#this was a real add in our seed catalogue

[friendofthecrows]

Um...Are you- are you sure?

#dr jim z #inventor of nuclear fission in a bottle #this was a real add in our seed catalogue #unedited #funny #chemistry #chemistry joke #false advertising #elements #chemicals #gardening #fertilizer

[matchaball]

satellite call

AN: Hello hello @xiueryn (I can’t tag you for some reason ;o;)!! I'm your secret santa, for the discord secret santa exchange :D I heard you like aus, and I heard you like unusual aus, so hopefully this story is right up your alley haha. It's based off this prompt:

When you wish upon a shooting star, it’s actually a satellite, and your wish has been recorded and cataloged. An agent has been assigned to your case.

(Also I certainly didn't listen to Sara Bareilles' Satellite Call nonstop while writing this...)

Happy reading! Hope you enjoy! <3

( AO3 )

When Adrien wishes upon his first star, he is just shy of nine.

He wishes for a new bike, to replace the one he’s outgrown. The thought comes and goes without any real weight, and he’s not terribly disappointed when the new bike never comes.

He has a bedroom stuffed and stocked to the brim with anything and everything he could ever want. He has his favourite foods, the coolest fashions, and every volume of Sailor Moon. He has his parents who love him, wholly and unconditionally.

He doesn’t need anything else; he’s already got happiness right at his fingertips.

.

.

.

Adrien is eleven, when he wishes upon his next star.

Everything changes in an eyeblink. Loss carves a hollowed home within his ribcage and trails after his footsteps in lieu of the warmth of his mother’s laugh, of her kind smile. His father moves brusquely ahead, and Adrien think he’s trying to escape the vacuum that rushes to fill his mother’s absence. There is no escaping that numbness that creeps under his skin though, that makes every emotion and movement feel weighted with lead even as the world whirls on by.

Grief makes Adrien’s wish powerfully clear as he looks up to the night sky. There are no bedtime stories told anymore, but his mother’s voice still rings in his mind. He follows it without a second thought, and wishes with all his might that her voice might return, that she might come back.

(He knows the truth, he knows better- and yet. And yet.)

Time moves on, and she never does. His mother’s stories were always filled with hopes and dreams coming true, but reality teaches Adrien of empty wishes and the cold distance of stars instead.

.

.

.

Adrien is twenty, when he wishes upon his last star.

It happens late one night when he's out sitting on the rooftop. Insomnia keeps him awake and drives him from the cavernous confines of his room. He comes up to breathe and hopefully ease his heart a little of the aches and pains of loneliness he’s quietly carried ever since his father locked him in a meticulously structured, rigid schedule of activities.

The chill of the air and vastness of the night sky help a little. Light pollution usually casts a glare against the deep blue, but it’s a little clearer tonight, a little darker and softer. Still, there aren’t many pinpricks of light to pick out.

So it catches Adrien by surprise when a star emerges from the darkness and suddenly soars by, leaving a silver tail as thin as a spiderweb that vanishes before he realizes it. His heart jumps after it before he can think, and his wish escapes in his exhale.

“I wish,” Adrien whispers after that shooting star, “I had a friend.”

His words seem to hang in the air for a single, breathless moment. His heart stutters, takes a wild leap into belief- and then the warmth dissipates.

Adrien sighs as he rests his head in the cradle of his arms. He had known it was a fool’s hope, but still- he had hoped.

Light snags his attention from the corner of his eye yet again, and it's the only warning he gets before the ring of his cellphone shatters the silence. Panic blinds him to everything else as he makes a desperate lunge towards his phone, and when he nearly knocks it off the rooftop in his haste, his heart leaps to his throat. Nathalie might wake up and discover him on the rooftop if the cellphone didn't shut up, but she'd definitely find Adrien if the cellphone took a swan dive off the edge and took Adrien’s only source of light for his way back down. The ringtone continues to sing cheerily as Adrien fumbles to hit answer.

“Hello?”

“Hello!” a bright voice chirps on the other end. “This is a courtesy call to let you know your wish has been recorded and catalogued.”

The greeting is so absurd, so out of the blue, that Adrien bursts out laughing.

“Wait, what?” he snorts. “Is this a joke?”

“Rude,” the voice sasses back. “At 2:49am this morning, you wished for a friend right?”

Her words effectively shut him up. The laugh dies in Adrien’s throat as suddenly as it had come, and he’s left gaping instead. He flounders for an answer somewhat more coherent than stunned silence.

“I mean… yeah,” he says slowly. “I wasn’t- is this real?”

“Very real.” The voice is distinctly feminine, steady with practiced patience. Her next words gentle as she seems to understand his hesitance. “Would you like to be told when your wish is being processed?”

“Hang on, are you actually granting my wish?”

“If it’s within our power, then absolutely.”

“Oh man,” Adrien chuckles, running a hand through his hair as he tilts his head up to look at the night sky. The shooting star is long gone, but he scans the darkness for even the tiniest glimmer of who he could possibly be talking to. “Kind of wish I’d wished for something less silly now.”

There’s a pause, and like any vacuum, Adrien’s mind races to fill it with all the anxious thoughts. He’s just about to stammer out a laugh in hopes that he can pass it off as a weak joke, but the voice on the other end speaks first.

“I don't think it's silly,” she says, soft and sure. She hesitates, then adds, “I’m Marinette.”

“I’m Adrien,” he returns. “But I guess you already knew that.”

“Yup.”

“... am I technically allowed to know your name?”

“Not really,” Marinette laughs. “It’s against the rules, but for you I'll make an exception.”

A tiny, powerful seed of warmth blooms in Adrien’s chest at Marinette's small kindness. He can't help but grin as he cranes his neck up towards the sky, imagining the velvety darkness to be her hair, the stars her eyes, looking back.

“So how long until a wish is- you said processed?” he asks, mildly curious.

“Depends,” Marinette says, thoughtful. “I- uh. I haven't processed many before.”

Something in her tone tips him off and he sits up straight, a laugh bubbling up in his chest. “Am I your first?”

Her noise of frustration unlocks his laughter, and he can't help but be endeared by her grumblings at his guess.

“That's ok,” Adrien chuckles as he flops onto his back. With her voice right by his ear, he can almost imagine her right with him, just two warm souls under the cold, dark sky. “You're my first too.”

Marinette laughs. “Here's hoping we both get what we want.”

“Hm?” He perks up in interest. “What do you want?”

“If I tell you,” she says, uncharacteristically grave, “I'll have to kill you.”

The absurdity and exaggeration in her voice sets off another round of laughter between them, and Adrien can feel his cheeks begin to hurt from how much he's been smiling.

“I'm all yours then,” Adrien declares. “But before I die, I wish for you to tell me your wish.”

“That's your last wish?” Marinette giggles. “You make my job so easy. Alright. My wish is to make someone happy. Which I know is like, comically simple and way too broad. It's kind of like a little kid wishing for world peace, but I dunno, I can never think of anything specific, and specificity can be kind of overrated anyway, not that there’s anything wrong with being specific-”

“It's perfect,” Adrien says simply, effectively stoppering Marinette’s rambling. “And you’re definitely in the right place to make that wish come true.”

“Yeah, I guess I am,” she admits. “Thanks Adrien.”

“For stating the obvious?”

“No, silly. For- well. I dunno. There's something about you,” Marinette says slowly, a note of curiosity in her voice. “Something- different. Maybe I’ll figure it out, in time.”

“Like I said,” Adrien chuckles, “I’m all yours.”

“You really are,” Marinette laughs. “I should start processing your wish.”

There’s a question in her words, a thread that unravels into two paths that he can take. One trails off into goodbyes and then that deafening silence at the other end of the line, with no certainty of when he’d hear her voice again. And the other...

“Do you…” Adrien hesitates, then chooses. “Could you maybe stay and talk? Just a little longer?”

“Sure,” Marinette replies, and he can feel the warmth of her smile in her voice. “I'll stay.”

.

.

.

“Do you ever think about leaving?”

Silence answers Adrien as Marinette thinks of her answer. This time, he doesn’t panic at the space between them. Instead, he settles comfortably back on the rooftop and scans the cloudy sky for a hint of any stars, of her.

He’d been tempted to write the initial experience off as a dream- a crazy, wonderful, perplexing, surreal, fantastic dream- but his call history tells him otherwise.

The thing about receiving phone calls though, is that one can call back.

“Sometimes,” she finally answers. “I miss my family. I miss papa’s bread and maman’s dumplings. I miss my bed.”

“You’ve never gone back and visited?”

“Well, I only just started here kind of recently, so I’ve only visited them once.”

Another pause bubbles up, and this time he can sense her hesitation, of something left unsaid.

“...and?” Adrien prods gently.

“...and I don’t think I will,” Marinette sighs. “They don’t know I’m up here, doing this. They shouldn’t know. It’s… it’s complicated.”

“Oh.” Curiosity hooks its claws into him and doesn’t let go. His want for respecting her privacy struggles against it until he compromises with, “Won’t they worry if they haven’t heard from you in a while?”

“I can call. Clearly,” she laughs. She must sense what he doesn’t say, what his curiosity clambers to know, even from miles, maybe lightyears away, because she clarifies, “It’s easy to exploit wishes, if you know they can come true.”

“I still don’t really know if mine will come true,” Adrien teases.

“Yes, you do.” The calm and absolute certainty that Marinette pins on him is direct and honest in a way he doesn’t expect. “Or, you don’t know it, but you believe it. You believed in the star that you sent your wish up to. The people who do that, those are the ones whose wishes we answer.”

Adrien’s head spins a little at her explanation. The whole basis sounds so profoundly simple and innocent that he feels a bit like a little kid again.

“Wait,” he backtracks. “‘We’? Are you in like, a giant spaceship? Multiple spaceships? Is there a galaxy of people working with you?”

“No, nothing like that,” Marinette laughs and laughs and laughs. “It’s just… uhhh, let’s see: me, Tikki, Plagg, Nooroo, Duusuu, Pollen, Trixx. The seven of us.”

“How the heck do you answer all the wishes you get?”

“Well, like I said, it’s hard to get one through to begin with but- you wished upon a star, and it’s a star who answers.”

“You answered,” Adrien points out, unable to resist a little teasing. Curiosity still kneads his muscles, making him restless along the rooftop. He rolls up to his feet and starts pacing as he turns everything over in his mind.

“Ok, so technically it’s a star who answers,” Marinette grumps. “I’m in training, cut me some slack. But yeah, I’m just human.”

The word choice stops Adrien in his tracks, has him slowly pivoting and craning his neck up to look skywards once more.

“You aren’t joking,” he says slowly. “They’re… actual stars.”

“Long story,” Marinette sighs, “and I’m not the best person to tell it. You should talk to Plagg or Tikki, if you want the full scoop.”

“Oh yes,” Adrien barks out a laugh as he runs a shaking hand through his hair in disbelief and wonder. “I’ll just look through the phonebook for their number later.”

“Smartass.” He can practically hear her eye roll at the other end. “But, hey, listen. We’re always looking for the right person to join us in granting wishes, if you want.”

The invitation in her words is such a tempting thing. To be able to make a difference, to do something on his own, to be free; but despite his selfish reasons, the hope in her voice is what tugs at his heart and what he follows.

Adrien hesitates. Thinks of his father, and how he’d manage. Remembers they haven’t talked in person in literal years, communicating only by phone or email.

There is no reason for him to stay, and one powerful reason for him to go.

He looks up, and thinks of Marinette.

“Really?” Adrien whispers.

The bright hopefulness in Marinette’s laugh races along the soundwaves connecting their phones, and threads a knot around his finger to follow. “What do you think about leaving?”

.

.

.

Saying he’s leaving is one thing; doing so is something entirely different.

The first problem hadn’t been his father, funnily enough, but his assistant. She’d merely blinked when Adrien stammered through a fairly weak and lame excuse of wanting to go traveling abroad for a year.

She hadn’t said anything in response to his rambling, only looked at him. Nathalie had worked with both father and son for years and was practiced in seeing right through the bullshit. With just her level gaze, Adrien faltered, and spilled the truth.

