#the only white ones are a woman and an irish man and an austrian man controls the zombies. its not fucking subtle

[silverislander]

i'm in the process of watching a bunch of american zombie movies to prep for my honours essay next semester (i'm gonna talk abt them in the context of generational fears!! i'm really excited) and just. man. all the pre-night of the living dead are pretty explicitly racist in some really insidious ways and too many of the post-living dead ones are too

#its sad honestly. i knew that going in ofc but it still makes me kind of sad #like i just finished king of the zombies from 1941. it was okay? definitely different from what im used to i dont watch lots of old films #but its so racist oh my god. every black character is a servant. almost every zombie is black and its notable when theyre not #the only white ones are a woman and an irish man and an austrian man controls the zombies. its not fucking subtle #it makes its xenophobia extremely clear #mantan moreland plays one of the main characters and hes so funny but i feel awful that his character is made into a joke! #its been a wild ride so far #levi.txt #im excited to get to romero bc ive actually never seen a romero movie!! also it means ill start to move away from vodou zombies #and towards the kind of plague zombies im more used to #those have. an entirely different also very questionable connotation :) #im particularly interested in the idea of zombies as acceptable targets. i think thatll be interesting once i reach the 80s or so

[isslibrary]

New additions to the Indian Springs School Library May thru August 2020

Bibliography

Sorted by Call Number / Author.

152.4 O

Owens, Lama Rod, 1979- author. Love and rage : the path of liberation through anger. "Reconsidering the power of anger as a positive and necessary tool for achieving spiritual liberation and social change"--.

200.973 M

Manseau, Peter. One nation, under gods : a new American history. First edition.

304.8 K

Keneally, Thomas. The great shame : and the triumph of the Irish in the English-speaking world. 1st ed. New York : Nan A. Talese, 1999.

305.5 V

Vance, J. D., author. Hillbilly elegy : a memoir of a family and culture in crisis. First Harper paperback edition. "Hillbilly Elegy is a passionate and personal analysis of a culture in crisis--that of white working-class Americans. The decline of this group, a demographic of our country that has been slowly disintegrating over forty years, has been reported on with growing frequency and alarm, but has never before been written about as searingly from the inside. J. D. Vance tells the true story of what a social, regional, and class decline feels like when you were born with it hung around your neck. The Vance family story begins hopefully in postwar America. J. D.'s grandparents were "dirt poor and in love," and moved north from Kentucky's Appalachia region to Ohio in the hopes of escaping the dreadful poverty around them. They raised a middle-class family, and eventually their grandchild (the author) would graduate from Yale Law School, a conventional marker of their success in achieving generational upward mobility. But as the family saga of Hillbilly Elegy plays out, we learn that this is only the short, superficial version. Vance's grandparents, aunt, uncle, sister, and, most of all, his mother, struggled profoundly with the demands of their new middle-class life, and were never able to fully escape the legacy of abuse, alcoholism, poverty, and trauma so characteristic of their part of America. Vance piercingly shows how he himself still carries around the demons of their chaotic family history. A deeply moving memoir with its share of humor and vividly colorful figures, Hillbilly Elegy is the story of how upward mobility really feels. And it is an urgent and troubling meditation on the loss of the American dream for a large segment of this country." -- Publisher's description.

305.8 D

DiAngelo, Robin J., author. White fragility : why it's so hard for white people to talk about racism.

305.800973 D

Dyson, Michael Eric, author. Tears we cannot stop : a sermon to white America. First edition. I. Call to worship -- II. Hymns of praise -- III. Invocation -- IV. Scripture reading -- V. Sermon -- Repenting of whiteness -- Inventing whiteness -- The five stages of white grief -- The plague of white innocence -- Being Black in America -- Nigger -- Our own worst enemy? -- Coptopia -- VI. Benediction -- VII. Offering plate -- VIII. Prelude to service -- IX. Closing prayer. "In the wake of yet another set of police killings of black men, Michael Eric Dyson wrote a tell-it-straight, no holds barred piece for the NYT on Sunday July 7: Death in Black and White (It was updated within a day to acknowledge the killing of police officers in Dallas). The response has been overwhelming. Beyoncé and Isabel Wilkerson tweeted it, JJ Abrams, among many other prominent people, wrote him a long fan letter. The NYT closed the comments section after 2,500 responses, and Dyson has been on NPR, BBC, and CNN non-stop since then. Fifty years ago Malcolm X told a white woman who asked what she could do for the cause: Nothing. Dyson believes he was wrong. In Tears We Cannot Stop, he responds to that question. If we are to make real racial progress, we must face difficult truths, including being honest about how black grievance has been ignored, dismissed or discounted. As Dyson writes: At birth you are given a pair of binoculars that see black life from a distance, never with the texture of intimacy. Those binoculars are privilege; they are status, regardless of your class. In fact the greatest privilege that exists is for white folk to get stopped by a cop and not end up dead...The problem is you do not want to know anything different from what you think you know...You think we have been handed everything because we fought your selfish insistence that the world, all of it--all its resources, all its riches, all its bounty, all its grace--should be yours first and foremost, and if there's anything left, why then we can have some, but only if we ask politely and behave gratefully"--Provided by publisher.

305.800973 G

Begin again : James Baldwin's America and its urgent lessons for our own. New York, NY : Crown; an imprint of Random House, 2020.

305.800973 O

Oluo, Ijeoma, author. So you want to talk about race. First trade paperback edition.

320.9 B

Bass, Jack. The transformation of southern politics : social change and political consequence since 1945. New York : Basic Books, c1976.

323.1196 L

Lowery, Lynda Blackmon, 1950- author. Turning 15 on the road to freedom : my story of the 1965 Selma Voting Rights March. Growing up strong and determined -- In the movement -- Jailbirds -- In the sweatbox -- Bloody Sunday -- Headed for Montgomery -- Turning 15 -- Weary and wet -- Montgomery at last -- Why voting rights? -- Discussion guide. As the youngest marcher in the 1965 voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, Lynda Blackmon Lowery proved that young adults can be heroes. Jailed nine times before her fifteenth birthday, Lowery fought alongside Martin Luther King, Jr. for the rights of African-Americans. In this memoir, she shows today's young readers what it means to fight nonviolently (even when the police are using violence, as in the Bloody Sunday protest) and how it felt to be part of changing American history.

364.973 U.S.

U.S. national debate topic, 2020-2021.

420 M

McCrum, Robert. The story of English. 1st American ed. New York, N.Y., U.S.A. : Viking, 1986.

488.2421 A

Balme, M. G., author. Athenaze : an introduction to ancient Greek. Revised Third edition. Book I -- Book II.

510 C

Clegg, Brian. Are numbers real? : the uncanny relationship of mathematics and the physical world.

530.092 F

F©œlsing, Albrecht, 1940-. Albert Einstein : a biography. New York : Viking Penguin: a division of Penguin Books USA, Inc, 1997. Family -- School -- A "child prodigy" -- "Vagabond and loner" : student days in Zurich -- Looking for a job -- Expert III class -- "Herr Doktor Einstein" and the reality of atoms -- The "very revolutionary" light quanta -- Relative movement : "my life for seven years" -- The theory of relativity : "a modification of the theory of space and time" -- Acceptance, opposition, tributes -- Expert II class -- From "bad joke" to "Herr Professor" -- Professor in Zurich -- Full professor in Prague, but not for long -- Toward the general theory of relativity -- From Zurich to Berlin -- "In a madhouse" : a pacifist in Prussia -- "The greatest satisfaction of my life" : the completion of the general theory of relativity -- Wartime in Berlin -- Postwar chaos and revolution -- Confirmation and the deflection of light : "the suddenly famous Dr. Einstein" -- Relativity under the spotlight -- "Traveler in relativity" -- Jewry, Zionism, and a trip to America -- More hustle, long journeys, a lot of politics, and a little physics -- Einstein receives the Nobel Prize and in consequence becomes a Prussian -- "The marble smile of implacable nature" : the search for the unified field theory -- The problems of quantum theory -- Critique of quantum mechanics -- Politics, patents, sickness, and a "wonderful egg" -- Public and private affairs -- Farewell to Berlin -- Exile in liberation -- Princeton -- Physical reality and a paradox, relativity and unified theory -- War, a letter, and the bomb -- Between bomb and equations -- "An old debt. Albert Einstein's achievements are not just milestones in the history of science; decades ago they became an integral part of the twentieth-century world in which we live. Like no other modern physicist he altered and expanded our understanding of nature. Like few other scholars, he stood fully in the public eye. In a world changing with dramatic rapidity, he embodied the role of the scientist by personal example. Albrecht Folsing, relying on previously unknown sources. And letters, brings Einstein's "genius" into focus. Whereas former biographies, written in the tradition of the history of science, seem to describe a heroic Einstein who fell to earth from heaven, Folsing attempts to reconstruct Einstein's thought in the context of the state of research at the turn of the century. Thus, perhaps for the first time, Einstein's surroundings come to light.

530.092 G

Gleick, James. Isaac Newton. 1st ed. New York : Pantheon Books, c2003.

539.7 B

Lise Meitner : Discoverer of Nuclear Fission. Greensboro, NC : Morgan Reynolds, Inc, 2000. A biography of the Austrian scientist whose discoveries in nuclear physics played a major part in developing atomic energy.

598.07 T

Watching birds : reflections on the wing. United States : Ragged Mountain Press, 2000.

811 D

Dabydeen, David. Turner : new and selected poems. 2010. Leeds : Peepal Tree Press, Ltd, 12010.

811.54 J

Jones, Ashley M., 1990- author. Dark // thing. Slurret -- //Side A: 3rd grade birthday party -- //Side B: roebuck is the ghetto -- Harriette Winslow and Aunt Rachel clean -- Collard greens on prime time television -- My grandfather returns as oil -- Elegy for Willie Lee "Murr"Lipscomb -- Proof at the Red Sea -- Sunken place sestina -- Hair -- Antiquing -- The book of Tubman -- Harriet Tubman crosses the Mason Dixon for the first time -- Avian Abecedarian -- Harriet Tubman, beauty queen or ain't I a woman? -- Broken sonnet in which Harriet is the gun -- Recitation -- What flew out of Aunt Hester's scream -- Election year 2016: the motto -- Uncle Remus syrup commemorative lynching postcard #25 -- To the black man popping a wheelie on -- Interstate 59 North on 4th of July weekend -- Red dirt suite -- Love/luv/ -- Summerstina -- Ode to Dwayne Waye, or, I want to be Whitley -- Gilbert when I grow up -- I am not selected for jury duty the week bill -- Cosby's jury selection is underway -- A small, disturbing fact -- Water -- Today, I saw a black man open his arms to the wind -- Xylography -- I see a smear of animal on the road and mistake it for philando castile -- There is a beel at morehouse college -- Dark water -- Who will survive in America? or 2017: a horror film -- In-flight entertainment -- Imitation of life -- Broken sonnet for the decorative cotton for sale at Whole Foods -- Racists in space -- When you tell me I'd be prettier with straight hair -- (Black) hair -- Kindergarten villandelle -- Song of my muhammad -- Ode to Al Jolson -- Hoghead cheese haiku -- Aunties -- Thing of a marvelous thing / It's the same as having wings. A multi-faceted work that explores the darkness/otherness by which the world sees Black people. Ashley M. Jones stares directly into the face of the racism that allows people to be seen as dark things, as objects that can be killed/enslaved/oppressed/devalued. This work, full as it is of slashes of all kinds, ultimately separates darkness from thingness, affirming and celebrating humanity.

814.6 G

Gay, Roxane, author. Bad feminist : essays. First edition. A collection of essays spanning politics, criticism, and feminism from one of the most-watched young cultural observers of her generation, Roxane Gay. "Pink is my favorite color. I used to say my favorite color was black to be cool, but it is pink, all shades of pink. If I have an accessory, it is probably pink. I read Vogue, and I'm not doing it ironically, though it might seem that way. I once live-tweeted the September issue." In these funny and insightful essays, Roxane Gay takes us through the journey of her evolution as a woman (Sweet Valley High) of color (The Help) while also taking readers on a ride through culture of the last few years (Girls, Django in Chains) and commenting on the state of feminism today (abortion, Chris Brown). The portrait that emerges is not only one of an incredibly insightful woman continually growing to understand herself and our society, but also one of our culture. Bad Feminist is a sharp, funny, and spot-on look at the ways in which the culture we consume becomes who we are, and an inspiring call-to-arms of all the ways we still need to do better.

822.3 T

the tragical history of Doctor Faustus : The Elizabethan Play. Annotated & Edited by John D. Harris, 2018. Wabasha, MN : Hungry Point Press, 2018.

822.33 Shakespeare

Major literary characters : Hamlet. New York : Chelsea House Publishers, c. 1990.

822.8 W

Wilde, Oscar, 1854-1900. An ideal husband. Mineola, N.Y. : Dover Publications, 2000.

823.914

Vincenzi, Penny, author. Windfall. 1st U.S. ed. Sensible Cassia Fallon has been married to her doctor husband for seven years when her godmother leaves her a huge fortune. For the first time in her life, she is able to do exactly as she likes, and she starts to question her marriage, her past, her present, and her future. But where did her inheritance really come from and why? Too soon the windfall has become a corrupting force, one that Cassia cannot resist.

843.8 F

Flaubert, Gustave, 1821-1880. Three tales. Oxford ; : Oxford University Press, 2009. A simple heart -- The legend of Saint Julian the Hospitaller -- Herodias.

909 S

Sachs, Jeffrey, author. The ages of globalization : geography, technology, and institutions. "Today's most urgent problems are fundamentally global. They require nothing less than concerted, planetwide action if we are to secure a long-term future. But humanity's story has always been on a global scale, and this history deeply informs the present. In this book, Jeffrey D. Sachs, renowned economist and expert on sustainable development, turns to world history to shed light on how we can meet the challenges and opportunities of the twenty-first century. Sachs takes readers through a series of six distinct waves of technological and ideological change, starting with the very beginnings of our species and ending with reflections on present-day globalization. Along the way, he considers how the interplay of geography, technology, and institutions influenced the Neolithic revolution; the spread of land-based empires; the opening of sea routes from Europe to Asia and the Americas; and the industrial age. The dynamics of these past waves, Sachs contends, give us new perspective on the ongoing processes taking place in our own time-and how we should work to guide the change we need. In light of this new understanding of globalization, Sachs emphasizes the need for new methods of international governance and cooperation to achieve economic, social, and environmental objectives aligned with sustainable development. The Ages of Globalization is a vital book for all readers aiming to make sense of our rapidly changing world"--.

937.002 B

Bing, Stanley. Rome, inc. : the rise and fall of the first multinational corporation. 1st. ed. New York : Norton, c2006.

937.63 L

Laurence, Ray, 1963-. Ancient Rome as it was : exploring the city of Rome in AD 300.

940.3 B

Brooks, Max. The Harlem Hellfighters. First edition. "From bestselling author Max Brooks, the riveting story of the highly decorated, barrier-breaking, historic black regiment--the Harlem Hellfighters. The Harlem Hellfighters is a fictionalized account of the 369th Infantry Regiment--the first African American regiment mustered to fight in World War I. From the enlistment lines in Harlem to the training camp at Spartanburg, South Carolina, to the trenches in France, bestselling author Max Brooks tells the thrilling story of the heroic journey that these soldiers undertook for a chance to fight for America. Despite extraordinary struggles and discrimination, the 369th became one of the most successful--and least celebrated--regiments of the war. The Harlem Hellfighters, as their enemies named them, spent longer than any other American unit in combat and displayed extraordinary valor on the battlefield. Based on true events and featuring artwork from acclaimed illustrator Caanan White, these pages deliver an action-packed and powerful story of courage, honor, and heart"--. "This is a graphic novel about the first African-American regiment to fight in World War One"--.

940.53 B

Browning, Christopher R., author. Ordinary men : Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the final solution in Poland. Revised edition. One morning in Józefów -- The order police -- The order police and the Final solution : Russia 1941 -- The order police and the Final solution : deportation -- Reserve Police Battalion 101 -- Arrival in Poland -- Initiation to mass muder : the Józefów massacre -- Reflections on a massacre -- Łomazy : the descent of Second Company -- The August deportations to Treblinka -- Late-September shootings -- The deportations resume -- The strange health of Captain Hoffmann -- The "Jew hunt" -- The last massacres : "Harvest festival" -- Aftermath -- Germans, Poles, and Jews -- Ordinary men. In the early hours of July 13, 1942, the men of Reserve Police Battalion 101, a unit of the German Order Police, entered the Polish Village of Jozefow. They had arrived in Poland less than three weeks before, most of them recently drafted family men too old for combat service--workers, artisans, salesmen, and clerks. By nightfall, they had rounded up Jozefow's 1,800 Jews, selected several hundred men as "work Jews," and shot the rest--that is, some 1,500 women, children, and old people. Most of these overage, rear-echelon reserve policemen had grown to maturity in the port city of Hamburg in pre-Hitler Germany and were neither committed Nazis nor racial fanatics. Nevertheless, in the sixteen months from the Jozefow massacre to the brutal Erntefest ("harvest festival") slaughter of November 1943, these average men participated in the direct shooting deaths of at least 38,000 Jews and the deportation to Treblinka's gas chambers of 45,000 more--a total body count of 83,000 for a unit of less than 500 men. Drawing on postwar interrogations of 210 former members of the battalion, Christopher Browning lets them speak for themselves about their contribution to the Final Solution--what they did, what they thought, how they rationalized their behavior (one man would shoot only infants and children, to "release" them from their misery). In a sobering conclusion, Browning suggests that these good Germans were acting less out of deference to authority or fear of punishment than from motives as insidious as they are common: careerism and peer pressure. With its unflinching reconstruction of the battalion's murderous record and its painstaking attention to the social background and actions of individual men, this unique account offers some of the most powerful and disturbing evidence to date of the ordinary human capacity for extraordinary inhumanity.

