#Best oil diffuser 2019

[roadrevamp]

Best car accessories to have

Best car accessories to have When it comes to enhancing your driving experience, equipping your vehicle with the right accessories can make all the difference. From practical gadgets that boost functionality to innovative tools that ensure safety, identifying the best car accessories is crucial for any car owner. These accessories not only heighten the convenience factor but can also enhance your car's aesthetics and its resale value. In this article, we'll delve into several must-have car accessories that promise to elevate your driving experience. alt="Variety of car accessories" src="https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/S18f0e7eb0b1d4fb99c7769fd9aad566bR.jpg" />

Essential Car Accessories for Every Driver

Smartphone mount for easy navigation > Car charger to keep devices powered > Dashboard camera for safety and legal protection > Portable vacuum cleaner for easy cleanups > Seat covers and floor mats for interior protection > Tire pressure gauge to maintain optimal tire health >

src="https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/Sb545e007681d4e56ba56ffbf06374358P.jpg" alt="Car Air Freshener Perfume Vent Clip Electric Aroma Diffuser" /> Car Air Freshener Perfume Vent Clip Electric Aroma Diffuser Cordless with 6 Scent Small Portable Gifts Essential Oil Diffuser > href="#product-4597d76a-c8c3-4ab7-a0c2-e089db5fedce" > src="https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/S037b89c599f84244952cb1bb57e3b137k.jpg" alt="Car Mobile Phone Holder for Toyota Corolla E210" /> Car Mobile Phone Holder Car Mobile Phone Holder for Toyota Corolla E210 8/9" Screen 2019~2022 Car Mount GPS Bracket Navigation Stand Auto Accessories > href="#product-4597d76a-c8c3-4ab7-a0c2-e089db5fedce" > src="https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/S9e2b97e95db64306b710c17373f51a81F.jpg" alt="Under Seat Storage Box Drawer for Tesla Model Y" /> For Tesla Model Y Under Seat Storage Box Drawer Holder Car Organizer Accessories For Tesla Model Y 2021/2023 > href="#product-4597d76a-c8c3-4ab7-a0c2-e089db5fedce" > src="https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/S18f0e7eb0b1d4fb99c7769fd9aad566bR.jpg" alt="K2 Pro 11.3 Dash Cam 4K 2160P Car DVR" /> Best Dash Cam for Advanced Features K2 Pro 11.3" Dash Cam 4K 2160P with CarPlay & Android Auto > href="#product-4597d76a-c8c3-4ab7-a0c2-e089db5fedce" > src="https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/S13fea1064a4441e2baf1de8c93fd48f90.jpg" alt="ZITWO 11Pcs LED Interior Light Kit for VW Scirocco R" /> LED Interior Light Kit for Vehicles ZITWO 11Pcs For VW Volkswagen Scirocco R 2009-2017 LED Interior Light Trunk Courtesy Bulb Kit Canbus > href="#product-4597d76a-c8c3-4ab7-a0c2-e089db5fedce" > src="https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/Sa4a6c982798444c9b060d4323fd8eb764.jpg" alt="Car Seat Covers for various Mazda models" /> Mazda Car Seat Covers Stylish and Protective Car Seat Covers for Mazda 2, 3, 6, CX-5, CX-7, CX-3, CX-30, CX-50 (2006-2020) > href="#product-4597d76a-c8c3-4ab7-a0c2-e089db5fedce" > src="https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/Sb545e007681d4e56ba56ffbf06374358P.jpg" alt="Car Air Freshener Perfume Vent Clip Electric Aroma Diffuser" />

Car Air Freshener Perfume Vent Clip Electric Aroma Diffuser Cordless with 6 Scent Small Portable Gifts Essential Oil Diffuser

View More >Key Features > Cordless and portable design Includes 6 different scents Easy to attach to car vents >Considerations > Battery powered, may need frequent replacements Scent may be too mild for some preferences Enhance your driving experience with a refreshing and pleasant aroma. This car air freshener comes with a cordless, easy-to-install design and six different scents to choose from, ensuring your car always smells delightful. Ideal for those seeking a portable and efficient way to keep their car smelling fresh. >Type > Electric Aroma Diffuser >Feature > Cordless, Portable, 6 Scents >Use > Car air freshening src="https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/Sa4a6c982798444c9b060d4323fd8eb764.jpg" alt="Car Seat Covers for Mazda models" />

Car Seat Covers for Mazda 2 3 6 bk bl 2010 2006 2015 gh gg 2009 2017 2020 CX-5 CX-7 CX-3 2015 CX-30 CX-50 Interior Accessories

View More >Benefits > Custom fit for Mazda models Enhances interior aesthetics Durable and easy to clean >Considerations > May not fit perfectly on all listed models without adjustment Color may vary slightly from pictures These car seat covers are tailored for various Mazda models, offering both protection and a touch of elegance to your vehicle's interior. They're an excellent addition to your car accessories, aligning perfectly with the necessity of preserving the car's resale value while enhancing its appearance. >Material > High-quality fabric >Compatibility > Mazda 2, Mazda 3, Mazda 6, and various CX models >Features > Easy to install, durable, easy to clean src="https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/S13fea1064a4441e2baf1de8c93fd48f90.jpg" alt="ZITWO LED Interior Light Kit for VW Scirocco R" />

ZITWO 11Pcs For VW Volkswagen Scirocco R 2009 2010 2011 - 2014 2015 2016 2017 LED Interior Light Trunk Courtesy Bulb Kit Canbus

View More >Benefits > Enhanced interior lighting Custom fit for VW Scirocco R Easy to install Canbus compatible bulbs minimize error messages >Considerations > May require basic automotive knowledge for installation Installing LED interior lights is a simple upgrade that can significantly enhance the ambiance and visual appeal of your vehicle's interior. The ZITWO LED kit for the VW Scirocco R offers a blend of performance, ease of installation, and compatibility, making it a top pick for car enthusiasts looking to improve their vehicle's interior lighting. >Compatibility > VW Volkswagen Scirocco R 2009 to 2017 models >Kit Contents > 11 LED bulbs >Feature > Canbus compatible, minimizes error messages src="https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/S037b89c599f84244952cb1bb57e3b137k.jpg" alt="Car Mobile Phone Holder for Toyota Corolla E210" />

Car Mobile Phone Holder for Toyota Corolla E210 8/9" Screen 2019~2022 Car Mount GPS Bracket Navigation Stand Auto Accessories

View More >Benefits > Custom fit for Toyota Corolla E210 Easy installation without tools Stable and secure mounting >Considerations > May obstruct some dashboard controls Limited to certain screen sizes Enhance your driving experience with this tailor-fit car mobile phone holder designed specifically for the Toyota Corolla E210's 8/9" screen. It's an essential accessory for modern vehicles, providing you with an unobstructed view of your navigation system without compromising on safety or comfort. >Compatibility > Toyota Corolla E210 2019~2022 >Screen Size > 8/9 inches >Installation > Tool-free, easy setup src="https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/S18f0e7eb0b1d4fb99c7769fd9aad566bR.jpg" alt="K2 Pro 11.3'' Dash Cam 4K 2160P" />

K2 Pro 11.3" Dash Cam 4K 2160P Car DVR Recording Carplay & Android Auto Wireless Connection 5G WiFi GPS Navigation Dashboard

View More >Benefits > 4K Ultra HD recording for clear, detailed footage Wireless Carplay and Android Auto for seamless integration with your smartphone GPS Navigation to simplify your driving experience >Considerations > Requires initial setup for connectivity features Might need additional accessories for complete installation Incorporating a dash cam like the K2 Pro 11.3" Dash Cam into your car accessories provides safety, security, and convenience, making it an essential companion for every journey. With features such as 4K recording, wireless smartphone integration, and GPS navigation, it enhances the overall driving experience while ensuring peace of mind on the road. >Connectivity > Carplay & Android Auto wireless, 5G WiFi >Camera Resolution > 4K 2160P >Features > GPS Navigation, 5G WiFi src="https://ae01.alicdn.com/kf/S9e2b97e95db64306b710c17373f51a81F.jpg" Read the full article

[stylediarybyeapril]

Embracing the Beauty Secrets of K-Beauty

Korean makeup has taken the beauty world by storm, captivating makeup enthusiasts and skincare aficionados alike. Known for its emphasis on flawless, radiant skin and innovative products, K-Beauty has revolutionized the way we approach makeup. In this blog post, we will delve into the captivating realm of Korean makeup, unveiling its unique techniques, must-have products, and the secrets behind achieving that coveted K-Beauty glow. Get ready to embrace the allure of Korean makeup and unlock the secrets to achieving a naturally radiant and youthful appearance.

The K-Beauty Philosophy

Skin First: Central to the K-Beauty philosophy is the belief that healthy, well-nourished skin is the foundation for any makeup look. Prioritizing skincare allows you to achieve a natural, radiant complexion that enhances the effectiveness and longevity of your makeup application.

The "No-Makeup" Makeup Look: Korean makeup often revolves around the concept of enhancing your natural features, creating a "no-makeup" makeup look. This approach focuses on achieving a fresh-faced, dewy complexion with minimal coverage, allowing your skin to shine through.

The Gradient Lip: One of the signature elements of Korean makeup is the gradient lip, also known as the "just-bitten" lip. This technique involves applying a vibrant lip tint or lipstick to the center of the lips and blending it outwards, creating a soft, diffused effect that adds a youthful touch to your overall look.

Achieving the K-Beauty Glow

Skincare as Makeup Prep: Prioritize your skincare routine to create a smooth canvas for makeup application. Incorporate products like hydrating toners, lightweight moisturizers, and essence serums to achieve a well-hydrated and plump complexion.

Dewy Base: Opt for a lightweight, luminous foundation or BB cream that provides a natural and dewy finish. Alternatively, mix a liquid illuminator or a few drops of facial oil with your foundation for an extra radiant glow.

Glass Skin: The coveted "glass skin" trend focuses on achieving a clear, translucent complexion that resembles a sheet of glass. Layer hydrating serums, use a lightweight moisturizer, and incorporate a facial mist for a hydrated and glowing effect.

Fresh and Flushed Cheeks: Apply a cream or liquid blush to the apples of your cheeks, blending it upwards for a youthful and flushed appearance. Stick to soft pinks or coral shades to mimic a natural flush.

Must-Have K-Beauty Makeup Products

Cushion Foundation: A staple in Korean makeup routines, cushion foundations provide lightweight coverage, a natural finish, and often contain SPF for sun protection. They are portable and convenient for touch-ups throughout the day.

Lip Tints: Korean lip tints offer a long-lasting, vibrant pop of color while providing a lightweight and comfortable feel on the lips. They come in various shades, allowing you to experiment and achieve that gradient lip effect.

Brow Products: K-Beauty places great emphasis on well-groomed, natural-looking brows. Use brow pencils, powders, or tinted gels to fill in and shape your brows, focusing on creating a soft and feathery effect.

Highlighters: K-Beauty embraces a subtle yet radiant glow. Opt for liquid or cream highlighters to add a natural luminosity to the high points of your face, such as the cheekbones, brow bone, and Cupid's bow.

Korean makeup has captivated beauty enthusiasts worldwide with its emphasis on healthy, radiant skin and natural-looking enhancements. By embracing the K-Beauty philosophy and incorporating techniques like the "no-makeup" makeup look and gradient lips, you can achieve a fresh, youthful appearance. With a focus on skincare as the foundation, K-Beauty teaches us the importance of nourishing our skin and allowing it to shine through. So, get ready to embrace the allure of Korean makeup, and let your natural beauty take center stage with the secrets of K-Beauty.

[batrafiakhanuniverse-blog]

We Listed Top & Best Essential Oil Diffusers in 2019 with Benefits & Buyger Guide that helps you to Buy the Best Oil Diffuser From Austrila Amazon Store.

[sambatop10]

TOP 10 BEST WHOLE HOUSE HUMIDIFIER IN 2019 REVIEW

[paradisetemporarilymisplaced]

omg please drop all of your haircare knowledge, asking for a wavy/curly friend

HELLO YES I LOVE TALKING ABT THIS

So once upon a time I spent weeks on end on naturallycurly.com reading about wavy hair care specifically. I had just moved to Colorado six months before and my hair was Not loving the climate shift - the higher altitude results in dryer air and my hair was unmanageable and gross 100% of the time and I was sick of it. This article in particular was unbelievably helpful and it formed the basis of my research.

Here’s my before (spring 2019) and after (spring 2020):

(I have not really been styling my hair and/or taking selfies since then because. Pandemic. Not much point in going to that much effort just to work from home lol)

Below the cut are more specific tips for washing/styling, featuring linked articles, tutorials, and products. I do want to acknowledge that these are adapted from the methods Black women have been using to care for their (type 4) hair for generations - the methods largely work for 2&3 hair types too, but with some modifications (e.g., white people don’t generally need to add extra oil to moisturize their hair between washes). If you’re going to buy products, buy from Black-owned companies whenever possible! Ecoslay and Inahsi are two of my favorites.

Some general tips:

Know the general state of your hair. Is it dense or thin? Are the strands coarse or fine? Is it damaged from color and/or heat? If it’s dense and/or coarse, you’ll want heavier products to penetrate the strands (like gels). If it’s thin and/or fine, you’ll want lighter products to not weigh them down (like mousses). If it’s damaged, you’ll want heavy stuff with a lot of protein to get it healthy.

Protein and moisture are key to balancing your hair. Protein deficiency/excess moisture results in hair that’s too soft and doesn’t hold a curl, while moisture deficiency/excess protein is when your hair feels crunchy without anything in it. Odds are if you’ve been using sulfate-heavy products you’ll need a heavy dose of both. My hair was so protein-starved that I had to do two gelatin treatments to build it back up but I haven’t had to do anything like that since

Ingredients: cut out sulfates and silicones. Sulfates dry out your hair and silicones coat the strands and weigh it down. Ingredient labels are your friends - sulfates are pretty easy to spot (e.g., sodium laureth sulfate) and silicones usually end in ‘cone’ (e.g., dimethicone). Some people also avoid heavy oils and butters (e.g., shea butter) but it really depends on how thick your hair is and how tight your curls are. I generally avoid them because they weigh down my looser curls but others with tighter curl patterns find them moisturizing and helpful. When in doubt, plug the ingredient list into Curlsbot to see what's curl friendly and what's not.

You do not need fancy products. I've linked some of my faves in here but there's plenty of inexpensive stuff available at drug stores. @coffeecurlygirl on Instagram has some highlights where she's reviewed curl-friendly drug store products. I am also American, so product availability may be different in other places. Curl Maven (based in Ireland) is a treasure trove of product information for Europe, as well as an excellent source for curly hair care in general.

Washing:

The most important part of washing your hair and scalp isn’t the cleanser, it’s the friction. Some people find success with cowashing, which is when you use a conditioner to wash your hair. This moisturizes your scalp and prevents your hair from drying out with the cleansing agents. Others like having something more cleansing and use a sulfate-free shampoo (usually containing something like sodium olefin 14-16 sulfonate). I tend to switch cleansers whenever I wash - I like the As I Am Dry and Itchy Scalp cowash, Trader Joe’s Tea Tree Tingle shampoo, and a medicated shampoo & conditioner 2 in 1 deal. (My scalp is dry 100% of the time, it’s a struggle.) I also recommend getting a shampoo brush to really scrub it in there.

Conditioning is probably the most important step in your routine. Again, knowing your hair is really important here! Conditioners come in a huge range of heaviness. I have relatively thick hair and I like heavy conditioners. You want one that you can apply to your hair and practically feel it detangle itself. I like Giovanni conditioners best - the Deeper Moisture and Tea Tree Triple Treat are both good. You want to avoid your scalp because that’s where buildup happens, so apply to the length of your hair and squish it in (tutorial) from the bottom to form your curl clumps and ensure it penetrates each strand.

Clarifying is also something you want to do every so often. You’ll end up with some buildup on your hair no matter what so this is when you need an actual cleanser to break it down. You can get clarifying shampoos (Bumble & Bumble has one but I’ve never used it) but honestly you just need a normal sulfate shampoo. I use Suave Daily Clarifying (do not use it daily) which is like a dollar and will last forever.

After clarifying you should deep condition to restore moisture to your hair. My favorite these days is Jessicurl, but when I first started out this whole thing I needed something super protein-heavy so I used Curl Junkie’s Repair Me. In the middle of the road is something like Inahsi which is relatively balanced between moisture and protein. It all depends on what your hair needs. Apply after washing, let it sit on your hair for 30-45 minutes (use a shower cap and ideally a heat cap for max effectiveness). Rinse and style as usual.

Don’t use a normal towel to dry your hair. Terrycloth is a one-way ticket to Frizz City. You can buy microfiber towels made specifically for hair but you can also just use a tshirt. Also don’t rub your hair when you dry it, instead squeeze the water out from the bottom to preserve your curl pattern and prevent frizz.