And to her credit, she didn’t immediately call for a psych eval or dismiss him entirely. Skepticism still pulled her mouth into a frown though, so Adrien simply handed his phone to her, Marinette already on standby at the other end of the line, and waited.

The conversation was brief, and Nathalie said maybe only three sentences to her. He counted. But whatever Marinette told her was convincing enough to smooth the frown furrowing her brow and for her shoulders to relax.

When Nathalie ended the call, she had stared at the phone in her hands for a moment, as if digesting the reality of what she’d just been given. Adrien understood that all too well.

She pushed her glasses up and nodded briskly at him then, as she handed his phone back.

“I’ll take care of it,” Nathalie promised, and they both knew she meant Gabriel. Gabriel, and the revolving door of activities pinning Adrien in place for as long as he could remember.

Adrien had no idea how she’d take care of it, but if there was anyone who could work miracles, especially around his father, he believed it could be Nathalie.

The second problem…

Adrien checks his phone for the third time that night as he sits up on his rooftop once more with a stuffed backpack resting against him. Marinette had given him a time and place and said she’d meet him there. Butterflies clamber in his stomach in the meantime as time ticks by and crawls closer and closer to when she’ll finally appear.

A dozen questions and more turn over in his head as he waits. Where are they going? How will they get there? How will she reach him, up on this rooftop? Was this a mistake?

“Hey stranger,” a voice interjects behind him. Her voice, as familiar as anything, still catches him by surprise, and Adrien nearly pitches over the edge of the rooftop as he hurries to stand and turn around to finally see her.

“Whoa!” she exclaims as she wraps a strong hand around his arm and yanks him back to balance. Even through his sweater, he can feel the heat of her palm, the physical presence and undeniable reality of her.

Still, he’s slow to raise his eyes to see her. And when he finally does, his breath catches in his throat.

He is a romantic, he’ll be the first to admit, but still, there really isn’t any other way to describe the darkness of her hair, so much like nighttime, with its shine of deep blue. There really isn’t any other way to explain the clarity of her eyes, as bright blue as a summer sky. Even the faint smattering of freckles dusted along her cheeks and nose makes him think of stars, of constellations, and if she hadn’t told him quite emphatically before that she was human, he’d believe her if she told him she was a star as well.

“Hi,” Marinette smiles shyly as he continues to stare.

“Oh!” Adrien laughs nervously, and scrambles to remember all his etiquette lessons. “Hey.”

Nailed it.

Luckily, Marinette saves them both by gesturing to his bag. “Got everything?”

“Yeah, I think so.” He rubs the back of his head in thought as he mentally runs through everything he packed. Some clothes, toiletries, books (specifically, Sailor Moon), and, by request, Ultimate Mecha Strike X. Marinette said they’d provide the rest, but he had never needed much anyway. “How did you get here?”

“Tikki dropped me off,” Marinette explains, though it’s not much an explanation at all. A smile plays at her lips as she picks up on his curiosity. “Plagg’s picking us up.”

“To where?”

“To up there.” Marinette points up, at the wide, expansive sky, at the few stars glimmering against the darkness. “To our satellite. It’s not much, but it’s home.”

The way she says it, home, with affection and warmth and belonging, stirs such a profound longing in him. He hadn’t found much a home here, on earth, but maybe because this is why. Maybe because she is why. He had wished for a friend, but a home is what he’s always looked for.

And Marinette feels like both.

“Are you ready?” Marinette asks softly, her hand offered to him.

“Yeah.” Adrien takes her hand and stands. His gaze turns skywards, to the velvet black night and the glittering stars that await them. “Let’s go.”

#mlfanfiction #miraculous ladybug #adrinette #adrienette #fanfiction #xiueryn #sorry for being late!! hope you enjoy it :) #merry christmas!! #matcha writes

[arcticdementor]

Hello all, from Siena, one of the most beautiful cities in the world. I’m spending the night here before heading out tomorrow with a friend to make a pilgrimage, more on which tomorrow. Meanwhile, Ross Douthat’s column today makes for extremely sobering reading. He writes that America looks like a declining empire (an observation that I have heard again and again over the last eight days from worried European conservatives):

…

Are we Rome? I have had that question front to mind for at least twenty years, I guess. Sixteen years ago, when I first started writing about the idea that became my book The Benedict Option, the concept of America as an exhausted imperial power seemed kind of insane. We were the globe’s hyperpower, and though we had walked into a buzzsaw in Iraq, most people would not have taken seriously the late Imperial Rome comparison. To refresh your memory, what gave me the Benedict Option concept was philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre’s comparison of our time to the last days of the Roman West, and his claim that people of virtue today – those who want to hold on to the old traditions of the West – should make an exit of this dying civilization and form communities within which those virtues can be lived out.

When he said that we await a new and doubtless very different St. Benedict, he meant that we need a figure like Benedict of Nursia, who can respond creatively to the crisis of our time, and forge a new way of living fruitfully under these circumstances. My own claim is that all of us faithful small-o orthodox Christians must be Benedicts of the 21st century. This dying empire is not going to be saved, so the best we can do is figure out concrete ways to keep the Christian faith alive through this new dark age, preserving the light for the rebirth we pray will come, though surely long after we pass from this earth.

My project received what I counted as a tremendous vote of confidence in 2015 when, visiting the Benedictine monastery in Norcia (the saint’s hometown), the then-prior, Father Cassian Folsom, heard me out, then said that any Christian family who expects to endure through the coming storm will have to follow some version of the Benedict Option.

I published the book in 2017, as you know, and it engendered immediate controversy. I expected that, and some of the debate was good. After all, I could be wrong, and if so, I want to know it. But most of the griping was from people who had not read the book, and were sure that I was simply saying to head for the hills and pull up the drawbridge. As I made clear in the book itself, I don’t believe that there is any real head-for-the-hills escape available to us, but we must nevertheless figure out ways to live with a disciplined faith even as we remain embedded within society.

The example I point to is Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego, the three young Hebrew men from the Book of Daniel, who were so embedded within Babylonian society that they were advisers to the king. But when that king ordered them to worship an idol, they all chose the prospect of martyrdom before apostasy. For us, the Benedict Option lesson is to figure out how those faithful Hebrew men lived in Babylon without letting Babylon live in them. If we can master that, we have a chance.

…

In 2021, the late Roman metaphor is a lot less extreme than it seemed in 2005, or even in 2017. Again, read the Douthat column. I fully agree with him that the US had to withdraw from Afghanistan, but that the withdrawal, and the hubris that led America to attempt nation-building in the first place, reveals us to be a nation in imperial decline. One can be grateful that we are moving away from empire – I certainly am – while also recognizing that such a decline will have seriously bad consequences, or at least is closely associated with seriously bad consequences.

It seems increasingly clear that this century belongs to China. I don’t like this at all. China has figured out what neither Mao nor Stalin knew: how to be rich and totalitarian. The Chinese also seem to be figuring out from watching us how to avoid some of the things that are leading to our own disintegration. Did you notice that the Chinese have now banned young people from playing video games for more than three hours a week during the school week? When I read that, I thought about my physician friend telling me a couple of years ago that he is starting to see in his office a parade of young men from good middle class families who are failing to thrive. All they want to do is play video games and smoke pot. The Chinese also have taken a harder line against LGBT thought and expression, banning LGBT accounts from the WeChat service.

…

One worries about this behavior because that sort of instability makes it harder to form stable families, which are necessary for the continuation of civilization. But that’s not all of it. The Hungarian woman told me her son and all his friends say that they don’t want to have children. They are all terrified of climate catastrophe. Imagine that: this boy’s grandparents and great-grandparents endured World War II; his grandparents and parents endured Communism. He was born into a free Hungary, one that was growing more prosperous than the previous two generations could have dreamed, and yet he, and his generation, are losing the will to live, and dissipating themselves in hedonistic chaos and despair.

…

China is facing a population crash. Its leaders understand that the future of their country depends on its people being willing to produce future generations. They do not want to encourage Western ideologies that make that task more difficult.

In 1947, Carle C. Zimmerman, head of Harvard’s sociology department, published his book Family And Civilization, which deserves to be rediscovered. In it, he traces in history the connection between family structures and civilizational thriving and decline. Zimmerman found that the strongest family form is what he called the “domestic” family: one that offers more freedom to the individual than its predecessor, the “trustee” family (i.e., the clan), and one that is stronger than its successor, the “nuclear” family. In studying ancient Greece, Rome, and the Middle Ages, Zimmerman found that family structure goes in cycles: trustee à domestic à nuclear. Then there is civilizational collapse, after which the cycle begins again. Zimmerman writes of our own time:

There is little left now within the family or the moral code to hold this family together. Mankind [by which he meant Western man] has consumed not only the crop, but the seed for the next planting as well. Whatever may be our Pollyanna inclination, this fact cannot be avoided. Under any assumptions, the implications will be far reaching for the future not only of the family but of our civilization as well. The question is no longer a moral one; it is social. It is no longer familistic; it is cultural. The very continuation of our culture seems to be inextricably associated with this nihilism in family behavior.

…

Zimmerman wrote this in 1947. He missed the Baby Boom, but otherwise he is right on target. Moreover, as I wrote last year, David Brooks authored an essay pointing out that we are living through the most rapid change in family structure in human history. Brooks quotes academic experts who observe that in America (and I would say the West generally), people see marriage now in terms of adult self-fulfillment, not primarily about raising children.

…

Ours is a culture that wants to die.

Similarly, I am always struck when I visit Europe by how passive most Europeans are in the face of waves of migration washing over their continent – waves that are going to turn into a tsunami in this century, given the African birth rate. We saw this in ancient Rome too, with the barbarian invasions. Romans lost the capacity and the will to prevent other peoples from taking their lands. Central European peoples – Hungarians and Poles, in particular – seem to be the only ones who are willing to fight for their own existence as a people.

Three years ago, in a speech to university students, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said:

A situation can arise in one country or another whereby ten percent or more of the total population is Muslim. We can be sure that they will never vote for a Christian party. And when we add to this Muslim population those of European origin who are abandoning their Christian traditions, then it will no longer be possible to win elections on the basis of Christian foundations. Those groups preserving Christian traditions will be forced out of politics, and decisions about the future of Europe will be made without them. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the situation, this is the goal, and this is how close we are to seeing it happen.

I’m telling you, Viktor Orban is perhaps the only Western leader who has such a clear vision about the crisis of our time. It is not just a political crisis. It is an existential crisis for Western civilization. The fact that Orban understands what so many of the rest of our leaders do not, or will not, and the fact that he has the courage to say these things in public, tells you why I think that the future of the West, if we have one, depends on Hungary more than we know. Americans who don’t know a thing about Hungary repeat the moronic allegation that it’s a “fascist” country — something even Orban’s Hungarian critics don’t do.

Unlike Orban, who is not ashamed of his culture, Western European elites – and American ones too – can only describe Western civilization as a catalogue of horrors leaving suicide as the only honorable option available to Westerners. For example, I learned just the other day that Cambridge University, one of the oldest and most venerable in the West, is on its way towards “decolonizing” its Classics department.

If the Soviets or the Nazis had invaded Britain and forced this on Cambridge, we would know exactly what we were seeing: an attempt to subjugate the United Kingdom for a totalitarian ideology by erasing its historical memory. This is happening now – and it is being done by people inside Britain – by a thoroughly corrupt elite that seeks to destroy the foundations of their own civilization in the name of utopia.

For civilizations, patricide is suicide. We know this. We are watching it happen. We execrate the fast and abandon the future. We have concluded that ours is not a civilization worth defending, and propagandize our young to believe the same thing.

I will not defend a social and cultural order that despises the Christian faith, despises the traditional family, despises our common civilizational heritage, and that is working to punish, even persecute, those who will not take a knee before its idols. I will not fight for this culture of death. Will you? Should you? How can we defend America, our home, as patriots, without defending what decadent America has become? Is it possible?

