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gobigorgohome2016 · 6 years ago

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All the Cliches

When I started writing this post in my head, I was going to title it something like Out of Hibernation, yet make it known that I wasn’t planning to bore you with a 1,300 word soliloquy comparing myself to a Bleeding Heart (which is apparently a Spring perennial and, you know, we’re all about cliches here) blooming through the last remnants of Winter frost.

Then I thought, no, do I really need an intro to tell everyone I’m back on my bullshit after a few steps forward and another step back?

Then I realized...isn’t running really just the epitome of a giant cliche?

TL;DR I had a big accomplishment in the fall and thought the momentum would carry over super easily into the Spring. I ignored some symptoms, realized I was anemic, felt really sad, and now I’m starting to feel like myself again. aka, the simple, common, cliched journey of every.single.runner.

Even though this experience is the embodiment of what it means to be an endurance athlete, why do we act surprised every single time? Leading up to Philadelphia, after my year of mystery illness [which, it turns out, had another plot twist. Remember how I was having a massive immune system reaction and pretty terrible quality of life? Well, after we found mold in the house the problem went 90% away. The remaining 10% was still driving me crazy. Long story short, the installation of a whole-home water filter has returned me to a fully functioning human being. Hello, my name is Anna and I’m just your local canary in the coal mine] I vowed I would do a better job about just letting life go with the flow and not try to fight the current every step of the way. I guess I got too big for my britches because - lo and behold - I found myself avoiding what I pretty much knew all along.

After Philadelphia, I took 2 weeks off and really enjoyed my down time. The highlight was a day trip to French Lick, where Dave and I hit the casino (I won $25), ate all the sweets, shopped, split an amazing kobe beef burger, got day drunk, and took the scenic drive home. The next day I started running again and, much to my surprise, felt way better than I normally do after two weeks of zero exercise. This felt like a big win.

December turned out to be extra crazy, then at the end of January I co-hosted a women’s running retreat, BAnna Camp. Any fatigue I was feeling during December and January I just chalked up to stress and the typical things you do when you’re in that awkward in-between period from one race to another: less sleep, less healthy food, less fitness.

^have to make sure this post never dies

The first day I was in Austin, Becki and I did a workout together. It was my first “real” workout back (other than some fartleks and strides), and it wasn’t even supposed to be hard: 3 x 7 min @ 6:00 pace. I STRUGGLED. I couldn’t breathe, my quads were heavy, and the paces felt much more difficult than they seemed like they should. But, there were plenty of excuses: it’s windy, we were running a net uphill, I was dehydrated from travel, I was stressed about the upcoming camp, etc. etc. Midway through that workout I had a very distinct thought of oh shit, this feels very anemic right now. That night I texted my friend who would be joining us later in the week and asked her to bring some iron pills, since I had forgotten my supplement.

The following week my workout didn’t feel great, but again, it was easy to make excuses. I was on a treadmill. I was still catching up on sleep from camp. Maybe I’m more out of shape than I thought.

Longer efforts didn’t feel great, but I was getting them done. My paces felt quick, but, winter training never feels amazing. Plus, it seemed like every workout I did was into a strong wind, so how can you really judge pace and effort?

In early February, I had my first race of the season which was a 5 miler in downtown Indy. I had told Dave I was going to hold 5:30 pace for as long as I could and see what happened. My first mile was 5:54, and Dave said he could hear me breathing before he could see me. I was 3rd that day in just under 30:00. Again, there were plenty of excuses. It was windy. We had celebrated Valentine’s Day the night before, so maybe steak, lobster, buttered mashed potatoes, and wine wasn’t the best pre-race meal?

During my sulking about the race I had an aha moment. In December, prior to realizing we had an issue with our water, I was trying to figure out what was still causing skin rashes and GI issues. The only thing I was taking every day was ferrous sulfate, which is an iron supplement that is gentle on your stomach but has some suspect ingredients (food colorings, sorbate, etc.). I decided to switch my supplement (one that had worked for me for YEARS) to something that seemed “cleaner”: ionic iron. While I was wracking my brain trying to figure out what could be wrong, it occurred to me to check my iron dosage.

I was taking ~10% of my normal ferrous sulfate dosage, and honestly don’t even know how absorbable ionic iron even is. That day I made the switch back to ferrous sulfate, but knew that if my iron/ferritin was low, it would take about 6 weeks before I felt a difference.

If at this point you’re reading along and thinking to yourself, it’s not expensive to just go and get a blood test to find out whether your iron is low - you are absolutely correct. I should have just scheduled an appointment to take a blood test and find out. But, I’m stubborn.

Two weeks after my 5 mile race I flew to Atlanta for the Road to Gold, an 8 mile race on the 2020 Olympic Trials course. This is a whole other post in and of itself, but I will say that the hype is real. That course is going to be hard.

While the experience was great, my time was not. My goal had been to run 5:45 pace through the first 4 miles and then pick up the pace. While I did go through the first 4 miles in 22:50, just under my goal, I went through the next 4 miles in 24:20ish, and again felt as though I couldn’t breathe. I finally conceded it was time for a blood test.

The results were pretty much exactly what I thought they would be: low ferritin, high CO2 in my blood, and borderline-low Vitamin D. After weeks of agonizing over whether I was out of shape I finally had an answer (albeit one I should have just figured out sooner). So, I upped my iron supplement and looked ahead.

Nowhere to go but up, right?

In the following weeks I paid better attention to meal timing (i.e., if I was having a steak for dinner I wasn’t pairing it with red wine or other iron-inhibiting foods). I cut out my second cup of coffee in the afternoon so that my body could have a better chance at iron absorption. I focused more on sleep. I got back on nutrient tracking to make sure I was getting everything I needed from my diet.

and it paid off

6 weeks after my miserable 5 mile race where I could barely run faster than 5:58 pace for 5 miles, I ran 1:16:37 in the Carmel half marathon on a less-than-ideal day with rain and wind.

During race week I cut out all caffeine and red wine to hopefully give my body the extra boost it needed to absorb iron. I meal prepped early in the week so that I had nutrient-rich options readily available. I said no to a couple work-related opportunities that popped up in favor of less stress, and I gave myself my best chance to succeed.

In truth, sometimes setting yourself up for success is scary. What if you do everything possible and you don’t succeed? I have seen so many talented athletes give up because they went all in and it didn’t immediately pay off. But, that’s probably another post for another day, too.

Come race day we had 15 mph winds, pouring rain, and puddles on the course. It will sound sarcastic when I say this, but that truly is my favorite racing weather. Going into the race my A goal (not accounting for weather) was 75 min, B goal 76 min, and C goal 77 min. My plan was to run the first 10 at 5:45 effort, then see how fast I could go the last 5k.

Starting off, I was very pleased to find myself in a pack of men and through the first mile around 5:40. I NEVER trust my GPS, so all splits I give will be those from the course. I went through 4 miles in 22:50 - the exact same time I went through 4 miles in Atlanta, only this time I felt so much better. I went through 6.55 (again, as marked on the course, not my GPS) in 37:26 and felt like I really had a chance at sub 75 still. Through 10 miles I was right at 58 min. I felt strong for the first time in a long time.

Around mile 11 I started to get tired, and just focused on getting through 0.5 miles at a time. T last couple miles were definitely the toughest, as they were mostly uphill/into the wind. 76:38 is my fourth fastest half [74:03, Houston, PERFECT weather; 75:20, ‘17 US championships, goal race full taper, 75:59, Columbus half, 4 weeks out from Philly], and this gives me a lot of encouragement considering some sub-par months of training.

Now that I am feeling the effects of higher ferritin, I’m beginning to wonder if I wasn’t a little bit low during my Philly build up. I have had some of my best long runs and workouts the past couple weeks - ones that would have blown away what I did leading up to Philly. It also makes sense, given how I felt the last half of my Philly race, that my ferritin may have been low. Moving forward, I’m going to schedule blood work much more regularly so that I don’t have preventable problems like this occur. Definitely kicking myself, but, as with all failures in life it was a great opportunity to learn and grow.

My next race is in 6 weeks and I’ll be at the 25k championships in Grand Rapids. I’m looking forward to seeing what another 6 weeks of quality training and (hopefully) warmer weather can do for my fitness!

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wardencommanderrodimiss · 6 years ago

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Chapter 20: I can’t come up with a clever summary for this one that doesn’t ruin the surprise of the nonsense I’ve set loose, I’m sorry, I’m tired

[Beginning] [Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

Trucy has Christmas off from school – or maybe just takes it off, Apollo doesn’t ask these questions – but it is a weekday and the office is open, so Apollo spends it with her and Vera and Phoenix nowhere to be seen. “We would make a great investigation trio,” Trucy says, adjusting the Santa hat that she has moved from her head to Charley now to her wisp so that it, invisible beneath the hat, bobs about the office as some kind of strange holiday decor. “But I also hope no one comes in today, because – spending Christmas in jail because you’re accused of murder. Can you imagine?”

