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the last hours by cassandra clare : a complete compilation of snippets released as of 19 feb 19

reminder that snippets are tentative and can be misleading, it’s all up to interpretation. i have ordered the snippets, some are all from chain of gold as far as i guessed / can tell from cassie’s tags and have some sort of sequence, others are most likely from chain of gold too. some are from cassie’s pinterest so they might just be ideas. i will update this post at least once a month, also depending on whether new snippets have been released.

WILL, JEM, TESSA & JAMES ( CHAIN OF GOLD )

Will had been sitting on the floor, the rug bunched up under his feet, with his back against Tessa’s legs. He looked up when Jem came in, and Jem, in his Silent Brother robes, went over to Will and sat down beside him. He drew Will’s head against his shoulder, and Will held the front of Jem’s robes in his fists and he cried. It was the first time it had ever occurred to James that his father might cry about anything.

SHADOWHUNTERS FOUR

They were inseperable.

MATTHEW

"What's that little smile of yours?" Matthew inquired. "You look as if you're about to laugh."

UNKNOWN BOY & MATTHEW

He yanked him downward, and in a moment they were rolling on the carpet like puppies, Matthew laughing uncontrollably...

SEMI-UNIDENTIFIED SNIPPET ( CHAIN OF GOLD )

He took a deep breath, and crossed the floor of blades and constellations to the other boy’s side. He stood at the foot of the stairs, looking down.

“But of course,” he said, very softly, “your sentiments are reciprocated.”

He stooped over him, tilting his chin up. Their lips met. The other boy made a soft sound, almost like surrender, stretching under his body. He slid an arm around his neck and pulled him down onto the stairs.

TESSA & WILL

"Will." Tessa sank down beside him on the bed. "There is no war."

MATTHEW

"A lapidary phrase is one that is worth carving into stone," said Matthew, "and preserving forever — a wise saying such as we are dust and shadows, or alternately, any words that come out of my mouth."

JAMES

"That's because you’re drunk," said James. They were both sprawled at the same round table in an upper room of the Devil Tavern on Fleet Street.

MATTHEW

"I think too much and I drink too much," said Matthew, "that's my problem."

MATTHEW talking to JAMES

"Please recall that I am the pale neurasthenic one and you are the dark brooding one. It is tedious when you mix up our roles."

MATTHEW & JAMES

Matthew held out his hands. “Pax,” he said, wheedlingly. “Let it be peace between us. You can pour the rest of the port* on my head.”

James’ mouth curved up into a smile. It was impossible to stay angry with Matthew. It was almost impossible to get angry at Matthew.

* as it turns out, a definition of ‘port’ is a strong, sweet dark red (occasionally brown or white) fortified wine, originally from Portugal, typically drunk as a dessert wine. that’s how I made the connection between these snippets and arranged them so. it’s not confirmed.

WILL & LUCIE ( CHAIN OF GOLD )

“What if Cordelia has changed her mind, and says she will not have a minx like you?”

“She would never!” Lucie was outraged.

“No,” Will agreed. “She would not. As far as I am concerned, you shall perform the ceremony as soon as you please. All I want is for you and Cordelia to live a long and happy life, and never be parted.”

CECILY ( CHAIN OF GOLD )

"I am pleased - it is high time I think more girls became parabatai with each other," said Cecily.

WILL & CORDELIA ( CHAIN OF GOLD )

“Cordelia Carstairs,” Will said, after greeting her mother. “How pretty you’ve become.”

Cordelia beamed. If Will thought she was pretty, perhaps his son thought so, too. Of course Will was entirely prejudiced toward all things Carstairs. He even thought Alastair was perfect (and, possibly, also pretty.)

LUCIE

The Beautiful Cordelia was a novel that Lucie had begun when she was twelve.

“THE BEAUTIFUL CORDELIA” LUCIE & CORDELIA ( CHAIN OF GOLD )

Cordelia glanced over her shoulder. “Is it — I mean, I wish to chat alone with you, too, but are we being dreadfully rude asking your brother to walk behind us?”

“Not a bit,” Lucie assured her. “Look at him. He’s quite distracted, reading.”

And he was. James had a book out and was calmly reading while he walked. Though he seemed entirely caught up in whatever he was perusing, he nevertheless skirted oncoming passers-by, the occasional rock or fallen branch, and once even a small boy holding a hoop, with admirable grace. Cordelia suspected that if she had tried such a stunt, she would have crashed into a tree.

“You’re so lucky,” Cordelia said, wistfully, still looking over her shoulder at James.

“Goodness me, why?” Lucie looked at her with wide eyes. Where James’ eyes were amber, Lucie’s were a pretty pale blue, a shade lighter than her father’s. The famous dark blue Herondale eyes had gone to Will’s sister’s children.

Cordelia’s head snapped back around. “Oh, because —“ Because you get to spend time with James every day? She doubted Lucie thought that was any special gift; one didn’t, when it was one’s family. “He’s such a good older brother. If I’d asked Alastair to walk ten paces behind me in a park he would have made sure to stick by my side the entire time just to be annoying.”

“Pfft!” Lucie exhaled. “Of course I adore Jamie but he’s been dreadful lately, ever since he fell in love.”

She might as well have dropped an incendiary device on Cordelia’s head. Everything seemed to fly apart around her. “He’s what?”

“Fallen in love,” Lucie repeated, with the look of someone enjoying imparting a bit of gossip. “Oh, he won’t say with who, of course, because it’s Jamie and he never tells us anything. But Father’s diagnosed him and he says it’s definitely love.”

“You make it sound like consumption.” Cordelia’s head was whirling with dismay. James in love? With who? The look he had given her when she stepped down from the carriage, perhaps she had imagined that?

“Well, it is a bit, isn’t it? He gets all pale and moody and stares off out of windows like Keats.”

“Did Keats stare out of windows? I don’t recall hearing that.”

Lucie plowed on, undeterred by the question of whether England’s foremost romantic poet did or did not stare out of windows. “He won’t say anything to anyone but Matthew, and Matthew is a tomb where James is concerned. I heard a bit of their conversation once by accident, though —“

“Accident?” Cordelia raised an eyebrow.

“I may have been hiding beneath a table,” said Lucie, with dignity. “But it was only because I had lost an earring and was looking for it.”

Cordelia suppressed a smile. “Go on.”

“He is definitely in love, and Matthew definitely thinks he is being foolish. He does not like her.“

CORDELIA, LUCIE & MATTHEW ( CHAIN OF GOLD )

Cordelia clutched Lucie’s hand as they jolted through the streets in the Carstairs’ carriage, surrounded by the blurred traffic of omnibuses, motorcars, and pedestrians. Advertisements whirled past. THE HORSESHOE HOTEL. THREE GUINEA STOUT. NEW PALACE STEAMERS. Signs advertising tailors and fishmongers, hair tonic and cheap printing.

Matthew, sitting across from them on the upholstered carriage seat, was muttering and swearing to himself, his hair sticking out madly.

“Hidebound,” he muttered. “Weasels.”

“What?” said Lucie.

“I think he said hidebound weasels,” said Cordelia. “But who do you mean, Matthew? Are you angry at us?”

Matthew flung himself sideways so his long legs were pulled up on the bench seat in front of him, and his profile was presented to Lucie and Cordelia. It was a fine profile: he was much more delicate-featured than his brother, who had a broad, strong face. Matthew had a face that looked as if it had been meant to be painted on china.

“Of course not,” he said. “It’s just appalling how they all treat James.” He glanced at Cordelia, and then at Lucie. “She knows, doesn’t she?”

JAMES, TESSA & WILL ( CHAIN OF GOLD )

James could see his mother moving like an anxious pale star among the guests in her lilac dress, greeting each of them warmly, welcoming them to her home. She had not glamoured herself to look her husband’s age for the evening, and she appeared enormously young, though her hair was done up like a gracious older woman’s, not a girl’s. When Will materialized out of the crowd and came to put his arm around Tessa, smiling down at her, the gray at his temples flashed like silver. James looked away; he loved his parents for being extraordinary, but sometimes he also hated them for the same thing.

JAMES & CORDELIA ( CHAIN OF GOLD )

James and Matthew separated, Matthew to dance with Lucie, and James to speak to his parents. Cordelia saw them glance over toward her and looked away quickly; still, she was not at all surprised when James appeared a moment later in front of her, flashing a smile at his aunt and uncle.

“Miss Carstairs,” he said, with a slight bow in Cordelia’s direction. “Would you favor me with this dance?”

“It’s a waltz,” said Cordelia’s mother, before Cordelia could speak. “My daughter does not know how to waltz.”

Cordelia bit her lip. She certainly knew how to dance: her mother had engaged an expert instructor to teach her the quadrille and the lancer, the stately minuet and the cotilion. But the waltz was a seductive dance, one where you could feel your partner’s body against yours, scandalous when it had first become popular.

She very much wanted to waltz with James.

JAMES & CORDELIA ( CHAIN OF GOLD )

"Who's the boy tripping over his own feet?" Cordelia asked as the boy in question, a slender, ink-stained young man with spectacles and tousled brown curls, nearly careened into Lucie and Matthew.

"That's Christopher Lightwood. My cousin. Alas, Christopher is far more at home with beakers and test tubes than he is with female company. Let's just hope he doesn’t pitch poor Rosamund Townsend into the refreshment table."

"Is he in love with her?"

"Lord, no, barely knows her," said James. "Charles and Ariadne* are engaged, and Barbara Lightwood has an understanding with George** Hayward. Beyond that, I'm not sure I can think of any romances brewing in our set. Though having you and Alastair here might bring us some excitement, Daisy."

Her heart leaped. "I didn't realize you remembered that old nickname."

"What, Daisy?” He was holding her close as they danced: she could feel the heat of him all up and down her front, making her prickle all over. "Of course I remember it. I gave it to you. I hope you don't intend me to stop using it."

"Of course not. I like it." She forced herself not to move her gaze from his. Goodness, his eyes were startling up close. They were the color of golden syrup, almost shocking against the black of his pupils. She had heard the whispers, knew people found his eyes odd and alien, a sign of his difference. She thought they were lovely: the color of fire and gold, the way she imagined the heart of the sun. "Though I don't think it suits me. Daisy sounds like a pretty little girl in hair ribbons."

"Well," he said. "You are at least -"

He broke off. She heard the click as he swallowed: he was looking past her, at someone who had just come into the room. Cordelia followed his glance, and saw a tall woman, thin as a scarecrow and dressed in the black of mourning, with gray-streaked auburn hair done in the style of decades ago piled on her head. Tessa was hurrying toward her, a concerned look on her face. Will was following, and goodness, what did they both look so worried about?

As Tessa reached her, the woman stepped aside, revealing the girl who had been standing behind her. A girl, dressed all in ivory, with a soft waterfall of white-gold curls gathered back from her face. The girl moved forward gracefully to greet Tessa and Will, and as she did so, James dropped Cordelia's hands.

They were no longer dancing. Cordelia stood, frozen in confusion, as James turned away from her without a word and strode across the room toward the girl.

* in the original snippet, her name was Daphne, it’s been changed to Ariadne, confirmed.

** see next snippet

BARBARA & THOMAS ( CHAIN OF GOLD )

Barbara patted Thomas, as if his brawny arm was a small boy’s head. “I was merely anxious about you, Tommy. Surely you are not vexed.”

Thomas’s brows were drawn sharply together, making his amiable countenance dark for the briefest interval. Then he sighed, drew his sister toward him in the circle of his arm, and stooped to press a kiss upon her brow.

