#and all it took was getting hit with 2 hurricanes in a row <3< /div> Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[peak-dumbass]

RID2015 Textposts: The Extended Cut (AKA the ones I forgot to post)

[dzpenumbra]

5/2/23

Good lord I'm tired. I slept like shit again. Really bad this time. Only like 5 hours total. And a very intense yoga routine. But... I did finish this...

So... not all is lost. I spent pretty much the whole day on it.

I don't really have much to say tonight, I'm just beyond exhausted. I need to find something to help sleep. And again, I've been too afraid of smoking weed. So... I think I'm going to find a good day with good vibes and get something immersive like minecraft set up and then smoke a little bit and see how I handle it, just to get reacquainted. And if it freaks me out, then figure out an alternative.

Again, really weird to be this scared of weed when I smoked every single night for months before I moved in here, and smoked every single night for the first like... 2 months that I was here. But my tolerance is 100% gone, I guarantee it. So... I'm a bit worried about getting hit really hard by it.

You know... when I was 17, I got my parents to buy me beer. Coors Original, I didn't even know beer or anything, I just wanted to drink. And I went walking into town with 2 Nalgenes full of Coors in my backpack, walking barefoot with a skate t-shirt with the sleeves ripped off and cargo shorts. When I got into town, I was pretty much done with the first Nalgene and had a good solid buzz going, and my friends pulled up when I was walking past a gas station. They were in their hippie van, they had an extra ticket to the Deep Purple and Joe Satriani show they were going to and wanted to see if I wanted to come with. And I, of course, without hesitation, said yes. And off we went. And I remember being in the parking lot, getting out of the van, chugging the last of my beer and eating a piece of pizza, walking barefoot across this asphalt parking lot. And when we got into the show, we went up to the barricade that separated the "lawn seats" and the actual... seats. And some couple came up to me and my friend, they were leaving and offered us... I shit you not... free second-row seats. And they insisted, so we took them. And I didn't even know the music, I didn't even know I was going to be there!

I used to be spontaneous. I used to say "yes". And now? I'm scared of smoking weed because it might give me a waking nightmare. And I'm often scared to go to sleep because it might give me a... sleeping nightmare. And it makes me understand part of what they mean when they say "oh, to be a kid again." It's not just the wonder and curiosity... it's the naiveté. Car accidents, diseases, mob violence, traumatic shit... those are things you see on the news (I guess today's analog would be social media), those are things that happen in movies and stories and games, those are things that happen to other people. They're removed. And it creates this sense of invulnerability.

To be completely honest, I saw a lot of this in the pandemic. A lot was denial, but that whole attitude of... "well, I'm not gonna get it", "well I don't know anyone who got it", "everyone I know who got it was fine". With the ones whose critical thinking can override their pride, once they see what it's capable of after it strikes close to home? They start taking shit seriously.

Idk, maybe a bad example, but it's something. Point being... I miss being that carefree, and all the good that came with it. I went from whitewater kayaking the day after a hurricane (which was unfathomably dangerous and I would not do again) to being afraid to smoke weed alone in my apartment on a monday afternoon. Or even at 4 AM to help with sleep.

Why? I don't even know. The emotion is just too strong, I guess.

I'm not going to solve this tonight, I just wanted to bring it up again for the umpteenth time. Weed has been a reliable remedy to help with sleep. I think it has to do with suppressing dreams. But I just don't want to wake up after 3 hours, sleep deprived, groggy, hearing weird noises coming from my super loud neighbors, still very high, and start freaking out. I just don't want to absorb that feeling of vulnerability. So, basically... if it works... I will sleep great and a ton of my recurring problems will be remedied. If it doesn't... I will have a waking nightmare for a few hours that's worse than me trying to sleep without weed. Worth the gamble?

If only I had literally anything in place as a contingency plan for freaking out. Like... anything. A happy place. Maybe that can be my thing to work on tomorrow, make a fucking happy place.

I am actually nodding off. I'm out.

[motherjoel]

Leading Lady (Spencer Reid x Reader)

chapter four- talented little thing

wc: 1.8k

summary: you get to know the team a bit more before your first tech rehearsal

a/n: hope you guys like it! im also taking oneshot requests if you guys feel like you’d like to request something :)

chapter index: chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3

-

It wasn’t long before your small apartment felt even smaller- the team had showed up within 5 minutes and although you were extremely overwhelmed, you knew that this was the safest you could be. Reid was frantically running around, talking to various people in FBI jackets and you felt like you were standing in the eye of a hurricane. You sat down at your kitchen table and put your head in your hands, trying to calm down when you felt a presence next to you. Looking up, you saw the blonde agent you had met the other day, Agent Jareau was her name. 

“It’s going to be okay, I know the chaos can be a little much but this is how you know we're working our hardest,” she said, resting a comforting hand on your arm. 

“I know, and I'm really grateful. You've all been great, and Spencers… he's… great,” you decided, smiling to yourself. So, hey, maybe you had a little crush on the guy. It wasn’t like you could act on it, with him sleeping on your couch, but you couldn’t help the butterflies when he rambles about facts or blushes when you notice him looking at you.

“Yeah he is,” she smiled. “And he seems to feel the same way about you. I haven’t seen him this worked up about a case in awhile,” she said, her voice sounding a little suspicious.

“Oh,” was all you could muster. Maybe he just feels responsible for you and he doesn’t want to mess up. Before the two of you could continue your conversation, the team made their way over to you with a woman on a video chat screen who you remembered to be the bubbly Garcia. Spencer had his eyes trained on the files in his hand, the rest of the team was focused on you. The woman with black hair, Prentiss, spoke first.

“Y/N, is there anyone in your life that has been acting differently recently, maybe taking more interest in you?” she asked. This was surprising to you.

“You mean… I know this crazy stalker killer?” you asked, shocked. You thought it was just some random dude who has a vendetta against thespians. Morgan spoke next.

“Well, the thing is, none of the other victims had been followed this closely. It’s a change in his MO, leaving these photos on your door. He's taking special interest in you, and we think it's possible he's killing these other women as a way of playing out his fantasies of you,” he says with a concerned look.

“So… this person is killing all of these women because of me?” you questioned, your chest growing tight. You looked to Spencer for comfort but he was still looking down at the file. You know you shouldn’t feel guilty, there wasn’t any way you could have caused this, but you couldn’t help the overwhelming feeling. It seemed like Agent Jareau could sense your panic and she grabbed your hand in hers, Morgan put a hand on your shoulder. 

“It’s a strong possibility,” said Hotch. “Which is why it's important that you continue to go about your daily schedule as usual. We don't want the unsub to panic once we're onto him and get more people hurt. Spencer will continue to live with you and go everywhere with you, it's only a matter of time before the unsub messes up and makes himself known,” he finished. This was definitely a lot to take in, and although you appreciated the comfort of Agent Jareau and Agent Morgan, the one person you really wanted to comfort you was in a different world.

“So I can still go to my rehearsal tonight? It’s important that I don’t miss it, it’s the start of tech week” you said, hoping that it wasn’t too soon to be out in public. 

“Tech week?” questioned Morgan.

“Oohhhh, how exciting!” said Garcia and you smiled at her, grateful that you still had the show to keep you sane.

“Tech week is the week before the opening performance of a production where all of the technical aspects of the show are present and used in the rehearsal process,” Spencer said, as if on instinct, without looking up.

“Yeah,” you agreed, “and it's kinda important I’m there…” you trailed off.

“Oh my gosh, I forgot we're protecting a talented little thing! Eponine is a dream role of mine!” Garcia almost shouts.

“Aw, stop you’re making me blush,” you laughed, briefly forgetting the situation you were in. That's when you noticed the stern look from Hotch and you looked back to see Garcia with wide eyes mouthing “I'll text you.” You smiled and gave her a thumbs up, returning your attention to Hotch.

“Yes, you can go. If the unsub knows your schedule, he knows that it would be out of the ordinary for you to miss this rehearsal,” said Hotch, much to your relief.

The agents soon finished up at your apartment, and Agent Jareau (who you now call JJ upon her request) gave you her phone number in case you had questions or wanted to talk, which you thought was very nice and you were glad the two of you hit it off. 

Your apartment was now empty aside from you, still seated at the kitchen table and Spencer sitting on the couch. The agents were only in your home for an hour or two but it felt like an eternity. You hadn’t eaten yet all day so you decided to ask Spencer if he wanted to get lunch with you. You walked over to the couch and sat on the opposite side from him.

“So… wanna get some food?” you asked hoping he would look up from his work, and he did, but his face didn't show the soft smile that you had grown accustomed to.

“You want to go out now? Right after a stalker left a menacing envelope on your door?” he asked, with a skeptical look on his face. His harsh tone took you by surprise and your face visibly fell.

“Well I have a rehearsal later anyway, so we have to go out eventually…” you trailed off, his eyebrow still raised at you. “Fine, I guess we can order a pizza,” you huffed and walked back to the table where your phone was.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and you turned around, surprised.

“For what?” you asked, genuinely curious. He didn’t have anything to be sorry for, it's not like he was stalking you and killing these innocent women.

“I’m sorry that this is happening to you and I’m sorry you're stuck with me as company,” he said, looking away.

“Well I guess that first part makes sense, but you're great company!” you told him. He looked skeptical. “Seriously,” you continued, “I don’t know if any of the other agents would have ‘delved deep into their psyches’ with me, or gotten me to tell them about my dead dad,” you said bluntly.

“Well to be fair, you kind of did that without me asking…” he said with a slight smile. You gasped in fake shock.

“Ohhh, so that's how it's gonna be,” you laughed, the tension in the room dissipated. “Well I'm ordering the pizza now, cheese okay?” He nodded and smiled before focusing on his files once again. You were satisfied with yourself, glad that things seemed normal again.

-

Hours had passed since you ordered the pizza, which the two of you shared on the couch while watching Gilmore Girls (Reid, even being the genius he is, remarked how fast they talked in that show). It was time to leave for your rehearsal, and although Spencer insisted on driving, you could use the fresh air on a walk to clear your mind (or as fresh as the city could offer). You grabbed your purse, your script and water bottle and walked out the door with Spencer in tow, locking the door behind you. He offered to hold your script and you were hesitant but ultimately gave in.

The second your foot hits the sidewalk outside of your apartment you feel off. Maybe you were overreacting, but it was a similar feeling to the one of being watched that you had experienced a few days ago. You picked up your pace and Spencer seemed to notice and he did the same, his hand instinctively resting near his holster. You tried to make small talk in case anybody was listening in.

“So, the rehearsal is probably gonna be pretty long, but it might actually be entertaining. I mean you’ve read Les Mis in a couple languages so the show should be pretty easy to understand,” you jokingly told him. He chuckled beside you.

“And it's okay that I watch? Your director wont mind?” he asked.

“No, I'm sure it's fine if I just tell him once I get there. Fantine’s boyfriend watches rehearsals all the time,” you reassured him, before realizing what you had just said. “I mean not that you’re my, you know...” you said before he leaned down and lowered his voice.

“It's okay- the cover, remember? As far as anyones concerned, I'm your boyfriend,” he told you. This did about as much to reassure you as it did to give you butterflies. You just nodded and did your best to hide your blush. It wasn’t long before you were outside the theater, and you were thankful for that. You trusted that you were safe with Spencer but you couldn’t help being on edge 

The two of you stepped inside the lobby area where your director was finishing up a phone call. He hung up the phone and turned to greet you.

“Y/N, hello! Thank you for being on time,” he said, his voice laced with stress. You wondered who he was mad at for being late.

“No problem John. Oh, is it okay if my boyfriend sits in on the rehearsal? He’s visiting from out of town and he loves theatre,” you said, trying to seem as convincing as possible, although you didn’t hate the lie of Spencer being your boyfriend.

“Fine, he can take a seat in the back. Go get your costume on, mic check in 30,” he said, barely addressing Spencer before darting off and picking up a phone call. 

“So… I guess i'll see you soon. I might be able to sneak around and watch the first part of the show with you, I'm not onstage for a while,” you told him while leading him into the auditorium, seating him in one of the last rows.

“Okay,” he smiled. “Go break a leg,” he said, which sounded a little unnatural coming from him but it was really cute. The two of you laughed and you walked back out into the lobby to get changed in your dressing room, not taking notice of his eyes following your retreating form.

-

taglist: @mcntsee, @diesinspanishbcimhispanic, @chickens-are-life, @rexorangecouny

[guardianofjunmyeon]

Finding Atlantis (part 7)

Genre: Action/Adventure, Enemies to Lovers, PirateAU

Description:   20 years ago the seas became angry. Unruly and unkind to any sailor, to  any ship that dared venture too far out in her waters. Many a man has  heard the tales of Atlantis, the lost city, the key the ocean. But  fewer  men know the tale of it’s missing child. The key to the ocean, the key  to Atlantis but a lost little one. The power one would hold should they  find this child would be nearly that of Poseidon himself. Thus, the hunt  began.    

A/N: Sorry it took so long for an update but i was kind of pissed off at baekhyun and exo for their lack of BLM support but whatever now. I’ve received you guys’ messages and asks and I keep meaning to respond to things but i really dont get on tumblr all that often. I really love and appreciate you all though so here’s a pretty...cute chap

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18

Darkness. Suffocation. Cold. Not breathing. He’s not breathing. He’s not breathing.

You’re not breathing.

You sit up with a start. “Baekhyun!” You gasp for air. Your chest heaves as you frantically try to breathe. The image of Baekhyun’s unmoving body begins to fade from your memory like a dream you can’t fully recall. Darkness makes way for the brightness that you are beginning to realize surrounds you. You don’t feel seasick; your body is still.

Panting, you look around.

A beach. Your heartbeat slows down when you realize that you’re sitting on a beach, alive. Alive and safe and the boat is pulled ashore.

But you can’t find Baekhyun. Panic rises again.

“You’re awake.” You hear from behind you.

You whip around, and there he is. Baekhyun stands on both of his feet, shirtless with an armful of wood.

And both of his god damn eyes.

Pain unexpectedly shoots up your middle. You groan loudly and lower yourself back down on your back. It doesn’t feel as intense like this. “Fuck,” you hiss in agony.

“You fractured your rib,” Baekhyun says, now at your side. You look at him through squinted eyelids. “It’s not broken, and it’ll heal on its own. You’ve just got to take it easy for a while,” he instructs you softly. You catch a glimpse of concern in his eyes.

His fucking two eyes.

“You’ve got more than one eye…” you croak dumbly. With each inhale of breath the pain begins to subside.

He blinks and the concern that you think you saw vanishes. “Yeah, and you’ve got fractured bones. Now we’ve both stated the obvious.”

He stands up and walks off while you struggle to sit up without experiencing more shooting pains. It doesn’t work out well; any move to raise your body sends another painful jolt through your body. From experience, you can tell that it’s your lower left rib that’s injured. That’s where you experience the most pain. Breathing doesn’t hurt; you chalk it up to luck that you didn’t puncture a lung in the process. In…all of that.

Your throat begins to close up at the memory. The rain. The waves. The cold.

He’s not breathing.

A decently sized canteen drops into your lap. You jump in your spot. “You’re dehydrated,” is all Baekhyun says before he walks off again.

You follow his retreating figure with your eyes. “Thanks,” you rasp to yourself.

Surprising yourself, you’re glad to see that he’s fine. That he’s alive despite the years you’ve spent wishing him dead.

It takes a bit of time, and a lot of moaning and hissing, to open the canteen. You nearly cry when you’re finally able to feel the water sliding down your throat. You drink it greedily.

What if this is all the water you’ve got?

You stop and pull the lip of it away from your mouth. You drank half of it in just 3 seconds.

“You can finish it,” you hear Baekhyun say from where he’s crouched by the wood. “There’s more on the island, we won’t go thirsty for a while.”

Without further hesitation you drain the rest. You’re still thirsty, but at least now you can talk, and maybe even stand without passing out. Like a baby learning to walk on its own, you slowly lift your body off the ground and on to your knees.

Baekhyun watches you closely, but does nothing to help. Once you’ve caught your breath again and are comfortably sitting on your knees, he stands up. He pulls on his shirt and then starts in the direction of the tree line. He pauses, turns to you and jerks his head towards the trees. A silent beckoning.

With a breath to prep you for the pain, you force yourself on your legs.

After only a few seconds of dizziness, your visions clears and you take careful steps in his direction.

Baekhyun waits until you’re only a step behind him to start walking forward again. There seems to be a clear path to wherever he’s leading you. You’re thankful that you don’t have to duck and dodge branches with your fractured rib.

Actually, the more you think about it, the path is suspiciously cleared of obstructions. You frown and look around. It’s clear as day that branches have been broken off recently. Maybe Baekhyun was going to use it for the fire?

You squint at the ground and see broken pieces of tree along the ground. So, not firewood. Path wood?

Why would he need to do that when he can just push them out of the way? The ground is flat even without the branches he’d torn down. It seems kind of unnecessary.

Your foot catches on a divot in the ground and your body stumbles half a step too far just fast enough to cause a pain to shoot up your side. You bite back a pathetic whine and notice belatedly that Baekhyun is hovering right at your side anxiously. Your eyes water instinctively at the smarting in your torso.

You let out a shaky breath and straighten up. “Fuck.”

He frowns.

“We’re almost there.” A beat of silence. And then, “Watch your step dumbass.”

Your rib prevents you from fighting back. You don’t think you would really want to even if you could. You trod behind him dutifully. The forest is full with the sounds of life, but the conversation between the two of you is dead. Painfully so.

“How long have you been awake?” you ask to fill the silence.

“A few hours. I looked around the island while you were unconscious.”

You hum. You wonder whether the boat washed up on its own or if he rowed here in your sleep.

To your surprise he continues on. “It’s an old prison island from the looks of it. I came across the jail and a bunker when I was gathering firewood.”

“Were there people in the prison?”

“Not living ones.”

“Gross.”

Silence.

“Thanks…by the way,” he says gently. Oh? Is that…a thank you you’ve heard?

“What was that?” you goad.

“Don’t make me say it again…”

“Do you mean for saving your life? Are you thanking me for that? For being a heroic, brave, sexy, strong-”

“I should have thrown your body into the ocean when I woke up.”

You laugh softy, carefully. If you breathe too hard then your rib smarts again.

“How’s your rib doing?” he asks.

“Hurts.”

“Okay smartass-”

“I’m serious!”

A beat.

“How are your stitches?” you ask.

“Hurts.”

“Listen here-”

He laughs. A full one. A bright one.

You shuffle behind holding back a smile. A building comes into view after a few minutes of walking. He was right; it’s obviously an old prison if the dreariness of it is anything to go by. It’s a small one. You follow him through broken doors, barely hanging onto their last hinge.

It reeks of death.

A chill runs down your spine.

Avoiding the actual prison cells, the two of you walk right to the guard room. Light streams through the window and you can see that the place was left in a hurry. There is still a lot of junk strewn around. It smells of moldy water. Maybe the place was hit by a hurricane.

You walk over to the desk and pull out a drawer. Matches, pens, an old pipe. You pocket the matches and check each drawer for anything of use while Baekhyun does the same across the room.

Most of the things you come across are entirely worthless, but you do find a fully loaded gun and a dusty flare.

The finds remind you that you didn’t grab anything when you jumped off the ship. Reckless. Thoughtless. But the realization that you don’t regret it is humbling.

Quickly you pat your body to see if you happened to bring anything of use. Your smallest blade sits reliably on your hip, and your gun still happens to be in its holster.

The compass.

You unhook it from your hip and stare at it in disappointment. Useless.

The sound of glass crashing across the room alarms you.

Baekhyun stands next to the shattered object with startled eyes and a wince frozen on his face. “Can you be quiet?” you whisper harshly.

He relaxes and rolls his eyes. “There’s no one alive here,” he reminds. “It’s not like we’re going to get in trouble.” His voice is as low as yours.

“Then why are you whispering?”

“Because you’re whispering!” He whispers back in frustration.

You cock an eyebrow.

“Shut up,” he says at normal volume. He steps over the glass with his hands on his hips and his lips jut out in a disappointed pout.

Clearly there’s nothing else of value in here.

“Do you know where the kitchen is?” you ask quietly.

“Yeah, come on.”

You travel through the halls wordlessly. The dripping of water punctuates every other second that passes. Your boots slosh through puddles of dirty water.

The silence of the jail feels more oppressive than anything else you’ve ever felt in life. It puts you on edge. You won’t say it scares you. Not when you’ve faced death itself countless times in your life. But if a fucking dead body comes back to life to eat your heart, you will not be responsible for your actions.

You are not beyond tripping Baekhyun so that you can get away.

In the kitchen, you split up to look for anything that can be salvaged. There are cans of food, packages of dried meats and fruits. The food left in the broken fridge is rancid, and rats crawl around on the floor. You would probably be better off just hunting and fishing on your own.

The floor creaks awkwardly under your foot as you close a cabinet with metal serving dishes; you look down. There’s a catch in the floor.

A door.

“Hey,” you hiss. You motion to your side when Baekhyun looks up from snacking on a bag of dried bananas. “Can you lift this up for me?” you ask.

He pads over and looks down in confusion at the spot near your foot. His jaw freezes in the middle of chewing as interest spreads across his face.

When he reaches down, the door squeaks open with a severity that hurts your ears. It’s pitch black below.

You dig the matches out of your pocket and lower yourself carefully, closer to the entrance. You strike a match and it dimly illuminates a bit of the space. An oil lamp hangs not far from the top.

Once lit, the lamp brightens up the hidden room.

A ladder.

Despite the burning in your torso you begin to lower yourself down farther.

An hand lands on your shoulder to stop you. “What are you doing?” Baekhyun whispers.

“I’m investigating. There’s no one here remember?” you mock. You shrug off his hand and scale down the short ladder. Another lamp awaits at the bottom. You strike another match and the full room comes into view.

You smile. “It’s a liquor storage.”

“What?”

“It’s a liquor storage,” you whisper a bit louder.

“What?!” he calls louder.

You inhale angrily. “IT’S A-”

“I heard you the first time. Quiet down,” he laughs from above. You hear him jump down into the small space. He looks around appreciatively.

“Party on the beach. Better than dying stranded and sober I guess.”

Baekhyun grabs a few bottles and places them outside of the little room. You attempt to grab a bottle of bourbon that’s caught your eye a bit above your head.

You’ll have to stretch for it.

Bracing yourself for pain, you suck air through your teeth. But before you can lift your hand above your head, a warm body is pressed against your back and the bottle is pulled from your vision. You blink dumbly and once the solidness of his chest vanishes from your back, you turn to face him.