These questions are going to come rushing to the fore domestically as American power recedes. In Italy these past few days, and again in Hungary this weekend, I have heard the same refrain from Catholics: the belief that Netflix in particular and American popular culture in general is corrupting their children. They grew up admiring America, and what we stood for; now they see us as an agent of their own destruction. How are they wrong? The culture producers who are doing this to the Europeans are doing it to us Americans too, and doing it to the whole world. Two years ago, at a Benedict Option conference in Massachusetts, I heard a Nigerian Anglican bishop talk about why his country needs the Benedict Option. I found this hard to understand, but he explained that the influence of US popular culture, pumping its morals into the heads of Nigerian youth through their smartphones, was alienating the next generation from the Christian faith, and Christian morality.

I want to say one more thing about Viktor Orban, drawing on that 2018 speech I cite above. When I tell you that the American media lie constantly about what Orban is, this is what I mean. They say he’s a fascist. Tell me, does this sound like a fascist to you?

…

You can say this is illiberal – and Orban would agree with you. But “fascist”? Give me a break.

You see maybe why I think that with the possible exception of the Poles – I don’t know enough to say one way or the other – Viktor Orban is the only Western leader who reads the signs of the times, and is prepared to fight against the dying of the light. American conservatives ought to stand with him, and with Hungary. The alternative is the decadence and dissolution we see around us – and that is also coming to Hungary, borne by pervasive Anglo-American pop culture. Maybe Hungary too will capitulate. But it’s not going down without a fight.

Part of that fight has to include the formation of Benedict Option-style communities, as places of spiritual and cultural regeneration. To that end, I was thrilled to see that PM Orban recommended the Hungarian translation of The Benedict Option to his people. That’s it, second from top:

…

MacIntyre is not telling us to created these little communities for the sake of shoring up the imperium. He is saying that the crisis is too deep for that. Read in light of Sherrard’s lines, we see that to save what we can, we have to begin with our own repentance, our own turning away from the wicked city of the plain that is in the process of destroying itself.

#rod dreher #the american conservative

[typing-dreams]

back to the start

so I really love this little profile I have. I think I have 20 followers top, and thank goodness no one that I know in real life. I can write in English without feeling a know-it-all because it’s not my first language. for some reason, writing in some other language when it’s not your first one seems snobbish and fake. but, truth is, I love writing in English. it makes me think twice about what I am writing. also, since I am studying totally in English, it just feels natural. anywhere else this would have come across as snobbish, fake, and again, back to the know-it-all.

it must be a pretty stressful period for me if I am just vomiting words in English. I must be struggling a lot, so much in fact that I feel the need to switch to another language and just write down some thoughts, because honestly, they are becoming too much. or too many, it depends on the point of view I suppose. that phrase was too long, should have stopped somewhere there. oh well. 

what feels so heavy? what is that too much? in Italian we have this little saying that I love: the drop that made the vase overflow. it is just so powerful. 

let’s proceed with some semblance order, shall we?

last week, this guy I barely knew from our local volleyball community (which is part of the max championship in Italy for volleyball, but still, since soccer exists, it feels like neighbourhood even if the other team is thousands of kilometres apart. BUT I will not start ranting about that now, and here). again, this guy I barely exchanged two words with answers my instagram story. I answered laughing, because really, it was the only possible way, and he writes again. I don’t remember about what, but it doesn’t matter. no, what matters is that then he wrote again. and again. it went on the whole morning, from work, to lunch, to uni, to home. at the end of the day he bid me goodnight. 

two noticeable things here. 

1. I usually tire pretty fast if I’m talking about nonsense. always been a pragmatic girl, if we talk it must be about something. and the fact that I don’t remember a single world about it, other than HE gave me his phone number and HE carried on with the chat, proves that it was, in fact, chat about non sense. idle things, little nothings, so many ways to paraphrase this, I love writing in English.

2. let me ask this as a question: do you usually bid goodnight to people you just met? I’ll answer honestly: yes, if it’s late enough and we’re tired and the conversation led to that. it did. goodnight, no kisses, no smiles, just that. what’s strange then? nothing, for now.

but going on, the following morning I wake up with a good morning. and a reference to the instagram story that started it all. and the conversation began again. bla bla blas really. I don’t grow tired of it, which when I stop for a second and think about it strucks me as strange, but hey, maybe finally... evidently, it must be the same for him, because he writes of everything and anything. what did he have for lunch, was the salad good and what was the lesson about? he bids me goodnight that night too. and good morning, and goodnight, and goodmorning and...

“what do you say? should we grab a bite somewhere? when you’re free?”

this was the third day. he mentioned something about coming to my grans to steal a bit of cake, it was my fathers birthday, but not seriously. that question was just that, but a question it was. almost shy, and it felt like a wind of spring (don't think this exists in English, “ventata di primavera”, Italian, a bit of freshness to put it simply)

crap, I must accelerate, dinners almost ready.

ok, so, I sort of avoid answering that question, mainly because it seemed too much and too soon for my standards, but also because apparently, we were both busy people, and there was no space to meet until next week. and the conversation goes on and on, so much so that I tell my mother. I’m usually pretty enthusiastic when these things happen, it’s just that good feeling that I get to feel sadly very rarely. but, this time, even my imagination wanted to be careful, to go slowly. please let this not be another asshole. I have started cataloguing those assholes per month.(with my friends, we call them human cases, but I don’t know if it makes sense in English. basically they are assholes, but with many different problems too, usually in their head. nobody’s perfect, definitely not me, but it’s like I have a radar to detect the worst ones out there.)

anyway, stop digressing, he mentions going out daily, but not insistently, and then, the genius. you see, we have two friends in common. one is my best friends, and she comes to the sport place where the volley matches are so the guy and her know each other. but he also knows my best friend’s boyfriend, so it came naturally to organise dinner with them included in the equation. it made me feel a lot better, because the first time alone... it’s not my forte let’s just leave it at that. great, so on with the conversation, not so smoothly because really, it looks like he’s not interested in anything other than soccer. no Harry Potter, no marvel, no books, no movies, no music. apparently he works and he plays soccer. stop. but I tell myself not to worry, because the topics will come, we will create them without even noticing. fast forward to Tuesday, the day before the dinner. I was at uni, law lesson (yeey) when he writes me: I have to ask you something, when do you get out of there? suuuuure man, no anxiety here eh? don’t worry, nothing serious, it’s just a long thing and I didn't want to distract you. nice. pity that lessons have a break, I inform him of such, and he starts writing.

it goes like this, pretty much

- ok so it may seem trivial but just answer “yes” or “no”, it’s just for me, forgive me in advance

(again, I’m not a ball of anxiety, nooo) so I tell him to just ask because I’m starting to get nervous. and here he goes

- I just wanted to understand what this dinner means to you, you know, if there is a second meaning behind. 

stop. here is where I remind you, that HE did it ALL. he started everything, from the very beginning. My mind starts spinning around trying to see where I went wrong, where was the mistake, because really, the change was so abrupt that I had a neck-hake. so I ask him what it means a second meaning? of course we are not going out like after a match, (YOU HAVE BEEN FREAKING WRITNG ME FOR A WEEK FOR GODS SAKE), we are going out to get to know each other. why are you asking this?

- just wanted to clarify that I’m not looking for anything more than being friends really. 

now, I must point out that I tend to vomit words when I’m upset (really? did I need to specify given what you are reading? no), and god, was I upset. he writes me, he asks me out, he organises and HE FRIEND-ZONES me even before we officially see each other for the first time. what the hell. so I send an audio that perfectly shows that I’m upset, tells him I have to go back to lesson, answer “ok” to a question I don't even read and proceed to ignore him.

I ask for the opinion of 4 girls, those people that are a jewel and I couldn’t live without them seriously so I have the desperate need to see what they think about it. all of the answer, in less mild tones: well, he is very much confused. add insult here and there. more or less everywhere. I love my friends. 

but then my mum comes. I cannot hide a single thought from her. she just seed through, it’s always been like this. so I vomit again all the conversation, and what happens?

she hugs me and confronts me. 

she starts telling me that I lash out, that I get angry and upset too easily, that I keep everyone out. the problem with my mother is that she tells the right things (it is true, I know my faults, they are plenty and these are certainly included and spot on) but she tells them in the wrong way. and she repeats the concept. and before I know it, I am crying, the ugly crying, because really, it was the last thing I wanted to do, and she goes on and on in listing out why I am wrong. 

ten minutes after my mind is a circle of those faults, I just am damaged. I am a wrong girl, with a stone instead of a heart, with no kindness in my blood. let’s be clear, she didn't tell me this. but she told me those above, and these are just a natural continuation. 

now you’re exaggerating, you’ll tell me. well, no, not really, because my last boyfriend was when I was 13, then high school started, I got fat, and I was wrong because of that. when I got less fat, I didn't want to go out, because obviously in my mind I was still too fat for that, so all the first three years of high school are out of the window. (for those not Italians, that means from 14 to 16/17). And she is always there, not telling me once that I was pretty. I was a teenager, my mind was a very dark place, I was surrounded by black. 

By miracle, I came out of it, sort of, when I changed swimming group. there I met a guy that I had a crush on for two years straight. is it a crush if it lasts so long? I don’t think so, but I refuse to think it was more. so a crush it was. the problem is, when he leads you on, and then goes back. on, back. on, back. and one night, at two in the morning, he has the brilliant idea to inform you that he has a girlfriend. IN FREAKING TURKEY. he met her in Cambridge last summer, they were trying the long distance. not a chance, but here go two years of my life. 

so hearing my mother saying those things, goodness did it hurt. I never cry. never. I can count the times I cried since I was 10 on one hand. three of them were because of my mother. fat, asocial, stone-hearted. 

how did it end? we got out, had fun, nothing special but nothing unpleasant either, and since his request was “just friends” I bid him goodbye with my hand. you know the little emoji, that one. 

the following morning doesn’t write, so for lunch, for the first time, I start, by asking him if he’s alive. yes he is, struggling to get the hamburger to stay down, pretty busy. the end. 

so here I am, three days after, in need to process everything, because really, I didn’t want him to be the asshole of may, but apparently he is. and now my mind feels a bit lighter, finally, even with finals coming up and the fight with my mother still in the air. 

I am damaged, I know I am. my family history for what concerns relationship has very few success, a lot of failure, so I am quite resigned. but maybe I am still hoping (god knows how, because I certainly don’t) for someone to see something else, something more than a heart of stone. so if someone hears this wish, since my “name” is typing-dreams, please please please...

#vomiting words

[stiritupwithsheena]

Sizzle Your Sausage With an excellent Seasoning

Virtually, sausages are prepared pork or pork blends. But Different experiences really boost our life. With a daily spicy hot sausage your mouth fills with water and heart with rejoice. On the opposite hand, a replacement flavor a touch different taste can change your total experience of sausage consumption. So, try something new, taste something new and feel something new. No doubt, sausage may be a very fashionable mouth watering food for all age groups round the world. So it had been quite possible to witness various experiments with sausage throughout the planet , counting on the local taste. Inventive chefs are making sausages using veggies, sea foods etc. for those people that want to avoid meats. Not only is that, these sausages also preferable for those that want low fat food for themselves. Sausage is already famous and highly appreciated by real food lovers all round the world. a daily sausage recipe is already hit. So, it's the time to undertake out new recipes, new sausage seasoning for your next sausage time. Here i might wish to share some special sausage seasoning for the viewers of this site. Hope you'll try it. Try once for a change and you're getting to love these all. Use a dry herb blend of paprika, garlic granules or powder, fennel seeds, crushed red pepper flakes and black pepper to offer any ground meat sausage flavoring. Not only with pork, you'll do this seasoning with turkey, beef or chicken too. it'll be a true delicacy.