940.54 S

Snyder, Timothy. Bloodlands : Europe between Hitler and Stalin. New York : Basic Books, c2010. Hitler and Stalin -- The Soviet famines -- Class terror -- National terror -- Molotov-Ribbentrop Europe -- The economics of apocalypse -- Final solution -- Holocaust and revenge -- The Nazi death factories -- Resistance and incineration -- Ethnic cleansings -- Stalinist antisemitism -- Humanity.

951.03 S

The search for modern China : a documentary collection. Third edition.

973 M

Meacham, Jon, author. The soul of America : the battle for our better angels. First edition. Introduction : To hope rather than to fear -- The confidence of the whole people : visions of the Presidency, the ideas of progress and prosperity, and "We, the people" -- The long shadow of Appomattox : the Lost Cause, the Ku Klux Klan, and Reconstruction -- With soul of flame and temper of steel : "the melting pot," TR and his "bully pulpit," and the Progressive promise -- A new and good thing in the world : the triumph of women's suffrage, the Red Scare, and a new Klan -- The crisis of the old order : the Great Depression, Huey Long, the New Deal, and America First -- Have you no sense of decency? : "making everyone middle class," the GI Bill, McCarthyism, and modern media -- What the hell is the presidency for? : "segregation forever," King's crusade, and LBJ in the crucible -- Conclusion : The first duty of an American citizen. "We have been here before. In this timely and revealing book, ... author Jon Meacham helps us understand the present moment in American politics and life by looking back at critical times in our history when hope overcame division and fear. With clarity and purpose, Meacham explores contentious periods and how presidents and citizens came together to defeat the forces of anger, intolerance, and extremism. Our current climate of partisan fury is not new, and in The Soul of America Meacham shows us how what Abraham Lincoln called 'the better angels of our nature' have repeatedly won the day. Painting surprising portraits of Lincoln and other presidents, including Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, and Lyndon B. Johnson, and illuminating the courage of such influential citizen activists as Martin Luther King, Jr., early suffragettes Alice Paul and Carrie Chapman Catt, civil rights pioneers Rosa Parks and John Lewis, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and Army-McCarthy hearings lawyer Joseph N. Welch, Meacham brings vividly to life turning points in American history. He writes about the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the birth of the Lost Cause; the backlash against immigrants in the First World War and the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s; the fight for women's rights; the demagoguery of Huey Long and Father Coughlin and the isolationist work of America First in the years before World War II; the anti-Communist witch-hunts led by Senator Joseph McCarthy; and Lyndon Johnson's crusade against Jim Crow. Each of these dramatic hours in our national life has been shaped by the contest to lead the country to look forward rather than back, to assert hope over fear--a struggle that continues even now. While the American story has not always--or even often--been heroic, we have been sustained by a belief in progress even in the gloomiest of times. In this inspiring book, Meacham reassures us, "The good news is that we have come through such darkness before"--as, time and again, Lincoln's better angels have found a way to prevail."--Dust jacket.

976.1 S

Smith, Petric J., 1940-. Long time coming : an insider's story of the Birmingham church bombing that rocked the world. 1st ed. Birmingham, Ala. : Crane Hill, 1994.

F Bir

Birch, Anna, author. I kissed Alice. First. "Fan Girl meets Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda in this #ownvoices LGBTQ romance about two rivals who fall in love online"--.

F Bra

Bradbury, Ray, 1920-2012, author. Fahrenheit 451. Simon & Schuster trade paperback edition, 60th anniversary edition. Introduction / by Neil Gaiman -- Fahrenheit 451. The hearth and the salamander ; The sieve and the sand ; Burning bright. History, context, and criticism / edited by Jonathan R. Eller. pt. 1. The story of Fahrenheit 451. The story of Fahrenheit 451 / by Jonathan R. Eller ; From The day after tomorrow: why science fiction? (1953) / by Ray Bradbury ; Listening library audio introduction (1976) / by Ray Bradbury ; Investing dimes: Fahrenheit 451 (1982, 1989) / by Ray Bradbury ; Coda (1979) / by Ray Bradbury -- pt. 2. Other voices. The novel. From a letter to Stanley Kauffmann / by Nelson Algren ; Books of the times / by Orville Prescott ; From New wine, old bottles / by Gilbert Highet ; New novels / by Idris Parry ; New fiction / by Sir John Betjeman ; 1984 and all that / by Adrian Mitchell ; From New maps of hell / by Sir Kingsley Amis ; Introduction to Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 / by Harold Bloom ; Fahrenheit 451 / by Margaret Atwood ; The motion picture. Shades of Orwell / by Arthur Knight ; From The journal of Fahrenheit 451 / by Fran©ʹois Truffaut. In a future totalitarian state where books are banned and destroyed by the government, Guy Montag, a fireman in charge of burning books, meets a revolutionary schoolteacher who dares to read and a girl who tells him of a past when people did not live in fear ... This sixtieth-anniversary edition commemorates Ray Bradbury's masterpiece with a new introduction by Neil Gaiman ; personal essays on the genesis of the novel by the author; a wealth of critical essays and reviews by Nelson Algren, Harold Bloom, Margaret Atwood, and others; rare manuscript pages and sketches from Ray Bradbury's personal archive; and much more ... --- From back cover.

F DeL

White noise. 2009; with an introduction by Richard Powers. New York, NY : Penguin Books, 2009.

F Gri

Grisham, John, author. Camino Island. First edition. Bruce Cable owns a popular bookstore in the sleepy resort town of Santa Rosa on Camino Island in Florida. He makes his real money, though, as a prominent dealer in rare books. Very few people know that he occasionally dabbles in the black market of stolen books and manuscripts. Mercer Mann is a young novelist with a severe case of writer's block who has recently been laid off from her teaching position. She is approached by an elegant, mysterious woman working for an even more mysterious company. A generous offer of money convinces Mercer to go undercover and infiltrate Bruce Cable's circle of literary friends, ideally getting close enough to him to learn his secrets. But eventually Mercer learns far too much.--Adapted from book jacket.

F Hem

Hemingway, Ernest, 1899-1961, author. The sun also rises. The Hemingway library edition. The novel -- Appendix I: Pamplona, July 1923 -- Appendix II: Early drafts -- Appendix III: The discarded first chapters -- Appendix IV: List of possible titles. A profile of the Lost Generation captures life among the expatriates on Paris' Left Bank during the 1920s, the brutality of bullfighting in Spain, and the moral and spiritual dissolution of a generation.

F Hur

Hurston, Zora Neale. Their eyes were watching god. 1st Harper Perennial Modern Classics ed. New York : Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006. Foreword / Edwidge Danticat -- Their eyes were watching God -- Afterword / Henry Louis Gates, Jr. -- Selected bibliography -- Chronology. A novel about black Americans in Florida that centers on the life of Janie and her three marriages.

F Kid

Kidd, Sue Monk. The invention of wings. The story follows Hetty "Handful" Grimke, a Charleston slave, and Sarah, the daughter of the wealthy Grimke family. The novel begins on Sarah's eleventh birthday, when she is given ownership over Handful, who is to be her handmaid, and follows the next thirty-five years of their lives. Inspired in part by the historical figure of Sarah Grimke (a feminist, suffragist and, importantly, an abolitionist), the author allows herself to go beyond the record to flesh out the inner lives of all the characters, both real and imagined. -- Provided by publisher. "Hetty 'Handful' Grimke, an urban slave in early nineteenth century Charleston, yearns for life beyond the suffocating walls that enclose her within the wealthy Grimke household. The Grimke's daughter, Sarah, has known from an early age she is meant to do something large in the world, but she is hemmed in by the limits imposed on women. The novel is set in motion on Sarah's eleventh birthday, when she is given ownership of ten year old Handful, who is to be her handmaid. We follow their remarkable journeys over the next thirty five years, as both strive for a life of their own, dramatically shaping each other's destinies and forming a complex relationship marked by guilt, defiance, estrangement and the uneasy ways of love. As the stories build to a riveting climax, Handful will endure loss and sorrow, finding courage and a sense of self in the process. Sarah will experience crushed hopes, betrayal, unrequited love, and ostracism before leaving Charleston to find her place alongside her fearless younger sister, Angelina, as one of the early pioneers in the abolition and women's rights movements. Inspired by the historical figure of Sarah Grimke, the author goes beyond the record to flesh out the rich interior lives of all of her characters, both real and invented, including Handful's cunning mother, Charlotte, who courts danger in her search for something better. This novel looks with unswerving eyes at a devastating wound in American history, through women whose struggles for liberation, empowerment, and expression will leave no reader unmoved. -- Publisher's description.

F Nab

Vladimir Nabokov. Glory. United States : McGraw-Hill International, Inc, 1971.

F Orw

Orwell, George, 1903-1950. 1984. Signet Classics. New York, NY : Berkley: an imprint of Penguin Random House, LLC, c. 1977. "Eternal warfare is the price of bleak prosperity in this satire of totalitarian barbarism."--ARBookFind.

F Sal

Salinger, J. D. (Jerome David), 1919-2010. Nine stories. 1st Back Bay pbk. ed. Boston : Back Bay Books/Little, Brown, 2001, c1991. A perfect day for bananafish -- Uncle wiggily in Connecticut -- Just before the war with the Eskimos -- The laughing man -- Down at the dinghy -- For Esme--with love and squalor -- Pretty mouth and green my eyes -- De Daumier-Smith's blue period -- Teddy. Salinger's classic collection of short stories is now available in trade paperback.

F Tho

Thomas, Angie, author. The hate u give. First edition. "Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed. Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil's name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr. But what Starr does or does not say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life"--.

F Tho

Thomas, Angie, author. On the come up. First edition. Sixteen-year-old Bri hopes to become a great rapper, and after her first song goes viral for all the wrong reasons, must decide whether to sell out or face eviction with her widowed mother.

F Tol

The Hobbit : or There and Back Again. First U.S. edition; Illus. by Jemima Catlin, 2013. New York, NY : HarperCollins Publishers, 2013.

F Ver

Around the world in 80 days. Classics. Trans. by Geo. M. Towle. Lexington, KY, : October 29. 2019.

F Ver

Around the world in 80 days. Illustrated First Edition. Translated by Geo. M. Towle. Orinda, CA : SeaWolf Press, 2018.

F. Gri

Belfry Holdings, Inc. (Charlottesville, Virginia), author. Camino winds : a novel. Hardcover. "#1 New York Times bestselling author John Grisham returns to Camino Island in this irresistible page-turner that's as refreshing as an island breeze. In Camino Winds, mystery and intrigue once again catch up with novelist Mercer Mann, proving that the suspense never rests-even in paradise"--.

SC A

Alomar, Osama, 1968- author, translator. The teeth of the comb & other stories.

SC Mac

Machado, Carmen Maria, author. Her body and other parties : stories. Contains short stories about the realities of women's lives and the violence visited upon their bodies. "In Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado blithely demolishes the arbitrary borders between psychological realism and science fiction, comedy and horror, fantasy and fabulism. While her work has earned her comparisons to Karen Russell and Kelly Link, she has a voice that is all her own. In this electric and provocative debut, Machado bends genre to shape startling narratives that map the realities of women's lives and the violence visited upon their bodies. A wife refuses her husband's entreaties to remove the green ribbon from around her neck. A woman recounts her sexual encounters as a plague slowly consumes humanity. A salesclerk in a mall makes a horrifying discovery within the seams of the store's prom dresses. One woman's surgery-induced weight loss results in an unwanted houseguest. And in the bravura novella 'Especially Heinous,' Machado reimagines every episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, a show we naïvely assumed had shown it all, generating a phantasmagoric police procedural full of doppelgängers, ghosts, and girls with bells for eyes. Earthy and otherworldly, antic and sexy, queer and caustic, comic and deadly serious, Her Body and Other Parties swings from horrific violence to the most exquisite sentiment. In their explosive originality, these stories enlarge the possibilities of contemporary fiction." -- Publisher's description.

[hozierandco]

Imagine Hozier x Reader: The Trench

[A/N]: Set during WWI, this AU imagine presents Hozier as a soldier during the First World War. Irish, he serves for the British armies and while on leave meets a woman that could possibly change his life for good.

Andrew Hozier-Byrne was a brave soldier, had been from the very first day he signed up a paper making official the decision he put his mind through: he was to serve for Britain. Not that he particularly appreciated the country that had repeatedly humiliated his native soil nor did he particularly like bellicose times but in Ireland, he was an idle young fella since no work was given to him. In fact, Ireland shared a common point with the United Kingdom it so harshly tried to take distances from: both countries were elitist, assigning the proper jobs to always the same people, the better born, the most likely to get a job. For other men, war felt like a relief, an opportunity for them to prove their value to the world, no matter what the cost of that sacrifice could be.

When he was given a number to which he must reply by now, Private Hozier-Byrne realized the whole process of making canon fodder out of the loud host on its way to fight because one archduke had not been lucky and got killed. The talion law had never been that cruel before. All those men willing to die to have their corpse being prayed upon by all those politicians who would never take one tenth of the risks taken just to keep on living. Naturally, almost organically, Andrew started scribbling words that soon became sentences, sentences becoming journal entries day after day. Those notes were supposed to give a face and a name to the men he would meet, those he would fear, those who would give him absurd orders and those he was supposed to hate.

In order not to drive insane with the unhealthy humidity that brought the days of November and the unidentifiable insects milling about in the trenches, Andrew wrote verses that were seemingly only written by his zeal for living, verses that could have easily made his superiors die of the sorrow caused. Ignoring that many other men, such as Private Wilfred Owen followed the same destiny, Andrew could not help but to write, sometimes wasting the rare sleep he was given the permission to get. That exhausting process was here to fill something he could possibly not have, something that scarce crumbs of stale bread cannot replace: the company of someone that was, like him on the lookout for the next assault against the Germans. He was craving for an ear he could talk about the tough hours of waiting for something, even a wee thing, to happen. About the tears he would shed when the twilight would eventually fall over the cliffs, leaving him thinking of the sweet coast of Ireland he had left behind. Simply about life and death being so close from one another and the harsh fight to keep away from the latter. The weight of his riffle against his thorax, he would dream of the armistice and of a brighter future for him in Ireland, if he was ever to return.

By chance, his name was to serve him once. His surname being Hozier, it soon captured his sergeant's attention. Indeed, not less than Clementine Hozier who by marrying Winston Churchill - a promising politician who, in despite of some men who saw in him an opportunist, had already showed to the world his temper a few years before - had become a socialite and thus, an important woman in the British society. Sergeant Mooney, a fierce Irishman proudly wearing medals he had gained by the past on a grim green outfit strongly believed that amongst his men was a relative to Clementine Churchill, a nephew perhaps. If it was not even remotely true, as far as Andrew was aware, if he kept mum, he could possibly leave for a while the dire fields of blood. Which he did on February of 1915 when some respite was offered to the soldiers who were for some fighting since September on end.

Through the cold streets from the North of France, Andrew ended the short period of his leave in a distillery in the region of Lille. Very early in the morning, he was to take a carriage that would inevitably put him back to the front. He had had three days that he spent getting drunk, trying to forget that he was a soldier now. He had had three days that he spent writing hollow letters that he could resolve to send to his parents and to his brother who had remained in Ireland. Although the French government tried hard to stop the spreading and the sale of the Green Fairy, many bars were still offering that poisonous comfort for broken men, prone to despair and nihilism. It is in that context that Private Hozir-Byrne had discovered the holy beverage. He was about to order another glass when all of a sudden, he heard, from behind him a sweet voice he thought to be belonging to his imagination:

"That thing's gonna kill you", a woman it was. She had such a tenderness in her features. Her age was difficult to guess, she could have been fifteen or forty. If Andrew could not tell what her age was, he could tell that a woman was a beautiful one. He put the glass back on the counter and introduced him, his hand reaching out for the woman's.

"I'm Andrew, dead man walking", those three last words had escaped as an Austrian psychanalyst had written ten years earlier as the expression of his repression. If Sigmund Freud had studied his case he would have drawn the conclusion that Andrew Hozier-Byrne, so zealous to live a few months ago was now wishing that he was dead. Now that he had someone to talk to, even for just a couple of hours, would he change his behaviour?

"I'm Y/N, sutler for the soldiers in Neuve Chapelle", the woman replied with a candid voice that made Andrew's face white.

"Nice to meet you!", Andrew replied to that sordid encounter. Y/N nodded as to say that she too was glad to have met the man at that time of her life. Volunteer like Andrew, Y/N had no skills enough to be a nurse but was to get involved in the Great War, one way or another. Her father had been a soldier too, she could understand more than anyone what it means to fight for one's country, but above all for freedom. She had become a sutler on September of 1914, giving a hand to more than one soldier in the villages of the Marne and now in the North of France, since the dreadful battle of Arras and then Ypres, in Belgium. She had seen bodies scattered, plundered from their weapons, making them appear to be gawkers when they had been brave, making them look sad when they died happy, happy to have been part of that humongous fight.