“Or being murdered on Christmas,” Apollo agrees.

Having said that, he still does like to get paid.

It’s cold, fae cold, like every Christmas Apollo has experienced in Los Angeles. (Like every Christmas Apollo has experienced; they didn’t celebrate it in Khura’in. They had their own holidays, things all dimmed down in his memories.) The dusting of snow across the sidewalk melts by afternoon between the bright sun and the foot traffic through the city, but the chill remains, making Apollo infinitely grateful for his Christmas presents from Trucy, a knitted beanie and scarf, even if the colors she chose for him are pink and limey green.

“I know you won’t really get cold,” Trucy had said to Vera, “but everyone should have cute scarves and hats, so you get one, too!” The knitwear she presented to Vera was pink and bright blue, colors that much better match her typical fashion – and her fae form, when she lets her glamour drop to hold the yarn against her skin. Trucy insists on a selfie with the three of them; right before she clicks the button, Vera washes away her watercolor skin, and grinning back from the photo are three apparent humans.

“Maybe shouldn’t have photo evidence that I’m not human,” Vera says quietly, but she is already reaching for her sketchpad and scribbling a tiny self-portrait, fae ears and all, in the corner of a page. She still takes a sketchbook everywhere with her but doesn’t keep it in hand at every moment, seeming a little more able and willing to express herself with words and either of her own faces.

Trucy tells them that she has also made Ema a scarf so that she can contribute to the scientific assessment that Trucy expects of Iris’ yarn. “Daddy says that humans who spend a long time in the fae world end up with kinds of glamours, too,” she explains to Vera, after catching her up on Iris. Apollo wonders who Phoenix learned this from; if he knew that, shouldn’t he have figured out what Klavier was sooner? Or is this another fact he’s only put together after that one realization? “So we’re all wondering what properties these might have. I expect you to take notes on anything strange while you’re wearing these. Like if people start telling you you’re more attractive.”

Apollo snorts. Trucy smacks him on the arm. “This is for science, Apollo!”

“How much do you talk to Ema, again?” He can’t say that he isn’t curious – could something like this be the origin of the infamous Magic Panties? – and he can’t say that he isn’t more curious than afraid nowadays, but he also can’t say that he’s not afraid of where this curiosity will take them. Everything Clay impressed upon him for thirteen years has collapsed in eight months.

(And Dhurke – well, maybe there was a nugget or two of advice Dhurke left him, half-forgotten, but he let Apollo and Nahyuta make their mistakes, and as far as that goes, Apollo is definitely making mistakes.)

Trucy is powerful, he’ll give her that. And if anyone can turn stage magic into entertainment in a city so full and wary of real magic, it would be her. (That seems to be her latest career aspiration, the latest turn of her Youtube channel after her stint as a cover artist, but she laments that it’s hard to really perform when she knows her audience could easily believe she’s just cleverly editing her videos.)

(If he really thinks about it, he wonders if she, like Klavier, has some innate glamour, if at least some part of her force of personality and charisma and likeability is magic.)

“I have two more very important things to tell you,” she says over a late lunch of Chinese, because Eldoon’s isn’t an option with Vera and he apparently takes some holidays off anyway.

“Uh-oh,” Apollo says.

The lights blink between two stages of brightness; Apollo still can’t really say he’s used to Mia’s rare laughter. “Excuse you!” Trucy says. “I object! I am having a New Years Eve party here and was going to tell you to come and invite your friends but now you are uninvited! Polly is, anyway. Vera you’re still good.”

“You can’t blame me!” Apollo says. “The amount of strange things that happen with Mr Wright, I never know if you’re just gonna tell me that he’s – I don’t know, got summoned back to the Twilight Realm for a stint and you need to crash on my couch – or whatever.”

“Oh, Daddy’s just over at Uncle Miles’ office today,” Trucy says. “Probably not actually doing work.”

“Uncle Miles?” Vera asks the question that Apollo was about to.

“Oh – Mr Prosecutor Edgeworth. Polly, you met him, right?”

“Prosecutor Edgeworth? I – yeah.” So he and Phoenix are close, close enough that Trucy calls him family. That’s probably important to know, another piece to Phoenix’s wide and varied social circle. “Well uh, I guess it’s good that he hasn’t been disappeared by the fae or something.”

“Oh, we’d be warned if something happened,” Trucy says. The cryptic vagueness of that statement seems fitting somehow. “There’s no need to worry!”

Apollo wouldn’t say he was worried; rather more of a neutral expectation he has that Phoenix is someday going to flake in some grander way than he did setting up the Jurist System.

“Anyway, New Years,” she continues. “I’m inviting a friend from school, and Ema, and a couple other people she and I know, and you can invite Clay if you want, and I need your phone for Prosecutor Gavin’s number to invite him.” She extends her hand, palm facing upward, to him.

“Erm,” Apollo says.

“Or you can invite him yourself,” Trucy says. She draws her hand back. “Do you think he’ll be more likely to say yeah to you or me? I mean, I’m cute but you already talk to him on the regular, so it could go either way.” She claps her hands together. “Okay, we’re decided: you invite him on my behalf!”

Apollo wouldn’t say that they actually decided it so much as Trucy decreed it, but sure, he’ll go with it. “I thought you and Ema didn’t know each other at all when we first met her,” he says. The tragicomedy of the white powder ordeal is still, and always will be, fresh in his mind when he thinks about Ema. “How do you have mutual friends?”

“Oh, y’know.” Trucy shrugs. Apollo does not know. “She knew Daddy and Uncle Miles back when, Uncle Miles knows other people who I know, then she meets them, then we meet – the usual. Everyone ends up working in the legal system.” She pauses. “Except me.”

“I think you count,” Vera says.

“You’re co-counsel,” Apollo says. “You definitely count.”

“I guess you’re right,” Trucy says. “Magic just keeps ending up hand-in-hand with the law.” She sits forward conspiratorial, steepling her fingers in front of her face. “Now,” she adds, unable to stop herself from grinning, “the second thing. This is top secret, invite-from-me-only stuff. It’s a secret family tradition that I’m only inviting the two of you and Ema and Kay’s tagging along because she’s like a superspy and found out about my conversation with Ema – anyway.” Leaving Apollo with little time to parse that sentence – does he know who Kay is? Has he heard that name before? He doesn’t think so – Trucy holds up a pointer finger. “You are both cordially invited to The Gourdyversary.”

“The what?” Apollo asks.

“The Gourdyversary,” Trucy repeats, sounding very serious but still grinning all the while. “The Gourdy Anniversary. It’s a very very secret Wright-Butz friendship tradition that is also very very important for the upkeep of Gourd Lake Park.”

“You’re losing me,” Apollo says. “Also, if it’s this secret, and you’re busting it open to everyone--”

“Not everyone! I thought Ema would be super interested, and Kay was being stalky, like I said, and then the two of you are super important parts other parts of the Wright-Butz social circle, so I was allowed to invite you!” Her eyes narrow in concentration. “Also,” she says, with an air of recollecting something, “Daddy mentioned you specifically, Polly, said that he’d like to see the look on your face because you always react a lot to finding out new magic stuff.”

“Great,” Apollo mutters. “I cordially decline your invitation.” He looks at Vera, who is just as confused as him, blinking her huge eyes owlishly at Trucy. “Wait,” he says. “‘Butz’? Who’s that?”

“You know – oh!” Trucy laughs and falls further back into the couch. “You don’t! That’s Uncle Larry’s other last name, the one he had first.”

On one hand, Apollo can’t really blame someone for wanting to be rid of that surname, especially in a profession where names are as important as they are to authors. On the other hand, there’s a certain expectation that Apollo has come to have. “Is this a fae thing in some way?”

Vera is the first to nod. “Deauxnim was one of the names his mentor used.” It appears thoughtless now, both the way she starts to raise her hand to her lips and the way she puts it back down. Is another incentive for her to break her habit of chewing her nails how strange the thought must be that she also has claws in a different form? Could it be possible for her to chew her claws off? “The last name she used before… before she died. She gave it to him.” She picks at the eraser on her pencil, clearly for something to do with her hands. “He – Mr Laurice offered it to me, too. If I want – if I want to sell my art someday and use it for my career, I could be…” She frowns at her sketchbook. “Vera Deauxnim.”

“I’d do it!” Trucy says. “It’s a good name, Uncle Larry says, and Uncle Valant always told me that it’s good to have spare names in case you really need to give one away.” She frowns, too. “But he only had one name. He was only ever ‘Gramarye’.”

“I know it’s a good name,” Vera says. “Mr Laurice says it’s lucky. But I have my name already, and it’s my dad’s. I shouldn’t – I shouldn’t give that up. Should I?”