You probably don’t have to wash your hair as often as you think. I wash my hair once or twice a week and it gets the job done. It takes much longer for curly hair to get gross and oily than for straight hair - my sister’s hair is stick straight and she has to wash every day.

Styling:

The products you use are much less important than the technique. Youtube is super helpful for demonstrations of how to apply products - reallife+curlygirl has my favorite channel for this.

Leave in conditioner is a must. I recommend finding something that’s intended to be a leave in, but some people just leave in some of the conditioner they used in the shower. Same deal, apply only to your ends, not the scalp.

After the leave in, here’s where the fun begins! Apply your styling products when your hair is soaking wet (like, immediately after your shower). I like to use a curl enhancer (eg Ecoslay’s Orange Marmalade or Uncle Funky’s Curl Magic) and then a gel over top (pretty much any drug store brand works - Aussie, LA Looks, etc.). Squish it in like you did your conditioner and use a lot of water. I legit have a mixing bowl that I keep in my shower and fill partway with water when applying so I can scoop in more water as needed. Squish until you can’t really feel the product anymore and then you’re good.

Plop your hair to set the curls (tutorial). Let it sit for 15-20 minutes. If you’re feeling extra you can add more gel once you take it down.

Diffuse dry (tutorial). DO NOT use a hair dryer without a diffuser, the direct heat is too intense and won’t give you good results.

Your hair will probably be a little crunchy after you’re done. Wait however long you want/can (at least until your hair has cooled down and it’s 100% dry) and then scrunch it out. No ramen noodle hair and your curls have set!

This can all be super overwhelming but is super worth it. You can see how much it's benefited my hair and I have no regrets. Most of these tips are things that have specifically worked for me, but if you want a more general (and better explained) quick-start guide for curl care, Curl Maven is a fantastic resource. There are a zillion places on the internet to get information, but I strongly recommend just sticking to a few: Naturally Curly, reallife+curlygirl, and Curl Maven are the best I've found and seem to cover the most ground. There's also a thriving Instagram community but proceed with caution - big Mormon mom energy over there, for whatever reason.

Finally, while the curls are great, the biggest change I’ve seen has been in the overall health of my hair. Washing less means my hair doesn’t get dried out as quickly, and even when I don’t style my hair (leave-in only and air dry) my hair still has some volume which is nuts. You don’t have to do all the styling every time you wash to get the benefits.

Hope this is helpful! Godspeed, my friend.

[arvindvk]

The aromatic smell of diffusr frarance oils greatly

affects the aura of your home.Every house has a certain

smell that can be sometimes very alluring or at times

weird. The scent around you have a physoclogical affect

on human body & mind. According to scientific studies,

essential oils have the ability to interact with the

brain and nervous system to impact mood & health.

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume 7, Number 1

Phicus

Another year, another volume of Dust, which means we’ve been collecting these brief, pithy reviews for seven years now.  This time around, we sample the usual cornucopia of genres, from ambient death metal to Iranian punk to noisy skree to shoegaze-y lookalikes to polyglot global dj grooves, with the usual stops in free jazz and improvisatory environments. Contributors include Jonathan Shaw, Bill Meyer, Ian Mathers, Jennifer Kelly, Bryon Hayes and Andrew Forell.  

Aberration — S/T (Sentient Ruin Laboratories)

Aberration by Aberration

Not sure what “ambient dark death metal” is, but recently formed band Aberration claims to play it. The “ambient” bit may be a nod to the drone that sometimes resonates deep in the mix of the three songs on this 10” EP. Other than that, Aberration’s music sounds pretty typical of the death metal created by bands on the primitive, murky end of the genre’s sonic continuum. Some of the musicians are in other, more established projects: John Hancock plays guitar and provides vocals in the widely admired death doom outfit Void Rot, Dylan Haseltine plays bass and sings for the blackened death metal (mostly black metal, it seems to me) band the Suffering Hour. Those bands have much more specific musical identities, and their intense records express the players’ clarity of vision. Perhaps Aberration wants to live up to its name, presenting something unprecedented, an unpleasant mutation — and hence, perhaps, the decision to release the vinyl version of the EP on an unusual format. That’s sort of fun. The music is not. But that’s nothing new in death metal, and to be honest, these songs don’t warrant the announcement of a new sub-subgenre. They are just fine, if you like your death metal atavistic, cavernous and claustrophobic. But an aberration? Nope. Maybe a weeping pustule. In death metal, isn’t that enough?

Jonathan Shaw

 Steve Baczkowski / Bill Nace — Success (Notice)

Success by Steve Baczkowski/Bill Nace

Dallas is synonymous with a sort of excess that begs to be perceived as success. Old TV shows, memories of oil, nation-splitting politics, you name it; it’s bigger, badder and gaudier in Dallas. A tape of a free improv show that was recorded at a Dallas bookstore might not fit your preconceptions of longhorn accomplishment, but go ahead and tell that to Steve Baczkowski and Bill Nace. If they answer at all, they might let you gently know that it’s your problem, and then pop in the tape. This 42-minute-long recording will hook you by the belt, take off into the stratosphere, drag you through an asteroid belt, and deposit your cindered remains by the bar (yes, The Wild Detectives serves liquor as well as literature) before the tape reverses. That still leaves plenty of time savor the duo’s mastery of transition, from stout-sounded duel to fading filigree framing the sounds of the cash register opening and closing. Yeah, that’s the sound of Success.

Bill Meyer

 Aidan Baker — There/Not There (Consouling Sounds)

There / Not There by Aidan Baker

Unsurprisingly, 2020 doesn’t seem to have slowed Aidan Baker (Nadja, WERL, Caudal, Hypnodrone Ensemble, and many more) much at all. Of the many records released under his own name, the recent There/Not There stands out for being a surprisingly accessible entry to his personal metal/drone/ambient/shoegaze melting pot, even given the opening 20-minute title track. “There/Not There” marries some whispery shoegaze songwriting with a beautifully monomaniacal repeating drone. Over the course of the track, it does slowly transition until we get to a crescendo as intense as any Baker’s done, but even more so than normal the unwary might get lured in by the low key, blissful opening and the frog-boiling slowness with which the tension is ratcheted up. One of the other two tracks is really just a way to section off the real noise-squall coda of “There/Not There” but then “Paris (Lost)” offers a more concise, quieter storm version of the same framework. Like a lot of Baker’s work, it sneaks up on you, but when it hits it hits hard. 

Ian Mathers

Ballrogg — Rolling Ball (Clean Feed)

Rolling Ball by Ballrogg

The Scandinavian combo Ballrogg changes direction once again on Rolling Ball. Founders Klaus Ellerhusen Holm (clarinets) and Roger Arntzen (bass), who are both Norwegian, started out reinvestigating the folksy jazz vibe of Jimmy Giuffre, then sought out a new home on the range by adding slide guitarist Ivar Grydeland. Now, incoming Swedish guitarist David Stackenäs and his rack of pedals have redirected the trio into a technology-enhanced future. Not the sci-fi imaginings of Sun Ra, but a future more like 2019 might look if you stepped straight into it from 1959; in some ways quite familiar, but in others, different enough to be disorienting. The Giuffre-esque and country elements are still there, but when punctuated by minimalist-influenced compositional flourishes and illuminated by the diffuse, digital flicker of Stackenäs’ effects, it suddenly becomes clear that those Viking cowboys didn’t put a key in the ignition before they drove out towards the horizon.

Bill Meyer

 Bipolar — S-T (Slovenly)

BIPOLAR "Bipolar" EP by Bipolar

For a band named Bipolar, with a single called “Depression,” this EP sure is a lot of fun. Two of the band’s mainstays are apparently Iranian emigres, now seeking the more permissive environs of Brooklyn. (The only hint of that exotic origin is in “Sad Clown,” where there might be an imam exhorting the faithful, but who knows? I don’t speak Farsi.) One of them sometimes plays keyboard with the Spits, and in fact, the Spits are a pretty good reference point for these hard, fast, bratty songs. “Virus” pummels a relentless pogo beat, the one-two of the drums rocketing ever faster, the shouted all-hands chorus in tumbling sync. “Fist Fight” is even more exhilarating, with its blaring, roiling guitar blast and adrenaline-raising refrain, “It’s a fist fight. It’s a fist fight.” There’s nothing profound here, but it’s a good time.

Jennifer Kelly  

 Bosq — Y Su Descarga Internacional (Bacalao)

Y Su Descarga Internacional by bosq

Bosq, a globally omnivorous DJ formerly based in Boston (real name Benjamin Woods), recently moved to Colombia, perhaps to get closer to his source material. The Colombian influence is certainly strong on Y Su Descarga Internacional, which opens with a scorching “Rumbero,” featuring the Afro-Colombian star Nidia Góngora. Dorkas, another singer from Colombia, follows immediately with “Mi Arizal,” an intricately textured dance track which erupts with fiery bursts of Latin brass. Justo Valdez, whose Son Palenque did much to define the Cartagena sound in the 1960s and 1970s, drops by for two of the album’s best tracks: a rollicking “Mambue” and the hand-drummed, bass-thumping hand-clapping “Onombitamba.” And yet the album doesn’t just document the singers and artists of Bosq’s new home. Kaleta, a Benin-based Afro-beat artist who has worked with Fela Kuti and Eqypt 80, takes the lead on funk psych “Omo Iya” and the stirring, horn squalling “Wake Up.” Bosq knows how to pick collaborators, and there’s not a dud track on the disc, but wouldn’t almost anyone sound like a genius in company like this?

Jennifer Kelly

Deuce Avenue — Death of Natural Light (Crash Symbols)

Death of Natural Light by Deuce Avenue

If you are a lurker of the cassette underground, you may remember a West Virginian outfit called Social Junk appearing in the mid-aughts. This duo offered up crackling melodic scree, blown out murky fuzz and semi-coherent mouth sounds like an industrialized version of The Dead C or a new wave outfit newly recovered post-coma. Noah Anthony, the male half of Social Junk, has since moved on to releasing solo material under both the Profligate and Deuce Avenue monikers. The latter is the more recent project and is quite minimal compared to his other work. With Death of Natural Light, there are no cold wave rhythms and vocals à la Profligate. What’s left is a dank, steamy vapor. Contrails of filter-swept hiss slowly develop into a more enigmatic and darkened tonal palette. The ominousness continues to thread its way into the second half of the cassette, fittingly entitled “Blood Turns Black”. Loops of nocturnal jump scare fodder coalesce into rhythms that provide skeletal forms to foil the menace of the more oblique textures. Those who enjoy their horror in slow motion will latch onto these sounds like a facehugger to… …well, a person’s face.  

Bryon Hayes��  

 Fleeting Joys — Despondent Transponder (Only Forever)

Despondent Transponder by Fleeting Joys

Let’s start with the obvious. Despondent Transponder sounds a lot like MBV’s Loveless, with wild sirening guitar tones, waves of noise-y feedback, thunderous drumming and sweet, fragile lyrics engulfed in the swirl. “Go and Come Back” has the same fluttering guitar melody as the great “To Here Knows When,” while “Satellite” blusters with the dopplering, dissonance-addled grandeur as “I Only Said.” Fleeting Joys — that was Rorika Loring singing and playing bass and John Loring on guitar and vox — never made any secret of their love of MBV. Despondent Transponder was an homage right from the start. The album was the debut for this Sacramento-based twosome, released originally in 2006, then as now on Loring’s own Only Forever label. And yet, while no one will ever top Loveless, from an ear-bleeding psych-noise daydream perspective, this one has its own particular beauties. “Magnificent Oblivion” surrounds a lullaby-pure melody with a reeling, caterwauling mesh of inchoate sound; guitar notes stream off in bending contrails as Rorika murmurs sweetly into the mic. “Patron Saint” lurches to motion on a Frankenstein bass riff, but softens the brutality with calming washes of vocal hypnotism. It’s all super beautiful and, anyway, even after the reunion, there aren’t nearly enough MBV albums. Plenty of room for a band that sounds so similar.

Jennifer Kelly

 Get Smart! — Oh Yeah No (Capitol Punishment)

Push play: driving staccato guitars, rubbery bass lines, lockstep drums, declamatory vocals and it’s the mid-1980s all over again. Lawrence, Kansas trio Get Smart! — Marcus Koch (guitar, vocals) Lisa Wertman Crowe (bass, vocals) and Frank Loose (drums, vocals) — have that timeless mixture of English post-punk and American indie down. Then see that 33 years after it was recorded Oh Yeah No finally sees the light of day on the back of the band’s reformation. Time and the cycle of musical fashions are fickle beasts and in this case the wheels turn in Get Smart!’s favor. They sound both of their time and thoroughly in tune with the steady flow of recent guitar bands mining this lode of choppy, melodic indie. The Embarrassment, Big Dipper, Pylon and other regional heroes are being rediscovered and reassessed and, here’s the thing, Get Smart! are really good at what they do and this six-track EP is both a testament and, hopefully, a taste of what the future may hold.  

Andrew Forell  

 Rich Halley / Matthew Shipp / Michael Bisio / Newman Taylor Baker — The Shape Of Things (Pine Eagle Records)

The Shape of Things by Rich Halley

If the bolt strikes twice, it’s probably not lightning. The Shape Of Things is the second successful meeting between Rich Halley, a tenor saxophonist based in the Pacific Northwest, and the current members of the Matthew Shipp Trio. The album is, like its predecessor Terra Incognita, a congress of strengths. Shipp’s trio follows the pianist easily into one of his classic roles, that of supplying sonic foundation and harmonic framing for an extroverted saxophonist. Halley fights right into the spaces that they create, rippling easily over the trio’s turbulent surfaces. He works within the broader jazz tradition, sounding equally at home patiently sketching a lyrical line and blowing raw, acidic cries. This ensemble plays achieves a state of centered abandon which feels wilder than Halley’s recordings with West Coast musicians, but fits right into the spectrum that contains Shipp’s work with the David S. Ware Quartet and Ivo Perelman.

Bill Meyer

 A Hutchie — Potion Shop (Cosmic Resonance)

Potion Shop by A Hutchie

Hamilton, Ontario-based producer Aaron Hutchinson has his fingers in many pies. He nimbly dispenses free jazz, hip hop, outré pop and even more enigmatic forms of song. Potion Shop is his debut LP, although he is a long-time fixture in the Steeltown music scene. This immersion in a small, tight-knit domain has led to many fruitful collaborations. Hutchinson features many of his compatriots in these recordings, in which his music snakes alongside their vocal stylings. Mutant 21st century soul singlehandedly played by Hutchinson is a foil for the slam poetry of Benita Whyte and Ian Keteku, the latter of which the producer warps with a vocoder. Sarah Good’s vocals morph into those of a ghostly chanteuse among smeared strings, while the soulful Blankie swims beneath narcotic R&B beats. When imbibing these intoxicating concoctions, you will be immersed in a warmth of familiarity tempered with the unsettling yet exciting sense of the uncanny. Like absinthe, the disquiet is illusory while the intimacy is authentic.

Bryon Hayes  

 Imha Tarikat — Sternenberster (Prophecy Productions)

STERNENBERSTER by IMHA TARIKAT

Imha Tarikat’s principal member Ruhsuz Cellât (stage name of Kerem Yilmaz) breaks with black metal orthodoxy by musically engaging his family’s Muslim heritage. That’s a provocative move in an artform dominated by glib nihilism, rampant anti-religious sentiment and (somehow sometimes all at the same time) ardent claims of Satanist faith. And that distinction at the symbolic level likely doesn’t come near the intensities of being of Turkish descent, living and recording in Germany, in a scene that flirts (and at its extreme margins actively identifies) with fascism. Beyond those ideological and social dimensions is the music. Imha Tarikat demonstrates facility with tremolo riffs and song forms that twist and snake even as they hammer and pummel. But Cellât’s unusual vocal style cuts against convention’s grain, and it’s immediately apparent as album opener “Ekstase ohne Ende” commences. There’s a lot of grunting and hollering, but rather than contorting his voice, shrieking and croaking in mode of most black metal vocalists, Cellât goes for more straightforward intensity. He often shouts, and the lyrics frequently come in bunches, explosive and punctuated bursts of verbiage, but he makes no attempt to distort the lyrics or his voice. I wish my grasp of German were even halfway close to fluent, in order to report on the lyrics’ thematic content with some coherence — because Cellât clearly wants the words to be heard.