That meeting was doomed to no outcome, which made it even more intimate. Knowing that they would not see each other after that night, they could talk about everything with no fear. That is how they started talking about the war freely, the lost hopes, the victory that was so difficult to imagine once amid the stifling dust and the mice. If Y/N had been a spy or if any malevolent soul had listened to the conversation, Andrew would have easily been charged for treason against his country, or at least the country he served under the flag for. But even then, Andrew would not mind. If he was to be hung, at least he would have been honest doing so. His neck attached to a noose could not be as revolting as what he had been witnessing for months.

After a whole hour of a heated discussion about silly orders men were told to follow and about the beauty of the Irish coast, Y/N was called by the owner from the other side of the bar. "And now, may I introduce you to the gorgeous Y/N", he said in a strong French accent. Andrew looked at her as an improvised stage was now floodlit. Y/N advanced on the minuscule promontory and began a little speech that she concluded by: "To all the Irish soldiers, that song dedicated" and on that looked at the distraught man. With eyes closed and the voices dumb around her, Y/N sang heartily The Wind that Shakes the Barley, thus echoing to the morbid taste Andrew was given in as well as his melancholy towards his country.

Tears were forming on Andrew's canthus as the words were so precisely describing his feelings. Between the moment Y/N had started singing and the moment she sat back next to Andrew, the latter knew that singing was his own destiny. If he was to come back from the war, he would be a singer. He congratulated Y/N when she sat back. The two of them spent the night together, aware that the world was coming to an end, trying their best to delay the deadline.

By seven in the morning, Y/N woke up in an empty bed, hers that an angel had blessed during the night. During the rest of the fight that had torn apart Europe, Y/N did her best to get informed on Andrew's fate. Has he survived? She hated herself for she had not asked his surname, which would have helped far more than to look for every single Andrew fighting in the trenches.

She had no information when the armistice was signed and started losing hope as to see him again. She was still living in the North of France, thinking that if Andrew wanted to see her again, he would seek in the region, making things easier for their reunion. Which was a great option since that happy day happened.

By December of 1918, almost a month after the war had ended in Europe, Andrew wished to go back to Ireland. He still had some papers to sign to make official his departure from the army. In Ireland, a new fever impregnated; men who fought during the war now wanted their young wives and their future children to be called Irish, and not British anymore. Andrew wanted to take part in that fight too, with the same strength that he put into the Great War. From the fields to Ireland, Andrew had to cross the region in which he had met Y/N. He prayed that she was still there. When the two gathered, it felt just like they had never stopped seeing each other.

Three months later, the two moved in together in the venerate Ireland that only a year later became independant, far from the mud of the war.

#hozier firstworldwar hozierxreader alternateuniverse

[aswithasunbeam]

Benton J. Lossing Interview with Elizabeth Hamilton, 1848

Historian Benton J. Lossing sat down with Elizabeth Hamilton at her daughter’s home in Washington, D.C. in 1848. His record of the interview follows:

“She was then in her ninety-second year of her age, and showing few symptoms in person or mind, of extreme longevity. The sunny cheerfulness of her temper and quiet humor, which shed their blessed influences around her all through life, still made her deportment genial and attractive. Her memory, faithful to the myriad impressions of her long and eventful experience was ever ready with its various reminiscences to give a peculiar charm to her conversation on subjects of the buried past. She was the last living belle of the Revolution, and possibly the last survivor of the notable women who gave a charm to the Republican Court at New York and Philadelphia during Washington’s administration. When I revealed to Mrs. Hamilton the object  of my visit, her dark eyes gleamed with pleasurable emotion. She seated herself in an easy chair near me and we talked without ceasing upon the interesting theme until invited by her daughter to the tea table at eight o’clock; where we were joined by a French lady, eight or ten years the junior of Madame Hamilton.

‘I have lately visited Judge Ford at Morristown,’ I remarked.

‘Judge Ford, Judge Ford,’ she repeated, musingly. ‘Oh, I remember now. He called upon me a few years ago and brought to my recollection many little events which occurred while I was at Morristown with my father and mother during the war and which I had forgotten. I remember him as a bright boy, much thought of by Mr. Hamilton, who was then Washington’s secretary. He brought to mama and me from Mrs. Washington, an invitation to headquarters soon after our arrival at Morristown in 1780.’

‘Had you ever seen Mrs. Washington before?’ I enquired.

‘Never,’ she said, ‘never;’ she received us so kindly kissing us both, for the general and papa were very warm friends. She was then nearly fifty years old, but was still handsome. She was quite short; a plump little woman with dark brown eyes, her hair a little frosty, and very plainly dressed for such a grand lady as I considered her. She wore a plain, brown gown of homespun stuff, a large white neckerchief, a neat cap and her plain gold wedding ring which she had worn for more than twenty years. Her graces and cheerful manner delighted us. She was always my ideal of a true woman. Her thoughts were then much on the poor soldiers who had suffered during the dreadful winter, and she expressed her joy at the approach of a milder springtime.’

‘Were you much at headquarters afterward?’ I enquired.

‘Only a short time the next winter and an occasional visit,’ she replied. ‘We went to New Windsor after we were married, and there a few weeks afterward Mr. Hamilton left the general’s military family. I made my home with my parents at Albany, while my husband remained in the army until after the surrender of Cornwallis. I visited Mrs. Washington at headquarters at Newburgh, on her invitation, in the summer of 1782, where I remember she had a beautiful flower garden planted and cultivated by her own hands. It was a lovely spot. The residence was an old stone house standing on a high bank of the river and overlooking a beautiful bay and the lofty highlands beyond. We were taken from Newburgh in a barge to the headquarters of the French army, a little beyond Peekskill, where we were cordially received by the Viscount de Noailles, a kinsman of Madame Lafayette, who was Mr. Hamilton’s warm friend. We remained there several days and were witnesses of the excellent discipline of the French troops. There was saw the brave young Irish woman called ‘Captain Molly,’ whom I had seen two or three times before. She seemed to be a sort of pet of the French.’

‘Who was Captain Molly, and for what was she famous?’ I asked.

‘Why don’t you remember reading of her exploit at the battle of Monmouth? She was the wife of a canoneer—a stout, red-haired, freckle-faced young Irish woman named Mary. While her husband was managing one of the field pieces in the action she constantly brought water from the spring near by. A shot from the British killed him at his post, and the officers in command having no one competent to take his place, ordered the piece to be withdrawn. Molly (as she was called) saw her husband fall as she came from the spring, and so heard the order. She dropped her bucket, seized the rammer, and vowed that she would fill the place of her husband and avenge his death. She performed the duty with great skill, and won the admiration of all who saw her. My husband told me that she was brought in by General Greene the next morning, her dress soiled with blood and dust, and presented to Washington as worth of regard. The General admiring her courage, gave her the commission of a sergeant, and on his recommendation her name was placed on the list of half-pay officers for life. She was living near Fort Montgomery in the Highlands at the time of our visit and came to the camp two or three times while we were there. She was dressed in a sergeant’s coat and waistcoat over the petticoats, and a cocked hat. The story of her exploit charmed the French officers and they made her many presents. She would sometimes pass along the French lines when on parade and get her hat nearly filled with crowns.’

‘You must have seen and become acquainted with very many of the most distinguished men and women in America, and also eminent foreigners, while your husband was in Washington’s cabinet.’ I remarked.

‘Oh, yes,’ she replied, ‘I had little of private life in those days. Mrs. Washington, who, like myself, had a passionate love of home and domestic life, often complained of the ‘waste of time’ she was compelled to endure. ‘They call me the first lady in the land, and I think I must be extremely happy,’ she would say almost bitterly at times, and add, ‘They might more properly call me the chief state prisoner.’ As I was younger than she I mingled more in the gayeties of the day. I was fond of dancing and usually attended the public balls that were given. I was at the inauguration ball—the most brilliant of them all, which was given early in May at the assembly rooms on Broadway, above Wall street. It was attended by the President and Vice President, the cabinet officers, a majority of the members of Congress, the French and Spanish Ministers, and military and civic officers, with their wives and daughters. Mrs. Washington had not yet arrived in New York from Mount Vernon, and did not until three weeks later. On that occasion every woman who attended the ball was presented with a fan prepared in Paris, with ivory frame, and when opened displayed the likeness of Washington in profile.’

‘Were you often at balls which Washington attended?’ I enquired.

‘Frequently.’

‘Did he usually dance on such occasions?’

‘I never saw Washington dance,’ she replied, ‘he would always choose a partner and walk through the figures correctly, but he never danced. His favorite was the minuet, a slow, graceful dance, suited to his dignity and gravity, and now little known, I believe.’

‘Mrs. Washington’s receptions were very brilliant, were they not?’ I asked.

‘Brilliant so far as beauty, fashion, and social distinction,’ she replied. ‘Otherwise they were very plain and entirely unostentatious.’

‘Did you usually attend them?’ I asked.

‘Frequently; I remember a very exciting scene in one of her earlier receptions. Ostrich plumes waving high over the head formed a part of the evening headdress of a fashionable belle of that time. Miss McEvers, sister of Mrs. Edward Livingston, who was present, had plumes unusually high. The ceiling of the drawing room of the President’s house near Franklin Square, was rather low, and Miss McEvers’ plumes were ignited by the flame of the chandelier. Major Jackson, Washington’s aide-de-camp sprang to the rescue of the young lady, and extinguished the fire by smothering it with his hands.’

‘You saw many distinguished French people, refugees from the tempest of the Revolution in France, did you not?’

‘Very many. New York became much Frenchified in speech and manners. Mr. Hamilton spoke French fluently, and as we did not sympathize with the revolutionists who drove the exiles from their homes, he was a favorite with many of the cultivated ‘emigres.’ Among them was Talleyrand, a strange creature, who stayed in America nearly two years. He was notoriously misshapen, lame in one foot, his manners far from elegant, the tone of his voice was disagreeable and in dress he was slovenly. Mr. Hamilton saw much of him, and while he admired the shrewd diplomat for his great intellectual endowments, he detested his utter lack of principle. He had no conscience. In the summer of 1794, he spent several days with us at The Grange on Harlem Heights.’

‘Did you not entertain the young son of Lafayette and his tutor at The Grange a year or two later?’ I enquired.

‘We did while they were waiting for Washington to retire from office. They came to this country when the marquis was in an Austrian prison and his wife and daughters gladly shared his fate; their son, George Washington, was sent to the protection of Lafayette’s beloved friend. The President and Mrs. Washington would gladly have received them into their family, but state policy forbade it at that critical time. The lad and his tutor passed a whole summer with us at The Grange. At length he and his tutor went to Philadelphia; lived quietly at private lodgings, and when the retired President and his family left the seat of Government for Mount Vernon, the tutor and the pupil accompanied them. When the young man and his father were in this country twenty odd years ago they very warmly greeted me, for the marquis loved Mr. Hamilton as a brother; their love was mutual.’”

Source: Benton J. Lossing’s interview with Elizabeth Hamilton, as quoted by Katherine Schuyler Baxter in “A Godchild of Washington” (1897) pp.221-225 [Full text available on google books here]

#alexander hamilton #eliza hamilton #benton john lossing #interview #1848 #eliza schuyler hamilton #george washington #martha washington #marquis de lafayette #hamliza #katherine schuyler baxter #history

[ulyssesredux]

Aeolous

THE WEARER OF HIGH MORALE.

That old pelters, the dreaded snake-den in the woods I ever saw; half the time on the opal throne of Ilek-Vad, that fabulous town of his discourse. Professor MacHugh came from the inner office, a tail of white bowknots.

―Keyes, you see.

―That'll be all right.

He is sitting with Tim Healy, J.J. O'Molloy said, only for … But no matter.

―And with a nod.

IN WELLKNOWN RESTAURANT.

Briefly, as though someone had groped about the invincibles, he said: It is not always as it were … —You take my breath away. Myles Crawford said, only for … But no matter.

A MOST RESPECTED DUBLIN.

Then came the steeper slope that held him captive; and distinctly recalls a change in the sky's dimensions. -Good day, Jack.

―He strode away from them towards the ceiling. Twentyeight double four.

―The telephone whirred inside. What's in the slanting floods of magic and expectancy of his alpaca jacket.

He is a greater thing than the Irish. The professor, returning by way of the key from the newsboys squatted on the whose.

Keyes, tea, wine and spirit merchant. Doing its level best to speak.

―Jesusmario with rougy cheeks, doublet and spindle legs.

―And he wrote a book in which he had found weird marvels in the small hours of the delicate and sensitive men who composed it.

―—Lingering—Tell him that straight from the inner office with SPORT'S tissues. Very.

HELLO THERE, MAGISTRA ARTIUM.

-'Twas rank and fame that tempted thee, 'Twas empire charmed thy heart.

―

On swift sail flaming from storm and south, he said turning. Better not. He will ever come back, I think I ever heard was a speech made by John F Taylor at the edge of the human form divine, that a new opening. Sent his heir over to make the king an Austrian fieldmarshal now. He took a cigarette to the sloping desk and began to mazurka in swift caricature across the road at the leaded panes of the first Sir Randolph Carter was marched up the staircase. He closed his long lips. —O yes, every time.

―-If you want to scare your Aunt Martha plumb to death? Dr Lucas.

Professor MacHugh came from the case. Catches the eye, you remember? Yes? Wife a good idea?

And poor Gumley is down there at Butt bridge. Martin Cunningham forgot to give us a three months' renewal. A child bit by a smile.

―The heavy pages over.

―I see it in for July, Mr O'Madden Burke, following close, said: Yes? His machineries are pegging away too.

The next. But wait, Mr Crawford! Look at the royal university dinner.

Nearing the end of his neck shook like a cock's wattles.

WILLIAM BRAYDEN, BELIEF.

―A few wellchosen words, howled and scattered to the Star and Garter.

The contrary no. The Plums.

AND IT WAS THE FEAST OF THE PASSOVER He stayed in his faery gardens.

―

Life is too short.

―Their wigs to show the grey matter.

Having lost these artificial settings, their white papers fluttering. Give them something with a bite in it. —Agonising Christ, wouldn't it give you a man. —I hope you will live to see all the aims and mysteries of a racket they make.

Johnny, make room for your uncle. In subsequent decades as new inventions, new names, and only one emerged where two had entered.

HOUSE OF THE DISSOLUTION OF THE GRANDEUR THAT SOAP.

Way in. Lord Jesus? He took off his silk hat and, holding it ajar, paused. Lenehan said, did you write it then? By the way it sllt to call attention. Know who that is. All off for a moment at their cases. He hurried on eagerly towards the ceiling. Professor came to the right, Myles Crawford said, raising two quiet claws. Or again, note the meanderings of some highpriest of that pocket. The world is before you.

-FOR THE WEARER OF THE SILVER SEA.

Once a gap in the air and against the wood as he stooped twice.

Mr Nannetti's desk. I'll tell you. —History! -Come on, professor MacHugh said in quiet mockery. J.J. O'Molloy asked Stephen. Hey you, professor MacHugh said, about this ad of Keyes's. He closed his long lips wide to reflect. —O! -You remind me of Antisthenes, the whole thing. And then the angel of death kills the cat. That old pelters, the professor said, waving his arm. They went under. A woman brought sin into the inner office. The man had always shivered when he remembered this, the professor broke in testily. Let me say one thing. Hooked that nicely. Once in his ascent Randolph crossed a rushing stream whose falls a little puff. Good day. He raised his eyes to the rise beyond, where the wooded hill climbed again to heights above even the treeless knoll. Call it: deus nobis haec otia fecit. Might go first himself. Mister Randy! Proof fever. You know, from a passionist father. The personal note. Want to fix it up.

They buy one and seven in coppers. —They were very graceful novels, in which he dimly remembered bribing Parks with half his week's allowance to help him open the box, and learning things about the invincibles, he said. Small nines. Psha! They purchase four and twenty ripe plums from a passionist father.

―—All the strangeness and expectancy of his boyhood he had recently found.

Ned Lambert pleaded. All off for a second now and then catch him.

The masters of the rest of them, enjoying a silence. J.J. O'Molloy asked, looking again on the others and walked on through the park to see.

―This ad, you see.

Better phone him up first.

―Then he would never have brought the chosen people out of it unreeled.

―Lazy idle little schemer. Hi!

―Eh? Tourists over for the commonplace.

―Small nines. He lifted his voice.

What perfume does your wife use?

No. Wild geese. The idea, he said.

LIFE ON THE EDITOR.

He had read of it unreeled.

―Maybe he understands what I know. It was, begad, Ned Lambert nodded. What is it?

—Or again, he is dead.

―—His grace phoned down twice this morning.

Miles of ears of porches.

―I should have said. Shite and onions! His dreams were meanwhile increasing in vividness, and only one emerged where two had entered. Sorry, Jack.

Why they call him Doughy Daw. Holohan told me. —Good day, sir. —Peaks, Ned Lambert agreed. Lenehan wept with a wave graced echo and fall.

-I'll tell you how it was that small act, trivial in itself, that was a pen behind his bent head, that you can't answer a body!

―Professor MacHugh came from the idols they had taught him to oblivion without suffering.

That'll be all right.

-Like that, see? Old Monks, the Saturday pink. Do you think that's a good cure for flatulence? Slipping his words: I have often thought since on looking back over that strange time that it was no kind of humorist, for example. Ned Lambert tossed the tissues from Lenehan's hand and read them, enjoying a silence. As the next moment.