“No, Babs,” he said. “Of course I am not vexed. Can you spare your brother a dance, though I know Oliver** will be loath to part with you? I will take care not to be clumsy.”

** unsure if George’s name has been changed to Oliver or if they are even the same person.

THOMAS, CHRISTOPHER & GRACE ( CHAIN OF GOLD )

“Christopher,” said Thomas. “Would you take James away immediately and show him an interesting scientific experiment?”

Christopher frowned. “Which one?”

“Any one at all!” said Thomas. “I will escort the ladies home.”

Christopher’s brow cleared. “Ah, I understand perfectly. This is what Matthew said we were to do, about not letting James out of our sight and above all else keeping him away from…”

He trailed off, gazing at Grace with distant alarm.

GRACE

Be careful what you say to me, Grace told him. There is nothing I cannot make you do.

[ popularly assumed to be JAMES talking to GRACE ]

"That was vile, what you made me do, and vile that you made me do it."

THOMAS & LUCIE ( CHAIN OF GOLD )

Apprehension stole across Thomas’s face. “Lucie, you must not challenge Grace to a duel.”

“We shall see where the night takes us,” Lucie declared.

“Oh good,” said Thomas. “I see you intend to Herondale to the fullest.”

JAMES

Make a wish, Jamie

JAMES

"Stop!" James cried. He felt as if he were drowning. He had always been shy...

JAMES & BARBARA

The world had gone monochrome. James saw broken, black walls, a splintered floor, and dust that glittered like dull jewels scattered across the place where Barbara had fallen.

SHADOWHUNTERS FOUR ( CHAIN OF GOLD )

James cried out. Lightning seemed to fork behind his vision, and suddenly he was back in Regent’s Park, kneeling on the grass. There was a firm grip on his shoulders. “Jamie, Jamie, Jamie,” said an urgent voice, and James — his breath tearing in and out of his chest — tried to focus on what was in front of him.

Matthew.

Everything was blurred in that moment but Matthew’s face, his green eyes wide and dark and steady. Behind him moved other figures; they seemed in that moment like the shapes James had been finding in the clouds — inchoate and untouchable.

“Jamie, breathe,” Matthew said, and his voice was the only steady thing in a world turning upside down. It had been years since this had happened. Years. The horror of it happening in front of a crowd of people —

“Did they see me?” he said in a cracked voice. “Did they see me turn?”

“You didn’t,” Matthew said, “or at least, only a very little bit — perhaps just a bit fuzzy round the edges —“

“It’s not funny,” James said through his teeth, but Matthew’s humor acted like a slap of cold water; he opened his eyes fully, saw Thomas and Christopher looking down at him. They had positioned themselves so as to block him from the crowd at the lake’s edge.

“Get up,” Thomas said. “It’s the best thing you can do, James, we’ll tell them you tripped or fell.” His hazel eyes were anxious but his tone was reassuring. “Honestly all the attention was on Ariadne — “

Matthew’s hands on James’ shoulders turned into a grip on his arms, and James was hauled upright by his three best friends. Christopher produced a handkerchief from somewhere and began to dust his lapels.

“Chris,” said Matthew. He was the only person who ever used that nickname for Christopher besides Anna. “Stop. Who cares if he’s dusty? He was just invisible.”

“But he isn’t any more,” Christopher pointed out.

“We need to get you back to the Institute,” said Matthew to James in a low voice. “If you’re going to start suddenly going all — shadowy — for no reason, then the Silent Brothers —“

“Not the Silent Brothers,” said Thomas. “Just Zachariah.”

JAMES & MATTHEW

The whole way to the Fairchilds’ James had felt as if he were choking, and now he could breathe, the pressure on his chest easing. He couldn’t find words now, couldn’t do anything but clutch on to the front of Matthew’s shirt and put his head down on his shoulder.

JAMES & CORDELIA ( CHAIN OF GOLD )

Cordelia was alone in the hallway. Squaring her shoulders, she pushed open the door to James’ room.

She had never been in a boy’s bedroom before, and it was quite a scandalous action to enter now, but the significance of it seemed small, swallowed up by her worry. James was half under the covers of the bed, moving restlessly from side to side, his face flushed with fever. His nightclothes clung to him, wet with sweat. It was a bright day outside and sunlight speared through the room, illuminating the bowls of burning herbs that Enoch had left behind.

James rolled toward her. His eyes, the color of sunlight, blinked open slowly. “Matthew?” he said. “Matthew, is that you?”

CORDELIA

A betraying hope swelled in her heart and for a moment she allowed herself to imagine being engaged to James, being welcomed into Lucie's family.

JAMES

The moonlight softened the harsh gold of James' eyes to a dark umber. How changed would his life have been if his eyes had not been a sign of his difference?

JAMES & CORDELIA

Cordelia blinked, bewildered. "James?"

"I suffered every thorn for you," he said. "I would again."

JAMES & UNKNOWN GIRL

"Hold my hand, James," she said.

WILL & JAMES ( CHAIN OF GOLD )

“Matthew told me what happened at the park,” Will muttered in a voice no one but James could hear. James shot a betrayed look at Matthew, who shrugged and gave him a half-smile. Matthew could be relied on to tattle on James if he thought it was for his own good. “Thank the Angel for Matthew and Thomas and Christopher.” He touched James’ face. “I regret ever having said that your generation was wasting its time with parties and boating and dancing. All I wish for you is to be able to amuse yourself in a pointless fashion during peace and never, ever be in danger.”

ANNA & CORDELIA ( CHAIN OF GOLD )

"To take tea with Anna Lightwood," said Cordelia. "She invited me."

CORDELIA

Cordelia felt her back stiffen. "I accepted the invitation," she said. "I will go."

ANNA & CORDELIA ( CHAIN OF GOLD )

Anna Lightwood lived on Percy Street, a small byway near Tottenham Court Road. It was made up of long rows of houses of red brick that all looked very much the same. Each had sash windows, white-painted doors, brick chimneys, a shallow set of steps and a fence about the servants’ entrance made of black wrought iron.

On the stairs in front of No. 30, a girl sat crying. She was a very fashionable girl, in a walking-dress of blue foulard with lace trimmings and acres of flounces about the skirt. She wore a head-band trimmed with silk roses, and they wobbled as she cried.

Cordelia checked the address she had written down again, hoping it would have changed. No, definitely Number 30. She sighed, squared her shoulders, and approached.

“Pardon me,” she said, as she reached the steps. The girl was blocking them completely; there was no way to politely edge past. “I’m here to see Anna Lightwood?”

The girl’s head jerked up. She was very pretty: blond and rosy-cheeked, though she’d been crying. She gave Cordelia a deeply wary look. “Who are you, then?”

“I, ah…” Cordelia peered more closely at the girl. Definitely a mundane: no marks, no glamour. “I’m her cousin?”

“Oh.” Some of the suspicion went out of the girl’s face. “I — I am here because —“ She went off in a fresh spate of tears.

“Might I enquire as to the problem? Is there something I can do?” Cordelia asked, though she rather dreaded finding out why as it seemed the sort of thing where she might have to come up with a solution.

“Anna,” the girl wept. “I loved her — I love her still! I would have given it all up for her, all of it, polite society and all its rules, just to be with her, but she has thrown me out like a dog on the street!”

“Now, Emmeline,” drawled a voice, and Cordelia looked up to see Anna leaning out of an upstairs window. She was wearing a man’s dressing gown in rich purple and gold brocade, and her hair was a cap of loose, short waves. “You can’t say you’ve been thrown out like a dog when you’ve got your mama, two butlers, and a footman coming for you.” She waved. “Hello, Cordelia.”

“Oh, dear,” said Cordelia, and patted Emmeline gently on the shoulder.

“Besides, Emmeline,” said Anna. “You’re to be married Wednesday. To a baronet.”

“I don’t want him!” Emmeline sprang to her feet. “I want you!”

“No,” said Anna. “You want a baronet.”

LUCIE & ALASTAIR ( CHAIN OF GOLD )

He might be Cordelia’s brother, but she did not like him above half.

Moreover, at the present moment, he presented the appearance of a lunatic. Beneath his unbuttoned coat his waistcoat was disarranged, and one side of his high wingtip collar was dreadfully askew. His improbably light hair was out of its usual careful shape, pomaded strands going wildly in all directions and glittering electric bright under an arc lamp. On Percy Street, the street lights were older and less reliable, their fierce yellow burn stripping them all down to harsh lines.

“You’ve lost your hat, Alastair,” said Lucie.

Alastair said: “I have lost my sister!”

Lucie went cold. “What do you mean? Has something happened to Cordelia?”

UNKNOWN GIRL

Does love mean anything to you, she said. Or is it just something people give you easily, the way you give toys to a child?

ANNA & GRACE

“I respect a heartbreaker,” said Anna. “People are better off without hearts anyway. But you don’t leave people better off. You’re not a heartbreaker, Grace Blackthorn. You’re a life destroyer.”

MATTHEW & ANNA

"Anna can seduce anyone," said Matthew.

ANNA

"Preferably not boys," said Anna, without looking up. "Then I have to pretend to be interested."

JAMES & ANNA

Anna raised her eyebrow at James as he turned away, but James ignored it. Anna had been raising her eyebrows at him all his life.

ANNA & COUSINS ( CHAIN OF GOLD )

Anna’s deep-blue eyes narrowed as she studied him. James was sitting on the edge of his chair, hands clasped together and leaning forward in Anna’s direction. These cousins looked more like brother and sister than James and Lucie, or Anna and Christopher. James’s face was chiseled and serious, while Anna’s features were sharp and roguish, but they shared the same coloring of crow-black hair and snow-white skin. More than that, both had an air of cleverness that seemed thrown up as a defense against sensitivity, sharp minds that shut away hearts too easily broken. Seeing the similarity made Cordelia wonder what had happened to Anna, and fear what might happen to James.

Anna flicked an eyebrow upward, a scratch of ink dashed across a page. “Ah yes, about that. Let me be perfectly clear what you are asking: you want me to seduce a pretty warlock in order to procure you an [item redacted for spoilers!]?”

Anna surveyed the room, and when she was answered with cautious nods she threw her hands into the air.

“You are off your heads, every one of you.”

“Can you not do it?” Thomas asked apprehensively.

Anna toyed with her watch chain so the chain caught the light and glittered. “Oh, I daresay I could.”

There was a collective moan lamenting Thomas’s stupidity in asking such a question. Lucie told Thomas he was a dolt. Thomas begged Anna’s pardon.

“Not at all, Thomas, I know you’re an innocent soul. That said,” Anna drawled, “I take many issues with your request. For a start, it is against my strict policy to seduce anybody twice.”

“Every outlaw must have a code,” James said.

ANNA

"No one ever just wants to have tea," said Anna. "Tea is always an excuse for a clandestine agenda."

ANNA

"Do you think he's in love?" Anna said. "People can be rather awful when they're in love."

MATTHEW

"But is it wise to prove James isn't a lunatic?" said Matthew.

ANNA

"You might leave that to me," said Anna.

LUCIE & GRACE

And there beside her was Grace. Lucie remembered Grace as a determinedly poised twelve-year-old but she was quite different now. Cold and lovely and statuesque.

TATIANA, GRACE, JAMES, LUCIE & CORDELIA ( CHAIN OF GOLD )

From where they were, they had a perfect view of James, standing straight and polite as Tatiana Blackthorn, wearing a faded fuschia dresses stained with dark spots, advanced on him, a witchlight torch in her hand.

