#i need to find my how to become a park ranger post from years ago

[whimsicaldragonette]

Blog Tour & Arc Review: That Summer Feeling by Bridget Morrissey

Order

Add to Goodreads

Publication Date: May 30, 2023

Welcome to the That Summer Feeling book tour with Berkley Publishing Group. (This blog tour post is also posted on my Wordpress book review blog Whimsical Dragonette.)

Synopsis:

Turns out you're never too old for a summer camp romance. Or a change of heart. When a divorced woman attends a sleepaway camp for adults only, she reconnects with a man from her past--only to catch feelings for his sister instead. Garland Moore used to believe in magic, the power of optimism, and signs from the universe. Then her husband surprised her with divorce papers over Valentine's Day dinner. Now Garland isn't sure what to believe anymore, except that she's clearly never meant to love again. When new friends invite her to spend a week at their reopened sleepaway camp, she and her sister decide it's an opportunity to enjoy the kind of summer getaway they never had as kids. If Garland still believed in signs, this would sure seem like one. Summer camp is a chance to let go of her past and start fresh. Nestled into the picturesque Blue Ridge Mountains, Camp Carl Cove provides the exact escape Garland always dreamed of, until she runs into Mason--the man she had a premonition about after one brief meeting years ago. No matter how she tries to run, the universe appears determined to bring love back into Garland's life. She even ends up rooming with Mason's sister Stevie, a vibrant former park ranger who is as charming as she is competitive. The more time Garland spends with Stevie, the more the signs confuse her. The stars are aligning in a way Garland never could have predicted. Amid camp tournaments and moonlit dances, Garland continues to be pulled toward the beautiful blonde outdoorswoman who makes her laugh and swoon. Summer camp doesn't last forever, but if Garland can learn to trust her heart, the love she finds there just might.

Author Bio:

Bridget Morrissey lives in Los Angeles, California, but hails from Oak Forest, Illinois. When she’s not writing, she can be found coaching gymnastics or headlining concerts in her living room. Her website can be found here.

Her upcoming adult novel, THAT SUMMER FEELING, releases on May 30, 2023. Her last two adult romances, A THOUSAND MILES and LOVE SCENES, as well as her first two YA novels, WHAT YOU LEFT ME and WHEN THE LIGHT WENT OUT, are all available now.

She is represented by Taylor Haggerty of Root Literary.

image credit: Goodreads

My Rating: ★★★★★

*My Review and Favorite Quotes below the cut.

My Review:

I loved this cute summer romance. The characters were fun and quirky and believable, and who doesn't want to read about thirty-somethings falling in love at their first experience of summer camp?

Garland was a great main character and I really sympathized with her. She had banked on a happy-ever-after only to find out it wasn't and end up living with her sister and driving for a ride-share program and not knowing what to do with her life. Her sister Dara was also great and I would read more about her for sure. They were both grappling with their childhood dreams of love not turning out like they'd expected and learning to embrace their choices.

I loved Stevie and her brothers. They were vibrant and boisterous and they obviously loved each other very much. They swept Garland up into the family dynamic she'd always needed and it was really sweet.

The love story was adorable and a great way to allow Garland to let go of her past expectations and embrace what she truly wanted. I was 100% there for it and I'm so happy with how it turned out. I also love the way the experience of finally getting to go to summer camp helped the sisters embrace their quirks and become more confident in themselves.

Reading this made me want to go to summer camp too. It all felt very real, and the next best thing to going myself.

*Thanks to NetGalley and Berkley for providing an early copy for review.

Favorite Quotes:

She wore athletic apparel with conviction. It looked like a carefully considered ensemble on her, not something you tossed on to exercise.

---

“This is even better than I anticipated, and I anticipated a lot.”

---

She could do a great impression of me. It made me feel understood in a different way than I’d ever felt before. Most people picked up on my optimism. Stevie captured my vulnerability. The worries I hid behind the hope I projected.

---

She still smelled like a cherished memory. Like I’d known her all my life, but somehow I’d forgotten her until today.

---

My heart ached harder. As if little construction workers lived in there and they’d started building something new without a permit.

---

I enjoyed being liked, but I wanted a more accurate version of me to be seen, and I wasn’t the person I’d packed into this luggage.

---

She made me afraid to blink, because to miss even a single second was to miss something revelatory.

---

I would dance with her until the music stopped. Even then, if she wanted to keep going, I’d create music for us.

---

“You can be a different you tomorrow. You can also own the person you are today. You don’t have to hide away because you might one day change.”

#bridget morrissey #that summer feeling #berkley #blog tour #arc review #netgalley #shilo reads #queer romance #romance #summer camp #queer books

[enkelimagnus]

A Castle in the Forest

Percy x Vex’ahlia, Chapter 13, 3200 words,

A Modern AU, in which Vex is a park ranger taking over the Alabaster Sierras post, and finds much more than she bargained for.

Read on AO3

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

Vex steps out of the temple, Vax by her side, and the light of the day feels wrong. It feels like decades have passed while they discussed what to do about Percival de Rolo, not merely a few hours.

Maybe it’s because the inside of the Lady’s Chamber is as barren as the Zenith is desolate. She gets the minimalist aesthetic that comes with the Lawbearer but she wishes there were some colorful tapestries to at least brighten up the room.

It’s midday, which is the only reason it’s this bright out. It’s Duscar 2nd, the shortest day of the year, and it means especially a lot so far North. There will only be a couple hours more of daylight and whatever work Vex had leftover for the day will have to wait until tomorrow.

Keeper Yennen is the only one of the group that stayed behind. Father Reynal is already halfway through the square, walking towards his temple and the cemetery. The rest of them gather a few feet from the door, looking at each other with the awkwardness of recently-introduced coworkers.

They form quite the motley crew. A cleric of an all-but-forgotten goddess, a barbarian, two half-elf twins, and the only remaining alive and safe member of the ruling family of the city. She’s barely counting in the two aging priests that provide mostly support and won’t be let anywhere near the fiend.

This feels doomed to fail. A small part of Vex tells her regularly that she should run away and leave these people to their own devices, that this doesn’t concern her. They should all be lucky her professional consciousness is stronger than that little survivalist voice.

“Vex?” Pike’s voice resounds, soft and light and Vex looks down at the other woman.

“Yes?”

Pike looks at her with an apologetic smile. “I wanted to apologize. I didn’t know at the time what was happening. I should probably have warned you once I was made aware of the situation…”

Vex shakes her head. “It’s okay, Pike, it wasn’t your responsibility. You have nothing to do with it.”

It was the priests’ responsibility. It should have been them who warned Vex of what the fiend was. But they’d covered it up. They potentially had lost precious time, because they hadn’t let her do her job.

Pike smiles at her. “I wasn’t lying about the… being sent by my goddess thing,” she points out. “I don’t think I would have left Westrunn if that wasn’t for her.”

Vex raises an eyebrow. “Really?”

“I have family there. My great-grandpa. And I’m trying to bring some sort of Sarenrae worship back, build a new temple. It’s not super easy, even with this guy,” she points at Grog. Grog smiles at Vex, a smile that would have been scary if Vex hadn’t already seen how soft he was around Pike. “Sarenrae was forgotten a long time ago.”

Vex doesn’t know much about Sarenrae, mostly only what Pike has told her. She nods. “I see. Well I hope either way that it will go well for you. It seems like a good goddess to have a congregation of.”

Pike chuckles. “Yeah, she’s no Betrayer,” she nods. “Alright then. I think Grog and I will go get lunch. Have a good day, and see you at the next meeting.”

Vex bids them goodbye before turning back to her brother, who seems in the middle of a conversation with Cassandra.

“It’s Barren Eve,” Vax is saying when Vex settles next to him. “Are you going to light candles for your family?”

Cassandra seems a little taken aback by that.  “Probably,” she replies after a small moment. “What happened here wasn’t really a war, but it’s close enough.”

Vex crosses her arms. “I understand you don’t want to relive what happened, but I’d really appreciate knowing the background of this entire story. It might give us some idea of where to start looking for the fiend your brother has elected to make a deal with.”

Cassandra observes her for a moment, eyes heavy with horrors Vex can’t even imagine. She feels a little guilty for bringing this up over and over again but she needs to know. She can’t go out of her way to save a De Rolo without knowing why he’s in this situation in the first place.

“I can tell you the story,” Cassandra nods. “However I’d like… some privacy?” She gestures at the open square around them. “And it will be more comfortable somewhere where we can all sit. I can bring you to my home if you’d like.”

That’s a sign of goodwill if Vex has ever seen any. Vax is already acquiescing before Vex opens her mouth to accept. He seems to like her. Maybe it’s that sibling thing. Cassandra isn’t a twin, but she’s a sister.

They quickly start making their way to Cassandra’s home. They are mostly silent while on the road. They don’t have a lot of things to talk about. There’s a lot of heaviness between them. Vex doesn’t really feel like dissipating it just yet, if she’s being honest with herself. It’s petty, but it feels good.

To Vex’s surprise, Cassandra guides them off into an alleyway and behind the Alcove, the shop Vex visited on her very first visit into town. She remembers meeting Keyleth there, with those strange clockwork machines that she now knows to be the work of Percival himself.

Cassandra opens a door at the back of the Alcove’s building. Behind it is a narrow stairwell. Vax closes the door behind himself as they walk up into Cassandra’s home.

It’s an apartment, Vex can only see the first room she steps in, all other doors are closed. It’s tidy, but lived in. There are many books lining shelves against the walls, a lot that looks like textbooks.

There’s a small clockwork machine on one of the shelves. There’s a picture framed on the wall, a family portrait. Vex counts two adults and seven children of various sizes. There are twins in there.

“You had a big family,” Vex points out.

Cassandra nods sadly. “It’s been strange to be alone,” she replies.

Vex feels like an asshole again.

They settle around the light wooden table in the middle of the room. Cassandra serves them some coffee and they let the silence settle around them, heavy and thick. Vex doesn’t know exactly how to start this, how to ask again, so she just sort of waits.

“So… my family,” Cassandra starts, shifting a little. She seems to be getting comfortable for a long tale. “The De Rolos founded Whitestone in the early seventh century. We came from Wildemount, wrecked our ship on the Shearing Channels. The Sun Tree was already there, glowing in the winter, and we settled around it. As time passed, we discovered the whitestone of the Alabaster Sierras had a few properties of interest to spellcasters. It allowed us to develop trade with the home continent.”

Vex didn’t expect the story to start this far back in the past. She expected a retelling of the last few years, perhaps, but this is much closer to a history lesson.

Cassandra pauses and takes a sip of coffee before continuing.

“Wildemount is not like Tal’Dorei or Issylra. Arcane magic is much more developed and studied there than it is here. They have very important arcane societies. One of those societies is called the Cerberus Assembly,” she explains. “They’re a group of mages, maybe the most influential political power on Wildemount. And they had great use for whitestone. That’s how my family eventually came in contact with Archmage Delilah Briarwood, one of the eight archmages of the Cerberus Assembly.”

She swallows hard, her eyes staring at the table. Vex already knows from this look that Delilah Briarwood is going to become one of the main players of this story. She thinks she’s heard the Briarwood name before… or maybe it was Cerberus Assembly. Perhaps her father has met with some of the members of that assembly before, or they’ve come to Syngorn. The elven society is filled with scholars of the arcane.

Cassandra starts talking again, with a voice sounding almost detached from the story.

“They had mostly business relations with her. She was deeply interested in Whitestone’s history, in the Sun Tree and the Alabaster Sierras’ tale of creation during the Calamity. They weren’t great friends, but they knew each other well enough. So when Lord Sylas and Lady Delilah Briarwood came knocking at the doors of the castle, looking for a place to stay as they had been unjustly driven out of the Assembly, my parents believed them.”

Her voice is clouded with bitterness. So that was probably a lie then. Vex swallows. She can feel the tension in the memories building, can feel the dread wrapping around those words. The longer Cassandra talks, the more she fears the climax of it.

“I don’t know what they said that made my parents believe all their stories. I was about 14 at the time, and I wasn’t allowed in the office when those conversations were held,” she swallows. “But the Briarwoods settled in our home with their personal doctor, Anna Ripley, and then their friends trickled into the city. The doctor took great interest in Percival’s studies, growing close to his tutor, Professor Anders. Unbeknownst to all of us, they were plotting to take over.”

Her hand around the cup tightens, the knuckles white with the tension.

“We held a feast for the anniversary of their arrival, exactly one year after they’d found us. They’d become part of the family. We toasted to them. And then, they started murdering us. Sylas Briarwood was actually not a man but an undead creature, and his strength and seeming taste for blood was the end of my mother and father. And then they hunted the rest of the family, as well as the staff. For some reason, they’d decided to keep the youngest of us alive. Percival, the twins, Ludwig and I. I’m guessing the doctor’s fondness for Percy was his saving grace.”  

Cassandra has a soft, bitter chuckle. Vex almost mirrors it. It is strange to think of saving graces when she has seen what Percival has become.

“The details are fuzzy, but somehow I managed to get Percy and I out. We ran through the secret tunnel, the one you probably were in, to freedom. Well… he did,” she looks down again. “They had archers on the wall and they caught me. Percy ran away as I was hit with arrows and… that’s the last time I saw him un-possessed. I think I died there, from being shot through with arrows. Yet, I awakened later on in my very own bed in the castle. They’d cleared out the bodies and styled themselves Lord and Lady of Whitestone, and took me in for… the Gods only know why…”

Pain is now obvious over her face. She’s struggled to keep it in the entire time, but the coldness and detachment she affected before are gone.

“For three years, I was theirs. Eventually, I stopped thinking myself a de Rolo, but rather a Briarwood. They called me their daughter,” she whispers. “The city tried fighting back, but I was playing a game with the rebellion, spying on them for information. I still don’t know if I was doing it of my own volition. But because of me, many of my people died… All their attempts at gaining freedom failed.”

There are tears in her eyes now, her voice is shaking and so are her hands. Vex doesn’t know what to do. She wishes she could comfort her but… She honestly doesn’t believe there is anything she can say that will make any of this better. Cassandra was used and abused by these Briarwoods.

“One day, Percy showed up, with a weapon of his own making, a demon riding his soul and he murdered them all. He murdered the Briarwoods, he murdered Ripley, that he’d loved so much. He murdered his teacher, and the Briarwoods’ friends, and then he turned his gun on me.”

Her breath itches and a sob wracks its way out of her throat.

“His eyes were black, there was this smoke around him, and he wasn’t my brother anymore,” Cassandra sobs. “But he still… he told me to run. He managed to fight the demon and tell me to run and I did. He tried to take a shot at me but missed.”

Run. Please. The man’s voice and his eyes are still carved in Vex’s memory. She can’t imagine what Cassandra must have felt when Vex told her what happened to her, how he let her go but still shot her.

“That’s the last time I saw him,” she leans back against the chair, a bit calmer, as if emptied out of the sorrow for a moment. “Keyleth is the only one who ever gets to go see him. And she can’t tell him where I am. Or he’ll come for me.”

It’s fucking tragic.

Vex’s mind seems to run empty for a long moment. No wonder no one will talk about the massacre. Or the massacres, plural, as it is. There are so many questions that suddenly press to the forefront. Lord Briarwood had been undead with a taste for blood? That’s… almost something out of scary stories for children.

“How long has it been?” Vax asks next to her. He seems to be managing this much better than Vex is.

“About two years?” Cassandra replies. “Something like that. I admit weeks and months seem to blend into each other lately.”

That makes sense. Vex can pretty much say the same about the months of her recovery before she moved to Whitestone. Trying to move on from traumatic events feels like trying to run through jelly. Days repeat themselves until it’s suddenly six months later and you feel just slightly better.

Vex herself isn’t completely out of it. Some days, she barely recognizes herself. She has Vax, and Trinket. What does Cassandra have? A memory, a shadow of the brother she can’t seem to help.

“He taught me all I know about constellations, you know? We’d sneak out onto the high balconies at night and he’d tell me all he’d learned about them in books, before I could read.” She smiles then, bitterness filling her eyes. “I’m never getting him back, am I?”

Vex feels a knot in her throat forming, and this time she can’t stay quiet. Even if the words that come up don’t feel like they fit. She can’t think of any other ones. But she has to say something right? Maybe nothing will ever exactly fit, and it’s either this… almost meaningless platitude or silence.

“We will do our best.” It rings empty, falling flat as Cassandra laughs. “I can’t promise him back, but… we will do what we can.”

“I suppose that has to be enough. If only I had…” She trails off, and it isn’t hard to see where her thoughts have gone.

“Staying wouldn’t have changed anything. You would simply be dead.” Vex doesn’t want to hurt the girl with her bluntness, but she sees her flinch regardless. “It wasn’t your fault. He wasn’t your brother anymore when he came back.”

She looks over at Vax for a half a second, his quiet sad smile that never really reaches his eyes, the comfort he’s so obviously trying to exude, draping his body in the least threatening way, open palms on the table, knowing how to exist in a way that won’t make someone like Cassandra or Vex run away.

He heard what Cassandra said about being trapped. And maybe even more than Vex, he recognized what it meant.

What would she be feeling if Vax had made a deal with a demon to help her get rid of Saundor?

She can’t quite imagine that black smoke around Vax’s golden skin instead of Percy’s much paler one. She can’t imagine it living inside of him. Forcing herself to imagine it makes feel a little nauseous.

“I… know what it’s like for your loved ones to get hurt when they come to save you,” Vex adds after a moment.

The bramble-like arrow shot by Fenthras going through Vax’s shoulder, his face growing paler from the pain of it. He had to get too close to Saundor to stab him but it made him vulnerable. He took the risk anyway. He always took the risks for her.

“If you looked through the file you had on me, then you know a lot about my past. You know I was involved with an Archfey,” Vex whispers. “And you know some of the story of how it ended. But…” She looks down for a second. “Vax had to come and get me. I wouldn’t have made it out by myself. I couldn’t even really think of escaping at the time.”

Vex looks up to meet Cassandra’s eyes. Hopefully she gets why Vex is telling that story. The parallel, if slightly distorted, between Percy and Vax in this situation are easy to see.

“I guess us big brothers tend to be a little reckless when it comes to our younger sisters,” Vax points out with a humorless chuckle.

Vex rolls her eyes. “I’m three minutes younger than you.”

Cassandra’s face cracks in a smile at that.

“Either way,” Vax shrugs. “We really are going to do what we can to make sure this has a happy ending for the both of you. As happy as possible.”

Cassandra takes a sip of her coffee. It’s probably cold now, but Vex understands the need to give oneself countenance. She straightens up a little. “I hope so,” she mutters. “I really do. I don’t want to be the sole heir to Whitestone.”

Vex thinks she can read between those lines. I don’t want to be alone. She gets it. She really does. The past few days have made sure the only person she has is Vax. She wouldn’t want to lose him either.