Jonathan Shaw

Jon Irabagon / Mike Pride / Mick Barr / Ava Mendoza — Don’t Hear Nothin’ But The Blues Vol 3 Anatomical Snuffbox (Irrabagast Records)

I Don't Hear Nothin' but the Blues Volume 3: Anatomical Snuffbox by Jon Irabagon

Never mind the blues; if you don’t exercise caution, when you’re done playing this loud-at-any-volume recording, you won’t hear nothin’. The latest installment in tenor saxophonist John Irabagon’s series of one-track, meta-blues recordings starts out with a spray of sound as bracing as Saharan sandstorm, but quickly solidifies into a veritable wall of sound. At the outset, Irabagon and drummer Mike Pride engage in a high-speed dance of charge and countercharge which, if heard without accompaniment, would sit comfortably on the same shelf as your Mars Williams and Mats Gustafsson records. But when you put guitarists Mick Barr and Ava Mendoza on the same stage and tell them both to start shredding, the effect is somewhat akin to putting the pyrotechnic specialists in charge of the circus. Subtlety, dynamics and even the oxygen you breath all disappear as everything catches fire. If any of the participants here have effectively bent your ear, you ought to listen all the way through once. By the time it’s done, you’ll know in your heart whether you ever need to hear it again.

Bill Meyer    

 John Kolodij — First Fire / At Dawn (Astral Editions)

First Fire • At Dawn by John Kolodij

Where there’s fire, there’s often smoke, and while this tape claims alignment with Hephaestus’ element, it’s more likely to evoke thick clouds. As the capstans turn, the murk of “At Fire” accumulates gradually, filling the room with an increasingly dense atmosphere. By the time you notice flashes of flame, it’s too late. “At Dawn” brings to mind a lesser conflagration — maybe the embers of the previous night’s campfire. John Kolodij (who has, until recently, recorded mainly under the name High Aura’d) pushes his heavily processed guitar sound into the background, where it lurks with a bit of birdsong, and leads with an unamplified banjo and acoustic guitar. Fiddler Anna RG (of Anna & Elizabeth) further bolsters the melody while some sparse percussion played by Sarah Hennies heightens the sense of moment. Once more, a mass of disembodied sound rises up as the piece progresses, but this time the effect is the opposite; instead of getting lost in sound, the listener finds a moment of peace and light.

Bill Meyer

 Lytton / Nies / Scott / Wissel — Do They Do Those In Red? (Sound Anatomy)

Do they do those in Red? by Paul Lytton, Joker Nies, Richard Scott, Georg Wissel

“Do they do those in red?” The title may speak to the particular peculiarities of this combo, which is formed from several pre-existing duos, Joker Nies is credited with “electrosapiens,” which seem to be self-constructed electronic instruments, and George Wissel applies various items to his saxophone to modify its sound. Georg Wissel’s synthesizers come with some assembly required, and it would appear that Paul Lytton, best known for playing drum kits and massive percussion assemblages, confines himself in this setting to the stuff he can fit on a tabletop. What, you think your saxophone is prettier because it doesn’t have anything red jammed into a valve?  

Moving on to the music, while the sound sources are heavily electronic, the interactive style is rooted in good old-fashioned free improvisation. Lytton’s barrage sounds remarkably similar to what he achieves playing with a full drum kit, and Wissel’s lines may be more fractured, but his alto sound has some of the tonal heft and agility that John Butcher exercises on the tenor. The electronicians’ bristling activity brings to mind a debate between opposite sides of the electrical components aisle at the hardware store, but it’s a lucid one, thoughtfully expressed on both sides.

Bill Meyer  

Ikue Mori Satoko Fujii + Natsuki Tamura — Prickly Pear Cactus (Libra)

Prickly Pear Cactus by Ikue Mori, Satoko Fujii, Natsuki Tamura

Pianist Satoko Fujii and trumpeter Natsuki Tamura spent February 2020 touring Europe with their combo Kaze, which they’d augmented with the electronic musician, Ikue Mori. As lockdown wore on, they kept the connection going via Zoom chats between their abodes in Kobe and New York. After Fujii shared her experiences of trying to mic and stream her piano online, Mori suggested that she send some recordings. Mori edited what showed up and added her sounds; Tamura contributed additional elements to nearly half the tracks. Some of them are balanced to sound like live recordings, with Mori’s neon squelches and high-res, bell-like tones gathering and dispelling like real-time reactions. Others feel more overtly constructed, with the piano situated within a maelstrom of sounds like a view of a TV set turned on in a room with a party going on.  

Bill Meyer

 Phicus — Solid (Astral Spirits)

Solid by Phicus

Phicus is the Barcelona-based assemblage of Ferran Fages (electric guitar), Àlex Reviriego (double bass) and Vasco Trilla (drums). The line-up looks like a power trio, and if you heard them two seconds at a time, you might think that they were. Reviriego and Trilla each play in ways that convey a sense of motion, and Fages’ bent notes and serrated harmonics are just the sort of sounds to cap off a display of guitar heroics. But if you note that each track is named for an element or chemical compound, and that the album is called Solid, you might get a clearer idea of their concerns. This music is all about essential relationships, and its makers are more interested in making things coexist in productive ways than they are in re-enacting rituals borrowed from jazz, fusion or free improvisation. That means that even the sharpest sounds don’t hook you, nor do the fleetest charges carry you away. Phicus isn’t interested in settling for the familiar. But if you’re ready to observe that thing that looks like a duck making sounds that ducks never make, you’ll find plenty to ponder on Solid.

Bill Meyer

 Quietus — Volume Five (Ever/Never)

Volume Five by Quietus

Quietus songs unfurl like cream in coffee, spiraling curlicues of light into dark liquid drones amid clanking blocks of percussion. The songs expand in organic ways, picking up purpose in the steady pound of rhythm, strutting even, in a loose-limbed rock-soul-psych way you might recognize from Brian Jonestown Massacre’s “Anemone” or Grinderman’s “I Don’t Need You to Set Me Free,” but quieter, much quieter, and seething with submerged ideas. The words are mumbled, croaked, submerged in surface hum, but when pushed up towards the surface, arresting. “This life can be sunlit hills turned all to their angry sides,” murmurs Quietus proprietor Geoffrey Bankowski in the relatively concise “Reflex of Purpose,” which sprawls anyway, notwithstanding its 2:36 minute duration. The music’s better, though, when it’s allowed to find its slow way forward, unconforming to any pre-existing ideas of how long a pop song should be. I like the closer “Posthemmorrhagic,” the best, as guitars both tortured and prayerful intertwine, and Bankowski breathes slow, moaning poetry into a close mic, and the song revolves in three-time like the last dancer on the floor, not just tonight but forever.

Jennifer Kelly

Ritual Extra — In Luthero (Dinzu Artefacts)

In Luthero by Ritual Extra

In Luthero was performed inside an empty water cistern, and the ensuing reverberations act as microscopic versions of the grander ebb and flow within which French-Finnish trio Ritual Extra operate.  Percussionist Julien Chamla’s cymbal scrapes and tom hits form a backdrop of bomb blasts and shrieking, missives from some war-torn locale long since vacated by the populace.  Steel structures seem to groan and collapse as they are rattled by percussive ordnance. This bleak setting is given a sense of color by Lauri Hyvärinen’s acoustic guitar.  A stew of string scrapes diverges into discrete plucks, which morph into strums.  The metronomic chords are enriched as they bounce around the walls of the cistern, folding in on themselves through echo, becoming a mechanical mantra.  Tuukka Haapakorpi’s voice rises from the ashes, soaring polysyllabically yet wordlessly.  As In Luthero begins to take shape, these vocalizations are almost inhuman: whispers and gurgles that come on in waves.  Later, more anthropoid utterances take shape, yet fall just shy of coalescing into a discernable language.  Across 24 minutes, Ritual Extra musically narrate the pre-history of humankind, the primordial essence from which everything good — and bad — about us originated. 

Bryon Hayes  

 Subjective Pitch Matching Band — Twenty-One Subjectivities in Six Parts (Remote Works)  

Twenty-One Subjectivities in Six Parts by Subjective Pitch Matching Band

Chris Brian Taylor has trod a serpentine path on the journey that culminated in the creation of his first large ensemble electroacoustic composition. His roots are in punk and rave — he still DJs house and techno — but he recently shifted his gaze toward improvised electronics. Rather than stifling his ambition, COVID-19 and the ensuing lockdown encouraged him to think big: he would cast a wide net and compose a piece of music for as many people as he could get to participate. He reached out to friends, relatives, and internet acquaintances to assemble his orchestra, and borrowed the melody and chords from Pet Shop Boys’ “Being Boring” to act as the foundation of the work. Twenty people responded from a variety of musical disciplines, and all agreed to participate remotely. The composer gave each player audio cues to work with and encouraged the performers to respond subjectively. They could either stay true to the pitches provided, harmonize against them, or play ornamentally. Taylor collected the resulting tracks and structured the resulting thirty-minute piece of music based on what the respondents provided. Dense yet graceful, the composition unfolds like a slow-motion blaze. Flames of sonority form a sinuous body from which sparks of discrete sound leap heavenward. There is nary a moment of silence, as Taylor weaves a plethora of long tones together to form an undulating core over which stabs of piano, guitar and percussion materialize momentarily. Naivete didn’t keep Chris Brian Taylor from aiming as high as he could with this piece, and we are the benefactors of this ambition, rewarded with a rich and complex sonic brew to enjoy.

Bryon Hayes  

 TV Priest — Uppers (Sub Pop)

Uppers by TV Priest

TV Priest works the same corrosive, hyper-verbal furrow as Idles or, in a looser sense, the Sleaford Mods, spatter chanting harsh, literate strings of gutter poetry over a clanking post-punk cadence. The vocalist Charlie Drinkwater snarls and sputters charismatically over the clatter, a brutalist commentator on life and pop culture. The band is sharp and minimalist, drums (Ed Kelland) to the front, guitar (Alex Sprogis) stabbing hard at stripped raw riffs , bass (Nic Bueth) rumbling like mute rage in the back of the bar. And yet, though anger is a primary flavor, these songs surge with triumph as in the wall-shaking cadences of “Press Gang,” the blistering sarcasm of “The Big Curve.” This is a relatively new band, their first and only tour cut short at one gig by the lockdown, but the songs are tight as hell on record and likely to pin you to the back wall live. “Bad news, like buses, comes in twos,” intones Drinkwater on theclearly autobiographical “Journal of a Plague Year” against an irregular post-everything clangor, loose and disdainful and hardly arsed to entertain us; it’s as fitting an anthem as any for our lost 2020. But when band gets moving, as on the chugging, corroscating “Decoration,” it’s unstoppable, a monstrous thing bursting “through to the next round.” Sure, I’ll have another.

Jennifer Kelly

Voice Imitator — Plaza (12XU)

Plaza by Voice Imitator

Voice Imitator, from Melbourne, Australia, rips a hard punk vortex through its songs, ratcheting up the drums to battering ram violence, blistering the guitar sound and scrawling wild metallic vocals over it all, with nods to noisy post-hardcore bands like the Jesus Lizard and McClusky. “A Small Cauliflower” takes things down to a seething, menacing whisper, Mark Groves, the singer, presiding over an uneasy mesh of tamped down dissonance and hustle. “Adult Performer” is faster and more limber, all clicking urgency and sudden bursts of detuned, surging squall. All four members—that’s Per Bystrom, Justin Fuller, Groves and Leon O’Regan—have been in a ton of other bands, and the sounds they make here have the rupturing precision of well-honed violence. If you like Protomartyr but wish it was lots louder and more corrosive, here you go.

Jennifer Kelly

 Sam Weinberg / Henry Fraser / Weasel Walter — Grist (Ugexplode)

Grist by Sam Weinberg / Henry Fraser / Weasel Walter

Ornette Coleman once called a record In All Languages; these guys ought call one Any And All Possibilities. Saxophonist Sam Weinberg, bassist Henry Fraser and drummer (this time, anyway) Weasel Walter are scrupulous student of improvisation in all its guises, and they’re ready and able to use what they know. You could call it free jazz, for they certainly know how that stuff works, but they’re under no obligation to swing; that’d be a limit, you see. This music bursts, darts, expands and contracts in a sequence of second by second negotiations of shape and velocity.

Bill Meyer  

 Chris Weisman — Closer Tuning (Self-Released)

Closer Tuning by Chris Weisman

Chris Weisman is a Brattleboro, VT songwriter, in the general orbit (not a member but seems to know a bunch of them) of the late, great Feathers and one-time member of Kyle Thomas’ other outfit, the fuzz pop band Happy Birthday. A shunner of all sorts of limelight, he is nonetheless very productive. Closer Tuning is one of five albums he home recorded and released in 2020. You might expect a certain lo-fi folksiness and there is, indeed, a dream-y, soft focus rusticity to the tangled acoustic guitar jangle, the blunt down home-i-ness lyrics. And yet, there’s a good deal more than that in Closer Tuning. The chords progress softly, gently but in unexpected ways, a reminder of Weisman’s jazz guitar training, and the sound is warm and enveloping and every so slightly off-kilter, as if filtered through someone else’s memory. Cuts like “Petit Revolution,” with its close shroud of harmonies, its eerie, antic guitar cadence, feel like Beach Boys psychedelia left out in the garden to sprout, or more to the point, like Wendy Eisenberg’s brainy, left-of-center pop puzzles. “My Talent” is hedged in with blooming bent notes and scrambling string scratches, but its center is radiant, weird, astral folk along the lines of Alexander Tucker. “Hey,” says Weisman, in its slow dreaming chorus, “I gave my talent away.” Lucky us.

 A.A. Williams — Forever Blue (Bella Union)

There’s a dim and shadowy corner where heavy music, orchestral music and post-rock all meet, and A.A. Williams’ music resides there as naturally as anyone else’s. That’s what you might expect when you get a professional cellist who fell hard for metal as a teenager and then started writing songs after finding a guitar on the street. After an EP her first LP is the kind of assured, consistently strong debut that balances calmly measured beauty with the kind of crushing peaks that give that sometimes hoary quiet/loud dynamic a good name. At its best, like the opening “All I Asked For (Was to End it All)” and “Dirt” (featuring vocals from Wild Beasts’ Tom Fleming), Forever Blue is as gothically ravishing as you could hope for, and by the time it ends with spectral lament “I’m Fine” it might tempt even those not traditionally inclined that way to don the ceremonial black eyeliner.  

Ian Mathers

[everlarkficexchange]

Unmasked ~ Twenty-Seven

Written by: ~M~

Prompt #88, Spring 2019 Edition

Rating: E (Explicit) This fic will contain, consensual sexual situations; mild language; discussions of injuries, illness, and amputations in a historical setting; discussions of miscarriage; discussions of minor character suicide; references to non-consensual sexual situations; minor character death.

Dear Readers,

I thank you for your patience in waiting for this, the twenty-seventh chapter of Unmasked. As there would be no “Previously on…” during the time frame of this fic, I will do my best to conduct a brief summary. When last we left our lovers, they had recently suffered through a rather unpleasant to the home of Peeta’s father – the Marquis de Vale, survived an encounter with a highwayman, tangled with a few brief bouts of jealousy over a former flame, and battled over legalities with Mistress Alma Coin, culminating in the adoption of Peeta’s half-sister – Miranda. We now rejoin them as they attempt to adjust to their new family dynamic. I hope you enjoy the chapter and that the wait for the next will not be near as long. Previous chapters can be found HERE.

Regards,

~M~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~ Chapter 27 ~~

Miranda is greeted with much fanfare at Uncle Haymitch and Aunt Effie’s house. We of course explain to her that this is not our home, but the home of family, and that in two days, we will begin our journey to Everdeen. She clings to my hand and hides her face behind her rag doll as we enter.

There is a flurry of activity and Miranda is whisked from my grasp to be bathed and dressed for dinner in the dress I ordered from Cinna. My fingers clench in the air. I long to follow her, to be with her. Haymitch claims Peeta’s attention, the pair of them retreating to the study, and he does not notice my distress. Effie trills and drags me to the chambers I share with Peeta, a maid already waiting for us. In a worried daze, I retrieve the fire poker and jab at the pitiful flames in the grate. Effie’s words a buzzing behind me as I am solely concerned with Miranda. What she must be facing at this moment. It is only a bath, I remind myself and take a deep breath. The hand over my middle does nothing to calm the churning within. Only a bath, and yet…it is with strangers.

“Darling…will you not dress for dinner?” Effie asks and I turn slightly to face her quizzical expression. Then, the screeching begins. High pitched and wretched, accompanied by shouts.

Unthinking, I race next door and burst into Miranda’s rooms, wielding a fire poker and expecting a murderer or a monster…not two maids tussling with a child.

“Mrs. Abernathy says you are to wash! Come child!”

“Off with the dress!” They shout at her and Miranda thrashes, wriggling free and toppling a chair as she hides beneath the bed.

“Cease!” I shout and the maids stare aghast at me and my improvised weapon.

“What is all this racket?” Effie asks as she careens to a halt in the doorway. I fling aside the fire poker and the maids both jump at the clattering noise. Effie shrieks.

I shake my skirts out and pull my shoulders back. Clearing my throat, I manage to control my breathing but not my racing pulse. 

