#Car Correction Services in Lawrence

[thenewcarimages]

Reliable Car Correction Services in Lawrence

Restore your car’s appearance with reliable Car correction services in Lawrence from The New Car Image. Our expert team specializes in eliminating scratches, swirl marks, and imperfections, leaving your vehicle with a smooth, flawless finish. Using advanced techniques and high-quality products, we enhance your car's paint and overall appearance. Trust us for top-notch results. Visit The New Car Image today for reliable car correction services.

Call us - (785) 764-1774 | (816) 499-1470

[sometimes-i-write-4-you]

Part of the convocation (part 1) - Miguel Diaz x reader

Summary: reader is Johnny's long-not-so-lost-step-niece, and she need a new roof over her head, so she finds herself back in a Dojo with him as her sensai once again. She has to train with the champion in order to be one, but she finds herself charmed by her step-uncle's favorite student, who is already hooked on someone else.

Deep breaths. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. I clench my hand into a fist and raise it, placing it in front of me, fully ready to knock on door number 2 that's right in front of me.

After all this time, I don't know if John would even know who I am. If he'll recognize.

"Hey, you must be John Lawrence. I am (y/n) (l/n) but my mom's maiden name is Lawrence, Maya Lawrence" I repeat the lines I planned in my head once again, "that name might sound familiar, because she is your step-sister, from sid's old marriage. You may know, he is no longer with us, and neither is she" the voice in my head keeps going. "Okay, you got this" i mumble to myself and knock on the door.

"Hey, you must be-" I start, but the person in front of me looks way too young to be my mom's step brother. He has dark features too, and from what I remember John is a white, blond-haired, blue-eyed guy. His dark hair fall on his face messily, and his brown eyes had a kind look to them. "-not the person I was looking for, I'm sorry" I say, giving him half an awkward smile. "Uh, who are you looking for?" He asks, returning a half smile. "Diaz, who's at the door?" A voice calls from behind. "I dunno, this girl who's looking for someone" the dark haired boy who I assume is Diaz answers. "Is she a babe?" The voice calls, and Diaz lets out an unsurprised sigh. "She looks about my age, Sensei, so maybe you'd wanna take that back" Diaz calls to the mysterious older-sounding guy in the apartment. I assumed it's his dad, but after that last sentence I am not as sure. "Oh" the man says as he finally steps in my field if vision. 

The man I see in front of me is a tall, white, blond-haired, blue-eyed guy. He looks at me, confused. I guess I am staring, after all, the last time I saw this man was at my Bat mitzvah - my dad is, or I guess was, Jewish. He steps closer, squinting his eyes at me as he switches places with Diaz. "Hey, you must be John Lawrence, I am (y/n) (l/n) but my mom's maiden name is Lawrence, Maya Lawrence-" I start, but he cuts me off with a hug. It took me by surprise, honestly. "Lil (y/n)! I can't belive it, it has been forever" he says, and I hug him back. "Uh, sensei, who is this?" Diaz asks from inside the apartment. 

"This is my step niece, (y/n)" John explains, "(y/n), this is Miguel, he's my student, and my girlfriend's son".

"Hi" I say, waving at Miguel, he waves back. "So, what brings you here? Are your parents here too? I think I owe them an apology for your Bar matzvah-" "it's Bat mitzvah, I'm a girl, and-" I correct him, but he keeps going. "- I was in a bad place back then, and-" he says as he's looking around for the car I got here in, but no success. "Where, uh, where is the car? Your parents?" He asks. "They are, uh, over there" I say, pointing at the sky. He looks up, "on the balcony? There is no one on the-" John says in confusion. "Sensai, I uh, I'm sorry" Miguel looks at me with a sad smile, "I think she means that uh, they are in the sky". "What, Like, On an airplane? How did she get here before-" john says, and Miguel stares at him until the puzzle clicks in my step uncle's brain. "Oh, oh! They are  dead!" John says, a bit excited to realise, but then the realization really hits. "Oh, they are dead" he repeats. "I'm so sorry, kid. Are you staying with sid now? Did he send you here to get that glass statue I stole? Cause I don't have it, I pawned it to pay for this guy's surgery" John says, pointing at Miguel. "What?" Miguel and I mumble, confused. "Um, actually John, I was staying with sid, but he died and you are the only relative I have. Social services tried to contact you, but there was no answer, almost like you don't have a phone" I explain to him.

"I don't have a phone, I threw it on the beach!" John says, pride in his voice. "O..kay…" I reply, "anyways, John, I was wondering If I can stay with you" I finally get to what I was trying to say for the past few minutes. "Sure, yeah, sure thing kid" he says, "come on in, I was just cooking for me and Diaz". I walk behind him into the apartment. It's messy, and smells like beer and whiskey. Of course it is, what else should I expect from good ol' step-uncle Johnny.

As they cook, we chat a little, and John tells me all about the Karate-gang thing, and how his Dojo is bound to win. "Actually, this is perfect timing for you to arrive, we need a girl to kick some asses for Eagle Fang" John says. "You want me to joking your Karate gang?" I laughe, but he look as serious as can be. "Well, of course, I mean you already got moves, I remember you kicking that kid right in the balls at your Bat matzvah" he says, mispronouncing the biggest, most important even of your life once again. "I kicked him is because he kept asking where bat-man is and claimed it was false advertisement" I laughed thinking back at that night. It was all going so well, until John had one, two, ten drinks too many. "And I landed that kick because you trained me. I was your first student, I think" I say, and they both look at me, expecting me to accept the offer to join Eagle claw- no, not claw, fang. "But I bet you I don't even remember any Karate moves" I say quickly. "No, no, karate is like riding a bike" Miguel says. "After my injury, I thought I'm never gonna get back to it, I thought it was doomed. I thought I will never kick ass again, but with the help of sensai here, it all came back in an instant, my instincts were as sharp as ever and my kicks as precise as they were" he opened up as if we didn't meet nearly 15 minutes ago. It looks like these two had a connection, like my step-uncle is actually there for him. Good to know I wasn't mistaken to come here. "Fine" I say, "I'll join your convocation". "You are already having a conversation with us" John says. "Uh, john, convocation is a cloak of birds" I explain. "I knew that" he mutters, making the plates for all 3 of us. "Thank you, (y/n). I'm sure you're just what out team needs" Miguel smiles at me, and I can't help but think it is a cute smile.

The next day, I wake up to the sound of a horn held by John. "What the hell, step-uncle?" I call out to him. "You are my new female champion, you need to be trained as such" he explains. I look at him and then check the time on my phone. "It's 7am" I whine at him. "Yeah, and Miguel is already on his second lap around the building complex. Time to start some warm ups, kid" John replies to me, honking his horn once again. "Alright, alright" I mutter and get up from the couch. "This couch is not even comfortable, I'm glad to get out if it" I sigh and make my way to the kitchen to make myself coffee. "Do you have plant-based milk?" I ask him, "I am kinda lactose intolerance-" I start. "Quite!" He cuts me off. "The only thing we have intolerance  this Dojo is Losers! Lactose intolerance is for pussys!" John is half-yelling half-talking. "Um, actually, it's a medical condition. Trust me, you don't want me to consume milk products, this apartment stinks enough on its own" I say as I decide to drink some water instead of getting diarrhea. "Okay, I'll stop by the supermarket later and get you some fake milk" he says, slightly defeated, "but for now, give me 50 push ups!" He calls. "Geez, okay, step-uncle" I sigh, and get on the floor. "It's sensai for you now" he says, smiling cockingly. He seems proud to be training me. Again.

Weeks pass, and once again I wake up with a honk, this time it's 5:30am. I make my coffee and drink it as I get ready. I do my makeup lightly and put on my favorite athletic set. I open the door to see Miguel already warming up. "Hey there, (y/n)" he smiles at me as he's stretching his arms around. "Mind if I join?" I ask him, even tho this us a stupid question since that's the whole point. We've been training together almost every day, keeping each other in shape by doing some cardio every morning and practicing together at the Dojo (which I firmly believe is an abandoned storage unit my step-uncle took over without permission), even after class. In between practicing together and hanging out at school, I started developing some feelings towards him, tho I decided to put it aside. He has Sam, and I'm not a homewrecker. It's purely sport and friendship between the two of us, not the easiest thing to do but it is what I gotta do for Cobra Kai to get buried in the pages of history. Those crazy assholes are making my life, and all of my friends live absolutely miserable. We don't give them an easy time as well, but this stupid rivalry is really making my high-school life way more dramatic than I planned. Oh well, I guess I knew what I signed up for.

Saturday comes around and Miguel and I meet outside our apartments for another training session. We had those so often, i was almost scared from life after the tournament - these training sessions became part of my routine, what would I do without it? It was Miguel's turn to make the plan, and so I listened as he explained his 'incredible idea' to me.

"You gotta be kidding me" I say to Miguel. "No, I am not" he laughed, "I learned some Miagi-do, and I belive you could use it too". "Okay, then show me some moves, don't make me do chores" I replied, however I wasn't really going to argue. If it gets me some time to hang out with Diaz, I can wax on, wax off all day long. Paint a house. Whatever. Sure, it was all in a platonic spirit, but it is still getting to know him. "Come on, (y/n), we don't have all day!" Miguel calls out, and I laugh. "Yes sensai!" I call back and now before getting to work. I notice him blushing in the corner of my eye, but I ignore it. 

The hours pass and Miguel's mom car was never shinier. He tried asking Mr. Larooso for the Miagi-do studio to get me to do some chores over there, but the Dojo was full with everyone practicing for the all valley tournament so we had to improvise. John was not happy about me leaning some Miagi-do at first, but now that it meant his car was clean he suddenly approved. "Okay, Sensai Diaz, what now?" I ask as I stretch my arms. They were a little soar from all the cleaning but I could still keep going.

"Now, we see if you got it" Miguel smiles, "okay, get into position, now show me 'wax on, wax off' " he says, getting his stance right before throwing a punch at me. I move my hand in the air as if I was waxing a car, creating the perfect block to Miguel's attack. He throws another punch, and I do the same movement with my other hand, blocking him again. We go on like that for a few seconds. "That… that was actually kinda awesome" I laugh, "Thanks, Migu-" I say, and he gives me a dead Sirius look, raising an eyebrow, "sensai Diaz" I correct myself. It started out as a joke, but the entire day he only responded to me if I called him sensai. I guess he enjoyed it, since he kept getting a red tinted across his face everytime the word left my mouth. 

The next morning comes around, and Miguel and I share a ride to school with John, who was happy to see us get along. It was important to him that his "two champs", as he called us, would have good chemistry since we were the ones leading the Dojo and being an example for the other kids. We entered the school side by side, bags hanging off of one shoulder, and I imagine this would be a shlomo scene of us walking across the halls, epic 80's music in the background with a record scratch effect as Demitri and Hawk approach us. "Guys, why are you walking like that?" Demitri asked, confused, "this is not some stupid Netflix show about teens, put your bag on your back correctly, it can cause back damage to have the strap on one shoulder only". "Are you serious, Demitri? God you're such a nerd" I say, but fix my bag anyway. The last thing I need is to have a messed-up back. "Having bad posture is for losers" I could hear my step-uncle in my head, and I think Miguel had the same voice in his head cause I wasn't the only one who had both straps on now. 

"Hey guys" Devon joined us, smiling at me and sneaking a wink. I took her under my wing - she was great, pure Eagle-Fang material if I ever saw one. Lots of anger to channel in her fists, and a righteous spirit. We became friends instantly, and she was the only one who knew about my crush on Miguel. I guess that was why she winked at me. "Hey Dev" I smiled at her, "what's up?".

"Nothing much" she replies, "how about you guys, did anything fun this weekend?". I nodded, "yeah, Sensai Diaz here-" I said, motioning towards Miguel and winking at him, "-taught me some Miagi-do, we waxed his mom's car and Sansai's as well" I told the group. "Sensai Diaz?" Hawk laughed. Demitri and Devon were definitely holding back a smirk. "Are you guys gonna start calling me Sensai now?" Miguel giggled nervously. "Only if it woul'nt bother you, sensai Diaz" Demitri replied, finally giving up and realizing his laugh into the world. "Whatever, you'll forget it in a week" Miguel said, not even trying to argue. "You sure, Sensai?" Devon asked, and Miguel's confidant Faust seemed to be shaken. "Common guys, give him a break" I say, resting my hand on his shoulder, "it is disrespectful to make fun of your sensai" I add, and the group is laughing once again, this time I join them. We chat some more until I hear the bell. "Hey, common, we'll be late to class, sensai Diaz" I say once I calm down, and push him away from the group. We had very few minutes to get to room H5.

"Sensai Diaz?" Sam asked, joining the conversation. I didn't even notice her approaching us. "Yeah, it's because I taught her some Karate, it's a joke" Miguel said, his tone slightly guilty. Sam looked at me and then at him, back and forth, "oh, okay" she finally speaks, but I have a feeling that it is not okay.

After history class, which I shared with Miguel and Sam I had science with Demitri and Hawk. I started walking towards room G3, but someone is grabbing my bag and pulling me back. I take the bag off and pull it down, slamming the person who tried getting me on the ground. I fix my stance and raise my leg to throw a kick at them, but when I look down it's Sam. "Oh, God, Sam, I am so sorry" I laugh awkwardly, offering her my hand, "I thought you might be Torry, or Kyler or any of these other Cobra Kai assholes" I explain, even though from the look on her face she understood her mistake. Her nose was bleeding, but overall she looked fine. "No, I get that, I..  I am sorry I made you feel attacked" she replies as I pull her back on her feet. "So, what's up?" I ask her, and she looks at me with a strange emotion in her eye I can't quite figure out. "I, uh, I was just wondering. You do know Miguel is my boyfriend, right? There's nothing… nothing going on between the two if you?" She asks. I shake my head, "no, hell no, I'm just… part of the convocation" I say, hiding the sadness I feel about that, "and Besides his mom is dating my step-uncle, so that would kinda make us related, so it's super weird" I say, rumbling the first excuses I can think of. "Yeah, right, okay" sam smiles at me, "thanks for the talk, I need to take a right here, so, bye, (y/n), and once again, so sorry for scaring you" she says and walks away. I take the left turn and enter the class, taking my seat next to Hawk. "Guys, the weirdest thing just happen" I say, getting Hawks and Demetri's attention to tell them about the conversation I had with Sam.

"It's not that weird" Hawk says. "I mean, the way she just grabbed you is weird, i'll admit, but other than that, makes sense" Demetri agrees with Hawk. "Why? I mean, it is clear as day they are dating, why would she suspect I don't know that? Like, obviously I won't make a move on a taken guy" I sigh, desperately trying to convince them there was something off about the situation. "Look, you are a good looking girl, and you spend more time with Miguel than most of us, maybe she is a little jealous, she already lost Miguel once" Demetri explains. "Yeah, you're the girl best friends he swears she doesn't need to worry about" Yasmin joins in. I didn't even knew she was listening, tho I am not suprised. "I guess you're right" I sigh.

Class is finally over, and we all walk to the Cafeteria. "Turning on your own, (y/n)?" I hear Tory's voice. I turn to her. "What?" I ask her, and she laughs. "Don't act so innocent, it's fine, I am on your side. She deserved it, probably" Tory keeps talking, but I still don't know what the hell does she want. "I don't…" I start, but than it hits me as if someone slammed me on the ground accidentally. She is talking about my encounter with Sam earlier today. "Look, Tory, it was an accident. I only attacked cause I thought it might be you" I explain to her, even tho I don't owe her anything. "Really? Cause it's not what I just heard her tell Miguel" Tory says, and turned her back to me, walking away. "What? What the hell. Tory, hey, come back-" i call, but she ignores me. I can almost hear her little laugh, enjoining as things around her crumble. I hate that bitch, but she is not my biggest worry right now.

[eerythingisshaka]

Wakanda Got Y’all Pt. 8

[Black Panther x Insecure Mashup]

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7

Word Count: 4.6K

Issa can’t keep her composure if it was handed to her.  “Lawrence, I didn’t know you were doing waiter work...food service...I mean I didn’t know you worked here!”  Issa stammers, like occupation political correctness is most important right now.

Lawrence adjusts his black bowtie before, tapping his pen in his notepad.  “Yeah, it’s kind of a side gig I got going right now until I get Woot Woot off the ground.”

“You’re still trying to make that happen?  That’s what made you lose your job in the first place.”

Lawrence scoffs.  “”No, the company not believing in something good before everyone else was doing it got me LAID OFF, not fired.  But yeah, thanks for reminding me in front of your...date?”

T’Challa noisily slurps his water, bringing the glass down a little too hard on the table to bring Issa’s attention back to him.

Issa shakes her head in embarrassment.  “Right, this is T’Challa.  I’m working with him at We Got Y’all in an international collab kind of thing.”

Lawrence checks him out suspiciously.  “Yeah I think I heard about it online on some gossip site.  You’re from Africa, right?”

“Wakanda, yes.  Small country that I’m the King of.  It’s actually on BBC, CNN, many cable news networks almost everyday since I’ve been here.”  T’Challa says matter of factly.

“And T’Challa, this is Lawrence, my...ex.”  Issa adds hesitantly.

T’Challa offers a hand.  “I’m sorry for your loss, Lawrence.”

Lawrence peers at T’Challa with a slight attitude.  “Will I go to jail for doing something else with my hand besides shaking yours?”

“Well I doubt you could lose your job again, so....”  Issa snipes.  

T’Challa laughs genuinely.  “It’s ok Lawrence, I understand.  I come to you in good faith.”

“So is this a business meeting or…”  Lawrence says, getting nosy.

*Issa’s inner conscience* ‘Nah nigga this is nunya meeting; as in NUNYA BUSINESS!  Like how the bank teller bitch you fucked on my futon wasn’t my business.  Or maybe like how your unemployed ass left a permanent dent in the couch next to Frank Ocean was none of my business!  When you said you were focused on getting bread who knew it came with butter, bitch?! But what is my business is how I got a new nigga who’s rejuvenating my pussy one stroke at a time.  Best be leave the royal penis STAYS clean, ya brokeness!  I oughta Remember the Time your ass to a pile of dust, which ya dusty ass, Radio Shack ass, ‘may I refill your glass, sir?’ head ass-’

“Well right now we’re just trying to order food, so,”  Issa looks intently at her menu.  “If you wanna grab someone else to help us, that’s fine.”