“If I bump into him again,” Vex starts slowly. “Do you want me to tell him something from you?”

Cassandra’s eyes widen. Vex understands that Percy’s not supposed to know where Cassandra is, but a simple message without location won’t do much harm. It might just help him fight the demon.

For as much as she empathizes with Cassandra and her loneliness, she can’t help but think of Percy too. Two years of nothing but a demon for company. Two years of knowing you might just kill everyone you love.

“Please… If you see him,” Cassandra whispers after a moment. “Tell him I still love him.”

“I can do that,” Vex nods.

Afterwards, it’s hard to find words to end that conversation but they somehow manage. They exchange numbers and Vex makes sure Cassandra’s calls will ring loud and clear no matter what happens or if her phone is on silent. They say goodbye and the twins start their way back to the car.

Vex extends her hand in between them and Vax doesn’t waste a second to take it.

#perc'ahlia #percy de rolo #vex'ahlia #vax'ildan #pike trickfoot #cassandra de rolo #vox machina #critical role #fic #mine

[holisticpassport]

My Covid Story

Apologies for any spelling errors, I’m on a time crunch. I’m a few hours out from leaving for my first flight since July 2019 (and before that, March 2018). Heading out to Sydney, I’m a mix of anxiety and absolute excitement. In January of this year, our sublet was almost up in Eltham and Cam and I had plans to pack up the car and begin doing workaways around Australia to help rebuild communities devastated by the historic wild fires (doesn’t that feel FOREVER ago?). When our sublet became available for a full lease transfer, we changed our minds to stay in our space, so that was the first instance of travel being knocked out of the picture. Then we had Valentine’s weekend open to go visit some friends in Tasmania, so we booked tickets and upon waiting in the airport, our flights were cancelled due to inclement weather. DAMN.  Mid-march came around and it was Cam’s birthday, so we wanted to get out for a weekend of camping in our big bell tent, find a gorgeous spot in the woods out east near Warburton. When we arrived, every camping spot for an hour’s dive any direction was either full or completely not open at all. We picked a spot off a random road and spent one night there, but some rangers came by and said we couldn’t stay there due to the possible danger of logging trucks not seeing us. So that was a bust.

Then as you’re aware, this time frame leads up to the very tumultuous third week of March when Melbourne officially went into its first lockdown due to COVID. I documented this time in journal entries which I will add at the end, but ultimately the lockdown went until June, and the state reopened too quickly/had a fiasco with quarantined cases getting out of a hotel, thus sparking the second wave. We had flights booked to California for June to see my family and then planned to travel around Mexico for a few months, but that dream was quickly squashed when flights out of Melbourne ceased to exist at all. Months later, I had a flight booked in July to go to Sydney where I was to have my eggs extracted for donation. The day before I was to fly out, second lockdown went into effect and the flight was cancelled (thus forcing me to have the procedure done in Melbourne and cause a huge, historic controversy between Melbourne IVF’s CEO and the medical director of IVF Australia about how to transfer frozen eggs over a closed border!).

I’m struggling to comprehend just how important and meaningful my ability to travel today is. To think back to the first time in history, watching borders around the world close, flights become grounded, and witnessing a global pandemic unfold whilst in a foreign country—I remember thinking at the beginning how unfathomable the scale of it was. When people talk about things not seeming real or like it’s a dream you can’t wake up from, that’s exactly how it felt. I questioned whether I needed to go back to the U.S. in fear I might not see my family for years or be with them if they got fatally ill. Would I be able to even go back if that happened let alone would I be able to re-enter AU (the answer was no). And thank god I didn’t go back considering the absolute cluster fuck of a mess Trump made of the pandemic. But also, thank god my family has been healthy and safe. The level of fear for their safety was at an all-time high as civil tensions grew when the riots around the country kicked off in conjunction with the pandemic. I wrote to all of them to have a plan to escape to Mexico and get their passports if Trump won the re-election. This was a genuine fear I’ve never experienced before.

The level of frustration, depression, anxiety, hopelessness, self-hatred for lack of productivity during lockdown, and uncertainty about so many facets of life weighed down on me during this time. But I know how much worse our time could have been. I was immensely grateful for the fact that we had a home and incredibly gracious landlords who were human and understood the financial difficulties of this unprecedented time when so many became homeless as job loss skyrocketed. We were so fortunate that I was able to continue working even 2 days a week through the lockdown as a barista and Cam was able to get government support for six months as a NZ citizen who lived in AU over 10 years when so many other New Zealanders were forced to return to their country because of the time limit stipulation for support. We only had two family members contract Covid and were young and healthy enough to survive when so many families will be without a member at the holidays this year.

And I acknowledge my privilege in that my identity is so closely entwined with the ability to travel, that while it felt suffocating to not even have the choice to travel anywhere outside of a 5km (3mile) zone, I fully empathize with those in parts of the world where they could not walk more than 50 meters from their front door or people who didn’t have windows/balconies in apartment buildings who were going out of their mind. All of that does not diminish the struggles I faced with not being able to travel, but it does always keep my perspective in check. My trip today signifies how a city and a country came together during the most difficult period of our lifetime, followed strict government guidelines, and came out after 120+ days in full lockdown on the other side of a pandemic, now able to cross state borders without isolation or quarantine. To go to a live music show,  have drinks on rooftop bars, walk around outside without a mask on, and see people going about their daily lives again on public transport and see a city bustling with energy—the months of mental hardship and growth was all to get back to a post-Covid world. Even though a vaccine is not out yet and we need to be cautious, the level of hopelessness has diminished significantly, and I’m not terrified my trip might be cancelled in two hours. I’m actually going this time!

There is also a whole other facet to my time in lockdown and that of course is the personal development and mutual growth in my marriage! That’s a whole separate post though which I hope to get out soonish. But here’s a bit of something I started a few months ago. Enjoy.

 ********

I remember when it first started in the news; like a minor blip of a story flashing at the bottom of the screen: some mutant virus had infected a couple dozen people in some random city in China. I was working solo in a café serving the employees of a major shoe distribution company in the warehouse district of Collingwood, Melbourne. The TV was on in the cafe but muted the first few weeks of January as the main stories were about the most devastating wildfires in the history of the world, and we all just felt a communal helplessness. As the numbers grew in China and the story became a daily headline, the first case was announced in Queensland on January 25th. Everyone stuck around a few minutes longer each day after they were handed their coffee. I think back to the moment when Wuhan, the epicenter at the time, reported 1,500 cases and I thought surely there can’t be much more than that. This is just media sensationalizing something small. This whole story will blow over in another week or two.

If only.

It was summer in Australia, and my husband and I were planning what to do after our sublease was up in mid-March. I commuted daily from a suburb 50 minutes north called Eltham, a creative and eco-friendly heritage town. We lived in a triplex made of adobe mudbrick, surrounded by native forest, a communal garden, and enjoyed huge artisan windows that brought in natural filtered light through the towering trees. Our little studio was a quiet haven away from the chaos and constant flurry of people in Melbourne, especially during summer as it brought travelers from every corner of the globe. There was no way we could have possibly known that this little paradise would feel like a prison after six months in the world’s longest lockdown due to a global pandemic caused by that little virus in some random city in China now known worldwide as COVID-19.

As the weeks passed by in February, more and more countries began reporting cases. I did not understand how pandemics worked as the last one I was alive for and could remember was H1N1 in California, and I was about 17—far too consumed with college applications and boys to think about world affairs. The Spanish Flu was never something that was particularly emphasized in our history classes, so it didn’t even occur to me to compare what was happening now to that point in time. Then again, this was incomparable because in 1912, the world was a less globalized economy and there were no commercial flights transporting thousands of passengers across the globe daily. By the first week of March, my daily rush-hour commutes became the first real difference I noticed. The number of morning passengers on the train platforms dwindled from 50 to 25 to 5, and eventually, to just me. As the train stopped at over 30 stops from where I lived to the city, my carriage wasn’t even remotely full at 7 a.m.

There was less foot traffic in the city. Flinders Street Station, one of the two largest hubs that saw thousands of people daily, was eerily quiet and empty. We were two weeks out from leaving Melbourne to go travel, planning to go to New South Wales, AU to help rebuild communities that were ravaged by the bushfires. I was desperate to travel this year, and we were so close to leaving. I had picked up some other barista work in an advertising agency closer to the city. But day by day, office workers were being told to work from home if they were able to. Hand sanitizer became readily available in the café, bathrooms, and around the office. I remember staring out the window of this high rise building that overlooked the lush green stretch of Albert Park and thinking it looks so normal outside. Every day, I looked at the news in Australia, which I had never really done before. Industries were shutting down, and the panic was setting in for thousands of casual workers in the hospitality industry as it was only a matter of time before we would be shut down too.

Melbourne is a cultural hub filled with travelers who typically come here on a Work and Holiday Visa which gives them 1-2 years to work and live in AU. Most find work in hospitality as there are over 40,000 restaurants and cafes in this region. You couldn’t go a single day without meeting someone from another country which is why I fell in love with this city. I worked as a freelance barista through agencies that called for workers to be able to step in if someone called out sick or quit unexpectedly and they found themselves short. But my agencies had gone completely silent in the week leading up to the industry shutting down. There was no more work and travelers were finding themselves stranded. I journaled daily in the lead up to my final day of work in the city as I knew something big was happening, and I wanted to be able to recall when it all began. I also knew we would not be travelling anytime soon, around Australia or otherwise, when national and international borders began closing around the world.

 March 17th, 2020

All that’s being talked about is COVID-19. Entire countries are closing borders and going into complete lockdown. Italy has been inundated with patients in hospitals and now have to choose who lives and who dies. AU isn’t taking nearly as intense of measures, but the general atmosphere is not normal. All events with over 500 people have been cancelled. Those who have traveled anywhere must self-quarantine for 14 days or face a huge fine. Some people still don’t take it seriously, thinking/acting like it’s just a normal flu when in reality its ability to be passed on and even re-infect someone a second time is much higher than the rate of a simple flu. In the states, my family says all the restaurants and schools have closed, even the Hollywood entertainment industry has closed down. So many independent contractors, myself included, are without means to live because there’s no emergency government funding in place. It shows what’s truly flawed with the system. Luckily Cam has full time work still, but for those people who have kids and no daycare options? No partner or family? Those who are traveling and can’t get back home? This is devastating for all of us, but them in particular. Supposedly, there are rumors that the virus dies with the warm weather, but AU is headed into winter. It could be why the virus isn’t as big in places like South America and Africa (*note* countries from these two continents are now in the top 10 most infected places as of September 2020) Europe is completely shut down as is New Zealand. I have flights to California in June, so I’m hoping I can still go. For how weak my immune system is, I’m surprised I’m not more concerned because I’ve been continuously reassured the virus only attacks those with underlying conditions, mainly in the elderly population. Even in calm, tight-knitted communities like ours in Eltham, we’re seeing the best and worst of humanity come out with people hoarding resources, but also there are those offering rides for people to stores or grocery drop offs to their homes. I’m very interested to see how the next three months progress all around the world. Right about now, it’d be nice to hide away in a beachside house in Mexico. (*Mexico is also among the top 10 most infected countries now*)

March18th, 2020

The government should announce today whether hospitality industry will close, potentially putting Cam and I both out of jobs. Luckily our landlord is being highly accommodating. Trump is giving Americans $1,200 and has postponed tax season by 3 months. Only seems he does something decent when it’s to keep the economy from tanking and his money is protected.

Cam and I both have throat annoyances and headaches. We should try to stay home, but can’t afford it. Today, they’ve dropped gatherings of 500 down to only 100 people, yet shopping centers and public transport remain open, which I would think are the riskiest places for transferring infections. It’s been stated this is a once in a decade event that will change the course of history.

 March 19th, 2020

Amidst all the chaos from morning to night, people are finally taking time to nurture their interests and creativity. I’m taking two courses on sustainable fashion and fashion in design. I’ve also applied to be a mentor for women trying to gain work and leadership experience at an NGO called Fitted for Work. They have stylists that help women to prepare business outfits and tailor their resumes/do mock interviews. I’ve looked into an MA program I’m interested in at Warren Wilson College back in North Carolina. I think looking forward is the only way to keep the fear down about how long these shut downs may last possibly through June. The world economy is going to see some extremely confronting realities it hasn’t seen since the Great Depression. For the moment I’m looking into teaching English online which I’m already certified to do, just to try and earn some money. I’ll be interested to see all the art that comes out of this period and the photojournalism that captures this historic time.

 March 21st, 2020

We went over to Williamstown (Cam’s parent’s house) as Cam had two shifts out that way. Restrictions in cafes are now 1 person per 4 square meters, so in the 100 person limit already imposed, it’s now down to 25. I’m nervous for Cam to keep working and going on public transport. It’s high risk and unethical in terms of coming in contact with people we could transmit it to without knowing (asymptomatic) because it takes 14 days to even show symptoms. We made the choice to start self-isolation come Monday as we can see in the next week or two the same spike will be here in Melbourne as we’ve seen in Italy and most likely soon to see in the U.S. Reading other peoples’ accounts about how they continued life as normal as though nothing had changed in Italy is exactly where AU is projected to head towards.

 March 25, 2020

As of Monday, AU took drastic measures to ensure safety and closed many non-essential businesses with a series of daily updates for more and more businesses to shut or only stay open for takeaway. Overnight, nearly 80,000 people in hospitality work were laid off or lost work, Cam and I included. A stimulus package of 66 billion dollars was announced and Cam qualified for government payments through Centrelink because he’s a kiwi who’s been here over 10 years. Other kiwis who haven’t been here that long are completely without any kind of support from the AU government, even though in NZ, Aussies are supported. A very backward, selfish system who told them to go home.

We went to Centrelink on Monday at 7:45am in Greensborough (suburb over from Eltham). By 8:30 am when the doors opened there were over 200 people in line. The government has been terribly confusing with their messages out to the public, highly unprepared. People are confused about what they can and can’t do, what businesses are remaining open, who is eligible… it’s a mess. Why are liquor stores and hair salons considered essential?? There have been spikes in young people getting this virus as young as 18, and they are dying. The virus coats your lungs like a jelly ultimately blocking oxygen. We did what is hopefully our last grocery shop because being in the store is just as contagious as a café. There’s no safety or hygiene measures in place. We had gloves on and people were dancing around each other in the aisles to maintain 1.5m social distance.

The U.S. is becoming the new epicenter with horrific rapid spreading, particularly in New York. Flight around the world, including as of today AU, are being stopped and we can no longer leave the country at all.

  To Be Continued…..

[ofillyria]

I have been toying around with A LOT of WIP ideas recently and I’m not really sure where I want to focus my energy or which ones I want to add to my WIP list or make intros for. So I figured I’d make a masterlist of all of my ideas that I have a rough plot and character list for so y’all can peruse! If there’s one that jumps our at you, a few you like, or any that you have questions on please please flood my inbox! There’s no better way to get me jazzed about a WIP than to send me asks! I’m putting them under the cut since there’s so many!

NIGHT TWELVE: Vi crashes into enemy territory and is taken in by the army. She's given an assignment: win the heart of the wealthiest woman on the planet to procure war funding. But she's already fallen in love with her superior officer.

DAVID’S PEAK: In the small, Oregon town of David’s Peak people are being mysteriously abducted, and blame is placed on possessed park ranger Diane Atwood. She has a choice: prove herself innocent by finding the real culprit, or say goodbye to the friendly voice in her head.

YOUNG DEMONS: After failing her first spell Cecily Young swore off magic. Her power is building, brewing. The repressed magic is manifesting as a hurricane set to destroy Louisiana in a month's time. She must find a way to expel the magic in time, without tearing herself apart in the process.

THE GODLING TRILOGY: Lea is the firstborn child of Morpheus, making her the most powerful godling in a millennium. Which means she’s the perfect scapegoat for Zeus to send to do his dirty work. Including murdering the ancient being known as Nyx, who’s determined to plunge the modern world into eternal night.

BERSERKERS: Gal pals turned fearsome warriors. When the clique dons their fur coats they gain the strength of the animals they wear. It’s time for revenge on selfish exs, bigoted teachers, and abusive parents,. That is, if the consequences don’t catch up to them first.

THE BLITZKRIEG BREAKER: When Teddy’s clock repair shop becomes both the epicenter of a magical war and the London blitz, he is tasked with keeping a strange device out of the wrong hands. In a world filled with demon dogs, falling bombs, and a mysterious shapeshifting witch it’s hard to know which threat to focus on.

HELL’S EMPTY: Sometimes, the dead get restless. There are a few who manage to slip through the cracks and back into the world of the living. On autopilot, the soul takes the first available body and become a zombie. Over time the body, incompatible with its new soul, will begin to decay. Desperate to live, but falling apart, these creatures seek new fresh bodies to enter, even it means killing to get them. Luckily, hell, like any good business, has a lost prevention specialist. And she’s ready to go hunting.

WASTELANDERS: In a post apocalyptic wasteland, a team of two girls band together to fight to survive. When crossing the desert from ration station to ration station they encounter a man on the side of the road, he claims that his car was stolen with his young daughter inside. The two girls venture to find the lost girl in a no holds barred rescue mission through deadly dive bars, life or death road races, and russian roulette tournaments.

TRAGEDY ANNE: Anne,  a bandit known for terrorizing the rich folks of Round Rock, caught wind of the local mine owner’s plan to blow out the dam. Even if it means washing out Round Rock in the process. Anne wants to save her hometown but no one will listen to a lying, cheating thief.

SOUL: SOLD: Six years ago Jac sold her soul to a demon so that she could say goodbye to her mother. But now her contract is up and she only has a week before she becomes a demon herself. The plan: find the family heirloom, use it to barter with the crossroads demon, and avoid damnation at all costs.

AMELIA BRIGHT PETSITTER TO THE ABSURDLY RICH: Amy loves her job: nice houses, free food, and cute puppies. But when she’s accused of stealing jewelry from a rich client everything falls apart and her reputation is destroyed. She has to prove her innocence. Hopefully, before the super hot CEO she’s dogsitting for returns from a business trip.

THE TEMPEST PROTOCOL: Mira’s mission is to study the defunct pleasure planet which orbits a black hole. But the mission is overturned when the owner of the planet returns and kidnaps Mira’s team. Mira has to rescue her crew before they are all swallowed by the looming void or murdered by the psychopathic resort owner.

THE ELECTRIC PIGHT - Winona is an archaeologist that studies the fallen society of the 21st century. When her brother returns home severely injured, she’s determined to use old world medicine to save his life even if she has to travel for days to find it. But the way to the city of old is guarded by militiamen, cannibals, and rabid dogs. Winona’s attempt to save her brother and prove her theories right might kill her first.

WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD - Bee has been demon of the month over nineteen thousand times. She’s assigned a meager corruption mission and saddled with a newbie demon. Now, she’s determined to prove to Satan that she doesn’t need a partner. She has to find a way to kill her ‘husband’ without it looking suspicious. All while corrupting the perfect 1950s suburbia around her.

HELL FIRED - When one of the groundskeepers for the underworld goes on maternity leave her coworker has to find a suitable replacement. So they set up a reality show competition and the last person standing wins the role of right hand man to Hades’ right hand man. Which is sort of an honor.  

ARTEMIS AND APOLLO - Agent’s Artemis and Apollo have been working together for nearly twelve years. He’s the impulsive rogue and she’s the one who actually gets the job done. But now that she’s getting married he’s worried the agency will realize his incompetence. Instead of fighting it, he’s determined to make their final mission together the wildest ride possible.

FUN FUN AT THE BOARDWALK - Daniel works at the Santa Cruz boardwalk and knows for a fact it’s haunted. The giant stuffed animals have started to roam at night and recently, one tried to kill him. He has to round up a team to help him fight back but first, he has to make people believe him.

VIENNA - After being exposed to radiation from the sun an astronaut returns to earth to find that she is imbued with starlight. She’s recruited into an organization of mutants and tasked with rounding up others like her. But the more she uses her powers to render outside threats inert the more she risks burning out and turning herself into a black hole.

10 PERFECT DATES - Katherine Day’s website claims she can set up the most romantic date possible just for a small fee of $200. Rory, an investigative journalist, is determined to prove this offer a scam. So they buy 10 and ask Katherine to be the one to join them on these so-called ‘perfect’ dates. Rory thought this would be a disaster worth writing about, but the only problem is Katherine herself seems like the perfect person for Rory.

SOUL SEARCHING - A witch and her disembodied wife search for a body that can house the wife’s soul. The witch becomes a spiritual guide to people in comas, entering their minds and helping them through to the other side to open a space for the wife to have a body again.

CRITICALLY MISSED. After the death of David’s father he invites all of his childhood friends back to his childhood home for a reunion game of dungeons and dragons. When they start to fight they are interrupted as they are pulled into the game. The old friends are forced to fight off giant spiders, ogres, and long buried resentment. If they die in the game do they die in real life? And is an epic takedown worth risking your brother’s neck?

These ones don’t have titles yet so I’m just gonna give some comps so you get the vibe:

WES ANDERSON x THE HALF OF IT - Mindy’s life is going exactly how she wants. She has perfected her waffle recipe, a successful b&b, and no friends. But when her mom decides to get remarried Mindy is faced with the reality that the world goes on without her even when she constructs an eden for herself. So she enlists the help of a childhood friend to teach her how to deal with change.

STRANGER THINGS x PARANORMAN - Ryann drowned, and was resuscitated minutes after being declared dead. Now the kid sees ghosts: unmoving, unblinking figures staring at a singular location.  Ryann must discover why the spirits are back and what it is they want that’s in the Courthouse.

TOMB RAIDER x UNCHARTED - The Bloodright Chalice is the last unrecovered piece of known treasure, and Kel is determined to find it. With the help of a tagalong history nerd, she must fight off mercenaries, navigate perilous terrain, and withstand the draw of a magical artifact.

KICKASS x DAREDEVIL - Kimberly Price is trying to be the hero her powers deserve, but her moral ambiguity keeps leading her off track. Upon discovering an underground crime ring, Kim discovers her big break and that the mob boss, a mutant like her, can break any bone in her body with his mind.

INCEPTION x ARRIVAL - Dr. Parson has been having dreams recently of waking up next to a woman who he doesn’t know and she claims to be his wife. His new research partner on the particle accelerator is revealed to be the very same woman he’s been dreaming of since the beginning of the project.  He knows more about her than he should and it feels like an abuse of power, but he cannot help but fall in love, or rather stay in love. But how can he be honest when it would paint him as insane and ruin both his relationship with her and his plans for the project?

#writeblr #writers of tumblr #writblr #writing #allwip

[redditnosleep]

I'm A Search And Rescue Officer For The US Forest Service, I Have Some Stories To Tell

by searchandrescuewoods.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 (Final)

It's been way too long since I posted an update, and I'm sorry about that. There's also been some confusion about the new formatting requirements on the board, which I've cleared up. So these next few stories are going to be posted a little differently! They'll be in chronological order, and I'll do my best to tie them into each other as much as I can so it doesn't skip around too much.

When I started out as a rookie, no one had told me a lot about the job in terms of weird things that could happen. I'm assuming this was largely to prevent me from freaking out and abandoning the park. But a few months into my service, when I was still a rookie, a friend and I were drunk at a party, and he opened up a bit: "Yeah, it can get a little crazy out there, I guess. I think the worst are the ones where people die when they just shouldn't, you know? Or when we find 'em dead like ten minutes after someone says they saw them last. 'They were fine when I passed them on the switchback, I swear!' That sort of shit. Like, take this guy who I found one spring out on a really popular trail. Someone comes into the VC freaking about about some guy who's lying in the middle of the path in this giant pool of blood. So we run out there, and we find this guy dead as a doornail. Which he absolutely should be, because the back of his head is like mashed potatoes. The skull is decimated, brains are leaking out like custard filling, and they guy's old so you figure yeah, he probably fell and hit his head. Old people fall all the time, it's no big deal. Except that this area where he fell doesn't HAVE any big rocks. There's not even any stumps or big branches. And on top of that, there's no blood trail, so he clearly died where he dropped. Now that's when you'd turn to murder, but there were people just out of line of sight with the guy. If someone came up behind him and murdered him, there's no way someone wouldn't have heard. And again, even if someone had, there'd be a blood trail, spatter all over the place. But everyone on the scene said it looked exactly like he'd fallen and smashed his head on a rock. So what the fuck did he hit his head on? And then there was this lady I found in a different park about five years ago, back when I was upstate. We found her in the middle of a stand of big junipers, curled around the trunk, like she was huggin' it. We pick her up to move her, and a fucking waterfall comes out of her mouth, splashes all over my shoes. Her clothes are dry, and her hair is dry, but the amount of water in her lungs and stomach was phenomenal. Unreal, man. Coroners report? Says the cause of death was drowning. Her lungs were completely full of water. This, even though we're in the middle of the high desert, and there isn't a body of water for miles. No puddles, no nothing. No signs of anyone else being out there. I mean yeah, it's possible they were murdered. But why go out of the way to do it like that? Why not just stab 'em and be done with it? I dunno, it just sits weird with me."

Now of course, that freaked me out a little. But we were wasted, and I guess I sort of wrote it off as a fluke. I also assumed there was exaggeration there, since, you know, we were wasted.

Now, I don't like talking about this next case very much. It was an awful one that I've done my best to forget about, but of course that's easier said than done. This happened about six months after the conversation with my friend at the bar, and up until that point I hadn't had a lot of really weird shit go down. A few things here and there, and of course the stairs, but it's amazingly easy to get used to stuff like that when it's treated as if it's normal. This case was a little different.

A guy with Down's Syndrome in his 20s went missing after his family lost sight of him on a major path. That was odd in and of itself, because this guy never left his mom's side. She was absolutely convinced he'd been kidnapped, and unfortunately a Ranger who isn't with the park anymore insinuated that no one was going to kidnap someone... well, with that kind of disability. Not very tactful, to say the least. We wasted a lot of time trying to calm her down enough to get information about him, and then we put out an official missing persons call. Because of the urgency of the situation, him being mostly unable to function alone, we had local police come in and help us. We didn't find him the first night, which was heartbreaking. None of us wanted to think of him being alone out there. We assumed he'd just kept wandering, and was staying ahead of us. We brought out helis the next day, and they spotted him in a little canyon. I helped bring him back up, but he was in bad shape, and I think we all knew he wasn't gonna make it. He'd fallen and broken his spine, and couldn't feel his lower half. He'd also broken both his legs, one at the femur, and he'd lost a lot of blood. He was confused and scared while he was alone, so he'd probably exacerbated the injuries by dragging himself a little ways. I know it sounds awful, but while I was riding in the copter with him, I asked him why he'd wandered off. I just wanted something to tell his mother, to let her know it wasn't her fault, because he was fading fast and I didn't think she'd get to ask him herself. He was crying, and he said something about how 'the little sad boy' had wanted him to come play. He said the little boy wanted to 'trade' so he could 'go home'. Then he closed his eyes, and when he woke up again, he was in the canyon. I'm not sure that's exactly what he said, but it was what I thought the gist of it was. He kept crying, asking where his mommy was, and I held his hand and tried my best to keep him calm. 'It was cold out there.' He kept saying that. 'It was cold out there. My legs was frozen. It was cold out there. It's cold in me.' He was getting even weaker, so he eventually stopped talking, and he closed his eyes for a while. Then, when we were about five minutes from the hospital, he looked right at me, with these big tears running down his face, and he said 'Mama won't see me no more. Love mama, wish she was here.' And he closed his eyes and he just... never woke up. It was horrible, and I don't like talking about it. That case was one of the first ones that really rattled me badly.

Because of how badly it affected me, I reached out to a senior Ranger, and who ended up helping me through it. As time went on, and we got to know each other better, he ended up sharing one of his own stories with me. It was disturbing, but it helped to know that I wasn't the only one affected by the things going on out there. "I think this must have happened before you got here, because I think if it had happened while you were here you'd have remembered it. I know it didn't end up in the news, for some reason, but I think most people who've been here long enough know about it. The park sold off a portion of land to a logging company, and it was a really controversial thing. But it wasn't that large or old of a plot, and it was right after the recession, so we needed cash bad. Anyway, they were felling this plot of land, and we get a call that we need to get our supervisors out right away. I don't know why, but they ended up sending me and a few other guys along with the heads, I guess for power in numbers, to see what was up. We got there, and all these guys are crowded around a tree that they've just cut down. They're all pissed off and freaking out and the foreman comes over and says he wants to know what we think we're up to. "What the hell y'all think this is, some kinda sick joke? You've got a lot of fuckin' nerve pulling this shit, we bought this land fair and square!" Well we don't know what the hell he's talking about, so he brings us over to this felled tree and points at it and tells us that when they cut it down, it was just like this, and they'll be damned if they put it there. The inside of the tree was all rotted out and hollow in one spot, and when they'd cut it down it had exposed that chamber, and inside it is a hand. Like a perfectly severed hand. And looks like it's actually fused with the inside of the tree. Well now we think THEY'RE pulling a joke, so we tell them that we don't like being fucked with, and we start to leave, but they tell us they've already called the cops, and that they'll go right to the media if we don't stick around. Well that gets the heads' attention, so they stick around and talk to the police about it. Everyone is denying that they put the hand in there, and besides, how would anyone have even done it? It's clearly a real hand, but it's not mummified or skeletal. It's brand new, probably not even a day old. And it is definitely fused with the wood, you can see that it's coming right out of it. The loggers, they insist that they didn't put it there. Somehow, this fresh human hand ended up fused to the inside of this living tree. The cops have them cut up that section of tree into a movable chunk. Then they take the hand away, and the area is closed off. There was a pretty big investigation, but I know they didn't find get any answers. Now it's become this legend, and as far as I know we haven't sold any more property for logging."

As you all know, I went to a training seminar recently, and heard some amazing and horrible things there. One of the guys I talked to while I was there told me a story when we were all around the campfire one night. We were both pretty drunk, you'll see a pattern here, and we were swapping stories. He told me this one: "Me and another guy were out on a field search because some campers reported screaming noises at night. So we head out there to look for whatever fucking mountain lion has wandered into the area, and I'm pissed. We've had three of them show up in the camping areas that year alone and I'm getting tired as hell of constantly having to deal with them. Plus, I just don't like them anyway. They're a pain in the ass and they're loud and they scare the shit out of me. Fuckin' cats. Pieces of shit. I'm groanin' about it to the guy I'm with and he thinks it's a real fuckin' riot. So we're seeing all these broken branches and what look like dens and we're pretty sure we know where this thing is. I call in and they tell me to confirm if possible, which you know just means they want to you to step in a big pile of shit and use that as proof. I'm not seeing any, though, so I basically just tell 'em to shove it, I'm done. We know that damn thing's out here somewhere, even if I'm not stepping in its shit or inside its mouth or whatever. Guy I'm with wanders off to take a piss or whatever, and I stay behind watching this little burrow under a tree to see if maybe a fox or somethin' is living under it, 'cause I love foxes, man. They're cute as hell. But anyway, I'm watching this tree and I start hearing branches crackling and it's coming from the direction my partner went opposite of. Now I've got my pistol, but you and I both know that's not gonna do shit against a cat. I cock it and holler for my partner to get his dumb ass back, but he's too far and he can't hear me. I stand up and get my sights on where the thing is approaching, and I shit you not, man, I just about peed myself. This guy is coming toward me, and he's back-flipping through the fucking woods. Like, instead of walking, he's doing these crazy fucking back-flips, and I swear to God he cleared every fucking log and bush in his path, it was like he knew right where he was going. I yell at the guy to stop right where he is, that I'm pointing a gun right at him, but he keeps coming, and I just kinda lost it. I shot at the ground in front of him, and it was a dumb fuckin' thing to do, but man I didn't want this guy anywhere near me. When I fired, he was about fifty yards from me, and as soon as the gun goes off, he whirls around and goes off, back-flipping back into the woods. My partner hears my gun go off and runs back and asks what's up, and I tell him there's some fucking weirdo out here hopped up on God knows what, and we need to get the hell out of Dodge. I let the cops know what happened, and I didn't get in any trouble for firing, but man, I don't know what that motherfucker was on but I've never seen anything like that before. Shit was absolutely butt-fuck crazy."

I think we can agree that there's stuff going on out here in the woods, and while I'm not going to spout off about what it could be, or offer any theories, what I want people to take away from all of this is that it is so damn important to be safe when you're out there. I know a lot of you think you're invincible, but the fact is that you CAN die out there, or be hurt, or go missing. It's easier than you'd ever imagine.

I apologize for this relatively short update, guys, I will do my absolute best to continue this series as soon as possible. Thanks for all your continuing support, it means the world to me!

#search and rescue series #creepy #horror story #series

[chronotopes]

book log: a stitch in time by andrew robinson

you guys i’m going to go bullet point by bullet point through all of my ibooks annotations so buckle in if you dare 

first of all that first chapter owns my ass. “indulge me if you will i need you as a witness”?? that’s the most. that’s the absolute most. that said, the concept that they Grew Apart after our man bashir, while ... certainly canon compliant.... is a piece of canon i refuse to accept. i have my own canon timeline for these kinds of things

i fucking LOVE pythas lok? i lived for that relationship. in fact the fact that this book is just garak cycling through his exes and the way they were all instrumental to events unfolding on cardassia? in fact i begin now to suspect that gul dukat is the only cardassian from garak’s past whom garak hasn’t fucked AND isn’t related to 

i whooped victoriously when garak said he was attracted to pythas. small victories. and then again when garak criticized odo’s uniform. 

love that the bamarren parts of the book that don’t involve palandine read like some kind of fucking... edwardian all boys school shit. like am i reading an a.e. housman poem? am i rewatching maurice (1987) dir. james ivory? no i am reading a beta canon epistolary novel about a gay lizard 

on that note garak being genuinely into women is something ajr and i disagree on but that’s just like to each his own 

garak’s famed volcano dick made me laugh. this book is such a fanfic at times. and then palandine teaches him that IT’S ALL TRUE, ESPECIALLY THE LIES. in fact like ... i didn’t even consider this now but in the garak/palandine stuff at bamarren reads in certain cases like early seasons garashir? but we’ll get to the more concrete parts of alla that later 

anyway .... “but i’m also a doctor, garak. and i know which group of people suffers the most. i really won’t take up any more of your time.” he extended his hand, which he rarely did, and i took it. “thank you for the tea.” he turned and went out the door.  i stood there for a long moment, deeply upset. i felt trapped within myself, knowing what i had to do to get out but unable even to begin. yes, doctor, it does sound familiar.” WHAT THE FUCK WAS THIS!! (what the fuck was that whole scene!!!)

SPEAKING of doctors, dr parmak is really something. sorry i know a lot of you love him but i hope you realize he’s a rebound of a mighty order. self care is dating an older lizard flavored carbon copy of your ex bf. 

this was like finding out that in ds9 beta canon ro laren becomes SECURITY OFFICER and dates QUARK is a similar experience to this. ro laren and kelas parmak: the only thing they have in common is being quark and garak’s doctor and security officer rebounds. 

that said ro is her own person! parmak is a fig leaf. a plot device. andrew robinson winking at you from seventeen years ago. a mirror. god! 

anyway then two of garak’s three school crushes hook up, and he’s left with pythas who is the best one anyway.

and there’s the fucking insane sequence where garak goes on lots of hikes with a Privileged Federation Twink whom he’s totally dtf as his first spy mission. and at one point, even though garak does hate his guts along with being dtf he thinks he’s “so concerned, so caring. i took another long breath. [...] i looked hans in the eyes and resisted being swallowed by their immeasurable blue depths.” like i’m not saying garak has a type but garak has a type! 

i forgot about this but aside from pythas and that bitchy cousin of lukar, among garak’s classmates turn out to be the asshole from the casablanca episode and a relative of tekeny ghemor. it’s some 19th century lit bullshit and i LOVED it! as if this weren’t enough, there are four lights guy is also in this. 

we also briefly meet remara, a totally deadly ex gf of kira’s. idk what garak was trying to do with their relationship but i’m totally interested in fanfic about remara being an asshole ex gf of kira’s. 

garak’s battles of conscience are great. again very 19th c . i love how miserable he is throughout this book. 

OH AND THEN HE AND PYTHAS LIVE IN THE WOODS FOR A MONTH OR SO AND FEEL LIKE.. COMFORTABLE FOR ONCE IN THEIR LIVES... AND PROBABLY HAVE SEX! 

ooh and then we get a rlly spooky sequence where we see the wire IN ACTION

the assassin cover professions we’ve seen in this book and in this show are either Lesbian Professions (gardeners, park rangers) or Gay Professions (the fashion industry). what is it with covert operations and the lgbt community. 

i SCREAMED about chapter 19 earlier today. but just to go over it once more 

garak has a spooky dream about julian burying him alive ! so he hits him up at six in the fucking morning 

“doctor forgive me but i need to see you,” i said as calmly as i could.  “garak?”  “i do apologize but it’s important.” 

and then garak hears “another voice in the background. ezri dax. a muffled conversation. the doctor cleared his throat again. “i’ll be right over” he said.” I LOVE THAT EZRI AND JULIAN AREN’T EVEN FUCKING AT THIS POINT BUT AJR COULDN’T RESIST HIGHLIGHTING THE RIVALRY BETWEEN THEM?!

and then julian said “there are more things in heaven and earth horatio than are dreamt of in your philosophy” and i died on the spot. they’re IN LOVE?! ajr i thought you wrote garashir as unrequited but what kind of man quotes hamlet talking 2 horatio at his platonic dude friend while he’s run over to his quarters in the middle of the night after said platonic dudefriend has a nightmare? 