“A bit of adjustment is all. Miranda is not used to fancy baths, I imagine. Nor to strangers handling her person. She comes to us from an orphanage,” I stress to the maids and they share nervous glances.

“Oh,” Effie says. “Should she not be excited for this improvement in her fortunes then? This is a great opportunity for her.”

“It depends on how you view the changes in her fortunes,” I say and turn to face my Aunt. More biting words ferment on my tongue, but they will do no good. My temper riles and chafes. Peeta would know how to diffuse the situation. I lift my eyes to avoid chastising my aunt needlessly in front of her own staff. Then miracle of miracles! I am then struck with an idea as I stare at her hair, a slow smile overtaking my face. 

“Aunt Effie…your hair is quite lovely today.”

“Oh…well, I suppose it is.” She pats the coifed mass of ringlets and blushes slightly.

“However do you manage to keep those tantalizing curls from tangling horribly?”

“What? Oh darling, your mother makes a divine oil for me. Something from a rather exotic nut tree, I believe she said it was. Works wonders…why?”

“Might I borrow some? For Miranda,” I say. “She has such beautiful curls and I am certain the orphanage staff hadn’t the means, the knowledge, nor the luxury of managing them well. The prospect of having them brushed after so much neglect likely terrifies her.”

“Oh indeed,” Effie assures. “I would be happy to help, darling.”

She disappears to fetch it and I turn back to the two maids.

“Now. Lydia, if you would be so kind as to retrieve my dress and undergarments, my dressing robe and hairbrush, bring everything I shall need to prepare for dinner. I shall bathe and dress in here.”

“Here, ma’am?”

“Yes,” I say and motion for the two maids to get to work. Then I lower myself to the floor and stare beneath the bed. “I seem to have lost a kitten under here. Have you seen it?”

Miranda shakes her head with great vehemence.

“Hm. No matter. Cats despise getting baths anyways. I simply did not wish to frighten him when I begin splashing in mine.” This seems to garner her interest. When the maids return, I ask their assistance as far as my stays. Once those are off, I dismiss them. They exchange a strange look but do as asked.

As soon as the door is shut, I finish removing my clothes and carefully step into the warm water, sighing in relief as I sink into the depths and begin to sing. A carved wooden boat sits beside the tub and I finger it with a smile. It looks to be Haymitch’s work and his inclusion of Miranda warms my heart. Piling my hair atop my head, I then wash my body, stretching my arms and luxuriating in the feel of it. When I am clean save for my hair, I lean back and stretch my arms along the lip of the tub. 

With my eyes closed, I am more attuned to the sounds in the room. The rub of fabric over wooden floors. The scrape of a shoe. A sniffle. I can feel the small hairs on my arm stand on end and am able to remain still when Miranda touches my shoulder. I open one eye and smile at her.

“It is a lovely bath, my darling. Care to partake?” She shakes her head but traces shapes on my shoulder and arm, when I look down at them, I sober. My scars. I wait for her to meet my eyes before I speak again. “Do they frighten you?”

She shakes her head again.

“Good. I do not want you to be frightened of me. One day I shall tell you how I came by them. And Peeta his as well. We are family, Miranda. Family should not fear one another, but be able to trust one another. You must tell me if anything we do breaks your trust in us, yes?” 

I splash the water in front of me and she startles but smiles. It is the first true smile I have seen from her. I lift one brow and splash at her. She squeals and jumps back. Then with a wicked smile, she leans over the edge of the tub and splashes water right back at me. I scream with faux indignation and lift my hands to protect myself from further attacks as she continues to splash. The sleeve of her dress is soon soaked and wisps of her hair escape her turban.

Then, with little warning, Miranda strips her clothing and scrambles into the tub, her knee knocking the toy boat into the now churning waters. A great splash and waves crest over the sides onto the floor. I laugh as she surfaces, bedraggled wet hair hanging in strings in front of her face. She smiles at me, a toothy grin and then takes a deep breath before plunging beneath the water, her fingers wriggling like tentacles, slippery eels through the waves. She surfaces with a growl and swamps the boat.

“Oh no! A kraken!” I shout and laugh at her antics. She splashes about the tub for a moment and then grasps the soap. It flies from her hand and into the water. Her eyes widen and we stare silently at one another a moment. “It escaped! Quick, catch it!”

She splashes about to search for it, loud enough that I miss the entrance of my aunt.

“Is she not a bit old for such…baths?” Effie asks as she returns with the oil and I shake my head.

“Nonsense. You are never too old to make bath time fun!” I say and tickle Miranda’s tummy before handing her the soap.

“Very well,” Effie says with doubt, setting the oil on the small table beside the tub. “Your husband wonders at your whereabouts, Katniss.”

“Tell him the truth, and that we shall see him for dinner. Shiny and clean,” I say with a smile and Effies huffs again leaving us alone, although she mumbles protests at being treated as a messenger.

“Can I tell you a secret?” I whisper to Miranda and she nods eagerly. “Your Aunt Effie was once a pirate.”

Miranda stares at the door, her expression skeptical and I laugh.

“I know she does not seem it, but I promise you, she was once a fearsome pirate princess. Which means…she must be afraid of such a terrifying kraken! You will promise not to frighten her too much, won’t you? After all, she is our hostess.”

Miranda smiles and nods. The soap makes several escapes and I must help Miranda fish it back from the murky water. When she’s clean, we wash our hair. Miranda first scrubs mine under my guidance.

“See there, my darling. Nothing to fear,” I say as I squeeze water from my hair and smile at her. “Now your turn.”

She nods then allows me to scrub hers. A rinse and I stand from the tub, drying myself swiftly and donning my robe before assisting her. With Miranda wrapped in drying cloths, we settle before the fire. I sing softly as I work the oil into her hair and brush through it to remove the tangles. Then I use a cloth to squeeze excess water from it, leave it damp for the fire to do the rest of the drying while I take the brush to mine. I assist her into her dress and she smiles at the colour, gleefully spreads the skirts and spins, clapping her hands and smiling.

I then call for the maids and Miranda sits on the counterpane, kicking her slippered feet as she watches my dressing. At last, we are ready and make our appearance downstairs.

“Now. To dinner,” I say and turn towards the door. Miranda releases a sound of distress and grasps my hand, shaking her head vehemently and clutching at her curls. “What is it, darling?”

I am only given whimpers and send the maids along as I kneel before her, searching her terrified blue eyes for the words she cannot seem to say.

“I do wish you would speak to me, Miranda,” I whisper and her mouth gapes and shuts in a frantic pantomime. “But…I shall be patient. Your voice is worth waiting to hear. For now, I shall make the best guess I can. Is it your hair?” A frantic nod. “You wish it covered?” Another nod. “Oh darling, you needn’t ever hide your hair with us. But…” I search about the room until I find the blue turban, neatly laid out on the chest where the maids unpacked it. Carefully, I wrap it around her hair and pin it in place, plucking a few curls free to frame her face. “Until you are ready to go without it. There. All better?”

She examines herself in the mirror a moment and then takes my hand again. Snatching it back almost immediately and gazing up at me with horror in her eyes.

“Have I a toad hiding in my hand? Warts perhaps?” I ask and flip it over to examine. “Hm… no toad. No warts.” The faintest smile cracks her lips apart and I extend my hand to her. “Shall we?”

Hand in hand, we descend towards the dining room.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Would you care to explain what that was all about tonight?” Peeta asks with a lift of his eyebrow as he slides his cravat from his neck and drapes it over the corner of the mirror. I smile slightly and drop my gaze back to Miranda. She sleeps soundly, tucked in our bed, her rag doll clutched to her breast, her thumb tucked in her mouth, and her blue turban still wrapped around her curls. Several more strands have worked their way free and frame her face in a fiery halo that appears luminous in the firelight.

I have been so wary of flames since I was burned at the age of sixteen. Yet this tiny little flame of a girl has already crept into my heart. Tears threaten to spill as I smile at her and brush back a few strands of hair. It frightens me, how quickly she worked her way into my heart and yet, as I lift my gaze up to find Peeta watching me, I cannot regret a moment of my life since he and Jo pulled me from the mud.

“I am merely attempting to make her feel welcome in our family.”

He grins and I stifle a laugh. “Poor Effie.”

“Poor Effie, indeed,” I say. “Who knew she could so convincingly play the part of a Pirate Queen on a secret mission, even unaware of her role?”

Peeta’s laugh warms me, as did his willingness to play right along with our game at dinner, despite not having any warning before hand. And even though my head is tilted down, seemingly watching my own hand soothing our newly adopted daughter as she sleeps in our bed, my gaze is in fact focused on my husband as he removes his remaining clothes in preparation for bed. My pulse flutters in my breast and I smile to myself. Secret and loving.

My husband. My daughter, for she is my daughter. There is no one and nothing in this world that can convince me otherwise. Although a fledgling fear does flutter in my breast. Something Mistress Coin said, about her birth parents coming after her. At the time, I dismissed the fear, as it is unlikely the sire is aware of Miranda’s existence, and her birth mother… I glance back up at Peeta, my heart torn in two. A simple flick of a sentence and pain throbs dully in my breast. I know how dearly he wishes to find her, to see her again. But I cannot help wondering if finding her would mean losing Miranda, especially since Peeta wants to tell Miranda the truth one day, after she begins speaking again so that she might ask questions and have them answered fully. 

We’ve still no idea where Nancy is and so I know that I am simply borrowing trouble by worrying. I can do nothing for it tonight. Tonight, Miranda is my daughter, newly brought home to us, and so I lean down and kiss her brow.

“Sweet dreams, precious Miranda,” I whisper, adding a silent such wish for the child growing inside me as well. My family. Such a blessing I never thought to have when I was left marked and scarred. 

I am unsurprised when I sit back up and find Peeta standing beside the bed, watching me.

“Come on then. Now your turn, my love,” he says and I smile as I take his hand and slide from the bed, my skirts rustling across the coverlet. We elected not to use the services of Effie and Haymitch’s staff to prepare for bed this evening, preferring a quiet night, just the three of us. Especially after Peeta suggested that Miranda might not do well alone in the large, strange room next door. I agreed and so we offered her the choice, unsurprised when she chose to share a bed with us for the night.

I stand still while Peeta helps me disrobe, dropping soft as rose petal kisses on my skin as he works. I close my eyes and hum with content. “I think, dear husband, that I shall dismiss my lady’s maid when we return to Everdeen.”

“Why would you do that to poor Mary?” he asks, his touch faltering.

“Because she has much to deal with already with Mother and Prim, and now Madge, Miranda, Maysilee. The poor girl is overworked,” I say lightly. “Besides, I am rather fond of the manner in which you perform her duties,” I tease and find myself backed against the bedpost, heated blue eyes gazing down at me. I cannot resist one more taunt. “So efficient and skilled at undressing me.”

His slow smile heats me more than a roaring fire could ever hope to do. Did I say that I dislike flames? Perhaps I was mistaken, I think as Peeta slowly lowers his head. I close my eyes in anticipation of his kiss, gasping when his mouth caresses along my neck instead of my lips. Again as the suction of the kisses turns my knees to a quivering mess.

“Do you think you can be quiet, my love? You will wake Miranda,” Peeta chastises and I groan, the sound cut off as his words sink in.

“Miranda…Peeta you must stop. We will wake her,” I say frantically although he continues to kiss me, his hands grasping my buttocks and pulling me against him.

“I can draw the drapes around the bed so she will see nothing. As long as you promise to keep quiet,” he whispers and then laughs when I release a tormented moan, my desires split between the need to join with my love and the need to be a truly great adopted mother to Miranda.

“I am not sure I can, husband.” He steps away from me then, a devilish smile on his face.

“Very well. Another night then, when Miranda is used to us and her new sleeping arrangements.”

“Yes,” I sigh in relief and also in disappointment. There is no telling how long it will be, although we believe that she will sleep well sharing a room with Maysilee, being used to multiple children sharing a room at the orphanage.

“At least permit me to finish undressing you,” Peeta says and slowly lowers himself to the floor before I can deny the request, carefully positioning his leg as he goes, his broad hands dragging over the fabric of my chemise then up my legs, beneath the fabric. I would not have denied him even if he’d given me the chance to answer.

I stare down at him and watch his eyes, still shaking and holding tight to the bedpost behind me, feeling each soft touch and stray caress as he removes my garters, unseen beneath the garment I still wear, but acutely felt. My stocking follows shortly after.

“Would you call this efficient?” He whispers. My legs quake with the caress of the words. I can barely answer, the dratted man, and he grins knowingly at my breathy response.

“In its own way.” Quite efficient at arousing me. Another eternity passes before the stockings are both off my feet and the chill of the air is nothing compared to the flames of desire licking up my body.

“Peeta,” I whisper, on the verge of changing my mind and drawing the drapes shut around the bed myself, and he grins up at me.

“Time for sleep,” he says and helps me beneath the covers where I stew in my own arousal, barely tampered by the presence of our child in the room. Peeta takes his time removing his false leg and finishing his preparations for bed. He extinguishes the candles, plunging us into darkness and then sliding beneath the covers with us. As my eyes adjust to the darkness, only the glow of embers in the grate to provide light, I smile and wrap Miranda into an embrace.

Sleep is swift, and I only just register Peeta’s hand covering mine, protecting us both as sleep claims me for the night.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Quiet sounds awaken me. I blink sleep from my eyes and stare through the darkness. Whimpering and whispers are all I register for a moment.

“Have you need to relieve yourself?” Quiet rustling in answer. “And the dark frightens you? …Something else then?” 

A flame strikes and I squint at the sudden light. 

“Better?” I hear Peeta whisper and the silence of Miranda’s answer. My eyes have not adjusted yet and I blink a few more times before the room comes into focus.

Peeta helps Miranda scramble over him to the floor and turns his head to allow her some privacy. He finds me watching him and smiles slightly. Waits for her to see to her needs then helps her back into the bed. Her cheeks are brightly flushed and she stares at Peeta a moment before rolling over and wriggling close to me. I wrap one arm around her and close my eyes, soaking in the warmth of her small body cocooned with mine and her fingers grasping at my nightgown. A heavier arm wraps us both and I shift my legs, smiling widely as my bare foot finds Peeta’s leg. I then open my eyes once more to see his warm gaze over Miranda’s hair as I caress his strong calf with my toes. It is a small caress, a miniscule connection, and yet I feel so much in the soft stroke of my skin over his, the tickle of course hair and the indelible warmth of his body, the small pocket of warmth from Miranda wedged between us.

As Miranda drifts back into sleep, neither of us mentions that her turban has come loose, lost somewhere amongst the bed clothes. And if I were not already madly in love with him, my heart would near burst with it when Peeta presses a gentle kiss to the crown of Miranda’s head, right in the middle of her flaming mop of hair.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Our remaining days with Effie and Haymitch are a flurry of activity. A patchwork of images in my mind as I sweep down the hall with Miranda at my side. The room where Miranda barely stayed save for her bath, pretending to be a kraken. Down the stairs past the drawing room where she and Peeta could be found of an afternoon, hunched over paper with pencil marking smeared across their fingers or down the bridge of her nose where she itched. Past the study where she would brace her arms on the table and silently watch Haymitch and Peeta at chess. The library where she would curl up on the settee next to me and lay her head in my lap while I read to her. The dining room where our innocent games of pretend subterfuge made learning the rules of etiquette less frightening.

Our luggage is already packed and sent ahead in a cart, covered in a dirty canvas tarp this time, a concession made to alleviate lingering fears of another highwayman on the roads. The cargo this time is slightly battered from its last journey, but much more valuable with the new additions. The painting supplies and gifts I purchased for Peeta and Miranda. Nearly an entire trunk of borrowed or purchased books for Peeta to begin his studies. Frederick is now mended enough to make the journey, although since we are borrowing one of Haymitch’s carriages, his coachman will drive. 

Effie embraces us both and expresses a wish for a return visit. I smile and turn to follow Miranda, who has already raced down the steps towards Peeta and Haymitch. The brightness of her dress, or the swiftness of her movements, startles the horses waiting. They shift nervously and stamp. Miranda slips on the icy pavement and falls. The hooves begin to lift.

A terrifying scream and the bite of frigid air cuts through me.

Peeta’s hand thrusts out and yanks her back out of danger. He has her wrapped up in his arms and turns towards the stairs. Both of them look up at me with widened eyes and I nearly collapse as I hurry down the steps.

“Miranda! Are you all right?” I ask and quickly check her over. “A scraped knee only. Oh!”

“Are you alright, Katniss?” Peeta whispers and lifts one shaking, gloved hand to caress my cheek. It is only when I notice the leather is damp as he withdraws his touch to shift Miranda in his hold that I realize I am weeping.

“Fine. Fine!” I insist and swipe at the damnable tears. Peeta pulls me closer and I fling my arms around Miranda as best I can while he still holds her.