“You’re not giving up anything!” Trucy says. “You’re Vera Misham and you can be Vera Deauxnim, like I’m Trucy Wright and then Trucy Gramarye on Youtube because that’s both my family and I can be both. Like Prosecutor Gavin said about different faces.” She spreads her hands wide in the air in front of her like she’s spreading something out for them to look at. “We contain multitudes!”

That pulls a grin onto Vera’s face.

“I must’ve missed when you started going by Gramarye again,” Apollo says. She’s called herself Trucy the Enigma, which he knows is a reference to her father’s name, and that was as far as he knew.

“Yeah,” she says, stretching herself out further on the half of the couch she has claimed. “It was sometime after we talked about just – me, and magic, in general, all that. And I thought, it’s my mom’s name too, I want to keep it for her. So I’ll make it mean something good, like I think it should be. Like I used to think it was.”

He wonders if when she holds the mitamah she hears something like he heard music; he wonders if he’d hear it again if he picked it back up. Sometimes he feels drawn to that drawer of Phoenix’s desk, a compulsion to understand who she was – is? A dead body with a bullet in it but a soul that is still here glowing? – that he stifles again and again. He opens his mouth to say something, anything, knowing how hard it all hit Trucy, knowing that she still can’t always find the light behind her eyes, but she forestalls him with a red-tinted grin. (A lie. Her smile is a lie, and it’s magic, a fae blessing, that tells him this.)

“Man, names are so complicated,” she says. And Apollo sees red and oh, this is the limit of it, isn’t it? Her smile is a lie but while he’s seeing that, any words she says might be true, might be a lie, and he’s already going to be stuck on her expression.

(Who was it that gave him Truth? Which one of them thought that was the most important gift? Dhurke? Datz? Nahyuta?)

“And they’d be this complicated even without all the magic,” Trucy continues. She cranes her neck to look at Vera’s sketchbook. “Ooh, nice!”

(Complicated, nonmagic, Apollo knows that too. On his birth certificate, a forgery, his father’s name is Jay Justice because his stage name was Jangly and they didn’t know his real name and even Datz who had the papers drawn up seemed to realize that they couldn’t put that down and just the initial J was a little sparse. His mother’s name they made up entirely. Dhurke named her Hera, because he always thought he was funny. Apollo had looked it up sometime in middle school. Hera wasn’t even the mythological Apollo’s mother.)

Vera has Trucy’s phone balanced up on the piano, showing off the selfie, and she is sketching from it but for herself, pointed ears and big eyes. “So what is the, um, Gourd… Gourdversary?”

“Gourdyversary,” Trucy repeats, as though she is teaching them an actual word that they might need to know. “You know Gourd Lake Park, maybe?” Vera shakes her head. Apollo nods. It was in the vague area of Apollo and Clay’s high school and a corner of the park was the popular hangout for stoners, which meant Apollo wasn’t surprised when a lake monster was sighted there. (He was surprised that tourists and not stoned kids who first made the claim.) In their senior year, he and Clay camped out in the abandoned, allegedly-haunted, boat shack, or tried to, made it to about midnight when Clay swore he heard a voice, and then later lied about it to their friends and Clay’s siblings to claim that they totally spent the whole night there and nothing happened. Every few years there were attempts to revitalize the park and make it a real community location. Those never worked.

“Well,” Trucy continues, “always sometime after Christmas, this year, it’ll be the 27th that, we go, before dawn, to the lake, to make the annual sacrifice.”

“I don’t like the sound of this in the slightest,” Apollo says.

“We don’t sacrifice people,” Trucy says. “C’mon, Polly. Really.”

“I hate that you know exactly what I was about to ask because it is actually a reasonable question in these circumstances.” Apollo smacks his head into the couch and stares at the ceiling. “Sacrifice what, then? To what? The lake?”

“You have to come along to know,” Trucy says smugly. “Exact time and meeting location will be disseminated only to true believers.”

“Believers of what?” Apollo demands.

Vera has folded her knees up onto the couch and has her sketchbook propped against them, her dark human eyes peering out from behind the top of it, darting between Trucy and Apollo.

“You’ll see,” Trucy says.

The next morning, Phoenix enters the office and asks for Apollo’s help getting the doors so that he can carry inside a heavy grocery bag filled with twelve-packs of hot dogs. “What is this for?” Apollo asks, when he’s followed Phoenix into the kitchen (not even asking why Mia wouldn’t get the doors because he knows the answer is going to be that she rightfully thinks whatever is going on is stupid) to watch him maneuver the contents into the refrigerator.

“The Gourdyversary,” Phoenix replies. He pushes the fridge door closed only for it to pop back open and six packs spill back to the floor.

“Is this a hazing ritual?” Apollo asks. “Like, am I getting hazed?”

“Apollo, I’m pretty sure the entire Kitaki case was the universe conducting a hazing ritual on you,” Phoenix says. “Why would I bother with anything else?” He winks. “See you bright and early tomorrow, huh?”

“I haven’t agreed to this ridiculous venture,” Apollo says.

Phoenix slams the refrigerator shut with more force this time. “But are you really going to disappoint Trucy?” He manages to take one step before, in defiance, the fridge spits some of its contents back out. “Come on, seriously?” he asks, turning about in a circle and gesturing helplessly to the room at large. “Just let us do our dumb shit, Mia, c’mon.”

Apollo leaves him to fight with the ghost of his mentor, only to find that Vera has definitively declined to join in on the Gourdyversary, and consequently, Trucy is pouting at him with the most pathetic puppy eyes he has ever seen from a person.

It isn’t that – he tells her, several times, it isn’t that – which gets him, and she, seeing Truth, should know that is the truth, but she keeps proclaiming victory for her powers of persuasion – “Powers of getting people to pity you, if anything” – when he acquiesces. It’s curiosity, purely and painfully, and if it’s only painful in the moment for everything required to make it to the main gates of Gourd Lake Park at 6 am, the chances are high that it’s going to be worse next time. And there’s going to be a next time, he’s sure of it: he’s come to feel at home in an office filled with the lingering wraith of a fae queen, followed Trucy and Klavier in pursuit of grimoires and faery rings, and he’s becoming desensitized, he’s sure of it. He’s on the road to becoming a missing persons report or a cautionary folktale for future generations.

But damn if he isn’t curious as to why Phoenix “cheapskate” Wright bought more than a dozen dozens of hot dogs.

Trucy’s gifts, the scarf and hat, seem to block out the wind better than any other he can recall owning, which Apollo tells her to note down for her experimental records when he reaches the park entrance. Twilight Realm yarn, helping him resist the fae’s cold snaps. The dead brown grass is dusted with snow and a few more errant flakes drift down from the dark sky. Whenever the sun finally rises, they probably won’t see it. Trucy is waiting when he arrives, bundled up in a heavy coat and matching blue knitted hat, scarf, and gloves, and talking with two women. One is Ema, recognizable by the crinkling snack bag in her hands – “Are you aware of the time?” “Yeah, it’s snack time.” – and the dead-eyed glare from over the pink scarf Trucy apparently saddled her with.

The other, Apollo has never seen, but when she spots him, she abandons her conversation and bounds over to him, grabbing his hand and shaking it enthusiastically. “Hi!” she chirps. “I’m Kay! Kay Faraday! Super glad to finally meet you, Apollo!”

Finally?

“Uh,” he says, allowing her to wrench his arm about, “I’m sorry, but I have no idea who you are.”

“That’s okay!” She lets go of his hand and strikes a pose, one hand in the air and the other on her hip. None of her clothing seems quite to match, a puffy pink coat with a huge dark scarf, gold hair accessories, and leather gloves that look more expensive than his life. “Kay Faraday, homicide detective, Great Thief and Mr Edgeworth’s first and best assistant, at your service.”

“You lost me at ‘thief’ right after ‘detective’,” Apollo says. He can already see why Trucy likes her, though.

“Get used to confusion,” Ema says dryly. “That’s all she does for you.”

“Rude,” Kay says. She skips back past Trucy and Ema and down the park path. “Let’s go get gourded out of our gourds already!”

“I don’t know what that means but I refuse to do that,” Ema says. She doesn’t move, watches Trucy race after Kay, and then holds out the Snackoos bag to Apollo. “Kay wasn’t even invited. She was just creeping around and was unrelenting in demanding to accompany me in finding out whatever Trucy’s on about.” Apollo declines the Snackoos and she shrugs and shoves a few more into her mouth. “That’s also how she makes friends so watch it or you’re next.”

“I see,” Apollo says, even though he isn’t sure that he does. “It sounds, uh, interesting down at the precinct.”

Ema snorts. “We’re like two steps away from being a coven at this point.”

“Prosecutor Edgeworth said something like that.”