“i was also convinced that it was all a dream, and i kept asking myself what you were doing there” like what the actual fuck? anyway they talk the wire and it’s a lot. and of course “you not only saved my life you made it possible for me to live it.” 

AND THEN OF COURSE “this is my last trip to cardassia. i’m not returning. you were in the dream for a very specific reason. once again, you helped me remember. thank you, julian.” JULIAN! JULIAN!! i’m DYING OF CARDIAC ARREST! (also this scene finally solidified my headcanons for when they break up for the second time.) 

anyway then the palandine shit goes down and garak kills his OTHER old school crush (the one that turned out to be a dick) 

one of my notes on here, verbatim: “have garak and quark had sex” i asked myself and then immediately wanted to die

the second time garak said that kelas parmak was “so much like you, doctor” i damn near screamed in frustration. don’t try me like this elim!! 

and then we get the last julian mirror who’s that sad federation woman who spills her soul to elim and the line “CAREFUL, ELIM. YOU KNOW PERFECTLY WELL THAT THE SUREST WAY TO YOUR HEART IS THROUGH CONVERSATION”

okay and THEN he meets pythas who’s been Permanently Marked By The Horrors Of War and he’s got a gf who saved his life even though he didn’t want to be saved at first.... so like pythas is special because he’s a garak mirror AND a garak boyfriend at the same time!

and pythas was in the grounds trying to warn garak before all the shit went down with palandine. i’m dying scoob

the fact that the epilogue starts with the line “it’s just garak. plain simple garak.” the flashback timeline ends at the point garak meets julian! i hate this it’s so fucking romantic

and then YOU’RE ALWAYS WELCOME DOCTOR..... like idk about the canon status of a lot of these things but i totally buy this novel as a thing that exists that garak sent. which of course is a great jumping off point for post canon cardassia fic. justice is so sweet. 

#just katia things #trek talk #and #a really ridiculous entry in #book log '17

[swseats]

ECLECTICLE 9/16

There must be something in the air. Maybe it is the recent Full Harvest Moon (which won’t be back under the same circumstances for another 30 or so years), but folks are being a little, well, full of themselves online. And it isn’t cute.

On one of my social media feeds, a really empowering meme came across my desktop. I thought it had something good to say and it would be helpful for a number of people. Just as I was about to re-post it, I made the mistake of glancing to the side where the comments rested like quicksand, waiting to lure me in with the promise of safe purchase.

Three comments in and already people had begun to explain “That’s not how *I* see things” or “That’s not how it happened for me”. Each comment came across in a flippant way. And below each response were two or three more comments, each one even more rude than the previous. Why is it that people respond so quickly and in a way, that is - quite frankly - not nice?

A few days ago, I re-posted an article on a social media platform that got a couple of people riled up. Their responses were, truth be told, unduly harsh. What baffles me is how people -- and this is a broad generalization -- can be so tone deaf in their responses, completely negating what they are trying to say. Plus, they end up looking like jerks.

Both of these people -- as they responded to the main article and the corresponding comments -- came off alternately as arrogant, pedantic and just mean. There was really no other way to interpret their word choices and phrasing of things. And this wasn’t even Twitter!  There is a fine line between witty and condescending; unfortunately, they both blew past that line. 

When I post on social media, my hope is that when folks weigh in on a topic, with the possible exception of  How To Make Our Pizzadilla, they are looking to have a conversation. With that idea in mind, here are five things that I try to remember for myself. Five guidelines that I think will make for more positive interactions online:

Take a breath Often times, giving your brain some oxygen will short out the negative angry thoughts and give us the opportunity to look at things from a different perspective.

Give it time No matter how much something I just read may tick me off, I always benefit from giving it a little time so that I can formulate a cogent reply. I also re-read whatever it was that set me off. It is not uncommon for me to have missed or misread something.

Go High Ad hominem attacks just get in the way of productive civilized discussion. Focus on the subject at hand without insulting the original speaker or commenter.

Keep your Hot Takes to yourself. No, really. Keep them to yourself. Responding from a purely emotional or visceral space just muddies the water. It makes it difficult -- if not impossible -- for your point to be heard or understood. Step back from the keyboard, close your eyes, and formulate a coherent comment. And last but not least:

BE NICE!

+++ 

It's amazing what ugliness can emerge from a human mouth unburdened by the slightest cognitive effort. -Jeremy Spiegel, MD "Stop Being Such A Jerk", Psychology Today, June 30, 2010

+++

If you’re new here, ECLECTICLE Is my “Eclectic Listicle” of the recent things that have been happening in my world. It is a regularly occurring place to toss out items of interest and information. My hope is that you will enjoy it and find something useful. So, let’s get going. 

+++

Just because you don’t need them doesn’t mean no one does. -Alice Wong,  "The Rise And Fall Of The Plastic Straw", CATALYST 2017

+++

What I’m eating:

Nepali Momo (Nepali Style dumplings)

Momos are a Nepali style dumpling that can be either steamed or fried. And the fillings are flavorful and delicious. For my first try at these delightful pillows of goodness, I chose the vegetable version from Momolicious’ Kathmandu Momo (Steamed Momo served with their special tomato, cilantro, and Sichuan pepper sauce.

The handmade dumpling had just the right chew. Not too thick and not too thin. The spices in the filling came through beautifully and included cumin, cilantro, and I think I tasted a little clove minced in with the Sichuan pepper sauce. All together, it felt like a nice warm hug for my taste buds.

There were a few dipping sauces to go along with the dishes. I chose the soy sauce -- because that’s who I am -- and the bright orange Momo Sauce. That Momo Sauce was so good, I used my finger to wipe out the inside of the small portion cup sized container. If you have a chance to grab an order, know that in one order there are enough momos to share -- unless you are like me and then you will devour the whole thing.

What I’m reading:

I have had so many experiences in restaurants where you could not hear yourself above the din of clattering dishes and cacophonous conversations. I’m glad restaurants are paying attention. Why we need to rethink the concept of noise in restaurants 

This is such a fascinating story. It’s encouraging that the owners are able to meld food and social purpose in such a delicious way.  'We just want to build a community': Mozzeria's story of empowerment and access 

As we uncover -- and talk about openly -- the history around the slave trade in the United States, it is becoming more and more important to accurately tell the stories. Plantations are talking more about slavery - and grappling with visitors who talk back

This is quite the hobby! This Latte Artist Forms Foam Into Flocks of Birds - Atlas Obscura

What I’m Listening to:

Podcast: East Bay Yesterday

Title: Betty Reid Soskin interview

Host Liam O’Donoghue brings us lovely interview with a true piece of living history: Betty Reid Soskin. As Liam writes in the intro to this podcast:

“...Betty Reid Soskin shares stories of growing up in Oakland during the 1920s “when the hills used to burn every year.” She traces her journey from working in a segregated union hall during World War II to co-founding one of the East Bay’s first Black record stores to becoming “America’s oldest National Park ranger” at the age of 85.”

#swseats #EatLocal #what i'm eating #what I'm reading #what i'm listening to #oaklandeats #oaklandlocal #oaklandloveit #oakland #eastbay #foodblogger #food enthusiast #foodie #blackfoodbloggers #foodbloger #foodwriter

[muellerewald-blog]

Africa Travel Tips from a Female Solo Traveler

When you get lost, you will find a true treasure in Africa.

The landscapes are breathtaking, the people still carry on with their traditions like thousand years ago. You imagine that you are in a totally different world. So what makes Africa that special that you get drawn to it?

Every time I put my feet on the African soil it feels like I am home.

I love the rich cultures, traditions, African cousin, the smells of the herbs and spices on the streets makes you want to try all the street food. Not to even mention the wildlife and their national parks, that will blow you away.

Before you get enthusiastic and jump on a plane, make sure you do some research on where to go and what you want to do. Also, make sure you don’t forget the steps for your own safety!

My Top Africa Travel Tips to Get Your Adventure Started!

1 :Take your vaccinations and medication such as malaria at your doctor’s office or local health department. Make sure you take your medical ID with you and have all your stamps that indicate you’ve been vacinated (For example, currently in Nairobi you’re not allowed in until you show your yellow fever certificte or get the shot in the airport upon arrival).

2: Buy a travel book (like Backpacking Africa for Beginners)that you can take on your trip. There are many Africa travel tips and tricks and some even include easy lines to practice in the language of the country you’re visiting. Are you a planner? Make your route. If not, make sure you know how to stay safe and get all your phone numbers in case of an emergency.

3: Traveling solo, I would recommend a backpack. It’s easy to carry around and to put it on your lap or between your legs while traveling with public transportation. This keep your belongings more safe against thieves. Hardcover suitcase may get broken because they don’t fit in jeeps or public transportation.

4: Find as much information possible on how you want to travel around the country you’re visiting. Public transportation, hitchhiking…. are they safe there? In South Africa, you can look into special minibuses for tourists like the Baz bus or rent a car for yourself (I had a really good experience with Sunny Cars. They provided fixed prices, good service, & high quality insurance). Before you step into an adventure, get your international drivers licenses ready (of course, only if you choose to self-drive)!

Now you got the basics done, it’s time to book a ticket! And pack your bag!

Africa is a very diverse continent, no country is the same. It’s a challenge to pick a country. There is just too much to choose from. In the north you have the Arabic countries with their lovely, food, seas and deserts. Central Africa, West and East Africa have all different challenges. If it’s your first time to Africa I recommend South Africa. It’s a mixture of central, west and east but in a modern way and easy to get around.

But if you like a challenge and stay in South Africa, you wouldn’t want to miss out on Swaziland and Lesotho. These two countries are hidden gems. They bring you back to the true traditional Africa. You may see more poverty but the people are very friendly and help you out! The less they have the more they give you. Not even mentioning their traditions, in Swaziland there is still a king that rules the country. Every year there is a ceremony to find a new wife. This looks a bit strange to us but it’s something so special to be a part of. All woman coming together and will perform a traditional dance for the king.

Swaziland has high mountains and great rivers to do some whitewater rafting. Take a donkey and climb a mountain. Visit Hlane royal Park, let the ranger take you on a safari. Nearby Hlane you go up north to Simunye, Shewula camp. This camp is basic and simple, it’s on top of a mountain so take your car and hit the dirt road. Drive until you are on the peak of the mountain and the camp will give you a warm welcome. Don’t expect luxury but a taste of simple, breathtaking Swaziland. The camp is run by the locals, you stay in a round navel hut, looking over the valley.  Go there and give back to the local community. They provide for small tours, traditional dance, to talk to a traditional healer, drinking maize beer out of a bucket in a local pub.

Lesotho is the kingdom of the sky, it’s a highland and the lowest point is 1.400 meters above sea-level. The best way to get into Lesotho is from South African border driving through the Sanipass. This is only possible with a 4×4 car. A difficult but amazing trip will lead you to right up from the pass into the mountain. On the way up you will feel the pressure on your ears and the views get more stunning by the minute. You will come across a lot different species of bird like eagles watching over the pass. If you got a 4×4 rental car you can do this on your own. But if you want a customized trip, I really liked Roof of Africa Tours.

When the Sanipass ends you reach the highest pub of Africa with a great scenery, time for a toast! The traditional Basotho people are waiting for you in their traditional clothing. They wear blankets and rubber boots and own a horse for transportation. You really go back in time, mountain villages with huts and horses and people in traditional cloths. What would be better than to step in their comfort zone and jump on a horse, life for a moment like they do? Visit a small village talk to the locals, play with their children dance around bonfires. And get to know more about their daily life.

Every year there is a ceremony where young boys will become adults. They need to ask permission to the mayor of the town to send the boys into mountains for an initiation. If they manage to survive for one week they pass the test to become an adult. Their blankets have many colors and patterns with a different meaning, every town has its own. When there is a ceremony the Basotho people wear their Basotho hats. You can buy a small version of them to have a great souvenir.

The colors of the mountains change and you will find many waterfalls and even some frozen ones in the winter. It gets really cold during the night below zero degrees Celsius, so make sure you got some warm clothes with you. If you are in love with mountains… this is the country for you!

There are many ways to overnight and most people choose for the luxury option Sanipass lodge. I stayed with a local family and they touched my heart. So visit Sobasoba Lodge. They build traditional huts for tourists and the prices are cheap including lunch and dinner

Author Bio: Jessy Lamers Always searching for my next adventure, it’s a kind of addiction to me. I am 28 and like traveling solo. It gives me a lot of freedom. In daily life, I am a social worker. I guess my curiosity to interact with people and their way of life is in my blood. My favorite continent is Africa, the perfect place to learn more about cultures and traditions. Seeking for wildlife give me such a rush. Nature and its wildlife is a passion on and below the surface. Scuba diving gives me peace and lets me into a different world. Traveling is a way to connect with myself and my surroundings, every destination gives me another vibe and changed my perspective on life. What makes my travels unforgettable are the people that I meet along the way. Making friends, backpacking together, or meeting up with some locals. I have a weak spot for children and love to interact even if the language is a boundary. (Follow Jessy & see more of her amazing photos at https://www.instagram.com/J89_travel/)

[Admin Note: All travel sites/lodging mentioned are personal recommendations of the writer. No affiliate sales are being made. It’s one fellow traveler trying to help the next one out! ]

The post “My Favorite Continent is Africa”: Social Worker Shares Africa Travel Tips appeared first on Backpacking Africa for Beginners.

#Step

[celticnoise]

My friends in Celtic, our first nine-in-a-row, coming days after the infamous European Cup semi-final defeat to the thugs of Atletico Madrid, brought some cheer to a muted week for Celtic fans.  It was a new World Record, but the globe is too big a place for World Records to be meaningful to most people.  Those honours count most in your own backyard.

Winning nine for a second time this year would, in normal circumstances, be an occasion to cherish; I bet the merchandise opportunities were a glint in the eye of the commercial department a year ago.  When it eventually came, through an SPFL board vote, we did what we could to muster some cheer, but the world had much more to worry about than sporting records, even if nine was now only a Scottish landmark.  The pandemic robbed some of far more than football glory, but it denied Celtic fans a special moment.

The football industry, like most entertainment businesses, is on its uppers, with consequences for every club.  Aberdeen, with costs far lower than ours, talk about losing £1m per month, but with furlough arrangements, voluntary wage reductions of managerial and executive staff, deferments among players, the financial impact of the virus has yet to hit.

Celtic’s risk is three fold: there will be a reduction in revenue from match day activities, merchandising and commercial streams, while health and safety costs will increase, albeit not by a significant margin, between them, these two measures will cost at least £10m, possibly much more.

The third risk is the increased jeopardy seeds like Celtic face in European qualification.  The first three rounds of qualification for the Champions and Europa Leagues are one-off games.  The Europa playoff round is also single leg, whereas the Champions League playoff is over two legs.  The danger is clear: have a Lincoln Red Imps away day and even an invincible treble winning team could be out of Europe altogether.

No European football and, all other things being equal, Celtic will make a loss of several tens of millions of pounds next season.  Europa League group stage participation will see that loss curtailed, but not by much.  Reach the Champions League and, for a period, we will be one of the financially strongest clubs in Europe at a time when perhaps 75% of clubs will be underwater and keen to trade players.

So what can we do about it?  It is generally difficult to overhaul your team before the early qualification rounds.  Paying €5m for a goalkeeper is a good sign of intent, but it could also be interpreted as acknowledgement by the board of the stakes at play.  Years of good leadership put Celtic in a strong position going into this crisis, now we are splashing millions in July, when the keeper who started last season’s qualifiers is still on the books; anxiety levels must be different than the corresponding time last season.

Some clubs with options will use this crisis to trade well and improve their team beyond what would be achievable in normal times.  Celtic have options, but goodness, a bad night in the likes of Gibraltar would change all that.

I deliberately used the word ‘trading’ not just buying.  Selling wisely is as much a part of building successful football teams as buying is.  Manage your assets (take me back to 2004), get the good ones on long-term deals, if this is not possible, sell them at the top of the curve.  There is no obligation for football fans to care about finances, so if it’s not your thing, that’s ok, but my Article of fFith is ‘Teams which fail to manage their assets perform significantly worse than those who do’.

Understand your place in the food chain; let others get emotional when players (KT) or managers (BR) declare this or that, then leave.  It’s football, we have seen it all before.  Be unsentimental in the transfer market, trade well and you will outperform those who simply hope players love them back.

Our financial outlook over the next 12 months is so varied, it is not even worth speculating what will happen, but this is not your first season as a Celtic fan and you will know how to interpret the events as they fall over the next two months.

“Be unsentimental”, you say?  Try that.  Try getting 10-in-a-row out of your head when planning for this season.  If you can, you have icier fluids in your veins than I have.  Whatever ails the world, Celtic have to find the fortitude to deliver 10-in-a-row, but there are risks.

If you remember this corresponding article from a year ago, I said our chances of nine-in-a-row was no better than 50%.  While we were comfortably ahead when the league was called, a home defeat on 29 December opened the door to a challenger who bossed us for the second time that month.  I could write a book on what went wrong with Newco after the break, but they were more than capable of beating Hearts, Kilmarnock and Hamilton.  Had they done so, instead of losing and dropping two points at home to Aberdeen and another two to St Johnstone in Perth, they would have been champions when the votes were counted.

Winning leagues is seldom easy and Newco’s biggest problem last season was that they did not have a manager or players who had come through a campaign and delivered the title.  There is institutional knowledge at Celtic Park and Lennoxtown.  They know how to handle defeats – think back to Steven Gerrard’s post-match “bottle” comments about his players in defeat.  Reversals soon become crises, dressing room resourcefulness disappears, while the champions scent blood.

Newco know the league was lost before Covid struck but they also know they came closer than the final league table indicates.  They had a good opportunity and they still do.  As things stand, I don’t think their chances are as good as they were a year ago, but I would put the probability of the title going to Ibrox next year at 30%.

Several things temper my confidence: this is the last season I expect Newco to be close to Celtic.  They have made an operational loss every year since they were formed (and an actual loss if you overlook a remarkable IP revaluation).  This cannot go on, they are out of road on Financial Fair Play, and while Celtic contemplate a significant potential loss, Newco do not have the possibility of Champions League football and will find it impossible to break even and remain competitive.  Their outlook is very bleak and they face a significant retrenchment after this season; whatever resources they have will be deployed now.

Teams have a shelf life.  In the 60 years following the War, there seemed to be a time-limit of two seasons on a title winning team.  Two-in-a-row was achieved 11 times in that era, but nine of those champions lost the following season.  In the other two ocassions, the settled winning team went on to achieve nine successive titles.  Celtic’s Gordon Strachan and Rangers’ Walter Smith spoiled this symmetry by successively winning the title in three successive seasons.