It takes a moment of calming one another and a brief trip back inside the house for me to tend to her scrapes before we are ready to climb aboard the carriage. After I have carefully cleaned the cuts and applied a healing balm to them, I press a soft kiss just above the wound. Only then am I able to climb into the carriage, although I immediately pull her into my lap as we sway with the first motion.

She seems more confused than anything else, and I am eventually able to relinquish my grasp on her. Not entirely, only enough for her to curl up on the seat, her head resting in my lap as she dozes off, rag doll clutched in her embrace.

“Are you truly alright?” Peeta asks when Miranda is well asleep.

“No,” I say in a choked gasp and Peeta leans across the carriage to place one hand over mine, the one that has continuously stroked Miranda’s hair since she laid her head so trustingly in my lap. “Peeta…we have assumed responsibility for her. What if something should happen to her? I could never live with myself.”

“Would you rather take her back to the orphanage?”

“Would you like your tongue removed, husband?” I snap and he smiles, glances down at Miranda then back up at me.

“Katniss, my love. You are going to make the most extraordinary mother.” I blink at him, confused by this turn in the conversation. “You have such love. Such passion in your heart. And the deep instinct to protect all that you care about.”

“What are you getting at?”

“We cannot keep her safe from all danger,” he says, sadness in his eyes. “We will attempt to keep our children safe from as much as we can, and the rest… we can help them to be brave enough to face the rest.”

I swallow and gaze out the window at the passing buildings. Silence reigns in the carriage as I caress Miranda’s hair and Peeta caresses my hand. Eventually, I smile.

“The last time I drove past this block of buildings, I was quite angry with you.”

“Oh?” He asks and I turn my smile on him.

“We were newly betrothed.”

“How horrifying,” he says and I laugh. It seems a lifetime has passed since that day and yet it has not even been a full year.

My fears and worries do not disappear, but they are easier to bear as Peeta shifts us all so that he and I are sitting side by side, Miranda carefully protected between us, our hands joined on her shoulder. I absently rub my middle as Peeta and I converse quietly. Whispered words of the future and plans, mundane communications of everyday life. It is comforting in its own way, yet somehow not enough to keep the fears at bay.

The journey is slow and several days long. At each stop, Miranda clings to us. Her blue eyes dart about and she shrinks into her cloak, making herself as small a figure as possible. I wonder at it, frustrated at her continued silence as it hampers my abilities to alleviate her fears.

It would of course help if, every time we must climb into the carriage, I did not have a brief attack of panic. My heart spasming and my hands shaking until Miranda is safely aboard. Even when we are underway, I startle at every foreign noise outside our conveyance. Unable to sleep or fully relax. At night, I am haunted. My dreams overrun with shattering glass, menacing figures wielding pistols, fiery tombs, the vacant stare of a bloody and violent death lingering in Peeta’s blue eyes, empty starless nights, and the woman from the orphanage silently watching from the shadows. 

I wake with my heart palpitating and my palms damp with sweat, unable to calm myself until I lay my hands upon both my husband and my daughter. It takes long minutes of listening to them breathing to assure myself that they are alive and well before I am able to slip back into slumber.

I am haunted… until we pass through the gates of Everdeen.

Then, at last, I am able to breathe easy and lean over Miranda’s sleeping form to wake her.

“Miranda, my dove. Wake up. We are home.” She lifts her head and looks about, rather sleepily and then scoots away from me to look out of the window. The closer we get, the more relaxed I become. I hear the shouts of greeting before the carriage even stops and the footman is hard pressed to get the carriage door opened before we are inundated by a flurry of green dress and blonde hair.

“Maysilee! Your cloak!” I hear Madge shout.

“Her manners!” Johanna adds and I laugh as Maysilee climbs into my husband’s lap.

“Mister Peeta! Miss Katniss! I thought you’d never get back!”

“Well hello, Maisy Daisy. Have we been absent some time?” Peeta asks and she scowls at him. Then she states quite seriously, as though it is the worst thing in the world:

“Mr. Jo is no good at adventures.”

“What lies is that moppett telling you about me?” Johanna asks.

“At least let them out of the carriage, everyone,” my father’s voice rises up over the din of horses and luggage and excited young girl, amusement in his tone.

Peeta laughs at this and turns in his seat to gesture towards Miranda. “Perhaps Jo is not, but I believe the newest member of our family will be quite good at adventures.”

Maysilee gasps and launches herself across the carriage, oblivious to the way Miranda shrinks back and clutches her cloak around her tiny frame as if it will protect her from Maysilee’s exuberance. I think to intervene, as does Peeta, to keep Miranda from being overwhelmed. Before I can manage, Maysilee has her cornered in an embrace.

“Oh I am so happy you are here! We will be the best of friends! Sisters, really! Mother says I must share with you, but I am ever so excited to do so!”

“Maysilee,” I caution, but she will not hear it and drags a hapless Miranda out of the carriage and into the view of everyone else. In the tussle, her turban is knocked off and a riot of red curls escapes. Peeta attempts to follow her, but the cramped space hampers his movements.

“Oh my!” I hear a few gasps.

“What is it?” Maysilee asks and finally falls silent as Peeta hands me down and she turns to face Miranda. She gasps as well. “You have witch’s hair!”

“Maysilee!” Madge scolds harshly and the girl stutters, then starts crying. 

Miranda yanks the hood of her cloak up and glances around at all the unfamiliar faces, shock and fear evident in her features. SHe bends down and scoops up the now muddied turban, her lip quivering. I too, glance around at what looks like a welcoming party to me, but to her, it must seem much like a tribunal. The fear is quickly slipping away to make room for that same vacant expression she wore at the orphanage. 

Miranda whirls to escape and collides with Peeta’s legs. He scoops her up and she struggles in his arms, even as he speaks softly to her.

“I didn’t mean to inult!” Maysilee cries.

“Of course not!” My mother soothes her.

Out of the chaos, Prim steps forward and cranes her neck to peer at Miranda’s face, half hidden in Peeta’s coat.

“Miranda? My name is Primrose. I am so happy to meet you. I am Katniss’ sister, which makes me your aunt, so you must call me Aunt Prim. Can you do that?”

Miranda shakes her head violently and I quickly remind Prim that Miranda isn’t speaking. I know I warned her and everyone else of that in a letter home, although the red hair completely escaped my writings.

“No matter. We will get along splendidly, anyways,” Prim says and then smiles with mischief in her eyes. “Do you like kittens, Miranda?” Miranda perks up at this, helped by the fact that Maysilee has stopped crying.

“Come with me to the stables and I have a surprise for you, a welcome home present,” Prim says and extends her arms. Miranda glances up at Peeta for approval.

“Go ahead, if you wish to.” Miranda shifts and slides and Peeta sets her on her feet. Prim takes her hand and I smile at the lack of hesitation this time.

“You too, Maysilee,” Prim says and Madge mouths an apology to me before following with her daughter in her arms.

“Well, that was exciting,” Jo says and my father snorts. “I’ll just see to the horses and make sure that lot doesn’t wreck my stables.”

“My stables?” I ask after she departs and now it is my mother who snorts. 

“She has rather taken them over in your absence.”

“Yes, well Jo can be formidable in that way,” Peeta says. “I apologize if he has overstepped.”

“Not in the least. Giles is near retirement anyways and Charles is far too young yet to assume the responsibilities of stable master,” Father remarks as he moves towards me and embraces me. “Jo is a happy addition to Everdeen. And you, are a sight for aging hearts, my dear. Welcome home, Firecracker.”

I sink into his embrace and inhale his familiar, comforting scent.

“The journey was uneventful, I trust?” Mother asks as Peeta offers her his arm and the four of us make our way inside the home.

“Your Miranda…” my father says and I stiffen against his side. “She will be quite a bit of work.”

“She needs us,” I say and his eyes soften.

“Katniss, you cannot continue to take in every stray that wanders across our borders.”

“Miranda hardly wandered here.”

“And the two servants you hired from de Vale? I am not sure I can afford the additional wages, at least not to the level they would expect, coming from the household of a marquis.”

“They were not..being treated well,” I say and look away, unable to account for my actions taking them in.

“Will you then throw funds at every person not being treated well? You’ll have nothing left to feed yourselves. And with a child on the way–”

“In a way it was my fault they were treated so poorly, Papa. I couldn’t leave them in misery!”

“Admirable as that may be, I am concerned. Two new servants, one injured, a coach destroyed and the horses only barely recovered. You were fortunate they were safely returned and not stolen on the return journey to Everdeen.” I purse my lips and look away. I’d forgotten completely about the horses and the funds we were forced to use to stable them until someone from Everdeen could retrieve them. My guilt only increases with every word Father speaks. 

“As it is, we are now short a carriage. I will have to replace it. With three additional mouths to feed and another on the way.” I attempt to protest, to justify my actions, but he continues before I can utter a word. “I am only concerned because when I die–”

“Papa!”

“It will happen, Katniss. We cannot ignore the certainty of it. I will die some day, and when I do, I want you and your mother and your sister to be prepared, taken care of. I worry less about you now that you have Peeta, but… the more people whom you feel responsible for, the greater burden you will have to shoulder when the inevitable happens. There is a chance, should your child be a boy. I could name him my heir and leave Everdeen to you and Peeta in trust for him, but if the child is a girl…”

“Are you planning on dying soon, Father?” I ask cruelly, upset at the reminders that my daughter will be no better looked upon in terms of inheritance than I have been. He gives me a wistful smile, as though reading my thoughts as clearly as printed words on a page.

“Hardly, my dear. But neither was I planning on falling off my horse last winter.” I glance down at the ground in shame as we ascend the stairs behind my mother and Peeta, deep in confidence with one another about something. Mother is nodding and her face softening into a fond smile.

“I am still attempting to arrange things to see to your needs, in case there is no son in your future. To that end, I have asked Mr. Gale Hawthorne to visit at his earliest convenience. Your husband and Uncle Haymitch have come up with a plan… an idea… a possibility at least, and I am eager to see if it would work. The roads are treacherous now, so I would not expect him before spring, as he planned previously, however, we must be prepared for short notice visits and…” His eyes dart towards the windows, and I follow, just able to make out the stables.

“And we have a strange, growing menagerie of lost souls at Everdeen.”

“Which may or may not cause difficulties with Mr. Hawthorne. He may find something to take offense at and be eager to see Everdeen rid of us.”

“Then we must hope for now that Mr. Hawthorne is a man of great compassion,” I say, although my heart feels far too heavy for hope.

“We shall. In the meantime, I would appreciate it if you would consult with me before you and your husband take in anymore strays. Your sister has managed to adopt another cat in your absence and well…” he sighs and I cannot help but laugh at his beleaguered expression. “The damn thing has had kittens!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kittens. I watch as Miranda scurries from the bed to check the small box beneath, arrange the straw bedding and pet behind the ears of the tiny black kitten within.

“Up you go,” I say and smile as she takes one more moment to check the cat before climbing in bed. I am almost certain that morning will find Miranda with the kitten curled up beside her. Already the rag doll has been resigned to the box as bedding for the cat.

“Mama, one more kiss,” Maysilee says and Madge gives me a knowing smile as she presents the tiny, caramel colored kitten that Maysilee chose for herself. “Good night, Mud.”

She kisses the kitten and Madge places the thing back in its box as Maysilee wriggles deeper into the covers. She seems thrilled to be sharing the large bed with her new sister and I bend over to give both girls quick, loud kisses and receive giggles and smiles for the silly gestures.

Then I perch on the edge of the bed and smooth back some of Miranda’s wild red hair, already making an escape from the braid she demanded I give her tonight, although at least she did not request her turban for bedtime.

“Do you remember where Peeta and I will be tonight?” She nods and grasps at the covers, pulling them up to her chin. “Come find us if you need anything, alright?” I smile as she nods again and bend down to give her another kiss. A soft knock alerts me to Peeta’s presence in the door and I sit up to welcome him.

“Are there any girls wishing a bedtime story?” he asks and Maysilee claps with glee at this new development in our strange family arrangement. Madge and I settle near the fireplace, her to work on some needlepoint and me to pretend that I am reading my book as Peeta sits at the foot of their bed and begins to weave a fantastical story of a witch and a princess locked in a tower. Miranda’s eyes grow wide as he continues the story and Maysilee interjects with frequent questions. I give up on my book and rest my chin in my hand, listening shamelessly as I learn of yet another talent my husband has been hiding.

The girls listen, enraptured by the tale of doom and disaster, the many narrow escapes of the princess, the assumptions of the village the the witch must be behind the mischief. They squeal when Peeta reveals the true villain in the land was not in fact the witch, but the cruel queen of a neighboring kingdom who would see both the princess and the witch hurt.

“And so the princess’ secret protector revealed herself, striking down the evil queen with a mighty spell! And who do you think it was?” Peeta asks.

“The witch!” Maysilee exclaims around a massive yawn. I smile and duck my head as he taps her on the nose.

“Quite right, Maisy Daisy. The two were secretly sisters. Are you certain you’ve not heard this story before?” Maysilee giggles and Peeta continues, although my attention is now drawn to Miranda and her wide, glassy blue eyes. Something heavy in them, even as they droop. 

I cannot place my finger on it until the girls have each been given another round of good night kisses and the adults have crept quietly from the room. I still cannot say a word of it as I am quickly caught up in sharing the tales of our trip and receiving the news of Everdeen over sherry and quiet firelight. It is not until Peeta and I are safely tucked in our room that I finally broach the subject.

“Are we certain it is wise to continue this comparison of Miranda to a witch?” I ask as Peeta works his cravat loose. On top of all else that has happened, Jeffries the valet from de Vale has come down ill and is currently confined to his bed. No matter. I feel far less guilt watching Peeta disrobe himself with no witnesses. “Those drawings she made of herself burning at the stake…” I shudder and shut the book I was attempting to read, conceding defeat on finishing the chapter.

“You think it unwise?”

“Why do you not?” I ask and he sighs for a moment before sitting on the sofa beside me.

“Do you know how often the word ‘bastard’ has been used as an insult against me?” I flush with great heat, knowing that I myself have flung that insult at him on multiple occasions. “Or ‘cripple.’ At some point, it began to lose its sting. I don’t recall when or even how. Sometimes I fool myself into thinking that I simply decided to no longer let it hurt me and that was that. The truth was likely far more messy. I spent a great many years in anger over who I was, who the world saw and expected me to be, but it was pointless. Such anger, over something I could not control.”

“What has this to do with Miranda?” I ask testily and he lifts my hand from the folds of my skirt to bring it to his lips.

“There are people in this world who will judge her and assume things based solely on her hair color. I witnessed it with my mother, and you yourself saw it at the orphanage, with that young girl at the masquerade, the one with red hair and lips. This afternoon, even.”

“What can we do about it?” I ask, suddenly understanding the vein of his thinking. “Make her think herself a good witch?”

“For a start. Teach her to smirk when someone calls her that. Stand taller and know that they do so out of ignorance. Help her find confidence in who she is.”

“By allowing her to raise a black cat?”

“With kindness and love,” he asserts and I catch on to the plan.

“Or telling her bedtime stories where the witch is not the villain, but one of the heroes.”

“It is possible, to teach her that people are not always what they seem at first brush without frightening her or conditioning her to forever cut herself off from the world. Also by allowing Maysilee’s fascination with the fantastic and magical seep into her life and let her know that not everyone is afraid of witch’s hair.”

“And my mother,” I accuse with narrow eyes. “I somehow sense that you’ve already enlisted her help in this as well.”

“Tomorrow, as you and I already agreed, Miranda begins lessons, something she’s never truly had to do at the orphanage. Reading, writing, mathematics, music and drawing, although she already excels at that, and… the fine art of herbalism and healing beside her adopted grandmother. She’ll be concocting her own witch’s brews within a fortnight.”

“You devious, brilliant bastard,” I say and he laughs as I pull him towards me, kissing his laughter right off his lips.

I meant only to claim a swift kiss, to solidify in his mind that I do not use the word as an insult at all, and yet… I am quickly lost in the heat of his mouth on mine, in the possessive pull of his hands on my hips, turning me so that he might kiss me better, more deeply.

My book slides from my lap and lands on the carpet with a dull thud. I slide my hands down his chest and hurriedly undo the row of buttons on his waistcoat. Once the garment is discarded, Peeta pulls me closer, onto his lap with my skirts tangled about my legs as I straddle him. As I move over him, I yank his shirt free and splay my hands over his heated skin beneath. He groans and thrusts one hand into my hair, tilting my head so that he might kiss me more deeply. The flames of desire quickly lick over me, tickling awake the feelings I have been required to tamp down this past week, with Miranda sleeping in the same room.

But now…

“Oh,” I sigh as his mouth shifts across my cheek to my ear where he nibbles as though I am a delectable treat. Then harsh suction just below the lobe has me gripping tight to his shoulders. “Oh! Peeta! The bed…now.”