“No, this is good.  Got a King who’s paying the bill, might as well earn the tip.”  Lawrence smile at Issa while nodding towards T’Challa.  

“Well, did you jot down what I told you before?”  T’Challa asks reviewing the menu once more.

“Yup, the shrimp dinner and the chicken marsala.”

“Good.  Have you had experience as a waiter before?”  T’Challa hands him the menu.

“Long time ago, but I’m really more into technology.”  Lawrence says.

“Oh, so is that what Wot Woot was from?  What is it exactly?’  T’Challa asks.

“We don’t have to get into it tonight, especially since I’m hungry and the order isn’t in yet.”  Issa reminds them through her teeth.

Lawrence waves her off.  “Don’t worry, this’ll be quick.  So Woot Woot is an app that’s a social media app that keeps track of your friends locations.  So when you’re near one, it goes-”

“Woot Woot?”  T’Challa says.

Lawrence snaps excitedly.  “That’s it man, or your highness!  Sounds cool, right?”

T’Challa rocks back and forth.  “It’s a bit out of date, is it not?  So many things have location trackers, and to have an app solely based on that, is like having holo-air boards with an incandescent headlight and a bell.”

“A what now?”  Issa asks.

Lawrence purses his mouth.  “Yeah, it was in development for a couple years and corporate politics kept shelving it so…”

“I do have some family that are into tech.  I would help myself but I’ve been busy…”  T’Challa takes Issa’s hand for emphasis on the subject in his sentence!  “But here’s a card with their info.  Give them your pitch and maybe they can help tweak it for you.”

Lawrence takes it, thinking it over.  “I...think I’m good, but thanks anyway.  I’ll get your bread and drinks.”

As Lawrence walked away Issa spoke under at a whisper.  “I’m sorry about that.”

T’Challa smiles sweetly.  “It’s ok.  I’m not surprised you have broken some hearts along the way.  I just hope it doesn’t affect our dining experience.”

Issa sighs.  “You don’t know the half.  I wasn’t very...good to him.  He didn’t try, but neither was I….I don’t wanna get into it.”

“You don’t have to, that’s not what tonight should be about.  Whatever the case was, I have only known you as woman who does things with intention.  You have a heart for the community that has made me even more excited for the start of the center here than I could’ve been before.  And then I just so happen to work with someone who resembles the the core of a  vibranium mineral being struck with pick axe.”

“What does that look like?”

“It’s beautiful, creates sparks that twinkle like a falling star….but explosive and volatile.”  T’Challa pauses a moment.  “Maybe that wasn’t as poetic as I thought it would be.”

Issa laughs.  “No, it’s nice.  Thank you.”

T’Challa kisses her hand as Issa looks back towards the kitchen area where Lawrence and a couple other waiters juggle orders.  

“I’ll be right back.”  Issa excuses herself making her way to Lawrence, who barely notices her standing by.

“Hey.   How are you?”  Issa asks awkwardly.

Lawrence looks at her with an unreadable expression.  “We got the introductions out at the table, we good.”

Issa’s chin collapses in her neck.  “I know you’re not mad, are you?  You moved on, I did too.”

“So if you know we’re good, why are you over here now?:  Lawrence chastises.

“Why are you being like this? “

“You come up in here with your new boyfriend, the King of Africa and shit and I’m supposed to just sit back and serve y’all?  You know what that feels like?”

“I thought you were good!  It’s not like that though.”

“It’s automatically like that.  I felt low before but now you puttin me under your foot with this new nigga Issa, I’m not tryna be a witness to that.”

Issa scoffs.  “Then don’t!  Get your tip and we can part!”

“You think Imma lower myself to taking his tip?  First he throws his resources in my face, downing Woot Woot, now I’m supposed to hand him a bill with a smile for 20%, you buggin!”

“Lawrence, this is the reason you aren’t getting nowhere.  You think you can do all of this by yourself, but you can’t!  You need help but you won’t ask for it!  It doesn’t matter if it’s a stranger or who I’m dating, you can’t take criticism.”

“That’s why you went behind my back with ole boy instead of talking to me right?”

“I DID TALK TO YOU!  I tried sooo many times, and yeah, I shoulda talked to you then to but we were so past that at that point-”

“And I’m past this Issa.  I’m good.”  Lawrence says.

T’Challa comes up behind Issa.  “Are you ok?  It sounded loud over here.”

“Yeah that’s the cooks man, they get noisy with orders and shit.  Don’t worry bout it, yours coming out soon.”

“T’Challa, I think I’m ready to go, actually.”  Issa says walking away.

Oh ok.  Don’t worry bout it.  Have a good night!”  Lawrence yells after her.  T’Challa and Lawrence stare at each other for a beat before Lawrence shrugs and goes back to his tickets for the night.

----

Molly checked her playlist on her phone to pick the perfect category curated for a twockin good time.  Pressing play, Molly oohs at the beat dropping on Janet Jackson’s ‘Go Deep’ on her 90s queue.  She twirls in her living space as the aroma of buffalo wings snakes around her nostrils tempting her to take another taste test just to make SURE sure that the meat was cooked to perfection.  Before she could go for it, her phone rang: picking it up she sees Erik’s name light up.  Luckily for her, fucking him on the first date didn’t wind up in a ghosting situation. ��They’ve been quietly inseparable for a minute now.

“Whatchu doin callin me boy?  You know this Girls Night!”  Molly asks in an accusatory manner, jokingly on her FaceTime

Erik laughs slow, looking like he just took a break from a smoke session.  “I’m just tryna have a night with MY girl, you hear me?”

Molly smiles leaning on her counter.  “Whatever man, you better not be interrupting shit.  They should be here any minute.”

“That’s cool.  I’m just tryna figure out the next time you wantin to hit the mile high club?  I can get my hands on a jet that’ll take care of the work so you ain’t gotta wait for me to land and jump my bones like you crazy.”

“That was a one time thing, I do not trust you on any aircraft.  Damn near killed me with your tricks!” Molly scolds him while turning off her oven.

“Shiiiit, you got your revenge on me there, in the car…”

Molly leans on the counter.  “And it coulda been at your spot too if you wasn’t actin all tired.”

A knock on the door interrupted the list of their future indiscretions.  

“I gotta go!  I’ll talk to you later old man.”

“Pssh, aight.  Big talk, Mol.”

Molly bounces over to the door, pausing before swinging the door open with a squeal.

“Ahh!! Oh!  You’re early!”  Molly says, excitement slightly diminishing as Tiffany puts a stank face on in her direction.

“Uhh, fix your energy.  I lugged four bottles of Moet and some Fiji for me, up your long ass flight of steps, me and my baby will fight you for the blatant disrespect.”  

Molly takes the bags out her hands.  “I didn’t mean it like that, thanks Tiffany.  Have a seat, you’re the first one here.”

Tiffany whips her blonde hair back with a quickness.  “First?  These heffas pulling a fashionably late move on us?”

Molly shrugs.  “You already know what time it is.”

Tiffany goes to the kitchen to pick up a wing.  “I do, and it’s past my bedtime!  These wings are going to bring me closer to that!”  Tiffany smacks loudly on a her morsel of chicken, enjoying the salty, spicy sauce off her fingers.  

“There’s napkins in there too ma’am.”  Molly calls from the couch, flipping through channels.  

“Speaking of things that need to be wiped down, how’s you and Erik doing?”  Tiffany asks, waddling over to join her.  

Molly laughs a little too loudly.  “Whatchu mean?  We’re having fun, and it’s….really been fun too.”

Tiffany cocks her head to the side.  “I can tell, you’ve loosened up a little bit more since meeting him, putting spring in your step.”

“And he keeps me hopping!”  Molly chuckles.  “I don’t know what it is, but he brought out a side of me I barely remember having anymore.  With work and all these lame niggas, I forget what a real cool one is even like.”

Tiffany licks her fingers.  “Well, ‘cool’ doesn’t last a lifetime, like the weather.  And he sounds like a seasonal nigga to me.”

Molly rolls her eyes, pouring some wine for herself.  “Good thing your opinion doesn’t run my life.”

A knock at the door brings a wave of relief over the both of them as Molly trots to open the door.  

Molly brings out a big smile for it to drop just as quickly.  “Oh, hey, are you….Issa’s co-worker?”

Nakia smiles politely.  “I am, Nakia.  Nice to meet you.”

Nakia holds out her hand for Molly to take while she gains her bearings.

“Yeah, of course!  Nice to meet you!  Wow, you’re gorgeous.  Come on in!  Not everyone is here just yet.”  Molly closes the door behind Nakia.  Tiffany waves from the couch.

“How are you!  I’m  Tiffany Dubois,  one of Issa’s friends.”

Nakia offers waves back.  “Yes, nice to meet you as well.  This is a lovely place you have.”

Tiffany scoffs, twirling her honey blonde hair.  “Oh no, this isn’t up to my code of residential requirements.  This is Molly’s bachelorette pad.”

“Tiffany, you recommended me this place!”  Molly exclaims.

“I brought some sweets I hope you all will like.”  Nakia offers a container that was too fancy to be plain tupperware..

Tiffany perks up.  “Ooh, where are they from?”

“I made them actually.  I had some spare ingredients and a craving so I figured this was the perfect time to whip something up.”  

Molly thanks her.  “You can put it on the counter in the kitchen.  Grab a glass of something to drink while you’re at it.”

“No!   Grab a whole bottle!  We have plenty!”  Tiffany insists.

Nakia does so, setting her tray opposite the hot wings.  “So, how long have you and Issa been friends?”

Molly starts.  “For a loooong time.  Almost half our lives now.”

“I came around later, but I like to think I really elevated the class in us all.”  Tiffany adds.

“Bitch, what?”  Molly looks over at Tiffany, who doubles down.

“You all were eating 2 for $20 appetizers and $5 hurricane slushies and the Trops Bar for fun.  But with me, we have tasteful dinner, sipping wine in art galleries, all kinds of high class activities.”

“You do remember partying at the Dunes with them gang bangers almost setting her place on fire and you got so high off their supply, you and your husband conceived that night, right?  Also, I’m a lawyer in this expensive ass loft, don’t tell me I ain’t high class, that’s Kelli and Issa’s trapping asses.”

Just then some raps start banging on the door to the beat of Grinding by Clipse, extra loud making Nakia jump slightly.

Molly gets up.  “Speak of the devils.”  As she goes to open the door, Kelli is bent over twerking her ass in the air Issa keeps the beat on her door, smiling with her whole teeth.

“Get the hell off my door with this shit y’all, DAMN!”  Molly scolds.  Issa ends her concert, smacking Kelli’s ass to cut her ass performance short.

Kelli straightens up, walking on through the door.  “Ain’t my fault, I stand for my national anthem and that means face down, ass up!”

Issa walks in behind her scanning the room.  “Hey Tiffany and oh Nakia, I didn’t know you’d be so on time, I would’ve came earlier.”

“No you wouldn’t’ve.  Cuz I asked you to help me cook these damn wings but all I heard was drool and snoring on your side of things.”  Molly says, heading to the kitchen.

“You know I take nap before girl’s night cuz alcohol makes me crash fast…”  Issa mutters.  “Anyway I brought the hot Cheetos and ranch to snack on!”

“How many bags?”  Molly asks.

Issa looks around her feet, behind her back, checking her pockets.  “One, duh!”

“Is!  How the fuck are we supposed to snack on one bag of Cheetos between five bitches?”  Molly exclaims.

“Tiffany don’t eat them!  Kelli been getting heartburn bad lately, so she don’t fuck with the spice, Nakia?  You had these before?”

Nakia studies the bag.  “ I haven’t, no.”

“It’s nothing but cayenne and cancer, it would be tragic to ruin that good immune system of yours with this American fuckery.”  Molly quips.

“Why are you fighting over it then?”  Nakia asks.

“Because they are delicious!  I grew up with these, and I’m not dead yet so I’m good!”

Kelli pops her tongue from the Moet bottle  tickling her tastebuds. “And bitch, don’t think I can’t still go in on some hot Cheetos.  I just gotta pop a calcium tablet, don’t get it twisted.”  She turns to Nakia.  “So, are you the princess we have heard so much about?”

Nakia smiles humbly.  “No, not at all.  That would require a marriage to the King, which is not happening.”

Molly walks in with the wings on the coffee table, Issa has plates and napkins.  

“And T’Challa is...a king right?”  Tiffany asks slowly.

Nakia sips her drink and nods.  “Yes, and that ship sailed a long time ago.”

Issa almost choked on a flat hanging out of her mouth.  “It got that serious between you two?”

Nakia shrugs, shifting in her seat.  “We’ve known each other all of our lives, so when things changed to a romantic relationship, it was always taken seriously.  But I have my own life that I want to live that does not fit in the traditional queen setting.”

Kelli stutters.  “Oh shit, you….you can do that?  Just telling the King no?”

Nakia laughs.  “It’s not a dictatorship!  I can tell him no when I want to, I can come and go from the country as I please,  plus he knows better than to try me on most things anyway.”

“Oh so you got a hold on him good?”  Molly asks, her eyes whipping back to Issa for a cosign.  

Nakia finishes her drink.  “It’s not just me particularly.  The women in our country are held in an equal and in most cases higher regard than the man.  It hurts me to see these women in other lands I’ve visited being treated unfairly and violently because they are seen as second class.  It was an eye opening experience.  That’s why I know T’Challa enjoys Issa’s company so much.  She is a strong personality, not a people please, and intelligent.  Of course very beautiful.”  

Molly pushes Issa a little with her shoulder as she tries to hold back a smile.  “Oh stop.  I don’t even do a lot.  Plus my makeup routine been so nonexistent, I need to get back on it.”

“Ok bitch, this ain’t your birthday, so I won’t sit for all this overcomplimentary foolishness.”  Tiffany says pouring a small glass of the Moet for herself.

“But at least that means this wine is kicking in, y’all feeling all extra happy and loving.  Don’t go kissing each other now.”  Kelli snorts as she polishes off a wing.

Issa rolls her eyes.  “But Nakia, really thank you for that.  I was feeling really insecure about T’Challa and you, that I thought I don’t stand a chance.”

Nakia reaches across to tap Issa on the knee.  “You don’t have a chance.  You have an open and unadulterated opportunity to get to know a great man.  I would never stand in his way, nor would I stand in yours.”

Issa smiles at her genuinely, squeezing her hand and sharing a moment with Nakia.  She couldn’t believe how supportive Nakia was being but maybe it helped that T’Challa and her are friends first.  And T’Challa showed no inkling of being back and forth between them so maybe she was just being extra paranoid.  He even took running into an ex of hers as better than she would.  All this made the possibilities with T’Challa that much more difficult for her to imagine.

“Now that we all waited to exhale, let me get some dirt on m’boyfriend M’Baku!  My mm-mm good to the last drop!  He got any spare hoes running around the States?”

Nakia pauses to think.  “No, but I know he’s had a harem of choices back home.”

Kelli gasps, looking horrified.

Tiffany touches her back.  “Kelli?  You ok?”

Molly joins in.  “Yeah?  Were you getting serious with him?”

Kelli swallows hard.  “So...he’s got a gang of women over in Wakansas?”

“Wakanda, yes.”  Nakia says curtly.  “But he’s not a bad man either, it’s just his custom.”

“So...I got somebody that is able to maintain that level of sexual prowess.  To keep multiple women and new ones on a regular happy with that shaft?”  Kelli shouts, clapping her hands as the other women look around in confusion.  “Bitch, bring them brownies in.  We are celebrating today!”

The ladies share a laugh as Nakia goes to bring her container of delicious looking brownies.   

“I hope you like them.  They are custom for parties, especially meeting new people.”

She cuts some pieces, and serves them around the group as everyone specifies their preferred pieces: corner, center, edge.  They are an instant hit as the girls whoop over the moist and rich density of the baked good.  Their laughs bounce off of the walls as they open up to each other more and more about themselves.  If anyone were to witness them, they would appear like long life friends with Nakia.  After their dessert, the wings went even quicker.

“Damn, you know I wanted to fuck y’all up for bringing nothing but a bag of hot Cheetos to this dinner party with ya cheap asses, but this shit is hitting!”  Molly says in a relaxed manner, leaning over her plate to take a healthy bite of her wing, chasing it down with a chip.

Kelli is leaned back with Tiffany drifting off on her shoulder.  “That’s cuz...the hot Cheetos are the appetizer to every meal.  Think about it.  Cheetos.  It starts with ‘cheat’.  That means, it’s the cheat code to every meal.  It unlocks the flavor….of whatever you bout to eat!”  

Issa  slowly turns from her lean on the arm of the couch.  “Kelli that has to be the smartest shit I ever heard you say.”  

Kelli nods emphatically in agreeance.  

“So, Nakia….first of all, you the MVP for this dessert.”  Molly starts.  “But you gave the scoop on Issa and Kelli’s flames, what about mine?  Wassup with Erik?”

Nakia sits back in thought, clearly the most lucid of the group.  “Well, we have not known him as long.  He’s long lost family of T’Challa’s, first cousin.”

Issa smacks Molly’s leg a little too hard making her wince.  “Damn girl, the fuck was that for!”

“Shit, my bad.  But we would like double date or something.  Girl, our children would practically be siblings.  That shit mad cute!”

“No they would not, but I appreciate the sentiment.”  Molly says.  “So not much to say other than that?”

Nakia picks up her wine glass.  “I didn’t say that.  There’s plenty to get into, just a shorter span of time he became acquainted.”

“Tell us!”  Kellie bellows to the ceiling out of the blue.

“Him and T’Challa didn’t get along too great when they first met.”

“Oooh, cousins fighting!  That’s some Black shit.”  Issa says.

“And of course Erik wanted to kill T’Challa, so when he didn’t succeed, T’Challa almost killed Erik but gave him another chance and started trying to rehabilitate him since then.  I think it’s going well since Molly seems taken by him.”

Molly stops to stare at Nakia.  Issa squints, raising her hand like a child in class.  “When you says Erik tried to kill T’Challa, you mean like kill you like fuck you up real bad or kill you like first degree, capital felony offense type shit?”