There must be reasons why three-in-a-row was so difficult to achieve.  My suspicion is that any one team has around two years at the top and that winning sides are not broken up as quickly as they should be.  There is also a reason why, when three titles were achieved, it so readily turned into nine.  Perhaps the disruption of reworking a losing team three successive summers brought counter-productive turmoil.  We need to acknowledge that champions have a shelf life and history indicates this fact is usually recognised too late.

There is also the ‘What next?’ issue.  Rangers should have had more than enough to see off the challenge from Celtic in 1997-98, but early in the season the manager and some senior players were looking beyond life at Rangers.  Focus slipped and never recovered.  The ‘Stay for 10’ sentiment has kicked around Celtic for years now.  ‘What next?’ is a question some at the club will inevitably contemplate.  This is a watershed season for many at Celtic and there is nothing we can do to pretend otherwise.

There is also the potential for the pandemic to impact the new season.  Isolated lockdown and illness could severely affect any individual club.  If the virus gets into the Celtic squad, we will not win the league.  I know the club are vigilant on this issue, but all it takes is one infected opponent, or a careless Celtic player, and your first team could be unfit for months.

If a second wave comes, it is possible next season will also be curtailed.  A slow start to the season could lead to the league being called against you.  At no point can we be comfortable if we have ground to make up.

All empires fall and these Celtic players are competing in the rarest air.  They deserve enormous credit, as do those who support their work.  Whatever lies ahead of us this season, 10-in-a-row, two Scottish Cups and a fifth consecutive treble, or tears and despair, this will be a season you refer to for the rest of your life.  Enjoy it, and enjoy Green Day for the Foundation on Sunday, you wear something green and make a donation.

Take care, we are not through this yet.

https://ift.tt/3feGhHt

#CelticNoise #Celtic #CelticFC #CelticQuickNews

[enkelimagnus]

A Castle in the Forest

Percy x Vex’ahlia, Chapter 8, 4107 words,

A Modern AU, in which Vex is a park ranger taking over the Alabaster Sierras post, and finds much more than she bargained for

Read on AO3

Daddy issues, emotional breakdowns and rash decisions

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

Snow falls almost continuously for the next day or so, covering the forest and the mountains in blinding white. Every time Vex goes onto the look-out post over the cabin, may it be to clear the path for eventual work or to actually check on her surroundings, she finds herself unable to tell white stone from snow.

Her eyes meet an endless ocean of white, she’s forced to wear sunglasses when the rays bounce off of the snow and ice and blind anyone trying to watch the surrounding nature. It’s breathtaking.

She spends as long as she can on the lookout post, sometimes alone or sometimes with Vax. The endless white makes her feel incredibly small. When she’s alone, the only thing across the valley from her is the castle, in its white glory. It doesn’t loom the way it does when it rains. It stands, proud and tall.

Whitestone exhales in winter. It chases away the heaviness. The sky is bluer right now than she’s ever seen it here. Syngorn doesn’t get this beautiful in winter, it gets drab and wet and disagreeable. Whitestone thrives in the snow. Vex finds herself exhaling with it, breathing hard and free in the cold.

It’s exhilarating, the way the air almost hurts when you breathe it. She wants to stay here forever.

She’s spent a few early morning hours watching the sunrise on the lookout post, black sky turning to gorgeous colors and the winter sun making the white come to life suddenly. It goes from darkness to light so fast it’s almost dizzying. But she can’t stand forever watching. She’s getting a little too frozen for comfort, and she has other things to do.

She climbs down the almost frozen ladder, careful of where she steps and how she grabs. She makes it back down with no issue. The warmth of the cabin envelops her as she steps into it. It stings her fingers and feet a little as warmth and blood comes rushing back in. She busies herself making coffee in the morning, puts the aluminum pot on the stove.

Vax is still asleep, curled up on himself a little. His hair has gotten free of the tie at some point during the night and it’s going to be a bitch to entangle. She can already hear his whines as she brushes out the tangles. He’s always been sensitive when it comes to his scalp. It would be easier if he cut his hair, really, but he will probably kill her before he does that.

Like this, with his hair covering his ears, he looks almost full-blooded. Vex swallows.

She hates those thoughts. They’re not hers. They’re the ones of the Syngornian elves. They’re the echoes of their comments, of their looks, of their whispers. They’re the memories of their father’s very words when they first arrived. He’d watched them so critically, observed their ears and their hair and their faces, searching for where the human ended and where the elf began. He hadn’t found what he’d wanted, of course.

The disappointment and contempt in his eyes at the moment he’d realized that they would never be mistaken for anything other than what they were is carved into her mind forever.

Maybe that’s one of the reasons Vax never wanted to cut his hair.

No, that couldn’t be it. Vax isn’t her. He was somehow much stronger than she was when it came to their father and Syngorn. He hated them, was clear about it and had given up on their approval years ago. Now he just lives his life and flips them off both literally and figuratively every single day.

Vex isn’t the same. She never could shake the desire to make Syldor Vessar proud. She never could shake the desire to be part of Syngorn, of its society, of the culture. Still now, it comes to her sometimes, the question of whether he cares about what she’s doing. Whether he’s proud of her.

She knows he isn’t. She’s not a full-blooded daughter, she’s not part of Syngornian society, she didn’t take to the education he tried to give her. She was supposed to become part of the courts, to look and act noble-born. She wasn’t supposed to sneak out of the house at night to go run in the woods for hours, sometimes even days. She still could dance well, she could cast a couple of spells, could carve woods and care for leather and saw if needed, she knew how to put her hair up the most appropriate way, knew how to apply makeup in fashion, but she wasn’t noble in any way. She wasn’t a good daughter.

She admits it has gotten easier since Velora, his new daughter, their half-sister, came along. She’s now the full-blooded perfect daughter. There’s no expectation on Vex and Vax anymore, just sighs and demands of good behavior, of not tainting the Vessar name further, as if they were responsible for their own existence, as if he wasn’t the one who conceived them. But Vex doesn’t feel any better.

She feels worse actually. Being discarded can be worse than being a disappointment. When they set fire to the Shademurk Bog and she couldn’t leave her own room for days, terrified and in pain, wounded in more ways than one, all he did was barge into the room and yell at her for endangering an important alliance with the Fey. In that moment, she realized she didn’t matter to anyone anymore but Vax.

And it still hurts, a slowly pulsing, forever seeping, ugly wound, that remains even when the ones Saundor had gifted her with are healing. She knows she’s stupid to care so much about a man that never loved her. But what else is she supposed to do?

The coffee pot starts gurgling and she turns back to it. Vax stirs in the bed, warm and almost soft this early in the morning, when thoughts and memories have yet to come to his mind. Vex busies herself with eggs and bread as he sits up groggily.

“Early riser,” he mumbles. “How long have you…”

“A couple of hours,” Vex shrugs and grabs two of the metal plates and puts them on the table, next to two mugs for coffee. “Did some work and made you breakfast.” She reaches to flip the toast over on the pan. It takes a lot of attention to toast bread that way. She enjoys it though.

Vax huffs and gets out of bed, stretching a little and walking over to the table and the food she’s now putting there.

“What’s the program for today?” He asks, as he reaches for his bag.

Vex follows his arm and raises an eyebrow. “Hmm… We should probably hunt while the weather is pleasant. It could start snowing and just not stop for a while and finding meat then will be a struggle.” She points out.

Vax ruffles through his bag before he takes out a couple of little pouches and a glass vial. The spices and vinegar Vex requested.

“Well that sounds fun. Do you want me to come?” He puts the spices on the table with a smile towards her.

“I’m probably going to need some extra hands to get it back,” she points out. “Unless you want to wait for my text and then come get me, you should probably come along. Besides, some time in nature will do you good.”

Vax puts on a falsely offended hair, hand going from the coffee-filled mug to clutching his chest. “That feels like an insult, stubby.”

Vex reaches over and taps his cheek slightly. “You’re pale. You spend too much time in city shadows.” She shrugs. “They won’t recognize you when you go back home. All tan and full of winter air.”

Vax nods quietly, looking down at the mug. He’s usually not that quiet when she mentions his lifestyle, especially disapprovingly. Something’s up, she can tell. He leans back a little, still staring at his cup. The coffee is steaming hot, and he seems to be fixated on the patterns the steam is making in the air between them.

She leaves him in the silence for a moment. Vax doesn’t like when people push for information, even her. And she had toast to watch. She finishes watching the toast right when the eggs on the other pan are done.

She piles the toast on a plate and turns around with the pan to put the eggs in their plates. Vax has shifted slightly, a hand up to his face, fingers against his brow bones. He looks preoccupied by whatever it is that’s not making him snap back at her.

When she finally sits down, he exhales and looks up at her.

“I can’t go home,” he says quietly. “Not to Syngorn.”

Vex frowns a little, leaning away from her chair a little bit. “Did something happen?”

Vax looks away from her, swallowing. She doesn’t like this at all. Bitter dread starts pooling in her stomach.

“Father doesn’t want either of us around Velora,” he says after a moment. “He’s made sure we weren’t welcome home anymore. We won’t be able to make it through the door of the house. And…” He stops, sighing. “I think he made sure the people I usually hang with would push me away too.”

Vex sits shell-shocked in her chair. The eggs and toast and coffee are all growing cold, but so is her heart, right now.

She should have expected it. She should have known. When she left for Whitestone, she’d made sure to let Velora know that she didn’t have to be what he wanted her to be. That she could run and fall and come back home with bloody knees. That she could punch anyone who bothered her, no matter how highborn. That she didn’t need to be a perfect elven daughter. Syldor had been furious. He’d basically slammed the door behind her.

Vax takes a piece of paper out of his pocket and slides it over the table. It’s cut roughly and the words on it are messy. Elvish. Don’t come back. It’s not their father’s handwriting, nor is it Devana’s, his wife. She guesses from Vax’s pained eyes that it’s from one of his so-called friends.

“What are you going to do?” She asks after a moment. “Do you still have things there?”

Vax shakes his head. “Nothing important. All I have is here, right now.” He points his chin towards the bag next to the bed. It’s small. “There’s some of your things too,” he points out. “I thought you’d want them here… I didn’t know then we wouldn’t be back.”

Vex’s head is spinning. A second piece of paper is put on the table. This time, the paper is beautiful, the handwriting perfect, and it’s signed by Syldor himself. Her eyes skim over it. The gist of it is the same as the other paper. The house next to the tower, the deep green velvet of the bed canopy.

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” she asks. She wishes she didn’t sound as remorseful as she does.

“You seemed happy,” Vax shrugs. “I didn’t want to ruin that.”

Fuck, they’re alone now. Truly alone. Their mother is dead, their father wishes they were dead, they have no one and they have nothing and they don’t have a home. Tears burn as they rise in her eyes, as she tries to shove them down.

“I’m gonna stay here a little,” Vax continues. “And then I’m going to go to Westruun and stay with Gilmore until…”

Until what? Until he changes his mind? Until she stops wanting to stay in Whitestone? Until they grab a map, close their eyes, drop a coin and see where it lands, where they decide home will be?

“We’ll be fine,” she whispers, but she doesn’t believe it.

Why did he have to overhear her telling Velora to be rebellious? Why couldn’t she shut her fucking mouth and not try and bring Velora into the terrible path she’s on? Why couldn’t she be the daughter Syldor wanted? She hadn’t tried hard enough, and now, now it was too late.

She’s never good enough for anyone.  

There’s a nudge against her leg. She looks down and sees Trinket. He’s making little noises, obviously aware of her distress, but she hasn’t heard them. She hasn’t heard a thing. The egg looks cold and congealed now.

She swallows. “I need to go and get meat for Trinket and us,” she says after a moment. “I need… to go and think.” She points out. “Maybe you shouldn’t come.”

Suddenly, they’re back to being teenagers, grieving and angry. All that Vex wants to do is go and run through the woods until she forgets where she’s from, until she forgets the weight of who she has to be. And Vax nods, the way he did fifteen years ago.

“I think I’ll go to the city again,” he says quietly. “Walk around.”

The same thing he’d do when they were teenagers. He’d stay in Syngorn, sneak around on the rooftops while Vex ran. At the end of the day, they haven’t changed. They’re 28, and yet they’re still the same broken-hearted thirteen year olds that ran out of Syldor’s house that first time.

Vex nods quietly. She stands and reaches for her quiver, strapping it to her thigh. She gets everything else ready, bundling herself up for the oncoming hunt in the cold. As her fingers close around her usual bow, her mind drifts to Fenthras, still hidden under her bed. She shoves the thought away. She’s not worthy of that weapon.

The door of the cabin slams in the silence. She’s greeted by blinding snow. Her instincts yell at her to run and she does.

She takes off running the second she passes the first ring of trees around the clearing. Her lungs burn with exhaustion as well as the icy air. The snow crutches underneath her feet. She runs for a while, until she feels like she’s miles away from the cabin. Her foot catches on a hidden branch and she tumbles down, knees and hands hitting the packed snow.

Her pants are wet and cold and her wrists and knees hurt from the impact but she stays there. She wants to scream and she wants to cry and suddenly, she’s 13 again. She’s 13 and howling at the moon because her mother is dead, her father hates her, and the only person that loves her is as broken as she is.

The moon is not out, it’s the middle of the morning and the sun is shining, but still she howls. Her ears ring with the strength of her own screams. If anyone hears her, they’ll think she’s a wounded animal. It’s fitting.

She’s a wounded animal, hands and knees in the snow, knees numb, face burning with a thousand needles and she screams. Her body is wracked with sobs and screams, she wants to break, she wants to sleep. She’s so tired. She’s so mad. She punches at wet cold snow. It’s packed dense and it hurts her fist as she rages.

She’s ridiculous, isn’t she? She’s an adult woman, and she’s sobbing now because her father won’t love her. Fuck. She wishes her hands were claws in the snow. It’s all so white. She wishes she could stop thinking.

It’s too cold to be out there on the ground, crying. This is ridiculous. Her hands are getting numb, and so are her feet. She lets herself fall into the snow, curls up on herself. She’s still shaking and crying, but she’s not screaming anymore. She’s too tired.

Her sobs eventually quiet, her body stops shaking. She’s just breathing now, harder than before, out of breath from her crisis. She’s cold. The snow has wetted her clothing and the parts of her body not covered by several layers are damp. Her hair is wet too, after she’s just spent gods know how many minutes curled up in the snow.

She doesn’t have any other option than to get up, hunt, and go back to the cabin. And then… She doesn’t know. As long as she can keep her post here in Whitestone, she has somewhere to be. She has a house, she has an income, she has a purpose. As long as she doesn’t find herself in a situation here, she’ll be fine.

Nothing like Saundor can happen again. She doesn’t have Syngorn to go back to anymore, in case something happens. There’s no more emergency exit. This is all she has. She exhales. Fuck. She doesn’t have anywhere to run to.

Gilmore’s nice, but she doesn’t belong there. That’s Vax’s emergency exit. She’ll only take space.

She just needs to be very good at her job. She needs to be indispensable to Whitestone and to the Alabaster Sierras park. She needs to stop making waves and asking questions. She’ll settle there, do her work, and let everyone forget that she’s anything but useful and discreet.

Vex exhales, closing her eyes and trying to calm herself down. Her heart is still pounding in her chest. She needs to shove down the hurt and anger at her father, the panic when she thinks of having to leave Whitestone. She needs to focus on her job.

She forces herself to center, to melt into her primeval sensing abilities. She needs to do her job right.

It’s far from as smooth as the last time. She doesn’t let herself breathe her awareness through her pores, instead, she throws it out of herself in rage, still a little shaky from her crisis. She pushes it out of her skull, out of her body, like she doesn’t want anything to do with it. Her mind tangles with the forest and digs into it, searching, hungry, a predator.

A howling monster of a mind shoves itself through the forest, in search of prey. There’s no fey. Relief floods into her, despite herself. She didn’t think he was a big player in her current state, but isn’t he always? Hasn’t he been a player of her crisis for the past five years?

She tastes ash again. Fiend. No.

She failed. She fucking failed. There were more than one and she missed one. It’s there, it’s violent and it makes her want to scream again.

She snaps back into her body and hits the ground again. Fuck. She failed in the one job she had to do. She’s useless here, isn’t she? She’s useless everywhere, after all. To everyone.

No. Fuck that. Fuck the fiend. Fuck Syldor Vessar and fuck Saundor. Fuck everyone.

She grabs her bow and starts running again, in the general direction of where she sensed the fiend.

She’s out there for what feels like hours, running, hunting. She’s hungry now, exhausted. She’s a little in pain too, and she doesn’t have time for that. She emerges out of the woods and onto a path that she immediately recognizes. She looks up.

Above her stands the blindingly white architecture of Castle Whistestone. She’s on Keyleth’s trail, where she originally found the fiend.

She focuses again. It’s much closer now, and it seems to be straight ahead of her. Except ahead of her is the stone of the rock formation on which the castle was built. There’s nothing there. How can the fiend be in there?

Vex’s eyes scan over the rock, searching for something, anything that will make sense. She’s desperate. She wants to succeed in something, one thing. She wants to find the fiend and kill it. She needs to.

The rock seems to be looser than the rest, smaller rocks shoved one on top of the other in a way that is unlike the rest of the stone around her. There’s a couple bushes in front of it, probably trying to mask the inconsistency. Except in between the two is a space for one thin half-elf druid to go through.

The issue with visiting the same spot every month and being the only one known to use that path is that it’s obvious to see where you disturbed the natural arrangement of wilderness. Vex knows Keyleth went through there. She knows her fiend is close. There’s no other explanation. Keyleth wasn’t smart enough to fool her.

She manages to move some rocks out of the way, though it takes her a while. She’s determined, and time is nothing important to her right now. She’s solely focused on finding what the fuck Keyleth has been hiding from her.

A tunnel opens in front of her. She takes a step forward. There’s not going back now, isn’t it? She waits for a second as her eyes adjust to the darkness.

The ground seems dry, preserved from the weather. A few feet further in, Vex can spot the remains of a small fire. Someone has camped here. She swallows. It doesn’t seem very used. There are some footsteps in the dust and dirt. Vex swallows. Maybe… maybe she should go get Vax. She isn’t far inside and she might need back-up.

But she doesn’t want him to rescue her again. She needs to be useful, by herself. He’s not always going to be by her side in battle, and she needs to do it by herself. She doesn’t want him there. She’s not a damsel, fuck. She’s strong.

She starts walking down the tunnel. It isn’t very long. A few hundred feet at most. The minimal light from outside quickly disappears however, and Vex finds herself walking in the dark. With a quick motion and whisper, she casts Pass Without a Trace. She’s going to surprise that monster.

