kids…”

“We’re a family, baby.” You agreed as you rested your head on his chest. “All of us.”

Part 4

#Jason Momoa x Reader #Quads

[currinstrains]

Southland (New Zealand) town uncovers history by rescuing 135-year-old locomotive from a muddy river.

My brother is touring the area and found the restored Locomotive and doesn't she look beautiful. More written below by local newspapers and includes photos

Lumsden hoists 1885 V-class locomotive from tonnes of river muck

7:21 pm on 29 January 2020 

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Tess Brunton, Southland / Otago Reporter

tessbrunton489 [email protected]

A relic of New Zealand's rail past has emerged from the mud 93 years after being dumped in a Southland River.

The V class locomotive is hoisted from the river at last. Photo: RNZ / Tess Brunton

A crowd gathered today as the recovered locomotive was placed in front of the Lumsden Railway Precinct - a tribute to a bygone era.

The Lumsden Heritage Trust has been campaigning to retrieve the two 1885 V class steam locomotives from the Oreti River for about half a decade.

Retrieving the machines - thought to be one of the last of their kind in the world - was no easy task.

It was full steam ahead on Wednesday morning, with water pumps on and a crane poised above the first locomotive, which first hit New Zealand tracks back in 1885.

Recovery teams tried hoisting it, but the locomotive was too heavy to lift.

Walking around the muddy riverbank surrounded by willow trees, site safety supervisor Russell Bradley explained that tonnes of mud had lodged in the locomotive, weighing it down.

Workers blasted it with water and hacked at a thick weave of willow roots covering the machine with a garden hoe.

Lumsden Heritage Trust chair John Titter said they were lucky they could even attempt a recovery.

In the wake of the First World War, the value of scrap metal was low so instead of being sold locomotives were dumped in rivers around the country to act as flood barriers.

New Zealand Rail's V-Class locomotive no. 126, in 1892. Photo: Supplied/ E.J. McClaire Collection

"Even the guys when we were digging out the other day were jumping up and down because the running boards were there. When we moved it the other day, the wheels turned which is incredible," Titter said.

This was the last opportunity to retrieve the locomotives - the consents are about to roll over and the landowner wanted to see action, he said.

The trust fundraised about a third of the $158,000 cost, before securing the rest of the funding from other organisations.

They had wanted to recover both machines, but Titter said it wasn't to be.

"Over the last couple of days, it's actually gone from a massive task to a mammoth task."

Suction was one of the challenges the workers faced.

The locomotives were filled with tonnes of silt and river muck, so hauling them out required a huge effort. Photo: RNZ / Tess Brunton

"The tender itself weighs 22 tonnes, he was pulling over 30 tonne trying to get it out. The locomotive is 32 tonne sitting on the track. We believe there's probably another 10 tonne of silt in the boilers and things like that," Titter said.

There was relief as the locomotive was hoisted into the air - Titter said it was an unbelievable experience - and emotions ran high as it was placed down onto the back of a transport truck.

"When they lighten these things up for New Zealand rail they weaken the frames and so it's been sitting in my mind that the frame could snap in half at any time ... But there it sits so far, getting on a transport and into town. I think we're nearly there," Titter said.

Southland District Councillor Rob Scott said it was a remarkable effort.

"We were made aware of it, thought it was of an old wives' tale that there was a train buried down here. We came and had a look early on.

"It looked like a mammoth project and it has been a mammoth project - but when you look at the operators we've got, it's a great network of really, really talented people."

One of the 1885 V class locomotives has been set up in front of the Lumsden Railway Precinct. Photo: RNZ / Tess Brunton

"They've pulled off something that was pretty impressive."

For Bradley, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. He said it would be a reminder of the massive task every time he drove past the locomotive and would be a story he could tell and show his grandchildren.

As for the second locomotive, Bradley said that would be up to the next generation to recover from the soon-to-be restored riverbank.

Second locomotive buried in river bed has been recovered

Damian Rowe20:06, Feb 27 2020

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SUPPLIED

A second locomotive has been lifted from the Oreti River where it had been place for the last 97 years.

After initially deeming the recovery unfeasible, the Lumsden Heritage Trust has lifted the second locomotive from its watery bed.

In January, one of two 1885 V class locomotives stuck in the Oreti River near Lumsden, Southland, for the past 97 years was retrieved and put on display. At the time, recovering the second one was deemed too hard.

Trust chairman John Titter said due to the interest shown, and what had been learned from pulling out the first train, it was worth an attempt to pull out the second. 

JOHN TITTER/SUPPLIED

The Lumsden Heritage Trust attempting to remove the second locomotive from the Oreti River bed near Lumsden.

The issue that made the second locomotive more difficult was that it was further away from the river bank and would put more pressure on the crane lifting it, Titter said.

READ MORE:* Recovered locomotive more than just a huge ornament* Rare locomotive pulled from river bank in Northern Southland* Trust making progress in retrieving locomotives from Oreti River

They came up with the idea of using a winch to move the locomotive closer to the river banks so it could be safely pulled, he said.

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JOHN HAWKINS/STUFF

Lumsden Heritage Trust chairman John Titter after the first locomotive was retrieved in January.

The second one was sitting on gravel so when they were able to lift it, it came out a lot easier than the first, he said.

The two locomotives were similar engines but were in different condition, he said.

On the second locomotive, the exhaust system was still intact however was missing part of its roof.

JOHN HAWKINS/STUFF

Lumsden Heritage Trust removing the first old 1885 V Class locomotive from the Oreti River in Southland.

New Zealand Railways tipped the two locomotives into the Oreti River in 1927 for flood protection, after they were deemed as surplus stock and because the price of scrap metal was low after the war. 

Since the first locomotive was lifted and put on display in Lumsden, it had become a tourist attraction for steam enthusiasts from around the world, Titter said.

There was a British man who had taken a cruise ship to Dunedin but when he heard about the locomotive, he hired a rental car and spent a day in Lumsden with his wife to look at it, he said.

EVAN HARDING/STUFF

The first 1885 locomotive to be lifted out of the Oreti River has a new home in Lumsden township and has been attracting vistors from across the world.

The trust had also been contacted by steam enthusiast magazines in Britain to come down to Lumsden and take photos of the old train, he said.

Work on retrieving the second locomotive began on Wednesday. 

from JC's Trains, Railways all Transport https://ift.tt/3xUSWtE via IFTTT

#IFTTT #JC's Trains #Railways all Transport

[stone-man-warrior]

February 21, 2021: 1:09 pm:

==================================================

This WH Press Sec Psaki Tweet leads to @Jonkarl Verified Account on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/PressSec/status/1363477765211701253

This from Scalis is there, it’s an offer to take some gold for free, but @Jonkarl fails to accept the golden opportunity that Scalise handed to him.

At the 1:00 mark:

Scalise said he had been to Donald Trump’s home, and spoke with Donald Trump about his post presidency personal life, including what Mr. Trump’s plans for the future are with respect to himself and family, and @Jonkarl miserably fumbles that hand off, skirts the questions that could have been a gold mine of information that no one else has, but Scalise says he has that kind of information, the kind that you cannot get ... Karl goes the other way, runs backwards, does not take the gift he was given by Scalise.

What you need to know about that, is both Scalise and Karl set that up, it’s about the cry for help I sent to the Biden White House, and, by extension is also about the same kind of cry for help I sent to the Trump White House just over for years ago. They are using “news Anchor insider tactic” in such a way as to say that this account here at Tumblr that you are reading, contains the kind of information that is not available any where else on earth. It’s Unobtainium. Karl’s refusal to take the golden oportunity is a message sent to others, one that specifies the desired result, that is to make sure that no one can see the information presented on this [email protected] account of eye-witness terror.

The two suggest a distraction, a “look the other way” sort of command to terror operatives who are also part of the national security chain of command.

https://twitter.com/ThisWeekABC/status/1363503951782494209

https://twitter.com/ABCPolitics/status/1363491357340413957

https://twitter.com/ThisWeekABC/status/1363492941738749952

https://twitter.com/ThisWeekABC/status/1363494344234311684

Those other links above are more sinister, because those are instructions to kill & replace US School students.

It’s a double header though, because those three linked tweets also spell out a hit to be done at the DMV when I go there to renew my drivers license.

Watch the linked videos, where you see the color green, you are seeing instructions to use nitrous oxide gas as a weapon in similar places when the school student murders take place.

Where you see the color red in those videos, that is instructions that spell out where the protected killing areas are going to be in place, where the murderers will have cover from the State Police, the police fake, are from Canada, are Royal Canadian Mounted Police disguised as State Police, and they protect the murderers of the US Children, in favor of replacing all of the children with their own Canadian terror army children, the same way they did in the Oregon schools in around 1998 - 2005.

They killed the elementary students first, the middle schools later, and the high school students were killed and replaced last, when the terror attacked the Three Rivers School District, it may be done differently in other school districts.

===========

1:49 pm:

The baby is on fire, there is no one watching the baby.

The terror army simply moves from state to state, city to city, killing and replacing the state police with help from SAG shill elected state governors. Then, once all of the law enforcement has been replaced with SAG and Canadian terror operatives, they just start slaughtering the children, and the general population is also killed as a result of taking over the schools.

I strongly advise to be very suspicious of Freeway and other major infrastructure upgrade projects, road building, bridge replacement, other major city and state infrastructure projects nation-wide at this time. Those kind of projects are used as the basis of manpower and for disposal of dead victims. They serve as distraction, confusion, road-block, detour generators that make it far more difficult to detect that any mass murdering is happening. Those kinds of projects cause delay and danger for investigative persons, who are easily detoured into traps set the Department of Transportation workers.