She nods sagely. “He thinks he can stop it but I know it’s futile.” She stuffs the Snackoos into her jacket pocket and pulls her scarf up against the sudden onslaught of wind. “How’s Trucy doing?” she asks quietly, eyeing the distant backs of her and Kay. “Haven’t heard from her much since October and” – a pause, a search for a tactful phrasing that she doesn’t find – “all that shit.”

And it was, nothing but a bunch of shit, no more honest way Apollo can think to say it, Ema cutting back to the heart of the matter. “Better, I think,” he says. “We had a couple conversations about her family and er grandfather that seemed like – like she’s figuring it out.” Or just coping, but even that is harder than it sounds. “And Mr Wright is spending a lot of time looking into the mitamah thing trying to deal with that.”

“That’s good.” She sounds like she means it. “If anyone can find a way to fix it, it’ll be Mr Wright. I’m sure of it.” And on that she sounds so confident that Apollo almost believes her. Isn’t that how Trucy said magic works? And what must Phoenix have done for Ema that she still has such faith in him?

Trucy stands planted in the path ahead, fists on her hips, facing them. “Hurry up!” she calls.

“Bunch of snails!” Kay yells. Ema flips her off but above her scarf, her eyes squint up like she’s grinning.

“So clarify for me how you all know each other,” Apollo says when the four of them have reconvened. Along the edges of the path the trees thin out and he can see the dark glassy surface of the water. “Through Prosecutor Edgeworth?”

“Basically!” Kay says. “I first helped him investigate cases years ago – I saved him when he got kidnapped – then there were some international incidents – I got accused of arson once and murder twice – it was a ridiculous month. And we ran into Emmy” – Emmy? Apollo raises an eyebrow and Ema stares back with unchanging expression – “and she already knew Mr Edgeworth from stuff and she helped us out. And then later working with Mr Edgeworth, I met Mr Wright, and my little apprentice thief.” She throws her arm around Trucy’s shoulders and grins.

“I thought you were my assistant,” Trucy says.

“Anyway!” Kay barrels past that statement. Trucy sticks her tongue out at her. “Then Emmy came back to work at the precinct and hang with me again, and then she met you, and here we are!”

Apollo almost keeps pace with that. He has about half a dozen follow-up questions about the arson and murder, but they’ve come up to the biggest gathering area of the part, a few vendor’s stands unattended for the weather and time of day, and Phoenix and Larry waiting by the one bare tree in the area, the bag of hot dogs at their feet. “Hi, Mr Wright!” Kay shouts. “Hi, Mr Steel Samurai!”

“You’re never gonna let me live it down, are you?” Larry asks.

Kay swings a friendly punch at his shoulder. “Nah, but I don’t let Mr Edgeworth forget about it, either, if that helps.”

“It absolutely does,” Larry says.

“So are you gonna tell us what’s going on or drag out the mystery for a little longer?” Ema asks.

Phoenix and Larry look at each other. “I’m thinking we drag it out,” Larry says.

“I already have my reputation for being cryptic,” Phoenix says, turning his head to stare directly at Apollo, “so yeah, let’s torment the kids a little longer. And besides,” he adds, stooping and wincing as he hauls the bag back up into his arms, “we’ve still got a little further to walk. We’re heading back through the woods there – there’s a little outlet to the shore that’s a little more hidden.”

“The hot dogs are the sacrifice, right?” Apollo asks. Larry gives a thumbs-up. “So then you could just answer what we’re sacrificing to—”

“Wait.” Ema stops walking. “Trucy, you didn’t tell me there was ritual sacrifice involved. You just said ‘hey, there’s something you will want to see, scientifically speaking’ and I asked to make sure it wasn’t a hoax like the last time people said there was something cool at Gourd Lake—”

Phoenix and Larry glance at each other. Trucy looks up at them both. “No,” Ema says. “No, do not tell me that the lake monster is real.”

“You proved in court that it was a hoax,” Apollo says. “You proved that it wasn’t a real—”

“I thought I proved that,” Phoenix says, thankfully not taking any time to dwell on the fact that Apollo knows his cases well enough to know exactly when this happened. “I did prove that loud banging noises aren’t the hallmark of the monster, and that Larry was out on the lake looking for a bigass balloon he’d launched into orbit—”

“The balloon was also very real,” Larry supplies helpfully. “It was the Steel Samurai. It was pretty cool until I slipped up inflating it with the air canister. Launched that, too.”

“—but we were accidentally enlightened as to a little more, when was it – a couple days after the trial?”

“The day after,” Larry says. “And already you were moping about being lonely with Maya going back to Fairyland—”

“—so I went all the way to the bottom of my contacts list and came to hang out with you at your hot dog stand—”

“You had like, three people in your phone then. Don’t pretend like I was your last-ditch social reject friend! You’re my last-ditch reject friend!”

Ema coughs. Phoenix and Larry both clearly take the cue to continue the narrative. “We were about the only people in the park, hanging out back there.” Phoenix points back over his shoulder with his thumb. They are passing by the old boat shack now, its shattered windows and unstable rotting dock, and Apollo shudders. One step on that and it’s straight into the water. “And then, just, out of lake—” He waves vaguely and purses his lips together. “There she was.”

“And that’s why hot dogs?” Apollo asks. “Because he had a hot dog stand then?”

“Yeah.” Larry shoves his hands in his pockets. “Like hey, we didn’t know if it was gonna eat us, figured we’d throw some food that wasn’t us and hope that was enough.”

“And now we come back yearly with offerings to hopefully appease her and never find out why she was sealed away in the first place. Because as it turns out,” Phoenix continues, grinning broadly, far too amused for the fact that they are discussing the potential of some lake monster to eat people, “someone’s flyaway balloon got caught on a warding sigil and tore it off. Make a hoax monster while releasing the real monster.” His grin shrinks just a little. “We found the place where the seal originally was and went looking all over the park hoping to find it and put it back, but no such luck. Not like you can dig magic rocks out with a metal detector.”

“I cannot believe that Mr Edgeworth and I solved an entire murder conspiracy here at this lake and he never told me there’s a real monster in it!” Kay pouts. She does a good impression of a moody teenager, kicking a stray rock out of the way on the path, but she can only hold it for a few seconds.

Phoenix and Larry again exchange a look.

“He uh,” Kay says, her eyes narrowing, “does know about the lake monster, right?”

Phoenix sucks in a breath through gritted teeth. Larry elbows him in the ribs. “This one's all on you, buddy,” he says with a wicked grin. “You justify yourself.”

“Edgeworth does not know,” Phoenix says, sounding pained. Kay gasps exaggeratedly loudly. “Listen, we weren’t on as good of terms back then! He knew the part that came out in court about the hoax, and then I was not exactly sure that he would appreciate me reaching out to tell him no, there’s an entire fae monster actually there now.”

“And the ten years since then where you’ve been on very good terms?” Larry asks, still grinning.

“Fuck you,” Phoenix says to him. “I’d call it eight, also.”

“I think you should tell him,” Kay says. “He could stand to have his preconceptions shaken up every so often, that there’s more magic just chilling around than he thinks there is.”

“Yeah,” Phoenix says dryly, “until he asks me how long I’ve known and I have to figure out whether he’d believe it if I lied to him. Like logically I know the best thing to do, but at this point half of the fear of telling is the ‘why did you not mention that you knew this sooner?’ so I just drag it out even longer in the hopes that we’ll all live and die before Gourdy ever makes a situation where I’d have to mention it to him.”

“That is a very bad way of handling secrets, Daddy,” Trucy says.

“Oh, believe me, sweetheart, I know.” Phoenix frowns and sighs and shakes his head. “Though this isn’t just me covering my ass right now, but I think our new Chief Prosecutor has a lot more important things to deal with.”

The path they follow through the woods is almost overgrown with the tangled underbrush and buried beneath icy dead leaves. Phoenix and Larry, when they aren’t bickering, seem to confidently know the way, leading their small troupe out onto the saddest beach Apollo has ever seen. Sand and mud mix with snow for a slick surface that slopes straight down into the water, and an old weathered sign prohibiting camping is the only apparent clue that people come out here – though why anyone would want to camp here, Apollo has no idea.

Phoenix drops the bag into the wet ground. “Oi, Gourdy!” Larry calls. His voice doesn’t echo on the open lake but seems to be swallowed up by the white fog that has begun to swirl across the surface of the water. “We’ve got your yearly sacrifices!”

“Please don’t say it like that,” Apollo says. “That makes me think you’re going to throw us into the lake.”

“If I’m throwing anyone, it’d be Larry,” Phoenix says.

Larry, standing right at the edge of the water, flips him off over his shoulder. Through the fog, Apollo can see the water rippling, before it moves, pointedly, a long white wake pushing toward the shore. Larry scrambles backwards up the slope to Phoenix and the bag of hot dogs, grabbing an entire pack but not attempting to tear it open.