She eventually reaches a partially crumbled wall, about a foot thick. A large statue has been moved away from the crumbled part. It had probably been used to hide the hole. This is not just a tunnel, this is a secret tunnel, on many levels. Vex looks back behind herself. She can’t see the entrance anymore.

She walks through the hole and into a storage room. Once again, it’s full of dust, with a single path going from the hole in the wall to the door. Whoever is going through this passage - and she guesses it’s Keyleth - doesn’t stop to check the dust-covered crates stacked into the room.

The door itself is closed, but it doesn’t hold to Vex’s skills. She’s learned to pick locks from Vax, and she’s become pretty good at it over the years. The lock clicks as it turns, and she takes a deep breath before opening it.

The room is plunged into darkness. It’s much larger than the storage room, divided into two paths, one going on the right and the other on the left of a central section. She sneaks in closer and she sees metal bars and the glint of chains. It’s a dungeon.

Vex’s breath itches. She shouldn’t be here alone. Fuck, what is she doing? She takes a step back. She’s being stupid. Her fucking pride and her fucking issues are getting in the way. This is not what being useful looks like. She turns around and starts walking back to the door when a light hissing sound reaches her ears.

She was supposed to be stealthy. Fuck, this is where she dies, isn’t it?

She turns around, quietly. Better to be seeing whatever is behind her. She’s supposed to be the one taking monsters by surprise, not the other way around.

A light turns on, deeper in, and flickers. Shadows pool over the floor, waves upon waves of dark smoke. It almost seems to stick to the stone of the walls. It overwhelms the space of the corridor, coming towards Vex. She should be running. Why is she frozen in place?

Footsteps hit the stone floor. They’re light, but Vex has sharp senses. Even with the light hissing of the dark smoke, she can hear those steps getting closer. Two feet, unless some are more silent.

They come out of the smoke like a nightmare. They’re tall and pale, surrounded in black, the smoke seeping out of their nostrils and mouth and eyes, of their hands. It pours out of them, sick and brutal and hissing at her.

A humanoid, with pale hair and glasses and one eye blue and one eye black. Something ugly twists inside of them as they twitch, head tilting to stare at her. The blue eye blinks but not the other one. It’s a deranged sort of wink.

“Well, hello, there. Who are you?”

#perc'ahlia #vex'ahlia #vax'ildan #vaxilmore #critical role #vox machina #fic

[newstfionline]

Headlines

Nature is a balm (CSM) Some people look for laughter in times of stress. Others seek distraction. But in this time of self-isolation, many are finding respite in nature. Beyond the promise of fresh air and a change of scenery, spending time with nature invites a sense of calm. The rhythms of the natural world serve as reminders that life goes on, even as we humans are consumed by uncertainty, says Patricia Hasbach, a clinical psychotherapist. It is a reminder that the world is greater than us and our stress. Even quick trips outside can bring wide-ranging benefits, says Lisa Nisbet, assistant professor of psychology at Trent University in Ontario. In fact, she says, a few brief moments in nature can help restore focus and concentration. So for folks working from home, a quick walk around the block at lunchtime might make for a more productive afternoon.

As life moves online, the offline fall behind (CSM) As endless social media feeds and YouTube videos emphasize that “We’re all in this together,” a huge swath of the population is finding itself digitally erased from the conversation. Some 42 million Americans, and a quarter of all rural residents, lack access to broadband, according to a February 2020 report from BroadbandNow. Even among those who live in places where broadband is offered, for many, it remains out of reach: Just 41% of households with incomes below $20,000 have broadband at home. As the coronavirus pandemic forces Americans out of their workplaces, classrooms, and social spaces, and into their homes, the internet has become, for many, the only link to society. Amid a steady stream of news stories about teleconferencing, remote learning, and Netflix binging, those without reliable online access are finding themselves shut out.

U.S. Food Supply Chain Shows Strain as Virus Spreads (NYT) The nation’s food supply chain is showing signs of strain, as increasing numbers of workers are falling ill with the coronavirus in meat processing plants, warehouses and grocery stores. The spread of the virus through the food and grocery industry is expected to cause disruptions in production and distribution of certain products like pork, industry executives, labor unions and analysts have warned in recent days. The issues follow nearly a month of stockpiling of food and other essentials by panicked shoppers that have tested supply networks as never before. Industry leaders and observers acknowledge the shortages could increase, but they insist it is more of an inconvenience than a major problem. The food supply remains robust, they say, with hundreds of millions of pounds of meat in cold storage. There is no evidence that the coronavirus can be transmitted through food or its packaging, according to the Department of Agriculture. Still, the illnesses have the potential to cause shortages lasting weeks for a few products, creating further anxiety for Americans already shaken by how difficult it can be to find high-demand staples like flour and eggs.

Cities, counties fear losing out on US virus rescue funding (AP) The $2.2 trillion federal rescue package could fail to deliver badly needed financial aid to thousands of smaller cities and counties where a majority of Americans live, according to documents and interviews with local officials. The coronavirus outbreak has blown holes in the budgets of communities as the costs of battling the outbreak skyrocket and critical sources of revenue like sales and income taxes plummet. The Coronavirus Relief Fund uses a formula based on population to parcel out tens of billions of dollars to the states while allowing local governments with more than 500,000 residents to apply directly to the Treasury Department for cash infusions. But localities below the half-million population threshold are in limbo. Of the nearly 3,100 counties in the United States, 130 have populations of more than 500,000, according to the National Association of Counties. There are 36 cities over the half-million mark, the National League of Cities told President Donald Trump in a letter last week. More than half the country’s population lives in cities, towns and villages of fewer than 50,000 people, the letter noted.

Virus exposes US inequality. Will it spur lasting remedies? (AP) The sick who still go to work because they have no paid leave. Families who face ruin from even a temporary layoff. Front-line workers risking infection as they drive buses, bag takeout meals and mop hospital floors. For years, financial inequality has widened in the United States and elsewhere as wealth and income have become increasingly concentrated among the most affluent while millions struggle to get by. Congress, the Trump administration and the Federal Reserve have mounted the largest financial intervention in history--a full-scale drive that includes mandating sick leave for some, distributing $1,200 checks to individuals, allocating rescue aid to employers and expanding unemployment benefits to try to help America survive the crisis. Yet those measures are only temporary. And the disaster that is igniting what’s likely to be a deep recession also raises the question of what happens once life begins to edge back to normal. Will the U.S. remain an outlier among wealthy countries in providing limited protections for the financially vulnerable? Or will it expand the social safety net, as it did after the Great Depression of the 1930s but largely did not after the Great Recession that ended in 2009?

COVID and prisons (Worldcrunch) “What if I never get to see my family again?,” asks Kenneth Hogan, an inmate at Eastern New York correctional facility in a letter to The Guardian. With precautionary measures such as the suspension of outside visits, a grimmer than usual mood is setting in on the U.S. inmate population. Experts say that prison and jails are particularly ripe for propagation, like “petri dishes for coronavirus,” for inmates and staff alike. In California for instance, CNN reports that the number of infections in the state’s prison facilities grew by more than 700% in just over a week.

Bears are having a ‘party’ in shuttered Yosemite National Park (Washington Post) The global pandemic has been good news for bears in Yosemite National Park, where they are thriving in the absence of tourists, according to park workers. “The bear population has quadrupled,” Dane Peterson, who works at the popular Ahwahnee Hotel inside the park, told the Los Angeles Times on Monday. He and the few other essential workers left in the park have also noticed bobcats and coyotes that usually lurk in the shadows are now boldly prowling around employee housing. The animals have always been there, rangers say. It’s just that they’re finally coming out of hiding. With humans gone, the animals are having “a party,” one ranger explained. And instead of going out of their way to avoid large crowds, they are ambling down roads where it’s usually more common to encounter bumper-to-bumper traffic than wildlife.

Venezuela’s Maduro, Used to Crises, Faces His Toughest One Yet (NYT) Only a month ago, President Nicolás Maduro seemed to be consolidating his autocratic rule. The opposition was fading into irrelevance, international pressure was waning and the country’s devastating economic woes were finally easing, if only a bit. Then, suddenly, a global pandemic shut down what’s left of the economy, the collapse of global oil prices wiped out Venezuela’s main remaining economic lifeline and the United States mounted a determined, new effort to oust Mr. Maduro. The Venezuelan leader now confronts one of the most complex crises of a seven-year rule that has been filled with them. At stake are the lives and livelihoods of millions of people in South America’s poorest nation, who face a seventh consecutive year of economic calamity, a new bout of hyperinflation and the deadly threat of the coronavirus.

European countries slowly begin opening up (Foreign Policy) Spain made its first step in easing lockdown restrictions as it allowed roughly 300,000 non-essential workers to return to work, mostly in the construction and manufacturing sectors. The number of new daily coronavirus cases in Spain has dropped in recent days, and on Monday the country recorded its smallest increase in cases since March 22. It is the beginning of a gradual relaxation of strict lockdown procedures in Europe as well as a test of whether countries have succeeded in flattening their coronavirus curves: In Austria, small shops will reopen today, and in Denmark, schools and childcare centers will reopen on Wednesday. France is not following the trend, as French President Emmanuel Macron announced that schools and shops would remain closed until May 11.

Putin warns Russians to brace for ‘extraordinary measures’ in coronavirus fight (South China Morning Post) President Vladimir Putin on Monday warned officials to brace for “extraordinary” scenarios in the coronavirus pandemic as Moscow tightened its lockdown measures and Russia reported its highest daily infection figures yet. Putin’s warning came as mainland China battled to contain imported cases, especially from neighboring Russia. In a video conference with officials on Monday, Putin said the next weeks would be “decisive” for Russia’s fight against the virus as the situation “is changing practically every day, and unfortunately not for the better.” He told officials that they need to “consider all scenarios for how the situation will develop, even the most complex and extraordinary.”

Ukraine says Chernobyl fire extinguished (Reuters) A huge blaze that tore through forests around the defunct Chernobyl nuclear plant has been put out, Ukrainian officials said on Tuesday, saying hundreds of emergency workers had used planes and helicopters to douse the flames. Environmental activists warned that the fire, near the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 1986, posed a radiation risk.

India extends world’s biggest lockdown (Reuters) India extended a lockdown on its 1.3 billion people until at least May 3 on Tuesday and Prime Minister Narendra Modi said economic sacrifices were needed to save lives as the number of coronavirus cases exceeded 10,000.

Coronavirus Fears Terrify and Impoverish Migrants in the Persian Gulf (NYT) Qatar has locked down tens of thousands of migrant workers in a crowded neighborhood, raising fears it will become a coronavirus hotbed. Companies in Saudi Arabia have told foreign laborers to stay home--then stopped paying them. In Kuwait, an actress said on TV that migrants should be thrown out “into the desert.” The oil-rich monarchies of the Persian Gulf have long relied on armies of low-paid migrant workers from Asia, Africa and elsewhere to do the heavy lifting in their economies, and have faced longstanding criticism from rights groups for treating those laborers poorly. Now, the coronavirus pandemic has made matters worse, as migrants in Gulf States have found themselves locked down in cramped, unsanitary dorms, deprived of income and unable to return home because of travel restrictions. Some are running out of food and money and fear they have no place to turn in societies that often treat them like an expendable underclass.

Libya’s war escalates despite international calls for ‘humanitarian pause’ amid pandemic (NYT) One year after an offensive was launched against the Libyan capital Tripoli, Libya’s war is intensifying, and hundreds of thousands of civilians are besieged amid increased shelling and massive water and electricity cuts. Hospitals are being targeted just as the coronavirus is threatening an already shattered health system. The United Nations, the United States and other countries have pleaded with the warring sides for a “humanitarian pause” to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Instead, both sides appear to be determined to take advantage of the international focus on the pandemic and try to gain more territory. After initially agreeing to the “pause,” the warring sides returned to combat within days. The increasing violence is raising alarms within the United Nations and humanitarian agencies. There are now 24 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus and one death. And Libya’s health system has been decimated by the war.

#headlines #news

[drkenmcgill]

“Take it easy, pray for each other and look after your neighbor; when you live a long life, you learn to keep it simple” – John Gould, 94-year old Marine when asked if he worries about the Coronavirus (Dallas Morning News, March 15, 2020)

Let me be clear about this from the outset. The life and death issues connected to the Covid-19 disease that’s grimly impacting the citizens of Earth is serious and far more sobering than the temporary suspensions or abrupt cancellations of the sports leagues, but equally, in times of catastrophe, it has been these very same sports leagues that we are drawn to and have looked forward to watching because they have brought inspiration, unity and hope to mankind all over the Earth when calamity has unexpectedly visited us.

In fact, the world of sports has played a significant role in helping people in countries around the globe deal with the horrific atrocities that came to its very doorstep. In my lifetime alone I’m reminded of the devastating massacres that occurred prior to the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City (Tlatelolco) and during the 1972 Olympics in Munich. Closer to home (in the city in which I dwell) it was the Dallas Cowboys who traveled to Cleveland to play the Browns in an NFL game the weekend after President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, and more recently, it was the MLB Texas Rangers who helped lift up and inspire people around the DFW Metroplex after five police officers were killed in a massacre in 2016. I’m sure in your town or city when tragedy has come close to home, it’s the athletes and our sports teams that have rallied around us to help us get through the worst of our problems and the dire situations that have beset us.

So it saddens me that today, during moments where we would normally turn to our favorite teams for encouragement or relief, or to inspire us to look inward, upward or to reach out toward each other, that they too have been sidelined. But this time, it’s more than athletes with disrupted seasons who are impacted; this matters, and there are probably no words to describe the anguish they feel for having their season if not career end in this manner, whether they perform at the Jr. High, High School, College or Professional level.

But in addition to the athletes, we have college students whose lives are disrupted because they’re hurriedly leaving dorms, traveling home and having to finish their academic year online. It’s citizens in airports around the world desperately trying to get home to their family. Or it’s and it’s parents working out care plans for their children, while some wonder if they’ll have a job to support them, or even worse, how they’ll care for a family member who is recently hospitalized or has succumbed to this deadly disease. These life issues hurt, they hurt us all and they hurt us deeply, sports fan or not.

So I’m reminded of Mr. Gould’s sage and simple advice. Take it easy. Pray to your Higher Power. Pray for each other. Look after your neighbor. Keep it simple. He’s right. This almost centenarian, who has survived WW II and then some, encourages athletes and private citizens, students and parents, old and young alike, closer to home and around the world to remember to engage in simple, caring and doable behaviors when the ominous occurs.  And so I’m going to “hitchhike” on his simple message and do the same, and encourage you to pass it on or pay it forward too. At a time like this, when I have more opportunity to use my time, I can’t think of a better way to use my energy.

So what follows are a few bits of advice that I fall back on as a Psychotherapist (but more so as a human being) to help in some way when tragedy hits, and hurts, again. This info spells out the acrostic “Help Others.”

H: Help yourself by connecting with others, versus being alone and isolated. If you’re feeling down, blue, lonely, hopeless or suicidal, then call, text, email or reach out and connect with someone who can help you in this time of need. If you can’t reach someone then try to relax your mind by meditation or reflection, reading inspiring literature or if you have access to media, then listen to your favorite music playlist or watch an inspiring or entertaining movie.

E: Encourage someone else! Empathy begins when you “project yourself into what you observe,” which means if you observe and sense someone needs help, then if possible, lend a helping hand, a smile, or offer a kind word of encouragement or reassurance; your gesture makes a difference! Remember, you’re here on this Earth for a purpose and there’s nothing like volunteering and assisting others. Know that the seemingly insignificant act of service really is significant!

L: Live out your faith in humanity by being humane. There’s nothing like tragedy or ordeals to bring out the best in us, especially in the days in which we currently live.  No matter what country you’re in, I encourage you to display compassion, calmness, collaboration, creativity and above all care to your fellow man, woman or child!

P: Mr. Gould did encourage us to pray for others. There’s nothing quite like prayer or praying for others to change your opinion of how you see or will eventually treat another person. No matter your faith tradition, I encourage you to go to your God and intercede on behalf of others regarding the plight they may be enduring. I pray that you’re led by your God to do something that is good, helpful and above all supportive to others, and allow yourself to take in their gratitude when they convey their thanks to you!

  O: To start or generate these acts of kindness, I encourage you to open up and access the best of your creativity by exercising and bio-balancing your body. I’m serious. There’s nothing like taking a walk or run at a park (remember social distancing!) or on a treadmill to burn the adrenalin in your body, decrease your distress and to stimulate bilateral functioning between your logical left and creative right hemispheres in your brain. I’m not surprised that the ideas for this post were developed when I was exercising! I wonder what intuitive, creative and detail-oriented solutions will come to your mind when you’re out there helping yourself!

T:  I do encourage you to be a “Therapist,” which is a lot like being a Healer. No, you don’t need a degree to do this, and it’s easier than you think! The classical Greek word for Healing is Therapeia, and it is comprised of the following “ingredients”: Demonstrating the appropriate Care, Attention, Help, Service, Ministering to Others while you Minister to Yourself. Think you could be on the lookout for moments and opportunities to demonstrate these characteristics? When you do then consider yourself a Therapist!

H: What comes to mind when you think about helping others or observing the help they may need? Athletes (and Team Owners) are using their resources and influence to help employees who are going without paychecks by donating funds, raising funds through their participation in “sandlot” activities or donating their time and energy to others (as my son and his teammates are currently doing in Cuba; pray for their safe return!). How about you? Don’t sell yourself short on what you can do to alleviate the suffering of others. Every action helps and it counts. Take some time, think about what you can do, consider your situation and ability, then do it.

E: Equally, don’t sell yourself short on your ability to Encourage, Empower, Empathize or Esteem others, but remember, you’ll also want to take good care of yourself. Years ago I wrote a series of posts (“The Killer D’s and the Empowering E’s”) and one of the “E” words that I wish to call to your attention to is Endurance. I define Endurance as “the act or power of enduring or bearing pain, hardships and demonstrating the ability or strength to continue or last, despite fatigue, stress or other adverse conditions.”

The classical Greek definition of Endurance describes a person who is patient toward things or circumstances and refuses to be defeated, beaten, conquered, or worn out. In order to Endure, I encourage you to access activities or experiences that help you to rest and replenish versus become overwhelmed and resigned. By all means, as you help others to Endure their circumstances, make sure you find ways to refresh and renew yourself!

R: It goes without saying to (w)rap your arms around someone today because healthy physical touch is healthy, and everyone loves (and may desperately need) hugs, kisses or a pat on the back to let you know you’re there with and for them. Psychotherapist Virginia Satir said “We need 4 hugs a day for survival. We need 8 hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth.” No matter how young or old, I hope you receive your 24+ moments of connection with others!