In Oregon, there was a ten year long project that was used in parallel to the mass murder slaughter of the population between 1996 and 2006 when all of the bridges in Oregon were removed and replaced, a massive undertaking in more ways than one. After that, Beta Twitter was used as a command vehicle to role out the Corona Virus Phase of the slaughter, for eliminating the other remaining US Citizens who were not killed by other means when the schools, grocery stores, courts were hijacked, and the Oregon Bridge Project from 1996 - 2006 was used before hand as an orchestrated combination plate of terror slaughter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5fezBnvkiU

Baby's on Fire

Brian Eno: 1971

Baby's on fire Better throw her in the water Look at her laughing Like a heifer to the slaughter

Baby's on fire And all the laughing boys are bitching Waiting for photos Oh the plot is so bewitching

Rescuers row row Do your best to change the subject Blow the wind blow blow Lend some assistance to the object

Photographers snip snap Take your time she's only burning This kind of experience Is necessary for her learning

If you'll be my flotsam I could be half the man I used to They said you were hot stuff And that's what Baby's been reduced to...

Juanita and Juan Very clever with maraccas Making their fortunes Selling second-hand tobaccoes

Juan dances at Chico's And when the clients are evicted He empties the ashtrays And pockets all that he's collected

But Baby's on fire! And all the instruments agree that Her temperature's rising But any idiot would know that.

Songwriters: Brian Eno

For non-commercial use only.

Data from:

Musixmatch

===========

1971.

Think about it.

===========

4:24 pm:

Local Conditions:

Local conditions are made difficult to say as my computer is about six different kinds of hijacked after venturing out for a short walk to the mailbox in the wake of sending a request to the White House for help to stop terrorism and mass murders of millions of people in Oregon last week.

I took a short walk, observed that my heater compressor outside is still completely caked with ice surrounding the unit, worse than before, and it’s not really all that cold outside.

I went towards the driveway where it gets near the Offensive Monroe Surveillance Travel Trailer, and there I saw a new terror operative sitting on a bench while watching the activities of a small black & white rabbit as it was eating something from a basket in a cage out front of that Travel Trailer. The woman there has been there in the past, a few years ago with the same rabbit in the same cage with the same Easter Basket.

She is best described as a young George Castanza, from Sienfeld fame as far as a physical description goes. The woman has short brown hair cut like a boys hair cut, had glasses on, and was wearing a black sweatshirt and black sweat pants.

I could see there was some small pink flags in the roadway ahead from there, so, I went on my way to the mailbox, and saw that there are some pink ribbons lining the east side of Jackpine from the corner where the trashcans are, to the Clyde Baum terror cell at 333 Jackpine, maybe beyond that. The ribbons are low on the ground, and are accompanied with the kind of small marking flags that are used by contractors for marking out where excavation or trenching is to be done, so, there must be some Pacific Power Thompson toting Pac-Pow trucks nearby with those Trench Markers there across the street from my driveway like that.

After five days of not going to the mailbox, or going outdoors at all in fear of retribution from the Joe Biden White House for having reported terrorism and mass murder, there was no US Postal Mail inside my mailbox, there was, however, one card, the kind that a traveling salesman puts on the doorknob to say they came by the house, a “Door Hanger Card” (Ron Howard Sponsored Master Class Advertisement) from Josephine County Sheriff’s Office. The door hanger card was left in the mailbox. It says “You have important legal documents awaiting you at Josephine County Sheriff’s Office” and goes on to say in hand written lettering that the Important Documents are concerning Grand Jury participation.

I am guessing the Sheriff heard from Ron Howard at One Hour Martinizer HQ at Nancy Sinatra’s Pacific Palisades Basement where she keeps her personal kidnapped surgically altered pet people. I suspect Ron Howard & Company are upset that they have been called out as the terrorists that they truly are, responsible for the World Trade Center Terror Attack on September 11, 2001 when Screen Actor Guild arranged that the towers would be demolished as a distraction while they attacked the Pentagon with a parallel set of events there.

So, I took that from the mailbox and returned to my house.

I wanted to take a photo of that woman who looks like George Castanza, a young one, and got my phone to take a photo, and returned to where I could take a photo, but she was gone, and the rabbit was still in the cage there.

Then, I was surprised to see Jeff Monroe!

He must have healed from his wounds from the last time he attacked me at my house, or, from attacking me at the Walmart, I can’t recall which was the last time Jeff Monroe attacked me and was hurt real bad in defense.

Jeff Monroe was hosing off a Remote Control Hobby car, and orange one, was big, about 24 inches long, about 10 inches wide, and was wearing a black hoodie sweatshirt as per usual, and blue jeans. Jeff looks a lot like Frank Beard of ZZ Top for a description, shorter hair.

They are using all of that stuff I explained there to discount the reports I make here, one such thing is the real full size actual vehicles that are fitted with remote control, the ones with automatic transmissions and factory cruise control are fitted with remote control operation around here, all of the local terror cells have at least one remote control full size automobile, not a toy car like Jeff Monroe wants you to think I was referring to.

That rabbit is going to be used to cover the eye-witness of the Dog Catcher Truck I saw take Peter Sparacino away in many years ago, by men with whips who attacked him in front of my house at the mailboxes, and put him inside of the cages on the Dog Catcher Truck, which was full of other people who also had been put int the cages on that truck.

It’s also notable that the 545 Jackpine Mailbox that belongs to the Sparcino terror cell has been taken off of the plank where the mailboxes have all been since way before I moved to the nieghborhood 24 years ago. Sparacino terror cell are using the family name of Peter Sparacino, after he was killed, and they stole his house, and all of his belongings. That happened more than twenty years ago, and no one will send help despite all of these reports of terrorism.

Same is true about Clyde Baum at 333 Jackpine. He killed Red Powers who owned that property free & clear like Peter Sparacino did. Clyde killed Red, and held Dolly Powers captive in her home for about five years before he killed her. Clyde used her for a lot of things, to get county aid, for drugs by taking her to the doctors, and for a place to live while controling her with protection from imposter police, so, Dolly Powers as an elderly woman in her 80′s had to do exactly as she was told when Clyde Baum took her for the doctor appointments and to sign up for county and state handouts of various kinds.

(Clyde Baum also has connection to Monsanto Agrochemical Corporation, and has access to modified seeds, and uses those in complicated ways at a State and Federal level of International Commerce sort of agricultural terrorism)

So, the rabbit in the cage will serve as an explanation made to federal agents to cover up the men who use cages on trucks to haul Victims away. It works because the federal agents insist on being fooled all of the time, they absolutely refuse to refrain from being fools, and continue to trust the local authorities, who are not authorities, but are a terror cell that killed and replaced the local authorities a long, long, long, long, long time ago.

I also noticed that the small camera at Monroe’s Four-Three-Four, on that thin wire stand on the stump that has been pointed at my gate for about two months, is gone, and the telescope on the tripod remains there, just has been moved back slightly farther away, but is still pointed at my driveway gate.

There are many cameras there at Monroe’s that are used to wage attacks on me when they can see that I am outside, and am within range of a cross-bow, gun, or vehicle. or vehicle with gun mounted in the front grill.

So, it took some time to run scans and reset the modem, and turn the computer on and off a couple of times to say Local Conditions, but there you go, as long as the “Save Post” button is not disabled, this will post after I say:

It’s overcast, is cold, and there is absence of wind.

no help has come.

There are no signs of helpful people anywhere.

====================================

5:52 pm:

This is a good place to make a reminder to security people who may be interested in preserving USA and know how to read the details I have presented here on this account. It’s extremely dangerous for me to share this kind of information, so please use it as it was intended, as a guide to save many millions of lives, and to gain my own freedom.

When you raid Ron Howard’s personal studios and the ones at Universal, Disney, and Pixar, at MGM, and even at MTM, when you come across the Seagate FreeAgent Hard-Drives, those are very special, some are ten years older than were made publically available, are prototypes of wizbang technology from the time when SeaGate was hijacked, so, those have Encryption that makes the files on them invisible, and, the SeaGate software does the math to make it appear as the disc does not contain any hidden files. The encrypted files are absolutly invisible, and you cannot learn that Ron Howard is the terrorist who directed the WTC attack if you cannot see those invisible files on his personal collection of SeaGate FreeAgent Hard-Drives. So use specialize disc scanning on those, especially at Disney Studios and Micheal Eisner’s personal discs.

=========================================================

6:12 pm:

nsa better hurry.

You failed to take Twitter offline, and that is going to cost the USA it’s existence.

You need to take Twitter offline permanently in order just to get started with US national security work.

This says to erase hard drives.

They reported source is “Red Canary”.

That is a bird in a mine field where nitrous gas is the weapon.

Red Canary, in Hollywood, translates to “Redken Hair Products”.

It’s shampoo. Cnn is commanding their connected terror assassins in the music industry (”Cross-Hairs”; Vatican Choir HQ Special Assassins are “Cross-Hairs”) to erase their hard-drives just because of what I said about the SeaGate encryption.

Don‘t believe that Twitter time stamp they put there for fools to believe in. The tweet is in response to what I said about SeaGate.

Also, don’t forget the connection Cnn has with the music industry up close and personal. Remember the other day when Brooke Baldwin showed up to kill me along with Sammy Hager. Do you think I was joking you fucking idiots?

Take Twitter offline right now, you need to just to save your own lives, even if Joe Biden says not to, you must take Twitter down, there is no Joe Biden, it’s all done with movie magic on Twitter, while Ann Wilson is running the White House from Kauai Ranch with Roger Waters.

When they do shit like that, they also kill the disposable US Citizen kidnapped terror soldier children, and, they kill the “Partners” surgically altered pet people that SAG keeps in their attics, dog houses, and basements in Hollywood, Pacific Palisades, Brentwood, and the Wilsher District.

Fools did not do as they should have done. They did not read the details.

https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1363647234571726848

========

6:33 pm:

“Chuck Todd” trending on Twitter:

“Hamburger the Children”

That is command generated by Google, sent to Twitter, to say a command to SDA and SAG to kill the kidnapped child soldiers they keep.

https://twitter.com/search?q=%22Chuck%20Todd%22&src=trend_click&vertical=trends

I’ll do the math for you:

Surely you can figure out that Chuck is both “80/20“ ground beef, and is also “Chuckie” the child with the knife under the bed.

Then:

“Todd” is short, like little kids are, they are short people ... remember? Kids?