At first Apollo thinks that it’s a catfish, coming up strangely above the water. Then it keeps rising out of the water, far higher than a fish could, and he sees – he doesn’t know what he sees. It has a face like a catfish with the wide, gaping mouth, the barbels, and the beady eyes at the sides of its head; but past its eyes, it has small pointed ears and an otherwise horse-like body, its skin a slimy-looking brownish-green and its mane a long tangled curtain of seaweed. “Oh,” Kay says, very softly. “Oh, geez.”

Larry tosses the pack of hot dogs, plastic wrapping and all, in an underhand arc toward the creature. It stretches its neck out and catches the hot dogs in its wide mouth, throwing its head back and appearing to swallow the package whole. “You feed it plastic?” Ema asks. “It – her?”

“I call her ‘her’,” Phoenix says, “but that’s mostly because all the most powerful and terrifying fae I’ve known have been women, and not for any actual reason. But yeah, most of the fae and fae creatures I’ve known also have not been concerned with what humans do or don’t consider edible.”

“That sounds like some people I know,” Ema says. Kay pouts, but Ema isn’t looking in her direction. Her eyes are fixed, understandably, on the horse-catfish creature.

“S’good as far as keeping litter out of the lake,” Larry says. He grabs another package to throw. Phoenix hasn’t reached for the bag but is instead grinning at the stunned expressions on their three faces. “But yeah, we just show up, feed it a couple dozen hot dogs, and then do it again next year. Simple stuff.”

“So you really did just invite us to see the looks on our faces,” Apollo says. Phoenix’s grin does not waver. Trucy grabs two packs out of the bag and tosses them each at different sides of the creature – Gourdy, they call it Gourdy, a cute name for something that is frankly terrifying – and it swings its head about, inhaling one after the other.

“Worth,” Kay says, still wide-eyed.

“You weren’t even invited,” Ema says. She frowns, staring up at Gourdy from narrowed eyes. Is this how tall horses usually are? Did it get the size right when it took this nebulously horse-like shape? “I wonder,” she mutters, more to herself than anyone. “Do you think it always looked like this, or it tried to look like things that do exist in our world as a – disguise, I guess. An attempt at one?” She glances over to Phoenix. “Because you’ve said the fae in their true forms look sort-of but not quite like humans, but that they can’t really – alter their glamoured appearances very much?”

Phoenix nods. “It’s more innate,” he says. “What, say, Mia looked like is what Mia looked like. She didn’t just decide, oh, when I pretend to be human I want brown hair. But that’s just the fae, and fae animals are an entirely other barrel of catfish.” He reaches up to adjust his beanie. “Horses. Catfish-horses.”

“Someone who can’t really draw’s idea of a horse,” Apollo offers.

“Don’t be rude!” Trucy scolds. “She’s beautiful!”

Gourdy turns one tiny beady eye on Apollo. Maybe it’s just coincidence, but he decides that he’s not going to say anything that can be perceived as insult again – he doesn’t know how smart this thing is and if it’s fae it probably has very dangerous responses to insults.

“But it’s like…” Ema pulls her phone out of her pocket and starts frantically typing something. “Was it trying to look like natural wildlife? Is it coincidence? Convergent development? How long has it been sealed here and was that before horses were introduced to North America? I have questions!”

Phoenix chuckles and Ema lowers her phone, turning her furious glare on him. “Don’t laugh!” she snaps. “This is interesting! These are real questions!”

“I knew you’d think so,” Trucy says brightly, instantly diffusing the first bits of tension. “And since I dragged you and Polly out on... “ She sighs. “You know. So I thought I’d at least drag you out to some fun magic stuff!”

She thinks she owes them, to make up for the debacle of finding her mother’s soul. Or she was hoping for something like an adventure and wanted to bring them on that. Apollo isn’t sure whether he’d count this as fun, either, learning that there’s a catfish-horse that could probably kill all of them somehow in the lake, but Trucy seems happy.

“I promise I’m not laughing at you, Ema,” Phoenix says, holding his hands up in an attempt to placate her. Apollo doesn’t see that he’s lying. “It’s just nice to see you get a bit of your spark back.”

The angry huff of her cheeks deflates instantly. “I was probably real annoying as a kid, babbling like that the whole time while you were just trying to investigate, huh?”

“Not at all,” Phoenix says, and again, he isn’t lying. “I mean, I’ll admit to having been a little terrified that if I let you out of my sight you were gonna summon something or make a bad deal trying to get more tools for investigating, but I wasn’t annoyed.”

Ema pulls her scarf back up over her nose, but Apollo catches a glimpse of the sad smile on her face as she does. Then she steps forward and grabs a pack of hot dogs, extending it in her hand to Gourdy on approach. With about a foot between its mouth and her hand, she apparently decides not to risk having her arm be swallowed, and she gives the pack a little toss to get it to its destination. “Oh,” she says, “sort of related, Lana asked about you the other day, Mr Wright. Wanted to know how you’re doing.”

“Ah.” Phoenix rubs the back of his neck. “At least with the Jurist System you’ve got something to tell her more than ‘still sucks at playing the piano’.” His sheepish expression looks a little less when he reaches the part about the piano, and Trucy laughs. Apollo again wonders why he ever bothered to get a piano for the office. “Where is she now, anyway? She got out a year or two ago, right?”

“About two years now, yeah,” Ema says. There is a rhythm to them feeding Gourdy, now, Larry, Trucy, and Ema. Phoenix seems content to hang back, and while Kay bounds forward, Apollo has no inclination to join in on this part of it. “She’s out near Reno, just wanted to get away, and she’s talking moving out to London where we’ve got some family. She’s hesitating now that I’m back, or something, but I told her just get outta here, flee the continent, go somewhere that no one knows your name, y’know?”

“Oh yeah,” Phoenix says. “I’d – had that option, honestly, but—”

“But you didn’t do anything,” Ema interrupts. “And she kinda did… most of it.”

“Do you think Gourdy would let me pet her?” Kay asks.

“I would not try it,” Phoenix says. Kay’s shoulders slump.

“She was gushing about the Jurist System when we talked about it, though,” Ema continues, with only a brief roll of her eyes at Kay’s question.

“I can’t imagine her gushing,” Phoenix says.

Ema shrugs. “It’s – a big thing, y’know, to her. To all of us, but, she’d said – she’d said that maybe it could’ve helped stop Darke, put him away before even more people died and…” She looks from her phone down to the hot dog bag. Its contents are mostly depleted but she grabs one and hurls it with a surprising amount of force. “Good for cases like that. Common sense, no evidence, maybe now justice gets served.”

Apollo can’t say why the name Lana, Lana Skye, seems familiar, but he knows with the expression on Ema and Phoenix’s faces, he’s not about to ask.

Kay whispers something to Trucy and, both giggling, Kay hefts the bag and whatever remains in it onto her shoulder and flings the entire thing at Gourdy. Its mouth doesn’t look wide enough to take in the entire bag, but it does – the bag is there and then gone with a wet sucking sound in the time it takes Apollo to blink. He suddenly wonders if when Klavier complains about Vongole eating everything he has, he means everything, takeout containers and all.

“That’s, um…” Ema taps a finger against her chin. “That’s something. Kind of impressive. Kind of horrible!”

“And scientifically fascinating?” Kay prompts.

“Absolutely!”

“That’s all we’ve got,” Larry says to the beast, showing it his empty hands, like he’s sending off a dog that has gotten its share of treats but continues begging. “Good talk as always, Gourdy. See ya next year.”

Gourdy tilts its head, seeming to carefully survey Larry. It trots forward and for a horrible moment Apollo thinks someone is going to be eaten but Gourdy bumps its square fishy head into Larry’s face and makes an arc back into the water. Its tail is the same as its mane, stringy green and brown weeds with sand and grit tangled up in them. The water around it barely ripples as it enters, doesn’t splash when the creature goes from being half-visible to gone, and the wake moving away from them is weaker than the one that arrived. The arc of its hoofprints left in the snowy sand are backwards, like it left the water where it really just entered.

“Very slimy,” Larry says, wiping his face with his jacket sleeve. “Sticky, slimy, would not headbutt again.”

“But you’re friends now!” Trucy says. “Officially!”

“You never knew what its skin was like before?” Ema asks. She has her phone out again for notes. Kay peers over her shoulder. “Or beyond what you could see that yeah it’s probably fishy. How long have you been doing this again?”

“It’s… Shit.” Phoenix shakes his head, laughing again. “Ten years, now.”

“Plenty of time to have observed and thought about some of the questions on my list.” Ema lowers her phone and stares at Phoenix. “I have questions.”

“My answer is gonna be ‘I don’t know’ to most, but go for it,” Phoenix says.

“There’s gotta be somewhere open for breakfast, right?” Larry says. “Right? Who’s up for that?”