“How dare you come here, Will Herondale,” she said, a savage tone to her voice. “What is left for you to destroy? You murdered my husband and my father —“

Lucie made a small whimpering noise. Cordelia clutched at her cold hand, squeezing it for comfort.

“That’s James.” It was Grace, dressed all in a long white nightgown with a white dressing-gown over it. White slippers covered her feet and her blonde hair was loose, falling over her shoulders. “It isn’t Mr. Herondale, Mama. It’s his son.”

LUCIE & JESSE*

He really did have a most arresting face, Lucie thought. She firmly believed it was all right to stare at people when you were a writer. Writers needed to gather material. That was all there was to it.

* not confirmed, but popularly assumed and not without good reason.

LUCIE & UNKNOWN PERSON

"Miss Herondale?" said a soft voice behind her.

[ most likely JESSE & LUCIE ]

But Lucie was staring at the boy who had come in with them. The boy who she had last seen in Brocelind Forest. Lucie was ten when she met the boy in the forest. Lucie looked for him in the forest after that, but she never saw him again. It would be ten years before she saw him again.

[ these snippets are actually separated but they flow well so I put them together. ]

JESSE

Jesse sighed and looked up at the chandelier. "I have two ages," he said. "I am twenty-four. And I am sixteen."

[ popularly assumed to be JESSE & LUCIE ]

"Can no one else see you?"

JAMES & LUCIE

James went white. "Lucie?"

CORDELIA & JAMES

Not tie him to the bed, Cordelia thought. Not cut his beautiful hair. She loved his hair: it was black like his father's, black as night, dark as a place you could tell secrets in.

ALASTAIR, CORDELIA & MRS BRIDGESTOCK

“Disgraceful,” said Mrs Bridgestock. “I know your face. You are that Persian boy. Are you not ashamed to be running around corrupting nice young people? I suppose you are only following your father’s example, but considering what happened to him, you should really know better.”

Cordelia wished to rush to her brother’s defense, but she did not dare move.

Alastair bared his teeth at Mrs Bridgestock. “I should, shouldn’t I?”

LUCIE & MATTHEW

A coat settled on Lucie’s shoulders, bottle green superfine and warm from the heat of Matthew’s body, smelling of expensive cologne. Lucie glanced up to see Matthew’s face above hers, limned by sunlight and the gold of his hair, serious for once as he carefully buttoned the coat closed. His hands were usually swift and bright with rings, flying through the air when he talked or to the curving hilt of his rapier when he fought, but now they were moving with great deliberation over such a small task. She heard him draw in a slow breath.

JAMES

James' heart lurched in his chest. "We were childhood friends."

UNKNOWN GIRL

"You lied to me," she said.

UNKNOWN BOY ( the person in the pin was a guy )

"You carry my life in those careless hands"

ANNA ( SHADOWHUNTERS FOUR, the pin was four boys )

"Delicate boys must be protected," said Anna.

UNKNOWN BOY

The house has all fallen down into ruins, he said.

UNKNOWN BOY AND GIRL ( in the pin, they both had dark/brown hair )

We could get married, she said.

JAMES & CORDELIA

To the last hour.

[ according to Cassandra Clare’s The Last Hours Pinterest board. The picture was a girl with red hair and a guy with black hair. Cordelia and James fit the description best. ]

UNKNOWN BOY AND GIRL

Death is not the end.

UNKNOWN BOY AND GIRL

The shadows of our own desires stand between us and our better angels, and thus their brightness is eclipsed.

SHADOWHUNTERS FOUR

One for all and all for one.

TWO UNKNOWN BOYS

We had grown as gods, as the gods in heaven, souls fair to look upon, goodly to greet, one splendid spirit, your soul and mine.

SHADOWHUNTERS FOUR

All together, or not at all.

TWO UNKNOWN GIRLS

Thank you angels for ensuring she’s a good dancer, loves to dance and takes me out dancing.

[ unsure if the last five are actually snippets, it’s not in the Shadowhunters’ Wikia but it’s on Cassandra Clare’s The Last Hours Pinterest board so I just added them in. ]

#the last hours #tlh #the shadowhunter chronicles #tsc #cassandra clare #chain of gold #chain of iron #chain of thorns

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e1e4n0r5 · 4 years

Text

A drop of tea to spill, just cos I need to put this into words

Seasons greetings, everyone. Even though I know I'm a bit late. For anyone who may be wondering why there was nothing on my blog to do with the holidays, or wondering why I haven't posted any original content in a good, long while, it's because 2019 has been a very shit year for me.

About this time last year (Nov 2018, to be precise) I started getting a lot of heartburn, acid, and indigestion, all coupled with the wonderful feeling in the top of my stomach and back of my throat that I constantly needed to yack. All the time. All day. Every day. With no relief.

So I go to the doctor and he diagnoses me with GORD, the fancy medical term for persistent acid reflux. He prescribes me some pills to help reduce my acid, and they do actually work...for a while.

Cut to Feb 2019 and I go back to the doctor (A totally different doctor sees me because that's just how my doctors surgery works) to discuss my prescription, because those pills I got in Nov are starting to give me side effects. Great. I talk with this 2nd doctor, who was lovely but seems quite perturbed that no investigation has been done into the cause of my reflux. After all, I am an otherwise perfectly healthy 26 (25 at the time) year old woman - why was I getting reflux out of nowhere???

He refers me for a breath test, which come back negative (Oh poop, that would have solved all my problems if it had been positive but hey-ho) Meanwhile I'm still taking these pills which are controlling the extra acid in my stomach but are still rocking my body with side effects. (TMI: nausea; diarrhoea; stomach pain, that is "pain of my stomach organ", like my stomach itself had been punched from the inside)

Please let it be known, up until about mid-May, despite these side effects, I was doing ok. Pretty good, I would say. Yes, there were days when I wasn't great. But overall, not too bad.

Then it gets to June, around my birthday. The side effects are getting worse and I'm starting to feel pretty shitty. No pun intended 😑 My parents go away for a week holiday and when they come back, I had apparently declined so much during those 7 days that they discussed it at length that night after I'd gone to bed. I was visibly worse, visibly sicker than I had been before they'd left, a mere 7 days ago. I was un-blissfully aware that my condition was indeed getting worse, seemingly by the day.

Never the less, I carried on as best I could.

This leads me to one night in June when I almost collapsed during a fitness class because I had felt so sick and in pain in my stomach. This episode actually caused my mother to contemplate calling for an ambulance to take me to hospital because I looked and felt so ill.

I have a phone call with another doctor (doctor #3) the next day, explaining my on-going issues with this first pill, the side effects, and my almost-collapse the night before. He prescribes me a different, gentler pill than the one I was on, in hopes that the side effects would not be as drastic. Well, he was correct. I did not have side effects from pill #2...Because pill #2 did not work against the stomach acid and I was crippled in less than 3 days.

Another phone call with a doctor (I honestly don't remember who I spoke to, everything was a blur at that point) and he tells me to go back to my old pills for the time being, but that he would also prescribe another pill, stronger than #2 but not as strong as #1, so it should control the acid but hopefully have less side effects.

(If anyone is still reading, thank you and I love you)

So I go back to pill #1 and with everything going on with this illness and my job, I just forget to collect pill #3.

About a week goes by, I'm still sick, I still have acid, the side effects have kicked in again now that I was back on pill #1, and I almost collapse for a second time at the same fitness class.

At that point, enough was enough. I had had it with this stupid acid and the stupid pills and the doctors not helping me feel better, so I booked an appointment with a private specialist, but that appointment was still 3 weeks away.

I go to work the next morning (the day after my second episode) and people can tell I'm not myself. My mum happens to call me just as I was putting my bags down at my desk, to check in on me, see how I was feeling that morning after what happened the night before. And I break down.

I have to find a private room because I am so upset, so distressed, and still feeling so ill. I am in tears on the phone with my mother, and we decide together that I had to go home, I was not fit to work, and I had to see a doctor that morning. Not just have a phone call, but actually see and speak to a doctor so that they could actually look at me and see how ill I was for themselves.

I manage to stop crying, get myself together a little, and pull my supervisor out of a meeting to tell her that I needed to go home. When she saw me with tears drying on my cheeks, she knew something was seriously wrong. As a rule, I don't cry when I'm upset. My colleagues had never seen me cry before, or even get slightly upset, so when I started crying again while speaking to this supervisor, the whole team knew how bad I had gotten. I manage to stutter out that I wasn't well and needed to go home and needed to see a doctor, and I headed home.

When I got home, my mother was on the phone was the doctors surgery, telling them that I needed an urgent appointment and that if they couldn't fit me in, we would be going to hospital because I could not wait for a regular appointment and I needed to be seen by a doctor that day.

They give me an appointment for that morning and my mother comes with me, to make sure that the doctor takes me seriously and doesn't just give me some new pill and tell me everything would be fine.

Because I felt like I was dying. I knew there was something wrong inside me, something was wrong with my body, and I felt like it was going to kill me if we didn't catch it. Whatever this was would be listed as Cause of Death on the certificate if I didn't get help. I didn't know what it was or how it would be treated, but I felt like I was dying, and I had felt that way for a while.

We go to the doctors and we're seen by a lovely female doctor who was very kind and sympathetic, and agreed that something had to be done urgently to help me. The first thing she did was sign me off work for 2 weeks, so I could rest and recuperate a little, take away the stress of work so that my body could get out of the fight-or-flight mode it had been in for the past several weeks.

The second thing was to refer me for an urgent procedure which would examine my stomach internally and see if there was anything physically wrong with it. I collected pill #3 from the pharmacy while we were there, which I started the next day.

One week later, I have the test at hospital, and finally we were given an answer. 7 months after that first appointment, 3 medications, half a dozen urgent phone calls, and being signed off work, finally led to an answer.

Hiatal hernia, 3cm.

A hiatal hernia happens when a portion of your stomach slips through the opening in your diaphragm muscle where your oesophagus joins with your stomach and that portion of your stomach ends up lodged in your chest cavity.

Fun.

This isn't a life-threatening condition, it's not even treated as a serious one. It's incredibly common, and research says that approximately 50% of patients with hiatal hernias don't even experience any symptoms.

Lucky bastards. Mine had me convinced I was dying.

Having that answer, that diagnosis did help. I wasn't dying. This was not serious, I would be ok.

Next came the question of what to do with this diagnosis. Several people I know have had their hernias for years and manage perfectly fine with no issues, complaints, or the need for medication.

So I could either learn how to manage it with the right medication, or seek surgery.

I went back to the doctor a few weeks later to discuss these options, and myself and the same lovely doctor who saw me That Day agreed that I would give it a few months and see how I fared on this new pill, pill #3 that I had been taking for about 3 or 4 weeks at that point.

Pill #3 did work better than #2, but alas had the same side effects as pill #1, admittedly to a lesser degree.

I gave pill #3 about 3 months, before I requested a new prescription, as it was now only, say, 90% effective against the acid and was still giving me side effects.

In comes pill #4. The doctor (not the lovely female doctor, a different doctor on the phone) explains that #4 is slightly stronger than #3 so should be more effective against the acid.

Nope.

Pill #4 did not help with my acid at all and came with even more side effects that #3. All cons, no pros.

Back to #3 only about 10 days later.

I go back to pill #3 for a while and just try to manage the side effects as best I can.

But about a month ago (mid-Nov 2019) pill #3 seems to just...stop working?? Out of nowhere?? I woke up one morning with stomach acid, and it wouldn't go away. I didn't think much of it, after all some days were worse than others. I just assumed I was having a bad day. But the next day, I had that acid feeling as well. And the next day. And the next. Before I knew it, it had been an entire week of that bad acid feeling, even though I was still taking pill #3 at the same dose I had been for several months. Nothing had changed, yet the pill wasn't working anymore.