Todd is short for “Toddler”.

Toddler = Todd + L + ER

Also, Toddler = Todd + Ell + ER

Also, Toddler = Todd + LE + R

That means Todd + Law Enforcement + Aarrgghh (pirates say “Aarrgghh when they swing the sword)

A “15″ = One adult imposter police w/one child terror soldier. (in plain clothes, disguised a father & son while on attack, the child has no choices, has to do as the RCMP terror adult soldier says to do. They are attack teams that are extremely difficult to defend against)

“Todd” means “Kill the child terror soldiers four different ways”

“Hamburger the Children“ was just commanded on Twitter by Google, to reach millions of terror soldiers in the field in the Twitter viewing audience.

===================================================

7:36 pm:

More notable conditions observed at the Four-Three-Four (Monroe terror cell) from my driveway while on a walk to the mailbox earlier today:

First, I need to express with great emphasis that Monroe (434 Jackpine Drive) terror cell at Four-Three-Four Jackpine (Drive, Grants Pass, Oregon 97526) clearly has access to the same people that I need to reach for help. I can see by their daily activities that the things they do, items they use in the yard on display, and visitors to that Offensive Trailer there are all used to help them use what I write to fool the federal agents I need to reach, but am unable to having been outnumbered 50,000 to 1 in Josephine County. I am the last remaining US Citizen that has not been killed or taken into more confining captivity. I am held captive in my home by the Monroe terror cell, and all of the other residences in the surrounding area, which are also terror cells of various origin throughout the county. My phone is made to only reach phone numbers that the terror army wants me to reach, ones that will aid them in killing me, or, to further fool the federal agents. The Centurylink Internet Service I use is hijacked at their base of operations, and the phone lines themselves don’t go to the addresses mapped at Centurylink ISP, all of that is explained in great detail here on this account in many places. So, I can’t reach where I need to reach, and the phone only rings when the terror army wants it to ring.

So, those other observations:

As I looked at the heater compressor in the backyard, I heard the sound of the small wheeled motorcycles that belong to a large terror cell composed of many disposable kidnapped US Children that was at the Chapman terror cell at 3701 Russell Road and rode away as I looked at the heating unit.

Then as I got close to where that Offensive Trailer is at along my driveway, that is when another, bigger motorcycle started up, revved and drove away from the Strong terror cell at 3747 Russell Road. That is the time that I observed the woman on the picnic bench out by the Offensive Travel Trailer.

I noticed some new additional items strewn about at Monroe’s backyard. There was some chicken wire fencing that had been torn off of one of the chicken coups there, was all bent up, and in a heap along with the supports the (that) held the wire in place. That one is the smaller of the two chicken coups at Monroe’s, the one that contains so many electronic devices hidden inside.

I noticed that there was a newly installed fencing arrangement at the other, bigger chicken coup that is over there, the one where so many electric lights of all kinds of different bulbs are used to fuck with me when I take a walk, some of them are very bright, all of them are within a chicken coup. The newly installed fence extends the usefulness of that particular chicken coup, the way it looks from 200 feet away as I took that walk, and a green tarp was hung over that new fencing like a drape, makes yet another hiding place for a cross-bow assassin to hide for shooting at me.

(Two separate chicken coups. The kind of thing where egg laying domesticated foul are kept, some say they are “farm animals”, others say “roosters & hens”, where one of the two chicken coups is larger than the other one is. The larger one looks like a puppet show stage modified into a chicken coup, and has many different kinds of electric lighting used at different times inside and nearby the chicken coup. The other chicken coup, the smaller one, also contains some ducks, so, “chicken & duck coup”, it used to be a firewood shed long ago, and that one (the small chicken coup at Monroe terror cell) has audio & video recording equipment operating inside of the “chicken & duck old firewood shed coup”. Is that clear enough?).

As I reached the place where I could see there was someone seated at the picnic bench (at Monroe terror cell, 434 Jackpine Drive), there was a scream, or yell from the main house at 434 in the front part of the Monroe driveway.

When I returned from the mailbox, that woman in the black sweat shirt that looks like George Castanza, was doing what I would call a “Jeff Monroe Routine”. Jeff was often seen in the past using a shovel to “stab” at some dirt near a hole, or, stab at some dirt in a large bucket repeatedly and violently for no apparent reason while adding a variety of other ingredients into the dirt he is stabbing at, as I walk by there. So, today, that woman that looks like George Castanza was doing the “Stab at the dirt in the hole with the shovel” routine. Then, she put the shovel down, went and picked up a bag of some very orange looking potting soil, and dumped all of it out, shaking the bag violently. The odor of fresh manure filled the whole area immediately.

The thing that made me want to do this additional comment is that the woman was doing exactly as Jeff Monroe usually does often with that activity with the shovel, the dirt, the additive into the soil. But not the rabbit in the cage. Jeff Monroe uses goats in a bigger pen, not rabbits, where the goats get their heads stuck in the six inch mesh fencing and can’t get their heads out because of the goat’s horns get stuck like barbs in the fencing, and the goats get all bloody and torn up around their necks after being stuck in the fence for many hours and trying to get their heads out of the fence. Goats scream. They sound like small babies when they scream, it’s horrible to be exposed to this kind of thing everyday, but by comparison to other kidnapped US Citizens around here, I am fortunate that I am able to walk away, from things the others are not able to walk away from. (national security in USA fails to protect by the hour, by the day, by the minute)

It was a “Role Reversal”. I don’t remember where I have seen that woman before outside of that trailer area, but I have seen her somewhere around Grants Pass before.

That remote control car is important to find who owns it. I don’t think it belongs to Monroe’s, I think it belongs to Juseph Myers at 560 Jackpine, who makes a lot of different things that are remote control, including a bird that hops around on the ground, looks injured, has two cameras mounted in it, and can bounce away if you try to pick up the remote controlled injured small bird.

That gal who looked like George Castanza could have been Rena Myers wearing a “Fat Suit”, a whole body suit that is made with real human skin, and a skinny person can put on the Fat Suit and become a fat person as a disguise made at the Juseph Myers terror cell. If so, there is a good chance that the suit is made from the skin of Donald Trump, who exploded in a bus on January 6, 2021 out front of the Grants Pass DMV across from the Fred Meyer store where Kyle Myers works as a grocery checker, and is a Lieutenant of the SDA Terror army. The Myers at 560 Jackpine have been making wearable costumes from the skin and body parts of the victims they kill for more than twenty years just two doors down the street from my house. I used to be able to see as they tossed the little girls into the shed in the backyard over there, usually by someone on horseback who literally tossed the little girls kidnapped from the Grants Pass Community Church just a half mile or so down the road on Russell Road. The people at 520 Built a big fence in the way, and I no longer have a view of where that shed is at where the little girls are processed by the Myers terror cell.

=======

9:07 pm:

There is a lot of continued reports on Twitter about that airplane that lost it’s engine cowl, I feel someone is trying to reach me with that.

I once was on commercial flight when the motor caught fire. I took some photos, maybe I still have them somewhere.

So, yeah, shit happens and then no one cares enough to talk about it.

I was another flight when the pilot called me into the cockpit. I still don‘t know why he did that, but out the drivers side window was a US Air-Force fighter jet escorting our flight along on the route. There is a whole bunch more to say about what happened in that cockpit, I’ll just say that the co-pilot flew the airplane the rest of the way after I entered the cockpit.

There was another flight when the pilot was headed straight into some mountains ahead of us, everyone on the airplane began to sort of whisper: “pull up... pull up” .... then louder some of the passengers where saying: “PULL UP!” and I shouted too: “PULL-UP!”.  We missed the mountains by a little bit, and kept on going.

There was a different flight when the flight attendants pulled a man from his seat and put him down into a access panel in the floor of the airplane, one between the wings on a L1011 size airplane as we were on approach to Portland airport. On the drive home, there was a big road block near Hillsboro on the I-5, lots of emergency crews there, as I passed by I asked one of them who they had scraped off of the pavement, and told them about the man that was into floor of the airplane: “Did someone happen to fall out of the sky and land on the freeway?”. There was no particular response that I can recall right now, but I think it was like “How did you know that?” kind of response from the emergency worker there.

There was another time when I stopped a shooter from shooting on airplane destined for Portland. Everyone on the plane was rounded up at the airport. I don’t think any of them are alive anymore, I had to run away from that, me and one woman and one ten year old were the only people who got away. It was not a safety thing, it was a forced round up by people other than airport security at Portland International.

Another time all of the oxygen masks came down from the overhead area. There was nothing wrong with the airplane, some young men were in the back of the plane seated farthest back, they all began to get out of their seats after the passengers were instructed to put the masks on. I could see they had weapons so I shouted real loud: “It’s nitrous oxide, any one with a lighter, lite the lighter!” and kept shouting to “look behind you” as those men were in the aisle. Me and at least two others had lighters, and lit them. Those guys all sat back down. There was a “Pop” noise from the luggage compartment area below the passenger area, and the pilot advised to put the masks back up into the overhead place where they came from, and we continued on our way.

no one on the airplane complained about any of that, as if they had all forgotten that anything happened.

The Baby is on fire, there is no one watching the baby.

TSA, Air Traffic Control, the concession restaurants and vendors at the airports are all occupied and controlled by terror cells. The rental car agencies are also all terror cells. In Las Vegas at McLaren airport, the rental car kiosk area is built intentionally as a killing field. Salt Lake City Utah international airport is built intentionally as a killing field with a system of food vendors combined with “Sky  Caps” who do the kill and then cart the bodies away.

There are some secret words that will keep you alive when you order a smoothie in Utah at the airport. I don’t recall what worked though, i guess you had to have been there to know what to say.

==========================

10:30 pm:

This below is exactly the way a typical SDA attack on US Citizen residential home is done.

