#and i was zoning out on some of them because on the tennis court brands don't stick out as much

[confinesofmy]

challengers felt strangely unpolished for a film that had a budget of $55mil and was shot on 35mm film. maybe i'm just a picky freak idk. like, they had some scenes where the passion was so present. then others it was like damn. that cut was sloppy. they kept that in? that was a weird casting. oh that's an odd song choice. i had a good time but i was so unimpressed so many times. then there was stuff like the cinematography involving the tennis where i was really really impressed and interested to see the behind the scenes. i still don't know quite how to feel about the movie.

[egcdeath]

checkmate

summary: you’ve always refused to lose, and love was no exception. (gone girl-ish au)

pairing(s): ransom drysdale x dark!reader, a special mystery guest ;) 

word count: 3.7k

warnings: 18+ because of heavy themes! faked death, framing of crimes, manipulation, alluding to sex, alluding to cheating, terrible relationship dynamic, very loose usage of the word crazy/psychotic, implied mention of self harm, brief choking & slapping (in a non sexual way lol), pregnancy trapping (idk if thats the right term), the reader is a very bad human being, overuse of italics  *please let me know if i’m missing any warnings!

author’s note: this is my 2nd submission for @stargazingfangirl18’s 5k soft dark challenge, i decided to make the reader dark >:) but ransom is also not a good person. I used these prompts: “I’ve waited a long time for this, sweetheart.” & The town golden *girl isn’t as sweet as everyone thinks.

this is definitely the most unhinged thing i’ve ever written, but blame @literate-lamb for making me write this because when i pitched this to her and said that i’d probably never write it, she enabled me. 

okay that's enough from me. join my taglist if you want :D

“I know women whose entire personas are woven from a benign mediocrity. Their lives are a list of shortcomings: the unappreciative boyfriend, the extra ten pounds, the dismissive boss, the conniving sister, the straying husband. I've always hovered above their stories, nodding in sympathy and thinking how foolish they are, these women, to let these things happen, how undisciplined. And now to be one of them! One of the women with the endless stories that make people nod sympathetically and think: Poor dumb bitch.” Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl

Your whole life, you’d considered yourself a competitive person. Constantly overcompensating for one thing or another, whether it was the chronic desire to achieve perfection that had been installed in you since you were a little girl, or your persistent internalized sense of inadequacy. You realized early on that it was much better for you to win than for you to lose, no matter the physical, emotional, or mental cost of the prize of perfection.

For the most part, this mindset worked out for you. You graduated as Valedictorian from your high school, neared the top of your graduating class at Harvard. God knew you earned it, all those tears you shed into overpriced textbooks, all the popping of unprescribed Adderall, and robbing yourself of the parties and social events that the rest of your peers gladly indulged in. 

You were just different, which was why you gained a job nearly immediately after your exit from school, quickly climbing to the top at the Blood Like Wine publishing company after only a few years of being there. 

And one night, at the party celebrating the release of A Thousand Knives when you laid your eyes on Hugh Ransom Drysdale, the grandson of your boss, you knew that you needed to have him. Rich, hot, a bit of an asshole. You deserved to finally complete your image, and that socialite flavored eye candy seemed to fit the part perfectly. Luckily for you, he was desperate. It only took a few tugs on your dress’ V-line, and a number of knowing smirks to find yourself being finger-banged in his family manor’s bathroom.

From there, you wormed your way into his life. Leaving belongings at his place as an excuse to come back, and offering booty calls in the middle of the night. Ransom must’ve been much more desperate than you originally thought, as it really only seemed to take one night of stroking his hair while he vented about his family to make him want to be with you. Men with mommy issues were always so easy. 

Except, he wasn’t that easy. The longer you got to know Ransom, the more fucked up you realized he really was. He had no boundaries at all, became jealous and enraged at the drop of a pin, and occasionally told you things that made the hairs on your arms rise. 

This of course all came to a head after the night of Harlan’s 85th birthday party. When the news broke of his tragic death, you’d immediately known it was the works of your Hugh. If your intuition wasn’t enough, his confession in the shower, where he’d demanded you take off your clothes to display that you were without a bug, certainly was. 

You were completely devastated. The man that you’d invested so much into for years had thrown both his and your reputations down the drain in just a matter of hours. Of course, you felt bad for Harlan too. He was a good guy (when he wasn’t instigating a family fight).

Still, you showed up during the funeral in your best mourning clothes and dawning your biggest crocodile tears. You rubbed Linda’s back while she mourned the loss of her father, and the new truth about her husband. You played dumb when interrogated by some Southern private investigator, even giving Ransom an airtight alibi. You testified on his behalf in court with enough conviction to grant you an Emmy. 

You’d gotten so far, devoted so much energy into him, that you simply refused to lose now. 

To your friends, you’d seemed to lead a near perfect life. Dream job, dreamy boyfriend, dream bank account, but it wasn’t enough. You wanted more, you just didn’t know what. 

It dawned on you while sipping mimosas at the country club, Ransom playing tennis with his friends just a few yards away from you while Danielle showed off her brand new engagement ring, a .59 Carat Asscher Diamond, that if you heard her speak of again, would probably make you lose your shit.

You zoned out as she droned on and on about the shape, and how Matt proposed to her in their own private room in one of the most exclusive Parisian restaurants, instead focusing on how you could find yourself in the same position as that airhead next to you. In all honesty, you couldn’t stand the idea that someone was doing better than you, let alone someone in your own social circle. Dani got all the bragging rights of being engaged to the heir of some tech giant, being the first in your friend group to get eloped, and worst of all, Matt wasn’t even making her sign a prenup. 

You blankly watched Ransom from afar, taking occasional sips from your sweet drink, while you thought of how you deserved all of that and more, and you were going to get it one way or another. 

——

It didn’t take much to come up with something, your first and most obvious plan being to simply ask Ransom when he was going to propose to you. Of course, this wasn’t the first time you’d tried to approach him about this subject, you just wondered if maybe this time things would be different.

Panting heavily after a rather rough night in bed, you rolled off of your boyfriend’s chest and gave him a messy, yet sincere kiss. You knew your man well, and if there was any time to pop the question, it was in his post-nut haze.

“Baby,” you said breathily, “I wanna ask you something.”

“Shoot,” he responded casually, glancing over at you. 

“When’re you gonna propose to me?” you hummed.

Ransom groaned and shook his head, rolling his eyes, “this is about Matt and Dani, huh?” he tutted, then extended a hand out to your warm cheeks so he could gently caress one with his thumb. “Thought we agreed marriage is just a piece of paper and it’s stupid.”

You huffed in response.

Of fucking course.

“I never said that,” you muttered, setting a hand on his broad chest. “Besides, it’ll be good if you get pissed and decide to like, kill your dad or something. Y’know, spouses don’t have to testify against each other in court.”