S: So in ending this post on helping others, I’m going to remind you to access your support system. I hope there are people close to you in the form of Pastors, Rabbis, Priests, Spiritual Guides, Therapists, Psychiatrists or just good friends that you could turn to for support, assistance, understanding, compassion, and love. If you’re shut in, remember you can access them via FaceTime, TeleHealth or TeleMedicine. Something tells me that we’re going to need a lot of support and love from others before things get better.

That’s why watching or being involved in sports activities is so important; it brings us together to connect with our support system and when we connect with them, we usually have a lot of fun with them, and boy could we use some connections like this now!

Sadly, we’re seeing that many people have had their lives disrupted not only because of the cessation of sports activities, but many of those same people might have lost their support system (not to mention their income) when their ability to connect via sports was interrupted. Should I keep the importance of sports in perspective? Absolutely. Sports and the people who engage in it, whether as an athlete or as an observer, will always have and share a symbiotic, and hopefully empowering relationship, and I can’t wait until it is resumed!

Until then, I hope this short piece has provoked a few ideas about how you can constructively use your energy to help others now, and when the season restarts, and beyond it.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, and as time permits, please visit the other blogs written by Dr. Ken McGill: Daily Bread for Life and “3 – 2 – 5 – 4 – 24″ for additional information that could be helpful.

I welcome your comments below or via email and your favorites, your retweets and your “+1’s” if you have a brief moment and find the information helpful.

So what do we do now? How about Helping Others! "Take it easy, pray for each other and look after your neighbor; when you live a long life, you learn to keep it simple" - …

[scarylittlefriends]

I’ve just returned from an amazing 3-week road trip to Canada! Here are the places I visited along the way:

Zion National Park, Utah

Lots of amazing trails and views accessible by shuttle bus, but the real highlight was Angel’s Landing, an 8-mile climb up a hogback with drop-offs of 2,000 ft. each side. You have to grab hold of chains to get to the top, but it’s totally worth it! Unfortunately, I wasn’t prepared to do the Narrows, as a permit is required. When I return I will definitely make that my priority.

Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah

Walking Peekaboo Trail Loop is definitely an amazing way to see the hoodoos and various sand sculptures. This place is visually fascinating, even if you aren’t really able to climb up in the formations, and the hikes are relatively safe and easy.

Lava Hot Springs, Idaho

These are my favorite Hot Springs because they have trains that cruise by on the regular and several different pools up to 115 degrees(!). I missed the tourist crowds and this place was so serene and down to earth. This is definitely a magical spot that just called my name:)

Jackson Hole, Wyoming

No need to explain; the city is a tourist mecca and is definitely not my thing. However, I did find the Snake River Brewery and played guitar in the parks all day, so it wasn’t too bad. The pic of my ride was taken 20 minutes outside of town on Bridger-Tetons land and was one of my favorite sites.

Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming

Definitely the highlight of the trip, I decided to backpack to Alaska Basin via Jenny Lake trailhead and ended up coming face to face with a full-size male grizzly bear chasing a black bear up a tree! No pictures of that, but he came out of the woods and stopped about 25 feet in front of me as I proceeded to slowly back away and retreat down the mountain. Camped out and did the Solitude Lake loop the next day instead, and it was a beautiful (and grueling) 20 miles, but totally wild and worth it.

I also saw some moose (pictured) and black bear mama + cubs. The Tetons are much smaller than the Sierras, but similar terrain and waaaay wilder. I’ve got a new appreciation for nature and learned a lesson I’ll never forget:  Carry a .454 if you’re going into grizzly country!

Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

I landed here on Sunday before Labor Day and the place was teeming with clueless tourists fighting for parking and picnic tables which wasn’t to say it was lame; Yellowstone is huge and absolutely stunning, especially the geysers and pools all over the west side. I wasn’t able to see nearly enough of the park, though, and I left unsatisfied. Next time I go it will be during a quiet week and I’ll give myself a few days to explore.

Missoula, Montana

Missoula is a beautiful little town with tons of local color and great food/coffee, thanks to the University of Montana crowd and some really cool young people who have made the place relevant. The fires were raging all over the west by the time I got there, so the sun turned a fire red and visibility was low. It made everything surreal, which of course I loved!

Yoho National Park, British Columbia

All of Canada’s National Parks are free this year to celebrate their 150th anniversary as a nation, so I met my friends Adam and Jessica up at Emerald Lake Resort and we canoed, then hiked to Hamilton Lake (2,500 elevation gain!), then went to Banff the same day. Emerald Lake truly is a gem, as you can see in the background of these pictures.

Banff National Park, Alberta

This place is supposed to beautiful, but the smoke was getting worse as the day wore on and we just popped into Lake Louise, picked up a hitchhiker, then headed down to the town to grab some Timbits from Tim Horton’s. Then we hit up the Banff Hot Springs, which were a bit crowded, and saw the Elk above on the way out. What a day!

Kaslo, British Columbia

This is a magical little place on the north end of Kootenay Lake where people drive cars that are smaller than phone booths, eat Old Dutch Ketchup-flavored chips, and take vacations whenever the hell they want to. We were drinking at the Kaslo Pub and met a wonderful local couple named Terry and Janet who kindly welcomed us into their home and we all sang songs together. It was a magical experience! Then we made it down to Ainsworth Hot Springs which has a magical cave that you can swim in. Soooo relaxing:)

Nelson, British Columbia

My friend Adam grew up the Kootenays and called Nelson his home as a child. This region is incredibly beautiful and relaxed with a nostalgic hippy vibe. People have things figured out there for sure. We got up early and luckily got to see the Kokanee Salmon spawning. They come up from Kootenay lake and mate/give birth in the streams for a very short period each year, and the waters were chock full of them. Amazingly, a black bear mama and her two cubs were eating them out of the creek right before our eyes as the ranger quickly shooed everyone away. That was one of the most special moments of my whole trip, and I realize how fortunate we were to get a glimpse into the private world of bears (this blog won’t let me post videos, but I put one on Instagram).

Nelson is a medium-sized town that is both naturally beautiful and very modern. There are a lot of old draft-dodgers who moved here in the 70’s, as well as lots of young folks with money and good taste for beer and clothes and whatnot. We walked the streets for hours finding all kinds of funky surprises and spectacular views.

Kelowna, British Columbia

My buddy Adam met his father’s side of the family in Kelowna, a very modern city on the lake which is known as an upscale place for retirees and families. It’s definitely got a suburban vibe, but it still is full of relaxed Canadians and felt great to me. I planned on only staying one night, but after ingratiating myself to the Dragland family they insisted I stay for “one more dinner” and I wound up staying with them for 3 days. It was fascinating to be an outsider in such an intimate experience, watching wonderful folks spend time together and tell stories about their ancestors and memorable times growing up. I feel incredibly blessed to have been welcomed into their lives, and the food was to.die.for! I have to admit I was a little sad to go, but I will always remember my time with the Draglands. This is what travelling is all about.

Vancouver, British Columbia

By the time I made it to Vancouver the smoke from the fires was dying off due to a nice rain the night before. It’s an oceanic city, not unlike Seattle and SF, but I definitely didn’t come close to getting the flavor, as I was running behind schedule trying to get to Seattle. This only makes me long to return to Canada again and really take my time exploring all of the beautiful hikes and ski resorts around the city.

Seattle, Washington

My sister lives in Seattle with her boyfriend and dog (sadly, not pictured). I spent an incredible morning on Lake Washington by myself just swimming, doing yoga, and playing guitar, then headed to Capital Hill and explored the 15th Avenue area until everyone was off work. I’m so proud of my sister and her accomplishments, and I’m even prouder that soon she and her bf will be quitting their jobs and joining those of us who have decided to drop off the grid and really travel the world. I wish them the best of luck!

Portland, Oregon

My buddy Rives is originally from East Tennessee like I am, and I can’t pass through Portland without visiting him and his wife Tanya, who have a 2-year old named Hitch. Hitch is rad! Anyway, I saw the hipster mecca that is Alberta and was amazed at how much this area has changed in the past decade, much like Valencia Street in SF. It’s not my cup of tea, but I’m not surprised to see more and more people fall in love with Portland as I did many years ago.

Rives and I got to hang out a fair deal, picking guitars and waking up early to skate bowls on the East Side. It’s great to see your friends grow and become happier, healthier, and more full of love as they get older. I think it’s called maturity:) Having positive people in my life has changed the way I look at the world, and I’m so grateful to be welcomed into their homes. As I made the 10 hour drive back to the Bay Area on the last day of my trip I reveled in all of the profound experiences I had over the past 3 weeks and looked forward to more adventures. The road goes on forever and the party never ends…

For now I’m going to spend a few weeks playing music and getting ready to head to Iceland and Spain. I can’t wait to explore Europe and feel a part of something larger. Slowly, the fears and trepidation fall away to reveal the true nature of Being. It’s becoming easier every day to live in the moment and accept new realities and I find I need less and less possessions and comforts to feel familiarity and safety. There is definitely some sort of evolution taking place.

Places I didn’t get to visit but wanted to –

Utah:  The Extra Terrestrial Highway, Canyonlands, Arches, Moab, Uinta State Park

Idaho:  Idaho Falls, Boise

Wyoming:  East Yellowstone and Yellowstone Lake

Montana:  Rattlesnake Creek outside of Missoula, Lolo, Northern Snake River, Flathead Lake, Whitefish, Glacier National Park

British Columbia:  Fernie, Radium Hot Springs, Jasper National Park, Valhalla Provincial Park, Harrison Hot Springs, Whistler, Squamish, Victoria

Washington:  Bellingham, Olympic National Park, La Push

Oregon:  Crater Lake, Mt. Hood National Forest, Klamath Falls, Ashland

Road Trip to Canada I've just returned from an amazing 3-week road trip to Canada! Here are the places I visited along the way:

[footballleague0]

Olney: How can Shohei Otani make up $200 million in squandered value? – Buster Olney Blog

Let’s get this part of the Shohei Otani drama out of the way: All 30 Major League Baseball teams will presumably submit the paperwork indicating a willingness to pay the $20 million posting fee for the multitalented star. A failure to do so — even for executives who believe they have no chance of landing Otani — would be the general manager’s version of failing to run out a ground ball. No GM wants to explain to his fan base why he didn’t at least express formal interest in the player who will dominate baseball’s offseason.

Beyond that, the anticipated chase of Otani is shrouded in mystery, with evaluators trying to figure out what factors will make the difference when the would-be pitcher and slugger makes his decision about where he will play.

Could it be geography? Could it be market size? Could it be friendships? Could it be the recruiting talents of former Japanese stars, such as Ichiro Suzuki or Hideki Matsui? Could Otani’s endorsement opportunities be pivotal? Could it be the agent’s relationship with specific teams? Could it be the designated hitter rule?

Could it be none of the above and really pivot around something that no team knows about?

Scouts have invested a lot of time trying to find clues to the formula for landing Otani, and yet, one evaluator said recently, “It’s incredible how many unknowns there are.”

That Otani will apparently forge ahead with plans to play in MLB in 2018 in spite of the fact that he stands to make more money by waiting two years has only increased the appreciation for the player. “It tells you that he’s serious about wanting to play against the best possible competition,” one executive said. “He’s putting his money where his mouth is.”

As far as we know, anyway; Otani has actually been extremely careful in talking about his plans, a reticence that has only increased the uncertainty for teams as they try to assess the situation.

In some respects, Otani’s circumstances are a lot like those for a five-star college basketball recruit: Teams will attend his games as much to be seen as they are to see him, to reinforce the perception of their interest. And, some of those interested in Otani wonder about what rule-bending financial arrangements might take place.

Shohei Otani has not made it publicly known what factors are most important to him in picking a team. Shizuo Kambayashi/AP Photo

One evaluator estimated that, in a vacuum, Otani might be worth $200 million if he was a free agent up for auction. But because of the terms of the collective bargaining agreement executed by MLB and the players’ association last fall, the most that Otani, 23, can receive is the money available under the international signing restrictions. The Associated Press reported the other day that the Texas Rangers could offer the most money to Otani at $3.535 million. The New York Yankees can offer $3.25 million. Offers from other teams would be in the same fiscal neighborhood, which is what a lot of middle relievers receive — not superstar-level players, which is what executives expect Otani will be, whether he eventually pitches, hits or does both. His fastball has been clocked as high as 101 mph recently, and last year, he batted .322, with an OPS of 1.004. Otani played through an ankle problem and batted .341 this year.

So how do you make up for that $200 million in squandered value, one official wondered.

A theory floated is that the team that lands Otani could circumvent the financial limitations in place by assuring the player that they won’t tender him a contract after the first or second season, allowing Otani to become a free agent — with a prenegotiated deal to follow with the team that cut him free. But sources indicate that Major League Baseball would view that as an obvious attempt to effectively break the rules and would come down hard on Otani’s MLB team. “Because there’s no reasonable logic to failing to tender a contract to a young star player other than to get around the rules,” said one official.

Otani’s situation will be highly scrutinized and commissioner Rob Manfred has made it known he wants the integrity of the current international-signing system to be honored.

“Otani is a great player,” Manfred said the other day. “We’re always interested in having great players in Major League Baseball. From my perspective, I’m more concerned about having the right, durable system than whether a player comes this year or two years from now.”

Some evaluators believe that whoever Otani picks to serve as his agent will have to play a crucial role, because that agent may have to arrange an understanding of how the player can recoup his value after 2019, when the rules would allow him to lock in a long-term contract. That kind of off-the-record deal-making is against baseball’s rules, but as one official said, “Let’s not be naïve. … You’ll need an agent with the relationships to get that done.”

But no one seems to know Otani well enough to get a sense of what he’ll ask for or expect. Would he want to play in New York, with Masahiro Tanaka? Would he want to play in L.A.? San Francisco? Texas, where his friend Yu Darvish fared well? Does he like the apparent flexibility in how the Dodgers arrange their roster? Would he like a chance to serve as a DH? Would he prefer a pitcher’s park? Would he want to be the latest in the Red Sox tradition of great left-handed hitters and effectively step into the role left behind by David Ortiz? Does he harbor a secret desire to own Milwaukee and have season tickets to the Packers?

Within the industry, there is an expectation that the usual suspects among the big markets will have an advantage — the Dodgers, Yankees, Cubs, Red Sox, Giants, etc. “We can all pick out the five or six teams that probably have a legitimate shot,” one official said.

But no one seems to know for sure, and more and more, it feels like the team Otani eventually signs with will feel like they won baseball’s Powerball that will pay annually for years to come.

Sunday Night Baseball

After the Washington Nationals clinched the National League East last week, the players initially celebrated in their clubhouse, and then they trekked out to the field to share the moment with the Washington fans. The first player out of the Nats’ dugout was Stephen Strasburg, who pulled off his cap and waved it for the patrons. He has always been quiet and private, and maybe five or six years ago, he would’ve let others step out ahead of him. But now he is signed to a long-term contract with the Nationals, he is 29 years old, he has become a father, and this was a moment when the change in him was apparent. Nationals folks also point to a moment recently when infielder Adrian Sanchez made a great play, and Strasburg pumped a fist excitedly — the sort of outburst you may not have seen earlier in his career.

Strasburg, who starts against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Sunday Night Baseball (ESPN, 8 p.m. ET), has changed on the mound this year, as well. When he arrived in spring training, general manager Mike Rizzo recalled, Strasburg talked about working full-time out of a set position, rather than a windup. Sure, it was possible that he might lose a bit of velocity by eschewing the windup, but through this full-time alteration, Strasburg thought he could be more consistent with his delivery, with his release point and with each of his pitches.

Mission accomplished.

“I think he’s as good as he’s ever been,” Rizzo said. “You could make an argument that he’s better than he’s ever been.”

This is the sixth season in which Strasburg has at least 23 starts, and among those years, Strasburg’s 2017 ERA of 2.64 is his lowest; his WHIP of 1.03 is his best; his opponents’ OPS of .597 is his second-best. Each of his three primary pitches — fastball, curveball and changeup — rank in the top 10 in value among all starting pitchers, and Rizzo feels like Strasburg’s slider has helped, as well.

“He’s got four plus pitches,” Rizzo said.

And that velocity sacrifice? Well, Strasburg has been so efficient with his revamped delivery that his average fastball velocity has climbed this season to 95.7 mph, his best since 2012.

Hyun-Jin Ryu takes the mound on Sunday: The Dodgers lefty is still under consideration, theoretically, to be part of the team’s postseason rotation. But strong outings from Yu Darvish, Alex Wood and Rich Hill in recent days may have effectively cemented the No. 2, 3 and 4 spots behind Clayton Kershaw. In eight starts since July 24, Ryu has a 2.60 ERA, with just four homers allowed in 45 innings. Other teams checked on Ryu’s availability before the trade deadline, but the Dodgers liked how he is throwing and the depth he provides.

Dodgers’ lineup decisions: Outside of Clayton Kershaw, the Dodgers’ depth is its greatest weapon over the course of the long season. But because of the array of choices, the team’s front office now has some decisions to sort through before the start of the postseason, most notably in the team’s lineup against right-handed pitchers.

1. Should Curtis Granderson or Andre Ethier start in left field?

2. Should the Dodgers use Chase Utley or Logan Forsythe at second base?

Around the league

David Price’s experience and recent history should give him a chance to make a major impact for the Red Sox in the final days of the regular season and into the postseason. Opposing left-handed batters have a .204 average against Price this season, with just one homer in 54 at-bats. And if the Red Sox play the Astros in the first round, Boston manager John Farrell could deploy Price against the left-handed hitting Josh Reddick in a big spot and force Astros manager A.J. Hinch into a decision.

But it’s surprising that Price hasn’t put the Dennis Eckersley episode behind him by finally talking to reporters about the incident. Look, Price will have the opportunity to opt out of his contract after the 2018 season, but that almost certainly cannot happen without Price sacrificing many tens of millions of dollars. He is 32 years old, he’s pitching with a tear in his elbow, and no matter how well he throws the rest of this season or next season, Price could never replicate the record-setting contract he got from Boston because of concerns about his age and health.

For Price, the next best action might be to do everything he can to make the next five years of his life as positive and enjoyable as possible, on and off the field. He can help that by getting past the confrontation with Eckersley, who spoke out loud about the exchange for the first time the other day with Rob Bradford and detailed how humiliated he felt.

Oakland third baseman Matt Chapman throws a lot like Andrelton Simmons: Powerful, with over-the-top mechanics that allow him to deliver four-seam, chest-high lasers — like this one last week.

Willson Contreras plays with remarkable energy and passion, and he gave the Cubs a jolt when he returned to the lineup — right up to the moment when he accidentally bounced his face mask off umpire Jordan Baker, which earned him a two-game suspension (he is appealing that suspension). One evaluator predicted that pitchers will shy away from throwing at Contreras during his career, because he plays with such an edge and because of how strong he is.