Another phone call, another pill. Pill #5, which is where we are now. I've been on #5 for around 2 weeks, and I still don't feel great.

I have a specialist consultation booked for January, and I will be officially seeking corrective surgery.

Thank you for sticking with me while I try and sort my shit out.

TLDR: had a very shit year so haven't been creative or in the holiday spirit

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daveliuz · 4 years

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kellyzeagman · 4 years

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G’day

So, about once or twice a month we do practice drills for emergency situations. Mostly for fires but also security threats, man overboard, evacuations, etc.. It’s always a pain in the butt to do them because they take up to two hours sometimes and you have to participate even if it’s your time off. It also often affects time off at ports. If I had the day off to go to an island, I can’t get off until the drill is done. ANYWAYS. Practice drills are all fun and games and laughs and everyone complains about them but they are important because truth be told, no one knows what is going on ever, so it’s important to prepare people if there actually was an emergency which just so happens to have taken place on Jan.18th for REAL this time. We are always given a warning when there is going to be drills, or it’s put in our schedule, but this one came as a surprise to everyone at 1:30 in the morning. The emergency code for fire on a ship goes as followed on the announcement- “Bravo... Bravo... Bravo... “ and then is followed by the location of the fire on the ship and then in practice drill situations is always followed by “this is a drill for the crew” so we know it’s all chill and not a big deal. BUT on Jan.18th it was far less chill as it came as a surprise to everyone and was not a drill.

So, after we had all gone to bed and had started falling asleep, we were all abruptly woken up to a REAL bravo. Announcements never come on in crew cabins unless it’s a real emergency, which is 99% of the time a medical emergency. So, while it’s still shocking to hear the PA system come on in your room, it’s always just for medical reasons. When I heard the announcement turn on, I just laid there with my eyes closed waiting for them to say “Alpha.. Alpha.. Alpha..” which is code for medical emergency because it happens quite often. HOWEVER. When the words bravo, bravo, bravo came out of the persons mouth at 1:30am, shit got REAL. I had never sprung out of my bed so fast. Every department has certain duties for a bravo, and ours is to go up to the kids club and wait for further instruction. You have to get to your location in 7 minutes or less. As I was frantically changing into my uniform, my co worker down the hall knocked on doors around her to make sure we were all up. I dashed out of my room and met up with 2 others on the way and were about to boot it up 12 flights of stairs until we saw the chief engineer taking the elevator so we went in with him hahaha. (You aren’t supposed to take the elevator, but I figured if he was taking it we could as well). Crew were all sprinting down the corridors to get more info/to get to their locations. While people were keeping their cool, everyone was definitely panicking. My team of 12 all waited at our spot for further instruction, all confused and experiencing minor panic as we had no idea how bad the fire was. After about 10 mins, the captain came on the system and said there was a small fire in one of the food prep areas but that it had been contained and we could all be dismissed. Absolutely mental. Because, my first thought as soon as I sprung out of bed was that the ship was gonna burst into flames and sink, or we would have to get everyone onto life boats and evacuate the ship. The process of getting 3,000+ guests on life rafts is just hilarious to think about, it would be SUCH a mess. If a real emergency happened, god I just can’t even imagine the chaos. I was expecting it to be a really, really long night, but alas, just a small little fire that was put out easily. As we waited upstairs for our fate, a big part of me was hoping that a good chunk of the ship would get damaged by fire (no injuries of course) and that we would have to shut down for a few weeks to rebuild and we could get put up in hotels in Sydney. However, no such luck. Once the drill was over, I couldn’t stop laughing just because of how much of a gong show it was and how crazy it could have been. It was hard for anyone to fall asleep that night after the adrenaline rush of knowing there’s a fire on a floating vessel. So that was just a crazy, stressful, intense but hilarious situation. My friend has worked 5 contracts and had never experienced a real bravo, so it’s crazy for a lot of people.

Speaking of getting people on life boats, I have quite a funny situation. Some people at home actually already know because I told them when I found out but for others, here’s a nice laugh for you- crew and staff are all assigned to over 25 different life rafts in case we ever needed to evacuate. Out of all the possible ones I could have been assigned to, my friend Laura and I are assigned to the same life raft as the captain, chief safety, chief security, hotel director and staff captain. Aka, this is the last life raft to abandon ship. What is our luck. So, allllll of those important people, a few restaurant staff, a few maintenance guys, other random departments and two youth staff will all be the last to evacuate. Cheers! I’ll just be waiting till absolutely everyone gets off the ship until I’m allowed to leave with the captain. Good stuff. (Obviously I’d try to sneak off earlier). Hopefully we never have to :)

I’ve been quite lucky the past 2 weeks because I have had the shoebox room to myself. Unfortunately, my roommate Lucy had to be signed off in Sydney at the hospital/a hotel during the last 12 day cruise because the doctor feared she had German measles. In the end, there was never a complete diagnosis, but she stayed off the ship for those 12 days and she completely had to move everything out of her suitcases in case she got sent home. After she returned, she ended up getting placed in another room and I was assigned a 55-60ish year old sports staff from Poland. She completely cleaned my room, vacuumed and bleached and cleaned the bathroom, amazing. However, when I woke up in the morning she was gone without a trace. Completely packed up like she was never there. It turns out she requested to move cabins because mine made her too sea sick?? Strange considering everywhere on the ship rocks. Anyways, I know am on day 19 of having my own room and will more than likely get a new roommate when we get back to Sydney and a bunch of new people sign on.

Speaking of the 12 day cruise, what an absolute shi* show. We had our highest kid count so far (1,200) and we were already one down with my roommate being signed off. Then on the second day, we were two down because another guy on our team got confined to his room for 48 hours because he got the flu. I worked multiple 11/12 hour days. We were absolutely exhausted. The sports team was down 2, the cruise entertainment staff were down 2, and then mid cruise the cruise director aka the face of the ship who is responsible for all entertainment on board cut her foot on coral and had to get 20 stitches in her foot and couldn’t walk for a few days. Needless to say, everyone was overworked and had to help out in extra ways over those 12 days. Still managed to get off a few times and enjoy some beach time though. Feeling #blessed that those 12 days are behind us. I’m hoping that is the craziest it will ever get. Australian summer is now officially over as of yesterday (the 26th) school started today (27th) so the kid counts should go down. But there’s still a cruise coming up in 2 weeks with 800 kids so I don’t understand. Apparently aussies don’t care about having their kids out of school. I’m sure it will go down as soon as I leave on March 7th with my luck.

On the topic of leaving, if I was Chinese, I probably would not be able to go home. This Coronavirus is obviously being taken very seriously, even with royal caribbean. As of now, they aren’t flying home practically any Chinese employees. For example, a friend of mine is supposed to fly home on turnaround day (tomorrow as I write this) but is allowed to extend his contract because they aren’t letting people fly into parts of China and royal is letting them extend to keep safe. Same with the other way around, the process of getting them on board is difficult and has changed. Originally, they weren’t going to be sending any Chinese citizens onto ships, but now some are allowed depending on where they are from/when they start. There are 3 girls leaving my team on feb.5th, meaning 3 new ones are coming. One of them is Chinese, and we didn’t think she would be able to come. However, it turns out she is now coming, BUT has to be confined to a room for TWO WEEKS. All Chinese staff coming on board must be confined to a shoe box room for 2 weeks to make sure they are fine, how CRAZY. No window, sunlight or fresh air for 2 weeks. It seems a bit stupid to me that they just wouldn’t decide to send them at later times rather than make them do this. ANYWAYS, we will see how it goes. This is her first contract, so she has no idea what to expect and will start off her journey by being confined for 2 weeks.

On a side note, Spectrum of the Seas sails out of Hong Kong and the crew received some amazing news. Even though the circumstance is obviously horrible (the virus), they are cancelling all cruises for at least the next 2 weeks and all the crew will sail to japan with no guests and stay there for 2 weeks, no guests. I believe they will be able to get off and tour around as long as the coronavirus doesn’t make its way there. Those employees are living the absolute dreammmmm.

This virus will have a big impact on ships because many, many employees are Chinese. However, the Chinese employees do not even come close to the amount of Filipinos and Indonesians. There’s probably about 60 Filipinos for every non-Filipino. Filipino, Indonesian, Indian and Chinese are for sure the top 4 most popular nationalities on board. There’s also a lot of Ukrainians on this ship. There’s maybeeee 10 Canadians? Not a lot, but more than Americans I think. I think there’s only about 5 that I know of. Lots of English and Romanian people as well. I’ve said it before, but my team is made up of 2 Canadians, 1 Russian, 1 Ukrainian, 1 from Chile, 5 English, 2 Brazilian and my boss is Filipino.

We went to Lifou, Loyalty Islands a few days ago and I experienced perhaps the craziest story I will ever have experienced/ be able to tell in my entire life. After missing out on some cool tourist locations due to lack of money, my friend Vera from Russia and I decided to test our luck at the beach. We walked far down a path to bring us to an area where there were no crew or guests. Just a tiny, tiny little beach that had about 15 locals swimming at it. My friend Vera has never snorkelled before and last time I was at this exact spot I found a really nice area that had a bunch of nemo fish about 80m out from the shore. All of the locals were chilling about waist deep just cooling off, whereas I was going out decently far to go find this coral/the fish. I told Vera that I would wave her down once I found it and she said she would come swim out to me. So, after making it out there and somehow miraculously finding the exact location I had stumbled upon before, I turned around to start waving to Vera to make her way out only to find out that I am now quite literally the only person in the water and all of the locals are now standing on the sand. Not only are they now all standing out of the water, they are frantically WAVING me down yelling at me to swim back to shore and giving me the SHARK FIN symbol and yelling “SHARKKK SHARKKKK” So at this point, I am the only person in the water, with 80m to swim to safety and swimming with a shark. I pretty much blacked out and tried not to think about what was happening and just swam with my eyes facing towards the shore. I didn’t dare look under water with my goggles because if I saw a shark I would have absolutely lost my shit. Sharks have never scared me and I saw them at mystery island and wasn’t bothered, but the fact that I was alone and decently far out and was not expecting it, I definitely panicked. The whole time I was swimming back I was just WAITING to feel a chomp. My friend Vera waiting for me on shore was definitely freaking out as I swam back. Once I got out, I laid on the beach for a good 5 mins like a beached whale trying to process what had happened and for my heart to stop beating so fast. Anyways, I’m alive and it made for a great story. On the way back to the ship while waiting for the tender boats to pick us up, we saw 4 sea turtles by the docks too, perfect way to end the weird day.

Australia Day fell on our last cruise, which is just like Canada day but for Australia. It was also India’s national day the following day, so we had a huge party at our crew bar area to celebrate with the hundreds of Indians that work on board. I didn’t see much of the Australian festivities, but it is definitely unique to see people so patriotic for countries (India and Australia) that you aren’t a part of.

The next two cruises are going to be quite interesting. They are 3 day and 2 day “tasters”. We did one after the crossing. The boat literally just goes out to sea and back, how silly. The kid count drops to 500 which is nice going from 1200 and 800, but it’s still TOO high. At least these will go by fast and we will get to go to Sydney 3 times over 6 days. Then, we have a 2 week cruise which we are all praying has a small amount of kids. Australians went back to school a few days ago after their summer break, so one would assume the counts would drop a bit. After that 2 week cruise is done I’ll only have 17 DAYS left. Absolutely insane. I’m finding it rude that this year decided to be a leap year and February has 29 days instead of 28 like usual, as I’d get to have one less day on my countdown to coming home. Still having a good time, but the countdown is most definitely on. “Sign off” mode is setting in.