“What part of ‘take it easy’ don’t you understand?” Baekhyun scolds you, the bottle of bourbon you were going to grab cradled in his arm. He exhales in exasperation. “I’ll carry this stuff back. Just…stop doing shit that will hurt your fracture.”

“Aw Baekhyun are you worried about m-”

“If you actually break your rib I’m not going to help you fix it and you can die on this island immobile.”

You quiet.

“Fine.”

Baekhyun ends up carrying all of the heavy items found on your search back to the beach where you’d washed up. You trail behind him, mind shrouded in confusion, and a bit of worry. When did he start to care about your injuries?

He puts down the sheet, that he’d used the carry everything over, with an exhausted puff of breath.

Wordlessly you both begin to set up camp.

Baekhyun works on getting a fire started as the sun begins to lower in the sky, and you spread out the cloth so that you’ll have a buffer between your bodies and the sand when you sit down or sleep.

You take stock of all of the supplies that you’d collected while he continues to nurse dim embers to life. You’re happy to see that he’d found a second flare in his search.

The sky and the ocean are calm, cruelly so, as the two of you settle in front of the growing fire. When the sky is blanketed in black and stars begin to make themselves known, you light the flare that you’d grabbed from the prison. It illuminates the sky briefly and then fades away. Hopefully your ship sees it.

The night is warm, and the fire crackles excited between you. You on one side of the fire and Baekhyun five feet away.

Baekhyun munches on a package of dried meat he’d collected, and you struggle to open a bottle of rum with your teeth. It uncorks with a satisfying ‘pop’.

You take a large swallow and feel is settling, warm, in the pit of your stomach.

When you hold it out towards Baekhyun, he only looks at it, and then trains his attention back to the fire.

You shrug and take another swig. You smack your tongue against the roof of your mouth loudly to show your satisfaction.

“Okay fine. Hand it over.” You smile gratuitously as he takes the bottle and takes a drink for himself.

The alcohol relaxes your muscles and you feel the urge to start talking. “So…two eyes huh?”

You name falls from his lips in warning, telling you to drop it. You raise your hand in mock defeat.

You think maybe the alcohol is making him want to talk too. Or maybe it’s the silence. “…Why do you keep calling Suho a princess?”

“Huh?”

“He’s a prince,” Baekhyun states. He shifts in his spot and turns his body to face you. “He’s the Prince of Atlantis, but you’ve been calling him a princess even though you know that he’s not a girl.”

You shrug. “The stories…they originally just called him the lost child of Atlantis.”

“Yeah…”

“I don’t know when people started to just assume the lost child was a girl. It helped to keep his identity hidden that way even if it was wrong. If everyone was out looking for the Princess of Atlantis, they wouldn’t give a second thought to a man who fits the description. After a while it just became second nature to refer to him like that, to continue to talk about him as a little missing girl rather than who he actually was. Suho is a princess, and Junmyeon is a member of my ship. They weren’t the same person in my head.”

Baekhyun hands you the rum. For the same reason that you keep your own identity a secret, your crew decided to keep Junmyeon’s. Sometimes you gain an advantage by letting people assume what they want.

“Did you find out on your own that he was the princess- the prince?”

You smirk. “Your curiosity finally won out huh?”

He pelts a stick at your arm.

He waited longer than you expected –you’ll give him that.

“Since you are so curious I guess I can tell you.” He picks up another stick. “Anyways! He came up and told me. Introduced himself to me that way, the dumbass,” you laugh at the memory. “It was…years ago. Right as I was starting to find people to join my crew. He just walked up to me while I was sitting in the corner of a bar and slid one of my ‘Man for Hire’ posters across the table. This scrawny guy, soaked from head to toe. He looked exhausted but there was something in his eyes that I’d never seen before.” You look into the fire as you try to recall the details of that night.

“He told me that he wanted to hire me to get him home. I’m pretty sure I laughed right in his face. He sat down at my table, dropped a heavy bag of money between us, and said, ‘I can get you more money than you can imagine.’

“‘Okay I’ll bite. What’s the deal?’

“‘Have you ever heard of Atlantis?’” you repeat the words from the exchange and then pull your gaze from the fire to meet Baekhyun’s. “He went on to tell me that he was a prince and that he’d run away a few years before. He was ready to return, but he had no idea how to do it. He’d left because his family and his people were pressuring him about his destiny and the role he had to fulfill to save the kingdom and he just...panicked. He was just a teenager, you know? He was scared, he wasn’t ready, and so he ran away. He fled and then lived on land among humans for long enough that the connection he’d had with the ocean had dimmed. He couldn’t find his own way home, and they couldn’t come find him, even if they wanted to.”  

Baekhyun frowns. You take a drink, pass him the bottle, and continue on.

“I didn’t believe him at first, but decided to do what I could. Our relationship started out like that, with me trying to get him home. After some time he just decided to be on my crew. We would find crewmen, do other jobs to pay for our expenses, and then continue to look for Atlantis. Over time we gained more men, we lost even more, but he was always there at my side as my first mate. As my first crewman.” You smile fondly and play with the sand at your side. “Soon enough, finding Atlantis became an…afterthought. It wasn’t our priority anymore. We went on other adventures, faced other challenges, and strengthened the family we built aboard the ship.

“He said he was fine not finding his way home anymore after a few years of looking. But the way he looks out at the sea sometimes…” Memories arise of him leaning against the side of the ship and looking out at the expanse of the ocean longingly. “It’s heartbreaking.”

You don’t realize that your eyes are starting to water until a tear falls against the back of your hand. You swipe away the moisture and paste on a smile. Baekhyun’s expression is one of empathy. “I know that he misses the sea; I know that he misses home no matter what he says to deny it. I promised him that I would get him back, once. He laughed at me, but I meant it. He’s like my family, but his happiness comes before anything else…even if I have to give him back to the sea.”

Your words settle over you both like a heavy blanket. Your own heart tugs a bit at the memories and realization that you really may be giving him up soon. If they find you on this island and you continue on your quest. You’ll be giving up the person who’s been at your side longest.

“You love him,” Baekhyun states.

His words startle you. You look at him with widened eyes and try to read his expression, or at the very least the intention behind his words. It’s carefully concealed behind neutrality, but you can see a bit of the uneasiness in his eyes. You don’t know what comes over you. Why you want to see his reaction to your words so badly. Why you hope that it’ll bother him –even if it’s just a little.

You keep your gaze steady when you respond. “Yes.”

A glimpse of offense is all you catch as evidence that you words may have affected him, but it could have been a trick of the light from the fire. He rolls his eyes and takes a long swig of the rum, no longer looking you in your eyes.

“I love him the way I love every member of my crew,” you press on cautiously. You catch the stillness in his throat as he stops swallowing for half a second. Satisfaction thrums through your body. Why? Why? You don’t know for sure yourself. “Everyone on my crew is my responsibility, and with that comes a level of love and respect that we’ve all worked hard to build. Like I said, the men and women on that ship are my family. We wouldn’t work as well as we do if we didn’t love each other just a little bit. Thinking that you can’t love your shipmates just because you’re a pirate and you kill people is old fashioned. Love solidifies a bond like nothing else. We would risk our lives for each other…that goes for us with you and your men too.”

The fire pops loudly.

He wipes away a drop of alcohol from the corner of his lips and gives you a measured look. You watch as he figures out how to form the question he wants to ask next. You hold out your hand for the bottle.

He passes it, and if your hands faintly brush –neither of you mention it.

The next swallow of the liquid burns its way down and blurs your senses. Drunkenness creeps in at the corners of your mind. A weighted silence stretches on while you focus on the pleasant humming in your veins.

“Is that why you jumped in after me?” You twitch in your spot at the sound of Baekhyun’s voice. Enough time has passed of prolonged silence that you have to search your mind for what it is he’s referring to.

Oh, the storm. Your recklessness.

“Yeah,” you say easily. “You’re a part of my crew for now. We shook hands on our truce and everything –and you didn’t stab me after I cut your side, so I figure I can trust you. I would have done the same thing for anyone.” He seems unhappy with your answer, but doesn’t voice it. “If I can save a life, I save it. Especially if it’s someone on my crew,” you ramble on.

He laughs in disdain. “That’s stupid of you. No self respecting captain would do something like that.” He mutters around the bottle he’s slipped from your fingers, “I would have let me drown.”

You toss a handful of sand in his direction. “Well I’m not you.”

His eyes shine in confusion. You curse under your breath from the movement on your rib as you scoot closer to him. “You know,” you start, fully committed to over sharing now that you’ve started, “I haven’t hold anyone this, but years before I met Junmyeon –when I was still just a little street rat pick pocketing to eat and whatever- I had my life saved. You can think it’s stupid, because it kind of is but I don't care.” Baekhyun’s lip twitches up in amusement.

“Anyway! I had my life saved by this one kid. I was being chased down by a couple of thugs a man sent on me after I stole his purse. It was a rich guy who lived in my town, super well-known and feared. I’d really fucked myself over this time. His men were after me, and I tried to hide, but no one was willing to let me in. They were afraid of him. And I was just this random kid; they didn’t owe me anything. I knew if I was caught, I’d get my hands cut off…or worse!” You widen your eyes to emphasize your words. Baekhyun breathes out a laugh.

“I ran around in a panic, crying, shaking, begging. I was only like…10. I hid in an alleyway for an hour when I heard them coming. I could hear them asking people on the street if they’d seen me. ‘Have you seen this girl?’ ‘Have you seen this girl?’” you mimic. “I knew that I was going to be found. But then, this kid, he saw me when he’d come to throw out the trash from the shop he worked at. Or maybe he lived there? I don’t know…I just know that he didn’t have to help me, but he did. He helped me up and hid me in a storage shed under the shop until the next morning. It might not have meant anything to him, but I remember that favor to this day.

“I know it’s unlikely that I’ll ever meet him again, especially since I haven’t returned home, but I feel like I’m repaying him in some way like this. Saving the lives of people close to me or the lives of people who can’t save themselves. I can’t save everyone; shit, I’ve killed way more than I’ve ever saved, but where I can, if I know I can do it, then I do. Since I never got to tell him thank you…it helps.”

You aren’t sure if your words make sense; they don’t the longer you think about them, but you hope that Baekhyun gets the general idea. As a pirate, you pride yourself on killing those who are evil by nature. The people who pick on and hurt the innocent, the less fortunate, the defenseless. You kill, and you collect money for killing, but you have never killed someone who did nothing to deserve it. You’re relentless, sadistic, and at times monstrous, but you aren’t heartless. Despite how you grew up and the struggles you’ve faced –for every unkind soul you encountered, you met two with hearts of gold.

“You know…you talk a lot when you’re drunk.”

“Shut up.”

“No it’s…nice. Having a…normal conversation.”

You blink at him. Yeah, it is. Not throwing curses and insults at each other for once is…nice.

But the thought of admitting that aloud to him makes your stomach twist in an ugly way.

“Are you going soft on me Byun?” you tease.

“I’m allowed to enjoy just talking every once in a while. You’re the one going all starry eyed over some kid from your childhood that’s probably buried in whores and liquor right now,” he throws back. “You shouldn’t idolize people like that. It’ll hurt you less when they don’t fulfill your expectations.” He fingers the neck of the bottle before taking a large swallow. “Besides it sounds like you’re in love with him and you don’t even remember what he looked like.”

“I’m not in love with him,” you feel your stomach turn uncomfortably when Baekhyun looks back at you with an amused eyebrow raise.

So you’re in love with him right? That's why you’re acting like this?

Heat fills your cheeks. “And so what if I can’t remember what he looked like? It was a long time ago and my memory’s been distorted. Fuck off.”

For a while you did look for that kid. You can remember the kohl rimming his eyes, and the hood he wore that hid his face in the darkness. In the time you searched for him you wanted so bad for someone to fit the mental description that you began to make people fit it. You confused what you actually remembered of his appearance with what you wanted him to look like.

Even if he sat right in front of you today –you probably wouldn’t even recognize him.

You hear Baekhyun holding back his giggling and you glare at him half-heartedly. With a full smile, all rectangle, all rounded cheeks, he holds the nearly empty bottle for you to take once again.

When your hand touches his this time, you both pause for a second longer than you should. You blame the alcohol. He lets go and averts his gaze back to the fire. You clear your throat nervously. “What about you?” his eyes flicker quickly from the fire. “Any savior stories? Or love stories, heartbreaker? You know, outside of ones with me,” you add jokingly before finishing the bottle.

“No,” he says quickly. You see his ears color.

You gasp. “You do don’t you? Tell me,” you demand. “Was it someone you grew up with? Are you in love with someone right now?”

The red spreading up his neck isn’t a result of your imagination, or your drunkenness, you know it. “Why are we even talking about this?” he complains, a whine taking form in his voice. You’ve heard him whine like this once before –when he was leaving a bar being held up by one of his men (Sehun, now that you know the people in his crew) and not wanting to go home.

“You’re the one interrogating me over my love life!”

“I was not!”

“‘You love him’, ‘Sounds like you’re in love with him’, ‘You’re obsessed with each other’,” you mock.

His eyes narrow. “I never said that last one.”

This time you feel your face heating. “Whatever. You started the conversation.” You grab sand and start to fill the empty bottle just to give yourself the distraction. You don’t think you can look at him right now. “Besides, there’s nothing else to do. Unless you want to spar…” you look over eagerly.

His face scrunches up (cutely) and he lies on his back. “No, I’m too tired and too drunk to fight you right now.”

You frown to yourself and finger the top of the bottle distractedly. “You know…” you start again, “You act like love is a death sentence, or like it’s something bad.”

“It is,” he says simply. His voice sounds far away. You shuffle closer so (so that you can hear him better –obviously) and grumble under your breath as a way to distract from the pain movement causes you.

He doesn’t move away when you lie down next to him. You both stare up at the sky, visions swimming.

Fuck you’re drunk.

“Are you drunk?” you whisper.

“…a bit,” he laughs in a whisper back.

You both continue to look at the stars and giggle to yourselves. It’s funny that you’re here like this, you think –lying on a beach with Baekhyun on your side, so close that the sides of your bodies are nearly overlapping. Giggling and drunk and talking about love like old friends.

I think you should both admit you’re in love with each other so we can all move on.

“Baekhyun…”

“Hmm?”

“It could be nice…being in love.” His head rolls to the side to watch you. You keep your eyes trained on the sky. “Like…it could be like having a first mate in life. Someone to help you navigate your ups and downs like a first mate helps a captain navigate the seas. It could be nice having that one person to lean on when the waters get too rough and it feels like the entire world is against you –you still have the one person who will always be there at your side. It might be nice to be scolded and praised and encouraged for just living…for just being yourself. Don’t you think?” you let your head loll to the side so you can look at him.

You observe the furrow of his eyebrows and the way his lips pout as he thinks. You stare openly into the darkness of his eyes and notice how they both droop downwards. How his nose slopes and how his face is so round.

You feel your stomach flip in an ugly way.

Struck by panic and by his silence at your words –you slap on a sleazy drunk smile. “And you can have sex with them whenever you want. That’s a pretty cool bonus, I think.”

He laughs his absolute loudest –his brightest- at that.

You shove down the urge to say something else, something just as dumb, just so that you can see him laugh like that again.

Shit.

“Shut up,” he giggles. His eyes shine and dart across your face excitedly and you faintly register your own doing the same. His cheeks are so round and so red from the alcohol and the joy.

He’s very pretty when he smiles.

Both of his eyes, pretty (he’s got two of them who would have thought?). A mole under one of them, another on his cheek, one more above his lip.

His lips…those stupid little pink triangles that make up his upper and the stupid moisturized swell of the other. As if able to read your thoughts, his tongue darts out to wet them.

“Your lips are so stupid,” you grumble to yourself loud enough for him to hear you clearly.

That pulls another raucous laugh out of him. His teeth gleam in the moonlight and against the fire.

“Your teeth too,” you add softly. “They’re too white.”

“You’re drunk. Go to sleep,” he says with a smile.

You roll onto your side to face him. He follows. “Am’not. You’re s’the one who’s drunk,” you fire back. He chuckles softly, almost fondly, and it ghosts across your face. You’re close enough to count his eyelashes.

If you had half the coherence to do so.

“Baekhyun…”

“Hmm?”

You pause to figure out why you called out his name this time. You don’t have anything else you really want to say –just wanted to capture his attention.

“You wanna mess around?” you try.

He giggles. “No, we’re drunk.”

“How valiant of you, that’s never stopped us before. I’m only offering this one time so you better take it up before I take it back.”

He scoffs. “No you aren’t. You’ll probably ask again tomorrow too when you’re sober because you’re always horny and always stupid and you’re in love with my dick.”

You hum and close your eyes with a smile. “Touché.”

The world spins even as your eyes are shut. Your body feels heavy with alcohol and warm with whatever it is that has happened tonight between you and Baekhyun.

When you hear him murmur your name, you peak open an eye. His gaze is surprisingly clear for someone who drank just as much as you.

“Yeah?”

“I’ll uh…I’ll take the first watch,” he stammers.

You close your eyes again and hum in agreement. “You’ve got first watch?” you yawn out.

You vaguely hear him hum as the crackle of the fire sound of his soft breaths lull you to sleep.

[slapshot-to-the-heart]

Flatbush & Atlantic: part viii

part i part ii part iii part iv part v part vi part vii

Here’s part viii! Tell your friends, tell your neighbors, tell your dog, tell the nosy woman who lives in the apartment above you. Remember to reblog, it helps the series reach more people, and as always - tell me what you think! I haven’t gotten much feedback so far and would love to know everyone’s thoughts, even if it’s only a few words.

part viii

April 19 (sun)

Cass was the most nervous she had been in her entire life. Okay, well maybe that was an overstatement. That honor probably went to the night law school acceptances went out, or when she sat with Alejandra — a friend from back in Texas — as they thought DACA was going to get rescinded, or when her dad lost his job when she was in middle school and their family was living paycheck-to-paycheck. It was Game 6 of the first round, the Islanders leading the series 3-2. The score was tied 1-1 halfway through the second period, a beautiful tip-in by Nelson that managed to just squeak past Mrazek. They had been up 3 games to none at the start of the series, with every intention to sweep the Hurricanes in Game 4 at home. But then they dropped two in a row — needless to say, tensions were running high coming into the night. 

She was sat up in the club box with the WAGs and some other family members who had flown in for the occasion, in hopes that they’d be able to celebrate a win and a move to the conference semifinals. The team probably could have used with tightening up their backcheck, but the passes were spot-on and Cass didn’t see much room to complain. Lauren on the chair opposite, she sat next to Paige as the clock hit eight minutes left, clutching a glass of white wine as her foot nervously tapped the carpet. Paige placed a steadying hand on her arm. “They’re going to pull it off, you know.”

Cass ran a hand through her hair. “That’s what I keep trying to tell myself. And I know they’ve got the talent, and these guys are some of the hardest workers I know, but—”

“It’s hard trying to rationalize it,” Paige finished.

“Yeah,” Cass nodded, “and especially knowing how long the team’s gone without a cup, like it’s been, what,” she glanced at the banners in the rafters, “38 years since they’ve won?. That’s 13 years before I was even born.”

Paige looked down at the ice thoughtfully. “I guess there’s really not much you can do in these situations but have faith that all the training and all the effort’s going to eventually pay off.”

“I guess you’re right,” Cass said, though if she was being honest she didn’t like the subjectivity of the statement. Shitty things happen to good people all the time, bad people get away with terrible things all the time, and people who have worked their asses off don’t always get what they’ve spent their entire lives working toward. 

There were just under six minutes left on the clock, and the first line had just gone back on. Anders took the faceoff, and Cass was so focused on the puck that she didn’t notice the gloves dropping on the other side of the ice until Paige let out a gasp, gently shaking her out of her trance. She was thrown for a minute; sure, fights were more uncommon since the league started cracking down on penalties, but they weren’t uncommon, so why did it matter that she paid any attention? 

Five seconds later, and she understood. It was Mat. It took Cass a few seconds to really grasp it — Mat wasn’t a fighter by any means, she had never seen him in one even before they got together, so what had finally set him off? They traded punches as the refs struggled to get a handle on the situation, jerseys riding up as Cass’ hand squeezed like a vice grip on Paige’s knee. She was too anxious to even figure out who the other player was, just that he was tall and blond and had one fist gripping Mat’s collar as he dodged one of his blows. Mat tried to steady himself, tried to realign his center of gravity, but then the other player threw a punch at the side of his face and it clipped his cheek as he tried to avoid it and he couldn’t get his balance back and he fell. Hard. Helmets had gone off before the fight had even started, so there was nothing in between his head and the ice. 

Cass’ hands flew up to her mouth, and Lauren had to stop her from sliding off the edge of her lounge chair. There was blood, and it was coming from his head, and if there was one thing her mother’s 30 years as a nurse had taught her, it was that blood from the head was never a good sign. “I think I’m going to be sick,” she whispered, feeling the bile rise up in her throat. Scratch anything she had said before, this was hands-down the most scared she’d ever been in her life. The love of her life was bleeding from his head down on the ice, and he wasn’t moving. 

You could have heard a pin drop in Barclay’s Center as the whole crowd waited for Mat to get up. And waited. And waited. Cassidy barely noticed him being helped up by Jordan; she was already running through the halls, Paige right beside her, frantically pressing the down button on the elevator to take them to the dressing room. She didn’t pay any attention to the usher who was telling her that they were private elevators because Mat was hurt and he was bleeding and oh God oh God oh God I need to get to him I need to get to him. 

She leaned her head against the cool metal of the side panel, long since having abandoned her efforts to control her tears as Paige tried desperately to comfort her. “The team has really good doctors, and if he needs a hospital, we have the best ones in the world right here in New York,” she said, but her words fell on deaf ears. Cass’ head jerked up. The elevator had dinged, indicating that they had finally reached the underground level. She turned left, headed straight for the locker room. There was no way he would have been left on the bench. Cass knew enough about hockey and enough about injuries to know that a hit that hard and blood that bad meant that he’d be taken right back.

By this time, she knew the way as good as anyone, and didn’t care who would try and stop her from getting in the room. Come hell or high water, she was going to see Mat. She passed the handful of puzzled arena staff, bursting into the locker room. “I’ll be out here,” Paige had said, but it barely registered. Mat was in a room off to the side, and thank God the trainer was one who recognized her, because he nodded at her as she lingered by the door, unspoken permission that she could enter. Cass rushed to Mat’s side, his eyes screwed shut in pain as the trainer  — Carter, was it? Nick? She really couldn’t remember much of anything at the moment  — held a pad of gauze to his head with a gloved hand. 