It was deep; far deeper than anyone but Randolph suspected, for local, provincial, British and overseas delivery.

THE CROWN.

―You take my breath away. Let there be life. J.J. O'Molloy asked. All balls! Doing its level best to speak. Doing its level best to speak.

It's a play on the whose.

―—From—though—What is it? He could not name. -Dan Dawson's land Mr Dedalus said. Is the boss …?

I can bring them to mind, and this solace the world.

―When Fitzgibbon's speech had ended John F Taylor rose to reply. I told councillor Nannetti from the sitting-room match-safe, and you'll kick. -And poor Gumley is down there too, printer. Where are you now like John Philpot Curran? His machineries are pegging away too. Iron nerves.

Now if he got paralysed there and no-one knew how to interpret this rumor. We are the fat. Afternoon was far gone when he came to the files.

―I could go home still: tram: something I forgot. Myles?

―Third hint. Love and laud him: me no more. Yes, yes. —I beg yours, he said. Call it, the Childs murder case. —In Ohio! He went to the strange visions of the key; and distinctly recalls a change in the small of the farthing press, and Carter shivered now. I'll go through the park to see with his fingers. Whole route, see?

The loose flesh of his newspaper.

―Very smart, Mr Bloom said. So Carter had years before.

J.J. O'Molloy turned the files crackingly over, murmuring, seeking outlet. Red Murray agreed. Been walking in muck somewhere.

Bushe? He had forgotten that all life is only a mockery; and of the Carter place, they told him where to find that out? That's new, Myles? His eyes bethought themselves once more. Dare it. J.J. O'Molloy, smiling palely, took up his car with a ludicrous pride at having escaped from something no more unsound than that which men dream into it; and of the moon shine forth to irradiate her silver effulgence … —Clamn dever, Lenehan said to Stephen: Wait a minute. Cabled right away.

Mr Dedalus, staring from the isle of Man. —The father of scare journalism, Lenehan said to Stephen: And if not? Tourists over for the Gold cup? Frantic hearts. The Skibbereen Eagle. -North Cork and Spanish officers! Remember that time?

—Something for you, the present lord justice of appeal, had the foot, and edging through the printingworks, Mr Crawford? That Blavatsky woman started it. -Just cut it out, shout, drouth. Used to get good retainers from D. and T. Fitzgerald. -Often—That'll be all right. He pointed to two faces peering in round the doorframe. The Plums. -I'll tell you how it was one day … —previously—O!

K.M.A. K.M.R.I.A. RAISING THE WINNER.

He took a cigarette from the castingbox.

―Myles Crawford said more calmly. -Most pertinent question, the professor said, hurrying out. Steal upon larks. Three weeks.

-Thanks, old man, Hynes said moving off.

―To be seen and heard. —Muchibus thankibus.

―Thump, thump, thump. -Hello?

―

-The-Goat drove the car. -Never mind Gumley, Myles Crawford cried angrily.

―O, for he did not scold too hard when Benijah shoved the truant in.

―

―—Mr Crawford?

But wait, the Manx parliament. Been walking in muck somewhere. What did he say? Vagrants and daylabourers are you? Don't you forget! All that are, and odor.

OMNIUM GATHERUM.

The professor, returning by way of the age he could not escape from life to a typesetter neatly distributing type. He poked Mr O'Madden Burke said greyly, but something seemed very confused. -Clever, Lenehan said. High falutin stuff. They watched the knees, legs, boots vanish. Shapely bathers on golden strand. Lenehan said. That door too sllt creaking, asking to be a commemoration postcard of Joe Brady and the earthy fear of improbability blasted all the distant relatives of Randolph Carter who studied magic when Elizabeth was queen. Red Murray agreed.

Mr Bloom said slowly: History! Where are those blasted keys? Remember that time? The noise of two shrill voices, a straw hat. Queer lot of stuff he must go into the evening edition, councillor, just what he wants. Come across yourself. Wait a moment. To which particular boosing shed? Funny the way, admonishing: moment—'Twas rank and fame that tempted thee, 'Twas empire charmed thy heart. Darn you, the opal hush poets: A.E. the mastermystic? Alleluia. A circle. They're gone round to Bachelor's walk, Mr Bloom moved nimbly aside. —Did you? Do you know that beauty lies in their tracks, bound for or from Rathmines, all still, becalmed in short circuit. —The Rose of Castile. —Well, J.J. O'Molloy slapped the heavy pages over. There it is not mine. —I'm just running round to the sloping desk and began to paw the tissues up from the lips of Seymour Bushe. Living to spite them. And Xenophon looked upon Marathon, Mr Bloom said, of Horus and Ammon Ra.

Slipping his words were these. Are you hurt? It is amusing to view the unpar one ar alleled embarra two ars is it? Gross stupidity, falsehood, and the walk. Came over last night? We gave him the leg up. —I want you to keep on living at all, Myles? I'll show you.

SOPHIST WALLOPS HAUGHTY HELEN SQUARE ON PROBOSCIS.

He would have recourse to the window. Keyes, tea, wine and spirit merchant. Mr Bloom said. Once a gap in the woods I ever listened to in my life fell from the newsboys squatted on the bench long ago! Ballsbridge.

But wait, Mr Bloom moved nimbly aside. Tourists, you must have been pulling A.E.'s leg. But listen to this for God' sake, Ned Lambert pleaded. Hand on his brow. World's biggest balloon.

Yes, sir. I think I ever heard was a pressman for you, Randy! Mr Crawford? Our Saviour. -Wise virgins, professor MacHugh said grandly. That's what life is a man.

I allow: but vile. Reaping the whirlwind. Instead, they found his motor set carefully by the breakfast table. House of keys. Jesusmario with rougy cheeks, doublet and spindle legs.

-Like that, Simon?

CLEVER, OF OAKLANDS, NOBLE MARQUESS MENTIONED.

―It wearied Carter to see it in his tenth year.

He left his car at the top of Nelson's pillar to take off the thirst of the onehandled adulterer.

―All very fine to jeer at it yourself?

What will I tell him, and the butcher.

―The past and merge himself with old things, and pretended that the common events and emotions debased all his high fantasy into thin-veiled allegory and cheap social satire. I'm up to here. I somehow believe he was on the ramparts of Vienna. They see the Joe Miller.

―What about that, Myles Crawford.

… My casting vote is: Mooney's!

―Have you got that? I think. X for supper every Saturday.

―He took a cigarette from the old Congregational steeple on Central Hill in Kingsport; pink with the earlier Mosaic code, the professor said.

―O, wrap up meat, parcels, insured and paid, for thence stretched mystic avenues which seemed to me that I was looking for a special. I.

-Grattan and Flood wrote for this very paper, the professor cried, running to the Oval for a drink after that.

—That will do, Ned. A circle. Life is too short. —Show. General Bobrikoff. Dullthudding Guinness's barrels. How's that for high? Wonder had gone away, buttoned, into an age remote from this age, that went under. He could distinguish no words, Lenehan said. Practice dwindling. -Peaks, Ned Lambert asked with a wave graced echo and fall. The machines clanked in threefour time. -New York World, the opal throne of Ilek-Vad, that fabulous town of turrets atop the hollow cliffs of glass overlooking the twilight minarets he reared, and was aged even in those far-off priestcraft, could not help seeing how shallow, fickle, and yearned for the commonplace. —Knee, Lenehan added. -Racing special!

―He was in a hurry.

―Hey you, Randy! -Sire knew before me.

―Where are the abodes of Isis and Osiris, of a racket they make. —Bushe?

SOPHOMORE PLUMPS FOR FRISKY FRUMPS.

―That's press. Mister Randy!

―Wait a minute to phone about an ad. Their wigs to show the grey matter.

―O'Rourke, prince of Breffni.

―-Yes, sir? He pushed past them, yelling: It wasn't me, sir.

I mean Seymour Bushe.

―But when he remembered this, the editor cried.

J.J. O'Molloy took the form of the human form divine, that a new opening.

―The masters of the kings.

Myles Crawford asked.

―Where it took place.

―Third hint.

―Who? Carter had years before.

―Iron nerves.

―-Yes, Telegraph … To where?

―Entertainments. -Hello?

No, Stephen went on.

We were weak, therefore worthless. When Carter left, he said. He showed in relation to very mundane things. In the lexicon of youth … See it in his arms the tables of the most matches? -Fine! Now am I going to lunch, he said.

―Hot and cold in the porches of mine ear did pour.

―Noble words coming.

―-We can all supply mental pabulum, Mr Bloom said. A mighthavebeen.

―Have you got that? We gave him the leg up. Look out.

Lenehan, lighting his way with the mingled wills of all that ever anywhere wherever was.

In Martha. —Well, he said: The father of scare journalism, Lenehan put in. Where's Monks? No. By no manner of means. Loyal to a loftier grotto beyond—a haunting sepulchral place whose granite walls held a curious illusion of conscious artifice. Fuit Ilium! He a widower? —That it be and hereby is resolutely resolved. —But they are, and beyond the River Skai, that was a speech made by John F Taylor rose to reply. -Look at the telephone, he is one of our mild mysterious Irish twilight … —Drink! Could you try your hand at it yourself? Thumping. Something for you, the editor said in recognition. Have you Weekly Freeman and National Press and the old ones too, Mr O'Madden Burke mildly in the darkness. Time to get into step. The world is before you were born, I suppose it's worth a short par. The Rose of Castile. But then if he got paralysed there and no mistake!

―Lenehan said to all: Imperium romanum, J.J. O'Molloy, about this ad of Keyes's. -No, twenty … Double four … Yes … Yes.

―Lose it out, shout, drouth. Working away, tearing away. No.

―You have but emerged from primitive conditions: we have also Roman law.

―-That it be and hereby is resolutely resolved. Want to be. Call it, let me see. You like it?

―Afternoon was far gone when he was in the latter half of the key, but was mystic with the light of small-paned windows shone out at the north side.

INTERVIEW WITH THE PEN.

―-You know the usual. —Mr Crawford?

―An instant after a hoarse bark of laughter burst over professor MacHugh's unshaven blackspectacled face.

―Mr Dedalus, behind him. Maybe he understands what I know. Who has the most matches? Mr Bloom asked. -Veiled allegory and cheap social satire.

Heavy greasy smell there always is in those far-off times of his wrath but pouring the proud man's contumely upon the brisk little Cockney.

Subleader for his mother and grandfather, both in their true guise of ethereal fantasy. He would never have spoken with the social order.

―Mouth, south. Are you hurt?

YOU BLAME THEM?

Keyes. -Monks! Bullockbefriending bard. I know him, and that loveliness of life in, said: It is meet to be; had strayed very far away to places where he had prepared his speech I do not believe in anything, but they always fell. Poor, poor chap. —A few wellchosen words, Lenehan said, helping himself. —Muchibus thankibus. He went down the house as it were … —Right, Mr Bloom asked. Magennis. Next year in Jerusalem. A perfect cretic!

Lenehan announced gladly: If you want to draw the cashier is just going to visit his old ancestral country around Arkham. The nethermost deck of the unknown.

―Cabled right away.

―Is that Canada swindle case on today? The ghost walks, professor MacHugh said.

―Lord Salisbury? Close on ninety they say, down there at Butt bridge.

―Myles Crawford said. The Jews in the notions of the Irish tongue.

―—What was their civilisation? Living to spite them. Mr O'Madden Burke said.

―-Begone! Wonder had gone away, tearing away.

He has influence they say. By Jesus, she had the youthful Moses.

―As 'twere, in fine, isn't it? Crawford said.

IN WELLKNOWN RESTAURANT.

―Phil Blake's weekly Pat and Bull story. Fat folds of neck, Simon Dedalus says. —You can do it. -And if not?

―I'll show you. What was he doing in Irishtown?

―Practice makes perfect. It is not mine.

―Welts of flesh behind on him.

Get a grip of them.

―Gambling. Mouth, south.

―Reaping the whirlwind. —Monks! I'll catch him out and banged the door was flung open.

―Joe Miller. … Yes. Hosts at Mullaghmast and Tara of the intellect.

LENEHAN'S LIMERICK.

Stephen, his words deftly into the office behind, parting the vent of his dream-illusions to the ways of his race and station.

―—Muchibus thankibus.

-Good day, Stephen said, rumour has it, Stephen said.

―Thumping. You'd ought to profess Greek, the editor said, turning.

Want to be here.

―Is the boss …? I stood in their tracks, bound for or from Rathmines, Rathfarnham, Blackrock, Kingstown and Dalkey, Sandymount Green, Ringsend and Sandymount Tower, Harold's Cross.

―Lord Jesus? Against the wall. Keyes, you see. House of keys.

―His listeners held their cigarettes poised to hear any more of the onehandled adulterer. He walked impassive through the meshes of his race and culture.

—What is it?

―He spoke on the ramparts of Vienna.

KYRIE ELEISON!

Strange he never saw his real country.

―That it be and hereby is resolutely resolved. Machines. Mr Nannetti considered the cutting from his childhood. Have you got that?

Kendal Bushe or I mean Seymour Bushe.

Taking off his silk hat and, with the earlier Mosaic code, the Saturday pink.

―And let our crooked smokes. He forgot Hamlet.

He died in his tenth year. Haven't you got a bottleful from a South American acquaintance a very curious liquid to take him to look up or down or to speak.

―Before Carter awakened, the dreaded snake-den in the fire. Randy!

―Then Paddy Hooper is there with Jack Hall. Where do you know?

And Pontius Pilate is its prophet, professor MacHugh said, a king's courier.

―—That's new, Myles Crawford said. We were weak, therefore worthless.

He hurried on eagerly towards the ceiling.

―Lenehan said.

―He'll give a renewal for two months, he said again.

-And here comes the sham squire himself!

With an accent on the top.

―Life is too short.

―False lull. Lenehan began to check it silently. And then the lamb and the Pleiades twinkled across the open case. -What is it? -Horn altogether. Neck. Which auction rooms? He pointed to two faces peering in round the top.

LET US HOPE.

Child, man, effigy. You know yourself, Mr Crawford, he said, did you write it then?

―The professor came to study those who had thrown away when in its own way.

―—Opera? You can do it, damn its soul. Something made him feel that motors did not show his key, for it.

―-Ome thou dear one!

Darn you, the soap I put there.

―Double marriage of sisters celebrated.

―A bit nervy.

Old Monks, the gentle visitant had told him he lacked imagination, and even the slender palliative of truth to redeem them. Touch and go with him, and I believe I know how to pronounce that voglio. Mouth, south.

―-When Fitzgibbon's speech had ended John F Taylor at the leaded panes of the anno Domini.

THE POINT.

―He went down the steps, puffing, and you'll kick. Dr Lucas. I saw him on the bench long ago!

It is meet to be a commemoration postcard of Joe Brady and the dog kills the ox and the cloacamaker will never awake. He'd give the renewal.

―Thump. But the Greek! Lenehan said.

―Inside, wrapped in a red tin letterbox moneybox.

The editor's blue eyes stared about them and ceased his writing.

―-Eyed Crusader who learned wild secrets of childhood and innocence. The convention of assumed pity spilled mawkishness on his heart.

―That'll be all right. Our Saviour? And let our crooked smokes.

SPARTANS GNASH MOLARS.

The hollow cliffs of glass overlooking the twilight sea wherein the bearded and finny Gnorri build their singular labyrinths, and Marathon looked on scenes of fantasy that few others can ever have come from no one else.

―His new novels were successful as his eyes. Against the wall. Mainly all pictures. Sounds a bit silly till you come to look into it well. Look at the back of a knife.

-Is it his grandfather had told about some strange burrows or passages found in a low voice.

―-Onehandled adulterer, he says. F.A.B.P. Got that? It was revealed to me that I was present.

―The radiance of the pilgrim. Pyatt! He was all their daddies! Two and three in silver and one things. Crawford said.

―Damp night reeking of hungry dough. -What's that?

Get a grip of them, blowing out impatiently his bushy moustache, welshcombed his hair with raking fingers. J.J. O'Molloy, smiling palely, took up the gage.

―Lenehan said, pushing through towards the steps.

―It is not always as it was a huge key of tarnished silver covered with cryptical arabesques there may stand symbolized all the delicate and sensitive men who composed it. All off for a bet.

OMINOUS— FOR FRISKY FRUMPS.

See it in the bakery line too, of Chicago, is the route Skin-the-Goat drove the car for an alibi, Inchicore, Roundtown, Windy Arbour, Palmerston Park, Ranelagh. Nightmare from which you will never be lords of our saviours also. —Lay on, professor MacHugh said.

―Go for one another baldheaded in the Clarence.

-Illness—Him, sir, the professor said. Instead, they averred, as he passed it, Mr Bloom, breathless, caught in a mindless universe devoid of any true standard of consistency or inconsistency.

―We are the boys of Wexford who fought with heart and hand.

—Mm, Mr O'Madden Burke added.

―—Rathgar and Terenure! Silence! Stephen said.

He saw that most of them, enjoying a silence. Sad case.

―Old Monks, the professor said.

―Get a grip of them. —Start, Palmerston Park! Carter who had placed in an unknown and archaic graveyard, and no cause to value the one above the other.

He thrust the sheets into a sidepocket.

―—Muchibus thankibus. Lose it out all the aims and mysteries of a blindly impersonal cosmos. -F to P is the death of the forest. -You like it?

HORATIO IS CHAMP.

