#like she’s almost 50 and works nearly 60 hours a week

[donnabroadway]

Forever Young

Age shaming to me is an interesting thing. I find it funny, not haha funny but the weird type, that people will compare a picture or video of a celebrity in their 20s to how they look and move in their late 30s, 40s, or even 50s and say "what happened?" The same thing that will hopefully happen to everyone, if they're lucky to live long enough, they aged.

I was recently watching This Christmas and some of the people I was watching with were discussing Lauren London and one of the women said, she doesn't look like that anymore and proceeded to pull up pictures of how she looks now. You mean to tell me that nearly 40 year old Lauren London doesn't look like 21/22 year old Lauren London. Color me shocked. Shocked I say.

Millennials are having to accept that we are aging and that we are technically middle aged. While most of us are only in our mid-late 30s and that is hardly old, it would be a lie to say that we don't look our age. There are very few of us that still looked how we did in our early 20s. When I see a post on social media of someone bragging about their age and saying 50 where or 40 where? I wanna say there because we can see it. It's there, it may not be obvious to everyone else but I can see it. Many times when a gen zer has a young looking mom, it is because the mom is usually young. If you're 20 and your mom had you at 16, that means she's only 36 and should look young because she is young. This obsession with proving ones youth and ability to remain looking youthful is weird and pointless. I see some stars who had some of their most iconic looks in the 80s and 90s, trying to recreate those looks' in their 50s and 60s and I'm just like, ok you look good but you definitely remade that outfit to fit your current size and body shape or let that dress out some and there is no shame because it looks great and makes for great content but let's be for real. You look good but not the way you did in your 20s and that's okay. Some of us age "better" than others but we still age, nonetheless.

I think with social media, the constant creation of appreciation posts and the uploading of old shows and videos from the 70s, 80s, 90s, and even 2000s we forget that people age because we're so used to seeing them how they looked in they heyday that we forget it was so long ago. Many stars reach their peak in their late teens-early 30s and even if they are still currently working, we often only see pictures of them from that period, so it can be a bit jarring to see a recent picture of that same celeb and see that they've aged and in some instances, not the way the public imagined them to have. I remember a few years ago when the Nicole Murphy, Lela Rochon, and Antwan Fuqua, cheating scandal/love triangle happened, people had the nerve to say that he deserved to cheat because Nicole Murphy still looked the same in her 50s as she did in her 20s and Lela Rochon let herself go. The sheer delusion of thinking a woman in her late 50s, almost 60s, who has lived life, had children, maybe health issues will look the way she did in her 20s and don't get me wrong, Lela's face card isn't declining, her body is just different and while everyone thinks they will be Nicole still wearing bikinis with their right and tight bodies that put women half their age to shame, lets be realistic. In my 20s and early 30s, I ate horribly and barely exercised but I was able to lose weight by simply working out a few times a week and tweaking my diet, now in my late 30s, I try to control my diet and I work out an hour a day, every day, sometimes even adding a walk or two with my children, and the scale has barely budged since having my youngest daughter almost 3 years ago. It has taken a bit to accept that my body has changed because I am a woman nearing a certain age. I am a woman in her 30s, who looks like she is in her 30s. I know women who look young and have barely aged and I can tell you that while she does take care of herself, genetics has a big part to play in it and you can't outrun genetics. It catches up to you every time. Angela Bassett, who is goals in her 60s, works incredibly hard and keeps a very disciplined regimen to maintain her physique and let's be honest, most of us are not that disciplined.

It is a weird flex to go to someone and say "that's why you old" as if time is not ever moving and one day they will be old too. No one stays in their 20s forever, unless they have unfortunately met an early demise and in that case, they truly are forever young but if you are aging, that God for the ability to live and enjoy life, no matter what age you are.

[jmreyes9]

A TALE OF THE LADY CAB DRIVER IN O’HARE AIRPORT

By Jesse Reyes

It was a pleasant summer evening at O’hare International Airport in Chicago.  We had just arrived from San Francisco having attended a wedding in the past weekend in Sta. Rosa, CA north of San Francisco.  Our son, Mark was supposed to pick us up from O’hare, but on his way he figured in a six-car accident and had to stay in his car until the police came.  He called us that he was alright but that he would be delayed.  So we decided to call a taxicab to take us home.

It was quite a surprise to me when the cab pulled up to the curb and an attractive relatively young lady alit and asked, “Are you going to this address?".  “Yes,” I answered.  “Are you the taxi driver?” I asked, still astonished as I saw the  lady nodding her head and taking our luggage and placing them in the trunk of her cab.

As she drove, we learned that she had been driving a cab for two years.  She came to America from Eastern Europe a few years back.  She wasn’t married and had no children, "or else I would not have been able to do this job/”  When we asked her how she liked driving a cab and if it wasn't dangerous for an attractive woman like her to be driving especially at night, she replied, “I earn enough to pay for my apartment rental and food.  You just have to be very careful about where you go to and who your passengers are.”  When we arrived at our home, we thanked her and gave her a hefty tip.

There is apparently a trend in Chicago and I’m sure in other major cities in the US as well, for women to drive a taxi.  This stems from the bruising 2008-2009 recession, when, because of the bad economic situation, businesses were forced to close and for some women, driving a taxi was a good way to supplement the family income and make ends meet.  About 50% of the women enrolled in the class for taxi-driving at Harold Washington College had lost their business.  But driving a cab is not a piece of cake, since the cab companies charge about $600 a week for lease of the cab and the driver has to spend $60 or $70 a day for gas.  Oftentimes, the taxi drivers have to work 10-12 hours a day to make a profit.

This experience with the lady taxi driver reminded me of our trip last year to Costa Rica.  We flew from Chicago to Houston, TX where we would take another plane to San Jose in Costa Rica.  The plane that took us from Ohare to Houston arrived 20 minutes earlier than scheduled and to me it was one of the smoothest landings that I had ever experienced in the 40 years that I have been flying (as a passenger, of course!)  As we exited the plane, the stewardesses and the female pilot, who was blonde, were on hand to bid us adieu and thank us for flying their airlines.  I was almost tempted to praise the pilot on how smooth a landing she made, but controlled myself!  I was also going to add how she flew the plane so swiftly that we arrived 20 minutes early.

Did you know that in the US alone, there are nearly 6,000 women that have an Airline Transport license and that not many more women enter this male-dominated field due to the airlines requiring them to dress in men’s clothing complete with a straight-cut jacket, a cap designed to enhance male facial traits and a black tie?

In the recent  MAFASDA (Midwest Association of Filipino-American Seventh-day Adventists) –our local alumni association for SDA schools—retreat in Lake Williamson Conference Center in Carlinville, IL, held on July 11-13, 2014, I made the observation in my remarks that this may be the era of the woman, the MAFASDA president being a woman, our guest speaker for the retreat being a woman as well and the strong possibility that the next US president will be a woman.  The guest speaker as well as the MAFASDA president both smiled when they heard my remarks.

Written in Chicago, IL. sometime in 2012 our thereabouts. Published on FB.

[miraeism]

>:(

#kinda infuriating that because they’re so short at my mothers work she was to work 4 days a week #and theyre almost all like 15 hour days #it just makes me sad #she should be resting and taking care of her body and like growing her damn tomatoes that infuriate me not working like this 😔 #shawna speaks and no one listens #like she’s almost 50 and works nearly 60 hours a week #her shift starts at 7 am and today she was there until 10pm #and that’s not even including commute time and the fact that she goes in early cause she’s the shift leader #god #maybe it’s okay though cause when she is home she’s thinks too much and spends the entire day sad about my sister #well ig both sisters now LOL #actually it’s really not funny at all #😐 #well anyways

[crimeculturepodcast]

Hispanic/Latino horror movies

In honor of Hispanic Heritage month, this week we talked about horror movies out of Latin American and Spanish speaking countries. There were some we couldn’t get to so here is the full list:

Spain

The Devil’s Backbone (2001)

Rotten Tomatoes: 92%

Audience Score: 89%

Google Score: 85%

IMDb: 7.4/10

Critics Consensus: Creepily atmospheric and haunting, The Devil's Backbone is both a potent ghost story and an intelligent political allegory.

Description: “Set during the last years of the Spanish Civil War, The Devil's Backbone is a Spanish gothic horror movie that follows Carlos, a young orphan boy who is deposited at Santa Lucia School among several other children who have been displaced by the conflict. Though he finds friends in the professor and the head mistress, he is plagued by a wandering spirit with a link to the violent caretaker's secret past.”

Trivia: The movie, which he wrote in college and was in development for 16 years, is strongly inspired by Del Toro’s personal memories, especially his relationship with his uncle, who supposedly came back as a ghost. It is also included among the "1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die" edited by Steven Schneider. Although filmmaker Guillermo del Toro is Mexican, this film is set in the Spanish countryside (largely filmed in Madrid) that’s why it’s on the Spanish list. The Devil’s Backbone has all of the impactful elements of spirituality, horror, and the supernatural that come up again and again in Del Toro’s work. This film has been referred to as the “brother film” of one of Del Toro’s best known works, Pan’s Labyrinth. 

[REC] (2007)

Rotten Tomatoes: 89%

Audience Score: 82%

Google Score: 85%

IMDb: 7.4/10

Critics Consensus: Plunging viewers into the nightmarish hellscape of an apartment complex under siege, [Rec] proves that found footage can still be used as an effective delivery mechanism for sparse, economic horror.

Description: “Late-night TV host Angela and her cinematographer are following the fire service on a call to an apartment building, but the Spanish police seal off the building after an old woman is infected by a virus which gives her inhuman strength.”

Trivia: The movie was filmed chronologically in real locations (no sets were built for the movie). The actor’s were never given the script in its entirety and didn’t know what was going to happen to their characters until the day of filming. The movie is also a big inspiration for the horror survival game Outlast.

Considered The Blair Witch Project of zombie movies, REC had a lot of competition in the found footage style (it came out the same year as George Romero’s Diary of the Dead and the first Paranormal Activity movie). It more than holds its own among them, so much so that an American remake called Quarantine came out the next year. Director Jaume Balagueró keeps the movie disturbingly real and doesn’t fall prey to jump scare after jump scare.

Veronica (2017)

Rotten Tomatoes: 88%

Audience Score: 49%

Google Score: 80%

IMDb: 6.2/10

Critics Consensus: A scarily effective horror outing, Veronica proves it doesn't take fancy or exotic ingredients to craft skin-crawling genre thrills. 

Description: “During a solar eclipse, a teenage girl and her friends want to summon the spirit of the girl's father using an Ouija board. However, during the session she loses consciousness and soon it becomes clear that evil demons have arrived.”

Trivia: Based on the true story of 18-year-old Estefanía Gutiérrez Lázaro. I won’t go too far into it because we may do an episode on it in the future but if you want spoilers, watch the movie (if you dare).

Directed by Paco Plaza (same as REC), the possession theme is done over and over again in horror but this movie is a terrifying and fresh take. 

The Bar (2017)

Rotten Tomatoes: 88%

Audience Score: 55%

Google Score: 75%

IMDb: 6.3/10

Description: “In bustling downtown Madrid, a loud gunshot and two mysterious deaths trap a motley assortment of common urbanites in a decrepit central bar, while paranoia and suspicion force the terrified regulars to turn on each other.”

Directed by Álex de la Iglesia, it’s labeled as a horror-comedy. You can watch it on Netflix.

Who Can Kill A Child? (1976) - Tells the story of a happy couple, two English tourists who decide to vacation on a secluded island in the Mediterranean. There they discover – almost too late- that the island has been taken over by a group of murderous children.

The Baby’s Room (2006) - Featured on Six Films to Keep You Awake at Night. A new family renovates and moves into a grand old house. Nervous first-time mom installs a baby monitor but hears mysterious sounds on the other side. Once they install a high-tech video baby monitor, what they see chills them to the bone.

Sleep Tight (2011) - Apartment concierge Cesar is a miserable person who believes he was born without the ability to be happy. His self-appointed task is to make life hell for everyone around him, a mission in which he has great success. It has big home invasion/stalker vibes. 

Timecrimes (2007) - A man accidentally gets into a time machine and travels back in time nearly an hour. Finding himself will be the first of a series of disasters of unforeseeable consequences. It sounds like a “Happy Death Day” type of plot (but proceeding it by a decade).

Thesis (1996) - Angela is doing her thesis on the effect of violence in the media when she discovers a snuff film. This discovery leads her down a dark path where she must confront her greatest fears and question everybody around her.

Witching and Bitching (2013) - One article I read said it perfectly, “What Shaun of the Dead did for zombies and What We Do in the Shadows did for vampires, Witching & Bitching essentially did for the cinematic depiction of witches, albeit on a less visible scale.” Great pick if you’re looking for something a bit more lighthearted.

Mexico

Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)

Rotten Tomatoes: 95%

Audience Score: 91%

Google Score: 90%

IMDb: 8.2/10

Critics Consensus: Pan's Labyrinth is Alice in Wonderland for grown-ups, with the horrors of both reality and fantasy blended together into an extraordinary, spellbinding fable. 

Description: After the Allies invade Nazi-occupied Europe, a sadistic captain sends a troop of Spanish soldiers to flush out rebels,bringing his new wife and her daughter along on his exploits. While his family resides in the countryside, he leads his men on a murderous rampage, much of which is witnessed by his step daughter. In an effort to escape her reality she plunges into Pan's Labyrinth, a mystical world at the border of her own.

Trivia: Guillermo del Toro is famous for compiling books full of notes and drawings about his ideas before turning them into films, something he regards as essential to the process. He left years worth of notes for this film in the back of a cab, and when he discovered them missing, he thought it was the end of the project. However, the cab driver found them and, realizing their importance, tracked him down and returned them at great personal difficulty and expense. Del Toro was convinced that this was a blessing and it made him ever more determined to complete the film. Del Toro also repeatedly refused offers from Hollywood producers, in spite of being offered double the budget, provided the film was made in English. He didn't want any compromise in the storyline to suit the "market needs" (he even did the English subtitles himself). The film received 22 minutes of applause at the Cannes Film Festival and in 2007, it became one of the few fantasy films ever nominated in the Best Foreign Language Film category at the Oscars. It’s another on the list "1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die" edited by Steven Schneider with The Devil’s Backbone. It was on more than 130 top 10 lists in 2006. It is also the 5th highest grossing foreign language film in the US.

The Similars (2016)

Rotten Tomatoes: 95%

Audience Score: 49%

Google Score: 75%

IMDb: 5.9/10

Critics Consensus: A smart homage to genre filmmaking, The Similars is a fun and frightening film that balances socio-political issues with aplomb.

Description: A monstrous, once-in-a-lifetime thunderstorm strands passengers in a remote bus station outside Mexico City in 1968. As they listen to the radio, they realized that the storm has spread all over the world. As they look at each other, they also realize that everyone’s faces are slowly changing, and not for the better. 

Trivia: The film used make-up and special effects techniques never before done in Mexico. Director Isaac Ezban was influenced by B-movies of the 50s and 60s as well as TV shows and movies like “The Twilight Zone”, “The Thing”, and “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”.

We Are What We Are (2010)

Rotten Tomatoes: 72%

Audience Score: 48%

Google Score: 77%

IMDb: 5.7/10

Critics Consensus: We Are What We Are is elevated horror that combines family drama and social politics, with plenty of gore on top.

Description: After a family patriarch dies, his survivors are tasked with continuing the rigid family rituals that involve hunting meat, preparing it for consumption, and eating it. The “meat” in question is human flesh, since they’re a family of cannibals. With two detectives hot on their tail, the family of cannibals strains to maintain their family traditions in a modern urban environment.

There was an English language remake in 2013 (86% on Rotten Tomatoes) with Wyatt Russell and Odeya Rush (Lady Bird, Dumplin’, and Goosebumps)

We Are The Flesh (2016) - A joint French-Mexican production released in Spanish as Somos la carne, this post-apocalyptic nightmare involves a brother and sister who roam the land desperately seeking food until a kindly old man takes them in under the condition that they help him renovate an abandoned building. Oh, and they also have to have sex with one another while he watches. And after he breaks their will by getting them to do that, he makes them do all sorts of other things. This film was one of only four in Mexico to receive a “D” rating—which is reserved for subject matter that is considered extremely disturbing and/or pornographic.

The Witch’s Mirror (1962) - An abusive and cheating husband kills his wife so that he can be with his mistress. The woman’s godmother was a witch who originally tried casting a spell on a mirror to protect her from domestic violence, but the spell failed. Still, she is able to bring the woman back from the grave, and the two witches set out to destroy the evil woman-beater.

Here Comes The Devil (2012) - A married couple lose their children while on a family trip near some caves in Tijuana. The kids eventually reappear without explanation, but it becomes clear that they are not who they used to be, that something terrifying has changed them.

Chile

Downhill (2016)

Rotten Tomatoes: 60%

Audience Score: 22%

Google Score: 43%

IMDb: 3.5/10

Description: Deeply upset by the passing of his best friend, a professional BMX rider accepts to partake in a race in Chile. Everything goes as planned until he stumbles upon a man who is infected by a mysterious virus and becomes the target of local assassins.

Trivia: Filmed in 13 days

Post Mortem (2010)

Rotten Tomatoes: 88%

Audience Score: 61%

Google Score: 70%

IMDb: 6.5/10

Description: In Chile, 1973, during the last days of Salvador Allende’s presidency, an employee at a Morgue’s recording office falls for a burlesque dancer who mysteriously disappears.

Aftershock (2012)

Rotten Tomatoes: 39%

Audience Score: 24%

Google Score: 61%

IMDb: 4.8/10

Critics Consensus: Aftershock hints at an inventive twist on horror tropes, but ultimately settles for another round of mind-numbing depravity that may alternately bore and revolt all but the most ardent gore enthusiasts.

Description: In Chile, a group of travelers who are in an underground nightclub when a massive earthquake hits quickly learn that reaching the surface is just the beginning of their nightmare.

Trivia: Horror icon Eli Roth wrote and stars in this film.

To Kill A Man (2014) - An attack on his daughter leads a mild-mannered family man to take revenge on the vicious street thugs who have tormented him and his family for a long time.

Columbia

Out Of The Dark (2014) This is in English

Rotten Tomatoes: 24%

Audience Score: 22%

Google Score: 77%

IMDb: 4.8/10

Description: A family moves to Colombia to take over the operation of a manufacturing plant, soon they learn their new home is haunted.

Trivia: Starring Julia Stiles (10 Things I Hate About You, Dexter) and Scott Speedman (The Strangers, You) 

The Squad (2011)

Audience Score: 53%

Google Score: 82%

IMDb: 5.3/10

Description: After a secret military base ceases all communications, an anti-guerrilla commando unit is sent to the mountainous location to discover what exactly happened. The squad expects to discover that the base was attacked and taken over by guerrilla units, but instead find only a lone woman wrapped in chains.

Trivia: In one scene where the actors are shooting guns, one actor accidentally picked up a real gun instead of the prop and fired a real shot (no one was hurt).

Cord (2015) - On a post-apocalyptic world of never-ending winter, a sparse cast of outsiders live underground. Due to their unsanitary conditions, sexual contact has become dangerous. Masturbation has become the paradigm of sexual experience and an array of low-tech devices with this purpose has come into existence. In this bleak reality, a dealer of such machines a sex addict make a deal: she will allow him to experiment new devices on her body in exchange of pleasure. Soon however, their relationship goes out of control.