“Doctor should be here any minute, Mat, just hang on,” he said. 

Cass knelt down, hands shaking as she laced her fingers through his. “It’s going to be okay, Mat. You’re going to be okay.”

Mat opened his eyes just a sliver. “Cass?”

“Yeah, babe. I’m here.”

The door opened again, a man with a medical bag walking through the corridor and into the side room. “Dr. Khan,” he said to the trainer as he set the bag down, unclasping it. “Nick,” he responded. So it was Nick, Cass thought absentmindedly. 

“I was watching from a box when it happened, got down as soon as I could. So, his head hit the ice? No helmet?” Nick nodded as Dr. Khan snapped his own pair of gloves on. He turned to Cass. “Are you the wife?” For a moment, Cass was thrown. He may have been a doctor, but this man really couldn’t have known much about the team if he thought one of their star players was married. If Mat Barzal was married, everyone would know. 

After a moment, she shook her head. “No. Girlfriend.”

He nodded. “Okay. I’m fine with you staying as long as you keep out of the way, it shouldn’t take too long.” He turned to Nick. “A/O questions?”

“Knew his name, knew the year, knew where we are, knew who she is,” he tilted his head over at Cass. 

“Good, good,” Dr. Khan said, moving over to take his place at the head of the table. “Head wounds bleed a lot,” he said reassuringly, looking over at where Cass stood, her nails bit down to nubs. She thought she’d quit the habit in fifth grade. “It shouldn’t need more than a staple or two.” 

True to his word, fifteen minutes later the bleeding had subsided substantially, and Mat was sporting two very shiny, brand-new staples. “I’m sorry we had to shave a little, your lovely girlfriend was telling me how much pride you take in your hair. It’ll grow back quickly,” the doctor said. 

Mat let out a groan. “I’m going to lose all of my millions of adoring fans. The hair’s all I got, you know.”

Dr. Khan chuckled. “I’m glad to see you’re in good spirits. I’m going to diagnose you with a moderate concussion. It could have been a lot worse, but you got lucky this time.” He turned to Cass. “Would you be able to stay with him for the next few days? He should be able to manage, but it’s always better safe than sorry and it would be good for him to have someone around in case anything comes up.” 

Cass nodded. “Yeah. I’m in school, but outside of that. Yeah. I can stay.” 

Nick walked back through the door, handing a few printouts to Cass. “Just some concussion stuff for you to know. Activities for him to avoid, symptoms to be aware of, what to do if things get worse. That kind of thing.” 

Cass took the sheets. “Do you think things will get worse?” She asked worriedly. 

Dr. Khan shook his head. “It’s not likely, seeing as how he’s relatively aware and the concussion could have been much more severe. But it’s always better to err on the side of caution when it comes to any medical situation.”

She nodded, nervously rubbing Mat’s thumb. “Should I...take him home now?” She asked, trying to think of how she was going to take him back to Manhattan on the train when lights and loud noises were the exact thing he was supposed to be avoiding right now, or how much an hour long Uber would cost. 

“I’d like to keep him for a little longer, an hour or so, just for observation to make sure symptoms don’t get any worse.”

The next hour seemed to inch by, dotted with visits from Nick and Dr. Khan and one from Trotz during the second intermission. Mat was going to be out for somewhere in the vicinity of two weeks; everything was dependent on him being medically cleared and a slow return to training and team practices. The news gutted him. It wasn’t just that Mat loved hockey, he loved being out on the ice and in the thick of the action and with his team, his brothers, and it just seemed so patently unfair that he wasn’t going to be able to do that when they needed him the most. Doing the math, he had realized with heart-wrenching certainty that that meant he would maybe be able to make the last few games of the conference semifinals, and that was only if they made it that far. It wasn’t that he didn’t have faith in his team, but the knowledge that he wouldn’t be able to do anything but sit on the bench in a suit and hand out waters ate away at him. 

Someone, maybe one of the equipment managers, had taken the liberty of packing up Mat’s things, and Cass was poking around trying to find his keys. He was pretty coherent by then, but still in no state to drive. She slung the bag over her shoulder, trying not to groan at its weight — she’d definitely be sore tomorrow — and helped him out of the locker room and back to the players’ parking lot, half-heartedly waving goodbye to the handful of players and staff that were still trickling out. The ride back to his apartment was quiet, and Mat barely acknowledged the news that the team had eked out a win with a powerplay goal late in the third. They were going to the second round, and it killed him that he might not get to be a part of it. 

She parked in the underground lot, taking the bag once again despite Mat’s insistence that he could carry it himself, their ride up the elevator accompanied by a strangely specific playlist that was mostly comprised of late 2000s pop. “I slow danced with my first boyfriend to this song at our freshman year homecoming dance,” Cass said. 

The corner of Mat’s mouth twitched up. “I Won’t Give Up?” She nodded. “What was his name?” 

“Justin. He played varsity basketball, I did lacrosse and field hockey. We were the jockiest couple at school for the all of four months we dated,” she said wistfully. “He was a good guy, but I should have known things weren’t going to work out. He had a lot of growing up to do.”

Mat hummed in acknowledgement as she opened the door. “I didn’t know you played field hockey.”

Cass let out a laugh. “Wrong surface, I know. But yeah, I did, through junior year of high school. Dropped it senior year to focus on lacrosse and college stuff.”

“But you still did lacrosse in university,” he said, more like a statement than anything. 

She nodded. “Club, yeah. It would have been cool to be on the school team, but D1 sports are super competitive, and I didn’t have time between A Phi and the Mexican Student Association and honors stuff there would have been no way I could have made it all work.”

He kissed the top of her head. “Anyone ever told you you’re a bit of an overachiever?”

She glared at him. “You’re lucky you’re injured, or I would have slapped you.” Heading over to the kitchen, she called over her shoulder, “I’m getting some water, do you want anything?” 

“Water would be great.” Cass came back a minute later, handing him his glass. She looked at her watch. Past midnight. Then she looked at her phone, which she hadn’t checked since the middle of the game and which had understandably blown up since then. She responded to texts from Paige and Lauren and Kerry, sent Chris a message that she’d need tomorrow off to look after Mat, reassured Noah that Mat was fine and would be back on the ice as soon as humanly possible. Her brow furrowed. Three missed messages from the apartment’s group chat, The Fantastic Four, named largely due to the fact that Cass may or may not have had a not-so-little crush on Human Torch as a middle schooler; once the girls had gotten the story out of her, they never let her live it down. 

10:44 - Ryanne: When do you think you’ll be back? Made spaghetti and wasn’t sure if I should leave it out for you or put it in the fridge.

11:17 - Stella: Were you taking the subway home?

11:39 - Alicia: I saw on Twitter Mat got hurt, is everything okay? Do you need anything?

11:55 - Alicia: Cass? You good?

“Shit,” Cass breathed, shutting her eyes for a moment. 

Mat looked concerned, scratching at an itch under his gauze. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Cass said, typing a response. There was almost nothing she hated more than worrying people. Oh my gosh I’m so sorry guys! Yes, I’m good, Mat’s okay too. It’s a concussion so he’ll be out of play for a few weeks, but thank God it’s not worse. I hadn’t checked my phone since he got hurt, I’m so sorry to worry y’all!! I’m over at his, the doctor said he should have someone watching him for a few days just in case. I might come pick up a few things tomorrow, but I’ll be back Wednesday :)

Mat stuck his tongue through his teeth and let out a sigh. “I’m sorry you have to deal with all this,” he gestured at his head, “it shouldn’t be your responsibility.” 

Cass smiled softly at him, leaning gently into his side. “It’s okay, I don’t mind it, taking care of you and all. Plus, acts of service are my number one love language.” He laughed. “But,” she started hesitantly, “I’ve got to ask. You’re not really a fighter.” His arm tensed around her, knowing what was coming. “So what made you drop the gloves? You don’t really ever let these things get to you.”

“Yeah,” Mat sighed. He really should have expected the question sooner, it wasn’t like it was an avoidable situation. “Um, he had just been chirping me for most of the game, just stuff about how I’m all talk and no talent, about my points drought earlier in the season, stuff like that.”

“And?” Cass pressed, knowing that there was something he was holding back. She wanted to help him, and she couldn’t do that without the full story. 

“And you,” he admitted. “It’s not really that unusual for guys to chirp each other about girlfriends, but he was just saying some pretty nasty stuff about you. Just sexist, gross stuff. No one should say that about a girl, doesn’t matter who she is.” 

As unfortunate as it was, Cass was pretty sure she knew exactly what had been said about her. She was a woman — a young, attractive woman — living in New York City, which was practically the world capital of catcalling, and her earbuds could only drown out so much. But still, Mat’s response had her heart skip a beat. “Thank you for defending my honor,” she said sweetly, turning her head to give him a kiss on the cheek. 

He blushed. “If I could go back? I’d do it all over again.”

 April 27 (tues)

 Cass scrolled through her Twitter feed as she waited for Mat to arrive at the deli for lunch. It had been a week and a half since the injury, and things were definitely progressing — though not as fast as Mat would have hoped. She had stayed with him for a few days until he was feeling back to his old self, and though Mat hadn’t exactly been thrilled by Cass having to wake him up every three hours to be sure that he wasn’t, you know, dead, he had been a pretty good sport overall. 

Reading and excessive screen use was on the no-no list she’d been given by Dr. Khan, so Mat had taken to a lot of listening to music and trying valiantly to pick back up his guitar skills once he was feeling up to it. Skills was perhaps a generous word, Cass thought, since the only song he had been able to play with any confidence by the end of the week was Rockstar by Nickleback. “It’s not that bad,” he had said defensively. “They get a bad rep.” Cass wasn’t so sure about that, but thought it would be a bit of a dick move to criticize his music taste, so she refrained. 

She was jerked out of her thoughts by Mat, who greeted her with a bright smile and a kiss on the forehead. “How was your day, babe?” 

She shrugged. “Pretty good, nothing special. Just got out of a Contracts seminar. Nothing quite as thrilling as debating the precedent set by Supreme Court cases from the 1980s.” 

Mat barked out a laugh. “I’m sure. I don’t think I’d understand a single word of what they said, but that just proves what I already knew.”

“Which is?”

“That you’re ten times smarter than I am.” Cass laughed, and he opened the door. “Now, I’m starving. I want food.”

“Good thing we came to a deli, then,” Cass said dryly. 

He snickered. “Guess I walked right into that one.” The couple stopped in front of the menu. “What’s good here?”

“Besides everything?” Cass asked. “Roast beef sandwich, grilled chicken’s pretty good too. And obviously the pastrami.”

Mat shifted from one food to another. “I’ve never actually had one,” he admitted. 

Cass turned to look at him slowly, eyes wide. “You’ve never had a pastrami on rye?” He shook his head. “You’ve lived in New York for, what, almost four years now? And you’ve never had a pastrami sandwich?” 

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Mat mumbled. 

“Oh, it is,” Cass said, as they reached the counter. “I take my sandwiches very seriously, Mathew, and you’re about to find out why.” She waved to the man behind the counter. “Carlos!” Jabbering in rapid-fire Spanish as he assembled the sandwiches, she pulled out her wallet to pay before Mat even got the chance. “Él es mi novio,” she said, answering Carlos’ unspoken question and tapping her card on the reader. “Gracias, te veré pronto!” She grabbed the bag of sandwiches, Mat following her out the door as they walked down the block, peeling off to a side road with a small park. Cass shifted her backpack off, setting it on the ground beneath a small table that had become one of her go-to lunch spots since she, Les, and Fiona stumbled across it in their first year. 

“So it seems like you’ve known Carlos for awhile?” Mat asked, unwrapping the sandwich.

Cass nodded, biting into hers and letting out an almost-euphoric moan. 

Mat raised an eyebrow. “You usually save that for the bedroom.”

Almost choking, she swallowed the bite, leaning over the table and lightly slapping his arm. “Mat! But yeah, he started working at the deli sometime in spring of my first year. He moved from Puerto Rico, so that’s why we were speaking Spanish.”

“What was that you called me back there, anyways? Nuevo?”

Cass snorted into her coffee. “Nuevo means new. I called you my novio. It’s the word for serious boyfriend. Or fiancé, really. The language doesn’t make much of a distinction.” Cass sipped slowly, deciding to hazard a question. “How has your recovery been going?”

Mat perked up. Anything relating to hockey and he was all ears. “It’s going well, yeah. I was cleared to start working out the other day, they did some scans and said that everything looks like how it should, which is a relief. I’ve been a little dizzy but nothing serious,” he quickly added, seeing Cass’ nervous glance, “and I go back in two days to see if I can get back to training with the team. A day or two of that and fingers crossed, I’d be ready to play a game if we’re still in it.” The team was down 2-1 to the Capitals, and Mat had been tearing his hair out the entire week, frustrated beyond belief that he couldn’t do anything to help. He was a hockey player, a damn good one at that, and there was nothing he could do but sit in front of his TV and watch his team fall behind in the series. That wasn’t how it was supposed to be. He was supposed to be out there, scoring and making hits and making a difference, not cooped up like some toddler with a list of things he couldn’t do and couldn’t touch.

Cass could see that he was starting to retreat a little bit, so she reached out, squeezing his hand. “Hey, chou, listen to me.” He looked up. “I know it’s frustrating for you. Believe me, I know how much you want to be out there and how useless you might feel right now, but that’s all bullshit, you hear me?” Her eyes softened. “The best thing you can do for the boys right now is work out when you can, listen to your doctors, and focus on getting better. The city wants their golden boy back, and as cute as your pout is,” Mat’s lips twitched, “it doesn’t do anyone any good, least of all you.”

Cass was nearly done with her sandwich when Mat spoke again. “Graduation’s coming up fast, huh? What is it, a month from now?”

She nodded, picking up a napkin and dabbing at the mustard by the corner of her mouth. “Yeah, it’s the 22, so a little under a month now.”

“Is your whole family coming down?” 

“Yeah,” Cass said, bounding her head. “Everyone’s able to make it, which is awesome, and so much more than I expected. Eliana gets out of school the week earlier, so it’s not a problem for her, and it’s on a Saturday so it’s a non-issue for Noah and my parents. My nana’s driving down with my family, and my mom’s parents are flying from Hermosillo.”

Mat gave her a confused look. “I thought they lived in Texas?”

“They started splitting time after they retired, they were the only ones who immigrated so all of their relatives were still down in Mexico,” Cass explained.

“Got it.”

She continued. “Yeah, so I’m really lucky that everyone’s able to make it, it’s been forever since the whole family was together. Which reminds me,” she said, pulling out her phone and sending a quick text, “I need to get their flight info. I promised to pick them up from JFK.” 

“Why don’t I come with you?” Mat asked quickly.

Cass was confused. “What if you’re still playing?”

He waved his hand. “Obviously not then. But if we’re not, I’d love to come. I could drive around so you wouldn’t have to pay for parking, and it would be nice to meet them before your graduation.” The unspoken addendum was if I’m able to make it. Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals was scheduled on the day of Cass’ graduation; Mat knew that realistically, the chances of making it that far were slim, but the thought of not being able to celebrate with her, celebrate her, caused a pang in his heart. 

Her smile could have lit up the sun. “I’d love that, I really would. And you’re going to love my grandparents. I’ve told them so much about you and they’re excited to finally meet you in person.”

Mat beamed. “I’m glad. Hey,” he added, treading lightly. “Have you heard back from any of the places you’ve applied yet?” He knew of at least a half-dozen firms and nonprofits she’d interviewed with, but if any of them had resulted in an offer yet, she hadn’t told him.

Cass looked down at her hands. This was the conversation she had been dreading ever since last week. “Cass?” Mat asked again, more hesitantly this time. He could tell something was up. “Uh, yeah.” She said, tucking a stray curl behind her ear. “Yeah, I have. You remember that tech company I interviewed with the other week?

“Yeah, the ones that do computers and stuff?” Mat asked, confused. If she got the job, then why did she seem so nervous?

She nodded. “Yeah. They got back to me a few days ago...and they offered a position.” 

Mat stood up, ready to walk around the table and wrap her in a massive bear hug. “Cass!” He exclaimed. “That’s awesome! You said it sounded like really interesting stuff, and the company’s in New York so you wouldn’t even have to move—”

“That’s the thing,” Cass said, cutting him off. “They’re headquartered in New York, and I thought I was applying for a position in New York, but it turns out everything was ‘space available,’ whatever that means.” She finally looked up at Mat. “The job’s in Hong Kong.”

He feels like he’s had the wind knocked out of him, and sat back down in his seat hard. So hard, in fact, that he almost knocked it over, but he barely noticed. Hong Kong? That’s a whole country and the world’s largest ocean away, and the thought of losing her to a whole different country wasn’t something he ever could have anticipated. He’s finally gotten something so good, someone so good, and the thought that it could all be taken away in the blink of an eye was a possibility he hadn’t even allowed himself to consider. 

Mat swallows. “Are you...Are you going to take it?” He asks thickly. She looks down at the coffee cup in her hands, the same speckled white-and-blue one Mat gave her back in the fall. God, October seems like a lifetime away from where they are now. “I don’t know,” she admitted, and he felt a weight lifted off of his chest. “I don’t even know if I want it, and I didn’t want…,” she tapped her fingers on the scratched stone table, “I didn’t want to decide anything without talking it over with you first.” 

His head felt like lead when he tried to nod. “Okay, yeah. That makes sense. So, let’s talk.”

“It’s not something I ever saw myself doing,” Cass said.

“The moving to a foreign country part or the job itself?” Mat asked. 

Cass scrunched her nose. “Both, I guess. Sure, I applied to places all across the country, but that was more for job security than anything. I needed cash flow to start paying off my loans, and as much as I love nonprofit and pro-bono work, it doesn’t really pay well. That’s sort of the whole point. 

Mat reached behind himself to throw the sandwich wrapper into the trash can. “Do you like what they’d be having you do?”

“It’s contracts and negotiations, so it’s interesting enough. I like the topic and I know I’m good at it. But it’s not what I originally imagined for myself,” she conceded.

“What did you think you’d be doing?”

Cass let out a strained breath. “When I first got to law school, I was convinced I’d do immigration law. I’m passionate about it, feel like I’ve got a stake in the matter, and Spanish fluency is a really good skill to have in the field. And I loved getting to work in the clinic on deportation appeals. The day I got a stay for my first client was one of the happiest days of my life,” she added. Mat couldn’t help but smile. Even with mountains of uncertainty threatening to topple over on them, Cass had such a good heart and he’d always be proud of that. “But I’ve loved what I’ve gotten to do with Chris in the office. If I’m being honest, I didn’t think that I’d like it.”

Mat’s curiosity was piqued. “How come?”

“I think part of it had to do with how rushed and nervous I felt about the whole thing. It was pretty much my last chance and I really just threw my application together without thinking. I didn’t have time to worry if I’d actually like what I was going to be doing. It might just be my Rangers bias coming through, but I think I thought it would just be Scandal-type dealing with dumb shit players did, getting them off the hook for drunken escapades or finding contractual loopholes to save the team money on the salary cap.” She shrugged. “I’m glad I was wrong.”

“So,” Mat said said slowly, “if this isn’t the kind of work you wantedto do, why are you thinking about taking the job?”

“Couple of things,” Cass said. “The company culture is really good, by all accounts they hanuinely care about their environmental impact and worker’s rights, they make sure everyone on the supply chain is given a living wage. Good upward mobility, and there’s a half-dozen offices around the world that you can apply to transfer to after five years. Benefits and salary are are some of the best I’ve seen for new hires.”

“But would you be happy?” Mat asked, so softly that she almost missed it. 

Would I? Cass thought. It was never the plan for her to move so far away; she’s never lived further than a few hours from home and as much as she hated to admit it, the prospect of not being in the same time zone as her family terrified her. What if her abuelo has another stroke, and she’s halfway across the world? What if she’s not able to hold her brother when he goes through his first heartbreak? What if she isn’t there to kiss Mat when he hoists the Stanley Cup for the first time? But what if she hates herself because she never took the chance? She finally looks back up, feeling like Mat’s hazel eyes are boring straight into her soul. “I don’t know.”

[kurtisthesnivy]

Here are some things I've done in DnD, in no particular order.