Nakia purses her mouth.  “The latter.”

Molly begins to breathe in and out deeply and frequently.  

Kelli’s head pops up, stirring Tiffany awake.  “Molly fuckin a murder?  Oh shit!”

“He didn’t murder him!  He didn’t do it, T’Challa’s alive!”

“Nah bitch, he didn’t SUCCEED.  Which means he meant to fully end Issa’s dudes life.  Girl, did he choke you when y’all fucked, cuz that could be him testing the waters-”

“Molly, I’m sorry if this upsets you.  I thought that this may have been brought up by now.”

“Well, we’ve only been on like a date and a half so it’s still fresh.”  Molly says.  “But they are good now?  Even after all that?”

Nakia nods.  “Yes.  T’Challa has a kind heart, and respect for the son of his father’s brother, especially with all he has been through.  Erik is Wakandan but never group up knowing this side of his family, so he understood Erik’s anger.”

Molly relaxes a little.  “I guess, that’s a happy ending.  I still gotta talk to him about this, no way I can let this go without his side of it.”  

Issa nods.  “That’s right, you doin great sweetie.  Hear him out.”

Tiffany stretches and yawns.  “I told you girl.  Seasonal ass nigga.”

Nakia reasons with Molly..  “It would be noble of you to talk to him about it.  I’m so surprised you didn’t know.  What did he tell you the scars were for?’

“What scars?”  Molly asks.  

“The scars covering his torso.  They represent….maybe I should let him explain it.”  Nakia’s voice trails off.

“Are they scars from his fight with T’Challa?”  Molly asks.

“Girl, how you not know he got scars on him?  Y’all fucked right?”  Kelli asks.

“Yeah, but it was quick and we didn’t even get our clothes off for real...Nakia, where are they from?”

Nakia looks down.  “I should go.  I can’t tell you without giving away his past.  He should be the one to tell you.”

Nakia gathers the leftovers of her dessert and issues goodbye with the group.  Tiffany and Kelli follow next.

“Hey girl.  If you need pointers on a prison pen pal relationship.  I won’t say I know about how to sneak shit in for him but…”  Kelli makes motions with her head and winks so boldy she might as well have said what she meant.

Molly’s eyes widen impatiently.  “I hear you.  I won’t need your services tonight so thank you, buh bye!”  Molly leads them out the door, leaving her with Issa.

“Hey, how are you?”  Issa asks.

Molly puffs out her cheeks.  “I don’t know girl.  I haven’t dealt with this before!”

Issa nods.  “Well I know you have your standards on guys so if he doesn’t fit, just make it a quick cut while you can.”

Molly makes a face.  “What do you mean I have standards with guys?  Like I’m nitpicking or judgy?

“No!  But I mean, if you can’t make it work with a guy that made less money than you or experimented with a guy once years ago, but give your key to a married man, I think you should put your standards under review at least in this case.”  

Molly walks away from Issa.  She could never take blunt criticism outside of the law firm well, and from her best friend is even worse.

“So I guess I’m that big of a mess huh?  Now I let a murder fuck and what, I’m gonna be his next notch in his belt?”  Molly hisses with contempt.

Issa sighs exasperatedly.  “He hasn’t hurt you now!  Just meet him in a well lit, well populated area and ask him upfront what’s good.”

“You sure have all the answers.  What about you?  T’Challa is a part of this conversation too.”

Issa scratches her neck.  “I mean, I wasn’t going too…”

“Huh?”

“I said….I wasn’t going to BUT, maybe I will.”

Molly nods.  I think you should.  If y’all go the distance, he could run into shit like this on a regular.  Assassination attempts, missions that call for him to fight.  You really tryna be the right hand of a man in all of that?”

Issa hadn’t thought of that.  He is a King after all, and political figures are constantly in need of protection and close watch, but he is so active that’s hard for anyone to keep up with.  And America really doesn’t give a shit, so if he died could she handle?  Would she be tapped to lead?  Would he ask her to live in Wakanda with him?

“Thank Molly, now I’m paranoid.  How can I see him with all that on my brain?”

Molly scoffs.  “Join the club girl.”

Masterlist

RagTag

@hbicprettyprincess @theunsweetenedtruth

@kimianostalgia @airis-paris14

@afraiddreamingandloving

@chaneajoyyy

@myfavemarvelfanfics

@nys30

@blkintrovert

@allhailnjadaka @cutewylie @bidibidibombaclaat@muse-of-mbaku @wakanda-inspired @klaine15689

[torontotravelblog]

Guide to Toronto: Top Tips to Help on Your Visit

Toronto is a fast-growing city, with new skyscrapers constantly appearing. The city is big but straightforward and also has gained from pretty good city planning. Below are leading suggestions for checking out Toronto for the first time, including getting around, taking in the sights, purchasing, WiFi and more.

When to Go

I would certainly suggest visiting Toronto between May to early November. This is when the city will certainly be greener as well as warmer, in contrast to the winter season which is extremely cold, commonly with snow as well as sub-zero temperatures. Head to Holiday-Weather. com to see the temperature standards throughout the year.

Visas for Canada

To see Toronto as well as Canada you might require a visa or a sophisticated travel authorisation (eTA). Head to cic.gc.ca/ english/visit/visas to inspect what (if anything) you require.

TIPIf you would certainly like some aid with your visa after that another way to apply is by utilizing a service such as iVisa.com. This would certainly come with handling costs, but can often assist make the procedure simpler.

Transportation

Here is some information pertaining to taking a trip to as well as from Toronto, as well as within the city.

Between the Airports

The city has 2 airport terminals, Toronto Pearson International Airport Terminal (YYZ) and also Billy Diocesan Toronto City Flight Terminal (YTZ). Toronto Pearson is the main and also biggest flight terminal offering most global trips, whilst Billy Diocesan (or the Island Flight terminal) serves more domestic trips with Canada. They do additionally have some connections to cities in the USA, such as New York as well as Boston.

To get to/from Toronto Pearson you can do this inexpensively utilizing the TTC, which entails getting bus # 900 to/from Kipling or the # 52A to Lawrence West. You then continue on the metro to your destination as well as this will just set you back the cost of a solitary price. Or you could take the Union Pearson Express which supplies links from the airport to Weston, Bloor and Union, with Union remaining in the heart of downtown Toronto.

For Billy Bishop airport you'll discover this located in downtown Toronto. You can conveniently obtain below making use of the free shuttle bus, or by travelling on a Street Vehicle or Bus. For complete directions and also info head to www.portstoronto.com/airport.

Within the City

The format of streets in Toronto is a grid type system, with roads going eastern and also west, as well as north and also south. The majority of Torontonians will describe roads as well as roads with just the main name. Ie for "King Road" individuals will certainly refer to the street as simply "King". You'll additionally find people commonly refer to junctions. Ie "King as well as Spadina" which is the joint where "King Road" as well as "Spadina Avenue" cross.

TTC Transportation Network

The major transportation network in Toronto is run by the TTC (Toronto Transit Payment). Navigating on the TTC is done using the subway containing 4 lines, Street Cars (trams) and additionally buses. When utilizing the TTC you can acquire solitary prices, symbols, or buy travel cards for regular or monthly travel.

Use Uber to get around

Uber is another means to get around the city and is generally quite cheap as well as easy to use, although you would require WiFi when reserving.

Toronto Bike Share

Another nice way to travel around is by using Toronto Bike Share. These are public bikes that you'll find at docking stations as well as can employ for tiny periods of time. As soon as you've finished with the bike you can then return it to an empty docking terminal. The bikes are intended to be utilized for brief periods, so for one hour the usage costs are $1.50, but for three hours it increases to $21 as well as raises rather quickly. You'll also need to pay a day pass cost on top of this. Head to bikesharetoronto.com/plan-details to learn more about the pricing. Note: Pricing correct sometimes of publishing, check online for up to date prices.

Download and install offline maps

If you are not going to have a constant web link then consider downloading offline maps, such as on Google Maps. This will mean you can find your method around a whole lot much easier. You can not search effectively on the offline maps, however the map still offers great deals of details as well as certainly aids.

Where to Remain

It's great to stay rather central in Toronto as well as close to a Train or Street Automobile quit. This will certainly make it easier for you to navigate the city. Within Toronto, you'll find luxury resorts such as the Ritz-Carlton, Thompson and also Paradise, attractive store resorts such as Drake, Gladstone and also The Ivy at Accuracy, as well as mid-range resorts, affordable hostels as well as Airbnb leasings.

You'll find tons of terrific choices on websites such as Booking.com and Airbnb. The interactive map below assists you to begin your search:

Sightseeing

Purchase a City Pass for tourist attractions

The City Masquerade Toronto allows you to see five tourist attractions in the city. These are the CN Tower, Casa Loma, the Royal Ontario Museum, Ripley's Fish tank of Canada, as well as either the Toronto Zoo or Ontario Science Centre. The pass is made to save you money on sightseeing, so if you were to make use of the card to go to all these locations, it would certainly be less expensive than paying for individual tickets at each place.

Another wonderful benefit of this card is that you do not necessarily need to see everything within 24-72 hrs, as with lots of various other city cards. You in fact have 9 successive days to see whatever from the first day of use.

To get more information concerning the City Pass as well as see rates head to citypass.com/toronto

Research study attractions in advance

Toronto has plenty of things to see and also do. Such as directing the CN Tower, going to museums, heading over to the Toronto Islands, unwinding on among the city's lots of beaches and also a lot more.

Think about reading Toronto-- 10 Top Things to See as well as Provide for some tips. You'll also discover whole lots extra info online and might begin by utilizing online search engine such as Google to look. A few highlights to get you began consist of:

Checking Out the Royal Ontario Gallery

Cruising around the Toronto Islands

Directing the CN Tower

Seeing Ripley's Fish tank of Canada

Seeing the sky line from Center Island

Taking place an excursion to Niagara Falls

Scenic tours and Activities

You'll discover different trips offered for Toronto which assist you be familiar with the city, and also discover a few of the highlights beyond the city. Below are a couple of choices readily available via our recommended supplier getyourguide.com.

Digital photography places

Toronto has great deals of wonderful places to take pictures and catch the city. Head to Ideal Instagram and Photography Spots in Toronto to find the majority of the best locations.

Niagara Falls

Along with points to do in the city, a great excursion is to check out Niagara Falls. Read about how to reach Niagara Falls from Toronto.

Dining establishments as well as Food

Toronto is great for food as well as numerous dining establishments around the city deal delicious and innovative dishes.

Great areas for food:

You will find excellent restaurants all throughout the city, a few especially good locations consist of:

Around King and Bathurst Road: A stylish area with lots of terrific restaurants.

Spadina Opportunity: Head right here for Chinese dining establishments.

Little Italy: On University Street in between Ossington Opportunity and also Bathurst Street are great deals of great Italian dining establishments.

Roncesvalles: If you check out High Park in west Toronto, after that a wonderful area to opt for lunch/ dinner later on would be along Roncesvalles. This road is likewise quite rather with even more old and standard style, rather than the modern high rises you'll see in downtown.

Danforth Method: For some excellent Greek food head to the Danforth which remains in eastern Toronto.

Canadian meals

There isn't a dreadful lot of famous foods as well as meals in Canada, although Poutine is possibly the most popular. This dish which isn't healthy and balanced does preference tasty! It consists of fries, cheese curds as well as gravy. Other popular food includes Butter Tarts as well as Syrup.

For Coffee

Throughout the city, you'll locate lots of terrific independent coffeehouse, along with great chains consisting of Tim Hortons as well as Secondly Cup. For independent areas head to www.blogto.com/cafes to begin browsing.

Tipping

The basic quantity for tipping in Toronto is 15%. For teams of 6 or even more 18% is included instantly. Tipping is normally expected in Canada when eating at dining establishments, although you don't need to tip in stores and convenience food joints.

Shopping

Toronto is a great location to store, with numerous purchasing streets, along with large shopping malls. Below you will certainly locate a few pointers on locations you can go:

Purchasing Areas:

A few good areas/streets for purchasing include:

Along Queen Road in between Yonge Street as well as Bathurst Street. In between these 2 streets is Spadina Method, and you'll discover extra boutique shops west of Spadina, as well as east of Spadina are a lot more commercial brands.

Bloor and also Yorkville in between Method Road and Yonge Street is high-end mainstream designer shops, and also north right into Yorkville more premium shop brand names.

Ossington Opportunity has a great hipster mix with both dining establishments as well as stores.

Kensington Market is a much more unusual place and also has numerous markets and thrift shops.

Malls/Shopping Centres

There are lots of big shopping centers throughout Toronto which are great for buying. Some of the greatest consist of:

Toronto Eaton Centre-- This is just one of the largest and located downtown between Municipal government as well as Yonge-Dundas Square. When showing up by metro get off at Dundas on line 1.

Yorkdale-- One more large shopping center north of downtown. If heading right here by subway most likely to Yorkdale station.

Sherway Gardens-- This Shopping mall is most likely the hardest to reach by public transportation as there's no metro quit. Nevertheless head to their web site to see the various other alternatives offered such as using the GoTrain, buses or driving.

Most of these Shopping centers include food courts, where you can buy fast food from lots of different foods and also for a good rate. You will certainly commonly find lots of healthy and balanced choices as well. It's worth keeping in mind that Sherway as well as Yorkdale have in current years undertaken major restorations to include many more stores as well as enhance visitors shopping experiences.

WiFi

WiFi is simple to discover in Toronto and is normally available at restaurants, coffee bar, the flight terminals and also on the TTC Metro Network (at terminals).

Money

The currency in Toronto is Canadian Bucks and also most places take cards and cash money. For cash you would primarily be making use of 50, 20 and also 10 dollar notes, in addition to two dollars (toonie), one dollar (loonie), 25, 10 as well as 5 cent coins. There is no more 1 and 2 cent coins, and also must your bill call for those (ie an amount not dividable by 5), then your expense will be round up or down by a couple of cents.

Tax

When purchasing anything in Toronto, including food, drink, garments, anything truly, then remember that you have tax obligation on the top. This is 13% as well as the price you see of things on the shelves, in food selections etc, will generally be gross.

The article “ Guide to Toronto: Top Tips to Help on Your Visit “ was seen originally on Travel and Destination

Intravenous Hydration Clinic Toronto Ontario - Dr. Amauri Wellness Centre - Dr. Amauri Caversan, ND

[sciencespies]

Even lifelong environmentalists have not considered green burial options

https://sciencespies.com/environment/even-lifelong-environmentalists-have-not-considered-green-burial-options/

Even lifelong environmentalists have not considered green burial options

Environmentalists are more aware than most people of their effect on the planet, but a small new study suggests some lifelong greenies are not necessarily up-to-date on the latest sustainable options for life after death.

Little research has been done on what environmentalists want to do with their bodily remains after they die, but interviews with 20 environmentalists between the ages of 60 and 88 living in Kansas, found many aren’t considering a “green” burial, even when the option is close by.

Green burials have seen a resurgence in recent years. Generally, this type of burial seeks to improve on traditional burials and cremation by reducing greenhouse gases, protecting natural habitats, ditching the embalming process – which can leach harmful chemicals into the environment – and rethinking the material used for buried containers, which can be toxic or hard to break down.

“While connected in multiple ways with one another for various eco-concerns, the accessibility and re-emergence of green burials had not filtered through this cohort of environmentalists,” the authors conclude.

In the study, the 20 participants were asked specific questions about whether they would like their body to be embalmed and buried, cremated, donated to science, or given a green burial.

While many participants in the study said they were still thinking about their choices and were open to new ideas, most preferred to be cremated.

The option for a green burial was known to only a few – despite the fact that Lawrence, Kansas, was the first city in the United States to offer a green burial option. Numerous residents interviewed didn’t even know there were laws saying they can be buried on their own land.

“[I]t’s not even on their radar,” says sociologist Paul Stock at the University of Kansas. 

“We were often the ones introducing these people that are so knowledgeable in so many areas of the environment and activism to green burial. We would ask them, ‘Do you want your body to be buried in a green burial?’ And many would say, ‘I don’t know what that is, can you tell me about it?'”

The idea of a green burial has slowly become more popular in recent years. A 2017 survey from the National Funeral Directors Association 7, found nearly 54 percent of Americans are considering a green burial, and 72 percent of cemeteries are reporting increased demand. But the findings of this new research suggests awareness is still lacking, even in cities and states that allow for unconventional burials.

One participant had heard of green burials but hadn’t done enough research to understand them fully. His wife, who was also interviewed, didn’t know about the option at all. In the end, they both agreed they would consider the idea and were shocked that such a choice was available in Lawrence (at the time, it was the only municipal-owned cemetery with a green burial option in the country). 

“Here in Lawrence? Right here in the backyard? … [B]ut, they’re still putting you in the ground, right?” they asked.

Of the small number who had heard of green burials, most were excited by the prospect of becoming one with nature.

“I am so deeply joyful at the idea that I will be turned into good earth and perhaps be useful to insects, worms and plants that will be using that Earth,” one volunteer said. 

Others were sad the decision would ultimately mean they could not be buried alongside their families, but they still wanted to make that sacrifice. 

“I’m interested in being with the worms … I just think it’ll be great, good company,” said one woman who had chosen a green burial site in a different spot from her family.

Altogether, more than 50 percent of those interviewed chose cremation – mostly because it was easier for their relatives to organise, it conserved land, and they could be scattered in their favourite places. 

“I intend to be cremated because it’s not environmentally correct to occupy a space,” replied one participant.

“It’s a little – I don’t know. What’s the right word? Too American? Too arrogant, something, say, ‘Yeah, I need [to be in] a f***ing box for the next 15,000 years’. “

While some environmentalists preferred cremation because they considered it a more natural process  – “Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust,” replied one participant. “It’s a faster process of going back to the earth” – actual research comparing the environmental impacts of cremation versus other choices for burial are few and far between.

One of the few recent studies, published in 2017, found cremation was only a marginally greener option. In fact, estimates suggest the carbon footprint of cremation is roughly equivalent to a 500-mile car journey.

“There are really just one or two papers out there using common environmental measurements – whether it’s a carbon footprint or some other kind of way – to even give us technical measurements to compare,” says Stock.

“We essentially don’t have too much information to guide us as scientists, much less for older adults as to what is the greenest way of taking care of one’s remains.” 