Ransom chuckled as if this whole thing was funny, like your feelings were some kind of sick joke to him. “You know my lawyers, babe. They could prove that bees don’t make honey. That bears don’t shit in the forest. I appreciate your attempt, though. This has been some really nice pillow talk.” 

“Whatever,” you muttered, pinching his nipple in retaliation before turning your back to him and yanking the blanket onto your side. 

You weren’t sure why you were so surprised that he was being stubborn, most of the time you felt like you were pulling teeth from the man. But that’s why you had a backup plan! You always had a backup plan. That’s what separated you from your boyfriend. Where Ransom was extemporized and impulsive, you were calculating and prudent. 

Although you devised your plan that very afternoon while watching your partner backhand small green balls, you were going to need some time to get everything in order, to prove Murphy and his stupid law wrong in making sure that everything that could go wrong wouldn’t. 

After all, love was a game. And you sure as hell weren’t losing to Hugh Drysdale. 

——

You sacrificed too much to have your plans ruined by some trust fund baby with impulsivity issues. You deserved your dream marriage, the stability you wished you had as a child. You wanted the white picket fence, and everything that came along with it. Your desire to be the best, to be perfect was what drove you to poke holes in every condom in the box, what led you to draw liters of your own blood in hopes of staging a fake crime scene, to buy a cheap getaway car and burner phone off of Craigslist, and reach out to a high school boyfriend who you knew was in a position as desperate as you. 

You planted seeds of doubt in your friends throughout the following weeks, feeding them lies about Ransom’s behavior, how you were afraid of telling him that you did in fact see two faint red lines on that damn plastic stick– only half of the statement truly being false–, telling them that he was behaving erratically lately.

It all was going without a hitch. Ransom didn’t seem to notice anything was off, despite your frequent visits to the bathroom and newfound affinity for true crime documentaries. 

You almost felt guilty, knowing the world of pain you were about to throw the man into. Granted, he deserved the pain. You were in a relationship with a genuinely terrible person, and that person had made a conscious effort not to commit to you. You tried to make this easy for him, give him a chance to say a few words to you and slide a ring on your finger, but no, he always seemed to take the hard route.

You slept like a baby the night before you were setting your plan in action. You made sure to uphold the facade of everything being fine, making Ransom a nice breakfast before sending him halfway across town to the hardware store with an oddly incriminating list.

Once he was out of the house, you hurried off to the fridge in the garage where you’d been keeping a small stash of your own blood. It wasn’t pretty, but it had to be done. You poured the blood throughout the kitchen, splattering bits of it on the counters and cupboards. You poorly cleaned the mess, just as he would.

You put your next move in motion, falsifying a home invasion. You tossed over a table and some chairs, throwing books and photos onto the floor, but left some aspects slightly untouched, like an upright picture frame to give yet another hint that things were not exactly what they appeared. 

You left a tiny blue post-it note on the nightstand of Ransom’s side of the bed, a quick and simple doodle of a ring along with the first initial of your name inked onto the tiny piece of paper. 

With that, you were off. Technically missing, soon-to-be presumed dead.

----

 The days following your disappearance had gone even better than you’d initially planned. Local news coverage had been all over you, search and rescue groups were assiduously looking for you, your parents had opened a tip line, and begged for you to get home safe on news segments. But the best part of it all was that Ransom had been briefly found himself in police custody, only to be released shortly thereafter. His past of an accused murder quickly made your disappearance even more of a national story, and you watched the whole thing unravel from the safety and comfort of your high school boyfriend, Andy Barber’s Newton home. 

Of course, you fed him the same lies you’d given to your friends, and seeing the rather lonely position he was in, he gladly let you stay with him. You were absolutely having a hay-day with it all, dedicating hours of your day to watching Ransom slowly unravel. Maybe it was a bit sadistic of you to enjoy torturing your partner so much, but he needed to learn his lesson. You deserved better. You needed Ransom to rise up to your level, allowing you to finally complete your image. To let you two appear to be the perfect couple. Really, this was all on him.

Andy, for the most part, had been a good host. He was gone for the majority of the day, dedicating himself to his work while you lounged around on his dangerously cozy couch. Around two weeks into your stay, you were sharing a box of pizza in the living room with your old lover when something interesting on the television caught your eye.

Ransom, broadcasted on CBS, being interviewed on your disappearance. 

You watched with wide eyes as Ransom begged for your return on national television. It was one thing seeing your mother plead for you to come back, the same woman who had installed such toxic behavior in you sob for your return, but Ransom. You’d never loved him more than in that moment.

“Hugh, if you could tell Y/N one thing, what would it be?” the interviewer asked.

Ransom turned, looking straight at the camera, directly into your soul, “Y/N, I love you so much. More than you’ll ever know. I need you to come back safely, to see you, to hold you again. I’d give anything in the world for that right now,” he looked down, a tear falling down his cheek. “I can’t live without you in my life, I-”

His sentence was cut off by Andy grabbing the remote, and turning off the TV. You turned your head and frowned deeply at him.

“Why’d you do that?” you asked with a bit of a pout.

“I just couldn’t stand listening to him talk about you like he hasn’t treated you like shit for the past few years. C’mon, let’s get ready for bed.”

Your blood boiled. Andy was once a means to an end, but now he was interfering. He was clearly much too selfish to see that you and Ransom were quite obviously soulmates. A match made in hell. 

You followed him to bed regardless, curling up on what had been your side of the bed for the past few days, and staring at the wall until Andy’s breaths moved from a soft and rhythmic pattern to loud snores. God, those snores were obnoxious. 

You slipped out of bed and to his dresser, grabbing two soft ties from the drawer, and daintily tying his wrists to each side of the bedpost.

“What‘re you doing?” he mumbled, instinctively yanking both of his wrists as he awoke.

“I’m going back home,” you whispered.

“You can’t be serious,” Andy huffed, tugging on the restraint attached to the headboard.

You shook your head, “I am.”

“I should’ve known. Why would you do something like this? Do you know how much trouble you’ll be in with the law?”

“Do you know how much trouble you’ll be in when the world finds out that you kidnapped me?” you retorted.

This threat seemed to wake him up right away, “what about this was kidnapping? I gave you a nice home, fed you, I didn’t even make a pass at you. I didn’t do shit to you,” he hissed. “You think I can’t prove that? I’m a lawyer, for god's sake!”

You nearly laughed, “Okay, Andy,” you paused for a moment, “As a lawyer, who do you think everyone’ll believe? Someone who the world was on a wild goose chase for in the last two weeks? Or the man with a family history of violence? Must I remind you that your father and your son have killed people?”