Without context of which character did what.  I've had 7 characters.  Miles (Elven Wizard), Chris (Human Bard), Kay (Kobold Fighter), Kas (Kobold Artificer), Kit (Kobold Ranger), Kip (Kobold Druid), and Star (Tabaxi Homebrew Astrologian)

Drunkenly knocked down a door, despite having -4 strength

Had upwards of 15 actions thanks to a buttload of summons

Was given a legendary quality weapon on the first day

Blew up the entire arctic circle

Obtained a stone that could store an infinite amount of spell slots.  At the end of the game, it had ~24 level 9 spell slots

Became genderfluid because of a magical mishap

Tried to steal from a party member and got caught by the Command spell

Failed an easy stealth check, while the dragonborn in heavy armor next to me succeeded

Became a god

Did ~150 damage in one round with an Oathbow forged by the fire giant Surt

Almost killed myself with a Bag of Beans trying to not get eaten alive

Was possessed by Tiamat and attacked my party

Ignored my class's defining ability for the entire game

Accidentally released both the Phoenix and Leviathan, who then started fighting each other and ruined the world

Used a shadowfell forge's energy to power up a Plane Shift ring

Built a biotic rifle like Ana's from Overwatch

Did tarot readings on all party members, and they were all correct

Built a Pepperbox gun despite not being able to use it effectively

Used a Bag of Beans to avoid an entire boss fight

Used a Bag of Beans to create a pyramid with a mummy lord inside the limits of a city

Yeeted a boat at a group of enemies from my robe of useful items

Prolonged the final boss fight by casting Heal and Mass Heal

Kidnapped the big bad only for her to die and reveal the real big bad

Was single handedly the most important person in the final battle, since I could make ice platforms

Ignored one of my racial abilities for the entire game

Brewed a lifetime supply of basic healing potions in a single day

Learned every spell in the universe

Bought a bunch of throwing knives that I forgot about until the end of the game

Had a familiar that I forgot about until key moments of the game

Was given an always-hit gun that I never used in combat

Accidentally became the face of the party, and none of the NPCs took me seriously

Powered up an alien spacecraft with a rare power source, only for my teammate to immediately ruin the ship and waste the power source

Flashbanged an entire dark elf army

Got mind controlled not once, not twice but three different times

Became a dragon for about 30 seconds

Almost froze to death in the Arctic

Almost died in a hurricane

Robbed 3 different banks, stealing several hundred platinum that we never ended up using

Fought an Aboleth-Beholder hybrid

Casted Enlarge on an already 15 foot tall Warforged

Cast Disintegrate 7 times in a row to defeat an ally in a battle royale

Got 2 godly weapons to fight another god

Learned Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion and ruined the DM's night time encounters while simultaneously giving our army of over 100 a place to live

Spent 2 in game months in Ravenloft, and left by just kind of standing around

Used my powers as an illusion wizard exactly once in the whole game

Wrote a codex of ultimate power

Drank a mixed potion and have still not felt the effects

Had 10 +2 arrows that I never used

Got a set of mithril armor that I could use to cast Firestorm

Infiltrated what I thought was abandoned tower, but it was definitely not

[morganwritesfics]

HURRICANE UPDATE AND UPCOMING POSTS:

Hi, babes! Hurricane Michael was supposed to hit my town yesterday but at the last minute it shifted away from us. We had a bit of rain and wind, but were otherwise just fine. I know it hit Panama City, Mexico Beach, and some other areas in and around the FL panhandle pretty severely. If any of you are in those areas, I truly hope and pray that you, your loved ones, your pets, and your homes made it through without any serious damage! Because of the anticipated weather, I did have the day off yesterday and most places were closed, so I had a lot of unexpected time on my hands. So I took advantage of that, and now have not one, not two, but three fics queued to post before the end of this week! After Fears & Worries Part 1 & Part 2, I had received a few Tony Stark requests, so I went ahead and knocked those out! They are... BROADWAY BEAUTY (fluff) Requested by: @carolyn-stark-91 Posting: 10/11 5pm ct THE BOYFRIEND EXPERIENCE (extra fluff) Requested by: @technolilly Posting: 10/12 5pm ct CAN’T LOSE YOU (smut) Requested by: @be-or-not-2-be Posting: 10/13 5pm ct Hope you all enjoy them! I’m probably going to pump the breaks on the Tony fics for a little while, now that that’s five in a row (definitely not complaining<3). But if you still have Tony requests that don’t mind waiting a little while for, please don’t hesitate to still send them my way. I should have a Sam Wilson post up next week, and hopefully the Clint Barton fic will be ready by the following week. If you have any other requests, please let me know! Especially holiday ones- I don’t have any ideas for the coming holidays yet, and would love to get a head start on those soon!

[xdaughter-of-bloodyfacex]

List of Boston Slang Terms

* A-town" - Arlington, Ma

* "Olly-Olly Oxenfree"- A proclamation to players of "Tag" or "Hide-n-Seek", that they may return to a common area free of consequence as it may pertain to the game being

* the Ave - refers to Dorchester Avenue, or "Dot Ave"

* "that's beat"- that sucks. "she's beat"- shes's ugly

* "she's basic"- she's not that pretty or nothing special.

* bagged - arrested; "He got bagged for a DUI."; (Driving Under the Influence)

* the balls - awesome, great; "That concert was the balls."

* bang - to make a quick move (often, "bang a left"; also used often as "bang a U-ie" - make a U turn); sometimes used interchangeably with hang

* bang out - call in sick to work (It's such a nice day, maybe I should bang out and go to the beach.)

* The Boys - the cops, the police

* bozo - a pothead; used mostly in South Boston

* The Bob Loboat - The Boston Harbor Island Ferry that docks in Rowes Wharf

* cellar - the basement of a house.

* Cha-Chingham - Hingham, Ma

* The Charles - The Charles River

* chowderhead (sometimes chowdahead) - Often refers to a New Englander, at one time meant a person to laugh at or stupid person but has evolved to be a lighter term that has been embraced by those to whom it refers.

* The Chuck- The Charles River

* Chucklehead - A local idiot

* Chuck Town -refers to Charlestown. (A.K.A) C-Town

* down cellar (pronounced "down sullah") - adj., contraction of "down in the cellar", refers to being located in the basement.

* d-tech - An undercover police car

* "Dunks", Dunkee's - Dunkin' Donuts

* Dungarees - Denim pants

* frickin' - Another term for friggin', similarly used in place of the swear word f*ckin'. As in "that game was wicked frickin' pissah!"

* going to Chelsea - When something is crooked or gone awry. "Buddy, straighten yah hat. It's goin tuh Chelsea."

* good shit - An agreeable, non-threatening person. "I've got no problem with Mikey, he's a good shit."

* "Grinder" - a "submarine" or "hoagie" sandwich.

* Gump - an outdated term for dunce or nitwit. "What a gump that guy is!"

* "Hardo" - a term used to describe someone who is trying too hard, often pronounced "Hahdo." Another name for a try-hard. "Kehd got an A on his paper. Kid's a hahdo"

* Hoodie - slang term for a hooded sweatshirt

* Hoodsie (1) - A small cup of vanilla and chocolate ice-cream from the HP Hood Company. Eaten with a thin wooden spoon that comes with the Hoodsie. Also called a Hoodsie cup

* hoodsie (2) - In neighborhoods such as South Boston and Dorchester it refers to a precocious minor female who tries to appear older or wants to date older teenage boys or young men. The term is considered derogatory: "He'll get bagged if he keeps dating that hoodsie." One popular explanation says that the expression comes from the idea that the small cup a Hoodsie ice cream treat comes in is the same size as the bra cup of a hoodsie. A second popular, but more off-color explanation refers to HP Hood's one-time advertising slogan for the Hoodsie ice cream treat: "Short and sweet and good to eat."

* different view - Hoodsie would also have the connotation of a young teen-age girl that sits on the hood of a car. Either to look cool to her friends, or portray herself as being older and sophisticated because she's 'sitting on the hood of a car'.

* Hopper - the toilet, in particular when used to take a dump. (pronounced, "Hoppah")

* Hosies - claim of first right, used in the same way as "dibs." For example, "I got hosies on the front seat."

* Igit - Short for Idiot. "Dude, you're a freakin' igit, kid."

* "No suh!" [No sir, compare "no sirree"] - "No way!". The appropriate response is "Ya suh!" OR "Ya huh

* Nor'easter - A strong winter storm with winds emanating from the northeast. A bad Northeaster is like a winter hurricane

* packie (also packet, package store or booze bahn [barn]) - liquor store

* pahk- the park. "I'm going to the pahk"

* "Perchead"- Percocet Abuser

* pissa (1) - good: "You hit the Lottery? That's pissa man." Commonly used in conjunction with wicked;

* pissa!(2) - used to accentuate an unfortunite moment. "My friggin khaki's (car keys) fell down da catch basin (storm drain), pissa ain't it".

* pissa (3) - used to decribe a (friend or acquaintance) whom is eccentric "Did ya hear what Johnny said/did.... gdam pissa ain't he"

* Ponsta - a person who plays video games excessively

* Ripper - a kegger or a big, wild party

* screw - a verb meaning "to take off" or "get out of here" a cop will say to teenagers hanging on a corner"hey you kids "screw".

* I'm sheets - tired, ready for bed. Bedford, Mass

* shiesty - A term meaning someone or something is shady or sketchy. "Those kids standing on the corner are wicked shiesty." Or "The food here looks wicked shiesty"

* the shit- something or someone thats awesome

* Sick nasty - see ill. As in that stunt in the movie was sick nasty. i loved it!

* that's was sick - that was awesome. "that's sick"-that's awesome.

* Skeezer - Used when describing a drug addict; typically used in reference to a "druggie slut." #also see "slampig"#

* skeeze - A person of questionable personal reputation considered to exhibit lack of discernment in intimate encounters and thereby considered to have high potential for being afflicted with a communicable social disease.

* skid - a loser or lowlife. "His brother is a real skid."

* skidder - referring to someone who bums (borrows) money from friends. Pronounced "skiddah"

* Slampig - A skank, overly slutty female, a "Sled Dog", equivalent to a whore or slut. "That chick's been a slampig."

* So don't I - pleonasm [1] used to agree with a statement; a replacement for "So do I" or "Me, too"; "I like the Red Sox." "So don't I."

* Spastic - Emotional outburst involving what appears to be uncontrolled waving of the arms, legs and head.

* Spaz - One who is exceptionally athletically uncoordinated.

* spuckie - related to a submarine sandwich, it is the bread it was made with.

* This fuckin guy... - a phrase used when everyone in a group sees an obvious loser.

* three-way - term for what you order on a roast beef sandwich, referring to cheese, sauce and mayo. (example: "I'll have a junior three-way and a medium coke.") also "all around."

* U-ie - a u-turn while driving. Also sometimes called a "u-dog". Almost always used with the verb bang, as in "After this next light, bang a U-ie and then take a right."

* Up - A general direction one takes when going anywhere. I'm takin' the kids up Foley Field to play ball; or "We're goin' up Maine for the weekend." This becomes "Down" when going to Cape Cod, as in "I'm goin' down Cape this weekend."

* Up the Corner - A popular hang-out spot in most Boston Neighborhoods. Neighborhoods such as Southie were infamous for the crowds of young kids hanging out in front of their block's corner store and protecting it as their own.

* wicked - very; or occasionally cool. Used indiscriminately, can modify anything (e.g.: especially "Wicked pissa." ; also"Wicked good." "Wicked bad." "Wicked boring.", etc.). Almost always used as an adverb, rather than an adjective; some Bostonians feel it is grammatically improper not to put an adjective or verb after "wicked".

* wicked gross mental fit - A sustained emotional outburst, generally triggered by a specific incident. "She came home drunk and her mom took a wicked gross mental fit." "She saw him making out with someone else and took a wicked gross mental fit." Believed to have originated in the Reading-Stoneham-Wakefield area north of Boston.

[chriscoleman]

St. Martin with the Donald's

June 27 - July 6, 2021

Saint Martin is part of the Leeward Islands in the Caribbean Sea. It comprises 2 separate countries, divided between its northern French side, called Saint-Martin, and its southern Dutch side, Sint Maarten. Julia and I met up with the Donald’s for a week of vacation.

David Sr, Melissa, and their 15 year old daughter Allison arrived on the island a week before us. David Jr, Liz and their 2 year old son Jack were also there. 8 of us total.

Sunday June 27th we left Seattle on a red-eye flight to JFK. Prior to departure we were required to have a negative COVID test, which was reviewed/approved by Sint Maarten Electronic Health Authorization System (EHAS). Once the logistical paperwork was out of the way - it was smooth sailing into SXM.

David Sr. picked us up at 2pm island time. He chauffeured us to Hertz rental car and then onto Zee Best for baguette sandwiches. We finally met up with the full family at our rented villa - Mariposa. The rest of the crew had switched from a smaller villa near Orient Bay to Mariposa in the Les Terres Basses neighborhood for our 8 nights together.

Pool time allowed us all to catch up before dinner. Chef Cee at Big Cee’s restaurant served up a laid back 1st dinner on the island in Porto Cupecoy. Our waitress was energetic and friendly, leading us to the restaurant as we entered the plaza. My tuna steak and Julia’s grouper fillet were exceptional, as were the fried plantain appetizers. Never too full for ice cream - we got scoops on the way back to the car.

Tuesday the 29th we started with the closest beach to the villa - Plum Bay. Julia and Allison walked around to the point while I swam and relaxed in the shade. David Sr. and Melissa joined after a while and we navigated the rocky entry for chill ocean time. Although the girls were gone for a while - no sunburns in our first afternoon of full Caribbean sun.

Lunch at Maho beach, Sunset Grill, provided us with one of the most popular tourist activities - watching the planes land at SXM airport. Big commercial jets landing on a runway only feet from the beach. The grilled chicken, burgers, and frozen drinks were all delicious. Then a quick grocery shop so David/Melissa could cook us shrimp dinner at the villa (plus brownies!).

Wednesday we got up early to hit Marigot for pastries. Chez Fernand Bakery served up AMAZING baked goods of all kinds. Choosing was the hardest part. I settled on a croque monsieur and Julia with a pistachio roll of some kind, both huge. Also an almond & chocolate pastry from Sarafinas by the marina - which turned out to be my favorite of the entire trip. Then a quick walk through the street market for souvenirs (shirts, hats, spices, and coconut coasters).

Friars Bay was empty when we arrived at 10am. We picked 6 beach chairs + umbrellas in front of Friars Bay Beach Cafe to be home base for the day. They were $5 each, as long as we agreed to have lunch at the restaurant.

Happy Bay was around the corner, so after some relaxing at Friars we took a short trail to the next cove. It was obvious right away why this was one of David Sr.’s favorite beaches. Near deserted, silky soft sand, and no commercialization of chairs/bars/massages/etc. We only spent an hour but on future trips I’m sure it will be more (especially if they have live music).

Dinner was at a fancy Sicilian / Italian restaurant Sale & Pepe. We got to pick out the whole snapper we ordered - which was cooked to perfection. Then Julia ordered a mysterious frozen dessert - almond semifreddo.

A beer at The Hole in the Wall finished off our night. Ronny ‘Santana’ and Tanya Michelle sang hit songs while everyone at the bar cheered along. We danced on the patio since Allison wasn’t old enough even for Dutch bars.

Thursday July 1st was another early morning. Up and out with a 30 minute drive north to Orient Bay. David Sr. has visited the island many times, staying in Orient the majority of the time. Unfortunately the winds had blown in massive amounts of seaweed - sargassum. It was in the water and on the beach. Too much to make a day at Orient enjoyable - so we bailed for a bakery breakfast at Good Morning Cafe.

Grand Case was the backup option - which turned out fantastic. Rainbow Cafe hooked us up with a cabana for the day and buckets of Presidente beers. We got loose and bobbed in the ocean for hours.

Vacations with the Donald family involve a mix of restaurants and home cooking. Typically each family will cook 1 dinner, with a light breakfast at the house and lunches on the beach. David and Liz chose to skip their home cooked assignment - instead buying us all dinner at Gutside restaurant on Thursday night. An unexpected treat where our family was the only one dining there all night. Ribs, snapper, shrimp, and conc were tasty, plus an in-shell crab appetizer. Jack even ate a rib or 2 while making friends with the staff.

Vacations with the Donald family also involve card games. Crummy Rummy is a classic. Melissa dominated us all, with me and Allison bringing up the rear. Not my finest hour - but hanging with the family is what it’s all about. We got to chat about Allison’s upcoming driving test and her plans to try out for the high school swim team.

Friday the 2nd David cooked us a breakfast hash before rolling with Julia, Allison, Jack, and me to Plum Bay. We swam, trying to keep our feet off the rocks unsuccessfully. A pair of high school graduates jumped from the nearby rocks in celebration in their full cap-and-gown. Jack napped on David’s shoulder as we chatted and the girls walked the beach. David Sr. and Melissa showed up as we were leaving to have lunch at the villa.

Baie Rouge was our afternoon spot. First attempt at accessing the beach was stopped by a gate guard. Luckily he pointed us in the right direction and we were taking photos at the colorful doorway entrance in no time. Another near-deserted beach, very natural without any restaurants. We swam around the point to see ‘Davids Hole’. A bit precarious but totally worth the effort once we were there.

Ocean 82 is a classy restaurant in Grand Case. A favorite of David and Melissa, as they like to celebrate anniversaries here. We started with a delicious tuna tartare appetizer, fresh salads, and ice tea. Then we picked out a 4 pound lobster to share - as a special treat. Unfortunately the lobster was prepared with cajun seasoning and flambé, when thermador was the order. The good news is that the waiter took the responsibility and discounted our meal heavily for compensation. Rough ending to an otherwise fantastic restaurant experience.

The night didn’t get better after that… Julia’s ear pain grew to the point where an emergency room visit was necessary. Water had gotten into her ear a day or 2 before and became infected. Antibiotic prescription was acquired relatively quickly at a Dutch ER.

Saturday July 3rd we went to the pharmacy first thing to fill the antibiotic prescription. Then onto Mullet Bay for beach time. Yes - Julia is a trooper and wanted to go to the beach after being diagnosed with an ear infection less than 12 hours prior. We got chairs in front of Da Water Hole restaurant. The virgin frozen Miami Vice drinks hit the spot. Then we jumped in the waves all afternoon.

David Sr. hired a professional photographer for family photos, Alex Julien. We met up on Plum Bay beach and sweated our butts off during a sunset shoot. We used the Le Château Des Palmiers villa owned by Donald Trump as the backdrop. The palm trees on his property really were stunning. Results turned out beautiful!

Julia and I cooked fajitas for our group dinner. Quick and easy. A decadent chocolate cake from Chez Fernand for dessert. Early to bed as Julia continued to recover.

July 4th began with a parade at Club O on Orient Beach. Odd to see an American holiday celebrated on a French beach, but apparently it’s a tradition as many expats called this beach home. There was still some sargassum, but a command decision was made to roll with it. We set up shop at Orange Fever bar for the day with front row chairs + umbrellas. The pizza was fantastic with service directly to our chairs. I even walked the entire beach with Julia and Allison on a mission to document each bar, in order, of Orient Bay. We also tried to hit Club O for happy hour, missing it by 30 minutes. 4:30pm is pretty much the closing hour for beach bars, so we left to acquire dinner. The Grand Case LOLO, Cynthia’s Talk of the Town, was perfect BBQ chicken for takeout.

Monday July 5th was our last full day on St. Martin. We started with a dip in a nearly deserted Baie Rouge then got cleaned up for our COVID test at 11:45am. The USA currently requires a negative test before allowing anyone into the country. The test at a medical facility in Simpson Bay was extremely convenient. In-and-out in 5 minutes flat for $70. Then onto Mullet Bay after picking up Cuben sandwiches at Zee Best.

Mullet Bay was calm this time. The beaches really were different each time we visited. Any time 1 was windy/wavy we were able to find one that wasn’t. The sand may be out 1 day and back in another. It was interesting to see the terrain change over such short periods. Hurricane Elsa was passing the island a few hundred miles west, increasing the ocean’s power. Luckily we weren’t affected by Elsa otherwise. Rosie’s Rib Shack had amazing ribs according to David/Liz and the banana frozen daiquiri was a treat for Julia and me.

Heavy rain as we drove to the grocery store - Carrefour. We bought burgers and sides for a quick final dinner. A fancy restaurant reservation at Mario’s was the original plan, but the family was tired of 3 hour meals so we offered to cook instead. Not a meal to write home about (fries were soggy and buns were airy), but it was easy and gave us time to chill together. David Sr. spun up a curated playlist of songs for each family member. I got the Superman theme and Julia the Leia Star Wars song, along with many other thoughtful songs as we ate rock solid ice cream.

Go-Home day was July 6th. Pack, eat, clean the villa, and load the vehicles by 10:30am. Then gas the vehicles, pickup sandwiches, return the vehicles, and check into the airport for our 2pm flight. Lines were long - but we managed. Emigration / customs at Miami airport went smoothly and we boarded for Seattle at 8pm. Midnight local time we were at home petting the increasingly vocal black cat.

Lucky buggers David Sr. and Allison get to stay in SXM for another 2 weeks. Julia and I return to Seattle to a Sounders game, ultimate league, a siding project, and work. Life is beginning to feel normal again after a big COVID break. Happy to have seen the Donald’s and allow David to share St. Martin with us. I know we’ll be back again.

For now - I need to eat a salad and run a mile - I’m fatter than ever!

Next up… Iceland!!

[travelingtheusa]

NORTH CAROLINA

2020 Nov 19 (Thu) –Bonnie had a bout of diarrhea and we were getting up every two to three hours to take her out.  Poor thing.  At one point, she was also throwing up.  She got a bad bug this time!

    A brisk, cold wind was blowing in from the ocean.  The temperature didn’t get much into the 50s today.  We stayed around the camper most of the day except to run out to the post office to mail off some post cards.  We also did the laundry. The machines were only $.75.  That was a delight.  Getting ready to move on tomorrow.

 2020 Nov 18 (Wed) – It was a cold and blustery day.  At 4 p.m. we ran out to the store to pick up some rice.  Bonnie started in with diarrhea and we didn’t have any rice to mix with her chicken.  While we were out, we stopped at Michael’s Seafood Restaurant and had dinner. Paul enjoyed black drum, a flaky white fish.  I had salmon. The meal was delicious and they gave us a military discount to boot!  Always, always ask.  You never know who gives a discount and who doesn’t.

 2020 Nov 17 (Tue) – It was a beautiful day today but we did not go anywhere.  I think it was because there is not much to see in this area and we have been to all the tourist stops.  It is disappointing to think that you have seen everything and nothing else interests you.  I certainly hope we are not at that point.  

2020 Nov 16 (Mon) – We drove to Wilmington today to tour the Battleship North Carolina.  When we arrived, there was water flooding the road and the parking lot.  We slowly drove through several inches of water only to find that we couldn’t get onto the ship without walking through water. So I called the desk to see if they were open.  The clerk said they were flooded out with high tide.  It would go down and they would be open around 12-ish.  We think they could have built up their parking area a little.

    We left and picked up pet food at PetCo, then went to the historic part of town on the Cape Fear River to have lunch. The Fork & Cork was a small bar and café.  We both got the specials.  Mine was a mac & cheese carbonara.  Sounded good but didn’t taste good.  Paul had some kind of burger with bacon jam and spicy mayo.  He seemed to enjoy it.

    Heading back to the battleship, we found that the water level had gone down and we were able to park and go into the place.  We spent about 2 hours crawling around the ship.  I learned a couple of new things and we had fun exploring 5 decks below and 2 decks above the main deck although we couldn’t go into the engine room.  The coding machine they used during WWII was top secret.  When a repairman came to fix it, everyone had to leave the room.  Different parts were done by different people so very few understood the entire system and how it worked.  When radio messages were sent, they were entirely encoded – even the name of the ship the message was going to.  So radiomen had to decode every message that was sent out in order to sort out their messages.

    After the battleship, we stopped at Publix to pick up groceries.  After dinner, we walked over to the beach to watch the Leonid Meteor shower.  We brought a sheet so we could lie down on the sand.  It was cold, the sand was hard, and we couldn’t see any meteors even though the circumstances were unusually excellent.  There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the moon was nearly invisible; had just the barest fingernail of a shape.  We were very disappointed.

2020 Nov 15 (Sun) – The day was overcast and threatening all day.  We tried to walk down to the beach but it started sprinkling, so we turned around and went back home.  We spent the day hanging around the camper.  Bob & Holly left without ever coming over to visit.