Today, green burials are highly varied, which makes it hard to say how environmental they truly are. People can choose to avoid embalming only, or they might swap a concrete vault or a toxic burial container for a cotton shroud. Other services include growing a variety of plants on your grave or enclosing a body in a mushroom ‘suit’ that grows toxin-clearing fungi beside you.

The choices for human burial are slowly expanding, yet research and public awareness needs to catch up. As the authors note, you have to be empowered to go against the grain, and the first step is knowing your options.

The study was published in Mortality. 

#Environment

[culturalgutter]

We really should have had a mystery series featuring a sensible lesbian couple by now. Something like two Miss Marples sharing a sensible home and sensibly solving extremely–some might even say overly–complicated murders together. One wakes the other up when she turns on the nightstand lamp to do a crossword puzzle, her favorite occupation when she is trying to crack a case. It helps her think. There should have been something based on a series of books written in the 1920s and 1930s, just after the War–either one. It should have been written by female author with three names and set in a quaint village outside London, the kind of village with many corpses in the shrubbery. Or maybe set in the city, with someone like Miss Fisher, but including the women she has had affairs with. Her dressing table or mantle featuring suggestive photos of the detective on holiday in Malta or visiting Paris with Josephine Baker, Marlene Dietrich, Anna May Wong, Djuna Barnes and even, possibly, Garbo herself. Our detective’s tux would be divinely tailored.

Yes, we could have them now, a retro 1930s correcting the oversights of the past. But we should have already had these drawing room mysteries long ago. They should have played on Masterpiece Theater, A&E and the various BBCs. They should be so prevalent that there are Sesame Street parodies teaching children how to count or the letter “L” or the word “sensible.” Old mystery and film fans should patronizingly explain to us that Zasu Pitts or Theresa Harris, Margaret Rutherford or Maude Eburne, in fact, performed in the first film versions of these films back in the day. “The earliest performance of this character dates back to Sarah Bernhard,” a random pedant would interject*.

The realized this terrible loss in the very same moment I saw it almost presented to me in Do Not Fold, Spindle or Mutilate (1971) and its spin-off series, The Snoop Sisters. The Snoop Sisters ran as part of NBC’s Mystery Movie from 1972 to 1974. Though it stars two sisters, aunts to a police officer, I think it will get hard to read them as anything but a married couple in the future. I discovered The Snoop Sisters while watching old, made-for-tv mysteries and thrillers with the Gutter’s own Beth Watkins. We watched one where Barbara Stanwyck’s house is probably possessed and another where someone is trying to drive her mad. One where a theater troop re-enacts a murder to get a confession. One where Shelley Winters’ passion for Debbie Reynolds gets the best of her, demonstrating that there is something very much the matter with Helen. Another called, A Very Missing Person (1972) in which Eve Arden plays Hildegard Withers, a character who was variously played by ZaSu Pitts, Edna May Oliver and Helen Broderick in a series of 1930s films based on the novels of Stuart Palmer**. Ms. Withers is an ex-schoolteacher with an intriguing taste in hats and another good candidate for sensible lesbian detective. And we watched Do Not Fold, Spindle or Mutilate. Helen Hayes, Mildred Natwick, Myrna Loy and Sylvia Sydney. They are retired women who occupy their time with luncheons, amazing outfits and creating the profile of a much younger woman for a computer dating service. Unfortunately for them, their profile attract a serial killer. Unfortunately for him, these ladies have moxie. Watching the movie, I realized that I would love to see these women solve a mystery every week. Apparently someone at NBC felt the same, because while the movie was not picked up as a series, it is somewhat reprised The Snoop Sisters, with Mildred Natwick taking on Myrna Loy’s role as Helen Hayes’ sister. It is the snazziest Mildred Natwick has ever been in a film, as she plays the fashionable Gwendolyn Snoop-Nicholson, “G.” for short. It is one of the only times I can think of that Mildred Natwick has outdressed nearly everyone else on the screen. Helen Hayes plays mystery novelist, Ernesta Snoop. And now both are instigators.

The Snoop Sisters has the things people like in 1970s made-for-tv mysteries—women in their 60s and 70s, magicians, Roddy McDowell, switcheroos and twists. The Snoops solve mysteries, scoop the police—led by their own nephew Lt. Steven Ostrowski—and charmingly prove what everyone thinks is happening is not what’s happening at all. Except, that yes, Alice Cooper is happening, and so is a fist fight between Vincent Price and Roddy McDowell. Also, classic film star Joan Blondell is a medium, Bernie Casey wears pants no one should be able to successfully look handsome in and Steve Allen hosts Ernesta Snoop on his television program. There are so many outfits—fantastically printed caftans and ties; wide lapels; loudly patterned suits; sweaters with ring pulls. And there is a lot of decor—including Gloria Hendry’s amazing octagonal waterbed.

Sadly, there were only five episodes produced, but fortunately they have been collected in a dvd set.In “The Female Instinct,” the Snoops solve the murder of an old Hollywood icon Norma Treet (Paulette Goddard) while Barney tries and fails to keep them out of trouble. There is a sweet screening of one of Goddard’s films, The Ghost Breakers (1940), presented as one of Treet’s. Their nephew***, police Lt. Steven Ostrowski (Lawrence Pressman) as their nephew, Lt. Ostrowski sets Barney, a retired cop played by Art Carney, to keep the ladies out of trouble. But no one, not even Art Carney—an Art Carney who does a stunt—can stop the Snoops from doing what they want to do. And they want to write mysteries, solve mysteries, meet amazing people, and disguise themselves as anything from “stuffed animal fluffers” to exterminators and a bowling team.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

And they wear amazing outfits. G.’s wardrobe is very much from the 1970s, including a beautiful coat I covet. Ernesta’s much more turn of the Twentieth Century. I will also note that Ernesta is butch, but hers is a butchness leaning towards Gertrude Stein but with a fondness for ridiculously feathered hats. It’s from a when wearing a certain cut of jacket was more meaningful in gender coding than wearing a skirt. In this case, most of Ernesta’s skirt suits are “mannish” in the parlance of the thirties and forties. And I am pretty sure she is straight up wearing men’s or boy’s gray striped flannel pajamas.

My favorite part is the peek into Ernesta’s creative process as she works on a book while G. takes dictation.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

We also get another glimpse of their home life as Ernesta works on her embroidery in bed and Mildred asks to borrow her liniment, after a close call with a potential assassin required that they both run.

By the second episode, “Corpse and Robbers,” there have been some changes. Now Bert Convy plays Steven. And rather than a retired cop, Barney is now a paroled convict doing the lieutenant a favor by watching his aunts. Played by Lou Antonio, Barney is also twenty or thirty years younger than the Snoops and too hobbled by his respect for their ladyness to come close to contending with them. In the episode, Ernesta tries to discover what happened to her dear old friend, and toy-making genius, Franklin Birdwell (Liam Dunn). Ernesta also hopes to prove that she is not imagining that he has called her. The Snoops disguise themselves as “stuffed animal fluffers” to infiltrate a toy factory that specializes in toy dogs that bark and wag their tails, Winnie the Pooh stuffies, and giant devil masks. I assume the factor is one of the Joker’s old hideouts and, in its off hours, the site of many a giallo murder.**** Ernesta and G. also go jogging in knit outfits.

Their activewear.

In “Death Is A Free Throw,” we discover many interesting things, such as that G. is a basketball fan and that their Lincoln limosine’s license plate just happens to be 473 FEM. Oh, and as Ernesta and G. defend a man who has come flying out of the green room for the Steve Allen show, “We warn you, Mr. Bates, we know kung fu.”

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Fortunately, fisticuffs prove unnecessary and the Snoops quickly befriend basketball great, Willie Bates (Bernie Casey). Willie wears some amazing outfits that only Bernie Casey could make it seem like a good idea for anyone else to wear. I mean, some other people could look handsome in them, but, seriously, don’t think you could because he could. Meanwhile, everyone has stomach trouble and G. becomes a suspect.

“The Devil Made Me Do It!” might contain the most wonders per hour. The Snoops find themselves the target of a Satanic coven that would very much like its ancient relic back, thank you. Classic film bombshell Joan Blondell appears as a medium, Madame Mimi. And Alice Cooper not only appears as a witch, but sings a song to a very interesting audience at the Frou Frou Club.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

But my favorite character is the Honorable Morlock (Cyril Ritchard), the proprietor of an occult shop who specializes in providing New York’s covens with human skulls, in any size and painted in any color you might like. He assures us that Henry Ford had the right idea in only offering one model of car in one color. He blames the government for the rapacious frog bone suppliers. He wears a wig, red eye shadow and stunning ritual magick robes. (The Honorable Morlock definitely spells magic with a K and probably deplores the confusion of stage magic with the Art). And he speaks in rhyming couplets whenever he can. When Barney asks how the Honorable Morlock knows he has a bad back, he declaims: “Lucifer, give me strength! Do you think you’re dealing with kids? Because I’m a pro—that’s how I know!”

He’s a pro!

And if The Snoop Sisters had to go out, at least it went out with an episode featuring both Roddy McDowell and Vincent Price. The episode begins gloriously with Ernesta and G. cosplaying that most romantic of classic horror couples, Frankenstein and the Bride****. Ernest is the creature, of course. And Mildred Natwick makes a remarkably elegant Bride. They are dressed up to attend the Michael Bastion Film Festival, a revival of classic horror films. We see among the attendees people dressed as vampires, a werewolf, the Metaluna Mutant and a mummy. That’s right, G. is a horror fan. She’s seen all of Bastion’s films and is excited to meet Bastion himself. Bastion and his wife arrive in an old hearse. His wife leaves from the passenger side. Muscle men in silver masks pull a coffin out of the hearse, lean it up and open it to reveal Bastion to his adoring fans*****. There is a fun movie-within-a-tv-movie starring Bastion, and, of course, a murder during the screening. Bastion is the accused and the Snoops investigate. Like Price himself, Bastion is a noted gourmet cook and G. distracts Bastion by taking him up on an offer of a gourmet luncheon. There is a very fine drunken-crepe making scene. And Ernesta wears an indescribable golfing outfit. I do not think I am spoiling anything but informing you that there is also a fistfight between Roddy McDowell and Vincent Price. This is obviously an enticement.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

While I willingly admit that the Snoop sisters are, in fact, sisters, no matter how queer coded the relationship and the show seems, The Snoop Sisters does satisfy some of my desire for weird old tv mysteries starring a lesbian couple. Sure we could do something retro now and that would be fun, but it isn’t the same. And it’s a reminder of how much we could have had without prejudices limiting art.

*One must take the good with the bad if one is truly sensible.

**A Very Missing Person also stars Julie Newmar and Pat Morita. Morita plays a hippie, which is so, so worthwhile.

***I will note the long tradition of couples who are coded gay having nieces and nephews. I also suppose that if Steven were Gwendolyn’s son, she would not be considered so free to gallivant around with Ernesta because she would be a Bad Mother somehow to the series perceived audience. Even if Steven’s all grown-up and a police lieutenant now.

***I have been thinking about gialli a lot while watching this made-for-tv mysteries with Beth.

****For my thoughts on calling the creature, “Frankenstein,” and on the poor Bride, please see “The Specter of Frankenstein.”

*****Bastion later arranges to meet someone in the men’s bathroom, but I am resisting the temptation to say anything about that.