Well, I must go now as I have to go participate in “waves”. This is a farewell event for guests which consists of a special guest show, and then a royal caribbean song performed by the singers and dancers about thanking the guests for cruising and that we will see them again soon. It’s quite literally the corniest thing you will ever see, then people from each department (me) walk along the stage and wave goodbye to everyone.

Final thought- I’ve seen so many birds flying around over the last 2 sea days which makes no sense to me- how do they survive on the open ocean without any land near them? Where do they sleep? The closest land was hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of miles away.

That’s all from me :)

Email me about you and your [email protected]

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ladyfae · 7 years

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It's been one of those days...

Well Dr called they want mom in for pre op eval next week which means we can't foster Marley any longer. After throwing my back out and being stuck in bed most of the day I tell his people this and then find out they have no way to come get him and now the owner's gf is saying he will probably have to be PTS because he has no where to go. He is only a year old. This dog IS a good dog and if I had more time I could fix a lot of his problems!!He has been moved around SO much that if he is out of a human's sight he barks and howls constantly! Also he and Jake do not get along mind you Jake is 13 deaf and going blind. Also Marley is VERY high energy.When he was left at a friend's house before SOMETHING happened.He is aggressive towards men and children but he loves women to death.The only exception to this rule is his owner who is a guy. I would have to control six dogs plus care for my mother post op.His owner loves him but he hardly listens to anyone. He survived parvo at 7 to 8 months too. This is fucking breaking my heart.These people are making me out to be the bad guy in this.i warned them I didn't know how jake would get along w him(Jake is very choosey who he is nice toward and I know we got so lucky he tolerated Duncan) Marley belongs to my bff's daughter's boyfriend's brother.His fiancé is a full time student and frankly a damn fool.I have him on the waitlist for two shelters...but w his issues w men and kids he likely won't get a new home.. So long as he is with a human he is A ok Marley has the potential to be the biggest love bug in the world and well behaved too.But having already been fighting a toothache and now mom heading for surgery...and my back going out... I am only one woman I can't do this all alone and Marley is too much for my 67 year old mother to handle.Hell on our walk today he nearly pulled me off my feet and down into a huge ass ditch twice!and that is in good weather! I wanna help Marley get the home he deserves.But I know caring for him is over my head and the people who I have talked to about rehoming or finding another foster have done nothing but criticize me for even trying.("why did you take him to begin with if you knew "etc etc) Point is I DID NOT know they were gonna be this fast about it!!The way the doctors were fucking around I thought this would be sometime in feb maybe. Also add to the fact I need all four of my wisdom teeth pulled valar help me (why I have the bottom jaw pain) So knowing all of this why do I feel like the worst person ever?Why do I feel like I'm the one who killed Cas and not April? Why do I feel like I am the one who set Gadreel on the path that ended the way it did? I feel like I am purposely loading a gun and shooting this dog for admitting I can only do so much. His people fucking failed him.I have too and I'll hate myself for it for the rest of my life.Why we got him on such short notice the neighbors where he was claimed he was barking and howling at all hours.His people were home so that's a lie. The landlord sided w the neighbors.Ive been in this kind of a situation before only I didn't have anyone to help me. When the landlord demanded they get rid of Marley no one else would foster him.We were his last hope. I hate that his people have made him so afraid that he's going to be abandoned he is like this.I wish to god he and Jake would get along.I wish I could make myself into more than one person so I could be with my pack and Marley and take care of mom. I wish my useless fucking body would quit breaking down on me at the worst time.When I need to be someone's hero I'm a failure It's the worst feeling in the world and there's a damn good chance Marley will have to pay for my failure with his life if no one else can help. Right now if I had one power...one it would be to rip my heart out ala Cora so everything stops hurting. If you wanna see the texts between IM me I won't post things publically.This is actually the first time I'm wishing we had kept that gilded prison cell that was my grandmother's house.

#heartbroken #dogs #pack #useless #weakness #nostrengthleft

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itsfinancethings · 4 years

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Pete Buttigieg, the 38-year-old mayor who rose from obscurity to become the first gay candidate in history to win a presidential primary, suspended his campaign Sunday night, saying he saw no path to win the Democratic nomination.

Buttigieg fell short in his quest for the nomination, but no Democrat this cycle did more to boost his political career. The former mayor of South Bend, Ind., entered the race with no name recognition, natural constituency or personal wealth. He leaves it as one of the party’s brightest young stars. A polished speaker and disciplined performer with a knack for persuasion, Buttigieg built a strong national organization, proved an able fundraiser and rode a message of unity to a surprise victory in the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses before faltering in his attempts to build a diverse coalition in later states.

The Iowa triumph was a stunning milestone for gay Americans, who won the right to marry nationwide less than five years ago. The last Democratic president did not support same-sex marriage rights until the end of his first term, in 2012. The fact that an unknown mayor and his husband would be considered a potential First Family crystallized how just how far and how fast the nation has evolved on marriage equality. Buttigieg’s sexuality was never the cornerstone of his presidential bid—he neither emphasized nor shied away from the subject on the campaign trail—but that was by design. His success as a gay politician was most remarkable for how unremarkable it felt.

Elliot Ross for TIMESupporters wait in the rain April 14 for Buttigieg’s presidential campaign announcement in South Bend.

His campaign was always a long-shot, but for a few fleeting weeks it seemed like a long-shot that just might work. Iowa was Peteland, full of the white Midwestern moderates—and some waffling Trump voters, who he called ”future former Republicans”—who made up the base of Buttigieg’s support. If he won Iowa, the thinking went, it might propel him into position as the moderate frontrunner in later states.

The chaotic reporting of the caucus results thwarted that plan. Even though Buttigieg was ultimately certified the winner of the most delegates in Iowa, he was denied the narrative he needed to catapult into New Hampshire. And Amy Klobuchar’s surprisingly strong performance in New Hampshire ate away at his support in that state, which meant Buttigieg went into the later, more diverse contests without the momentum he needed to overcome his anemic support from voters of color.

“It has always been the case that Pete needed to achieve escape velocity in Iowa and New Hampshire, and do so well into those states that he would propel himself into the mix in Nevada and potentially South Carolina. He almost did it,” says veteran Democratic strategist David Axelrod. “But that’s the nature of these things. Circumstances conspired against him, and he didn’t get the bounce that he needed to get a second look in these later states.”

The timing of Buttigieg’s exit reflected the sense of urgency among Democratic donors and operatives to coalesce around a candidate capable of stopping Sanders’ momentum. Former Vice President Joe Biden’s cemented his position as the likeliest beneficiary with his landslide victory in South Carolina on Saturday night. One high-level campaign staffer said Buttigieg is stepping out now because he “believes this is the right thing to do for our country” and thought it was the best move to “heal our divided nation, defeat this president, and work to fix our broken politics.”

September Dawn Bottoms for TIMEButtigieg meets supporters at a Town Hall in Mason City, Iowa, on Jan. 29.

But the move was not purely altruistic. Buttigieg’s struggles in Nevada and South Carolina laid bare his campaign’s central weakness: he was never able to broaden his base beyond educated white liberals and moderates. As a millennial with no national political experience, he relied heavily on his record as mayor of a small Midwestern city, but that record proved to be more complicated than it appeared. The shooting of a black man by South Bend police in 2019 put a spotlight on Buttigieg’s failure to diversify his city’s police department, and South Bend’s persistent racial inequality complicated his campaign narrative of rebuilding a struggling American city. After the news broke on Sunday, the South Bend chapter of Black Lives Matter released a statement saying they were “excited” to hear that he had suspended his campaign. “We hope that he learned his lesson,” they said, “that neoliberalism and anti-Black policies will no longer be tolerated.”

It was clear Buttigieg’s path to the nomination had shrunk to a hair’s breadth. In the final days of the race, he shuffled strategies repeatedly—casting himself as a unifier one day, going hard at Senator Bernie Sanders as a threat to the party the next. His always-gauzy rhetoric shaded into borderline Obama plagiarism.

Even though Buttigieg was campaigning on a message of generational change, he never won over voters his age, who largely support Sanders. He frequently attracted the mockery of his fellow millennials, many of whom saw him as a technocrat who was more swayed by big donors than grassroots movements. “Once he became a darling of the donor class, he deployed his rhetorical skill against the progressive movement he once tried to find a place in,” says Waleed Shahid, communications director for the progressive group Justice Democrats. “I hope he joins with the rest of his generation powering a progressive movement that will become increasingly essential to the Democratic party’s future.”

M. Scott Brauer for TIMESupporters at Buttigieg’s rally in Nashua on Feb. 11.

Just five days ago, Buttigieg campaign manager Mike Schmuhl published a memo describing a “definitive path” to the nomination, arguing that Buttigieg was the candidate best positioned to beat Sanders. The document outlined a plan to minimize Sanders’s wins on Super Tuesday and rack up delegates in the later March contests. But facing the prospect of a dismal showing on Super Tuesday, Buttigieg calculated that it was better to exit now than to stay and play spoiler.

One staffer says the decision was made Sunday morning, in the aftermath of the South Carolina results. “He gave this a hard look today, and has probably been thinking about this for some time,” says another top staffer. “He got into this race because he thought the country was truly divided to the point where we couldn’t get stuff done. And when his candidacy no longer has a pathway to do that, he is deciding to spend the campaign to lay out what’s next and how you do that in a different role.”

“He wants to bring the party together, the country together, and does not see a clear path for him to get the nomination,” the staffer says.

In the wake of Biden’s wide victory in South Carolina on Saturday night, undecided donors had begun to rally around the former Vice President. “Most are saying they still love Pete, Elizabeth, Amy or Mike,” says Rufus Gifford, a Biden fundraiser who served as finance chair for Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign. “But after last night, they see the writing on the wall.”

That’s not to say all Buttigieg’s backers were abandoning him: two donors, who requested anonymity to speak candidly, told TIME they were blindsided by the candidate’s abrupt exit and dismayed to learn of it through media reports on Sunday.

September Dawn Bottoms for TIMEButtigieg speaks at a Town Hall in Ankeny, Iowa, Jan. 30.

But Buttigieg is a politician who calculates every word and every move. Though he put his stewardship of South Bend at the center of his campaign, it’s also true that Buttigieg has for some time been looking for a way to escape his hometown. In 2017, he mounted a losing campaign for the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee, at the age of 36.

“One thing is clear: He has a future,” says Axelrod. His exit was about preserving it.

Buttigieg’s candidacy—while groundbreaking—should be seen as a milestone on a march, not something that happened overnight, argues Jerry Birdwell, who made history in 1992 when Texas Gov. Ann Richards appointed him as the first openly gay judge in the state. He was in the crowd for an Elizabeth Warren event on Feb. 6 in Derry, N.H., just talking with the gathering group. “I know what I went through as a gay man appointed in politics. He’s done a lot to address people’s fears. What he’s done is wonderful,” says Birdwell, who now lives on Massachusetts’ Cape Cod. “If he doesn’t win, he’s paved the way for another gay man to seek that office. He’s done an awful lot for us as gay men.”

Even on his final day in the race, Buttigieg was busy building bonds in the party. He and his husband, Chasten, had breakfast Sunday morning in Plains, Ga., with former President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn. After that, he traveled to Selma, Ala., to join marchers commemorating the 55th anniversary of the “Bloody Sunday” march at the height of the civil-rights movement. A keen political strategist, Buttigieg knew that his failures with black voters doomed him in 2020. It was almost as if his last act of this campaign was the first step toward the next one.