Andy shook his head, face pinched in sorrow at the mention of his deceased son, clearly a low blow. “You’re insane,” he muttered.

“Swear to god that you won’t tell a soul what happened here,” you leaned over him, getting right in his face. “Or I promise, Andrew Barber, I will ruin you. You’ll spend the rest of your life behind bars, or disbarred, or whatever the hell I decide to do with you. So keep your goddamn lips shut.” 

You pulled away and he solemnly nodded, not bothering to put up a fight. You loosened the fabric around his left wrist and walked out of the room. You picked up the keys to Andy’s Audi on your way out, checking the time as you adjusted the driver's seat. 

9:45 PM. Fatherhood really changed the man.

You pushed that thought aside and began your drive home, which turned out to be a surprisingly short trip. When you pulled up in front of your home, you were met with a slew of reporters outside of the house, along with a police car that seemed to be permanently camped there.

As you slowly got out of the car, a gasp, followed by a loud silence fell across the crowd. You limped for dramatic effect up the driveway as cameras followed you, and glanced back at them pathetically. From your peripheral view, you noticed the officers get out of their vehicle.

You finally got to your door, ringing the doorbell and waiting. You blinked harshly a few times, conjuring up the tears you needed to really make a spectacle of the event. After a few minutes, Ransom opened the door, eyes widening as he looked at you. He stepped out, and you wrapped him in as big of a hug as you could manage, genuinely missing his embrace. It was possible that you even let out a few real tears in the moment.

Your emotional embrace was interrupted by the man you recognized as Lieutenant Elliott, the same officer who’d been assigned to Harlan’s case. 

“Ma’am,” he began, only to be shut down by you. 

“Please, just let me be with my boyfriend,” you pleaded, crocodile tears streaming down your face as you spoke with the officer. You still needed time to get your story straight.

“Just give us the night, Lieutenant. We’ll come in first thing tomorrow morning,” Ransom added, furrowing his brows at the officer that he’d come into contact with far too many times. 

He looked to his partner, who shrugged, then to you, “enjoy your night.”

Cameras flashed around you as civilians, journalists, and newscasters alike attempted to catch your attention. You grabbed Ransom’s hand and dramatically pulled him inside, insincerely attempting to hide your face by ducking and covering half of your face with your arm. 

As soon as you were in the privacy of your own home, Ransom threw you against a wall. 

“Why. The fuck. Would you pull a stunt like that,” he hissed through gritted teeth, eyes wild, and a hand around your throat. 

You whimpered as he tightened his grip, rage clearly flowing through his system uncontrollably.

“Do you know what you did to me? You almost had me thrown in fucking jail. Do you understand that?”

You nodded weakly, “Ran,” you whispered, “the baby,” you glanced down at your stomach.

He paused, dropping his grip on your neck and staring at you in awe, “no…” 

You nodded again. 

“How…? You told me you were on the pill… You- you made me use protection…”

“Surprise?” you said weakly. 

“You’re a psychotic bitch.”

“I’m your psychotic bitch. And no child of mine will be born out of wedlock,” you taunted. 

“That’s what this is about?” Ransom laughed manically. “You did this all because I won’t fucking marry you?”

You didn’t even have to respond.

“I should send you to the loony bin right fucking now.”

“What happened to all those things you said to me on TV?”

“You’re fucking delusional. I can’t do this.”

“Yes, you can. And you will. I’ve had to put up with you and your stupid little antics for way too long. How do you think I felt when you killed your own grandfather?”

Ransom scoffed, throwing his hands up in exasperation, “you are so fucked up.”

“I’m the fucked up one? You killed your own blood in cold blood! You’re unhinged!” 

“You faked your own death for attention, and got pregnant while doing it! Is that baby even mine?”

“The fuck are you trying to say, Hugh?”

“I asked if it’s even mine.”

“Really. You’re accusing me of cheating on you. That’s rich considering Mia, Layla, and whoever the fuck else. You’re being ridiculous.”

“I’m being ridiculous? You couldn’t have a normal adult conversation with me!”

“Are you kidding me? I asked you time after time to marry me and it was always some bullshit excuse!” you wagged a finger in his face as you spoke. “Oh, commitment scares me, oh, marriage is just a piece of paper, oh-“ you mocked his voice in a deeper tone before you were cut off by the sting of his hand against your cheek.

“Can you shut the hell up?” he growled at you as you held your own cheek, before you reached out and slapped him back, “I can’t believe that I’m stuck with such a deranged bitch for the rest of my life.”

“Maybe work on your vows a little, dear. I don’t think that those words are as charming to me as they’d be to the rest of our family and friends.”

“You can’t be serious,” he groaned.

“But I am,” you hummed, rubbing your cheek softly once again. “Look at how fast your life fell apart without me here. How quickly the public turned on you. Imagine how upset they’d be if you left me. I love you, Ran. I really do. You and I are perfect for each other, can’t you see that now?”

Ransom took a step away from you, pacing slowly in front of you. He ran a stressed hand through his hair, and took a long and drawn out breath, clearly at a loss for words.

“So when should we have the wedding? I’ve always wanted a Spring wedding, and I know it’s a little short notice, but I don’t want to be showing too much in my wedding dress,” you grabbed Ransom’s bicep gently, as if you were just having a regular old day with him, as if you hadn’t been choked and slapped moments ago. “But we can make it work. We always make it work, right?”

Your now fiancé stared vacantly at the wall ahead of him, giving you a slow, empty nod of agreement. 

“It’s settled then,” you smirked. “I’ll start looking at venues. You find me a nice ring, okay Honey? One that puts all those other bitches’ rings to shame,” you sighed pleasantly to yourself, “I’ve waited a long time for this, sweetheart.”

You pressed a soft kiss to his cheek before hurrying up the stairs and into your bedroom. You heard a distant shriek of  “fuck,” from Ransom, but you truly could not care less. 

You hopped into bed, grabbing your laptop from its charger and promptly opening it. You couldn’t help but to smile at your own reflection on the empty black screen. This wasn’t how you imagined your engagement, but you did the impossible. You tied yourself down to Hugh Ransom Drysdale, he went down kicking in screaming, and you were likely in for a lifetime of cheating and resentment, but you did it nonetheless. 

You finally won.  