That guy would be accompanied by about three to six other people who remain out of sight. If there is a smart meter on the electric panel at the residence, the power company terror cell would have already done enough analysis on electric usage at the home to know basically where in the house the victim is at, such as in a laundry room, when the washing machine begins to run, they know that much information in real time as the smart meter is broadcasting all day, all the time as electricity is consumed. So, this guy shows up with some bad weather on an Ivanka Trump Oportunity Zone style attack scenario. The home owner may not like having some asshole out front like that, but watches for a minute, it looks innocent, like a doo gooder is just happens to be in the neighborhood and wants so badly to intrude on other people un-announced, just shows up to randomly go ahead and start to shovel someone else’s snow away because, well heck, that guy just does not have anything else he needs to do at his own house, he’s so good that he already removed all of the snow at his house, racked the front yard, took out the trash, fed the cat, cleared the rain gutters, mowed the grass, made his bed, and made lunch in advance for the whole week, after he went to the grocery store this morning, and had all of that done before ten am, so, he has all kinds of extra time to go do random snow shoveling at other peoples houses, right?

The home owner thinks about all of that, and all seems legit.

So the home owner can relax now, it’s feeling very comfortable all of a sudden, as the nitrous gas is being forced into the back slider, and the bathroom window, while the scent of fresh laundry soap, also inserted into the gas mix in the house, reminds the homeowner to go ahead and do some laundry, as long as there are people helping out around the house and everything. So the laundry or other thing gets started while the owner is enjoying that warm fuzzy, sense safety and neighborly kindness that the nitrous gas provides. When the power company gets the reading that the home owner is in a desired place in the house, that is when the bastards come into the house. They will have already gained the house key through observation over time about where the home owner keeps that outdoor hidden house key, borrowed that long enough to make a copy at the key making machine that is in the garage next to where that guy hangs up his snow shovel every night after a hard day of raping, murdering, torturing, and killing. Then, on Saturday, he goes to confession, to say what loot he and the crew was able to take, and to drop off any small children to the church that may have lived at the home where the nice church goer went to shovel some snow.

They are all connected with blu-tooth communication, and have lots of electronic equipment available for knowing exactly when is the best time to use that hijacked house key to go in right through the front door to make everything appear is if there is no problems in the neighborhood.

In the spring they send a teenager with a lawnmower. In the summer they send someone in a bikini, in the fall they bring rakes, and offer to clear the rain gutters if you don’t mind getting the ladder out of the garage for them first.

https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1363729986214060038

[adrenalineguide]

Volkswagen Atlas and Toyota 4Runner TRD Pro

Text and Photos by Michael Hozjan

Volkswagen Atlas: Getting it right

I wasn’t supposed to like the Atlas. It’s big, square and the furthest departure from what we’re used to from Volkswagen in the company’s history. They call it a seven-passenger. Hell, in the sixties my buddy’s parents stuffed more people into a Beetle. I’d hate to see how many kids and adults they’d fit into the Atlas! 

Like I said I wasn’t supposed to like the Atlas and I don’t. I love it. Volkswagen has gone out and broken all the rules and given us a behemoth (it’s nearly 200 inches long) that’s as easy to drive as a compact sedan, is as smooth as a limo and then turns around and is as agile as a sporty sedan. 

The Atlas doesn’t replace any outgoing model as we were led to believe. It’s an all-new model geared for the big gulp, super-size me, generation.  Unlike other mid-size SUVs like the Ford Explorer and Honda Pilot whose greenhouses feel claustrophobic despite their seven and eight passenger cargo ability, the Atlas feels airy. No matter which of the three rows of seats you choose, foot, leg and elbowroom is abundant. Slide the second row all the way back and your passengers can actually cross their legs (shades of 1950 Cadillacs)! Likewise getting into the third row seat, usually a backbreaking chore left for the rug rats, is a cinch even for adults thanks to the folding and sliding second row seat, which can be articulated with one hand. Incidentally the third row is an option and VW also has second row captain’s chairs on the options list (standard on the Execline).

While we await the arrival of Volkswagen’s new minivan, the Atlas can serve as both a people and cargo mover thanks to a whopping 97 cubic feet of space with the second and third row seats folded. Even with all the seats up there’s still an impressive 21 cubic feet behind the third row.  Both rear row seats split to offer a slew of seating/cargo carrying capabilities. Need more space; the Atlas has a 5,000 lb towing capacity (V6 model).

Oh and did I say the Atlas’ interior is quiet. Very quiet. That is until you turn up the sound on the sat radio through the intuitive touch screen of the infotainment system and light up the Fender speakers peppered throughout the truck. Honda, Fiat, Alfa and a slew of other manufacturers should take note of the VW’s user-friendly (read uncomplicated), instinctively placed infotainement controls. 

The Atlas is available in front-wheel-drive and VW’s 4Motion all-wheel-drive. You get a choice of two engine options; a 2.0L turbo charged four that develops 235 horses and 258 lb.ft. of torque or the 276 horsepower 3.6L V-6 that produces that delivers 266 lb.ft. of torque. Both connect to an 8-speed automatic tranny with Tiptronic.

Ever been frustrated where to stow your blind? VW has the answer.

Duh!

Oh come on!

A friend of mine who worked at a local VW dealer once told me how a fellow mechanic would use the term Mickey Mouse to describe a non-useful item on a car or an item with no design sense what so ever. The term stuck. The fake twin exhaust tips (above) are the first time I’ve used it on a VW product. Yes that’s the real exhaust pipe under the fake one!

Prices start at $35,690 for the 2.0L powered Trendline, which is almost in par with the lid trim line price of the smaller Tiguan. Next up the ladder is the Comfortline at $39,690 with such amenities as adaptive cruise control, heated front seats and washer nozzles, pedestrian detection and sat radio added. My Highline starts at $48,990 and nets you the V6 plus a power tailgate, heated tushies for the rear seat passengers, panoramic sunroof and ventilated front seats.  The good news is it’s still priced under the entry level Toureg! Then there’s the top of the line Execline which starts at $52,540 which adds 20” wheels, 12 fender speakers, a digital cockpit, park and lane assist…

Our Kurkuma Yellow Metallic Atlas drew a lot of attention and one or two even liked the color!

Price as tested: $51,524

Toyota 4Runner TRD Pro: Old school cool

“I can’t believe they’re still making this dinosaur!” exclaimed Eric Descarries, my co scribe, here at Adrenaline Auto Guides.

“Yup, and I’m glad they do.” Came my response.

Obviously we have different visions of what an SUV should be. Eric is of the new school, unibody construction. I on the other hand, still lean more towards the old body-on-frame construction. Maybe it’s the hot rodder or the off-roader in me.

Oh I know I’ll have lots of letters about how unibodied cars have crumple zones to keep their occupants safer than their body-on-frame counterparts and how unibodied cars have withstood the test of time when it comes to rust.

It all depends on what your definition of a SPORT-UTILITY vehicle is, and over the years the term seems to have lost it’s meaning. Today most SUVs are little more than overgrown station wagons with all wheel drive. That’s precisely why we have nonsensical terms like crossover. To me a sport-utility meant you could haul all your gear deep into the woods or across the desert in relative comfort protected from the elements, unlike a 4x4 pickup where your gear would be exposed. The sport portion was more towards hunting, fishing, crossing deep ruts and deeper mud holes, making it to the lot where you hoped to one day build your cabin. And utility meant the truck would be able to haul your construction materials/gear up with you. It didn’t mean how many rug rats you can haul to the baseball diamond – which is what it seems like today’s so called SUVs are all about, even our beloved VW Atlas falls into that category.

The early Jeep Wagoneers, Ford Broncos and Chevrolet Jimmys are a prime example of what I’m talking about. Oh and off-roading doesn’t mean going through the 8 inch trench the construction crew dug up on your street. I’ve taken sports cars through deeper holes.

What makes the Toyota 4Runner the last true sport-utility? To begin with I’ll echo my previous statement, it’s a rugged, utilitarian that will just about go anywhere.  While most SUVs, crossovers and the like are built on car-based chassis, the 4Runner still gets its DNA from a pickup.

From a performance aspect, all 4Runners, regardless of which of the five trim packages you opt for are powered by a 4.0 liter, 270 hp, V6 that pumps out 278 lb-ft of torque mated to a five-speed automatic transmission.  My Toyota Racing Development Pro (there’s also a TRD Off Road) came with 4-wheel crawl control, TRD Bilstein high-performance shocks with remote reservoirs, TRD-tuned front springs, 17” black aluminum wheels with 31.5" Nitto Terra Grappler all-terrain tires.  A locking rear differential, Multi-Terrain Select system and Downhill Assist Control all work in conjunction to get you in and out of the toughest trails. The four-wheel-drive system is of the part-time variety and can be engaged with a manually operated transfer case. Hey these systems, like the 5-speed automatic are bulletproof and have proven themselves over the years. Adding some macho visual appeal while protecting your ride from rocks and logs is a heavy-duty aluminum skid plate mounted up front.

Oh and yes the TRD did get plenty of admiring stares and thumbs up.

As capable as the 4Runner is in the rough, on the road the Toyota doles out a smooth, comfortable ride despite the noisy off-road tires. If there’s a downside to the 4Runner it’s the truck’s off-road traits translate into more sway than usual when doing quick lane changes. The five-speed automatic may be great for tackling the Rubicon but on the highway the truck could also use an extra gear. Let’s not forget the 4Runner hasn’t had a major upgrade in years.

My sunroof-equipped tester’s interior was more truck-like than car-like with large buttons that can easily be manipulated even with gloves. Fit and finish is Toyota quality. Red stitching on the black leatherette seating is a nice touch and rear seat passengers get a provision to tilt their seat backs for added comfort. There is a third row option on the other trim lines. The tester offered an impressive 47 cu.ft. of cargo space behind the second row seats – that’s one of the largest trunks in the midsize SUV category. But what truly sold me on the 4Runner is the opening rear window, a feature that has disappeared off the SUV/crossover/station wagon landscape and something that all of my friends with SUVs have wished for.