The Hidden Face (2011)

Rotten Tomatoes: 80%

Audience Score: 72%

Google Score: 86%

IMDb: 7.4/10

Description: Shattered by the unexpected news of their irreversible break-up, an aspiring orchestra conductor is puzzled by his girlfriend's mysterious and seemingly inexplicable case of disappearance. But, can he look beyond the facts?

Trivia: There is a Turkish version of this movie and a 2013 remake out of India called “Murder 3”

At The End Of The Spectra (2006)

Google Score: 83%

IMDb: 6/10

Description: A young woman who has become agoraphobic due to a traumatic incident is holed up in her apartment, she begins to suffer from hallucinations, paranoia and an obsessive neighbour.

Trivia: There is a Mexican remake called “Devil Inside” and there were once rumors of an American remake starring Nicole Kidman but that’s the end of that.

Uruguay

The Silent House (La Casa Muda) (2010) 

Rotten Tomatoes: 68%

Audience Score: 37%

Google Score: 63%

IMDb: 5.4/10

Critics Consensus: Shot in a single take, The Silent House may be a gimmick movie, but it's one that's enough to sustain dread and tension throughout. 

Description: A girl becomes trapped inside a house and becomes unable to contact the outside world as supernatural forces haunt it.

Trivia: The plot is supposedly based on a true story that occurred in the 1940s in a small village in Uruguay. With a budget of just six thousand dollars, it was filmed using a handheld high-definition digital single-lens reflex camera (the Canon EOS 5D Mark II), 2 handheld lamps, and a couple of lightbulbs over a time period of just four days. The claim that the movie was filmed in one continuous take are suspect. The Mark II camera can only record up to 15 minutes of continuous video at a time. Uruguay's official submission to the Best Foreign Language Film category of the 84th Academy Awards 2012.

Monos (2019)

Rotten Tomatoes: 92% 

Audience Score: 85%

Google Score: 69%

IMDb: 6.9/10

Critics Consensus: As visually splendid as it is thought-provoking, Monos takes an unsettling look at human nature whose grim insights leave a lingering impact.

Description: On a faraway mountaintop, eight teenaged guerillas with guns watch over a hostage and a conscripted milk cow. Playing games and initiating cult-like rituals, the children run amok in the jungle and disaster strikes when the hostage tries to escape.

Trivia: Moises Arias (Hannah Montana) and Julianne Nicholson (I, Tonya, August: Osage County) most of the other actors had never acted before. The movie draws inspiration from Lord of the Flies. Included among the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die", edited by Steven Schneider. It was selected as the official Colombian entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 92nd Academy Awards.

Peru

The Entity (2015)

Google Score: 66%

IMDb: 4.3/10

Description: A group of students decide to study 'reaction videos' and are led toward an old film, hidden in the archive room of a cemetery. It appears that everybody who has witnessed the film has met an untimely demise under suspicious circumstances. When the students view the footage, they discover first hand, what the demonic spirit is capable of. Fulfilling the ancient curse of a woman cruelly killed during the Spanish Inquisition.

Trivia: The Entity has been billed as Peru's first 3D horror film and to have been loosely based on true stories. Review websites Flickering Myth and Nerdly commented that the movie suffered from being too overly familiar to pre-existing works (Blair Witch, The Ring).

The Vanished Elephant (2014)

Rotten Tomatoes: 89%

Audience Score: 72%

Google Score: 88%

IMDb: 6.5/10

Description: Crime novelist Edo remains obsessed with what happened to his fiancee Celia after she disappeared during an earthquake. When an enigmatic woman brings him photos that may help him solve the mystery, he senses he is being drawn into a dangerous game.

The Secret Of Evil (2014)

Google Score: 65%

IMDb: 5/10

Description: Video footage depicting a supernatural encounter is all that remains of a filmmaker and his crew who disappeared while exploring a haunted house.

When Two Worlds Collide (2016)

Rotten Tomatoes: 91%

Audience Score: 69%

Google Score: 93%

IMDb: 7.6/10

Description: An indigenous environmental activist takes on the large businesses that are destroying the Amazon.

El Vientre (2014)

Google Score: 81%

IMDb: 6.1/10

Description: Silvia, a beautiful 45-year-old widow, is obsessed with having a child and finds in attractive but naive Mercedes the perfect candidate to bear it. Silvia kindly offers her a job and a room in her house, and then manipulates her into seducing a young man named Jaime. They soon fall in love and Mercedes becomes pregnant. Silvia will do anything in her power to keep the baby, even if it means leaving a couple of bodies behind.

Argentina

Terrified (2018)

Rotten Tomatoes: 77% 

Audience Score: 65%

Google Score: 82%

IMDb: 6.5/10

Description: Paranormal researchers investigate strange events in a neighbourhood in Buenos Aires.

Luciferina (2018)

Rotten Tomatoes: 83%

Audience Score: 25%

Google Score: 69%

IMDb: 4.6/10

Description: Natalia is a nineteen-year-old novice who reluctantly returns home to say goodbye to her dying father. However, when she meets up with her sister and her friends, she decides instead to travel the jungle in search of mystical plant.

Francesca (2015)

Audience Score: 67%

Google Score: 73%

IMDb: 5.3/10

Description: Two detectives track a serial killer who has been targeting the impure. To catch him, they'll have to solve the case of a girl who went missing 15 years ago.

Cold Sweat (2010)

Rotten Tomatoes: 75%

Audience Score: 

Google Score: 58%

IMDb: 4.8/10

Description: The movie follows Román, who stumbles upon his ex-girlfriend Jackie, who has somehow gotten caught up in a torture cult run by two sadistic, old men. The aging political radicals have managed to put Jackie’s life in incredible danger. But when Román and his friend try to help Jackie out of her confines, the elderly psychos prove to be more than meets the eye.

Penumbra (2011)

Rotten Tomatoes: 50%

Audience Score: 26%

Google Score: 75%

IMDb: 5.5/10

Description: A woman desperate to find a tenant for her decrepit apartment apparently finds the perfect candidate, unaware of a sinister plot involving an imminent eclipse.

Venezuela

The House At The End of Time (2013)

Rotten Tomatoes: None 

Audience Score: 72%

Google Score: 91%

IMDb: 6.8/10

Description: Dulce encounters apparitions in her house and unleashes a terrible prophecy. Thirty years later, Dulce, now an old woman, returns to unravel the mystery that has terrorized her for years.

Trivia: Winner of the Audience Award at Gävle Horror Film Festival 2016 (Sweden). Not only is it Venezuela’s highest-grossing horror film, it’s also the most distributed film from the country. By August 2016 it was announced that the American studio New Line Cinema acquired the rights of the film to make a remake for the American public. Hidalgo is still at the wheel so its chances of success are high.

Ecuador

Cronicas (2004)

Rotten Tomatoes: 71%

Audience Score: 77%

Google Score: 80%

IMDb: 6.9/10

Critics Consensus: An unsettling and absorbing cautionary tale with John Leguizamo playing an unscrupulous TV reporter who uses the medium to further his own goals.

Description: Reporter Manolo Bonilla (John Leguizamo) goes to a jail in Ecuador to interview Vinicio Cepeda (Damián Alcázar, Narcos, Narnia), a hit-and-run driver whose crime incited a riot. After Cepeda tells him he knows where a murderer called the Monster of Babahoyo buried a young female victim, Bonilla posts bail in the hopes that he'll learn more about the crime. Bonilla finds the girl's body, but, as he nears the scoop of his career, it looks as if Cepeda might be withholding some key details.

Trivia: Inspired by a true story? As well as being both a Cannes and TIFF favourite, Cronicas is the official submission of Ecuador for the 'Best Foreign Language Film' category of the 77th Academy Awards in 2005, it was produced by Guillermo del Toro and Alfonso Cuarón (Children of Men, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban) This is John Leguizamo’s first film in Spanish. He said he felt awkward talking in Spanish while acting, like he didn't know the language. 

English Language Horror

The Silent House (2011) This is in English

Rotten Tomatoes: 43%

Audience Score: 

Google Score: 72%

IMDb: 5.3/10

Critics Consensus: Silent House is more technically proficient and ambitious than most fright-fests, but it also suffers from a disappointing payoff.

Description: Sarah is working with her father and uncle to renovate an old family home to prepare it for sale. Long vacant, the house has no utilities, forcing the trio to rely on battery-operated lanterns to light their way. Sarah becomes separated from her relatives and soon finds she is trapped inside the cabin, with no contact with the outside world. Panic turns to real terror as the young woman experiences events that become increasingly ominous.

Trivia: Elizabeth Olsen (Wandavision) The plot is based on a true story that occurred in the 1940s in a small village in Uruguay. Contrary to the marketing's claim that the film was shot in one uninterrupted take, the entire movie was actually shot to mimic one continuous real-time take, with no cuts from start to finish, as a result the time span of the film's plot is exactly 86 minutes. It was shot in roughly 10 minute segments then carefully edited to hide the cuts.

Night of the Living Dead (1968) - This along with the rest of the Dead series are the work of George A. Romero, whose father is from Cuba.

Ash vs. Evil Dead - I love the Evil Dead movies and although this series wasn’t perfect (I’m sure die-hard fans will say it's far from it), I still think it kept to the heart of the main story. Bruce Campbell is obviously perfect and the addition of Lucy Lawless is amazing, it’s really Puerto Rican actor Ray Santiago that steals the show.

The Others (2001) - Directed by globally renowned Spanish director Alejandro Amenábar, The Others starring Nicole Kidman is a Spanish gothic horror movie that combines elements of the supernatural, psychological, and mystical. It focuses on the strange events that occur at the estate of a woman and her young children, plagued by spirits in the aftermath of WWII. It has the distinction of being the only English-language Spanish movie to be given the Best Film Award at Spain's national film awards, the Goyas. In total, the movie has seven Goya Awards, including for Best Director. Although it might not read as particularly “Spanish,” it was produced, written and filmed all in Spain, shooting in Cantabria, Northern Spain and Madrid.

#Crime Culture #podcast #crime #true crime #murder #tcc #true crime podcast #pop culture #episode 198 #hispanic horror #latino horror #spanish horror #hispanic heritage month #horror #horror movies #spanish language horror #movies to watch

[queerbrujas]

then it vanished away from my hands (part two)

pairing: nate sewell x eva navarro word count: 3.6k for this chapter (6.1k total so far) rating: T warnings: same as before, lots of angst and this won’t have a happy ending

part one | part three | read on ao3

The mutation in her blood was not known to inhibit physical abilities. None of the studies had indicated even the slightest possibility of immunity to vampire venom.

once again thanks to @crowsintheisland for the text post that inspired this entire fic—and uh, i’m sorry?

—

part two: everything that’s under my skin

The transition can last anywhere from twenty minutes to several hours.

The exact duration is impossible to predict with certainty, as is the intensity of the pain she will endure, or the extent of the physical transformation.

(She has now heard all about Nate’s, how extreme it was—the worst the Agency has known since its establishment.

But things are easier now than they were three centuries ago, in the middle of the ocean, with… with everything that happened to him.

Things are easier.

There are substances that can dull the pain, if not counter it entirely. There are measures in place to make this go as smoothly as it possibly can. She will not have to suffer like he did.

Not least of all because she is choosing this.

That is a difference.)

Once the transition is complete and deemed successful, she will, in all likelihood, pass out from exhaustion. Nearly everyone does.

(Nearly everyone, of the ones who survive.)

She will then stay at the facility overnight, under observation until her condition becomes stable.

In addition to any of the common complications that might arise from the process itself, she will be monitored for out of control, violent tendencies upon reawakening (this is not a rare occurrence among the newly turned, she has been told), or for any unexpected reactions her blood might have to the vampire venom.

This will be the most difficult, painful period. Anything that touches her skin will feel like sandpaper. The slightest sound will be too loud.

There will be screaming. Thrashing. She will want to tear her skin apart and climb out of her body.

(A body she may or may not recognize anymore.)

This is expected.

And there will be the hunger. She will have to learn to live with this. Control it.

Over the next few days, her senses will stabilize. It will still be painful, and it will take much longer to learn to dampen them if she so chooses—but she will learn to function despite the pain. It will be a dull, constant ache she will grow used to.

She will then be reintroduced to people other than Agency medical staff.

Nate will be first. His presence is likely to be the only one she will be able to tolerate at this point.

(He will not be allowed to see her before this. This is for the best.)

Then the others.

Morgan.

Adam.

Farah.

In that order.

Then Rebecca.

(Because she is Agent Rebecca Navarro, the handler of Unit Bravo. Not because she is Rebecca-comma-her-mother.)

Her first feeding will be supervised, once again, by specialized staff.

It will not be human blood, not the first time.

Human blood is too intense, too flavorful, and it risks overwhelming her already fragile senses. It will give better results for her to work her way up to it over a period of time.

(She wonders who was the first to arrive at this conclusion, and how they had done so, but this has been Agency policy for at least a hundred years.)

Then, later, there will be tests.

Her blood will be studied again, analyzed for the way its unique composition might have changed or been influenced by the turning process. To assess if it retains any of its special properties, or if it is now indistinguishable from that of a regular vampire.

Eventually, she will be allowed to leave the Facility, and move back to the Warehouse.

She will meet with the fae counselor again. Twice a week, at first, then once weekly. This will continue for the next few months.

Once they deem it appropriate, she will be cleared to go on missions again.

Things will continue as normal.

With Eva finally, fully, a part of this world she has had a foot in for years now.

—

These are the things Eva had been prepared for.

The things she had researched, been informed of, agreed to. This is how things were supposed to go.

(Everything had been outlined in the paperwork she had signed, laid out for her in meetings and sessions the minute she had formally expressed her wish to turn.)

These are not the things that happened.

What did happen is something that has never, for as long as the Agency has had records (and the Agency has records dating back a very, very long time), happened before.

Failed supernatural turnings happen all the time, even under the supervision of the Agency.

Bad reactions to the venom, to the bite. People who are not strong enough, physically or mentally or emotionally.

People who are simply unlucky. It happens.

The strain of the process has claimed many lives.

The Agency tries to minimize the risk with all their prior assessments, but the odds are still not, never, favorable ones.

Eva knows this—this is what she agreed to.

In the end, it was a simple matter of probability—a 50%, 60%, 70% chance of death was always better than the eventual 100%.

(Always better than the knowledge that she would eventually waste away, and that her family—that Nate, her Nate—would have to watch. That she would have to see the already very obvious gap between them grow wider and wider with each passing year.)

It was the only thing that mattered that she had a chance, rather than none at all.

All or nothing.

This is what she agreed to.

But it has never happened before, for as long as the Agency has records, that the bite of a vampire, with the intent and the ability to turn, has absolutely no effect on the person who receives it.

No transformation.

No pain.

Nothing.

Eva’s blood has been studied in as much depth, its properties determined with as much precision and certainty, as the Agency’s technology and reagents have allowed.

The results have been—had been—deemed conclusive.

She was found to be immune to pheromones of all types, siren song, aura reading, precognition, tracking abilities, mood amplifiers.

All of this she has experienced firsthand during missions.

She is not immune to toxins, poisons, spores, paralyzing agents, venoms, or magically inflicted conditions.

This she has also experienced firsthand.

The mutation in her blood was not known to inhibit physical abilities. None of the studies had indicated even the slightest possibility of immunity to vampire venom.

And yet.

And yet. Here she is.

A still-bleeding bite on her neck.

Still human.

—

That night, she does not sleep.

She stays at the facility overnight, as she was meant to.

For very different reasons than she was meant to.

No one knows how to react to what has happened, Eva least of all, so she does the only thing she can trust herself to do: try to find an explanation, a solution.

Something that will allow her to move forward.

The medical staff is just as bewildered as she is, almost as eager to find out why it didn’t work.

There are more tests.

There will need to be more tests, later.

More studies, things they had measured before that will need to be measured again.

Her blood is drawn, sent for quick analysis.

There is no trace of venom in it.

It shouldn’t have disappeared so quickly. It shouldn’t have disappeared at all.

It makes no sense.

—

Nate is as panicked as she is forcing herself not to be.

(He has never done well under stress. This, too, has not changed.)

There is that tightness to his mouth, that slightly more forceful way he shoves his hands in his pockets.

It is so easy to revert to old habits. Especially ones that are hundreds of years old.

He tells her she should sleep, tells her they can work this out in the morning.

(Tries to soothe her when all she wants is to solve this.)

This was not part of the plan. Her hands are shaking.

Nate takes them in his—unsteady as he is right now, the contact helps. It always does.

He is probably right: it makes no difference to have the tests carried out at three or eight in the morning. But it is about the feeling of activity as much as it is about activity itself, and if she stands still she might go mad.

Too often she falls into action as a replacement for feeling.

It is so easy to revert to old habits. Even if they are not hundreds of years old.

She takes a deep breath. Lets Nate’s proximity ease her a little.

Nate is right.

She will—they will—figure this out.

It will work out.

It has to.

—

Over the following weeks, once the initial wave of panic subsides, Eva falls into a routine.

She does not have obligations to the station or to Wayhaven anymore, so she dedicates herself entirely to the Agency.

Unit Bravo is still sent on missions. She is still expected to take part in them, as she was before.

Her life at the Warehouse continues much the same as it was. With Nate, with the others.

She has always been good at compartmentalizing.

Every moment she does not spend with them, however, is now spent at the Facility, in the lab, meeting with doctors and scientists.

She doubles down on the research she had already begun to specialize in: supernatural biology was always going to be her field of study, a chance to put her skills and previous knowledge to far, far more use than she had ever managed as an officer, as a detective. From the moment the Agency started to trust her she had requested to be kept up to date on findings and developments, had requested permission to be included in research programs—to varying levels of success—and spent much of her free time studying what was already known.

(There had been many long, comfortable evenings spent with Nate in his library, reading treatises and books she still couldn’t believe ever made it to regular, human publication. He’d laughed softly when she’d brought that up, once, as she lay on the couch with her head resting on his lap.

“I mean it,” she said, sitting up with a half-laugh of her own. She’d been reading a tome from the early 20th century that detailed the regeneration abilities of phoenixes. “How did anyone take this seriously enough to publish?” She turned the book to look at the cover again. “And this was a regular publishing house.”

That, in turn, led to a fascinating conversation about humans’ tendency to ignore anything that disrupted their worldview too much, and the extent to which the Agency had in fact been connected to that “regular publishing house”, and how Nate knew the person responsible for the publication of that specific book.

The amount of actual studying she managed during those evenings always varied.)

Her newly acquired clearance now grants her access to tests and studies that she can sign off on herself, that she doesn’t need to request from Rebecca (or from anyone) with the hope that they’ll be approved.

Old habits come back, forgotten from her days at university, from a different life. She finds herself slipping into the same rhythm she had been so comfortable with, once—but there is a strange calmness to it even underneath her fevered, focused drive; something soothing about losing herself in slides and results and research.

This is what she had wanted, years ago, before the police, before Bobby. This is exactly what she had wanted.

She has so much of what she had always wanted.

And yet underneath that feeling, there is something else that is slowly, very slowly growing.

Very slowly taking root.

She does not look at it.

She does not think about it.