With reporting by Alana Abramson and Phil Elliott/Washington

#IFTTT #Blogger

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newstechreviews · 4 years

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Elliot Ross for TIMESupporters wait in the rain April 14 for Buttigieg’s presidential campaign announcement in South Bend.

September Dawn Bottoms for TIMEButtigieg meets supporters at a Town Hall in Mason City, Iowa, on Jan. 29.

M. Scott Brauer for TIMESupporters at Buttigieg’s rally in Nashua on Feb. 11.

“He wants to bring the party together, the country together, and does not see a clear path for him to get the nomination,” the staffer says.

September Dawn Bottoms for TIMEButtigieg speaks at a Town Hall in Ankeny, Iowa, Jan. 30.

“One thing is clear: He has a future,” says Axelrod. His exit was about preserving it.

With reporting by Alana Abramson and Phil Elliott/Washington

#Blogger

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swipestream · 5 years

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Sensor Sweep: John Carter Miniatures, The Metal Monster, Carcosacon, Call of the Wild Art, Robot Man

RPG (Modiphius): The John Carter Swords of Mars miniatures line is made up of 32mm scale high quality multi-part resin miniatures which come complete with resin scenic bases. The Swords of Mars campaign book includes a set of rules to play out battles involving squads and heroes, fighting across moving airships, desolate ruins or the beautiful palaces of Barsoom.

Writing (One Last Sketch): A long while back, I wrote a short essay called “Writing the city” that I never published, yet the misgivings that went into that essay keep stirring my brain. The main question is this:

In literary criticism of fantasy, why are long descriptions of the natural world and farmland or villages often labeled as boring, but when China Miéville fills page upon page with adjective-laden descriptions of architecture, this passes without comment, or even gets praise?

Art (DMR Books): Fifty-five years ago today, Wayne Francis Woodard, better known as “Hannes Bok,” died in poverty. He was friends with, and had his work admired by, the likes of Ray Bradbury, A. Merritt, August Derleth, Farnsworth Wright and others.

I must confess that I’ve always been ambivalent about Bok’s art. While I find some of his work truly excellent, I consider much of it average or even poor.

Fiction (DMR Books): It’s fascinating how the paths we take in life shape who we’ll become and what we’ll leave behind, when–on that fateful day–we’re blasted by the emerald lightnings of The Emperor’s Guard at the Pit of the Metal Monster.

For me, the dregs of life will be a room full of books. For A. Merritt, luckily for us, it was his wonderful novels, few tho’ they may be, and the short stories and poetry he crafted during a relatively short lifetime.

But, whereas the ashes of our mortal clay will be scattered before the feet of the Metal Things

Fiction (Gardner F. Fox): This is book #011 on the list of 160 books that Gardner Francis Fox wrote from 1953 to 1986. I will not be working on

Blank bookcover with clipping path

books in the order as Mr. Fox wrote them. I am doing the book cover designs based on when the transcribers who are assisting me, finish one. As they complete a book, it will be the newest release, so it will get a new book cover design. I also have to go back and replace the photo-bashed covers I made when I first started The Gardner Francis Fox Libraryin 2017.

Conventions (William King): So that was Carcosacon and it was a lot of fun. A bunch of us drove up from Prague to Czocha Castle for a weekend of games, panels and live action roleplaying all dedicated to the Cthulhu mythos. We got there on Friday morning, checked in and were gaming by one o’ clock that afternoon in a library that looked like something from Dennis Wheatley complete with a secret doorway hidden in a bookcase that swung out to reveal a spiral staircase up to yet another gaming room. I thought there never was a better setting for a Call of Cthulhu session but I was wrong, and I’ll get to that later.

RPG (Sorcerers Skull): Gygaxian Esoteric Planes: Places that often bear the names and some of the characteristics of various historical conceptual realms but are more defined in their characteristics. They are inhabited by supernatural beings that tend to behave like mundane beings, the only difference being “power.” Geography tends to be more important than in conceptual realms; planes can be mapped to a degree, and travel along associated terrain may be necessary.

Reviews (Don Herron): Our resident expert in everything Arkham returns to review a new (if repurposed) book on the fabled press. John D. Haefele certainly burst fully-formed on the scene with his A Look Behind the Derleth Mythos, but he’s done a ton of stuff on the subject, most recently a run of articles appearing in Crypt of Cthulhu. See his Amazon page for a thorough list of books, chapbooks, monographs, web and print surveys. He knows the turf.

Cinema (Superversive SF): Can the story take a place on a bus rather than on a space ship without being fundamentally different?

Outland, an obscure movie starring Sean Connery at the low point of his career, cannot be set on a bus, but it most definitely did not need to be placed in space. It is, no pun intended, fully grounded in the traditional western genre in the theme, plot and pacing. There are even shotguns. Lots of shotguns. In a pressurized environment. All that’s missing is the tumbleweeds. We do get treated to the sight of some gyrating balls of… something, but the less said of those the better.

Gaming (Rampant Games): In case you haven’t figured it out, I am a Virtual Reality enthusiast. I’ve been looking forward to the coming of consumer-level Virtual Reality since the early 90s. I expected it a lot sooner than it got here, to be honest, but I’m glad it’s here now. I love that I get to work with it as part of my day job. Anyway, I have been willing to sink a bit of cash into it this hobby… to the extent that I pre-ordered a Pimax 5K+. Offering about the highest resolution out there and 170+ degrees of field-of-view, it seemed like a game-changer for PC-based VR.

Cinema (Men of the West): First, the good: As you would expect from any sort of Peter Jackson flick, it has gorgeous F/X. The visuals and modeling for the various vehicles and aircraft are marvelous. The colorizing to help set the tone, the costuming, etc., are all spot on. The acting was decent. The set design was pretty cool. The basic premise for the story was decent if absurd (mobile cities on treads?), with an interesting twist on the post-apocalypse genre. They had a fun dig at the near illiteracy of today’s people in the “screen age” (showing iPhones, etc), saying “they didn’t write much down.”

Author Interview (Superversive SF): What does superversive mean to you? Superversive is the building of things never seen before to heights unreached. It builds where others have torn down, and gathers together all good things to be made into something greater and more wonderful than they were before. Where before one might find a blasted heath, one finds a garden growing by the Grace of God.

Review (Fantasy Literature): As I mentioned in my review of Gray Lensman, Book 4 of E.E. “Doc” Smith’s famed six-part LENSMAN series, that installment, although it followed its predecessor, Galactic Patrol, by mere seconds storywise, was actually released over 1½ years later; 20 months later, to be exact. Book 5 of the series, Second Stage Lensman, would follow the same scheme. Although the events therein transpire just moments after the culmination of Book 4, readers would in actuality have to wait a solid 22 months to find out where author Smith would take them next.

Art (Northwest Adventures): Jack London’s The Call of the Wild was serialized in The Saturday Evening Post from June 20 to July 18, 1903, only five years after the Stampede of 1898. It was an instant classic and the quintessential novel of the Klondike. The five-parter was accompanied by illustration from two artists, Charles Livingston Bull (1874-1932) and Philip R. Goodwin (1881-1935). Bull was hitting his stride, illustrating books for Charles G. D. Roberts as well as magazine covers but Goodwin was only 22 and just starting out on his career that would include illustrating Teddy Roosevelt’s book on hunting. The two artists together is a nice blend of Bull’s stylized poster art (which remind of Kay Nielsen’s fairy tale art) and Goodwin’s realistic dog forms.

Art (One Last Sketch): No other imagined world has generated as much illustration as The Lord of the Rings. Considering the sheer amount of artistic material to draw from, however, even before the live action adaptations came out in 2001, we already had a consensus “look” for Middle Earth in John Howe and Alan Lee’s paintings. Why the collective consensus for what Middle Earth should look like coalesced around these two has a host of factors, one being how prolific they were, how often they appeared on book covers and ancillary material, and the last being their obvious skill.

Fiction (Pages Unbound): You may have some familiarity with The Silmarillion and seen these newer works being published that are part of it. But maybe you are not sure where they came from, or how they fit in to the larger work. Here is the scoop: you can pick up any one of the three separate works from The Silmarillion that have been released as standalone volumes and enjoy it on its own. They are The Children of Hurin, Beren and Luthien, and The Fall of Gondolin. Some say the reading order should be publication order, but you would not be wrong to read Beren and Luthien first.

Obituary (Washington Post): George Stade, a Columbia University literary scholar who became an early champion of “popular” fiction within the academy and worked as a critic, editor and novelist, most notably with the grisly satire “Confessions of a Lady-Killer,” died Feb. 26 at a hospital in Silver Spring, Md. He was 85.

Tolkien (Alas Not Me): The Mouth of Sauron’s encounter with the Captains of the West in The Lord of the Rings has been reminding me of the Green Knight’s visit to King Arthur’s court in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

The initial set-up is quite different, naturally. The Green Knight comes in uninvited without any introduction or explanation — the reader is thus in the same boat as members of Arthur’s court — whereas Tolkien gives us some backstory on the Lieutenant of the Tower of Barad-dûr when he comes out in response to the heralds’ challenge. The Green Knight arrives alone on a color-coordinated steed that seems an ordinary animal except for its hue, but the poet hints the knight himself might possibly be supernatural (“Half etayn in erde I hope þat he were”). Intriguingly, the similarly color-coordinated fellow who approaches Aragorn & Co. is almost exactly the inverse, i.e., a living man on a possibly supernatural mountm

Sensor Sweep: John Carter Miniatures, The Metal Monster, Carcosacon, Call of the Wild Art, Robot Man published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames

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weekly15 · 6 years

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6 29 18 / necessary / songs

It’s been so long I’m not sure I know how to come back. With necessary songs from this month. I have a plan now. I have a way forward.

1 / PATTERNS / Eilish Gilligan

Has anyone done loneliness this ethereally, this effortlessly? Space out to this one, relax your limbs, climb into your lonely life like you'd climb into a zero-gravity womb room.

2 / IF YOU KNOW YOU KNOW / Pusha T

If you know you know...

I imagine this as the massive opening to a trip-hopera about 2018, that zooms out and introduces you to all the characters, each with his, with her visible frustrations, his repressed wishes, her trammeled desires. Let's see how it plays out. Welcome.

3 / LOST MY MIND / Lily Allen

Twinkling along the edge of insanity, as always, with Lily. Welcome back grrl. Cooing disturbed come-hithers, goodness we've missed u. Reminds me of Margaret Atwood's "Siren Song": Alas / it is a boring song / but it works every time.

4 / HUNGER / Florence + the Machine

Speaking of WE'VE FCKING MISSED YOU: Florence, Florence, Florence. She's back. I tweeted, in Jan or Feb, apropos of nothing, "My 2018 wish is for a new Florence + the Machine album!" So basically I manifested this, yw all. This was her massive MASSIVE return, and what a blaze of troubled glory. A voice that quavers with hard-earned strength, stronger as she goes, naming what she claims: our collective loneliness can make us each feel a little less lonely.

5 / DRUGS / Uffie / Bearson

Uffie, baby, who the uff are you? Where the uff have you been all my life? Love her feature on Galantis's uuuge new "Spaceship," but this one's the real gem. Bearson flips her lonesome "Drugs" into an echoey spin cycle that goes up up up while taking you down down down.

youtube

6 / I DON'T LIKE UR FRIENDS / EVAN GIIA

"WESTWORLD" was a banger, but Evan's new one smashes. The large middle fingers you've always wanted to give to anyone in your life who just unaccountably SUCKS. Some people, there's just no way around it, they suck. Listen to Evan. Jam out to this so you can see them in real life and not lose your cool.