The tall off-road tires and ride height make ingress and egress a challenge, but isn’t as bad as the first generation. Showing the truck’s age is the lack of techno gadgetry such as blind-spot monitoring and lane departure warning. You’ll have to old school it and pay attention to the road! However, Vehicle Stability Control, Active Traction Control and trailer sway control are all part of the base vehicle, which starts at $44,800. The TRD Pro package adds another $7395 to the tag. The Toyota can tow 5,000 lbs, only the Grand Cherokee and Dodge Durango can tow more, 7,400 lbs. 

If your looking for a large station wagon with all-wheel drive and car like ride, look elsewhere, this Toyota is not for you, But if you want a rugged, tough workhorse that will carry you, your buds and your gear over any kind of terrain, your choices are very limited and none has the opening rear window on the hatch. Add Toyota’s high resale value and the choice gets narrower.

At the end of my tenure with the 4Runner I must admit it was hard to surrender it. Like the Jeep Wrangler, it may not be the greenest vehicle, I managed to squeeze out 12.5L/100kms of the good stuff, but the feel of the truck is so unique and yes it’s smoother than the Wrangler.  

Price as tested: $54, 083.47

#toyota #4runner #jeep #vw #atlas #wagoneer #wrangler #suv

[glanzer2]

You probably want to read it, so here it is… EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED ON OUR ROAD TRIP!!!!

Day 1: Austin-Dallas-Tulsa

The trip got started bright and early Thursday morning. In a very rare instance of John out-sleeping me, I woke him up. “John, wake up, it’s time to go on our trip!” The boy leapt out of bed and threw his clothes on. We said our goodbyes and were on the road by 8am.

The first item on my to-do list was brunch in Dallas at the acclaimed Maple Leaf Diner, a Canadian themed breakfast spot. Johnny opted to eat only a scone, while I snarfed down an eggs Benedict. The most difficult driving I encountered on the trip was in southern Dallas on 35-E, where road construction had the interstate down to two very narrow lanes. I was in the left lane attempting to get around a semi, going 75mph, with literally two inches of space on each side between a concrete barrier and the truck. White knuckle driving, indeed.

North of Dallas, things cleared up and it was a pleasant drive to the small town of Denison, TX. I stopped to see the birthplace and museum of 34th president Dwight Eisenhower. Johnny screamed, pouted, and threw a fit that we stopped because it interrupted his watching of Ghostbusters cartoons. He perked up though when he remembered he had $50 of souvenir bucks for the trip, and bought a cheaply made army tank kit from the gift shop. Onward we went into Oklahoma, where I came upon a famous peanut shop, the Peanut Shoppe. We loaded up on peanuts, pretzels, taffy and jerky and hit the road again. Later, I slammed on the brakes and pulled over to buy the boy some fruit at a roadside fruit stand. Even then, the shop proprietor gave him a popsicle. He fell asleep as we headed up the turnpike to Tulsa.

Upon arrival in town, we checked into our cozy little Airbnb and relaxed. The boy would have been highly content staying at the house for the rest of the day, but I coaxed him into the van and over to Tulsa’s renowned park, The Gathering Place. Wow. This park had it all. Apparently the heir to an oil fortune donated $600MM to construct the most amazing playground I’ve had the pleasure of visiting. We played in 100º heat for two hours and left with both of us soaked to the bone. We returned to the Airbnb and showered, and planned our dinner. Johnny wanted pepperoni pizza, so I texted my company’s CEO and asked if he knew a good spot. My company, ConsumerAffairs, is based in Tulsa, after all. That was part of the reason for stopping there overnight. Rather than direct us to a good restaurant, he instead invited us over to his house for dinner. John played with my boss’s two kids while I enjoyed a couple beverages with the adults. Good but late night! We were asleep around 11:30.

So long, suckers! Road trip ahead.

That’s why this place is famous.

Big silverware

John enjoys breakfast at the Maple Leaf Diner in Dallas

My tasty Canadian eggs Benedict dish

John and a patriotic horsey

The boy pays his respects to Dwight Eisenhower

The Eisenhower house

The boy was saying “I like Ike!” by the end of this visit.

Peanut Shoppe sign

The Peanut Shoppe was a fun stop for some road snacks

Roadside fruitstand. Yes.

All tuckered out by 3.

Wow, cool Airbnb!

The American Pie family in the Airbnb house was a nice touch.

The Gathering Place in Tulsa is le-GIT. Coolest playground/park I’ve seen.

Day 2: Tulsa-Independence-Topeka-Auburn

We awoke and headed to my office first thing in the morning, where every Friday they cater breakfast and have an all-company standup meeting. I was called to the front to say a few words, and was surprised when my colleagues pulled out masks of my face, forming a Glanzer flash mob. How welcoming! We had plans for more Tulsa stops, but it was raining heavily so we just hit the road north into Kansas.

I stopped near the small town of Independence to check out one of the Laura Ingalls homesteads. John again showed zero interest of this roadside attraction and sulked on the front porch, refusing to budge. As we were there alone, way out in the country, I left him to sort out his feelings and explored on my own. He later perked up and wasted a few bucks in the gift shop on a log cabin toy and a cowboy that grows in water. In town, we spotted a free zoo, so I pulled over. Turns out it was the zoo where the original monkey blasted into orbit was from! A bit of space history. We motored on north through miles of rolling prairies of eastern Kansas with virtually nothing to stop and see.

Finally we made it to Topeka, where I had a handful of items to check out, but we wound up visiting only one—the Evel Knevel Museum, which is inside a Harley dealership. If you ever get to Topeka, it’s worth a visit! We each took our turn on a virtual reality 4D bus-jumping motorcycle experience. While it made me a little nauseous, Johnny loved it and went twice! We were running a little behind schedule, so I skipped plans to see the Brown vs Board of Education building and state capitol and ventured on into Nebraska, where we arrived at the home of Dorrie and Ken Heronimus, parents of my good friends Jason and Jeff LaPlant.

The Heronimuses and LaPlants were very welcoming. We enjoyed a home-cooked shrimp boil dinner and caught up. Once nearly inseparable, I had not seen either LaPlant brother since at least 2012. Johnny was wound up on sugar and caffeine and put on quite a display of silliness in the basement, whacking people with pillows and stealing socks. In the morning, we enjoyed a tasty biscuits/gravy breakfast and headed out.

First to work! John enjoys breakfast at ConsumerAffairs in Tulsa

Johnny poses with the Glanzer masks made by my colleagues

Ingalls gift shop

Ingalls porch

This Laura carving is guaranteed to haunt you in your dreams

John was furious with the stop-off and vowed to stay on the front porch.

Pa built that with his own two hands!

The Ingalls’ shanty

The Ingalls post office

The Ingalls schoolhouse.

A very interesting exhibit – home to the first monkey in space. In… Independence, Kansas? Apparently so.

Angry like a lion

You guessed it – another stop, buddy boy!

Some Knevel jackets

Outside the refurbed Knevel bus

Evel’s cushy lounge in his bus

Evel himself

Ready for his first VR experience

Johnny loved the VR Knevel experience

Some Knevel toys

Jeff meets Johnny

Jason meets Johnny

I reunite with the LaPlant boys after far too long

Day 3: Auburn-Vermillion

The long drive along I-29 through Nebraska and Iowa was uneventful. Sure, I could have stopped off and done some fun stuff in either Omaha or Sioux City, but in the end the boy was sick of stopping, and I am already quite familiar with that area of the country. So, we cruised straight into Vermillion, SD, home of my sister’s family. Jordan and her boys Hudson and Colton were eager to take Johnny to the town’s new pool. Johnny had a blast swimming with the cousins all afternoon. In the evening Jordan left for a photo shoot and Abul and I were in charge of heating pizzas for dinner for the kids, but wound up with black smoke billowing out of the house. 13-year-old cousin Emmy graciously volunteered to babysit the younger kids so the adults could enjoy a trip to the bars. Some of Jordan’s co-workers joined us and we were out til around 1am. I’d venture to say not everyone woke up feeling terribly perky, though I was A-OK.

What’s this, daddy?

Swimming, swimming, swimming… so much swimming.

I later found out I was using the little kid tubes.

High dive, no floatie… what could go wrong? Yes, I did have to jump in and rescue him.

Vermillion pool

Vermillion pool

Fun in the cousins’ room

Big dog

Cousins and dog

Pizza and cousins and screens

Trampoline time! I guess this beast was laid to rest after we left.

Abul stokes the flames

Dessert on the trampoline

Bar fun in Vermillion with the old gang!

c

Abul bought a growler to pass around AT the bar… I like this guy!

Vermillion bar

Day 4: Vermillion-Sioux Falls-Watertown

We made the quick drive north to Sioux Falls primarily so I could get fitted for a tux for a friend’s upcoming wedding—I had to get fitted there or Des Moines, so it worked out well that it happened to be on the path. We also wandered the mall, ate lunch at Huhot Mongolian Grill, and I saw Falls Park for the first time. Afterwards we headed north to Watertown, specifically Lake Kampeska, where good friend C.M. Walsh allowed us to stay at his family’s lake cabin free of charge for two days. I could have just headed to the family farm in Carpenter, but I figured this would be more fun. Brother Alex and his family joined us at the cabin Sunday night, and we enjoyed dinner at The Prop and then swam off the dock until dusk. There were no late-night shenanigans this time!

The legendary DakotaDome, last thing we spotted leaving Vermillion

John climbs the rocks at Falls Park. An adventurous little scamp.

My first trip to Falls Park. Some South Dakotan I am.

Taking in the beauty of the falls

John was getting a little too close to the water for my taste

Nice.

Lunch at Huhot. Sioux Fallsians love this spot.

Shirt shopping for Luke’s wedding

Culver’s at the world’s largest single story mall

Cute little niece Auden sucking down some lemonade at the bar

4 of the 5 cousins who bear the Glanzer name. Edie not present.

My dollar bill (borrowed from Alex) immortalized on the Prop’s ceiling.

What’s a trip to a SD bar without some video lottery? Alex won big.

Some evening swimming off the Kampeska dock

Swimming at Kampeska

Swimming at Kampeska

Swimming at Kampeska

Swimming at Kampeska

Swimming at Kampeska

Look there, nephew John, a beached whale!