(Please don’t let it be taken away.)

She does not think about it.

She keeps herself busy.

—

When the Agency clears it, she contacts Verda again.

Eva knows he still has the blood test results from the Murphy case, from Janet Greenland. His research led nowhere, but it remained untouched.

He’s happy to hear from her—asks about her new job. She tells him she’s working in a lab that would make him jealous, would make even the City people jealous. She makes a joke about the Agency’s budget; he laughs.

It’s so easy.

(She is glad to hear his voice, and she asks with genuine interest about Eric and Cara and Lacey—they are doing wonderfully; little Lacey just had her birthday—but it is still so, so easy to lie.)

It is just as easy to convince him to send her his findings. The Agency, it turns out, is a wonderful excuse for pretty much anything, and he is all too happy to help her.

It ends up being yet another dead end. Janet Greenland’s blood had the same properties as her own, and Verda’s analyses say far less than the Agency’s.

There is nothing new in them, nothing Eva didn’t already know.

Another closed door.

(And that feeling is still there. Roots and vines spreading within her.)

—

It has been months.

She is no closer to finding a solution now than she was then: every door closes as soon as it opens. There had been another attempt—a different vampire, an Agency representative she didn’t know—it didn’t matter, it still didn’t work.

There have been tests and studies and even the possibility of turning into a different kind of supernatural—nothing, nothing. Nothing seems to lead anywhere.

It has been months, and she is too aware, too painfully aware in a way that she can’t ignore that months easily turn into years and she is not thirty years old anymore, has not been for a while.

It has been months and the roots and vines that grow within her have taken hold, have reached her throat. That thought is still there, that feeling.

She wakes up in the middle of the night and she can’t breathe.

It takes a terrifying, delirious moment to realize she is in her room—

(in their room, hers and Nate’s, their room in the Warehouse)

(and she’s not sure what she was dreaming except that she is left with that feeling of being on the edge of an abyss, of being about to fall)

—and Nate is there, he is always there, warm hands and strong arms and he is holding her against him, whispering into her ear—in languages she does not know but which have become familiar to her because they are his—until she can breathe again.

He whispers to her in Spanish, too, and in the middle of the night, lost as she feels, it hurts.

Hurts in the full, aching way his love has always hurt, in the way that makes the unshed tears of years past want to finally fall.

They don’t.

She blinks them away, buries her face in the crook of his neck.

“Jaan, love,” he says later, later, after her breathing has settled. His voice is all concern, all sweet care, spoken against her hair. “Sleep.”

He knows he won’t get her to talk, not when she is like this. He has learned her moods and her disposition, knows them better than she herself does. But she hasn’t slept through a night in weeks, and the worry in his voice mirrors the way his hands trace shapes on her skin, warm, soothing.

She doesn’t respond.

“I will figure this out,” she says instead. I have to, she doesn’t say.

She doesn’t look at him.

She’s not sure, really, if she’s saying it to Nate or if she’s saying it to herself.

He draws back, puts the smallest amount of space between them. Hooks a finger under her chin, tilts her head up so she can meet his eyes.

God, those eyes.

Those eyes have always been her undoing.

The purest, darkest brown (and she can’t see well enough now in the low light of their room, but she doesn’t need to, she knows them by heart, could bring them to mind at any moment—there is an even darker ring around the iris, long dark lashes framing them), warm and blazing in a way that stirs her alive.

“Eva,” he says, simply (and yet not, because there is nothing simple about her name in his mouth). It pulls her back from her thoughts, as it always has, as it always does.

(It’s in the way he says it. He has always said it the way it’s meant to be said, the way very few people in her life ever have. The subtle inflections of his accent shape themselves around it instead of forcing it into a different sound and those two syllables have never sounded so right as they do when he says them.

The name of a person you love is more than language. She’s not sure where it’s from. He quoted it to her once.

I summon you back by saying your nombre. This one she knows. It stings, in that same full, beautiful way.)

It’s too much.

His eyes and her name and his voice and his arms and the warmth of him around her and the vines in her throat. Too close. Too close.

Too much.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers.

Her voice cracks. She hates that it does.

Nate blinks, once, twice, before his frown deepens with even more concern and even more love and even more care.

Those are not words heard from her often or even at all. I apologize, if she needs to, if she feels it is warranted—reparations and actions but not this. Never this.

“What for, my love?”

I don’t know.

I’m sorry I’m falling apart.

I’m sorry I’m breaking down.

I’m sorry this is such a mess and I’m sorry I’m getting overwhelmed and I’m sorry I don’t know what to do and and and

Everything in her wants to push the words down.

So she drags them out of her throat.

Painful, painful, it has always been painful (it will never not be painful; her heart was not made for this) but it is pain she embraces, pain that comes from love and from feeling.

She would not, could not hide anything from him. Even if it means giving voice to that one thought that she has refused, refused to look at ever since she felt it make its home there.

Voicing it gives it shape.

Giving it shape makes it something that needs to be confronted.

(“I’ve cracked myself open for you and nothing has ever given me such pleasure,” she wrote once—it seems so long ago—in a letter she meant to give to him but never did. Finding the words, looking at the parts of herself that she hated—she wouldn’t have had a reason to do it were it not for the fact that she wanted him to know all of her.)

“I’m scared, Nate—I don’t know what to do, I’m fucking terrified. What if it doesn’t—what if I can’t—”

And she is sobbing now, words half-formed, tumbling out with the fear acknowledged.

And she knows he doesn’t want to hear this, she knows, it took so long to even have this conversation in the first place and it only happened because she’d been the one to push for it—

Nate holds her, and lets her cry.

“Whatever happens, you have me. You will always have me, I promise,” is the last thing she hears before she falls asleep again, exhausted, drained.

(She thinks he might be crying, too.)

—

Things are different, after that.

She feels—fragile.

Unmoored.

—

Finally, finally, the answer comes.

The results of those initial tests, the ones from years ago, the ones before Murphy—they provide the key.

It is not the mutation in her blood that is preventing the venom from working.

Her blood would, should be able to react to it.

Except—

Except that because of what Murphy did to her, half her blood is supernatural. Half the blood in her veins is vampire blood.

Only half.

Only the blood.

Her DNA remains unaltered, purely and uniquely human, but it's enough.

Enough for the venom to be absorbed without any effect or consequence, because vampire venom does not react with vampire blood.

Because supernaturals can't be turned into other supernaturals.

It’s conclusive, this time, (and trying to undo it would kill her, with such certainty that it is not even something that can be considered at all), and what a fucking joke it is—she would laugh if she weren’t so stunned, isn’t sure she doesn’t—she can never not be human because her body thinks it's already something else.

—

That feeling of dread that grew steadily with every closed door, with every negative result—it claws up her throat now. Spills out, nothing containing it anymore.

It was only a matter of time.

Her hands shake as she turns the key in the lock (and she catches a glimpse of the scar on her wrist and she almost screams) and she is fucking glad she kept the apartment in Wayhaven, now, as she shuts the door behind her and collapses to the floor, a wailing sound like a wounded animal's leaving her—

And then she is crying, sobbing on the floor of an empty apartment she hasn't been to in god knows how long, the palms of her hands pressed hard against her eyelids and still her mind is trying, trying, desperately reaching for any kind of solution, anything that will let her hold on to hope for just a little longer—

But there isn't one.

She knows there isn’t one and she can’t look away from it anymore.

Her whole life she has always found a way forward, a way out of everything; things have always worked out in the end, but this, this, this one time—

This one thing—

She can never be their equal.

This one thing that she wants—

That abyss between them that she had thought possible to bridge, had not thought she could not bridge will do nothing but grow wider and wider and wider until—

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit, shit.

What the fuck happens now?

How does she—?

Fuck.

#the wayhaven chronicles #nate sewell #qbwrites #qbwritestwc #oc: eva

[theorajones]

OR IS HE?

I present to you, the Michael Knight Manwhore Index! 

This was shamelessly ripped off from inspired by Sara_merry’s Michael Knight Sex Project on LJ, which tragically appears to have been abandoned after the first 14 episodes. But having a) a ton of spare time on my hands due to the ongoing Coronapocalypse, b) a steadfast dedication to sitting around in my pajamas watching Knight Rider instead of cleaning the gutters or replacing my car’s valve cover gaskets and c) a burning need to know how accurate my estimate of Michael’s conquests was in my last trashy fanfic, I persevered.

Methodology: I assigned each prominent female guest character (and the occasional male and/or regular character) a probability of having gotten it on with Michael, based on my subjective interpretation of how much they flirted/made out/made plans for a romantic getaway/actually went on a romantic getaway. Episodes in which at least one character had a 50% or greater probability (including with characters who were talked about but not seen onscreen) were assigned a value of 1. Episodes with a 49% or lower probability were assigned a value of 0. Values were totaled to calculate each season’s MKMI number.

TL;DR results:

 (# denotes probable sexytimes with someone who wasn’t seen onscreen, * denotes Michael’s participation was most likely non-consensual)

Season 1 MKMI number: 13

04 - Good Day at White Rock 05 - Slammin’ Sammy’s Stunt Show  Spectacular 06 - Just My Bill # 07 - Not a Drop to Drink 08 - No Big Thing # 09 - Trust Doesn’t Rust # 10 - Inside Out 11 - The Final Verdict 13 - Forget Me Not 15 - Give Me Liberty... or Give Me Death 16 - The Topaz Connection 17 - A Nice, Indecent Little Town 20 - Knight Moves

Season 2 MKMI number: 6

06 - Return to Cadiz 07 - KITT the Cat 08 - Custom KITT 14 - Diamonds Aren’t a Girl’s Best Friend 18/19 - Goliath Returns * 23 - Let It Be Me

Season 3 MKMI number: 7

09 - Dead of Knight 12 - Custom Made Killer # 13 - Knight by A Nose 14 - Junk Yard Dog 15 - Buy Out 17 - The Nineteenth Hole 22 - Circus Knights

Season 4 MKMI number: 5

03 - KITTnap 08 - Many Happy Returns 12 - The Scent of Roses 16 - Redemption of a Champion 22 - Voo Doo Knight

Conclusion: Michael is not nearly as much of a manwhore as people think, at least based on what we see onscreen. Although he clearly does have a social life outside of what we’re shown in every episode, so there’s still a world of possibilities...

Detailed episode analysis below the cut:

s1e01/02 - Knight of the Phoenix

Lonnie - Don't seem to know each other very well, no signs of other than professional interest. Probability: 0%

Tanya - Some kind of working relationship as Michael Long, but she doesn't seem to recognize his voice as MK. Plus he was possibly still engaged to Stevie as ML.

T: "I can promise you a very rewarding... *partnership*." M: "Not this time."

Probability: 5% (as ML)     0% (as MK)

Maggie - She expresses regret at not going for him at the end, but also seems more interested in finding a father figure for her son. It's implied that Michael left town before anything could happen. He did say he'd come back and visit. Did he ever? Would Maggie be up for a fling even though she knows he can't settle down? Potentially but not necessarily.

Probability - 30%

s1e03 - Deadly Maneuvers

Robin - They keep things mostly professional during the investigation. Michael goes to his own hotel room. At the end, it looks like he and Devon are leaving together. Michael is wearing a different shirt in the last scene than in the one where he rescues Robin from the munitions range so it's unclear how much time has passed. Theoretically sexytimes could have transpired but there aren't really any strong suggestions that they have.

Probability: 10%

s1e04 - Good Day at White Rock

Sherry - "Keep driving." "For how long?" "Until one of us runs out of gas."

Probability: 95%

s1e05 - Slammin' Sammy's Stunt Show Spectacular

Lisa - She's definitely interested. And he's sticking around for another 3 weeks, so definitely some opportunity. He doesn't seem as flirtatious with her as he was with Sherry but it's definitely a possibility.

Probability: 70%

s1e06 - Just My Bill

Sabrina (offscreen) - Devon breaks Michael's date with her. Not enough info to draw any conclusions about whether it's a first and/or last date. A definite possibility.

Probability: 50%

Senator Maggie - That would have been subversive af, but alas, no.

Probability: 0%

Jane - Doesn't seem that into him at their first meeting. At their breakfast date he asks her how she slept, which presumably he'd know if he'd been there. She does go out to lunch with him and Devon at the end. Possible but not conclusive.

Probability: 25%

s1e07 - Not A Drop to Drink

Francesca - They have kind of a "channel the sexual tension into arguments" thing, but like Maggie in the pilot, she's probably looking more for somebody who can settle down. Another one where he talks at the end about coming back to visit but we don't know if he ever does. Maybe?

Probability: 50%

S1e08 - No Big Thing

The Unnamed 200-Mile Diversion Girl (offscreen) - I doubt he drove 200 miles out of his way just for coffee and friendly conversation.

Probability: 90%

Carol Reston - They have dinner together but seem to be keeping things strictly business. No apparent indication that they're romantically interested, no "Come back and visit sometime."

Probability: 0%

s1e09 - Trust Doesn't Rust

Rosalyn and/or Rosalie (offscreen) - "What's wrong with a little 'companionship'?"

Probability: 90%

Bonnie - They almost kiss after defeating KARR, but mutually think better of it. Presumably the moment passes and stays passed for another few seasons of UST.

Probability: 0%

s1e10 - Inside Out

(This ep has a higher than average amount of sexual innuendo, including KITT's breathless response to Bonnie adjusting his components, Michael commenting that Bonnie knows how to turn KITT on, KITT straight-facedly giving Michael an accounting of Bonnie's measurements after Michael wonders whether there's a real woman under her jumpsuit, and Michael & KITT's "Maybe I can get something from the girl"/ "I wouldn't touch that line with a 10 foot driveshaft" conversation. "Don't worry, I'll distract her."/"I'll bet." "What was that all about?"/"Biology.")

Linda - WTF was up with him grabbing her in the woods like a skeezoid rapist when he just wanted to give her dinner? She doesn't kick him in the balls so I guess that counts for something. They hug after a conversation in her room later, hold hands and smooch before she goes off to do... something mission related. She saves his ass and helps him drop off the bad guys at the prison. Do they celebrate later? Maybe.

Probability: 70%

s1e11 - The Final Verdict

Cheryl - They're pretty touchy-feely when he visits her in jail, and she gives him a pretty good kiss at the end. Odds are good that they had/will have a romantic relationship at some point.

Probability: 90%

s1e12- A Plush Ride

M: I wanna search Margo's room. K: I've heard that one before. M: It'll give you something to brood about during the night.

Margo - (spoiler alert) She's a terrorist. They get physical when she catches him searching her room but it doesn't turn into anything more than fighting. He kisses her (in front of everybody, wtf) after she (supposedly) saves him from being murdered by Jacobs. But the next time we see the two of them together, she's taking him prisoner. She's pretty touchy-feely with him while he's tied up but there's no time for her to do anything (and presumably he wouldn't be into it if she did, what with her being a terrorist and all).

Probability: 0%

Bonnie - Uncharacteristically flirtatious, appears to be a bit tipsy. No real implication that anything happened, though.

Probability: 0%

s1e13 - Forget Me Not

Maria Elena - They're flirting up a storm in their first scene. And their third one. And fourth one. Also she's frequently scantily clad around him. Michael to KITT in the last scene: "See you in two days, buddy." Oh yeah, he was planning something.

Probability: 95%

Micki - She's a little flirtatious too before she loses her memory (although he starts it by fake-flirting with her). And also feels comfortable enough to just run around in Michael's shirt and little else after she loses her memory, although she says she doesn't just meet guys at parties and go home with them (she thinks). He tells her she's a nice lady but doesn't seem that romantically interested in her.

Probability: 10% Until...

Maria Elena & Micki - They've become fast friends by the last scene and both kiss him on the cheek at the same time after he brings them both flowers (at KITT's instigation). Why do I get the feeling "Anybody wanna cruise a hamburger joint?" was as close as they could get to implying a threesome on 80s family hour tv?

Probability: 60%

s1e14 - Hearts of Stone

M: KITT, don't fall in love with one of these beautiful cars and run off on me, huh?

K: I wouldn't dream of it.

Angie - She's with Roberto. Also (spoiler alert) a scam artist criminal.

Probability - 0%

The blonde lady at the bar - They flirt and she tells him she hopes to see him later, but no indication that she ever does.

Probability: 5%

Devon - Oh man, the way he's eyeing Michael up in his hotel room. And if we're still in the pilot universe, Michael is a dead ringer for a young Wilton, whom I will never be unconvinced Devon wasn't either secretly in love with or a relationship with, s2 Devon Miles Heterosexuality Minutes be damned. We never really get any indication that Michael swings that way, though (at least with non-automotive males, *wink*).

Probability: 0%

The nurse - In the novelization she flirts with him and kisses him, but no indication of romantic interest in the actual episode.

Probability: 0%

s1e15 - Give Me Liberty... Or Give Me Death

Bonnie - He tries to ask her out, but she's busy spending the night with KITT. :D She also doesn't seem very impressed with his Liberty drama.

Probability: 0%

Liberty Cox - When she shows up in his room, he seems a lot less interested in her than she is in him, but he doesn't exactly fight her off when she starts kissing him. He tells KITT he went to bed and she went back to her room, but she's sure more pissed about not getting to ride along with him the next day than you'd think she'd be if all they'd done was smooch. Also she's back at FLAG HQ at the end so maybe she's spending some time in town.

Probability: 90%

Dorothy Ackridge - He tries to be flirtatious but she has no time for his shenanigans. she's grateful when he saves her life but doesn't express any romantic interest in him.

Probability: 0%

s1e16 - The Topaz Connection

Lauren Royce - She takes half the episode to warm up to him but they have fun in Vegas. "You do the cake, I'll do the champagne, and we'll see what else comes to mind." "Deal." Things look like they might be headed in a steamy direction as evidenced by the romantic music playing but they get cockblocked by Bob. They smooch before she gets on the bogus plane. In the last scene they kiss some more and she tells him they have some unfinished business.

Probability: 95%

s1e17 - A Nice, Indecent Little Town

KITT: Michael is... indisposed. Devon: Oh. That means he's either with a young lady or in jail.

Jobina - He's definitely turning on the charm. She helps Michael escape from jail (with KITT's assistance). "Is there anything this car can't do?" "I think a woman would be a better judge of that." "I beg your pardon?" I don't even know what that's supposed to mean but I want to believe it's something saucy. Not actually much indication onscreen that anything happened but in the last scene Michael says he hopes Jobina will stay in town and Bonnie asks if that's so he'll know where to find her. Michael responds, "Yeah, that's a thought." Possibilities here.

Probability: 50%

s1e18 - Chariot of Gold

Dr. Charlene Litton - He chats her up at the party, but it's in the line of duty. She's kind of condescending to him. She does break away from the creepy IQ cult and help Michael foil their plans, but isn't seen again.

Probability: 0%

Bonnie - They do their usual UST thing, and dance at the party until Devon cuts in. He's extremely protective of her. He talks her out of her brainwashing by telling her "We're a team, we love each other." He makes her breakfast and brings her a rose at the end. Still, no overt indication that anything beyond camaraderie happens.

Probability: 0%

s1e19 - White Bird

Stevie - Presumably they've gotten it on in the past but there was too much going on in this episode for anything to happen. Also presumably Wilton didn't do any renovations below Michael's neck so if they'd gotten it on she would have known with 100% certainty who he was.