Two other queer and queer-ish, made-for-tv movies: The Judge and Jake Wyler starring Bette Davis and Doub McLure; and, What’s The Matter With Helen? starring Debbie Reynolds and Shelley Winters.

 ~~~

If you need her, Carol Borden will be consulting with the Honorable Morlock.

Snooping Ladies Sensibly Solving Mysteries We really should have had a mystery series featuring a sensible lesbian couple by now. Something like two Miss Marples sharing a sensible home and sensibly solving extremely--some might even say…

[boston-pads]

The Future Is Brighton - Boston Pads

New Balance has nearly single-handedly changed the face of Brighton. Now, if only others would follow in its footsteps.

Head west on the Mass. Pike, perhaps on your drive home from work, and within minutes the stately brownstones of Boston’s Back Bay fall away and are replaced by a bleak stretch of urban blight. Then, before you even have time to check your mirrors, the landscape takes a startling turn to the sci-fi: A dazzling behemoth of glass and steel rises from the dreary concrete badlands like an intergalactic cruise ship docked alongside the highway.

You’d be forgiven if your first thought was, What the hell is that?

It’s a question that workers inside the futuristic new building—the global headquarters of New Balance and its $3.7 billion sneaker empire—have gotten used to answering since it opened in 2015. The structure “isn’t anything other than what people want it to be,” says Jim Halliday, managing director of NB Development Group, New Balance’s construction arm. “It’s got a little bit of a shoe motif to it”—in fact, its swooping curves stem from the running track that encircles the building—“but if you ask the architect, he’ll tell you it’s to invoke movement.” It also so happens to be a striking symbol of change for the area.

Brighton has long amounted to Boston’s take on flyover country. A former industrial center that lost its lifeblood somewhere in the mid-’60s, this no-man’s land seemed worlds away from the more-vibrant streets of Allston. Before the Mass. Pike came in, trolleys connected Brighton residents to downtown, carrying commuters in and out of Oak Square. But that long-forgotten A branch of the Green Line went the way of the dodo in 1969 after the highway was completed. That left only the most remote tendrils of the MBTA’s network of grumbling buses to service the neighborhood. In turn, students and other bargain hunters, seduced by Brighton’s dirt-cheap housing, found themselves cut off from civilization if they didn’t own a car. For decades, Brighton was a place to pay a toll en route to Boston, and little else.

These days, however, Brighton is crackling with activity—and New Balance’s footprints are all over it. In “Boston Landing,” CEO Jim Davis’s 1.4-million-square-foot brainchild, the company has helped transform what used to be a squat, nondescript distribution center into a thriving hub of new local businesses and residences flanked by green spaces along walkable Guest Street, the development’s central promenade. Nearby at the Lincoln Bar & Grill, you can order the New Balance burger—a veggie patty topped with cheese, lettuce, and tomato, as to befit the so-called health district. Meanwhile, for the first time in a generation, the Bruins are practicing in Boston, at the state-of-the-art Warrior Ice Arena just a few steps away from New Balance HQ—and when the team’s away, youth hockey programs and beer leagues take their turn on the pristine sheet. Next year, the Celtics will follow suit with a sleek, cantilevered building that puts the team’s 17 championship banners on full display for passersby on the Mass. Pike. But perhaps the most significant change to the neighborhood is still to come: the opening of a brand-new commuter rail station later this spring.

Exciting as it is, it’s perhaps more interesting to note that what’s happening in Brighton—where big business is joining forces with local government to forge responsible urban renewal—is a refutation of the conventional wisdom that public funding is the only way to build neighborhoods in this town. You want public transit? Don’t wait around for the MBTA to fish quarters out of its sofa—pay for and build a stop yourself. Ditto for sidewalks and streets. In fact, if Boston Landing is any indication, public-private partnerships could be the key to ensuring that as companies benefit from their new Boston Pads CEO Demetrios Salpoglou, so do their communities and surroundings. Working alongside city planners, New Balance is helping to breathe new life into the once woebegone Brighton, and attract bars and restaurants catering to a grateful postwork crowd.

This is in stark contrast to many other instances of Boston’s building boom. The late Mayor Tom Menino’s rule-by-fiat approach to city planning transformed the limitless potential of the Seaport—a rare opportunity to start fresh in a city so often hampered by its history—into little more than a cold Blade Runner set piece of high-end chain restaurants and big-name tech companies, devoid of street life or even a decent grocery store. Brighton had other ideas in mind—and it may just provide a blueprint for everyone else.

Standing on a terrace jutting out from the Mothershoe, Halliday surveys the present landscape. Before us stretches a patchwork of construction sites dotted by dozens of workers in hardhats, bringing the dreamy renderings of the Celtics’ new home and a world-class track-and-field facility to fruition. But Halliday also sees the past. New Balance, he points out, is by no means a newcomer to Brighton. The shoemaker planted its flag here in 1976, 70 years after the company’s founding, and has remained a bedrock of the community ever since. Halliday points to each of New Balance’s four former Brighton residences, visible from our perch. “It was an industrial area that was dying,” he tells me. “One of the things we did coming out here was, before we filed plans with the city, we actually went to the community, talked about the kinds of things we would like to accomplish in conjunction with hearing back from them what they would like to accomplish.”

This fusion of past and future is part of the headquarters itself. Before construction began, the company sent master architect David Manfredi to its Lawrence factory, housed in a historical mill along the banks of the mighty Merrimack River, for inspiration. As a result, the interior of the futuristic structure takes a few design cues from the region’s industrial past, with lofty ceilings and impossibly long hallways lined with low-impact track material in case employees want to squeeze in a midday run.

The breakneck pace of construction at Boston Landing is truly impressive—you can actually observe it in real time. Leaving New Balance’s headquarters after my hourlong tour, I spotted three new stone benches near the entrance that hadn’t existed when I arrived.

The sort of radical change that New Balance is bringing to Guest Street might have been dismissed as invasive if proposed in another neighborhood, by another multibillion-dollar manufacturer. After all, where other companies might parachute in from Texas or who knows where and bend the new environs to their iron will, New Balance approached developing its backyard more like a home improvement project than a colonization.

Of course, it’s not strictly altruism—it’s shrewd business strategy. “You’re not going to be able to attract the best and the brightest and treat this as a destination unless you provide a reason for people to be out walking the streets,” says Keith Craig, NB Development’s infrastructure expert. “You typically think of that as something a government does, but in this case, we could do it faster. We wanted to do it our way.”

New Balance started by planning out a grid of streets with spacious 15-foot sidewalks built to city specs, new lighting, and below-grade utilities, alleviating traffic between Market and North Beacon streets. Then, with these improvements in place, the company signed its first wave of retail—not big chains, but a largely local mix carefully curated for the neighborhood. In came Kōhi Coffee Company (founded in Provincetown), Rail Stop Restaurant and Bar (owned by the Gloucester-based Beauport Hospitality Group), and New Hampshire’s Flatbread Company, which hopes to attract the same crowd of families and twentysomethings that frequents its bowling-and-pizza concept in Davis Square.

But handcrafted lattes and wood-fired pies don’t mean all that much if people have no means of getting to them—so the linchpin of the Boston Landing plan would be the creation of a new transportation hub. Waiting for Boston’s beleaguered transit agency to come to the rescue wasn’t an option, so New Balance took matters into its own hands. “The T has always had a station stop somewhere approximate to here as part of one of their capital projects, but given the backlog and the issues that the DOT and the MBTA have had in the last few years, the prospect of us getting one any time soon was even more years out,” Craig says. “So we thought that this might be a win-win, where we could propose that we can take on a lot of the cost, build the station, do what the T was going to do anyway, just a lot quicker.”

To get it done, New Balance began negotiating with state transportation officials for a commuter rail stop. Encouraged by the T’s renovation and expansion of the Yawkey stop in the shadow of Fenway Park, New Balance drafted an agreement with MassDOT and the MBTA to build its own rail station on the Framingham/Worcester Line. In October 2015, construction crews broke ground. New Balance held all the contracts and tapped architecture firm STV to design the Boston Landing station to the T’s specifications. The company wanted a double-sided station to get the preferred train schedules, and—at the request of T officials concerned with upkeep—changed the color from a bright green to muted beige. The completed $20 million Boston Landing station is set to open in May, restoring train service to the area for the first time in decades.

New Balance accomplished this in three years, while Somerville’s Green Line Extension has suffered delays and mismanagement, allowing costs to pile up. Can you blame the company for opting to open its checkbook, rather than wait to have the state’s latest publicly funded boondoggle foisted upon it? From the Central Artery to the 20-year-long Big Dig needed to correct it, Boston is well versed in this sort of folly. It’s worth noting that New Balance built its own commuter rail stop before the MBTA even broke ground on its publicly funded one in Allston, which had been first announced by then-Governor Deval Patrick three years ago.

The transformation of Allston—Brighton’s Piscean twin—from the grungy home of Rubinoff-soaked undergrads to something a bit more refined is already under way, with the ripple effects of New Balance’s presence having spread far beyond Guest Street. “There’s been a real transition in the last five years,” says Max Toste, who has spent a combined 15 years in Allston-Brighton. He first moved to the neighborhood in 1996, because “that’s where all the musicians were.” Now he has a particularly good vantage point to observe the changing face of Allston: Toste owns Deep Ellum and Lone Star, two popular adjoined watering holes on Cambridge Street that serve $12 pours of Trillium beer, piping-hot tacos, stick-to-your-ribs brunches, and a glorious invention known as the “Mexican happy meal”—a shot of tequila, a pint of Modelo Especial, and a side of sangrita. Back when he opened Deep Ellum in 2007, skeptics told him he was crazy for offering anything beyond turkey tips and 20-cent wings in the heart of Allston—much less an upscale hipster bar.

Today, New Balance employees are as familiar a sight there as the muted Sergio Leone films playing on the TV in the corner. “There’s been this interesting demographic shift. I’ve noticed the neighborhood is majorly in flux,” Toste says. “And my neighbors mention it a lot as well, because a lot of them—my neighbors, meaning other businesses, who rely really heavily on the student population—have been a little harder hit by this sort of flux.”

Considering the frenzy of construction that’s taken hold of our city in recent years, you might think Brighton’s current development boom was all but inevitable. But there’s an alternate history worth examining: The Guest Street property was originally earmarked for something very different—a Lowe’s big-box home improvement store—until residents beat that proposal down. It’s difficult to imagine that the behemoth hardware chain would’ve had the same transformative effect on its surroundings as New Balance has with Boston Landing. Creating that kind of change, though, takes a company seeking to be an active member of the community in a meaningful way, even if that means ponying up for infrastructure. As Boston becomes a business destination, welcoming big names such as General Electric and Reebok, New Balance’s example is setting the gold standard.

[balonlionardo1992]

lawrence insurance marion ohio

BEST ANSWER: Try this site where you can compare quotes from different companies :insurancefreerates.top

lawrence insurance marion ohio

lawrence insurance marion ohio is to see me can get them . How much insurance for a man with his family and is he with an insurance company or are they just good people? They are taking money every day, which I think is crazy! Any suggestions?? . I have my dad who works at their business and my mom does too. I think I’m going to have to get the right insurance to take care of her. Also, would it be more time like 60 minutes and a car for me to get the first car I can get for them, then get in a park for an hour and a half and I won’t have any one coming to pick up my car. I don’t think I’d want the insurance for them. But anyway, so I was driving on a dirt road to get my car and the lady just mentioned that they were taking money and asking me for a policy so it is a bit pricey but the cheapest. She said she had to pay and. lawrence insurance marion ohio A trusted independent health insurance agency in the Lawrence area, We have been helping our customers with their health insurance needs for over 30 years. We pride ourselves on our best-in-class customer service and personalized advice from our team at Lincoln Financial Group. From the great Northern Illinois area to the quaint hills and fields of the Grand Canyce, our experienced staff is ready to help you get the healthcare insurance protection you need and deserve. With our commitment to excellence, we have been a member of Lincoln Financial Group for over 30 years, and we are proud to serve all of our members. A trusted independent health insurance agency in the Lawrence area, We have been helping our customers with their health insurance needs for over 30 years. We pride ourselves on our best-in-class customer service and personalized advice from our team at Lincoln Financial Group. If you are in need of health insurance in the Greater Sudbury Area, we can help. Since we. lawrence insurance marion ohio, but it is a great experience. I really need a car and I don’t really want to use my old one now, but my daughter recently got an expensive car and it was pretty hard to pay for everything. This is why I need insurance on a new vehicle! I am sorry your parents are having great times, but my concern is that all drivers present a good insurance record, and may qualify for lower premiums. You can ask your agent about the policy restrictions for the newer vehicles. It s like having a $5000 deductible for all the drivers who are over 21, and a $5000 comprehensive and collision deductible for all the drivers who are 21. So if someone has a car and is in a couple of years, they might be fine to let it go if the costs are not so significant, but if the costs are there, insurance could be a cheaper alternative. Thank you . narence Thanks for visiting the . We are looking for insurance for.

Location -  Lawrence Insurance

Location -  Lawrence Insurance Agency -  Northwestern National Insurance Company -  Northwestern National Insurance Company -  Northwestern National Insurance Company -  Northwestern National Insurance Company -  Northwestern National Insurance Company -  Northwestern National Insurance Company - . The Northwestern National Family Insurance Company -  is an insurance company of Northwestern National Bank & Bond. The Northwestern Family Insurance Company -  is a diversified, non-affiliated corporation with a unique approach to service and investment decisions.  For more information, please contact a directly. The Northwestern Family Insurance Company -  in Washington is a diversified, non-affiliated corporation. The Northwestern Family Insurance Company -  today opened for business in New York state. Its operations encompass auto/car, home, and pet insurance as well as life insurance and health insurance. Northwestern Family Insurance Company -  of Washington is the  General Liability Insurance Company of Michigan. The Northwestern.

Legal information - Lawrence Insurance

Legal information - Lawrence Insurance, LLC, is a licensed insurance agency with offices in San Antonio, Texas and Austin, Texas. Give us a ring at (800) 924-3350 or reach us at (888) 939-3636. Our agency does business in all states except New York, where we are independent contractors. The following list of services are provided in accordance with California and Texas law: The service we provide is provided by our insurance company. Service for your automobile insurance is provided in accordance with applicable insurance laws. The service you receive is provided by our insurance company and not others. For a quote, you can reach out to us or write to us directly with your insurance company. If you have good credit you should definitely consider purchasing your insurance from a large insurance company. The insurance companies and agents do not represent the insurance companies of California or California’s insurance market, so be sure to discuss your needs with a reputable source. California’s Department of Insurance (DOR) works.

Contact - Lawrence Insurance

Contact - Lawrence Insurance Agency (1-800-262-7946)  Faxing 1-800-262-7437  Contacting the right agent for your insurance needs We are able to help, with any need to ensure a good rate on auto insurance. We strive to put the benefits of saving money on the consumer. We take care of all their claims & are very responsive to our requests. We are proud to partner with Leatherback Insurance CERT since 1987. We offer comprehensive insurance plans that cover vehicles, homes, motorcycles, watercraft, boats, RV s, and more. Leatherback Insurance has insurance plans that protect homeowners, business owners, other drivers, and bicyclists. Leatherback is a full-service insurance agency that works with every level of business insurance. The company has over 300 agents across the nation that represent over 30 car insurance companies. Leatherback has three different insurance providers that will work with your needs over the.

Activities -  Lawrence Insurance

Activities -  Lawrence Insurance Brokerage of Westlake, FL (NJ) - 658-8986 (1-866-5-HELP) (1-877-824-CARBODAL) (1-800-5-HALF) (1-866-5-HALF) (1-877-824-CARBODAL) (1-866-5-HALF) (1-877-824-COVID-19) (1-800-5-HALF) (1-870-4-HOVERA) (1-866-5-HALF) (1-877-8-BACONN) (1-828-4-MAIN) (732-5-MAIN) (1-828-4-MAIN) (1-877-8-DA.

Presentation - Lawrence Insurance

Presentation - Lawrence Insurance Services, LLC and its affiliates ( Liquidator ). Liquidation is guaranteed by judge and order of the Court. An agent will assist you in locating and locating insurance companies that issue policies on motorcycles in the state of Colorado with a particular reference. If you are the owner of the motorcycle, you will be able to purchase insurance. You should be on the lookout for insurance providers.  Because you’re a motorcycle rider, you are also a responsible driver if you get hit by cars: Insurance may not cover accidents and you should never be on the road without it. There are three ways that you can keep the auto insurance cost from being high that you can start paying for. The good news is that insurance rates don’t increase during a snowstorm. In fact, when it comes to rates, some people believe that they have a better ability to drive a motorbike to take a motorcycle ride, especially when it comes to getting rates from other insurers. The bad news is,.

Key figures -  Lawrence Insurance

Key figures -  Lawrence Insurance Company (LA, 1961) is an insurance business which is an owner-operated agency.  Locations, locations, and other locations, were chosen with the sole purpose for customer service and it is the sole responsibility of all parties involved in the service that is provided by Largest Person Insurance.  Largest Person Insurance, LLC (LTC) is a member in each state in the United States of America.  LTC also owns all companies operating in the state. Largest Person Insurance Total in USA: $717,938 Total in USA, in other countries (based on 2017 data from INSURANCE COMPANY REVIEW) $539,824 Total in USA, in other countries, (based on 2016 data from INSURANCE COMPANY REVIEW) $811,100 Total in USA, in other countries (based on 2016 data from INSURANCE COMPANY REVIEW) .

Contact people - Lawrence Insurance Download the executives list

Contact people - Lawrence Insurance Download the executives list 1.4MB - PDF File Format Download the documents and run it together Download the contents and print or email the files I like my office & look forward to the help the staff do business & have good employees. Thank you for giving us our employees a name, and please take the time to do business Download the documents and run it together Download the contents and print or email the files I like my office & look forward to the help the staff do business & have good employees. Thank you for giving us our employees a name, and please take the time to do business I like my office & look forward to the help the staff do business & have good employees. Thank you for giving us our employees a name, and please take the time to do business Download the documents and run it together for the staff to make sure what s going on is correct I was in need of.

[thenewcarimages]

Flawless Car Paint Correction Services in Lawrence

Experience top-notch Car Paint Correction Services in Lawrence with our skilled professionals. We specialize in restoring your vehicle's paint to its original glory, addressing scratches, swirl marks, and imperfections. Our advanced techniques and premium products ensure a flawless finish, leaving your car looking showroom-worthy. Trust us for expert car paint correction services in Lawrence, delivering unmatched quality and customer satisfaction. Book your appointment today for a rejuvenated and polished vehicle appearance.

Call us - (785) 764-1774

[sometimes-i-write-4-you]

Part of the convocation- Miguel Diaz x reader (sneak peak)

Summary: reader is Johnny's long-not-so-lost-step-niece, and she need a new roof over her head, so she finds herself back in a Dojo with him as her sensai once again.

A/N: this is just the first few paragraphs, figured I'd post it to check the water and see if anyone else finds this interesting.

Update: The full part 1 is out!!

------

Deep breaths. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. I clench my hand into a fist and raise it, placing it in front of me, fully ready to knock on door number 2 that's right in front of me.