7 / MESSY / Kiiara

This is a bubbly bouncy quietly bonkers little jam. You don't realize how much it makes ya wanna get DOWN until you are alllll the way down.

8 / BETTER NOT / Louis the Child / Wafia

LAWWd have mercy this an earth-shaker. When it hits, it hits. Would happily jump in a tight-knit circle on a sweaty dancefloor to this, arms swinging like you don't know what a "responsibility" could even be. Might be 2018's most necessary song.

9 / 1950 / King Princess / MELVV

Didn't think King Princess's out-of-nowhere barn-burner could've gotten any more appealing. But MELVV spins it inside-out and upside-down and I forget where I am I'm so dizzy I love the night the stars I can't tell if the ocean is waving with tears or dancing to the beat

10 / SLEEP ALONE / Max Styler / Ella Boh

Stop what you're doing. Stop scrolling through your Instagram feed. What do you want, this very minute? Is it even possible to suss out what you want in a single moment? I want everything. What is want? Are my desires mine, and if not, who put them here, in my guard-dogged mind?

11 / ONLY YOU / Cheat Codes / Little Mix

This boppy breath is a cares-to-the-wind summer dream. Music isn't for confronting your mortality. It's for letting your hair down, for teaching the town where they banned dancing to f*cking dance. Take my hand: we'll teach those homophobic bakers that luv is a wind that blows through every town in the world.

12 / LEAN WIT ME / Juice WRLD

I guess what I mean by "necessary songs" are songs that make you feel a little less lonely, a little more generous, a little more at home in the world. Songs that allow you to have a little more hope. Or at the very least let you forget all that, let you not think, let you close your eyes and dance alone in your room on your wooden floors that you mean to Swiffer more than you do.

"Lean Wit Me" is something that I'm not sure about, something raw and ultra-real that reaches a part of myself I wish weren't there. But then it makes me feel grateful that someone out there (Juice WRLD) gets it.

13 / PEACHES / CRAY / RAC

Who comes up with this stuff? Who is "CRAY"? Who is Peaches? I don't think I know you, or anything, or anyone. Feels like someone just dropped this song into the ether and walked away. There. My work here is done.

14 / CONFESS / Jack River

Some songs are meant to be shouted. At the end of a long day, in the middle of a longer life.

15 / COUCH / Eves Karydas

A little sticky-sweet piece of gum dying to get stuck to the bottom of your shoe. I wanted to dismiss this song, with its stupid meaningless hook, but here I am weeks/months later still jamming to it. Eves knows what she's doing, whether you want her to do it or not.

16 / I GET BY / DJDS / Amber Mark / Vory

Sneaking in an extra since it's been too damn long. And to let Amber's amber waves of groan send you into the weekend. At the end of the day, this is a pretty good motto: I get by. Let's try this week, to get by. And let's be happy if (when!) we do.

Best thing that isn't music this week: Look, folks. It's bleak. Read a poem or two. Been seeing "Red Brocade" by Naomi Shihab Nye going around a bit. That's a good one. Or Anne Sexton's mighty "The Truth the Dead Know."

It is June. I am tired of being brave.

Love and love, to all.

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lenaglittleus · 6 years

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Seasonal Vibes {Volume 2}: Winter 2018

I’ll be honest, this picture feels kind of deceiving since it’s the furthest thing from winter here in San Francisco. The weather has been beautiful (70s and sunny) and I’m certainly not complaining about it. I feel like I paid my dues in my 27 years of living on the East Coast…but alas it’s Seasonal Vibes so it felt much more fitting to include a picture of me in the snow, which was in fact an accurate depiction of what my January looked like. More on that in a bit…

All of you seemed to really enjoy my last Seasonal Vibes post so here I am again for a little life update. It’s funny because I think a lot of people feel that social media has allowed everyone to minute-by-minute stalk another person’s life. While I certainly share elements of my life on social media (Instagram in particularly), there’s actually a lot you don’t see. Social media is a highlight reel and while I definitely don’t shy away from sharing those uncurated moments, it’s also just a small version of my reality. Most of the time I’m sitting in my PJs on the couch, writing or editing a podcast. Sometimes I’ve put on real clothes and I’m shooting a video or some photos. And even more realistically, I’m binge-watching a TV show with Curt or hanging in the park with Bodhi. Most of these moments don’t get shared. Partially because they’re not the most glamorous, but also because we all need a bit of privacy in our lives. It’s been so nice to take the pressure off sharing everything and really just live in the moment. Ironically, I think it was the best decision I could have made for THM too. I feel so much more present and productive in my work because I’m so much more compassionate in my personal life.

Of course, I do kind of miss the days of weekend recaps and life lately posts. To me they’re so much better than a quick Instagram image because there’s such a story there. I’m a write by nature and by now you know I don’t like be limited in characters. As a result, blogging will always be at the heart of what I do. Social media platforms and algorithms may come and go, but THM is all mine. I can be 100% myself here and that is something I deeply value. So with that, here’s what’s been happening lately:

A trip (or two) to Minnesota

A few days after returning home from Grand Cayman C and I got the call we had long dreaded. I haven’t talked about it on here but C’s dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in April 2016. It was one of the motivating factors behind our two months of living in Minnesota in Fall 2016 and besides just general visits back to MN it also explains our frequent visits. In January Frank passed away and while it wasn’t unexpected, it was still shocking in the moment.

There’s so much more I want to say about this and the lessons Frank taught me but I just don’t even know where to begin. What I know for certain is that I’m feeling so lucky to have both mine and C’s families and our dear friends who provided so much support during this challenging time. I’m obviously deeply saddened by this loss and especially to not have him at our wedding in a couple months but knowing the support we have from our incredible community makes it so much easier.

We managed to get a warm spell (by Minnesota standards) and were able to spend more time outside than expected. Minneapolis really is so beautiful in the winter. I never thought I’d say this but it really does feel like a home away from home.

A Life-Altering Trip to Sonoma and Santa Cruz

Last week I had the privilege of attending a trip to Sonoma (and then a quick jaunt down to Santa Cruz) with Stonyfield. What was cool and unique about this trip was that its sole purpose was the educate us and share knowledge about organics and the sustainable food movement. I’m working on this post but it was a lot of information to take in so I’m needing a little more time to digest it all.

What I can say is that it completely opened my mind to how to food system is broken in North America, but also where our points of entry are for making change. Whether it be on the policy side, reducing food waste, improving our soil or voting with our wallet, there is an opportunity for so many improvements and I’m eager to be a part of this change. Stay tuned!

I Started Yoga Teacher Training!

This was a big one that I’ve actually been sitting on for months. I signed up for YTT in November and have been eagerly waiting for it to begin this month. So far it’s been challenging, intense and inspiring. At first I was going to document the process but I’m now thinking I’ll capture my feelings at the end (I wrote down my thoughts before starting it for comparison). In many ways, the conversations we’re having in class feel very personal and private and I want to respect that. However, I also know a lot of people are curious about what the training is like so I’ll share that once it’s done. I’m only just beginning but I have a feeling this is going to be a life-changing experience that goes far beyond teaching yoga.

Let’s Talk About The Wedding…

Ahhhhh the wedding. I feel like I get the most questions about this and I provide such vague and uninspiring answers! I’ll put it to you this way: I am so looking forward to having all my favorite people in one room. I’m also so looking forward to it being over. Nothing about wedding planning has been particularly fun for me. Mainly because if I had it my way we’d all be drinking in the park in yoga clothes. When I went to go buy my dress, I went in by myself on my way to yoga. The sales associate didn’t know what to do with herself. She tried to give me a bottle of champagne to celebrate but I thought it would be weird walking into yoga with a full bottle of champagne haha. I think I’m a major disappointment to anyone who works in the wedding industry!

So far we have a venue, a dress, a DJ, photographer, invites and some other random knick-knacks. Still working on a few other pieces. I’m confident it will all get down and I’m trying to have a positive attitude about everything since there’s no point in being stressed. I’ll keep you posted…though to be honest the next Seasonal Vibes post may come after the wedding!

Los Angeles Folks – Let’s Hang!

Speaking of events, I’ll be in LA on February 27th to host an event with my favorite clean beauty company, Credo Beauty. By now you all know my love for Credo and I’m so excited to be throwing this Green Beauty Happy Hour with them on Feb 27th from 5:00-7:00 and would love to see you there! P.S. It’s totally free! SIGN-UP HERE.

If you want to stay up-to-date on future events that are coming to your city, make sure you sign-up HERE.

* * * * *

That’s all I’ve got for you today but I hope this helped raise the veil (somewhat) on what life has been like around here. Alright, back to snuggling Bodhi…

What’s new in your life? Fill me in!

The post Seasonal Vibes {Volume 2}: Winter 2018 appeared first on The Healthy Maven.

from News About Health https://www.thehealthymaven.com/2018/02/seasonal-vibes-volume-2.html

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kansascityhappenings · 6 years

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House passes spending bill to avert federal shutdown, but Senate chances are dim

WASHINGTON — A divided House voted Thursday to prevent a government shutdown after an eleventh-hour deal brought conservatives aboard.

But the GOP-written measure faced gloomy prospects in the Senate, and it remained unclear whether lawmakers would be able to find a way to keep federal offices open past a Friday night deadline.

The House voted by a near party-line 230-197 vote to approve the legislation, which would keep agency doors open and hundreds of thousands of federal employees at work through Feb. 16. The measure is designed to give White House and congressional bargainers more time to work through disputes on immigration and the budget that they’ve tangled over for months.

House passage was assured after the House Freedom Caucus reached an accord with House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis. The leader of the hard-right group, Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., said Ryan promised future votes on extra defense spending and on a conservative, restrictive immigration bill. Meadows also spoke to President Donald Trump.

But most Senate Democrats and some Republicans were expected to oppose the measure when it reaches that chamber later Thursday. Democrats were hoping to spur slow-moving immigration talks, while a handful of Republicans, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., were pressing for swifter action on immigration and a long-sought boost in Pentagon spending.

Senate rejection would leave the pathway ahead uncertain with only one guarantee: finger-pointing by both parties.

The GOP controls the Senate 51-49 and will need a substantial number of Democratic votes to reach 60 — the number needed to end Democratic delaying tactics. Republicans were all but daring Democrats to scuttle the bill and force a shutdown because of immigration, which they said would hurt Democratic senators seeking re-election in 10 states that Trump carried in 2016.

“If there’s a government shutdown — and let’s hope there’s not — it’d be the Democrats shutting it down,” said Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala.

Democrats said voters would fault Republicans because they control Congress and the White House and because Trump shot down a proposed bipartisan deal among a handful of senators that would have resolved the conflict over how to protect hundreds of thousands of young immigrants from deportation.

“You have the leverage. Get this done,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California said about Republicans.

Trump himself weighed in from Pennsylvania, where he flew to help a GOP candidate in a special congressional election.

“I really believe the Democrats want a shutdown to get off the subject of the tax cuts because they’re doing so well,” he said.

If the measure stalls in the Senate, the next steps were murky.

Barring a last-minute pact between the two parties on spending and immigration disputes that have raged for months, lawmakers said a measure financing agencies for just several days was possible to build pressure on negotiators to craft a deal. Also imaginable: lawmakers working over the weekend with a shutdown underway — watched by a public that has demonstrated it has abhorred such standoffs in the past.