He loops his arms about me and stands, walking swiftly across the room as I return the heated kisses to his neck. I am dropped on the bed and then flipped over, my feet on the floor and my body on the mattress as his hands make quick work of my dress and then loosen my stays. I whimper, begging him to hurry as fabric continues to leave my body. Peeta sweeps aside my hair and lays atop me, his lips kissing and sucking, branding his love for me into the back of my neck. I can feel the hard proof of his arousal against my backside, even through the layers of clothing still separating us.

With a mighty pull, he tears my corset free and I exhale as he throws it across the room, leaving me in naught but my chemise, stockings, and garters. 

“There, see? Efficient,” I gasp as Peeta stands and flips me once more so that I am sitting perched on the edge of the bed. I reach out to caress his chest, a narrow bare strip revealed to me through his gaping shirt. After a few minutes of the touch, he takes my hand in his, kisses it and then carefully lowers himself to the floor before me, his broad hands caressing my body over the soft fabric of my chemise, all the way to my ankles and then…

My lips part on a sigh as much like a few nights ago, he caresses back up my legs, only this time with the hem of my chemise caught on his thumbs, lifting the garment and exposing my stockings to the heat of both the fire behind him and his gaze.

His skin and hair glow in the firelight and I admire my husband as he bends his head to kiss over my stockings. His breath through the silk fibers soon has me arching, spreading my knees wide, silently begging for him. The playful glint in his eyes as he glances up at me and continues kissing me tells me that he knows precisely what he is doing, the dratted man.

Wonderful, dratted man, I think as his lips skim along the tops of my garters, the kiss split between silk and skin.

“Please,” I whisper, scarcely able to say what it is that I desire.

“If you would hold this, my love,” he whispers and I take the fabric from him, inhaling sharply as he bends forward and, watching my expressions the entire time, kisses my thighs. Slow and painstaking and oh so delicious. Then he captures the end of one garter in his teeth. He takes an eternity pulling back, the ribbon unravelling and falling free from my leg.

I am a quivering pack of nerves, my chest heaving for air and my hands aching with their grip on my chemise. Peeta carefully sets aside the garter before rolling my stocking down my leg.

He does so slowly. Slowly enough that I nearly scream with impatience.

“Am I being efficient now, love?” he whispers to the side of my knee and I groan, unable to watch as his lips follow the garter down my leg. When it is finally free of my toes and set aside, I can wait no longer. I grasp his shirt and tear it from his body. I’m given no chance, none at all to claim what I desire, as Peeta lifts my thighs, throwing me off balance. My hands slap onto the coverlet and my fingers clench as he nuzzles into my folds, holds my legs aloft so that I am spread for him, immodest and wanton, unable to so much as move without disrupting his loving. He has me at his mercy.

I attempt to muffle my desire, but cannot. It feels far too good to contain and I am lost within moments, begging him without shame, gripping his hair with one hand and thrusting my hips up into his mouth.

It feels as though I am falling apart and coming together at once. My arm buckles beneath me and I fall back on the bed, overcome and overwhelmed.

“I love you,” I manage to gasp out as he stands and watches me recover, his hands busy removing his pants and then his false leg. 

“And I you, Katniss. More than anything.” He climbs onto the bed, arms braced on either side of my bed as he finds purchase with one knee and one truncated leg. I bring him down to me, to kiss him. To taste my own pleasure on his lips. Wanton and shameless as he caresses my side, my breast, down between my still quivering thighs.

“Then love me,” I demand. His hand leaves me and I sigh as I feel the tip of him brushing through my folds, back and forth. Like a paint brush spreading the sky across the canvas. I attempt to lift my hips into his, to take him into me, but have no success.

He laughs softly against my lips. “Is there something you desire, wife of mine.”

“You are cruel, husband,” I chastise, although my hands grasping at him and my lips along his jaw would suggest otherwise. “You know what I want.”

“No, Katniss. Not cruel. Strategic. Devious. Madly in love with you and in a constant state of desire for you. To hear your moans of pleasure and know that I am the cause of them.” He rises up slightly and stares down at me, grinning as the tip of him just enters me. Only the tip. Then his hand is on my hip, holding me down. Immobile.

“Damn you, Peeta!” I mutter to no avail. He rocks his hips, an infinitesimal motion that teases me, dangling what I want as bait. “You know what I want!”

“Then say it, my love. Say it and it shall be yours.”

He hasn’t enough hands to truly subdue me like this. I barely manage to hide my smirk as I grasp his buttocks and instead of thrusting up, pull him down into me. A string of profanity leaves his lips as we’re finally brought together and I smile triumphantly up into his lust hazed eyes.

“I want you, Peeta. Inside me. I want the seed of your love,” I whisper against his lips. 

“You already have that,” he teases and I shake my head.

“I want you anyways.”

He groans and then releases my hip to caress my thigh, to hold it tighter about his hips as he begins to move in earnest.

“Hold me close, darling. This may be a little desperate and hasty.”

“I like it when you are desperate…for me,” I say and embrace him with my legs. He rocks his body against mine in gentle thrusts at first, our gazes as joined as our flesh. I attempt to muffle my desire, but Peeta’s thrusts do quickly turn desperate. And deep… and I am unable to stifle the sounds he plucks from my chest with each rejoining of our bodies. A hand slides over my leg and he lifts it, until my knee rests on my own shoulder, opening my body as I nearly scream at the pleasure the shift causes. I claw at his chest then his back as he holds my leg aloft, his fingers slipping on the silk stocking and his eyes burning with love. I clench my bare leg about him as my crest arrives and I am overcome.

“Yes. Yes, my love. Come again for me. Katniss!” He groans with his release and rotates his hips, pressing me deep into the bed, my entire body shaking with the waves of it.

When the feelings of bliss pass, leaving me limp and satisfied, I become aware of his lips on my ankle. His fingers caressing as he shifts us, separates our bodies and then adjusts our position in bed.

He manages to deal with the fire and candles, and I think don some sort of shirt for sleep before collapsing beside me and pulling me close. It is only as my leg drags through the covers that I realise I am still wearing one stocking. I lift my tired leg and tease his with my silk covered toes.

“You seem to have forgotten something, husband.” His hand caresses over my leg and I squeal as he pulls me flush against him so that my leg is once more embracing him, my toes now caressing the back of his knee.

“I did not, wife,” he murmurs with a lazy grin. It sends the frissons of desire through me, implanting this memory firmly in my mind. It would not surprise me if some day soon, I find on my pillow a drawing of myself with only one stocking. Dratted, wonderful man.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The screams wake me and I fly upright with a gasp on my lips. Peeta is up and tearing across the room before I can even register the direction of the sound, but I am quick to follow him, dragging a dressing robe onto my body as I go.

“What is it?” Madge and I nearly collide in the hall outside the room our daughters now share, the door already flung wide. We grasp onto one another for support as we step through the doors and Madge averts her eyes with a gasp at the sight that greets us.

“Oh for heaven’s sake, Madge. Now is not the time for modesty,” I say and drag her across the room, nearly flinging her towards the wall where Maysilee stands, holding Mud the kitten and crying as she stares aghast at Miranda. Miranda sitting in Peeta’s embrace and sobbing.

He soothes over her hair, his voice calm and gentle, at such odds with the expression of agony on his face and his state of undress. Near enough to nude to shock a widow. His shirt gapes open, revealing his throat, one shoulder, and the better part of his left side. His scars. 

I pick up his cane, which he must have dropped on the floor near the bed and set it to rest near his hand before joining them on the bed. The wordless sobs continue, even as Peeta pleads with her to tell us what frightened her so.

Maysilee spills explanations to Madge, but none of them are helpful. She woke to the screaming as well.

“Do you wish to sleep with Katniss and I tonight? At least until the new room becomes familiar?” Peeta asks and Miranda nods. Our eyes meet over her head and we share a deep look. I feel as though we speak a thousand words in such a look, an understanding that transcends words. I cannot help but wonder if Peeta woke screaming or frightened or confused those first nights he spent under the Marquis’ roof, and if he did… did anyone respond to his cries?

I reach for her, gathering Miranda in my arms as Peeta retrieves his cane and uses it as a second leg. I manage an apology to Madge, who brushes my concern aside, insisting that Miranda’s well being is paramount. 

We are an odd parade down the hall back to our room, and it is several hours before Miranda is able to sleep again, tucked in between our bodies.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To be continued….

[roaringgirl]

Books read in January

I am keeping this as a little record for myself, as I already keep a list (my best new year’s resolution - begun Jan 2018) but don’t record my thoughts

General thoughts on this - I read a lot this month but it played into my worst tendencies to read very very fast and not reflect, something I’m particularly prone too with modern fiction. I just, so to speak, swallow it without thinking. First 5 or so entries apart, I did quite well in my usually miserably failed attempt to have my reading be at least half books by women.

1. John le Carré - Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1974): I liked this a lot! I sort of lost track of the Cold War and shall we say ethics-concerned parts of it and ended up reading a fair bit of it as an English comedy of manners - but I absolutely love all the bizarre rules about what is in bad taste (are these real? Did le Carré make them up?).

2. John le Carré - The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (1963): I liked this a lot less. It seemed at the same time wilfully opaque and entirely predictable. Have been thinking a lot about genre fiction - I love westerns and noir, so wonder if for me British genre fiction doesn’t quite scratch the same itch.

3. David Lodge - Ginger You’re Barmy (1962): This was fine. I don’t have much to say about it - I was interested in reading about National Service and a bit bogged down in a history of it so read a novel. As with most comic novels, it was perfectly readable but not very funny.

4. Dan Simmons - Song of Kali (1985): His first novel. This is quite enjoyable just for the amount of Grand Guignol gore, and also because I like to imagine it caused the Calcutta tourist board some consternation. Wildly structurally flawed, however. Best/worst quote: ‘Hearing Amrita speak was like being stroked by a firm but well-oiled palm.’ Continues in that vein.

5. Richard Vinen - National Service: A Generation in Uniform (2014): If you are interested in National Service, this is a good overview! If not, not.

6. Sarah Moss - Ghost Wall (2018): I absolutely loved this. About a camping trip trying to recreate Iron Age Britain. Just, very upsetting but so so good - a horror story where the horror is male violence and abuse within the (un)natural family unit.

7. Kate Grenville - A Room Made of Leaves (2020): Excellent idea, but not amazing execution - the style is kind of bland in that ‘ironed out in MFA workshops’ way (I have no idea if she did an MFA but that’s what it felt like). Rewriting the story of early Australian colonisation through the POV of John Macarthur’s wife Elizabeth.

8. Ruth Goodman - How to Be a Victorian (2013): I mostly read this for Terror fic reasons, if I’m honest. I skimmed a lot of it but she has a charming authorial voice and I really like that she covers the beginning of the period, not just post-1870.

9. Gary Shteyngart - Super Sad True Love Story (2010): I read this on a recommendation from Ms Poose after I asked for good fiction mostly concerned with the internet, and I thought it was excellent - it’s very exaggerated/non-realistic and that heightening of incident and affect works so well.

10. Brenda Wineapple - The Impeachers: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation (2019): What a great book. I had to keep putting it down because reading about Reconstruction always makes me so sad and frustrated with what might have been - the lost dream of a better world.

11. Halle Butler - The New Me (2019): Reading this while single, starting antidepressants and stuck in an office job that bores me to death but is too stable/undemanding to complain about maybe wasn’t a great decision, for me, emotionally.

12. Halle Butler - Jillian (2015): Ditto.

13. Ottessa Moshfegh - Death in Her Hands (2020): Very disappointed by this. I don’t really like meta-fiction unless it’s really something special and this wasn’t. Also, I’m stupid and really bad at reading, like, postmodern allegorical fiction I just never get it.

14. Andrea Lawlor  - Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl (2017): This was really really hot! I will admit I don’t think the reflections on gender, homophobia, AIDS etc are very deep or as revealing as some reviews made out, but I also don’t think they’re supposed to be? It’s a lot of fun and all of the characters in it are so precisely, fondly but meanly sketched.

15. Catherine Lacey - The Answers (2017): This was fine! Readable, enjoyable, but honestly it has not stuck with me. There are only so many sad girl dystopias you can read and I think I overdid it with them this month.

16. Hilary Mantel - Wolf Hall (2010, reread): Was supposed to read the first 55 pages of this for my two-person book club, but I completely lack self-restraint so reread the whole thing in four days. Like, I love it I don’t really know what else to say. I was posing for years that ‘Oh, Mantel’s earlier novels are better, they’re such an interesting development of Muriel Spark and the problem of evil and farce’ blah blah blah but nope, this is great.

17. Oisin Fagan - Hostages (2016): Book of short stories that I disliked intensely, which disappointed me because I tore through Nobber in horrified fascination (his novel set in Ireland during the Black Death - which I really cannot recommend enough. It’s so intensely horrible but, like Mantel although in a completely different style/method, he has the trick of not taking the past on modern terms). A lot of this is sci-fi dystopia short stories which just aren’t... very good or well-sustained. BUT I did appreciate it because it is absolutely the opposite of pleasant, competently-written but forgettable MFA fiction.

18. Muriel Spark - Loitering with Intent (1981): Probably my least favourite Spark so far, but still good. I think the Ealing Comedy-esque elements of her style are most evident and most dated here. It just doesn’t have the same sentence-by-sentence sting as most of her work, and again I don’t like meta-fiction.

19. Hilary Mantel - Bring up the Bodies (2012, reread): Having (re)read all of these in about 3 months, I think this is probably my favourite of the three. I just love the way a whole world, whole centuries and centuries of history and society spiral out from every paragraph. And just stylistically, how perfect - every sentence is a cracker. I’m just perpetually in awe of Mantel as a prose stylist (although I dislike that everyone seems to write in the present tense now and blame her for it).

20. Muriel Spark - The Girls of Slender Means (1963, reread): (TW weight talk etc ) As always, Hilary Mantel sets me off on a Muriel Spark spree. I’ve read this too many times to say much about it other than that the denouement always makes me go... my hips definitely wouldn’t fit through that window. Maybe I should lose weight in case I have to crawl out of a bathroom window due to a fire caused by an unexploded bomb from WW2???? Which is a wild throwback to my mentality as a 16 year old.

21. China Mieville - Perdido Street Station (2000, reread): What a lot of fun. I know we don’t do steampunk anymore BUT I do like that he got in the whole economic and justice system of the early British Industrial Revolution and not just like steam engines. God, maybe I should read more sci-fi. Maybe I should reread the rest of this trilogy but that’s like 2000 pages. Maybe I should reread the City and the City because at least that’s short and ties exactly into my Disco Elysium obsession (the mod I downloaded to unlock all dialogue keeps breaking the game though. Is there a script online???)

22. Stephen King - Carrie (1974): I have a confession to make: I was supposed to teach this to one of my tutees and then just never read it, but to be honest we’re still doing basic reading comprehension anyway. That sounds mean but she’s very sweet and I love teaching her because she gets perceptibly less intimidated/critical of herself every lesson. ANYWAY I read half of this in the bath having just finished my period, which I think was perfect. It’s fun! Stephen King is fun! I don’t have anything deeper to say.

23. Hilary Mantel - Every Day is Mother’s Day (1985): You can def tell this is a first novel because it doesn’t quite crackle with the same demonic energy as like, An Experiment in Love or Beyond Black, but all the recurring themes are there. If it were by anyone else I’d be like good novel! But it’s not as good as her other novels.

24. Dominique Fortier - On the Proper Usage of Stars (2010): This was... perfectly competent. Kind of dull? It made me think of what I appreciate about Dan Simmons which is how viscerally unpleasant he makes being in the Navy seem generally, and man-hauling with scurvy specifically. This had the same problem with some other FE fiction which is that they’re mostly not willing to go wild and invent enough so the whole thing is kind of diffuse and under-characterised. Although I hated the invented plucky Victorian orphan who’s great at magnetism and taxonomy and read all ONE THOUSAND BOOKS or whatever on the ships before they got thawed out at Beechey (and then the plotline just went nowhere because they immediately all died???) I had to skim all his bits in irritation. I liked the books more than this makes it sound I was just like Mr Tuesday I hope you fall down a crevasse sooner rather than later.

25. Muriel Spark - The Abbess of Crewe (1974): Transposing Watergate to an English convent is quite funny, although it took me an embarrassingly long time to realise that’s what she was doing even though I lit read a book covering Watergate in detail in December. Muriel Spark is just so, so stylish I’m always consumed with envy. I think a lot of her books don’t quite hang together as books but sentence by sentence... they’re exquisite and incomparable.

Overall thoughts: This month was very indulgent since I basically just inhaled a lot of not challenging fiction. I need to enjoy myself less, so next month we’re finishing a biography of Napoleon, reading the Woman in White and finishing the Lesser Bohemians which currently I’m struggling with since it’s like nearly as impenetrable Joyce c. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man but, so far... well I hesitate to say bad since I think once I get into I’ll be into it but. Bad.