 2020 Nov 14 (Sat) – We went into town to pick up a few groceries.  Drove through Carolina Beach.  It is a very beachy community.  Although there are many people here, it is no where near what it usually is in the summer time when all the beach houses and condos are rented.

    We took a walk across the street to the ocean with Bonnie.  The beach front is very open and expansive.  You can see the Kure Beach Pier in the distance.  The beach is deserted at this time of year and you can see forever.

2020 Nov 13 (Fri) – We packed up and left Elizabeth City at 9 a.m.  It was an easy drive to Fort Fisher AF Rec Area in Kure Beach.  The campground is right off the main road that runs through town along a row of beach houses.  It reminds me of beach row in the Hamptons with all the 3-story pastel houses on stilts fronting the ocean.  Although it belongs to the military and you have to show ID to get a campsite, the campground is open.  It’s not on a base.

There are about 25 sites here.  They are concrete and very, very long with full hookups.  There is a decent amount of space between the sites with trees along the back of the perimeter.  Our window looks out at the ocean side and all the pastel homes and cottages built adjacent to the roadway.  

Fort Fisher must have made a lot of money selling the property to beach goers.  If you don’t turn into the campground and just drive straight down the road, you go into the Fort itself.  It was a civil war fort and there are breastworks that visitors can wander around. There is also an aquarium on the beach side.  When we toured it last year, there were Christmas trees all over the building.  

We were here last year just after the area had been hit with a hurricane.  Buildings were under repair and the reception office was temporarily set up in another building.

We are on a narrow spit of land, like Fire Island back home.  They call this area the Crystal Coast – 80 some miles of outer islands that protect the main coastline.  On one side of us is a bay.  On the other side is the Atlantic Ocean.  We can hear the waves breaking on the shore all day long.

      After we set up, we went to the office to check in.  When we got back, we spotted an orange Class A Motor Home setting up.  It turned out to be Bob & Holly from our Utah caravan last year.  They were the couple that had trouble with their rig. While they were in Las Vegas waiting for it to be repaired, they got married.  We said “Hi” to Bob and promised to get together later when Holly returned.

 2020 Nov 12 (Thu) – It was an overcast and rainy day.   We just hung around the campground all day, getting ready to move tomorrow.

 2020 Nov 11 (Wed – Vets Day) – It was a rainy, overcast, nasty day today.  We stayed in the campground.  Did laundry this afternoon.  I began work on my book about my time in Iraq.  It’s been 15 years since I was sent to the Middle East. It’s about time I got that damn book written.

 2020 Nov 10 (Tue) – We started a new diet today so we stayed close to home to get ourselves into the groove.  While I was cooking, we turned on the Magic Fan to help exhaust the heat in the kitchen. Weirdly, the fan would not turn off. We flipped switches, checked fuses, and shut the DC-12 volt system – all to no avail.  Paul finally just cut the wire to the fan.  

 2020 Nov 9 (Mon) – It rained all morning.  The insulation in our rig is really good.  I couldn’t hear any rain.  I didn’t know it was raining until I looked out the window.  Our pop-up camper used to sound like corn popping on the roof when it rained.  This is much quieter.

     We had lunch then drove to WalMart to pick up groceries.  We’re starting a new diet tomorrow.  Trying Keto this time.  We’ll see how things go.

2020 Nov 8 (Sun) – We drove into New Bern today.  We had been there last year when we drove through here but the North Caroline History Center was closed then.  The historical houses in the complex were closed.  There was a small museum inside the visitor center that covered the history of the state and city.  At 1:30 p.m., we went to the Tryone Palace.  It was and the first capitol of North Carolina from 1770 to 1794. The original palace kitchen burned down in 1798, leaving only the stable intact.  In 1952, two ladies from the historical society found the original architectural plans for the property.  They bought it, raised money, and rebuilt the palace and kitchen according to the original plans.  With the Revolutionary War looming on the horizon, the governor fled to New York, fearing for his personal safety.  There were docents in every room on the first floor and in the basement (we weren’t allowed to tour the upper floors).

     We walked down the Main Street and stopped at a café for lunch. I had tuna on a croissant and Paul had a gyro sandwich.  Everything was tasty.

     On the drive back to the base, we stopped at the Junkyard Market.  It was an intriguing place with lots of odds and ends out on the street to attract visitors.  We walked through the building, looking at all the knick-knacks.

     Back in the car, we drove through a nearby development when Paul spotted a sign there were new homes for sale.  We thought we would go through a couple of model homes but there weren’t any.  So after driving around the neighborhood, we returned to the campground.

2020 Nov 7 (Sat) – It was a very delightful day. After letting the animals have outdoor time, we headed out to the Crystal Coast to tour Fort Macon.  It was a small but very neat confederate fort built on the Atlantic coast.  We realized how big some of the other forts were that we have toured after seeing this one. There were 3 forts built on the site. The first was Fort Dobbs in 1756.  It was never completed and allowed to fall into disrepair.  The second fort (Fort Hampton) was built in 1808.  It defended Beaufort Harbor during the War of 1812. A hurricane eroded the inlet in 1825 so Fort Macon was built between 1826 and 1834.  In 1862, union forces attacked and captured the fort.  The fort was used during the Civil War, the Spanish American War, and World War II.  It served as a military prison from 1862 to 1877.  The property was purchased by the state and became the first state park in North Carolina in 1936.

     We then drove into Beaufort and explored the Old Burying Ground.  The historical society normally conducts tours of the site but because of the coronavirus, nobody was giving any tours.  There are graves of confederate and union soldiers as well as slaves and freemen.  It was such a mish mash of gravesites.  It looked like a lot of them had concrete coverings over the bodies.  The large cemetery had graves laying every which way. It’s like they came in, looked around, and said, “There’s a spot.”  It was crazy!

     We then walked around the block and explored the historic site where there were many houses that had been built in the 1700s. Most of the houses had plaques on them stating the year they were built and who lived there.  We stopped at the marina to ogle the boats and yachts.  I picked up two kites for our grandsons who we will be seeing over Thanksgiving.  

     We stopped at the Crabs Claw for lunch.  There was an outside deck overlooking the ocean.  We both had the lobster salad.  It was quite good.  Next door was an interesting looking rental.  We asked the waitress about it.  It was 5 units attached as one building, each one with 4 floors with balconies looking out over the ocean.  In the backyard were a barbecue, a hot tub, and a pool.  She said it was rental condos that cost (she thought) about $3,500 a week.  Wow.

     The drive back to the base went over several bridges and past some interesting places – Radio Island, Morehead City, Atlantic Beach.

 2020 Nov 6 (Fri - Paul’s Birthday) - We packed up and left the USCG base in Elizabeth City at 9 a.m.  With only one stop at a rest area along the way, we arrived at the Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Cherry Point in Havelock at noon.  The campground is called Pelican Pointe RV Park.  It is very nice.  There are 30 sites arrayed in 4 rows within an oval.  One row (the one we are in) has pull-thru sites; all the rest are back-in.  All the sites are concrete with a nicely graveled area holding the electric, water and sewer hookups.  Trees surround the campground and there is a water body nearby – called Slocum Creek but looking like a river.  We went out to Del Patron for a Mexican dinner and margaritas.

2020 Nov 5 (Thu) – We hung around the campground this morning.  At noon, we went out to do some errands – get fuel for tomorrow’s drive, pick up pet food, and get lunch.  We ate at the City Grille, a diner type café.  The food was good and the place was doing a good business. Sheba certainly enjoyed this campground. She had lots of space to run and play in with a tree to climb on.  It’s been nice with the river right outside our window and the USCG aircraft flying into and out of the airport.

2020 Nov 4 (Wed) – I have returned from a week in New York.  The time went fast.  The visit with the oncologist went very well.  All bloodwork is normal.  I don’t have to go back until January.  I also got to visit with my daughter, Gina; my sister and her husband, Susan and Bill; and my grandson, Caiden.  I got to go trick-or-treating with Caiden and his parents.  He was able to hook up with a friend and the two boys had a great time together.  Caiden came to stay two nights with me at the hotel.  We drove out to Sue’s for lunch and swam in the pool at the hotel.  He had a great time and was sorry to see it end. So was I.  I went over to his house and helped his father put together an electric car, which was a gift from Aunt Susan and Uncle Bill.  It was Caiden’s 7th birthday on October 30th.

    It was good to get back home and see Paul and the girls again.  Bonnie actually seemed glad to see me.

2020 Oct 27 (Tue) – We went to WalMart to pick up a suitcase for me.  While looking for my duffel, we couldn’t find it. Paul thought we might have thrown it out after my last trip.  We wound up buying two rolling duffels with the hope that we can take a trip to Australia next year for our 50th anniversary.  

    We then stopped at Currituck BBQ for lunch.  Paul had pulled pork and I had beef brisket.  It was a lot of BBQ.  Next stop was at Enterprise Car Rental where I picked up a Nissan Kicks SUV.  I will be driving to New York tomorrow.  Because of the coronavirus and all the quarantine stuff going on in New York, we felt it would be better for me to drive home rather than fly.  It’s going to be a very long drive – 9 to 10 hours.  Last stop was at Ford where we dropped the truck off for a diagnostic.  The AC stopped working about 2 weeks ago.  You definitely don’t want a non-working AC down here in the south!  Paul thinks it’s the compressor.  We’ll see.

    Finally, we returned to the camper. It has remained overcast and cool all day.  This is such a nice campground.  It was great the first two days before the weather turned foul.  Hope it clears up – for Paul, at least.  I think I’m driving into some bad weather up north.

2020 Oct 26 (Mon) – It was another overcast and dreary day.  We walked over to the Navy Federal Credit Union to use my debit card.  I had gotten an email from them saying I hadn’t used my debit card in the last year and if I did not use it, they would not send me a new one.   What kind of bank cancels a debit card because you don’t use it?  So I took the debit card for the SMART Nomads account and my own account, walked over to the ATM, and used both cards.  I withdrew $20 then redeposited the $20.  How stupid is that?

      We gathered up the dirty clothes and did the wash.  They have a small shack with two washers and two dryers.  The cost was better than the last one – only $1.50 per washer and $1.00 for the dryers.

    Once we had the clothes put away, we drove into town to Lowe’s.  Paul needed to pick up a few things for the RV.  Next, we stopped at CVS to pick up some Halloween candy.  Neither of us thinks there will be any trick-or-treaters here in the campground but I thought it would be a good idea to have something on hand, just in case.  A family was here this past weekend.  They came in on Friday night and left Sunday afternoon.  They had three children and a dog.  Since Halloween will be on Saturday, it’s possible a family might come in to camp.

2020 Oct 25 (Sun) – It was a dreary, overcast day with rain on and off.  Every morning, we wake up to fog that slowly burns off as the sun rises.  The weather during the day has been decent even though it starts out cool in the 50s.  We stayed in all day.  Had soup and grilled cheese for lunch.  Attended church via Facebook.  Watched the crappy weather out the window.  Didn’t go anywhere, except to walk the dog.

2020 Oct 24 (Sat) – We drove to Great Dismal Swamp State Park today.  On the way there, we tried to stop at a Cracker Barrel for lunch but they were crowded and the wait time was 45 minutes.  We left and wound up stopping at a Wendy’s for lunch.  Poor choice but it was lunch time and everything was full.

    When we arrived at the park, we happily found the visitor center open.  After poking through it, we took a short hike on a trail.  It was a raised wooden walkway that wandered in a big loop through the woods.  A bridge passed over the intracoastal waterway.  It is a 22 mile canal that passes through the swamp.  It was very straight and disappeared on the horizon either way you looked.

    We then drove over an hour to Mattaponi in Virginia.  I lived there as a child in the summer of 1963.  It was a 12-room farm on a farm.  I wanted to try and find the place.  I found the town.  I found the river that used to run in back of the house where we fished.  And I found the paper mill that always seemed to stink up the air.  But I could not find the house.  Although the area is still pretty rural with farms, there were more houses in the area than I remember.  I guess 57 years makes a difference.  Lol.  

2020 Oct 23 (Fri) – We drove into town for lunch at Groupers Seafood Restaurant. We ate out on the deck looking out over the water.  It was a very pleasant day.  I got the lunch special – fried flounder, cole slaw, and hush puppies.  I tried to swap out the hush puppies but the waitress said there were no substitutions.  I also tried a red corn soup but it was too spicy.  Paul had clam chowder with a shrimp and scallop casserole.  

    I had our mail forwarded to a UPS package store.  I had tried to call three days ago to make sure they would accept the package but the number on their website was wrong.  It turned out to be some guy’s cell phone.  Their site said they accepted packages so I took a chance and had the mail forwarded there.  When I went in to pick the package up, they charged me an additional $5 because I didn’t let them know the package was coming.  WTH?  First, I paid to have the package mailed already.  Second, I couldn’t let them know it was coming because their number was no good.  And third, I was SAVING them money by their not having to put the package on a truck and bring it to me.  Boy, was I furious!  I was more angry with myself because I didn’t fight the charge and refuse to pay.  I groused and the guy gave me a business card with their correct phone number on it.  A lot of good that did me then!

2020 Oct 22 (Thu) – We packed up and left Blackstone, VA at 9:30 a.m.  The weather was good.  The RV GPS had us driving 40 miles more than what my iPhone GPS said so we followed my phone.  It took us along a lot of local routes but we had no difficulty and arrived at the US Coast Guard station in Elizabeth City at 12:45 p.m.  In addition to checking our IDs, they took our temperature. That was a new thing.  Since I had registered by phone, we already knew our campsite assignment.  We set up then I called to see if we had to come in to pay.  The clerk said no; that she had my card information and would run the charge.

    After giving the animals outside time, we went to the supermarket – Food Lion – to get some groceries.  They had the rows marked one way but nobody but us seemed to be paying attention to them.  It’s funny.  When we first pulled up into the parking lot at Food Lion, I saw several people with no masks.  For a second, that always fuels some kind of crazy hope that we stepped out of the nightmare and finally found a place where no one has heard about the corona virus. Then another person steps into the picture wearing a face mask and the bubble pops.

    When we got back, we found a business card from a fellow SMART member on the door.  Allen & Judy are also staying in the campground.  They are in another part of the base in the same area we stayed in last year.  We were here for Thanksgiving and because the campground was full, we had been assigned to a dirt lot in back of the BX.  We drove over and visited for an hour.  We met Allen & Judy during the Canadian Maritimes caravan in 2016.

[keywestlou]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHARLIE BROWN

Missed Charlie Brown’s birthday. It was yesterday. Sorry. Never the less, the loving spirit of the Peanuts comic strip was born in effect when it made its appearance 70 years ago on October 2, 1950.

Happy Birthday Charlie Brown! Happy Birthday Peanuts! Happy Birthday Snoopy! Happy Birthday the security blanket! And most of all, Happy Birthday to Charles M. Schulz who penned the comic strip.

First named Li’l Folks, the strip was later renamed Peanuts.

Friend even to Presidents. Charlie Brown mentioned occasionally by John Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.

Today, the comic strip has 330 million readers in 75 countries. It is published daily in 22 languages.

It is thought Charlie Brown has been such a continuing success for so long because of Charlie Brown getting up and trying again after being down. It is called perseverance.

Charlie Brown was a trendsetter in pet relationships. Snoopy.  Pets were members of the family and truly best friends and companions.

Schools are open in most parts of the country. I thought the schools were being prematurely opened. I was wrong.

The kids are going. Nothing coronavirus wise of any significance is happening.

In all of Monroe County, there have been only 3 confirmed cases. The 3 located in the northern part of the County.

I got into wearing masks with Robert. He is a Junior at the Key West High School. He said masks were no problem. Everybody wears one and no one complains. The only time they may remove the masks is during lunch.

I checked with an emergency room friend in one of the most northern cities in New York. She says she has not observed any problems. She mentioned a 7 year old who came  into the emergency room this week. Not for a coronavirus related problem.

She talked with the 7 year old. The little girl was wearing a mask. She asked her if she liked the mask. The girl nodded a shy yes and then proudly said, “We have a mask break for one minute every morning and afternoon.”

Adults should have adapted to mask wearing as children apparently are doing across the country.

Our President is in the hospital. At his age, coronaviirus could be very serious.

I don’t know what it is, but I feel bad that Trump is ill and may die. My writings clearly suggest I like neither the man nor the way he is running the country. Think he is a bad guy. Recommend everyone vote for Biden.

I must add I doubt Trump feels bad about anyone or anything. He is the original I don’t like prisoners, I don’t like Muslims. His feelings regarding Jews is obvious. He stands for all the bad things America has become.

Yet, I feel sorry for the man and wish him well.

Frank Bruni wrote in a New York Times Opinion piece yesterday about Trump. The column: The Pandemic Comes For The President.  Its thrust was no one is invincible. Not even the mighty Donald.

Bruni wrote: “The Presidency and the President are always national mirrors, in many different ways at once…..Trump has shown America its resentments. He has modeled its rage. Now he personifies its recklessness.”

He wrote America is “infected,” it has become a “morality case.”

Every day it is something new about Amy Coney Barrett.

CNN Politics reported yesterday that in the late summer she and her husband were diagnosed with coronavirus. Her husband was asymptomatic. The Judge “felt a little under the weather but recovered.”

My concern is her tendency to be secretive. She has failed in many respects to make full disclosure re professional matters and her religion. Forget not she is 48 and being considered for a lifetime job. Nothing is secret under the circumstances.

The fact that she and her husband had coronavirus may appear non consequential on its face. It probably is. However in today’s climate where the major issue in the election is coronavirus, she should have mentioned it.

Marsha is a long time reader of this blog. From Syracuse, New York. We have never met, except through the blog. We have become good friends.

Marsha sent me a lengthy column she came across. No author. The words intuitive. I share come with you.

“I wonder…..why we all seem to be Russians waiting in line for toilet paper, meat, and Lysol.”

“Why we all look like we are in bad need of a haircut or a facial or a reason to dress up again and go somewhere.”

“There are no images of the first family enjoying themselves together in a moment of relaxation.”

“We are rudderless and joyless.”

“We have lost our mojo. Our fun, our happiness.”

“We have lost the challenges and the triumphs that we shared and celebrated. The unique can-do spirit Americans have always been known for.”

“We are lost.”

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Do whatever you can to help the cause. Few are they who are not touched by its curse.

There is an urban exodus. A return to the suburbs. A topic I have written about many times.

There are three reasons for the exodus.

The first involves technological improvements. People can work from home. The second the destabilizing threat of rising crime in the cities. Third and finally, people cannot make a living in the cities as they once did. Tied into the fact that city rents and living costs have failed to recognize that fact yet and make city living very expensive.

The urban exodus is expected to be an accelerating one over the long term.

A common example of the financial crush city living is causing, many live in flats with multiple roommates.

Key West is not the only City experiencing the dilemma.

Even great cities sometimes go away. They cannot seem to make it back. Goats were grazing in Rome’s Forum a few decades after the Empire collapsed.

On this day in 1995, O. J. Simpson was acquitted. “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”

I watched the trial everyday for 3 months. Would not miss it.

I had rented a condominium at 1800 Atlantic for the season. Except for 2 days when I had to fly back to Syracuse for a sensitive hearing, I remained in Key West.

My days all the same. Up early. Walked the ocean along South Roosevelt Boulevard. Back to the condo. 1800 had a great pool. I took a cool refreshing swim and laid out on a lounge to sun dry.

Then my day really began. Watched the trial from the comfort of a barcalounge. Exciting! My eyes and ears remained fixed.

The evening was a late dinner somewhere. Generally at Square One. It had become a meeting place. We joined our local and snowbird friends most evenings there.

This is the fourth day in a row that Hackley has written in his 1855 diary about his piles. The poor guy had a real problem!

He wrote, “The piles will not stay up and are very sore. Bathed in the tub yesterday 3 times. Kept a piece of cotton with ointment on the parts and put some more Mustang Liniment on at night.”

I write about poor Hackley’s medical problem because I had a serious hemorrhoid problem twice in my life. Surgery for the first. The problem returned however.

Strangely, nothing seems to have changed as to how to medicate the problem. Every thing today as it was in 1855. I  lived in a hot bath, tried all kinds of ointments.

May Johnson continues to fascinate me. I make the following observation for the second time. Conservative school teacher May is not the quiet angelic type. She is not even good looking as the one photo I have seen indicates.

Yet she has the men here in Key West and away chasing her. Or maybe she is chasing them.

She went dancing at La  Brisa last night with Charlie and Fritot. They gave her a letter from Everest. He never comes home. Supposedly “her love.” They write and she goes out with others in Key West.

Even her mother appears upset with her meanderings.

After La Brisa, the three “went to Sybil Curry’s, lots of boys and girls there. Charles and I came home at 11 o’clock. KICKING TIRED.”

She warns that a “cyclone is brewing.” If it hits, it will be interesting to read about an 1896 hurricane from a person who was there. An

I have been self-quarantined for way more than 200 days. I gave up counting at 200.

Not a very exciting time.

Tonight is Cocktails at 7.

I met Cathy over the internet. Cathy lived in Key West in 1988. She read the blog and wrote me. We became friends.

A long distance romance, if anything. Cathy lives in Seattle, Washington.

Whatever, I have come to enjoy my one night a week having a drink via Skype with Cathy.

Her dog Lucy is part of the experience. Lucy always on Cathy’s lap. Lucy is blind.

Enjoy your Day!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHARLIE BROWN was originally published on Key West Lou

[watchingthesuperbowl]

Notes taken during Super Bowl LII

KITTEN AND PUPPY BOWLS

Is this the first-ever Kitten Bowl to go to overtime? Tied at 28. Feline Manning throws deep. Macaroni grabs it in the end zone. Touchdown! 34-28 Panthers, final score.

I've never thought much of Feline Manning in the regular season, but you can't argue with his results in the Kitten Bowl.

There's a new Puppy Bowl stadium? This is embarrassing. The taxpayers are getting fleeced again.

OH HELL YES. THE REFEREE AT PUPPY BOWL IS A SLOTH.

Update: Puppy Bowl is tied at 14 after a quarter. It's anybody's game.

Dammit. Should have called it a pupdate.

Puppy Bowl is 24-21 in the second quarter. It's quickly becoming apparent that dogs can't play defense.

Pupdate: Fluff 28, Ruff 24. Presumably, we're deep into the second quarter.

Now it's 31-28 Ruff. Still in the second quarter. I'm sure Puppy Bowl XIV is on track to destroy the all-time record for total points scored in a single game.

Last second touchdown! Fluff pulls off a 52-47 win over Ruff!