If you're a true lover of sausage with Italian seasoning, then it might be your choice. you'll try some fresh chopped onion and garlic to the meat mixture in situ of dried as an add-on to regular Italian seasoning. Add some black pepper, dried parsley, dried red pepper flakes, anise seed and a touch paprika along side dried Italian seasoning to offer a twist in your Italian style sausage. This is another experimental sausage seasoning which I even have found after tons research. it's really mouth watering and also lighter than the regular style. you'll need rubbed sage, thyme, ground pepper, parsley flakes, pepper flakes and ground nutmeg bring this awesome seasoning. Let's test your taste with this different seasoning recipe. you'll marinate this seasoning together with your sausage and refrigerate it overnight to urge the aroma of the spices more and it'll enhance the taste too. So, if you would like to seem for various sorts of sausage seasoning, then one among the simplest destinations is to look on the online . Here you'll find the expansive catalogue, large choices of various seasonings, spices and kits for your most loved sausage; there you'll be fulfilled together with your requirements. All you've got to try to to is to travel through different sites and there you'll find the highest selling sausage spices and seasoning, jerky spices and seasoning, sausage and jerky additives, and various other spices and seasonings which will surely satisfy your taste buds.

For More Info :-  charcoal seasoning rub USA

charcoal flavouring for sale USA

[thestuckylibrary]

Dear mods, I truly admire your patience, and I know this might sound a bit harsh, but have you ever considered simply not answering some questions? There are so many repetitive asks that can be answered by using the masterlist and the search button?! Is there a problem I'm not getting or are people really that lazy?

Hey there, thank you for your concern for us! :) I’m going to try and answer this for myself, and hopefully my fellow mods will agree for the most part or add their own outlook to this post.

Speaking for myself, I’m a librarian in real life too. The biggest, and really the most important, part of my job is to help people find what they need. We get the exact same question a dozen times a day. We explain the same procedures over and over. Much, if not all, of the information we give out is freely available on the university website, or on the library website, or on the electronic learning platform, or on the posters on every info panel in the library. For someone who is not used to processing information in that way or on that scale, it gets overwhelming and confusing pretty damn fast. We ourselves aren’t always able to dig up the information someone needs, and we are ‘fluent’ in information wrangling. 

For the Stucky Library, it’s pretty much the same thing. Ao3 is huge and the tagging system is at the same time utterly amazing and completely useless. Our library pages are divided up in subcategories that aren’t very logical or intuitive. There’s no way a new reader would know whether to look under genre or trope or popreq or minipost or anywhere. Sometimes the tag or trope name doesn’t really immediately reveal what it’s for (like Shrinkyclinks). The search bar doesn’t handle search phrases or punctuation well. Until you have had the time to really learn how to use it, it can be overwhelming and disheartening, even with a tutorial.

So what do you do when you’re not sure? You ask a Person. Someone real who can interpret your question and translate it into the right query to get the information you need. And they’ll be happy to do that for you, because that’s what they do. Even if that means answering the same question a dozen times a day. Even when the answer is no more elaborate than ‘please check the catalogue on the library website/please check this tag’. 

Sometimes, I grant you, people will default to asking a person instead of just doing the work themselves. They’ll get the same answer as someone who asked because they tried to put in the work but couldn’t manage. But they’ll still have to put work in themselves when they get a tag or a search in reply, because most often we don’t actually go through everything to cherry pick fics. Personally, I don’t mind. It’s my job, after all, and it’s a service I provide with much love and a small hope that the tag I pointed to or the search term I used will help shed some light on how the whole thing works. 

I guess maybe we could seed the tutorial post into our queue a bit more often. But there’s always going to be readers who love Stucky and who love to read and for whom the information wrangling is just not happening. And I can’t tell from their posts if that’s the case, or if they’re taking the quick and easy route (not that quick, let’s be honest here, with 250 messages in our inbox it might take weeks before you get a reply if none of us know off the top of our heads or find it in the first two or three search terms we try and you get snowed under before someone can give it a second shot). So I’m never going to assume that they are and instead help them to the best of my information translating abilities. So send me all your questions and I will do whatever I can for you.

I hope that answers your question

#mod blue #back office stuff

[sciencespies]

Smithsonian Scientists Need Ginkgo Leaves to Study Climate Change—They Need Your Help

https://sciencespies.com/nature/smithsonian-scientists-need-ginkgo-leaves-to-study-climate-change-they-need-your-help/

Smithsonian Scientists Need Ginkgo Leaves to Study Climate Change—They Need Your Help

SMITHSONIAN.COM | Aug. 6, 2019, 10:38 a.m.

The next time you venture into the great outdoors, keep an eye out for Ginkgo biloba trees, which can be easily identified by their distinctive fan-shaped leaves. If you find one—and you likely will, as the native Chinese plant is now ubiquitious in the United States—take a moment to pluck a few leaves, snap some photographs of the scene, and record your observations via the iNaturalist mobile app. Then, package your sample in an envelope, drop it into the mailbox, and give yourself a pat on the back. Congratulations: You’ve just become a citizen scientist, helping researchers at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History use ginkgo leaves to study the past, present and future of climate change.

Perhaps best known for its pungent smell and medicinal properties, ginkgo actually boasts an impressive backstory. As the online portal for the museum’s Fossil Atmospheres project explains, the conifer plant (meaning it has seeds but doesn’t produce flowers) arrived on the scene more than 200 million years ago. Surviving three mass extinctions, including the one that killed the dinosaurs, ginkgo has retained a remarkably similar appearance throughout its time on Earth. This characteristic makes it possible for scientists to easily compare modern specimens with fossils dating to the distant past—a practice that could help researchers assess how the planet’s atmosphere has changed over time, as well as predict what effect future climate shifts will have on Earth’s living creatures.

Rich Barclay, the paleobotanist who leads Fossil Atmospheres, says the project consists of two main parts: an experiment based out of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater, Maryland, and a multi-phase citizen science initiative. Per a Smithsonian Voices blog post penned by Barclay and Laura Soul, the museum’s Deep Time Science Education Specialist, in June 2017, the experimental side of the research revolves around a grove of 10-foot-tall ginkgo trees being grown at carbon dioxide concentrations ranging from 400 parts per million (ppm), or the level found in the atmosphere today, to 1,000 ppm, a ratio last seen when Earth’s climate was so warm that there were no polar ice caps.

Grove of ginkgo trees being grown at carbon dioxide concentrations that range from 400 ppm to 1,000 ppm.

(Rich Barclay)

The citizen science component, on the other hand, began with crowdsourced stomatal counting—a plant’s stomatal index reflects carbon dioxide concentration at the time of its growth, enabling scientists to gauge the conditions in which a specimen developed—and is set to continue with a newly launched leaf survey. This latest phase, running for the entire month of August, asks science enthusiasts from across the country to send in ginkgo leaves from their local communities. These samples will be used to paint a clearer picture of how a plant’s features reflect the environment in which it grows, providing insights on contemporary climate that can then be applied to prehistoric climates, as represented by well-preserved ginkgo fossils.

Soul, who leads the educational side of Fossil Atmospheres, explains, “We can’t go out and get leaves from every state in North America, but the public can. . . and that’s why citizen science performs [such] a vital role in what we’re doing.”

She adds, “[Citizen scientists] are enabling the project to have a much broader scope and [helping researchers] answer questions that we wouldn’t be able to answer otherwise.”

To contribute, interested parties must follow a detailed set of instructions outlining the process of obtaining, recording and submitting specimens. Be sure to follow every step, from identifying the sex of a chosen ginkgo tree to noting its exact location, uploading photos and observations to the iNaturalist app, and properly packaging the leaves, or else the scientists will not be able to use your sample. For more details, visit the project’s website or email [email protected].

Attention nature-lovers, the @smithsonian needs your help in a #CitizenScience project! Gather leaves from Ginkgo trees, mail them to our @FossilAt research team, and advance our understanding of Earth’s climate history! #FossilFriday https://t.co/5Ay7g58hUu pic.twitter.com/oePfpC1vQk

— Smithsonian’s NMNH (@NMNH) August 2, 2019

By restricting the time period in which samples are collected, as well as outlining specific instructions, Barclay says the team will be able to reduce the number of variables affecting stomatal count down to geographic range and environmental factors such as temperature, rainfall, elevation and latitude. Ultimately, data garnered from these public contributions will play a key role in published scientific research. Even if specimens aren’t used for Fossil Atmospheres specifically, Soul points out that they will be permanently accessioned into the Smithsonian’s collections: She notes, “Future scientists will be able to use them to answer questions that we haven’t even thought of yet.”

The exact science behind the project largely comes down to stomatal index, which serves as a climate proxy, or means of reconstruction, for past carbon dioxide concentration. In layman’s terms, stomata are tiny openings on leaves’ surfaces that let in CO2 but expel oxygen and water. Stomatal index refers to the optimal number of stomatal pores needed to facilitate this exchange and is determined by an array of environmental factors, chief among them the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

As Barclay explains, low stomatal numbers tend to correspond with high CO2, while high stomatal numbers correlate with low CO2. But while researchers “know there’s a strong relationship between decreasing number of pores. . . and increasing CO2,” previous studies have failed to fully quantify this dynamic.

“We knew we needed to redo [the research], and we wanted to do it in a more realistic way,” the paleobotanist says. “We moved to this scenario where we’re actually growing trees under elevated conditions, . . . pushing the plants to higher CO2 concentrations than [have] ever been studied.”

A plant’s stomatal index reflects carbon dioxide concentration at the time of its growth, enabling scientists to gauge the conditions in which a specimen developed.

(Rich Barclay)

According to Barclay, Fossil Atmospheres is unique in both its scale and level of citizen science involvement. In addition to the leaf survey, the volunteer side of the project involves counting stomatal pores captured in images of modern and fossilized leaves. This task is decidedly more difficult than simply collecting and cataloguing leaves, but the campaign’s Zooniverse page offers tips, tutorials and practice rounds for those willing to give it a try. (For what it’s worth, more than 3,300 participants have contributed 31,000 classifications to date.) Samples collected via the leaf survey will later be imaged and added to the counting page.

“Some people are excellent at [counting], and some people struggle a bit more,” Soul observes. Since each image is presented to multiple volunteers, however, the team has found that maximizing participation usually yields an accurate answer.

In Barclay’s view, citizen science benefits everyone involved. Volunteers have an opportunity to contribute valuable scientific research and learn more about the topic at hand, while experts gain a trove of usable data. With more individuals collecting leaves and counting stomatal pores, the project can be completed in a reasonable amount of time—namely, within the next several years.

Fossil Atmospheres’ ultimate goal is to determine the relationship between carbon dioxide and stomatal index. By doing so, Barclay and Soul write in Smithsonian Voices, “We should be able to pick up a fossil ginkgo leaf and know the composition of the air in which it grew.” At the same time, the researchers hope to use their findings to answer a key question about the future: “As we humans add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, how warm will the planet get?” The answer, according to the pair, lies in the past, locked in the minute nooks and crannies of ginkgo leaves’ surfaces.

“The real benefit [for volunteers] is to participate in a project that’s actually answering useful questions about our changing climate, which is one of the most pressing issues that we’re facing at the moment,” Soul concludes. “This kind of research. . . is going to be vital moving forward.”

The project, “Fossil Atmospheres,” is unique in both its scale and level of citizen science involvement.

(Rich Barclay)

Modern ginkgo leaves closely resemble fossilized specimens.

(Scott Wing)

Citizen scientists can spot ginkgo leaves based on their distinctive fan-shaped appearance.

(Rich Barclay)

#Nature

#Nature

[aion-rsa]

Midnight Sun Review (Spoiler-Free)

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Like Edward Cullen, Midnight Sun is older than it looks. Stephenie Meyer’s retelling of Twilight, her iconic YA novel of female desire, from the perspective of the smoldering vampire lover was first teased back in 2008, around the release of the final book, Breaking Dawn. At the time, Meyer announced that she would not be finishing the manuscript, as the first twelve chapters had leaked online and she felt like she had lost control of the story. By the time she warmed again to the idea, over the intervening years, the project was again derailed by the emergence of E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey (based on James’ Twilight fanfic) and its own reversed-perspective retelling, Grey.

Then, suddenly, this past May, it was announced that Midnight Sun would be published in just a few months. With no real context for why the book is finally seeing the light of day, it’s difficult to see the rushed timing as anything more than a cash grab. Over a decade after Bella Swan made her final choice, is it really worth resurrecting this book into a second life?

Unfortunately, the answer is: only for the most diehard Twilight fans, and even then it’s a stretch.