[purplesurveys]

658

Tell me a favourite memory of yours. Egh, this is such a loaded question because there are all sorts of memories that I treasure both for the good and bad. I’d go with the 3-hour long talk I had with Gabie a few months ago in the middle of the Academic Oval, on one of the benches, near the lawn tennis court. We were at that point in the relationship where everything has been going great in the present, but at the same time moving so intensely quickly and with the future running after us. Long story short, the talk went well, covered all the bases that we had been scared to face in the last three years, and we ended stronger than we already were. Can you tell me one or two people who have greatly influenced your life? I don’t like having influences because I’ve always just wanted to handle my life and my decisions the best way I think I should go. CM Punk has definitely been the closest thing to an influence that I’ve had, but there are still traits he has or things he had done that I didn’t particular want to follow. What advice would you give your teenage self? I’d tell her she did everything right, and to just keep taking risks and small steps out of her comfort zone every once in a while. Idk, I don’t have a lot of regrets and I’m glad with most of the choices I made. There were rough patches here and there obviously but they served as lessons in the end. Of all the people you've lost in your life, who do you miss the most? My grandfather, because I lost him before we could ever spend /TIME/ time with one another; and Nacho. What is it about them that you miss? My lolo died when I was a teenager, at a time when I was still figuring myself out and figuring the world out. I wasn’t grown-up yet, so I missed all the wonderful and insightful conversations we could have had if he were still here today. He loved his alcohol too and I’m just sad I never got to have at least one drink with him, because when he died I still had negative connotations about alcohol from childhood trauma. I would have loved to take the first shot with him as a symbol of me leaving that past trauma behind for good. Nacho I obviously miss because he was gone before his time. He was such an ambitious student leader, was in the running for freaking summa cum laude, and he was supposedly scheduled for an interview with a major local broadcasting network to be a reporter/host a few days after his death. If we had just given him a chance, he’d still be around today; there will always be a part of me that hates myself forever for barely doing anything for him in his final moments. I miss him so, so, so, painfully, terribly much.

Are their any moments or memories that you think shaped who you are today? The childhood family/alcohol trauma FOR SURE. That forced me to grow much earlier than the rest of my peers, and while that sounds bad I honestly think it was a good thing as it taught me to be strong early on. My dad having to work overseas my entire life is another thing; it ultimately taught me to be more independent. Idk, I wasn’t given a very good hand from the very beginning, but what matters to me is that I did the best I could do with it. Do you have any regrets? Small ones here and there. How would you like to be remembered? Way too early to be thinking about this right now, and the least bit triggering too to be honest lol. What's the first thing you notice when meeting someone new? Body language. I’m super sensitive to that.

Describe your perfect day. Just being with Gab all day and not having to worry about running out of money lolol. Who are you really? Who is behind the mask that you show to the world? Too deep, not into this kinda question. If you had to sum up the whole human species in 3 words... Mostly a disappointment. Are humans better at creation or destruction? We’re good at creating innovative stuff, but we take part in destruction exponentially more. Psychology, philosophy, biology? If we’re talking about subjects, I prefer biology because it’s the most interesting to me and the easiest to learn. I like memorization, so it works best for me.

What is the most uplifting thing happening in the world right now? Definitely coastal cleanups from around the world. Hearing about them always makes my heart swell. What is the most tragic thing? Donald Trump’s entire person. What is the purpose of a human life? Pass. Ugh, I hate these kinds of questions. I just wanna talk about my lunch or who pissed me off today, dude. Then again it’s my fault for taking this, so I shouldn’t be complaining lmao. Who do you know who is living life to the fullest? The people with 10 orgs in UP and still have an excellent academic standing, for sure. If you were given an envelope with the time and date of your death inside would you open it? Yep, but I’d still be disappointed for not knowing the reason. What are the pros and cons of colonising other planets? A good pro is that we finally have somewhere else to live considering how overpopulated this planet is becoming. A con is that considering how shitty we’ve treated our only planet, I don’t think we deserve a brand new home lmao especially if lessons have not been learned yet. How could this help or harm the human race? I feel like I answered this already. Do animals experience emotions? I’m sure they do, just not at the same depth as humans. And perhaps some animals are more emotional than others, like domesticated ones, but that’s just my theory. If so, do they experience emotions in the same way humans do? Answered this. If not, how do they experience the world and what dictates their behaviour? I’m not Nat Geo, my dude. What is the most beneficial emotion? What is the most destructive? I put a premium on sympathy as it’s the best way to connect with people, for me. Jealousy and envy are tied for most destructive.

[anewpoliticalspin]

Sometimes, the conservative side became the feel-good vote!

Denial is unfortunate reality we see people employ often, at least for some time, but sometimes for their entire lives. It’s a strategy people use that feels comforting, and it is easy to fall back onto, at least until circumstances force us to wake up. However, when it has to do with certain political issues, surrounding issues that are far removed from us, we can spend decades or even our lifetimes in denial of the reality of them, since they are issues that often don’t impact us directly.

Now, I’ve definitely seen both sides employ denial, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone not guilty of it. However, over the past few decades, and more and more in recent years, I’ve seen US conservatives use it.

Now, I’m not trying to dismiss conservatism as an ideology-which actually has a lot of elements that I like, but more on that later. 

Here’s a case in point showing why I believe the brand of conservatism we’ve seen of the past 30 or 40 years has, more and more, shown denial of the difficult truths of the circumstances many people live under, even some fairly noticeable ones, such as human-made climate change causing natural disasters, the toll on civilians of our wars in the Middle East, rather than it being a war mostly devastating terrorists alone, and the true level of poverty in the United States. These are often issues that do not affect us directly, or at least in the case of poverty, that do not affect those of us who have never lived under it.

A book was put out by a prominent conservative commentator in 2004 that defended the internment of tens of thousands of Japanese Americans during WWII and stated that the historical record and commonly held belief we had surrounding it was false. Mind you, this action by our government was seen as so horrific that monetary reparations were later paid to the descendents of these internees. What happened was a forcing of masses of people away (from their friends and everything they knew) into internment camps with perfect strangers. The fact alone that they were forced to relocate to these camps for the duration of the war, away from friends, family, and most employment opportunity, should be enough to be horrified by regardless of conditions at the camp. The fact alone that tens of thousands of people were forced to leave their homes is enough. Furthermore, it’s also agreed on by historians that the conditions of these camps tended to be poor (when you look at it, it’s expensive to house thousands of people, especially for years on end, so it’s hard to see them devoting enough resources for those people to be able to live comfortably. More on living conditions later from this author.)

The thesis of the book is: that the forced internment of thousands of people was acceptable because our national security called for it. What you can gather from this book, and I’ll give you a sampling of what the author wrote, is that the author agrees that these masses of people were forced to leave their homes to move to another part of the country, and it was a very difficult thing to do but supports it anyway:

“Ethnic Japanese forced to leave the West Coast of the United States and relocate outside of prescribed military zones after the Pearl Harbor attack endured a heavy burden, but they were not the only ones who suffered and sacrificed.”

Notice how even the author admits it was a heavy burden yet goes on to support doing it?

“The central thesis of this book is that the national security measures taken during World War II were justifiable, given what was known and not known at the time.”