“Eldoon’s!” Trucy says brightly.

“Oh no, no no.” Larry holds up his hands and takes a step back from her. “Eldoon’s for breakfast reminds me of being broke as hell and I’m not about that.”

“That mean you’re paying wherever we go?” Phoenix asks dryly. “Since I got the hot dogs and you’re worth your weight in faery gold now.”

Apollo looks at Ema. Ema glances out of the corner of her eyes first at Larry, then Apollo, then Kay. Kay looks back and forth between Phoenix and Larry.

“Metaphorical gold,” Larry says, jabbing a finger at Phoenix. “You can not phrase it like that, so they” – he points a thumb toward Ema and Kay – “can not be terrified.”

“I’m super down for breakfast, if nobody else is gonna say anything,” Kay chirps.

“You not gonna eat garbage for once?” Trucy asks. She says it with a grin so big that Apollo would find it impossible to take offense if she directed those words or similar at him.

“Hey!” Kay protests. “It’s cheap! It’s cost-efficient!”

“Like you have to worry about that,” Ema says, elbowing her. “Like hell won’t be frozen before Mr Edgeworth lets anyone threaten your salary.” Kay elbows her back, apparently harder, because she staggers. “Anyway,” she adds, looking more at Larry and Phoenix again, “Interrogating you both over breakfast sounds great.”

“Do you ever worry that bringing more and more people in on these secrets makes them untenable?” Apollo asks Trucy. It’s probably a better question for Phoenix, but Ema has already begun the process of cornering him. “Just – showing off magic to us all?”

Trucy shrugs. “Maybe?” she offers. She hooks one arm through Apollo’s elbow and the other through Kay’s. “You and Ema already know so much other stuff.” For a moment her eyes are sad, downcast, and then she turns a sharp look on Kay. “You, though—”

“Guilty of whatever you say,” she laughs.

Trucy shrugs again, jostling Apollo’s shoulder too. “But also we’re like family, and family should get to know some of the weird fun secrets that we have.”

Again Apollo wonders at her definition of fun. But family. Or like family. Like-family is nice to have.

Phoenix, over Ema’s head, raises an eyebrow at her. “Hey Truce,” he says. “Does that mean you’re gonna run off and tell Edgeworth without warning me?”

“I might,” Kay says, snickering and nudging Trucy, who bumps Apollo with the force of it.

Phoenix snorts. “Yeah,” he says. “I know you would, but I’m not sure he’d believe you.”

#fic: the seelie of kurain #roddy fanfics

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cutsliceddiced · 4 years ago

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New top story from Time: COVID-19 Has Been ‘Apocalyptic’ for Public Transit. Will Congress Offer More Help?

While trying to get to work over the past few months, Brittany Williams, a Seattle home care worker, has often been passed by two or three buses before one stops to let her board. Buses in her area that once carried anywhere from about 50 to 100 passengers have been limited to between 12 and 18 to prevent overcrowding in response to coronavirus, and Williams’ commute, typically a half-hour ride, now takes more than double that time. Other Seattle transit riders have described budgeting as much as an extra hour per trip to account for the reduced capacity, eating into their time at work, school or with family.

Even with the ridership limits in place, Williams, 34, doesn’t feel safe on public transit. Some passengers don’t wear face coverings, and bus drivers sometimes ignore capacity limits, she says. On one ride with her seven-year-old son, she decided to get off at a stop far from her home after a driver allowed a crowd of people to board. “It’s very trying. I’ll put it in those terms,” Williams says. “These past couple months have been really hard.” (Seattle’s public transit operator, King County Metro, says it’s asking customers to allow for additional travel time, and that it has instructed drivers to call in more service on overcrowded routes.)

Adding more buses could help boost capacity while reducing overcrowding. But King Country Metro is in dire financial straits, making that next to impossible. System officials are projecting what they’re calling an “unprecedented loss” of more than a quarter of a billion dollars this year due to falling fare revenue and sales tax collections. While King County Metro received some federal aid for short-term survival, its prospects in the longer term are dismal, with the agency projecting more than $600 million in lost revenues through 2022. Last month, the agency announced fall service would be cut 15% from pre-coronavirus levels.

What’s happening to public transit in Seattle is happening across the country. Public transit use has plummeted nationwide as people work from home or avoid buses and subways for fear of contracting COVID-19, resulting in less revenue from fares. And as the economy cratered, so too have the tax revenues upon many which many transit systems rely. Philadelphia’s SEPTA is looking at upwards of $300 million in lost revenue through mid-2021. Maryland’s Transportation Trust Fund is contending with a $550 million shortfall in the fiscal year ending June 30, with similar losses expected next year. Los Angeles Metro is preparing for $1.8 billion in pandemic-related revenue losses. Chicago’s CTA is facing a half-billion dollar falloff in 2020. “I’ve been in this industry for over 30 years, and I have never experienced anything like what we’ve been dealing with in this pandemic,” says CTA President Dorval Carter, Jr. “There was no playbook for what we encountered.” In New York City, home to the largest transportation agency in the country, losses could add up to a staggering $8.5 billion in 2020. “‘Apocalyptic’ is a good description,” says Sarah Feinberg, who was appointed interim president of New York City Transit after the resignation of former president Andy Byford in January following repeated, high-profile clashes with New York governor Andrew Cuomo.

In these cities and more, public transit is the backbone of the local economy, and serves a wide swath of residents across socio-economic groups. If cities are to recover post-COVID, a thriving public transit system will surely have to be part of the mix.

Economically, U.S. public transit systems have endured a devastating one-two punch. Ridership rates have been decimated (subway ridership was down as much as 92% in New York at the height of the outbreak there) severely cutting into fare collections. And with the economy floundering more broadly, tax revenues that help subsidize transit systems have also taken a dramatic hit. But many transit systems’ costs are up as they engage in expensive cleaning campaigns meant to keep their buses and trains safe. Furthermore, many systems have been reluctant to cut service, which could result in dangerous overcrowding that could exacerbate viral spread.

David L. Ryan—The Boston Globe/Getty ImagesWearing a protective mask, Alejandra Ceja with S.J. Cleaning Services wipes down the window of a bus at the MBTA Charlestown bus garage during COVID-19 pandemic in Boston on May 15, 2020.

Some help has already pulled into the station. The CARES Act, a $2.2 trillion stimulus bill signed in March, included $25 billion for public transportation relief, which covered some of this year’s funding gaps. But as the COVID-19 crisis worsens in much of the country, it’s becoming clear that the nation’s transit systems will need more help from Congress. An independent analysis commissioned by the American Public Transportation Association (APTA), a non-profit advocacy group, found that, even after the CARES Act, public transit agencies nationwide still face a $23.8 billion shortfall through the end of 2021. “The CARES Act probably put a band-aid on the problem,” says Robert Puentes, president of the non-profit Eno Center for Transportation.

Another big issue with the CARES Act: the formula used to divvy out the funding gave enough money to smaller transit agencies to tide them over for a longer stretch of time, but left larger systems with only a few months of respite, according to an analysis by TransitCenter, a transit advocacy group. (That’s partially because larger transit systems tend to rely less on government funding, and more on fares and dedicated taxes, two income streams that the analysis projected would take a bigger hit during the pandemic.) Those major systems not only carry the most riders, some are also located in areas hardest-hit by COVID-19 early on, like New York and Seattle. For the 10 largest transit systems, the analysts estimated that the CARES Act funds would cover shortfalls for about five to eight months. In Seattle and New York City, which got 15% of the total CARES Act relief despite handling more than a third of national transit ridership, the funds were predicted to last less than six months.

More help from Washington could be on the way. Congress returned to work on July 20, and passing further COVID-related economic relief is top of mind for most lawmakers. But it’s unclear what the next major relief bill might look like. Back in May, House Democrats passed the $3 trillion HEROES Act, which included nearly $16 billion for public transit assistance, aimed primarily at the big systems that got relatively stiffed by the CARES Act. But Republicans called the bill a “liberal wishlist,” and the GOP-controlled Senate has refused to take it up. Republican leaders are expected to unveil their version of a relief bill as soon as this week. With August recess quickly approaching and plenty of political points on the line, it’s likely that Congress will pass some form of additional relief soon—what such a bill will ultimately include for buses, subways and rail is, at this point, anybody’s guess.

Not everybody is mourning the sorry state of American public transit. Some have long viewed it as a waste of government spending and resources, and say we’re better off letting it die. Transit opponents often point to data showing that national ridership had been slumping since 2014 as evidence that Americans were choosing other forms of transportation even before the pandemic, though the dropoff began to reverse last year.

“We had very strong trends before the pandemic that transit was becoming, outside of New York City, increasingly insignificant and irrelevant in America,” says Randal O’Toole, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. “What the pandemic has done is just underscored that and accelerated that and maybe in some places brought it to a final conclusion.”