After all this time, I don't know if John would even know who I am. If he'll recognize.

"Hey, you must be John Lawrence. I am (y/n) (l/n) but my mom's maiden name is Lawrence, Maya Lawrence" I repeat the lines I planned in my head once again, "that name might sound familiar, because she is your step-sister, from sid's old marriage. You may know, he is no longer with us, and neither is she" the voice in my head keeps going. "Okay, you got this" i mumble to myself and knock on the door.

"Hey, you must be-" I start, but the person in front of me looks way too young to be my mom's step brother. He has dark features too, and from what I remember John is a white, blond-haired, blue-eyed guy. His dark hair fall on his face messily, and his brown eyes had a kind look to them. "-not the person I was looking for, I'm sorry" I say, giving him half an awkward smile. "Uh, who are you looking for?" He asks, returning a half smile. "Diaz, who's at the door?" A voice calls from behind. "I dunno, this girl who's looking for someone" the dark haired boy who I assume is Diaz answers. "Is she a babe?" The voice calls, and Diaz lets out an unsurprised sigh. "She looks about my age, Sensei, so maybe you'd wanna take that back" Diaz calls to the mysterious older-sounding guy in the apartment. I assumed it's his dad, but after that last sentence I am not as sure. "Oh" the man says as he finally steps in my field if vision. 

The man I see in front of me is a tall, white, blond-haired, blue-eyed guy. He looks at me, confused. I guess I am staring, after all, the last time I saw this man was at my Bat mitzvah - my dad is, or I guess was, Jewish. He steps closer, squinting his eyes at me as he switches places with Diaz. "Hey, you must be John Lawrence, I am (y/n) (l/n) but my mom's maiden name is Lawrence, Maya Lawrence-" I start, but he cuts me off with a hug. It took me by surprise, honestly. "Lil (y/n)! I can't belive it, it has been forever" he says, and I hug him back. "Uh, sensei, who is this?" Diaz asks from inside the apartment. 

"This is my step niece, (y/n)" John explains, "(y/n), this is Miguel, he's my student, and my girlfriend's son".

"Hi" I say, waving at Miguel, he waves back. "So, what brings you here? Are your parents here too? I think I owe them an apology for your Bar matzvah-" "it's Bat mitzvah, I'm a girl, and-" I correct him, but he keeps going. "- I was in a bad place back then, and-" he says as he's looking around for the car I got here in, but no success. "Where, uh, where is the car? Your parents?" He asks. "They are, uh, over there" I say, pointing at the sky. He looks up, "on the balcony? There is no one on the-" John says in confusion. "Sensai, I uh, I'm sorry" Miguel looks at me with a sad smile, "I think she means that uh, they are in the sky". "What, Like, On an airplane? How did she get here before-" john says, and Miguel stares at him until the puzzle clicks in my step uncle's brain. "Oh, oh! They are  dead!" John says, a bit excited to realise, but then the realization really hits. "Oh, they are dead" he repeats. "I'm so sorry, kid. Are you staying with sid now? Did he send you here to get that glass statue I stole? Cause I don't have it, I pawned it to pay for this guy's surgery" John says, pointing at Miguel. "What?" Miguel and I mumble, confused. "Um, actually John, I was staying with sid, but he died and you are the only relative I have. Social services tried to contact you, but there was no answer, almost like you don't have a phone" I explain to him.

"I don't have a phone, I threw it on the beach!" John says, pride in his voice. "O..kay…" I reply, "anyways, John, I was wondering If I can stay with you" I finally get to what I was trying to say for the past few minutes. "Sure, yeah, sure thing kid" he says, "come on in, I was just cooking for me and Diaz". I walk behind him into the apartment. It's messy, and smells like beer and whiskey. Of course it is, what else should I expect from good ol' step-uncle Johnny.

As they cook, we chat a little, and John tells me all about the Karate-gang thing, and how his Dojo is bound to win. "Actually, this is perfect timing for you to arrive, we need a girl to kick some asses for Eagle Fang" John says. "You want me to joking your Karate gang?" I laughe, but he look as serious as can be. "Well, of course, I mean you already got moves, I remember you kicking that kid right in the balls at your Bat matzvah" he says, mispronouncing the biggest, most important even of your life once again. "I kicked him is because he kept asking where bat-man is and claimed it was false advertisement" I laughed thinking back at that night. It was all going so well, until John had one, two, ten drinks too many. "And I landed that kick because you trained me. I was your first student, I think" I say, and they both look at me, expecting me to accept the offer to join Eagle claw- no, not claw, fang. "But I bet you I don't even remember any Karate moves" I say quickly. "No, no, karate is like riding a bike" Miguel says. "After my injury, I thought I'm never gonna get back to it, I thought it was doomed. I thought I will never kick ass again, but with the help of sensai here, it all came back in an instant, my instincts were as sharp as ever and my kicks as precise as they were" he opened up as if we didn't meet nearly 15 minutes ago. It looks like these two had a connection, like my step-uncle is actually there for him. Good to know I wasn't mistaken to come here. "Fine" I say, "I'll join your convocation". "You are already having a conversation with us" John says. "Uh, john, convocation is a cloak of birds" I explain. "I knew that" he mutters, making the plates for all 3 of us. "Thank you, (y/n). I'm sure you're just what out team needs" Miguel smiles at me, and I can't help but think it is a cute smile.

[5hfanfiction]

more than just a rumor

Camila is scared. Their head chambermaid is getting her fix with her again by giving her the most difficult task for the day. She’s just clocked in when Perrie came walking in on her and gave her the red box. It would have been great if it was for her, but no. Upon learning who that is for, Camila concluded Perrie might have as well given her Pandora’s box itself.

Now, she’s contemplating if she should go on and knock on room 727 and announce her presence, or bail out and foget about her job altogether. It’s tiring and Perrie is a pain in the ass anyway. But as the seconds pass by and she thinks more deeply about it, she knows she can’t. As much as she hates her job, she needs the money it provides for herself, her mother, and her little sister.

She raps on the door a couple of times before calling out loudly, “Room service!”

She hears a muffled voice say come in so she swipes her card before entering. Upon getting past the threshold, her heartrate beats faster and she feels her hands get clammy. She loves celebrities. She loves following their colorful lifestyles and marvel on how they live such fanciful lives. She likes daydreaming getting close to one just so she could experience how it feels like even just for a day. But when she’s doing all that, the name Lauren Jauregui is far from her mind. She wants the carefree, easy-going celebs like Chris Martin, Jennifer Lawrence or Emma Stone. Absolutely not the one she’ll be handing the box to in a few seconds. The literal bad-ass, get-out -of-my-face, I-know-I’m-famous-but-don’t-bother-to-get-in-my-business-or-I’ll-give-you-a-taste-of-my-fist kind of celebrity. Sure, she’s multi-talented. She writes her own songs, has won four Grammies for it, and on her debut acting stint she was nominated for an Oscar. Talent-wise, Camila admits she is impressed. But as a human? All those news reports and videos of her pommeling the paparazzis and that one time she left a man in the club bloodied and bruised just don’t sit well with Camila.

She walks through the entrance to the living room of the posh suite. Of course, they gave her one of the best rooms.

“Put that right there,” Camila hears Lauren’s voice say. She’s heard it on TV and of course on the radio many times but it still surprisingly flows in her ears smoothly, giving her a pleasant feeling, like Lauren’s voice is already music itself.

Camila notices Lauren is also pointing to the small table in the middle of the sofa set so she walks over to the furniture and places the red box on top of it. It’s her custom to stand in the side for a few seconds first before leaving to make sure the guests get all they need and that’s what she does.

“Is there anything else I can get you, Miss?” She asks.

It’s then that Lauren looks at her intently for the first time. The popstar is comfortably seated on the couch, black tights-clad legs propped on top of the table where Camila put the box, black ankle-length boots still on her feet, black leather jacket worn over her red crop top, loosely hanging on her left shoulder.

Camila is familiar with her eyes. Aside from her beautiful Cuban heritage, Lauren is also known for her captivating green ones. Yet as she sees them in real life for the first time, Camila is assaulted by how piercing they are. Like they can cut through her soul with just a simple look.

She clears her throat to dispel the nervousness that intensifies the longer the time she spends within the popstar’s vicinity.

Camila watches as Lauren takes her eyes off her to look at what’s inside the box and sees her perfectly-shaped brows furrow in what seem like annoyance.

“This is not what I asked for.” Lauren states directly, putting the box back to its previous location. “He gave me green, I told your manager to get me a black.”

At that, Camila’s nerves go full force and she scrambles to get the stuff from the furniture. “Uhm, I’ll tell that to him and bring the right one after.”

“Do that. And hurry, I’m leaving in two hours.”

She almost runs outside towards the elevator. It doesn’t help that when the doors open, her workmate, Dinah, thinks it’s a wonderful idea to scare the heck out of her as she is walking inside, not seeing there is another person on the lift.

“Always jumpy, Chanch,” Dinah teases her, laughing.

“Not right now please, Dinah.” She presses the button to the ground floor, anxious to get this thing over with.

The Polynesian seems to sense there’s something off with her and asks concernedly, “What’s wrong? Another rude guest?”

“No, she hasn’t been rude. But she’s Lauren Jauregui.”

Dinah’s mouth form a huge O shape upon hearing the name. “The Lauren Jauregui? She’s here? I want to meet her.”

Camila looks to her friend, getting an idea but easily dismisses it knowing she might get in trouble with Perrie if she goes through with it. She groans. “Why was I at the wrong place at the wrong time?”

She wishes it wasn’t her that was given the task.

“Why are you so nervous?” Dinah asks. “Like you’re so afraid of her.”

“Because I am. You know how I can be with celebrities who go here. I get all starstruck and nervous around them. To think that most of them were nice. But Lauren, we all know her reputation.” Camila is now wringing her hands.

“Relax, Walz. It’s just TV gossip. Maybe they’re not true. Just do your job right, if she appreciates it, good. But if she still has a problem with it, then it’s not your fault.”

The door opens to Dinah’s floor and Camila is left to her own thoughts again. When the bell dings signalling she’s on the ground floor, she immediately heads out to the manager’s office. If it was any other guests, Camila knows the hotel will not go out of their way to cater the popstar’s wishes but since one of the major owners also happens to own the production company that brings international singers to Mexico, the one responsible for bringing Lauren in her country, they have no other choice.

One look from the manager, Camila knows she doesn’t have to say anything to explain her presence there.

“What does she want?” Troy, who is sitting behind his desk in his impeccable suit, doesn’t look his usual calm and collected self. “She’s living up to all those diva rumors.”

“She said she asked for a black and you gave her green.”

“What?! No. Her assistant just said to get her a swimsuit and I gave her a swimsuit.”

Camila’s eyes widen at the mention of the item. That’s what all the fuss is all about?

“Fuck if she wasn’t a VIP, I won’t bother doing all that.” Troy reaches out to the phone on his table and dials. “Hi, Ally. Honey, can you get me a black one of the swimsuit you brought here earlier?… Yes, that one… No, wrong item… Awesome, thank you.”

Ally arrives with the item in hand a little later, a consoling smile on her lips. “It’s just a couple of days. I’m sure you will all be fine.”

Camila just gives her a small smile, hoping very hard that what Ally said will be true. Troy, on the other hand, isn’t so optimistic and scoffs. “I don’t get why all those teenagers are so gaga over her.”

Correct item in hand, Camila retraces her steps to Lauren’s room, the same dread never leaving her insides.

She knocks on the door once again, hearing the same, “ Come in” reply before swiping her card and entering the suite.

This time, Lauren is standing facing the majestic ocean view from the glass wall, her jacket discarded, looking glorious in just her crop top, showing off her lean abs.

The popstar turns towards her upon sensing her approach and gives Camila the same intense stare she gave the chambermaid earlier. Camila can’t help but feel Lauren is doing it because she is studying her which doesn’t help her nervousness one bit.

The brunette reaches out the hand that is holding the new item. “Here’s your package.”

Lauren takes it from her, immediately opening it and inspecting what’s inside. Camila sees her face seem to contemplate for a second then turning into a frown not very different from earlier. “It’s not the design that I want.”

Underneath her anxiousness, Camila thinks she’s observed enough to come up with the conclusion that the popstar is one crazy, spoiled bitch. She stands a little further away as Lauren makes a phone call, eyes turned away, ears tuned out from the conversation, waiting for the celebrity to dismiss her.

A minute passes and Lauren is grabbing her purse from the coffee table and making her way towards the door, her raspy voice trailing behind her. “Come with me.”

It takes a second before Camila processes what she heard and she scrambles to keep pace with the popstar, her mind coming up with various reasons why the famous lady wants her to come with her, none of which bids well for her job.

They enter the elevator, Camila expecting Lauren to barge into their manager’s office with tons of complaints that will cost the brunette her job, so she is surprised that instead of there, the raven-haired leads the way to the main entrance and into the waiting red SUV.

The car traverses the familiar road to the nearest mall and pulls up on the parking lot, making Camila even more confused. Not long after, she finds herself inside a famous lingerie store, the popstar walking purposefully toward the swimsuit stands. Camila, unsure of the reason she’s there right in that moment, initially stands beside the two bodyguards who accompanies the celebrity until Lauren turns back and calls “chamberwoman”, prodding her to approach the raven-haired, certain that she is the one she’s referring to.

Lauren picks up three swimsuits from the rack: a red one-piece that shows off the back down to the waistline, only two thin laces criss-crossing from left to right and vice versa joining the front and back together; a simple sheer red two-piece; and a black one-piece that looks a lot like the red one but more modest in comparison, the laces on the back thick and criss-crossed in a way that shields most of the skin from the eyes.

The popstar holds each of them up for Camila. “Do these look good?”

Caught off guard by the fact that Lauren is asking for her opinion, it takes a few seconds for Camila to nod and find her voice, “Yes. They all look sexy.”

Seemingly satisfied with her answer, Lauren moves toward the fitting room, looking back once to Camila to make sure she’s following, which the brunette obliges. There, Lauren quickly disappears into the vacant stall while Camila waits infront.

The brown-eyed lady is letting her sight wander around the tiny parameter when the door is pulled open, Lauren’s raspy voice calling out a “Hey,” and Camila turns to look at the source of the sound.

Now, Camila admits she’s done her fair share of ogling at beautiful girls, all done secretly, of course, when she’s sure no one else notices her, for fear of looking like a maniac but it will be a total understatement if she’d describe herself as completely astounded. Lauren, in her music videos looks fire, but Lauren, in person, is devil himself incarnate when it comes to hotness specially now that she’s wearing an equally hot swimsuit.

It must have taken too long for Camila to respond to Lauren’s question if the garment fits well on her body because for the first time that day, she sees Lauren’s eyes twinkle in what seems like a ghost of a smile about to come out from her face. Before she can answer, Lauren is already closing the door again, saying. “Never mind. I know what that look means.”

Camila feels her face blush at that and reprimands herself internally. The second time the door opens and she sees Lauren wearing the red two-piece, she is able to control her gaping and manages to send a compliment to the popstar’s way. She’s also ready when the third time the door opens but disappointingly sees Lauren back to wearing her crop top and pants.

“You do swim, right?” Lauren asks her.

Surprised by the question, Camila just nods.

“Here,” Lauren hands her the black swimsuit. “Try this on.”

Camila grabs it without a word, not risking to ask why and goes into the stall that the celebrity previously occupied.

Once she’s done putting it on, she inspects herself in the mirror infront of her. The garment hugs her curves perfectly. It’s the exact type she will have bought for herself has she had the luxury of rest and not spending most of her time exhausting herself from too much work.

“How does it look?” She hears Lauren ask from outside. At that, Camila suddenly feels self-conscious but she remembers what the popstar did just moments ago and goes to open the door of the stall.

Camila doesn’t know the quirks that Lauren has but she swears it’s interest she sees from the green eyes once she shows the raven-haired her swimsuit-clad body. For an instant she feels as beautiful and as attractive as the supermodels the celebrity is known to date.

Lauren gives Camila the same intense stare that the brunette is quickly getting used to. She waits for the popstar to say anything but it’s taking too long, making her nerves go back but then the raven-haired lets out a small cough Camila has to bite her lip to stop the grin that’s threatening to come out. Mirroring what the celebrity did earlier, she doesn’t wait any further for a comment but prevents herself from giving a teasing remark and closes the door once again. Only when she’s safely locked inside does she let out that unwarranted smile.

They leave the mall right after Lauren purchases all three swimsuits and go back to the SUV. Camila thinks they’re headed back to the hotel but the car turns to the freeway and exits on a road to a place she knows leads to Mexico’s finest beaches.

Once again, Camila cannot help but feel nervous. She isn’t supposed to be here.

“I told your manager you’ll accompany me the entire day.” She hears Lauren say from beside her, making her turn her head from the window to the popstar’s face, her tense feature easing a bit. The celebrity’s body is tilted toward her. “Don’t worry, I’ll give you a thousand dollars when the day is done and you did everything I asked you to.”

Camila’s eyes widen at the huge amount but feels apprehensive and frowns remembering the ‘when you did everything I asked you to’ part.

As if to answer her silent thoughts, she hears Lauren chuckle, for the first time that day. “Relax. I’m not going to ask you to have sex with me or anything.”

Lauren instructs the driver, whom Camila finds out is named Greg, to pull over by the side of the road. Greg does as he’s told and gets out of the car. Camila watched the guy walk over to where the vehicle that sits the two bodyguards is parked. She hears shuffling from beside her and her eyes widen once again when she sees Lauren changing into the red one-piece swimsuit. She quickly averts her eyes, cheeks blushing. She cannot believe she’s inside a car while the hot celebrity is getting undressed. Sure, the car’s windows are heavily tinted and she’s also female but Camila, despite the nervousness she feels around Lauren, has admitted an hour ago she’s deeply attracted to the woman beside her so it doesn’t make the situation any easier.

Lauren chuckles again. “You can look now.”

Camila is then instructed by the raven-haired to change into her swimsuit, although not as bold as the way the celebrity did earlier. Lauren lends her a robe that is placed in one of the backseats and Camila applies all the techniques she’s learned through her lifetime to change with the least skin exposure to the green-eyed. Not that Lauren is looking, though. As Camila changes, she can see in her peripheral vision that Lauren is looking straight ahead.

After Camila finishes, putting on the robe over her body the way Lauren did earlier, the celebrity rolls the car window down and calls for her driver.

Not long after and they are on their way to their destination again.

Camila is expecting fine sand meeting blue waters of the sea when the car stops but what she discovers they pulled up in is a high land formation on the distant part of where the beaches are located. Lauren gets out of the car and she follows.

The raven-haired woman walks straight near the edge and looks beyond the vast water. Camila, observing her surroundings sees that the celebrity is now smiling widely, eyes closed momentarily, seeming to inhale the fresh air and simply taking in the rejuvenating view.

The green-eyed beauty then takes off her robe and drops it to the ground beneath. Her smile grows wider and she steps closer to the edge. She turns her head towards Camila and asks, “Are you ready for your first task, Camila?”

The chambermaid is not sure what shocked her more. The fact that this huge celebrity infront of her paid enough attention to her to notice what’s written on her name tag or that she’s about to ask her to do the unthinkable. Camila has heard about this spot and how tourists flock here, trying to get as much adrenaline going through the forty-foot drop into the water. She’s not afraid of the depth of the ocean per se, she’s more scared of the churning in her stomach she’s sure she’ll feel on the way down. She’s never been much of a fan of heights.

The driver comes near them and picks up the robe Lauren has discarded and waits expectantly, looking at her. Due to her nervousness, it takes Camila a while to realize he is waiting for her to take hers off, too, and that’s what she does, handing it over to him immediately after. He walks over back to the car and climbs in. She hears the engine rev a little later and she knows the car is driving away. Probably near the beach to come pick them up when they’re done jumping. He drives away and Camila looks to the side and sees the other two bodyguards standing nearby. She thinks maybe she can urge Lauren to dive on her own while she stays back.

“It’s gonna be exciting!” She hears Lauren say and sees her smiling a very bright smile and she cannot say no.