Probability: 95% (as ML)     5% (as MK)

s1e20 - Knight Moves

Terri - He asks her to go dancing. She turns him down but finds him likable/trustworthy enough to let him give her a lift home. They seem to be bonding but when he goes in for a kiss she says goodnight and goes in the house (alone). His little smile afterwards suggests he's up for the challenge. After he saves her life and her other driver threatens to quit she tells him she really likes him and hugs her but doesn't push it further than that. She tells him the next day that it was the first time she ever wanted to kiss a man (but that she had before anyway D: ). At the end they do go dancing (and she puts on a dress because heaven forbid a tough woman should ever fail to embrace conventional femininity immediately upon being found attractive by any halfway decent dude) and it's a reasonable assumption that they did more than just *dance* until dawn. I kind of want to roast Michael a little for not being more aghast about the fact that she's kissed dudes she didn't really want to and for encouraging her to give up her Tomboy Terri persona but it was a less enlightened era and at least he didn't hit on her when she was vulnerable which is more than a lot of dudes of his time (or this one, for that matter)  would have done so I'll cut him some slack.

Probability: 90%

s1e21 - Nobody Does It Better

Connie - He's checking her out on the tennis court but (spoiler alert) she gets murdered.

Probability: 0%

Flannery Roe - Things are off to a rocky start. She seems to take his "do you like to play?" at the club as a come on, pulls a gun on him (not entirely unjustifiably) when he corners her in the cul-de-sac and has him arrested on suspicion of being a stalker and/or rapist. She warms up to him a bit after he provides a comforting hug when she finds Connie's body but still gets a little shirty with him at the restaurant and turns down his offer of a ride home. She's antagonistic toward him when they meet again at the club. He saves her from the bad guys and for some reason she's back at the Foundation HQ at the end but they don't do any huggy-kissy stuff so odds are minimal.

Probability: 1%

s1e22 - Short Notice

K: Since you haven't asked, I'll tell you. It was demoralizing, demeaning. M: What? K: Police impound. M: Oh. You had me worried there for a minute.

Nicole - She keeps him at arm's length initially (understandably since she's hitching). Turns out she's another single mom, so her main preoccupation is getting her kid back, and she doesn't really care if she dicks Michael over in the process. He does get along well with her kid when they find her so that probably gets him a few points in her eyes. They hold hands after he beats all the bad guys in the western town and hug at the end but don't kiss. She's probably looking for a new dad for Natalie. He tells Natalie he hopes they'll see him again but nothing conclusive.

Probability: 10%

s2e01/02 - Goliath

Rita Wilcox - Another one where there was possible interest but probably wasn't time for anything to happen. She spends half the episode either pissed off at him or faking a relationship with Garthe, and then they're busy trying to take out Goliath. They hug after Garthe and Goliath are out of commission but don't kiss. At the end she's on her way out of town. It's unclear how much time has passed between that and the last scene but when she implies he should look her up if he's in LA, he doesn't mention that the Foundation's home base is in SoCal (or so it appears)? I don't think he's the type who wouldn't go for a woman he was interested in just because she'd hooked up with his evil twin (even if he was a little judgy when he found out she was shacking up with Garthe again), so maybe he's just not that into her.

Probability: 25%

s2e03 - Brother's Keeper

Lisa - Things aren't exactly off to a great start when he kidnaps her. She warms up to him a little by the end and they give each other a fairly chaste goodbye smooch. He says they'll see each other again and she says she hopes so. Maybe?

Probability: 30%

April: He's on a kidnapping spree and drags her to the beach at the end. Still, no real indicator that anything romantic is going to ensue.

Probability: 5%

s2e04 - Merchants of Death

Camela - They seem to keep it professional except for a goodbye kiss. Not even a "We'll see each other again." Odds are minimal.

Probability: 5%

s2e05 - Blind Spot

Julie - She's in some kind of platonic lifemate relationship with John, which may end up being more than platonic thanks to Michael's yenta-ing.

Probability: 0%

s2e06 - Return to Cadiz

Jennifer Shell - They have dinner together and she seems to open up to him but it isn't overtly romantic. They have a spat but hug and make up when he finds the secret treasure cave. She kisses him after he rescues her from the bad guys. An undisclosed amount of time has passed before they have dinner and he heads out but they do the "Will I see you again?/count on it" thing before she kisses him goodbye. It's possible, maybe even likely.

Probability: 50%

s2e07 - KITT the Cat

Grace - She's definitely flirting with him when she invites him to the party. And then tries to convince him she's not the burglar by making out with him. At the end he kisses her goodbye pretty interestedly while promising to keep a closer eye on her. Odds are good.

Probability: 85%

s2e08 - Custom KITT

Suzanne Weston - She's pretty overt about her interest in him, but when she shows up in his room he seems relieved when KITT beeps him on the comlink. She tells him he knows where to find her if he's ever in the mood for something other than "good, clean" fun, so by implication he hasn't been.

Probability: 0%

Carrie - She's into him enough to get jealous when she thinks he hooked up with Suzanne. "If our plan works and the thief tries to steal KITT tonight, you can thank me." She kisses him first, but then he kisses her and tells her that's "very close" to his way of wanting to be thanked. The implications aren't particularly subtle. They enthusiastically hug after catching the bad guys. When she wins the car show, they smooch with more "I don't know how to thank you... but I'm sure I'll think of a way" innuendo. He tells her he'll see her later, and I think it's a strong possibility that he will.

Probability: 90%

s2e09 - Soul Survivor

M: Devon, I felt something in here... I don't know, a presence... KITT's presence.

K: Oh Michael, do I look just dreadful? Be honest. M: KITT, what matters to me is who you are, not what you look like. Sure we don't have the car. So we can't turbo boost. So we can't go over 200 miles an hour. It was all icing on the cake anyway. It wasn't you. K: It wasn't? M: No, the car was fantastic but if you break it down it was steel, rubber and glass. We can always make another one. But you, you are a lot more than silicon chips and fancy circuitry, You're my buddy. You're my partner. KITT, you're one of a kind. K: Thank you, Michael. The feeling's mutual.

K: What was it like, Michael? M: What, KITT? K: Seeing my body functioning without me? Or you? M: A little spooky, let me tell ya. K: Did it seem like me? M: Yeah, it did and it didn't. It looked like you, but somehow it just wasn't the same. K: I don't understand. M: It didn't have your soul, KITT. Without that, it could never be the same. K: Thank you, Michael.

Adrianne - She techno-roofies him and the way Randy sticks his head in the door and then guiltily ducks back out as she's leaning over him on the couch kind of suggests he's walking in on something he knows he shouldn't see. Still, Michael appears to be fully clothed when he wakes up in a ditch. Adrianne is totally a creepy douchebag and/or rapist (as we will see more of in Goliath Returns) but she was probably too preoccupied with stealing KITT to do anything in this ep.

Probability: 20%

s2e10 - Ring of Fire

(This is one of two eps where Michael utters the phrase "come on, baby" to KITT while trying to get out of a jam. Obviously NBC's censors had to ruin our fun because it never happens again after this season.)

Layla - She's still married. Doesn't really express romantic interest in Michael and the hero of an 80s family hour tv series probably wouldn't have gotten it on with a married woman no matter how much of an abusive dick her husband was. They do kiss goodbye at the end and he tells her if she ever decides to leave the bayou, she knows where he'll be. If anything ever happens, it's probably in the distant future.

Probability: 5%

s2e11 - Knightmares

M: Whoa, you are hot! K: Quite true, Michael.

Cara - She tries to look out for him after he gets amnesia, but not a lot of indication that she's romantically interested in him, and he's too busy trying to figure out wtf is going on to hit on her. They hug after he rescues her from drowning but we don't see any more of them together.

Probability: 5%

s2e12 - Silent Knight

Marta - No real indication of romantic interest on either side. We  don't see what they're doing as Tino is saying goodbye to KITT but considering he offered her a handshake and not a kiss or even a hug, it's probably safe to say nothing happened.

Probability: 0%

s2e13 - A Knight in Shining Armor

Katherine - She's a little young for him (Michael tells her the treasure was supposed to be her 21st birthday present so presumably she's legal but the fact that she's still in prep school makes her seem younger). Also this is another episode where he begins their acquaintance by first rescuing, then kidnapping the female lead. They don't particularly like each other at first, but hug after his "if nobody can hurt you, then nobody can love you" chat with her, again after he rescues her from the bad guy (again) and after escaping the cave collapse. It seems more friendly than romantic, though.He takes her hand in the cave but it comes off more as sharing a moment than a romantic overture. They kiss at the end but he tells her goodbye and leaves. No indication that they're going to see each other again.

Probability: 5%

s2e14 - Diamonds Aren't A Girl's Best Friend

Lauren - She makes out with him when he first shows up as part of her cover story and he clearly doesn't mind. He's pretty committed to maintaining their cover in subsequent scenes. In the last scene she tells him she'd like "to do it for real" but she's pretty clearly referring to kissing, not *it*. By implication they haven't done more than kiss at this point but when she asks if she'll see him again, he tells her "unless you change her name and move to Okinawa." Future potential.

Probability: 50%

Lauren's boss - She's kind of flirtatious with him when they first meet but no indicator that anything happens.

Probability: 0%

s2e15 - White Line Warriors

Cindy - She's with Ron, who is apparently pretty understanding since he doesn't seem to object to her giving Michael a thank-you kiss at the end.

Probability: 0%

s2e16 - Race For Life

April - He's emotionally supportive and her niece has been introduced to Michael and KITT but no significant indications of anything romantic.

Probability: 0%

s2e17 - Speed Demons

Sabrina - He comes to her rescue when Wade is harassing her at the party, They hug after she talks to him about Kelly. They give each other a chaste goodbye kiss but no real indication of romantic interest.

Probability: 0%

s2318/19 - Goliath Returns

Adrianne - This one gets an asterisk, because whatever happened in Garthe's creepy dungeon after the cutaway to a scandalized KITT didn't look consensual on Michael's side. She pretty obviously went down to there to sleep with him, and the way she staggers out in her bathrobe the next morning while Garthe bitches about how she slept in pretty strongly implies that she actually did, but Michael really seems the opposite of into her and her basically telling him "please me [in bed] and maybe I'll make sure my psycho boyfriend doesn't murder you" is rape by coercion if not by force. Did he grit his teeth and do it just to hedge his bets? Maybe.

Probability: 80%*

s20 - A Good Knight's Work

Gina - He's obviously interested and kisses her before he goes to MMM, but (spoiler alert) she's playing him. Except maybe she's not so bad because she lets him talk her out of shooting him and then they hug. They kiss goodbye at the end but she's going into witness protection and there isn't really any indication that they'll see each other again or that anything romantic transpired.

Probability: 10%

s2e21/22 - Mouth of the Snake

Joanna - She was more interested in Dalton. I deeply want to believe Dalton's invitation to Michael to hang out with them at the end was really an invitation to join them for a threesome because it's the only thing that would make this episode interesting, but Michael takes a rain check and heads out of town.

Probability: 0%

s2e23 - Let It Be Me

Stevie - She's still pretty broken up about her boyfriend's death. He kisses her when they go back to her apartment and she tells him she still dreams about him. The next scene they're wearing different clothes and seemingly some time has passed so maybe something happened after the cutaway?

Probability: 50%

s2e24 - Big Iron

Lucy - She was the woman who was coming out of the hotel room at the beginning. He seemed to be checking her out in that scene but obviously he's not going for a married woman even if she didn't have some other drama going on.

Probability: 0%

s3e01/02 - Knight of the Drones

Bonnie - They hug when he shows up at the university and he makes the "You can sail with me anytime" comment to her at the marina at the end and they link arms to walk to the boat, but not really anything more romantic than that.

Probability: 0%

Margo - She fakes romantic interest in him and he plays along, but (spoiler alert) she's setting him up to be murdered.

Probability: 0%

s3e03 - The Ice Bandits

Bonnie - They walk arm-in-arm into the diamond place, but Michael was making innuendoes about other women when she was sitting right next to him in the car 30 seconds previously so probably nothing really going on.

Probability: 5%

Jody - She's engaged to Charlie. Michael tells Charlie "She's not the one I'm interested in, it's *you*," with his standard flirtatious grin and god, that's hot. Spoiler alert: Charlie is a crook. Even after she finds out the truth she doesn't really express romantic interest in Michael although she does paint his portrait.

Probability: 5%

s3e04 - Knights of the Fast Lane

Diane - He's too preoccupied with Stacy's case to flirt. She hugs him after he rescues her but we don't see them together again.

Probability: 5%

The random cheerleader - She seems interested, but we don't see them together again either.

Probability: 5%

s3e05 - Halloween Knight

Bonnie - He's very protective. Tinhats would probably make something of the fact that her costume is Scarlett O'Hara and his is Rhett Butler. Still, nothing too overtly romantic.

Probability: 5%

Esmerelda - She'd probably put a love spell on him in a hot minute but I think he finds her a little terrifying.

Probability: 5%

Denise - She's friendly but not overly flirtatious. Also she gets murdered before anything can happen.

Probability: 0%

s3e06 - KITT vs. KARR

Mandy - She's with John. No indicators that they're interested in a threesome.

Probability: 0%

s3e07 - The Rotten Apples

Marilyn - They're hardcore flirting and she says she hopes to see him again. They kiss after he wins the mechanical bull contest, but then she catches a bus out of town. She kisses him goodbye and he does this "oh yeah, I still got it" move but we don't get any strong evidence that anything else happened.

Probability: 10%

Rebecca - Not a lot of flirtation, and the kids are always around cockblocking.

Probability: 10%

s3e08 - Knight in Disgrace

(I was almost too distracted by KITT and Michael in this ep to pay attention to the GOTW, lol. KITT's hurt confusion when Michael leaves and him being a total bitch to Michael's would-be replacement and the way he goes with Michael even when he thinks he's on the wrong side of the law, I'm *dying* here...)

Linda - She comes onto him and roofies him at the bar and he wakes up with his shirt undone, but she's Boyd's girlfriend and (spoiler alert) another hapless single mom so she probably didn't do anything untoward, assuming he was even conscious enough by the time she got him home. After she gets to know and trust him she doesn't make any moves on him and they don't smooch or anything at the end.  

Probability: 5%

s3e09 - Dead of Knight

Cindy - It's not entirely clear what their relationship is. At the beginning it looks more like he's trying to pick up on her than they're actually dating. He's obviously really invested in helping her but he'd undoubtedly do the same for anybody who was in mortal peril because of him. At the end in the ambulance he calls her "baby" and says they have a date. In the last scene Cindy is leaving for Broadway soon but they're all together at the Foundation and it's unclear how much time has elapsed. Not conclusive but suggestive.

Probability: 50%

Renard's girlfriend -  She's putting the moves on him while he's feverish and loopy and somehow his shirt has gotten unbuttoned but there's a guard in the room so probably nothing happened.

Probability: 10%

s3e10 - Lost Knight

"If I may be so bold, what on earth were you *doing* down there?"

(LBR, Michael is too busy angsting about KITT to try and get laid in this ep.)

Doug's mom  - In a relationship, although at the end she decides to break things off with her boyfriend so she can focus more on her son. She and Michael kiss goodbye but it's improbable that there's anything more than that since she just said she doesn't need another man around right now.

Probability: 0%

s3e11 - Knight of the Chameleon

Tonie Baxter - They seem to know each other from a previous case. He kisses her on the forehead at the end of their first scene. They don't really seem to interact romantically during this episode. Michael gets distracted by KITT's contest winnings before they have a chance for a goodbye kiss.

Probability: 10%

s3e12 - Custom Made Killer

Unnamed Dancer (offscreen) - Devon: "You've been rather difficult to reach lately. Particularly last night." Michael: "I got a weakness for dancers." HIs protest that they're "innocent girls working their way through college" leaves little doubt about what kind of dancer this was.

Probability: 95%

Joan - No evidence of romantic interest. Also (spoiler alert) she's collaborating with the bad guys.

Probability: 0%

Debra - He flirts at the end and she kisses him goodbye. Lewis says "He'll be back" and she gives a suggestive eyebrow raise. Possible but not conclusive.

Probability: 25%

s3e13 - Knight By A Nose

M: KITT, how close are you? It's getting stuffy in here. K: Any closer and I'll have to marry this limo.

Maxine - They hug and he calls her "sweetheart" when he shows up. Devon accuses Michael of being biased because Max is attractive but he describes her as "a very, very close friend." Yet we never actually see them kiss. Maybe they really are just friends?

Probability: 25%

s3e14 - Junkyard Dog

Fran - He's too preoccupied with KITT to do much flirting for most of the episode, but they're having a picnic/makeout session together in the semi, seemingly alone, at the end. It's a reasonable assumption that things escalated at some point, even if they didn't want a scandalized KITT watching and commenting at that particular moment.

Probability: 80%

s3e15 - Buy Out

Mel - They keep it professional for most of the ep but after he catches the bad guy he tells her she's attractive without her welding mask and they kiss. We don't see them together again but it's possible that more happened.

Probability: 50%

s3e16 - Knightlines

Janet Morgan - She's recently widowed and not in the market yet. No romantic interaction.

Probability: 0%

s3e17 - The Nineteenth Hole

Daisy: Is that thing blown? KITT: I beg your pardon?

Jamie - After they fake being married at the hotel she kisses him before the race. Not a lot of other romantic interaction but he and Bonnie and Devon do seem to be sticking around to watch the race so something could happen.

Probability: 50%

Daisy - He flirts with her a little at the meetup but no indication that it goes beyond that.

Probability: 0%

s3e18 - Knight and Knerd

Allie - She rides off into the sunset with Elliot.

Probability: 0%

Receptionist at Gifford's - He flirts but no indication that it goes anywhere.

Probability: 0%

Vanessa Sutton - Apparently he gives a really good massage but she's (understandably) pissed off that he wasn't who she was expecting the massage from. Also she's a villain and is too busy setting him up to get murdered for anything to happen.

Probability: 0%

s3e19 - Ten Wheel Trouble

M: Hey, are you hungry back there, partner? K: Perhaps a little lonely, Michael. But rather enjoying my independence.

Sally - He turns on the charm when they first meet but things go south rapidly when he talks her brother into going to jail. By the end he's back in her good graces and she likes him enough to steal a kiss from him before he says goodbye. You know her hormonal teenage brain is thinking about it but for reasons that should be obvious, he isn't going there.

Probability: 0%

s3e20 - Knight In Retreat

KITT: Of course, there is one other possibility. Devon: What is that? KITT: The lady of the retreat. She's quite attractive. Of course, knowing Michael the way I do, it would strictly be in the line of duty.

Bianca - She seems to find him physically attractive, and maybe if she hadn't been so busy torturing him she would have tried to have a little fun with him. But considering what he suspects her of, he probably wouldn't have gone too far unless he absolutely had to.

Probability: 0%

Monica - She flirts with him at the bar and comments on what a waste it is to kill him, but nothing is likely to have happened due to both time constraints and her being Bianca's henchwoman.

Probability: 0%

s3e21 - Knight Strike

Sheila - She acts jealous when he makes the date with Tyler but he seems more exasperated than romantically interested in her. They kiss before he goes into the warehouse but it's fairly short and chaste. At the end, she goes off with O'Malley.