PREGAME

Okay, I've got a beer, dinner is on its way, and I'm settling in to finish this project. The only reason I've finished this is that I'm a stubborn SOB. This hasn't been fun for about 6-7 months now.

A feature about Tom Brady's mom. She had cancer in 2016 and was only able to be at one of his games, Super Bowl LI. A nice story.

Oh, cool, now Dan Patrick asked Brady when he knew he could be great. It's no longer a heartwarming story about his mom, now it's about slurping on Brady.

Patrick comparing Brady to Michael Jordan. Brady says he doesn't think about that very often. Could never be compared to his childhood heroes.

Brady has no idea how he'll fill the void when he retires. Maybe coach his kids. He's happy his kids are old enough to see him play. His son didn't pick him in fantasy football. Took Cam Newton instead.

You know what NBC should do more of? Talk about Tom Brady. I wonder where they rank him on the all-time list.

Now it's a feature about the Eagles defense. Not a ton of big names, says Chris Long, but they have a bunch of good players.

And then they end it with more about Tom Brady. Good. More of that, please. I never get sick of it.

One thing I've noticed, in watching all these Super Bowls, is that the team with the better defense wins more often than you'd expect. If one team is offense-reliant and the other is defense-reliant, the defensive team wins a bunch of games. That would be the Eagles here.

Rodney Harrison: Patriots will run short passes and screen passes to avoid the Eagle pass rush.

Commercials. Zelle. Applebees has a quesadilla burger. George Washington crossing the Delaware Turnpike for Geico. Turbotax. Promo for a new NBC series, Good Girls. It's not about puppers, unfortunately. Promo for the Olympics.

NBC bumps in with a bunch of sound bites from Eagles and Patriots fans. The Patriots remain the worst. I hope this old guy gets to see an Eagles championship.

Rodney Harrison: Tom Brady gave me a hug, told me he loves me, and gave me a little wink. I've seen that wink before. That means he's going to have a big game.

Dungy and John Harbaugh talk about how loose and calm the Eagles seem. Harrison says the Patriots need to come out and start fast. Can't fall behind the Eagles like they did last year against Atlanta.

Harrison picks the Patriots. Harbaugh picks the Eagles, says they'll hold New England under 24. Dungy picks the Eagles, says he's fallen in love with Nick Foles. Dan Patrick doesn't pick anybody. It's good to be the host.

Commercials: HQ trivia. You can watch the game in Spanish on Universo. Local ad for Tim Hortons. Local ad for Columbus Cyberknife prostate cancer treatment. State Farm insurance. State of Ohio PSA saying you shouldn't drive drunk. YoutubeTV. The commercial for Youtube TV includes a bunch of NBC programming.

Time for the "Youtube TV kickoff show". Starts with a Carrie Underwood song. Great. This is where I need a fast forward button.

There's a rap breakdown in the middle of this Underwood song. They show Super Bowl legends including Roger Staubach during that part of the song. Staubach has been one of my absolute favorite players to watch in these Super Bowls, but he is the least "hip hop" person on earth.

Al Michaels: This is a league built for parity and the Patriots are on the cusp of their sixth championship in 17 years. Eagles have a history of success, but have never won a Super Bowl.

Cris Collinsworth: Everybody knows Tom Brady, but not Nick Foles. But Foles is capable of having a tremendous game. Had one of the greatest seasons in NFL history in 2013. Chip Kelly says you're welcome.

Commercials: A really long commercial for Mass Mutual that involves people singing a Pretenders song. Red Sparrow.

Eagles walk out to the field. NBC runs a montage of their players introducing themselves. "Donnie Bag of Bones Jones" is the punter.

Patriots now. "Chris Hogan, Penn State lacrosse." I wouldn't want to be associated with their football program either. (Also, he didn't play football in college.)

It's very clear very early who the fans in the stadium want to win. The Patriots are loudly booed as they take the field.

Commercials: Kraft, US Bank, Mercedes Benz, Terrell Owens for Pizza Hut, Winter Olympics Promo.

Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Award. J.J. Watt, unsurprisingly. He did a ton of work to raise money for hurricane relief after Houston got leveled.

America The Beautiful. Leslie Odom Jr. I genuinely have no clue who this person is. He can sing, though. He nails it.

It turns out Leslie Odom Jr. played Aaron Burr in Hamilton. This would explain why I don't know who he is.

The Star Spangled Banner. Pink. She also nails it.

Commercials. I spaced out and may have missed one. The Quiet Place. Lionel Richie for TD Ameritrade. Big Mac.

Michaels: What's the most likely way the Eagles win this game? Collinsworth: The offensive line and defensive line. They need to be able to run the ball and they need to be able to pressure Brady without blitzing him. It's hard to imagine that this game could come down to anything other than Tom Brady.

Coin toss: Medal of Honor winners. Very cool. Herschel "Woody" Williams will toss the coin. Won the Medal of Honor for valor at the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II.

The referee called him Willie Williams. Oof.

Now he called him Corporal Wilson.

Eagles call tails. It's heads. Patriots defer, Eagles will receive.

Michele Tafoya: Eagles coach Doug Pederson told Nick Foles "You're not Tom Brady. Be Nick."

Commercials. I spaced out again. Is there a new Jurassic Park movie? There was a thing for that. Also YouTube TV.

NBC bumps in from commercial with a bunch of sound bites from past Super Bowl heroes. Staubach, Namath, Hines Ward.

FIRST QUARTER

Okay, kickoff time

Line-drive kickoff. Clement takes it out to the 25.

First play, pass right to Agholor. 5 yard gain.

Agholor for 2 more yards on second down. Michaels says Foles completed 15 passes in a row at the end of the NFC championship game. It's 17 in a row now.

18 in a row. Foles buys time on third down and hits Alshon Jeffery for 15 yards or so.

Well, there's an incomplete pass. Torrey Smith can't come up with the ball on a 2nd and 12 downfield pass.

Smith more than makes up for the incompletion - goes up the ladder to make a 15 yard catch on 3rd and 12. Eagles approaching field goal range.

Eagles running a bunch of "RPO" plays. (Run-pass option.) Ajayi runs for six on first down. Next play is a screen pass to Corey Clement. Takes it to the New England 5. The Patriots were blitzing and got burned. First and goal.

2nd and goal from the 2. False start on tight end Zach Ertz. Ouch. Offensive penalties inside the 5 are brutal.

Yep, that false start penalty was a killer. After incomplete passes on second down and third down, the Eagles will attempt a field goal.

Got it. A chip shot field goal ends a 14-play game opening drive. 3-0 Eagles. NBC bumps out to commercial with "The Underdog" by Spoon, which is cool.

Commercials: Toyota supports the Paralympics. Sprint has a Westworld parody

Eagles kick off. It's a touchback. Then more commercials.

Commercials: Solo, a Star Wars story. With Donald Glover! Nothing brings it down quite like Dr. Oz in the next commercial. Ugh. Go away. Turkish Airlines. He is Turkish, so there's that. Promo for a new show called Rise. Looks like a musical. Great.

Stop me if you've heard this before. Brady completes a short, outside pass to James White for a first down. 15 yards. Next play is a pass to James White. Because all he does is catch passes in the Super Bowl. That play's wiped out after a 12 men on the field penalty on the defense.

Brady to Chris Hogan underneath, coming across the middle, for a gain of 28. They're inside the Philadelphia 30. Next play is an end around to Hogan for four yards.

Brady to Gronkowski coming across the middle. Another completion, another first down at the 14.

Oh, hey, it's a completion to James White. Gains six yards, down to the 8.

NBC is using a white line to mark the line of scrimmage which is horrible and I hate it. I can't tell which is the line of scrimmage and which is the 10 yard line. Brady throws behind Gronk on third down and the Patriots settle for a Gostkowski field goal attempt.

Yup. 26 yard field goal for Gostkowski. 3-3, late first quarter.

Commercials: Bud Light with a Dilly Dilly ad that I've seen before. M&Ms. The red M&M turns into Danny Devito, who walks down the streets of New York asking if people want to eat him. Promo for the halftime show. Justin Timberlake. Winter Olympics promo.

Kenjon Barner with a decent kickoff return. Kenjon is my dude. Thrilled that he's had an NFL career. Incredibly cool guy.

Big, big run for another Duck, LaGarrette Blount. 36 yard rumble into New England territory. Collinsworth says the Patriots asked Blount to take a pay cut, he said no, and went to the Eagles.

TOUCHDOWN! Foles deep to Alshon Jeffery, who makes an incredible grab in the end zone.

Ugh, they blew the extra point. 9-3 Eagles.

A good article about Barner. He studied, among other things, ballet dancing at Oregon.

Commercials: Ram trucks, Wendy's. Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.

HEY, JEFFERY. NICE CATCH, JEFFERY.

Commercials: A Hulu show from Stephen King and J.J. Abrams. Heroes Arena mobile game. Olympics promo.

The Patriots look very human at this point. Which, yeah, it's the first quarter of the Super Bowl. Gronk false start, Brady overshoots Hogan, and it's 3rd and 7.

Hey, you guys? You might want to cover Danny Amendola. Amendola is wide open deep and Brady hits him. First down at the Philadelphia 29.

Collinsworth: Eagles defense led the league in highest percentage of threes-and-out in the regular season, but they're struggling with New England's fast-paced offense.

First quarter ends. Philadelphia 9, New England 3.

Commercials: Peter Dinklage for Doritos. Morgan Freeman for Mountain Dew Ice. Both are lip-synching rap songs. David Harbour for Tide. Skyscraper starring Dwayne Johnson.

289 yards of total offense in the first quarter between the two teams.

SECOND QUARTER

Third down, Brandin Cooks on a jet sweep. Tries to jump over a tackler but can't get that done.

New England botches a field goal attempt. Holder drops the ball, Gostkowski has to stop, then start, then drills it into the left upright. Big break for Philadelphia.

Foles with a nice move to avoid a sack on third and long. Probably could run for a first down but throws to Ertz. Incomplete. Donnie Bag of Bones Jones to punt.

Fair catch at the 37.

Commercials: Another Dilly Dilly ad for Bud Light. ETrade. A movie. I was looking away. Mission Impossible? Is there one of those? Olympics promo. After the game, "This is Us".

Brady to Cooks downfield for 23. Gets absolutely annihilated by Malcolm Jenkins and he's not moving. There was a bit of helmet-to-helmet contact. Commercial time.

Commercials: Rocket Mortgage. Avocados from Mexico. The Cloverfield Paradox.

We're back from commercial. Cooks has been taken to the locker room. There was no penalty on the hit because he was a runner and not defenseless.

Third down, the Patriots run a reverse/throwback play, a pass to Tom Brady. Incomplete - Brady dropped the ball. They go for it on 4th and 5 from the 35. Incomplete pass. Turnover on downs.

Commercials. Diet Coke with Mango, Jeep, Tide, WeatherTech. Halftime show promo.

Michaels: Patriots DB Malcolm Butler has played zero defensive snaps today. The team says it's "a coach's decision".

Foles downfield to Zach Ertz, First down at the New England 43.

Great throw and catch from Foles to Jeffery downfield. 22 yard gain.

Next play, LaGarrette Blount! Blows through the defense for a 21 yard touchdown. 15-3 Eagles. They go for two, which I absolutely hate. Incomplete pass. It's still 15-3.

Commercials: Pringles. Febreze. Chris Pratt for Michelob Ultra.

Anyway, back to the "going for two" thing. I wouldn't do it until I absolutely had to. The second quarter is not that time.

NBC graphic: Most championships by a coach/QB combo: Belichick-Brady and Lombardi-Starr are tied with five.

Cutaways: Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez. Mike Trout, who Al Michaels calls a California Angel. Missed it by a couple decades, Al.

Big play from Brady to Burkhead. A screen pass - he nearly breaks it for a touchdown. Gets it to the Eagles' 29.

Third and 8, the Eagles completely blow up a screen pass with backfield penetration. Brady throws it away. Gostkowski kicks a 45 yard field goal. 15-6. And that's why you kick the extra point. A ten point lead is so much better than a nine-point lead.

Um, hello? The screen has gone black. I don't know what just happened. No commercials. They go back to the stadium after 10-15 seconds.

Tafoya: Brandin Cooks will not return. He has a "head injury". Patriots now have a total of three wide receivers available.

Michaels: Foles nearly retired when he was released by the Rams. Decided there was only one coach he'd play for, Andy Reid of the Chiefs. Reid wanted him.

Collinsworth: I love what Nick Foles is doing. When the Patriots blitz, he's throwing the ball to the area vacated by the blitzer.

Big run from Ajayi on third and 4. Inside handoff, looks like he's in trouble, and he bursts through the hole to the New England 43.

Huge break for the Patriots. Alshon Jeffery makes a one-handed catch downfield inside the 10 but the ball squirts loose, hits him on the other hand, and bounces to a New England defensive back for an interception.

Commercials: Squarespace, Dodge Ram uses a Martin Luther King speech to sell trucks, which is unbelievably gross.

Gross.

Brady deep to Chris Hogan inside the 30. Next play, James White breaks about eight thousand tackles on a 26 yard touchdown run. Patriots doing Patriots things right before the half.

Gostkowski blows the extra point. 15-12 Eagles as we hit the two minute warning.

Nope.

Huge play for the Eagles on third and 3. Corey Clement runs a swing route down the right sideline and Foles lofts it to him for a 55 yard gain inside the 10.

Next play, Clement powers up the middle to the 2. Nice power run from a third-down back. Clement again on second down. Up the middle again, gets to the 1. Patriots call timeout. 0:40 left.

Good lord, Alshon Jeffery got tackled in the end zone before the ball got there. Incomplete pass. They'll line up to go for it on fourth and goal.

Timeout, Eagles. They want to think about this. The offense is back on the field.

OH WOW. OH WOW.

Direct snap to Clement, flips it to Trey Burton, who throws to a wide-open Foles in the end zone. Touchdown. 22-12 Eagles with 0:34 left in the half.

Once again, Al Michaels says Mike Trout plays for the California Angels.

Patriots have the ball at midfield with 0:03 left. They're lining up for a Hail Mary.

They don't run a Hail Mary. They throw a swing pass to Amendola, who gains 20 yards as the half ends.

At halftime: Philadelphia 22, New England 12

Eagles coach Doug Pederson on the fourth down call at the 1: Our guys marched downfield and I wasn't going to let them get stopped at the one.

HALFTIME

There are commercials happening, but I'm going to grab a snack and a drink. It's a local break anyway.

Commercials: "Unsolved" on USA Network. Pepsi.

Halftime show. Justin Timberlake. Opens with an unbelievably cool laser show under the stage. Now he's coming upstairs into the stadium. Not sure what's with the wardrobe choice. A black leather jacket with fringe and a bandana tied around his neck.

Justin Timberlake isn't my thing musically, but this has been a good halftime show. Better than the Coldplay/Beyonce thing. Better than the Black Eyed Peas. He seems to be changing stages for every new song.

Timberlake doing a "duet" with Prince, which is something Prince was pretty adamant about opposing when he was alive.

Mental note: Make a GIF of the saxophone guy Timberlake walked by just now.

I remembered. Look at sax guy on the left. He's the new Left Shark.

Okay, halftime show over. It was good. Not the best I've ever seen, but solid.

Commercials: A "Jack Ryan" series on Amazon, which seems like exactly the sort of show you'd make if you didn't want me to watch it. Verizon.

Dan Patrick: This is the first game in NFL history to be 22-12 at halftime.

Commercials: Promo for The Voice. Spectrum cable. Giant Eagle. This is obviously a local break. PSA about drinking and driving.

This is the first Super Bowl in history where both QBs were over 200 yards passing in the first half.

Tafoya: Asked Belichick why Butler wasn't playing. He said he makes decisions to give his team the best chance to win. Belichick says they need to do everything better in the second half.

THIRD QUARTER

First play of the second half, Brady misses a wide open Gronk.

They connect on the second play of the half. 25 yard completion downfield to the 50. Next play, Brady to Gronkowski again. 24 yards this time, to the Philadelphia 26.

3rd and 6, Gronkowski again. First and goal at the 8.

It's all Gronk, all the time. Brady zips it to Gronkowski in the end zone on second and goal. 22-18, pending the extra point.

This is not optimal defensive positioning.

Got it this time. 22-19 Eagles. Brady up to 344 yards passing with more than 12 minutes left in the third quarter.

Commercials. Anheuser Busch. Turbotax.

My dude.

Eagles called for a block in the back on the kickoff return. They'll start this drive inside their 20.

Third and 6, Eagles trying to avoid a three-and-out. Agholor with a catch underneath, breaks a tackle to pick up the first down.

A couple of nice runs from Blount and they're into New England territory.

Collinsworth suspects something's up with Jay Ajayi and maybe it is, but Blount has been great.

Ajayi looked okay on that run. Gains 9 on 2nd and 10 and gets to the New England 40.

3rd and 1, Foles to Ertz down the sideline. Gets to the Patriots' 26.

3rd and 6, Foles throws into the end zone. What. a. throw. Corey Clement double covered and the ball is perfect. Looks like Clement bobbled the ball. It's under review as NBC goes to commercial.

Commercials: Jeep. Westworld on HBO. Turbotax.

Ruling on the field stands. Touchdown. It was a close call. Collinsworth is flabbergasted. I don't know what a catch is anymore, to be frank, but I've seen worse calls than that. Extra point is good. 29-19 Eagles.

Commercials: Kia. Blacture.com. Eli Manning mumbling incoherently for something or other. Olympics promo.

Eagles called for defensive holding. Gronk sold it well.

2nd and 8, Dion Lewis up the middle for 6. 3rd and 2 from the Eagles 45.

Brady downfield to Amendola on third and 1. Amendola to the 26 yard line. Next play, Brady to Hogan, who falls into the end zone. Got it. Touchdown. 29-25 with the extra point to come.

Extra point is good.

Commercials: Avengers. T-Mobile. Jesus Christ Superstar promo.

Cutaways: Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton, Floyd Mayweather, Jimmy Fallon, Bradley Cooper.

Commercials: Toyota. Wix. Kraft. The Today Show.

Brady is 19-32 for 404 yards, 2 TD, 0 INT.

First play of the next drive, Folds downfield to Agholor. First down near midfield. Next play, Foles to Torrey Smith. 18 yard gain.

Jet sweep to Agholor for 9 on 2nd and 8. First down inside the New England 25.

NBC graphic: The two teams have combined for 955 total yards, the most in Super Bowl history. And it's still the third quarter.

Third quarter ends. The Eagles have a 3rd and 3 from the New England 15 yard line.

After three quarters: Philadelphia 29, New England 26

Commercials: NFL promo. ADT. Ohio Northern University. Obviously this is a local break. State Farm.

FOURTH QUARTER

Patriots blow up a swing pass to Agholor on third down. Eagles will presumably attempt a field goal after a loss of 8.

Jake Elliott drills a 42 yard field goal. Sets the record for the longest field goal kicked by a rookie in the Super Bowl. 32-26 Eagles. AND THAT'S WHY YOU DON'T GO FOR TWO IN THE SECOND QUARTER.

Commercials: Monster headphones. Michelob Ultra. Groupon.

It's a Rex Burkhead kind of drive for New England. Burkhead run for 5, then Burkhead for 9, then Burkhead for 4.

3rd and 3 for the Patriots. It's clear from motion that the defense is in man coverage, so Brady throws to Amendola. Because that's what he does in man coverage. First down. Next play is a pass downfield to Amendola. First down at the Philadelphia 20.

Hey, have I mentioned HOW BAD AN IDEA IT IS TO GO FOR TWO IN THE SECOND QUARTER?

Swing pass to Amendola for 9. Second and 1 inside the 10.

James White up the middle. First and goal at the Eagles' 3.

Brady is up to 453 yards passing. Throws incomplete on first and goal. Gronk. Brady into the end zone for his big tight end. It's tied at 32, which Michaels describes as the Patriots' first lead of the game.

Brady is now up to 457 yards and 3 TD.

Extra point is good. 33-32 Patriots.

Commercial: Amazon Alexa.

"So I said to myself 'We need that point. We have to get it back. We need to go for two.'"

2nd and 6, Foles throws deep to Smith on a one-on-one jump ball. It falls incomplete. Weird play. It's a huge third down here.

HUGE PLAY. Foles to Ertz for 7 on 3rd and 6. Nice throw.

Clock under 7:00 as Foles throws to Clement. Seven yard gain on 2nd and 8. It's third and 1.

Eagles throw on third and 1. Ugh. It's a swing pass and it's stuffed. Pederson will go for it on 4th and 1.

WHEW. They threw the ball and picked it up. Foles to Ertz for 2. Clock below 5:00. Eagles near midfield.

Philadelphia uses a timeout with 4:52 left in regulation. They have two left.

Commercials: Coke. Peyton Manning for Universal Parks and Resorts. The World Cup on Telemundo.

Nice play by Agholor. Foles escapes the pocket and hits Agholor on the run at the sticks. First down. 3:30 and counting. First and 10 from the New England 43.

Agholor again! Foles zips it to him across the middle. There was a tiny window to complete that pass and he did it. First down inside the 25. The clock is about to become a factor here - the Eagles are likely to take the lead, barring a turnover. The question is how much time Brady will have and how many points he'll need.

Foles is up over 350 yards now. It's pretty obvious that the winning quarterback is going to be the MVP.

1,081 total yards tonight. The most in any NFL postseason game, ever.

Foles to Agholor for 10 yards to the Patriots' 14. Forced out of bounds.

Ajayi for three yards up the middle. Patriots burn their second timeout with 2:30 remaining in regulation. It'll be 2nd and 7.

Incomplete pass on second and 7. Third and 7 here. 2:25 left. Brady's going to have some time, it looks like. If they can get 8 yards on this play, that would be perfect.

TOUCHDOWN! I think. Yeah, that's a touchdown. He had the ball, took a few steps, and dove into the end zone. Ertz took three steps before the ball hit the ground. It seems obvious that this is a touchdown. Collinsworth thinks they have to overturn it. I think he's insane.

I don't see how this is a close call. He caught the ball, started running, dove, got over the goal line, and then the ball popped loose. How is this a question?

What is Collinsworth smoking?

Yeah, they call it a touchdown. That was an easy one, I think. Collinsworth is silent.

Eagles up 38-33. They'll go for two.

Nope. Incomplete pass. AND THAT'S WHY YOU DON'T GO FOR TWO IN THE SECOND QUARTER. DAMMIT.

Brady has 2:21 to put together a touchdown drive.