But public transit’s defenders have a laundry list of reasons why it ought to be saved: it reduces the number of private vehicles on the road (generally meaning better air quality and less congestion); it results in fewer fatal car wrecks; and, when done well, makes urban mobility more accessible across socio-economic groups. “You can decry what you see as an inefficient system, but I don’t know how you have a functioning economy without people being able to get to their jobs,” says Beth Osborne, director of advocacy group Transportation for America.

For those who don’t rely on mass transit, heated debates over budget cuts, canceled routes and so on seem far afield. But transit is a lifeline for millions of Americans. Take, for example, the nearly half-million Chicago-area residents who live in “transit deserts.” Long before the pandemic, areas like the city’s Far South Side were starved for transit options, making it difficult for residents to get to work and access other essential resources. If Chicago’s CTA winds up reducing service even further because of COVID-related funding issues, advocates say, such a move could disproportionately affect people who’ve already been cut off from the rest of their city.

“If they cut service any more that would be a tragic thing for people who depend on transportation, not just to go to work but just to get to the grocery store,” says Andrea Reed, a transit advocate and co-chair of the Coalition for a Modern Metra Electric, a local advocacy group. “They can’t cut where people are already down and hurting.”

Christopher Dilts—Bloomberg/Getty ImagesA commuter wearing a protective mask looks at a mobile device while riding a Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) train in Chicago, Illinois, U.S., on Wednesday, June 3, 2020.

Any cuts in public transit service stand to disproportionately impact non-white Americans, who have already beared the brunt of the pandemic in so many other ways. People of color account for less than 40% of the U.S. population, but make up 60% of transit riders, according to the APTA. Further underscoring non-white Americans’ reliance on public transit, a CityLab analysis published in June found that, during a period at the height of the outbreak in New York, subway ridership dropped substantially more in whiter neighborhoods compared to less-white areas, perhaps because white New Yorkers were more likely to be able to work from home or afford alternate modes of transportation, like Uber rides. Furthermore, public transit has throughout the pandemic offered essential workers of color from doctors and nurses to kitchen staff a reliable way to get to their jobs; 67% of essential workers using transit are non-white, according to an April TransitCenter analysis.

With these disparities in mind, some transit agencies are trying to ensure equitable service amid the pandemic, despite the drain on their resources. Chicago’s CTA, for example, has been running at full service since the beginning of the outbreak in an effort to avoid overcrowding. “We had to make very tough operational decisions that were not necessarily in the financial best interests of the CTA, but were necessary because we recognize the importance of the people we were serving,” says Carter, the CTA president.

But good intentions don’t negate financial realities. “When the CARES Act money runs out, I don’t know what the system’s going to do,” says Stephen Schlickman, former executive director of the Regional Transportation Authority of Northeastern Illinois (RTA) which oversees the CTA. “This pandemic is clearly going to go into next year. The COVID money is expected to maybe stretch into early next year, so what happens after that? It’s a big unknown.”

Perhaps nowhere is public transit more vital, or the budget crisis more serious, than in New York City. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which oversees the city’s subways, busses and commuter rail lines, dwarfs other U.S. transit agencies in size, serving a colossal 40% of the nation’s total public transit users. Over the spring, New York City experienced what remains, for now, the worst coronavirus outbreak in the U.S.: more than 226,000 people have tested positive in the five boroughs as of July 20, and nearly 23,000 have died. Ridership in the city plummeted as people stayed home or sought out alternate modes of transportation they perceived to be safer. Furthermore, the city’s transit workers were hit particularly badly: more than 4,000 MTA employees have gotten sick so far, and 131 died. “It’s like being in a hospital, but without [personal protective equipment],” says MTA subway conductor William Mora, 50, who was out of work for a month with COVID-19; two coworkers he knew died of the virus.

The MTA received the most CARES Act money—$3.9 billion—of any public transit agency, but it was still shortchanged relative to its size, according to a TransitCenter analysis. The MTA, which anticipates a $10.3 billion loss through 2021, expects to burn through its CARES Act funds this month; it requested nearly $4 billion in more federal relief back in April.

“This is just the worst of all possible outcomes if we don’t get federal help,” says Andrew Albert, chair of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA (PCAC) which represents riders’ interests. He cites the possibility of layoffs, service cuts, fare hikes or even abandonment of transit lines. “I just don’t want to anticipate what could be happening,” Albert says.

The pandemic struck just as the MTA was turning a corner. Subway on-time performance had been deteriorating for years. Safety was becoming an issue, too, underscored by a 2017 subway derailment that left 34 people injured. But just before COVID-19 struck, reliability was improving, with weekday on-time performance hitting 83.3% in January, up from a dismal 58.1% two years prior. A massive $51.5 billion capital investment plan went into effect at the start of 2020, $15 billion of which was to be funded by a new congestion pricing plan wherein drivers would be charged when entering the heart of Manhattan. But the pandemic and ensuing chaos has left that plan facing about a year of delays due to holdups over a Federal Highway Administration environmental review. Transit insiders say the New York system now stands to lose its recent progress.

“Right now we’re seeing that the region is coming out of pause, but the MTA is going into pause as relates to its construction program, and that could have even more long-lasting, dire consequences, not just for riders but for the entire economy of the region,” says Lisa Daglian, the PCAC Executive Director.

Robert Nickelsberg—Getty ImagesA passenger wearing a surgical mask a daily newspaper while riding an uptown subway in New York City on March 18, 2020.

Public transit’s future is equally uncertain nationwide. While it’s likely many systems will receive at least some federal help, that probably will not be enough to get them off life support, at least until some degree of normality returns. Despite studies that show fears of COVID-19 infection on mass transit could be overblown, it may not be until a vaccine is widely available that riders who have a choice between private and public transportation will feel safe enough to once again pack into buses and subway cars. “People are expected to keep away from each other, and that just doesn’t work out for mass transportation,” says Schlickman, the former Illinois RTA boss.

Some transit advocates see opportunity in this crisis. In an effort to free up badly needed public space for safe enjoyment of the outdoors, many cities across the U.S. and worldwide have closed some streets or entire areas to car traffic. As residents saw first-hand the benefits of having fewer cars around—more space, safer streets, less air and noise pollution—some cities have moved to make those changes permanent. Seattle, for instance, closed 20 miles of streets to most cars in May. Other cities are building or revamping their cycling infrastructure, opening up yet another form of transportation for many residents. “If we use this as an opportunity to do a makeover of our transit systems, our transit funding, and our transit infrastructure itself, we could come out of this exceptionally strong,” says Alex Hudson, executive director of Seattle-based nonprofit Transportation Choices Coalition.

But in general, the mood among transportation officials and advocates is far from cheery. Large systems still await short-term relief, while a gigantic new infrastructure proposal has stalled in a deadlocked Congress. Transit planners have little to go on in guessing when the money, and riders, will return. If transit systems are left to die, some say, their cities will die along with them. “New York city is tied to their transit system,” says Philip Plotch, a professor of political science at Saint Peter’s University and author of Last Subway: The Long Wait for the Next Train in New York City. “It’s like if you have a big hundred-story building and the elevators were having a problem.”

Plotch, who served as director of World Trade Center redevelopment and special projects at the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, has watched his city recover from a devastating crisis before, and he’s optimistic it can do so again. “It wasn’t clear in the days after 9/11 if anybody wanted to work in a skyscraper ever again,” he says. “The people who had that sort of dark outlook were totally wrong.” But even if transit systems recover in the long-term, the millions of Americans currently relying on mass transit to get to work are desperate for those buses and trains to keep running.