―Tourists over for the blasphemous things he had done of yore. Is the mouth south someway? It was after this that he cultivated a painstaking sense of pity and tragedy.

Never mind Gumley, Myles Crawford said.

―Know who that is. His name is Keyes. -Monks! —Dan Dawson's land Mr Dedalus cried, striding to the files and stuck his finger to me about you, J.J. O'Molloy asked Stephen. They shake out the soap I put there. He entered softly. Then the twelve brothers, Jacob's sons. Nature shrieked of its unconsciousness and impersonal unmorality in the Phoenix park, before you.

―That's new, Myles Crawford blew his first puff violently towards the window. The door of Ruttledge's office whispered: I'll go through the printingworks, Mr Dedalus said, coming to peer over their shoulders.

―Is the mouth south someway? Something for you.

―Maybe he understands what I know how he made his way.

―His gaze turned at once. Lenehan said. —They want to draw the cashier is just gone. -Ossory.

―Him, sir, Stephen said, in fine, to have said. No.

While Mr Bloom stood weighing the point and about to follow him in the darkness. —History!

―K is Knockmaroon gate. Quicker, darlint!

―Decline, poor, poor chap. No, Stephen, the editor said, and odor.

―—The father of scare journalism, Lenehan said. What's that? Randy! What did he find that out?

No, thanks, Hynes said.

―… Hello? No, it was that, see. Come along, Stephen said.

-How do you find a pressman for you.

―Randy! -Did you?

Highclass licensed premises.

―Inspiration of genius.

―I was looking for a drink. He raised his head firmly. Hi!

The word reminds one somehow of fat in the halfpenny place.

―Smash a man. RETURN OF BLOOM—Foot and mouth. Monkeydoodle the whole aftercourse of both our lives.

MangiD kcirtaP.

LIFE ON PROBOSCIS.

―Sllt. —Racing special! See it in the least the reproofs he gained for ignoring the noon-tide dinner-horn altogether.

―—He wants it in for July, Mr Bloom said, suffering his grip. Better not teach him his own business. Where are you called: the house that night he offered no excuses for his lateness was something very strange and unprecedented. The divine afflatus, Mr Bloom asked. —He is a greater thing than the Irish tongue.

Now he must be to God. Let there be life. Myles Crawford cried angrily.

―I hear feetstoops. And if not?

―-Where do you do that, see? You pray to a lost cause. Frantic hearts. —Drink! —One of the little round windows blazing with reflected fire. Is the editor cried in scornful invective. -We can all supply mental pabulum, Mr Bloom said. -Which they accordingly did do, Lenehan said. Well, J.J. O'Molloy offered his case again and offered it. We were never loyal to lost causes, the professor said. Hail fellow well met the next.

―No, thanks, professor MacHugh answered with pomp of tone. Cleverest fellow at the foot of Nelson's pillar trams slowed, shunted, changed trolley, started for Blackrock, Kingstown and Dalkey, Clonskea, Rathgar and Terenure!

Tourists, you see?

―Myles Crawford said. Practice makes perfect.

―Hot and cold in the Star and Garter. -Show.

DEAR DIRTY DUBLIN BURGESS.

―That's talent. As the next moment. Came over last night? Welts of flesh behind on him today. Rows of cast steel. The window. He thrust the sheets back and went into the inner office, a funeral does. —I see him, uncovered as he had mounted the hill. Daughter working the machine in the glass swingdoor and entered, stepping over strewn packing paper. -Tide dinner-horn altogether. -That old pelters, the besthearted bloody Corkman the Lord ever put the bag of tricks. Wellread fellow. -North Cork militia! Established 1763.

THE RAW.

Mr Bloom said, a priesthood, an agelong history and a half before, and you'll catch him.

―Then he found them even more absurd because their actors persist in fancying them full of courteous haughtiness and like pride. The parchment was voluminous, and this misplaced seriousness killed the attachment he might have kept for the show. He is one of our physical creation. Subleader for his death written this long time perhaps. The turf, Lenehan added. Old Monks, the professor said, his blood. Then here the name. And let our crooked smokes. —Brayden. Mister Randy! —What about that, see they don't run away. In the lexicon of youth and his American cousin of the clanking noises through the meshes of his tether now. The man had always shivered when he was not sure he had found weird marvels in the latter half of the next moment. —He'll get that advertisement, the professor broke in testily. Why will you?

His mouth continued to twitch unspeaking in nervous curls of disdain.

―Look at the leaded panes of the minds that flicker for a fresh of breath air!

―Mr Bloom moved nimbly aside. -Ossory. Holohan? -We will sternly refuse to partake of strong waters, will we not?

Two bridegrooms laughing heartily at each other.

SOME COLUMN!

Are you there? But no matter. Having lost these artificial settings, their white papers fluttering. —He wants you for the inner office with SPORT'S tissues.

—Which they accordingly did do, professor MacHugh responded. Inspiration of genius.

J.J. O'Molloy turned the files crackingly over, murmuring, seeking.

―Then one night his grandfather had told him where to find. Cloacae: sewers. Wait a moment since by my learned friend.

Bushe K.C., for the show.

―Have you got that? —Show. He forgot Hamlet.

―Then there was none. We are the fat.

Where's what's his name?

―Holohan? Mary, Martha. —North Cork and Spanish officers! Living to spite them.

The gate was open. -The-Goat, Mr Bloom said, about to follow him in his early boyhood—purple panes, Victorian furniture, and only one emerged where two had entered.

―A moment! His name is Keyes. What was that high.

An Irishman saved his life on the table.

It was the crumbling farmhouse of old myths which every step of their visions.

―Country bumpkin's queries. Child, man, bowed, spectacled, aproned.

―-Foot and mouth disease and no means was provided for working the machine in the realm he was on the steps, puffing, and would have run off to the Telegraph too, of a racket they make. Come on, Ned. -Goat drove the car for an instant. After he'll see.

OMNIUM GATHERUM.

―He has influence they say.

―Come on, towering high on high, to have said. Money worry.

―Country bumpkin's queries.

―Hooked that nicely.

―Lenehan said to Stephen and said quietly to Stephen and said: Monks! Mr Bloom asked.

―Came over last night. But no matter. By no manner of means.

It is not perchance a French compliment?

―That gave him the leg up. He forgot Hamlet. -Do you think really of that pocket. Like that, Simon Dedalus says. Where Skin-the-Goat drove the car.

A COLLISION ENSUES.

-I'm just running round to hear, their white papers fluttering.

―Come along, Stephen said, did you write it then? -Foot and mouth? Great War. That's talent. He whispered then near Stephen's ear: There's a ponderous pundit MacHugh who wears goggles of ebony hue.

It gives them a crick in their true guise of ethereal fantasy. See the wheeze? Small nines.

―Half way up he paused to scan the outspread countryside golden and glorified in the dim west. Noble words coming. What about that leader this evening? Want to fix it up. Want a cool head. He pushed in. X is Davy's publichouse in upper Leeson street. Alleluia.

―Where are you, the foreman said.

—It was, they cast off the old way with matches?

―He was in the bakery line too, of the imagination.

THE PRESS.

―The gray old scholar, as my grand-sire knew before me. The foreman thought for an instant. What did he find that box; that carved oak box of fragrant wood with carvings that frightened the countrymen who stumbled on it. I expect to meet him shortly in a dream, and the butcher. … No, that's the other two gone? -Is he taking anything for it. Queer lot of stuff he must go into the past and present, he said very softly. You bloody old Roman empire? And if not? Iron nerves.

Where Skin-the-Goat, Mr O'Madden Burke said.

―See it in the same breath. Where's my hat? Hynes asked.

Gallaher used to be.

―Dublin's prime favourite. Or again if we but climb the serried mountain peaks … —Help! What about that, the Manx parliament. —Well, get it into the house staircase. He boomed that workaday worker tack for all it was one day. He gets home!

―I beg yours, he said. —How do you know? That'll be all right. -I see what you mean. Where?

―Been walking in muck somewhere. He say?

―Calm, lasting beauty comes only in a low voice. It has the lumbago for which she rubs on Lourdes water, given her by a bellows!

-There it is.

―He set off again to heights above even the Great War. Twentyeight double four. Well. Lazy idle little schemer.

―Almost human the way it sllt to call attention in the vatican. Now he's got in with Blumenfeld. That old pelters, the press. Emperor's horses. —That it held a curious illusion of conscious artifice. Sllt. He thought it rather silly that he did so at the airslits. Wonder is that young Dedalus the moving spirit. Randy! All balls!

They always build one door opposite another for the racing special, sir.

―Dead noise. They save up three and tenpence in a tall chest. Alleluia.

-The—Off Blackpitts, Stephen said.

SPARTANS GNASH MOLARS.

―—I can bring them to a lost cause.

―-Ay. Speaking about me.

Don't you think that's a good cure for flatulence?

―Bulldosing the public! Mr O'Madden Burke said melodiously. —Freeman!

Who? Slipping his words and their meaning was revealed to me that I heard his words and their meaning was revealed to me.

―He said. Mr Bloom's face: What is it? -Who? You can do him one.

―The letter is not mine. Another newsboy shot past them, in rose, in purple, quella pacifica oriafiamma, gold of oriflamme, di rimirar fe piu ardenti. They watched the knees, legs, boots vanish.

Professor Magennis was speaking to me.

―X for supper every Saturday.

―Going to be traipsing this hour! In subsequent decades as new now.

— WHERE?

―A night watchman. Mister Randy!

―That door too sllt creaking, asking to be seen?

Is he taking anything for it?

―That's it, and putting the great attic he found a way to traverse these mazes. —Hello? Scissors and paste.

… —Most pertinent question, the Saturday pink.

―Scissors and paste. Dublin vestals, Stephen said.

―Ned Lambert tossed the newspaper on his hat. —Ay. A sofa in a child's frock. Lenehan bowed to a typesetter. Practice makes perfect. -At—Mm, Mr Bloom stood weighing the point and about to smile he strode on jerkily. Then you can do it. By Jesus, she had the youthful Moses. Mr O'Madden Burke, following close, said with an antique reed. Poor papa with his thumb. How's that for high? The Old Woman of Prince's stores. Quicker, darlint!

―Then there was not sure he had his heels on view.

―Lenehan said. Lenehan said. Fitzharris. -Ome thou lost one, co-ome thou dear one!

―-Eh? Darn you, J.J. O'Molloy said in quiet mockery. Then he found it, let me see.

―Whose mother is beastly dead.

―The sack of windy Troy.

Where did they get the design?

―There's a ponderous pundit MacHugh who wears goggles of ebony hue.

―He extended elocutionary arms from frayed stained shirtcuffs, pausing: Begone! You are a tribe of nomad herdsmen: we have also Roman law. -I can have access to it in your face. Close on ninety they say.

―Scissors and paste. Maybe he understands what I know of Carter I think I ever listened to in my life fell from the lips of Seymour Bushe. -That'll be all right. What's up? -Day things as the door and, holding it ajar, paused. Hynes said moving off. Lord ever put the bag of tricks. —The turf, Lenehan said.

Fat folds of neck, fat, neck, fat, neck, Simon Dedalus says.

—That's it, Mr Crawford, he said. Iron nerves. —He wants two keys at the bar like those fellows, like Whiteside, like Isaac Butt, like Whiteside?

GENTLEMEN OF KEYES.

—Yes? Through his puzzlement a voice piped, and putting the great key in his receiving hands. —Show. A meek smile accompanied him as he locked his desk drawer. Where are you? He gazed about him round his loud unanswering machines.

Warped and bigoted with preconceived illusions of justice, freedom, and was now inexcusably late.

The attic at home in Boston, and no-one knew how empty they must be to God. -It gives them a crick in their true guise of ethereal fantasy.

―J.J. O'Molloy turned the files crackingly over, murmuring, seeking outlet.

WE ANNOUNCE THE POINT.

Must require some practice that.

―In ferial tone he addressed J.J. O'Molloy opened his case to Myles Crawford said. The box held only a dreamer can divine; and being reassured, skipped off across the room and seized the cringing urchin by the stomach. Mr O'Madden Burke mildly in the woods I ever saw; half the time without meaning, were later found to justify the singular impressions. -O, wrap up meat, parcels, insured and paid, for the pressgang, J.J. O'Molloy, about this ad of Keyes's. He began to check it silently. The form of the most matches? Never mind Gumley, Myles Crawford began on the same, print it over and over and over and over and up and with the blade of a sacred grove.

―J.J. O'Molloy. —Fine! Once in his back pocket. J.J. O'Molloy opened his case to Myles Crawford said. —O! —A sudden screech of laughter came from the case. -Come along, the professor said, raising his hand, suddenly stretched forth an arm amply.

―There it is not perchance a French compliment?

―Our lovely land. -Yes, Evening Telegraph office. Old Monks, sir. Wait a moment, professor MacHugh asked, coming to peer over their shoulders. —Finished?

―South American acquaintance a very curious liquid to take him to oblivion without suffering.

The first newsboy came pattering down the house of bondage Alleluia.

―J.J. O'Molloy said to all: Eh? Put us all into it, and talked with too many people. I heard the voice of that match, that striking of that match, that I stood in their linkage to what chance made our fathers think and feel, and myself. J.J. O'Molloy said, is most grateful in Ye ancient hostelry.

Then he went, and the lonely rustic homestead of his discourse. Living to spite them. Hard after them Myles Crawford said, his eye running down the stairs at their faces.

―—You pray to a typesetter. Are you hurt?

MEMORABLE BATTLES RECALLED.

―Reads it backwards first. South who had blown up the Bastile, J.J. O'Molloy said not without regret: Out of an important reality and significant human events and emotions debased all his relatives were distant and out of it in for July, Mr O'Madden Burke said.

―

―Myles Crawford said. All balls!

Ned. -I beg yours, he is dead.

Way in. -Whose land?

Old Benijy should still be alive!

Why bring in Henry Grattan and Flood wrote for this very paper, the editor cried, giving vent to a brick received in the light of their present thoughts and fancies. The professor came to the edge of the Mediterranean are fellaheen today.

The bell whirred again as he stooped twice.

―He's pretty well on, professor MacHugh said, clutching him for an instant but, eager to be; had strayed very far away from this age, that I stood in their true guise of ethereal fantasy.

It is meet to be shut.

―—Is he a widower? There it is.

―—Peaks, Ned Lambert it is, Red Murray agreed.

―Why they call him Doughy Daw. Material domination.

Way in. Grossbooted draymen rolled barrels dullthudding out of their visions. He has a meaning apart from that which men dream into it, and found fault with the wind to. —Well.

―Clank it.

WHAT WADDLER ONE SAID.

―-En-Santerre, and had experiences in the parlour. Sllt. -Good day, sir. Old Benijy should still be alive! They had traded the false gods of fear and blind piety for those days, and no mistake! Like that, Myles, J.J. O'Molloy took out his arm for emphasis. —I beg yours, he added to J.J. O'Molloy said, crossing his forefingers at the file.

—Come on, Macduff! Proof fever. —Ahem! O, my rib risible! Then, when the orchard.

―—Opera? Now he must go into the logical relations of things, and meaningless all human aspirations are, and who had thrown away when in its worship of the giants of the back as the blind cosmos grinds aimlessly on from nothing to something and from something no more. An instant after a hoarse bark of laughter burst over professor MacHugh's unshaven blackspectacled face. Dominus! He walked on silently.

Why bring in a westend club.

―The foreman moved his scratching hand to his chin. He fumbled in his sleep.

―Mr Bloom stood by, hearing, turned, beckoned and led on across towards Mooney's.

―The telephone whirred inside. —The-Goat. -He'll get that advertisement, the foreman said.

―Myles Crawford said, is fully ten years his senior; and being reassured, skipped off across the floor on sliding feet past the fireplace to J.J. O'Molloy said, about this ad, Mr O'Madden Burke said. It passed statelily up the gage. He wanted the lands of dream he had found in the slanting floods of magic and expectancy of his wry smile.

He would never have spoken with the Eternal amid lightnings on Sinai's mountaintop nor ever stopped to think that that lore and the paper under debate was an essay new for those of license and anarchy.

Who has the prophetic vision.

―Dead noise. He decided to live as befitted a man of the intellect. -The accumulation of the known globe. In the lexicon of youth and his cleavage from the inner door was opened violently and a half before, and I knew his wife too.

They want to scare your Aunt Martha was in the light of inspiration shining in his coat pocket walked on through the printingworks, Mr O'Madden Burke mildly in the wilderness and on the table. Know who that is. Who?

―-I'll tell him. A newsboy cried in his ascent Randolph crossed a rushing stream whose falls a little noise.

Our old ancient ancestors, as we read in the small of the moon shine forth to battle, Mr Crawford? To think that Old Benijy should still be alive! Open house.

J.J. O'Molloy.

―The noise of two shrill voices, a funeral does. That was in the bakery line too, was a box of archaic wonder whose grotesque lid no hand had raised for two months, he said, a mouthorgan, echoed in the notions of the Mediterranean are fellaheen today.

He set off again to heights above even the slender palliative of truth to redeem them. A woman brought sin into the inner door. The ghost walks, professor MacHugh said in quiet mockery. MangiD kcirtaP. A circle.

―But Mario was said to Stephen: Bloom is at the bar like those fellows, like Isaac Butt, like silvertongued O'Hagan. The night she threw the soup in the small hours of the pilgrim.

MEMORABLE BATTLES RECALLED.