Part of Edward’s appeal in Twilight was his inscrutability, the fact that he played much of his motivations concerning Bella close to his unbreathing chest, except for when he felt the need to bellow that he was a monster and how could she love him, but he loved her too. Midnight Sun sheds some sparkling sunlight on that interiority, though by dint of being a retelling, the facts remain the same: Century-old vampire meets seemingly unremarkable human girl in high school biology class. Vampire seems repelled by girl, but it’s really a ruse to try to resist her overwhelming scent. Vampire fails, and forbidden love begins. Vampire refuses to have sex or otherwise get too close to human girl, for fear of tearing her to shreds in his passion. When other vampires come sniffing around girl, our vampire must push her away to save her, but the real way to save her requires him to get closer to her than he ever thought he’d have the self-control to be.

That said, it is genuinely a different perspective; where Bella was so oblivious to her own allure in Twilight, Edward is hyper-aware of everything. His constant cataloguing—of high-school minutiae, of every potential threat that could befall clumsy disaster-magnet Bella, of the hundreds of blushes that darken her skin—creates a high-strung narrative obsessed with not missing a single detail, lest it bring his carefully-crafted control crashing down around him. While he initially takes for granted his talent for reading people’s minds, the discovery that he cannot read Bella’s thoughts throws him off-balance. As the Twilight series has drawn ire for often making Bella a passive figure in her own fate, this turning of the tables—of Edward not knowing if she desires or fears him—is appreciated. Let him (figuratively) sweat a little.

But because these star-crossed lovers are so inexorably drawn to each other, it’s especially difficult to make a retelling that doesn’t just copy-and-paste the same dialogue but swap the pronouns and proper nouns. Meyer does what she can within the constraints that she created fifteen years ago. It helps that Bella sleeps, and Edward doesn’t; while we know that he creepily watches her for at least one REM cycle each night, he does spend some time away from her, with his own vampire family.

The Cullens are the only real aspect of the story that Meyer can expand. Unusual even by vampire standards, they are more than just a coven, even if they’re bound less by shared blood than by shared bloodlust (or, more accurately, their covenant to tame those predatory impulses). To this family tree Meyer adds leaves and blooms, building out the backstories of each Cullen, but especially Rosalie and Alice, through Edward’s strained and tender dynamics with each.

The one thing that Midnight Sun does is provide something of a reasonable context for Edward’s downright ridiculous protectiveness of his mortal love. Though he cannot read Bella’s mind, he can join his telepathic talent to Alice’s affinity for visions of potential futures; through his sister’s eyes, he can scan ahead to various hypothetical consequences of his actions. This lends a dramatic irony to how he goes about first avoiding, and then courting, and ultimately saving, Bella.

Yet even with this added advantage, at times Edward seems truly ignorant of how his words and actions pluck at Bella’s fragile emotions, not understanding why certain bouts of protectiveness make her go weak at the knees (when he assumes she should be quavering in fear) or get angry at being underestimated (when he expects her to think like a predator protecting prey). His own obliviousness is laughable, but a small price to pay for slogging through the same overwrought narrative.

Even Twilight fans will be hard-pressed to find enough that’s new and compelling about this retelling.

Midnight Sun swaps Twilight’s iconic cover—a girl cradling an apple, tempting symbol of forbidden knowledge—for a pomegranate, more graphic than suggestive: While the apple is whole, existing in the moment between plucking and first bite, the pomegranate has been cut in half and oozes out seeds. When this cover was first revealed, one might have thought that it was a nod to the shift in thinking that the archetypal apple in the Garden of Eden was actually, considering the Garden’s likely real-life location, more likely to be a pomegranate. A truly charitable reading of the cover design process would perceive the choice of fruit as reflecting the wisdom of hindsight, the effort to make a narrative more accurate with new information.

Instead, its purpose seems to be for Edward to recast Bella from Eve, yearning to better know the world into which she was created, to Persephone, who thought first of tart taste and only later of what it would mean to take that red juice inside herself. Both women are punished for their insatiable curiosity, but Eve with the curse of childbearing and thousands of generations; Persephone, by contrast, to forever move between the world of the living and the underworld, cursed to live parallel half-lives instead of one full one. (Edward, of course, styles himself as Hades, unable to see himself as anything but a steward for the dead mourning their lost lives.)

Of course, all of this has yet to unfold for Bella. Knowing how the Twilight series concludes, it’s difficult to remember that Midnight Sun retells only the first of four books, and that by its end not even Edward knows Bella’s ultimate fate. Honestly, it would have been better for everyone if Meyer had retold the entire series in one 600-page (or even, let’s be generous, 1,000-page) tome: Instead of retreading every single step like a slow, plodding human, go the vampire route and speed through the whole narrative, stopping to linger at the moments that actually required his side of the story.

Midnight Sun is available now from Little, Brown and Company or for purchase from Amazon.

The post Midnight Sun Review (Spoiler-Free) appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/30tvHrX

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

[placetobenation]

Back in June 2013 the Place to Be Nation invaded the information super-highway with the launch of the website you are visiting just now. Since then a back catalogue has grown to include thousands of podcasts and written pieces, some of which you might have missed and it is my arduous task pleasure to go through the archives and bring you some of the highlights of PTBN through the years.

First out of the gate this week is our audio offering from just last year as Andy Atherton welcomes Glenn Butler, Scott Criscuolo and Jennifer Smith (of the brand new Jenny Position podcast feed!) onto the first episode of the Place to Be Nation POP favorite: Looking Forward, Looking Back. In this inaugural outing for the show, the guys (and gal) have a look ahead at the major movie releases coming to theatres in the upcoming fall and holiday season as well as take a look back at the some of the biggest movies from the summer.

So have a listen here and see if they were right, wrong or somewhere in between about films such as A Star Is Born, Infinity War and Solo.

Long before he was part of the most extreme three way in PTBN, no, PODCAST history, JT Rozzero was reviewing ECW Hardcore TV in written form. This week in 2017, JT began his journey through the land of Eastern (it wasn’t quite Extreme yet) with Hardcore TV #1 from April of 1993. If you’ve ever seen these early ECW shows it’s quite evident why the Extreme Three Way Dance started with 1994, but JT finds some positives from this show which you can check out below.

ECW Hardcore TV #1 4/6/93 Run Time: 38:16

Card: Super Destroyers (c) vs. Hell Riders – ECW Tag Team Title Match (DUD) Tommy Cairo vs. Salvatore Bellomo – TV Title Tournament First Round Match (1/2*) Tony Stetson vs. Rockin’ Rebel (DUD) Jimmy Snuka vs. Larry Winters – TV Title Tournament First Round Match (1/2*) Sal Bellomo vs. Ernesto Benefico (DUD)

Best Segment

I really dug that opening segment with the showdown between Terry Funk and Eddie Gilbert. There was clearly chemistry there and it sets up tension right away and also lays out that Gilbert is our main heel and will be steering the ship week to week. It got us going strong right out of the gate.

Best Performance

Terry Funk was great on commentary. He was really funny and added some good legitimacy to the broadcast. His opening showdown with Eddie Gilbert was well done too and sets up some strong tension right out of the gate. On a night filled with soft matches, Funk helped keep everything watchable. And he even promised the fans that the show and performances would get better as the weeks go on. What a guy.

Biggest Surprise

I was pretty surprised a bum like Rockin’ Rebel was set up as the #1 contender for the ECW Heavyweight Title. He looked like a hack and was pretty poor in the ring in his match tonight. The name is goofy and his look is goofy. Hopefully he is shuffled out of the picture soon. I am also always surprised and confounded that Sal Bellomo was trolling around here in his bizarre Wildman gimmick.

Most 90s Moment

The graphics. All of the graphics were so early 90s. It will be like that for a while, so I will give them an honorary award to open up this series. Honorable mention to Rockin’ Rebel’s mullet. It was fairly glorious.

Additional Observations

I like the tournament idea, makes the SportsChannel debut feel like a big deal; Pretty fitting that Terry Funk pops up right out of the gate on episode one; I also like how we kick right off with a title match, they definitely are making this episode stand out; The gear on both the Destroyers and Hell Riders is so damn low rent, it is basically backyard wrestling quality; Stevie Wonderful is carrying the commentary here, he sounds the smoothest and is pretty funny; It is so bizarre seeing Sandman as the beach bum in his surf gear; during this music video; Sal Bellomo’s bizarre wild man gimmick will never cease confounding me; I like how they announce the seeds of Bellomo and Cairo to add some legitimacy to the tournament; Tommy Cairo is undefeated in ECW apparently; I don’t know how Bellomo wrestles in that absurd costume; Tony Stetson’s prematch enthusiasm was certainly infectious; Rebel is apparently the number one contender to the ECW Heavyweight Title; Jimmy Snuka’s sidepiece, hache mache; Good way to set up Hot Stuff International here, strong out of the gate; Snuka is the #1 seed so he is getting a real hard push here and he really beat the piss out of Winters

Enjoyment Power Rankings 1. Terry Funk 2. Stevie Wonderful 3. Eddie Gilbert 4. Jimmy Snuka 5. Sal Bellomo 6. Tony Stetson 7. Rockin’ Rebel 8. Jay Sulli 9. Super Destroyers 10. Hunter Q. Robbins

Top 10 Matches 1. Jimmy Snuka vs. Larry Winters – 4/6/93 (1/2*) 2. Tommy Cairo vs. Salvatore Bellomo – 4/6/93 (1/2*) 3. Super Destroyers (c) vs. Hell Riders – 4/6/93 (DUD) 4. Sal Bellomo vs. Ernesto Benefico – 4/6/93 (DUD) 5. Tony Stetson vs. Rockin’ Rebel – 4/6/93 (DUD)

All Time Appearance TrackerJay Sulli Stevie Wonderful Tod Gordon Eddie Gilbert Terry Funk Hunter Q. Robbins III Super Destroyer #1 Super Destroyer #2 EZ Ryder HD Ryder Tommy Cairo Salvatore Bellomo Cosmic Commander Johnny Hot Body Tony “Hitman” Stetson Rockin’ Rebel Jimmy Snuka Jimmy Snuka’s Side Piece Larry Winters Ernesto Benefico

Final Grade: 3/10 Paul E. Dangerously Cell Phones

#IFTTT #Place to Be Nation

[cavefelix]

The Orc Library: Non-Fiction, 600-699

(Wondering what this is? Here’s the intro.)

There’s some good news and bad news about medicine books in the library. The good news: the anatomy books look magnificent. The bad news: everything else is horrible, and nobody knows this.

In our society, at this level of technology the understanding of anatomy was really weak due to taboos about violating the dead to study it. As mentioned in the section on Mysteries, orcs learn how to identify wounds made by different weapons at a young age. Over the centuries, there have been lots of examinations and drawings of victims on the battlefield, and comparisons to those who die by other means. I thought about going into more detail of the process, but figured that the squeamish might not like hearing too much.

The result is that the Orc Library probably has the most detailed anatomical drawings in the world -- largely of orcs, though some of just about any sentients they’ve waged significant wars against --  with detailed close-ups of bones, musculature, organs, etc. The drawings are so good that one of the books is stained because when a page with a drawing of a bone was left open, the family wolf tried to lick it, thinking it was real. (The librarians determined the damage was minor; had it been bad enough they’d have budgeted to repair the page as much as possible, passing the expense along if they thought the patron was to blame.)

There are two tragedies here, though. First, few physicians are aware of the resources this library could offer. The minor enlightenment going on in human society would benefit greatly from this, but they’d never consider looking to Orc medical books for advice, because every other race knows orc medicine is horrible. (Even orcs don’t think of these as necessarily medical. Some of these books are catalogued as art.)

One reason for the extensive illustration of wounds is that treatment for an injury depends on what inflicted says orc science. According to one popular book, if someone is cut with a sword, a doctor might rub it with a raw bird’s liver so the iron taste of the liver draws out the iron of the blade. But if they are cut with a halberd, an ointment made with fermented fruits must be applied with a piece of straw.  When a half-elf druid watching one treatment mentioned that his elders had taught him to wash any wound with clear spring water and bandage it, one orc doctor couldn’t stop laughing.