Probability: 0%

Tyler - She makes a date with him at the gun range but it's just a distraction. He flirts with her but it's all in the line of duty.

Probability: 0%

s3e22 - Circus Knights

Bonnie: I have to admit, Devon, he looks fantastic. Devon: Yes, in spite of that ridiculous costume he's wearing. Bonnie: No, I'm talking about KITT!

Terri - They keep things professional at first, although when they're in the car together she asks if circus-folk camaraderie is the only reason he's interested in helping her. He says he's be lying if he said yes and presumably she reads it as him being interested romantically. After his near-murder in the ring they have a heart-to-heart talk and kiss. At the end he tells her to call him if she needs anything. *Anything?* Hmmm...

Probability: 50%

Tiger - She hits on him but he's not into it.

Probability: 0%

s4e01/02 - Knight of the Juggernaut

K: I'm asking you how I look. M: You look great, same as always!

Marta - They have some chemistry in their first meeting. He asks her out when they get back to her apartment. But (spoiler alert) she's part of the conspiracy to steal the cernium and sets him up to get murdered (twice). He cools it on the flirting after the first incident (understandably, since if he takes her story at face value she was assaulted and possibly worse) although he still acts protective of her. After she helps them get the bad guys she's hanging out with the Foundation crew at the end but we don't see any more romantic interaction.

Probability: 25%

Jennifer - No overtly romantic interaction. They're antagonistic for most of the episode although they make up at the end.

Probability: 0%

s4e03 - KITTnap

Karen - She's doing her doctoral thesis on KITT and spending a lot of time with Michael in the progress. Judging by the way they're holding hands in their first scene and then making out at her apartment, there's obvious romantic interest. And she clearly has more than academic interest even after (spoiler alert) she gets held hostage by the bad guys so it's a reasonable assumption that if they weren't already banging they're going to at some point.

Probability: 95%

s4e04 - Sky Knight

Bonnie - He's pretty touchy-feely at the airport and they hug after saving the day but no overt romance.

Probability: 5%

s4e05 - Burial Ground

Susan - They keep it professional for most of the episode. He tries to hit on her at the end but she's in a relationship with Eagle. That doesn't stop her from giving him a goodbye kiss but no indicator that it goes any further than that.

Probability: 0%

s4e06 - The Wrong Crowd

Ann - She spends most of the episode being menaced and/or held hostage by the bikers and we don't really see them interact with each other in a non-case-related way.

Probability: 0%

RC - Michael is very tenderly concerned when he finds him knocked out by the side of the road. But probably neither of them swing that way.

Probability: 0%

s4e07 - Knight Sting

Gaye - She seems young. And also kind of annoying. He hugs her in the hospital but it doesn't look particularly romantic. No evidence of interest on either side.

Probability: 0%

Bonnie - He flirts with her when they're planning the operation and she shows him her dress. The rest of the episode they're too busy with the mission for any shenanigans.

Probability: 0%

RC - He's clearly been raiding Michael's closet for that sweater. But Michael is cool with it. No overt indication that they're more than bros, though.

Probability: 0%

s4e08 - Many Happy Returns

Amy - He's flirting up a storm but whoops, Devon is cockblocking and she's actually there with a mission for him. However, it's not all business and she surprises him with a birthday cupcake and some birthday smoochin', until duty calls again. She makes some innuendo about "getting to adolescence and maturity later" as he's leaving so she's obviously willing to take a rain check. She's back in the semi with them at the end and Michael invites her on vacation with him. We don't see her answer but it's a safe bet it's a yes.

Probability: 95%

s4e09 - Knight Racer

Elena - At first it's all business but they seem to be having fun dancing at the reception. They have a heart-to-heart talk in the parking lot until the hit man shows up. They hug after the big reveal about Elena's dad and the fight with Wayne's partner but don't kiss. Maybe Michael would think twice about getting involved with a friend of Bonnie's.

Probability: 10%

Unnamed track bunnies - Michael says it wasn't easy ignoring all those trophy queens and their phone numbers, implying that he did indeed ignore them (maybe more because he had to get back to the office than out of disinterest).

Probability: 0%

s4e10 - Knight Behind Bars

Julie - He agrees with KITT that she's cute, but they don't really express romantic interest to each other beyond a hug after he tosses Nelson into the ocean. Also at 20 she's a little young for him.

Probability: 0%

Gymnastics instructor - She flirtatiously tells him she's free the rest of the day, but he isn't. No indication that they see each other again.

Probability: 0%

s4e11 - Knight Song

Bonnie and/or RC - They're all playing hookie together and conspiring to keep it from Devon. Shenanigans?

Probability: 5%

Sanford - No indication of romantic interest, also she's a villain.

Probability: 0%

s4e12 - The Scent of Roses

K: I'm sorry, they don't allow cars in hospitals. I would have been closer. M: I know you would.

Stevie - They appear to have been staying at the beach house together so it's a safe bet, even if (spoiler alert) they never got to consummate their marriage.

Probability: 95%

s4e13 - Killer KITT

"Not now, Michael. I have a headache."

Bronwen - She and Michael barely interact, plus she's probably Berio's girlfriend.

Probability: 0%

s4e14 - Out of the Woods

Sam - He's flirtatious when they first get reacquainted but too busy working on the case for anything to happen before it's revealed that (spoiler alert) she's a villain. He does hug her when she surrenders at the end but I assume that trying to murder him is a dealbreaker.

Probability: 0%

Ellen - No real evidence of romantic interest and she says goodbye with a handshake rather than a kiss.

Probability: 0%

s4e15 - Deadly Knightshade

Bonnie - She's more preoccupied with Templeton. He does give her a swan in his magic act at the end.

Probability: 0%

Nancy - He's too busy with the investigation to even do much flirting.

Probability: 0%

s4e16 - Redemption of a Champion

Miss Cooper - Michael obviously has a hot date that most likely would have ended with some lovin' if he hadn't once again been cockblocked by KITT and Devon. At the end, Michael is dressed up for Date Night, Take 2, but gets called back to the semi again. Does she give him a third chance? I mean, *I* would...

Probability: 50%

Nurse Tremount - He flirts with her to get info and comforts her after she breaks down and confesses to the scam but no indication that it goes further than that. Plus she’s in an adulterous relationship with the villainous doctor.

Probability: 0%

s4e17 - Knight of A Thousand Devils

Claudia Terrell - She's a villain. When she makes a pseudo-date with him it's just to set him up.

Probability: 0%

Agent Jonas - They bet dinner on the arrest and Michael seems to be taking his death extremely personally. Juggernaut slash ships have been built on less. If he were a chick I'd say "extremely probable" except for the fact that Jonas was married with kids. Not that it stops some people, but it would most likely stop Michael.

Probability: 0%

"Ana-Lucia" - She keeps him up all night working on her car and he says he's going to come back after the race is over and demand equal time. Her response: "You won't have to demand." Plot twist: She's actually a Federale. We don't see her again after they apprehend the bad guy so it's questionable whether their flirtation was still valid for her real identity.

Probability: 10%

s4e18 - Hills of Fire

Sandra Rusk - Barely any interaction and also she's a villain.

Probability: 0%

Tess Hubbard: No significant romantic interaction. Probably too busy with her charitable work to go chasing after pretty-boys.

Probability: 0%

s4e19 - Knight Flight to Freedom

Lisa - Too busy dealing with a revolution for any shenanigans.

Probability: 0%

s4e20 - Fright Night

Karen - They keep things mostly professional but she buys him lunch at the end. No real indicator that it ends in anything romantic, though.

Probability: 5%

Liz - They flirt a little when he interviews her ("I appreciate your interest." "I'm interested!") but it doesn't really go anywhere.

Probability: 5%

s4e21 - Knight of the Rising Sun

N/A - No female guest characters and nothing particularly shippy with Bonnie.

Probability: 0%

s4e22 - Voo Doo Knight

Harana - She's a little flirtatious at the party. When she puts one of her zombifying earrings on him, she gets a little touchy-feely and tells him they could have had a future together but there are two of her goons in the room and she's sending him to the soon-to-be-demolished building so she probably doesn't have time to take advantage of him even if she wanted to do it with an audience.

Probability: 0%

Elizabeth - Michael nudges Devon into letting her stay an extra few days, and she seems pretty good with that. We don't see them kiss but they're engaged in a pretty intense hug at the end.

Probability: 90%

...at least he got to go out with a bang?

#knight rider #is srs bsns #long post #this was a much better use for my time #than my hamfisted car repair #and less likely to result in death by misadventure #than trying to clean the gutters

[purplesurveys]

1269

Last thing you bought online? Did you like it? OMG OMG so I got Angela an Army Bomb!!!!!! for her birthday!!!! It was HELLLL looking for sealed ones that were already onhand, but fortunately I was able to find one from this really nice seller a few days ago and the shipping was quick as well. I’m just a little worried because the outbox has a little dent on it :( but it was the best onhand offer I could find so I got it before anybody could call dibs. I still hope she likes it! I got her batteries too so that she can try lighting it up as soon as she has it. :D

Could you date someone who didn’t drive (and didn’t show an interest in ever getting their license, either)?  I feel like this is such a petty thing to make a big deal about...if they knew how to commute or any other way to get to their destination, I don’t think this should be a problem. It would only be an issue to me if they refused to get a license in a very I-generally-lack-ambition kind of way.

How would you react if your artwork became famous?  I don’t have any to show off to begin with. I love appreciating art, but creating it was never a forte of mine.

Would you get your nipples pierced?  No, I don’t plan on getting any piercings. How many people know your birthday?  Outside of my family, my best friends. I think everyone else relies on Facebook to be reminded, which is fine with me.

Has anyone ever tried to ruin a relationship you were in?  No. Quite the contrary, really...I was sometimes informed about red flags taking place, which of course my stubborn ass ignored.

Have you ever watched a whole hour long infomercial?  Probably, as a kid. The channel from which I used to watch WWE aired these really long infomercials so I would watch those while waiting for like Raw or whatever show was going on after.

What is your current MySpace song?  I never hung out on Myspace. I had an account, but I was too young for it so it wasn’t long before I got bored.

What is your favorite kind of meat to put on your sandwich?  Pulled pork or fried chicken.

Which one of your exes do you feel like you have the most chemistry with?  I only have one ex.

How do you feel about people who make Facebook profiles for their pets? I find it really cute. But I personally wouldn’t put in as much effort lol.

Have you ever personally known a pair of conjoined twins?  Hmmmmmmmm I don’t think so.

What was the most disturbing thing you have ever heard your mother say? She threatened suicide in front of me and my dad in a very calm way when I was around 11, I think? Maybe 12, idk. I haven’t actually thought about that moment in an extremely long time until this question. I’ll move on now and shove the memory at the very very back of my head before I get sad.

Is there something in particular you like to look at photos of? What is it?  Aside from members of BTS (lol), interior design inspirations.

Chewy chocolate-chip cookies: like or dislike?  Ooh, love. When I bite into a cookie it hassssss to ooze chocolate, otherwise I would be underwhelmed.

If your boyfriend/girlfriend wanted to dress only in the opposite sex’s clothing, would you support that? If not, would you leave them?  Support.

Do you think your grandmother is/was beautiful?  They both are.

Which of your fields of interest are you a total expert on?  Anything that has to do with writing (except poems), I guess? I like being able to give people advice and tips when it comes to that.

When was the last time you got all dolled up?  Last July when we had a big PR media launch thingy and I couldn’t afford to look like shit on Zoom.

Do you ever name objects? (i.e. mp3 players, guitars, cars, etc.)  Never.

Do you have a criminal record?  Not criminal but it’s possibleeeee that I have some kind of record on my license from the time I got stopped by an officer in Alabang, lmao. It was a minor offense from a tiny part of the town so I don’t actually know if they filed it, but it’s possible.

Last person you took a nap with?  I don’t really nap with other people. I hate falling asleep in front of others to begin with.

Does seeing your mother cry automatically make you feel sad as well?  No.

Do you think someone likes the same person you like?  I don’t like anybody.

Do you want your life to stay the way it is right now forever?  No, I do not want to stay in a pandemic and not get to maximize my life the way it’s supposed to be enjoyed forever.

Have you ever been to craigslist.com?  I’ve never checked it out; idk if we have that here?

What about eBay?  I also dunno if they operate here so no, I’ve never bothered.

Have you ever used Nair?  Not Nair, but I’ve used Veet before.

Are you medicated?  Nope.

Do you shape/fill in your eyebrows?  I never do stuff to my eyebrows except shave them.

Have you ever stolen/borrowed clothes from an ex?  Several articles of clothing were left behind here, yeah. I never had the chance to give them back because I stupidly thought we were going to get back together eventually. By the time I moved on the timing was already off, so the clothes stayed with me untillll...just a few days ago, actually – when I finally cleaned up my room and got rid of a bunch of knickknacks that accumulated here over the years, including all her shirts and sweaters and stuff.

Could you make a statement about anything political?  The 2022 presidential election landscape looks like complete shit and I’m nearly at that point where I want to stop giving a fuck about this country’s future.

Do you think you’ve already met your soulmate?  No.

Do you get the feeling something good will happen in your life soon?  I think I’m already living in it, haha.

Do you enjoy romantic movies, even when they’re cliche?  Sure, but cliché is also hit and miss for me. I love Titanic and Love Actually, but I cannot stand movies like Me Before You and The Notebook. I guess it depends on certain executions, like the acting, screenplay, casting, etc.

Have you been to McDonald’s in the past month?  No, not inside. We did drive-thru within the last month, though.

Have you ever slept over at your best friend’s house?  Not at Andi’s, but I have at Angela’s.

How often do you go bowling?  Extremely rarely. I can’t tell you the last time I went bowling.

Last time you were in an apartment?  Like 2007 when I visited my aunt back when she still lived in one. None of my friends have their own apartments.

Have you ever seen a live seahorse?  I don’t think so.

Would you like to have your own yacht? I mean I wouldn't say no if you offered it to me for free, but I'm not exactly interested in one. < Same.

Winnie the Pooh or Tigger?  Tigger always made me laugh as a kid.

What’s the unhealthiest thing you’ve eaten today?  Luncheon meat, I think? I didn’t go overboard with the junk food today.

Has a stranger ever offered to buy you a drink?  Hm, not that I can recall.

What is something you’d be happy to receive as a gift, that doesn’t cost a lot?  A bag of the salted egg chips that I really like costs like 30 bucks, or roughly 60 US cents.

What kind of music does your significant other/crush like to listen to?  I don’t have any irl crushes, can I use a celebrity crush instead? HAHA he’s heavily into jazz and whenever he gets asked for music recos he always gives jazz artists from like the 50s and 60s.

Who did you have your first kiss with? Do you remember what colour his/her eyes were?  Gab. Dark brown.

Are there any themes from TV shows that you like to sing along to? The Big Bang Theory and Friends; and then I also liked humming to the themes of Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead, and BoJack Horseman. The Phineas & Ferb theme was also a lot of fun to sing along to.

Do you eat dessert after dinner? No, I never do that. I’m usually already full after dinner, and we don’t always have sweets at home anyway.

Have you ever had too much to drink and felt embarrassed about your behavior the next day?  Sure.

When you go out drinking, what do you prefer to drink?  Cocktails. I very rarely go for hard drinks/shots, especially if I brought my own car.

What was the last animal that you saw?  Dog.

What was the last thing that you said to one of your siblings?  I just told my sister I was done using her laptop so she can have it back. My Memories of 2020 DVD turned out to be region-locked so I have to use her laptop every time I want to watch it :(

What is the most expensive thing that you’ve purchased that you paid for:  My Map of the Soul photobook cost me around 5k in total.

What is your favorite messaging program?  Messenger.

Do you eat fast food more than 5 times a week?  Wow no. Aside from being extremely unhealthy, that’s also a LOT of spending??

Have you ever almost drowned?  Yes.

Have you ever learned something shocking about someone through Facebook?  I mean I’ve had to learn about more than one family death through my Facebook feed, which sucks but is nothing I have control over. Otherwise the most shocking thing I’ve seen is probably classmates from high school having their own kids, but at this point I’m used to it already.

What’s the scariest living animal that you’ve petted?  I’m not really afraid of carrying/petting animals especially if there’s a guide or expert nearby, but the most daring one was probably the crocodile I volunteered to hold in Palawan.

Do you remember the first conversation you ever had with the person you currently have feelings for?  Not at all.

Do you dread certain days of the week? If yes, what day/s and why?  I hate Mondays for obvious reasons lol. I don’t know anyone who is actively cheery about reporting back to work.

If you eat oatmeal, do you have it plain or do you have certain toppings that you like to add to it?  I never eat oatmeal. I had that every single day for breakfast from like kindergarten to 4th grade and I vowed never to take a spoonful of it again.

What is the funniest or strangest thing you’ve ever heard somebody say in their sleep?  I dunno. I used to keep a log of the things my ex used to say in her sleep and a great deal of them were hilarious, but obviously I deleted that note a long time ago.

Choose one - Butterfinger, Milky Way, Snickers:  Butterfinger.

Do you use Mozilla Firefox? Nopes.

Who is your favorite person to hug? Angela and Laurice.

Have you ever had to have a mug shot?  Nope.

What was the last thing you carried to your room?  Kimi.

When was the last time you had a late night phone call?  WELL over a year ago.

#survey #surveys

[lahi-n-delilah]

Hello Tumblr. For some reason over the past week this blog has been getting 50-60 new followers a day, which has been... mind blowing? Also REALLY CONFUSING??

However you found yourself here, welcome to roughly 200+ new people. You’ve found yourself here at rather a depressing point—both Lahi and Delilah have now passed, as of this month.

I do plan to continue with this blog. I started it not just as a pet blog for Lahi and Delilah, but also as an educational blog about rabbits, hoping to help teach some things both from what I’ve learned and through stories of how I came to learn it.

So for some of you, here’s an important first lesson: (European) rabbits are intensely social animals. In the wild they will live in large groups of sometimes 100 individuals or more. In captivity, they form extremely codependent bonds, usually in pairs.

A rabbit in isolation is a rabbit that is suffering immensely. Don’t argue on this point. There are actual laws in many countries forbidding rabbits and other social animals being kept by themselves. It’s considered inhumane for social animals to be denied social stimulation.

Some rabbits can be kept very happily alone, bonded to their human—but they do need a bond.

And here’s something that I think anyone who has two bunnies needs to know: they can die of grief.

When Lahi’s sister Picca passed away, he became extremely depressed. Stopped playing, stopped eating, became very listless and lethargic. I have no doubt he would have quickly followed his sister, except by serendipity I had acquired Delilah by that point and she was essentially throwing herself at poor Lahi. Her sheer determination to shower him with love gave him the strength to pull out of his grief and keep living. In the end, he lived almost double the lifespan of his sister before cancer took him last December.

When that happened, I was older and wiser—I took his body home, and allowed Delilah time to sit with him and come to terms with what had happened. This is something that is important to all animals that lose a close family member, because we can’t tell them what happened. They need time with the body to process it and help them grieve. From Lahi’s point of view, one day his sister was there, and the next she wasn’t, and he would never know why. That likely contributed a great deal to his immense grief.