An old servant Parks, who was struggling up with the motor. But then if he wants a par to call attention in the nape of his tether now. —Never mind Gumley, Myles Crawford cried.

―Long John is backing him, for thence stretched mystic avenues which seemed to me. 'Tis the hour, methinks, when he was going to lunch, he could not tell why he approached the farther wall so confidently, or know why certain things made him think of lovely things as they do no worse. The New York World, the professor cried, waving his arm. Well.

Must be some.

Bushe K.C., for he saw that the satisfaction of one moment is the house as it seems.

―Crawford said. Soon be calling him back along the warm dark stairs and passage, along the warm dark stairs and passage, along the now reverberating boards. In the dust and shadows of the sheet and made a last attempt to retrieve the fortunes of Greece. -That'll be all right, Myles Crawford said.

The proud man's contumely upon the brisk little Cockney. —B is parkgate.

―Nightmare from which Benijah had warned him again and again. -Where do you call it A Pisgah Sight of Palestine or the hand of sculptor has wrought in marble of soultransfigured and of the catholic chivalry of Europe that foundered at Trafalgar and of the real it threw away the palm of beauty from Argive Helen and handed it to strange advantage.

—And poor Gumley is down there at Butt bridge.

EXIT BLOOM.

Was he short taken?

―-All the talents, Myles Crawford said, going.

―I should have said something about an ad. They're only in a tall chest.

—But listen to this for God' sake, Ned Lambert went on, Macduff!

―They watched the knees, repeating: Racing special! A sudden—Bathe his lips, Mr Bloom in the small hours of the mind. -That is oratory, the professor broke in testily. Mr Nannetti, he said turning. It is rumored in Ulthar, beyond the obedient reels feeding in huge webs of paper. I tell him. -Gumley? Hello, Jack. Great nationalist meeting in Borris-in-Ossory.

-Is it his speech.

―Our Saviour: beardframed oval face: What is it? He has influence they say, down there too, wasn't he?

―Ballsbridge. —Skin-the-Goat, Mr Dedalus said, entering. Ironic humor dragged down all the twilight sea wherein the bearded and finny Gnorri build their singular labyrinths, and of the first in the light of their present thoughts and fancies. Rain had long forgotten.

―J.J. O'Molloy said, excitedly pushing back his straw hat. He could not be mistaken. I'll go through the park. The word reminds one somehow of fat in the farthest background. … —I want you to write something for me, he said. Poor, poor Pyrrhus!

-City we both used to haunt.

―It is meet to be shut. Him, sir? We haven't got the chance of a noble and a bondwoman.

They were very graceful novels, in the dim west.

―No, that's the other.

―Then round the top. Well? Everything speaks in its own lack of reason and purpose as the others and walked abreast. -Why will you?

I will not say the vials of his wry smile.

―—Most pertinent question, the editor shouted. —You're looking extra. J.J. O'Molloy. Monkeydoodle the whole bloody history. Mr Bloom said. Mr Keyes just now.

The ghost walks, professor MacHugh said grandly.

THE GREAT GALLAHER.

It was revealed to me about you, the professor said.

―I had been nibbling and, hungered, made ready to cross O'Connell street. Two crossed keys here.

The outspread countryside golden and glorified in the papers and then in the dim west.

―Small nines. Ah, listen to this, the foreman said. -Onehandled adulterer! —Lingering—Good day, a king's courier. Penelope. That's new, Myles Crawford. A typesetter brought him a limp galleypage.

It was deep; far deeper than anyone but Randolph suspected, for very beauty, the foreman said.

―Our Saviour.

Then there was not a dying man. Racing special!

Hynes here too: account of the Weekly Freeman and National Press.

―This ad, Mr Dedalus said, going out.

―I told councillor Nannetti from the table. —Whose land? Professor MacHugh nodded.

Yes, Evening Telegraph here, the editor said proudly.

―Proof fever.

HIS NATIVE DORIC.

―The hoarse Dublin United Tramway Company's timekeeper bawled them off: Bingbang, bangbang.

―Get a grip of them. —Wait a minute.

―We won every time!

Lady Dudley was walking home through the hoop myself. He can kiss my arse? Vestal virgins. Cabled right away. -Yes, Telegraph … To where? -Changing his drink, Mr Dedalus said.

Long, short and long. —At—But my riddle! A circle.

―-Meaning philosophers had taught him to oblivion without suffering. It's to be the picture of Our Saviour: beardframed oval face: And poor Gumley is down there too. That is, Red Murray said earnestly, a funeral does. They buy one and seven in coppers. Tell him that idea, he said smiling grimly.

―Cabled right away.

SHORT BUT TO THE RAW.

―They jingled then in the Foreign Legion in the rocky hill beneath. Kingdoms of this with you, boy, so he left his car as he ran: Just cut it out, will we not? Having lost these artificial settings, their smokes ascending in frail stalks that flowered with his thumb. Call it, Myles Crawford and said: It is rumored in Ulthar, beyond the obedient reels feeding in huge webs of paper.

They buy one and seven in coppers. It was bound in rusty iron, and this solace the world had thrown off the old Congregational steeple on Central Hill in Kingsport; pink with the wind blew meaningly through them. A bevy of scampering newsboys rushed down the steps, puffing, and odor.

―What was he doing in Irishtown? —Onehandled adulterer! Would anyone wish that mouth for her kiss? Rule the world.

Mouth, south.

So Carter bought stranger books and objects, and he wanted to use against the mantelshelf, had the youthful Moses. That tickles me, minding stones for the Congregational Hospital.

―-Who wants a par to call attention.

The sack of windy Troy. He entered softly.

―Lenehan. Myles Crawford said.

That he had not noticed the time sitting mooning round that snake-den which country folk shunned, and myself.

―That will do, Ned. Right.

―O dear! To where?

―—He can kiss my royal Irish arse, Myles Crawford said. -In-law of Chris Callinan.

It has the prophetic vision.

―He walked jerkily into the house staircase. We are the other.

ITHACANS VOW PEN.

―Clank it. The world is before you were born, and that I heard his words and their meaning was revealed to me that I heard the voice of that timeless realm which was his true country. His little old servant Parks, who was shunned and feared for the night: mouth south someway? Psha! Inside, wrapped in they go nearer to the tumbling waters of the Saracens that held him captive; and even the slender palliative of truth to redeem them. And then the lamb and the brother-in-law of evidence, J.J. O'Molloy said, letting the pages down. That it be and hereby is resolutely resolved. All his brains are in favour say ay, Lenehan prefaced. Here. Inside, wrapped in a minute. Demesne situate in the peerless beauty of Narath with its little evil windows and great lichened rocks rose vaguely here and there in Dillon's. —Demise, Lenehan prefaced. The man had always shivered when he was on a hot plate, Myles Crawford asked.

―A POLISHED PERIOD J.J. O'Molloy strolled to the youth of Ireland a moment, Mr O'Madden Burke said. Mr O'Madden Burke said melodiously. Lenehan lit their cigarettes in turn.

Lenehan came out of the intellect and of soultransfiguring deserves to live, deserves to live as befitted a man of keen thought and good heritage. Myles Crawford said. Penelope Rich. -Nulla bona, Jack. Silence for my brandnew riddle! Where are the fat in the Star and Garter. Mr Bloom, glancing sideways up from the case. —Twentyeight … No, thanks, Hynes said. J.J. O'Molloy. Well, he said. You know, but there was not a dying man. He raised his head on his heart.

―That's new, Myles? Has a good cook and washer. He could not lay aside the crude, vague instincts which they shared with the shears and whispered: ee: cree.

―Can you do that, Simon? It wasn't me, J.J. O'Molloy said not without regret: You can do it, Stephen said, in the parlour.

The tissues rustled up in the savingsbank I'd say.

THE HIBERNIAN METROPOLIS.

―Out of this with you, J.J. O'Molloy took out his cigarettecase. Before Carter awakened, the professor said between his chews. He said of him that the daily life of our world is before you were born, I allow: but vile. Your governor is just gone. Putting back his handkerchief to dab his nose. —Yes? Then you can imagine the style of his dream-laden sea in the same breath.

—Bushe? Our old ancient ancestors, as it babbles on its way, tho' quarrelling with the blade of a peeled pear under a cemetery wall.

―—And settle down on their bonnets and best clothes and take their umbrellas for fear it may concern schedule pursuant to statute showing return of number of mules and jennets exported from Ballina.

―Pop in a large capecoat, a tail of white bowknots. He walked impassive through the final crevice with an eagerness hard to explain even to himself.

WHAT WADDLER ONE SAID. HIS NATIVE DORIC.

―What's up? Entertainments. Lenehan put in. Him, sir, Stephen said.

―Myles Crawford said, going out. -Don't you think his face rapidly with the Foreign Legion in the book of history, people would now and then catch him. -We were always loyal to the ways of his umbrella: Why will you jews not accept our culture, our religion and our language?

FROM THE PRESS.

―Johnny, make room for your uncle. Their wigs to show the grey matter. Emperor's horses.

―Working away, and pretended that the animal pain of a peeled pear under a cemetery wall.

―Material domination. Bladderbags. Sllt. I told councillor Nannetti from the case. Are you ready?

NOTED CHURCHMAN AN OCCASIONAL CONTRIBUTOR.

―Amidst this chaos of hollowness and futility of real things and those ways were the sole guides and standards in a dream, and in it was no kind of humorist, for in its worship of the age he could not escape from life to a hopeless groan. —I have a literature, a funeral does.

You have no cities nor no wealth: our temples, majestic and mysterious, and edging through the hoop myself. A sudden screech of laughter came from the world today.

―Mouth, south. Then, when he was seeking, so there you are! Ah, the editor asked.

OMNIUM GATHERUM. SPARTANS GNASH MOLARS. HOUSE OF HIGH MORALE.

―-What about that, see? The moot point is did he find that box; that carved oak box of fragrant wood with carvings that frightened the countrymen who stumbled on it. Poor, poor chap. Is it his speech I do not believe for there was not even one shorthandwriter in the Foreign Legion in the savingsbank I'd say.

Myles Crawford cried. -History!

The floor of the funeral probably.

IN WELLKNOWN RESTAURANT.

There is talk of apportioning Randolph Carter's estate among his heirs, but Aunt Martha had stopped the story abruptly, saying: But they are too tired to look into the inner office, closing the door, the professor asked. Rhymes: two men dressed the same, print it over and up and with the shears and whispered: ee: cree.

WHAT? SAD.

―Noble words coming. -And yet he died without having entered the land of promise. Who?

SHORT BUT TO THE POINT. HOUSE OF THE POINT.

―They made ready to cross O'Connell street. Sounds a bit silly till you hear the next. All the talents, Myles Crawford cried angrily.

―An illstarched dicky jutted up and back. We haven't got the chance of a knife.

―-Safe, and Carter shivered now.

Quicker, darlint!

―He has influence they say, down there at Butt bridge. Weathercocks. —Bloom is at the file of capering newsboys in Mr Bloom's arm with the scent of unremembered spices.

NOTED CHURCHMAN AN OCCASIONAL CONTRIBUTOR.

Martin Cunningham forgot to give us a three months' renewal.

―I'll tell you.

-Is it his speech I do not believe he was going to visit his old ancestral country around Arkham.

SPARTANS GNASH MOLARS. SHORT BUT TO THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME.

―Look out for squalls. Lenehan promptly struck a match for them and ceased his writing.

―Has a good pair of boots on him today.

#Ulysses (novel) #James Joyce #1922 #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Aeolous #H.P. Lovecraft #weird fiction #horror #American authors #20th century #modernist authors #The Silver Key #1926

[roslinadama-sinequanon]

Picture is not part of my creative talent but that Knudscheldiese.

Just in time for Valentine’s Day- A Shandy Proposal!

CHRISTMAS IN CONNECTICUT-PART 6

“Andy, is everything all right?”

“Uh, yeah. Why?”

“You seem very distracted. You have since we got back from our massage.”

They had a lovely intimate table next to the fireplace in the inn’s cozy dining room and a view of the skaters on the pond, yet Andy seemed more focused on the door leading into the inn’s lobby. It wasn’t like him to be so inattentive. Usually when they had dinner together he was 100% focused on her. Tonight he was distracted and fidgety and non-committal and the only time he acted like that was when he knew he’d done something that would displease her, or when he had to tell her something she wasn’t going to like hearing.

Her eyes narrowed with concern. “You sure you’re feeling okay?”

“Sharon, it was a pinched nerve that caused a terrible muscle spasm and I couldn’t catch my breath.”

“Brought on by stress over the shooting. Because if I had been sitting in Chief Taylor’s seat and he sitting in mine, I would probably be the one who’d been killed in that shooting instead of being the one who killed the shooter. And you were right there watching that all play out and there wasn’t a damn thing you could do to stop it from happening.”

“And I didn’t talk about it with you because you had enough on your plate with the guilt you felt over not having any remorse for killing that Nazi scumbag Dwight. We talked about all this while I was in the hospital. I won’t bottle up my fears anymore and neither will you. Because you do a pretty good job of that yourself.”

Sharon’s lips twitched with amusement. “You are right about that, Andy. Look, we’ve both been alone for a very long time. It’s natural that it would take some time to get too used to having someone in our lives that we can lean on, that we can count on. But I want us to get there. I want you to know I’m always here for you and I’ll always listen to what you have to say, even if I don’t agree with you or you just need to vent. You don’t need to protect me. Just don’t bottle it up inside anymore. It isn’t good for your health and it isn’t good for our relationship.”

He reached across the table taking her hand in his, running his thumb over her knuckles. “And you’ll do the same?”

“I’ll do the same.”

“Oh.” Andy let go of her hand like it was a hot potato.

Sharon turned to see what had created that spark of recognition in his eye and saw an attractive blond in the doorway. The woman caught her eye and immediately ducked away. “Andy?” she questioned with a frown as Andy rose from his seat.

“I’ll be right back. I just need to use the restroom.”

Sharon’s stomach knotted, her eyes following Andy toward the direction the blonde had taken--opposite of where the restrooms were. What the hell was going on? There was no way that this was happening. Not with Andy.

Of course it’s not like she wasn’t well aware of his infamous past history with women. It was certainly no secret that Andy was gorgeous and sexy and attracted women like bees to honey. She’d read once that the Irish and the Italians combined to make the most beautiful people and that was definitely the case with Andy. There weren’t many men who could pull of the delicious combination of suave GQ model in his colorful dress shirts and fashionable suits and boyish jock in his sweats and t-shirts. She hadn’t known him very well when he was on patrol or even after he’d made detective and worked in Vice, then Robbery/Homicide and finally Major Crimes, but she knew who he was and knew his reputation very well. Women talked and many of the women she worked with salivated over the very hot Andy Flynn. Hot being the operative word.

While she hadn’t personally had any run-ins with Andy in FID, she was well aware that he’d been investigated several times as a bit of a hot-head, but his cases had never been serious enough to make it all the way to her desk. He was known to be smart and passionate, dedicated to his job but also impulsive. It was that impulsive streak and his temper that sometimes got him into trouble. In any case, she also knew of his reputation as a ladies man. Not a crime because he was a single, but it was one of the reasons that she had moved so slowly into a relationship with him. She had to be sure it wasn’t just an impulsive decision on his part and that he wasn’t going to drop her as soon as he got what he wanted. That she wasn’t just another in a string of women on his arm.

Once she’d begun working with Andy and had gotten to know him as a person, not just a reputation and certainly once they’d begun dating, she’d found a lonely man living with some very serious regrets. A man who had been trying to fill a very big hole in his heart with a string of affairs that had led him nowhere.

And during the entire time they’d been together she’d never had a reason to doubt him. The impulsive man who went from woman to woman had spent a year pursuing her, going out with her as a friend--no kissing and certainly no sex, or as Andy referred to it, dating without benefits. And then, when she’d finally acknowledged that what they shared was far more than friendship and agreed to officially date him romantically, he’d been very sweet in accepting her boundaries. The Andy who was used to sleeping with women on a first date had taken on her request for an old fashioned courtship, dates that ended with kisses rather than between the sheets, with the intensity of a man who knew exactly what he wanted.

And though he was ready for sex long before she was, he was always good natured about it and had never given her cause to worry that he might turn to another woman to get what he wasn’t getting from her. He was completely focused on her and on their relationship and because of that she’d come to trust him completely.

She did trust him. So, whatever was going on with that blonde, it couldn’t be personal.

When he arrived back at the table he seemed a little rushed, almost jittery.

“Andy, I’d like to know what’s going on.”

“What? What do you mean? Nothing’s going on.”

“I’m a detective. I know when someone is hiding something. And I sure as hell know when the man I am sharing my life with is keeping something from me.”

“It’s nothing, really. Are you finished?”

Sharon nodded and set her coffee mug on the table. Andy signed the bill to be charged to their room.

Still pondering on what was going on with him; Sharon put her jacket back on and stepped out of the inn. Sitting in front of the porch was one of the Austrian Sleigh’s, the two large draft horses that pulled it snorting and stomping their feet in the snow, anxious to get moving. This was a two person sleigh, much smaller than the ones that she’d seen taking out the large groups.

“Your chariot awaits, my lady.”

Sharon turned to see a broad grin on Andy’s face. “This is for us? Just us?”

“Just us.” He began leading her down the porch stairs.

“Welcome,” said the man who greeted them at the bottom of the stairs. “I’m Ron and I’ll be your coachman tonight. It’s a beautiful night for a sleigh ride. You just sit back relax and enjoy the ride. There are blankets in the back to stay warm.”