If someone is offering to treat you with some of the medical advice books here -- and some of them are probably more folk remedies than based on any theory whatsoever -- say no. At best, you’ll get a placebo effect.

Fortunately, a lot of orcs don’t like to get medical treatment, believing it’s a sign of weakness to see a doctor. Also fortunately, the placebo effect is pretty good in making you feel better, if the doctor doesn’t actively make things worse. Still, if you need healing in Roc Claw, try the temple, not the surgery.

Let’s move on to the more interesting books in the 600s.

There are a fair number of cookbooks/domestic books. Normally the primary housekeeper in a family (orcs never had “housewives,” though sometimes one parent does more of the childcare and cooking than the other). It’s pretty common for them to keep a journal of recipes, tips for getting blood stains out of fabrics, tricks for dealing with a colicky baby, etc. About a dozen have been donated to the library. You’ve also got a guide from the head chef of the Chieftain of Fang Valley detailing his recipes.

Orc cuisine tends to be non-fussy, but it’s wrong to think that it’s just throwing meat on a fire until it’s charred. First of all, they eat a much wider varieties of meat than we do. They’re good hunters, but not so good that they can just use prime cuts of venison and throw away the less tasty organ meats. And if you’ve killed a manticore that was terrorizing the town, why let all that meat go to waste? Only the stinger is inedible, even if a lot of the rest of it is chewy and stringy.

Orcs are also big fans of bold seasoning. They often create pungent marinades and use strong spices. While these are primarily for flavor and not for health, other civilizations describe the cuisine as rich in warming spices.

As hinted at earlier, Del’kar, the patron god of Roc Claw, loves spicy foods. There’s a list of common dishes to be prepared on his feast days, some of which are best made with chilis imported from hundreds of miles away. Another uses almost equal parts meat and horseradish in a stew.

Vegetables are usually garnish, though there’s a fair number of ‘mock meat’ dishes for times of poverty or lean hunting, where you try to get vegetables to have the texture or flavor of meat. Lots of mushrooms.

Orc desserts are not bad, but lack any subtlety at all. Many are cloyingly sweet. One calls for fruit to be poached in honey, cooled and rolled in sugar, and served with a syrup. Others are a combination of sweetness with mouth puckeringly sour ingredients.

There’s quite a few other cookbooks from other races as well.  I won’t go into all the details, but if you’re cooking, remember that measurements are almost completely informal. When an orc says ‘add half a glass of this ingredient’ she usually means half of a large stein. An elf probably refers to a much tinier vessel designed to bring out the full flavor of their intricate wines.

Despite popular belief, orcs do not eat the flesh of sentient humanoids. There is a cookbook which includes a recipe for roast human in one of the volumes in the library submitted as a popular example of troglodyte cooking. That book was actually written by a human, though, and some people think it was made up to play up how horrible troglodytes can be.

SIdebar: A sample orc recipe

Double stone stew is a stew made with basilisk and plums (which are a stone fruit, thus the name). It is considered a festive dish because you need to hunt a dangerous creature to make it. Here is an authentic orc recipe from the library for it, and a version that you can try at home.

Take off the head for it be unhealthy to look at and then to the orchard go and gather a helmet and half again a helmet of plums that are best in summer. If the basilisk were killed in winter, use scant half a helmet of dried plums soaked. Add to these four salamander peppers that have been crushed with a fishful of onions wild and herbs redolent of the earth. Mix thusly with honey and strong plum wine till it makes a thin paste and place this in a large pot. Cover close and leave near a small flame from noon until sunset. To plate it best is with humor.

Since basilisk meat is outlawed in most places around here, I’m substituting. Apparently it tastes a lot like iguana, but that isn’t really available  where I live so I’m using brisket for an earthy taste. I’m also assuming you don’t live near an orchard and will be simplifying the preparation a lot:

1 large (8-10 pound) brisket

1 jar (32 ounces) of plum sauce

3 habanero peppers, finely diced

2 large onions, chopped

Salt to taste

1 teaspoon dried thyme

1 teaspoon dried rosemary

1 cup slivovitz or plum wine

2 cups water, or more alcohol

Put all ingredients in a large pot. Cover it tightly. Bake in a 275 degree oven for five to six hours. The dish is often served in a slightly silly fashion. Sometimes a toy action figure is placed on the edge of the platter, as if the dish has turned it to stone. For a more adult version, two large oranges, onions or similar round foods are placed on either side towards the rear of the long brisket, making a risque double stone meaning.

[Adventure seed: You know that human doctors might be able to do something with all this knowledge of where a spleen actually is, if you can just convince them to come and visit the section. Good luck overcoming the prejudice and explaining the idea of a lending library.]

[Adventure seed: Or maybe you think those anatomy books are works of beauty. If you could find other illustrations by the writer they’re probably worth a lot of money. Adventure time!]

[Adventure seed: You’ve been going out with someone for a while, and they say they miss their mother’s famous jackelope and rust monster stew. They have the recipe but are a lousy cook. You agree to make it. Now all you need to do is find the rare beasts and strange ingredients, and decipher the horrible shorthand in the recipe. Remember: do not use a metal knife to butcher the rust monster!]

#TheOrcLibrary

[goddessgardener]

Light the Night

By Cynthia Brian

“Moon and stars are giving light. With gifts of nature’s giving, we complete the cycle of living. Let us give from our mind, hands, and heart to the world.” Chitrabhanu

It was a holiday tradition for our family of seven to pile into our old station wagon to head to the hills of San Francisco to experience the beauty of the decorated homes in Pacific Heights. We called our favorite street, Teddy Bear Lane, and, since we were so young we didn’t know it’s real name. (And I still don’t know where it was!) It was spectacular with a full block of beautiful Victorians lit up with teddy bears flanked by  flickering candles in every window. Another street boasted sparkling reindeer, glistening snowmen, serene nativity scenes, and some even showcased Santa and his sleigh on the steep rooftops. Gardens twinkled with illumination making the night merry and bright.

After all the “oohing and ahhing”, we’d head to Fisherman’s Wharf to pick up fresh crabs for our Christmas Eve meal, then wander down to Ghiradelli for a cup of hot cocoa.  The coins we had been saving all year to help children enjoy a festive celebration were deposited into the bucket of the man ringing the bell from the Salvation Army. We kids dreamt of sugarplums, teddy bears, star-studded skies, and busy elves on the two-hour drive back to the ranch as we anxiously anticipated the excitement of the season.  It was a deeply satisfying annual excursion, the kind that etches itself into one’s memory forever.  

Since we lived in the middle of nowhere, down a mile long lane with no street lamps to light the night, our fear was that Santa wouldn’t be able to find our farmhouse, much less our chimney. To ease our worries, our parents lit two acres of our fields, orchards, and gardens, creating a virtual runway as a navigational guide to steer Rudolph to the right place. We pulled carrots from the vegetable garden to nourish the tired reindeer.  Naturally we baked gingerbread cookies as a treat for Jolly St Nick accompanied by a big glass of milk and a note of gratitude for his generosity. We hoped his list had checked us off as “nice” instead of “naughty”.

This December as I drive around local neighborhoods, I am reliving the joyfulness of my youth without having to drive to Teddy Bear Lane in San Francisco. Residents who celebrate Christmas adorn their houses, trees, shrubs, and gardens with garlands, wreaths, ornaments, and twinkling lights of every color.  The décor is rich, festive, and fun.  It takes time and patience to unravel a string of lights, especially if they are from a previous year, but the rewards are worth the trouble.

Aside from raking leaves, mulching, planting cover crops, and transplanting cuttings, there isn’t too much work to do in a December garden. Across the country, most landscapes are setting in for their winter slumber. With less chores to accomplish, I champion a different decorating challenge every day with the final goal of having the crape myrtle trees on my driveway shimmer under the glinting moonlight.  I’ll be snipping fresh redwood, cypress, and pine boughs for their fresh forest scent to add to doors and windows adorned with holly and pistache berries. Poinsettias are already on the porch and vases of blooming narcissci perfume the bathrooms.  Amaryllis is budding in anticipation of a December 25th appearance.

This is an enchanted time of year. Take time to savor the seconds with family and friends as you watch the lights of the nights.  Offer your heart.  Bequeath your soul. Gift suggestions that cost you nothing include forgiving someone who has inured you, being a role model to young people, providing kindness to all, while respecting and loving yourself.

As Norman Vincent Peale wrote, "Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful."  May the magic of this blessed time shine a light on you and your loved ones. Merry Christmas from my home to yours,.

Cynthia Brian’s Mid Month Garden Guide

CLEAN the dead leaves from bearded iris to prevent rot and insect hideouts.

CUT boughs of evergreens to mold into wreaths and garlands.

PLANT a cover crop to increase nitrogen and protect again winter erosion. Fava beans, clover, vetch, and mustard are excellent choices. To find seeds visit www.rareseeds.com or www.sowtrueseed.com.

GIVE the gift of my new book, Growing with the Goddess Gardener, twelve months of inspiration and gardening tips to sustain your inner gardener with a full year of kindness and happiness in nature. Buy directly from www.cynthiabrian.com/online-store and 25% is a donation to Be the Star You Are!® charity PLUS you’ll receive extra goodies and an autographed copy.

FEED the birds. Baby, it’s cold outside and our birds need food and shelter. Make sure to clean your birdhouses and feeders regularly.

WATCH for rats and mice. As the cold weather begins, vermin seek a warm bed and easy to find food.

CHECK plants that you’ve brought inside for the winter for any insect infestation.

WATER your Christmas trees. If you purchased a cut tree, make sure it has plenty of water throughout the month as indoor heat will quickly dry out any conifer.

COVER frost tender plants with burlap, sheets, newspaper, or straw. Be on the alert for swift temperature swings.

REMOVE the longer canes from wisteria.

PRUNE crape myrtles and fruit trees once all the leaves have dropped.

RAKE leaves as they fall and add to compost pile. Allow ½ inch to an inch of leaves to remain on the soil.  Compost the rest.

PERUSE garden catalogues and read books about landscaping as you curl up with s cup of hot chocolate or licorice cinnamon tea.

PREVENT snails and slugs from devouring your plants by adding copper strips or bowls of stale beer to the perimeter of your garden.

PICK UP guavas that fall and use for jams or juices.

ADD a bow of freshly picked Meyer lemons to your countertop as a useful culinary display.

FILL your Christmas tree or Hannukah bush with every family ornament that you’ve been saving for years! Nostalgia reigns supreme.

BUY a small living cypress tree to use as an inexpensive Christmas tree in lieu of a cut fir. Some stores have been selling three-four feet specimens for less than $8.00.

VISIT an Asian market to buy the delicious exotic Dragon fruit.

SELECT colorful and easy to grow crotons or ginger plants to add a fantasy island fling to your festivities.

WATCH for snow plants to sprout in the Sierras.

MAKE a tax-deductible donation to help with hurricanes & California fires disaster relief at www.BetheStarYouAre.org.  Every dollar counts. Be the Star You Are!® cares.

It is the season of giving and sharing. Have yourselves a very Merry Christmas.

Read more: https://www.lamorindaweekly.com/archive/issue1121/Digging-Deep-with-Cynthia-Brian-Light-the-night.html

Happy Gardening and Happy Growing!

Cynthia Brian

Cynthia Brian, The Goddess Gardener, raised in the vineyards of Napa County, is a New York Times best selling author, actor, radio personality, speaker, media and writing coach as well as the Founder and Executive Director of Be the Star You Are1® 501 c3. Tune into Cynthia’s Radio show and order her books at www.StarStyleRadio.com. My new book, Growing with the Goddess Gardener, is available at www.cynthiabrian.com/online-store. Available for hire. [email protected] www.GoddessGardener.com

#christmas lights december holidays gardening digging deep vegetables growing with the goddess gardener lamorinda weekly cynthia brian starst

[lindakristiposts]

CHEAP FLIGHTS TO PARIS FROM WASHINGTON DC

Looking For Cheap Flights To PARIS From WASHINGTN DC

ABOUT WASHINGTON

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as "Washington", "the District", or simply "D.C.", is the capital of the United States.