When Lahi passed, Delilah was there with him, to comfort him and help him go peacefully. That was for his sake. For her sake, I brought him home. I laid him down, and in the quiet and safety of their home, gave her time with him. At first Delilah was very distressed, digging and nipping at his body. This only lasted a short while, before she began grooming him, and then lay down next to him and stayed there for several hours. This is typical behaviour many people have described in their own rabbits.

After a couple of hours, she got up, left his body, and thereafter completely ignored it. She had accepted that he was gone, that his body was empty. I knew then it was okay to take him back to the clinic for aftercare arrangements.

I didn’t go out and find Delilah a new partner, and I’ll forever regret that. I was out of work, paying vet bills for both Delilah’s ear abscesses and Lahi’s cancer had been crippling, and I didn’t think it was responsible to get another rabbit until I had better income to support medical costs. Then the pandemic hit, and by that point she had started bonding more strongly to me, hopping into my lap for hour long cuddles. I hoped she would be okay until I could financially support a second rabbit.

I was wrong.

Her abscesses got worse. The bacteria was becoming more resistant to different types of antibiotics, and was eventually diagnosed as full-on MRSA. She developed facial paralysis and permanent nerve damage, and went on more and more meds.

End of March/early April she suddenly dropped half her weight and had to be hospitalized for 5 days for extreme muscle wasting and emaciation. Every diagnostic test we could throw at her found nothing that could have caused this. That was probably the beginning of the end, and I think I knew it even then. I began reaching out to local rescues asking about fostering, but was stumped by misunderstandings around the protocols of fostering vs adopting, and let the communication drop. Delilah’s vet bills started mounting again.

We fought long and hard but when she started crashing at the beginning of this month, the list of things wrong with her wasn’t fitting on one page anymore—and the cause of a lot of it was still unknown. She lasted almost a year without her husbun, but I think that in the end... she just gave up. Delilah couldn’t continue on without Lahi.

Losing Lahi hurt like losing a child. I had him nearly all 13 years of his life. He was my little boy. It was agony.

Losing Delilah too is breaking me.

Don’t let anyone say that losing a pet isn’t equivalent to losing a family member. Your fur child is an integral part of your everyday life. Every single day I find myself attributing odd noises to bunny mischief, only to have to push back a fresh wave of grief as I remember. In quiet moments I find myself listening for the sounds of bunny feet that will never come. The holes in my life are gaping and raw and ripping me apart

I know one day it will get better. One day I will be in a better place, and open my heart and my home to new rabbits. But for now... my empty arms ache, and I grieve

#tw: pet death #tw: depression #tw: grief #delilah bunny #lahi bunny #2020

[skgway]

1823 Aug., Tues. 5

7

11

In the stable etc. 1/2 hour – Read from page 71 to 83 on “the letters and life of Ninon de l’Enclos” volume 8 (No. [numero] 15) Retrospective Review – I agree with the reviewer – some fastidious readers may possibly object to the publication of such an article thro’ such a medium –

Dissatisfied with several passages of the letter I wrote last night to M– [Mariana]. Wrote it over again in 3/4 hour in a hand so much less close, that in spite of the great deal left out, made it fill 3 pages and a few lines of crossing on the 2nd page – There seemed some appearance of annoyance and displeasure in my 1st letter which I entirely avoided in my 2nd –

Went down to breakfast at 9 40/60 – At 11 took George in the gig and set off to Haugh – Put a letter into the post for my uncle, and got to Haughend in 50 minutes – All the party at home with the addition of “Captain” Butler, a very grood sort of, vulgar, quondam Captain of an Indiaman – The young people did not appear till luncheon –

Sir John A– [Astley] franked my letters to Mrs. N[orcliffe] (Langton hall, Malton) to Miss Marsh (Micklegate York) and to M– [Mariana] (Lawton hall, Lawton, Cheshire) and they went in the Haughend letter bag in time for yesterday’s post – Nothing particular in the conversation way –

Sir John somehow or other inquired if I believed all Homer’s stories, or that there ever was such a place as Troy, or such a siege – I saw he had read Bryton or some sceptic on the subject and was very gentle in what I said in support of my historical creed – At last Sir John (after some flimsy observation) tried to shew that women were as much respected in ancient days as now – Briseis as much respected by Achilles, as wives were respected by their husbands now – Woman as well treated then as now – He (Sir John) would have treated lady A– [Astley] as well at that time as he does at this – I did not say much, not wishing to appear to have too much the better of the question argument for none said a word about it but ourselves, and Sir John is evidently looked up to as an oracle by them all, tho’ his responses will never set the Thames on fire by their wisdom –

He complimented his wife exceedingly – In fact, she is pretty enough, stylish enough, sensible enough, everything enough for him – Speaking of their place of family, she observed she “always thought the Astleys were an envied family in Wiltshire” “My dear” said he “they envy me for having got you” –

It is plain enough to me from their manners etc. etc. that they not exactly comme il faut with the Wiltshire county society – They have had the house in London that Sir Jacob Astley and his family had had, and many calls were therefore made upon them by mistake – They returned some – Were admitted at one house, the manners of the ladies shewed they were not expected, and the A– [Astley]s took their leave – A party was soon afterwards given by the family, and they (the A– [Astley]s) were not asked – They do not get on in London society – Nor as yet perhaps are they likely to do – Nor will Miss A– [Astley] even after “she has been presented” (at court) –

Lady A– [Astley] has not worldly nous enough to keep all these things to herself – Thinks Mrs. William Henry Rawson very ladylike, Ditto Mr. Christopher Rawson – The manners of the Society here suit the A– [Astley]s very well – Captain Butler it seems has had 1 or 2 premiums from the Doncaster society (I know nothing of this society) for feeding horses – Kept his draft-horses throughout the winter at 3/5 a head on chopt straw and line-seed – His saddle horses only cost him about 5/. [shillings] a week having nearly the same as the cart-horse with the addition of a little hay and corn –

Boils down the linseed to the consistence of cream – Perhaps about 2 quarts water to a pint of lineseed – Mixes this with their oats or chopt straw to a proper  (a mashy?) consistence, and gives them as much as they will eat – A chopping machine at Doncaster 7 1/2 guineas – Try our horses with about 2 wine-glasses full of linseed at first – Merely pour on boiling water – and let the seed stand till it is mucilaginous –

This plan is good for feeding cattle – It is the way in which dealers fatten up horses – But it wont do for hunters, or horses from which speed is required – The linseed works away to greasy perspiration – Runs out of the anals like melted fat – They must have good hay and corn for speed – But cart-horses do uncommonly well on this food – 

They all like Caradoc – Think him “a very likely horse” – His toes turn in a little: this is best for a gig-horse – If the toes turn at all outwards, the gig horse can scarcely ever keep his feet – He cannot hold up up hill and down – 

Staid till about 3 – Called at Saville hill to ask Miss P– [Pickford] whether, when she called with me at Haughend, she meant to call on lady A– [Astley] or not – Not – Asked her to come to Shibden to see Caradoc’s long switch tail cut – She would meet me at the library in 1/2 hour –

At 4 1/4 – drove thro’ the town, past Northgate, and Crosshills, and turned up by Greenhill, stopt at Furnish’s, and got a pair of new reins 10/6 – Left George to drive the gig home from Northgate, and without going into the house, went to the library – Shewed Miss P– [Pickford] the article respecting Ninon de l’Enclos (vide the 1st line of today) and the points of Humour (vide page 79) – She agreed with the retrospective reviewers, and with me that the soldier and his chére amie was the best print –

She walked home with me to the top of our little lane, but must there return for the children who would come to meet her – We walked about on the top of the bank – My aunt joined us – She left us in about 20 minutes (at 6) – 

We then walked to H–x [Halifax] – Miss P– [Pickford] returned with me up the old bank even to xxxxxx. I walked back again with her a little way up the Cunnery lane, when we met her party of children – 3 Wilcocks, 2 Paleys, and Miss Jones the governess, and we parted –

Our chief conversation about Miss Threlfall and my entreaties to see her last letter. Nothing could prevail till at last I asked if she feared its telling me anything I did not know before. On finding this the case, I said I would soon sooner move this fear by proving that I was not as still suspected in any degree of uncertainty. 

I wondered she did not know this already, but I had wrapped up my meaning too much and she should now have it so clearly that no doubt could possibly remain in her mind. Upon this I said I considered her connection with her friend a marriage of souls and something more. That if they were on a visit and their friend provided them separate rooms it would be unnecessary and they would presently defeat this arrangement by being together. 

Under other circumstances it would have been a wonder that with beauty fortune etc. etc. Miss Threlfall did not marry but now it was no wonder at all. Asked Miss P[ickford] if she now understood me thoroughly. She said yes. I said any would censure unqualifiedly but I did not. If it had been done from books and not from nature, the thing would have been different. Or if there had been any inconsistency first on one side of the question, then the other. But as it was, nature was the guide, and I had nothing to say there was no parallel between a case like this and the sixth satire of Juvenal. The one was artificial and inconsistent the other was the effect of nature and always consistent with itself.

At all events, said I, ‘you remember an early chapter of genesis and it is infinitely better than the thing alluded to there,’ meaning onanism. ‘This is surely comparatively unpardonable. There is no mutual affection to excuse it’. Miss P[ickford] did not say much but seemed satisfied. 

‘Now,’ said I, ‘the difference between you and me is mine is theory. Yours practice. I am taught by books, you by nature. I am very warm in friendship, perhaps few or none. Moreso, my manners might mislead you, but but I do not in reality go beyond the utmost verge of friendship. Here my feelings stop. If they did not, you see from my whole manner and sentiments I should not care to own it. Now do you believe me?’ ‘Yes,’ said she, ‘I do.’ 

‘Alas,’ thought I to myself, ‘you are at last deceived completely.’ My conscience almost smote me but I thought of π [Mariana]. It is for her sake that I fisrt [first] thought of being, and that I am so deceitful to poor Pic, who trusts me so implicitly and at last turned no objection to my seeing the letter. I said perhaps there was not another in the world she could trust so safely. Perhaps not Miss Caroline Renouard, she was not read or liberal enough tto [to] think as I did. She would condemn unqualifiedly. Pick agreed. 

I owned my manners might mislead people, particularly before I knew as much as I do now, before I read Lubinus’s Juvenal, before I first knew Miss Brown of whom she has heard reports. But now I knew how to be more careful. Yet still, my manners might mislead Miss Vrelfall [Threlfall]. She said, ‘yes they would’ –

I ended by saying I was now satisfied that she thoroughly understood me and that I had had an opportunity of telling her my sentiments, for she must often have wondered and not known what to make of me. We parted mutually satisfied, I musing on what had passed. I am now let into her secret and she forever barred from mine – Are there more Miss Pickfords in the world than I have before thought of –

Came in to dinner a little before 7 – Had ordered George to have the gig ready a little before 9 in the morning to go to Huddersfield to speak to Pontey about coming over to plan our new road to the house, etc. – But finding my uncle against it contrary to my expectation – (I had always thought all he said against it in joke) – I immediately countermanded the order very quietly determining never to mention the thing again – Nor to mention planting or otherwise improving the place –

I told my uncle very quietly I certainly would not teaze him any more on the subject; and I shall indeed change my mind, if I do – The thing absolutely did not annoy me at all – I immediately thought to myself, ‘perhaps it is best as it is – I incur no responsibility – etc. etc.’ Perhaps I may save my money in future instead of laying it out on the place and leave things as they are –

Barometer 1 3/4 degrees below changeable Fahrenheit 56º at 9 p.m. – Rainy morning till between 10 & 11, afterwards a shower or 2 which I escaped and otherwise a toleraby fine day i.e. fine afternoon and evening – Came upstairs at 10 25/60. E [two dots, treating venereal complaint] O [three dots, signifying much discharge] Missed washing just before dinner –

Miss Pickford called this morning and sat a little while with my aunt – She brought me Samouelle’s system of Entomology to read –

[sideways in margin] Major P– [Priestley], speaking of horses that went near the ground, called daisy-croppers – i.e. going so near the ground as to crop or strike off the tops of the daisies – Drove along the new road today for the 1st time

“the soldier and his chére amire“– Points of humour; illustrated by the designs of George Cruikshank [x]

#anne lister #anne lister code breaker #shibden hall 1823 #frances pickford

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Anonymous asked: Hi! Do you follow some sort of exercise regime? If so, would you mind sharing it? Were you able to stay in shape whilst at university?

Staying fit and living a healthy lifestyle is important to me and I do my best to try and sustain that especially as one gets older. Although compared to how sporty I was during my university days and what I do now is a touchy subject as I fall woefully short. Real world demands of of work and the personal keep sabotaging my good intentions. For me being sporty was less about weight loss and fat gain than about the mental side of being physically fit. The release of oxytocin was natural way to fight any stress or anxiety that we all have to deal with at different times in life. It was about challenging my mind through my body to set goals and have the bloody single mindedness to focus to go beyond them. The benefits were for me developing a mental steeliness and emotional resilience.  

As a girl growing up partly in the Far East I learned martial arts which was a very healthy way to keep fit. I did ‘baby’ judo at 4 years onwards which was really about having fun learning to fall over and getting up again. More seriously I then progressed to jiu-jitsu (Japanese and then later in life Brazilian style) and Kendo (I fell in love with the Samurai heritage living in Japan). I dabbled in other forms of martial arts over the subsequent years but nothing too seriously. In India, as a teen, I started to do yoga. Don’t laugh but yoga (not the Californian bohemian kind from the 60s that’s been mainstreamed into the modern Western bourgeois lifestyle) really gets you fit. You can leave aside the more questionable spiritual side of it and still enjoy the physical and emotional benefits of yoga as I still do.

At boarding school I still carried on with martial arts but also did ski-ing (very Swiss) and cross-country ski-ing (very Norwegian). I did do lacrosse and field hockey naturally - partly because we were forced to - but I ended up breaking a few bloody noses and bruised shins because I was overly competitive and I hated losing. I enjoyed the camaraderie but it wasn’t really my métier. Instead I did a lot of fencing and that required focus, agility, speed, and good bum muscles! Mountaineering and hiking were my outdoor escapes from being suffocated inside school walls.

So by the time I reached university I was already somewhat sporty. At university I primarily did field hockey and also modern pentathlon. Modern pentathlon includes the five disciplines of running, shooting, horse riding, fencing, and swimming. I did all five disciplines separately growing up as a girl. I grew up with horses but I would be the first to say I wasn’t a natural rider. Swimming and running I loved to do in the open countryside. Swimming in the sea, river, or a fjord was heaven because I disliked crowded public swimming pools. Running over semi-long distances was really my bread and butter of staying fit and mentally resilient. I also carried on my martial arts of jiu-jitsu and Kendo. University was the only time I ever really went close to hardcore in the gym but out of duty rather than love.

The Norwegian winter sport of Skiskyting (now called biathlons) was something I did from the time I was almost 11 years old. During my university years I did it less because I could only do it in Norway and not in England where I was studying. Skiskyting is simply cross country skiing and rifle shooting (the rifle you carry on your back as you ski) over 12 km or so. Like most Norwegians, I was born with skis, and so I took to Skiskyting like a duck to water. If my father had taught me fencing (very British army), my Norwegian mother is the one who showed me her Norwegian traditions - she’s always had been a very good skier. I love to ski and in Norway we do lots of ski walking which really gets you fit.

Coming up to the present day I have reduced my activity to fit around other demands on my time especially with work and travel. It’s been a constant juggling act because when you live in a big city and you have a demanding career with long hours (as well as travel) then it becomes more tough to adapt and sustain a healthy routine.

I still dislike gyms. Even to this day I try and avoid them if I can. I can’t stand the overflowing testosterone and the social posing. Overhead music is a huge turn off for me. I prefer the solitude of my own thoughts if I can and not listen to blaring music.  

These days my daily routine always begins with morning yoga - partly because I have to. To avoid muscle cramp as a result of of an old back and knee injury from my past Army days I have to keep supple and flexible as much as I can. Even when I travel and I stay in a hotel I’ll do yoga in my hotel room - I won’t do it in the hotel gym and spa - so I’ll steal/liberate a yoga mat from there and stash it in my hotel room.

I try to do a 5 km run every other day. I love doing this because it helps me to release the oxytocin and this puts me in a good mood for the start of my day. I feel free and unbound when I am running. I get my best ideas to solving problems when I am running. It doesn’t matter if I am traveling as I will get out of the cocoon of the hotel and just go out for a run (as I dislike hitting the tread mill inside the hotel gym). To me, a great way to discover a city is by getting lost in it. At home in Paris, the Bois de Boulogne isn’t far for me to do my run. In the park I’ll do sets of crunches and squats. If I have a breakfast meeting then I’ll switch my run to lunch time or after I finish work I will do a late night run. I’m fortunate that I can shower at work if I need to.

Every other day when I’m not running I will cycle into work which gives me an alternative cardio work out. I supplement this by going swimming twice every week but I do that at a private health club and on a day when I haven’t done my 5 km run.  

I continue to keep up my martial arts by joining martial arts club to do Brazilian jui-jitsu and Kendo. I also keep my fencing up by joining a club. I attend when I can, usually weekly. Both martial arts and fencing are a good way to keep fit and mentally alert.  

Every two weeks I’ll play a game of squash with friends at a sports club as we’re part of an informal squash ladder. It’s a fun way to stay healthy and chill out with friends.

Every calendar year I will do a charity half marathon - there are plenty in France such as breast cancer - often with a friend. I’ll do it because it’s firstly for a good cause and secondly it forces me to have a set goal and and so my running and training regime will reflect that.

Every year I set myself a goal of competing in 2-3 amateur/semi-professional triathlons spread out in the calendar year - usually in the middle of rural France. The best way to train on technique is by joining a regional club/team. I enjoy the friendly camaraderie when we travel for the events together. The great thing about this is the age range from super fit teens to avid competitors into their 50s from different walks of life. It’s very down to earth and there’s no peer pressure other than the goals you set for yourself.

Every year I also set a goal of doing 1-2 biathlons in Norway. Again, I do that by joining a semi-professional club in Norway and I’ll go to compete when it fits around my seasonal calendar. I love this because it allows me the rare treat of just being Norwegian and forgetting everything else of being English or thinking like the French. So I love the Norwegian dry humour and the laid back friendly atmosphere of being back even if the food is barely edible!

Speaking of food, as you well know there’s no point going on any exercise regime if you don’t address the other half of the equation: a healthy diet. The truth is you can cut out more calories from what you eat than you can burn with exercise. Exercise and diet go together hand in glove. For me this is an extra challenge. Contrary to what you might think just because you live in Paris doesn’t mean you dine on gourmand food every day. The days of 2 hour lunches with wine are fading away and giving way to grabbing ‘le sandwich’. In fact, there are worrying culinary habits from American culture which is dictating bad eating habits especially amongst the young. The temptation to buy processed food and use the microwave or grab a takeaway is too much for some. It’s also true many young Parisians simply don’t know how to cook.

Speaking personally I love cooking and one of my weekend rituals is to go to a local farmer’s market and buy fresh vegetables, fruit, and lean meat for the week. Cooking helps me to ‘power down’ from the stress of work. I enjoy the ritual of trying out new recipes and putting on small intimate dinner parties or cooking for loved ones at the weekend. To me it’s a lame excuse to say you can’t whip up a quick healthy meal when you come home after a hard day at work. You can. You can buy ingredients and prepare food ahead of time. Make up a rough menu for the week and plan ahead. There are plenty of recipes to healthy eating for the week.