Her argument was that it was required to protect lives. In the book she states,

““I start from a politically incorrect premise: In a time of war, the survival of the nation comes first. Civil liberties are not sacrosanct. The “unalienable rights” that our Founding Fathers articulated in the Declaration of Independence do not appear in random order: Liberty and the pursuit of happiness cannot be secured and protected without securing and protecting life first.”

“No one was exempt from the hardships of World War II, which demanded a wide range of civil liberties sacrifices on the part of citizen and noncitizen, majority and minority alike.”

I don’t believe it was even a desperate circumstance. I don’t believe that there were enough among the Japanese among us at the time who caused a large threat in the first place. Oh, and I’ll save for the fact that I’m sure the Japanese government would have been shrewd enough to plant spies in our nation if they planned on attacking Pearl Harbor. They may even have planned a few assassinations. Still, was it such a large threat, enough to justify even drastic action? While it’s possible they would have attempted violent acts of terror, it seems very unlikely, since large scale military victories are usually what are sought in war. Overall, such outcomes are small compared to the price paid by these tens of thousands of people forced into these centers for years. I think it was based on fear and not fact.

The simple fact that this author, Michelle Malkin who until 2020 was a widely read columnist and Fox News contributor, thought this was morally justified is morally bankrupt. What’s even more shocking is that this book was published in 2004, and it was until 2020 that Michelle Malkin was discredited. It took 16 years, and that didn’t happen until she openly praised an open anti-Semite and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes and some openly racist groups like the Groypers (source here). In addition, the book was well-received by a number of people: it gets 4.3 out of 5 stars on Amazon (a biased sampling of course, since it’s her fans who read it, but how can anyone enjoy that?).

Apparently, it’s not enough to publish a book arguing that forcing tens of thousands of people away from their friends and everything they know, into boring, uncomfortable, internment camps lacking so many of the things we take for granted (privacy, being able to cook our own meals, a variety of employment or employment at all), and with perfect strangers, is somehow acceptable, especially when it wasn’t really worth the protection it supposedly provided. That won’t get you discredited. The Right did not have the courage or the spine to remove people from it’s who both support and deny the existence of serious cruelty. It wouldn’t be far from having liberals refusing to acknowledge the atrocities committed by the Soviet Union.

I’m sure the biggest reason they didn’t was pride and group affiliation. It can feel a bit humbling to admit one of your members is guilty of something, but it can be done. When Ann Coulter joked that some 9/11 widows had enjoyed their husbands’ deaths after getting media coverage for their views on 9/11, conservative commentators like Bernard Goldberg, a regular Fox contributor, mentioned how vile her comments were and how she had a tendency to take things too far, and Bill O’Reilly said something about it too. However it also had to do with the lack of compassion shown. Our compassion should tell us everything that was wrong with how the Japanese living here were forced away from everything they knew and loved and make sure people don’t adopt attitudes of indifference to serious abuse.

Here’s most important reason why I bet she wasn’t disowned though: frankly, that kind of denial of the genuine hardships experienced by people, more and more became an occurrence that wasn’t uncommon on the Right. In this case, it wasn’t denial of the fact that it happened (she admits they were evacuated and kept there), it’s denial of just what an awful event it was, and how unjustifiable it was. There is even rationalization at play by means of saying that the Japanese-American internees lived in nice conditions.

“Inside, Santa Fe internees built a small golf course, two tennis courts, and four baseball diamonds. The Santa Fe-shisha Tanka Poetry Club met regularly, and camp residents attended Kabuki performances held in an outdoor theater. 25 Fort Missoula, Montana, was surrounded by twenty-four hundred feet of chain-link fence topped by barbed wire. Inside, the camp were barracks, a hospital, school, library, bakery, two-winged mess hall, and a recreation hall built of lodgepole pine that seated more than eight hundred.”

Remember how Todd Akin said that, “If it’s legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down”. It’s obviously false, rape victims get pregnant with a child they didn’t choose all the time. Why was it said? To give us the false sense of security that getting stuck with an unwanted child you didn’t ask for is very, very unlikely. Sorry, it isn’t. Oh, and I am not making any stance on abortion, for the purposes of this article, but whether you support or are against abortion, you have to accept that getting stuck with a child you in no way asked for is a serious hardship that’s not all that rare.

It’s the Right that’s long denied that humans have caused climate change which has already caused deadly natural disasters.

You can find in fact many of conservative articles claiming that the poverty rate is America is actually zero when you factor in government assistance. Google it. Oh, and only by living in New York City I can tell you it’s not true: walk through Manhattan and in some parts you see at least one if not more homeless people on every block. Homelessness has always been a problem there and has grown worse during the COVID-19 epidemic.

See the pattern?

Denial is a common psychological reaction to bad news, which is blocking it out. It’s actually one of the stages of grief. We have to get past it, or we show a lack of spine and compassion.

I wrote on how conservatives in the United States in recent decades have often denied the difficult circumstances of many. Take a look, links here, and here.

[goarticletec-blog]

Reggie Miller Sounds Off on Paying College Athletes

New Post has been published on https://www.articletec.com/reggie-miller-sounds-off-on-paying-college-athletes/

Reggie Miller Sounds Off on Paying College Athletes

Who Reggie Miller is to you depends, at least in part, on where in this fine country you hail from. If you’re a Los Angeleno, he’s the UCLA legend who finished second on the program’s all-time scoring charts behind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. If you’re an Indianan, he’s the single greatest Pacer of all time, who scored more than 25,000 points and sunk upwards of 2,500 threes—good for 2nd in NBA history—as he dragged the franchise as far into the playoffs as they’ve ever ventured. And if you’re a New Yorker, he is simply the Knick Killer.

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Nowadays, though, Miller has carved out a fine career as a broadcaster. He regularly calls NBA games on TNT, and when March Madness revs up, you can find him calling college ball for Turner Sports. The NCAA Tournament tips off Thursday, and Miller will call four games on the day, starting with Oklahoma-Rhode Island around noon. Along the way, he’ll offer his particular brand of no-nonsense insight into the tactics and mental games at play in one of the greatest single-elimination tournaments in sports. Miller offered some of that to Esquire earlier this week, as he touched on who’s a contender and who’s a potential Cinderella, why the “one-and-done” model is “a joke,” and whether college programs need to start paying their players.

The second game you’re calling is Iona vs. Duke. Are the Blue Devils the real deal this year despite that setback against North Carolina?

Obviously you know the pedigree of Coach K, where he’s been at the helm now 33, 34 years at Duke and you know championships and Hall of Famers. He’s coached them all. This is a different type of bunch for him, because he’s been getting these blue chip players now, these one-and-dones. I think this is arguably some of his best coaching, because he’s always had the luxury of keeping guys for three or four years [before recently]. But now you get the McDonald’s All-Americans that are coming in for one year, it’s almost coaching and teaching 101, on-the-fly. He’s done a great job with Bagley, and that young group mixed in with a senior champion like Grayson Allen.