Swimming at Kampeska at sunset

Sun setting on Kampeska

Cousin hijinks at bedtime

Not at all edited sunset

Day 5: Watertown

The first day totally off the road was spent at the Walsh family cabin. I did, however, make a quick trip into town for breakfast groceries. There was more swimming in the morning, and around noon my parents arrived. The original plan was that Dad would be bringing his boat and we’d spend the day zipping around the lake tubing, but due to mechanical problems the boat was left at home. Instead, it was just a lot more swimming and a little kayaking. Some of the adults did some quality day-drinking, otherwise things stayed pretty calm and some of the kids even napped during the day. At night, all the family left for home. John and I were faced with a tough decision of following them out to the farm for the night or just staying in Watertown at the cabin. Seeing how going to the farm would have added 125 miles of driving onto our trip, we opted to just stay by ourselves at the cabin and bid the family adieu.

Breakfast fixins from HyVee

Lunch moments later!

No boat, so… more swimming!

Grandma Marcie and Grandpa Dick bask in the hot summer sun

The view from the kayak

Not our first or second kayaking adventure

Alex wears a very small life jacket to kayak

Me in the kayak on the rough waters

Toss the kids in

Farewell for now, grandson

Grandpa and John say goodbye

Ouch! Back injury for boy

A safe return to shore

Day 6: Watertown-Minneapolis suburbs

After packing up the cabin in the morning, John and I embarked eastward for the first time on the trip, heading into Minnesota on backroads due to road construction. As I approached the Twin Cities, we stopped in Chanhassen at the site of my first job, Microboards Technology, better known today as Afinia. There, we were given the tour of the changes to the building since I last was there in 2011. It was a very weird feeling being back there—in some ways it felt like I had been to work just yesterday. So little had changed. The personnel was almost all people I had known from before. I walked into a bathroom and immediately remembered every word to the Abraham Lincoln poster hanging on the wall. Johnny, needless to say, was bored senseless.

Next, we had a pretty wide open agenda. It was only 2pm, and we had a couple hours to kill. There were numerous friends, restaurants, bars, or attractions I could have taken the lad to, but he wanted to see his Grandpa Steve and Granny Anne, so off we went to Bloomington to visit with them for a couple hours. After being carted around for 1,300 miles and stopping for many piddly things, John looked perfectly content to just stay at his grandparents house and play Legos all night, but it was not to be. I loaded him back in the van and headed to Eden Prairie to visit friends Liz and Curt right before their big move. John was forced to acclimate to more new friends in short order, and just as they were getting acquainted, we loaded up and headed further west!

We arrived in Minnetrista where our friends the Walshes were enjoying National Night Out, serving root beer floats on the street corner. After Johnny and his old buddy Lorenzo got reacquainted, they attempted to have a sleepover. Naturally, Johnny wound up in bed with me again. I was up relatively late catching up with Walsh and Sarah, but we just ain’t as crazy as we used to be. Midnight was about all I could handle.

Microboards still looks about the same as I left her

Amuk the elephant, Microboards’ famous mascot.

John got some brief Lego playtime in with the grandparents

Popsicles with the Burke-Assmann kids

More new friends

John and Lorenzo get reacquainted

National Night Out in Minnetrista… it was a par-tay!!!

Bedtime for the boys

The boys’ sleepover lasted all of six minutes

Day 7: Minneapolis

This day was 99% based around the Twins-Braves day game at Target Field. It was a scorcher, too. Our seats were in the direct path of the sun and there was nowhere to hide. Before the game even started, we were seeking shade. John burst out in tears in the top of the first. I assumed it was because he was hot and uncomfortable, but it was due to the Braves hitting a pair of solo homers! This poor kid, what have I set him up for… The boy pleaded to leave early many times, but was bought off with sno-cones and mini donuts. As we departed the stadium in the eighth inning, we popped into a lower-level section to see if a friend was sitting there. He wasn’t, but we snagged some seats near the playing field and immediately had a foul ball wiz past us, and were spotted on the JumboTron. As we left the park for good, an usher asked if the boys wanted to go on the field and run the bases… of course we did!

The kids seemed to enjoy the experience, but I am sure Walsh and I were even more eager to step foot on the sacred grounds. I attempted to film ourselves running the bases, which was a mistake… I should have just enjoyed the moment. The kids were both out cold in the car on the drive home, and it was an early bedtime for me on the couch as we attempted to watch TV with Mr. Bradley Feeney.

Lorenzo and John at First Ave

In our seats, in the sun’s direct path

Me at my favorite place on Earth

Popcorn and a cap were first on the order for the boy

Grainbelt Nordeast, a Mpls favorite

Popcorn in the shade

The kids were being filmed for something… I wonder what?!

The boys meet TC Bear

Cooling off at the Bat & Barrel

Braves and Twins duking it out

The Twins rallied a little while we were sitting here

Just after the Twins turned a triple play

The boys stack hats on Walsh

Walsh and Lorenzo on the warning track

Me touching home plate

The boys at the Twins dugout

John and I on the field

Walking the field

Me at the dugout

Day 8: Minneapolis-Wisconsin-Iowa-Galena, IL

We said goodbye to the Walshes and headed to the Minneapolis airport to pick up Lauren and Edie for the Poulter family get-together. This was the part of the trip we probably would have done in some form, week-long road trip leading up to it or not. Johnny sure missed his baby sister! We loaded them in the car and made a quick pit stop for breakfast at Hot Plate Diner. The road to the northwestern corner of Illinois took us through Iowa and Wisconsin where we saw some surprisingly nice scenery.

The ride with the baby in tow certainly slowed things down compared to just the boys. We had to stop off fairly often as she was screaming and sick of the car. Around 4:00 we got to the small town of Galena and headed out into the country to the Eagle Ridge Resort. Lauren’s family arrived from around the Midwest throughout the night and we hung around chatting and such.

Good to see Pops again!

Siblings reunited after a week apart

Edie at a random Iowa gas station

Edie and I enter Wisconsin briefly

Edie frolicks in the meadow

Our townhome at the resort

The Farmstead townhomes at the resort

The van reached the elusive 55555 on the way to Galena

Edie makes her Wisconsin debut.

Day 9-10: Galena

The time at the resort was mostly very laid-back and relaxing. There were a couple of connecting townhouses rented out, a floor for each family basically. We ate all meals in, with different groups in charge of preparing each meal. Activities during the day ranged from swimming and pontoon rides to horseback riding and board games. But swimming at one of two pools seemed to be the kids’ preference. One day while Lauren was out with Johnny and the cousins, I took Edie into town on my own and saw the home of former president Ulysses S. Grant. Edie, unlike her brother, was a good sport and posed nicely for all of the pictures I asked for without making a fuss.

Baby hanging in jammas

A hearty breakfast

The cousins

Swinging

Cousins on a swing

Giant checker board

Baby swimming

Family swimming – man I’m getting sick of typing captions, can you tell?

Grandpa Steve and Edie

Tim and kids

Baby on daddy belly

Caption

John and great uncle Dave pontooning

The navigator

Pontoon

Resort pool

Edie getting a history lesson

Ulysses S. Baby!

Edie and the first lady

Birthday cake time for Julia

Happy birthday

Poulter siblings and offspring

Three girl cousins born within about a year of each other

Glanzer family normal

Glanzer family crazy

Day 11: Galena-St Louis-Rural Arkansas

When the Poulter family fun was through, the Glanzers hit the road around 10am and started south towards St. Louis. At one time, it was believed that the drive home would be just as leisurely as the first two days. John and I would dump the gals in St Louis at the airport to fly home, and we’d take our time seeing fun sites, and grazing parts of Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Unfortunately, we received word too late in the game that John had to be back in Austin by Monday at 4pm for kindergarten orientation, which did turn out to be very important and something we would have regretted missing. So out went the fun and it was pedal to the metal. We dropped Lauren and Edie at the airport around 5:30pm Sunday, giving us 22.5 hours to make it 14 hours back to Austin. Even though there was a more direct route through Missouri that connected back with I-35, I decided to do something different and see a part of the country I’d never visited before.

So, we went south of St Louis through Mark Twain National Forest. It was very nice scenery and very minimal traffic on a 4-lane divided highway for hours. When we finally hit the state line in far northeast Arkansas, however, the roads turned to two lanes, the sun went down, and towns were very sparse. At this point, John was sick and tired of the trip and regretted not flying home with the girls, which at one time was on the table. He bawled and bawled. So I gave in and let him grab whatever junk he wanted at gas stations to calm him down—he bought a toy gun, Gatorade, and M&Ms. It quieted him down for a while, but soon he was bawling again. He cried himself to sleep as we continued through Arkansas well into the night.

I had made the decision earlier in the night to try to pull an all-nighter, so I stopped for coffee at every McDonald’s on the way. But at 1:30, even though I was still feeling alright physically, I was getting blown off the road by semis on I-30. I kept spotting deer in the ditches, and was afraid of hitting one, so I was going at best 58mph. I guess the semis wouldn’t have cared too much if they hit one cause they kept blowing around me at 80mph. So, I finally vowed to pull off at the next lodging sign I saw. It happened to be a random motel called the Southfork Inn, outside a town called Gurdon, Arkansas. I buzzed on the intercom holding a limp child, asking for a room. I got the key and tossed him on the bed. Despite being wildly caffeinated, I quickly went to sleep. I got about four solid hours before waking at 6 to continue onward.

Day 12: Gurdon-Texarkana-Austin

The final push was Monday morning. A road-weary Johnny was promised fresh donuts for the drive, but had to settle for pre-packaged powder mini donuts from a dumpy truck stop. We reached Texarkana, and I had the option of heading south towards Shreveport or heading on west towards Dallas. It wouldn’t have been too much further to hit the Louisiana border and then drive over to Austin, but I decided the quickest route was best, and continued on towards DFW, site of the worst traffic of the trip. And once again, upon reaching the giant metro, it was more white knuckle driving. I regretted the decision to cut a few miles off and visit a new state only to wind up back in that mess. With a brief stop here and there for snacks, we finally reached Austin around 1:30 and had arrived home with 3,008 miles on the van. So close to a round 3,000!