“We depend on [transit] not just to go to our clients, but to do their grocery shopping, pick up their medicine…go out and pay their bills,” says Williams, the Seattle home care worker. “It’s a very dangerous slope if they take transit away. It’s part of what I would call another signature on the death certificates of thousands of Americans.”

via https://cutslicedanddiced.wordpress.com/2018/01/24/how-to-prevent-food-from-going-to-waste

#Time #top stories #IFTTT #news

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cre0n · 5 years ago

Text

"DWAL SSAAY ELIHC LRUG WEHW" (My Pet Unpopulars Reversed)

"Time to be quiet"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZ0ECqMHfUQ

Prelude

Creon: First off rest in peace to this decade that got owned. From the phony fake feedback "they" have been reading this for the past several years and I can see people being bothered by it. It's nothing to do with a check or any type of fake fame from "them". I don't get paid for this or even have followers but guess who's reading it. Just think of it as a free schooling or in some cases pure sportsmanship. Where yall think all of that Rebel talk came from? Now all of a sudden a decade later everybody is Rebel this, going against the system that. Folks got Rebel Clothing lines, Rebel mentalities, and Rebellious attitudes. That's the pavement that was laid for you and you and every colored negroe that it meant something to. When your as powerful as this entity inside of my physical body the other side tends to tip their hand occasionally. I don't think "they" try to give it away it's just fear that drives them to surrender unwillingly. Ain't it amazing how some of the most powerful *people* in this Matrix will never make it to your TV screen or trendy news cast that entices humans so much. Could you be able to comprehend or fathom a supreme being that induces so much fear into the hearts of the most evil entities that dwell in this realm? That may be to much for a human to understand. That may even be hilarious to most simpletons but it's meant to draw the mind closer and it's working. The point of this is Top 50, Top 25, Top 5 whatever nobody is bringing the same substance, content, subject matters and skill all in one sitting. Where would your favorites be without the help? Would they even exist to you anymore? They need to piggyback the fame and media to be a dope somebody. You have a fresh start and don't have to do that. I myself don't even know what help is anymore and you should feel the same way. It's in the people to have that power and they should take it. Dumbasses, we don't live in the physical realm you wake up to everyday. The REAL is lived out in your mind. If you reincarnate on this planet after dying, YOU LOST THE GAME. Yes, some of us come here for a sole purpose with the intent of light bearing revelations....Then I think about things again and say maybe I shouldn't complain. Maybe I should just be flattered to say the least. Naw not this time fuck that. It's like one of the homies said, You Can Do All Things Through Christ Except Play With Me. What I'm doing and have been doing and already did is sculpting and designing a coded landscape typical to a highway for all of my "peers" in this so called "community" as grounds for their pitiful souls to maybe one day be spared. Even the jealous and cowardly ones that are the purest of maggots, the ones who try to block your very existence, or just flat out ain't shit know the end game. They even have to bend the knee.

"Spoken"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVijnZylMw0

1. Eye don't respect you and at the same time must protect you They swear this state that their mind is in equals revenue How you call it blessed when frequency filters through mess What is it n*gger you can't see or the fame is humanity's stress The North Pole with machine elves the holy grail My tree of life cannon ball into eternal wells Drink from our chalice the fountain conception Stone Mountain His Russian time machine dream simply will not allow it A treasure chest no jewels to drop it's not for sale Forgot to reload my CERN account black Queens dwell in Hell Now you understand why EYE can't get signed Or go on tour for decades behind the black man's mind Let's overstand this sovereign case them people scared Came back to the planet ONE last time yall still unprepared

2. Wool robe eyes like the burning bush sandals bronze Magnetic field and aura like a lunar groupon Infinte is 8 we ate never ending planes Cut off by a cracked firmament our Summer's Gate reign Sea monsters like a Cripp by the Island of Thoth It's still moving yall still with me right?.... Cough Young brothas my Saturn Matrix black can't date no Iggy's They tryna turn Gibbs and Benny into new Pac's and Biggie Pay attention these folks is evil Dedication to easels.... draw

MJ KICK

"Model Duck Waddle"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StNUu-ayD4Y

Hella yaass young mamas got a story to tell CreezyBae from Souf Kak and keep that A-T-L A heartless reinforcer, socery is an order Magic shows blow some smoke up ya butt with this quarter Nada no nothing so don't be posing & stuntin' Curriculum spins this axis so wtf is you askin'? Babe it can't be love, 'cause love don't love a soul And all the likes and comments in the world gets old Now all you got in ya life that air mattress with the plastic cups That cash app still working don't it? Hit em up You selling selfies and an advantage time still passing Several years later recommended by the garbage tragic Been underground for decades it made me an animal That orange box cutter didn't come with no manual Annual, pussy makes the world go flat And plus we fuckin', don't do no homegurl chillin' jack (BIG FACTS)

.....(Shuckin' x Jivin')........

"The Roth"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFViVsYLK84

Eye swear to White God Eye love wasting humans time 7 summers later that dumb bitch God is a *crime* Pinot Noir and your whole outlook The way you teach the children, straight from a crackas book Yall slaves kill me with this top 5 bullshit The whole industry revolving door pulpits Talking bout they positive movements with negative fads Well tell the folks the whole truth you hypocrite scabs Let's pull the strings and the puppets out I don't even need the sticks Wasting time on the couch flickin' this BIC (5th bedroom) Eye love my brothers to death even wished them death (huh?) Now feel the release, illuminastic reps Get BIG nigga 500k nothing less Yes the FEDS watching 2012 InkTober droppin' Yeah yall wasting time repeat the Matrix get the grind? My peers once again 3D chasing bags Eye'm at the North Pole Holy Grail Tree of EVERLAST (punching bag) "Til this day" Creon built lanes even for trash Walking on the highway then loiter off the exit stashed

............ "that part cost" -Coach

Before you learn to win you need dimensional Facts Rule 1: The 5th plane is Universal crack Rule 2: The time machines run everything back Now the whole community is back on his sack Bar none with more bars and stars than an Admiral match it Enough lower back blows she need a flak jacket We know a Propain who got special stanzas trapmatic Lost tapes, still buried outlandish Ridiculous approaches got my yella ass banned (Red) Or am Eye, he too heavy banned to a skid crammed Jammed up at some port with no support scammed Seems like the customer got another custom plan With even more bars than an empty Fort Knox Pen carries weight like the sky blue Ox Or maybe it's a Bull, bullish trending up sell now The purgatory princess gets raped by their cash cow Sodomite Gentiles flag for jumping on the pile (my fault) The Kings circle of life Creon is Royalty Blacker than the thought of the roots of a Sequoia tree...

"You don't just Like"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poB4dtpTdLQ

Can't leave out the conscious folks on his way to 7 Creon stay jammin' harder than a Mac-11 Boppin' with that NoTep confidence From the old moon to Hapis stop your nonsense Masterful the pen glides prolific spill aesthetics More Hennessy for Carolina Cardi twerk sessions Got crackas seeing red they hate the message Don't message me just tag it yellow trend your own blessings cave pathetics The rose bloomed solid gold it's stems were magnetic Thorns crystallized easter eggs they found a Holy relic Breaking Matrix codes exposing Lyor's racist ass said it Donate a dollar and help the black channel out reverend You love this world so much well try not to get me pissed From now on Eye'm coming after souls next level shit...

**Hook**

Slangin' yarn in the yard lets get back to positive "The left field neighbor is the hardest kid" Was the agrument convincing me to slaughter this & still ended up lonely cause' the targets split The youngins say "lit" the crop a Megan Markel wrist 50 niggas deep somebody wrist game dope Bruh Eye give the soldout hope Make a famous fucka have to cope With the bullshit around them straight smoke May the Lord Jacob guide Baphomet in his prime As the Sirius Avyon one Universal mind Co-exist on a platform without porn shine Los Santos musik "Shittin while we Flyin" Etheric values nigga, the fallen and the risen In God mode the affirmations of metaphysics.....

"Dreams Don't Exist"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gc2ge9degkI

Can we just accept the stars at night & how the vibration sound waves replicate light Is the speed of bright faster than a black idea Are my peers slow or simple just backed up fears Been droppin' content on 9/11's, 23's, and the 13's With more New Jack swings for gangsta leans She clappin' it with no jumping he blowing gangsta green Choreograph a whole dance routine Be on some happy shit hoes wanna say Eye'm mean Just don't wake me up walking dead heroin fiends Moving around the room fly girls and crush grooves Been a shadow all summer pullin' J-moves Eye'm smoking bomb ass weed feelin' crucial They made sidewalks for black frats the feelings mutual Eye'm getting stalked by some bomb ass coochie & some of them rich legit never been a groupie......

...... & if yall can't relate then sue me (500k)

"Normalize the knob...tf"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGlXCLQ9aIw

For the new 16 Creon charging 2 properties And this was just a temporary situation now pardon me That's just some little money, the prophecy They saying buddy there's no chance you son of a slut You son of a bastard, you son of a bitch, you son of a mutt Eye got an angel now Eye'm summing it up You son of that cut, you son of that step, you son of that raw We Suns of the 7 summers son of a pause.... .....Moving Islands of Thoth A moving violation will get your team caught The Summer's gate will get a sea monster for da free Lifetimes of limitless mastery Education, the soul is sold separately They ran out of Isotol to stretch the peace The whole album ended ran out of doggystyle to stretch the grease Dumb lil boy this ain't no NBA Envy great, pay your fares then Camelot shares Run the highway like a state chair (votes) State of Emergency Profoundly unearthining The blackest clout to create words surfing on the nearest curb Lickin' souls like them lizards whether Eye'm slizzard or sober From Langford to the Boulder-crest up to Panola Teach my Sun don't be a slave, certified owners Initially lobbied for peace Mishaps happen summoning beast Iron throne let the Ice wall melt in the streets...

Peace

#summerisdead #fallclassics #7 #$500k #winternights #pale horse #black lion #white sheep #grey wolf

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