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What does it say that even Coach K is adopting that one-and-done model now?

Well you’ve got to roll with the punches, and roll with how the game has evolved. If you’re going to be competitive versus the likes of Kentucky, whom Coach Cal has gotten just as many as Coach K, you’ve got to be able to adapt. In any sport, there’s always evolution. Coach K understood this, just as when we think of the Duke teams, we think of that tough, grity, man-to-man, slap-the-floor defense. But what’s been their success this year? The zone. And he got that from Coach Boeheim. You’ve got to take the temperature of your team, and Coach K has. That’s why they’re one of those teams that could possibly go deep.

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Who are your other contenders?

My Final Four is Duke, Villanova—in my opinion, they probably have the easiest trek, coming out of that East region. I have Virginia coming out of the South, and out of the West—this may surprise you—I have a repeat in Gonzaga getting all the way to the West final. I have Gonzaga beating Xavier and I had Gonzaga beating Michigan. That’s another surprise—I have Michigan beating North Carolina.

Championship game I have the two Vs: Virginia and Villanova. And I know I’m going to be kicking myself. But for some reason finally I think Tony Bennet’s offense has crept up and they’re going to meet their defense. I know what they are going to do at the defensive end. But I do think they have enough offense this time around.

Do you have Cinderellas lurking in there?

Yes. Here’s how you word this now: I wouldn’t be surprised if South Dakota State beat Ohio State. I would not be surprised if Loyola Chicago beats Miami. I would not be surprised, and this is more of a dig at Charles, if Charleston beats Auburn.

How does the single-elimination format of the tournament affect your approach, and how is it different from an NBA playoff game?

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You can lose home court advantage and still win the series. The cream will always rise to the top in a seven-game series in the NBA. You don’t have that luxury In March Madness. You have to be—I wouldn’t say perfect for six games. To me, the key to winning in March for these college teams is being able to adapt on the fly. Over six games, your offense is not always going to be there. You’ve got to be able to change your style of play. My Final Four teams—Virginia, Villanova, Duke, Gonzaga—have all been able to change the way they play: zone, man, offense, winning on the defensive end, rebounding, low turnovers. You’re playing teams you’re not familiar with from conference play, and you don’t have a lot of time to prepare. So you’ve got to be able to adjust on the fly.

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When you’re playing a best-of-seven series, you may lose Game One, but you can easily go into someone else’s building and recapture that. In March Madness, Charleston could easily beat Auburn on a neutral floor—all these games are on neutral floors. On top of all that, I’ve done games where, with lower seeds, if it’s a close game, it’s like Braveheart. The crowd chants and they all start rooting for the underdogs to beat the upper seeds. So if Charleston is in a close game, if South Dakota is in a close game with Ohio State, in that venue it becomes like a home game to them and that motivates them.

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The three-pointer was introduced while you were in college.

My senior year.

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And it sort of became your calling card. How has it changed the college game and the NBA game since?

I think freedom of movement has changed both leagues. But because Steph Curry has been so spectacular you know over the last several years, I think that has changed all of basketball. all these young kids, they want to be Steph Curry. As great as LeBron and James Harden are—and Harden is a three-point shooter as well—Steph Curry is making it look so easy. These kids see the highlights, and they want to shoot 30-footers now, 35-footers. They think they can. I don’t know if that’s a good or bad, because I’ve seen a lot of bad threes, especially in high school and college basketball. It has also eliminated the big man. You’ve got to be able to play multiple positions, your fours and fives have to be stretch fours and fives who can knock down threes.

It goes back to our earlier thing—it’s about evolution. It used to be throw the ball down to Kareem [Abdul-Jabbar] and play inside out. That’s irrelevant now. More threes will beat more twos.

Has the game become overly reliant on the three?

Oh, absolutely. People want to see high scoring games, and they want to see freedom of movement. In the college game, I think it penalizes defense. Great defensive teams like Virginia and Villanova play very aggressive man-to-man—as Virginia calls it, that pack-line defense. At the tournament, when you don’t have ACC officials who understand what that is, you can get penalized because a lot of the officials aren’t familiar with that and they know they want freedom of movement.

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More than one school you’ll be calling games for, including Duke and Villanova, are caught up in the NCAA’s paid players investigation. How should it be handled when we learn a player or his family has received financial benefits before they go pro?

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Number one, let’s just say this: This has been going on a long time. This didn’t just happen. I’m of the belief—I’m not so much into paying players, but I feel every player should control their own likeness. If a player wants to do a local television commercial for a car dealership and get paid for it, they should have that right. I don’t think once you sign on the dotted line, particularly at a university, you have zero rights and they get all the licensing money. Because the regular student, they have the ability to do that. Why can’t a student athlete?

If you get into paying players or a stipend, it’s generally just the football and basketball players. And do you pay quarterbacks more than you pay offensive linemen, or wide receivers, or defensive ends? It’s too difficult to figure out. But every player should control their ability to market themselves and make money. That’s the American Dream.

So sort of the Olympics model.

Absolutely, they should model it on the Olympics. And to take it a step further, I really believe college basketball should model what Major League Baseball does. If you think you’re big and bad enough to come out of high school, then so be it. But if you signed a letter of intent, they have you for three years. Both will win.

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And let’s talk about this, too, Jack. We’re only talking about what? Five players, maybe ten, out of thousands. So we’ve got to be honest here. If they’re bad enough to come out of high school—a 17, 18-year-old—I mean, tennis players do it all the time, and I don’t hear the uproar about tennis players. If you’re able to turn pro at 18, and you want to take that next leap, then so be it. But if you think, “Ah, I’m on the fringe. I need work,” and you sign a letter of intent, they have to have you for two years then. One and done is a joke. They’re not going to school. It’s a joke.

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What do you make of the new idea that if a player declares for the draft and they don’t get drafted, they should be able to go back to the school they were at?

Agreed. Test the waters. Why not? It baffles my mind, like what did they get by declaring for the draft and not getting drafted? How are they any better in that three to four month process than they were? So why would they be able to go back? Absolutely they should be able to go back.

What are the games to watch over the next couple of weeks?

That Virginia-Arizona game—let me backtrack. Arizona-Kentucky, first of all, is going to be fantastic in the south. The winner of that is going to be great, whether that’s Virginia-Kentucky, Virginia-Arizona. To me, Virginia has a very difficult path to get to the Final Four. And personally, just because I’m an adopted Hoosier, I would love to see Butler and Purdue in that second round. That would be fun.