The signing of the Residence Act on July 16, 1790, approved the creation of a capital district located along the Potomac River on the country's East Coast. The U.S. Constitution provided for a federal district under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Congress and the District is therefore not a part of any state. The states of Maryland and Virginia each donated land to form the federal district, which included the pre-existing settlements of Georgetown and Alexandria. Named in honor of President George Washington, the City of Washington was founded in 1791 to serve as the new national capital. In 1846, Congress returned the land originally ceded by Virginia; in 1871, it created a single municipal government for the remaining portion of the District.

Washington had an estimated population of 681,170 as of July 2016. Commuters from the surrounding Maryland and Virginia suburbs raise the city's population to more than one million during the workweek. The Washington metropolitan area, of which the District is the principal city, has a population of over 6 million, the sixth-largest metropolitan statistical area in the country.

The centers of all three branches of the federal government of the United States are in the District, including the Congress, President, and Supreme Court. Washington is home to many national monuments and museums, which are primarily situated on or around the National Mall. The city hosts 176 foreign embassies as well as the headquarters of many international organizations, trade unions, non-profit organizations, lobbying groups, and professional associations.

A locally elected mayor and a 13‑member council have governed the District since 1973. However, the Congress maintains supreme authority over the city and may overturn local laws. D.C. residents elect a non-voting, at-large congressional delegate to the House of Representatives, but the District has no representation in the Senate. The District receives three electoral votes in presidential elections as permitted by the Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1961.

Flying time from Washington, DC to Paris, France

The total flight duration from Washington, DC to Paris, France is 8 hours, 11 minutes.

This assumes an average flight speed for a commercial airliner of 500 mph, which is equivalent to 805 km/h or 434 knots. It also adds an extra 30 minutes for take-off and landing. Your exact time may vary depending on wind speeds.

If you're planning a trip, remember to add more time for the plane to taxi between the gate and the airport runway. This measurement is only for the actual flying time. You should also factor in airport wait times and possible equipment or weather delays. If you're trying to figure out what time you'll arrive at the destination, you may want to see if there's a time difference between Washington, DC and Paris, France.

The calculation of flight time is based on the straight line flight distance from Washington, DC to Paris, France ("as the crow flies"), which is about 3,840 miles or 6 180 kilometers.

Your trip begins in Washington, District of Columbia.

It ends in Paris, France.

Your flight direction from Washington, DC to Paris, France is Northeast (52 degrees from North).

The flight time calculator measures the average flight duration between points. It uses the great circle formula to compute the travel mileage.

Time Difference

Paris is 6 hours ahead

Airports near Destination

Paris Orly Airport (ORY)

Paris Charles De Gaulle Airport (CDG)

Beauvais-Tillé Airport (BVA)

Things to do in WASHINGTON DC

Take flight at the National Air & Space Museum

Where else but in DC's Air & Space Museum can you see missiles, aircraft and space stations, all without stepping outside the city limits? In the museum's central Milestones of Flight hall, towering US Pershing-II and Soviet SS-20 nuclear missiles stand next to the popular moon rock station, where visitors can touch a lunar sample acquired on the 1972 Apollo 17 mission. Permanent exhibitions in the museum detail the history of jet aviation, space travel and satellite communications. The gallery also often features live presentations with guest astronauts and space pioneers. 

Get in touch with your roots at the National Museum of Natural History

There is so much to see at the Museum of Natural History, it can be a bit daunting. Adults will want to spend time in the Kenneth E Behring Hall of Mammals, featuring interactive displays alongside 274 stuffed animals striking dramatic poses; browse the sparkling gem and mineral collection; and explore the David H Koch Hall of Human Origins for an in-depth look at human evolution. The museum is also a real magnet for children: its Dinosaur Hall has an assortment of fierce-looking dinosaur skeletons and a 3.4-billion-year-old stromatolite; tarantulas and other live arthropods ripe for petting inhabit the Insect Zoo.

Get in touch with nature at Rock Creek Park

Rock Creek Park is DC's favorite place for biking, skating, running and even horseback riding. With 32 miles of trails, plus paved roads for biking (many of which are closed to vehicular traffic on weekends), you can easily spend an entire day stretching your legs in the park. While you're there, you can also explore the old mill and the site of the Civil War battle at Fort Stevens. The park now offers free, guided cell phone tours to learn about the history of the park's surroundings. If you're interested in flora and fauna, the Nature Center offers guided hikes; alternatively, you can check out the highly entertaining Creature Feature program (4pm on Fridays), which takes a close look at the park’s wildlife. Inside Pierce Barn, kids can try on period clothing and play with 19th-century toys. The planetarium (on the park’s western edge) hosts several free shows—check the website for details.

We compare cheap flights to Paris from thousands of cities across hundreds of airlines and hundreds of travel websites from all over the world. We can find the cheapest flights to Paris with no commission or additional cost to you. and you could also find cheap hotels with good rooms and services. We find the best flight deals and you choose the one you prefer.Compare On A Wide Choice Of Flights & Hotels! Smart Search. Made Simple · Search quickly · Find Lowest Prices · 100% secure booking

Jam at the 9:30 Club

Once a tiny, art-scene dive on F Street, renowned for its heat (and smell), the 9:30 Club relocated in 1996. Now it's situated in the trendy U Street Corridor, and boasts state-of-the-art sound and ventilation, as well as a good selection of microbrews. A few long-lived (or reunited) punk and post-punk bands have played both incarnations, among them Wire, the Feelies and Mission of Burma, but these days the club features an eclectic mix of artists. At the time of writing, Kraftwerk, Better Than Ezra, Pat Green, The Both (Aimee Mann and Ted Leo), Mogwai and HAIM were all on the upcoming program. Make sure to arrive early and scope out the best vantage point to ensure a good view.

See history up close and personal at the National Archives

The vast collection of the National Archive & Record Administration (NARA) represents the physical record of the birth and growth of a nation in original documents, maps, photos, recordings, films and a miscellany of artifacts. The catalogue includes the Louisiana Purchase, maps of Lewis and Clark’s explorations, the Japanese World War II surrender document, the gun that shot JFK, the Watergate tapes, an original copy of the Magna Carta and the Charters of Freedom (the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence). The Public Vaults, where most of the documents on permanent display are housed, has over 1,000 items on display at any one time.

Eat and drink everything at Rose's Luxury

Local chef Aaron Silverman’s two-story Barrack’s Row joint is worth every little bit of the buzz it’s currently getting. Rose’s doesn’t take reservations and a line forms at 4pm on weekends for a 5:30pm seating; but don’t let this be too offputting. Because dining here really is, as the neon sign hung downstairs near the kitchen says, “awesome.” Rose’s menu is Southern-meets-Jewish-meets-Japanese-meets-French-meets-Thai-meets-your grandmother’s home cooking, and changes often. The Southern-style fried chicken drizzled with honey and doused with sesame seeds is crisp, moist, delicious and our new best friend. If you’re with a large group, don’t miss the family-style smoked brisket dinner. Just one forkful of this warm, tender dish—served with a cheeky wink on a literal silver platter, no less—will make you a believer.

Celebrate the freedom of the press at the Newseum

The line of stands by the Newseum's Pennsylvania Avenue entrance, filled with copies of today’s front pages from newspapers around the world, draws passers-by to this museum dedicated to journalism and free speech. Once inside, make sure you catch the museum's stunning highlights, including eight large, graffitied sections of the Berlin Wall, an East German watchtower, the upper section of the antenna mast from the World Trade Center’s North Tower, the Pulitzer Prize photographs gallery, and the Unabomber (Theodore Kaczynski)'s cabin. Browse through the News History exhibition, built around the museum’s collection of over 30,000 newspapers, which traces more than 500 years of news. The exhibit also explores issues of media bias and credibility, the modern phenomena of blogging and "citizen journalists," and the 24-hour-rolling-news reality.

Unleash your inner Parisian at Le Diplomate

This hopping French restaurant cost over $6 million to build, and it shows. Not a single detail is overlooked in attempts to make it look and feel like you’re in Europe: The floors have the perfect squeak, the bread baskets overflow and the burger comes with a miniature French flag staked on top. In the warmer months, grab a seat on the sidewalk or covered patio. If you want to be the envy of all your dinner mates (and you’ve got money to burn), order a signature seafood tower which comes filled to the brim with glistening crustaceans of all sorts.

Make your wish come true with the help of Yoko Ono at the Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden

One of the city’s most dynamic and boundary-pushing modern art museums, the Hirshhorn promises something new every time you visit. Nearly every exhibition causes a stir (including, recently, Yayoi Kusama’s trippy “Infinity Mirrors”) while the permanent collection is a visual slap in the face—particularly Barbara Kruger’s flashy “Belief and Doubt” installation. Up for a stroll? Don’t miss the sculpture garden, which is filled with works from the likes of Auguste Rodin, Louise Bourgeois and Yoko Ono, who in 2007 donated a piece entitled “A Wish Tree for Washington, DC.” Visitors are encouraged to whisper their desires into the branches in the hopes that they come true.

Commune with the animals at the National Zoological Park

The free-admission National Zoological Park, part of the Smithsonian Institution, is a must-visit at any time of the year; but it’s particularly charming during the off-season, when foot traffic levels are more manageable. The zoo offers a quiet escape from the traffic on Connecticut Avenue, with tree-shaded paths winding through the margins past the various animals. The Zoo is home to about 2,000 animals from 400 different species, and includes both indoor and outdoor exhibits. The stars are two Giant Pandas, Mei Xiang and Tian Tian, who are on loan from the China Wildlife Conservation Association until 2015. Don’t miss the Christmas Zoo Lights, a fantastic LED spectacle that includes light and music shows, snow tubing, a trackless train tour, raffles, dancing, contests and—last but certainly not least—wintry food and drinks such as mulled cider, roasted nuts and eggnog.

Take a selfie with Vincent van Gogh at the National Gallery of Art

Now is a better time than ever to visit the National Gallery of Art, the gargantuan museum located smack-dab on the National Mall. Following an extensive renovation to the East Building, the museum showcases an impressive collection of modern art, including Katharina Fritsch’s playful Hahn/Cock—a gigantic royal blue rooster perched on the roof. There are countless other notable works of art, including a self portrait of Vincent van Gogh from 1889. A year-round playground, the museum’s sculpture garden offers free, live jazz concerts in the summer and ice skating in the winter.

Celebrate spring at the National Cherry Blossom Festival

Nothing says spring in DC like the appearance of the cherry blossoms along the Potomac. The trees, which were planted in 1912 as a gift from the people of Japan to those of the United States, are virtually venerated by DC visitors and residents alike as a symbol of spring’s imminent arrival. The annual National Cherry Blossom Festival, which was first celebrated in 1935, celebrates the change of seasons and the beauty of the cherry blossoms (not to mention Japanese-American friendship). Highlights of past editions include the Blossom Kite Festival, concerts by Japanese jazz musicians and a grand sake tasting.

Chill out at Meridian Hill Park

On a lazy weekend, head to Columbia Heights, where you'll find 12-acre Meridian Hill Park (also unofficially known as "Malcolm X Park"). It was dubbed Meridian Hill Park because it’s positioned due north of the White House, thus forming a longitudinal meridian for DC. The Park is filled with sculptures and memorials, including statues of Joan of Arc, Dante and James Buchanan, the 15th US President. Pack a picnic and hang out in front of the Cascading Waterfall in the formal garden, or visit the upper mall area, where concerts and events are often staged. On Sundays, a regular drum circle takes place from 3 to 9pm. Listen, dance or even join in on the drumming if you're rhythmically inclined.

Travel the world without ever leaving your seat Compass Rose

Three words: Get the khachapuri. Though you might not be able to pronounce it, you’ll be glad you tried this Georgian (the country) delicacy made from bread, melted cheese, butter and a raw egg. It’s one of many worldy dishes available at this woman-owned and -run restaurant off 14th Street. Inspired by her travels, owner Rose Previte cherry picked her favorite meals abroad and serves them in one place. Sunday brunch promises bottomless mimosas and shakshuka, a can’t-miss dish made from tomato sauce, onions egg and cheese. And no matter the evening, there’s usually a party raging late-night with conversations being held in multiple languages.