[kissmethroughthebone]

Nothing turns me on more than finding an old list I had in the past.

Like finding a list of traits I wanted in my next partner, before realizing "Oh, they're exactly that now." My most recent ex-SBF was everything I wanted even in February of 2019; Golden sandy brown hair, blueish greenish grey eyes, (I specifically wanted that, because the last man I had before him had piercing crystal blue eyes and I wanted that to be absolutely topped,) and he did fit everything I wanted; got me flowers, clothes, jewelry; spoiled me to the best foods. Even got me a printer, studio lights, and more.

Or finding a smaller list; like a list from a month before, where I wanted a humidifier or oil diffuser. Whitening strips that didn't cost an arm and a leg. Hair extensions.

Within the month, I got it. All. Now I have an oil diffuser to set up, whiter teeth, and hair extensions on the way.

And even stuff from years ago; listing what I'd want my ideal bedroom to be like. Scripts, concept boards for stories lining the walls. Nice artwork. Jewelry stands....

And now I am here.

And so incredibly grateful and happy for it.

[rambleandbabble]

The Makeup Breakdown #1: 3CE Velvet Lip Tint vs Happy Skin Lip Mallow Mousse

Greetings and welcome to a new segment here on Ramble & Babble which I’d like to call “The Makeup Breakdown”. To inform you on what this segment is about, I will be comparing two products of the same category with similar formulas, breaking down the pros and cons of each product, and determining which product would be most suitable for you, depending on a list of factors below.

A quick disclaimer before I begin: This is not a battle between two products. Just because one product has more pros, less cons, or vice versa, it doesn’t mean that I am claiming that this product is the better product between the two. This segment is meant to determine the similarities and differences in formulas of both products. I will be listing down their characteristics for comparison. Ultimately, it is up to you to decide which product would suit your preferences the most.

Today, we will be comparing two liquid lip products:

3CE Velvet Lip Tint

Happy Skin Lip Mallow Mousse

During this segment, we will be comparing the formulas and the shade ranges of the products below. This is not meant to be a post about dupes.

Scent

Upon first opening the product, you can immediately take note of the synthetic vanilla scent of the 3CE Velvet Lip Tint. It is quite prominent and can be smelled upon application on the lips. As for the HS Lip Mallow Mousse, the scent is subtler compared to 3CE’s. Noted synthetic coffee scent when smelled. Unnoticeable when applied on the lips.

Packaging

Both 3CE and HS packaged their products using a minimalist, chic and efficient approach by including the color of the shade on the packaging itself. 3CE’s doe-foot applicator is moderately sized with a pointed tip for precision, and each item contains 4ml worth of product. Meanwhile, the applicator of the Lip Mallow Mousse is smaller with a less pointed tip. Each item contains 3ml worth of product. Both containers are light, thin and easy to travel with.

Texture

The 3CE Velvet Lip Tint is creamier in texture. With the arm swatch, it is smooth and glides along easily, but feels quite too silicone-y. On the other hand, the HS Lip Mallow has a whip-like mousse texture that when gliding upon the arm, feels less silicone-y, but not so drying or patchy because of the coffee arabica oil that gives a smooth consistency to the product as well.

Finish

3CE: The 3CE Velvet Lip Tint leaves a blurry matte finish on the lips. Needs a few minutes for it to completely set, but if you want to achieve that blurry finish, best to blot any excess product off. Product settles well on the lips. May sometimes cling onto dry patches of the lips.

HS: Happy Skin’s Lip Mallow Mousse leaves a satin-matte finish. Has more sheen to it compared to 3CE’s when diffused on the lips because of the coffee arabica oil. Settles well on the lips and does not cling onto the dry patches of my lips.

Comfort

3CE: Weightless upon applying one layer worth of product. After 3 layers, you could feel the product weighing down on the lips and feel something slick that when you pucker a few more times, you’d feel something stringy as well. Not a concern when blotted properly. Could feel heavy and drying throughout the day.

HS: Weightless even after applying more than 2 layers of product. No stringy sensations noted when puckering despite increased layers. Very moisturizing upon application, less drying compared to 3CE throughout the day.

Longevity

Upon blotting, the tissue appears to have removed more product of my 3CE swatch than the HS swatch, but both retain the same pigmentation regardless. When wiping it off further with a tissue paper, both swatches seem to leave a stain, still very pigmented. The Lip Mallow stain seems to have retained more of its pigment than that of the Velvet Lip Tint, despite being a nude shade as compared to the very pigmented red of the Velvet Lip Tint.

Pigmentation

As seen in the swatches above, both products are very pigmented upon the first swipe, and are opaque when swatched in equal amounts on the arm.

Price per ml

3CE: Php 950.00 for 4 ml of product = Php 237.00 per 1 ml of product

HS: Php 550.00 for 3 ml of product = Php 183.00 per 1 ml of product

Shade Range

3CE's Velvet Lip Tint boasts more than 20 shades for people to choose from, ranging from bright colors to MLBB shades. Happy Skin's Lip Mallow Mousse was released in 2019, and currently holds 14 shades. Most shades are leaning towards the MLBB aesthetic, targeting everyday use for the Filipino market.

Overall Performance

Both 3CE and HS have stuck to their claims of creating velvet lip products that are lightweight, pigmented, and that gracefully fades throughout the day without the need for constant reapplication. The only difference is that 3CE applies more like a liquid lipstick while HS' formula has a mousse consistency. Having been at the scene for a while now, 3CE has a more expanded shade range as compared to HS, but the latter seems to cater more towards the natural, toned down, fresh look that most Filipinos would go to for everyday makeup wear. HS also offers that additional moisturizing effect that lasts for a long time on the lips. Need I say more? Both in general are amazing Asian lip products. 😊

[tinhdaubabycrush]

Mùi tinh dầu nào dễ chịu nhất? Bật mí cách để có được mùi thơm như ý

Chọn được mùi tinh dầu thơm mà bạn thích, vừa đem lại cảm giác thư thái mà vẫn đạt được một mục đích lý tưởng nào đó. Quả là điều tuyệt vời. Vậy hãy cùng Baby Crush khám phá mùi tinh dầu nào dễ chịu nhất nhé!

Tại sao tinh dầu lại thơm?

Mùi là do các hợp chất ở trạng thái khí kích thích màng nhầy trong mũi sẽ tác động đến hệ thần kinh, khứu giác người sử dụng, sau đó ảnh hưởng đến não và não ảnh hưởng đến phần còn lại của chúng ta.

Một số chất chứa các chất dễ bay hơi có th�� gây ra mùi, như xăng, tinh dầu, rác thải, trứng thối…

Tinh dầu bao gồm các hợp chất dễ bay hơi, vì thế bất kì loại tinh dầu nào cũng có mùi thơm đặc trưng riêng.

Một số mùi thơm đặc trưng như: cam quýt, thảo mộc, bạc hà…

Phân loại hương thơm của tinh dầu

Đặc tính hương thơm của tinh dầu phụ thuộc vào 2 yếu tố: mùi hương gốc của bộ phận, từ cây thực vật mà nó được chiết xuất (Ở đây chúng tôi chỉ phân tích tinh dầu thực vật) và khả năng lưu giữ mùi hương đó (độ bền).

Theo aromatics blog thì có thể chia hương thơm của tinh dầu thành 8 nhóm họ hương thơm và 3 cấp độ lưu giữ:

Cấp độ 1: các tinh dầu có chứa các hợp chất dễ bay hơi nhanh, và cũng nhanh chóng tan biến.

Cấp độ 2: các tinh dầu chứa các hợp chất vừa dễ bay hơi vừa lâu bay hơi. Chúng nằm giữa cấp độ 1 và cấp độ 3

Cấp độ 3: bao gồm các tinh dầu chứa các hợp chất bay hơi cực kì chậm, do đó hương thơm có thể lưu giữ lâu nhất.

Hương thơm cũng còn tùy vào nồng độ nguyên chất của tinh dầu. Có thể là nhẹ nhàng, dễ chịu hoặc nặng mùi và hắc, gây cảm giác khó chịu, thậm chí gây choáng, sốc và khó thở. Vì vậy cũng có thể nói hương thơm dễ chịu nhất khi nồng độ ở mức vừa phải.

Tác dụng của liệu pháp hương thơm

Tác dụng của tinh dầu được cho là Ayurvedic hoàn toàn thuộc về thiên nhiên, tinh dầu ảnh hưởng đến cách chúng ta cảm nhận và cách chúng ta cảm nhận ảnh hưởng đến mọi thứ! Trong đó những lợi ích của liệu pháp mùi hương được nghiên cứu một cách kỹ lưỡng. Hương thơm là 1 giá trị riêng biệt, khá rõ ràng. Các công dụng có thể kể đến là:

– Đa số các loại tinh dầu thiên nhiên đã được khoa học chứng minh là có thể ngăn ngừa và tiêu diệt hầu hết các loại vi khuẩn và nấm, thậm chí ức chế được một số loại virus. Vì thế hương thơm của nó làm không khí xung quanh không chỉ trở nên tươi mát, thơm tho mà còn sạch sẽ, an toàn và diệt khuẩn.

– Hít phải một số loại tinh dầu nhất định có tác dụng rõ rệt đến cảm xúc từ đó giúp cân bằng cảm xúc, nâng cao tinh thần và giảm căng thẳng, lo âu.

– Tăng khả năng tập trung. Cải thiện chất lượng giấc ngủ.

– Một số hương thơm của tinh dầu có tác dụng điều trị các vấn đề hô hấp như: xoang, tăng sự kích thích. Cải thiện khả năng tình dục, huyết áp và nồng độ cortisol.

Hít phải là hiệu quả nhất khi điều trị các vấn đề về hô hấp, trong khi khuếch tán là phù hợp nhất để quản lý tâm trạng.

Một số lưu ý khi thực hiện biện pháp khuếch tán dầu an toàn: [theo healthline]

– Pha loãng theo tỷ lệ thích hợp.

– Hãy chắc chắn khuếch tán dầu ở khu vực thông gió tốt. Theo nguyên tắc chung, nếu tất cả những gì bạn có thể ngửi thấy là tinh dầu, khu vực của bạn không được thông thoáng. Trong những trường hợp như vậy, bạn có nguy cơ kích thích hệ hô hấp quá mức.

– Khuếch tán không liên tục, thường là 30 đến 60 phút, sau đó nghỉ 30 đến 60 phút.

Bên cạnh đó việc sử dụng đúng đối tượng (đặc biệt trẻ sơ sinh và phụ nữ mang thai, hoặc 1 số người tiền sử dị ứng với một số hương thơm, tình trạng sức khỏe tiềm ẩn sử dụng thuốc và bổ sung cần cẩn trọng và hỏi ý kiến của chuyên gia hoặc bác sĩ trước khi sử dụng).

Thành phần hóa học (tinh dầu thiên nhiên, tinh dầu nhân tạo), phương pháp sử dụng (hít, khuếch tán, bôi lên da), liều lượng và nồng độ có thể cũng rất quan trọng.

Vì tinh dầu thường rất đậm đặc nếu nguyên chất. Một số tác dụng phụ quá đà như: phát ban, khó thở, buồn nôn, choáng váng… có thể xảy ra. Người ta có thể gọi là ngộ độc hương thơm.

Mùi tinh dầu nào dễ chịu nhất?

Sự hài hòa và dễ chịu của hương thơm có thể định nghĩa chính xác theo sở thích cá nhân riêng biệt của mỗi người. Tuy nhiên top những tinh dầu dưới đây có thể xem là dễ chịu nhất theo cách phổ biến và rộng rãi (bạn có thể tham khảo nếu việc tìm ra hương thơm đòi hỏi nổ lực hơn nhiều).

1. Tinh dầu Lavender (hoa ỏi hương)

Họ hương thơm: Hoa

Độ bền: khá bền (cấp độ 2)

Nhóm tinh dầu có thể thay thế: tinh dầu Ngọc lang tây

Hương thơm nhẹ nhàng, ngọt ngào, tinh tế, lãng mạn và thậm chí là thơ mộng. Mùi hương hoa được coi là cổ điển và vượt thời gian.

Tinh dầu vẫn nổi tiếng với tác dụng làm dịu, thư giãn và cân bằng cảm xúc. Những đặc tính này làm cho nó trở thành một loại dầu tốt để khuếch tán khi bạn đang đối phó với căng thẳng thần kinh, huyết áp cao hoặc trầm cảm.

2. Tinh dầu Tràm gió (cajeput)

Họ hương thơm: Long não

Độ bền: khá bền (cấp độ 2-trung bình)

Nhóm tinh dầu có thể thay thế: tinh dầu khuynh điệp

Cây tràm gió là sản phẩm đặc trưng của Việt Nam, thích hợp chỉ sống ở khí hậu nóng, ẩm. Chính sự khô cằn và khắc nghiệp này mà tinh dầu của nó có những đặc tính vô cùng quý.

Đặc biệt là liệu pháp hương thơm, tinh dầu tràm được cho là làm mới, thanh lọc – kháng khuẩn, giảm tắc nghẽn và giúp làm sạch nhiễm trùng đường hô hấp. Và mùi tinh dầu này tốt cho bà bầu cả trẻ sơ sinh.

Trái với tác dụng mãnh liệt đó thì hương thơm của nó vẫn mang xu hướng nhẹ nhàng và mềm mại. Tạo cảm giác trong trẻo, ấp ám, đầy yên tâm cho không gian của bạn. Giảm cường độ của bất kỳ mùi hương khó chịu hoặc xuyên thấu nào.

3. Tinh dầu Hoa cúc (Chamomile)

Họ hương thơm: Thảo mộc

Độ bền: khá bền (cấp độ 2-trung bình)

Nhóm tinh dầu có thể thay thế: tinh dầu Xô thơm.

Tinh dầu từ hoa bạn giờ cũng là một sự lựa chọn an toàn nếu bạn không thích mùi hương quá mạnh mẽ.

Hoa cúc là một trong số đó. Loại tinh dầu này có thể giúp bạn xua tan cơn giận, ổn định cảm xúc và nhanh chóng đưa bạn trở lại trạng thái tinh thần minh mẫn, tỉnh táo. Giúp bạn cảm thấy tốt hơn về mặt cảm xúc và ngủ ngon. Từ đó rất hiệu quả trong việc chống trầm cảm- căn bệnh phổ biến trong thời đại của dịch bệnh, tiền tài và áp lực của chuyện hôn nhân, con cái.

4. Tinh dầu Bạc hà (peppermint)

Họ hương thơm: Bạc hà

Độ bền: tương đối bền (có thể ở 3 cấp độ)

Nhóm tinh dầu có thể thay thế: tinh dầu Bạc hà lục (spearmint)

Mặc dù hương thơm của bạc hà khá là mạnh mẽ, chúng dễ dàng được phát hiện ngày từ ban đầu bạn tiếp xúc nhưng lại không nhanh chóng tan biến, một số hợp chất trong tinh dầu vẫn bay hơi rất chậm.

Ngoài ra tinh dầu còn khá là quen thuộc, bất cứ ai cũng có thể nhận ra ngay mùi bạc hà – nổi tiếng với mùi thơm tươi mát với tên gọi là dầu hạnh phúc. Có thể tiếp thêm sinh lực, hồi sinh – giúp giảm bớt trầm cảm và kiệt sức về tinh thần, các vấn đề về hô hấp và đau đầu.

5. Tinh dầu Sả chanh (lemongrass)

Họ hương thơm: Cam

Độ bền: ít bền (cấp độ 1-thấp)

Nhóm tinh dầu có thể thay thế: tinh dầu Bưởi.

Nếu bạn vẫn quen thuộc và ưu thích mùi của cây sả khi chế biến thức ăn, thì đó chính xác là mùi của tinh dầu sả chanh.

Loại tinh dầu nhẹ này thường có mùi thơm được xem là hỗn độn xen lẫn với vị cay thường thấy. Rất dễ dàng nhận ra ngay từ lần đầu tiếp xúc và cũng nhanh chóng biến mất sau đó.

Tuy vậy nếu bạn vẫn yêu thích mùi của nó thì tinh dầu sả vẫn rất thú vị để sử dụng. Vì người ta nói rằng nó giúp làm cho một người trực quan hơn và là một loại thuốc chống côn trùng tự nhiên. Khuếch tán nó để tỉnh táo và cảm thấy bình tĩnh hơn!

6. Tinh dầu Gỗ đàn hương (sandalwood)

Họ hương thơm: Gỗ/Đất

Độ bền: bền (cấp độ 2 & 3)

Nhóm tinh dầu có thể thay thế: tinh dầu Gỗ tuyến tùng.