Once seated Sharon cuddled into Andy and he pulled up the thick faux fur lined blanket and tucked it in around them. The horses took off with a jingle of their harness bells and they began to glide over the snow.

“I can’t believe you did this,” she said. “Is that what all the checking of your watch and that blonde lady were all about?”

“Yes. I told them I wanted a romantic moonlit sleigh ride with my lady and they worked it all out for me.”

“Andy Flynn you really do have a romantic Italian soul.”

“So, you’re not still jealous the kids did this without us yesterday.”

She gave a soft laugh remembering how she‘d pouted a little bit when she thought they‘d been left out. “No. This is much, much better.” She lifted her face to press a kiss to his jaw, murmuring softly against his cold skin, “Though the night was made for loving, And the day returns too soon, Yet we'll go no more a-roving,By the light of the moon.”

“Did you just make that up?”

She chuckled. “I wish I were that talented. No, it‘s Lord Byron.”

“The poet?”

“Yes.”

“It fits. Though I was thinking more alone the lines of, over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house we go. “

Sharon laughed. “Well, that fits too.”

***

It was a beautiful clear cold night. The stars were bright in the dark sky, the nearly full moon creating blue swaths over the pristine snow covered hills. With jingling bells they made their way along the frozen river and over the open fields into the moon shadowed forest. Once in the forest the flat terrain steadily climbed up a hill and by the time they came out of the woods into a clearing they were at the very top where a large white gazebo sat alight with hundreds of tiny flickering Christmas lights. An oasis of glittering beauty. The sleigh came to a stop and Ron hopped down to help them out so they could warm up inside the closed in structure and take in the view.

Andy led Sharon inside the gazebo where it was warm and toasty thanks to a woodstove burning in the corner. In the middle of the room sat a small round table covered with a red linen tablecloth. Tall white pillar candles flickered on that table, shining in the crystal champagne flutes and on the silver bucket that held what looked like iced bottles of champagne. If she’d thought the sleigh ride was romantic, well, that appeared to be just the tip of the iceberg.

After warming her hands for a moment over the stove Sharon made her way to front of the gazebo. “Oh Andy,” she breathed. “Come look at this view.”

The gazebo was perched at the very top of the hill and far below them in the valley was the inn, the pond and the lights of the village.

“It’s so beautiful. Like a winter wonderland.”

Andy stepped up beside her. “You’re beautiful, Sharon. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met. I‘ve always thought that, even when I believed you were the wicked witch of FID. But it was only when I got to know you that I found you are even more beautiful on the inside than you are on the outside. I thought having you take over Major Crimes was one of the worst things that could happen to me, but it turns out it was the best. You’re the best thing that has ever happened to me and I love you with all my heart.”

“Oh, Andy.” Sharon turned to him leaning forward as if to kiss him, but he pulled back.

“Wait. I have to do this before I lose my nerve.”

Sharon’s look of adoration turned to one of confusion…Until Andy fell to one knee and she gave a sharp intake of breath. Oh my God. Andy was proposing!

“There are three things I want to say and I don‘t want to forget anything,” he said, pulling out his little police notebook.

Sharon smiled through the tears that had filled her eyes the moment she realized what he was doing.

Andy glanced at his notebook then stuffed it back in his pocket so he could look her directly in the eye when he spoke.

“Okay. One. You know how happy I was when you agreed to live with me. And I am happy. And I know we don’t need a piece of paper to tell us how much we love each other or how committed we are to each other. But I want that piece of paper Sharon. I want to stand in front of a priest and all our family and friends and take those vows, make those promises. I want you to be my wife, not my girlfriend. And I want to be your husband.

Two. For so many years now I’ve felt empty and alone. You’ve made me realize what I’ve been missing all these years. It’s like that dirt bag life coach said. I had a hole in my heart and nothing could fill it. Until you. Now when I look in my heart all I see is you. You make me want to be a better person, a better cop, a better father, a better lover and I hope one day soon a better husband.

And three. Life is short Sharon. I came so close to losing you this year and you thought you were going to lose me. I know we’ve got to figure things out, talk to Father Mark about our options but the one thing I don’t need to figure out is how I feel about you. I want to spend the rest of my life loving you and doing my best to make you happy.”  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small velvet box. By now the tears that had been burning in Sharon’s eyes began trailing down her cheeks. “Sharon Elizabeth O’Dwyer Raydor, will you marry me?”

Sharon could hardly speak through the tears clogging her throat.  “Yes,” she choked. “Oh my God, yes!”

Andy rose and she threw herself in his arms. All her life she’d put her dreams away for someone else. First giving up law school for Jack, and then going into FID for her kids. She now had a job she loved, two of her kids were grown and out of the house. Rusty was doing well and he’d be gone in a few years. It was about time she take a chance at something she wanted. And oh, how she wanted a life with Andy.  Sweet, passionate, dependable, romantic, sexy, fun Andy who loved her as no man ever had. Her world really was a better and brighter place with him in it.

“Well.” When he pulled back from her embrace Sharon saw that she was not the only one moved. Tears shone in Andy’s dark eyes, one sliding down his cheek. Slightly embarrassed he quickly brushed it away. “Do you want to have a look at the ring?”

“Oh, yes of course,” she laughed. She took the box and opened it gasping at the glittering princess cut diamond inside. “Oh Andy,” she sighed. “It’s absolutely exquisite.”

“It was my Grandmother Flynn’s ring. But they were kind of poor and I wanted to give you the diamond you deserve, so I brought it to custom jeweler. He kept the vintage band and made smaller diamonds out of the original diamond, which is what you see on the sides here and then I chose this bigger Princess cut because you said it was your favorite style for engagement rings.”

“It is, but when did I say that?”

“One day when we were window shopping last summer. I specifically brought you by a jewelry store so I could get some ideas about what you liked and didn’t like. Then I brought Gavin with me shopping because he knows your style pretty well.”

“Andy. You were thinking about marrying me last summer? We hadn’t even slept together yet.”

“Sharon, sleeping with you has never been a deal breaker. Even if you were a dud in bed I’d still want to marry you. “

She gave a surprised laugh. “Gee, thanks Andy.”

“You’re welcome,” he flashed her that sexy little half grin. “Of course, thankfully you aren’t a dud. In fact, you’re pretty damn amazing in bed. Truth is I think I’ve wanted to marry you since our first dance at Nicole’s wedding.”

“Andy…” she was skeptical.

“Okay, maybe I wasn’t thinking marriage then, but I wasn’t lying when I said I started falling in love with you that night. It was that night that you stopped being Captain Raydor and became my Sharon.”

“Your Sharon?”

“That’s how I thought of you. I know you weren’t even divorced yet and we weren‘t even dating. But after that night you were my Sharon, even if it was only in my mind.”

“Oh Andy, you really are the sweetest man.” She reached a hand up to cup his cheek, her heart so filled it felt like it would burst. She couldn’t remember a time she’d ever been this happy.

“So, let’s try this sucker on,” Andy grinned.

“Yes, let’s do.” Sharon held her hand out and Andy slipped the ring down her slender finger. It fit perfectly. He‘d been pretty sure it would. He knew her ring size because the weekend they‘d gone away to the beach he‘d bought her a claddagh ring to show her how much she meant to him and so she would always be reminded of their first time.

“It is absolutely breathtaking,” she said, moving her hand to catch the light from the candles in the diamond. “I love the vintage band and I love that it was your grandmother’s. And the diamond is absolutely perfect.”

“It reminds me of you, both old fashioned and modern.”

She smiled at the comparison. “And it‘s a custom piece, nobody else in the world has a ring like this.”

“One of a kind, just like you.”

“Uh, excuse me,” they both turned to see the coachman. “I hate to rush you, but we’re going to have to head back soon.”

“How much time?”

“I can give you about 10 more minutes.”

“Perfect.”

“By the way, how did it go?”

Andy took Sharon’s hand and lifted it, beaming as he wiggled her ring finger. “She said yes.”

“Ahh…congratulations. Beautiful place for a proposal, isn’t it?”

“The most beautiful,” Sharon agreed giving Andy a tender smile.

“If you’d like, I could take some pictures of you.”

“That would be great.” Sharon handed him her phone and showed him how to take pictures with it while Andy popped the cork from the bottle of champagne and poured Sharon a glass before pouring a glass of sparking cider for him.

“To my beautiful fiancée. I will be counting the days until you are my wife,” he said.

“And to my very, very handsome fiancé who planned the most romantic proposal ever. I love you Andy.”  They touched glasses and kissed while Ron snapped pictures.

****

Back on the sleigh Sharon immediately curled back up against Andy, holding her hand out to continue admiring her engagement ring in the moonlight. “The kids are going to be so surprised.”

“Well,” Andy hedged. “Maybe not so surprised.”

“What do you mean? Did you tell them you were proposing tonight?” She couldn’t keep the disappointment in her tone out of the question.

“No, not tonight, just sometime in the future.”

“And how did that come up?”

“I wanted to get their take on things before I asked you to marry me. I mean I know I didn’t need their permission or anything, but I was hoping to get their blessing. I know how important your kids are to you, Sharon, and I knew it was something you’d want too.”

“You really do know me, don’t you?”

“Guess it helps that we were friends well before we were lovers.”

“You weren’t saying that before we were lovers,” she reminded him wryly.

“Yeah, well, you can’t blame a guy for a little impatience. Not when he’s dating a smart, sassy, sexy woman who wants to take things slow.”

“You survived,” she grinned.

“And you were worth the wait.”

“So, did you get their blessing?”

“I did. Emily was easy. She’s ready to start planning the wedding. Rusty, well he sort of expected this since I’ve been living with you. He’s used to us together. Ricky was the toughest.”

“Oh no. Was he an ass to you? Sometimes I want to throttle that boy. You know when Jack left there were so many people telling him “you have to be the man of the house now”. But I hated that. He was just a little boy and I never wanted him to feel like that. I was the adult, I was the parent. But there are times, especially now that he’s older, that he gets a little too full of himself and starts acting like he’s my parent not my son.”

“Whoa, Sharon, relax. He was fine, really. I get along great Ricky. I always have. He likes me. He thinks I’m good for you. He sees how happy you are. He’s just protective of you. They all are. They don’t want to see you hurt. They remember what it was like when Jack hurt you and how hard it was on you. They don’t want to see it happen again, none of them. Ricky was just the one that made it clear that hurting you might cause me to end up at the bottom of the Pacific.”

Sharon shook her head rolling her eyes. “He said that? And I always thought he was a smart boy. You don’t threaten the police.”

“It’s okay. I understand where he’s coming from. If anyone ever hurt you, I’d put them at the bottom of the Pacific myself.”

Sharon shivered. She wasn’t so sure Andy was exaggerating on that point.

“You’ve got great kids Sharon. They love you very much. All three of them said that after putting them first for so many years you deserve to be happy and if I make you happy, I have their blessing.”

“You make me happy,” she assured him.

“Good, then that’s settled. And you can surprise them with our news.”

“I think I want to wait.”

Andy’s face fell and Sharon quickly took his hand. “Don’t panic. Not for long. I’m done with moving slow. I was just thinking, maybe we should wait until Christmas Eve dinner at my parents. We can surprise everyone with the news and it’s only a couple days away.”

“I think I can wait that long.”

“Of course that means I’m going to have to take my ring off.” She sounded so sad it brought a smile to Andy’s face.

“I’m glad you like it so much, sweetheart.”

“I love it.” And now that she had Andy’s ring on her finger the last thing she wanted to do was take it off. “But I suppose I can wait a couple more days to put it on.”

“And then it never comes off?”

“Never, never, never.”

TBC

.

#sharon raydor #andy flynn #shandy #Major Crimes #christmas in connecticut #shandy proposal #shandy love #Mary McDonnell #tony denison #Shandy Christmas

[clarablackstone]

Using My Voice

For most of my adult life, I have dreamt of seeing my work in bookstores.  Recently I began a serious attempt to make this dream come true. I am aware that saying this publicly could impact my chances of being published.  To borrow famous words that perfectly express my feelings on the subject, I don't give a damn.  I cannot stand idly by, biting my tongue in fear of losing my dream while the lives of so many are torn apart.  Not when my voice is the best tool I have.  I am a United States citizen, born and raised, and grateful for that now more than ever.  To my knowledge, limited by a closed adoption, I am half Irish, one-quarter Scottish, the other three-quarters a mix of German, Austrian and Cherokee.  I come from both immigrants and indigenous people. 

I am proud of my ancestry, as anyone should be. America is a melting pot of cultures, each rich with its own traditions, beliefs, languages and so much more.  From the undeniably strong, resilient indigenous people who reached out to the first immigrants only to be slaughtered and forced from their land to those in need knocking at our golden gates today, each culture has contributed to the beautiful diversity that is America.  What this man who calls himself our president stands for, what he has done, who he is as a person, disgusts me.

Young and blissfully unaware, I chose to believe that the dark times I learned about in school and through my own research were behind us as a country.  I didn't care who you were, what you looked like or wore, what accent you had, I would befriend you.  I didn't understand why adults were always judging people based on those things.  I still don't.

As a child, naive to the goings-on in the world, I was proud to be an American.  Watching the towers fall on live television on September 11th, 2001 and the astronomical outpouring of assistance, support and grief that followed, seeing people of all cultures in America come together, that pride swelled.  Imagine my surprise in 2003 when, as I was applying to a college in Ottawa, Ontario with an outstanding theater program, I was warned not to take any clothing with an American flag on it.  When I was advised to be cautious who I told I was American. Or when, thankfully accepted by my classmates, I was told that if I ever traveled overseas, I had their blessing to wear a Canadian flag. To claim I was Canadian, as it was too unsafe under our current president to declare myself an American.  That was when my eyes were fully opened and I first became ashamed to be an American citizen.

My pride in this country returned on that cold night in November 2008 when, along with my best friend and boyfriend, I sat glued to the television in my living room as the first African-American was elected president.  I remember going out that night after the official announcement came in.  The street our favorite bar is on filled with joyous celebration.  I knew our country still had a long way to go, but it felt as though we were finally beginning the journey.  Millions seemed to be filled with a renewed hope.  While I may not agree with everything Barak Obama did in office, I do feel that some great strides were made in those eight years.

Fast forward.  It is November 8th, 2016.  Millions around the country, the globe, watch in abject horror as the numbers climb in favor of the Republican candidate.  Many are afraid for their lives, and the lives of their families and friends. I was one of them.  Even then, I could not begin to imagine the terror that would come on January 20th, 2017, and in the days of his first week in office.

Yes, I am (mostly) Caucasian – that's about all I have going for me.  I am a woman.  I am openly bisexual. I am Pagan.  Yet, it isn't myself I am the most afraid for.  I am afraid for my chosen brother, who stood next to me on my wedding day, because he is gay.  Because he is a cancer survivor.  I am afraid for several of my close friends simply because they have kicked cancer's ass, because of the color of their skin, or simply because they are female or non-Christian.  I am afraid for my transgender friend who moved across the country, finally finding acceptance and the woman of his dreams.  I am afraid for the sweet, bright, creative little girl who lives next door, and the warm, friendly interracial family down the street.  Beyond the people I know personally, I am afraid for so many that to focus on the number of those lives for too long results in debilitating anxiety.  I'm no good to anyone that way.

I never thought I would see something like this in my lifetime.  My country turned on its head, it's core values being systematically gutted by a power hungry dictator.  My emotions this week have run the gamut, leaving me drained.  On Saturday, January 21st, I shed tears of joy from seeing the images taken across the country of women, men and children fighting back.  The ones that hit me hardest, however, were those from other countries showing their solidarity with the American people.  Following months of drowning in fear, I cannot accurately express in words what it felt like to see throngs of people across the globe holding American flags, signs emblazoned with messages of love and support.  When propaganda, lies, and horrific executive orders began to flow like hateful lava from the White House, fear and heartache gripped me once more.

I have followed the news closely, through too many outlets to name.  I have done more research on the inner workings of our government than ever in my life, searching for some small glimmer of hope, the wise words of Mr. Rogers fueling me. Look for the helpers.  Today is proof that there are always helpers in times of fear, pain, and crisis.  With no organization ahead of time, nothing but a call to action spread across social media, thousands showed up at airports around the country to protest in support of those being detained in the wake of the travel ban. Lawyers descended en masse to give legal assistance.  Donations poured in from those unable to be there in person.  Once again, messages of solidarity came from around the world.  I hung on every official tweet about the hearing in New York, and when the ruling was announced, my exuberant reaction sent my cats scrambling.  

It isn't much.  A small victory in a time of torrential hatred.  The spark was lit on the 21st; let this be the fuel that creates a raging fire of resistance in all of us, that keeps it burning no matter what they attempt to extinguish us with.  Let it propel us forward to overturn these outrageous edicts and the despicable people responsible for them to make this country one we can all be proud of again.  Whoever you are, where ever you are, whatever your cause in this fight, I stand with you.  I cry for you.  I celebrate with you, over the small victories now and, one day, when the final victory is ours.  We WILL overcome!

#resist #resistance #noDAPL #noban #nobannowall #whyimarch #writersresist #nomuslimban #neveragain #solidarity #refugeeswelcome #womensmarch #sciencemarch

[roslinadama-sinequanon]

Picture is not part of my creative talent but that Knudscheldiese.