My biggest challenge when it comes to diet is saying no to good food when I dine out. One of the side effects of my work is that I have to attend quite a few business dinners with corporate clients. So it’s nearly always a well regarded restaurant. It would be rude to say no to the fine food. I enjoy good food - one reason why I like living here in Paris - and if I get the opportunity to dine at a great restaurant then I’m not sticking to a celery stick and mineral water. I do try to be sensible about what I eat when I dine out. I’m not a freak in the sense that I’m counting calories in my head but I do reason to myself that if I gorge on cake here then I better make up for it over there, perhaps a few extra laps of the pool. I love wine - as I also like whisky and other drinks - but I limit the number of glasses by also taking mineral water and herbal tea instead. I smoke cigars on occasion so I adjust my exercise routine accordingly.

I am also sometimes guilty of cheating myself out of a good night’s sleep because of meeting some work related deadline or my body clock is off because of travel jet lag. So I try and make it up some where because rest is so important. The point is to know your body and know your limitations. Above all, be reasonable and be kind to yourself.

There’s an old maxim I learned from my army days. No plan ever survives first contact with the enemy. This is true in life too. So plan your exercise and diet regime with that in mind. How we stay fit and healthy depends largely on our environment so there is a difference between being a university student in a dorm room with a bad case of the munchies and an essay crisis, and being a harassed mother with kids to feed and who want MacDonalds and candy in the suburbs, or a young person taking first steps in a first job on the career ladder and resorting to late night microwave dinners. Social media environment keeps pushing perfect body memes which again is unrealistic so don’t let that be the benchmark of defining success. The key is get real. Set realistic goals and break it down to a level manageable for you.

One can instil good habits that are healthy and sustainable. If I was in your position I would first see a nutritionist to explain and educate you about food groups. He or she would tell you where you can get your nutritional requirements from a wider variety of foods according to your means and availability. You also can get an idea of where you can have your pizza or your cake and not feel guilty about it.

Get a nutrition plan and take it to your gym - I know, I know, I said I hate gyms and I do but you might not. A good gym will have competent personal trainers on hand.  They can draw up an exercise plan based on the nutrition plan and also listening to your expectations that is hopefully based on realistic goals. I’m not suggesting you have a personal trainer on retainer. But you only need one lesson for him/her to draw up a plan for you to follow. The rest will be up to you and how you motivate yourself. You may find the grind of going to the gym of doing cardio one day and actual gym work the next too much. Fine, find other things outside of the gym that you will enjoy and get you comparatively fit and doesn’t bore you. If you find it hard to motivate yourself then do it with a friend.

Once you start to enjoy it and see the benefits of it, it will no longer feel like a turgid routine but just a growing habit towards leading a more healthy lifestyle.

Thanks for your question

#question #fitness #wellbeing #health #exercise #diet #personal #bio #me

[exactlyinstantcollective]

Biggest Slot Machine Payout

Biggest Slot Machine Payout Ever

Biggest Slot Machine Payout In History

She'd won big money before: hitting a $680,000 jackpot on a Wheel of Fortune slot machine, also at the Palace Station. It marked the first time Megabucks had surpassed $20 million. Well, it appears that the biggest slot machine wins also cannot go without Vegas casinos, so the fact that the largest slot machine payout in history happened in one doesn't surprise us at all. The biggest slot machine win of $39 million (and change) went to a 25-year-old software engineer from Los Angeles who, one day, decided to try his luck.

It only took 20 years, but the Lion’s Share slot machine at MGM Grand finally gave it up. In one of the most followed slots stories of 2014, a New Hampshire couple strolled into the MGM Grand on August 22 and won not only the $2.4 million jackpot, but also the machine itself. The payout finally allowed MGM Grand to decommission the Lion’s Share, which had been there since the casino opened in 1993.

Getting a seven-figure payday is always nice, but it doesn’t come close to being the biggest jackpot in slots history. The really big money comes courtesy of the massive progressive jackpots on the Megabucks machines. This is a network of 60-payline, five-reel slots with around 700 machines at 133 different locations. The odds of hitting the minimum $10-million jackpot in one play are nearly one in 50 million. With that in mind, here are the five biggest Vegas slots paydays on record.

$21.3 Million

Sometimes, all it takes is one spin. On June 1, 1999, a 49-year old self-employed business consultant from Illinois put $10 in the Megabucks machine at Caesars Palace. Moments later, he was over $21 million richer. He also won a $5,000 secondary jackpot. According to a spokesperson for IGT, the company that makes the Megabucks machine, the winner’s first wish was to pay off his credit card debts.

$22.6 Million

The Megabucks kept on flowing on March 27, 2002. Seventy-four-year-old Johanna Huendl of Covina, California put about $170 in the machine at Bally’s on her way to breakfast, and she ended up bringing home the bacon. Huendl, a Vienna native who came to America in 1956, thought at first that she had won a $2-million prize. She was off by one zero.

$27.5 Million

On November 15, 1998, an unnamed 67-year-old retired flight attendant from Vegas was playing the Megabucks machine at Palace Station, and she accidentally put in $300 when she intended to put in $100. She couldn’t have been upset for long because she won the first Megabucks jackpot to top $20-million in history. It wasn’t her first big slots win; she also took down a $680,000 prize playing the Wheel of Fortune machine at the same venue.

$34.9 Million

The previous record was held by Cynthia Jay-Brennan, a 37-year-old cocktail waitress from Las Vegas who played the Megabucks at the Desert Inn on January 26, 2000. Unfortunately, six weeks later, a drunk driver rear-ended Jay-Brennan’s Camaro, leaving her a quadriplegic and her sister dead. The 58-year-old driver was given 28 to 92 years in prison.

$39.7 Million

On March 21, 2003, a 25-year-old software engineer from Los Angeles (who chose to remain anonymous) put $100 in the Megabucks machine at the Excalibur. He ended up winning the biggest jackpot ever, paid out in 25 annual instalments of $1.5 million each.

You may have seen the news story a few years ago about a woman in Queens, New York who almost won the largest slot machine jackpot in history. Unfortunately, the nearly $43 million win was a machine malfunction that went well above the $6,500 max payout.

A new record may not have been set, but there have been a number of huge casino jackpots throughout history. If you’re gearing up for a trip to Vegas or a casino party, check out these stories of life-changing, mind blowing jackpot wins.

Biggest Slot Machine Jackpots

Think you can’t get lucky on a slot machine twice? In 1998 a retired flight attendant proved that lightning can strike twice at the casinos. The unnamed woman first won $680,000 on a Wheel of Fortune slot machine at Palace Station. She decided to keep trying her luck and months later she won $27 million on a Megabucks machine at the same casino!

Elmer Sherwin is undoubtedly a lucky guy. He also hit not one but two of the largest slot machine jackpots in history! The first win of $4.6 million was on a Megabucks slot machine at the Mirage in 1989. Sherwin decided to visit Cannery Casino in North Las Vegas in 2005 to test his luck again. There he won again on a Megabucks slot machine, but this time he walked away with $21.1 million. Mr. Sherwin was in his 90s when he hit his second jackpot.

A few years early a 25-year-old software engineer won the highest slot machine payout in history. In 2003 the young man won $39.7 million playing a Megabucks machine at Excalibur. He decided to take an annual $1.5 million payout for 25 years instead of one lump sum payment. That means he’ll be raking in the dough for another decade.

In 2000 Cynthia Jay scored the largest jackpot at the time. She won nearly $35 million at a Megabucks slot machine in the Monte Carlo Casino in Vegas. But less than two months later Jay was in a horrible car wreck that killed her sister and left Jay paralyzed from the chest down.

In August 2016 a resident of Hawaii came to the mainland for a Vegas vacation and traveled back home with a lot more money. What was really impressive is that the woman was playing penny slot machines at the Wynn casino when she won $10,777,270.51.

While it isn’t the biggest slot machine jackpot win in history, a Florida man identified as only Fred S. did get very lucky in July 2018. He hit not one but two big jackpots at the Hard Rock Biloxi within a matter of minutes. First, Fred got a massive $1,291,918 win with a $20 bet. While he waited on the casino to verify the win he got a $14,000 win on another slot machine to bring the total winnings over $1.3 million.

Biggest Hands at the Poker Table

Hands down, the World Series of Poker (WSOP) is where you’ll find the biggest Texas Hold’em jackpots. Once the field gets narrowed down to just two players, a single hand can bring in millions. After 10 hours of heads up poker playing, John Cynn was named the 2018 WSOP winner and received $8,800,000. His opponent Tony Miles didn’t do so bad himself. Even though he lost, Miles received $5 million for second place.

But that wasn’t the biggest payout in the history of the tournament or even that year. Four other WSOP winners have won more:

Jamie Gold - $12 million in 2006

Martin Jacobson - $10 million in 2014

Peter Eastgate - $9,152,416 in 2008

Jonathan Duhamel - $8,944,138 in 2010

In 2018 Justin Bonomo won $10 million in the World Series of Poker's $1 million buy-in Big One for One Drop. But by far the later poker jackpot ever was $18,346,673 when Antonio Esfandiari won the 2012 Big One for One Drop.

Highest Payouts at the Craps Table

Patricia Demauro is easily one of the most successful craps players in history. In 2009 she famously won 154 consecutive throws while playing at the Borgata in Atlantic City. The actual amount was never disclosed, but based on the minimum buy-in of $10 the payout would likely range from well over six figures up to $1 million or more.

Not long ago a player won over $5.3 million at the Tropicana Casino and Resort, mainly at the craps tables. The unidentified man had a 6-hour hot streak, but he had to bet big to win the millions. At one point he was placing $100,000 bets.

Huge Win at the Roulette Wheel

Biggest Slot Machine Payout Ever

In 2004 Ashley Revell made a huge gamble. He sold everything he owned, headed to Vegas and put his entire life savings on a spin of the roulette wheel. Crazy – yes. But it paid off. Revell put just over $135,000 on a red bet and won over $270,000. The whole thing was filmed and eventually became a short reality show called Double or Nothing.

Biggest Blackjack Winners

The most infamously successful blackjack players were a group of MIT students who used card counting to win around $100 million. However, this situation was unique because the mathematical geniuses worked as a team so their winning streaks wouldn’t get noticed by dealers.

But one man bested the MIT players. Gambler Don Johnson made millions at blackjack tables over a six-month period in 2011. Instead of card counting, Johnson sought out casinos that had the most favorable rules, like being able to split a hand up to four times.

Another thing Johnson looked for were casinos that offered a guaranteed payout, which refunds part of what’s lost on a hand. All that research paid off to the tune of $15 million in half a year of playing.

A billionaire by the name of Kerry Packer also won big at the blackjack tables. During a trip to Vegas in 1997 he reported won somewhere in the range of $20-40 million. The winnings came from a combination of black jack and baccarat.

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Biggest Slot Machine Payout In History

Orignal Source: https://casinoknightsinc.com/casino-101/jackpot-highest-casino-jackpots-history/

[purrykat]

Five Smiles

Tagging: @today-in-fic​

The first time it happens, it nearly brings you to your knees. It's mere days after her abduction. Two weeks since you stood idly by her hospital bed and all but wished her back to life. She'd been thoroughly examined since being returned - twice, at your insistence, and today she is due to return to work.

You awoke from your restless slumber hours before your alarm was set to go off, anxious and wired, and consumed way more coffee than could be considered healthy in one sitting before making your way to work.

You blamed the odd feeling in your stomach on the coffee, the lack of food in your stomach a catalyst for the sudden indigestion your feeling as you power walk toward the elevator.

The doors are just closing as you arrive, but a polite hand reaches out to keep them open at your panicked request for it to wait.

It isn't until you rush into the elevator, a 'thank you' prepared on your tongue, when you realize who that hand was attached to.

A blinding smile greets you, and you blame it on the jitters as you nearly collapse. Maybe it's due to your inability to get the image of her, tiny and lifeless in that hospital bed out of your mind. In any case, she looks absolutely vibrant, and for once, your usual quick wit has failed you.

"Mulder," she says fondly, by way of greeting, and you quickly swallow the lump building in your throat.

"Good to have you back, Scully."

And it would've sounded casual, too, if it weren't for the hitch in your voice.

-

She's fresh off of a cancer diagnosis; you, until just a few hours ago, were considered dead. But when you hear word of her collapse, you can't help but run to her, risks be damned.

You've spent the last 48 hours running around like a mad man, trying to find answers for this disease so intent on taking her from you.

A damn chip in the back of her neck is what it finally takes. Something that you believe puts her at more risk, fucking catalogs her. But, god, she's alive. And that's all that matters.

You walk into her room after hearing the good news and she smiles. That goddamn smile that she always seems to save for just the right moment to bring you to your knees. You give her a smile of your own, pretending you weren't sobbing on her hospital bed just hours ago, and kiss her hands.

Warm. Alive.

-

She's late.

Okay, so it's only ten minutes late, and you're admittedly a bit on edge, but it's Scully. And she hasn't called. And goddammit, she left, and your mind can't help but immediately jump to the worst conclusions.

But she crawled into your bed last night. She crawled into your bed. She kissed you. She unbuttoned her shirt. She - Jesus.

You can still feel her fingertips digging into your shoulder blades, her thighs around your hips. You can still hear the gasp that left her lips when you finally slid inside her, her voice urging you to move.

But she left. She left, and now she's late. Last night was the single best night of your entire existence and to think just maybe she didn't have the same experience as you. To think that maybe she thinks it was a mistake.

You swear you can feel your heart leap in your chest when she finally walks into the office. You study her carefully - the grin on her lips, one that she is clearly having trouble restraining.

"Mulder," she greets you, meeting your eyes for just a moment before looking down shyly, allowing her grin to spread as she sets her briefcase down, pretends to busy herself with sorting the papers on her side of the desk.

Relief floods your body as you sit at your desk, trying desperately not to watch her every move; not to remember the way her body moved beneath yours mere hours ago.

You clear your throat instead, leaning toward her.

"What do you know about the Mongolian Death Worm, Scully?"

She rolls her eyes, but she's grinning.

She's here.

-

It's been two months.

Two months of jumping from hotel room to hotel room. Eight weeks spent mostly in the car, escaping the life you left behind - the life she was forced to leave behind.

Sixty days since she's seen her mother, spoken to her brothers. You can't help but feel guilty. All of this, for you. She gave up her family, her job, her home, to go on the run with you. Her entire life, just to save yours.

You don't talk about it - any of it. The guilt that you both know is eating you up inside. The miracle child that she was forced to give up. Instead, you busy yourself with talk of where you'll go next - how long until you'll eventually be able to settle down somewhere for more than a week.

Running low on supplies, you take a quick trip to Walmart. You decide to divide and concur - her grabbing toiletries, you searching for some temporary clothing.

A fresh pair of jeans, some underwear and undershirts in your basket, you find your way back to her, purposefully avoiding the baby section.

You find her in the hair dye aisle, a box in each hand. One brown, one blonde. You've talked about this - a few times, actually, and you know it'll make her feel more secure. Your heart still breaks a little, unable to imagine her as anything but a fiery redhead. But what's one more sacrifice?

As if feeling your eyes on her, she turns, and your heart nearly stops. Two months on the run, every single waking moment spent together, and she still looks absolutely delighted to see you.

Her smile lights up her whole face, your whole world, and she holds up the blonde hair dye.

-

It's been a long journey to this moment. The last decade particularly taxing. Between your descent into a deep depression, your mental breakdown and her subsequent absence. There was a time where you thought that this was it. After all you've put her through, after all she's sacrificed to be with you, this was her breaking point.

But now you're here, in your mid 50′s, looking at baby cribs. Finally, finally you have your second chance at a miracle. There's no giving up this time. You're both too damn tired after the last two years. This is it.

You try not to be terrified, knowing that you'll be pushing 60 when this kid is a toddler - knowing that your son is still out there somewhere, his body never recovered. She told you that she can sense him still, and you've never doubted her before. You won't start now.

You turn your attention away finally, realizing you've been stuck in the baby section for ten minutes after you sent her for paper towels. You'd brought her here after she'd mocked your pantry selections, explaining that sunflower seeds weren't enough to sustain the life growing inside her. You'd jumped at the chance to fill your kitchen with all of her favorite foods, hoping that it would be the final push to put her creepy smart house up for sale.

You make your way back to grocery and spot her over by the milk. Something inside of you cant resist standing back and watching her, her short little legs stretching as she reaches for that top shelf almost milk that she just loves. She's getting frustrated, and you finally take mercy on her, sneaking up and placing your hand on her lower back as you grab the milk.

You look down to tease her and she's smiling up at you thankfully. Your taken aback, frozen with a jug of her disgusting almond milk in your hand. Twenty-five years together, and she still smiles like this - like she hasn't seen you in years, rather than just a few minutes.

You take a moment to look at her, two and a half decades of love and trust in her expression, the slowly growing bump that her small hand rests upon. You can't help it - your eyes get misty, right there in the milk section, refrigerator still open.

A throat clears behind you, and you sheepishly apologize to the quickly growing line trying to get to the milk.

Your barely a step away when you feel her hand in yours. You meet her eyes, noticing the moisture in them for the very first time. You swallow the lump in her throat and she nods, because she knows.

She squeezes your hand, her voice barely more than a whisper when she utters the words you've been longing to hear.

"Let's go home."

#msr fic #msr #msr fanfic #txf fic #txf fanfic

[bountyofbeads]

Virus Pummels Wuhan, a City Short of Supplies and Overwhelmed https://nyti.ms/36Nj8aR

Virus Pummels Wuhan, a City Short of Supplies and Overwhelmed

It is nearly impossible to get the care they need to treat, or even diagnose, the coronavirus, say residents at the crisis’ center.

By Amy Qin | Published Feb. 2, 2020, 1:39 p.m. ET | New York Times | Posted February 2, 2020 |

WUHAN, China — Weak with fever, An Jianhua waited in line for seven hours outside the hospital in the cold, hoping to get tested for the new coronavirus, which doctors suspected she had contracted.

Ms. An, 67, needed an official diagnosis from a hospital to qualify for treatment, but the one she and her son raced to last week had no space, even to test her. The next hospital they were referred to here in Wuhan, the city of 11 million people at the center of the outbreak, was full, too, they said. They finally got an intravenous drip for Ms. An’s fever, but that was all.

Since then, Ms. An has quarantined herself at home. She and her son eat separately, wear masks at home and are constantly disinfecting their apartment. Ms. An’s health is declining rapidly, and even keeping water down is a struggle.

“I can’t let my mom die at home,” said her son, He Jun. “Every day I want to cry, but when I cry there are no tears. There is no hope.”

As countries race to deal with an outbreak that has begun spreading around the world, inciting panic and disrupting the global economy, the residents of Wuhan are waging a daily battle to survive an illness that has sickened more than 4,100 people and killed 224 in their city alone.

Last month, the government put Wuhan in a virtual lockdown, sealing off the city and banning most public transportation and private cars from its streets in a desperate effort to contain the outbreak. Now, many residents say it is nearly impossible to get the health care they need to treat — or even diagnose — the coronavirus.