Shadowing everything is this November’s elections. Trump’s historically poor popularity and a string of Democratic special election victories have fueled that party’s hopes of capturing control of the House and perhaps the Senate.

As he’s done since taking office a year ago, Trump was dominating and confusing the jousting, at times to the detriment of his own party. He tweeted that the month-long funding measure should not contain money for a children’s health insurance program — funds his administration has expressly supported — then the White House quickly said he indeed supports the legislation.

Congress must act by midnight Friday or the government will begin immediately locking its doors. Though the impact would initially be spotty — since most agencies would be closed until Monday — the story would be certain to dominate weekend news coverage, and each party would be gambling the public would blame the other.

In the event of a shutdown, food inspections and other vital services would continue, as would Social Security, other federal benefit programs and most military operations.

Hoping to garner more votes, Republicans added language providing six years of financing for the widely popular Children’s Health Insurance Program and delaying some taxes imposed by President Barack Obama’s health care law. The children’s health program serves nearly 9 million low-income children, and some states have come close to exhausting their funds.

But Pelosi compared the GOP bill to “having a bowl of doggy-doo and adding a cherry on top and calling it a chocolate sundae.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., taunted Democrats, saying, “My friends on the other side of the aisle do not oppose a single thing in this bill” and “can’t possibly explain” their opposition to voters.

Most Democrats remained opposed anyway, though saying they’d relent if there also was a deal to protect around 700,000 immigrants from deportation who arrived in the U.S. as children and now are here illegally. Trump has ended an Obama-era program providing those protections and given Congress until March to restore them.

Republicans were demanding that a separate budget bill financing government for the rest of this year include big boosts for the military, and they accused Democrats of imperiling Pentagon funding. Democrats were insisting on equally large increases for domestic programs for opioid treatment and veterans — efforts that many in the GOP also back.

While that tradeoff seemed achievable, it was the immigration dispute that loomed as the biggest hurdle, and Democrats were trying to use the need to keep government financed as leverage.

“If this bill passes, there’ll be no incentive to negotiate, and we’ll be right back here in a month with the same problems at our feet,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

Talks among top lawmakers and White House officials were moving slowly on an immigration package. Trump and Republicans want it to include money for the president’s promised wall along the Mexican border and other security measures.

from FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports http://fox4kc.com/2018/01/18/house-passes-spending-bill-to-avert-federal-shutdown-but-senate-chances-are-dim/

from Kansas City Happenings https://kansascityhappenings.wordpress.com/2018/01/19/house-passes-spending-bill-to-avert-federal-shutdown-but-senate-chances-are-dim/

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movietvtechgeeks · 7 years

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Just who is Maurice Symonette aka Donald Trump's 'Michael the Black Man'?

Who is Maurice Symonette? In another charlatan tactic employed by the Trump administration, the individual also known as "Michael the Black Man" is a political propaganda character that serves as a distraction, making Trump and the Republicans look grossly incompetent and devastatingly desperate.

Since his Phoenix rally earlier this week, Trump has reintroduced us to his new campaign tool – Symonette, a.k.a Maurice Woodside. Many outlets have already profiled the man holding a sign that said, “Blacks for Trump,” digging deep into his background as a criminal, cult follower, and militant negro. Along with holding his perfectly placed sign (right behind Trump in view of all the cameras) Symonette also wore a t-shirt that let the world know, “Trump and Republicans are not racist.” The one-time cult member who belonged to Temple of Love in the 90’s, looks to be a reformed pro-black activist who now makes YouTube videos about the goodness of white people, the dangers of Cherokee Native Americans (who are the real KKK racist slave masters per Symonette) and the evils of Hilary Clinton and her Islamic State connections. The man also considers white people “White Gentiles who are Black Peoples Republican Emancipators,” which is why I am sure he fits right into Trump’s overall plan to win the White House a second term. While I understand but do not agree with, white people’s move in having a token black person as a means to show other black people that they aren’t that bad, it rarely ever works. And when you use any ole person for the sake of “representation” it becomes more of a joke than a serious attempt to reach minorities. Such is the case with Michael the Black Man and Trump.

A part of me doesn’t even put all the blame on Symonette. The man clearly has signs of someone who deals with mental illness. I would not be surprised if he genuinely believes what he says and Trump and his people happened to stumble upon him and said, “Just go with it.” The other part of me believes that Trump has paid this man to be the face of his 2020 campaign that is aimed at getting black people to finally accept him. But speculation aside, this just looks bad on all sides because instead of focusing on dealing with the issues this country is facing, Donald Trump is on the campaign trail… for 2020.

The real focus should not be on the black man holding the sign because anyone in their right mind isn't paying him any attention. I actually laugh at the fact that Trump's people thought it was a good idea to let him be on camera. The outrage, anger or however people are feeling about the situation should be aimed at the man who 53% of college educated white women voted into office. Why is the president of the United States, who just took office a little over eight months ago, spending time at campaign rallies? You won Trump! You should be focused on leading this country to greatness, not maintaining or getting support for 2020. I mean, if you were smart, you would understand that being presidential and acting like an adult who holds the important position in America is what will secure a bid for you in the next election. But I digress because the key word here is “smart” and from what I’ve seen, intelligence is just not something at work in the White House right now.

As I said earlier, this is a distraction. We have become so consumed with the things Trump does, that weighs no kind of significance to the overall well being of the nation, we don’t see these antics for what they are. I 100% guarantee you that white people are laughing at Symonette and if they were wise, they would have no business with him. His presence only adds to the lack of credibility already associated with #45’s presidency. Michael the Black Man is a conspiracy theorist who no member of the sane voting population gives any real thought to because he’s so all over the place. Nothing he says can be considered valid.

All of this just speaks to the absurdity that is our country’s leaders right now. This is embarrassing. It is not funny and from my point of view, only serves to show how lost we truly are under Trump’s rule. Nobody who is serious about their position as president of a country would embrace this foolery let alone allow it to be a fixture at his rally.

Alas, what more can you expect from the circus that is America 2017? Maurice Symonette is a non-factor who doesn’t deserve our attention. He doesn’t represent on any level how black people feel now or will in the future about Trump.

5 Facts About Michael Symonette

His Site Gods2.com Leads Visitors to HonestFacts.com, a Site Listing Conspiracy Theories About the Cherokee Indians

Symonette’s site Gods2.com leads visitors to HonestFacts.com. That site is one long page listing strange conspiracy theories about the Cherokee Indians and Hillary Clinton. The first one claims that the “Real K K K Slave Master Revealed & is the Cherokee!” Symonette claims that Trump will “Solve America’s debt” and “make all Indians pay Taxes!” The page also alleges that President Barack Obama, Clinton, and Senator Al Franken are Cherokee and Republican Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake, along with Mitt Romney are “White hidden MORMOM/CHEROKEES.” “ Republican Senators who’re against Trump’s HealthCare Policy & all of his Policies are Mormon Cherokee’s. They are the Racist that believe White Gentiles & Black Republicans are Idiots & are not worthy to Rule,” the site reads. Symonette also has a YouTube channel, where he has videos that go with many of his theories. He also refers to the Confederate Battle Flag as the “Cherokee Democrat Flag.”

Symonette Was a Member of the Violent Yahweh ben Yahweh Cult Led by Hulon Mitchell Jr.

According to the Miami New Times, Symonette was a member of the Yahweh ben Yahweh cult. The cult was led by Hulon Mitchell Jr., who adopted the name “Yahweh ben Yahweh” and spent 11 years in prison from 1990 to 2001 on violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. Mitchell and other members of the group were convicted of conspiracy in over a dozen murders. Symonette himself was charged with allegedly conspiring in two murders, but he was found not guilty. During the trial, his brother claimed Symonette helped beat a man who later died and stuck a stick in another man’s eye. The Southern Poverty Law Center called the cult a “notorious black supremacist religious sect” and feared it was growing after Mitchell’s death in 2007. Symonette, who was “Maurice Woodside” before joining Yahweh Ben Yahweh, explained to the Miami New Times in 2011 that he first met Mitchell around 1980, when he was 21 years old. He also said he was inspired by seeing Roots. “I was shocked and I was upset, so I became a warrior against the whites,” he told the paper. “I went insane.” Yahweh Ben Yahweh is still a major influence in Symonette’s life, as evidenced by HonestFact.com. He even includes a disclaimer to show that he was not convicted of criminal charges related to the cult. “BLACKS FOR TRUMP founder Maurice Symonette/Michael the Black Man was found innocent in YAHWEH Case after witnesses admitted they we’re lying to get a good Deal from the Gov. So after being questioned by YAHWEH Atty,” his site reads. “Congressman Alcee Hastings who caught Rosier lying about seeing an incident Sept.17.1983 but could not have seen this because Atty. Hastings proved that he was in Jail between Feb.1983 until Jan.1984 in Jacksonville Fla. at the time of of the made up incident in that never happened in Miami! google this!”

Symonette Also Organized Blacks Behind Obama & Claimed Obama Wanted to Kill Him

In 2008, Symonette made a name for himself as the leader of “Blacks Against Obama.” In an October 2008 interview with the Miami New Times, Symonette also claimed Obama wanted him assassinated. “This was supposed to be an assassination,” Symonette told the Miami New Times. “Obama’s people were behind it.” Symonette claimed that on September 25, he was getting on a bus to go to Mississippi and protest the first presidential debate with 30 other men. A man ran out of the shadows with an AR-15 and grabbed Symonette’s brother. “I bit his leg, right above his knee. He screamed and let the AR go,” Symonette claimed. Symonette told the New Times that two other gunmen came out. He described the scene as if it was an action movie. “I got up and started running in a zigzag, and one of my shoes done came off,” he told the paper. “One of the bullets … grazed my head, on the right side. When I put my hand there, I felt all the blood.” Police did report a shooting and Symonette’s brother Al was taken to a hospital because a bullet went “straight through his arm.” The gunman was identified as Taytreon Edwards, 25, and the two other gunmen were never found. Symonette told the New Times that a friend heard one of the gunmen say, “Where is the guy that Obama wants dead?”

Symonette Said He ‘Completely’ Despises Hillary Clinton

After appearing at Trump’s Lakeland, Florida rally in October, Symonette explained to the Miami New Times why he couldn’t support Hillary Clinton. “One reason is because Hillary’s last name is Rodham, and their family members are Rothchilds, who enslaved 13,000 slaves as collateral,” he told the paper. “She’s also on camera kissing the head of the Ku Klux Klan and saying, ‘That’s my mentor.’ That’s all on my website.” He added, “I completely despise Hillary. I hope the very worst for her chances for the presidency.” Symonette has been charged with four felonies in his life but never convicted. In 2009, he was charged with grand theft auto. In January 2017, he was charged with violating a city ordinance for a noise complaint.

Symonette Once Opened a Rick Santorum Rally & Was Praised by Glenn Beck

Symonette earned the attention of other conservatives before Trump. Back in 2010, MediaMatters noted that Glenn Beck praised him and other “black conservatives taking a real stand in the face of adversity.” The Miami New Times also notes that Symonette was invited to a January 2012 Rick Santorum rally in Florida. Symonette, who was gaining attention among the Tea Party, told the audience that Democrats are “Nazis” in disguise. “The Democrats, they’re the worst thing that ever happen to the black man,” Symonette told the crowd. “They’re the slave masters.” In 2011, The Miami New Times reported that one of Symonette’s nephews, Adolphus, was accusing him of trying to create another cult. “Adolphus is just telling you what he thinks will get him out of prison,” Symonette told the paper.

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