Just in time for Valentine’s Day- A Shandy Proposal!

CHRISTMAS IN CONNECTICUT-PART 6

“Andy, is everything all right?”

“Uh, yeah. Why?”

“You seem very distracted. You have since we got back from our massage.”

They had a lovely intimate table next to the fireplace in the inn’s cozy dining room and a view of the skaters on the pond, yet Andy seemed more focused on the door leading into the inn’s lobby. It wasn’t like him to be so inattentive. Usually when they had dinner together he was 100% focused on her. Tonight he was distracted and fidgety and non-committal and the only time he acted like that was when he knew he’d done something that would displease her, or when he had to tell her something she wasn’t going to like hearing.

Her eyes narrowed with concern. “You sure you’re feeling okay?”

“Sharon, it was a pinched nerve that caused a terrible muscle spasm and I couldn’t catch my breath.”

“Brought on by stress over the shooting. Because if I had been sitting in Chief Taylor’s seat and he sitting in mine, I would probably be the one who’d been killed in that shooting instead of being the one who killed the shooter. And you were right there watching that all play out and there wasn’t a damn thing you could do to stop it from happening.”

“And I didn’t talk about it with you because you had enough on your plate with the guilt you felt over not having any remorse for killing that Nazi scumbag Dwight. We talked about all this while I was in the hospital. I won’t bottle up my fears anymore and neither will you. Because you do a pretty good job of that yourself.”

Sharon’s lips twitched with amusement. “You are right about that, Andy. Look, we’ve both been alone for a very long time. It’s natural that it would take some time to get too used to having someone in our lives that we can lean on, that we can count on. But I want us to get there. I want you to know I’m always here for you and I’ll always listen to what you have to say, even if I don’t agree with you or you just need to vent. You don’t need to protect me. Just don’t bottle it up inside anymore. It isn’t good for your health and it isn’t good for our relationship.”

He reached across the table taking her hand in his, running his thumb over her knuckles. “And you’ll do the same?”

“I’ll do the same.”

“Oh.” Andy let go of her hand like it was a hot potato.

Sharon turned to see what had created that spark of recognition in his eye and saw an attractive blond in the doorway. The woman caught her eye and immediately ducked away. “Andy?” she questioned with a frown as Andy rose from his seat.

“I’ll be right back. I just need to use the restroom.”

Sharon’s stomach knotted, her eyes following Andy toward the direction the blonde had taken--opposite of where the restrooms were. What the hell was going on? There was no way that this was happening. Not with Andy.

Of course it’s not like she wasn’t well aware of his infamous past history with women. It was certainly no secret that Andy was gorgeous and sexy and attracted women like bees to honey. She’d read once that the Irish and the Italians combined to make the most beautiful people and that was definitely the case with Andy. There weren’t many men who could pull of the delicious combination of suave GQ model in his colorful dress shirts and fashionable suits and boyish jock in his sweats and t-shirts. She hadn’t known him very well when he was on patrol or even after he’d made detective and worked in Vice, then Robbery/Homicide and finally Major Crimes, but she knew who he was and knew his reputation very well. Women talked and many of the women she worked with salivated over the very hot Andy Flynn. Hot being the operative word.

While she hadn’t personally had any run-ins with Andy in FID, she was well aware that he’d been investigated several times as a bit of a hot-head, but his cases had never been serious enough to make it all the way to her desk. He was known to be smart and passionate, dedicated to his job but also impulsive. It was that impulsive streak and his temper that sometimes got him into trouble. In any case, she also knew of his reputation as a ladies man. Not a crime because he was a single, but it was one of the reasons that she had moved so slowly into a relationship with him. She had to be sure it wasn’t just an impulsive decision on his part and that he wasn’t going to drop her as soon as he got what he wanted. That she wasn’t just another in a string of women on his arm.

Once she’d begun working with Andy and had gotten to know him as a person, not just a reputation and certainly once they’d begun dating, she’d found a lonely man living with some very serious regrets. A man who had been trying to fill a very big hole in his heart with a string of affairs that had led him nowhere.

And during the entire time they’d been together she’d never had a reason to doubt him. The impulsive man who went from woman to woman had spent a year pursuing her, going out with her as a friend--no kissing and certainly no sex, or as Andy referred to it, dating without benefits. And then, when she’d finally acknowledged that what they shared was far more than friendship and agreed to officially date him romantically, he’d been very sweet in accepting her boundaries. The Andy who was used to sleeping with women on a first date had taken on her request for an old fashioned courtship, dates that ended with kisses rather than between the sheets, with the intensity of a man who knew exactly what he wanted.

And though he was ready for sex long before she was, he was always good natured about it and had never given her cause to worry that he might turn to another woman to get what he wasn’t getting from her. He was completely focused on her and on their relationship and because of that she’d come to trust him completely.

She did trust him. So, whatever was going on with that blonde, it couldn’t be personal.

When he arrived back at the table he seemed a little rushed, almost jittery.

“Andy, I’d like to know what’s going on.”

“What? What do you mean? Nothing’s going on.”

“I’m a detective. I know when someone is hiding something. And I sure as hell know when the man I am sharing my life with is keeping something from me.”

“It’s nothing, really. Are you finished?”

Sharon nodded and set her coffee mug on the table. Andy signed the bill to be charged to their room.

Still pondering on what was going on with him; Sharon put her jacket back on and stepped out of the inn. Sitting in front of the porch was one of the Austrian Sleigh’s, the two large draft horses that pulled it snorting and stomping their feet in the snow, anxious to get moving. This was a two person sleigh, much smaller than the ones that she’d seen taking out the large groups.

“Your chariot awaits, my lady.”

Sharon turned to see a broad grin on Andy’s face. “This is for us? Just us?”

“Just us.” He began leading her down the porch stairs.

“Welcome,” said the man who greeted them at the bottom of the stairs. “I’m Ron and I’ll be your coachman tonight. It’s a beautiful night for a sleigh ride. You just sit back relax and enjoy the ride. There are blankets in the back to stay warm.”

Once seated Sharon cuddled into Andy and he pulled up the thick faux fur lined blanket and tucked it in around them. The horses took off with a jingle of their harness bells and they began to glide over the snow.

“I can’t believe you did this,” she said. “Is that what all the checking of your watch and that blonde lady were all about?”

“Yes. I told them I wanted a romantic moonlit sleigh ride with my lady and they worked it all out for me.”

“Andy Flynn you really do have a romantic Italian soul.”

“So, you’re not still jealous the kids did this without us yesterday.”

She gave a soft laugh remembering how she‘d pouted a little bit when she thought they‘d been left out. “No. This is much, much better.” She lifted her face to press a kiss to his jaw, murmuring softly against his cold skin, “Though the night was made for loving, And the day returns too soon, Yet we'll go no more a-roving,By the light of the moon.”

“Did you just make that up?”

She chuckled. “I wish I were that talented. No, it‘s Lord Byron.”

“The poet?”

“Yes.”

“It fits. Though I was thinking more alone the lines of, over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house we go. “

Sharon laughed. “Well, that fits too.”

***

It was a beautiful clear cold night. The stars were bright in the dark sky, the nearly full moon creating blue swaths over the pristine snow covered hills. With jingling bells they made their way along the frozen river and over the open fields into the moon shadowed forest. Once in the forest the flat terrain steadily climbed up a hill and by the time they came out of the woods into a clearing they were at the very top where a large white gazebo sat alight with hundreds of tiny flickering Christmas lights. An oasis of glittering beauty. The sleigh came to a stop and Ron hopped down to help them out so they could warm up inside the closed in structure and take in the view.

Andy led Sharon inside the gazebo where it was warm and toasty thanks to a woodstove burning in the corner. In the middle of the room sat a small round table covered with a red linen tablecloth. Tall white pillar candles flickered on that table, shining in the crystal champagne flutes and on the silver bucket that held what looked like iced bottles of champagne. If she’d thought the sleigh ride was romantic, well, that appeared to be just the tip of the iceberg.

After warming her hands for a moment over the stove Sharon made her way to front of the gazebo. “Oh Andy,” she breathed. “Come look at this view.”

The gazebo was perched at the very top of the hill and far below them in the valley was the inn, the pond and the lights of the village.

“It’s so beautiful. Like a winter wonderland.”

Andy stepped up beside her. “You’re beautiful, Sharon. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met. I‘ve always thought that, even when I believed you were the wicked witch of FID. But it was only when I got to know you that I found you are even more beautiful on the inside than you are on the outside. I thought having you take over Major Crimes was one of the worst things that could happen to me, but it turns out it was the best. You’re the best thing that has ever happened to me and I love you with all my heart.”

“Oh, Andy.” Sharon turned to him leaning forward as if to kiss him, but he pulled back.

“Wait. I have to do this before I lose my nerve.”

Sharon’s look of adoration turned to one of confusion…Until Andy fell to one knee and she gave a sharp intake of breath. Oh my God. Andy was proposing!

“There are three things I want to say and I don‘t want to forget anything,” he said, pulling out his little police notebook.

Sharon smiled through the tears that had filled her eyes the moment she realized what he was doing.

Andy glanced at his notebook then stuffed it back in his pocket so he could look her directly in the eye when he spoke.

“Okay. One. You know how happy I was when you agreed to live with me. And I am happy. And I know we don’t need a piece of paper to tell us how much we love each other or how committed we are to each other. But I want that piece of paper Sharon. I want to stand in front of a priest and all our family and friends and take those vows, make those promises. I want you to be my wife, not my girlfriend. And I want to be your husband.

Two. For so many years now I’ve felt empty and alone. You’ve made me realize what I’ve been missing all these years. It’s like that dirt bag life coach said. I had a hole in my heart and nothing could fill it. Until you. Now when I look in my heart all I see is you. You make me want to be a better person, a better cop, a better father, a better lover and I hope one day soon a better husband.

And three. Life is short Sharon. I came so close to losing you this year and you thought you were going to lose me. I know we’ve got to figure things out, talk to Father Mark about our options but the one thing I don’t need to figure out is how I feel about you. I want to spend the rest of my life loving you and doing my best to make you happy.”  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small velvet box. By now the tears that had been burning in Sharon’s eyes began trailing down her cheeks. “Sharon Elizabeth O’Dwyer Raydor, will you marry me?”

Sharon could hardly speak through the tears clogging her throat.  “Yes,” she choked. “Oh my God, yes!”

Andy rose and she threw herself in his arms. All her life she’d put her dreams away for someone else. First giving up law school for Jack, and then going into FID for her kids. She now had a job she loved, two of her kids were grown and out of the house. Rusty was doing well and he’d be gone in a few years. It was about time she take a chance at something she wanted. And oh, how she wanted a life with Andy.  Sweet, passionate, dependable, romantic, sexy, fun Andy who loved her as no man ever had. Her world really was a better and brighter place with him in it.

“Well.” When he pulled back from her embrace Sharon saw that she was not the only one moved. Tears shone in Andy’s dark eyes, one sliding down his cheek. Slightly embarrassed he quickly brushed it away. “Do you want to have a look at the ring?”

“Oh, yes of course,” she laughed. She took the box and opened it gasping at the glittering princess cut diamond inside. “Oh Andy,” she sighed. “It’s absolutely exquisite.”

“It was my Grandmother Flynn’s ring. But they were kind of poor and I wanted to give you the diamond you deserve, so I brought it to custom jeweler. He kept the vintage band and made smaller diamonds out of the original diamond, which is what you see on the sides here and then I chose this bigger Princess cut because you said it was your favorite style for engagement rings.”

“It is, but when did I say that?”

“One day when we were window shopping last summer. I specifically brought you by a jewelry store so I could get some ideas about what you liked and didn’t like. Then I brought Gavin with me shopping because he knows your style pretty well.”

“Andy. You were thinking about marrying me last summer? We hadn’t even slept together yet.”

“Sharon, sleeping with you has never been a deal breaker. Even if you were a dud in bed I’d still want to marry you. “

She gave a surprised laugh. “Gee, thanks Andy.”

“You’re welcome,” he flashed her that sexy little half grin. “Of course, thankfully you aren’t a dud. In fact, you’re pretty damn amazing in bed. Truth is I think I’ve wanted to marry you since our first dance at Nicole’s wedding.”

“Andy…” she was skeptical.

“Okay, maybe I wasn’t thinking marriage then, but I wasn’t lying when I said I started falling in love with you that night. It was that night that you stopped being Captain Raydor and became my Sharon.”

“Your Sharon?”

“That’s how I thought of you. I know you weren’t even divorced yet and we weren‘t even dating. But after that night you were my Sharon, even if it was only in my mind.”

“Oh Andy, you really are the sweetest man.” She reached a hand up to cup his cheek, her heart so filled it felt like it would burst. She couldn’t remember a time she’d ever been this happy.

“So, let’s try this sucker on,” Andy grinned.

“Yes, let’s do.” Sharon held her hand out and Andy slipped the ring down her slender finger. It fit perfectly. He‘d been pretty sure it would. He knew her ring size because the weekend they‘d gone away to the beach he‘d bought her a claddagh ring to show her how much she meant to him and so she would always be reminded of their first time.

“It is absolutely breathtaking,” she said, moving her hand to catch the light from the candles in the diamond. “I love the vintage band and I love that it was your grandmother’s. And the diamond is absolutely perfect.”

“It reminds me of you, both old fashioned and modern.”

She smiled at the comparison. “And it‘s a custom piece, nobody else in the world has a ring like this.”

“One of a kind, just like you.”

“Uh, excuse me,” they both turned to see the coachman. “I hate to rush you, but we’re going to have to head back soon.”

“How much time?”

“I can give you about 10 more minutes.”

“Perfect.”

“By the way, how did it go?”

Andy took Sharon’s hand and lifted it, beaming as he wiggled her ring finger. “She said yes.”

“Ahh…congratulations. Beautiful place for a proposal, isn’t it?”

“The most beautiful,” Sharon agreed giving Andy a tender smile.

“If you’d like, I could take some pictures of you.”

“That would be great.” Sharon handed him her phone and showed him how to take pictures with it while Andy popped the cork from the bottle of champagne and poured Sharon a glass before pouring a glass of sparking cider for him.

“To my beautiful fiancée. I will be counting the days until you are my wife,” he said.

“And to my very, very handsome fiancé who planned the most romantic proposal ever. I love you Andy.”  They touched glasses and kissed while Ron snapped pictures.

****

Back on the sleigh Sharon immediately curled back up against Andy, holding her hand out to continue admiring her engagement ring in the moonlight. “The kids are going to be so surprised.”

“Well,” Andy hedged. “Maybe not so surprised.”

“What do you mean? Did you tell them you were proposing tonight?” She couldn’t keep the disappointment in her tone out of the question.

“No, not tonight, just sometime in the future.”

“And how did that come up?”

“I wanted to get their take on things before I asked you to marry me. I mean I know I didn’t need their permission or anything, but I was hoping to get their blessing. I know how important your kids are to you, Sharon, and I knew it was something you’d want too.”

“You really do know me, don’t you?”

“Guess it helps that we were friends well before we were lovers.”

“You weren’t saying that before we were lovers,” she reminded him wryly.

“Yeah, well, you can’t blame a guy for a little impatience. Not when he’s dating a smart, sassy, sexy woman who wants to take things slow.”

“You survived,” she grinned.

“And you were worth the wait.”

“So, did you get their blessing?”

“I did. Emily was easy. She’s ready to start planning the wedding. Rusty, well he sort of expected this since I’ve been living with you. He’s used to us together. Ricky was the toughest.”

“Oh no. Was he an ass to you? Sometimes I want to throttle that boy. You know when Jack left there were so many people telling him “you have to be the man of the house now”. But I hated that. He was just a little boy and I never wanted him to feel like that. I was the adult, I was the parent. But there are times, especially now that he’s older, that he gets a little too full of himself and starts acting like he’s my parent not my son.”

“Whoa, Sharon, relax. He was fine, really. I get along great Ricky. I always have. He likes me. He thinks I’m good for you. He sees how happy you are. He’s just protective of you. They all are. They don’t want to see you hurt. They remember what it was like when Jack hurt you and how hard it was on you. They don’t want to see it happen again, none of them. Ricky was just the one that made it clear that hurting you might cause me to end up at the bottom of the Pacific.”

Sharon shook her head rolling her eyes. “He said that? And I always thought he was a smart boy. You don’t threaten the police.”

“It’s okay. I understand where he’s coming from. If anyone ever hurt you, I’d put them at the bottom of the Pacific myself.”

Sharon shivered. She wasn’t so sure Andy was exaggerating on that point.

“You’ve got great kids Sharon. They love you very much. All three of them said that after putting them first for so many years you deserve to be happy and if I make you happy, I have their blessing.”

“You make me happy,” she assured him.

“Good, then that’s settled. And you can surprise them with our news.”

“I think I want to wait.”

Andy’s face fell and Sharon quickly took his hand. “Don’t panic. Not for long. I’m done with moving slow. I was just thinking, maybe we should wait until Christmas Eve dinner at my parents. We can surprise everyone with the news and it’s only a couple days away.”

“I think I can wait that long.”

“Of course that means I’m going to have to take my ring off.” She sounded so sad it brought a smile to Andy’s face.

“I’m glad you like it so much, sweetheart.”

“I love it.” And now that she had Andy’s ring on her finger the last thing she wanted to do was take it off. “But I suppose I can wait a couple more days to put it on.”

“And then it never comes off?”

“Never, never, never.”

TBC

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