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Incorporating Drones to Craft a Compelling Story and Expedite Sales

First impressions are vital in the real estate space; in fact, 50 percent of buyers found the home they purchased via the internet, according to the 2017 National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers. Today, buyers are flooded by a sea of options when browsing for a home online; therefore, it’s more important than ever that REALTORS® make their listings stand out.

One option? Using drones, or unmanned aerial systems (UAS), for aerial photography and videography.

“Drones can play an important role in telling a compelling story for a listing,” says AJ Canaria, executive brand promoter at PlanOmatic, who emphasizes that the art of storytelling in real estate has evolved, making drones an increasingly popular tool for breathing in life to a property’s narrative.

“Whether it be photography or video, drones give a different perspective that allows the consumer to visualize scale and proximity of neighboring areas and imagine a lifestyle,” Canaria says.

One noted perk? Listings typically sell faster when they are marketed in a robust and innovative way. Canaria has witnessed firsthand the power of drone photography and videography in relation to market time.

“I had one particular agent ask for my expertise to showcase the river next to the house with aerial photography,” says Canaria, noting that the listing had been on the market for about a year at that time and was on its third listing agent. “She sold the property in two weeks because the aerial photos told a different story, showcasing the proximity of the river to the house and highlighting the surrounding nature.”

In what markets is this technology being used? The luxury segment primarily utilizes drones to accentuate the amount of land a property has or the various amenities available on the grounds, such as tennis courts or pools, as well as privacy for many of these homes in the form of gated communities or lush greenery that works to section off property lines.

However, the usage is swiftly changing, expanding into other markets in which REALTORS® need an advantage against competitors, regardless of price range, to get their homes sold as quickly as possible.

“High-end luxury properties and land are most common, but I’ve been seeing more aerial work done on mid-tier homes to showcase scale of the property and, more importantly, proximity to key areas surrounding the property,” says Canaria. “I can’t tell you how important this is, especially with existing properties that have been on the market for a while or properties that can potentially be teardowns.”

As with all new technology, however, there are concerns, specifically revolving around having to navigate legal obstacles. Some drones are restricted in the air space they can be flown in.

“Restrictions for real estate are generally around no-fly zone areas like airports,” says Canaria. “It’s important to understand where the radius is for heliports, too, to ensure safe flying.”

Political advocacy efforts have increased the options available for drone usage in the residential and commercial real estate space. In fact, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) put a small drone rule into effect in August 2016, easing restrictions on UAS use for businesses through the creation of an FAA-issued UAS Operator Certificate, which doesn’t require a pilot’s license. (For more information on the FAA’s small unmanned aircraft rule, REALTORS® can find the full text here.)

Drone technology itself, as well, is now being built with restrictions (both legal- and weather-related) in mind.

“Nowadays, consumer drones are very intelligent,” Canaria says. “There are various apps, such as UAV Forecast, that read your GPS coordinates, weather, wind and visibility, and let you know if it’s safe to fly.”

Another top concern? Privacy. Consumers have reported various instances of feeling uncomfortable when seeing a drone flying around their property. A way to relieve consumer fears: Remind property owners that drones used to photograph or film a listing are typically utilizing a wide-angle lens at a height that makes small details irrelevant.

“Privacy is what people worry about the most with drones, fearing they will be spying on their day-to-day,” says Canaria. “What the general public doesn’t know is that a majority of all consumer drones have wide-angle lenses. The wide angle makes it very difficult to make out exactly who people are in the photo/video if the drone isn’t close, so privacy shouldn’t be a big cause of concern. They are making drones now that have zoom lenses, but even those lenses don’t have enough of a zoom to be a concern.”

Once these tech- and privacy-related apprehensions are tackled, drone usage in real estate can make the difference between a stale listing with average photographs or a hot property that flies off the market in a matter of days.

“The true value is in the storytelling of the property, but it’s also in what the agent brings to their brand,” Canaria emphasizes. “The agents that know how to bring the most out of the property by utilizing drone services to elevate the listing have a powerful tool to help them sell faster.

“It’s all in the story you want to tell the prospective buyer, and how you’re utilizing photos and video to bring that story to life.”

Liz Dominguez is RISMedia’s associate content editor. Email her your real estate news ideas at ldominguez@rismedia.com. For the latest real estate news and trends, bookmark RISMedia.com.

The post Incorporating Drones to Craft a Compelling Story and Expedite Sales appeared first on RISMedia.

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[dtjoyce]

PROMISED LAND STATE PARK 25 JULY–1 AUGUST 2017

The Hibdons got together for a week of camping and adventure in the Poconos.

The group Left to right: Ellen, Susan, Bob, Michael, Karen, Fiona, and Papa/David

Fiona & a feather

Colin

Karen & Susan make tie-dyed shirts

Colin & Papa

One of the rustic cabins at Promised Land State Park

Treehouse Nay Aug Park, Scranton

Fiona & Grammy

Mama & Fiona

The sign on our cabin

To the Poconos!

This year, the Hibdon clan decided to get together again, but instead of going to Donner Lake, we decided to try a new place: Promised Land State Park in Pennsylvania, which I discovered by searching for lakes with camping in the Poconos. I’m glad we found it, and I hope we go back again.

On Friday, 25 July, after a few days of family emails discussing supplies and arrival times, Dustin and Fiona went to pick up our car from New Jersey. While they were gone, I read a blog post titled “Why I Took My Kids’ Toys Away (& Why They Won’t Get Them Back)” and I was inspired to go through Fiona and Colin’s toys and pack up a lot of them. I decided that I’m okay with building toys (blocks, for example), art supplies, and musical instruments, but other than that, I tried to get rid of as much as possible. Most of them weren’t trash, of course, so I stashed them away until we could take them to Goodwill. It was convenient that Fiona had decided to go with Dustin, since I couldn’t have culled the herd with her present. It was also convenient that we were about to leave town for a week, so that she wouldn’t notice that some of her toys were gone.

When they got back around 14.00, we were already far behind schedule. I had estimated that we would leave around noon and get to the cabin around 15.00. We packed up and I adjusted our estimate to 17.00. We drove and drove, but we hadn’t had any lunch, so we decided to stop at about the only place there is near the highway in Troy, New Jersey: Dunkin’ Donuts. We finally got into the vicinity of the state park as the sun was setting. It was then that we discovered that Dustin’s phone, which we had been using to navigate, had no service — and we didn’t know how to get to the park.

We drove down one road, state highway 447, that looked promising (no pun intended), but the bridge at the end was closed, so we had to turn around. At the end of 447, where it branches off from Pennsylvania highway 191 in East Stroudsburg, there is a retro-looking roadside ice-cream stand called Mary Anne’s Dairy Bar. I suggested we stop there for directions. I hopped out of the car and asked the teenage girls working there if they knew how to get to Promised Land. One of them did, and she gave me very good instructions. (Apparently people stop there all the time seeking directions, so she had some practice.)