Collinsworth is still talking about this?

Michaels: In all five Super Bowls Brady has won, he has come back to win them.

Brady to Gronk for 8. 2:16.

BRADY FUMBLES! HOLY CRAP! EAGLES RECOVER.

The game isn't over, but it's damn close. Start chilling nem bottles of champagne.

We reach the two-minute warning with 1:56 left. It'll be third and 5 from the New England 26. They'll run the ball, get the clock down to 1:20 or so, then either kick a field goal (if they don't pick up the first down) or take a knee (if they do).

Blount stuffed on third down. Clock will be down to 1:10 before the field goal attempt. Eagles take a timeout with 70 seconds left.

46 yard field goal, dead center from Jake Elliott. Eagles up 41-33 with 1:05 left. Hell of a clutch kick by a rookie.

Patriots try to run a trick play on the return, but Burkhead is stuffed at the 9. Brady needs to go 91 yards in 58 seconds.

1st and 10, incomplete to Hogan.

2nd and 10, incomplete to White. 0:48 left.

3rd and 10, Brady under pressure in his own end zone, gets the throw off. Incomplete. It's 4th and 10. Now or never.

Complete to Amendola for 12 yards. They spike it with 26 seconds left. They still need 78 yards.

Brady to Gronk. Gets out of bounds at his own 33. 0:20 left.

Brady to Gronk for another 16, gets out of bounds. Near midfield. 0:13 left.

Eagles take their final timeout to talk this over.

Incomplete pass on first down. 0:09 left.

Next play, Brady buys time, chucks it deep, and it falls incomplete in the end zone as time expires.

THE EAGLES HAVE WON THE SUPER BOWL.

THIS ONE'S FOR PHILLY BOY ROY.

Final score: Philadelphia 41, New England 33. Nem Eagles got it done.

POSTGAME

Commercials: Scientology.

Yes, I’m curious. Where’s Shelly Miscavige? Why has nobody seen her in public in more than a decade?

Tom Brady threw for 505 yards, three touchdowns, and zero interceptions. And lost.

Brandon Graham: We are the world champions because we worked our butts off.

The Patriots punted zero times. And lost.

Collinsworth: Nick Foles was unbelievable tonight.

Trophy presentation. Darrell Green carries the Lombardi Trophy to the stage. Weird that they'd have an NFC East great who didn't play for Phiadelphia do this. Apparently he had a big game in Super Bowl XXVI. I contend that game never happened, which is a shame because the Bills were supposed to be in it.

Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie: For Eagles fans everywhere, this is for them. This is the most unique, together, group of men I've ever been around. An incredible group of men, players and coaches. Attempts to dedicate the win. Dan Patrick blows through that, but Lurie somehow gets the microphone from him and dedicates this championship to Eagles fans around the world and especially to his mom and dad.

Doug Pederson thanks Jesus. Praises his players. Has the best players in the world, loves the coaching staff and the owner. Has the best fans in the world.

Pederson: Wanted to stay aggressive with Foles. That was the plan coming in.

Ertz: No doubt that it was a touchdown. No telling what would have happened in the city of Philadelphia if it had been overturned.

Nick Foles is the MVP. Jokingly says it was just another game. His infant daughter tries to grab the microphone. Foles says he's very blessed.

Commercials: Motorola with Amazon Alexa. H&R Block. Discover Card. McDonalds. Eagles championship gear at NFLShop dot com. Xfinity.

Dungy: Foles made big plays all night, but when he needed a touchdown, he went to Ertz.

Harrison: Said Graham would make a difference on defense for the Eagles, and he made the big play late in the fourth quarter.

Bill Belichick: I obviously didn't do a good enough job coaching. We missed a lot of opportunities in the first half. Not good enough on defense. Not good enough in the kicking game.

Harrison: If the Patriots are going to come back to this game, they'll need to improve that defense. Just not enough athletes.

Dungy: Foles knows this is Carson Wentz's team, but was ready to go tonight.

Michaels and Collinsworth awkwardly fist bump.

[cilla44]

Wow long time no blog! I’m still alive gdi. I’m not in my most optimal state currently and I feel like I can’t form complete sentences again (hi there depression), but here I am giving an effort. I really wanted to write about seeing HIM 3 times in LA before the year ended (I saw them in October) but I can’t bring myself to finish the post. Let’s see if I can finish this one.

I think this year was full of a lot of mental illness issues and being a stronger advocate for what I believe in.

The things that used to make me happy or motivate me have no meaning anymore. I’m trying daily to find reason behind actions, but I end up disassociating at the end of the day. I think this year was supposed to play out like this however. I could say that I’m like the woman in the Amelie movie who decided to get her sleep over with in the beginning of her life so she can have more energy later in life to do things and this was my year to do that, or I can say that I’ve hit rock bottom and I can’t go anywhere else but up. Even if up isn’t enticing or exciting at the moment. I can’t go sideways but soon I’ll start looking up. I’m still being melancholic but I know the moment will happen. It’s how I tend to live my life. Pretty stable throughout the year then I get this burst of excitement to travel or change something up drastically. I trust myself.

I attended many PRIDE celebrations, was very outspoken about my sexuality, committed FULLY to being vegan, and protested when I could. I’m glad that I’ve found a way to support causes I care about in a way that makes a difference. Just educating people randomly on what Asexuality, Demisexuality, or Greysexuality is or even shining light on some aspects of the horrors of the meat industry gave me reason at the beginning of the year. I still fight for these ethics and will continue to make those who identify with my morals proud.

Right now I’m sitting in my empty apartment typing this on December 28 in the morning. I’m moving to San Jose in a few weeks with roommates, so I won’t be as single living as I would like but it saves me a ton of money to room with others and the girls are nice professionals. I’m moving again because I got another job offer. My previous job showed its true colors a few months shy of a year and that’s all I’ll say about that place. I’ll just keep doing my best and try not to stress too much. I’ve accomplished more than almost anyone else in my family so far (save my grandpa on my dad’s side and an aunt), so my biggest and truest critic is me.

I’ll type out my goals for the new year at the end of this post as well, but let’s get onto the monthly photo recap!

January

Moved from Manteca, CA to Fremont, CA.

Took a lot of time to meditate and explore spirituality. The above photo is from a park that I used to frequent on the weekends to give myself peace of mind.

February

Learned how to do my taxes myself.

Also learned how to not take everything seriously.

March

Birthday! Funny story: The cake above was sent to me at 8:30pm & because I’m paranoid I thought it was a bomb or something but then my mom calls me to say Happy Birthday & that she bought me a vegan cake from a bakery nearby LOL

HIM announced their breakup & I start planning for Tuska. March 5th, 2017

Became close friends with a dear friend from my shitty first big girl job.

Discovered one of my favorite podcasts 2 Dope Queens

April

Got invisalign! Finally right? Here’s the link to my Orthodontist if you’re keen.

Found out I have an enlarged right atrium in my heart which is why I feel like I’m having a heart attack often. Coupled with my spine being twisted it’s hard to breathe on my left lung. I should probably be more proactive about this lol

May

Got my 23&me test results back!

55% – East Asian & Native American

25.8% – Southeast Asian

21.7% – Native American

20.3% – Southern European

11.6% – Sub-Saharan African

6% – Unassigned

& some other fillers lol

Saw Sabaton in San Francisco with some Googlers & punched a guy for touching my butt

Momma came to visit! I bought her a vegan cake, cooked her vegan food at home, had her try Souley Vegan, took her all the way to Yosemite National Park, stopped by a random farm stand on our way back, took her all the way to Monterrey Bay, and of course a day in San Francisco where she rode the BART for the first time & we stumbled upon a Carnival celebration!

June

Spoke on a Google Panel about Asexuality

Walked in the San Francisco PRIDE parade with the ACE contingent. Super fun as always!

WENT TO FINLAND!!!!

Click to Enlarge!

July

Bro came to visit with his girlfriend so we spent the day in San Francisco

Had the most amazing and memorable time in Finland!

Met Ville Valo’s dad! He is the sweetest man alive!

Saw HIM at HAM (Helsinki Art Museum)

Went to the Moomin cafe & bought like every Moomin mug there!

Saw a ton of tourist attractions that were gorgeous!

Met so many friendly people!

Tuska was the BEST festival I’ve been to so far! Standing for 6 hours to see HIM play in their homeland was the best present I could ever give to myself!

I can rave about Finland all day so I’ll stop 😀

Spent a few hours in the absolutely beautiful city of Stockholm, Sweden! I definitely need to go back!

Spent a day in Estonia and visited the Depeche Mode Baar!

August

Went through a tough time but made it through because of the support of my closest friends and trusted family members.

Started recording Spirit Detectives podcast & started the Spirit Detectives blog with my best friend in Tejas.

Started working at my current job.

Family in H-Town survived Hurricane Harvey

Started up an apron business, Sioux Aprons, with my mom.

September

Saw Apocalyptica in Oakland!

Really delved into self care this month.

Volunteered at Oakland PRIDE at the Asexual booth

October

Managed through a huge NorCal wildfire

Got an IUD because my BCP stopped working.

Went to LA to see HIM for the last time.

Made so much eye contact with Ville (he sung to me so many times! How could I be so lucky!?), Burton, & Linde!

Was in either the first or third row in GA PIT and first row in GA.

Amazing amazing amazing

Got my first tattoo!

Saw Yelle live for the first time finally!

Went to Disneyland & Universal Studios again 🙂

October was obviously a month where I got some energy (besides June/July)

November

Saw Children of Bodom live for the first time! & was in 2nd row! They were perfect and amazing! The crowd was friendly and fun too 🙂

Started experimenting with Instagram: cilla44

@ellenwilbergart

December

Moved to San Jose

  2018 Goals

Drink more water.

You get dehydrated easily and drinking water allows you to take a moment to calm down during the day.

Exercise 3 times a week.

Your scoliosis + your period doesn’t always allow you to work out consistently, but let’s shoot for 3 times a week. Definitely once a week for your mental health.

Live with no fear.

You’re always prepared for every and any scenario and how many times do all of them come true? When it does come true it was insignificant in the larger picture right? So stop wasting your time being anxious about the million of outcomes that could occur and just live your life in the moment. You know, most of your awkward interactions with people is because you’re waiting for them to react so that you can make your next move. When things happen just take them as they come rather than creating a safety net for yourself that doesn’t help you in the long run.

Keep learning.

Stay humble. You’re a smart person and I know you hate wasting time, but read more. Even if you think you know what the article is trying to sell you, seek a news base with quality writing.

Be patient & take your time.

You’re always rushing to finish things. You consciously do this because you want to be efficient so that you have optimal down time. What you’re missing is the journey. Of course you could finish something quickly, but don’t get mad when people want to interact with you in the middle of getting it done. It’s not necessarily “life is about the journey not the end result” but you should find a balance otherwise you’ll go too fast, crash and burn.

Also reflecting is important. You say this every year but TAKE YOUR TIME.

  I’m actually finishing up this post just shy of 2 hours from New Years/midnight. I’m realizing that my life isn’t ordinary. I’m a single girl that’s traveled abroad alone, traveled to another country for a metal festival, works in tech, is asexual, intelligent, vegan, and doesn’t take crap from anyone. I’m not meant to live a normal life of find a man, marry young, have kids, buy a house, and settle down. I’m mobile and I love it. I move often but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Everything that life has given me so far has strengthened me and allowed me to trust myself from different angles. I’m open to new experiences and new environments. I don’t know if I could survive normalcy, and I don’t want to try. I would rather save up money to have lasting experiences that not everyone can afford than go out every weekend and blow my check. I’d rather throw glitter or clay molded into tiny fruit on my face than be too afraid not to. I’d rather believe in the welfare of others that don’t speak the same language as me or have a voice in the first place and fight for their freedom as much as I can. My ancestors accomplished a lot and I want to make them proud for however long I’m here on this Earth.

Later Sweethearts, Cilla

2017 Review Wow long time no blog! I'm still alive gdi. I'm not in my most optimal state currently and I feel like I can't form complete sentences again (hi there depression), but here I am giving an effort.

[jobinterviewghost]

Big Bash League: Josh Inglis, Jhye Richardson produce career-best performances as Perth Scorchers thrash Hobart Hurricanes|PerthNow

Appreciation is coming thick and quick for Josh Inglis in the middle of his breakout Huge Bash League project for the Perth Scorchers.The explosive'

keeper-batsman blasted his 3rd half-century of the tournament in a man-of-the-match performance as the Scorchers transferred to 3rd on the BBL ladder with a 77-win over Hobart at Blundstone Arena tonight.The 24-year-old opener's 46-ball 73 was the finest of his 19-game Twenty20 profession, moving Perth to a competitive overall of 7-175 after getting sent out in.He combined with in-form captain Mitch Marsh(40 off 29 )for a match-winning 109-run third-wicket stand from 67 balls to guide the group out of early trouble. In response, the house side never ever really searched in the hunt without their leading run-scorer D'Arcy Short

, away on One-Day International duties in India, rolled for their 2nd least expensive overall of 98 thanks to speedster Jhye Richardson's disastrous bowling.Richardson continues to get much better as the competition goes on, tearing through the 'Walking sticks on his method to career-best figures of 4-19.

The whippy right-armer took the massive scalps of Matthew Wade (three) and David Miller(third-ball duck)in the very first of his 4 overs, and has 9 wickets in his last 3 outings as he builds steam following shoulder surgery.Leg-spinners Fawad Ahmed (2-15) broke a crucial partnership between 41-run stand in between Caleb Jewell (28) and top-scorer George Bailey (36), while Liam Livingstone(2-4)cleaned up the tail.It was the Scorchers'their third win in a row and fourth from their last 5 starts heading into a number of tough clashes against ladder leaders Melbourne Stars on Wednesday night(at Optus Arena) and Saturday (at the MCG). Australian captains past and present, Ricky Ponting and Tim Paine, legendary leg-spinner Shane Warne and long-time former national wicket-keeper Brad Haddin were among those to talk up Inglis.Paine ranked him amongst the finest young glovemen in the country, while Ponting compared the Yorkshire-born right-hander to New Zealand terrific Brendon McCullum.Inglis played proper cricket shots under pressure, using the complete 360 degrees of the field to hit 4 fours and as lots of 6s, striking at almost 160."I like seeing wicket-keeping at its purist and Josh Inglis is one of the very best, if not the very best young wicket-keeper in the country in my opinion, "Paine said during Channel Seven's BBL coverage."Inglis looks more your conventional Test match wicket-keeper

."For the second time in 3 days, Marsh was included in a century stand, coming to the crease at 2-16 after the terminations of English import Liam Livingstone(three)and Sam Whiteman (8)in the very first three overs.Unlike his heroics versus the Brisbane Heat on Saturday night, the previous Test all-rounder played a rear seat function to pocket rocket Inglis 'fireworks.Both departed in the space of 7 balls late in the innings as Hobart pulled the brakes on a total heading towards the 200 mark.Cameron Green( 13 not out off 7), Cameron Bancroft(14 off 10)and Tim David (12 off 11)all hit valuable runs in the final couple of overs.Left-spinner Clive Rose was the choice of the Hurricanes bowlers with a cost-effective 1-25 from his 4 overs, generally in the power play, consisting of 10 dot balls, while

paceman Tom Rogers grabbed 2-30.

[auburnfamilynews]

Some weekends, it just works out. Sometimes when you are watching games, you just have a sound track playing in your head and the game plays to the mean of those songs. Week 10 of the College Football this season hit it right on the nose for me. I have included the song choices with the games and, even though there are only two selections this week, there is plenty of content that made me giggle. So with that, lets go to our first hit, on this week’s Roasted!

HEARTBREAK IN HUSKERLAND: END OF THE ROAD

‘Member when Scott Frost was the hottest coach in the country? ‘Member when he was gonna turn things around at Nebraska and the fans were so happy a favorite son returned when Momma called? Seems so long ago! And yet, it was just 2 years ago! Well, the Huskers took their 4-4 record to West Lafayette to take on the 2-6 Purdon’t Boilermakers. And boy did they have probably the game of the weekend, and it ALMOST included a monster fat guy TD

Nebraska nose tackle Darrion Daniels perfectly intercepts a bad shovel pass against Purdue https://t.co/E4AeOWKtsepic.twitter.com/xV0cAKuz1V

— For The Win (@ForTheWin) November 2, 2019

But the game was a back and forth affair that ended like this

Purdue earned a big-time win at home against Nebraska! (Via @CFBONFOX)pic.twitter.com/cGSo7bnU7D

— PFF College (@PFF_College) November 2, 2019

Nebraska would get the ball back but refused to call the timeout to talk about a play and this would happen

Clock was running, Nebraska went hurry up on 4th down and the Martinez's pass got tipped! Nebraska had a timeout left! Brutal! PURDUE WINS!!!! pic.twitter.com/3D33Bl7LKB

— I'M SEEING GHOSTS (@FTBeard11) November 2, 2019

Ouch…now that is a crushing defeat to a ruuuuul bad Purdon’t team. Sure, Nebraska isn’t going to can their Rockstar coach after 2 years, but you know that the grumbles are getting louder after that Penn State game earlier this season and now this abomination of a loss. I wonder how much Scott wishes he had stayed in Orlando…though I don’t know which is warmer, Disney or Scott’s coaching seat.

Preseason #24 Nebraska lost to 2-6 Purdue? pic.twitter.com/KV8XdLQGjb

— Steve Helwick (@s_helwick) November 2, 2019

WILLIE WATCH 2019: IT’S SO HARD…

I mean, was there any song that could finish this off?

So to catch all you Willie Watchers up from last week, the Noles circled the wagons after the huge home win against Syracuse to host the Miami Hurricanes at the Doak this weekend. And Gameday did all it could to get you fired up about this one!

Really evocative quote from @ReceDavis on the current state of FSU/Miami "... the taste of this rivalry now is like day-old cream of wheat - it's like a giant spoonful of gruel chased down with the backwash from the soda bottle that's been sitting in your car for a week... pic.twitter.com/pwyQRAqgsi

— libgator (@lib_gator) November 2, 2019

Man…when they put the tear jerker story guy to do your hype video on Gameday, man…that rough. As for the game it didn’t take long for that mighty Nole D to show off that swagger after that piece from Rinaldi.

Alright #Miami! @CanesFootball lead #FSU 7-0. #UMvsFSU #CanesFam @MiamiHurricanes #CanesCartel #BigORadioShow pic.twitter.com/gE0Oy3OdQp

— Orlando Alzugaray Jr (@BigOShow) November 2, 2019

Well, I’m sure the offense had their game face ready then…

Those cut blocks + quick passes FSU ran got figured out quickly. Miami takes away all of Hornibrook’s options and that leaves him as a sitting duck. Silvera and Hill are more than happy to clean it up and let the crowd know. pic.twitter.com/5brXFWptLA

— Canes Legacy (@CanesLegacy) November 3, 2019

Oh…that’s…no good…

When FSU is losing big to Miami pic.twitter.com/dLIpLbcaX4

— SI College Football (@si_ncaafb) November 2, 2019

I think it was at this point, Home Boy realized that this just wasn’t their year.

The game did have the normal chippiness that we are use to from this rivalry though, which was nice.

It’s been chippy all day between #FSU and #Miami. #FSUvsMIA pic.twitter.com/V3fESpU5iH

— Conner Pack (@CPack12) November 2, 2019

However, in the end Miami would hold on by the skin of their teeth with a 27-10 road victory…

Miami Hurricanes smashing FSU and sending Willie Taggart to unemployment pic.twitter.com/Uuxpn8lNqQ

— Los (@RichHomieChapo) November 2, 2019

Meaning that the Canes have won three in a row over FSU…meaning…

It’s been 1,122 days since FSU beat Miami pic.twitter.com/yZE0IQV6kD

— illUMinati (@FL0so) November 3, 2019

So if the story stopped there, that would be a pretty solid Willie Watch update…however…

Breaking: Florida State announced head coach Willie Taggart's contract has been terminated effective immediately. pic.twitter.com/RAVIqBl9ao

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) November 3, 2019

Yeah…so that freaking happened. And yeah

#willietaggart fired by FSU. His contract stipulates he has to be paid 85% of his remaining salary. FSU is paying somewhere between $17-20 million to have him go away. Bonus points it cost them $4.4 million to bring him in from Oregon (which include his USF buyout). pic.twitter.com/0yY3nVeyAn

— SigiLK (@SigiLK) November 3, 2019

I mean, there’s not much more I can say that what that guy just said. And, for an athletic department that doesn’t like to spend money, they suuuuuuuuuuuure did it yesterday. Don’t forget that at the completion of this train wreck, there is a possible bowl game (they need two wins out of Boston College, Alabama State and/or Florida) to go to AND THEN! You have to pay off the previous staff BEFORE you go out and hire a new head guy (whoever that poor bastard is) and his entire staff!

OOOOFA! Though after reading all that, I do know what one man is thinking.

Willie Taggart right now: pic.twitter.com/V28btWxCo9

— MΩW II (@Michael2Wallace) November 3, 2019

And with this, my Willie Watch has ended.

from College and Magnolia - All Posts https://www.collegeandmagnolia.com/2019/11/4/20947007/boom-roasted-boyz-ii-men-edition

[memsmedic1]

La Primavera e L’estate Circa (Jan 2, 2018-Nov 4, 2018)

The next day, after delivering our last patient to the tender mercies of the hospital, the EMT class commenced at our Yangon headquarters with 6 students, mostly our more advanced team members who had already been EMR certified.

Every day I usually taught two or three separate lectures in the morning, and then skills practice in the afternoon, with emergency responses and company responsibilities filling in any extra time.

The class went very well, especially considering it was the first time we’d taught it. Occasionally there were interesting side notes interspersed throughout. On January 11th and again on the 13th we had 6.0 magnitude earthquakes hit nearby, but they were both far enough away that the only damage at our apartment was a few pieces of flaking paint and rotten concrete chips shaken loose. On another occasion two of the omnipresent geckos were having an unusually violent row up and down the apartment walls. After a bit I glanced toward the action again and was shocked to see what looked like a giant tongue protruding out nearly half of one geckos body length and lashing furiously back and forth. Upon closer inspection I realized that he had pulled off the other geckos tail and was in the process of eating it! Also, on the night of the last day of class we got to see a spectacular full lunar eclipse combined with a blood moon which I thought was an excellent sign!

By January 30 we had plowed through through the entire EMT curriculum and the students took the final practical skills tests. The next day they started taking the online final written exam.