Cost of Living Comparison Between PARIS and WASHINGTON DC

You would need around 6,131.87$ in Washington, DC to maintain the same standard of life that you can have with 5,238.54$ (4,400.00€) in Paris (assuming you rent in both cities). This calculation uses our Cost of Living Plus Rent Index to compare cost of living. This assumes net earnings (after income tax). You can change the amount in this calculation.

Indices Difference                                                Info

Consumer Prices in Washington, DC are   0.25% higher than in Paris

Consumer Prices Including Rent in Washington, DC are 17.05% higher than in Paris

Rent Prices in Washington, DC are 50.68% higher than in Paris

Restaurant Prices in Washington, DC are 5.34% lower than in Paris

Groceries Prices in Washington, DC are 2.32% higher than in Paris

Local Purchasing Power in Washington, DC is 34.66% higher than in Paris

Restaurants

 Paris

Washington, DC

Difference

Meal, Inexpensive Restaurant

16.67 $ (14.00 €)

15.00 $ (12.60 €)

     -10.01 %

Meal for 2 People, Mid-range Restaurant, Three-course

59.53 $ (50.00 €)

63.50 $ (53.34 €)

     +6.67 %

McMeal at McDonalds (or Equivalent Combo Meal)

9.52 $ (8.00 €)

7.00 $ (5.88 €)

     -26.51 %

Domestic Beer (0.5 liter draught)

7.14 $ (6.00 €)

6.00 $ (5.04 €)

     -16.01 %

Imported Beer (0.33 liter bottle)

7.14 $ (6.00 €)

8.00 $ (6.72 €)

     +11.99 %

Cappuccino (regular)

4.10 $ (3.44 €)

4.35 $ (3.66 €)

     +6.26 %

Coke/Pepsi (0.33 liter bottle)

3.27 $ (2.75 €)

1.87 $ (1.57 €)

     -42.77 %

Water (0.33 liter bottle)

2.17 $ (1.83 €)

1.62 $ (1.36 €)

     -25.45 %

Markets

 Paris

Washington, DC

Difference

Milk (regular), (1 liter)

1.23 $ (1.03 €)

0.99 $ (0.83 €)

     -19.97 %

Loaf of Fresh White Bread (500g)

1.72 $ (1.45 €)

3.11 $ (2.61 €)

     +80.49 %

Rice (white), (1kg)

2.07 $ (1.74 €)

4.16 $ (3.50 €)

     +101.27 %

Eggs (regular) (12)

3.46 $ (2.90 €)

3.29 $ (2.76 €)

     -4.98 %

Local Cheese (1kg)

18.32 $ (15.39 €)

13.07 $ (10.98 €)

     -28.66 %

Chicken Breasts (Boneless, Skinless), (1kg)

13.35 $ (11.21 €)

11.20 $ (9.41 €)

     -16.10 %

Beef Round (1kg) (or Equivalent Back Leg Red Meat)

22.70 $ (19.06 €)

13.68 $ (11.49 €)

     -39.71 %

Apples (1kg)

2.96 $ (2.48 €)

4.69 $ (3.94 €)

     +58.55 %

Banana (1kg)

2.48 $ (2.08 €)

1.58 $ (1.33 €)

     -36.08 %

Oranges (1kg)

2.76 $ (2.32 €)

3.79 $ (3.18 €)

     +37.04 %

Tomato (1kg)

3.22 $ (2.71 €)

4.37 $ (3.67 €)

     +35.51 %

Potato (1kg)

1.96 $ (1.64 €)

2.20 $ (1.85 €)

     +12.49 %

Onion (1kg)

2.60 $ (2.18 €)

2.98 $ (2.51 €)

     +14.74 %

Lettuce (1 head)

1.57 $ (1.32 €)

2.14 $ (1.80 €)

     +35.92 %

Water (1.5 liter bottle)

0.90 $ (0.75 €)

2.29 $ (1.92 €)

     +154.95 %

Bottle of Wine (Mid-Range)

8.33 $ (7.00 €)

16.00 $ (13.44 €)

     +91.98 %

Domestic Beer (0.5 liter bottle)

2.30 $ (1.93 €)

3.67 $ (3.08 €)

     +59.51 %

Imported Beer (0.33 liter bottle)

2.67 $ (2.24 €)

4.00 $ (3.36 €)

     +49.84 %

Pack of Cigarettes (Marlboro)

8.33 $ (7.00 €)

8.89 $ (7.47 €)

     +6.73 %

Transportation

 Paris

Washington, DC

Difference

One-way Ticket (Local Transport)

2.26 $ (1.90 €)

2.50 $ (2.10 €)

     +10.52 %

Monthly Pass (Regular Price)

86.91 $ (73.00 €)

210.00 $ (176.39 €)

     +141.62 %

Taxi Start (Normal Tariff)

4.56 $ (3.83 €)

3.50 $ (2.94 €)

     -23.24 %

Taxi 1km (Normal Tariff)

1.55 $ (1.30 €)

1.52 $ (1.28 €)

     -1.64 %

Taxi 1hour Waiting (Normal Tariff)

41.93 $ (35.22 €)

25.00 $ (21.00 €)

     -40.37 %

Gasoline (1 liter)

1.65 $ (1.39 €)

0.66 $ (0.55 €)

     -60.17 %

Volkswagen Golf 1.4 90 KW Trendline (Or Equivalent New Car)

23,811.54 $ (20,000.00 €)

20,000.00 $ (16,798.58 €)

     -16.01 %

Toyota Corolla 1.6l 97kW Comfort (Or Equivalent New Car)

22,819.39 $ (19,166.67 €)

21,279.38 $ (17,873.16 €)

     -6.75 %

Utilities (Monthly)

 Paris

Washington, DC

Difference

Basic (Electricity, Heating, Water, Garbage) for 85m2 Apartment

181.50 $ (152.45 €)

125.64 $ (105.53 €)

     -30.78 %

1 min. of Prepaid Mobile Tariff Local (No Discounts or Plans)

0.25 $ (0.21 €)

0.10 $ (0.08 €)

     -59.31 %

Internet (60 Mbps or More, Unlimited Data, Cable/ADSL)

31.39 $ (26.37 €)

61.93 $ (52.02 €)

     +97.27 %

Sports And Leisure

 Paris

Washington, DC

Difference

Fitness Club, Monthly Fee for 1 Adult

56.89 $ (47.79 €)

65.88 $ (55.33 €)

     +15.80 %

Tennis Court Rent (1 Hour on Weekend)

16.13 $ (13.55 €)

19.62 $ (16.48 €)

     +21.68 %

Cinema, International Release, 1 Seat

12.20 $ (10.25 €)

13.00 $ (10.92 €)

     +6.53 %

Childcare

 Paris

Washington, DC

Difference

Preschool (or Kindergarten), Private, Monthly for 1 Child

704.42 $ (591.67 €)

1,962.50 $ (1,648.36 €)

     +178.60 %

International Primary School, Yearly for 1 Child

20,477.92 $ (17,200.00 €)

18,000.00 $ (15,118.72 €)

     -12.10 %

Clothing And Shoes

 Paris

Washington, DC

Difference

1 Pair of Jeans (Levis 501 Or Similar)

96.26 $ (80.85 €)

47.39 $ (39.80 €)

     -50.77 %

1 Summer Dress in a Chain Store (Zara, H&M, ...)

45.56 $ (38.27 €)

33.33 $ (28.00 €)

     -26.83 %

1 Pair of Nike Running Shoes (Mid-Range)

103.99 $ (87.34 €)

74.65 $ (62.70 €)

     -28.22 %

1 Pair of Men Leather Business Shoes

143.93 $ (120.89 €)

114.85 $ (96.46 €)

     -20.21 %

Rent Per Month

 Paris

Washington, DC

Difference

Apartment (1 bedroom) in City Centre

1,286.34 $ (1,080.43 €)

2,155.30 $ (1,810.30 €)

     +67.55 %

Apartment (1 bedroom) Outside of Centre

985.12 $ (827.43 €)

1,624.61 $ (1,364.56 €)

     +64.91 %

Apartment (3 bedrooms) in City Centre

2,799.31 $ (2,351.22 €)

3,845.00 $ (3,229.53 €)

     +37.36 %

Apartment (3 bedrooms) Outside of Centre

1,840.37 $ (1,545.78 €)

2,788.89 $ (2,342.47 €)

     +51.54 %

Buy Apartment Price

 Paris

Washington, DC

Difference

Price per Square Meter to Buy Apartment in City Centre

11,735.56 $ (9,857.03 €)

6,145.37 $ (5,161.68 €)

     -47.63 %

Price per Square Meter to Buy Apartment Outside of Centre

8,009.61 $ (6,727.50 €)

2,918.99 $ (2,451.74 €)

     -63.56 %

Salaries And Financing

 Paris

Washington, DC

Difference

Average Monthly Net Salary (After Tax)

2,760.01 $ (2,318.21 €)

4,350.28 $ (3,653.92 €)

     +57.62 %

Mortgage Interest Rate in Percentages (%), Yearly

1.93

3.66

     +89.48 %

Last update:

September 2017

September 2017

Contributors:

414

210

Data from past:

18 months

18 months

Currency: USD

SOURCE www.nu mbeo.com

International departures to Paris

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Best Things to do in PARIS

The list of must-dos in Paris is long. Don’t feel like you have to do all of them, just pick the ones that interest you the most otherwise you’ll run yourself ragged. One attraction that few people can resist is, of course, the Eiffel Tower - the most popular attraction in Paris. Standing at 320 metres high, the famous iron lattice structure is one of the most recognisable structures in the world and offers a fantastic view of Paris during the day and at night.

Another Paris icon is the Arc de Triomphe, located on the western end of the Champs-Elysees. The famous structure was built in 1836 to honour French soldiers who fought and died in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars and makes a grand sight on the legendary boulevard of Paris.

With over 200 museums in Paris, it’s inevitable that you'll wander into one eventually. The Louvre is the most popular but if the crowds don’t appeal, Musee d’Orsay is nearby or the Picasso Museum in Le Marais may be more suitable. History buffs who aren’t afraid of the dark should also check out the Catacombs. Join a tour to avoid being spooked and wander the ossuary that holds the remains of over 6 million people. Another curious sight in Paris is the Musee des Egouts de Paris, better known as the Paris Sewer Musuem, where you can take a whiffy wander underground and along the city's sewer system.

Culinary travellers who prefer to eat and drink their way through their destinations will find plenty of places to treat their taste buds. Don’t miss feasting on delicate macaroons from Laduree and falafel in Le Marais’ Jewish area and all the gateaux you can stomach. After all, Marie Antoinette did say: "Let them eat cake!".

For more must-dos in Paris, check our list below:

Eiffel Tower

If ever there was a must-do in Paris it's the Eiffel Tower. A must-see, even just to say you saw it. For some, just a photo of it will do, while others will want to walk around it, climb it, eat on it, watch it at night and visit it again and again.

Palace of Versailles

Once home to a few royal Louis and the infamous Queen of France, the royal chateau of Versailles is a stunning monument to French opulence and excess that was enjoyed by the royal family from 1682 to 1789.

The Louvre

If you were to visit just one museum in Paris, nay, the world, many would argue it should be the Louvre. The historic museum located on the right bank of the Seine is after all, the most visited museum in the world. 

Shakespeare and Company

Chances are if you've seen a movie set in Paris, you've seen a glimpse of this iconic bookstore. Quaint, romantic and quintessentially Parisian, Shakespeare and Company is a writer's dream.

O

 video   Bonjour Paris | A Hyper-Lapse Film - In 4K 

Links Paris

Below you see a list of links to other relevant websites about Paris:

Paris Photos - Featured Images of Paris, Ile-de-France - TripAdvisor

Best 25+ Paris pictures ideas on Pinterest | Paris love, Paris ...

19 Stunning Photos of Paris | Travel + Leisure

Paris Pictures - A View On Cities

Free stock photos of paris · Pexels

Paris Pictures at AllPosters.com

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