The IA/IL border

Roadstop rest

Bye girls! Dropping Mama and Edie at St Louis airport

Sun setting somewhere on the road

A fricking exhausted kid

Wiped out at the rural Arkansas roadside motel

HOME AT LAST

Post-Trip Thoughts

Unlike last year’s Black Hills trip, I returned home from this trip feeling very good about the things we were able to do and see. I upped my game tremendously in terms of pre-trip research this time around. I had about three possible attractions in every town between Austin and Vermillion to stop off and see, and every time the mood struck, we pulled off and saw one of them. The trick for researching fun road trip to-do items is not to rely on sites like RoadTrippers.com or RoadsideAmerica.com or whatever. Strictly Google the town, and Google provides a “travel guide” with top attractions. That’s where I found almost everything fun we did. No, we didn’t do everything on my list due to time constraints, but the fact that we did even half of them is pretty amazing.

We also had a blast catching up with old friends, colleagues, family and strangers along the way. Special thanks again to the Carmans, the LaPlants and Heronimuses, the Krogmans, and the Walshes for their hospitality!

What might I do differently if we were to do this trip again? For the first three days, nothing. Those days were perfect! Day 4 where we went from Vermillion to Sioux Falls to Watertown, I rushed things a bit. We could have easily found more interesting things to see on the way. I was anxious to get to the Walsh cabin, believing the whole family would be there when we arrived. But it turned out we had several hours alone. I might also have gone out to the farm for a day instead of spending two nights at the cabin. We were sad to not get to see Grandma Bell! Same goes for the drive from Watertown to Minneapolis… we made great time and got into town early, but didn’t really have a plan. I should have thought that out a little more and capitalized on a rare free afternoon in the greatest city on earth. After that, there wasn’t really much room to rethink things. The Galena part was pretty well structured, and the drive home left for virtually no lallygagging. I think it was the right amount of time to be away… Johnny was sick and tired of it by the very end, though, so I wouldn’t have extended it any. And I came back to work very refreshed.

Future Trips

Oh, my 2019 does not slow down at all. In the coming months are trips to Tulsa, a mystery Luke Katuin bachelor party destination, Des Moines for Luke’s wedding, probably Tulsa a second time, and maybe even a 10-year wedding anniversary trip in November if we can make it work. But for road trips like this? I fully intend to do something of this nature every year from now on. The kids have long breaks from school and daycare, and I work remotely and have a great PTO plan at my job, so it should be easy to get away. Also, I kind of enjoy driving in general. I get to drive outside the Austin city limits so infrequently, it feels very good to just hit the open roads for an extended period of time. I just wish I could avoid Dallas! The kids probably won’t actually enjoy long car rides for a while yet, but they will learn to like them eventually. I remember distinctly in 1991, nearly 9 years old, so stoked to go on the 7-hour drive to the Black Hills. I sat in the backseat of the Oldsmobile with a notebook and wrote down everything I saw on the way: every town name, every attraction, etc. But to that point in my life trips were extremely rare/nonexistent, so of course it was a thrill.

I hope you’ve enjoyed hearing every detail about my journey.

Road Trip 2019 You probably want to read it, so here it is... EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED ON OUR ROAD TRIP!!!!

[joneswilliam72]

"What would've happened if Hitchcock made a movie in an Uber?" - Meet filmmaker Jeremy Ungar of Ride.

I caught up with filmmaker Jeremy Ungar for a chat on film, the rapid advance of technologies like Uber, influences, Michael Mann, filmmaking ISO and painting with light, lenses, and a realist visual palette (á la Edward Hopper) as it relates to his newest picture, Ride – out now on VOD.

 A struggling actor by day, James (Jessie T. Usher, Independence Day: Resurgence) pays his bills by driving people around Los Angeles for a ride sharing service.  His night starts out like any other, but he can’t believe his luck when he picks up the beautiful Jessica (Bella Thorne, Assassination Nation), and they immediately hit it off. His next fare, the fast-talking Bruno (Will Brill, The OA), convinces James to go back and invite her to join them for a wild night out.  But things take a shocking turn when Bruno, armed with a gun and a twisted idea of fun, forces them on a terrifying, white-knuckle ride that quickly spirals out of control.

Ride really would be the result of Mann’s Collateral getting a technological makeover and mentoring advice from Alfred Hitchcock. I highly recommend checking it out on VOD today and I hope you will learn as much as I did from this conversation with a gifted young creative.

Hi Jeremy. Welcome to The 405! How are you?

I'm good how about you?     

Oh not too bad. Getting right into it what was it that initially inspired you to write Ride?

Well, I'm really fascinated by these new – kind of newer – interactions that technology has created for us. That, you know, before Uber existed, before Tinder existed, if you said to someone "alright, there's this app and you're going to get into a stranger's car and then they'll drive you somewhere and you don't know them and you've not met them". You'd be like "um, there's no way I'm doing that ever."

Yep.

And the way that these quickly become such a part of our lives that  it's so commonplace people do it every day. And that was, I was really just doing that and I also really wanted to write something for myself because my background is in theater… so dialogue wasn't really concerned. I had these kind of charged experiences, most of them have been positives, in most case. I just started this, it's become this native unique space that's kind of right for drama. Then I started writing, you know, some possibilities of what should happen in the new world and I came to this kind of very strong, very manipulative, character and I was really drawn to dialogue that came out, I kind of surprised myself writing it. Then that was really made me dive into this as a project.

Cool. Yeah Bruno [Will Brill] was manipulative to put it lightly. Kind of going off of that, one thing that seemed to me to be very important for the movie, was pace.

Jessie T. Usher as James in the thriller “RIDE,” an RLJE Films release. Photo courtesy of Rob C. Givens.

I have to say I wasn't really seeing that 180 degree turn that happened about the time they get to the bar. You know, I was watching it wondering, what's this guy going to do, what's his end game, it just keeps wandering for most of it; but I was just wondering what were some of the tricks to sort of balancing the tension throughout the movie?

The pace of the movie is something that is really kind of interesting thing to me because, like I said, my background's in theater and you get a lot of long takes with this. When we shot on the process trailer – which is how we did most of the car stuff – you're strapped to a flatbed truck and you know you have your cameras mounted and you're driving. It really truly did seem like it was theater and we would do, you know, a sure five, ten minute take with two cameras.

Fascinating connection.

So that kind of locked into the pace, you get, just in directing in the scene as you shoot it and any chance you have to adjust that pace is by cutting to a different take. Which you also are locked into a really specific set of constraints because the car is moving, so you have to kind of match the speed when you cut. So it's a really kind unique set of challenges, but I like restrictions like that so it kind of gave me a lot of style and made this sort of a puzzle to put together.

A process trailer. Source:MovingPics.net

Necessity is the mother of invention.

And also we wanted to show that there was something mysterious, immediate and serious right there in the car with them and there is a sense that they are really doing this, because in a sense they are.

Oh, absolutely, I think that was communicated really well. And another thing I really liked about the movie was the realism in terms of the cinematography and the visuals. Kind of in the vein of Nightcrawler in that sort of neon grit.

Oh thank you, that was a huge point of reference for me.

Oh good. Yeah. I was just wondering, what was the process like in coming up with the visuals that you ultimately did?

I have directed this drama as a short to prove that I can do it as a feature.

Oh cool. I respect that proof of concept type of thinking.

In the short, we shot on a barge which was a really good experience. When I started talking with the DP who did the feature – a guy named Rob Givens – who proposed using the pass on a fairy cam. The thing that makes the camera unique is it has a flip flop hub in terms of the ISO. So it kind of belabors 800 which is standard. We did our movie at 5,000. We really tried to shoot the entire movie at 5,000 ISO.

Yeah. That's gonna dramatically increase the light that's captured.

Yeah. It resulted in us getting a lot more light in, but from a process perspective, we didn't have to use as many lights and we were able to be a lot more nimble, also in terms of just loving the lights of Los Angeles. I really wanted the movie to kind of feel like a full character in itself, and with that 5,000 ISO I feel you were able to see so much of the outside res that it really became a key part of our aesthetic.

Absolutely.

So that was one element of that and it also made the choices of cinematography easier. Rather than getting a third package of primes, prime lenses…

Yeah.

…we had our fairy lenses and they are Panavision C Series lenses, you know, they are hard to track down and expensive and so we opted for fewer lenses. In that restriction, in the moment, having those lenses that would give us a lot of the kind of horizontal flares and oblong bokehs and things that made, at least I hope. You remember in one space how visually varied the scenes were? It's the lenses and flares that tend to get that.

Will Brill as Bruno in the thriller “RIDE,” an RLJE Films release. Photo courtesy of Rob C. Givens.

Oh, absolutely. Switching gears to a question I like to ask everybody, what directors and films have been most influential on your development as an artist.

My favorite question.

Cool. A big one too.

For Ride specifically, I really I think maybe a core question is what would have happened if Hitchcock made a movie in an Uber? You know, Strangers on a Train was really a key point of reference for me and balancing the fact that the character named Bruno is a reference to Strangers on a Train.

Interesting. Yeah, Robert Walker's character. Makes sense now that you say it.

It just cycles round. It comes from Hitchcock being the first director as a kid that I watched that I found the movie so accessible and just loved it so much that that is probably really only the most secondary thing that made me become a film maker.

Yeah, Hitch is great. Vertigo would be a favorite of mine from him.

Then the other really big point of reference for Ride is this early Spielberg movie called Duel. Which is also all set in a car. And it's a super tense film. It's different because Duel is almost nonverbal and Ride is like a real dialogue. But I just feel that there is so much to learn from it in terms of how he dealt with the car and then also just building tension in a confined space. Spielberg was really a master of in that era movie. And that I hoped to really learn something from them.

Absolutely. You know another one that came to my mind when I was watching it was Michael Mann's Collateral…

Yes. Tom Cruise.