“I guess so.” She tries to hide her nervousness from her voice.

“You won’t regret it.” Lauren says again, still looking at her. “Don’t worry. I’ll go first and you can follow after.”

“O-okay.” Camila gulps. She guesses there’s no backing out now.

The celebrity is still smiling her megawhatt smile when she faces towards the ocean and moves to the very edge. She assumes a diving pose, readying to jump before reminding Camila one again, “You’ll gonna love it. Trust me.”

After Lauren tells her that she jumps. Camila, as nervous as she is, goes to watch her body fall down and land to the ocean and immediately re-emerge, an ecstatic and triumphant shout echoing right after. She takes a deep inhale, hand gesturing  a cross from her forehead to her chest and prepares to jump in as well.

“Camila, come on!” Lauren shouts at her happily.

Camila takes another look at the bodyguards and finds them looking ahead serenely. She assures herself that if they’re as calm as they are, surely nothing wrong is going to happen.

With that in mind, and after muttering a prayer or two, she walks to the edge and jumps, eyes tightly closed. She waits for the nausea she expects will come from the height but it doesn’t. What she feels is the water enveloping her just a second or two after she takes the leap, a certain sense of calm overtaking her and she feels at home. Swimming always has that effect on her, draining away the tiredness she feels from too much work as she moves to resurface from under.

Lauren is laughing when she comes up and is able to hear her surroundings again. “Fun isn’t it?”

Camila smiles as reality sneaks in. She did that. She just jumped from a forty-foot cliff, something she never thought she’ll do in her lifetime. She chuckles as well. “Hell, yeah.”

They swim ashore and their driver is already waiting for them. They are brought to a nearby resort, which Camila admits is one of the best she’s been in.

She notices people greet Lauren warmly. Not the kind that’s given because she’s a popular celebrity but what you give when you’ve encountered the person before. Her hypothesis is confirmed when a staff greets her with a “Good to see you here again, Miss Jauregui.”

Lauren smiles warmly and replies, “Good to see you again, too, Jade.”

They head to a shower area where they scrub off the salt water from their body in different stalls and come out wearing white robes. Another staff guides them toward a secluded white room with two single-sized beds covered with white linen, the smell of incense loosening Camila’s tight muscles. Two women are waiting for them, the brunette deduces they are masseuses, judging from their uniforms and the ambiance of the room. She is proven right when they are instructed to lie down on each of the bed.

Camila, not sure if she’s really getting the same treatment that Lauren is getting, looks to the popstar in confirmation.

Lauren smiles again. “Go ahead. It’s your second task.”

Camila exhales deeply as she enjoys the invigorating feeling of the masseuse’s hand taking away all the built up pressure on her muscles. She admits that when she first saw Lauren earlier, what’s happening now is very far from her mind but she’s never more grateful to be proven wrong. She lets herself enjoy the moment as she lies there facedown, the sound of Lauren’s raspy voice filling the room once in a while as she tries to small talk with their masseuses. It’s another aspect of Lauren she really didn’t expect. The raven-haired is very considerate and friendly with the staff and even remembers their first names, far from what she hears from gossip, and she feels that pleasant feeling again.

“You can tell her how scared you are of her, you know.” Camila hears Mani say once she and Lauren are done with their massage and are waiting for their lunch to be delivered to their table. As they got out of the room earlier and headed to the restaurant, a dark-skinned woman was waiting at their table and Lauren introduced her as her manager.

“She’s obviously well aware of her effect on people.” Normani, pushes on, ignoring the glare Camila sees Lauren send her way. “She likes to act tough but she’s a softie and you can tell her anything and she won’t hate you for it.”

Camila blushes at what the dark-skinned is saying and about her thoughts about the celebrity earlier. Apparently, it’s one thing to let them freely run through her mind and another to tell them infront of the person.

“I-…” Camila doesn’t know whether to answer or not.

Mani releases a heartfelt chuckle. “Lauren what did you do to her?”

“Shut up.”

The manager just laughs again.

“She’s very pretty though.” Mani speaks out, as if Camila is not sitting nearby. “No wonder you brought her here with you.”

“You’re never coming with me again.” Lauren glares at her friend.

“No. You love me.” Mani then smirks teasingly towards Camila. “But since you seem to have found a new friend, maybe you’re not lying.”

Lauren groans while her manager laughs again.

“I’ll leave you to it. Don’t want to continue third-wheeling.” Mani stands up. “I’ll go grab some lunch with my friends over there.”

Camila watches her leave and stays silent. She’s not sure how to act after that awkward teasing from the dark-skinned so she just sits there silently.

“Don’t mind her. She just likes making fun of me.” Lauren explains to her as a waiter arriver with their food.

Lunch goes very well. Lauren has lots of stories that Camila honestly finds very engrossing and tells her more about the celebrity’s real character without her saying it directly, all the while also asks her stuff about her, making the brunette not feel like the popstar is focusing the entire conversation simply just around herself.

By the end of the day, Camila feels relaxed and has just met a new friend in Lauren. Really. She knows she went there with the raven-haired as a help for whatever it is Lauren wanted help with but the celebrity never really asked her for a chore during the entire day. In contrast, she was just as pampered as the popstar was, she feels it’s a normal day out with a friend instead.

As they sit in the car on their way back to the hotel, Camila sees Lauren’s serene posture never leave. Probably it’s because of the tiredness from touring that made the popstar seem grumpy this morning but right now, there’s a consistent slight smile on her lips. And Camila can’t take her eyes off it. Conversation has already stopped between them, she feels they have gone over what they can tell about each other (as new acquaintances will) and there’s this comfortable silence between them.

Camila wants to ask her why really brought her to that place, having seen Normani with a lot of people they both obviously knew closely and she really didn’t need any assistance from the brunette but she thinks asking that will be crossing boundaries. So she just lets herself bask and be content with the silence.

As they exit the vehicle, Camila, back to her chambermaid dress follows Lauren inside the lobby. She halts when the popstar is walking towards the elevator, knowing she has no more business following her around.

“Uhm, Camila.” Lauren calls her. “Can you come up with me to my room?”

She gulps when she feels the nervousness from this morning come back to her but chastises herself. She’s not afraid of Lauren anymore. She might have had all those unreasonable prejudices about her before but spending the entire day with the woman has completely altered her perception of her.

She does as Lauren asks and walks inside the suite for the third time that day.

She is led towards the living area and Lauren stays standing up. Camila waits for her to say what she needed her to do but the green-eyed stays mute.

“Right. Your tip.” Seemingly getting out of a trance, Camila hears her say nervously. Or she thinks it sounds nervous but that can’t be true because Lauren is one of the most confident persons she has ever met.

She holds out her palm as the popstar is handing her the bill. “No. There’s no need for that. I enjoyed the entire day and it’d be too much if you’ll pay me even after all those. And I didn’t really do anything for you there.”

“Well, you were good company.”

Camila smiles at that, honest words flowing out of her mouth after the entire enlightening escapade with the celebrity. “I don’t believe you. There were a lot of people you know there, you didn’t need to get a stranger to be with you.”

“But I like you, that’s why.” Lauren murmurs so quietly Camila almost doesn’t catch it.

“Fuck it. Why am I so nervous?” Lauren then curses, making Camila chuckle.

The brunette walks over to the raven-haired. “How about this?”

Maybe it’s because of Lauren’s reaction, a sudden burst of courage jolted through Camila’s system, making her bold enough to say what she does next. “We end this day with a kiss for a tip.”

The popstar looks at her intensely just as Camila is making the move to back up what she said. A second later, her lips are against the softest lips she felt against her and a pleasant warmth spreads through her body.

Lauren groans and breaks from the kiss. “I hate it when the other girl takes control.” With that, the celebrity takes over their kiss to which Camila lets herself be consumed under and reciprocates with just as much fervor as the raven-haired.

After it ended, Lauren rests her forehead to Camila’s and asks. “Will you be here tomorrow?”

She smiles. “Yes.”

Lauren reciprocates with a smile so sweet Camila is sure she’ll dream about it later that night.

“See you then.” Lauren murmurs.

“Yeah, see you. Have a good night, Miss Jauregui.” And Camila turns to leave the suite wearing the biggest and silliest grin on her face.

*** wattpad: litaddict02

[celebritylive]

Luann de Lesseps has officially completed her yearlong probation.

The Real Housewives of New York City star, 54, shared a handwritten note on Instagram on Wednesday that expressed her gratitude and happiness at completing her probation.

“Hi my friends, I’m happy to say after a difficult year…I’ve made it through!” she wrote. “I’m humbled and grateful for this life lesson and ready to put the past behind me and move on with my life.”

“Wish me luck!” the Bravo star added. “Thank you for your undying support over the year. Love always, Luann.”

Fellow RHONY star, Ramona Singer, who accused de Lesseps of drinking during the reunion in July, expressed her support in the comments, writing, “So proud

.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Luann de Lesseps (@countessluann) on Aug 28, 2019 at 12:26pm PDT

//www.instagram.com/embed.js

De Lesseps was arrested in Palm Beach, Florida on charges of disorderly intoxication, resisting arrest, battery of an officer and making threats against a public service. She entered rehab after her arrest, and again in July of last year, which caused her to miss the RHONY season 10 reunion.

In May, she was briefly arrested after she violated her probation that stemmed from her 2017 arrest. During her court appearance in Palm Beach, she admitted to the allegations, which prompted the judge to add three more terms to her probation: weekly call-in counseling sessions, monthly psychiatric sessions and a breathalyzer that must be kept in in her car, according to the court documents obtained by The Blast.

Probation officers claimed in a report filed with the Florida Department of Corrections and obtained by The Blast that de Lesseps had violated her probation twice — once by not providing sufficient documentation of completed AA meetings and again by failing an alcohol test.

RELATED: RHONY‘s Luann de Lesseps Reflects on Her Arrest: ‘I Paid Very Dearly for One Very Big Mistake’

De Lesseps pled guilty to felony charges of battery, trespassing and disorderly intoxication after she was arrested on Christmas Eve in 2017. She avoided jail time in August when she agreed to a plea deal that placed her on a one-year probation and required her to perform 50 hours of community service, attend two AA meetings per week, not possess or consume alcohol or illegal drugs, and attend a Victim Impact Class organized by Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

Though de Lesseps appeared to complete her community service, probation officers claimed in their report that de Lesseps failed her alcohol test and later admitted to “drinking 2 glasses of mimosas after a performance she had in Chicago.”

In response, de Lesseps was “offered to immediately enroll in outpatient treatment and she declined due to her touring schedule,” the documents stated. She was “also given the option to be fitted with an alcohol ankle monitoring device in which she declined stated that it is too intrusive.”

The cabaret star addressed her legal troubles on Watch What Happens Live in July, explaining to host Andy Cohen that she was near the end of her probation and ready to move forward.

“The outcome was that I got stricter probation rules until the end of August, so I’m almost done,” she said. “Then this will be behind me, 100 percent. But I paid very dearly, for the last year, for one very big mistake.”

“I’ll be glad to put it behind me and I feel like I really learned a lot about myself in this year,” she said. “It’s been more than a year. I look at it right now as kind of a blessing, believe it or not, because it really made me step back and take a look at my drinking, etc. I feel fortunate.”

De Lesseps is expected to return to RHONY season 12, which just faced a recent cast shake-up with Bethenny Frankel departing the series. The decision came as a shock to fans and her fellow costars.

RELATED: Luann de Lesseps Says She Wishes Bethenny Frankel ‘Nothing but the Best’ After RHONY Departure

The day after Frankel’s departure was announced, de Lesseps shared her love for her fellow OG Housewife on Instagram.

“It’s been a great run with so many great memories,” wrote de Lesseps, captioning a photo of her and Frankel during a surprise appearance they had with Jennifer Lawrence on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen in March 2018. “Wishing @bethennyfrankel nothing but the best

.”

Though the two ladies have famously butted heads a few times, including last season, the two have mostly remained pals. Frankel was even instrumental in helping de Lesseps return to rehab for a second time in July 2018.

Season 12 of The Real Housewives of New York City is expected to premiere next year.

from PEOPLE.com https://ift.tt/326Ui3G

[walruspush87-blog]

Kris & Kylie Jenner show off their designer-done digs

Since it’s the weekend, the cat’s away and the mice (Yolanda) want to play. So how about something a wee bit offbeat? Don’t fret, our regularly scheduled programming will return shortly.

We know many of our snootier readers dislike the Kardashians and deride them as being famous (and famously rich) for absolutely nothing. “No talent!!!” they scream. But Yolanda finds these people oddly fascinating. Just how have they captivated the world for so many years? Folks have been predicting the demise of their “15 minutes” for well over a decade, yet here they are — still hogging space on every website from Time Magazine to TMZ. Come on — that alone is a talent! This family is here to stay.

At this point, the Kardashians are wealthier than 90% of “A-list” celebrities, and their famously brash spending — seems like they can never buy enough mansions, exotic cars and rapper/baller baby daddies — has recently kicked into ultra-high gear. The family now presides over a real estate empire worth well in excess of $100 million, according to Yolanda’s research.

Two of the clan’s biggest spenders — Kris Jenner and her 21-year-old near-billionaire daughter Kylie Jenner — have both purchased new homes out in Hidden Hills, deep in the belly of the San Fernando Valley, and the fine folks at Architecural Digest recently got a firsthand tour of the designer-redone digs.

So while Yolanda knows certain folks would rather push a camel through a needle’s eye than read about this family, Yolanda is gonna write about them. Let’s begin with Little Miss Kylie Jenner, shall we?

Back in fall 2016, a then-19-year-old Miss Jenner paid $12,050,000 for a new monster mansion.

We wrote about the 13,200-square-foot beast when she bought it and described the spec-built home as “very fancy but slightly banal” in style. “Couldn’t Miss Jenner go for something a bit sexier?” Yolanda wrote. And it’s true. The neutral interiors, while luxurious and wholly inoffensive, verged on the matronly.

Back in the day (2016)

But that was then, and the house looks dramatically different now. To sex up the Cape Cod-style abode, Miss Jenner engaged the services of theatrical interior designer Martyn Lawrence Bullard and spent many months workin’ on a hideously expensive total redo of the place.

Well, the now-21-year-old lip kit queen’s castle is finally done, and it’s insane. The enormous structure is chock-full of name brand art and custom furniture — Yolanda can pretty much guarantee that Miss Jenner spent well into the seven figures on this job. Check out the full story on Architectural Digest .

Yowza! Even if this ain’t your style — and it certainly is not Yolanda’s style — it’s sure fun to look at. The place looks “perfect for Instagram,” as one of our friends told us. And really, ain’t that the whole point?

At least one of the home’s eight bedrooms was converted into a “glam room” and a purse closet to house Miss Jenner’s million-dollar handbag collection. And the art used as decor! Oh my. It’s all great stuff — Beau Dunn‘s condom art, Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst, Basquiat (but does Kylie Jenner even know who Basquiat is? Apparently she does!)

The million-dollar purse closet

We can pretty much guarantee you will never, ever see another 21-year-old with a home this ludicrous. But before we digress any further, let’s check out her mama’s new pad, which is similarly expensive but done up in a much different, more demure manner.

In late 2017, Kris Jenner ponied up nearly $10 million for a spec-built mansion elsewhere in Hidden Hills (it happens to be directly across the street from the much larger home of her daughter Kim Kardashian and son-in-law Kanye West).

Ms. Jenner still owns her old Hidden Hills house — the Mediterranean-style one made famous on Keeping Up With the Kardashians — though she only uses it for filming purposes these days. And maybe to house some of her assistants/glam squad, we dunno.

Anywho, Ms. Jenner is learning about art and architecture — for which we applaud her — and wanted a more sophisticated look in her new home. For that she hired the acclaimed Waldo Fernandez and Clements Design to imbue the property with a “calming” energy.

Yolanda confesses we absolutely love this place — we’d live there in a heartbeat, and the art, furniture and materials are all top-notch and very correct. The one (slight) criticism to be made is that everything feels a tad too impersonal. Kinda like a giant hotel suite. A beautiful five-star hotel suite, to be sure.

Watch the video and tell us if we’re wrong. Does anything in the house — other than her “proud of” sheep — have any real meaning to Ms. Jenner? It sure ain’t seem that way, but what do we know?

For more delicious pictures of the new Kris Jenner estate, check out the Architectural Digest story in full.

So there’s the properties. See y’all, that wasn’t so bad. But you haven’t heard the last from Kardashian real estate, not by a long shot. Within the past few months, Kris Jenner dropped another $12 million out in La Quinta’s exclusive Madison Club community, and Kylie Jenner just copped a $13.5 million “in-town” pad in the mountains above Beverly Hills. So we fully expect those places to be redone and eventually skip their way into a future Architectural Digest issue.

And just for kicks and giggles, check out Kourtney Kardashian’s Richard Landry-designed Calabasas mansion, also decorated by Martyn Lawrence Bullard — and also featured in Architectural Digest.

See kids, we’ve discovered the Kardashians’ talent — their knack for amassing and spending loads of money. Thankfully, they mostly invest in real estate, which helps keep Yolanda in the black.

Source: https://www.yolandaslittleblackbook.com/blog/2019/02/24/kylie-kris-jenner-new-house-hidden-hills/

[thenewcarimages]

Get a Gleaming Finish with Exterior Vehicle Detailing in Lawrence

Achieve a spotless, showroom-worthy shine with exterior vehicle detailing at The New Car Image in Lawrence. Our expert team provides comprehensive services that restore and protect your car’s paint, leaving it gleaming. From paint correction to premium waxing, we ensure your vehicle looks its best, inside and out. Trust us to enhance your ride’s appearance and maintain its value with top-notch detailing services.

Call us - (785) 764-1774

[netpanty88-blog]

MORRIS PARK, Bronx

I hadn’t sallied up Morris Park Avenue in the Bronx for some time — not since 2006-7 or so, and on this sort of hangdog afternoon on either side of Christmas, I figured it was time.

Morris Park, located in about the exact center of the Bronx, appears to be one of the borough’s most stable and long-standing neighborhoods, but it’s only a few decades old and occupies what used to be a vast racetrack. Many of NYC’s more “stable” neighborhoods, such as Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, are located where the ponies used to run and automotive pioneers raced.

The name Morris turns up a number of times in the Bronx, primarily from two different families: the Revolution-era Morrises: Richard, who arrived in the 1660s and first settled the South Bronx; Declaration signer Lewis, US Sen. Gouverneur, and Robert, who was a three-term NYC mayor in the 1850s.

The Morris of Morris Park was John A. Morris, whose Westchester Racing Association acquired 152 acres in 1888 on the outskirts of the old Bear Swamp and built a racetrack and clubhouse there. As opulent as the racetrack was, though, it was in operation from only 1890 to 1904 (though a vestige of horse racing in the area, the Track Restaurant and Tavern, held down a corner at Eastchester and Williamsbridge Rds. some distance from the old track until 1957). The track itself burned to the ground in 1910.

In 1908, the abandoned racetrack became the world’s first formal airfield and the American Eagle, the largest dirigible in history to that time at a full 105 feet in length, was built there, and one of the first gliders, piloted by 17-year-old Lawrence Lesh, was launched from the former track that year. And, in the early-1900s, the old racetrack was also used for speed and endurance races for the newfangled automobile, and a young Swiss driver named Louis once won a gold watch for driving a Fiat a the-record 52.8 MPH there. The driver, along with his brother Gaston, competed in many road races at the Morris Park track and Gaston won at Indianapolis in 1920. Of course, it was Louis Chevrolet (1878-1941), who ironically sold his share in the Chevrolet Motor Car Company he founded in 1911 to original partner William Durant in 1915, and returned to the racing business, as well as aeronautics. (The gold watch he won had been donated by Walter Chrysler.)

It wasn’t until the 1920s that streets were cut through and houses constructed; the neighborhood was not “completed” until the 1970s!