We finally got to the cabins a few minutes before 22.00 — very late and very dark (as forests are). Grammy and Papa had a brand-new flashlight for Fiona. She was thrilled to use it to find our cabin, which was a cozy two-room affair built by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression. It had an electric cooking stove, a wood-burning stove for heat, a refrigerator, and a table and chairs in one room, and four bunks in the other. It had a front porch with a picnic table, and in an outbuilding just behind the cabin was a bathroom with hot running water and a shower. Even in the summer it’s pretty chilly in the Poconos, especially at night, when the temperature usually dips into the 50s (10°–15°C). We curled up on our bunks — which, honestly, were not that comfortable — and went to sleep.

A week of fun, adventure, and family

Grammy and Papa discovered that a church just up the road from our cabins was having a rummage sale. The entire family ambled up to the sale right first thing after breakfast on Saturday, 26 July, but of course we didn’t really need or want anything there, especially after getting rid of so many toys a few days earlier. Michael found an electric frying pan that would be great for his crew trips. Dustin found two tennis rackets for $1 each, which seemed like a great idea since we can take them across the street and play on the handball courts. Fiona found a wooden bear that she bought for, I think, $1.50 — her first purchase ever. She was very pleased.

The next day, Sunday, 27 July, I woke up sick. We hadn’t really planned to go to church, because it would have been really far anyway. Dustin took Fiona and Colin with the rest of the family over to the lake, where they found some wild blueberry bushes! I’m sad I missed that part. They picked a lot, I think. Meanwhile, I was throwing up on the path to the bathroom. Fortunately, though, I felt better right after that. I never did figure out what was wrong, since I had eaten the same things as everyone else.

That afternoon, Karen threw a birthday party for Fiona. We had an egg-and-spoon race in the road, and Fiona dropped her egg pretty much instantaneously. We also played pin the tail on the donkey, although I’m not sure it was a donkey — it may have been some other animal — and also I think we used tape instead of pins. There were two Sarah Lee cakes, one vanilla and one chocolate, as well as streamers and flower banners and cupcake papers full of candies.

Near the church where the rummage sale took place was a little dam, and above that was a beach where we went to play on Monday, 28 July. Karen and Bob had brought some beach toys, including a mask and snorkel and a purple inner tube. Fiona loved it. Her judgment was not always great, but she was very enthusiastic about hanging around right next to Karen and Bob, who fished her out when necessary. Colin liked splashing around.

Later that day, we all drove to a town north of the park called Hawley. It was one of those really cute litte towns with a nice Main Street (and, impressively, even some things off of Main Street), a nice library, and a creek running through it. We walked around a bit and explored some shops. There is also an old silk mill outside of town which has been converted into a hotel and some shops, with a trendy-looking but non-franchised coffee house named Cocoon in a building out front. We also stopped there, of course.

On Tuesday, 29 July, we started the day working on tie-dyeing shirts that Karen brought. Michael made one, and Karen made one for Colin and one for Fiona. I made one, too, and sadly it ended up looking more like the pox rather than the cheerful sunbursts I was going for. Fiona’s tie dye shirt is still one of her favorite shirts to wear, and it’s still very bright, unlike the tie-dye shirts I remember making when I was little.

Later, we drove to Scranton, which is Pennsylvania’s sixth largest city and the nearest large city to Promised Land State Park. Scranton is also the setting of the TV show The Office and is nicknamed, as we learned while we were there, “The Electric City”. As it turns out, it has kind of a nice downtown. I suppose that’s not a surprise, since older small cities generally did have nice downtowns. It’s just not what I think of when I think of Scranton, probably because The Office is set in a grungy suburban office park.

We explored the lovely old Lackawanna train station, which is on a hill on the edge of downtown. Unfortunately, no passenger trains stop there anymore, though the platforms are still there. But at least it has not been abandoned or demolished, like so many other lovely train stations across the United States: it has been converted into a hotel, and we think would be a pretty cool place to stay sometime.

We also visited Nay Aug Park, which is the largest park in Scranton. The Nay Aug Gorge right in the middle of the park, with a covered bridge over it, was really lovely. We also went to a huge tree house. One of the trees supporting the tree house we were in had a little door on it, which I had forgotten until Fiona reminded me. Actually, I still have no recollection of it, but there are pictures, so I guess it happened.

On Wednesday, 30 July, we went on a hike on the Little Falls Trail on the other side of the lake. There were some people out, but not a lot, and I was a little nervous about bears — especially when, partway around the loop, we found a giant pawprint in the mud. It was not a dog paw. We made sure to make plenty of noise as we finished our hike.

Throughout the week, when we weren’t out on hikes and exploring, Grammy and Papa’s cabin was the hang-out zone. Colin spent a lot of time hanging out on a blanket in front of their cabin. He wasn’t that stable yet, so sometimes he toppled over backwards, but it usually wasn’t a big problem for him.

Fiona found a big rock she could sit on. Someone had scaled a fish there, so she collected a lot of fish scales. There were plenty of opportunities for exploring, so that she did not feel any need for toys. She even told us that she wanted to live there, in the cabin, because there was so much to do and she liked being able to walk over to Grammy and Papa’s house every day. I also showed her that she could eat some of the plants nearby, though sorrel was the only one I was sure about.

There was plenty wildlife, too. We heard woodpeckers pretty often and sometimes managed to spot them in the trees. On Thursday, 31 July, Dustin repeated the Little Falls Trail hike with Grammy and Papa. At the beginning of the trail, near the top of the creek, several people were gathered looking at something in the water. Grammy, Papa, and Dustin looked and saw a snake taking a swim.

Some people, including Papa, reported bear sightings near the cabins. Dustin made a habit later in the week of waking up before everyone else and sitting in our rental car. The seats were much more ergonomic than the hard beds in the cabin, which gave his back a chance to recover from the previous night’s sleep, and he could listen to NPR. He also hoped to have his own bear sighting but, unfortunately, it never came.

On Friday, 1 August, our week of fun, adventure, and family came to an end. When it was time to go, we packed up all of our stuff, including a lot of stuff that had been purchased at Goodwill or at the rummage sale so we could drop it off at another donation site. (It’s always nice to get rid of stuff.) And, sure enough, when we got home, Fiona didn’t even notice that some of her toys were gone.

Read the entry Susan and Fiona left in our cabin’s guestbook.

Looking back on a week-long adventure with family in the woods of Pennsylvania. PROMISED LAND STATE PARK 25 JULY–1 AUGUST 2017 The Hibdons got together for a week of camping and adventure in the Poconos.