With three hits Saturday, Carlos Beltran has 2,721 career hits, tying Lou Gehrig for 62nd place all time.

Baseball Tonight Podcast

Friday: Diamondbacks pitcher Robbie Ray; Karl Ravech and Paul Hembekides about Aaron Judge as an MVP candidate; and Boog Sciambi on the NL MVP race and whether the window for success has closed for the San Francisco Giants.

Thursday: On the morning after the Indians break the AL record for victories, Bud Shaw of the Cleveland Plain Dealer on the team, the city’s response and LeBron’s message; Keith Law on the Dodgers and Walker Buehler and Rhys Hoskins; and Jessica Mendoza on L.A.

Wednesday: Royals GM Dayton Moore on what’s ahead for Kansas City; Tim Kurkjian on Otani’s possible impact in the big leagues; John Fisher and Gone Fishin’.

Tuesday: Andy McCullough of the L.A. Times on the struggling Dodgers; Bob Nightengale of USA Today on Jose Altuve’s MVP chances; Jerry Crasnick on the Diamondbacks; and Sarah Langs plays The Numbers Game.

Monday: Conversations with Indians manager Terry Francona and Cleveland pitcher Josh Tomlin; Karl Ravech; Todd Radom’s uniform and logo quiz.

And today will be better than yesterday.

The post Olney: How can Shohei Otani make up $200 million in squandered value? – Buster Olney Blog appeared first on Daily Star Sports.

from http://ift.tt/2x7ctL0 from http://ift.tt/2xd1Fdo

[giantsfootball0]

Olney: How can Shohei Otani make up $200 million in squandered value? – Buster Olney Blog

Let’s get this part of the Shohei Otani drama out of the way: All 30 Major League Baseball teams will presumably submit the paperwork indicating a willingness to pay the $20 million posting fee for the multitalented star. A failure to do so — even for executives who believe they have no chance of landing Otani — would be the general manager’s version of failing to run out a ground ball. No GM wants to explain to his fan base why he didn’t at least express formal interest in the player who will dominate baseball’s offseason.

Beyond that, the anticipated chase of Otani is shrouded in mystery, with evaluators trying to figure out what factors will make the difference when the would-be pitcher and slugger makes his decision about where he will play.

Could it be geography? Could it be market size? Could it be friendships? Could it be the recruiting talents of former Japanese stars, such as Ichiro Suzuki or Hideki Matsui? Could Otani’s endorsement opportunities be pivotal? Could it be the agent’s relationship with specific teams? Could it be the designated hitter rule?

Could it be none of the above and really pivot around something that no team knows about?

Scouts have invested a lot of time trying to find clues to the formula for landing Otani, and yet, one evaluator said recently, “It’s incredible how many unknowns there are.”

That Otani will apparently forge ahead with plans to play in MLB in 2018 in spite of the fact that he stands to make more money by waiting two years has only increased the appreciation for the player. “It tells you that he’s serious about wanting to play against the best possible competition,” one executive said. “He’s putting his money where his mouth is.”

As far as we know, anyway; Otani has actually been extremely careful in talking about his plans, a reticence that has only increased the uncertainty for teams as they try to assess the situation.

In some respects, Otani’s circumstances are a lot like those for a five-star college basketball recruit: Teams will attend his games as much to be seen as they are to see him, to reinforce the perception of their interest. And, some of those interested in Otani wonder about what rule-bending financial arrangements might take place.

Shohei Otani has not made it publicly known what factors are most important to him in picking a team. Shizuo Kambayashi/AP Photo

One evaluator estimated that, in a vacuum, Otani might be worth $200 million if he was a free agent up for auction. But because of the terms of the collective bargaining agreement executed by MLB and the players’ association last fall, the most that Otani, 23, can receive is the money available under the international signing restrictions. The Associated Press reported the other day that the Texas Rangers could offer the most money to Otani at $3.535 million. The New York Yankees can offer $3.25 million. Offers from other teams would be in the same fiscal neighborhood, which is what a lot of middle relievers receive — not superstar-level players, which is what executives expect Otani will be, whether he eventually pitches, hits or does both. His fastball has been clocked as high as 101 mph recently, and last year, he batted .322, with an OPS of 1.004. Otani played through an ankle problem and batted .341 this year.

So how do you make up for that $200 million in squandered value, one official wondered.

A theory floated is that the team that lands Otani could circumvent the financial limitations in place by assuring the player that they won’t tender him a contract after the first or second season, allowing Otani to become a free agent — with a prenegotiated deal to follow with the team that cut him free. But sources indicate that Major League Baseball would view that as an obvious attempt to effectively break the rules and would come down hard on Otani’s MLB team. “Because there’s no reasonable logic to failing to tender a contract to a young star player other than to get around the rules,” said one official.

Otani’s situation will be highly scrutinized and commissioner Rob Manfred has made it known he wants the integrity of the current international-signing system to be honored.

“Otani is a great player,” Manfred said the other day. “We’re always interested in having great players in Major League Baseball. From my perspective, I’m more concerned about having the right, durable system than whether a player comes this year or two years from now.”

Some evaluators believe that whoever Otani picks to serve as his agent will have to play a crucial role, because that agent may have to arrange an understanding of how the player can recoup his value after 2019, when the rules would allow him to lock in a long-term contract. That kind of off-the-record deal-making is against baseball’s rules, but as one official said, “Let’s not be naïve. … You’ll need an agent with the relationships to get that done.”

But no one seems to know Otani well enough to get a sense of what he’ll ask for or expect. Would he want to play in New York, with Masahiro Tanaka? Would he want to play in L.A.? San Francisco? Texas, where his friend Yu Darvish fared well? Does he like the apparent flexibility in how the Dodgers arrange their roster? Would he like a chance to serve as a DH? Would he prefer a pitcher’s park? Would he want to be the latest in the Red Sox tradition of great left-handed hitters and effectively step into the role left behind by David Ortiz? Does he harbor a secret desire to own Milwaukee and have season tickets to the Packers?

Within the industry, there is an expectation that the usual suspects among the big markets will have an advantage — the Dodgers, Yankees, Cubs, Red Sox, Giants, etc. “We can all pick out the five or six teams that probably have a legitimate shot,” one official said.

But no one seems to know for sure, and more and more, it feels like the team Otani eventually signs with will feel like they won baseball’s Powerball that will pay annually for years to come.

Sunday Night Baseball

After the Washington Nationals clinched the National League East last week, the players initially celebrated in their clubhouse, and then they trekked out to the field to share the moment with the Washington fans. The first player out of the Nats’ dugout was Stephen Strasburg, who pulled off his cap and waved it for the patrons. He has always been quiet and private, and maybe five or six years ago, he would’ve let others step out ahead of him. But now he is signed to a long-term contract with the Nationals, he is 29 years old, he has become a father, and this was a moment when the change in him was apparent. Nationals folks also point to a moment recently when infielder Adrian Sanchez made a great play, and Strasburg pumped a fist excitedly — the sort of outburst you may not have seen earlier in his career.

Strasburg, who starts against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Sunday Night Baseball (ESPN, 8 p.m. ET), has changed on the mound this year, as well. When he arrived in spring training, general manager Mike Rizzo recalled, Strasburg talked about working full-time out of a set position, rather than a windup. Sure, it was possible that he might lose a bit of velocity by eschewing the windup, but through this full-time alteration, Strasburg thought he could be more consistent with his delivery, with his release point and with each of his pitches.

Mission accomplished.

“I think he’s as good as he’s ever been,” Rizzo said. “You could make an argument that he’s better than he’s ever been.”

This is the sixth season in which Strasburg has at least 23 starts, and among those years, Strasburg’s 2017 ERA of 2.64 is his lowest; his WHIP of 1.03 is his best; his opponents’ OPS of .597 is his second-best. Each of his three primary pitches — fastball, curveball and changeup — rank in the top 10 in value among all starting pitchers, and Rizzo feels like Strasburg’s slider has helped, as well.

“He’s got four plus pitches,” Rizzo said.

And that velocity sacrifice? Well, Strasburg has been so efficient with his revamped delivery that his average fastball velocity has climbed this season to 95.7 mph, his best since 2012.

Hyun-Jin Ryu takes the mound on Sunday: The Dodgers lefty is still under consideration, theoretically, to be part of the team’s postseason rotation. But strong outings from Yu Darvish, Alex Wood and Rich Hill in recent days may have effectively cemented the No. 2, 3 and 4 spots behind Clayton Kershaw. In eight starts since July 24, Ryu has a 2.60 ERA, with just four homers allowed in 45 innings. Other teams checked on Ryu’s availability before the trade deadline, but the Dodgers liked how he is throwing and the depth he provides.

Dodgers’ lineup decisions: Outside of Clayton Kershaw, the Dodgers’ depth is its greatest weapon over the course of the long season. But because of the array of choices, the team’s front office now has some decisions to sort through before the start of the postseason, most notably in the team’s lineup against right-handed pitchers.

1. Should Curtis Granderson or Andre Ethier start in left field?

2. Should the Dodgers use Chase Utley or Logan Forsythe at second base?

Around the league

David Price’s experience and recent history should give him a chance to make a major impact for the Red Sox in the final days of the regular season and into the postseason. Opposing left-handed batters have a .204 average against Price this season, with just one homer in 54 at-bats. And if the Red Sox play the Astros in the first round, Boston manager John Farrell could deploy Price against the left-handed hitting Josh Reddick in a big spot and force Astros manager A.J. Hinch into a decision.

But it’s surprising that Price hasn’t put the Dennis Eckersley episode behind him by finally talking to reporters about the incident. Look, Price will have the opportunity to opt out of his contract after the 2018 season, but that almost certainly cannot happen without Price sacrificing many tens of millions of dollars. He is 32 years old, he’s pitching with a tear in his elbow, and no matter how well he throws the rest of this season or next season, Price could never replicate the record-setting contract he got from Boston because of concerns about his age and health.

For Price, the next best action might be to do everything he can to make the next five years of his life as positive and enjoyable as possible, on and off the field. He can help that by getting past the confrontation with Eckersley, who spoke out loud about the exchange for the first time the other day with Rob Bradford and detailed how humiliated he felt.

Oakland third baseman Matt Chapman throws a lot like Andrelton Simmons: Powerful, with over-the-top mechanics that allow him to deliver four-seam, chest-high lasers — like this one last week.

Willson Contreras plays with remarkable energy and passion, and he gave the Cubs a jolt when he returned to the lineup — right up to the moment when he accidentally bounced his face mask off umpire Jordan Baker, which earned him a two-game suspension (he is appealing that suspension). One evaluator predicted that pitchers will shy away from throwing at Contreras during his career, because he plays with such an edge and because of how strong he is.

With three hits Saturday, Carlos Beltran has 2,721 career hits, tying Lou Gehrig for 62nd place all time.

Baseball Tonight Podcast

Friday: Diamondbacks pitcher Robbie Ray; Karl Ravech and Paul Hembekides about Aaron Judge as an MVP candidate; and Boog Sciambi on the NL MVP race and whether the window for success has closed for the San Francisco Giants.

Thursday: On the morning after the Indians break the AL record for victories, Bud Shaw of the Cleveland Plain Dealer on the team, the city’s response and LeBron’s message; Keith Law on the Dodgers and Walker Buehler and Rhys Hoskins; and Jessica Mendoza on L.A.

Wednesday: Royals GM Dayton Moore on what’s ahead for Kansas City; Tim Kurkjian on Otani’s possible impact in the big leagues; John Fisher and Gone Fishin’.

Tuesday: Andy McCullough of the L.A. Times on the struggling Dodgers; Bob Nightengale of USA Today on Jose Altuve’s MVP chances; Jerry Crasnick on the Diamondbacks; and Sarah Langs plays The Numbers Game.

Monday: Conversations with Indians manager Terry Francona and Cleveland pitcher Josh Tomlin; Karl Ravech; Todd Radom’s uniform and logo quiz.

And today will be better than yesterday.

The post Olney: How can Shohei Otani make up $200 million in squandered value? – Buster Olney Blog appeared first on Daily Star Sports.

from https://dailystarsports.com/2017/09/17/olney-how-can-shohei-otani-make-up-200-million-in-squandered-value-buster-olney-blog/ from https://dailystarsports.tumblr.com/post/165436642166

[weblistposting-blog]

New Post has been published on Weblistposting

New Post has been published on https://weblistposting.com/rubin-for-palace-and-joe-splendor-is-inner/

Rubin: For Palace and Joe, splendor is inner

One turned into born a unload and the opposite become, well, a Palace.

For sixty-seven years among them, Joe Louis Area and The Palace of Auburn Hills have been awash in cheers and the smell of spilled beer. Now the groups that defined them are leaving, and all we’ll be left with are memories — which, what the heck, is how it’s imagined to paintings.

We’ll consider Karen Newman, for instance, performing “The Famous person Spangled Banner” at Joe Louis more than 1000 times and some dozen times more at the Palace. She’ll don’t forget her twins, 15 now, playing as tiny youngsters in the snow pile amassed through the Zamboni even as she tried to concurrently watch them and the game.

Something their designs, arenas, and stadiums end up large shells built to maintain studies. To a large volume, says College of Detroit Mercy structure professor Noah Resnick, our amusement of them “has nothing in any way to do with aesthetics” — which is good.

The Pink Wings won four Stanley Cups even as residing on the drab, drafty Joe, scenically positioned next to a river you couldn’t see from within the building. The Pistons and Surprise every gained three championships on the Palace, effortlessly reachable from everywhere inside the Metro area so long as you own a helicopter.

To get to Joe Louis, we usually hiked thru a urine-scented hamster maze or climbed 35 steep, snowy steps. at the Palace, we paid $20 to park half of a mile from the doorway. We confirmed up beside because possibilities were that something unforgettable was inside.

Throughout the many years, thousands and thousands of pumps occupied a mixed 40,000 seats to look at hockey and hoops and Area football and rodeo. between the two buildings, there had been Big apple Rangers and Power Rangers, Cirque du Soleil and the Ringling Brothers circus, and Every Workable Disney Person on Ice.

Come subsequent season, the Wings will head barely north and the Pistons will head notably south to the same area Little Caesars Area. In one of the very last echoes of financial disaster and the Grand Good deal, the city will basically turn Joe Louis over to a bill collector. The Palace has events scheduled through a Sept. 8 live performance with Tim McGraw and Religion Hill, and its fate is theoretically undetermined, however, the smart money says to guess the wrecking ball and lay the factors.

Memorable moments

Neither constructing is as universally beloved as Tiger Stadium, where a sellout crowd usually meant some human beings have been sitting in the back of I-beams and others had been jammed midway into one. No one has prepared group hugs for the arenas.

But it becomes Joe Louis wherein a marketing representative from Farmington Hills gave Alice Cooper a boa constrictor, and it becomes The Palace wherein public deal with announcer Ken Calvert became so nationally famed for announcing “Joe DUUUmars!” that he heard himself insulted in a toilet in Chicago.

It becomes Joe Louis wherein dental workplace supervisor Tiffany Barnhart of Lake Orion brought her son to a concert and got here full circle with her mom. And it is able to have been either in which Chrysler salesman Byron Savage of Southfield located himself caught up in a game he only marginally understood.

As a 13-yr-antique coming across rock ’n’ roll, Barnhart once asked her mom if she’d heard of the Beatles. As a 35-yr-old, she couldn’t assist However take into account that communication a few months ago while her son Austin asked if she’d ever heard of Green Day.

She and Austin, 15, had been rocking in the higher bowl on the Green Day live performance March 27 whilst the band broke into “Good day Jude.” That quick, she becomes thirteen again.

Savage, 56, says he’ll be normal for Pistons video games at the brand new downtown Arena. He doesn’t communicate fluent hockey, But he turned into invited to an enterprise suite to observe the Red Wings possibly 15 years in the past.

“I didn’t think I would get into it,” he says, “However I misplaced my voice at that recreation.”

That’s the camaraderie of a large occasion. The commonality. The cacophony.

“For the reason that Roman times,” says Resnick, the UDM professor, sports and so forth “have allowed human beings to break out from their lives and recognition on a person else’s overall performance. They enter the one’s homes and they exit the issues of the town.”

As structures, The Joe and The Palace had been nine years and one philosophy aside.

Search for Joe Louis Area on the internet site of what’s now SmithGroupJJR, its prominent 164-year-antique architect, and you get a failure observe that says, “We’re sorry, However, something went wrong.”

Certainly, Resnick says, it’s exactly what the time and location knew as for. In 1979, Detroit and many different towns had no longer yet found out riverfronts have been assets, and areas have been “large, large sheds wherein the goal become to cram in as many humans as you could.”

The Palace came alongside from Rossetti in 1988 as one of the first to emphasize luxurious suites and hospitality — “an entire Disney experience,” Resnick says, “in which the whole thing turned into approximately advertising and marketing and control.”

The Pistons received NBA titles in their first seasons there, and Calvert’s deep, mellow voice became part of the soundtrack of country wide television proclaims.

His occasional playfulness set the level for successor John Mason, who weaved his job into the material of the game and stimulated a league-wide courtside revolution.

Calvert would find himself speaking to Michael Jordan because the NBA’s quality player waited to test into video games — “Guy, you’re gambling properly.” “Thank you. the entirety appropriate with you?” — and became at Chicago Stadium just for a laugh while a neighborhood fan loudly informed a pal, “You know who I will stand is that guy in Detroit who says ‘Joe Dumars.’ ”

Calvert grew to become lower back on the door and unleashed a rousing, “Ladies and gentleman, No. 4 …” Then he bought the fan a larger.

Snake on a degree

Michael Isabella became the promotions director at what was then WLLZ-FM when he noticed a tale within the Detroit News approximately a young Macomb County Man whose boa constrictor had slithered afoul of a neighborhood ordinance.

Need is a relative term, However, it grew to become out Cooper changed into inclined to just accept it, and Isabella delivered the proprietor and the rocker together backstage at Joe Louis for the bestowing of the reptile. Years later, when Isabella became nearby sales manager at WCSX-FM, Cooper came through for a meet-and-greet.

“I certainly keep in mind that,” Cooper advised him. “We had that snake for a long term. He turned into in the act.”

Newman’s act started with an overall performance of the country-wide Anthem at a tennis event. That led to a 27-12 months spot with the Crimson Wings and a perpetual case of nerves: “If people can be inside my head, they would freak out.”

while she commenced, she became a receptionist and makeup artist at her future ex-husband’s hair salon. Nowadays she’s a complete-time singer who has toured as a backup vocalist with Bob Seger and Kid Rock.

Her first show with Seger, she becomes behind him as he walked up the steps in the back of the level. He paused on the top and he or she saw him in silhouette, milking the moment because the Silver Bullet Band began to play and the crowd roared.

“It might have been a great last scene for a film,” she says.