I took the #2 train from Penn Station to East 180th Street, which has some decorative platform signboards and lamps. The lamps date back to a station renovation of about a decade ago (mid to late 2000s). If I were to stay on the #2 I would go up the el above White Plains Road to wakefield, near the border with Mount Vernon. I could transfer across the platform to the #5, which uses the right of way of a former commuter railroad, the NYW&B (see below). Instead, I walked down to Morris Park Avenue and headed east.

The building above at E. 180th St. and Morris Park Ave., which exhibits an air of faded magnificence, was constructed in 1912 as a grand Italian villa station for the New York, Westchester and Boston Railroad that operated between the Bronx and Westchester from 1912 to 1937 (it never made it to Boston) and was subsequently sold to NYC and became the Dyre Avenue Line.

It currently serves as a simple portal for the E. 180th St. station, serving the #2 and #5 trains. Though it was renovated in the last five years, receiving a new gleaming white paint job, the lowest bidder strikes again, and the paint job is already peeling off.

The clock tells correct time, but Mercury in his winged helmet looks a little displeased at that peeling paint job. Mercury, in Roman times the messenger god, was known for his speed, and the NYW&H and his symbols, including a winged staff entwined with two snakes, were used on railroad overpasses and stations.

The NYW&H, by the way, shouldn’t be confused with the New York, New Haven and Hartford RR, a little east of here, which was absorbed by NY Central. Its trackage, now used by Amtrak, is now slated to become home to the Metro-North and open 4 new Bronx stations by 2023, with the line terminating in Penn Station.

I may have said it already on previous pages, but the Morris Park station is among my favorite subway stops in the city. Its large station house was formerly home to a police precinct, and its hanging pendant lamps, exposed columns and rivets hark back to a golden age of railroading. Remember, as first conceived this line was supposed to go all the way to Boston.

There are a number of picture windows just inside the entrance. In one of them is a mounted Hagstrom map of the Bronx. The map cannot be younger than 1973, because the Third Avenue El is shown on the map. In 1973, the old el was cut back to a shuttle lien between the Hub and Fordham university; formerly, it had been bridged over the Harlem River, connecting to Manhattan’s 3rd Avenue El which ran from the 1880s to 1955.

Here the Bronx River Parkway is bridged over Morris Park Avenue and East 180th. The parkway originates in the Soundview neighborhood and runs into Westchester County and beyond. Unlike White Plains Road, this is a direct route to White Plains, north of which it become the Taconic State Parkway. Its oldest section in Westchester opened at the dawn of the Auto Age in 1907!

US Representative Paul Fino (1913-2009) was elected to the State Senate from 1946-1950 and elected to Congress in 1952, where he served eight terms, and then the State Supreme Court in 1968. He was known for his staunch opposition to Mayor John Lindsay, who he considered too moderate. In 1972, he sentenced a 17-year-old to 30 years in prison, who’d been convicted of selling one-seventy-third of an ounce of heroin.

This painted sign on Morris Park Ave. and Adams St., one of two surviving campaign ads for Fino, was likely made in the 1960s for one of his State Senate campaigns.

Morris Park Avenue is separated from the 180th Street/Unionport subway yards servicing the #2 and #5 trains by a high concrete wall. At about Melville Street you see this filled-in archway, with a small sconce above it. There’s probably a story behind this, but at this point I’d guess that it was once a simple entrance to the yards.

590 (left) to 582 Morris Park Avenue, east of Melville. 590 in particular has retained some of the appearance it had in 1940. These buildings likely date to the late 1800s.

Macca Vivero, a meat wholesaler/slaughterhouse at Morris Park Avenue and Garfield Street.

608 Morris Park Avenue, likely the best-preserved building in this stretch, has its original window lintels.

This section of the Bronx is Italian, Albanian and Latino and is chockablock with Catholic parishes. The one serving the west end of Morris Park Avenue is St. Dominic. The parish was established and the church constructed in 1925. Inscribed above the front entrance are the Latin words, Domine, dilexi decorem domus tuae (“Lord, I have loved the beauty of your house”) from the Old Testament Psalm 26.

St. Dominic merged with the nearby Our Lady of Solace parish (see below) approximately a decade ago (as of 2019).

Unionport Road is one of the Bronx’s oldest routes, running diagonally from about Bronx Park southeast to Westchester Avenue through the former Catholic Protectory, now the site of the Parkchester housing development. There was a former community known as Unionport as well, in southern Castle Hill. Unionport was a mecca for German and Irish immigrants in the mid-to-late 1890s. After the eastern Bronx was annexed to NYC in 1895 the streets were renamed for local luminaries and settlers, and Unionport was absorbed into what’s now Castle Hill.

Before the Parkchester housing complex was built in The Bronx, it was the site of the New York Catholic Protectory. The Protectory was created in 1863 as a home to care for destitute or truant children. The need for the Protectory grew out of the reality of thousands of vulnerable Catholic children wandering the streets of the city and fending for themselves. [Academic Works, CUNY]

Vatican-Mater Dei Church goods, a Catholic supplies shop across the street from St. Dominic at 1738 Unionport Road.

Van Nest Hardware, #669 Morris Park Avenue. Actually, Van Nest Avenue is a block south of here, but asection of Morris Park is also called Van Nest.

Van Nest is an old name and comes from Dutch colonial settler Pieter Pietersen Van Neste, who arrived in North America from Holland in 1647. However, the family is only honored here because of the Van Nest Land & Improvement Company, which began developing the neighborhood in 1892. Scions of the Van Nests became railroad company directors and developers but according to Bronx historian John McNamara, no Van Nest actually lived in the Bronx.

It’s likely that the owners of Happy Land Restaurant at #680 near White Plains Road are new to the Bronx; otherwise, they wouldn’t have gone near this name. The Happy Land social club, on Southern Blvd. in West Farms, was set afire by an arsonist on March 25, 1990, killing 87 — making it one of NYC’s worst massacres to date.

The wheels of technological change grind slowly in Morris Park. E.S. Business Machines, #704 Morris Park Ave., east of White Plains Rd., still promotes its typewriter repair service prominently in its display window, and the awning (which appears as if it was constructed recently) touts fax service and cash registers, as well. According to Baruch College, owner Sam Vasquez, born in 1937, has owned and operated the store in Morris Park since the 1980s, and before that in lower Manhattan. While praising the new computer technology that largely eliminated typewriters, Vasquez claims he still gets adequate business from young writers who wish to compose the old-fashioned way. I still have my 1940s Remington, and keep it around in case the grid fails. I need a new ribbon, but now I know where to find one.

A passageway at #704 appears to lead to a backhouse, a separate house on the same property that carries a different house number.

The Spanish-style Lucchese Funeral Home at Hunt Avenue was constructed in 1921. It looked pretty much the same in 1940.  Note the rock outcropping to the left of the church in the 1940 photo. It was blasted a way years ago and the space is now a parking lot for the funeral home.

Here’s a “faded ad” seen on the west side of #742 Morris Park Avenue with a fickle finger point two blocks away where there is an “office and pockets.” Any idea what this could be?

As a nod to the many Italian Americans in Morris Park, the center median of MPA is painted in the red, white and green of the Italian flag.

Our Lady of Solace Roman Catholic Church, its rectory and former parochial school (now the Bronx Charter School For Excellence) dominate MPA at Holland Avenue. The church was established in 1928, one year after St. Dominic a few blocks away, which have combined to form a single parish, with both church buildings open for worship.

Yet another Morris Park Avenue house of worship is this Seventh Day Adventist Church between Barnes and Matthews Avenues. The Adventists are a Protestant Christian sect co-founded by Ellen White in 1863.

I’ve always been fascinated with Graham Place, a dead-end alley on the north side of Morris Park Avenue between Matthews and Muliner Avenues. However, today, I found the entrance fenced off.

I wanted to get new photographs of the two residences on Graham Place, #191 and 193. There’s more than one way to skin a cat. I walked around to Matthews-Muliner Playground, and you can see them through the wire fence on the basketball court. I believe the two buildings are no longer occupied, and a new building may go up in their place, wiping all trace of Graham Place off the map.

What is Graham Place doing here, anyway? A partial answer can be found when you look at a 1902 map of Morris Park. Back then this was a planned development called Hudson Park, and two small streets were mapped: Graham and Delancey Streets. Graham Place barely survives…

…while Delancey (Place) was fully developed and is now one of NYC’s few L-shaped streets. Muliner Avenue was built on a NW-SE axis and Delancey Street was jogged over a very short block to meet it.

Formerly, when the city wanted to rename a street, they went “whole hog” and renamed the street for its entire length. For example, north of Central Park, 7th and 8th avenues were renamed Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and Frederick Douglass Boulevard in the 1970s. Down went the 7th and 8th Avenue signs, and up went the new signs. However, so many people are honored these days that the old names are retained and just short portions of streets get what I call “subnames.” Who are the people honored? At his site, NYC Streets, Gil Tauber has the answer:

William J. Madonna (1961-2017) was educated at Northeastern University and the New England School of Law. He began his legal career in the office of the NYC Corporation Counsel. and later joined the Bronx District Attorney’s Office as a prosecutor. From 1994, he had a successful private practice in the Morris Park section of the Bronx. He represented victims of domestic violence, as well as handled divorce and family law, criminal law and real estate. He was a member of the Bronx County Bar Association, the Bronx Family Court Bar Association and served as chief counsel to then state-assemblyman, Mark Gjonaj. He represented the Tracey Towers tenant organization in their fight to block rent increases. He also represented the Friends of Pelham Parkway in its successful lawsuit to save the trees that were set to be removed for the reconstruction of Pelham Parkway.

This section of Morris Park Avenue is unusually illuminated. Double mast telephone lamps like this are fairly common in NYC, but they’re usually not paired with Bell fixtures. However Morris Park Avenue got a makeover about 15 years ago (writing this in 2019) and the DOT came up with this combination. It’s also employed on Williamsbridge Road, but I can’t find it elsewhere in the city.

The Morris Park NYPL branch at #985 MPA features a contemporary design. According to the Library it opened in 2006, making it the first library in Morris Park. Since the area was developed in the early 20th Century I found that a bit incredulous. Where’s the next nearest branch?

Further east on Morris Park Avenue, its Italian identity comes more to the fore, with fireplugs painted in red, white and green and a Patsy’s pizza outpost. The original Patsy’s was founded by Pasquale “Patsy” Lancieri in East Harlem in 1933, making it one of NYC’s earliest pizzerias. Brooklyn’s Grimaldi Pizza, of the lengthy tourist lines on Old Fulton Street, was founded by Lancieri’s nephew. The midtown Patsy’s on West 56th Street, patronized by Frank Sinatra and other celebrities, was founded by a different Patsy, Pasquale Scognamillo, and is not associated with the Lancieri Patsy’s.

The Morris Park Patsy’s sign proclaims “since 1933,” and my guess is that they’re an outpost of the original Lancieri Patsy’s of East Harlem.

This awning sign features the serif fonts, Bodoni and Baskerville.

Old-school sidewalk signs on the Morris Park Meat Market.

Brightly colored building art at Emilio’s of Morris Park at Hone Avenue. It’s reminiscent of Brazilian artist Eduardo Kobra‘s work.

This fire alarm box has been decommissioned, and someone decided to put a see-through plastic panel at the front. One wonders what will be displayed there. As a rule, New Yorkers use old alarms as trash receptacles.

Eastern Morris Park is the borough’s Hospital Row, as Jacobi Medical Center, on a vast plant between Pelham Parkway, Eastchester Rd., Morris Park and Seminole Aves., is the Bronx’ largest public hospital. Also in this stretch are the Belfer Institute, the brooding Albert Einstein College of Medicine, the airier Michael F. Price center for Genetic and Translational Medicine (shown above), Bronx Psychiatric Center, Montefiore Medical Center on Eastchester Rd. and Calvary Hospital, where my father rested comfortably in his final days.

The streets in this section of Morris park curve around, and they were once part of a late 19th Century development called Westchester Heights. Some streets were given Indian-sounding names, such as Seminole, Choctaw, and Pawnee. Much of the old development was replaced by Hospital Row beginning in the 20th Century.

Morris Park Avenue comes to an end at Bassett Avenue, which runs along the Amtrak Northeast Corridor tracks. This is the former NY, NH & H tracks that are planned to include Metro-North service to Penn Station by 2023. As a rule, commuter railroad fares are more expensive than mass transit, and it remains to be seen if new Bronx Metro-North stations will get much patronage, as residents here tend to be poorer than those living in Westchester County.

Intending to finish at Pelham Bay Park, I struck north on Stillwell Avenue, which is lined with auto repair shops. At McDonald Street I saw something unusual. Signature Chrome Customs is also a barber shop! What an unusual combination. Can anyone shed a light on this?

I hadn’t been on Pelham Parkway lately, but I see they have a new set of davit-style lamps (davits have no mast; the shaft curves over the road, with the fixture placed at the end). They have been used more and more frequently on NYC streets over the past decade.

Meanwhile, this two-angled mast, used mostly in industrial areas, has been losing out. A few pairs show up on the bridge that takes Pelham Parkway over Amtrak.

I found an ancient “arrowhead” sign pointing traffic toward the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge. A much larger green sign in back of it does the same thing.

At Stillwell Ave. and Pelham Parkway, you find this stolid structure, opened in 2016, that resembles Star Trek’s Borg Cube, or perhaps the Ministry of Truth from Orwell’s 1984. In fact, vital business is carried on here. You may be aware of the TV show 911, which follows the lives of emergency service workers in Los Angeles. This building, PSAC II,  is where over 11 million 911 calls for the NYPD and FDNY have been fielded, joining PSAC I at MetroTech Center in Brooklyn. It’s one of the most heavily protected and secured buildings in New York City, constructed of concrete clad with silvery aluminum panels. The building is nearly windowless, but workers inside—who have a stressful task—enjoy the benefits of walls in the lobby and cafeteria lined with plants that partially serve as an air filtration system.

East of Amtrak, Pelham Parkway encounters a series of spaghetti roads that connect it to both the Hutchinson River Parkway and New England Thruway. The parkway itself becomes Shore Road, running on the east end of Pelham Bay Park into Westchester County. This area is also interspersed with a number of bicycle paths that run north and east; for Bronx bicyclists, it’s a golden age.

At the Hutch and Continental Avenue, in the small Bronx neighborhood called Pelham Bay, adjoining the park, I found a mystery. It appears to be a parking lot that hasn’t been used for some time. However, the DOT lights it, there is the leaf symbol of NYC Parks, and “no trespassing” signs. (I trespassed; if you want to ticket me, I’m here.) My guess is that it’s a parking lot for Parks personnel.

It’s dueling Art Deco apartment buildings at St. Paul Avenue and East 196th Street. I can’t decide which one I like better. Other than exceptions like East 222nd and 233rd, which extend several miles deep into eastern Bronx, East 194th through East 197th in Pelham Bay are the easternmost numbered streets in the borough.

St. Paul Avenue isn’t named for the Biblical apostle — a Paul family owned the land in the colonial area.

This former public restroom can be found at Westchester Avenue and Bruckner Boulevard just west of Pelham Bay Park at the eastern end of the #6 train. It has now been fenced off, so perhaps some criminal activity was going on there.

From here I got the bus back to Flushing. An express bus runs twice an hour on the weekends, and one was just pulling in when I got to the stop. This was too good a coincidence to not take advantage.

Check out the ForgottenBook, take a look at the gift shop, and as always, “comment…as you see fit.”

1/27/19

Source: https://forgotten-ny.com/2019/01/morris-park-bronx-2/

[effectguitar6-blog]

Kris & Kylie Jenner show off their designer-done digs

Since it’s the weekend, the cat’s away and the mice (Yolanda) want to play. So how about something a wee bit offbeat? Don’t fret, our regularly scheduled programming will return shortly.

We know many of our snootier readers dislike the Kardashians and deride them as being famous (and famously rich) for absolutely nothing. “No talent!!!” they scream. But Yolanda finds these people oddly fascinating. Just how have they captivated the world for so many years? Folks have been predicting the demise of their “15 minutes” for well over a decade, yet here they are — still hogging space on every website from Time Magazine to TMZ. Come on — that alone is a talent! This family is here to stay.

At this point, the Kardashians are wealthier than 90% of “A-list” celebrities, and their famously brash spending — seems like they can never buy enough mansions, exotic cars and rapper/baller baby daddies — has recently kicked into ultra-high gear. The family now presides over a real estate empire worth well in excess of $100 million, according to Yolanda’s research.

Two of the clan’s biggest spenders — Kris Jenner and her 21-year-old near-billionaire daughter Kylie Jenner — have both purchased new homes out in Hidden Hills, deep in the belly of the San Fernando Valley, and the fine folks at Architecural Digest recently got a firsthand tour of the designer-redone digs.

So while Yolanda knows certain folks would rather push a camel through a needle’s eye than read about this family, Yolanda is gonna write about them. Let’s begin with Little Miss Kylie Jenner, shall we?

Back in fall 2016, a then-19-year-old Miss Jenner paid $12,050,000 for a new monster mansion.

We wrote about the 13,200-square-foot beast when she bought it and described the spec-built home as “very fancy but slightly banal” in style. “Couldn’t Miss Jenner go for something a bit sexier?” Yolanda wrote. And it’s true. The neutral interiors, while luxurious and wholly inoffensive, verged on the matronly.

Back in the day (2016)

But that was then, and the house looks dramatically different now. To sex up the Cape Cod-style abode, Miss Jenner engaged the services of theatrical interior designer Martyn Lawrence Bullard and spent many months workin’ on a hideously expensive total redo of the place.

Well, the now-21-year-old lip kit queen’s castle is finally done, and it’s insane. The enormous structure is chock-full of name brand art and custom furniture — Yolanda can pretty much guarantee that Miss Jenner spent well into the seven figures on this job. Check out the full story on Architectural Digest .

Yowza! Even if this ain’t your style — and it certainly is not Yolanda’s style — it’s sure fun to look at. The place looks “perfect for Instagram,” as one of our friends told us. And really, ain’t that the whole point?

At least one of the home’s eight bedrooms was converted into a “glam room” and a purse closet to house Miss Jenner’s million-dollar handbag collection. And the art used as decor! Oh my. It’s all great stuff — Beau Dunn‘s condom art, Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst, Basquiat (but does Kylie Jenner even know who Basquiat is? Apparently she does!)

The million-dollar purse closet

We can pretty much guarantee you will never, ever see another 21-year-old with a home this ludicrous. But before we digress any further, let’s check out her mama’s new pad, which is similarly expensive but done up in a much different, more demure manner.

In late 2017, Kris Jenner ponied up nearly $10 million for a spec-built mansion elsewhere in Hidden Hills (it happens to be directly across the street from the much larger home of her daughter Kim Kardashian and son-in-law Kanye West).

Ms. Jenner still owns her old Hidden Hills house — the Mediterranean-style one made famous on Keeping Up With the Kardashians — though she only uses it for filming purposes these days. And maybe to house some of her assistants/glam squad, we dunno.

Anywho, Ms. Jenner is learning about art and architecture — for which we applaud her — and wanted a more sophisticated look in her new home. For that she hired the acclaimed Waldo Fernandez and Clements Design to imbue the property with a “calming” energy.

Yolanda confesses we absolutely love this place — we’d live there in a heartbeat, and the art, furniture and materials are all top-notch and very correct. The one (slight) criticism to be made is that everything feels a tad too impersonal. Kinda like a giant hotel suite. A beautiful five-star hotel suite, to be sure.

Watch the video and tell us if we’re wrong. Does anything in the house — other than her “proud of” sheep — have any real meaning to Ms. Jenner? It sure ain’t seem that way, but what do we know?

For more delicious pictures of the new Kris Jenner estate, check out the Architectural Digest story in full.

So there’s the properties. See y’all, that wasn’t so bad. But you haven’t heard the last from Kardashian real estate, not by a long shot. Within the past few months, Kris Jenner dropped another $12 million out in La Quinta’s exclusive Madison Club community, and Kylie Jenner just copped a $13.5 million “in-town” pad in the mountains above Beverly Hills. So we fully expect those places to be redone and eventually skip their way into a future Architectural Digest issue.

And just for kicks and giggles, check out Kourtney Kardashian’s Richard Landry-designed Calabasas mansion, also decorated by Martyn Lawrence Bullard — and also featured in Architectural Digest.

See kids, we’ve discovered the Kardashians’ talent — their knack for amassing and spending loads of money. Thankfully, they mostly invest in real estate, which helps keep Yolanda in the black.

Source: https://www.yolandaslittleblackbook.com/blog/2019/02/24/kylie-kris-jenner-new-house-hidden-hills/