Expressing exasperation, doctors say there is a shortage of testing kits and other medical supplies, and it is not clear why more are not available. The ban on transportation means some residents have to walk for hours to get to hospitals — if they are well enough to make the journey. Layers of bureaucracy stand between residents and help. And the long lines outside hospitals for testing and treatment suggest that the outbreak is spreading far beyond the official count of cases.

Ambulances, too, are hard to come by, residents say. In recent days, some say they have called 120, China’s equivalent of the emergency number 911, only to be told that there were already hundreds of people in the queue.

Those who do make it to the hospital say they are squeezed together for hours in waiting rooms, where infections are easily spread. But the shortages have meant that many are ultimately turned away and sent home to self-quarantine, potentially compounding the outbreak by exposing their families.

Many doctors and residents are putting their hopes on the two new coronavirus hospitals that China has been racing to build in Wuhan in just a matter of days. One of them spans about eight acres, has 1,000 beds and is scheduled to open on Monday. The government says 1,400 military medical workers will be deployed to work there, potentially helping with the shortage of health professionals on hand to combat the outbreak.

On Sunday, city officials announced  plans to set up quarantine stations around Wuhan for people with symptoms of pneumonia and close contacts among coronavirus patients. But just over a week into the lockdown, many residents believe the virus has already spread much further than the official numbers suggest.

“The situation that we’ve seen is much worse than what has been officially reported,” Long Jian, 32, said outside a hospital where his elderly father was being treated. Mr. Long said his father had to go to six hospitals and wait seven days before he could even be tested for the coronavirus.

Just steps from where Mr. Long spoke, beds could be seen lining both sides of a narrow corridor in the emergency room. One man was getting an intravenous drip outside in his car.

“Those who can get diagnosed and treated are the lucky ones,” Mr. Long said. “In our neighborhood, many who weren’t able to get diagnosed ended up dying at home.”

Getting treatment for the coronavirus in a hospital requires jumping through a number of hoops.

According to official guidelines, patients are encouraged to go to their local hospitals first for initial assessments and sometimes prescriptions. Then patients are to deliver the results to their local neighborhood committees, which are responsible for communicating with the hospitals and coordinating resources for the households in their areas. There are about 1,000 neighborhood committees in Wuhan, for a population of 11 million.

Patients with mild symptoms are typically told to go home and self-quarantine, according to a Jan. 24 notice by city officials. Those who have more severe symptoms are flagged by the neighborhood committees, which arrange for transportation by ambulance to one of the two dozen or so hospitals designated for treating the coronavirus.

But in practice, patients and their relatives say that the process takes far too long, and that the bar for what constitutes “severe symptoms” has been set too high — so they give up and try waiting in long lines at hospitals instead.

Amy Hu said her 64-year-old mother went to the doctor after experiencing a fever, cough, shortness of breath and diarrhea about 10 days ago. Based on the initial assessment, the doctor told Ms. Hu’s mother that she had contracted the coronavirus. But the test needed to confirm the diagnosis was not available, the doctor said.

Without the test, her mother couldn’t be admitted to a hospital. Since then, Ms. Hu said, they have been waiting at home to hear back from the hospital about when her mother can be tested. In recent days Ms. Hu, who has been visiting her parents for the Lunar New Year holiday, took precautions herself: She checked into a hostel with her two children.

“I’m very dissatisfied with the government,” Ms. Hu said. “It’s like only when the patients are close to death can they be admitted to a hospital.”

Tong Yixuan, 31, said Sunday that he panicked last week when he learned that in just a few days, his father’s cold had escalated into a full-blown illness that doctors said was almost certainly the coronavirus.

But neither his father, who had a 104-degree fever and was slipping in and out of consciousness, nor his mother, who was starting to show similar symptoms, could get tested. Hospitals said that there was no space, and that their symptoms were not severe enough, Mr. Tong said. His parents were sent home to quarantine themselves.

There was no way for Mr. Tong to help. He was more than 60 miles away in Huangshi, which days ago had been locked down by the government along with many other cities in Hubei Province. The roads out of Huangshi and into Wuhan had all been sealed off. For days, Mr. Tong was stuck. Only Saturday, after hours of negotiation with local officials, was he able to make it to his parents’ bedside, he said. They have since been tested for the coronavirus, and his father has been admitted to a hospital. The process took 10 days.

“All I want to do is take care of my parents,” Mr. Tong said. “I don’t even care if I get infected.”

For some people, like Gan Hanjiang, the new hospitals cannot be built fast enough.

Last month, his father came down with a severe fever and cough. He was tested for the coronavirus, but the results were negative. Ten days after the onset of symptoms, however, his father died, Mr. Gan said.

The hospital classified the cause as “severe pneumonia,” Mr. Gan said, but he believes it was the coronavirus. Several experts have recently conceded that several rounds of testing may be needed for an accurate diagnosis of the virus.

On the day his father died, Mr. Gan began to show the same symptoms, he said. But without a car, he has not been able to go to one of the designated hospitals to get tested for the coronavirus.

“Getting treatment is so difficult,” he whispered slowly by telephone from a small hospital near his home where he was being treated for viral pneumonia. “We can’t get admitted to the hospitals. And there’s not enough medicine.”

*********

Wuhan Coronavirus Looks Increasingly Like a Pandemic, Experts Say... Rapidly rising caseloads alarm researchers, who fear the virus may make its way across the globe. But scientists cannot yet predict how many deaths may result.

By Donald G. McNeil Jr. | Published Feb. 2, 2020, 2:35 p.m. ET | New York Times | Posted February 2, 2020 |

The Wuhan coronavirus spreading from China is now likely to become a pandemic that circles the globe, according to many of the world’s leading infectious disease experts.

The prospect is daunting. A pandemic — an ongoing epidemic on two or more continents — may well have global consequences, despite the extraordinary travel restrictions and quarantines now imposed by China and other countries, including the United States.

Scientists do not yet know how lethal the new coronavirus is, however, so there is uncertainty about how much damage a pandemic might cause. But there is growing consensus that the pathogen is readily transmitted between humans.

The Wuhan coronavirus is spreading more like influenza, which is highly transmissible, than like its slow-moving viral cousins, SARS and MERS, scientists have found.

“It’s very, very transmissible, and it almost certainly is going to be a pandemic,” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.

“But will it be catastrophic? I don’t know.”

In the last three weeks, the number of lab-confirmed cases has soared from about 50 in China to 14,000 in 23 countries; there have been over 300 deaths, all but one in China.

But various epidemiological models estimate that the real number of cases is 100,000 or even more. While that expansion is not as rapid as that of flu or measles, it is an enormous leap beyond what virologists saw when SARS and MERS emerged.

When SARS was vanquished in July 2003 after spreading for nine months, only 8,098 cases had been confirmed. MERS has been circulating since 2012, but there have been only about 2,500 known cases.

The biggest uncertainty now, experts said, is how many people around the world will die. SARS killed about 10 percent of those who got it, and MERS now kills about one of three.

The 1918 “Spanish flu” killed only about 2.5 percent of its victims — but because it infected so many people and medical care was much cruder then, 20 to 50 million died.

By contrast, the highly transmissible H1N1 “swine flu” pandemic of 2009 killed about 285,000, fewer than seasonal flu normally does, and had a relatively low fatality rate, estimated at .02 percent.

The mortality rate for known cases of the Wuhan coronavirus has been running about 2 percent, although that is likely to drop as more tests are done and more mild cases are found.

It is “increasingly unlikely that the virus can be contained,” said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who now runs Resolve to Save Lives, a nonprofit devoted to fighting epidemics.

“It is therefore likely that it will spread, as flu and other organisms do, but we still don’t know how far, wide or deadly it will be.”

In the early days of the 2009 flu pandemic, “they were talking about Armageddon in Mexico,” Dr. Fauci said. (That virus first emerged in pig-farming areas in Mexico’s Veracruz State.) “But it turned out to not be that severe.”

An accurate estimate of the virus’s lethality will not be possible until certain kinds of studies can be done: blood tests to see how many people have antibodies, household studies to learn how often it infects family members, and genetic sequencing to determine whether some strains are more dangerous than others.

Closing borders to highly infectious pathogens never succeeds completely, experts said, because all frontiers are somewhat porous. Nonetheless, closings and rigorous screening may slow the spread, which will buy time for the development of drug treatments and vaccines.

Other important unknowns include who is most at risk, whether coughing or contaminated surfaces are more likely to transmit the virus, how fast the virus can mutate and whether it will fade out when the weather warms.

The effects of a pandemic would probably be harsher in some countries than in others. While the United States and other wealthy countries may be able to detect and quarantine the first carriers, countries with fragile health care systems will not. The virus has already reached Cambodia,  India,  Malaysia, Nepal, the Philippines and rural Russia.

“This looks far more like H1N1’s spread than SARS, and I am increasingly alarmed,” said Dr. Peter Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. “Even 1 percent mortality would mean 10,000 deaths in each million people.”

Other experts were more cautious.

Dr. Michael Ryan, head of emergency responses for the World Health Organization, said in an interview with STAT News on Saturday that there was “evidence to suggest this virus can still be contained” and that the world needed to “keep trying.”

Dr. W. Ian Lipkin, a virus-hunter at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health who is in China advising its Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said that although the virus is clearly being transmitted through casual contact, labs are still behind in processing samples.

But life in China has radically changed in the last two weeks. Streets are deserted, public events are canceled, and citizens are wearing masks and washing their hands, Dr. Lipkin said. All of that may have slowed down what lab testing indicated was exponential growth in the infection.

It’s unclear exactly how accurate tests done in overwhelmed Chinese laboratories are. On the one hand, Chinese state media have reported test kit shortages and processing bottlenecks, which could produce an undercount.

But Dr. Lipkin said he knew of one lab running 5,000 samples a day, which might produce some false-positive results, inflating the count. “You can’t possibly do quality control at that rate,” he said.

Anecdotal reports from China, and one published study from Germany, indicate that some people infected with the Wuhan coronavirus can pass it on before they show symptoms. That may make border-screening much harder, scientists said.

Epidemiological modeling released Friday by the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control estimated that 75 percent of infected people reaching Europe from China would still be in the incubation periods upon arrival, and therefore not detected by airport screening, which looks for fevers, coughs and breathing difficulties.

But if thermal cameras miss victims who are beyond incubation and actively infecting others, the real number of missed carriers may be higher than 75 percent.

Still, asymptomatic carriers “are not normally major drivers of epidemics,” Dr. Fauci said. Most people get ill from someone they know to be sick — a family member, a co-worker or a patient, for example.

The virus’s most vulnerable target is Africa, many experts said. More than 1 million expatriate Chinese work there, mostly on mining, drilling or engineering projects. Also, many Africans work and study in China and other countries where the virus has been found.

If anyone on the continent has the virus now, “I’m not sure the diagnostic systems are in place to detect it,” said Dr. Daniel Bausch, head of scientific programs for the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, who is consulting with the W.H.O. on the outbreak.

South Africa and Senegal could probably diagnose it, he said. Nigeria and some other countries have asked the W.H.O. for the genetic materials and training they need to perform diagnostic tests, but that will take time.

At least four African countries have suspect cases quarantined, according to an article published Friday in The South China Morning Post. They have sent samples to France, Germany, India and South Africa for testing.

At the moment, it seems unlikely that the virus will spread widely in countries with vigorous, alert public health systems, said Dr. William Schaffner, a preventive medicine specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

“Every doctor in the U.S. has this top of mind,” he said. “Any patient with fever or respiratory problems will get two questions. ‘Have you been to China? Have you had contact with anyone who has?’ If the answer is yes, they’ll be put in isolation right away.”

Assuming the virus spreads globally, tourism to and trade with countries besides China may be affected — and the urgency to find ways to halt the virus and prevent deaths will grow.

It is possible that the Wuhan coronavirus will fade out as weather warms. Many viruses, like flu, measles and norovirus, thrive in cold, dry air. The SARS outbreak began in winter, and MERS transmission also peaks then, though that may be related to transmission in newborn camels.

Four mild coronaviruses cause about a quarter of the nation’s common colds, which also peak in winter.

But even if an outbreak fades in June, there could be a second wave in the fall, as has occurred in every major flu pandemic, including those that began in 1918 and 2009.

By that time, some remedies might be on hand, although they will need rigorous testing and perhaps political pressure to make them available and affordable.

In China, several antiviral drugs are being prescribed. A common combination is pills containing lopinavir and ritonavir with infusions of interferon, a signaling protein that wakes up the immune system.

In the United States, the combination is sold as Kaletra by AbbVie for H.I.V. therapy, and it is relatively expensive. In India, a dozen generic makers produce the drugs at rock-bottom prices for use against H.I.V. in Africa, and their products are W.H.O.-approved.

Another option may be an experimental drug, remdesivir, on which the patent is held by Gilead. The drug has not yet been approved for use against any disease. Nonetheless, there is some evidence that it works against coronaviruses, and Gilead has donated doses to China.

Several American companies are working on a vaccine, using various combinations of their own funds, taxpayer money and foundation grants.

Although modern gene-chemistry techniques have made it possible to build vaccine candidates within just days, medical ethics require that they then be carefully tested on animals and small numbers of healthy humans for safety and effectiveness.

That aspect of the process cannot be sped up, because dangerous side effects may take time to appear and because human immune systems need time to produce the antibodies that show whether a vaccine is working.

Whether or not what is being tried in China will be acceptable elsewhere will depend on how rigorously Chinese doctors run their clinical trials.

“In God we trust,” Dr. Schaffner said. “All others must provide data.”

*********

#u.s. news #politics #trump administration #politics and government #world news #worldpolitics #world travel #worldtraveler #trump china #china news #china #asia news #asian voices #international news #coronavirus #wuhan virüsü #wuhan pneumonia

[thedailyscourge]

Day Seven

(of the 4th month of the year Twenty-hundred and Twenty)

An entry from the journal of a squire of Brookland:

Within an hour of starting my shift on the Tiny Human Ward, now filled with regular sized humans afflicted with the Scourge, one of our patients began dying.

But that wasn’t the worst of it.

I can honestly say the degree to which this pandemic is a disaster was lost on me as it is to everyone who has not had the kind of intimate encounter with the unique forms of suffering it produces as I did today.

I was deployed to this ward in a kind of vague capacity to fill in gaps of coverage in some non-specific and sometimes very specific ways.  One thing I knew I was sent here to do was to go into room after room of patients afflicted with the Scourge and assess their health.  And, late in the morning, that is exactly what happened.  After my team had spent several hours getting to know the needs of each patient by looking at their lab results and getting reports from other professionals, and then “table rounding” or “round tabling” depending on what type of knights you picture us as, we had talked enough. It was time to confront the invisible enemy directly and at the same time witness the most tangible form it can materialize as: a fellow human being, laying in front of you, struggling to breathe.  I have seen people who were short of breath before, people with various forms of oxygen masks, intubated, on ventilators of all kinds, gasping for breath.  It’s jarring.  But to someone like me who’s seen a great deal more disease and death than most people my age, the striking thing was not the nature of any given case, it was the sheer number of them.  In nearly every single room I went into today, there was a person fighting for their life, drowning above water.  An entire ward full of them and beyond that, an intensive care unit with more.  I was prepared for and acquainted with the severity, but not the volume.

We had maybe two in their 50s, one in the 30s, and one in the 20s but, as a whole, these patients were almost exclusively in their 60s, 70s, and 80s. It was as if science, public health, and medicine advanced inch by inch to the point that we had prolonged the average life expectancy in a remarkable demonstration of our dominance over nature, only to be humbled by the tiniest microorganism arriving and taking all that life away in a matter of days.

It’s difficult to describe how even the thought of an invisible enemy this small and contagious will strain your psyche when you are literally surrounded by it. There is a psychological absurdity to the dozens of small actions and choices you must make throughout your day that is akin to a French mime whose world is not made up but rather unseen by everyone but her. The mental acrobatics you have to engage in to create any sense of control at all in this environment are olympic in their complexity and duration.  At some point, even the most intelligent professionals are so burnt out by this underlying stress that they subconsciously surrender and unwittingly allow the enemy to gain a disturbing amount of ground, transforming our very workplace into a hazard itself.

When I say the ward I walked into and worked in all day was a nightmare of infection control, I mean that at times it felt like the work of germ theorists in the 1800s was just a niche genre of academia like scarf rock or Icelandic death metal, not a foundation for one of the most respected professions on earth.  Face shields, contaminated from countless close interactions with the Scourge and never disinfected (because of a shortage of supplies to do so) were strewn about haphazardly in the cramped workroom where squires and knights spend hours formulating plans and touching surfaces that allow us to create life-saving orders.  All the while we are contaminating and cross contaminating our belongings, our armor, ourselves.  It was clear that many members of the team, who had been denied adequate equipment to protect themselves for weeks and who had struggled minute by minute to maintain a sense of hygienic integrity had resigned to this relative squalor out of sheer exhaustion.

There were many other little lapses in infection control practices I noticed throughout the day, probably because my line of work has conditioned me to be very sensitive to these kinds of details.  But in nearly all of them, just as evident was the lack of resources and enormity of stress on those involved that really was to blame.

What may have been the worst of all of it was an egregious offense to our values and what we hold as sacred. The last rights of the dying, not of religion, but of being and feeling loved by a family member or friend while you pass, are stripped from those who have succumb to the Scourge.  A wife, a cousin, a sister, all denied the tangible validity of their relationship with a dying man, a quiet, tragic opera playing out through telephone lines, in lonely hospital beds, in a room of my ward this morning and across the world again and again for months on end.  The necessary preservation of the species has cost us possibly the greatest token of our humanity.

As I shifted my responsibilities midday to take care of another elderly man in the intensive care unit, filling one of the many gaps in our staffing, I was conscripted into the cast of another tragedy of unique cruelty.  

A woman, a middle-aged nurse who had been working as recently as 2 weeks ago treating some of the sickest tiny humans there are, had been struck down by the Scourge and was now lying in the very same room as the young lives she had helped take care of and, what’s worse, her friends and former coworkers were now the ones charged with treating her disease.  And she was deteriorating. Quickly.

This woman ended up needing to be intubated, a tube placed down her throat, and connected to a ventilator.  I found out about her position as part of the team who were now taking care of her when I asked why she was being moved to another intensive care unit after the intubation.  The head of the unit told me it was for emotional reasons.  I was confused until she explained that she did not want her and her coworkers to potentially experience the trauma of doing chest compressions on their friend as she coded, veering toward death.

At the end of the day, the chaplains were called in to hold a session for us to decompress and process what had just happened.  Although it halted productivity in the midst of a crisis, evident by the way it ended with several of us peeling off to assess a patient in distress, I found the group experience profoundly important, if not for it’s actual therapeutic effect then for the statement even holding such a session made in the middle of what is, for all intents and purposes, a disaster on every level of society.

And there, as some of the staff openly broke down crying, myself sniffling through a respirator during a teary eyed prayer, and others admitted the horrifying feeling of vulnerability in the microscopic game of Russian roulette that we are all playing on the frontlines, I realized today we weren’t losing our humanity.  We were finding its depths.  

The tolls:

The City of New Pork (of which the town of Brookland belongs):

76,876 afflicted

4,009 dead

The Divided Realms of Amen!-ia:

397,391 afflicted

12,000 dead

We await the miracle prophesied by the Emperor to come in the 4th month.