At this point Nathan took over administering the written tests and ambulance rideouts that remained, and also prepared for and lead out in the next EMR training that would take place while I was gone, because on February 1st I got on a plane in Yangon and started on my way back to the US.

This trip had been set in stone almost a year before when my best friend and longest-running ambulance partner had asked me to be a groomsman in his wedding!

It was so nice to come back and see all my friends in Texas again! It felt as if I’d only left just a few days ago even though it had actually been over four months! It was inspiring to see how quickly roads, homes, and businesses had been repaired compared to how everything looked when I saw it last. The only obvious signs of the historic flooding from last summers’ Hurricane Harvey was the high water mark still visible in the trees along the road and lots of dead palm trees which was partially due to flooding and also the result of exceptionally low temperatures earlier in the winter.

After 3 whirlwind weeks in Texas that included lots of motorcycle riding and Mexican food, I flew north and got to spend two more wonderful weeks visiting family and friends in Montana! Here I shared more stories of my work and was even able to go skiing in Canada!

As my time back home wound down my mom and I drove to Spokane where my return flight started from and I was able to see two more dear quondam-Texas friends before flying out on March 7th.

I arrived back in Yangon just in time to help pack up our 4th floor office in town and four story apartment in Hlaing Thar Yar and consolidate both into a two story house where we additionally transferred the company and NGO address and registrations.

While the new house was still located in Hlaing Thar Yar township, which is generally considered the worst township because of its poverty and the intolerable volume of traffic over only a few, poorly maintained roads, it had several major improvements; we no longer had a dusty, noisy street directly outside our front door and a permaswamp out the back door, and now we had real doors instead of large metal roll-up “shop” doors which were always letting snakes, rats, and mosquitoes inside through their large gaps.

On March 12 I started teaching an intensive Advanced Emergency Medical Technician (A-EMT) course at our new office headquarters. A-EMT class ran until July 16 because there is both an hour (400) and content requirement for certification, and as we were more busy than ever teaching other classes and responding to emergencies I wasn’t able to hold class every single day. This course was quite similar to January’s EMT course except it was significantly longer, covered many additional topics, and went into a lot more detail on everything. While an EMT certification is not a necessary prerequisite for a student interested in becoming a paramedic, successfully passing an A-EMT course is required.

On March 22, M-EMS was invited to the US embassy in Yangon to meet with the ambassador, the Honorable Scot Marciel, about medical development needs and challenges that we had observed while working in Myanmar. The next day, I and one other employee went back to the embassy to teach a long-scheduled class for security and maintenance staff focused on triage, first aid, and medical evacuation procedures in the case of an attack on the embassy.

On Wednesday, March 28, I drove across the city to the Road Transport Administration Department to apply for a drivers license so I could finally drive legally, although I hadn’t had any trouble with my Texas license so far. Fortunately all the offices I had to visit were in the same building, but there were so many steps and repetitions that it took nearly the whole day. That evening however I was able to walk out with my Burmese license in hand!

On Saturday night, March 31st, Nathan and I along with a couple other team members loaded up in our ambulance and struck out for Myitkyina, an average of 24 hours drive north of Yangon. We have good friends here who had finally been able to bring our Land Cruiser ambulance down to their home from where it had been languishing uselessly 3 days drive further north in Putao, the original intended location for our volunteer ambulance service in Myanmar.

Sunday night after arriving and Monday morning we met our friends and worked to get the Land Cruiser back into working condition. Then we drove over to the pharmacy to pick up some needed supplies before starting on our return trip home that evening.

The pharmacist was an acquaintance of ours from previous visits and when he recognized us he told us about a patient who was the relative of a friends friend who desperately needed a ride to the hospital in Yangon. This was particularly interesting to us, in addition to possibly being able to help someone, because our Land Cruiser was unable to be licensed and therefore vulnerable to confiscation in the central parts of the country, so if we had a patient on board we would be much more likely to make it past all the tolls and checkpoints without arousing too much suspicion.

Therefore we agreed to evaluate the patient and see if he qualified for us to treat and transport. After the pharmacist made a couple phone calls the son of the patient came to meet us at the pharmacy and immediately insisted on taking us out for lunch (shrewd). Next we drove over to the tiny local hospital where we found the patient in a small dark room with several other sick people.

The patient was a 90 year old Sikh man who had been completely healthy until March 22nd when he suddenly began experiencing weakness, shortness of breath, chest pain and a productive cough, and low oxygen saturation.

When I examined him he was polite but was anxious and confused, and in significant distress, having difficulty breathing and hypoxia that was much worse when laying flat, and chest pain that was much worse when he sat up. These are the only two options for taking a patient on an airplane, so without sedating and intubating him first, he would have to go by ground.

After starting an IV, giving him oxygen, and connecting our Lifepak 12 cardiac monitor, we moved him from bed to stretcher to ambulance and then drove across town to his house where all of his family had assembled to say goodbye. They had prepared a traditional feast and insisted we eat with them before starting on our journey.

After the meal and endless goodbyes we got the patient loaded up and pulled out of town just after dark Monday night to begin the 734 mile drive to the “special diagnostic hospital” in Yangon which was the closest thing Myanmar could offer to what the patient needed. I was in the back with the patient performing patient care and Nathan was driving.

After about 16 hours on the road we made it to Mandalay mid morning on Tuesday, April 3rd. The patient had a doctor relative who lived here so we brought the patient to her house where they had a bed and an oxygen tank waiting for him (the oxygen tank was empty however so we had to keep him on our own dwindling supply while they rushed to fill it). After that little excitement we temporarily turned over care to the family doctor so we could wash the ambulance, buy more medicine, refill our O2 tanks, eat, and rest for a bit. Late that afternoon we again loaded up the patient and drove the last 7 hours to the hospital, finally arriving at 1230 AM on the 4th, approximately 30 hours after starting the call.

On April 20th, almost halfway through the A-EMT course, a fire broke out at the 300 acre Htein Bin landfill a couple kilometers from our house. The most likely explanation was that the fire started by spontaneous combustion, since Yangons’ 2,000 tons of daily garbage that avoids the ocean has been dumped here indiscriminately for the past 17 years, without any safeguards to prevent decomposing organic waste from self igniting, but whatever the cause, it was a terrible stroke of misfortune for the people of our township.

Burning dozens of meters underground in many areas, the flames that were visible broke through to the surface unpredictably and were no larger than campfires, and unlike the billowing black smoke from the nearby Hlaing Thar Yar factories, the heavy, suffocating white smoke of the dump fire easily blended in with the clouds and regular smog, creating a false sense of normalcy.

You could tell the smoke was in the air when you breathed though, as the toxic, vaporous miasma permeated everywhere and burned and stung when inhaled, even inside the ambulance or the house. For several days we took to wearing knockoff N95 masks in a vain attempt to shield our lungs. The toxins from all the plastic, textiles, household and commercial trash were so bad and so concentrated that at least 5 people died and dozens of others were hospitalized.

Hundreds of volunteer firefighters descended on the dump with minimal to no personal protective equipment and antique fire engines, each rival group competing for recognition and donations as they heedlessly dragged fat, leaking, low pressure hoses around disregarding warnings from international experts that adding water to that much organic material was just helping the fire to spread faster. Walking around the burning wasteland it appeared that the people who lived in the dump or made their living scavenging for recyclable objects were carrying on with business as usual, picking their way around the flames that occasionally burst through the surface.

Myself and a team from M-EMS paused our ongoing training and spent several days onsite at the fire passing out fake N95 masks that had been donated for the purpose, and treating firefighters injured by trying to fight the fire in flip flops and/or stepping in hidden sinkholes, along with burn injuries, inhalation injuries, other minor trauma, and dehydration.

We also participated in a massive effort to vaccinate all the firefighters and other exposed personnel on site for tetanus, which was also donated for us to administer. The general population was amazingly supportive of the firefighting efforts. We received dozens of calls from random citizens asking what supplies we needed and what they could help us with, and other groups providing different resources received the same assistance. Private citizens also showed up en masse with homemade food, water, snacks, ad hoc rehab shelters, and other amenities for the firefighters. In fact, the government had very little to do with the event other than the precipitating factors.

The fire burned unabated for over two weeks until a couple of early monsoon rains were finally able to drown it out.

On May 1st I took a bus to Myawaddy and crossed over to Thailand intending on doing a quick visa run and then coming back. But as I was walking down the street in MaeSot I saw a familiar truck parked along the side of the road with my good friend —the nurse who I’d helped at her mountain clinic just before I started working at M-EMS— in the back of it!

It was so nice to see her again after all this time. She was in town dropping off a patient at the hospital and resupplying for a return trip to her village that afternoon and she persuasively invited me to come with her again, so I talked to headquarters and ended up taking a spur of the moment trip back home with her and her wonderful assistant and our mutual friend Blet Jaw.

I was able to help her treat patients, garden, hike to different villages to hold medical clinics, and play football (soccer) with Blet Jaw and the local kids.

During this time we were extremely fortunate to be able to sell our Land Cruiser ambulance which had just been sitting idle for nearly the entire time we had owned it. Even though it was very painful to let it go, it was perfect timing because only two weeks later the government took the next step beyond just prohibiting old or improperly imported vehicles from getting licensed and banned all unlicensed vehicles from the roads (you would think this would have been the case all along, but until this point the government only attempted to confiscate fancy attention grabbing vehicles without a license, which is why we’d always been leary about driving our Land Cruiser).

This took an enormous number of the volunteer rescue groups’ ambulances out of use, since most of them are either too old or improperly imported or both, and certainly included our Land Cruiser, which we found out after first importing was two years older than the 16 year old limit to receive an emergency vehicle license.

An interesting postscript to the Land Cruiser saga is that not two months after purchasing it fully stocked and equipped from us, the group that bought it drove it from their border region to Mandalay, where it was promptly impounded and its three crewmen arrested and thrown into the infamous Mandalay Central Prison, currently filled to three times its designated capacity.

Early on May 17 I crossed back into Myanmar and met up with Nathan and several other team members in Myawaddy, who had brought across a load of supplies we needed at our office. I was happy about the timing since it meant I wouldn’t have to subject myself to the grueling, slow, uncomfortable, 2nd class bus ride back to Yangon.

Let me talk about the Burmese busses for a minute. There are three distinctive levels of bus quality in Myanmar: VIP and 1st class, (which are both brand new arrivals to the country even since I’ve been here) which sometimes have semi-comfortable air conditioning and seats, either silence or relatively quiet music and chanting monks on the speakers, and hardly any unscheduled stops or breakdowns.

Next there’s 2nd and 3rd class, blaring loud obnoxious movies or music, and all but guaranteeing extracurricular stops and breakdowns. Sometimes they are chintzy new Chinese models (if you think Chinese products are bad in America, you should see what they export to the rest of the world) and have aircon set to Antarctic Winter, or old no-aircon post-war Japanese models clearly made for post-war Japanese legs. Often the storage compartment size to amount-of-stuff-to-be-stored ratio is inverted and any available space in the passenger compartment including the aisle is packed with everything from suitcases to bags of rice.

And finally, “Cattle Car”, which is the main method of transportation in Yangon other than taxi, with either large songtau-like open trucks, or busses that may be missing windows, side panels, or seats, and filled to beyond capacity with more people standing wedged together in the aisle than sitting on the seats.

But I digress.

After helping to load the van with our Thai spoils we crammed ourselves in after it and started on the time-consuming but short distance-wise (153 miles as the crow flies) trip back home. Driving around the northern tip of the Andaman Sea adds another 107 miles to the trip, but the steep serpentine mountain road and rough narrow dirt road coming into the Central Valley disproportionately lengthen the journey.

Early afternoon we were making good time and were about 2/3 of the way home when our automatic transmission cargo van started making alarming sounds and having trouble downshifting. First it struggled to get into 5th gear, then it started having trouble getting into 4th gear.

We stopped in the only “town” between where we started having trouble and Yangon and found a little teak and bamboo mechanic shop. They took a look at it and said there was heavy transmission damage but they could try to salvage it if we left the van there for several days. We decided to spend the night nearby and have someone drive our ambulance down in the morning to pick us up so the van could stay at the mechanic, but the only government approved hotel for foreigners was closed for remodeling leaving us with very few options.

We decided to screw the probably already screwed transmission and just drive it as far as it would go and then figure out what to do from there. The noises kept getting worse and we started smoking as we screamed along down in 3rd gear, and the “slow, annoying” bus I would have been on cruised effortlessly past us shortly thereafter. Happily, the transmission survived all the way back to the office, over 12 hours after embarking on what should have been an 8 hour drive that morning.

On June 28 I drove up to the capital with a couple teammates where we had been invited to attend a 4th of July celebration hosted by the US Embassy. We were invited because we were friends with several of the embassy officials and also because we’re the highest trained and by far the best supplied ambulance in the country, and the head of the medical unit wanted us to be available in case the ambassador or any of the guests were to have an emergency.

This meant that we had a special clearance to park in the restricted area right outside the hotel the event was hosted in!

The evening was a blast, getting to see the ambassador and hang out with my embassy friends and meet other expats was awesome, plus there was various pieces of artfully curated Americana scattered around and a surfeit of almost American tasting food to gormandize if desired. Out of the several hundred celebrators, somewhat surprisingly not a single one needed medical attention, and our evening’s festivities went uninterrupted.

The next day we visited a beautiful and expansive botanical garden in Naypyidaw for a few hours and then drove back to Yangon that afternoon.

*******************************************************************************************

The summer monsoon was an extraordinarily wet one and caused unusual amounts of damage this year all across Asia, with powerful storms, record rainfall, and shoddy infrastructure combining to wreak havoc on cities and countryside alike...

...While exploring the ‘Tham Luang Nang Non’ cave in Mae Sai, far northern Thailand right on the Myanmar border, heavy monsoon rains caused a flash flood which trapped an entire middle school soccer team deep inside the cave from June 23 to July 10, setting in motion a truly heroic cave rescue which some of my friends participated in but which cost the life of a Thai navy seal diver...

...Remnants of Typhoon Prapiroon combined with sustained heavy rainfall resulted in major flooding and mudslides throughout June and July in western Japan, forcing over 2 million people to evacuate and leaving over 200 dead, with dozens still missing...

...On the Vang Ngao river in Laos, the 410-megawatt Xe-Pian Xe-Namnoy hydroelectric dam collapsed Monday night, July 23rd, triggering the catastrophic release of 5 billion cubic meters of water, leaving 40 people dead, hundreds still missing, and over 6,000 homeless in Laos and northern Cambodia...

...In Myanmar also there was extensive flooding, even more than the normal monsoon rains cause. The 2018 North Indian Ocean cyclone season was the most active season since 1992, with the formation of fourteen depressions and seven cyclones, though not all of these affected Myanmar of course.

In Hlaing Thar Yar we are far enough away from the coast to escape the brunt of these storms, but we still had so much wind that the rain constantly blew up under our roofing tiles and our poorly fitted windows leaked like a sieve; I had a constantly multiplying family of Aedes albopictus wigglers living in my windowsill all summer! Every day for months it seemed, we were out on the roof calking tarpaper nail-holes under the roof tiles. In Yangon there was sometimes six feet of water over certain parts of the city, which usually drains off quickly after the rain abates but has to be factored in when responding to emergencies or transporting to the hospital!

One day, the entire Myaungmya suspension bridge, the only bridge connecting Yangon to Myaungmya, fell into the Irrawaddy river, killing two people and providing a real boon to the ferryboatmen.

The Ministry of Construction told the public not to worry about the other 29 aging suspension bridges suspended around the country because “it has carried out maintenance work on them regularly”.

We felt very reassured upon hearing this message as we regularly traversed two of these bridges nearly every day on our way to and from downtown Yangon 😆.

On July 16 the final online written exams were administered and the A-EMT course was successfully completed, much to the delight of everyone!

I had to renew my visa again so I took the night bus to Thailand on July 17th. Since I had a little extra time I caught a Songtau out to visit my friends at Sunshine Orchard that afternoon (Wednesday the 18th) and spent the week with them. There was a group of student volunteers from Asia Pacific International University helping with some construction projects around the school campus so I got to know them a little bit and helped out where I could. On Wednesday the 25th I was able to hitch a ride in their van as far as MaeSot where I was planning on crossing back to Myanmar.

However, even though the road from the Thai-Burma border to Yangon is elevated several feet above the surrounding countryside which is mostly rice paddies, heavy rains had covered a hundred kilometers of the road in over two and a half feet of water that even the largest vehicles couldn't get through. I waited for over a week but ended up having to take a bus up to Chiang Mai and fly back to Yangon instead.

On August 29th, the Hswar Creek Dam, holding a large irrigation reservoir in Bago Region, central Myanmar, collapsed, which flooded or destroyed 85 villages and displaced over 63,000 villagers. Incredibly, only a small handful of people were killed or went missing but the deluge did manage to wash out bridges on the only two roads that connect Yangon to Naypyidaw, Mandalay, and the rest of the north half of the country.

One of M-EMS and MFA’s long-time areas of interest to expand into was disaster relief, so earlier this year we implemented a disaster response protocol to respond to these uncommonly severe cyclones, the dam bursting, and regular monsoon flooding.

We immediately had more requests for flood relief than we could handle, both in regard to the need, and to the donations of food and clothes that continuously poured in for us to distribute. We provided aid locally and also made trips to deliver loads of donated supplies like rice and other food, clothes, and medical supplies to the hardest hit areas in Bago Region, Mon state, and Karen state.

The villages that aren't situated right on a river usually don't have boats, and are often flooded out of their homes or at least stranded when rapid or unusually high flooding occurs.

Usually we collaborate with various local rescue groups we know in order to get help hauling more supplies to our flooded destination, and with other friends at the destination to find out where the needs are the greatest and set up boat transportation to get us there when we run out of road. At that point we load the boats and take the supplies to the affected villages and either give everything to the villagers directly, or meet with monks from the local monastery who are involved in feeding and housing flood victims already and leave the supplies with them.

It's amazing to see how everything looks so different when there's 5 or 6 feet of water covering the ground. In some places the flooded rice paddies and fields look like an enormous shallow lake with little islands of coconut and sugar palm trees, tall grasses, and sugarcane being the only things still visible. I would think that this would dilute the fish but the fishermen have a heyday. On our way to one village we passed an isolated bamboo house that was on stilts, and the floor appeared to be floating on the water it was so high. The only dry thing near the house was a huge mimosa tree, where some children from the house were playing and waving to us as we floated by! Another village had made a makeshift paddlewheel boat out of a bicycle lashed to the middle of a raft of plastic 5 gallon gas cans with wooden slats tied to the spokes of the back wheel.

Not all the villages we visit are still flooded. Sometimes there's several flooded villages in the vicinity of an easily accessible non-flooded village, or the water has already gone down but no one from the government or other aid groups have donated any supplies to that area, and all their rice and clothes were washed away or ruined when it flooded, so we helped them also.

On top of flood relief we were still constantly occupied with becoming certified to teach additional courses, and teaching CPR, First Aid, ACLS, PALS, EMR and specialty courses, and responding to emergencies. During my time with Myanmar EMS I personally taught or oversaw over 50 different classes and courses! The demand for training far exceeded the supply and only increased the longer we offered it.

From August 27 through September 7 we taught another 80 hour EMR course at a monastery in Yangon for 40 rescue volunteers, including a small contingent that traveled all the way down from Putao in order to attend!

One night we were woken up by a caller on our emergency line telling us about a possible suicide somewhere in Yangon. Astounded by this remarkable vagary, we pressed for details and found out that the caller was calling from America! It turns out he had been chatting with his Burmese girlfriend and at some point, she had gotten all depressed and told him that her cat had just died and she was so lonely without him and now without the cat too. She then said she had decided that she was just going to overdose and die and then hung up on him and turned off her phone. He had rushed online to see if there was any kind of emergency medical service in Yangon and found our website so now he was calling and asking for help.

We asked for any address details and fortunately he had an apartment number and partial address which was obviously meaningless to him, but we had a general idea of the location and soon we were on our way. After interpreting the address two or three different ways without success we struck on the right combination and arrived at the apartment only to find that it was on the third story and the entrance was through the lower apartment which was locked and shuttered. We beat on the lower apartment until we were convinced no one was home and tried shouting up to the third floor without success.

It was at this moment we discovered that the only time you can truly be alone and have some peace and quiet in Yangon is when you just really need someone to notice you!

Walking around looking for an alternate entry point we discovered an antique British era fire escape bolted to the crumbling bricks on the back of the building. Pulling the ambulance around back we could stand on top and just reach the lower rungs. The bottom sliding section of ladder was rusted solidly in place and we were hopeful that everything else was solid as well.

Clambering delicately up to the second balcony we knocked on the door which was opened after a while by a groggy looking gentlemen who didn’t seem the least bit phased by our unorthodox approach.

We explained who we were and why we were there and then he said “yes; I have a daughter, she’s in her room sleeping at this very moment.” (By now it was nearly 3 AM). We said “Oo ley; (uncle) why don’t you go check on her right now and make sure just for our sake that your daughter is ok.” He acquiesced and pottered off into the bowels of the apartment leaving us floating out in the ethereal third story Yangon smog layer. In a couple Burmese minutes he was back smiling and assured us that she was sound asleep in bed.

“Oo ley; if she has poisoned herself she may appear to be sleeping peacefully when in fact she is dying or already dead. Just wake her up and let us see that she is well before we leave.”

The man was gone a little longer this time but when he came back he was moving much more rapidly and said that she wouldn’t wake up. He finally invited us in and led us to the girl’s room where we found her to be unresponsive in bed. She was cool, pale, and diaphoretic and was only breathing 8 times per minute. We assisted her breathing with a BVM and checked her blood sugar which was 31 mg/dL. After starting an IV and administering 25 grams of D50 (50% dextrose) she rapidly began showing signs of improvement. We searched her room and found an empty bottle of antimalarial medicine which causes rapid hypoglycemia and can cause blindness if overdosed on.

By now she was fully conscious and cooperative and her vital signs were stable. We carried her out to the ambulance (via the stairs this time) and took her to the hospital in case there was anything that they could do to protect her vision.

Since before teaching our very first EMR course, one of my main behind-the-scenes responsibilities was to develop and improve our course materials, which is a never ending process, and as our lineup of available courses increased so did my job of upgrading our teaching materials.

Because of the complete lack of credible Burmese language medical books, we had also begun editing, formatting, and translating both a basic first aid book and an EMR textbook into Burmese. This was an enormous, frustrating process, but after over two years of work, both projects were completed and published this year!