Tinh dầu Gỗ đàn hương, thường được mô tả là nền tảng, thoải mái và làm dịu. Nếu bạn đang tìm cho mình mình một hương thơm bền, thì đây là tinh dầu dành cho bạn. Tinh dầu này có mùi hương sâu, ấm, KÉO DÀI, thường gợi nhớ đến mùi của núi rừng, đất ẩm. Hương thơm của chúng là mềm mại, nam tính mà không kém phần gợi cảm.

Không có gì ngạc nhiên khi gỗ đàn hương được sử dụng theo truyền thống trong các nghi lễ và thiền định qua nhiều thế hệ.

7. Tinh dầu Hương trầm (Nhũ tương-Frankincense)

Họ hương thơm: Nhựa cây

Độ bền: rất bền (cấp độ 3-cao)

Nhóm tinh dầu có thể thay thế: tinh dầu Nhựa thơm Peru

Đây là tinh dầu thuộc nhóm họ hương thơm của nhựa cây. Loại tinh dầu này toát ra những mùi hương sâu lắng, ngọt và ấm áp, phong phú như khói, gỗ, đất. Hương thơm êm dịu, lôi cuốn và lâu dài của chúng giúp tăng nhận thức tâm linh, tập trung, thư giãn – làm giảm căng thẳng và lo lắng mãn tính.

Bạn có thể khuếch tán hoặc hít trực tiếp dầu thơm này như là cách cải thiện thái độ của bản thân mỗi khi cảm thấy mất kiểm soát là một ý tưởng không tồi.

8. Tinh dầu Quế (Cinnamon)

Họ hương thơm: cay

Độ bền: khá bền (cấp độ 2-trung bình)

Nhóm tinh dầu có thể thay thế: tinh dầu đinh hương.

Tinh dầu này có mùi thơm kỳ l��, ấm áp và mãnh liệt. Nó khá giống với mùi của của các món nướng mới ra lò. Tùy thuộc vào tâm trạng của bạn, hương thơm của nó gần như là quyến rũ.

Một nguồn chất chống oxy hóa tuyệt vời, tinh dầu quế mang đến vị ngọt độc đáo cho mọi không gian.

Nếu bạn muốn chủ động về sức khỏe của mình, và đặc biệt là trạng thái cảm xúc của bạn, thì khuếch tán tinh dầu là cách thiết thực và hiệu quả nhất để tận hưởng lợi ích của chúng.

Cách pha trộn các tinh dầu để tạo ra mùi thơm mà bạn thích

Theo aromatics blog pha trộn công thức theo tỷ lệ: 2:2:1

Nghĩa 2 phần tinh dầu thơm mức độ một. 2 phần mức độ hai và 1 phần tinh dầu mức độ ba.

Sự pha trộn tối ưu CHỈ nên tối đa 5 loại tinh dầu cho một hỗn hợp thơm được tạo ra. Và mỗi lần pha chỉ 5 – 25 giọt tinh dầu.

Hoặc bạn có thể pha trộn dựa trên sở thích của mình một cách trực tiếp, cứ thêm mỗi loại 1 giọt tinh dầu, cho đến khi bạn cảm nhận được mùi thơm bạn thích nhất.

Lưu ý sau khi pha xong các bạn nên để yên hỗn hợp tinh dầu trong vòng 1 ngày, vì trong khoảng thời gian này hương thơm có thể phát triển và thay đổi.

Tao Pro/Baby Crush

Nguồn tham khảo [1] healthline.com/health/are-essential-oils-safe [2] forbes.com/sites/jeannecroteau/2019/07/21/the-best-smelling-essential-oils/ [3] terra-cotta-pendants.com/ten-essential-oils-youll-want-to-diffuse-and-why/

Bài viết Mùi tinh dầu nào dễ chịu nhất? Bật mí cách để có được mùi thơm như ý xuất hiện lần đầu tiên Tinh dầu tràm Baby Crush

[rachels-health-hub]

The Benefits of Using Peppermint Essential Oil

Peppermint essential oil is well known for its minty and invigorating scent. It’s a mix between two different types of mint, water mint and spearmint, and grows in Europe and North America.

In history, this oil was known to the ancient Greeks, Egyptians, and Romans. It was commonly used in Rome to aid in digestion after the Romans had indulged too much after their festivals.

Although limited testing or clinical trials have been done, peppermint essential oil has been said to be used for treating headaches, migraines, insomnia, nausea, the common cold, muscle pain, digestion, bloating, and irritable bowel syndrome.

The best way to use this oil is by diluting it in water, such as a bath tub or oil diffuser, or mixing it with a carrier oil and massaging it into the skin.

Sources:

“Peppermint Oil.” National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Sept. 2016, www.nccih.nih.gov/health/peppermint-oil.

“The A to Z of Essential Oils.” Essential Oils & Aromatherapy: Your Personal Guide, by Marlene Houghton, Wellfleet Press, 2018, pp. 20–47.

Seladi-Schulman, Jill. “Benefits of Peppermint Oil: Uses, Side Effects & Research.” Healthline, Healthline Media, 25 Apr. 2019, www.healthline.com/health/benefits-of-peppermint-oil#takeaway.

[megagametophyte]

       What comes to mind when you’re driving past a farm and you get a whiff of something unpleasant, to say the least? You’re probably not thinking about the impact of cow farts on climate change, but instead, how much it reeks. Cow farts and burps contain a harmful gas known as methane that is a profound contributor to the progression of global warming as we know it. Who knew cow farts could have such an impact? This gas is one of the “greenhouse gases” and is responsible for a process known as the greenhouse effect. Typically, the greenhouse gas we all think about is carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide is produced from fossil fuels and other similar industrial processes such as cement production. Of the greenhouse gases that have the strongest effect on our planet, however, methane gas is one of the more controversial. Some support the belief that methane production is largely a natural process. After all, we can’t control cow farts and burps! Are the emissions of these harmful gases mostly caused by human activity?  Perhaps the environmental fallout is the result of natural processes (such as cow farts), and humans account for only a small minority of the aftermath. Unfortunately, the science does not come to this conclusion. According to NASA, before the industrial revolution, many of the effects of global warming could be attributed to radiation from the Sun and the release of volcanic gases. In the present day, we are now seeing trends in warming that simply do not coincide with the natural activity of the planet. Historical climate data has been studied (various fossil records), and the science disagrees with the conclusion that nature is the main cause of global warming.

       What is the greenhouse effect and what are the long-term consequences of having these gases in our atmosphere? The Sun’s rays penetrate through our ozone layer and heat the Earth. Some heat is reflected into space (off the water and white snow/ice), while some is absorbed into the Earth. This process is very similar to the way a greenhouse stays warm. Sun shines into the greenhouse throughout the daytime, and the glass prevents the rays from escaping which keeps the temperature consistent throughout the year. The same way it keeps plants warm, the greenhouse effect keeps organisms on Earth warm. The absorption of the Sun’s heat is essential for life; keeping it temperate for organisms to evolve. The problem arises when greenhouse gases fill the air and prevent an excess amount of rays from reflecting into space, resulting in the overall temperature of the globe to increase. Carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and fluorinated gases (manmade gases containing fluorine) have the most profound effect on the environment. These gases accumulate when they are released into the atmosphere, perhaps from a cow fart, and cannot discharge into space due to Earth’s gravitational pull. Just like the glass of a greenhouse, the thicker it is (the more concentrated the gases are in the air) the more heat will be trapped. According to the Government of Canada’s 2017 national report, carbon dioxide accounts for 80% of the global greenhouse gas emissions, methane accounts for 13%, nitrous oxide accounts for 5%, and fluorinated gases account for 2%. While carbon dioxide is by far the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions, the effect of methane should not be overlooked. Methane traps more heat than carbon dioxide; in fact, 25 times more heat! Let us investigate the ways in which methane is produced and what percentage of that is caused by humans.

Figure 1: Mechanism by which methane increases absorption of heat energy from the Sun.

       The largest natural source of methane comes from wetlands. In this environment, microorganisms known as methanogens thrive. In wetlands, oxygen is scarce, so methanogens have adapted in such a way that they produce methane as a metabolic by-product when breaking down organic material. Another common habitat for these microorganisms is in the stomachs of a class of organisms known as ruminants which includes animals such as cows, sheep, goats, deer, etc. Methanogens even live inside human digestive tracts! These microorganisms help break down difficult-to-digest plant matter, and in doing so, a chemical reaction takes place known as fermentation. This process ultimately results in the production of methane gas which is then released from our bodies by farting and burping. Methanogens in cattle digestive tracts behave in the same way. Many consider this to be a natural cause of methane production, and it is easy to see why it might be considered as such. Cows inhabit the Earth just as any other animal, but their domestication for agriculture is where the real problem arises. The diary and beef industry are a huge source of methane pollution, outputting approximately 188 million tons of methane globally each year. According to the Global Carbon Project (an organization whose aim is to evaluate the amount of greenhouse gases being emitted and from where), agriculture and waste management is the single highest producer of methane, even in comparison to natural production. Farming produces 5% more methane than the highest natural cause of methane production.

       Another source of methane production is the burning of vegetation. “Biomass burning” releases smoke contains methane that diffuses into our atmosphere because of the chemical compound’s volatile nature. Of course, humans can be attributed to a portion of this, but what about wildfires that occur naturally? While there are wildfires that occur naturally from lightning, the frequency and duration of these events have increased over time as a result of global warming.

       On top of these examples of seemingly natural origins of methane emissions, there are even more human-caused sources. Rice paddies, for example, are semi-aquatic crops that produce up to 100 million tonnes of gas annually. Coal mining, landfill gases, and fossil fuel production are additional ways humans contribute to methane production. Approximately 60% of the methane we see in our atmosphere is due to human activity, leaving the remaining 40% originating from nature.

       Another popular opinion among climate change skeptics is that nature can mitigate the methane being produced. To an extent, that is true. Chemical reactions occurring in the atmosphere and in the soil can process most of the methane and convert it to water and carbon dioxide. Unfortunately, more methane is being produced than can be consumed, and the by-product of the conversion reaction is also a greenhouse gas (CO2). Currently, there is research being done to mitigate these emissions more than just relying on natural “sinks”. Several different approaches to lessen the emissions in cattle agriculture include breeding and genomics, feeding strategies, and infrastructure management. Selective breeding for cows that produce more milk and less methane is an example of a genetic approach. Giving cows antibiotics, vaccines, and nitrates is said to reduce methane by 5-20%. Supplementing their diets with oils and fats reduces methane by 15-20%. Finally, adding other natural supplements to their feed such as an experimental red algae supplement called “Future Feed” claims to reduce methane by an astounding 80%.

       So, while it is true that there are sources of natural methane production and natural methane “sinks”, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released an estimate of global methane emissions based on several studies in 2001. The researched focused on both natural and manmade causes for methane emissions. The results of these studies showed undeniable agreement that most of the methane has been created by humans, and nature cannot manage it all. It is so important to consider all the potential sources of greenhouse gas emissions. As inhabitants of this beautiful planet, it is in our best interest to explore ways in which we can reduce our negative impact on the climate and bring awareness to these pressing issues. Maybe next time you’re driving past that farm, you’ll consider not only the stench from cow farts, but also their unanticipated impact on climate change.

Further Reading:

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/GlobalWarming/page4.php

https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data

https://www.nrdc.org/stories/global-climate-change-what-you-need-know

https://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/research/energy/downloads/methaneuk/chapter02.pdf

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0145/8808/4272/files/A4131-01.pdf

https://www.globalcarbonproject.org/methanebudget/index.htm

https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/

https://www.csiro.au/en/Research/AF/Areas/Food-security/FutureFeed

https://www.agric.wa.gov.au/climate-change/carbon-farming-reducing-methane-emissions-cattle-using-feed-additives

http://www.agr.gc.ca/eng/news-from-agriculture-and-agri-food-canada/scientific-achievements-in-agriculture/reducing-methane-emissions-from-livestock/?id=1548267761377

https://www.gatesnotes.com/Energy/My-plan-for-fighting-climate-change

https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/climatescience/climatesciencenarratives/what-is-the-greenhouse-effect.html

https://www.sightline.org/2019/02/12/calling-natural-gas-a-bridge-fuel-is-alarmingly-deceptive/

https://www.sightline.org/2019/02/12/methane-climate-change-co2-on-steroids/

https://www.sightline.org/2019/02/12/study-methane-life-cycle-critical-pacific-northwest/

http://www.zeroco2.no/capture/sources-of-co2/stationary-point-sources-of-co2#industrial-sources

https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/climate-change/greenhouse-gas-emissions/sources-sinks-executive-summary-2019.html

[sambatop10]

TOP 10 BEST WHOLE HOUSE HUMIDIFIER IN 2019 REVIEW

[sonhos-ao-teu-lado-blog1]

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Are you looking for the Camera then you are at the right place. You can get a camera for the amount of $45 at the Amazon.com. You just have to apply the Amazon Promo Code CARCAMBD at the checkout and your discount will be added to your item when you click on continue option. Also, this offer is valid for a limited time period. Hence, you can’t miss it. So just apply the promo code and you can get a discount on your order.

Gift with Free Shipping And 30% Off

You can get a gift with free shipping and a 30% discount price at Amazon.com. Hence, just use the Amazon Promo Code UJMGTM9Ofor this offer. Hurry up because this offer is valid for a limited time period.

Oil Diffuser 30% Off + Free Shipping

Just use the Amazon Promo Code JZ4QIIZB to get a 30% discount on your order. Also, you will get free shipping on this order. So just apply the promo code given here at the checkout and you can get a discount on your order. This offer is valid for a limited time period. Hence, you can use the promo code and also can enjoy the offer.

Golf Balls >15% Off

If you love playing golf and you are looking for the golf ball then you can get a 15% discount on your order when you apply the Amazon Promo Code 151HSCIM at the checkout. So don’t let go this offer. Just use the promo code and as a result of this, you can get a discount on your purchase.

Athletic Insoles 50% Off

You can use the promo code given here to get a 50% discount on Insoles. Just apply the Amazon Promo Code DUCMR658 at the store and you will definitely enjoy the offer. Also, this offer is valid for a limited time period. So hurry up.

Charging USB Dock Stand 20% Off

If you are thinking of purchasing the USB dock stand then you are at the right place. You just have to enter the Amazon Promo Code5Y2IFF5F at the time of shopping at Amazon.com and as a result of this, you can grab the offer. Hurry up because this offer is valid for a limited time period.

Christmas Tree 75% Off

This offer is valid for a limited time period and you can get a huge discount up to 75% Off on your order for a Christmas tree. Hence, enter the Amazon Promo Code OWSBGU5P at the store and you can grab the offer.

Amazon Promo Code RedditCeramic Magnets 30% Off

Ceramic Magnet can be ordered because it is available for a 30% discount price. So just use the Amazon Promo Code BestMags at the store and you can get a discount on your purchase. Hurry up because this offer is valid for a limited time period.

Oils Set for $16

You can get an oil set for the amount of $16 when you order online at Amazon.com. So just use the Amazon Promo Code TBRER4PU at the store and you can get a discount on your purchase.

LED Lights for $4

Use the Amazon Promo Code GL9RAN7H which is given here to get a $4 discount on your order. Hurry up because this offer is valid for a limited time period.

15% Off  Wireless Headphones + Free Shipping

If you are looking for the wireless headphone then you can get it at a 15% discount rate. You Just have to apply the Amazon Promo CodeKP7BAER6 at the time of shopping and your product will be at your door within the days. So don’t let go this offer. Just use the code and grab the offer.

Wireless Speaker for $7.99

This is a new offer at the store and is valid for a limited time period. Hence, as a result of this, you can use the Amazon Promo CodeNDU9G63X which is given here to get a wireless speaker for the amount of $7.99.

Your First $50+ Order get $20 Off

New customers at amazon.com can take the benefit of this offer. You just have to enter the Amazon Promo Code GETITNOW at the checkout when you order first time at Amazon.com. So hurry up because this offer is valid for a limited time period.

Amazon Promo Code 10 Off Entire Order | Amazon Prime Membership Promo CodeFirst Prime Now Purchase? Get $10 Off

If you are making an order first time with prime membership then this offer is made only for you. Just use the Amazon Promo Code10PRIMENOWgiven here to get a $10 discount on your purchase. Hurry up because this offer is valid for a limited time period. Also, don’t let this offer go.

Free Shipping

Are you looking for the free shipping at Amazon.com this offer can for you? You just have to apply the Amazon Promo Code ALLSTATE1HRat the checkout and you can get free shipping on your purchase. So hurry up use the promo code and enjoy the offer.

$10 Off Prime Now Purchases

This offer is available for the prime member only. You can get $10 discount when you apply the Amazon Promo Code PRIMENOW10 at the checkout. So hurry up use the code and you will definitely enjoy the offer.

$25 Off at Amazon

If you are shopping at Amazon.com then you will be the opportunity to get a $25 discount on your order. Just apply the Amazon Promo Code25FRESHOFFER and you can grab the offer.