I loved Collateral. It was kind of unbelievable because it's so similar to Ride but I really didn't think about Collateral at all when I was writing Ride.

Oh really?

I didn't think a ton about Michael Mann. Yeah but I was like I mean I must have subconsciously been, but really it's interesting, I made a whole visual reference back to kind of outline the vision of what the future would look like and there are a ton of images from Thief.

Good one as well.

And so I was thinking intentionally about Michael Mann and probably Collateral was marinating in there but not one that I was at least telling myself to directly thinking of it. It just so happened that it... that you could definitely pitch Ride as Collateral and an Uber.

Yeah. You really could.

The other Michael Mann thing is I loved the movie Thief so much and the soundtrack of Thief was done by Tangerine Dream. And the soundtrack to my movie was actually done by Paul Haslinger who was a key member of Tangerine Dream.

Cool. Didn't realize that.

So I had something that really evoked that movie that was so inspirational to me and I loved so much.

Awesome, definitely. Our last question, what's next for you Jeremy?

There's another script that I am writing right now. That's also about our relationship with technology. It kind of gives more ... the amount of trust we put in technology and with devices and I think I really think our cell phones are really killing us but they are just so fun that we can't tell.

The next script is kind of very loosely about that same thing.

from The 405 http://bit.ly/2NbZOfh

[sharonchteh]

~23rd January 2019~

My brain was engulfed by all the things that I could potentially do to help the knee to recover and the decision on what options I will need to take on the W walk to make sure I complete it with a strong end rather than making things worse. The journey was in parts excruciating thinking that I may need to give up on some of the challenges ahead. I hated the thought that I will need to give up part of the journey so that I survive the entire walk.

“The path to our destination is not always a straight one. We go down the wrong road, we get lost, we turn back. Maybe it doesn’t matter which road we embark on. Maybe what matters is that we embark.” ~Barbara Hall

On the way to Pehoe, I had to keep reminding myself that it’s all about managing the pain and the recovery for the next big thing which was El Chalten, where I would need to be able to climb. Using the W walk as a recovery was as good as a plan as any and it gave me the strength to make smarter decision on what I should and shouldn’t do.

We stopped in Puerto Natales to stock up, do last minute shopping and lunch before we head over to the campsite. This was where we picked up our guides for the walk, Roberto Carlos, Gada and Fran. The town is a typical pitstop for people heading to the park, with plenty of shops to buy all the essentials such as sleeping bags, mats, thermals an everything you need except for liners. Yes, I was in need of one (not desperate) and apparently no one uses it in this country.

It was great once we drove out of town, with picture postcard scene all the way to Pehoe. The mountains shone in the glorious sunshine, we had to just stop to take photos and I was trying to take in the fact that I’m heading to one of the most beautiful places in the world. I realised at that time that I haven’t really researched about most of the places I travelled to and I kinda like it because I get to see it with my own eyes first before the photos that were plastered all over the internet. So much better.

Pehoe campsite was fully equipped with all the facilities perfect for preparing for our adventure for the next few days and just a short drive away from the dock where we will be taking the catamaran to Paine Grande campsite. Busy evening with everyone getting their trek bag ready and shower before dinner. After dinner we were briefed on the four days walk and in detail what we’re going to do on the first day with the options for someone like me who was still managing the knee pain. It was an early night for an early morning start.

~24th January 2019~

Day one of the walk, it’s breakfast and a short drive to the dock to take the catamaran to Paine Grande campsite to drop our stuff before embarking on the first walk up the Grey Glacier. The campsite was very well established for hikers and campers, with clean shower rooms and toilets plus restaurant and bar. Somehow I had in my head that facilities will be minimum and basic, it was well above expectation.

The walk up to the first view point was gentle and just what I needed for the day. It was led by Roberto Carlos and I did my best to keep up with his pace reminding myself at the same time to be aware of how the knees and hips were doing. The view was spectacular even though the glacier was quite a distance away. I was in the mountains with an awesome view, I was content.

When Gada said that the group was doing well and that all of us should go on to the next viewpoint I had to stop her and request if I could head back since the route to the next viewpoint will be a decent, which mean that the way back will involve a steep ascend before the descend back to campsite. Little that I knew, quite a few people decided to head back as well. Fran took a group of us back and we had lunch in the sheltered forest area on the way back.

When we were back at the campsite, I was assessing the knees to make sure they’re happy with the walk so far. A little niggle here and there, apart from that it was all good and I knew I made the right decision to return after the first viewpoint. We hung around in the bar playing cards and waited for the other group to come back before we shower and eat. It was a very satisfying day altogether. I was feeling good at this point.

~25th January 2019~

After breakfast, we head out with all of our stuff on our back and walk the Patagonian flat to Italiano, where we will drop our stuff and grab our day bag to start the walk up to the French valley and Britanico. This was where if I’ve packed appropriately, I’ll be fine and I was.

Patagonian flat is basically what an Andean or Inca flat is, a bit of up and down. The walk to Italiano was pleasant and picturesque with the lakes on one side and mountains on the other. Once we’re there, it was drop, grab and go.

The walk up to the French valley started off well and as it went steeper, the niggles became constant pinch then as we approached the French valley the knee was in full complaint mode. I knew it was time to get down since we still have a long walk to the next campsite with the full load.

The hanging glaciers are nature’s way to say that it is the best designer or artist in the whole of universe. The mini avalanches tumbled through the whole valley and to wait for the rumble, it’s often to late to spot the avalanche. The sound always comes later than the action.

Emma was the only one that came back with me after French valley and the rest continue to Britanico. I would have loved to gone further but it would mean that there’s a chance I would struggle to get to the next campsite and that for me was not an option. This time Roberto Carlos led us back down to have lunch at Italiano then head over to Cuernos campsite.

A nice stroll through Patagonian flat, we saw eight condors flying high above in the mountains. When we reached the pebbled beach, we chilled out and soaked our tired hot feet in the lake. The lake water was so cold that I think it shocked my knees into getting better (I know…placebo effect, still good though).

The campsite was way smaller than Paine Grande with a mountain peak looming over our tents. During dinner, we got to know that it was Roberto Carlos’ birthday and we all sang happy birthday to him. He must thought he would getaway with us not knowing and lucky for us, Fran found out from one of his friends.

Plan for the next day will be a long walk to the last campsite, Central, and I was hoping that the walk will do the knees some good and I will be able to complete the entire walk for the last day.

~26th January 2019~

A long walk ahead of us with all of our stuff on our back through Patagonian flat. The landscapes were changing as we moved further east and the weather was warmer. Apart from the Salkantay trek, Paine Grande campsite was the only place I had to wear my thermal. Pretty good result for chasing spring and summer all year round.

We took a break in one of the most beautiful viewpoints and this place has it all, the lakes with mountains both behind and far beyond the lakes. Suddenly, the thought of those who passed on came to me together with a host of emotions, from sadness to content. I was reminded of father’s last days and how he looked like he was preparing himself, as if he knew his time was up.

Reflecting on what I was doing in the last few months, I felt almost the same thing. Am I doing all this because I know my time is short? Curious?! How I wish father was there with me, seeing the wonders of this world we lived in. I wondered whether he would be watching, watching over me like an angel. I miss him.

The lunch spot featured a large stream with fresh water from the mountains and a wall that could be climbed. I was looking at it throughout lunch time, wondering whether it was climbable and told myself not to even try.

When we saw Central in the distance, it was a relieve that we’re nearly there. Roberto was pointing out where we will be walking the next day when we passed the turn off for the route. Mirador de las Torres, the last challenge for the walk was what most people were looking forward to.

The truck, Kylie and few others who didn’t embark on this walk were waiting for us when we reached the campsite. From Paine Grande to Central, we had tents already set up for us so it’s just sleeping bag and mat to deal with. There was a dome set up for us to gather in for tea and mealtime (and for some climbing when requested/challenged so yeah, couldn’t help it really).

We had a visit to an NGO that Dragoman supports in rehabilitating some of the areas impacted by the fires in 2011 and before that. They were growing and planting trees, helping the forest along on their road to recovery.

~27th January 2019~

A very early start to avoid the crowd, said all three of them when they briefed us the night before. The route up to the mirador is exposed in some parts and narrow plus it’s the only way up and down, hence we’re going early to beat most of the crowd from Puerto Natales who are there for day trip.

I was reassured by both Gada and Fran that I’ll be ok walking all the way up to the mirador. So I walked and kept an awareness on how tired I am to make sure I’m not dragging my feet which could make it worse for my knees. Following my own pace made it better, breaking away from the front crowd and doing my thing was the best decision I’ve ever made.

We stopped for breaks in the forest as well as the refugio on the way. The top part of the climb was harsh, reminded me of some of the approaches to hard to reach crags.i was starting to wonder how I was to descent from this place with loose rocks everywhere.

Once I was at the top, I asked Roberto Carlos and Fran helped me identified three rock for me. I used the rocks to offer a prayer and hope to the mountains as I did in Abra Salkantay. Such a serene place with the three towers (Norte, Central and Sur) looming over the lagoon and us.

It was interesting walking down. I say walk but Dee, Liz and I was cruising down fast especially with places with loose rocks. It was much easier on the knees when going down fast, almost like we’re skiing down the mountain. I met an American girl who worked in Hawaii as a guide for boat tours to see dolphins and some times, whales. We had interesting conversations around working and travelling at the same time.

The rest of the day was spent chilling out and just rest until dinner time. Some went to the bar for some rewarding cocktails while I decided to stay at the campsite for some much needed quiet time. At 6pm, it was time to say goodbye to our wonderful guides and thank them for the awesome time we had on the walk. I took Fran’s contact so that I have someone to ask about climbing in South America and questions in general. It came in handy in El Chalten…hola Fitz Roy!!!

Dinner and bed, I was excited to move on to El Chalten.

Chile: Torres del Paine W Walk/Trek ~23rd January 2019~ My brain was engulfed by all the things that I could potentially do to help the knee to recover and the decision on what options I will need to take on the W walk to make sure I complete it with a strong end rather than making things worse.